President Donald Trump signed an executive order to formally lift all sanctions on Syria on Monday afternoon. 

‘The United States is committed to supporting a Syria that is stable, unified, and at peace with itself and its neighbors,’ the order stated, while directing the secretaries of State, Commerce and Treasury to relieve sanctions and waive export controls. 

‘This is in an effort to promote and support the country’s path to stability and peace. The order will remove sanctions on Syria while maintaining sanctions on the former president Assad or his associates, human rights abusers, drug traffickers, persons linked to chemical weapons activities, ISIS and their affiliates, and Iranian proxies,’ White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters. 

Trump is ‘committed to supporting a Syria that is stable, unified and at peace with itself and its neighbors,’ Leavitt said. 

Ambassador Tom Barrack, Trump’s envoy to Syria, called the new order a ‘tedious, detailed, excruciating process’ of unraveling the sanctions that had been in place for decades on the regime of Bashar al-Assad, who oversaw a nation at civil war for more than a decade. 

Brad Smith, the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said sanctions would remain ‘where appropriate,’ including on Assad and his associates and any other destabilizing regional actors. 

Smith said the fall of Assad represented a ‘new beginning’ for the Syrian people and Trump had decided U.S. sanctions ‘would not stand in the way of what could be a brighter future for the country.’

But he warned: ‘The United States will remain ever vigilant where our interests and security are threatened, and Treasury will not hesitate to use our authorities to protect us and international financial systems.’

Some sanctions will still need to be lifted by Congress, and others date to 1979, when Syria was designated a state sponsor of terrorism. The administration has not yet lifted that designation. 

Trump met last month with Syria’s new interim leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, during a Middle East visit. 

From having a $10 million bounty on his head to sitting down with the U.S. president, the turnaround of the Syrian leader has been remarkable.

Al-Sharaa’s group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a Syrian militant organization founded as an offshoot of al Qaeda, overthrew Assad in March. 

Al-Sharaa had been campaigning hard for a relationship with Washington and sanctions relief: he offered to build a Trump Tower in Damascus, détente with Israel, and U.S. access to Syria’s oil and gas. He worked to soften the image of HTS and promised an inclusive governing structure. 

U.S. sanctions have included financial penalties on any foreign individual or company that provided material support to the Syrian government and prohibited anyone in the U.S. from dealing in any Syrian entity, including oil and gas. Syrian banks also were effectively cut off from global financial systems. 

The new order comes as Israeli and Syrian officials are engaged in back-channel talks on a potential security and normalization deal. 

Israel and Syria have long been foes, and some Israeli officials worry that lifting all sanctions on Syria means giving up ‘leverage’ to pressure them into a deal to normalize ties with Israel. 

To that point, one senior administration official shot back: ‘We have consistently said we’re not nation-building. It’s to Syria’s benefit to lean toward Israel.’ 

‘The president ripped off the sanctions without any preconditions,’ the official said. ‘Leverage is not what we’re interested in doing.’ 

War between Israel and Hamas in Gaza has complicated any movement on normalization deals between Israel and its neighbors. But the official predicted: ‘There’s going to be peace in Gaza.’ 

Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus are warning they have serious issues with the Senate’s version of President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ as it’s currently written.

The group of GOP rebels argued in a public statement on Sunday that the Senate bill adds $1.3 trillion to the federal deficit, whereas the House-passed bill would increase the federal deficit by $72 billion.

‘Even without interest costs, it is $651 billion over our agreed budget framework,’ the statement read.

The Senate is currently working through the bill and is expected to finish sometime later Monday or even on Tuesday. 

The Senate bill would add an extra $1 trillion to raise the debt limit, compared to the House version and permanently extend certain corporate tax cuts in President Donald Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) that the House only extended temporarily.

It also includes several specific new additions aimed at easing Senate Republicans’ own concerns with the bill, including a $25 billion rural hospital fund to offset issues with Medicaid cuts, and a tax break for whalers that appears aimed at Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.

The Senate is operating under a mechanism called ‘current policy baseline,’ which would effectively zero-out the cost of extending TCJA tax cuts by calculating them as the de facto operational policy rather than calculating the cost as if they were not in place.

Absent congressional action, TCJA tax cuts expire at the end of 2025.

Conservatives in the House have warned they have serious issues with the bill, however. 

Reps. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., and Eric Burlison, R-Mo., both House Freedom Caucus members, said the bill could face steep odds — even fail — in the lower chamber if changes were not made.

Both said it could fail in a House-wide procedural vote before lawmakers could even contend with the measure itself. A rule vote is traditionally taken to allow for debate on legislation before lawmakers weigh in on it.

‘If it gets through [the House Rules Committee], I don’t think it survives on the floor in the current form it’s in. You know, we told the senators that,’ Norman told Fox News Digital. ‘They knew this all along.’

Norman said Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., had done a ‘good job,’ but added of the Senate, ‘They’ve got fighters… but we’ve just got to have certain things that comply with our House version.’

The legislation could still change before it gets to the House, however, as the Senate works through a parade of amendments from both Democrats and Republicans.

Burlison said it could depend on the fate of an amendment by Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., which would significantly hike the Medicaid financial burden for states that expanded their Medicaid population under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). 

The change, if passed, would roll back the current 90% rate that the government pays for the Medicaid expansion population through the federal medical assistance percentage (FMAP) back down to the non-expansion rate, which hovers as low as 50%.

Scott’s proposal could add hundreds of billions in savings to the plan, in addition to the nearly $1 trillion the Senate plan already saves in Medicaid spending.

‘I don’t see how what the Senate is doing will pass the House if [Rick Scott’s amendment] does not pass at the minimum. It’s probably going to take more spending reductions than that, but that would get the majority of us there,’ Burlison told Fox News Digital, without commenting on House GOP leaders.

He predicted the bill could be ‘killed’ in the House-wide rule vote otherwise.

Indeed, several House Freedom Caucus members have taken to X to publicly urge Senate Republicans to approve Scott’s amendment.

‘All Republican Senators should vote YES on Senator Rick Scott’s very reasonable ‘elimination of theft from Medicaid’ FMAP amendment,’ Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., posted.

Fox News Digital reached out to Speaker Mike Johnson’s office for comment on House Freedom Caucus members’ comments.

Notably, key provisions originally in the House bill were stripped out of the legislation for not being ‘Byrd-compliant.’

The ‘Byrd Bath’ is a process during the budget reconciliation process in which the Senate parliamentarian, a non-partisan, unelected official tasked with advising on Senate policy, combs through the bill for whether it adheres to the strict budgetary guidelines of the reconciliation process.

Republicans are using the budget reconciliation process to advance Trump’s agenda on taxes, the border, energy, defense, and the debt limit via one massive piece of legislation.

Budget reconciliation allows Republicans to bypass any Democratic opposition to pass their bill by lowering the Senate’s threshold for passage from 60 votes to 51.

They’re aiming to have a bill on Trump’s desk by the Fourth of July.

A GOP aide told Fox News Digital, ‘The Senate version contains more in Byrd-compliant savings than the House, and correctly scores extending current tax policy as revenue-neutral — and assumes the kind of growth that was also massively underestimated last time around.’

The aide noted that the White House Council of Economic Advisers said the bill will generate $4.1 trillion in economic growth thanks to tax permanence, which is more than the House version.

Senate Republicans argue the bill would lead to $1.6 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years — above the House Freedom Caucus’ demanded $1.5 trillion threshold.

The State Department has revoked the visas for members of the Bob Vylan band, after the British punk-rap duo called for ‘death to the IDF’ during a Saturday performance in England’s Glastonbury Music Festival. 

The band Bob Vylan, made up of two musicians with the stage names Bobby Vylan and Bobbie Vylan, is slated to tour the U.S. later in 2025. But the State Department announced Monday it had pulled the visas for the band’s members after the group led chants calling for the end of the Israel Defense Forces. 

‘Bob Vylan’s visas have been revoked,’ a senior State Department official told Fox News Digital Monday. ‘The secretary of state has been clear – the U.S. will not approve visas for terrorist sympathizers.’

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has issued multiple warnings that the State Department will rescind visas for ‘terrorists’ and those affiliated with them. 

For example, Rubio said in a June 2 X post after the antisemitic terror attack in Boulder, Colorado, that all ‘terrorists, their family members, and terrorist sympathizers’ in the U.S. on a visa would have their visas revoked and face deportation. 

During the Glastonbury, England, performance, Bobby Vylan also led the crowd with chants of ‘Free, Free, Free Palestine,’ and wrapped up the chant saying, ‘Hell yeah, from the river to the sea. Palestine must be, will be inshallah, it will be free.’

In response, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said, ‘There is no excuse for this kind of appalling hate speech,’ according to the BBC. 

Meanwhile, Bobby Vylan appeared to double down on his statements during the Glastonbury performance, and wrote in a social media post Sunday: ‘I said what I said.’

‘It is incredibly important that we encourage and inspire future generations to pick up the torch that was passed to us,’ Bobby Vylan said in a Sunday Instagram post. ‘Let us display to them loudly and visibly the right thing to do when we want and need change. Let them see us marching in the streets, campaigning on ground level, organizing online and shouting about it on any and every stage that we are offered.’

Additionally, the BBC issued a Monday statement apologizing for continuing to air Bob Vylan’s performance live, and condemned the antisemitic chants during the performance. 

‘The team were dealing with a live situation but with hindsight we should have pulled the stream during the performance. We regret this did not happen,’ the BBC said in a Monday statement. ‘The BBC respects freedom of expression but stands firmly against incitement to violence. The antisemitic sentiments expressed by Bob Vylan were utterly unacceptable and have no place on our airwaves.’

President Donald Trump is confident that democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani would ‘crush’ New York City if he is elected mayor, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt says.

Leavitt made the statement during a Monday press briefing while fielding multiple questions from reporters about Mamdani’s victory in the democratic mayoral primary.

Fox News’ White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked Leavitt about recent calls for Mamdani to be deported, citing calls from one lawmaker who said Mamdani should be denaturalized.

‘I haven’t heard him say that. I haven’t heard him call for that. But certainly he does not want this individual to be elected. I was just speaking to him about it and [Mamdani’s] radical policies that will completely crush New York City, which is obviously a city that the president holds near and dear to his heart,’ Leavitt responded.

Leavitt went on to say that Trump would be willing to work with Mamdani if he is elected, though she predicted that the relationship would be difficult.

‘Look, the president is always willing to work with everyone. He’s working with Democrats across the country, Democrat governors. And he said he’ll work with people on the far left. He works with Republicans. He works with people in the middle. He wants to do what’s right for America,’ Leavitt said.

‘But surely someone who holds these values and is quite literally a communist and condemns every value that makes this country great: common sense, law and order, low taxes, working hard, and earning your keep in this country. He’s against all of that. And I think the president would find it difficult to work with someone like that, if he is elected. I’m sure you’ll hear more from the president on that, but we’ll have to see. Hopefully, the voters of New York City choose wisely,’ she finished.

Mamdani, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist, defeated establishment favorite and former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and a crowded field of other candidates, in the Democratic mayoral primary last week.

Liberal podcast host Donny Deutsch called out Mamdani on Monday for refusing to condemn the phrase ‘globalize the intifada’ during an appearance on MSNBC.

‘I’m outraged that we have a candidate for mayor of New York, Mr. Mamdani, that cannot walk back or cannot condemn the words ‘globalize the intifada’ and his nuance of, ‘Well, it means different things for different people.’ Well, let me tell you what it means to a Jew — it means violence,’ Deutsch said, citing the October 7 terrorist attacks, as well as the Boulder, Colorado, attacks.

‘That’s the connotation. That’s the essence of it, and that’s what it means to Jewish people. And if any other group came forward and said, ‘You know these words are offensive to us. It means violence. It frightens us,’ I think there would be a response, but for some reason, if Jewish people find it offensive, it’s not offensive,’ Deutsch continued. 

Mamdani had several opportunities to condemn the ‘globalize the intifada’ phrase during an interview on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ on Sunday, but he refused.

Fox News’ Hanna Panreck contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump will sign an executive order to formally lift all sanctions on Syria on Monday afternoon. 

‘This is in an effort to promote and support the country’s path to stability and peace. The order will remove sanctions on Syria while maintaining sanctions on the former president Assad or his associates, human rights abusers, drug traffickers, persons linked to chemical weapons activities, ISIS and their affiliates, and Iranian proxies,’ White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters. 

Trump is ‘committed to supporting a Syria that is stable, unified and at peace with itself and its neighbors,’ Leavitt said. 

Some sanctions will still need to be lifted by Congress, and others date to 1979, when Syria was designated a state sponsor of terrorism. The administration has not yet lifted that designation. 

Trump met last month with Syria’s new interim leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, during a Middle East stint. 

From having a $10 million bounty on his head to sitting down with the U.S. president, the turnaround of the Syrian leader has been remarkable.

Al-Sharaa’s group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a Syrian militant organization founded as an offshoot of al Qaeda, overthrew Assad in March. 

Al-Sharaa had been campaigning hard for a relationship with Washington and sanctions relief: he offered to build a Trump Tower in Damascus, détente with Israel, and U.S. access to Syria’s oil and gas. He worked to soften the image of HTS and promised an inclusive governing structure. 

The new order comes as Israeli and Syrian officials are engaged in back-channel talks on a potential security and normalization deal. 

U.S. sanctions have included financial penalties on any foreign individual or company that provided material support to the Syrian government and prohibited anyone in the U.S. from dealing in any Syrian entity, including oil and gas. Syrian banks also were effectively cut off from global financial systems. 

Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus are warning they have serious issues with the Senate’s version of President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ as it’s currently written.

The group of GOP rebels argued in a public statement on Sunday that the Senate bill adds $1.3 trillion to the federal deficit, whereas the House-passed bill would increase the federal deficit by $72 billion.

‘Even without interest costs, it is $651 billion over our agreed budget framework,’ the statement read.

The Senate is currently working through the bill and is expected to finish sometime later Monday or even on Tuesday. 

The Senate bill would add an extra $1 trillion to raise the debt limit, compared to the House version and permanently extend certain corporate tax cuts in President Donald Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) that the House only extended temporarily.

It also includes several specific new additions aimed at easing Senate Republicans’ own concerns with the bill, including a $25 billion rural hospital fund to offset issues with Medicaid cuts, and a tax break for whalers that appears aimed at Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.

The Senate is operating under a mechanism called ‘current policy baseline,’ which would effectively zero-out the cost of extending TCJA tax cuts by calculating them as the de facto operational policy rather than calculating the cost as if they were not in place.

Absent congressional action, TCJA tax cuts expire at the end of 2025.

Conservatives in the House have warned they have serious issues with the bill, however. 

Reps. Ralph Norman, R-Texas, and Eric Burlison, R-Mo., both House Freedom Caucus members, said the bill could face steep odds — even fail — in the lower chamber if changes were not made.

Both said it could fail in a House-wide procedural vote before lawmakers could even contend with the measure itself. A rule vote is traditionally taken to allow for debate on legislation before lawmakers weigh in on it.

‘If it gets through [the House Rules Committee], I don’t think it survives on the floor in the current form it’s in. You know, we told the senators that,’ Norman told Fox News Digital. ‘They knew this all along.’

Norman said Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., had done a ‘good job,’ but added of the Senate, ‘They’ve got fighters… but we’ve just got to have certain things that comply with our House version.’

The legislation could still change before it gets to the House, however, as the Senate works through a parade of amendments from both Democrats and Republicans.

Burlison said it could depend on the fate of an amendment by Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., which would significantly hike the Medicaid financial burden for states that expanded their Medicaid population under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). 

The change, if passed, would roll back the current 90% rate that the government pays for the Medicaid expansion population through the federal medical assistance percentage (FMAP) back down to the non-expansion rate, which hovers as low as 50%.

Scott’s proposal could add hundreds of billions in savings to the plan, in addition to the nearly $1 trillion the Senate plan already saves in Medicaid spending.

‘I don’t see how what the Senate is doing will pass the House if [Rick Scott’s amendment] does not pass at the minimum. It’s probably going to take more spending reductions than that, but that would get the majority of us there,’ Burlison told Fox News Digital, without commenting on House GOP leaders.

He predicted the bill could be ‘killed’ in the House-wide rule vote otherwise.

Indeed, several House Freedom Caucus members have taken to X to publicly urge Senate Republicans to approve Scott’s amendment.

‘All Republican Senators should vote YES on Senator Rick Scott’s very reasonable ‘elimination of theft from Medicaid’ FMAP amendment,’ Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., posted.

Fox News Digital reached out to Speaker Mike Johnson’s office for comment on House Freedom Caucus members’ comments.

Notably, key provisions originally in the House bill were stripped out of the legislation for not being ‘Byrd-compliant.’

The ‘Byrd Bath’ is a process during the budget reconciliation process in which the Senate parliamentarian, a non-partisan, unelected official tasked with advising on Senate policy, combs through the bill for whether it adheres to the strict budgetary guidelines of the reconciliation process.

Republicans are using the budget reconciliation process to advance Trump’s agenda on taxes, the border, energy, defense, and the debt limit via one massive piece of legislation.

Budget reconciliation allows Republicans to bypass any Democratic opposition to pass their bill by lowering the Senate’s threshold for passage from 60 votes to 51.

They’re aiming to have a bill on Trump’s desk by the Fourth of July.

A GOP aide told Fox News Digital, ‘The Senate version contains more in Byrd-compliant savings than the House, and correctly scores extending current tax policy as revenue-neutral — and assumes the kind of growth that was also massively underestimated last time around.’

The aide noted that the White House Council of Economic Advisers said the bill will generate $4.1 trillion in economic growth thanks to tax permanence, which is more than the House version.

Senate Republicans argue the bill would lead to $1.6 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years — above the House Freedom Caucus’ demanded $1.5 trillion threshold.