As the deadline to avert a partial government shutdown approaches and President Donald Trump urges Republicans to support passage of a funding measure, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., has declared that he will oppose the proposal.
"Unless I get a lobotomy Monday that causes me to forget what I’ve witnessed the past 12 years, I’ll be a NO on the CR this week. It amazes me that my colleagues and many of the public fall for the lie that we will fight another day," Massie declared in a post on X.
President Donald Trump has urged Republicans to pass the measure.
"The House and Senate have put together, under the circumstances, a very good funding Bill ("CR")! All Republicans should vote (Please!) YES next week," the president said in a Truth Social post.
"Great things are coming for America, and I am asking you all to give us a few months to get us through to September so we can continue to put the Country’s "financial house" in order. Democrats will do anything they can to shut down our Government, and we can’t let that happen. We have to remain UNITED — NO DISSENT — Fight for another day when the timing is right. VERY IMPORTANT. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"
House Freedom Caucus chair Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., is supporting the funding measure.
"Congress must keep the government open so that DOGE can continue to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse in our government. This continuing resolution is necessary to advance President Trump's agenda. I fully support it," Harris declared in a tweet.
The Trump administration's DOGE effort aims to uncover government waste, fraud, and abuse that can be slashed from the federal government.
"Why would I vote to continue the waste fraud and abuse DOGE has found? We were told the CR in December would get us to March when we would fight. Here we are in March, punting again! WTFO," Massie declared in a tweet.
A House Appropriations Committee press release about the measure indicates that it "Ensures a costly government shutdown does not befall the American people," "Enhances defense investments and includes the largest pay raise for junior enlisted troops in over 40 years" and "Increases funding for air traffic control priorities over FY24."
"The bill fully funds the program that provides important nutrition assistance to mothers, infants, and children. It includes a more than $500M increase for WIC, as requested by the Trump Administration, for a total of $7.6B," the press release indicates.
The Arkansas state Senate passed a bill to provide age-appropriate firearms safety instruction to students last week and the Arkansas Department of Education will be working with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission to develop a plan.
Act 229, also known as House Bill 1117, will require public school districts and open-enrollment public charter schools to annually provide students with instruction on firearm safety.
The bill’s sponsors say the idea came from conversations among neighbors.
"All of our children play together and invade whatever home happens to be the play of the day. And in that process, they may go into a neighbor's home and discover that unsecured firearm, and how would they react," said Rep. Scott Richardson.
The bill says it will empower the Arkansas State Game and Fish Commission to work with the Division of Elementary and Secondary Education to create and approve age-appropriate firearm safety courses.
Methods discussed in the bill range from videos to online sources and even mentions the possibility of an off-campus, commission-approved firearm safety course in conjunction with a live-fire exercise or sporting event.
Although these are just options being discussed at this time, the bill does state that if an option of live-fire training is approved, parents will have to give consent.
"If an off-campus, commission-approved firearm safety course is provided in conjunction with a live-fire exercise or sporting event, the provider of the off-campus, commission-approved firearm safety course and the public school district or open-enrollment public charter school in which the participating student is enrolled shall obtain prior written approval from the participating student's parent, legal guardian, or person standing in loco parentis to the participating student," according to the bill.
FIRST ON FOX: A study published this week details the degree to which the Biden administration infused DEI policies into the federal government in a report the authors say can serve as a resource for the Trump administration to continue to identify and "destroy" the practice.
The new study, conducted by the Functional Government Initiative and the Center for Renewing America, identified 460 programs across 24 government agencies in the Biden administration that diverted resources to DEI initiatives.
At least $1 trillion of taxpayer money was infused with DEI principles, the study states.
The study lays out DEI infusion across several federal agencies, including the Defense Department's plan to "integrate environmental/economic justice tools" into training, FEMA’s need to "instill equity as a foundation of emergency management," and the Labor Department's push to "embed equity in a sustainable manner that recognizes the multiple and overlapping identities held by workers."
On his first day in office, President Joe Biden signed Executive Order 13985, which was aimed at carrying out the stated goal of "advancing equity and racial justice through the federal government."
"This order mandated a whole of government approach to injecting DEI philosophy into the federal budget," the study says. "In alignment with this directive, the Biden administration apparently spent trillions in DEI-related initiatives in a manner and at a speed that has shrouded public awareness of the financial burden."
The report outlines how, over the next four years, the amount spent on DEI efforts was "staggering."
"The cumulative budget of these programs exceeds $1.1 trillion," the report says. "However, this figure does not encompass all DEI-related expenditures, nor does it include every program across these agencies. The findings reveal a substantial increase in DEI spending, largely attributable to policy directives under the Biden administration."
"Of the programs identified, 10 are exclusively dedicated to DEI and could be considered for quick elimination; 144 allocate significant resources to DEI initiatives and should be reviewed if those are to be ended; and 306 programs incorporate DEI to varying degrees, though the extent of their DEI focus is indeterminate based on the available documentation."
The report goes department by department and calculates the DEI programs and provides recommendations on how they should be addressed.
"DEI is deeply rooted throughout all aspects of the federal government, and it needs to be eliminated completely," Center for Renewing America senior adviser Wade Miller told Fox News Digital in a statement.
"Thankfully, the Trump administration has already embarked on a vitally necessary complete audit of each and every government program. We offer, in this report, what we hope are additional resources and tools that the new administration and Congress can use to identify, destroy and permanently remove DEI from the federal government."
FGI spokesman Roderick Law explained to Fox News Digital that the dual study "could both expedite the elimination of DEI from the executive branch and show just how quickly pernicious ideologies can spread inside the government."
"The nature of DEI is both divisive and anti-American," Law added, "so why force it onto the military or the Commerce Department or the EPA? After President Biden lavishly funded and pushed these controversial principles into every possible area of government, our hope is that raising these questions and offering Congress and responsible executive branch officials tools and suggestions can keep it from happening again."
The Trump administration has made it a top priority to rid DEI from the federal bureaucracy and the president has signed multiple executive orders aimed at addressing what it argues is a practice that does more harm than good by ignoring meritocracy.
Fox News Digital reached out to Biden's office for comment.
A California sheriff is pushing back against the media narrative about President Trump’s deportations across the country and says that those opposing ICE raids both in the media and on the streets will cause people to get hurt.
"It’s all fearmongering," Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco told Fox News Digital. "So the reality right now is that the only people that ICE are going after are people who have already been deported for criminal issues. That's it. The lie that they're doing raids and that they're just going through communities, that is an absolute lie spread by activists and dishonest politicians."
The Associated Press reported last month that volunteers and activists were attempting to disrupt ICE efforts in Los Angeles by warning residents of ICE’s presence with bullhorns and sirens.
Bianco, who recently announced he is running for governor of California, told Fox News Digital that those who are impeding ICE operations are "guilty of a crime" and could find themselves arrested.
"It's going to get people hurt because the reality is these people all have federal warrants to be deported," Bianco said. "They've already gone through the process. They've already victimized us in the past. They're not here to make a better life for themselves. They were here to victimize us, and a judge has ordered them removed. That's the only people they're going after."
Bianco also warned of the potential danger to the community that impeding ICE actions could cause.
"It's going to cause a confrontation with these federal law enforcement officers and people are going to get hurt," Bianco explained. "Law enforcement is going to get hurt. People are going to get hurt and, more than likely, in some situations, killed, and it is absolutely ridiculous."
Bianco continued, "All of these people, they don't even really know what they're protesting. They're protesting because they're believing dishonest politicians, and they're believing these activist groups, and it's unfortunate. It's very unfortunate."
Trump has continued to make deportations a focal point of his immigration plan and his promised border crackdown appears to be influencing groups of migrants looking to enter the United States illegally.
Despite the increase in criminal illegal immigrants being deported, many of them accused of heinous crimes, many Democrat politicians have pledged to defy his orders and refuse to work with ICE.
"The media should be reporting the truth. The politicians should be telling the truth," Bianco said. "But we know that the only way for these politicians to win is to create this divide. There has to be this emotional divide that separates us from race and with sex and all of these different things, and they believe that that works, and it truly doesn't, and right now it's just placing people in danger."
Missouri residents donating to pregnancy resource centers that do not provide abortions could enjoy significant reductions in their state tax bill if a new GOP bill passes into law.
SB 681, sponsored by state Sen. Jill Carter, a Republican, would establish a 100% tax credit for such donations beginning in 2026, up from a 70% credit for the years 2021 to 2025. Essentially, for every dollar donated, one dollar would be deducted from the taxpayer's annual income tax obligation.
"I think states that are Republican-led are racing to try to figure out how to get more tax dollars back to their communities," Carter told Fox News Digital in an interview Friday. "So, we don't want to shift the burden necessarily to the taxpayer, but to incentivize people being able to say, ‘with my own dollars, I want to invest in these women who are community members,’ and in supporting those things that they also value."
Under Carter's bill, taxpayers can claim up to $50,000 in tax credits each year for donations of at least $100, with any unused credits carrying over to the next year. SB 681 also removes the previous $3.5 million cap on total credits that could be claimed for fiscal years up to 2021. The same bill was introduced in the state House, which passed the tax reform committee last month in a key legislative hurdle.
"We're trying to help people support the values that they believe in by being able to personally invest instead of government doing it for them," Carter said. "I think that's a strong conservative Republican policy and position."
Carter added that Republicans are "in a really transformative stage right now with politics and policy" when it comes to more pro-life options.
In a written testimony submitted to the state House legislature, Alissa Gross, the CEO of Resource Health Services that runs four pregnancy centers in Missouri and a virtual office in Kansas, wrote, "The impact of the tax credits on our organization has been profound."
"We have seen our budget increase dramatically and in return, our ability to impact more men and women for life as well as build healthy families has been substantial," Gross wrote. "We are so grateful for this opportunity and are hopeful for the increase so our reach can grow into the KC area and beyond."
Written testimony submitted by Cindy Speer, a board member and volunteer client advocate at Oasis Resource Center, wrote that her pregnancy center "just completed a debt-free 5000-square-foot center due in large part to the Missouri tax credit."
"Our next phase is housing for these women, many of whom are unable to afford, let alone find a place for themselves and their baby," Speer wrote. "This would be revolutionary in helping guide these women to become productive citizens who can then become role models for their children."
Other written testimonies opposing the bill say they didn't want their tax dollars going toward "unregulated, anti-abortion pregnancy centers" that discourage women from having abortions.
The bill comes after Missouri voters enshrined an abortion amendment into their state constitution – becoming the first state to overrule a near-total abortion ban – during the November general election. Abortion providers have recently resumed their services, which had been outlawed since 2022, but a slew of pro-life bills introduced at the start of the legislative session in January are still coming down the pipeline for consideration.
The package of bills includes two proposed constitutional amendments. The first would ban abortion again, allowing exceptions only for medical emergencies, cases involving fetal anomalies, and certain instances of rape or incest, provided patients present the necessary documentation. A public hearing on the measure was held last month.
Other bills under consideration include a proposal to reclassify the abortion drug mifepristone as a Class IV controlled substance, similar to a Republican-led law passed in Louisiana last year. Another proposed amendment aims to make abortion illegal after a fetus reaches viability, typically around 24 weeks of pregnancy.
Other bills introduced in the state target the timing of abortions, including House Bill 194, which would ban the procedure once a fetal heartbeat is detected. Attorney General Andrew Bailey vowed after the election to continue enforcing the abortion ban after fetal viability.
"Under the express terms of the amendment, the government may still protect innocent life after viability," Bailey wrote. "The statutes thus remain generally enforceable after viability."
Several other states also passed abortion amendments in November, including Arizona, Colorado, Maryland and Montana.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January, titled the "Enforcing the Hyde Amendment," which revokes two 2022 executive orders from the Biden administration that had expanded access to abortion services. By reinstating the Hyde Amendment, the executive order prohibits federal funding for elective abortions, aligning with long-standing policies that prevent taxpayer dollars from being used for abortions.
Health and Human Services Department (HHS) employees have been offered up to $25,000 to part ways with the agency in order to help it downsize under President Donald Trump's plans to shrink the federal workforce.
In the email sent on Friday, the HHS, which is led by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., said it has received authorization from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to offer Voluntary Separation Incentive Payments.
The OPM "allows agencies that are downsizing or restructuring to offer employees lump-sum payments up to $25,000 as an incentive to voluntarily separate," according to the email. This incentive is aimed at those who are in surplus positions or have skills that are no longer needed within their department.
The payment is available to most employees within the HHS, which includes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Employees also have the option to take the payment if they are eligible for optional or early retirement, according to the OPM's website.
"By allowing employees to volunteer to leave the Government, agencies can minimize or avoid involuntary separations through the use of costly and disruptive reductions in force," the website stated.
There are around 80,000 people currently working for the HHS in some capacity, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The offer becomes available on Monday and forms must be submitted to local HR offices by Friday at 5 p.m.
The HHS is the second-costliest federal agency and accounts for 20.6% of America's budget for Fiscal Year 2025 with $2.4 trillion in budgetary resources, according to USASpending.gov. Most of that money is spent by the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services.
The only agency with more spending power is the Department of the Treasury.
President Donald Trump said the U.S. has "just about" lifted the intelligence pause on Ukraine, adding that his administration has to do anything it can to get Ukrainians serious about making a deal to end the war with Russia.
"You know, I say they don’t have the cards. Nobody really has the cards," Trump told reporters during a gaggle on Air Force One on Sunday evening. "Russia doesn’t have the cards…What you have to do is you have to make a deal, and you have to stop the killing. It’s a senseless war, and we’re going to get it stopped."
On Friday, Fox News Digital learned from three sources familiar with the situation that the U.S. was continuing to share some defensive intelligence with Ukraine to protect it against incoming Russian strikes.
Federal intelligence, the work of the CIA, FBI and human intelligence, and data that helps with offensive Ukrainian strikes against Russia had already been paused.
When asked during the gaggle if he would consider lifting the intel pause on Ukraine, Trump said the U.S. had.
"We, we just about have. I mean, we really just about have," he said. "And we want to do anything we can to get Ukraine to be serious about getting something done."
Trump also noted that he thinks Ukraine will sign the minerals deal, but he wants them to want peace at the moment.
When asked how Ukraine should show it wants peace, Trump said they have not shown it to the extent he thinks they should.
"I think right now they haven’t, but I think they will be, and I think it’s going to become evident over the next two or three days," the president said, adding that we have to have peace over anything. "This week, hundreds of people died in cities in Ukraine, and we got to get it stopped. It would have never happened if I was president."
During the nearly 10-minute gaggle with reporters, Trump fielded questions on a variety of topics, including the types of sanctions or tariffs he may impose on Russia.
The president explained that he and his team had been looking at their options, but his focus was on a few big meetings coming up in Saudi Arabia, which will include Russia and Ukraine.
"We’ll see if we can get something done," Trump said. "A lot of people died this week, as you know, in Ukraine – not only Ukrainians but Russians. So, I think everybody wants to see it get done. We’re going to make a lot of progress, I believe, this week."
Trump was also asked what he would say to Americans watching their retirement accounts freefall from their highest in years amid concerns about tariffs.
The president told the reporter the tariffs "are going to be the greatest thing we’ve ever done as a country," adding that they will "make our country rich again."
The tariffs, Trump explained, will bring companies and factories back, noting that 90,000 factories in the U.S. had closed since the beginning of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the U.S., Canada and Mexico, which was in effect from 1994 to 2020.
At the end of his time with reporters, Trump was asked if he was worried about a recession, after hesitating on the same question when asked by FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo.
"Of course you hesitate. All I know is…we’re going to take in hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs, and we’re going to become so rich you’re not going to know where to spend all that money," Trump said. "I'm telling you; you just watch. We're going to have jobs. We're going to have open factories. It's going to be great."
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem tapped a new director and deputy director to lead U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as she works to reinstate a culture of results and accountability under President Donald Trump’s administration.
Noem announced the appointments on Sunday, saying Todd Lyons will serve as acting ICE director, and Madison Sheahan will serve as the deputy director of ICE.
"For the past four years, our brave men and women of ICE were barred from doing their jobs—ICE needs a culture of accountability that it has been starved of under the Biden Administration," Noem said. "Todd Lyons and Madison Sheahan are work horses, strong executors, and accountable leaders who will lead the men and women of ICE to achieve the American people’s mandate to target, arrest and deport illegal aliens."
In a press release, Homeland Security said Lyons currently serves as the acting executive associate director of ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO).
He has served in a variety of other roles within ICE, including assistant director of field operations for ERO, where he oversaw all 25 field offices and domestic operations across the U.S. Prior to that, Lyons worked as the ERO field office director (FOD) in the Boston field office, where he oversaw ERO activities in Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Vermont.
Lyons started his career in federal service in 1993 as a member of the U.S. Air Force, and in 1999, he went into civilian law enforcement in Florida. Lyons joined ERO as an ICE agent in Dallas, Texas, in 2007.
Sheahan and Noem have worked together in the past, though most recently the new deputy director of ICE has served as the secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, where she oversaw a $280 million budget and led a team of over 800 employees across wildlife, fisheries and enforcement divisions.
She helped establish the Special Operations Group inside the enforcement division, which places priority on public safety through historic partnerships with federal, state and local law enforcement agencies when major events like Mardi Gras and the Super Bowl take place in The Big Easy.
Sheahan also advised Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry in her role.
Prior to that, she worked for then-South Dakota Gov. Noem in various leadership positions, including the state Republican Party and on special initiatives aimed toward advancing Noem’s agenda.
Sheahan and Lyons did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comments on their new positions.
Noem served as South Dakota governor from January 2019 to January 2025, when she was sworn-in as the nation’s eighth Department of Homeland Security chief.
She was the fourth member of the Trump administration to gain approval from the Senate, and is leading the department at a time when securing the border and tackling illegal immigration are top priorities for the new administration.
The administration has taken a number of actions to secure the border, including deploying the military, restarting wall construction and ending Biden-era parole programs.
U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) Secretary Pete Hegseth said Sunday that his department "does not do climate change crap," but instead focuses on things like warfighting and training.
The secretary was responding to a post from CNN’s Haley Britzky, who shared a story about the DOD and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cutting programs in the Pentagon that deal with climate change.
"The DOD and DOGE have said they plan to cut climate programs in the Pentagon – but officials & experts are warning that climate efforts at DOD are directly linked to military readiness, and say cuts could put troops and military operations at risk," Britzky wrote.
CNN reportedly reached out to the Pentagon with a list of questions about military readiness, Britzky added.
DOGE, which is being led by billionaire Elon Musk, and the DOD have been working together to slash wasteful spending, DOD spokesman Sean Parnell said in a video posted to social media last week.
He listed some of the initial findings flagged by DOGE, which consisted of millions of dollars given to support various diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, including $1.9 million for holistic DEI transformation and training in the Air Force and $6 million to the University of Montana to "strengthen American democracy by bridging divides."
Also, among the findings was $1.6 million to the University of Florida to study the social and institutional detriment of vulnerability in resilience to climate hazards in Africa.
"This stuff is just not a core function of our military," Parnell said. "This is not what we do. This stuff is a distraction from our core mission."
"We believe these initial findings will probably save $80 million in wasteful spending," he added.
Hegseth said his agency would work with DOGE, which has conducted reviews of the Treasury, Labor, Education and Health departments, as well as at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Office of Personnel Management and Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
He added that many DOGE workers are veterans, and it is a "good thing" that they will find deficiencies.
"They care just like we do, to find the redundancies and identify the last vestiges of Biden priorities — the DEI, the woke, the climate change B.S., that's not core to our mission, and we're going to get rid of it all," Hegseth said.
Fox News Digital’s Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
Failed Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams is facing condemnation from conservatives after she appeared on MSNBC to defend a $2 billion initiative under the Biden administration's EPA to purchase green energy appliances for Americans.
"Stacey Abrams linked Power Forward Communities received $2 billion in tax dollars in 2024 after reporting just $100 in revenue the year before. They were so unqualified that the grant agreement required the NGO to complete ‘How to Develop a Budget’ training within 90 days," EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in comment provided to Fox Digital on Sunday.
"$2 billion in hard earned tax dollars should not have been doled out to this organization for many reasons, especially if they don’t even know how to put together a budget. The Biden EPA ‘gold bars’ scheme is riddled with self-dealing and conflicts of interest, unnecessary middlemen, unqualified recipients, and massively reduced government oversight. The funds are currently frozen, and the DOJ and FBI are investigating."
Zeldin's response followed Abrams joining MSNBC on Friday to defend the Biden administration granting $2 billion last year to a group called Power Forward Communities.
The group is a consortium of housing nonprofits, such as Habitat for Humanity International, United Way Worldwide and Rewiring America. Abrams reportedly "played a pivotal role" in establishing the group, according to a LinkedIn post by Ian Magruder, who works at one of the coalition's partners, Rewiring America, Fox Digital previously reported.
Abrams worked with Rewiring America to bring energy efficient appliances to a Georgia community in 2023 and 2024, she said on MSNBC while defending the billions in funds provided to Power Forward Communities.
"What is this organization? What is your relation to to it? And what does it do," MSNBC's Chris Hayes asked Abrams during the program.
"In 2023 and 2024, I led a program called Vitalizing De Soto. We worked in a tiny town in south Georgia to demonstrate that by replacing energy-inefficient appliances with efficient appliances, you can lower your cost. And in fact, we accomplished that for 75% of the community. They got appliances that are lowering their bills," Abrams said, explaining one woman in the Georgia town saw her energy costs slashed by half due to the project.
Abrams continued that the project was so beneficial to Americans, that a coalition of organizations joined forces to call on the EPA under the Biden administration to copy the program and deliver the same results nationwide.
"Based on that program, a coalition of organizations – famous organizations – came together and said to the EPA, 'If we can do this here, we can do this for millions more Americans. Let us invest the money of America in lowering the cost for Americans.’ And the EPA said, ‘OK, great, go for it.’ And they then granted those dollars to this coalition of organizations who came together, bringing 250 years and $100 billion worth of experience to doing this project," she said.
The $2 billion was used for the "decarbonization of homes" in low-income communities and paid for new household appliances, such as water heaters, induction stoves, solar panels, EV chargers, and weatherization, according to an April 2024 press release from Power Forward Communities.
Power Forward Communities CEO Tim Mayopoulos told Politico last month that Abrams did not receive funds from the EPA grant.
"Stacey Abrams has not received a penny of this EPA grant," he said last month. "It was never the plan for her to receive any money from this grant. Power Forward Communities has no relationship with Ms. Abrams, other than the fact that she’s one of the people who have advised one of our coalition members in the past."
Conservatives on social media slammed Abrams over the media interview, as critics asked why the EPA didn't provide rebates to Americans who purchased energy-efficient appliances, while others remarked the initiative was intended to "buy votes" in Georgia, which was a battleground state during the 2024 election cycle.
Fox Digital reached out to the PR firm representing Abrams for comment on the matter on Sunday afternoon, but did not immediately receive a reply.
Abrams argued in the MSNBC interview that conservatives, such as Zeldin and President Donald Trump, are "angry" over the funds provided to the group because Democrats "know how to serve the American people and lower their prices."
"What they are angry about is that it's going to work, because we know it can work. And in fact, the hypocrisy is that just today, the EPA quietly released funds for one portion of this program, $7 billion, where $100 million of that will go to West Virginia for solar projects. Another $60 million will go to Alaska for solar projects. They know this works. They know it will reduce cost. They are angry about the fact that it is Democrats who know how to serve the American people and lower their prices," she said.
The interview followed Trump calling Abrams out during his speech to a joint session of Congress last Tuesday.
"$1.9 billion to recently created decarbonization of homes committee, headed up – and we know she’s involved – just at the last moment, the money was passed over — by a woman named Stacey Abrams. Have you ever heard of her?" Trump said during his speech, with some booing Abrams' name as Trump spoke.
The Washington Post ran a fact-check on the remark, giving Trump four "pinocchios" for the comment, arguing Abrams "does not head the consortium; she did not even head one member of the consortium. She was only an adviser. Moreover, the money was delivered nine months before President Joe Biden left office, not at the last moment."
Abrams notably did not distance herself from the project during her interview on MSNBC, instead celebrating her work on Vitalizing De Soto, which she explained led to the creation of Power Forward Communities.
The EPA hit back in its own fact check following the WaPo story that it "is no surprise that the Washington Post continues to toe the line for the radical left and are quick to defend apparent cronyism instead of actually doing the work to investigate on behalf of the American public."
Fox News Digital's Aubrie Spady contributed to this report.
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., has established the beginnings of a maverick reputation in the Senate – as someone willing to stand against his own party.
But this hasn't necessarily lined up with his voting record, particularly on key issues, namely preventing biological males from dominating women's and girls' sports.
Every Democratic senator present, including Fetterman, recently voted to block a bill from moving forward which would have barred men from women's sports.
The measure is supported by the vast majority of Americans, per recent polling by the New York Times and Ipsos. In fact, 67% of Democrats agreed with Republicans that biological males shouldn't be allowed to participate in female sports.
The bill would require Title IX to treat gender as "recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth," and would disallow any adjustment for it to apply to gender identity.
After being elected in 2022, Fetterman started ruffling feathers due to his blunt and vocal support of Israel.
He also made waves in January by meeting with President Donald Trump following his 2024 electoral win.
Recently, he co-sponsored the Republicans' Laken Riley Act, a sweeping immigration enforcement bill, which was ultimately signed into law.
In addition to backing several Trump Cabinet nominees early on, Fetterman hasn't shied away from publicly criticizing his party, particularly after their behavior during the president's joint address to Congress on Tuesday.
"A sad cavalcade of self owns and unhinged petulance. It only makes Trump look more presidential and restrained. We’re becoming the metaphorical car alarms that nobody pays attention to – and it may not be the winning message," the senator wrote on X after Democratic lawmakers caused disruptions.
However, Fetterman's Democratic rebel persona hasn't necessarily been reflected in his voting habits, as was the case with his party-line vote to block the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act.
In 2023, he voted in line with President Joe Biden 97.3% of the time, according to ABC News' 538.
Last year, he didn't make the list of Senate Democrats who most frequently opposed Biden, as compiled by Roll Call. Those who voted against Biden most often included Sens. Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, of Oregon, Peter Welch, of Vermont, and former Sens. Jon Tester of Montana and Sherrod Brown of Ohio. Former West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, both independents, also made the list.
Fetterman's office did not provide comment to Fox News Digital in time for publication.
