President Donald Trump addressed the nation Wednesday night, saying the United States’ “core strategic objectives” in Iran are “nearing completion” just a month after Operation Epic Fury began and warned that the U.S. will hit Tehran “extremely hard” over the next several weeks.

“Tonight, I’m pleased to say that these core strategic objectives are nearing completion,” the president said, touting the United States military and their “extraordinary” efforts.

Here are the top five takeaways from the president’s address: 

Trump says Operation Epic Fury is ‘nearing completion’

President Trump told Americans Wednesday night that after 32 days of Operation Epic Fury, Iran is “essentially really no longer a threat.” 

The president, upon the announcement of Operation Epic Fury, detailed the United States’ objectives. Trump said, “We are systematically dismantling the regime’s ability to threaten America or project power outside of their borders.”

“That means eliminating Iran’s navy, which is now absolutely destroyed, hurting their air force and their missile program at levels never seen before, and annihilating their defense industrial base,” the president said Wednesday night.

INSIDE IRAN’S MILITARY: MISSILES, MILITIAS AND A FORCE BUILT FOR SURVIVAL

“We’ve done all of it,” he continued. “Their navy is gone. Their air force is gone. Their missiles are just about used up or beaten. Taken together, these actions will cripple Iran’s military, crush their ability to support terrorist proxies and deny them the ability to build a nuclear bomb.” 

“Our armed forces have been extraordinary,” the president said. “There’s never been anything like it militarily. Everyone is talking about it.” 

“And tonight, I’m pleased to say that these core strategic objectives are nearing completion,” he said.

Meanwhile, the president thanked U.S. allies in the Middle East — “Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain.”

“They’ve been great, and we will not let them get hurt or fail in any way, shape or form,” he said.

“I’ve made clear from the beginning of Operation Epic Fury that we will continue until our objectives are fully achieved, thanks to the progress we’ve made,” he said. “I can say tonight that we are on track to complete all of America’s military objectives shortly. Very shortly.”

The president warned that the U.S. is “going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks.”

“We’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages where they belong,” he said. “In the meantime, discussions are ongoing. Regime change was not our goal. We never said regime change, but regime change has occurred because of all of their original leaders’ deaths. They’re all dead. The new group is less radical and much more reasonable.”

Trump says rising gas prices in the US are ‘short term’

Since Operation Epic Fury began, gas prices in the United States have increased. The president acknowledged that development, and expressed confidence that those increases are “short term.”

The average price of a gallon of gas surpassed $4 Tuesday, a first since 2022. 

“Many Americans have been concerned to see the recent rise in gasoline prices here at home,” the president said. “The short-term increase has been entirely the result of the Iranian regime launching deranged terror attacks against commercial oil tankers and neighboring countries that have nothing to do with the conflict.”

WHY TRUMP, IRAN SEEM LIGHT-YEARS APART ON ANY POSSIBLE DEAL TO END THE WAR

“This is yet more proof that Iran can never be trusted with nuclear weapons. They will use them, and they will use them quickly. It would lead to decades of extortion, economic pain and instability worse than we can ever imagine,” the president said. “The United States has never been better prepared economically to confront this threat. You all know that we built the strongest economy in history.”

The president touted the economy under his leadership, saying that he has “taken a dead and crippled country — I hate to say that, but we were dead and crippled country after the last administration — and made it the hottest country anywhere in the world by far, with no inflation, record-setting investments coming into the United States, over $18 trillion and the highest stock market ever with 53 all-time record highs in just one year.”

The president said those economic gains “all positioned us to get rid of a cancer that has long simmered.”

“It’s known as the nuclear Iran, and they didn’t know what was coming. They’ve never imagined it,” he said. “Remember, because of our drill baby drill program, America has plenty of gas. We have so much gas.”

The president said that, under his leadership, the U.S. is the “number one producer of oil and gas on the planet without even discussing the millions of barrels that we’re getting from Venezuela because of the Trump administration’s policies. We produce more oil and gas than Saudi Arabia and Russia combined.”

“Think of that — Saudi Arabia and Russia combined,” he continued. “And that number will soon be substantially higher than that. There’s no country like us anywhere in the world.”

The president stressed that “the hard part is done.”

“When this conflict is over, the strait will open up. Naturally. It’ll just open up naturally. They’re going to want to be able to sell oil because that’s all they have to try and rebuild,” he said. “It will resume the flowing and the gas prices will rapidly come back down.”

The president said it was necessary to “take that little journey to Iran to get rid of this horrible threat with our historic tax cuts, where people are just now talking about receiving larger refunds than they ever thought possible, they are getting so much more money than they thought. That’s from the great big, beautiful bill.”

He added: “Our economy is strong and improving by the day and it will soon be roaring back like never before. It will top the levels that it was a month ago.”

Trump thanks US troops for work in Middle East, Venezuela

The president began his address Wednesday night by thanking U.S. troops for “the massive job they did in taking the country of Venezuela in a matter of minutes.”

“That hit was quick, lethal, violent and respected by everyone all over the world,” Trump said, referring to the January operation.

“We’re working along with Venezuela are, in a true sense, joint venture partners,” Trump said. “We’re getting along incredibly well in the production and sale of massive amounts of oil and gas — the second-largest reserves on Earth after the United States of America.”

POLL POSITION: WHERE TRUMP STANDS AMONG AMERICANS AS HE FACES THE NATION IN PRIMETIME

Shifting to Operation Epic Fury and the progress made, the president honored “the 13 American warriors who have laid down their lives and this fight to prevent our children from ever having to face a nuclear Iran.”

“Twice this past month, I have traveled to Dover Air Force Base, and it’s been something I wanted to be with those heroes as they return to American soil,” he said. “And I was with them and their families, their parents, their wives, their husbands.”

“We salute them, and now we must honor them by completing the mission for which they gave their lives,” the president said. “And every single one of the people, their loved one said, please, sir, please finish the job, every one of them, and we are going to finish the job and we’re going to finish it very fast. We’re getting very close.”

Trump urges Americans to keep the Iran conflict ‘in perspective’

“It’s very important that we keep this conflict in perspective,” the president said. “American involvement in World War One lasted one year, seven months and five days.”

“World War Two lasted for three years, eight months and 25 days,” he continued. “The Korean War lasted for three years, one month and two days. The Vietnam War lasted for 19 years, five months and 29 days.”

“Iraq went on for eight years, eight months and 28 days,” the president said.

“We are in this military operation, so powerful, so brilliant against one of the most powerful countries for 32 days,” he said. “And the country has been eviscerated and, essentially, is really no longer a threat.”

FOX NEWS LIVE UPDATES ON THE U.S. WAR WITH IRAN

Trump said that Iran was “the bully of the Middle East, but they’re the bully no longer.”

“This is a true investment in your children and your grandchildren’s future,” he said. “The whole world is watching, and they can’t leave the power, strength and brilliance. They just can’t believe what they’re seeing. They leave it to your imagination, but they can’t believe what they’re seeing — The brilliance of the United States military.”

He added: “Tonight, every American can look forward to a day when we are finally free from the wickedness of Iranian aggression and the specter of nuclear blackmail. Because of the actions we have taken, we are on the cusp of ending Iran’s sinister threat to America and the world. And I’ll tell you, the world is watching.”

Trump rips into Obama’s Iran Nuclear Deal

President Trump said ending former President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal was among his top achievements as president, telling the nation he was “honored” to do it.

“I terminated Barack Hussein Obama’s Iran nuclear deal disaster,” Trump said. “Obama gave them $1.7 billion in cash. Green, green cash took it out of banks from Virginia, D.C. and Maryland. All the cash they had.”

The president went on to say that Obama “flew it by airplanes in an attempt to buy their respect and loyalty. But it didn’t work.”

“They laughed at our president and went on with their mission to have a nuclear bomb,” Trump said. “His Iran deal would have led to a colossal arsenal of massive nuclear weapons for Iran, and they would have had them years ago, and they would have used them, would have been a different world.”

The president said, “There would have been no Middle East and no Israel right now, in my opinion, the opinion of a lot of great experts, had I not terminated that terrible deal that I was so honored to do it.”

“I was so proud to do it It was so bad right from the beginning,” he said. “Essentially, I did what no other president was willing to do.”

He added: “They made mistakes, and I am correcting them.”

The president said his “first preference was always the path of diplomacy, yet the regime continued their relentless quest for nuclear weapons and rejected every attempt at an agreement.”

“For this reason, in June, I ordered a strike on Iran’s key nuclear facilities and Operation Midnight Hammer. And nobody’s ever seen anything like it. Those beautiful B-2 bombers performed magnificently,” he said. “We totally obliterated those nuclear sites.”

But the president said the Iranian regime “then sought to rebuild their nuclear program at a totally different location, making clear they had no intention of abandoning their pursuit of nuclear weapons.”

President Donald Trump revealed during Wednesday night’s Iran address that one of his top achievements against Iran, which he described as spanning across both his terms, was shredding former President Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal.

Trump described the efforts in the Middle East as making “tremendous progress” and called Operation Epic Fury “necessary for the safety of America and the security of the free world.” 

Meanwhile, he slammed Iran as “fanatical,” “murderous” and “thuggish,” arguing that letting them have a nuclear weapon “would be an intolerable threat.” While slamming Obama’s 2015 deal, the president cited the $400 million cash payment the former president’s administration flew to Iran in an effort to “buy their respect and loyalty.”

“The most violent and thuggish regime on Earth would be free to carry out their campaigns of terror, coercion, conquest and mass murder from behind a nuclear shield. I will never let that happen, and neither should any of our past presidents,” Trump said, leading into his comments about Obama’s “terrible” deal with Iran. 

IRAN FIRES BACK WITH FLAT DENIAL AFTER TRUMP CLAIMS TEHRAN REQUESTED CEASEFIRE: ‘FALSE AND BASELESS’

“I did many things during my two terms in office to stop the quest for nuclear weapons by Iran. First, and perhaps most importantly, I killed Gen. Qasem Soleimani in my first term. He was an evil genius, brilliant person, a horrible human being. The father of the roadside bomb,” Trump continued. “And then, very importantly, I terminated Barack Hussein Obama’s Iran nuclear deal. A disaster. Obama gave them $1.7 billion in cash – green, green cash. Took it out of banks from Virginia, D.C. and Maryland. All the cash they had.”

Trump slammed Obama’s administration for using airplanes to transport that cash, around $400 million, in January 2016, which Trump said was done “to buy their respect and loyalty.” 

“But it didn’t work,” Trump continued. “They laughed at our president and went on with their mission to have a nuclear bomb. His Iran deal would have led to a colossal arsenal of massive nuclear weapons for Iran, and they would have had them years ago, and they would have used them – would have been a different world. There would have been no Middle East and no Israel right now, in my opinion… Had I not terminated that terrible deal – I was so honored to do it. I was so proud to do it. It was so bad right from the beginning.”

Trump added that he is currently “correcting” the “mistakes” of former presidents, like Obama, noting he has been willing to do what they have not.

PRESIDENT TRUMP SAYS US COULD FINISH IRAN OPERATION WITHIN ‘TWO TO THREE WEEKS’

Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), exchanged sanctions relief to Iran for certain limits and international monitoring of Iran’s nuclear program, which the administration said would push Tehran further from a bomb, a take that has been contested by critics, including Trump. 

Critics argued the effort actually empowered Iran, pointing in part to the Wall Street Journal reporting that the U.S. secretly airlifted $400 million in cash to Tehran that coincided with the release of four American prisoners.

The Obama administration maintained that the payment was not part of the nuclear pact itself, but that it was the first installment of a separate settlement stemming from a decades-old pre-revolution arms dispute.

Democratic Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is facing pushback from conservatives on social media and the Republican he’s running against over an appearance where he was accused of equating the “radicalism” of Iran with the “MAGA movement.”

“There are many people who see the downfall of the regime as a good thing, but the question of whether or not it was pursued legally, that’s a different question,” the progressive candidate told “America’s Newsroom” on Wednesday. El-Sayed was responding to controversy over a Washington Free Beacon report on leaked audio of him explaining why he shouldn’t take a public position on the death of former Iran Supreme Leader Khamenei because of people in Dearborn, Michigan, who are “sad.”

“Whether or not its worth $31 billion of our taxes and counting a billion dollars a day, that’s another thing. Whether or not we should be paying higher rates at the pump every single time we try to just get where we’re going and pump gas… that [is] a big question, and I’ll tell you what, there are a lot of people who are really sad about the fact that they thought that the era of foreign wars, of never-ending regime change wars were over, and here we are.”

During another point in the interview, El-Sayed was asked, “Would we all not be better off if the radicals in Iran did not make decisions for the people?”

DEMOCRATS TEAM UP WITH FAR-LEFT STREAMER WHO ONCE SAID ‘AMERICA DESERVED 9/11’

El-Sayed responded, “Radicalism of any sort is bad, which is why this MAGA movement taking us into yet another war in my lifetime, and I’m only 41, is so ridiculous.”

El-Sayed quickly faced pushback from Republicans who accused him of not sufficiently explaining his comments in the leaked audio and equating the ayatollah’s regime with the Trump administration. 

“Democrats in 2026,” GOP communicator Matt Whitlock posted on X. “Abdul Al Sayed is asked point blank if the world is better off without the world’s largest state sponsor of terror. And gives a word salad about how the Ayatollah’s radicalism and Trump’s MAGA support are the same.”

“Democrat Abdul El-Sayed compares the Trump administration to the Ayatollah,” the Republican National Committee account posted on X. 

“What?!” Mark Levin Show producer Rich Sementa posted on X. 

MICHIGAN SENATE CANDIDATE RESPONDS TO BACKLASH OVER KHAMENEI COMMENTS, CALLS IRAN CONFLICT ‘WAR WE DON’T NEED

The campaign of Republican Senate candidate former Rep. Mike Rogers also took aim at El-Sayed.

“You would think sympathizing with a terrorist regime would be disqualifying, but apparently, for Democrats, it’s a fast pass to the front of the primary,” Alyssa Brouillet, Rogers’ campaign communications director, told Fox News Digital. “No amount of Abdul’s attempts to distract or deflect will be enough to hide how dangerous he and the Democrat party really are for Michigan.”

El-Sayed also faced some push back online over his answer to a question about his upcoming event with progressive commentator Hasan Piker, who has been accused of making antisemitic remarks and downplaying the October 7 massacre by Hamas.

“To me, it’s about speaking to a broader audience,” El-Sayed explained. “I’m wanting to speak with Hasan’s audience too.”

Fox News Digital reached out to El-Sayed’s campaign for comment. 

The Senate race in battleground Michigan is one of a handful in this year’s midterm elections that will determine if the Republicans hold their 53-47 majority in the chamber. Michigan, where Democratic Sen. Gary Peters is retiring, is one of the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s (NRSC) top targets as they try to not only hold onto their seats, but also possibly expand their majority.

Rogers, a former FBI special agent who later served as chair of the House Intelligence Committee during his tenure in Congress, launched his campaign last April. Rogers is making his second straight run for the Senate, after narrowly losing the 2024 election to now-Sen. Elissa Slotkin in the race to succeed Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow, who retired. Slotkin, who vastly outspent Rogers, only edged him by roughly 19,000 votes, or a third of a percentage point.

Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary will be held on Aug 4 as El-Sayed squares off against Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow and Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens to earn the chance to replace Peters in November.

A Rhode Island Democratic state representative is facing blowback on social media after claiming that a mural of Iryna Zarutska, the Ukrainian woman whose brutal murder while riding a North Carolina train sparked national outrage, doesn’t reflect the “values” of the city of Providence.

“Ultimately, we want to make sure that every community member who calls Providence home feels safe,” Rep. David Morales told local media about a mural of Zarutska facing calls to be removed from the exterior of an LGBTQ+ club in downtown Providence.

“We can both agree that this mural behind us does not reflect Providence’s values nor does it reflect the creativity that we would want to see in our city.”

The lawmaker’s comments immediately sparked negative reactions from conservatives on social media after they were posted by the conservative influencer account End Wokeness in a post that has been viewed over 1 million times. 

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“What are his values?” Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who is reportedly involved in the mural project, posted on X.

“He cites people wanting to be ‘safe’ as a reason to destroy a mural on a private building meant to honor a murdered woman,” Red State writer Bonchie posted on X. “You can’t imagine how crazy Democrats are in these blue bastions. You think what you see on MSNBC is nuts? It’s even worse in their bubble cities.”

“Honoring the memory of a Ukrainian immigrant who had her throat slit on public transportation by a repeat offender with 14 prior arrests doesn’t reflect Providence’s values????” Defending Education communications director Erika Sanzi posted on X.

“What ‘value’ does the mural not reflect?” Republican Rep. Chip Roy posted on X.

“Iryna’s death highlights the consequences of warped policies that keep violent criminals out of jail,” Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts posted on X. “Memorializing her reminds us that those policies create more victims and should be eliminated. Telling that those aren’t Rep. Morales’ ‘values.’”

“True,” Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz posted on X. “Dems would prefer a mural celebrating her murderer.”

“Providence had a George Floyd mural and nobody called it divisive,” GOP strategist and commentator Mehek Cooke posted on X. “Iryna got murdered by a man arrested over a dozen times, and a city couldn’t let her face stay on a wall because the donor list was inconvenient. We means-test grief now.”

CNN commentator Scott Jennings referred to Morales as a “deranged lunatic” in a post on X.

Fox News Digital reached out to Morales’s office for comment but did not receive a response.

Morales responded to Musk on X in a post clarifying what his “values” are. 

“Not to exploit the death of a refugee to push an agenda centered around fear and division,” Morales wrote. “My values, like many of our neighbors in Providence, is to protect our immigrant neighbors from ICE’s state-sanctioned violence and supporting our refugee neighbors with authentic care.”

CHARLOTTE LIGHT-RAIL STABBING MURDER SPURS LANDMARK CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM FROM NORTH CAROLINA REPUBLICANS

The mayor of Providence, Democrat Brett P. Smiley, has also spoken out against the mural.

“The murder of the individual depicted in this mural was a devastating tragedy, but the misguided, isolating intent of those funding murals like this across the country is divisive and does not represent Providence,” Smiley said. “I continue to encourage our community to support local artists whose work brings us closer together rather than further divides us.”

Zarutska, a 23-year-old refugee who fled her country after the Russian invasion, was brutally stabbed to death in an unprovoked attack while riding the Lynx Blue Line light rail in Charlotte, N.C., last year. 

The suspect, Decarlos Brown Jr., 34, is charged with violence against a railroad carrier and mass transportation system resulting in death, which is a capital offense under federal law.

Records from the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction show Brown has a prior criminal history, including convictions for larceny, breaking and entering and armed robbery. He served five years in prison starting in 2015.

Zarutska’s death prompted questions about soft on crime policies adopted by many Democratic-run cities. President Donald Trump spotlighted the killing during his State of the Union address last month. 

“Iryna was riding home on the train when a deranged monster, who had been arrested over a dozen times and was released through no-cash bail, stood up and viciously slashed a knife through her neck and body,” Trump said.

Fox News Digital’s Louis Casiano contributed to this report.

FIRST ON FOX: Rep. Julia Letlow, R-La., a Trump-endorsed Senate candidate in Louisiana, is saying that she will ensure diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies will be rooted out of schools in her state if she wins. 

However, Letlow’s past remarks and actions as a university faculty member, such as promises to open a DEI office if hired as a university president, and her past praise for DEI nationwide, have thrown these promises into question.

In a 2020 video from Letlow’s hiring process, when interviewing to be the president of the University of Louisiana Monroe, Letlow called the school’s record on faculty gender diversity “shameful,” praised DEI efforts around the country, said she wanted to open the school’s first DEI division and suggested that, if hired, she would want “a person around the table that is cognizant and fighting for diversity, equity and inclusion before any decision is made for the university.” 

In January, The Daily Caller first reported that, prior to serving Louisiana’s 5th Congressional District, Letlow was in a communications position at UL Monroe, where she helped push DEI initiatives aimed at “diversifying marketing and comms teams” and “establish[ing] diverse content.” She also signed a statement embracing diversity as one of UL Monroe’s “core values” shortly after the death of George Floyd. 

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“I was able to go to eight different universities and see some amazing work that other universities have already started – and you don’t even have to keep it to Louisiana, you can go nationwide to see the amazing effort people have been doing for years to address these issues,” Letlow told a panel interviewing her for the UL—Monroe presidency in 2020, in response to a question concerning the percentage of tenured female faculty. “So, one of the first things I would do – I believe we need a division on this campus, a division of diversity, equity and inclusion, with leadership that goes all the way to the top with a full staff because our issues are so great.”

During Letlow’s hiring process to potentially be the next president of UL—Monroe, she also spoke in a video meant to introduce herself to students, during which Letlow called herself a “strong and progressive leader” as the result of many years in higher ed.

The GOP primary race in Louisiana for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat, between Letlow and incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., has become a battle over who is more pro-Trump – and DEI has been a major proving point.

“While Liberal Letlow was pushing DEI policies at ULM, calling herself a ‘strong and progressive leader,’ Senator Cassidy was working with President Trump and others to secure billions of dollars for the state and bring conservative policies to Louisiana,” said a spokesperson for Cassidy’s campaign. “From no boys in girls sports, to co-sponsoring the Save America Act, the HALT Fentanyl Act, and the Working Families Tax Cuts.” 

Cassidy himself has been accused of being anti-Trump, and when reached for comment on the matter, Letlow’s team argued that “any honest account of DEI in this race has to include Cassidy’s record vs Julia’s record.” 

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Letlow holds both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from UL Monroe. According to her LinkedIn profile, she also held multiple positions at the university, first from 2007 to 2011 and then again from 2014 to 2021. These positions include the director of marketing and communications from 2015 to 2018, executive director of external affairs and strategic communications from 2018 to 2019, and executive assistant to the president for external affairs and community outreach from 2019 to 2021 for the university.

In 2020, Letlow wanted to become UL Monroe’s president, during which she was subject to numerous interviews. One included questioning from a panel of UL Monroe officials, which was posted publicly on YouTube. 

“Study after study has shown that the more diverse an organization is in its leadership, the more successful it is, and in businesses that converts to actual financial success,” one questioner from the panel began when probing Letlow. “In academia, you know, it’s in the way — all the ways, the metrics that it’s supposed to succeed in a community, and yet we see a lot of slowness in change … so my question is, how would you go about supporting diversity and equity in the faculty ranks?” 

In response to the question, which focused specifically on the percentage of tenured female faculty at a university with a majority female student body, Letlow lamented that “we have an issue on this campus,” and promised to create a new DEI division to assist. 

“There would need to be a strategic plan put in place on how to address those concerns that you just raised, and those metrics and those numbers, because they are shameful, truly, and I believe that having that strong [DEI] division, having that leadership, if you have a person around the table that is cognizant and fighting for diversity, equity and inclusion before any decision is made for the university, then that’s how you change. That’s how you recruit more faculty,” Letlow responded. 

“There are a lot of people on this campus who have never heard of unconscious bias. They don’t know that it exists,” she continued. 

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“I was looking at the numbers – we have 8% African-American faculty women on this campus. That’s not enough,” Letlow added later. “That does not reflect our student population, and so that would be number one for me. I’m glad you asked that question.”

Letlow’s remarks, which have been publicly available on Youtube but have only 218 views as of Tuesday, add fodder for critics like Cassidy who say she is not sufficiently an opponent of DEI. However, Letlow recently told local media that Cassidy’s claims that she is “woke” are “absolutely false” and that she has spent the past five years in Congress fighting against DEI. 

“I saw [DEI] firsthand when I worked at the university,” Letlow told Louisiana First News this month. “DEI was presented to us as something that would help students achieve the American dream and when I quickly witnessed that it was hijacked by the radical left and turned into indoctrination and actually holding people down, I spent the last five years of Congress fighting against it.” 

Meanwhile, in comments to Fox News Digital, Letlow’s campaign representatives said that “President Trump endorsed [Letlow] because he knows exactly where she stands.”

“While Letlow was fighting DEI in Congress, Bill Cassidy was working with Joe Biden to pass major federal legislation that funded DEI programs, imposed equity mandates, and embedded gender-identity language into federal policy,” the spokesperson continued, referring to the bipartisan Infrastructure and Jobs Act passed in 2021. “Cassidy authored and voted for a $1.2 trillion spending bill loaded with DEI provisions, voted for the CHIPS Act’s DEI research requirements, and negotiated a gun bill whose grant programs the Trump administration later canceled for being DEI vehicles.”

Letlow’s husband was originally elected to represent Louisiana’s 5th Congressional District but died before he could enter office. Letlow was then chosen via a special election. In 2023, she sponsored the Parental Bill of Rights Act, requiring stricter transparency in school curriculums and allowing parents to challenge classroom materials. She also voted in favor of the End Woke Higher Education Act, which bars university accrediting organizations from requiring schools to adopt DEI policies as a condition. 

Letlow’s team argued to Fox News Digital that she “has a clear record opposing DEI,” citing things like the congresswoman’s introduction of a federal Parental Bill of Rights, Letlow’s efforts to “strip DEI from the U.S. military,” and the congresswoman’s vote to reverse a Biden-era revision to Title IX regulations. Letlow’s campaign also said the congresswoman has “stood with President Trump” as he works to dismantle DEI across the federal government.

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“There is no place for woke ideology in schools,” Letlow posted on social media in 2024. “We will keep up the good fight, our children’s futures depend on it.”

But, in January, The Daily Caller also reported on records it obtained showing Letlow’s time as a university employee at UL—Monroe included promoting DEI initiatives. 

In a January 2020 email to staff from schools in the University of Louisiana system, Letlow reportedly asked officials to attend a “follow-up meeting” to an “Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Workshop” held the prior semester because they had been “charged with discussing a plan to move these initiatives forward.” These included recommendations of “diversifying marketing and comms teams” and “establish[ing] diverse content” in university publications that “lack representation of the students it serves.” 

The Letlow campaign told Fox News Digital that the email Letlow sent was standard operating procedure, and she was just doing her job as an executive assistant to the president for external affairs and community outreach by sending the follow-up email to coordinate attendance for the workshop from the prior semester.

In their report, The Daily Caller also highlighted a statement put out by UL Monroe shortly after the death of George Floyd, titled “ULM condemns racism, embraces diversity,” which was signed by Letlow and 11 other university leaders, including the interim president. The letter stated that “integrity must include condemning racism and racially motivated violence.”

Letlow’s previous membership with the National Communication Association (NCA) came under scrutiny from The Daily Caller as well. The Daily Caller reported the NCA issued a letter in 2020 which slammed statements condemning racism as “White self-reflexivity” and argued that such remarks must be paired with “strategic action” to combat things like “police brutality, Black death,” and “White normativity.” The letter went on to call the Trump administration’s use of the term “Chinese virus” to refer to COVID-19 “racist and xenophobic” and referred to White people as “privileged by Whiteness.”

The Letlow campaign contested she had anything to do with the letter, which came from the NCA’s Diversity Council, not from the NCA as an organization. A copy of the letter reviewed by Fox News Digital confirmed that Letlow was not a signatory. 

“Julia is not responsible for statements issued by a professional association because she was a member of it. She has not been a member in five years, and past membership did not mean endorsement of every position that group took,” her campaign said in a statement to Fox News Digital. 

When reached for comment about her remarks and the criticism that has resulted about Letlow’s past actions relating to DEI, the White House referred Fox News Digital to the Republican National Committee (RNC), which declined to comment on the matter.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday will weigh the legality of President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship in the U.S. — a landmark court fight that could profoundly impact the lives of millions of Americans and lawful U.S. residents.

Trump himself will also be attending the Supreme Court oral arguments in a sign of his interest in the case. His attendance marks the first time in U.S. history that a sitting president has attended oral arguments.

At issue in the case, Trump v. Barbara, is an executive order Trump signed on his first day back in office. The order in question seeks to end automatic citizenship — or “birthright citizenship” — for nearly all persons born in the U.S. to undocumented parents, or to parents with temporary non-immigrant visas in the U.S.

The stakes in the case are high, putting on a collision course more than a century of executive branch action, Supreme Court precedent, and the text of the Constitution itself — or, more specifically, the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment.

Trump administration officials view the order, and the high court’s consideration of the case, as a key component of his hard-line immigration agenda — an issue that has become a defining feature of his second White House term. 

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Opponents argue the effort is unconstitutional and unprecedented, and could impact an estimated 150,000 children born in the U.S. annually to noncitizens. 

A ruling in Trump’s favor would represent a seismic shift for immigration policy in the U.S., and would upend long-held notions of citizenship that Trump and his allies argue are misguided. It would also yield immediate, operational consequences for infants born in the U.S., putting the impetus on Congress and the Trump administration to immediately act to clarify their status. 

Here’s what to expect ahead of today’s oral arguments:

What’s at stake?

Justices will weigh Trump’s executive order 14160, or “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.” The order directs all U.S. government agencies to refuse to issue citizenship documents to children born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants, or children born to parents who are in the U.S. legally but with temporary, non-immigrant visas.

The order would apply retroactively to all newborns born in the U.S. after Feb. 19, 2025. 

Trump’s executive order prompted a flurry of lawsuits in the days after its signing. Critics argued that, among other things, the order violated the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment, which grants citizenship to “all persons born … in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”

Lawyers for the Trump administration, meanwhile, centered their case on the “subject to jurisdiction thereof” phrase, which they argue was intended at the time of its passage to narrowly “grant citizenship to newly freed slaves and their children” after the Civil War, and has been misinterpreted in the many years since.

U.S. Solicitor General D. Sauer urged the high court to take up the case last October, arguing that a pair of lower court rulings were overly broad and relied on the “mistaken view” that “birth on U.S. territory confers citizenship on anyone subject to the regulatory reach of U.S. law became pervasive, with destructive consequences.”

“Those decisions confer, without lawful justification, the privilege of American citizenship on hundreds of thousands of unqualified people,” he said.

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He also argued that the lower court rulings overstepped, and “invalidated a policy of prime importance to the president and his administration in a manner that undermines our border security.”

Justices on the high court will have no shortage of strings to pull on in considering the executive order or questioning lawyers during oral arguments. 

What’s changed?

The Supreme Court will use Wednesday’s arguments to weigh — to varying degrees — the text of the 14th Amendment, legal precedent, and text of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, among other issues cited by Sauer, the ACLU, and authors of the dozens of amicus briefs filed to the court since it agreed to review the case last fall. 

Legal experts told Fox News Digital that they expect Sauer could be in for an uphill battle in convincing a five-justice majority to unwind more than 125 years of precedent and text at issue in the case.

Despite their consensus, however, the court’s conservative bloc will still face thorny issues in reconciling more than a century of court precedent with the narrower reading of the 14th Amendment embraced by the Trump administration.

Justices are likely to focus closely on precedent in the Supreme Court case, United States v. Wong Kim Ark — a 1898 ruling in which the Supreme Court ruled that the son of two Chinese immigrants born in the U.S. was indeed a U.S. citizen. 

The case is widely considered to be the modern precedent for birthright citizenship, including related cases heard by the high court in the decades since. 

Others cited the text of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act statute passed by Congress, which essentially mirrors the text of the 14th Amendment in conferring legal status to persons born in the U.S., as yet another argument that could tip the scales in the migrants’ favor.

“I can think of at least five reasons off the top of my head why the Supreme Court should say that the citizenship clause means today what it has always meant,” Amanda Frost, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law who specializes in immigration and citizenship issues, told Fox News Digital.

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“There is text. There is original public understanding, which certainly includes Wong Kim Ark, but also five or six Supreme Court cases after that,” Frost said. 

“There is executive branch practice for the last century,” she added, “which is relevant as well when you’re interpreting the Constitution, and weighing [the question of], ‘What is the longstanding understanding of a constitutional provision by every other actor?’”

“I don’t see how they could easily count to five,” Akhil Amar, a professor at Yale Law School, told Fox News Digital in an interview, speaking of the majority votes needed.

“Even if I lose on one issue, I win on [many others],” Amar said, before ticking through a list of reasons why the Supreme Court, in his view, might swing in favor of the migrant class in question, and ACLU legal director Cecillia Wang, who is arguing the case Wednesday on behalf of the migrants.

Others agreed, albeit with a bit more reservation.

“I don’t think history supports the Trump administration’s view,” John Yoo, a law professor at the University of California Berkeley and former lawyer during the Bush administration, told Fox News Digital on the strength of the administration’s case.

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Stateless newborns, enforcement issues

Another question will be one of enforcement. Trump’s executive order does not codify the legal status that should be conferred to children who are born in the U.S. to holders of temporary, long-term visas — including student visas and H1B visas, legal experts told Fox News Digital.

Frost, the University of Virginia Law professor, noted that Congress has not provided a pathway to legal status for the class of children who would be born in the U.S. and not granted citizenship. This means that the government would essentially need to act at lightning speed to confer some sort of status — be it temporary or longer-term — to newborns, should the justices side with Trump.

“The parents may have applied for a green card,” Frost said of newborns born to illegal immigrants, should the court allow Trump’s order to take force. “They might get the green card the next day.”

“It would not matter,” she said. “The child would not be a citizen.”

Yoo, Amar, and others cited similar concerns voiced by justices briefly during oral arguments in another birthright citizenship case, Trump v. CASA, last year. The administration asked the court to review the case not on the merits of the order, but as a means of challenging so-called “universal,” or nationwide injunctions issued by federal court judges.

Despite the focus on the lower court powers, some justices still used their time to question Sauer about the birthright citizenship order and its implementation.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, for his part, pressed Sauer for details on what documentation newborns might need at birth should Trump’s executive order take force.

“On the day after it goes into effect — it’s just a very practical question of how it’s going to work,” Kavanaugh noted, before asking Sauer: “What do hospitals do with a newborn? What do states do with a newborn?” he asked, in order to determine their citizenship on a birth certificate.

“I don’t think they do anything different,” Sauer said in response. “What the executive order says in Section Two is that federal officials do not accept documents that have the wrong designation of citizenship from people who are subject to the executive order.”

“How are they going to know that?” Kavanaugh pressed, shaking his head.  

The government’s position “makes no sense whatsoever,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said at the time, before noting that it appeared to violate “four Supreme Court precedents,” and risked leaving some children stateless.

Justices to watch

While it’s difficult to speculate how justices on the high court might position themselves in considering a case, there are some conservative justices that have signaled early skepticism about the Trump administration’s arguments. Their votes could prove to be decisive, experts said.

“In terms of oral arguments, I think what you’re going to see is a lot of attention paid to how Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh view the issue in particular,” Yoo said. “I think it will be up to them” to determine the majority ruling, he said.

Roberts, in particular, often relies heavily on Supreme Court precedent, Yoo noted, and has been wary of overturning decisions made under previous courts — pointing to the “sort of anguished dissent” he authored in Roe v. Wade. 

“I think that’s really the question: whether there’s going to be enough historical evidence to change Robert’s mind about how to treat precedent,” he said, noting the chief justice tends to view questions of institutional importance and consistency as top-of-mind.

When it comes to birthright citizenship, Yoo said, there is a much longer history and court precedent that is older and “more well-followed” than Roe ever was, he noted, which could swing the conservatives in the ACLU’s favor.

“We never know why the Supreme Court decides to hear a case,” Amar told Fox News Digital. “But I’m hoping that they heard the case because America deserves an answer.”

A decision from the high court is expected by late June.