President Donald Trump apparently pushed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Gaza during their latest conversation. Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that he told Netanyahu ‘You’ve got to be good to Gaza’ because the people there ‘are suffering.’

‘There’s a very big need for food and medicine, and we’re taking care of it,’ Trump told reporters. Trump also noted that Netanyahu ‘felt well’ about the push to get more aid into Gaza.

This message seems to mark a departure from the more aggressive stance he has taken in the past. Before he returned to office, Trump warned Hamas there would be ‘hell to pay’ if the hostages were not released. In February, when Netanyahu visited the White House, Trump suggested that the U.S. take over the Strip and turn it into a ‘riviera.’ 

A few days after Netanyahu’s visit to the White House, Trump said Israel should ‘let all hell break out’ if Hamas failed to release all remaining hostages by the U.S. president’s noon deadline. Hamas did not free the hostages, but Israel held off on resuming the war until March 18. Before ground operations restarted, 33 hostages were freed. 

Aid trucks have not entered Gaza since March 2, and there has been international uproar over the growing crisis inside the Strip. While Trump is seemingly pushing Netanyahu to change his approach to Gaza, Israel has said it would not let aid enter the Strip until the remaining hostages are released.

There is concern and frustration in Israel over allegations that aid has gone to Hamas terrorists instead of the people of Gaza. In November 2024, the Associated Press reported that prices in Gaza skyrocketed after nearly 100 trucks of food and humanitarian aid were looted by armed men. 

While speaking to the United Nations Security Council, freed Hamas hostage Eli Sharabi said his captors often had boxes of supplies with U.N. logos on them in the tunnels. Sharabi, who weighed just 97 pounds when he was released, said the hostages were starved while ‘Hamas eats link kings.’

The Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), an Israeli agency, said that when the hostage deal was in place, 25,200 trucks entered Gaza carrying 447,538 tons of humanitarian aid.

President Trump’s ‘nicotine freedom crusade’ rolling back Biden-era policies related to nicotine and tobacco products could be primed to reverse a key rule that experts who spoke to Fox News Digital say would be a critical step forward. 

Shortly before Trump was sworn into office, Biden’s FDA proposed a rule that it described at the time as ‘bold’ that ‘would make cigarettes and certain other combusted tobacco products minimally or nonaddictive by limiting the level of nicotine in those products.’

Cigarettes and ‘certain other combusted tobacco products’ would not be allowed to have more than 0.7 milligrams of nicotine per gram of tobacco under the proposed rule, according to the FDA. The agency said that lower nicotine levels would ‘be low enough to no longer create or sustain addiction.’ 

While the FDA insisted at the time that the rule ‘would not ban’ cigarettes, critics disagree and are optimistic that Trump will continue his push for nicotine freedom and upend the rule. 

‘The Biden legacy on tobacco policy is one of hamfisted regulations, crippling bureaucracy, and prohibition fueling massive criminal markets — from cigarettes to Chinese vapes,’ Rich Marianos, former assistant director of the ATF, executive director of the Tobacco Law Enforcement Network, told Fox News Digital. 

‘President Trump can put the nail in the coffin of that failed era by killing this insane ban on cigarettes and focusing resources on vigilant enforcement.’

Peter Brennan, Executive Director of the New England Convenience Store & Energy Marketers Association (NECSEM), told Fox News Digital that ‘prohibitionist tobacco policy’ ends up punishing small businesses by ‘taking sales out of our stores and pushing them into the streets and the illicit market.’

‘Biden’s plan to ban all cigarettes is a real threat that is still hanging over our heads.’ Brennan said. ‘We are hopeful that President Trump will help America’s convenience stores by putting a stop to this disastrous idea.’

Trump has taken several actions in the nicotine space since taking office, including withdrawing a proposed rule seeking to ban menthol cigarettes, after the Biden administration said it intended to make the ban become a reality after years of advocacy from anti-smoking groups.

Months later, FDA Tobacco Director Brian King, who critics believed was a key figure behind the administration’s efforts against banning menthols and the ‘war on nicotine’ was removed from his post in a move that experts who spoke to Fox News Digital praised earlier this month. 

‘President Trump has succeeded in his nicotine freedom crusade since taking office, repealing Biden’s misguided menthol ban and firing the FDA architect behind it,’ a Republican strategist who worked to elect Trump in 2024 told Fox News Digital this week. ‘The logical next step is to officially repeal a Biden-era rule on banning low nicotine products, which will be the final blow to Biden’s war on nicotine.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the FDA for comment. 

Biden’s perceived ‘war on nicotine,’ along with the surge in illicit Chinese vapes flooding the market over the last few years, is believed by some to have hurt his presidential campaign along with that of VP Kamala Harris, who eventually took his place on the ticket. 

‘If President Trump withdraws Biden’s disastrous rule that would effectively ban cigarettes, it would be a huge win for his working-class coalition,’ a person close to the Trump administration told Fox News Digital. 

Fox News Digital’s Alec Schemmel contributed to this report. 

A recent profile piece on Alex Soros, the heir to the vast liberal mega donor George Soros’ progressive fundraising network, suggested the younger Soros has hurt the family brand with his public profile in recent years.

The article, posted by New York Magazine this week, takes place in Alex Soros’ luxury penthouse in Manhattan and characterizes the home as an example of his indifference to public opinion, which the story suggests hasn’t been beneficial to the family’s Open Society Foundations.

‘The setting itself is a testament to a certain indifference to public opinion on Alex’s part — or perhaps a lack of awareness,’ the story says. 

‘This past fall, he held a fundraiser at the apartment for vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz, then created a PR headache by posting photos from the event on social media, as is his custom after meeting heads of state and elected officials. (As a former OSF higher-up says, Alex likes to collect ‘shiny objects.’) 

‘It was deemed unhelpful to a presidential ticket straining to underscore its regularness that the son of the 94-year-old hedge-fund billionaire accused of puppeteering the Democratic Party was publicly advertising his centrality to the election effort from a New York City penthouse.’

Soros drew strong criticism on social media over the photo with Walz in his penthouse standing next to a vice presidential candidate who had been labeled as someone who would resonate with rural and working-class voters.

‘This guy goes around saying he’s a small town midwestern guy who understands the struggles of the middle class and then goes to hang out at the floating home in the sky of the world’s biggest billionaire nepo baby,’ digital strategist Greg Price wrote on X at the time.

‘A post like this does nothing to help Kamala Harris & Tim Walz win — if anything, it hurts them,’ journalist Jerry Dunleavy posted on X at the time. ‘So why would Soros post something like this? To publicly signal his power & influence within the next would-be presidential administration.’

New York Magazine wrote that Alex Soros’ ‘fondness for collecting powerful figures embarrasses people at the foundation.’

‘It also underscores his influence. OSF is by some measures the second-largest charitable foundation in the United States, trailing only the Gates Foundation. It gives out roughly $1.5 billion a year, and it spends its U.S. budget not only on liberal causes but also on some of the big dark-money nonprofits aligned with the Democratic Party, including America Votes, the Sixteen Thirty Fund, and the pro-Harris spending group Future Forward USA Action.’

Fox News Digital has documented Soros’ online presence, which includes all the photos he takes with Democratic politicians in recent years, and his Rolodex includes some of the most powerful politicians in the Democratic Party. During the Biden administration, Soros visited the White House over 22 times and met with both Biden and Harris.

His social media profiles have dozens of pictures of him and leading House and Senate Democrats since 2018. The two who appear the most are Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California. Alex had at least nine meetings with Schumer, whom he referred to as his ‘good friend.’ 

Soros had at least eight visits with Pelosi, whom he has called the ‘greatest Speaker of the House in American History!’ 

Soros has donated millions to Democrats over the past several years, albeit far less than his father. In 2020, he contributed over $700,000 to the Biden Victory Fund, making him among its top donors. For the 2024 cycle, he maxed out $6,600 in donations directly to Biden’s campaign, federal filings show.

Since the 2018 elections, he has poured more than $5 million into federal political coffers. Records show that his largest contribution was $2 million to the Schumer-aligned Senate Majority PAC during this time. 

He’s also contributed hundreds of thousands in cash to the Nancy Pelosi Victory Fund, Democratic National Committee and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. He has given tens of thousands more to state Democratic parties and individual campaigns, many of which were maximum contributions. 

The article notes that the Soros network spent hundreds of millions in the last election cycle trying to elect Democrats and push progressive causes and that Soros was ‘probably the biggest liberal donor of the most recent election cycle’ but that it is ‘hard to know for sure because of untrackable dark-money spending.’

President Donald Trump is closing in on the first 100 days of his administration this week, wrapping up three months marked by an unprecedented use of executive orders, and continued discussions surrounding a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. 

Trump met with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store at the White House Thursday, where he said that he and other allies are trying to wrap up a deal between Moscow and Kyiv in the near future. Still, he said he would stick to his own timeline. 

‘I have my own deadline,’ Trump told reporters Thursday. ‘And we wanted to be fast. And the Prime Minister’s helping us.’

‘He wants it to be fast, too,’ he said. ‘And I think everybody in this, at this time in NATO, they want to see this thing happen.’

The White House did not provide comment to Fox News Digital regarding details of the deadline. 

Trump’s team has signaled optimism about a deal this week, and Vice President JD Vance disclosed on Wednesday that a proposal is on the table. However, he said that time is limited and if neither party agrees, the U.S. will withdraw itself from advancing those discussions. 

The deal would require both Russia and Ukraine to give up some of their territory, but that the lines would remain ‘close to where they are today,’ according to Vance. 

Here’s what also happened this week in the Trump administration:

Hegseth under fire 

The White House went to bat for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who has come under additional scrutiny following a New York Times report that Hegseth shared information about a March military airstrike against the Houthis in a Signal messaging app group chat that also included his wife, brother and personal lawyer. 

In March, the Atlantic reported about an initial Signal group chat that included Hegseth and Vance to discuss the same attack on the Houthis. In that chat, Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was accidently included. 

The most recent incident has prompted lawmakers to call for Hegseth’s resignation, even though Hegseth maintains no war plans were disclosed in the chats. Despite a report from NPR that said the White House was considering finding a new secretary of defense amid the controversy, the Trump administration has voiced support for Hegseth this week. 

‘He is bringing monumental change to the Pentagon, and there’s a lot of people in the city who reject monumental change, and I think, frankly, that’s why we’ve seen a smear campaign against the Secretary of Defense since the moment that President Trump announced his nomination before the United States Senate,’ White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Tuesday.

‘Let me reiterate: The president stands strongly behind Secretary Hegseth and the change that he is bringing to the Pentagon, and the results that he’s achieved thus far speak for themselves,’ Leavitt said.

Pope Francis funeral 

Trump and first lady Melania Trump departed Washington Friday morning to attend Pope Francis’ funeral in Rome Saturday. The Vatican announced that Pope Francis died Monday at the Vatican’s Casa Santa Marta. 

‘Rest in Peace Pope Francis!’ Trump said in a Monday post on Truth Social. ‘May God Bless him and all who loved him!’

The pope’s death came a day after Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, met with him in one of the reception rooms of the Vatican hotel just hours before his death. 

Additionally, Trump signed an executive order Monday ordering all U.S. flags be flown at half-staff on all public buildings and grounds, at all military posts and naval stations, and on all naval vessels to remember Francis. The order also applies to all U.S. embassies, legations, consular offices and other facilities abroad, including military facilities and naval vessels and stations.

Former President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, are also planning to attend the Rome funeral.

Education reforms 

Trump also signed seven executive orders pertaining to education, including several that would incorporate artificial intelligence into K-12 school curricula, modify school discipline and accreditation guidelines, and update requirements for the disclosure of foreign funding to schools.

Meanwhile, Trump’s Education Department also announced Monday it would resume collections on defaulted federal student loans in May for the first time since 2020. 

The first Trump administration paused referring federal student loans to collections in March 2020 during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. But Trump administration officials are concerned that the pause has led the federal student loan portfolio to be ‘headed toward a fiscal cliff if we don’t start repayment in collections,’ according to a senior department official.

‘The result has been that the federal government student loan portfolio has continued to grow, and we’ve got a record number of borrowers that are at risk of or in delinquency and default,’ the senior department official told reporters Monday.

Fox News’ Emma Colton contributed to this report.