Artist Amy Sherald canceled her upcoming exhibit featuring a portrait of a transgender Statue of Liberty at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery after Vice President JD Vance raised concerns the show included woke and divisive content, Fox News Digital has learned. 

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March that placed Vance in charge of overseeing the removal of programs or exhibits at Smithsonian museums that ‘degrade shared American values, divide Americans based on race, or promote programs or ideologies inconsistent with Federal law and policy.’ 

Vance said Sherald’s ‘American Sublime’ exhibit violated Trump’s executive order and was an example of woke and divisive content during a meeting June 9 with the Board of Regents, a source familiar with the meeting told Fox News Digital. 

‘Vice President Vance has been leading the effort to eliminate woke indoctrination from our beloved Smithsonian museums,’ an administration official said in an email to Fox News Digital. ‘On top of shepherding the One Big Beautiful Bill through the Senate and helping President Trump navigate international crises, the vice president has demonstrated his ability to get President Trump’s priorities across the finish line.’

Sherald, best known for painting former first lady Michelle Obama’s official portrait in 2018, announced Thursday she was pulling her show, ‘American Sublime,’ from the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery slated for September, The New York Times first reported. 

Sherald said she was rescinding her work from the exhibition after being told that the National Portrait Gallery had some concerns about featuring the portrait of the transgender Statue of Liberty during the show. The painting, ‘Trans Forming Liberty,’ depicts a trans woman with pink hair wearing a blue gown. 

‘These concerns led to discussions about removing the work from the exhibition,’ Sherald said in a statement, The New York Times first reported Thursday. ‘While no single person is to blame, it’s clear that institutional fear shaped by a broader climate of political hostility toward trans lives played a role. 

‘This painting exists to hold space for someone whose humanity has been politicized and disregarded. I cannot in good conscience comply with a culture of censorship, especially when it targets vulnerable communities.

‘At a time when transgender people are being legislated against, silenced and endangered across our nation, silence is not an option,’ Sherald added. ‘I stand by my work. I stand by my sitters. I stand by the truth that all people deserve to be seen — not only in life, but in art.’

The Smithsonian did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding Vance’s involvement in the matter. 

The White House said the removal of Sherald’s exhibit is a ‘principled and necessary step’ toward cultivating unity at institutions like the Smithsonian. 

‘The ‘Trans Forming Liberty’ painting, which sought to reinterpret one of our nation’s most sacred symbols through a divisive and ideological lens, fundamentally strayed from the mission and spirit of our national museums,’ Trump special assistant Lindsey Halligan said in a statement to Fox News Digital. 

‘The Statue of Liberty is not an abstract canvas for political expression. It is a revered and solemn symbol of freedom, inspiration and national unity that defines the American spirit.’

Other members of the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents include the Chief Justice of the United States, John Roberts, along with senators John Boozman, R-Ark.; Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev.; and Gary Peters, D-Mich., along with several other House members. 

Fox News’ Gabriel Hays contributed to this report. 

A federal appeals judge on Friday blocked President Donald Trump’s plan to end birthright citizenship for the children of people in the country illegally or temporarily. 

U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin ruled that a nationwide injunction on the Trump administration’s effort to end birthright citizenship that he issued earlier this year and that was granted to more than a dozen states can stand. 

Sorokin said the ruling was an exception to a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limited lower courts’ ability to issue nationwide injunctions. The issue is expected to return to the Supreme Court.  

Trump and the administration ‘are entitled to pursue their interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment, and no doubt the Supreme Court will ultimately settle the question,’ Sorokin wrote in his ruling. ‘But in the meantime, for purposes of this lawsuit at this juncture, the Executive Order is unconstitutional.’

The Trump administration has argued that children born in the U.S. to parents in the country illegally and temporarily are not ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States and therefore not entitled to citizenship. 

Trump signed the birthright citizenship executive order, along with a slew of other orders, on his first day in office in January. 

On Wednesday, the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals also affirmed the lower court’s nationwide injunction, and, earlier this month, a New Hampshire federal judge issued a ruling prohibiting Trump’s executive order from taking effect nationwide in a new class-action lawsuit.

Sorokin disagreed with the Trump administration’s argument that the Supreme Court’s ruling warranted a narrower ruling. 

The plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit argued that Trump’s executive order is unconstitutional because the 14th Amendment guarantees birthright citizenship, and it also threatens millions of dollars in state funding for ‘essential’ health insurance services contingent on citizenship status. 

Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report. 

European diplomats met with Iranians on Friday face-to-face for the first time since Israel and the U.S. bombed the country last month. 

The ‘serious, frank and detailed’ meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, lasted for around four hours and the officials all agreed to meet again for continued negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program. 

Sanctions that were lifted on Iran in 2015 after it agreed to restrictions and monitoring of its nuclear program could be reimposed if Iran doesn’t comply with requirements. 

One of Europe’s E3 nations – Britain, France and Germany, who held the talks with Iran – could bring back sanctions under the ‘snapback’ mechanism, which allows one of the European countries to bring back U.N. sanctions if Iran violates the conditions. 

European leaders have also said that sanctions will start being reinstated by the end of August if there is no progress on reining in Iran’s nuclear program. 

‘A possible delay in triggering snapback has been floated to the Iranians on the condition that there is credible diplomatic engagement by Iran, that they resume full cooperation with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), and that they address concerns about their highly-enriched uranium stockpile,’ a European diplomat said on condition of anonymity before the talks on Friday. 

The diplomat added that the snapback mechanism ‘remains on the table.’ 

Iran said that the U.S. needs to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal – after President Trump pulled America out of it in 2018 – saying Iran has ‘absolutely no trust in the United States.’

The U.S. bombed Iran’s nuclear sites on June 22, a little over a week after Israel had bombed the country over national security concerns about its nuclear program. 

Iran responded by attacking Israel and a U.S. Army base in Qatar. 

Isreal and Iran agreed to a ceasefire on June 24. 

The IAEA issued a concerning report in May that said that Iran’s stockpile of near-weapons-grade enriched uranium had grown by nearly 50% in three months. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Donald Trump did better with American young people last fall than any Republican candidate in decades. He won men under 30, won men of college age, and even won the youth vote in the swing state of Michigan. American young people were widely assumed to be uniformly liberal, and expected to remain so forever and ever. But the reality was anything but. I saw this trend playing out in real time as I toured the country speaking on college campuses to crowds of three, four, and even five thousand strong.  Young Americans were not happy with Joe Biden’s America or Kamala Harris’ vows to continue it, and they were ready to return to the president they associated with a more prosperous pre-COVID time.

It was a big win. But it was also impermanent. It could be a one-off. It could easily be explained by the aftermath of COVID or the incredible political charisma of Donald Trump himself. The youth vote of 2024 wasn’t so much a win as it was an opportunity: A clear demonstration that conservatives actually can compete to win the votes of American young people, rather than writing them off. 

The challenge for Republicans now is seizing this Gen Z opportunity. Because Gen Z won’t become lifelong conservatives thanks to a good campaign or slick online memes. They’ll only become lifelong supporters if we’re able to deliver for them on the big issues that matter.

Experts expend a lot of effort and ink explaining what Gen Z ‘wants.’ But between my campus visits and my work running Turning Point USA, I talk to as many Gen Z’ers as anyone in the country. They want basic economic success and security like the generations before them. They want a home, they want a family, they want to feel like they are building something and that they are a part of something. 

And right now, on that front, Gen Z has a lot of problems. Economically, things are dire. In 1984, the median American home cost about three and a half times the median income in America. Today, the median house costs almost six times the median income. Rent isn’t much better, and has risen more than 50% in real terms since the 1970s. 

In 1980, tuition at the average public college was about $2,800 in today’s dollars. Today it’s around $10,000, and, unsurprisingly, that means the average college student leaves school with a debt burden that previously could have bought them a car, provided the down payment on a house, or helped them start a family. 

Financially, young people aren’t just facing more expensive necessities, but also a more predatory economic reality. Millions of Gen Zers are buying everything from concert tickets to groceries to Chipotle burritos through buy now, pay later (BNPL) setups from companies like Klarna and Affirm. Some polls indicate Gen Z prefers BNPL to traditional credit cards. Taking on debt for purchases may make sense when buying a house or a car, but once a person is paying for their groceries with 4 monthly payments at 10% interest, something has gone awry. 

Of course, America hasn’t become a poor nation. In fact, we’re as spectacularly wealthy as ever. Yet this wealth doesn’t reach young Americans (unless it’s by way of inheritance). Instead, over and over, policy decisions have ensured that elderly Americans grow wealthier and wealthier. Never in American history has so much wealth been concentrated in those who are already retired from the labor force. This reality became even more pronounced during COVID and the rampant inflation that followed. Older Americans with equities and assets in their portfolio saw their net worth skyrocket, while younger Americans just saw those assets become even more unaffordable.

It wasn’t always like this. When the baby boomers of today were growing up, government policy routinely favored young people. Jobs were easier to get, with far fewer credentialing hurdles. Houses were built far faster. Wages were higher instead of being suppressed through sky-high legal and illegal immigration. Today, though, America is a country built for those who are already owners, and those too young to buy are finding themselves stuck becoming borrowers and renters. The median age of first-time home buyers is now pushing 40, about a decade higher than the 1980s when the average age was just 29!

This isn’t because Gen Z is lazy — a common retort I hear — it’s because they are contending with structural disadvantages older Americans didn’t experience. If this continues, something will break, and young people will lead the way in breaking it. 

Zohran Mamdani has become a celebrity for Gen Z with his slick promises of a New York City rent freeze, state-owned grocery stores, and free daycare as stepping stones to eventually seizing the means of production. Mamdani’s political surge is not a passing fad or pure TV news fodder. 

It should be a giant flashing red alarm. There are millions of Americans who feel cut off from any meaningful economic progress or stability. Eventually, if they can’t obtain prosperity the old-fashioned way, they will simply try to vote themselves prosperity, and there will be plenty of demagogues promising this can be done easily by simply expropriating those with more than them.

Most of Gen Z is ideologically fluid. They’re happy to give Republicans a shot, then turn around and elect a Marxist two years later.

America will have a reordering of its economy. The only question is what that reordering will look like. There are two paths before us. We will either have stabilizing reforms like those of Theodore Roosevelt a century ago and those espoused by nationalist, populist conservatives, or we will have revolutionary, destructive ‘reforms’ like those that have already ruined once-prosperous countries like Cuba or Venezuela. If we succeed in the next three years, or if we fail, will determine which.

President Donald Trump arrived in Scotland late Friday for a working trip where he is expected to meet with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer amid ongoing trade negotiations between the U.S. and the U.K., as well as visit several of his properties there. 

‘We’re meeting with the prime minister tonight,’ Trump told reporters Friday before departing for Scotland. ‘We’re going to be talking about the trade deal that we made, and maybe even improve it.’

‘We want to talk about certain aspects, which is going to be good for both countries,’ Trump said. ‘More fine-tuning. Also, we’re going to do a little celebrating together, because, you know, we got along very well. U.K.’s been trying to make a deal with us for like, 12 years, and haven’t been able to do it. We got it done, and he’s doing a very good job, this prime minister. Good guy.’

In May, the U.S. and the U.K. announced the two countries had agreed to a major trade deal, which marked the first historic trade negotiation signed following Liberation Day, when Trump announced widespread tariffs for multiple countries April 2 at a range of rates.

Trump, who is slated to remain in Scotland until Tuesday, is also scheduled to visit his golf courses in Turnberry and Aberdeen while abroad. 

Here’s also what happened this week:

Federal Reserve visit 

Trump visited the Federal Reserve headquarters Thursday, as he has ramped up digs at Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. 

Trump accompanied other administration officials for a tour of the headquarters, following $2.5 billion in renovations to the building. The massive project has attracted scrutiny from lawmakers and members of the Trump administration, including the president, who suggested the huge renovation could amount to a fireable offense. 

‘I think he’s terrible … I didn’t see him as a guy that needed a palace to live in,’ Trump said July 16. ‘But the one thing I would have never guessed is that he would be spending two and a half billion dollars to build a little extension onto the Fed.’

On Thursday, the two briefly sparred over the cost of the renovation, but Trump told reporters afterward that the two had a ‘good meeting’ and that there was ‘no tension.’ Trump also shut down speculation he might oust Powell, claiming such a move would be unnecessary. 

The Federal Reserve, the United States central bank, oversees the nation’s monetary policy and regulates financial institutions. 

Trump historically has railed against Powell, calling him names like ‘numskull’ and ‘too late.’ Likewise, Trump has expressed ire toward Powell for ignoring requests to lower interest rates. 

‘Well, I’d love him to lower interest rates, but other than that, what can I tell you?’ Trump said Thursday. 

Trump signed into law Thursday his roughly $9 billion rescissions package to claw back already approved federal funds for foreign aid and public broadcasting. 

The rescissions measure revoked nearly $8 billion in funding Congress already approved for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), a formerly independent agency that provided impoverished countries aid and offered development assistance.

The rescissions package also rescinds more than $1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which provides federal funding for NPR and PBS.