The fifth day of trial is slated to kick off in Fort Pierce, Florida on Friday for the case of Ryan Routh, who faces charges for attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump at his West Palm Beach golf club in September 2024.

On Thursday, then-Secret Service Special Agent Robert Fercano testified on behalf of the government that Routh pointed a rifle at his face while hiding out in shrubbery at the golf course. 

Fercano, currently assigned to Homeland Security Investigations, said he was scanning the sixth hole while Trump was playing the fifth when he ‘noticed several abnormalities on the fence line.’ 

‘There appeared to be a face, a barrel of a weapon and what I perceived to be plates, like Humvee plates like I saw in the Marine Corps,’ Fercano told Assistant U.S. Attorney Maria Medetis Long on Thursday. 

Fercano said that he initially thought he may have spotted a homeless person, but then noticed the barrel followed him and that the weapon was ‘pointed directly at my face.’ 

‘This appeared to be a textbook ambush scenario,’ Fercano said. 

Routh also questioned Fercano – and used his time to ask a series of questions regarding sniper tactics. 

‘As far as being a sniper, what would be the best stance to shoot people? Standing, crouching, laying down?’ Routh asked. 

‘I wasn’t a sniper … it depends,’ Fercano said. 

Others who testified Thursday included Tommy McGee, a government witness and a civilian who heard gunshots break out the day of the alleged assassination attempt and took a photo of Routh and his car. 

‘He looked frantic,’ McGee said Thursday. ‘He ran right in front of me. We looked at each other… it looked like he was trying to get away.’

When Justice Department prosecutor John Shipley asked McGee if Routh was the same man he saw the day of the alleged assassination attempt, McGee said yes. 

According to prosecutors, Routh laid out the groundwork to kill Trump for weeks, and hid out in shrubbery on Sept. 15, 2024, when a Secret Service agent, Fercano, identified him pointing a rifle at Trump while the then-presidential candidate played golf. Although Routh pointed his rifle at the agent, he then abandoned his weapon and the scene after Fercano opened fire.

Routh was later apprehended by the Martin County, Florida, Sheriff’s Office on the I-95 interstate in a black Nissan Xterra. 

According to the Justice Department, he is charged with attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate; possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence; assaulting a federal officer; felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition; and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. Routh also faces state charges related to terrorism and attempted murder. 

Routh, who has pleaded not guilty to all charges, was previously convicted of felonies in North Carolina in 2002 and 2010. 

Routh, 59, is representing himself in his trial – a process known as ‘pro se.’ Routh sent a letter to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in June notifying her of his decision to represent himself. 

‘I will be representing myself moving forward; it was ridiculous from the outset to consider a random stranger that knows nothing of who I am to speak for me,’ Routh said in the letter. ‘That was foolish and ignorant, and I am sorry-a childlike mistake.’ 

Cannon approved the move in July, although she said that she believes it’s not a good idea for Routh to represent himself in this case. Routh has said he went to college for two years after receiving a GED certificate and told Cannon he was prepared to navigate any challenges that could come from representing himself. 

Despite Routh’s decision to act singularly, court-appointed attorneys are still on call to provide standby counsel. 

Fox News’ Jamie Joseph, Jake Gibson, Olivianna Calmes, Heather Lacey and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

After an attempt to secure a bipartisan deal failed, Senate Republicans went nuclear for the fourth time in the Senate’s history Thursday to speed up confirmation of President Donald Trump’s nominees.

Republicans had threatened turning to the ‘nuclear option,’ which would allow for a rule change with a simple majority vote, to blast through the blockade from Senate Democrats and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. 

Lawmakers were frustrated that, through the first eight months of Trump’s presidency, not a single nominee had moved through fast-track unanimous consent or voice votes.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., argued it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to Democrats what Republicans intended to do. 

‘I’ve been saying all week, ‘We’re going to vote on this on Thursday, one way or the other,” Thune said. 

‘We’re going to change this process in a way that gets us back to what every president prior has had when it comes to the way that these nominees are treated here in the United States Senate — by both sides, Republicans and Democrats; both presidents, Republicans and Democrats.’ 

The GOP’s rule change, which was born from a revived Democratic proposal from 2023, will now allow lawmakers to vote on Trump’s nominees in batches.

Senate Republicans’ rule change, which has been pitched as beneficial to the current and future administrations, would only apply to nominees subject to the Senate’s requirement for two hours of debate, which includes sub-Cabinet-level positions and executive branch picks.

Judicial nominees, like district court judges and district attorneys, don’t fall under the rule change. Lawmakers are expected to plow through dozens of nominees early next week under the new rules with the intent of clearing the backlog of Trump’s picks, which grew to more than 140 and counting. 

With the change in place, it will only take a simple majority vote to confirm the picks. Still, the decision to do bloc packages will require 30 hours of debate before a final confirmation vote. 

Schumer panned the move and contended Republicans had turned the Senate into ‘a conveyor belt for unqualified Trump nominees.’

‘This is a sad, regrettable day for the Senate, and I believe it won’t take very long for Republicans to wish they had not pushed the chamber further down this awful road,’ he said. 

However, before resorting to the nuclear option, lawmakers were close to a bipartisan deal that would have allowed for 15 nominees to be voted on in groups with two hours of debate.

Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, blocked the new proposal on the floor and argued that Senate Republicans were trying to rush through the negotiating process ahead of their plan to leave Washington for the weekend.

‘What they’re asking for is unanimity, and we don’t have it,’ he said. ‘And, so, if you’re interested in enacting this on a bipartisan basis, the process for doing that — it is available to you. But, again, it’s more a matter of running out of patience than running out of time.’

A frustrated Thune fired back, ‘How much time is enough?

‘Give me a break,’ he said. ‘Two years. Not long enough. How about eight months? Eight months of this.’

The nuclear process began earlier this week when Thune teed up 48 nominees, all of which moved through committee on a bipartisan basis, for confirmation on the floor.

‘It’s time to move,’ Thune said. ‘Time to quit stalling. Time to vote. It’s time to fix this place. And the ideal way to fix it would be in a bipartisan way.’

Both parties have turned to the nuclear option a handful of times since 2010. In 2013, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., used the nuclear option to allow for all executive branch nominees to be confirmed by simple majority.

Four years later, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., went nuclear to allow for Supreme Court nominees to be confirmed by a simple majority. In 2019, McConnell reduced the debate time to two hours for civilian nominees.

The first day of opening statements in Ryan Routh’s federal trial ended with Judge Aileen Cannon noting the case was ‘moving at a pretty fast clip,’ after a lengthy day of testimony that put the Secret Service agent who spotted Routh in the bushes, a civilian witness who chased him down, and FBI agents on the stand.

Routh is accused of attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump last year while he was golfing.

The morning began with Routh’s own rambling opening statement, which lasted just seven minutes before Cannon cut him off for going off-topic.

‘What is intent? … Why are we here? What is our intent? To love one another … Is this so difficult?’ Routh asked. He went on to reference Adolf Hitler, Vladimir Putin, Sudan’s civil war and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

‘We have limited patience, and you don’t have unlimited license to go forward and make a mockery of the dignity of this courtroom,’ Cannon told him.

Federal prosecutors opened their case against Routh on Thursday, telling the 12 jurors he had come ‘within seconds’ of assassinating Trump during a round of golf in West Palm Beach last year.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John Shipley read Routh’s own words to the jury — ‘Trump cannot be elected’ and ‘I need Trump to go away’ — before laying out what he described as a ‘deadly serious’ plan to kill a major presidential candidate.

Shipley said Routh had traveled from Hawaii to the mainland with a Chinese military-grade assault rifle, 20 rounds of ammunition, 10 burner phones, three aliases, stolen license plates and ‘a trail of lies from Honolulu to Florida.’

Jurors then heard from Special Agent Robert Fercano, who testified he was five feet away when he saw Routh’s face and the barrel of a rifle pointing directly at him on the sixth hole of Trump International Golf Course. ‘

‘This appeared to be a textbook ambush scenario,’ he told the jury, describing how he fired while walking backward to cover. Prosecutors showed the Chinese-made SKS rifle and played Fercano’s radio calls, where ‘shots fired, shots fired, shots fired’ could be heard.

Routh, representing himself, opened his cross-examination with: ‘Good to see ya. First question, is it good to be alive?’ Fercano replied, ‘Yes, it is good to be alive.’ The agent repeatedly identified Routh as the man who smiled at him from the bushes.

Later, jurors heard from Tommy McGee, a mental health professional who testified he saw a frantic man running from the golf course and later helped authorities track down Routh’s black Nissan Xterra. McGee identified Routh in court and in video shown to the jury. Routh’s cross-examination drew objections after he asked McGee if he supported Trump and whether ‘Madea, Beyoncé and Michelle Obama will be mad’ if he did.

Additional agents who testified described recovering the rifle and other gear, and processing Routh after his arrest. One FBI agent displayed the clothing Routh allegedly wore the day he was captured, along with a debit card in his name.

Routh’s questions grew increasingly odd as the afternoon wore on — at one point asking an agent whether ‘someone who loses things’ might drill a hole in a debit card to keep it on a key ring.

Routh has pleaded not guilty to federal charges of attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate and assaulting a federal officer. Prosecutors say he had been armed with an AK-style rifle when Secret Service agents stopped him near Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach in September 2024. The attempt came just months after Trump had been shot and narrowly survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.

The trial resumes Friday morning in Fort Pierce federal court.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday that the U.S. would respond after former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was convicted of plotting a coup to remain in power after his loss in the 2022 election, although the secretary did not go into detail about what a U.S. response would look like.

‘The political persecutions by sanctioned human rights abuser Alexandre de Moraes continue, as he and others on Brazil’s supreme court have unjustly ruled to imprison former President Jair Bolsonaro,’ Rubio wrote on X.

‘The United States will respond accordingly to this witch hunt,’ he continued.

Brazil’s Foreign Ministry argued that Rubio’s comment represented a threat that ‘attacks Brazilian authority and ignores the facts and the compelling evidence in the records.’

The ministry said Brazilian democracy would not be intimidated by the U.S. government.

Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison when he was convicted by the country’s Supreme Court on Thursday on charges of plotting a coup to stop President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from taking office in January 2023.

The former Brazilian leader was a close ally of U.S. President Donald Trump during the first Trump administration.

‘Well, I watched that trial. I know him pretty well. I thought he was a good president of Brazil, and it’s very surprising that could happen very much like they tried to do with me, but they didn’t get away with it at all,’ Trump told reporters, noting the legal cases against the U.S. president in recent years at the state and federal level, which included his conviction in New York.

‘But I can always say this: I knew him as president of Brazil. He was a good man,’ he added.

Trump has criticized the Brazilian judicial system and threatened tariffs on the country for its case against Bolsonaro.

In July, the U.S. president placed 50% tariffs on most Brazilian goods in response to a ‘witch hunt’ against Bolsonaro. He later exempted some Brazilian exports, including passenger vehicles and numerous parts and components used in civil aircraft.

Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, his unspecified allies on the court and his immediate family members will face visa revocations, according to Rubio, who criticized what he called a ‘political witch hunt’ against the former president.

That same month, Rubio announced visa revocations on Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who presided over Bolsonaro’s criminal case, and his unspecified allies on the court after the court issued search warrants and restraining orders against Bolsonaro.

The U.S. Treasury Department had also sanctioned the judge over allegations of authorizing arbitrary pre-trial detentions and suppressing freedom of expression.

Bolsonaro’s son, Brazilian Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, said he anticipates additional U.S. sanctions against Brazilian justices following his father’s conviction.

‘We are going to have a firm response with actions from the U.S. government against this dictatorship that is being installed in Brazil,’ he told Reuters on Thursday.

He warned that justices who voted to convict the former president could face sanctions under the Magnitsky Act, which was previously used by the Trump administration against de Moraes.

‘If these Supreme Court justices keep following Moraes, they also run the risk of facing the same sanction,’ he said.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is appearing before the House Oversight Committee on Friday for a high-profile interview on whether senior staffers worked to obscure signs of mental decline in then-President Joe Biden.

Jean-Pierre is one of the highest-profile figures so far to appear before the committee, having been the most public-facing spokesperson for Biden from May 2022 until the end of his term.

The longtime Democrat-turned-Independent did not speak to reporters on her way into her closed-door transcribed interview with House investigators, which is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. and is likely to last into the afternoon.

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., is investigating whether there was a cover-up of Biden’s mental and physical state in the White House, and whether any executive actions were approved via autopen without the then-president’s full awareness.

Of particular interest to committee investigators are the myriad clemency orders Biden signed, including about 2,500 toward the end of his presidency that were executed via autopen.

Biden himself told The New York Times recently that he made every clemency decision on his own. His allies have also blasted the Republican-led probe as a partisan exercise.

Jean-Pierre was among those who publicly defended Biden in the wake of his disastrous June 2024 debate against then-candidate Donald Trump. She told reporters at a press briefing in early July that Biden was ‘as sharp as ever.’

But unlike other ex-Biden administration aides who have appeared ahead of her – many of whom still hold close ties and fierce loyalty to Biden – Jean-Pierre had a very public falling out with their world earlier this year.

In June, Jean-Pierre announced she was writing a book titled ‘Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines.’

She also announced she was leaving the Democratic Party in a press release for that book, expected in October 2025.

A summary for her book suggests it is about ‘the three weeks that led to Biden’s abandonment of his bid for a second term and the betrayal by the Democratic Party that led to his decision.’

The announcement was reportedly met with scorn by others in Biden’s orbit.

‘The hubris of thinking you can position yourself as an outsider when you not only have enjoyed the perks of extreme proximity to power — which…bestows the name recognition needed to sell books off your name — but have actively wielded it from the biggest pulpit there is, is as breathtaking as it is desperate,’ one former official told Axios.

Another person told the outlet she ‘was one of the most ineffectual and unprepared people I’ve ever worked with.’

Comer sent a letter to Jean-Pierre in late June asking her to appear for an interview, in which he pointed out she was ‘a trusted inner-circle confidante’ and ‘near the president daily.’

‘Your assertion, on multiple occasions, that President Biden’s decline was attributable to such tactics as ‘cheap fakes’ or ‘misinformation’ cannot go without investigation. If White House staff carried out a strategy lasting months or even years to hide the chief executive’s condition — or to perform his duties — Congress may need to consider a legislative response,’ Comer wrote.