The Senate will likely have a few Cabinet nominees who are relatively non-controversial. In the interest of time, senators could agree to expedite the process and confirm an individual nominee or several nominees by voice vote or unanimous consent.
As long as there are no objections among all 100 (currently 99) senators.
This speeds things up in the Senate, where floor time is at a premium.
However, there’s a good reason why some Democrats may oppose a streamlined process for this.
It’s not because they’re trying to clog up the Senate plumbing. Democrats may demand a roll call vote on nominees they support in order to show that they voted in a bipartisan fashion to confirm some of President-elect Donald Trump’s nominees.
Democrats are likely to reject the nomination of Pete Hegseth to be Defense secretary. However, other relatively easy to confirm nominees like Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., picked to serve as secretary of state, or Sean Duffy for Transportation secretary, could require roll call votes.
As a result, Democrats can then argue that they voted in favor of "X" number of Mr. Trump’s nominees – and argue they operated in a bipartisan fashion.
"Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a proposed rule that, if finalized, would make cigarettes and certain other combusted tobacco products minimally or nonaddictive by limiting the level of nicotine in those products. If finalized, the United States would be the first country globally to take such a bold, life-saving action to prevent and reduce smoking-related disease and death," the FDA said in a statement on Wednesday.
"The FDA first announced its intent to propose such a rule in 2018, and today’s announcement is an important next step in the rulemaking processExternal Link Disclaimer. The agency intends to seek input on the proposal, including through public comment and the FDA’s Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee," it added.
The "Tobacco Product Standard for Nicotine Level of Certain Tobacco Products" cleared a regulatory hurdle earlier this month. The rule is not yet published or finalized.
"Multiple administrations have acknowledged the immense opportunity that a proposal of this kind offers to address the burden of tobacco-related disease," said FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf, M.D. "Today’s proposal envisions a future where it would be less likely for young people to use cigarettes and more individuals who currently smoke could quit or switch to less harmful products. This action, if finalized, could save many lives and dramatically reduce the burden of severe illness and disability, while also saving huge amounts of money. I hope we can all agree that significantly reducing the leading cause of preventable death and disease in the U.S. is an admirable goal we should all work toward."
The FDA's press release states that "the proposed rule would not ban cigarettes or any other tobacco products," and instead "cap the nicotine level at 0.7 milligrams per gram of tobacco in cigarettes and certain other combusted tobacco products, which is significantly lower than the average concentration in these products on the market today."
Fox News Digital reported earlier this month, when the rule cleared an FDA regulatory review, that if nicotine levels in cigarettes are lowered under federal regulation, experts say cartels running black market sales of cigarettes will likely benefit.
"Biden's ban is a gift with a bow and balloons to organized crime cartels with it, whether it's cartels, Chinese organized crime, or Russian mafia. It's going to keep America smoking, and it's going to make the streets more violent," Rich Marianos, former assistant director of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the current chair of the Tobacco Law Enforcement Network, told Fox News Digital earlier this month.
Marianos said that criminal groups would likely quickly catch on to the proposal if it takes effect and subsequently amplify their tobacco operations – which he says will serve as an economic boon for the criminals.
Americans who want to purchase cigarettes with higher levels of nicotine would then need to go through the illicit channels to obtain them, similar to buying "loosie" cigarettes on the streets of New York, putting average Americans at further criminal risk while also offering them cigarettes that are not regulated and originating from foreign nations.
The Biden administration pushing the cigarette rule at the 11th hour of his administration comes after its previous effort to ban menthol cigarettes in what was described as a "critical" piece of President Biden's Cancer Moonshot initiative. The administration announced last year, however, it was abruptly delaying such regulations as the public decried the move. A handful of groups argued that banning menthol unfairly targeted minority communities, while others argued the ban would open the floodgates to illicit menthol sales.
"This rule has garnered historic attention and the public comment period has yielded an immense amount of feedback, including from various elements of the civil rights and criminal justice movement," Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said at the time. "It’s clear that there are still more conversations to have, and that will take significantly more time."
The state of Massachusetts banned menthol cigarettes and flavored tobacco in 2020, with local police since uncovering illegal menthol cigarette sales in the state, including just this month when a man was busted with 700 packs of unstamped menthol cigarettes, as well as 38 bags of crack cocaine, the Boston Herald reported.
"Mass. banned menthols and dangerous criminals stepped right in to create an illegal supply chain and make millions in the underground market," Marianos' Tobacco Law Enforcement Network posted to X this week about the bust.
Former President Barack Obama signed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act in 2009, which granted the FDA the power to regulate tobacco products. In the years since, the agency has worked to lower nicotine levels, including in July 2017 under the Trump administration, when then-FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb announced it would seek to require tobacco companies to drastically cut nicotine in cigarettes in an effort to help adult smokers quit.
The FDA announced in 2022 plans for the proposed rule that would lower levels of nicotine so they are less addictive or non-addictive.
"Lowering nicotine levels to minimally addictive or non-addictive levels would decrease the likelihood that future generations of young people become addicted to cigarettes and help more currently addicted smokers to quit," FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said at the time.
EXCLUSIVE: A new, GOP-introduced congressional resolution could block President Biden's recent ban on natural gas water heaters, Fox News Digital has learned.
In the waning days of the Biden administration, the Department of Energy announced a new rule banning non-condensing, natural gas-fired water heaters by 2029 in an effort to reduce carbon emissions. Republicans in Congress, however, are seeking to intervene.
On Wednesday, Rep. Gary Palmer, R-Ala., introduced a Congressional Review Act (CRA), which allows Congress to overturn rules enacted by federal agencies to circumvent the administration's appliance crackdown, shared first with Fox News Digital.
"It's a radical ban on water heaters. Another example of government overreach under the Biden administration on their way out the door. They care nothing about consumers," Palmer told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview.
Proponents of Biden's regulation, such as the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, suggest it will eliminate 32 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions from water heaters sold over 30 years.
However, Palmer said it will have serious economic implications on working Americans given the amount a household would have to pay out of pocket for a new water heater that complies with the rule.
The Alabama congressman expressed confidence that the CRA is going to pass in the House, as several other Republican lawmakers have signed on as sponsors.
Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., one of the cosponsors of the CRA, told Fox News that "Joe Biden's last-ditch effort to ban gas water heaters in his final days in office is nothing short of another green energy scam."
"This latest assault on American consumers isn't about saving the planet; it's about control, higher costs, and forcing an unsustainable, radical agenda on every household," Burlison said in a statement shared with Fox News Digital. "It's time we stand up against this tyranny of regulations and protect the freedoms and choices of the American people."
Other Republican co-sponsors include Reps. Julia Letlow of Louisiana, Mike Collins of Georgia, Randy Weber of Texas, Stephanie Bice of Oklahoma, Barry Moore of Alabama, Andy Ogles of Tennessee, Claudia Tenney of New York, Russ Fulcher of Idaho, Jack Bergman of Michigan, Dan Crenshaw of Texas, Michelle Fischbach of Minnesota, Jeff Hurd of Colorado, and Jim Baird of Indiana.
The National Propane Gas Association also supports overturning the ban, telling Fox News that it "threatens to eliminate the non-condensing instantaneous gas water heaters market."
"This rule would compel families to replace their existing equipment with unnecessary expensive retrofits, imposing an undue financial burden for a marginal level of energy savings and questionable economic benefits," Steve Kaminski, president and CEO of the National Propane Gas Association told Fox News Digital.
Biden has introduced regulations on several different household appliances during his term, such as washing machines, gas stoves, and ceiling fans.
However, the Republican-controlled congress is reportedly going to be "very aggressive in rolling back" some of the regulations that evolved from Biden's climate agenda, Palmer said.
CIA nominee John Ratcliffe is telling senators on Wednesday about how he’ll reshape the intelligence community in what he calls "the most challenging national security environment in our nation’s history."
Ratcliffe, who served as director of national intelligence during President-elect Trump's first term, is testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee. The committee will then vote on his nomination before a full Senate vote to confirm him as director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Ratcliffe ticked off the nation’s biggest threats – China, the border, the Russia-Ukraine war and risk of nuclear fallout, Iran, North Korea and "increasing coordination among America’s rivals."
At a time when intelligence and law enforcement agencies have found themselves front and center in the political realm, a source familiar with Ratcliffe told Fox News Digital he’s focused on "depoliticizing" the agency, and "eliminating any distractions" to its core mission of obtaining intelligence.
Ratcliffe is also expected to push for more aggressive spying operations, particularly on Beijing, where CCP operatives have been spying on the U.S. for years.
"With Trump and Ratcliffe, the days of China pillaging American companies, infecting American infrastructure, and otherwise targeting and abusing the American people are over. The jackals can only scavenge in the lion's domain for so long before they get their heads ripped off," the source said.
Ratcliffe signaled plans in his opening statement to increase the agency’s capacity to obtain human intelligence "in every corner of the globe, no matter how dark or difficult."
"We will produce insightful, objective, all-source analysis, never allowing political or personal biases to cloud our judgment or infect our product," Ratcliffe will say in his opening statement.
"We will conduct covert action at the direction of the president, going places no one else can go and doing things no one else can do. To the brave CIA officers listening around the world, if all of this sounds like what you signed up for, then buckle up and get ready to make a difference. If it doesn’t, then it’s time to find a new line of work."
Ratcliffe said he would try to recruit agents that could be described as "a Ph.D. who could win a bar fight," but promised to fully investigate anomalous health incidents like Havana Syndrome.
Ratcliffe also hopes to increase coordination with the CIA and the private sector – potentially through rotations that allow CIA agents to do a stint in the private sector or allowing private employees at AI and tech companies to join the CIA in mid-career appointments, according to the source.
Ratcliffe's hearing is expected to have a more policy-heavy focus than some of Trump's more controversial nominees like Pete Hegseth, picked to lead the Defense Department. Hegseth faced senators on the Armed Services Committee on Tuesday where he was questioned on his drinking, sexual assault allegations and reports of financial mismanagement.
Trump's choice to oversee all intelligence agencies, Tulsi Gabbard, has also been met with skepticism by some in the Senate over her past opposition to U.S. surveillance laws and seeming closeness to U.S. adversaries, in particular a meeting she took with former Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. She's since walked back her opposition to a surveillance program known as Section 702.
Gabbard's hearing is not yet on the books, neither is Trump's nominee to lead the FBI, Kash Patel.
Trump's national security nominees are in lockstep on at least one thing – the threat of China – and the need to update technologies and defenses to thwart the CCP's chronic attacks on U.S. infrastructure.
"We have to stop trying to just play better and better defense," Mike Waltz, Trump's national security adviser pick, recently told FOX Business. "We need to start going on offense."
President-elect Donald Trump's transition team tapped a former senior health official from Trump's first administration and an ally to top Trump loyalist, Harmeet Dhillon, to be Health and Human Services Secretary-nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s chief of staff, a new report indicated Monday.
Heather Flick, a lawyer who previously served in multiple top roles at the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department during the first Trump administration, has been working closely with Kennedy over the last few weeks as an informal chief of staff, according to Politico. The outlet added Monday that she had been tapped by Trump's transition team to fill the role permanently, according to four sources familiar. The announcement has yet to be made public.
Meanwhile, the law firm that currently employs Flick, as well as its founder, congratulated her on the new position this week on their social media accounts. Fox News Digital reached out to the Trump-Vance transition team for confirmation but did not hear back in time for publication.
Flick's selection to work in Trump's second administration is just the latest pick among a list of Trump loyalists who have been given jobs in the administration during his second term. When Flick first joined the Trump administration, she was HHS' acting general counsel before becoming its acting secretary for administration and then eventually a senior adviser to then-HHS Secretary Alex Azar.
Before joining HHS the first time, Flick was an attorney at Dhillon Law Group, a firm founded by Dhillon, who Trump has tapped this time around to be his assistant attorney general.
Dhillon has represented clients in big conservative civil rights cases and defended Trump supporters in court. During the pandemic, she challenged Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom's stay-at-home orders, and in 2020, she served as the co-chairwoman of Lawyers For Trump, a conservative group of lawyers supporting Trump throughout the 2020 election. Most recently, Dhillon helped lead Trump's election integrity team in Arizona during the 2024 election.
"Heather Flick is outstanding and will most definitely help soon to be Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.," former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn said in a post on X after news of Flick's new role.
Flick's appointment comes amid rumblings from some of Kennedy's allies that he could advance an agenda that is not completely in line with the Trump world, but rather more centered around Kennedy's priorities, Politico reported.
The potential HHS secretary has been taking meetings with lawmakers on Capitol Hill recently in an attempt to shore up support. Democrats and Republicans have both been very critical of the HHS secretary-nominee's opinions about vaccines, while Republicans have also been probing Kennedy during meetings about his past pro-choice views on abortion.
Critics of Kennedy have questioned his ability to handle major crises like the COVID-19 pandemic and posited that Kennedy pushes conspiracy theories about things like vaccines and antidepressants. Meanwhile, business leaders have suggested there is reason to worry as well, on account of past claims Kennedy has made about the dangers of food additives, pesticides and vaccines.
Flick will be tasked with helping Kennedy clean up some of those criticisms. One former Food and Drug Administration Official, granted anonymity to speak openly, told Politico that depending upon how involved HHS Secretaries are in the agency's work, their chief of staff can end up being "very, very involved."
"On really high-profile things, if she’s an effective chief of staff, she could be super involved," the former official added. "I certainly saw that happen across multiple administrations."
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