WASHINGTON (AP) — The phone rings. It’s the secretary of state calling. Or is it?

For Washington insiders, seeing and hearing is no longer believing, thanks to a spate of recent incidents involving deepfakes impersonating top officials in President Donald Trump’s administration.

Digital fakes are coming for corporate America, too, as criminal gangs and hackers associated with adversaries including North Korea use synthetic video and audio to impersonate CEOs and low-level job candidates to gain access to critical systems or business secrets.

Thanks to advances in artificial intelligence, creating realistic deepfakes is easier than ever, causing security problems for governments, businesses and private individuals and making trust the most valuable currency of the digital age.

Responding to the challenge will require laws, better digital literacy and technical solutions that fight AI with more AI.

“As humans, we are remarkably susceptible to deception,” said Vijay Balasubramaniyan, CEO and founder of the tech firm Pindrop Security. But he believes solutions to the challenge of deepfakes may be within reach: “We are going to fight back.”

AI deepfakes become a national security threat

This summer, someone used AI to create a deepfake of Secretary of State Marco Rubio in an attempt to reach out to foreign ministers, a U.S. senator and a governor over text, voice mail and the Signal messaging app.

In May someone impersonated Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles.

Another phony Rubio had popped up in a deepfake earlier this year, saying he wanted to cut off Ukraine’s access to Elon Musk’s Starlink internet service. Ukraine’s government later rebutted the false claim.

The national security implications are huge: People who think they’re chatting with Rubio or Wiles, for instance, might discuss sensitive information about diplomatic negotiations or military strategy.

“You’re either trying to extract sensitive secrets or competitive information or you’re going after access, to an email server or other sensitive network,” Kinny Chan, CEO of the cybersecurity firm QiD, said of the possible motivations.

Synthetic media can also aim to alter behavior. Last year, Democratic voters in New Hampshire received a robocall urging them not to vote in the state’s upcoming primary. The voice on the call sounded suspiciously like then-President Joe Biden but was actually created using AI.

Their ability to deceive makes AI deepfakes a potent weapon for foreign actors. Both Russia and China have used disinformation and propaganda directed at Americans as a way of undermining trust in democratic alliances and institutions.

Steven Kramer, the political consultant who admitted sending the fake Biden robocalls, said he wanted to send a message of the dangers deepfakes pose to the American political system. Kramer was acquitted last month of charges of voter suppression and impersonating a candidate.

“I did what I did for $500,” Kramer said. “Can you imagine what would happen if the Chinese government decided to do this?”

Scammers target the financial industry with deepfakes

The greater availability and sophistication of the programs mean deepfakes are increasingly used for corporate espionage and garden variety fraud.

“The financial industry is right in the crosshairs,” said Jennifer Ewbank, a former deputy director of the CIA who worked on cybersecurity and digital threats. “Even individuals who know each other have been convinced to transfer vast sums of money.”

In the context of corporate espionage, they can be used to impersonate CEOs asking employees to hand over passwords or routing numbers.

Deepfakes can also allow scammers to apply for jobs — and even do them — under an assumed or fake identity. For some this is a way to access sensitive networks, to steal secrets or to install ransomware. Others just want the work and may be working a few similar jobs at different companies at the same time.

Authorities in the U.S. have said that thousands of North Koreans with information technology skills have been dispatched to live abroad, using stolen identities to obtain jobs at tech firms in the U.S. and elsewhere. The workers get access to company networks as well as a paycheck. In some cases, the workers install ransomware that can be later used to extort even more money.

The schemes have generated billions of dollars for the North Korean government.

Within three years, as many as 1 in 4 job applications is expected to be fake, according to research from Adaptive Security, a cybersecurity company.

“We’ve entered an era where anyone with a laptop and access to an open-source model can convincingly impersonate a real person,” said Brian Long, Adaptive’s CEO. “It’s no longer about hacking systems — it’s about hacking trust.”

Experts deploy AI to fight back against AI

Researchers, public policy experts and technology companies are now investigating the best ways of addressing the economic, political and social challenges posed by deepfakes.

New regulations could require tech companies to do more to identify, label and potentially remove deepfakes on their platforms. Lawmakers could also impose greater penalties on those who use digital technology to deceive others — if they can be caught.

Greater investments in digital literacy could also boost people’s immunity to online deception by teaching them ways to spot fake media and avoid falling prey to scammers.

The best tool for catching AI may be another AI program, one trained to sniff out the tiny flaws in deepfakes that would go unnoticed by a person.

Systems like Pindrop’s analyze millions of datapoints in any person’s speech to quickly identify irregularities. The system can be used during job interviews or other video conferences to detect if the person is using voice cloning software, for instance.

Similar programs may one day be commonplace, running in the background as people chat with colleagues and loved ones online. Someday, deepfakes may go the way of email spam, a technological challenge that once threatened to upend the usefulness of email, said Balasubramaniyan, Pindrop’s CEO.

“You can take the defeatist view and say we’re going to be subservient to disinformation,” he said. “But that’s not going to happen.”

NEW YORK (AP) — When Amrita Bhasin, 24, learned that products from South Korea might be subject to a new tax when they entered the United States, she decided to stock up on the sheet masks from Korean brands like U-Need and MediHeal she uses a few times a week.

“I did a recent haul to stockpile,” she said. “I bought 50 in bulk, which should last me a few months.”

South Korea is one of the countries that hopes to secure a trade deal before the Aug. 1 date President Donald Trump set for enforcing nation-specific tariffs. A not-insignificant slice of the U.S. population has skin in the game when it comes to Seoul avoiding a 25% duty on its exports.

Asian skin care has been a booming global business for a more than a decade, with consumers in Europe, North and South America, and increasingly the Middle East, snapping up creams, serums and balms from South Korea, Japan and China.

In the United States and elsewhere, Korean cosmetics, or K-beauty for short, have dominated the trend. A craze for all-in-one “BB creams” — a combination of moisturizer, foundation and sunscreen — morphed into a fascination with 10-step rituals and ingredients like snail mucin, heartleaf and rice water.

Vehicles and electronics may be South Korea’s top exports to the U.S. by value, but the country shipped more skin care and cosmetics to the U.S. than any other last year, according to data from market research company Euromonitor. France, with storied beauty brands like L’Oreal and Chanel, was second, Euromonitor said.

Statistics compiled by the U.S. International Trade Commission, an independent federal agency, show the U.S. imported $1.7 billion worth of South Korean cosmetics in 2024, a 54% increase from a year earlier.

“Korean beauty products not only add a lot of variety and choice for Americans, they really embraced them because they were offering something different for American consumers,” Mary Lovely, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said.

Along with media offerings such as “Parasite” and “Squid Games,” and the popularity of K-pop bands like BTS, K-beauty has helped boost South Korea’s profile globally, she said.

“It’s all part and parcel really of the same thing,” Lovely said. “And it can’t be completely stopped by a 25% tariff, but it’s hard to see how it won’t influence how much is sold in the U.S. And I think what we’re hearing from producers is that it also really decreases the number of products they want to offer in this market.”

Senti Senti, a retailer that sells international beauty products at two New York boutiques and through an e-commerce site, saw a bit of “panic buying” by customers when Trump first imposed punitive tariffs on goods from specific countries, manager Winnie Zhong said.

The rush slowed down after the president paused the new duties for 90 days and hasn’t picked up again, Zhong said, even with Trump saying on July 7 that a 25% tax on imports from Japan and South Korea would go into effect on Aug. 1.

Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia subsequently reached agreements with the Trump administration that lowered the tariff rates their exported goods faced — in Japan’s case, from 25% to 15% — still higher than the current baseline of 10% tariff.

But South Korea has yet to clinch an agreement, despite having a free trade agreement since 2012 that allowed cosmetics and most other consumer goods to enter the U.S. tax-free.

Since the first store owned by Senti Senti opened 16 years ago, beauty products from Japan and South Korea became more of a focus and now account for 90% of the stock. The business hasn’t had to pass on any tariff-related costs to customers yet, but that won’t be possible if the products are subject to a 25% import tax, Zhong said.

“I’m not really sure where the direction of K-beauty will go to with the tariffs in place, because one of the things with K-beauty or Asian beauty is that it’s supposed to be accessible pricing,” she said.

Devoted fans of Asian cosmetics will often buy direct from Asia and wait weeks for their packages to arrive because the products typically cost less than they do in American stores. Rather than stocking up on their favorite sunscreens, lip tints and toners, some shoppers are taking a pause due to the tariff uncertainty.

Los Angeles resident Jen Chae, a content creator with over 1.2 million YouTube subscribers, has explored Korean and Japanese beauty products and became personally intrigued by Chinese beauty brands over the last year.

When the tariffs were first announced, Chae temporarily paused ordering from sites such as YesStyle.com, a shopping platform owned by an e-commerce company based in Hong Kong. She did not know if she would have to pay customs duties on the products she bought or the ones brands sent to her as a creator.

“I wasn’t sure if those would automatically charge the entire package with a blanket tariff cost, or if it was just on certain items,” Chae said. On its website, YesStyle says it will give customers store credit to reimburse them for import charges.

At Ohlolly, an online store focused on Korean products, owners Sue Greene and Herra Namhie are taking a similar pause.

They purchase direct from South Korea and from licensed wholesalers in the U.S., and store their inventory in a warehouse in Ontario, California. After years of no duties, a 25% import tax would create a “huge increase in costs to us,” Namhie said.

She and Greene made two recent orders to replenish their stock when the tariffs were at 10%. But they have put further restocks on hold “because I don’t think we can handle 25%,” Namhie said. They’d have to raise prices, and then shoppers might go elsewhere.

The business owners and sisters are holding out on hope the U.S. and Korea settle on a lower tariff or carve out exceptions for smaller ticket items like beauty products. But they only have two to four months of inventory in their warehouse. They say that in a month they’ll have to make a decision on what products to order, what to discontinue and what prices will have to increase.

Rachel Weingarten, a former makeup artist who writes a daily beauty newsletter called “Hello Gorgeous!,” said while she’s devoted to K-beauty products like lip masks and toner pads, she doesn’t think stockpiling is a sound practice.

“Maybe one or two products, but natural oils, vulnerable packaging and expiration dates mean that your products could go rancid before you can get to them,” she said.

Weingarten said she’ll still buy Korean products if prices go up, but that the beauty world is bigger than one country. “I’d still indulge in my favorites, but am always looking for great products in general,” she said.

Bhasin, in Menlo Park, California, plans to keep buying her face masks too, even if the price goes up, because she likes the quality of Korean masks.

“If prices will go up, I will not shift to U.S. products,” she said. “For face masks, I feel there are not a ton of solid and reliable substitutes in the U.S.”

AP audience engagement editor Karena Phan in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

This announcement of the Oregon investigation comes after the education department’s Office of Civil Rights received a complaint from a conservative nonprofit group — America First Policy Institute. It alleged the state was violating civil rights law by allowing transgender girls to compete on girls sports teams, according to the Associated Press.

It also comes after accusations against five Northern Virginia counties for allegedly violating Title IX with their transgender bathroom and locker room policies. Earlier in July, the administration sued the California Department of Education for allowing transgender girls to compete on girls sports teams.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon said, “It’s just also making girls feel vulnerable. They don’t want to sit there and have boys watch them undress or have boys undress in front of themWe mean business about this. Title IX9 is very important.”

In a related development, U.S. Olympic officials have adopted a new rule banning transgender women from participating in events. The officials say they have an “obligation to comply” with President Donald Trump’s executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” signed in February.

U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland and President Gene Sykes in a letter emphasized the importance of ensuring fair and safe competition environments for women, according to AP.

Stephanie Turner, a competitive fencer who went viral for taking a knee during a competition rather than face a transgender opponent, expressed relief, saying, “It’s just such a relief now that common sense is prevailing, finally and we can move forward with sports and focus on the amazing talented women who will be completing and be able to showcase female athletic excellence.”

However, the National Women’s Law Center criticized the move, according to AP. Fatima Goss Graves, the group’s president and CEO, wrote, “By giving into the political demands, the USOPC is sacrificing the needs and safety of its own athletes.”

In Oregon, Jessica Hart Steinmann, executive general counsel at the America First Policy Institute, said the investigation by the Department of Education is a step toward restoring equal opportunities for girls and women in sports.

“Title IX was meant to protect girls — not to undermine them — and we’re hopeful this signals a return to that original purpose,” Steinmann said in a news release.

Have a news tip? Contact Kayla Gaskins at kgaskins@sbgtv.com or at x.com/kaylagaskinsTV.  Content from The National Desk is provided by Sinclair, the parent company of FOX45 News.

Lawyers seeking a temporary restraining order against an immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades say that “Alligator Alcatraz” detainees have been barred from meeting attorneys, are being held without any charges and that a federal immigration court has canceled bond hearings.

A virtual hearing in federal court in Miami was being held Monday on a lawsuit that was filed July 16. A new motion on the case was filed Friday.

Lawyers who have shown up for bond hearings for “Alligator Alcatraz” detainees have been told that the immigration court doesn’t have jurisdiction over their clients, the attorneys wrote in court papers. The immigration attorneys demanded that federal and state officials identify an immigration court that has jurisdiction over the detainees and start accepting petitions for bond, claiming the detainees constitutional rights to due process are being violated.

“This is an unprecedented situation where hundreds of detainees are held incommunicado, with no ability to access the courts, under legal authority that has never been explained and may not exist,” the immigration attorneys wrote. “This is an unprecedented and disturbing situation.”

The lawsuit is the second one challenging “Alligator Alcatraz.” Environmental groups last month sued federal and state officials asking that the project built on an airstrip in the heart of the Florida Everglades be halted because the process didn’t follow state and federal environmental laws.

Critics have condemned the facility as a cruel and inhumane threat to the ecologically sensitive wetlands, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Republican state officials have defended it as part of the state’s aggressive push to support President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has praised Florida for coming forward with the idea, as the department looks to significantly expand its immigration detention capacity.

“I have thought on it and prayed about it, and I have decided: I want to serve as your next United States senator, because, even now, I still believe our best days are ahead,” Cooper said in a video posted to his YouTube account on Monday. “The decisions we make in the next election will determine if we even have a middle class in America anymore.

“Politicians in D.C. are running up our debt, ripping away our healthcare, disrespecting our veterans, cutting help for the poor, and even putting Medicare and Social Security at risk, just to give tax breaks to billionaires.”

Cooper hinted at his candidacy at a Democratic fundraiser over the weekend. The official announcement comes days after Axios and The New York Times reported the former governor planned to throw his hat in the ring and run for Republican Sen. Thom Tillis’ seat after Tillis announced his plans not to seek reelection.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) Chair Kirsten Gillibrand released a statement in support of Cooper’s candidacy, saying he has a history of winning tough races and will help flip the seat.

“Gov. Cooper is a formidable candidate who will flip North Carolina’s Senate seat, and his announcement is the latest indication that the Republicans’ Senate majority is at risk in 2026,” Schumer and Gillibrand’s joint statement said, in part.

Although  President DonaldTrump has endorsed Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley to compete for the seat, Whatley has not made an official announcement as of Monday. Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump said last week she decided against a run to instead remain as host for her weekly show,  “My View with Lara Trump,” on Fox News.

Prior to serving as the RNC chair, Whatley ran the North Carolina Republican Party for five years. He grew up in Watauga County in the northwestern part of North Carolina.

Cooper served as North Carolina’s governor from 2017 to 2025 after defeating Republican incumbent Pat McCrory. Before serving as governor, Cooper was the state’s attorney general from 2001 to 2017.

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NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stock indexes are drifting on Monday after the United States agreed to tax cars and other products coming from the European Union at a 15% rate, lower than President Donald Trump had earlier threatened. Many details are still to be worked out, though, and Wall Street is heading into a week full of potential flashpoints that could shake markets.

The S&P 500 was virtually unchanged in midday trading after setting an all-time high every day last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 8 points, or less than 0.1%, as of 11:30 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.2% higher, coming off its own record.

Tesla added 3.5% after its CEO, Elon Musk, said it signed a deal with Samsung Electronics that could be worth more than $16.5 billion to provide chips for the electric-vehicle company. Samsung’s stock in South Korea jumped 6.8%.

Other companies in the chip and artificial-intelligence industries were strong, continuing their run from last week after Alphabet said it was increasing its spending on AI chips and other investments by $10 billion to $85 billion this year. Chip company Advanced Micro Devices rose 3.7%, and server-maker Super Micro Computer climbed 6.7%.

They helped offset a 9.7% drop for Revvity. The company in the life sciences and diagnostics businesses reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than Wall Street expected, but it also gave a forecasted range for profit over the full year whose midpoint fell below analysts’ estimates.

Companies are broadly under pressure to deliver solid growth in profits following big jumps in their stock prices the last few months. Much of the gain was due to hopes that Trump would walk back some of his stiff proposed tariffs, and critics say the broad U.S. stock market looks expensive unless companies produce bigger profits to justify the moves.

Many more fireworks may be ahead this week. “This is about as busy as a week can get in the markets,” according to Chris Larkin, managing director, trading and investing, at E-Trade from Morgan Stanley.

Hundreds of U.S. companies are lined up to report how much profit they made during the spring, with nearly a third of all the businesses in the S&P 500 index scheduled to deliver updates. That includes market heavyweights Apple, Amazon, Meta Platforms and Microsoft. Those companies have grown so huge that their stock movements can almost solely dictate what the overall S&P 500 index does. Microsoft alone is worth roughly $3.8 trillion,

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve will announce its latest decision on interest rates.

Trump has been loudly and angrily calling for the Fed to cut interest rates, a move that could give the economy a boost. But Fed Chair Jerome Powell has been insisting that he wants to wait for more data about how Trump’s tariffs are affecting the economy and inflation before the Fed makes its next move. Lower interest rates can give inflation more fuel, and the economy only recently came out of its scarring run where inflation briefly topped 9%.

The widespread expectation on Wall Street is that Fed officials will wait until September to resume cutting interest rates, though a couple of Trump’s appointees could dissent in the vote. The Fed has been on hold with interest rates this year since cutting them several times at the end of 2024.

This week will also feature several potentially market-moving updates about the economy. On Tuesday will come reports on how confident U.S. consumers are feeling and how many jobs openings U.S. employers were advertising. Wednesday will show the first estimate of how quickly the U.S. economy grew during the spring, and economists expect to see a slowdown from the first three months of the year.

On Thursday, the latest measure of inflation that the Federal Reserve prefers to use will arrive. A modest reading could give the Fed more leeway to cut interest rates in the short term, while a hotter-than-expected figure could make it more cautious.

And Friday will bring an update on how many more workers U.S. employers hired during June than they fired.

Treasury yields held relatively steady in the bond market ahead of all that action. The yield on the 10-year Treasury edged up to 4.41% from 4.40% late Friday. The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for Fed action, rose to 3.93% from 3.91%.

In stock markets abroad, indexes dipped in Europe following the announcement of the trade deal’s framework.

Chinese stocks rose as officials from the world’s second-largest economy prepared to meet with a U.S. delegation in Sweden for trade talks. Stocks climbed 0.7% in Hong Kong and 0.1% in Shanghai.

Indexes were mixed across the rest of Asia, where Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 1.1% for one of the world’s bigger losses.

AP Business Writer Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.

The figures came out before Trump and European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a trade agreement on Sunday. They said the EU has agreed to purchase $750 billion of American energy and invest $600 billion into the U.S. beyond current levels, while the U.S. imposes a 15% tariff on most goods being imported from the EU.

Trump had threatened to place a 30% tariff rate on the EU if it failed to reach a deal with the U.S. Negotiations continue with other countries before Friday’s deadline for trade deals imposed by the Trump administration.

Experts at Bankrate have warned that the cost of Trump’s tariffs on trading partners could ultimately be passed on to American consumers, unless importers or businesses absorb the costs themselves.

Did prices rise in June?

The June Producer Price Index report indicated that producer prices did not rise, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, suggesting the U.S. has so far avoided significant economic fallout from the tariffs.

Morgan Stanley analysts project tariffs could bring in $2.7 trillion over the next decade, according to reporting from Fortune, while the Congressional Budget Office estimates they could reduce the deficit by $2.8 trillion, but also slow economic growth.

“In CBO’s assessment, the changes in tariffs will reduce the size of the U.S. economy — in part because of tariffs imposed by other countries in response to the increases in U.S. tariffs,” said the CBO.

Will prices eventually rise?

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell cited tariffs as a reason for not cutting interest rates, despite a decline in producer-price inflation to 2.3% year over year in June. The potential effect of tariffs on consumer prices could be delayed.

The CBO projects the U.S. GDP will be 0.6% smaller in 10 years because of tariffs. Morgan Stanley has cautioned that investors may be underestimating the long-term risks associated with tariffs.

The bottom line

While tariffs might reduce the deficit by $2.8 trillion over the next decade, financial experts describe them as a tax on imports that could affect consumers’ prices. The CBO anticipates slightly weaker economic growth over time, and although prices are currently down, the Federal Reserve remains cautious about potential inflationary effects from tariffs.

The Federal Open Market Committee meets this week, but don’t expect a rate cut. Economists at EY predict the Fed to deliver two cuts in 2025, one in September and another in December, assuming inflation continues to decline and the labor market shows signs of cooling.

Have a news tip? Contact Emma Withrow at ewithrow@sbgtv.com or at x.com/emma_withrow. Content from The National Desk is provided by Sinclair, the parent company of FOX45 News.

Rosen has helped introduce the Protect DREAMer Confidentiality Act, a bill aimed at preventing the Department of Homeland Security from sharing information about current and prospective DACA recipients with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection or other law enforcement agencies for purposes beyond administering the DACA program.

With more than 100,000 initial DACA applications pending and the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation tactics, many DACA-eligible individuals are concerned about potential retaliation.

The proposed legislation seeks to restore trust in the DACA process.

“The Trump administration’s attacks on law-abiding immigrant communities have DACA recipients living in fear that the data they provided the government will be used to separate them from their families,” Rosen said in a news release. “I’ll always stand with Nevada’s DACA community, and I’ll continue doing everything I can to make sure they can have peace of mind.

“I’m proud to help introduce this important bill to protect the sensitive information of DACA recipients and applicants from being misused by the Trump administration.”

Tricia McLaughlin, Dpeartment of Homeland Security assistant secretary, told NBC News last week that having “DACA does not confer any form of legal status in this country.”

She said “a DACA recipient may be subject to arrest and deportation.”

In June, Rosen marked the 13th anniversary of DACA with a Senate floor speech condemning the Trump administration’s ongoing attacks on the program and advocating for permanent protections.

A White House spokesperson told NBC News in June that DACA wasn’t a priority for the president, who is instead focusing on “deporting criminal illegal aliens.”

Rosen has supported legislation requiring ICE and immigration enforcement agents to clearly identify themselves and their authority, trying to help defend immigrant communities from intimidation and abuse.

She has also supported measures to protect mixed-status families to keep them together and facilitate DREAMers’ ability to work and remain in the United States.

Content from The National Desk is provided by Sinclair, the parent company of FOX45 News.

The president said Harris’ campaign paid the stars millions of dollars for appearances and the money resulted in illegal payments to endorse Harris’ presidential campaign.

“I’m looking at the large amount of money owed by the Democrats, after the Presidential Election,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post over the weekend. “These ridiculous fees were incorrectly stated in the books and records. YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO PAY FOR AN ENDORSEMENT. IT IS TOTALLY ILLEGAL TO DO SO.”

During the 2024 election cycle, Harris drew criticism for more than $165,000 in payments to Beyoncé’s production company, Parkwood Entertainment, for a Houston rally on Oct. 26.

Additionally, Winfrey’s production company, Harpo Productions, was paid $1 million for a live stream event she helped organize.

Harris’ campaign team also sent $500,000 to Sharpton’s National Action Network.

All three had previously backed Democratic candidates.

“Eleven Million Dollars to singer Beyoncé for an ENDORSEMENT (she never sang, not one note, and left the stage to a booing and angry audience!), Three Million Dollars for ‘expenses,’ to Oprah, Six Hundred Thousand Dollars to very low rated TV ‘anchor,’ Al Sharpton (a total lightweight!), and others,” Trump wrote.

It was not immediately clear where Trump got the numbers cited in his post.

“They should all be prosecuted! Thank you for your attention to this matter,” Trump said in the post.

Trump has made similar claims in the past. Last December, he alleged the Harris campaign paid the celebrities for their endorsement, citing different numbers at the time.

He said at the time that Democrats sent “$11,000,000, $2,000,000, and $500,000 to get the ENDORSEMENT of Beyoncé, Oprah, and Reverend Al.”

“Beyoncé didn’t sing, Oprah didn’t do much of anything (she called it ‘expenses’), and Al is just a third rate Con Man,” he said at the time.

The Harris campaign has addressed questions about payments made to Beyoncé’s production company and has denied paying for endorsements.

Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles, has publicly denied reports her daughter was paid up to $11 million to speak at the Harris rally.

Winfrey has also said she “was not paid a dime” to participate in the event with Harris, but rather had production fees covered by the campaign.

Trump’s claims came during a four-day visit to the United Kingdom.

Have a news tip? Contact Anissa Reyes at agreyes@sbgtv.com. Content from The National Desk is provided by Sinclair, the parent company of FOX45 News.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Tom Lehrer, the popular and erudite song satirist who lampooned marriage, politics, racism and the Cold War, then largely abandoned his music career to return to teaching math at Harvard and other universities, has died. He was 97.

Longtime friend David Herder said Lehrer died Saturday at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He did not specify a cause of death.

Lehrer had remained on the math faculty of the University of California at Santa Cruz well into his late 70s. In 2020, he even turned away from his own copyright, granting the public permission to use his lyrics in any format without any fee in return.

A Harvard prodigy (he had earned a math degree from the institution at age 18), Lehrer soon turned his very sharp mind to old traditions and current events. His songs included “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park,” “The Old Dope Peddler” (set to a tune reminiscent of “The Old Lamplighter”), “Be Prepared” (in which he mocked the Boy Scouts) and “The Vatican Rag,” in which Lehrer, an atheist, poked at the rites and ceremonies of the Roman Catholic Church. (Sample lyrics: “Get down on your knees, fiddle with your rosaries. Bow your head with great respect, and genuflect, genuflect, genuflect.”)

Accompanying himself on piano, he performed the songs in a colorful style reminiscent of such musical heroes as Gilbert and Sullivan and Stephen Sondheim, the latter a lifelong friend. Lehrer was often likened to such contemporaries as Allen Sherman and Stan Freberg for his comic riffs on culture and politics and he was cited by Randy Newman and “Weird Al” Jankovic among others as an influence.

He mocked the forms of music he didn’t like (modern folk songs, rock ‘n’ roll and modern jazz), laughed at the threat of nuclear annihilation and denounced discrimination.

But he attacked in such an erudite, even polite, manner that almost no one objected.

“Tom Lehrer is the most brilliant song satirist ever recorded,” musicologist Barry Hansen once said. Hansen co-produced the 2000 boxed set of Lehrer’s songs, “The Remains of Tom Lehrer,” and had featured Lehrer’s music for decades on his syndicated “Dr. Demento” radio show.

Lehrer’s body of work was actually quite small, amounting to about three dozen songs.

“When I got a funny idea for a song, I wrote it. And if I didn’t, I didn’t,” Lehrer told The Associated Press in 2000 during a rare interview. “I wasn’t like a real writer who would sit down and put a piece of paper in the typewriter. And when I quit writing, I just quit. … It wasn’t like I had writer’s block.”

He’d gotten into performing accidentally when he began to compose songs in the early 1950s to amuse his friends. Soon he was performing them at coffeehouses around Cambridge, Massachusetts, while he remained at Harvard to teach and obtain a master’s degree in math.

He cut his first record in 1953, “Songs by Tom Lehrer,” which included “I Wanna Go Back to Dixie,” lampooning the attitudes of the Old South, and the “Fight Fiercely, Harvard,” suggesting how a prissy Harvard blueblood might sing a football fight song.

After a two-year stint in the Army, Lehrer began to perform concerts of his material in venues around the world. In 1959, he released another LP called “More of Tom Lehrer” and a live recording called “An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer,” nominated for a Grammy for best comedy performance (musical) in 1960.

But around the same time, he largely quit touring and returned to teaching math, though he did some writing and performing on the side.

Lehrer said he was never comfortable appearing in public.

“I enjoyed it up to a point,” he told The AP in 2000. “But to me, going out and performing the concert every night when it was all available on record would be like a novelist going out and reading his novel every night.”

He did produce a political satire song each week for the 1964 television show “That Was the Week That Was,” a groundbreaking topical comedy show that anticipated “Saturday Night Live” a decade later.

He released the songs the following year in an album titled “That Was the Year That Was.” The material included “Who’s Next?” that ponders which government will be the next to get the nuclear bomb … perhaps Alabama? (He didn’t need to tell his listeners that it was a bastion of segregation at the time.) “Pollution” takes a look at the then-new concept that perhaps rivers and lakes should be cleaned up.

He also wrote songs for the 1970s educational children’s show “The Electric Company.” He told AP in 2000 that hearing from people who had benefited from them gave him far more satisfaction than praise for any of his satirical works.

His songs were revived in the 1980 musical revue “Tomfoolery” and he made a rare public appearance in London in 1998 at a celebration honoring that musical’s producer, Cameron Mackintosh.

Lehrer was born in 1928, in New York City, the son of a successful necktie designer. He recalled an idyllic childhood on Manhattan’s Upper West Side that included attending Broadway shows with his family and walking through Central Park day or night.

After skipping two grades in school, he entered Harvard at 15 and, after receiving his master’s degree, he spent several years unsuccessfully pursuing a doctorate.

“I spent many, many years satisfying all the requirements, as many years as possible, and I started on the thesis,” he once said. “But I just wanted to be a grad student, it’s a wonderful life. That’s what I wanted to be, and unfortunately, you can’t be a Ph.D. and a grad student at the same time.”

He began to teach part-time at Santa Cruz in the 1970s, mainly to escape the harsh New England winters.

From time to time, he acknowledged, a student would enroll in one of his classes based on knowledge of his songs.

“But it’s a real math class,” he said at the time. “I don’t do any funny theorems. So those people go away pretty quickly.”

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Former Associated Press writer John Rogers contributed to this story. Rogers retired from The AP in 2021.