Trump touts ‘significant’ Iran ‘present’ linked to Strait of Hormuz as deal talks heat up
President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced Iran wants to “make a deal” with the U.S., noting the country’s leadership gave the U.S. a “significant prize” related to the Strait of Hormuz and the flow of oil.
While speaking to reporters in the White House Oval Office, Trump said Iranian leadership sent the gift on Monday, and it arrived on Tuesday.
“They’re going to make a deal. They did something [Monday] that was amazing, actually. They gave us a present,” Trump said. “The present arrived today, and it was a very big present worth a tremendous amount of money.”
IRAN NUCLEAR TALKS ‘DIDN’T PASS THE SMELL TEST’ BEFORE TRUMP LAUNCHED STRIKES, SAYS VANCE
Trump said he could not disclose what the gift was, but said it was “oil and gas-related” and was connected to the Strait of Hormuz.
The Iranian regime was previously charging some tankers millions of dollars to pass through the global shipping choke point, according to a report from Iran International.
WHY TRUMP INVOKED REGIME CHANGE IN ATTACKING IRAN, AND THE MEDIA MUST LEARN FROM PAST MISTAKES
Trump added the unspecified present was “very significant.”
“That meant one thing to me — we’re dealing with the right people,” Trump said. “… It was a very nice thing they did. … They said they were going to do it, and it happened. And they’re the only ones that could have done it.”
When asked about control of the Strait of Hormuz, he said the U.S. will “have control of anything we want.”
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
“They can’t have certain things,” Trump said. “It starts with no nuclear weapons, and they’ve agreed to that. … They’re not going to have enrichment — any of those things. … We are in about the best bargaining position. We’re way ahead of schedule.”
Negotiations are being headed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance, according to the president.
Who actually runs Iran right now? The key power players as Trump claims talks to ‘top’ official
“Nobody knows who to talk to,” President Donald Trump said Tuesday at the White House, describing what he portrayed as both chaos and opportunity inside Iran’s leadership. “But we’re actually talking to the right people, and they want to make a deal so badly.”
His remarks come as the U.S. claims it is engaged in talks with a “top” Iranian figure, even as Tehran publicly denies negotiations are taking place.
The question now is not just whether talks are happening, but whether anyone in Tehran has the authority to deliver. With U.S.-Israel strikes on senior Iranian leadership and growing internal fractures, Iran appears to be operating less like a centralized theocracy and more like a wartime system run by overlapping power centers, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) at its core.
Here’s who matters now.
TRUMP’S MIDDLE EAST ENVOY REVEALS WHAT LED TO BREAKDOWN IN IRAN TALKS BEFORE OPERATION EPIC FURY
The IRGC: The real power behind the state
Across intelligence assessments and recent reporting, one conclusion is consistent: the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has emerged as the dominant force in Iran’s political system.
Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies Washington, D.C., think tank, said the current moment is accelerating a long-standing trend.
“No doubt both the 12-Day war and this current conflict have trimmed the commanding heights of the Islamic Republic’s political and military leadership,” he said. “But it has also expedited the trend lines inherent in Iranian politics, which is the dominance of the security forces and the ascendance of the IRGC.”
“Yes, there is more IRGC control over the state than ever before, but the state is weaker than ever before and more of a national security rump state than ever before,” he said.
“It shouldn’t particularly preoccupy Washington, who is and isn’t offering negotiations,” Ben Taleblu added. “The preeminent preoccupation of Washington has to be working toward a military win at a political win, and that does not come by working with the IRGC, but actually beating them on the battlefield and supporting the forces most arrayed against them in Iran, which are the Iranian people.”
The command room: Supreme National Security Council
If the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is the power in Iran, the Supreme National Security Council appears to be the mechanism through which that power is exercised.
The Supreme National Security Council is Iran’s top forum for coordinating military and foreign policy, bringing together senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders and government officials under the authority of the supreme leader. It was established after the 1979 revolution and has played a central role in managing major crises, from nuclear negotiations to wartime operations.
Iran appointed Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, a former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander, as secretary of the council, reinforcing its central role in coordinating military and political decisions, Reuters reported Tuesday.
A Middle Eastern official source with knowledge of the system described the structure.
“Right now, the power is in the hands of the IRGC,” the source said. “The Supreme National Security Council makes the decisions, of course, with the backing of the majority of IRGC commanders.”
Mojtaba Khamenei: The supreme leader in name
Formally, Iran’s system centers on Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei. But his actual grip on power remains uncertain.
Khamenei inherited the position’s sweeping authority following his father’s death, but “lacks the automatic authority enjoyed by his father,” the Middle Eastern official said.
Moreover, he has not appeared publicly since taking power and only has issued written statements, raising questions about both his health and his ability to govern, after reportedly being injured in the initial Feb. 28 U.S.–Israeli strikes that killed his father and other senior Iranian leaders.
Brig. Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, head of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, suggested his role may currently be limited: “For the time being, since Mojtaba has been injured, it seems he’s a hologram and not holding power. However, if Mojtaba recovers, he will be involved in ruling Iran. He is not just a figurehead. But anyhow, for the time being, the control of Iran is in the hands of the revolutionary guards.”
WITH DOGS, DANCE AND UNCOVERED HAIR, IRANIANS DEFY ‘UNHOLY ALLIANCE’ OF SOCIALISTS, RADICALS: ‘HYPOCRITES!’
Ghalibaf: The man at the center of Trump’s claim
Trump’s statement that he is speaking to a “top person” has focused attention on one name in particular: Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.
The White House is quietly exploring Ghalibaf as a potential interlocutor and even a possible future leader, Axios reported.
A former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander and current parliament speaker, Ghalibaf represents a hybrid figure inside the system, bridging military credentials and political authority.
He was one of the key security figures involved in the crackdown on student protests in July 1999 and has run for president four times since 2005.
IRAN WAR, 11 DAYS IN: US CONTROLS SKIES, OIL SURGES AND THE REGION BRACES FOR WHAT’S NEXT
Ghalibaf is expected to meet U.S. special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in the capital of Pakistan as early as the end of the week.
Ben Taleblu said: “Those who see the ascendants of someone like Ghalibaf, who is an IRGC veteran, having extended power outside his traditional civilian rule, have missed the decades of how personality, not profession, has been the driving force in Iranian politics for the past few decades. I would also say those who worry about the IRGC background of the Supreme National Security Council are all that in Iran today, may have missed the fact that the past few Supreme National Security Council Secretaries, Shamkhani, Larijani, Ahmadian, all also had IRGC backgrounds.”
At the same time, Ghalibaf has publicly denied engaging in talks with the United States, and no direct confirmation of negotiations has been provided by either side.
Araghchi: The diplomat carrying messages
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi remains one of the most visible figures internationally.
If talks were to take place, Araghchi likely would be part of the Iranian delegation alongside Ghalibaf, Reuters reported.
But analysts caution that his role is limited. He may act as a channel for communication, but does not set policy independently.
Strategic decisions, particularly on war and negotiations, are still shaped by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the broader security establishment.
The wider power circle: generals, clerics and enforcers
Beyond the headline figures, a broader group of officials who continue to shape Iran’s direction can be identified.
These include Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps chief Ahmad Vahidi, Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani, naval commander Alireza Tangsiri, Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, President Masoud Pezeshkian and senior clerical and political figures such as Saeed Jalili and Ayatollah Alireza Arafi.
Each represents a different pillar of the system: military power, regional proxy operations, control of strategic waterways, internal repression and religious legitimacy.
Together, they form what analysts describe as a fragmented but resilient governing network.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Despite internal divisions, Iran’s leadership remains united on one core objective: survival of the regime.
Kuperwasser described the split: “There are the more pragmatic elites, like Araghchi, Rouhani, and Zarif. There are also the hardliners who have usually held the upper hand … But they are united in one issue — that the regime should survive and stay in power.”
Iran’s U.N. mission did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.
Trump energy czar says Iran conflict gas spike is ‘temporary blip’ as drilling push ramps up
EXCLUSIVE: Despite the ongoing conflict in Iran, President Donald Trump’s “energy czar,” Doug Burgum, is confident the “temporary blip up” in gas and energy prices facing Americans will come back down very soon as the president’s “drill baby drill” agenda takes effect.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Burgum, who leads the Interior Department and chair of Trump’s National Energy Dominance Council, said: “It’s all about supply.”
“You want prices to go down? Supply has got to go up,” he said. To this end, he said his agency approved a record 6,000-plus drilling permits on U.S. soil, reversing the Biden administration’s trend of increased regulation that he said had stunted the country’s energy independence.
“We have a temporary blip up now because of the conflict in the Middle East, but as you heard the news earlier this morning, energy prices dropped a lot today, and stock markets [are] up and energy prices down; those are all positive things for working Americans to have those two things happening simultaneously,” he said.
TRUMP’S IRAN STRATEGY SHOWCASES ‘DOCTRINE OF UNPREDICTABILITY’ AMID STRIKE THREATS AND SUDDEN PAUSE
Despite criticism of the president’s actions on the global stage, Burgum said these moves, such as the military intervention in Venezuela and negotiations with leadership, are going to help reduce prices for Americans.
“What happened in Venezuela actually helps Americans a lot because now we’ve got Venezuelan oil flowing towards Gulf of America refineries in Louisiana and Texas,” he said.
Another major policy shift Burgum said he expects to make a big difference for Americans is the administration’s actions to “unleash Alaska.”
“The Biden administration had taken over 70 legal actions, executive orders from President Biden to regulatory actions, which were essentially sanctioning Alaska more than we sanctioned Iran during the last administration,” he explained.
Pressed on when Americans can expect to start seeing prices tick back down, Burgum said, “I think we started to see how they were happening and they happened quite effectively over the first year of the Trump administration.” He also pointed out that prices “vary a lot” depending on which state you live in and the extent of regulation and taxes placed on oil and gas production.
“Consumers need to understand that it is not just federal action, but it’s state and local action that’s often driving up the cost of your energy,” he said. “It’s not quite as simple as red state versus blue state. But if you take a look at gas prices before the war, red states were among all the lowest states in the country, blue states were among the highest in terms of that. And it was a reflection of the policies of those state legislatures and those governors that were driving energy prices up.”
US AND IRAN SEND CONFLICTING SIGNALS ON TALKS TO END THE WAR
As an example, he said that just a month ago, gas prices in Iowa were under $2 per gallon, while the price in California was $5.
“California imports 63 percent of its oil from foreign countries,” he explained, adding, “At the time of this breakout with Iran … California, by their own data, provided by the state of California, the number one country they were importing oil from in California was from Iraq.”
“They always brag about, ‘Oh, if we were a country, we’d have one of the world’s largest economies.’ And if they were a county, they would have designed for themselves one of the most energy-dependent and energy-expensive economies,” he said of California.
“They’re not saving the planet by using foreign oil in California when you could have been getting clean, reliable, affordable energy, say from the Permian Basin in Texas or New Mexico,” he continued. “When you think you’re saving the planet by blocking U.S. infrastructure, you artificially raise the prices.”
To push back on this, Burgum said that, authorized by Trump’s energy emergency declaration, Energy Secretary Chris Wright recently ordered California to reopen its Santa Ynez pipeline system to resume pumping domestic offshore oil. The order is being challenged by California in court; however, oil has already begun being pumped.
IRAN CHOKES STRAIT OF HORMUZ WITH REPORTED $2M TANKER TOLL, REGIME THREATENS GLOBAL OIL SUPPLY
He framed the administration’s “energy abundance” agenda as a move back to reality after four years of “climate fantasy” under former President Joe Biden. This move, he said, stands in stark opposition to policies still being pursued in blue states like California.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
“We’re focused on energy reality, which is all Americans deserve and need to have reliable, affordable, and secure energy,” he said. “We’re fighting for every citizen in the country, regardless of what state regime they’re under. Because like I said, every American, no matter where you live, deserves to have affordable, reliable, and nationally secure energy.”
Fox News Digital reached out to spokespeople for Biden and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Defiant Iran vows to fight ‘until complete victory,’ despite heavy military losses
An Iranian military spokesman defiantly vowed Tuesday that Tehran’s armed forces will fight “until complete victory,” despite suffering heavy losses from the joint U.S. and Israeli campaign.
The remark from Maj. Gen. Ali Abdollahi Aliabadi of the Khatam-al Anbiya Central Headquarters, which is Iran’s top military command, comes after President Donald Trump paused planned U.S. strikes on Iran on Monday, citing diplomatic progress.
“Iran’s powerful armed forces are proud, victorious and steadfast in defending Iran’s integrity, and this path will continue until complete victory,” Iranian state television quoted Aliabadi as saying, according to The Associated Press. It added that Aliabadi did not say what “complete victory” would look like.
Operation Epic Fury, which started Feb. 28, has resulted in the destruction of or damage to more than 140 Iranian naval vessels, U.S. Central Command said Monday. In total, more than 9,000 combat flights have been conducted as part of the campaign.
TRUMP’S IRAN STRATEGY SHOWCASES ‘DOCTRINE OF UNPREDICTABILITY’ AMID STRIKE THREATS AND SUDDEN PAUSE
“CENTCOM forces are striking targets to dismantle the Iranian regime’s security apparatus, prioritizing locations that pose an imminent threat,” CENTCOM said.
Targeted assets include Iranian navy ships and submarines, air defense systems, anti-ship missile sites, military communication infrastructure and facilities involved in ballistic missile and drone manufacturing.
On Friday, Trump, speaking about Iran, said, “Their Navy’s gone, their Air Force is gone, their anti-aircraft is all gone.”
JET FUEL PRICES SOAR AS AIRLINES WARN SUPPLIES COULD RUN DRY WITHIN WEEKS
“Their leaders are all gone. The next set of leaders are all gone. And the next set of leaders are mostly gone,” Trump continued. “And now, nobody wants to be a leader over there anymore. We’re having a hard time. We want to talk to them and there’s nobody to talk to.”
Trump also said, “Over the past few weeks, the world has seen the true strength and might of our sailors and aviators as they fought in one of the most complex and successful military operations of all time against the Iranian regime.”
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“And it’s amazing… I don’t want to get too crazy here, not a contest. It’s not even a contest. They do whatever they want,” Trump said.
Retired general calls for US ground operation to seize Iranian island, cut off regime’s ‘economic lifeline’
Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg revealed a “boots on the ground” strategy to forcibly reopen the Strait of Hormuz and keep it open permanently.
The former commander of the Army’s 82nd Airborne argued that troops need to be deployed to take key Iranian islands to break Iran’s control over the oil supply. Kellogg singled out Kharg Island, a vital hub in the Persian Gulf, as a key location for Iran’s oil exports.
“I’m a big believer in putting boots on the ground, not necessarily into Iran. But taking Kharg Island and also taking the Strait of Hormuz,” Kellogg said Tuesday on “Fox & Friends.”
He argued that taking Kharg Island would strip Tehran of its “economic lifeline” and ensure it could no longer hold the global economy hostage. He compared the strategy to tactics used by the Roman legions, noting air and sea power alone can take the military only so far.
AMB. GORDON SONDLAND: THE TRUTH ABOUT IRAN’S ‘IMMINENT THREAT’ THAT POLITICIANS HATE TO ADMIT
“Over time, over history, the only way you solve a solution is to put boots on the ground and control the environment,” said Kellogg, who served last year as President Donald Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine.
IRAN REGIME COULD ‘FALL PRETTY SOON,’ VICTOR DAVIS HANSON SAYS, AS GLOBAL TIDE TURNS
“You can do certain things from the air, you can do things from sea, but there’s time you have to occupy land.”
Kellogg acknowledged there’s “always risk involved” when deploying troops but said American service members are ready to take on the threat. He said it’s a necessary step to weaken Iran’s control over global markets.
“They’ve got the ability to do it, the amphibious ready groups of the Marines, they can open up the lower half of the strait,” Kellogg said.
TRUMP’S IRAN STRATEGY SHOWCASES ‘DOCTRINE OF UNPREDICTABILITY’ AMID STRIKE THREATS AND SUDDEN PAUSE
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
“And then I turn around to maybe the 82nd Airborne Division or Rangers or somebody like that to take Kharg Island. I would be able to control, basically, the oil outflow of Iran,” he added.
Kellogg said the operation would give the United States “leverage” to negotiate an end to hostilities.
The proposal comes as Trump delayed his 48-hour ultimatum to Iran to clear the Strait of Hormuz. Instead, he directed the Department of Defense to pause attacks on Iran’s power infrastructure for five days while U.S. and Iranian negotiators hold talks.
Olympians condemn IOC for statement on Iran’s execution of 19-year-old wrestler Saleh Mohammadi
Seven Olympians from multiple countries, including three gold medalists, have condemned the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for its response to the execution of Iranian wrestler Saleh Mohammadi.
After Mohammadi was reportedly hanged in public last week, the IOC released a statement that said, “It is very difficult to comment on situations of individuals during a conflict or unrest in a country without the IOC being able to verify the often contradicting information…
“The IOC, as a civil, non-governmental organization, has neither the remit nor the ability to change the laws or political system of a sovereign country.”
Now, the seven Olympians are sharing their objections to the IOC not condemning Iran for the execution.
The IOC told Fox News Digital it stood by its original statement.
Nancy Hogshead, three-time US Olympic gold medal swimmer
“I’m flabbergasted that the IOC could not denounce the murder of a teenage wrestler in Iran. The governing organizations of the Olympics are non-political, but denouncing the murder of an athlete for political purposes is not political… it is just doing the right thing,” Hogshead told Fox News Digital.
“Olympians deserve better. The IOC can and should stand against the execution of athletes by violent regimes for political purposes.”
Tyler Clary, US gold medal swimmer at London 2012
“The IOC’s statement reads like corporate damage control, not moral leadership,” Clary told Fox News Digital.
“Hiding behind neutrality and bureaucracy isn’t leadership, it’s avoidance. The IOC says it doesn’t have the authority to influence sovereign nations, but it has never hesitated to take strong positions when it suits its interests. To suddenly claim impartiality when an athlete is killed shows a lack of backbone and a failure to stand up for the very people who make the Olympic movement possible.”
Maciej Czyzowicz, Poland Olympic gold medal pentathlete at Barcelona 1992
“The International Olympic Committee’s lack of action and resolve is outrageous. Iran should be banned from the Olympic Games for its behavior, unless the regime is overthrown and a new leadership comes to power,” Czyzowicz told Fox News Digital.
“If the IOC is unable to stand up for the life of an innocent teenage athlete, it has completely lost all moral credibility. With this statement they showed that they don’t care if any of Olympic movement countries break human and civil rights.”
Keith Sanderson, US Olympic shooter, four-time Olympian
“This is sort of par for the course with the IOC. They enrich themselves at the expense of athletes and cannot even stand up and say that any regime, including Iran, murdering a teenage athlete is categorically wrong,” Sanderson told Fox News Digital.
“The IOC has been known to be corrupt for years, but this is beyond the pale. If the IOC wants to show any shred of morality or credibility, they should denounce this murder and impose sanctions on Iran until their leadership changes or they apologize for this brutal execution.”
Ruben Gonzalez, Argentina Olympic luge athlete, four-time Olympian
“The IOC’s refusal to speak out against Iran for killing the teenage wrestler is shameful. But that’s how they’ve always been. All they care is about themselves,” Gonzalez told Fox News Digital. “As far as the IOC’s concerned, the athletes are simply pawns that allow them to profit. Time and again, it has put its own interests ahead of the athletes it claims to represent. If the IOC has any integrity left, it should publicly condemn the act and take decisive action against Iran.”
Katie Uhlaender, US skeleton athlete, five-time Olympian
“The IOC’s claim that they are just a ‘civil organization’ is a convenient excuse for inaction. They used it to dodge accountability for the Russian state-sponsored doping crisis, and they are using it now regarding the safety of Iranian athletes. Whether it’s doping in China, competition manipulation in Canada, or the stolen moments of U.S. skaters in 2022, the pattern is the same: the IOC cannot or will not protect the people who make the Games possible,” Uhlaender told Fox News Digital.
“If the IOC insists that athlete protection is a state responsibility, then the United States has an opportunity to lead by example as it heads into LA 2028. It’s time to stop waiting and start setting the standard for athlete safety and integrity ourselves.”
Eli Bremer, US modern pentathlete at Beijing 2008
“I’ve believed IOC has been morally bankrupt for years and thus not had particularly high expectations for them. That said, I assumed the murder of a teenage athlete by his own country would be something even the IOC could figure out and denounce,” Bremer told Fox News Digital.
“The fact that they cannot come out and say that Iran’s murder of this teenager who had become a national icon is wrong simply confirms how completely out of touch this organization is. I believe sports organizations generally should stay out of politics. But they can and should stand on basic humanity and say that murdering athletes is wrong. The fact that the IOC cannot do this speaks volumes about them.”
Afsoon Roshanzamir Johnston, Iranian-born Team USA Olympic women’s wrestling coach at Rio 2016
“As an Iranian-born world-class athlete, coach, and trailblazer for women in wrestling, I am profoundly disappointed by the International Olympic Committee’s recent statement regarding the execution of 19-year-old young wrestler, Saleh Mohammadi,” Johnston told Fox News Digital.
“By framing its role as a ‘non-governmental organization’ without the remit to influence national affairs, the IOC is stepping away from the very principles of the Olympic charter. The charter aims to promote a ‘peaceful society, concerned with the preservation of human dignity,’ yet when a young champion is barbarically and publicly hanged by a state-sanctioned execution, ‘quiet diplomacy’ feels painfully inadequate.
“Political neutrality should not result in passivity when athletes face terrorist state-sanctioned brutality. Such a ‘safe’ response sends a troubling message to athletes in Iran and elsewhere; that the life and safety of the athlete is secondary to organizational protocol.
“We don’t need the IOC to change a country‘s laws, we need them to stand up and use their immense platform to support and help protect athletes.”
What happened to Saleh Mohammadi?
Mohammadi was killed in a public hanging Thursday, according to Iranian American human rights activists and dissidents.
Iran International reported that Iran’s regime hanged Mohammadi and two additional Iranian men, Mehdi Ghasemi and Saeed Davoudi, “after being accused of killing two police officers during nationwide protests earlier this year,” the judiciary-linked Mizan news agency reported.
Mohammadi previously told Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting that his dream was to be an Olympic champion.
Mohammadi won a bronze medal in September 2024 for Iran’s national freestyle wrestling at the Saytiyev International Cup in Krasnoyarsk, Russia.
Red wealth, dark money: How an American tycoon deploys Mao’s playbook against the West
As CodePink co-founders Jodie Evans and Medea Benjamin ended their activist group’s pilgrimage to communist Cuba yesterday, their sojourn reflected a strategy years in the making: a “united front” aligning far-left, socialist and communist revolutionaries across borders.
In late October 1944, Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong delivered a speech, outlining a strategy to unite disparate groups under a shared ideological framework, telling followers: “For this struggle a broad united front is indispensable.”
More than two decades later, in 1966, Cuban leader Fidel Castro convened revolutionaries in Havana for the Tricontinental Conference, where he pledged “support to any revolutionary movement in any corner of the earth,”
And more recently, an American-born Marxist businessman named Neville Roy Singham sold his technology company, Thoughtworks, for an estimated $785 million in 2017, and a Fox News Digital investigation reveals that he set about building his own version of Mao’s united front.
The investigation, using large language models to analyze hundreds of pages of tax records, organizational messaging, online content and historical records, found Singham pumped at least $278 million into a layered network of 2,000 nonprofits, think tanks, activist groups and media organizations with shared messaging and ideology matching the communist ideals of Mao and Castro, operating across borders while appearing independent. What emerges isn’t a loose coalition but a tightly-knit system.
At the time of the sale, Thoughtwork’s chief scientist, Martin Fowler, acknowledged the proceeds would fund Singham’s “activist work.” The sale created a war chest that would flow into the constellation of nonprofits that now comprise the “House of Singham.”
Policymakers and law enforcement officials have gotten a glimpse into pieces of Singham’s influence, from anti-Israel protests in the U.S. to a propaganda machine in India and the hijacking of a labor union in South Africa. But the broader picture is more expansive: a transnational network buried in layer upon layer of companies entangled with shared leaders, shared addresses and a shared mission to spread Marxism and promote China as a global counterweight to the U.S. in a new Cold War.
IRS records show that three entities transferred $278 million from 2017 through 2023 into six core U.S. nonprofits in Singham’s network, but those six nonprofits haven’t operated in isolation. They have functioned as hubs in a broader system, receiving and redistributing funding, and coordinating activity across a widening network of affiliated groups.
POWER COUPLE OF CHAOS: HOW A TYCOON AND ACTIVIST BUILT A ‘REVOLUTIONARY BASE’ AT THE HOUSE OF SINGHAM
‘United Front’ of Friends and Family
In 2017, when Singham married Evans, he relied on many of their wedding guests as lieutenants, consiglieres, strategists, propagandists and field marshals to mobilize thousands of foot soldiers to promote China’s interests. One recurring theme is promotion of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a global infrastructure and trade effort designed to expand China’s economic and geopolitical influence.
Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Washington, D.C., told Fox News Digital, he wasn’t familiar with “the specifics of this particular case.”
Pengyu added that China “welcomes and hopes that more people in the United States will view China in an objective and fair light, and lend their voices to the sound and stable development of China–U.S. relations.”
Rep. Jason Smith, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, has described Singham as “an individual who lives in Shanghai, maintains business ties with companies and individuals linked to the CCP, works with and physically alongside a foreign propaganda company, and attends CCP forums on how to promote the party abroad.”
According to people familiar with the transactions, Singham used GS Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund For Wealth Management Inc., affiliated with Goldman Sachs Group Inc., to anonymously direct tax-deductible donations to a new tranche of nonprofits established after his marriage to Evans. Goldman Sachs spokesman Tony Fratto said that the company’s philanthropy arm “terminated” Singham’s donor-advised fund in February 2024.
FAR-LEFT ACTIVIST GROUP FACES BACKLASH OVER ‘TONE-DEAF’ PROTESTS AT CUBA LUXURY HOTEL
Shell-Like Companies
Fox News Digital also identified two fly-by-night companies – Likewise Conceptions LLC and Mutod LLC – that appear in the network’s financial architecture.
Likewise, Conceptions listed an address outside Chicago, while Mutod used the address of a hotel in downtown Chicago. Two other organizations linked to Singham used a hotel and a cocktail lounge as addresses. Fox News Digital reviewed incorporation papers, state registrations, property records and other open-source materials but couldn’t identify meaningful public footprints for either entity. Singham and Evans didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Those entities functioned as conduits, moving large sums into nonprofits that would then redistribute funds across additional layers of the network.
Over months of reporting, Fox News Digital built organizational charts tracing the network’s structure. At least 18 guests from the “Jodie and Roy” wedding of “One Love” in Jamaica appear within a wider network of about 80 people serving in core leadership across about 15 central organizations.
The network includes members of Singham’s family, including his son Nathan Singham, his niece Alicia Singham Goodwin and his sister, Shanti Singham, who has academic ties to East China Normal University in Shanghai. The university, which is administered by the Chinese Community Party (CCP), co-sponsored the Global South Academic Conference where Singham appeared last fall, lambasting the U.S. as a “fascist” nation. East China Normal University didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The wider circle of wedding guests included actor Danny Glover, playwright Eve Ensler, now known as V, and “Democracy Now” TV host Amy Goodman.
Another guest, Ben Cohen, the co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, has more recently appeared, getting arrested with CodePink activists as he interrupted Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. during a congressional hearing over Gaza and then called for the defunding of ICE earlier this year.
FBI agents arrested another wedding guest, Ibrahim AlHusseni, last year for alleged securities fraud and he later entered a guilty plea. Late last year, Evans allegedly helped pay his $3 million bail, according to court-related reporting. He is scheduled to be sentenced in July.
Within this period, the People’s Forum’s organizing work and BreakThrough News coverage became central to nationwide demonstrations, coordinated through the Party for Socialism and Liberation and the ANSWER Coalition.
FOX NEWS DIGITAL ANALYSIS: HOW MINNEAPOLIS AGITATOR NETWORKS USE INSURGENCY TACTICS TO HINDER ICE
US Nonprofit Dollars Tied Up in China’s State Investment Firm
One of the nonprofits Singham funded immediately in 2017 with his newfound wealth was Tricontinental Ltd., based in Massachusetts, led by his friend and wedding guest, Vijay Prashad. It was named for the 1966 Tricontinental Conference.
In a letter to one of the Singham organizations, Tricontinental, Smith warned that “interlocking ownership and management roles” across the entities suggest a strategy to embed CCP propaganda “under the guise of independent scholarship and commerce.” Tricontinental hasn’t made any public responses to the letter, but it posted a video from Brazil last month on Instagram, inviting followers to read the “Communist Manifesto” for “Red Book Day.”
Fox News Digital found that one nonprofit that Singham funded, the People’s Support Foundation, reported investments for years in the China-U.S. Industrial Cooperation Partnership Parallel LP, an investment vehicle tied to a partnership between Goldman Sachs and the China Investment Corporation, the state-sanctioned investment arm of the Chinese Communist Party.
In its 2019 tax filing, the People’s Support Foundation disclosed a $75,165 holding. By 2024, the holding had grown to $410,484, according to tax records.
The amounts were modest. But they placed a Singham-linked nonprofit inside a financial structure designed to blend U.S. private-equity management with Chinese state capital during a time of heightened national security scrutiny. While the records do not prove coordination or intent, they reveal overlapping interests at a sensitive geopolitical intersection.
In 2019, that partnership purchased Boyd Corporation, a California-based manufacturer.
Fratto said those investments were legal and “intended to increase foreign direct investment in the United States.” He added the investments “don’t confer any control over the companies by an individual investor.”
People’s Forum – A ‘United Front’ at W. 37th Street
Less than three weeks after the Singham-Evans wedding, on Feb. 27, 2017, the People’s Forum was registered in New York state, according to state records.
Singham initially funneled $2.5 million into the People’s Forum. It had some familiar names on the board: Evans and Claudia De la Cruz, a wedding guest and a leader in two organizations that would become critical in sowing mayhem on the streets of the U.S., the People’s Forum and the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
Another key board member was Manolo De Los Santos, a self-avowed Marxist born in the Dominican Republic. Outside the People’s Forum headquarters in New York City recently, he refused to answer questions from a Fox News Digital investigative team.
De Los Santos has publicly posted photos of himself with Venezuelan leader Nicholas Maduro, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel and Fernando Gonzalez, one of the “Cuban 5,” Cuban intelligence officers arrested in 1998 in the U.S. for spying and later convicted.
Brian Becker, a longtime Marxist organizer, also became a key figure around the People’s Forum, turning it into a base for expanding protest infrastructure he’d already cultivated with the ANSWER Coalition and Party for Socialism and Liberation, organizing anti-American demonstrations as the son of an American Marxist leader from the 1960s. He also refused to answer questions from Fox News Digital, calling a journalist a “terrorist.”
Ismail Royer, a former extremist imprisoned for supporting the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group in Pakistan, remembers Becker and his socialist crew taking over protests and telling Muslim groups to step aside.
“They told us, ‘Just show up. We’ll take care of everything,'” Royer told Fox News Digital.
Over the following years, Singham doled out a total of $22.4 million to the People’s Forum, according to Fox News Digital’s analysis.
The organization operated not just as a physical space, but as a coordination hub in the emerging Mao-style united front, linking funding, messaging and protest activity. It was also moving money into protest infrastructure, including funding tied to large demonstrations.
‘Build Unity…’
In its first year, the People’s Forum said it spent $428,470 developing a space to “foster collaboration and exchange between diverse social movements,” to “build unity across historic lines of division at home and abroad” and “nurture the next generation of visionaries and organizers who believe that through collective action, a new world is possible.”
In late 2021, the People’s Forum hosted a day-long conference on “China and the Left,” featuring Singham’s friend, Prashad, the Qiao Collective and Tings Chak, Prashad’s colleague at Tricontinental with close ties to academic institutions in China.
Sessions included “Poverty Alleviation in China,” China “as a Model for Third World Development” and “China as a Challenge to Capitalism.”
The day’s speakers blasted “The U.S. Hybrid War on China,” “Anti-Asian Violence” in the U.S. and an American bias they dubbed “yellow peril.”
In 2023, the People’s Forum gave the ANSWER Coalition’s fiscal sponsor, Progress Unity Fund, $26,400 it raised at the anti-Israel “National March on Washington” on Nov. 4, 2023, less than a month after the Oct. 7 attack. It wasn’t a lot of money, but the payment reveals the way these organizations work in lock-step with each other.
The next year, Progress Unity Fund reported a $267,756 payment to the ANSWER Coalition for “mobilizing hundreds of thousands of people in a [sic] mass actions in Washington, D.C. and around the country,” according to its tax filing.
It gave $35,000 to BreakThrough BT Media Inc., which broadcast the anti-U.S. protests to the world.
Not long ago, according to property records, the People’s Forum purchased a multi-million dollar building on 14th Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
Overlapping Funds, Personnel and Agendas
Fox News Digital found that Singham allegedly used two mystery companies to pour money into another new nonprofit, the People’s Support Foundation Ltd., again with Evans on the board, along with former Thoughtworks executives.
IRS filings show that in 2017, Mutod LLC, just established on Sept. 11, 2017, in Delaware, transferred $160.2 million into the People’s Support Foundation. In IRS filings, Mutod used the address of a hotel on E. Wacker Drive, suite no. 256.
Meanwhile, Likewise Conceptions LLC, which shared an address with a FedEx store on Liberty Road in Crystal Lake, Il., north of Chicago, poured $3.5 million into the People’s Support Foundation. And Mutod LLC put another $3.8 million into the organization in 2018.
The People’s Support Foundation then became a funding source for another tier of entities with generic names, including the People’s Welfare Association and the United Community Fund.
Both were registered as 501(c)(4) political nonprofits. Both used UPS Stores as mailing addresses. Both included familiar names from the House of Singham on their boards.
They repeated a recurring pattern in the network: new nonprofit layers appear with generic names, limited public footprints and overlapping leadership, as money continues to move outward.
The United Community Fund listed its tax code as “Q01: International, Foreign Affairs, and National Security Alliances and Advocacy.”
The United Community Fund had some strong anti-American voices on its board: Layan Fuleihan, a fiery Palestinian American leader at the People’s Forum who has led virulent anti-Israel protests; and Chak, a trusted figure in the Singham inner circle and Tricontinental official with ties to Chinese universities.
The money flowing from the People’s Support Foundation into the United Community Fund followed a familiar pattern: one layer funding another, with overlapping personnel and funding.
A question hangs over the structure Fox News Digital traced: why does the House of Singham rely on multiple nonprofit layers, recurring addresses and recycled leadership to move money and organize activity?
As the network expanded across nonprofits, media platforms and activist groups, it promoted the old ideas of Mao and the “United Front.” In February, at the launch of a new book, “Tricontinental, Havana 1966,” filled with speeches and documents from the conference, Prashad and De Los Santos regaled an audience at the People’s Forum with stories of the global communist “revolutionaries” at the conference led by “our commander Fidel,” as Prashad described Castro. De Los Santos noted the participants “weren’t armchair leftists,” who were “shifting from one hotel to the other doing international left tourism.”
“We believe strongly that communism is the actual movement of history,” Prashad said.
Cognitive Warfare
Earlier this month, the State Department identified the People’s Forum and CodePink as vectors of threat because of their alignment with the People’s Republic of China. The State Department said the groups “denigrate the United States, whitewash the violence of Marxist regimes, and run cover for narco-terrorists like {former Venezuelan dictator Nicolas] Maduro while enjoying an influx of cash from a donor network with connections to the Chinese Communist Party.”
Meanwhile, the House Ways and Means Committee and House Oversight Committee are investigating the Singham network for potential violations of nonprofit law. Justice, State and Treasury Department officials are also investigating Singham and the organizations he has funded, according to people familiar with the investigations.
Last September, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman James Comer, R-Ky.), and the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets Chairwoman Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to conduct a “comprehensive evaluation to determine whether federal sanctions, civil remedies or criminal penalties—including asset freezes or seizures—should be applied to far-left entities organized and funded by Mr. Singham.”
The Trump administration has precedent to act. The Justice Department prosecuted a nonprofit in USA v. Babakov, ECF for serving “as a front for a global foreign influence campaign to advance Russia’s foreign policy objectives.” That case didn’t have any connection to Singham or his network.
Smith said at a recent hearing, “This is something every American should care about.” The investigations are ongoing, and no one in the Singham network has been charged with any crimes nor has any action been taken against any organizations or individuals in the Singham network. No one from the Singham network has been found liable for any legal violations.
The White House recently created a new National Security Council position, called the “Director of Cognitive Advantage,” held by Shawn Chenoweth, to address what officials describe as information warfare, a critical element of a nation’s “soft power.”
In public remarks, Chenoweth has described the job as putting the “I,” for “information,” back into a national power framework known as DIME: diplomatic, information, military and economic power.
The Singham network sits at that intersection, and as Evans’ and Benjamin’s CodePink delegation departed Cuba, the convoy reflected the outward expression of a structure built over years, following Mao’s strategy of connecting international travel, coordinated messaging and on-the-ground activism in a “United Front.”
“Viva Cuba!” Benjamin shouted from the airport, as her fellow radicals flashed “V” for victory signs.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Zelenskyy says Ukraine has evidence Russia is aiding Iran with intelligence
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whose country has been fighting a war against Russia for years, said Kyiv has evidence that Moscow is supplying Iran with intelligence support.
“Report by Chief of the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine Oleh Ivashchenko. First, we have irrefutable evidence that the Russians continue to provide intelligence to the Iranian regime. Russia is using its own signals intelligence and electronic intelligence capabilities, as well as part of the data obtained through cooperation with partners in the Middle East,” part of a post on Zelenskyy’s X account notes.
“There is growing evidence that the Russians continue to provide the Iranian regime with intelligence support,” Zelenskyy noted in part of another post. “By helping the Iranian regime stay afloat and strike more accurately, Russia is effectively prolonging the war. There must be a response.”
UKRAINE PEACE TALKS ON ‘SITUATIONAL PAUSE’ AS MIDDLE EAST CONFLICT INTENSIFIES: KREMLIN
The U.S. and Israel launched a war against Iran over three weeks ago.
U.S. President Donald Trump indicated in a Monday Truth Social post that the U.S. is engaging in talks with Iran.
TRUMP’S IRAN STRATEGY SHOWCASES ‘DOCTRINE OF UNPREDICTABILITY’ AMID STRIKE THREATS AND SUDDEN PAUSE
In the all-caps post on Monday morning, the president said in the last two days the U.S. and Iran had engaged in discussions about resolving the conflict. He said the talks would continue during the week and that he had ordered the War Department to postpone attacks against energy infrastructure in Iran for five days.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry denied that it is engaging in discussions with America, according to state media, indicating there was “no dialogue” with Tehran and D.C., The Wall Street Journal has reported.
“Yes, there are initiatives from regional countries to reduce tensions, and our response to all of them is clear: we are not the party that started this war, and all these requests should be referred to Washington,” the ministry indicated, according to state broadcaster IRIB, the Journal reported.
TRUMP SAYS ‘HATRED’ BETWEEN PUTIN, ZELENSKYY BLOCKING UKRAINE PEACE DEAL
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
U.S. Central Command noted in a Monday post on X that “U.S. forces continue to aggressively strike Iranian military targets with precision munitions.”
The post included video footage of the strikes.
MORNING GLORY: Trump has restored the GOP as the party of defense and deterrence
As the fourth week of the battle with Iran opened, President Donald Trump announced a window of opportunity for negotiations. With whom no one outside of the president and his closest advisors knows. The president did not halt strikes on Iran, and Israel continued to pound its long list of military targets as well as the regime’s massive apparatus of repression while the U.S. focuses on degrading the military-industrial capacity of the mullahs. Iran is a country with shattered defenses and no ability to project targeted force. This was accomplished in three weeks. No wonder someone wants to negotiate even as others tell our left-wing media that Iran is winning.
Commentators have lots of takes, almost invariably driven by their support of, or hatred for, either the president, Prime Minister Netanyahu, Israel as a whole or some combination thereof.
No “takes” matter. The conflict will be judged twice: when major combat operations conclude and a year thereafter. There is an unquestionable level of success in “defanging” the regime while decapitating its senior leadership. While no civilian can know, we can guess chaos rages within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (“IRGC”) as it both tries to survive and at the same time sees the command structure that remains jockeying among themselves for power in a post-war Iran.
PENCE BACKS TRUMP’S IRAN STRIKES, SAYS PRESIDENT ‘IGNORED’ GOP ISOLATIONISTS
Among the crucial results achieved thus far is clarity about the Iranian regime. It can never be trusted by anyone within striking distance of its missile array. It has no boundaries on which countries it will attack and zero concern for civilians. Like its proxies in Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, the IRGC will hide among the civilian population to save their skins. Their “battle plan” is simply to spray missiles far and wide and threaten the Strait of Hormuz. That’s it. That’s what they have left.
It’s not nothing. They may cause a global recession. They have certainly incentivized the construction of alternative delivery routes for oil and natural gas. Even if the Strait is opened via combat operations and warship escorts, if the Iranian regime remains in power, it will be a priority for the impacted sellers and buyers of Gulf energy to diversify delivery and supply.
But the regime has been conclusively proven to be frail on the offense, and thoroughly penetrated at every level. The Americans and Israelis know almost everything there is to know about the Iranian leadership, and they will have the same degree of knowledge about the C Team that is stood up if any regime survives at all. The powers that remain long ago lost the support of the Iranian citizenry and now the world knows it has almost zero striking power left and only one card — the ability to threaten the Strait.
A regime that murdered 35,000 of its own people for protesting its many failures is living on borrowed time. The president and the prime minister can escalate or accept a truce, can destroy the country’s power grid or simply pulverize the length of the Strait. Eventually, the near-collapse of the facade of power will be as complete as that of Hamas.
TRUMP DELAYS XI MEETING AS IRAN CONFLICT LETS US STRONG-ARM CHINA’S OIL SUPPLY
In undertaking this mission, President Trump fully restored the American deterrent that was forfeited by President Biden’s collapse in Afghanistan. Trump demonstrated again the remarkable power of the American military and solidified the most important relationship with America’s most important and powerful ally — Israel.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION
He has also exposed the hard truth — difficult for people who recall Margaret Thatcher, Francois Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl among others — of the sclerosis that has seized most of “old” Europe. The frontline states — Poland, Finland and Sweden, are the new cornerstones of “new Europe” and Ukraine may be counted on their rank. The old allies? We would be fools to trust in them to be of any help in a crisis with China. They are spent.
With all that clarity comes one more impossible-to-deny truth. With America involved in a battle with a terrorist regime, the Democrats repeatedly chose in vote after vote to keep the Department of Homeland Security shuttered and unfunded. It is a ridiculous and wildly irresponsible political stunt, of course, as the entire party has crumbled into a hot mess of extreme positions of the left on every issue. There is simply no trusting the Democrats to put aside partisanship even in a time of raging battle. Extraordinary and unprecedented, but undeniable and true.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
The Pentagon has asked for $200 billion in additional funding to cover the conflict with Iran. I hope President Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader Thune resolve on a reconciliation process to provide that (and more if needed) as well as Department of Homeland Security funding for a few years and push it through as quickly as possible. If the GOP focuses on security at home and abroad, it will reclaim a chance to hold its own come November.
Voters may not care for this or that about President Trump and the GOP, but the spectacle of the Democrats risking America to make talking points for MS-NOW audiences should leave an enduring impression: The Republicans are the party of security at home and abroad. The Democrats couldn’t care less.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM HUGH HEWITT