Vice President Kamala Harris has no plans to campaign in-person with President Biden in the final weeks before Election Day, according to reports.

Harris has attempted to distance herself from Biden’s presidency in recent weeks, and White House and campaign officials confirmed her lack of plans to appear with Biden, according to NBC News.

The White House and Harris campaign did not respond to requests for comment from Fox News Digital.

Biden plans to support Harris indirectly by stirring up his longtime supporters to back Harris, NBC reported.

BIDEN SAYS HARRIS HANDLED ‘EVERYTHING FROM FOREIGN POLICY TO DOMESTIC POLICY’ UNDER HIS ADMINISTRATION

Harris has spent weeks styling herself as a change candidate despite being a leader in the current administration.

KAMALA HARRIS AVOIDS QUESTIONS ABOUT BIDEN’S MENTAL DECLINE: ‘JOE BIDEN IS NOT ON THE BALLOT’

Harris insists that a Harris presidency would not be “a continuation of the Biden presidency.” Fox News’ Bret Baier pressed her to explain what differences there would be in an exclusive interview last week.

“My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency, and, like every new president that comes in to office, I will bring my life experiences, my professional experiences, and fresh and new ideas. I represent a new generation of leadership,” Harris told him.

VP KAMALA HARRIS RESPONDS TO WHY MORE AMERICANS TRUST TRUMP ON THE ECONOMY

“I, for example, am someone who has not spent the majority of my career in Washington, D.C. I invite ideas, whether it be from the Republicans who are supporting me, who were just on stage with me minutes ago, and the business sector, and others who can contribute to the decisions that I make,” she added.

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Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump has argued that Harris will bring only more of the same economic and immigration policies that have made the Biden administration deeply unpopular.

The former president remains ahead in the polls on the economy and immigration.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Israel has an opportunity to have new leadership in the Gaza Strip, urging action following last week’s killing of Hamas leader and mastermind of the Oct. 7 attacks, Yahya Sinwar. 

“There’s a window here not only to end the fighting, but to replace Hamas forever,” Graham said in an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And the way you do that, is you have normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel. With the death of Sinwar, the door is now open to not only find a way to get Israel to turn over Gaza and eventually Lebanon, but to have it replaced by an Arab coalition offering a better life to the Palestinians.” 

“I’ve never been more hopeful that normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel is possible,” he added. “I’ve been working with the Biden administration over a year and a half. I think we’re very close.” 

IDF SAYS ‘MISSION IS NOT OVER’ UNTIL HOSTAGES ARE RETURNED: ‘WE WILL NOT REST’

Graham, who has been working with the Biden administration to broker a deal for Israel and Saudi Arabia to establish diplomatic ties by the end of the year, also told NBC host Kristen Welker that he anticipated a counterattack by Israel against Iran soon but declined to supply a more specific timeline.

“I don’t have any direct knowledge, but I know they’re serious about hitting back,” Graham said, referencing Iran’s recent launching of nearly 200 missiles at Israel. “I think it will be soon, and I think it will be a hard hit. But again, the more you can diminish Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, better for the region. I think a normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel, which is the key, is more possible than ever.” 

US INVESTIGATING RELEASE OF CLASSIFIED DOCS ON ISRAEL’S PLANNED STRIKE ON IRAN

Meanwhile, the U.S. is reportedly investigating an unauthorized leak of classified documents with U.S. intelligence regarding Israel’s planned strikes against Iran posted to Telegram last week. 

Iran supports Hamas and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah, which are both designated by the State Department as foreign terrorist organizations. The U.S. is urging Israel to press for a cease-fire in Gaza following last week’s killing of Sinwar. But neither Israel nor Hamas has shown interest in such a deal after months of negotiations sputtered to a halt in August, The Associated Press reported. 

Israel’s government said a drone targeted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s house on Saturday, with no casualties, as fighting with Hezbollah and Hamas terrorists showed no pause. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

With early voting kicking off in North Carolina just weeks after Hurricane Helene hit, lawmakers there are optimistic that the storm will have little impact on Americans’ access to the ballot box.

Not only that – a pair of Tar Heel Republican officials told Fox News Digital they believe former President Donald Trump will ultimately win the state.

“I think we’re actually going to see a shocking turnout here,” Rep. Jake Johnson, a member of the state assembly, said on Thursday. “People are really going above and beyond to make sure during this time – especially if they’re frustrated about the way the federal government has handled things.”

Rep. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., whose congressional district was hit hard by Helene, said, “Although we’re very busy right now recovering from the storm, we remember what all our lives were like the day before Hurricane Helene hit western North Carolina.”

SPEAKER JOHNSON RIPS ‘LACK OF LEADERSHIP’ IN BIDEN ADMIN’S HELENE RESPONSE: ‘ALARMED AND DISAPPOINTED’

“Families were struggling. Gas prices were climbing. We saw an open border that seemed to go unnoticed or ignored by the Harris and Biden administration. We saw a record amount of fentanyl coming into our country,” Edwards said. 

Helene ravaged the Southeastern U.S. roughly three weeks ago, killing dozens of people across multiple states. 

Northwestern North Carolina was hit particularly hard by the storm and the mudslides it caused, with whole communities believed to have been washed away.

Concerns about voter access after the storm were compounded by North Carolina’s status as a swing state. Trump won there by less than 2% in 2020, and both his and Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaigns are pouring enormous political resources into the state this year.

In a rare show of bipartisanship, however, the Republican-led state legislature worked with Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper to pass a sweeping elections package to make it easier for people in affected counties to reach a ballot box ahead of Nov. 5.

HURRICANE HELENE: NORTH CAROLINA RESIDENTS FIGHT FOR THEIR SURVIVAL AS BASIC GOODS BECOME SCARCE

Edwards, who just last week told Fox News Digital that he was concerned about residents not being able to vote, said he now believes “we’re going to see record turnout at the polls.”

The congressman went to an early voting facility himself earlier on Thursday. He spoke with voters he said were “enthused” and “optimistic.”

“I was really excited to see the turnout. We had two lanes of traffic down, two different highways with folks coming in to vote,” Edwards said. “There was a lot of energy.”

He suggested that the enthusiasm would bode well for Trump, after speaking with voters unhappy with the current state of the country beyond the storm.

NORTH CAROLINA COMMUNITY ‘HUNTING’ FOR MISSING TEACHERS IN ‘DEVASTATING’ AFTERMATH OF HURRICANE HELENE

Meanwhile, Johnson said it was the storm recovery itself that would push more people to vote for Trump.

He said the “lack of response” some rural areas of North Carolina saw immediately after the storm could spur people in those areas to vote Republican.

“If you talk to the average person out there, you know, I think they would agree a lot of this was kind of botched from the top-down as far as the federal response,” Johnson said. “I think we’re actually going to be shocked at the level of turnout, how good it’ll be in western North Carolina.”

He and Edwards both also credited the state government’s elections legislation for making it easier for those motivated voters to turn out.

Notably, the White House’s response to the storm has been praised by other Republican officials, like the governors of Virginia, South Carolina and Tennessee. 

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., a conservative, also had rare praise for President Biden’s handling of the situation.

North Carolina residents shattered the state’s first-day early voting record on Thursday, fueling optimism among officials that the storm will ultimately have little impact on likely voters.

The State Board of Elections said that 353,166 people voted in-person, breaking the same record set in 2020 by roughly 4,500 votes, according to the Charlotte News & Observer.

A recent Quinnipiac University poll shows Harris with a slight two-point lead over Trump in North Carolina. The former president led Harris by the same margin last month.

The Israel Defense Forces said that the war in Gaza is not over following the killing of Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ top leader and the mastermind of the terrorist group’s Oct. 7 attack, and will continue until the hostages taken amid that day’s massacre are returned.

IDF Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari released declassified footage showing Sinwar hours before the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, as well as his movements in Gaza as he fled over the past year. Hagari said 101 hostages remain held in Gaza after a year in captivity under “ruthless conditions.” 

“Killing Sinwar is the result of a year of operational and intelligence efforts to bring him and other Hamas leaders to justice. Sinwar has been eliminated. But our mission is not over,” Hagari said in a video statement on Saturday. “We will not rest until we bring all our hostages home by any means possible. And we will continue to defend the people of Israel from all threats on all of our borders.” 

NETANYAHU PROMISES RETALIATION FOLLOWING ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT BY HEZBOLLAH

Hours before the Oct. 7 attacks, during which Hamas terrorists murdered approximately 1,200 Israelis and took hundreds more as hostages into Gaza, Sinwar was captured on video alone hiding his family and equipment, including beds, pillows, food, water and a TV in an underground tunnel network, Hagari said. 

NETANYAHU’S DEFIANCE OF BIDEN-HARRIS RAFAH INVASION THREATS LED TO ELIMINATION OF SINWAR, EXPERTS SAY

While Sinwar’s location was kept classified while he ordered the attacks from the underground tunnels, “this was a luxury that the people of Gaza did not have as Sinwar always prioritized himself, his money and the Hamas terrorists over the people of Gaza,” Hagari said. “Each step was planned to maximize harm to Israeli and Gazan civilians and to minimize harm to himself and other terrorists.”

“Throughout the war that Sinwar started, he continued to hide underneath the people of Gaza,” Hagari said.

In February, Hagari said Israeli troops found Sinwar’s underground hideout in Khan Yunis that included money, food, beds, documents, a shower and a kitchen. IDF operations in Khan Yunis forced Sinwar to flee to Rafah last month, Hagari said. 

Sinwar’s DNA was recovered on a piece of tissue “a few hundred meters” from a tunnel where six Israeli hostages were executed in Rafah before Sinwar fled again, Hagari said. 

“When Sinwar was running for his life and went above the ground, this was the first and last time that he encountered Israeli soldiers in combat,” Hagari said. “Sinwar was eliminated by the IDF in Rafah last Wednesday. I want to emphasize it again: This was the first and last time he encountered Israeli soldiers, and he was eliminated. There were no hostages with Sinwar when he was eliminated.” 

The Justice Department once green lit the very election reform law it is now suing Virginia over, a measure aimed at removing noncitizens from the commonwealth’s voter rolls, Fox News Digital has learned.

The DOJ filed suit Oct. 11 in Alexandria federal court, alleging the state, its board of elections and Elections Commissioner Susan Beals violated a federal law by carrying out an executive order by Gov. Glenn Youngkin. The order directed municipal and/or state officials to cull names of people who are “unable to verify that they are citizens” to the Department of Motor Vehicles for voter registration purposes.

FLURRY OF PRE-ELECTION LEGAL CASES IN NOW ‘STANDARDIZED’ STRATEGY, EXPERTS SAY

Youngkin told Fox News Digital the order he issued in August simply followed a rule put in place in 2006 by then-Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine and approved by the DOJ. But with the November election just weeks away, the agency is now saying it violates a provision of the National Voter Registration Act which requires any voter roll maintenance to be completed before the 90-day window prior to an election.

“[W]e now know that the Virginia law was reviewed and expressly approved by the DOJ civil rights division,” Youngkin said. “Now, after being applied for 18 years by both Democrat and Republican governors, with just 25 days before the presidential election, the Biden-Harris DOJ sues Virginia: Ensuring Virginia’s voter rolls do not include non-citizens is constitutional, it’s the law in Virginia and it’s common sense.”

YOUNGKIN: EDUCATION IS THE BEDROCK OF THE AMERICAN DREAM

Youngkin’s order cited Virginia code 24.2-439, requiring government registrars to cancel noncitizens’ voter registrations deemed to have been sought under false pretenses. It also cited Virginia Code 24.2-1019, requiring registrars to immediately notify their county or city prosecutor of such situations.

At least 165 election-related lawsuits have already been filed across the country, with the majority focused on issues such as who should be eligible to vote, how ballots are cast and counted, and how to ensure election security and protect against alleged voter fraud. Legal analysts say they doubt that any of these lawsuits will have a protracted impact on the 2024 election and describe the nature of the claims as fairly standard fare, especially during the more than two decades since George W. Bush fended off Al Gore and a mountain of legal challenges to win the 2020 presidential election.

The DOJ alleged in its lawsuit that actions resulting from the August order violated the federal 90-day window. However, Virginia officials maintain their actions target self-reported eligibility discrepancies and were not the kind of systematic voter-roll purging that would violate the Quiet Period provision.

An internal Richmond memo obtained by Fox News Digital asserted that the established process for removing noncitizens from voter rolls has taken place under Democratic and Republican governors since Kaine, now a senator, signed the law in 2006.

The federal Quiet Period cited by DOJ is “not relevant” to the Commonwealth’s policy, the memo stated, adding that individuals also have the two-week window to affirm citizenship before they are stripped from the rolls, so disqualification is not automatic.

If a person believes they were wrongly removed from the rolls, Virginia has long offered same-day voter registration at the polls. 

In Kaine-era official correspondence obtained by Fox News Digital, an official in the Virginia attorney general’s office wrote the George W. Bush Justice Department asking for approval of the new law.

Two months later, in December 2006, an official in the Civil Rights Division’s Voting Section wrote back that the U.S. attorney general “does not interpose any objections to the specific changes,” although it added that the feds’ lack of objection does not rule out future injunctions against the law’s enforcement.

CLIMATE PROTESTERS INTERRUPT YOUNGKIN’S 9/11 SPEECH

The process for removing an ineligible voter described by the law only begins when a person who files for a driver’s license or other government document attests that they are a noncitizen.

From there, the Department of Motor Vehicles shares that information with the state Department of Elections, which matches the information with the county or independent city’s registrar.

The individual is then notified that they are ineligible and is given 14 days to prove their citizenship. If they do not, they are then notified that they will be removed and are ultimately removed, the source said.

Virginia reportedly removed more than 6,300 individuals from their voter rolls since the order was signed.

In a statement after the lawsuit was filed, Youngkin called the legal action “unprecedented” and said he was simply assuring a law signed in 2006 by Kaine, who is running for reelection to the U.S. Senate this year, was being followed by counties and independent cities.

In a statement following the filing of the DOJ’s lawsuit, Youngkin staunchly defended his order.

“Americans will see this for exactly what it is – a desperate attempt to attack the legitimacy of the elections in the Commonwealth, the very crucible of American Democracy,” he said. “I will not stand idly by as this politically motivated action tries to interfere in our elections, period.”

However, at the DOJ, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Kristen Clarke said that culling voter registrations this close to election day potentially places qualified voters “in jeopardy of being removed from the rolls and creates the risk of confusion for the electorate.”

“Congress adopted the National Voter Registration Act’s Quiet Period restriction to prevent error-prone, eleventh-hour efforts that all too often disenfranchise qualified voters,” Clarke said in a statement.

As a result of Youngkin’s order, more than 1,000 registrations in two major Washington, D.C-area counties were canceled, according to local reports.

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Loudoun County, a formerly-red bastion now tinted blue due to exurban sprawl from the nation’s capital, culled 98 names. Eastward along US-50, heavily-Democratic Fairfax County removed 985 and is transmitting them to the local prosecutor and Attorney General Jason Miyares to probe any potential lawbreaking, according to the local ABC affiliate.

In July, Kaine reiterated that voting is a right reserved for U.S. citizens.

Last week, a spokesperson for the 2016 Democratic vice presidential nominee said “just as we want to block non-citizens from voting, we need to keep eligible voters from being purged from voting rolls, particularly just weeks from an election.”

“Senator Kaine is focused on making sure that every eligible Virginian has the opportunity to vote in this critical election.”

Meanwhile, former President Trump scorched the lawsuit as evidence of DOJ “weaponization” and praised Youngkin’s “important work” to protect the veracity of voter rolls.

Vice President Kamala Harris faced a series of questions from Fox News’ Bret Baier on Wednesday about the administration’s record on the border crisis – but did not mention a number of key decisions that critics say fueled the historic migrant crisis.

“The first bill that we offered Congress before we worked on infrastructure, before the Inflation Reduction Act, before the Chips and Science Act, before any, before the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the first bill, practically within hours of taking the oath, was a bill to fix our immigration system,” Harris said in response to questioning on how the administration handled the border crisis.

But Harris skimmed over some of the details of that bill and also did not mention other actions taken by the administration at that time.

KAMALA HARRIS AVOIDS QUESTIONS ABOUT BIDEN’S MENTAL DECLINE: ‘JOE BIDEN IS NOT ON THE BALLOT’

After the Biden administration took office, it did, as Harris said, introduce a sweeping immigration reform bill. It would also grant farmworkers, along with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), immediate green card eligibility. They would then be eligible for citizenship three years later. 

The bill would have also significantly increased the number of green cards and other immigration pathways available to foreign nationals. It would have also ended per-country caps and implemented a strategy to address “root causes” of migration.

Additionally, the administration announced the same day a 100-day moratorium on all deportations. It was eventually blocked by a federal judge after a lawsuit from Texas.

Biden also ordered a halt to all border wall construction, an abrupt move that resulted in piles of unused border wall materials littered throughout the border.

Separately, the administration also ended the “Remain-in-Mexico” policy, which had forced asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while their asylum cases were heard. Supporters had said that policy had effectively ended “catch-and-release” in the areas in which it was implemented.

Other orders included a directive to safeguard protections for DACA recipients, and a revocation of the Trump restrictions on travel from predominantly Muslim countries.

Encounters soon began to skyrocket at the southern border and President Biden took action by putting Harris in charge of tackling root causes. The administration said issues like climate change, poverty and violence were driving migrants north.

It quickly led to Harris being dubbed by media outlets and Republicans as the “border czar.” The White House rejected that title, but it has stuck with her ever since and made her a figurehead, along with DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, for the crisis.

After the assignment by Biden, and with numbers skyrocketing through subsequent months to record highs, Harris immediately came under pressure to visit the border as the White House said her role was more diplomatic than related to the border directly. She instead went to Mexico and Guatemala and had a stern message for migrants that upset immigrant activists.

“Do not come. Do not come. The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our borders,” she said. “If you come to our border, you will be turned back.”

She would face pressure to go to the border itself, and eventually would visit the border in El Paso, Texas.

KAMALA HARRIS REPEATEDLY PIVOTS TO TRUMP WHEN GRILLED ON IMMIGRATION RECORD IN FOX NEWS INTERVIEW

After a lengthy court battle over first its deportation block, and then subsequent guidance that narrowed interior enforcement, the Biden administration announced its official rules for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

“The fact an individual is a removable noncitizen therefore should not alone be the basis of an enforcement action against them,” the memo said.

It restricted agents to targeting recent border crossers, national security threats and public safety threats. That guidance coincided with a sharp drop in deportations and arrests. The administration would attribute that to COVID-era restrictions, but Republicans said it was part of a broader decrease in enforcement. 

That month would also see a controversy over since-debunked claims migrants were whipped by Border Patrol agents on horseback in Texas. Harris helped fuel those claims.

“What I saw depicted about those individuals on horseback treating human beings the way they were was horrible,” Harris told reporters. “And I fully support what is happening right now, which is a thorough investigation into exactly what is going on there. But human beings should never be treated that way. And I’m deeply troubled about it. And I’ll also be talking to Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas about it today.”

A subsequent investigation faulted the agents for minor infractions but found the underlying claims that migrants were whipped were not true.

Meanwhile, in the Senate, Democrats attempted to use the budget reconciliation to bypass the Republican filibuster and pass a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. 

Multiple plans were proposed, but were ruled inappropriate by the Senate parliamentarian. The measure was killed in October, when Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said he was opposed to pushing an amnesty through in the process.

In 2022, the Biden administration sparked outrage by announcing that it intended to end Title 42 – a COVID-era order that allowed border officials to turn back migrants quickly at the border for public safety reasons.

The administration was blocked by a federal judge, and faced bipartisan backlash for the move, given that numbers were on the rise – with more than 2.3 million migrant encounters in FY 23, which was then a record.

The administration said it had a plan in place for the order, but that did not convince critics, including border Democrats.

The administration also faced legal challenges over its ICE rules for agents, and a tougher congressional makeup as Republicans took control of the House.

Meanwhile, Harris traveled to the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles and met with other leaders on how to handle the crisis. During that summit, she announced that $3.2 billion in commitments from private sector companies had been secured. She also doubled down on the root causes explanation for the crisis.

Fiscal year 2023 broke the record for encounters with over 2.4 million. It was also the year in which the Biden administration finally lifted Title 42. It ended in May, with the administration surging resources to the border and announcing new consequences for illegal entry.

It combined those with a number of parole programs using the controversial CBP One app. Those programs allowed 30,000 migrants a month to fly directly in from four countries if pre-approved, and up to 1,450 migrants to come in across the southern border if they made an appointment at a port of entry and met certain conditions.

There was a sharp drop in numbers at the border in the immediate weeks after Title 42 ended, but they would move up again by the end of the year, hitting a record 250,000 in December.

In her interview with Baier, Harris mentioned the bipartisan border bill that was announced by lawmakers in January 2024. That bill, penned by lawmakers including Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., would implement a restriction on entries when it reached certain levels. 

It would also expedite work permits, tighten “credible fear” screenings and significantly increase funding and staffing for border agencies. 

However, some liberals opposed it due to the emergency border authority, while some conservatives claimed it would codify high levels of illegal immigration. Former President Trump also opposed it. It was an issue that gave the administration, and Harris, a way to blame Trump for the alleged inaction on the crisis.

“I was just down at the border talking with border agents, and they will tell you… we need more judges. We need to process those cases faster. We need this support for those cases that should be prosecuted. They need more resources, and Congress, ultimately, is the only place that that’s going to get fixed,” Harris said on Wednesday.

“We worked on supporting what was a bipartisan effort, including some of the most conservative members of the United States Congress, to actually strengthen the border. That border bill would have put 1500 more border agents at the border, which is why I believe the Border Patrol agents supported the bill,” she continued. “It would have allowed us to stem the flow of fentanyl coming into the United States, which is a scourge affecting people of every background, every geographic location in our country, killing people. It would have allowed us to put more resources into prosecuting transnational criminal organizations, which I have done as the former attorney general of a border state.”

“Donald Trump learned about that bill and told them to kill it because he preferred to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem,” she said.

With numbers still high at the border, Biden took action to limit entries into the U.S. The executive order suspended the entry of migrants across the border once it reached a certain level. 

It was followed by a sharp drop in encounters by more than 50%. Administration officials said that was because of the Biden order, but stressed that Congress still needed to pass the bipartisan bill.

The issue of migrant crime would also be a major issue amid a number of high-profile crimes by illegal immigrants.

In February, Augusta University nursing student Laken Riley was beaten to death, allegedly by a Venezuelan illegal immigrant, while she was out for a jog on the University of Georgia campus. The suspect, Jose Ibarra, was encountered by the U.S. Border Patrol in September 2022 and released on parole into the U.S. 

In July, two illegal immigrants were arrested on capital murder charges in the death of 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray in Houston, Texas. Jocelyn left her family’s home to grab a late night soda when police say the men, Johan Jose Rangel Martinez and Franklin Jose Pena Ramos, led her out of a convenience store. The men are accused of luring her under a bridge, tying her up and killing her before throwing her body into a river. Officials confirmed they were in the country illegally and had arrived that year, but were released on orders of recognizance pending their immigration court hearings. 

Harris, asked about those cases, said the following:

“Let me just say, first of all, those are tragic cases. There’s no question about that. There’s no question about that, and I can’t imagine the pain that the families of those victims have experienced for a loss that should not have occurred. So that is true. It is also true that if a border security bill had actually been passed nine months ago, it would be nine months that we would have had more border agents at the border, more support for the folks who are working around the clock trying to hold it all together,” she said.

Harris has criticized former President Trump for not supporting the bill and has promised to bring back the bill if elected to the White House, and sign it into law – while also calling for “comprehensive reform” that includes “strong border security and an earned pathway to citizenship.”

The United States is investigating the unauthorized release of classified documents detailing Israel’s planned attack against Iran, The Associated Press reported.

The documents, attributed to the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency, note that Israel was still moving military assets in place to conduct a military strike in response to Iran’s blistering ballistic missile attack on Oct. 1. They were sharable within the “Five Eyes,” which are the U.S., Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

The documents, which are marked top secret, were posted to the Telegram messaging app last week and first reported by CNN and Axios. The AP first reported Sunday about the U.S. investigation into the unauthorized release, citing three U.S. officials. The AP said a fourth U.S. official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, indicated that the documents appeared to be legitimate. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., also confirmed the investigation in an appearance on CNN. 

“The leak is very concerning. There’s some serious allegations being made, there’s an investigation underway, and I’ll get a briefing on that in a couple of hours,” Johnson said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “There’s a classified level briefing and then another. But we’re following it closely.” 

IDF SAYS ‘MISSION IS NOT OVER’ UNTIL HOSTAGES ARE RETURNED: ‘WE WILL NOT REST’

The investigation is also examining how the documents were obtained – including whether it was an intentional leak by a member of the U.S. intelligence community or by another method, like a hack – and whether any other intelligence information was compromised, one of the officials told the AP, adding that officials are working to determine who had access to the documents before they were posted. 

The documents first appeared online Friday via a channel on Telegram, claiming they had been leaked by someone in the U.S. intelligence community, then later the U.S. Defense Department. The information appeared entirely gathered through the use of satellite image analysis.

ISRAEL’S UN AMBASSADOR: RESPONSE TO IRAN WILL BE ‘VERY PAINFUL’

The AP reported that one of the two documents resembled the style of other material from the U.S. National Geospatial Intelligence Agency leaked by Jack Teixeira, an Air National Guardsman who pleaded guilty in March to leaking highly classified military documents about Russia’s war on Ukraine and other national security secrets.

The Telegram channel involved in the leak identifies itself as being based in Tehran, Iran’s capital. It previously published memes featuring Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and material in support of Tehran’s self-described “Axis of Resistance,” which includes Middle East terrorist groups armed by the Islamic republic.

In a statement to the AP, the Pentagon said it was aware of the reports of the documents but did not elaborate further. The AP said the Israeli military did not immediately return their request for comment.

Fox News Digital reached out to the U.S. Department of Defense but did not immediately hear back. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin hit back at the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against the state over an election reform law that he said was most recently used by previous Democratic state leaders without intervention from the federal government. 

“To be clear, this is not a purge. This is based on a law that was signed into effect in 2006 by then-Democrat Gov. Tim Kaine. And it starts with a basic premise that when someone walks into one of our DMVs and self-identifies as a noncitizen, and then they end up on the voter rolls, either purposely or by accident, that we go through a process, individualized – not system, not systematic – an individualized process based on that person’s self-identification as a noncitizen to give them 14 days to affirm they are a citizen,” Youngkin said during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” anchored by Shannon Bream.

“And if they don’t, they come off the voter rolls. And by the way, they have one last safeguard, which is they can come and same day register and cast a provisional ballot,” he added. 

Youngkin was responding to a DOJ suit filed on Oct. 11 alleging the state, its board of elections and elections commissioner violated a federal law by carrying out an executive order by Youngkin. The order directs municipal and/or state officials to cull names of people who are “unable to verify that they are citizens” to the Department of Motor Vehicles for voter registration purposes.

DOJ ONCE OK’D LAW AT CENTER OF YOUNGKIN VOTER ROLL-CULLING ORDER FEDS NOW SUING TO BLOCK

The complaint argues federal law says states must complete their maintenance programs no later than 90 days before an election, citing a clause known as the Quiet Period Provision. The complaint notes that voters were identified as possible noncitizens if they responded “no” to questions about their citizenship status on certain forms submitted to the state Department of Motor Vehicles. 

Youngkin continued on Sunday that the law has been on the books for 18 years, but is now coming under fire from the federal government after Youngkin’s administration enforced it. 

GOP GOVERNOR SLAMS ‘UNPRECEDENTED’ DOJ LAWSUIT OVER REMOVAL OF NONCITIZENS FROM VOTER ROLLS

“Back in 2006, the then-Justice Department actually approved of this law and said that it is not only further constitutional, but we have given it thorough review, and we’re OK with you moving ahead with it,” he said. 

“Now, 25 days last week before the election, a Justice Department decides they are going to bring suit after this law has been in effect for 18 years, administered by Democrat and Republican governors. And this is the reason why I believe that Americans and Virginians wonder what the Justice Department is up to. It’s been in effect for 18 years. It’s been applied universally by Republican and Democrat governors. And now all of a sudden, when Virginia is getting tight… it launches a lawsuit against the Commonwealth of Virginia when we are trying to make sure that citizens vote, not noncitizens,” he said. 

Youngkin’s executive order cited Virginia code 24.2-439, which requires government registrars to cancel noncitizens’ voter registrations deemed to have been sought under false pretenses. It also cited Virginia Code 24.2-1019, requiring registrars to immediately notify their county or city prosecutor of such situations.

The Republican governor underscored that he is not enforcing a voter roll “purge,” but an “individualized” safeguard system to ensure legal residents are the only people to vote in elections. 

“It had been used within the 90-day quiet period, most recently by Democrat Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Ralph Northam. And they said nothing about it at the time. The reality is that this is not a purge. It is not systematic. It is individualized. And it starts with someone identifying as a noncitizen and then ending up on our voter rolls. As I said, either purposely or by accident. And the reality is, how can we as a nation, and how can I, as a governor, allow noncitizens to be on the voter roll? This is just not right. It’s not just constitutionally correct. It’s common sense,” he continued. 

GLENN YOUNGKIN VOWS TO MAKE SURE THE ELECTION IN VIRGINIA ‘WILL BE FAIR, WILL BE ACCURATE AND WILL BE SAFE’

“Elections in the United States should be decided by citizens, and noncitizens just shouldn’t be on the voter rolls. And we’re going to make sure that elections in Virginia are fair and accurate and safe. We have paper ballots. We have counting machines, not voting machines. We have great custody laws. And we’re going to make sure that we have… the cleanest voter rolls in the country.” 

Fox News Digital’s Charles Creitz and Adam Shaw contributed to this report. 

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Voters in the battleground state of Wisconsin will decide at the ballot box in November whether to revise the state constitution to explicitly ban noncitizens from voting in municipal, state and federal elections. 

The statewide referendum authored by Republican legislators is listed at the bottom of the ballot and will ask voters for permission to amend section 1 of article III of the state constitution, which deals with voting, to specify that “only a United States citizen age 18 or older who resides in an election district may vote in an election for national, state, or local office or at a statewide or local referendum.” 

Currently, the state constitution says “every United States citizen age 18 or older” can vote.

“Addressing this issue now will ensure votes are not diluted in the future,” state Sen. Julian Bradley, a Republican, explained to the nonprofit news organization Votebeat Wisconsin. “It’s best for the government to address this concern before it becomes a problem.”

NEBRASKA HIGH COURT RESTORES VOTING RIGHT FOR THOUSANDS OF CONVICTED FELONS

In recent years, North Dakota, Alabama, Florida, Colorado, Ohio and Louisiana have passed amendments to their state constitutions specifying that “only” U.S. citizens can vote. The question is on the ballot in eight other states this year, including Wisconsin, Iowa, Kentucky and Missouri, The Associated Press reported. 

Republicans argue they are trying to protect election integrity as migrants pour across the border. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data shows more than 10 million encounters with illegal immigrants at U.S. borders under the Biden-Harris administration and at least another 2 million known got-a-ways. 

Democrats and other opponents say the state amendment prohibiting non-citizens from voting has no practical effect – no Wisconsin municipalities allow noncitizens to vote – and is instead designed to draw conservatives to the polls and stoke anger against foreigners in the United States.

“There is no problem with noncitizens voting,” Jeff Mandell, an attorney with Law Forward, a nonprofit organization, told the AP. “It is the very definition of a solution in search of a problem.”

DOJ ONCE OK’D LAW AT CENTER OF YOUNGKIN VOTER ROLL-CULLING ORDER FEDS NOW SUING TO BLOCK

A 1996 federal law bans noncitizens in any state from casting their ballots in a federal election. It does not apply to state and local elections. 

Multiple municipalities in California, Maryland and Vermont as well as the District of Columbia allow noncitizens to vote in some local elections such as school board and city council races. 

The Department of Justice last week sued Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin‘s administration for removing people from the voter rolls who had been identified as noncitizens and could not verify their citizenship within a two-week grace period. The state said it removed 6,000 ineligible people from its rolls.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in August that over 6,500 potential noncitizens had been removed from the state’s voter rolls since 2021. Ohio Secretary of State Frank La Rose also said in August that he referred 138 apparent noncitizens found to have voted in a recent election for prosecution. 

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Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen has said 3,251 people previously identified as noncitizens by the federal government have been deactivated on the state’s voter registration rolls.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Tech billionaire Elon Musk is on a campaign trail blitz as he rallies support for former President Trump, targeting government regulations as he champions the expansion of American businesses and cutting government red tape. 

Musk officially endorsed Trump over the summer, when the 45th president survived the first assassination attempt on his life this election cycle, and has since joined the campaign trail in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania to rally support and encourage people to vote. Relying on his decades as a tech visionary and business leader who has personally dealt with tight government regulations, Musk has made cutting red tape a hallmark of his stump speeches and commentary on X. 

Early Sunday morning, Musk posted on X that he was ready to reveal to the public a bizarre alleged scheme where his company SpaceX was “forced by the government to kidnap seals.”

“Tomorrow, I will tell the story of how SpaceX was forced by the government to kidnap seals, put earphones on them and play sonic boom sounds to see if they seemed upset,” Musk posted on Sunday morning. 

FETTERMAN ISSUES WARNING TO DEMOCRATS AFTER ELON STUMPS FOR TRUMP IN PENNSYLVANIA

Musk’s tease came in response to a clip of him saying on Saturday in Pennsylvania that he has a “bunch of nutty stories” related to government overregulation, including how SpaceX had to study the probability of its Starship rocket hitting a whale or shark. 

“SpaceX had to do this study to see if Starship would hit a shark. And I’m like… it’s a big ocean. There are a lot of sharks. It’s not impossible, but it’s very unlikely. So we said, ‘Fine, we’ll do the analysis. Can you give us the shark data?'” he recounted to laughters from the audience. He said the National Marine Fisheries Service ordered SpaceX to carry out the study. 

“They were like, ‘No, we can’t give you the shark data.’ Well, then, OK, we’re in a bit of a quandary. How do we solve this shark probability issue? They said, ‘Well, we could give it to our western division, but we don’t trust them.’ I’m like, ‘Am I in a comedy sketch here?'” Musk said in the clip. 

“Eventually, we got the data and could run the analysis to say, ‘Yeah, the sharks are going to be fine.’ But they wouldn’t let us proceed with the launch until we did this crazy shark analysis. Then we thought, ‘OK, now we’re done.’ But then they said, ‘What about whales?'” Musk continued. 

If re-elected to the White House, Trump said Musk could take a new position as “Secretary of Cost-Cutting” for the federal government. 

“He doesn’t want to be in the Cabinet,” Trump told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo last week on “Sunday Morning Futures.” “He just wants to be in charge of cost-cutting.”

“We’ll have a new position: Secretary of Cost-Cutting. Elon wants to do that, and we have incredible people. He’s running a big business. He can’t just say, ‘I think I’ll go into the Cabinet.’ Other people can. He can’t, but Elon’s a little bit different in that sense.”

Going back to August, when Musk hosted Trump for an interview on X Spaces, he focused his economic criticisms on government overspending as spurring current inflation woes that have rocked Americans’ pocketbooks. 

FETTERMAN ADMITS ELON MUSK ‘ATTRACTIVE TO A DEMOGRAPHIC’ DEMOCRATS ‘NEED’ TO WIN PENNSYLVANIA

“A lot of people just don’t understand where inflation comes from. Inflation comes from government overspending because the checks never bounce when it’s written by the government. So if the government spends far more than it brings in, that increases the money supply. If the money supply increases faster than the rate of goods and services, that’s inflation,” Musk said during their conversation. 

“So really we need to reduce our government spending, and we need to re-examine… I think we need a government efficiency commission to say like, ‘Hey, where are we spending money that’s sensible. Where is it not sensible?’”

Musk officially hit the campaign trail on behalf of Trump’s candidacy last week, holding a handful of rallies in Pennsylvania – a place Musk said he knows well, citing his Philadelphia residency while attending the University of Pennsylvania in the 1990s. 

While speaking before an audience in Folsom last week, which is located about 20 miles outside of Philadelphia, Musk highlighted how Space X faced a $140,000 fine from the EPA for using drinking water to cool down a launch pad. 

“I’ll tell you like a crazy thing, like we got fined $140,000 by the EPA for dumping fresh water on the ground. Drinking water. It’s crazy. I’ll just give you an example of just how crazy it is. And we’re like, ‘Well, we’re using water to cool the launch pad during launch. You know, we’re going to cool the launch pad so it doesn’t overheat. And in excess of caution, we actually brought in drinking water, so clean, super clean water,’” Musk said to the audience. 

“And the FAA said, ‘No, you have to pay a $140,000 fine.’ And we’re like, ‘But Starbase is in a tropical thunderstorm area. Sky water falls all the time,’” Musk recounted, referring to SpaceX’s headquarters in Texas. “‘That is the same as the water we used’ So, and it’s like… there’s no harm to anything. And they said, ‘Yeah, but we didn’t have a permit.’ We’re like, ‘You need a permit for fresh water?’” Musk recounted. 

TRUMP SUPPORTER ELON MUSK OFFERS MASSIVE HOURLY PAY TO THOSE WORKING TO INCREASE VOTER TURNOUT

Musk argued that America needs to move from “solving one problem after another,” to building industries that “inspire” residents alongside growing innovation, but that “we’re being massively slowed down by regulatory molasses.”

Musk’s campaign tour has apparently worried Democrats amid Trump’s effort to claim the Keystone State.

ELON MUSK UNVEILS TESLA’S ROBOVAN, ROBOTAXI, HUMANOID ROBOTS

Pennsylvania is viewed as the state that will likely determine the final outcome of the election, with both Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris repeatedly zigzagging the state to rally support among city dwellers, suburbanites and farmers alike. Democratic Sen. John Fetterman warned party members to not discount Musk’s influence among Pennsylvania voters. 

“Not even just that he has endorsed [Trump], but the fact that now he’s becoming an active participant and showing up and doing rallies and things like that,” Fetterman told the New York Post, explaining that the enormously successful Tesla and SpaceX CEO is an attractive figure for the kinds of voters Harris needs to win.

“I mean, [Musk] is incredibly successful, and, you know, I think some people would see him as, like, a Tony Stark,” said Fetterman, referencing the popular Marvel Comics character. “Democrats, you know, kind of make light of it, or they make fun of him jumping up and down and things like that. And I would just say that they are doing that at our peril.”

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