Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Moscow would refrain from launching new attacks on other nations provided his country is treated ‘with respect.’

The Kremlin made the remarks during his annual televised press conference in Moscow as concerns persist among European nations that Russia poses a security threat, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

‘Will there be new special military operations? There will be no operations if you treat us with respect, if you observe our interests, just as we have constantly tried to observe yours,’ Putin said.

Putin uses the phrase ‘special military operation’ to describe Russia’s offensive in Ukraine, according to AFP.

He added there would be no further Russian invasions ‘if you don’t cheat us like you cheated us with NATO’s eastward expansion,’ according to the BBC.

The Russian leader also claimed he was ‘ready and willing’ to end the war in Ukraine ‘peacefully,’ though he offered few details suggesting a willingness to compromise, the BBC reported.

The yearly news conference, which typically runs at least four hours, features questions from reporters and members of the public across Russia. 

More than 2.5 million questions were submitted for this year’s event, which focused heavily on the war in Ukraine, Reuters reported.

Putin also noted during the event that the nation’s ‘troops are advancing’ and expressed confidence that Russia will accomplish its objectives through military means if Ukraine does not assent to Russia’s terms during peace talks, according to The Associated Press.

‘Our troops are advancing all across the line of contact, faster in some areas or slower in some others, but the enemy is retreating in all sectors,’ Putin declared.

As the war drags on, the European Union has just agreed to provide Ukraine with a loan of over $105 billion.

Fox News Digital’s Alex Nitzberg contributed to this report.

It’s not just Minnesota.

The past few weeks have made clear that fraudsters stole billions of dollars from states’ welfare programs, much of it from Medicaid. It also appears that Democratic politicians tolerated the heist for their own political benefit. 

Yet politicians in virtually every state have let waste, fraud and abuse spread like wildfire in Medicaid, putting taxpayers on the hook for an estimated $2 trillion in improper spending over the next decade alone. 

Thankfully, President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans have given states a reason to clean up this mess and spare taxpayers that pain.

In a new paper, I show how Democrats have turned Medicaid into one of the most fraud-ridden programs in America — and how Republicans are fixing it. While Medicaid has long been plagued with improper spending, Democrats supercharged this crisis in the Obama years.

ObamaCare added tens of millions of able-bodied adults to the program, yet that population is much more likely to be ineligible.

The Obama administration refused to rigorously check eligibility, and the Biden administration adopted the same policy, deliberately hiding an explosion in waste, fraud and abuse. Meanwhile, states refused to police their Medicaid programs, confident that the federal government would look the other way and cover the tab.

The first Trump administration found that 27.4% of federal Medicaid spending was improper in 2020, or about $120 billion at the time. The administration also found that four out of every five improper payments were the result of eligibility errors. This money flowed to people who shouldn’t have been on Medicaid and therefore diverted money and care away from its intended recipients. Five years later, it’s highly likely that at least one in five Medicaid dollars is still wrongly spent.

Call this what it is — an assault on taxpayers. It’s also a clear violation of federal law. States are legally required to reimburse the federal government for Washington’s share of Medicaid payments if their improper payment rates are above 3%, a far cry from the 27.4% rate in 2020.

The Trump administration is once again conducting eligibility checks, but even without that info, it’s all but certain that every state already exceeds the 3% threshold. The only reason they’ve avoided a budget blowout is by receiving so-called ‘good faith waivers’ from Washington. Essentially, states have promised that they’ll tackle fraud and abuse, even when they have no intention of doing so.

Republicans called time on this rigged game in the law President Trump signed July 4. They effectively eliminated good-faith waivers and told states that, starting in 2030, they will be forced to cover the federal share of any improper payments above 3%. While five years may seem like an eternity, it’s an acknowledgment that states have a mountain to climb to bring their error rates into the low single digits. 

Consider Ohio. In 2019, it had an improper payment rate of nearly 45%, giving the Buckeye State the worst record in the nation for waste, fraud and abuse. Based on its most recent spending levels, Ohio would be on the hook for $9.7 billion, equal to roughly 15% of its current state budget. Illinois, with a 35.4% rate, would pay $6.4 billion, a tough ask given the state’s famous fiscal woes. Even states with lower improper payment rates, like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Missouri, would still be looking at annual costs of more than $1 or $2 billion.

Without reform, I estimate that states will pay a combined $100 billion in penalties beginning in 2030. Their only hope to avoid this fiscal pain is to immediately start rooting out waste, fraud and abuse. In the state legislative sessions that start in January, lawmakers should focus on several key reforms.

First, stop allowing Medicaid recipients to self-attest their income, address and other personal information. Using the honor system invites abuse.

Second, review recipients’ eligibility at least twice a year for able-bodied adults and once a year for everyone else, thereby removing ineligible individuals early and often.

Third, cross-check Medicaid data with easily accessible information such as wage, hiring and tax records; returned mail and changes of address; out-of-state food stamp transactions; and prison and death records. These basic good government measures can quickly identify people wrongly receiving taxpayer money.

Waiting to tackle Medicaid fraud is the most foolish thing states can do. So is hoping that Democrats get their wish and successfully repeal Republicans’ Medicaid reforms. That won’t happen while Trump is president. And if states wait to see the outcome of the 2028 election, they may be disappointed. At that point, they’d face an even steeper hill with barely a year to get their act together.

There’s no avoiding the reality that Democrats broke Medicaid — in Minnesota and everywhere else — or that Republicans have given states an urgent mandate to finally root out the waste, fraud and abuse.

 Michael Greibrok is a Senior Research Fellow at the Foundation for Government Accountability.

Senate Republicans confirmed nearly 100 of President Donald Trump’s nominees, leapfrogging previous administrations and his own first term in the process in their sprint to finish off the year. 

The confirmation of 97 of Trump’s picks on Thursday with a 53-43 vote marked one of the final bits of floor action in the upper chamber following a blistering pace set out by Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., once Republicans gained control of the Senate in January.

Senate Republicans overcame several obstacles throughout the year, including mending intra-party rifts to pass the president’s signature legislation, the ‘one big, beautiful bill,’ and reopening the government after the longest shutdown in history.

But it was confirming Trump’s nominees that proved near impossible within the confines of Senate rules, given that Senate Democrats laid out a blanket objection to even the lowest level positions throughout the government.

Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., noted that Republicans kicked off the year by confirming Trump’s Cabinet at a breakneck pace, but they soon slammed into a wall of ‘unprecedented obstruction from the Democratic minority.’

‘We began the year by confirming President Trump’s Cabinet faster than any Senate in modern history,’ Barrasso said. ‘And by week’s end, President Trump will have 417 nominees confirmed by the Senate this year. That’s far more than the 365 that Joe Biden had in his first year in office.’

In response, Republicans turned to the nuclear option in September and changed the vote threshold for confirming sub-Cabinet-level positions, and have since confirmed 417 of Trump’s picks.

Thune argued that Senate Democrats, led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., were engaging in ‘nothing more than petty politics,’ not allowing nominees through the typical fast-track processes, like voice votes or unanimous consent, to install low-level presidential nominations.

‘Democrats cannot deal with the fact that the American people elected President Trump, and so they’ve engaged in this pointless political obstruction in revenge,’ Thune said.

With the latest batch of confirmations, Senate Republicans have nearly cleared the backlog of nominees that over the summer had ballooned to nearly 150 picks awaiting lawmakers’ decision. Now, there are only 15 picks left to be confirmed.

Among the list of now-confirmed nominees are former Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, R-N.Y., to serve as inspector general at the Department of Labor and two picks for the National Labor Relations Board, James Murphy and Scott Mayer, along with several others in nearly every federal agency.

Lawmakers are set to tee up another nominee, Joshua Simmons, who Trump tapped to be the CIA’s special counsel, before the night is over. And they’re still working to move forward with a colossal spending package that ties five appropriations bills together. 

But some Senate Democrats are objecting to the minibus spending package, jeopardizing its chances of hitting the floor before lawmakers flee Capitol Hill. Conversations between Republicans and Democrats are ongoing, and could go deep into the night on a path forward. 

Thune, as he walked onto the Senate floor Thursday night, said that the plan was to at least knock out the nominees package first. 

‘We’ll see where it goes from there,’ he said.

Joint Task Force Southern Spear forces struck two alleged narco-terrorist vessels moving along a major drug corridor in the Eastern Pacific on Thursday, killing five militants without suffering any U.S. casualties.

U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) released a video on X showing the opening strike and the aftermath, with the targeted boat engulfed in flames.

‘On Dec. 18, at the direction of [Secretary of War] Pete Hegseth, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted lethal kinetic strikes on two vessels operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations in international waters,’ the post read. ‘Intelligence confirmed that the vessels were transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and were engaged in narco-trafficking operations.

‘A total of five male narco-terrorists were killed during these actions — three in the first vessel and two in the second vessel,’ SOUTHCOM added. ‘No U.S. military forces were harmed.’

Joint Task Force Southern Spear was established to help unify Navy, Coast Guard, intelligence and special operations assets to rapidly strike time-sensitive targets at sea.

The Pentagon has not released the identities of the four narco-terrorists killed or the specific terrorist organization involved.

The U.S. has conducted dozens of strikes on suspected drug-trafficking vessels in the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean to dismantle narco-terrorist networks, targeting groups such as Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua and Colombia’s Ejército de Liberación Nacional.

The campaign began Sept. 2 with a strike that killed 11 alleged members of Tren de Aragua, followed by additional operations that reportedly eliminated dozens more across known trafficking routes.

U.S. forces have reportedly hit various types of vessels, including submersibles, fishing boats and high-speed vessels.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration launched its ‘Fentanyl Free America’ plan, with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reporting that strikes on suspected Caribbean drug vessels are helping curb the flow of illegal drugs into the U.S.

Fox News Digital’s Bonny Chu contributed to this report.

Maria Shriver slammed President Donald Trump on Thursday after the Kennedy Center’s board voted unanimously to rename the institution to the ‘Trump-Kennedy Center,’ accusing him of trying to attach his name to a memorial dedicated to her uncle, President John F. Kennedy.

Shriver, a high-profile member of the Kennedy family, said it is ‘beyond comprehension’ to change the center’s name, accusing Trump of staining JFK’s legacy in art, culture and education.

‘It is beyond comprehension that this sitting president has sought to rename this great memorial dedicated to President Kennedy,’ Shriver wrote on X. ‘It is beyond wild that he would think adding his name in front of President Kennedy’s name is acceptable. It is not.’

Kennedy Center vice president of public relations Roma Daravi told Fox Digital Thursday that the unanimous vote ‘recognizes’ Trump’s work to pull the center out of financial straits while working to also update the building originally constructed in the 1960s, and opened in 1971.

Shriver argued that adding Trump’s name was not ‘dignified’ or ‘funny,’ and ‘is way beneath the stature of the job.’

‘Just when you think someone can’t stoop any lower, down they go,’ she said.

The former First Lady of California quipped that Trump might want to rename JFK Airport or make other changes, including the ‘Trump Lincoln Memorial,’ ‘Trump Jefferson Memorial’ and ‘Trump Smithsonian.’

‘Can we not see what is happening here?’ Shriver said. ‘C’mon, my fellow Americans! Wake up!’

President Trump said on Thursday he was ‘honored’ and ‘surprised’ by the update. 

‘We’re saving the building. We saved the building. The building was in such bad shape, physically, financially, in every other way. And now it’s very solid, very strong. We have something going on television, I guess on the 23rd December. I think it’s going to get very big ratings and the Kennedy Center is really, really back strongly,’ he told reporters.

Other members of the Kennedy family, including JFK’s great-nephew, Joe Kennedy III, weighed in on the name change, arguing that federal law protects the center’s name from being changed.

‘It can no sooner be renamed than can someone rename the Lincoln Memorial, no matter what anyone says,’ he wrote on X.

The name change follows recent precedent, a Kennedy Center official told Fox News Digital, noting that the State Department’s decided earlier this month to add Trump’s name to the U.S. Institute of Peace and to past presidential administrations that have renamed military bases.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House for comment.

Fox News Digital’s Ashley Carnahan and Emma Colton contributed to this report.

President Trump signed into law a nearly $1 trillion defense policy bill Thursday and approved what looks to be the largest military spending package in U.S. history.

The fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act authorizes $901 billion in military spending, roughly $8 billion more than the administration requested, according to Reuters.

It also delivers a nearly 4% pay raise for troops, provides new funding for Ukraine and the Baltic States and includes measures designed to scale back security commitments abroad.

In a release shared online, Rep. Rick Allen, R-Ga., said, ‘With President Trump’s signature, the FY2026 NDAA officially delivers on our peace-through-strength agenda with a generational investment in our national defense.

‘Not only does this bipartisan bill ensure America’s warfighters are the most lethal and capable fighting force in the world, but it also improves the quality of life for our service members in the 12th District and nationwide.’

As previously reported by Fox News Digital, the Senate passed the NDAA Wednesday, sending the compromise bill approved with bipartisan support to the president’s desk. 

Trump signed it quietly Thursday evening, according to Reuters.

The NDAA includes $800 million for Ukraine over the next two years as part of the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which pays U.S. firms for weapons for Ukraine’s military.

It also includes $175 million for the Baltic Security Initiative, which supports Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

The bill prohibits reducing U.S. troop levels in Europe below 76,000 for more than 45 days without formal certification by Congress.

The legislation also restricts the administration from reducing U.S. forces in South Korea below 28,500 troops.

Trump ultimately backed the bill in part because it codifies some of his executive orders, including funding the Golden Dome missile defense system and getting rid of diversity, equity and inclusion programs, per Reuters.

‘Under President Trump, the U.S. is rebuilding strength, restoring deterrence and proving America will not back down. President Trump and Republicans promised peace through strength. The FY26 NDAA delivers it,’ House Speaker Mike Johnson had said in a statement Dec. 7 on the new measures.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House for comment.