Fox News' Peter Doocy has some unique insight on former President Joe Biden as questions continue to persist about whether there was a coverup to hide his declining mental state while serving as commander-in-chief.
Doocy, a senior White House correspondent, posted multiple videos to X on Wednesday showing him questioning Biden and the White House about the then-president's cognitive decline.
"I have some unique insight on President Biden, having dedicated six years of my life to covering him," he wrote. "If you are wondering why nobody asked about his mental fitness, and why nobody asked if White House staffers were covering up his decline… then you weren’t paying attention."
In one video, Doocy is seen questioning Biden about Special Counsel Robert Hur's report that concluded that one of the reasons Biden wasn't charged for his handling of classified Obama-era documents found in his former office and at home was because he was a "well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory."
"I'm well-meaning and I'm an elderly man and I know what the hell I'm doing. I put this country back on its feet. I don't need his recommendation," Biden replied.
Doocy then asked how bad Biden's memory was and would he be able to continue to serve as president.
"My memory is so bad, I let you speak," Biden shot back.
Much of the media has been criticized for its reluctance to question Biden or the White House about his health concerns. The former president's health is once again in the headlines after CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios correspondent Alex Thompson's new book, "Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," was released on Tuesday.
The book alleges that Biden’s inner circle concealed his cognitive decline for years and was released just days after news broke that Biden had been diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer.
In one instance, during a news briefing, Doocy questioned then-White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre about a campaign event in which Biden was present.
"At a fundraiser this week, President Biden told donors about how Charlottesville inspired his campaign, and according to the pool, a few mins later he told the story again nearly word for word. What's up with that?"
"What I can tell you is, and I'm going to be careful not to talk about it because this was a campaign event,… the president was making very clear why he decided to run in 2019," Jean-Pierre responded.
In another briefing, Jean-Pierre said Biden was making a "light-hearted joke" and "speaking off the cuff" when she was asked by Doocy about Biden's remarks that his "health is fine. It's just his brain."
In another video, Jean-Pierre was asked about Biden's gaffe when he appeared to mix up French President Emmanuel Macron with François Mitterrand, the former president of France who died in 1996.
"How is President Biden ever going to convince the three-quarters of voters who are worried about his physical and mental health that he's OK even though in Las Vegas he told a story about recently talking to a French president who died in 1996?"
"I'm not even going to go down that rabbit hole with you," she replied.
Doocy also asked if Biden had been tested for Parkinson's Disease or dementia following his disastrous debate performance against then-candidate Donald Trump.
"What we shared with you was comprehensive, but he's had a full physical. We've shown the results of those this past three years," Jean-Pierre said. "We showed it just four months ago, and it is in line with what we have done, similar to President Obama, similar to George W. Bush. We are committed to continue to be transparent. We are committed to continue to show the results of those physicals, and look, it's the president's medical team that makes a decision."
In another briefing, Jean-Pierre was questioned about why Biden was treated by White House staffers "like a baby."
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has been hard at work this week meeting with as many factions within the House GOP as possible to quell concerns ahead of a chamber-wide vote on President Donald Trump’s "big, beautiful bill."
Managing a razor-thin House majority isn’t easy in the best of times, but negotiating the vast tax-immigration-energy-defense-debt limit bill has revealed both old and new fractures within the Republican Conference.
Fox News Digital took a look at what the key factions have been looking for.
The House Freedom Caucus and their allies have been pushing the bill to go further on curbing Medicaid’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) expansion, and implementing work requirements for able-bodied Americans on the government healthcare program sooner than the current bill’s 2029 deadline.
There’s broad consensus among Republicans on needing work requirements for able-bodied Americans on healthcare, but cutting too deeply into the Obamacare-era expanded population has some moderate GOP lawmakers worried.
The conservatives have consistently argued that they are only seeking to reshuffle the program to make it more available for vulnerable people who truly need it, including low-income women and children.
That same group has argued in favor of a total repeal of President Joe Biden’s green energy tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) – a push that has pitted them against Republicans whose districts have businesses that benefitted from those subsidies.
Moderate Republicans in California, New York, and New Jersey have been taking a stand on raising the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap.
SALT deduction caps primarily benefit people living in high-cost-of-living areas like New York City, Los Angeles, and their surrounding suburbs.
Republicans representing those areas have argued that raising the SALT deduction cap is an existential issue — and that a failure to address it could cost the GOP the House majority in the 2026 midterms.
Several of the Republicans vying for higher SALT deduction caps have pointed out that their victories are critical to the party retaining control of the House in 2024.
SALT deduction caps did not exist before Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), which notably instilled a $10,000 ceiling for married and single tax filers.
That cap has been received positively by the majority of Republicans, however – and those in lower-tax, GOP-controlled states have dismissed the push for a higher SALT deduction cap as an unearned reward for Democratic states with high-tax policies.
Republicans in places like Tennessee and Missouri have argued it was their tax dollars subsidizing wealthier, blue-leaning areas’ tax breaks. Blue state Republicans, meanwhile, have contended that they send more tax dollars back to the federal government which in turn helps pay for lower-tax states.
There is some overlap between Republicans looking for more modest cuts to the IRA and those seeking a higher SALT deduction cap – but not completely.
Republicans in swing districts in Arizona and Pennsylvania have argued that upending those tax credits now would harm businesses in their districts that had begun changing their operations already to conform to those new tax breaks.
"Countless American companies are utilizing sector-wide energy tax credits – many of which have enjoyed broad support in Congress – to make major investments in domestic energy production and infrastructure for traditional and renewable energy sources alike," they wrote.
But conservative fiscal hawks pushing for a total repeal said in their own letter that the U.S.' growing green energy sector was the product of government handouts rather than genuine sustainable growth.
"Leaving IRA subsidies intact will actively undermine America’s return to energy dominance and national security," they said. "They are the result of government subsidies that distort the U.S. energy sector, displace reliable coal and natural gas and the domestic jobs they produce, and put the stability and independence of our electric grid in jeopardy."
Singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen continued his criticism of President Donald Trump Wednesday by releasing a six-track digital extended play (EP) that included his political rants while performing in Manchester, United Kingdom, last week.
"The Boss" included four songs on the 31-minute EP, "Land of Hope & Dreams." The songs included "Land of Hope and Dreams," "Long Walk Home," "My City of Ruins" and "Chimes of Freedom."
All four songs were recorded live May 14, 2025, when Springsteen publicly lambasted Trump.
During his intro to "Land of Hope and Dreams," Springsteen said it was great to be back in Manchester, calling on the "righteous power of art, of music, of rock and roll, in dangerous times."
"In my home, the America I love, the America I've written about, that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration," he said. "Tonight, we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American experience to rise with us, raise your voices against authoritarianism and let freedom ring."
Springsteen went on another political rant against Trump and the U.S. government before the E Street Band kicked into the song "My City of Ruins."
"There's some very weird, strange and dangerous s--- going on out there right now," Springsteen told the British crowd. "In America, they are persecuting people for using their right to free speech and voicing their dissent. This is happening now. In America, the richest men are taking satisfaction and abandoning the world's poorest children to sickness and death.
"This is happening now," he added. "In my country, they're taking sadistic pleasure in the pain that they inflict on loyal American workers. They're rolling back historic civil rights legislation that led to a more just and plural society. They're abandoning our great allies and siding with dictators against those struggling for their freedom."
Springsteen also accused the government of defunding American universities that "won’t bow down to their ideological demands."
"They're removing residents off American streets and, without due process of law, are deporting them to foreign detention centers and prisons," he said. "This is all happening now. A majority of our elected representatives have failed to protect the American people from the abuses of an unfit president and a rogue government. They have no concern or idea of what it means to be deeply American.
"The America that I've sung to you about for 50 years is real and, regardless of its faults, is a great country with a great people," Springsteen added. "So, we'll survive this moment."
The crowd responded with applause when Springsteen continued to pontificate his stance on the current administration.
The comments went viral last week, and Trump responded by slamming Springsteen and calling him "highly overrated" Friday.
"I see that Highly Overrated Bruce Springsteen goes to a Foreign Country to speak badly about the President of the United States," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. "Never liked him, never liked his music, or his Radical Left Politics and, importantly, he’s not a talented guy — Just a pushy, obnoxious JERK, who fervently supported Crooked Joe Biden, a mentally incompetent FOOL, and our WORST EVER President, who came close to destroying our Country.
"Sleepy Joe didn’t have a clue as to what he was doing, but Springsteen is ‘dumb as a rock,’ and couldn’t see what was going on, or could he (which is even worse!)? This dried out ‘prune’ of a rocker (his skin is all atrophied!) ought to KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT until he gets back into the Country, that’s just ‘standard fare.’ Then we’ll all see how it goes for him!"
Springsteen declared last year that "I'll be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz" in the presidential election. Harris lost the race to Trump.
Fox News Digital's Greg Norman, Lindsay Kornick and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
Sparks flew on Capitol Hill Wednesday as Education Secretary Linda McMahon faced off with Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J., in a fiery exchange during a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing in the latest clash over the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the Department of Education.
The war of words began when Watson Coleman asked, "Do you believe that there is illegal discrimination against people who are Black or brown, and other types of discrimination in jobs and education in this country?"
Watson Coleman pressed further: "Then can you tell me why the Office of Civil Rights and the Department of Education is being decimated?"
McMahon responded, "Well, it isn’t being decimated. We have reduced the size of it. However, we are taking on a backlog of cases that were left over from the Biden administration."
Watson Coleman grew visibly frustrated and accused the administration of racial bias in immigration and education policies, saying its actions amounted to "favoritism and prioritization of white over color."
In a blistering rebuke, Watson Coleman said, "Your rhetoric means nothing to me. What means something to me is the actions of this administration. I’m telling you, the Department of Education is one of the most important departments in this country. And you should feel shameful to be engaged with an administration that doesn’t give a damn."
McMahon, remaining composed, replied, "I am the secretary of Education who has been approved to run this agency by Congress. And I was appointed by the president. And I serve at his pleasure under his mandate. So, therefore, the direction of his administration is what I will follow."
The exchange came as part of a larger hearing in which McMahon laid out President Donald Trump’s 2026 education budget proposal, which calls for a $12 billion cut to the Education Department, a 15% reduction.
McMahon described her work as the department’s "final mission": to wind it down and restore education oversight to states, parents and local educators.
"Let’s focus on literacy. What we’re seeing in those scores is a failure of our students to learn to read," McMahon said. "We’ve lost the fundamentals."
Chairman Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., praised McMahon’s approach, noting, "Despite $3 trillion in federal education spending since 1980, student achievement has not improved. The answer is not more money. It’s more accountability and local control."
The plan consolidates 18 federal programs into a single $2 billion block grant to states. Democrats labeled the proposal as a backdoor effort to gut federal support for public schools.
On student loans, McMahon said the department has begun recovering repayments after years of Biden-era pauses and confusion.
"Since we restarted collections in May, we have recovered nearly $100 million," she said.
She also defended staffing cuts and administrative restructuring, stating, "We’re delivering on all of our statutory requirements with fewer people and lower overhead."
Republicans on the subcommittee shared their support for charter schools and school choice. McMahon, in agreement, pointed to a proposed $60 million increase in charter school funding.
"We’ve got about a million students on charter school waiting lists," she said. "Parents should be deciding where their children can go to school and get the best education."
Democrats also criticized McMahon for not defending early childhood education, particularly Head Start, even though the program technically falls under the Department of Health and Human Services.
"Every Head Start program in the country has three days of funding. That’s not someone else’s problem. It’s America’s children," said Rep. Josh Harder, D-Calif.
McMahon responded, "The earlier we can start education, the better, but I don’t believe the federal government is responsible for everything. That’s where states can lead."
The Trump administration also defended its position forcefully outside the hearing room.
"On the topic of corruption, let’s not forget that the Department of Education was created by President Carter in an attempt to win voters," Savannah Newhouse, Education Department press secretary, said in a statement to Fox News Digital following the exchange.
"Since then, we have spent over $3 trillion pretending the department is necessary as student learning outcomes have not improved," she continued. "While the congresswoman from New Jersey basks in her five minutes of fame, the Trump administration is working to improve student outcomes and ensure American families have access to the quality education that they deserve."
-Justice Department begins dismissing Biden-era police lawsuits against Minneapolis and Louisville
China is concerned by President Donald Trump's proposal for a new U.S. missile defense system, called the Golden Dome, which is designed to protect against adversarial attacks on America.
Golden Dome has a "strong offensive nature and violates the principle of peaceful use in the Outer Space Treaty," Chinese Foreign Minister Mao Ning said Wednesday.
"The project will heighten the risk of turning space into a war zone and creating a space arms race, and shake the international security and arms control system," Mao said. "We urge the U.S. to give up developing and deploying global anti-missile system."…READ MORE
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Protesters affiliated with several leftist groups, including the People's Action Institute, flooded a Capitol Hill office building in Washington on Wednesday as the House prepared to vote on the "big, beautiful" budget bill backed by President Donald Trump.
Capitol Police have responded to several protests over Medicaid cuts that disrupted activities in Capitol office buildings over the last several weeks.
On Wednesday, protesters affiliated with the People’s Action Institute shut down a hallway in the Longworth House Office Building as part of a protest against cuts to Medicaid in the budget bill.
In a video obtained by Fox News Digital, protesters could be seen blocking a hallway and shouting, "We got the power," while raising their fists. Many protesters held signs reading "Medicaid Cuts Kill."
Capitol Police quickly cleared the protesters from the building; there appeared to be no arrests.
Democrats have been shining a spotlight on portions of the budget bill that restructure Medicaid, the nearly 60-year-old federal government program that provides health insurance for roughly 71 million adults and children with limited income.
The cuts to Medicaid, being drafted in part as an offset to pay for extending Trump's 2017 tax cut law that is set to expire this year, include a slew of new rules and regulatory requirements for those seeking coverage. Among them are a new set of work requirements for many of those seeking coverage.
Wednesday’s protest was not the only one that has disrupted activity in the Capitol office buildings this month. Fox News Digital reported on Medicaid protesters disrupting a budget markup by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on May 13.
Video taken by Fox News Digital of the protests showed Capitol Police attempting to gain control of the situation, shouting repeatedly, "If you’re not getting arrested, then go!"
The video also shows a woman in a wheelchair being removed from the committee chamber while screaming, "They want to kill the disabled, they want to kill the sick, they want to kill the veterans who have fought for us."
Amid the chaos, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., spurred on the crowds, saying, "Keep fighting, stay strong, we’re not going to let them take away healthcare. You are leading the way. Thank you very much."
In response to criticism about disrupting activity in the congressional office buildings, Unai Montes-Irueste, a spokesperson for the People’s Action Institute, told Fox News Digital that "Medicaid cuts kill. Nothing is more disruptive than death."
Montes-Irueste said "there is no congressional district in the country that supports ripping healthcare coverage away from Medicaid recipients so that Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg can buy new yachts."
Despite the accusations that Republicans want to cut Medicaid, Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, told Fox News Digital this month that "Republicans are ending waste, fraud and abuse in Medicaid so the most vulnerable get the care they need."
Hudson said that "Democrats are lying to protect a broken status quo that lets illegal immigrants siphon off billions meant for American families. We’re strengthening Medicaid for future generations by protecting taxpayers and restoring integrity."
The House of Representatives is expected to vote on the budget bill sometime between Wednesday night and Thursday morning, the timing dependent on passage of a rules resolution from the House Rules Committee.
The typically calm confines of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee were the site of several clashes on Wednesday between Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin and Democrats on the panel adjudicating his annual budget request.
Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., rattled off a list of cancers he claimed Zeldin's actions at the agency could cause, remarking the New York Republican must be proud of how many regulations he’s slashed in such a short time.
"Your legacy will be more lung cancer — it'll be more bladder cancer, more head and neck cancer. There'll be more breast cancer, more leukemia and pancreatic cancer, more liver cancer, more skin cancer, more kidney cancer, more testicular cancer, or colorectal cancer — more rare cancers of innumerable varieties. That will be your legacy. … My kids are gonna be breathing that air, just like yours," he said.
"If your children were drinking the water in Santa Ana, Mr. Zeldin… maybe you would give a damn," he said after holding up a glass of water and claiming the EPA’s move toward streamlining its grants and expenditures will lead to a panoply of bad outcomes.
"You need the money for a tax cut for rich people because you’re totally beholden to the oil industry," Schiff fumed, accusing Zeldin of unlawful termination of congressionally appropriated grants.
"You could give a rat’s a-- about how much cancer your agency causes," Schiff said, raising his voice as Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., banged the gavel to note his time was up.
Earlier in the hearing, Zeldin clashed with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., over grant reviews and claimed the administrator couldn’t "get [his] story straight."
Whitehouse appeared to make the claim that the EPA was not individually reviewing each of the grants it was canceling and cited court testimony from Zeldin official Travis Voyles that he had conducted an "individualized review" as of February.
"You guys are gonna have to start getting your story straight," Whitehouse said, "because there are three completely different statements, and they cannot all be true. It cannot be that Voyles personally himself conducted—"
"He did," Zeldin cut in.
"… the review of 781 grants—" Whitehouse continued.
"He did; I did," Zeldin cut in again.
"… and that [Deputy Administrator Daniel] Coogan saw to it that it was individually done," Whitehouse said as the two men talked over each other.
After some more back-and-forth, Zeldin told Whitehouse that it must be a "crazy concept" for him to consider that more than one person could review the hundreds of grants in question and for more than one per calendar day.
Zeldin said he and his EPA colleagues have been "busting their a--" to identify waste and abuse and that Whitehouse was only interested in scoring political points.
"I'm using the facts as your employees stated them," Whitehouse claimed.
"We’re on it every single day, because we have a zero-tolerance policy towards wasting dollars," Zeldin shot back.
"You don't care about wasting money," he went on, adding that he had promised committee member Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., at a prior hearing that he would make reviewing grants in this way a priority of his tenure. "I have to come back here in front of Sen. Ricketts today, and even though you don't care about wasting tax dollars, Sen. Ricketts does."
Fox News Digital reached out to Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.V., chair of the Committee on Environment and Public Works for comment, but did not hear back by press time.
A Texas-based doctor was sentenced Wednesday to 10 yearsin prison for healthcare fraud after he carried out what prosecutors said was a nearly two-decade scheme that involved falsely diagnosing thousands of patients with degenerative diseases and profiting handsomely off their treatments.
Jorge Zamora-Quezada, a rheumatologist licensed to practice medicine in Texas, Arizona and Massachusetts before being stripped of his licenses in each state, raked in hundreds of millions of dollars for the misdiagnoses and treatment he ordered during his roughly 20 years as a medical practitioner. The treatments included punishing rounds of chemotherapy, intravenous infusions, and a battery of other tests, monthly visits, and regular procedures associated with the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, a chronic, autoimmune condition for which there is no cure.
The sentencing, and his earlier court appearances, played out at times like a study in contrasts. Prosecutors detailed his extravagant lifestyle, including a private jet, 13 properties across the U.S., including in Aspen and various towns in Mexico, and a Maserati – while the health of the patients he defrauded continued to worsen.
Prosecutors accused him of taking advantage of vulnerable individuals in Texas, such as teenagers, elderly individuals, and disabled persons, in order to carry out the scheme. Some of them testified at Wednesday’s hearing about the ongoing side effects they suffered as a result of the doctor’s actions, including receiving chemotherapy or IV infusions they did not need.
It’s "one of the most egregious" cases of its kind the Justice Department has brought in this space, Matthew Galeotti, head of the Justice Department Criminal Division, told Fox News Digital in a sit-down interview on Wednesday.
That’s because of "all of the various kinds of misconduct rolled into one," he said, "and because it was pervasive – the scheme lasted more than 18 years."
"By the time you're towards the end of the scheme, he knows the consequences some of these things have had on the victims, and he's going forward anyways," he said of the doctor.
The Justice Department's Criminal Division has been prosecuting this case for years. Unlike other departments, it is one of the few where career and political staff alike are largely in lockstep, with goals and cases that transcend partisan politics and seek instead to hold criminals like the Texas doctor accountable.
Galeotti said he sees the case as emblematic of the Trump administration’s goals to vindicate victims and counter wasteful government spending.
"Even in cases where you don't see this level of misconduct, where you're not prescribing someone chemotherapy medicine that doesn't need it, which obviously sort of stands out on its own, we still have a problem because you were wasting government funds that should be going to actually benefiting patients," Galeotti said.
A separate Justice Department official told Fox News Digital Zamora-Quezada’s case was one of the "most significant" instances of patient harm that he had seen in at least a decade.
"There was testimony about truly debilitating side effects from the medications, things like strokes, necrosis of the jawbone, really the jawbone melting away, hair loss, liver damage," the official said.
The doctor’s actions were seen as particularly egregious, in the Justice Department's telling, because they sought to prey on lower-income communities in Texas, targeting teenagers, elderly persons, and disabled individuals. The doctor also operated in areas with less access to medical care and with fewer native English speakers compared to other parts of the state.
"Of course, it's always the most twisted when you're benefiting from someone else's misfortune – misfortune you caused – and misfortune you used for your own personal enrichment," Galeotti said.
"They're the hallmarks of the worst kind of conduct that you see," Galeotti said.
Zamora-Quezada was convicted by a jury in 2020 of seven counts of healthcare fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud, and one count of obstruction of justice. His attorneys argued that the fraud was not "pervasive" in the way the government made it out to be, according to public court filings.
Prosecutors said Zamora-Quezada purchased condominium properties in vacation towns, including in Aspen, San Diego, and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. They said he commuted to his various doctors’ offices in Texas in a Maserati and a private jet, both emblazoned with his initials, "ZQ." His assets were forfeited after he was charged, prosecutors said.
Meanwhile, they said, while Zamora-Quezada was living a life of luxury, out of nearly 100,000 Medicare patients he treated, Zamora-Quezada diagnosed 72.9% of them with rheumatoid arthritis. Prosecutors compared that data to seven other Texas rheumatologists, who cumulatively diagnosed 13% of their patients with the same condition.
Prosecutors asked for $100 million in restitution, but the judge required him to pay $28 million.
Attorneys for Zamora-Quezada did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
The Trump Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is warning Democrats and leftists doxxing ICE agents and impeding immigration enforcement operations that it is "not playing games."
In response to an online video of a Democratic state representative in Tennessee allegedly stalking ICE agents, DHS said, "This Administration is not playing games with the lives and safety of our ICE officers."
The DHS statement claimed that "people doxxing our officers and impeding ICE operations are siding with vicious cartels, human traffickers, and violent criminals."
The statement came in response to a video posted on social media by Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., allegedly showing Tennessee Democratic state Rep. Aftyn Behn "stalking" ICE agents in the Nashville area.
The video appears to show Behn and another woman in a car saying they were following and "bullying the ICE vehicles and state troopers."
"This is a win," Behn said, laughing.
Ogles said that Behn and her companion were "openly admitting they were trying to stall law enforcement from stopping illegal aliens." Ogles said "this isn’t just reckless, it’s aiding and abetting."
In response to the incident, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Fox News Digital that "attacks and demonization of ICE have resulted in officers facing a 413% increase in assaults."
McLaughlin said DHS "has the ability to trace phone numbers and track location information" and that "any individual who participates in the doxxing of our brave federal immigration agents will be identified and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."
DHS and the U.S. Secret Service on May 1 served a search warrant on the home of a Los Angeles resident accused of posting fliers in various Southern California neighborhoods with the names, photos, phone numbers and locations of ICE officers working in the region.
Earlier this year, anti-ICE activists began putting up posters featuring the personal information of ICE and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) officers working in the Los Angeles and Southern California area.
The posters include the faces of several ICE agents and say, "These armed agents work in Southern California. ICE and HSI racially terrorize and criminalize entire communities with their policies. They kidnap people from their homes and from the streets, separating families and fracturing communities. Many people have died while locked up in jails, prisons, and detention centers."
Abigail Jackson, a spokesperson for the White House, told Fox News Digital that "whether it’s [Minnesota Gov.] Tim Walz slandering ICE officers as ‘Nazis’ or members of Congress physically assaulting them, the Democrat party is truly unhinged, and their dangerous behavior is putting lives at risk.
"They are defending illegal terrorists and attacking those who are keeping Americans safe," Jackson added, noting the administration "will hold anyone accountable who commits a crime against [federal law enforcement officials]."
Behn did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Trump border czar Tom Homan outlined the progress that has been made at the border, and detailed how the president’s "big beautiful bill" could solidify items that have improved border security.
"All those accessories on the border, we can lock it in to make it permanent," Homan explained. "So we're going to put more border walls up. We'll put more water buoys in. That's going to save lives, right, because people see the water buoys, you can't get over them, which many people won't attempt to go into that river, which means we save lives."
According to data from the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), apprehensions at the border are down 93% from April 2024 to April 2025 under the Trump administration. Fulfilling the president’s campaign promise to reign in the heightened flow of illegal immigrants has been one of the administration’s top priorities, and Homan told Fox the "big beautiful bill" will "solidify the success" the numbers are already illustrating.
"[The bill] is going to save lives," Homan said. "It's going to add technology to the existing new border wall that the Biden administration didn't put into the wall. So, it's a smart wall, but Biden stopped the tech equipment from getting embedded in the wall to let us know when someone approaches that wall, climbs the wall, digs under that wall."
Trump’s border czar also pointed out an important element of the legislation, which provides funding for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to purchase beds for illegal migrants who are detained.
"Right now we've got 50,000 people in custody. We're only funded for $34,000. ICE is already in a hole at $500 million. We need 100,000 beds. This bill does that."
The president’s "big beautiful bill" contains many components of Trump’s agenda, including border security, tax policy, debt limit, and defense spending. It has had issues making it through the legislative process as some House Republicans have advocated for provisions such as state and local tax (SALT) deduction caps and spending cuts.
President Trump spoke out strongly against any cuts to Medicaid or SALT deduction caps during his visit to Capitol Hill to rally support for the bill on Tuesday.
As for the border, GOP members whose districts line the southern border spoke out in support of the legislation.
"It may be a big and beautiful bill, but it has the muscle and backbone of historic border security and the ability to deport the millions of criminal illegals Joe Biden let walk into our country," Congressman Darrell Issa, R-California, told Fox News Digital.
Texas Republican Rep. Tony Gonalzes, who represents the largest border district in Congress, also highlighted border elements of the legislation.
"These are exactly the priorities I have fought tooth and nail for during the last four years, and I’m proud to see we’re finally getting it done," Gonzales told Fox News Digital. "My communities along the border will be much better off, and I’m proud to have played a key part in making that happen."
FIRST ON FOX: Republicans outperformed Democrats on voter registration in four key battleground states between the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections, according to research by the American Association of Political Consultants (AAPC).
The bipartisan political consultant non-profit teamed up with analysts from Data Trust, a conservative organization, and Target Smart, which has aligned with Democrats in past election cycles. Compiling data from the 2020 and 2024 elections in Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada and Pennsylvania, the research suggests a national shift in voter registration toward the Republican Party.
"We wanted a bipartisan analysis because there are so many conventional wisdoms this election challenged," Larry Huynh of Trilogy Interactive andDemocrat AAPC Board President said. "The data was pretty clear that the Democrats were caught off guard with voter registration and turnout efforts and failed to mount a sufficiently compelling counter-effort to compete. We should all learn from this and take a deeper dive into our voter registration and turnout operations."
AAPC unveiled the research this week during the 2025 Pollie Awards, a political communications awards program, in Colorado Springs, Colo.
"The Trump campaign and the Republican Party deserve considerable recognition for their voter registration success and turnout efforts and the party should try to build on these successes," Kyle Roberts of AdImpact and the incoming Republican AAPC Board President told Fox News Digital.
From 2020 to 2024, the bipartisan political analysis found the share of registered Democrat voters dropped in all four battleground states. Meanwhile, the share of registered unaffiliated and Republican voters increased in Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada and Pennsylvania, according to the data compiled by Data Trust and Target Smart.
In three out of four of the states analyzed, unaffiliated voters accounted for the largest electoral increase. Democrats saw the largest electoral drop between 2020 and 2024 across the four battleground states, following the same trend as voter registration.
Voter turnout across party lines dropped in three out of the four battleground states analyzed, the data revealed. And while Democrat turnout dropped more than Republican turnout in those three states, the difference was less than a percentage point in every state but Arizona.
Data Trust and Target Smart also analyzed trends across demographic groups, including Black, Hispanic and rural voters. The overall increase in Republican registration, turnout and electoral growth was consistent across the demographic groups analyzed.
President Donald Trump won all seven battleground states in 2024 – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Republicans maintained control of the House of Representatives and won back the Senate.
70% of voters believed the country was on the wrong track and wanted change in the 2024 presidential election, according to Fox News Voter Analysis. The economy and immigration were top issues as Trump tied inflation to President Joe Biden's administration and vowed to secure the border on his first day in office.
As AAPC seeks to analyze Republicans' inroads with swing state voters in 2024, Democrats are facing their own reckoning this week as a new book reveals the alleged "cover-up" of Biden's cognitive decline.
CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios political correspondent Alex Thompson's book, "Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," released on Tuesday, paints an unflattering picture of Democrats' losses in 2024.
While political commentators focus on what Democrats did wrong in 2024, AAPC's new data reveals what Republicans did right on voter registration and turnout.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) opened "Black Americans for Trump" and "Latino Americans for Trump" offices across the battleground states in 2024, seeking to expand their reach among traditionally Democrat voting blocs.
Over 160,000 volunteers joined the RNC's "Protect the Vote" efforts on election integrity in 2024, which included more than 100 lawsuits and recruiting poll watchers across the country. Seizing on Republicans' election distrust following Trump's loss in 2020, the RNC built a coalition of supporters across the country that propelled voters to the polls and landed Trump a win in 2024.
The marquee event in the run-up to potentially passing the so-called "big, beautiful bill" began Wednesday at 3 p.m. ET as House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and members of the Freedom Caucus headed to the White House to meet with President Donald Trump.
The White House is really amping up the pressure now on the Freedom Caucus. A White House statement said, "The Administration strongly supports passage of H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act." It added that "President Trump is committed to keeping his promises, and failure to pass this bill would be the ultimate betrayal. If H.R. 1 were presented to the President, he would sign it into law."
Fox is told that the House GOP brass would like to pass the bill "today." There is an increasing scenario that "today" means very late Wednesday night or the early hours of Thursday morning. They are banking on the idea that pressure from the president will force the Freedom Caucus to vote "yes." They also need to provide a fig leaf for the Freedom Caucus so they can exit these negotiations with a "win."
The Freedom Caucus is upset that the SALT Caucus achieved a victory with an increase in the deduction for state and local taxes. So the Freedom Caucus is asking, "Where is our deal?"
We expect House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to parachute a "manager’s amendment" or two into the bill at the end. This would be introduced before the House Rules Committee and made a part of the bill. The manager’s amendment is essentially the final change to the bill. The key is to make sure that it sweetens the measure in a way that it drags the final outstanding votes across the finish line.
Here’s the dynamic: House GOP leaders are worried about losing members from an attendance perspective on Thursday. So they feel it’s best to move sooner rather than later. Also, there’s the potential of losing votes the longer this sits open. So Republican leaders want to lock this down as soon as possible. That’s why an overnight/early morning scenario is very much in play right now.
Here are the concrete steps which must happen to pass the bill:
– Johnson introduces his manager’s amendment to tweak the bill and court reluctant Republicans to vote yes.
– The Rules Committee incorporates that amendment into the bill.
– The Rules Committee votes on the overall "rule," which sends the "new" version of the bill with the changes via the manager’s amendment to the floor.
– The House debates the "rule" to set the table for the actual debate.
– The House must adopt the "rule" in order to put the bill on the floor. If the Rules Committee fails to send the rule to the floor or if the GOP stumbles in its effort to get it out of the Rules Committee, they’re stuck. So these two procedural steps are crucial.
– The House then debates the bill on the floor, based on the ground rules approved earlier by the rule.
Those are a lot of steps. But things can move very fast when they get these things in place in the House. That’s why Republican leaders want the pressure of the president to force the issue in the next 12 to 24 hours.
That said, there is a distinct possibility of this unfolding overnight or in the wee hours of the morning on Thursday.
There is also a possibility that this stalls, and we are staring at a Thursday night/wee hours of Friday scenario, too.
A U.S. appeals court ordered the Trump administration this week to comply with a lower court judge's order to return a 20-year-old Venezuelan migrant deported from the U.S. to El Salvador in March, marking another setback in legal battles over its use of the Alien Enemies Act.
The 2–1 decision from the 4th Circuit leaves in place U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher’s earlier ruling that Daniel Lozano-Camargo, previously identified in court documents as "Cristian," must be allowed back into the country.
Gallagher, a Trump appointee, ruled that Lozano-Camargo's removal violated an agreement that the Department of Homeland Security struck with a group of other migrants who entered the U.S. illegally as children and later sought asylum. DHS agreed not to deport these individuals, who later sought asylum in the U.S. until their cases could be fully adjudicated in court.
The decision paves the way for the Trump administration to appeal the case to the Supreme Court. In the interim, Gallagher has said she will amend her ruling to set a formal timeline for the government to return the 20-year-old migrant to the U.S.
The Justice Department appealed the case to the 4th Circuit earlier this month.
The majority opinion, published Monday night, rejected its request, stressing what judges said was their role in ensuring the courts have the ability to prevent any attempted "degradation of effective judicial review" by the executive branch.
"As is becoming far too common, we are confronted again with the efforts of the Executive Branch to set aside the rule of law in pursuit of its goals," Judge DeAndrea Gist Benjamin said, writing for the majority. "It is the duty of courts to stand as a bulwark against the political tides that seek to override constitutional protections and fundamental principles of law, even in the name of noble ends like public safety."
"The Government’s breach denied Cristian the benefit of the bargain and the process he was due," Gregory added.
Gallagher ruled in April that the government violated a 2024 settlement between DHS and a group of young asylum seekers, including Lozano-Camargo. Under that deal, DHS agreed not to deport the migrants, all of whom entered the U.S. as unaccompanied children, until their cases were fully heard in court.
Last month, Gallagher said Lozano-Camargo’s deportation was a "breach of contract" since his asylum case had not yet been heard and ordered the U.S. government to arrange for his release. Lawyers for the Trump administration argued Lozano-Camargo was eligible for removal under the Alien Enemies Act, citing his arrest and conviction on cocaine possession charges as recently as January. They also claimed, without evidence, he was a member of a "violent terrorist gang."
Gallagher reiterated her previous decision this month, emphasizing it has nothing to do with the strength of his asylum request in a nod to two apparent low-level drug offenses. Rather, she stressed, it was a matter of due process.
The government is "measuring utility using the wrong yardstick" in this case, she told the administration, adding it is not a case of whether Lozano-Camargo will eventually receive asylum, but the process afforded to him in the interim.
Process, she said, is important for various reasons, noting that even when outcomes in certain criminal cases or trials seem obvious, individuals are still entitled to a trial under U.S. law.
"We don’t skip to the end and say, ‘We all know how this is going to end, so we’ll just skip that part,'" she said.
This was also upheld by the judges of the appellate court.
"The Government's breach denied Cristian the benefit of the bargain and the process he was due," Benjamin said, writing for the majority.
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., introduced a House resolution Wednesday to expel Democratic New Jersey Rep. LaMonica McIver, who earlier this week was served with federal charges for allegedly assaulting law enforcement officers this month while protesting at a federal immigrant detention center.
"On May 9th, McIver didn't just break the law, she attacked the very people who defend it," Mace said in a press release announcing the new House Resolution. "Attacking Homeland Security and ICE agents isn't just disgraceful, it's assault. If any other American did what she did, they'd be in handcuffs.
"McIver thinks being a Member of Congress puts her above the law. It doesn't. She should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."
The Department of Justice announced federal charges against McIver Monday, accusing her of "assaulting, impeding and interfering with law enforcement" earlier this month at a Newark-area immigrant detention center known as Delaney Hall.
McIver was protesting at the detention center with two other members of Congress to conduct what they claimed were their congressionally mandated oversight duties. Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, who was arrested after the incident, later had his charges dropped.
Law enforcement said McIver "slammed her forearm into the body of a uniformed" immigration official while trying to "restrain the agent by forcibly grabbing him." McIver also allegedly tried to block agents from arresting Baraka and, after he was put in handcuffs, allegedly "pushed an ICE officer and used her forearms to forcibly strike the agent."
According to a press release accompanying Mace's resolution, the House of Representatives already has a precedent for expelling members of Congress who have been charged with serious criminal offenses.
"In a time when public trust in government is at a historic low, the House must act decisively," Mace said. "The charges are serious. And the public deserves to know that criminal conduct in the halls of Congress has consequences."
McIver made her first court appearance Wednesday virtually before a United States Magistrate Judge for the District of New Jersey at 11 a.m.
The judge read McIver her rights and the charges against her, later indicating to the member of Congress she would be granted bail and released on her own recognizance as the case makes its way through the courts. But she will only be allowed to travel domestically and must notify the government if she intends to travel internationally for her work duties. A preliminary hearing was scheduled for June 11.
"I think the charges are absurd. You know, it's ridiculous. I was there to do my job along with my other colleagues. We have done this before. This is our obligation to do. It's in our job description to have oversight over a facility. And the entire situation was escalated by ICE," McIver said during an appearance on CNN Tuesday.
"They caused the confrontation. Homeland came and caused this chaos that we see. It was a very tense situation, but it could have been easily not happened. They had every opportunity to not allow this to happen. It was very unnecessary. And it just, once again, we were there to do our jobs," she added.
"And if I'm going to be charged with a crime for doing my job, it just speaks to where we're headed in this country and what we are dealing with as leaders and as Congress members, you know, here in this country."
Fox News Digital has reached out to McIver's office for comment on Mace's resolution.
Vice President JD Vance's suggestion this week that the U.S. could walk away from supporting Ukraine if peace talks with Russia stagnate could serve as catnip for the Kremlin, according to experts who say Russian President Vladimir Putin might choose to smother progress in hopes of getting America to wash "its hands of the war."
WhilePresident Donald Trump has indicated that the U.S. may disengage from the negotiations as a last resort if they prove futile, Vance has taken the rhetoric a step further by saying the U.S. is definitely open to doing so.
"We’re more than open to walking away," Vance told reporters on board Air Force Two on Monday, just moments before a high-stakes phone call between Trump and Putin. "The United States is not going to spin its wheels here. We want to see outcomes."
But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyycautioned that no one wins if the U.S. steps aside from the talks, except for Russia.
"It is crucial for all of us that the United States does not distance itself from the talks and the pursuit of peace because the only one who benefits from that is Putin," Zelenskyy wrote in a Monday post on X.
Vance's remark about abandoning mediation between the two countries would only embolden Russia, even though a lack of U.S. involvement still wouldn't give Putin everything he wants, according to John Hardie, the deputy director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Russia program, a nonprofit research institute based in Washington.
For the moment, Moscow still benefits from U.S. involvement in the talks because the Kremlin wants the U.S. to help advance a deal that benefits Russia and alleviates sanctions, Hardie said.
"But, for the Kremlin, the United States washing its hands of the war would be the next best outcome if it means an end or reduction to U.S. support for Ukraine, especially since President Trump may well move to normalize relations with Russia anyhow," Hardie told Fox News Digital. "So the administration’s threat to walk away risks perversely incentivizing Kremlin intransigence. A better approach would be to ramp up the economic and military pressure on Russia if Putin continues to reject compromise."
Russia still desires normalization with the U.S., which can only happen if the war ends swiftly and relatively amicably, said Peter Rough, a senior fellow and director of the Center on Europe and Eurasia at the Hudson Institute think tank.
"That reset in relations is a giant carrot the administration is dangling in front of the Kremlin," Rough told Fox News Digital. "If the U.S. walks away because Russia will not make peace, however, then that carrot disappears as well."
Rough noted that other administration officials besides Vance, including Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have mentioned the possibility of walking away from a deal, so Vance's comments don't necessarily reflect a huge change in policy. And it's unclear right now what exactly stepping aside would mean.
"The purpose of those comments has been to impress on the Kremlin that U.S. patience is not limitless," Rough said.
Vance hasn't shied away from issuing bold foreign policy statements since becoming vice president. From sparring with Zelenskyy in the Oval Office in Februaryto appearing to counter Trump when Vance remarked in May that the war in Ukraine was far from over after Trump indicated a deal might emerge soon, Vance has been outspoken in a way most vice presidents haven't been.
When asked for comment or if there were any concerns about Vance's Monday statement, the White House referred Fox News Digital to Vance’s office. Vance’s office declined to provide comment when asked if his remarks would encourage Russia to sit the negotiations out and continue its attacks.
Vance has adopted an outspoken approach as vice president, starting off with his fiery February statements at the Munich Security Council in which he asserted that Europe needed to "step up in a big way to provide for its own defense."
That boldness has carried over into the Russia-Ukraine negotiations, where Vance has taken a proactive approach, at times appearing to be forging his own path.
Vance and Rubio engaged in discussions to end the conflict in Ukraine with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Rome on Sunday, among other issues. Vance and Rubio also discussed the Trump administration's efforts to end the war with Vatican prelate Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher on Monday.
Aboard Air Force Two on Monday, Vance said the negotiations had reached "a bit of [an] impasse" between the two countries and that the conflict is not the Trump administration’s war to wage but rather belongs to former President Joe Biden and Putin.
"There is fundamental mistrust between Russia and the West. It's one of the things the president thinks is, frankly, stupid, that we should be able to move beyond," Vance told reporters. "The mistakes that have been made in the past, but ... that takes two to tango."
"I know the president's willing to do that, but if Russia's not willing to do that, then we're eventually just going to have to say ... this is not our war," Vance said. "It's Joe Biden's war, it's Vladimir Putin's war. It's not our war. We're going to try to end it, but if we can't end it, we're eventually going to say, 'You know what? That was worth a try, but we're not doing it anymore.'"
Vance's Monday statement came just before Trump was scheduled to speak with Putin, seemingly undercutting the high-leverage telephone call and also underscoring Vance's influence over foreign policy matters in the White House.
Specifically on Ukraine negotiations, Vance has remained outspoken, engaging in confrontation when Zelenskyy visited the White House in February.
In that exchange, Vance accused Zelenskyy of being "disrespectful" after Zelenskyy pointed out that Putin has a track record of breaking agreements and countered Vance’s statements that the path forward was through diplomacy to end the war in Ukraine.
"Do you think that it's respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country?" Vance asked at the Oval Office meeting.
Almost immediately after the U.S. signed a minerals deal with Ukraine on May 1, Vance said the war in Ukraine wouldn't end in the near future, despite the fact that Trump indicated the previous week that an agreement was on the horizon.
"It’s not going anywhere," Vance told Fox News on May 1. "It’s not going to end anytime soon."
Still, he characterized the agreement as "good progress" in the negotiations.
Trump and Putin spoke over the phone Monday to advance peace negotiations to halt the conflict between Moscow and Kyiv, just days after Russia and Ukraine met in Turkey to conduct their first peace talks since 2022.
After the call, Trump said both countries would move toward a ceasefire and advance talks to end the war.
Meanwhile, Trump has suggested continued U.S. involvement may not be a viable option moving forward, but he has been reticent about specifics on what would actually prompt him to walk away from the talks. For example, Trump said on May 8 in an interview with NBC News that he believes peace is possible but that the U.S. wouldn't act as a mediator forever.
"Well, there will be a time when I will say, 'OK, keep going, keep being stupid," Trump said in the interview.
"Maybe it's not possible to do," he said. "There's tremendous hatred."
Still, Trump signaled that the U.S. would take a backseat in the negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv after his call with Putin.
"The conditions for that will be negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be, because they know the details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of," Trump said in a Monday post on Truth Social.
Trump has continued to distance the U.S. from the conflict, and he later described the conflict as a "European situation."
"Big egos involved, but I think something's going to happen," Trump told reporters on Monday. "And if it doesn't, I'll just back away and they'll have to keep going. This was a European situation. It should have remained a European situation."
Trump also doubled down on extracting the U.S. from the war, claiming it didn't involve U.S. personnel.
"It's not our people, it's not our soldiers … it's Ukraine and it's Russia," Trump said in the Oval Office on Wednesday while hosting South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
According to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, sanctions against Russia could ramp up in the event Russia fails to cooperate.
"President Trump has made it very clear that if President Putin does not negotiate in good faith that the United States will not hesitate to up the Russia sanctions along with our European partners," Bessent said Sunday in an interview with NBC.
Vance has previously said the concessions that Russia is seeking from Ukraine to end the conflict are too stringent but believes there is a viable path to peace and wants both to find common ground.
"The step that we would like to make right now is we would like both the Russians and the Ukrainians to actually agree on some basic guidelines for sitting down and talking to one another," Vance said at the Munich Leaders Meeting in Washington on May 7.
Russia's demands include Ukraine never joining NATO and preventing foreign peacekeeper troops from deploying to Ukraine after the conflict. Russia is also seeking to adjust some of the borders that previously were Ukraine's.
The White House threw its weight behind House Republicans' version of President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill" Wednesday, pressing lawmakers to vote on the measure "immediately."
"The Administration strongly supports passage of H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act," the White House said in a statement of Trump administration policy obtained by Fox News Digital.
"This bill implements critical aspects of President Trump’s budgetary agenda by delivering bigger paychecks for Americans, driving massive economic growth, unleashing American energy, strengthening border security and national defense, (and) preserving key safety net programs for Americans who need them, while ending waste, fraud, and abuse in Federal spending, and much more."
It comes hours after the conservative House Freedom Caucus called for a delayed vote after continued disagreements over rollbacks to Medicaid coverage.
"I'm not sure this can be done this week. I'm pretty confident it could be done in 10 days. But that's up to leadership to decide," House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md., told reporters.
Republicans are working to enact Trump's agenda via the budget reconciliation process, which allows the party in power to pass sweeping legislation without the minority party's input by lowering the Senate's threshold for passage from 60 votes to 51.
Their current multitrillion-dollar bill would advance Trump's priorities on immigration, taxes, energy, defense and the debt limit.
Meanwhile, the national debt continues to climb, surpassing $36 trillion earlier this year.
The Freedom Caucus is meeting with Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., at the White House on Wednesday afternoon in a bid to resolve differences.
Meanwhile, a White House official told Fox News Digital the administration wants the House to vote on the bill at some point Wednesday.
"The One Big Beautiful Bill Act reflects the shared priorities of both Congress and the Administration. Therefore, the House of Representatives should immediately pass this bill to show the American people that they are serious about ‘promises made, promises kept,'" the new White House statement said.
"President Trump is committed to keeping his promises, and failure to pass this bill would be the ultimate betrayal."
The statement ended by affirming that Trump would sign the legislation into law if it got to his desk, a significant endorsement of House GOP leaders' plans.
The bill itself is not yet finished, however. Republican leaders have signaled they are including additional provisions via a "manager's amendment" that are expected to cover Medicaid work requirements and an amended state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap.
House conservatives have been pushing for the bill to include more aggressive cuts to Medicaid — specifically the expanded population who became eligible under the Affordable Care Act — and a full repeal of former President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and its green energy subsidies.
Trump paid a rare visit to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, where he personally told House Republicans he wanted the bill passed as soon as possible.
The Freedom Caucus, meanwhile, has insisted that it is pushing to enact Trump's campaign promises to the fullest possible extent.
It’s the first time in nearly a decade that a special counsel is not investigating something related to a sitting or former president, but the remnants and revelations of past special counsel probes continue to break through the news cycle.
Every attorney general-appointed special counsel since 2017 has now released their reports, issued their indictments, received their verdicts, shuttered their offices, disassembled their teams and returned to their government or private sector roles.
First, in 2017, there was Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who was investigating whether members of the first Trump campaign colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election.
Then, in 2019, there was Special Counsel John Durham, who was investigating the origins of the Mueller investigation and the original FBI probe into then-candidate Donald Trump and his campaign.
Soon, it was 2022, and Special Counsel Jack Smith began investigating then-former President Trump for his alleged improper retention of classified records held at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida after his presidency. Smith also began investigating events surrounding the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
Next up, in 2023, Special Counsel Robert Hur was appointed and began investigating now-former President Joe Biden’s alleged improper retention of classified records, which occurred during his vice presidency as part of the Obama administration.
Later in 2023, David Weiss, who had served as U.S. attorney in Delaware and had been investigating Hunter Biden since 2018, was appointed special counsel to continue his yearslong investigation into the now-former first son.
At this point, those investigations have all come to their resolutions: Mueller, in 2019, found there was no collusion; Durham, in 2022, found that the FBI ignored "clear warning signs" of a Hillary Clinton-led plan to inaccurately tie her opponent to Russia using politically funded and uncorroborated opposition research; Smith, in 2022, charged Trump but had those charges tossed; Hur, in 2023, opted against charging Biden; Weiss, in 2023, charged Hunter Biden, who was convicted and later pardoned by his father.
But the curiosity surrounding those investigations that dominated headlines for the better part of a decade remains, largely because of so many loose ends and the prevalence of unanswered questions.
A trickle, sometimes more like a flood, of information and news related to those probes continues to seep into the news cycle.
On Friday night, audio of Biden’s interview with Hur was made public. Hur closed his investigation in 2024 without charging the then-president and infamously described him as a "sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory."
Some congressional lawmakers had demanded the release of the audio of Biden’s interview amid questions about the former president’s memory lapses and mental acuity.
The audio – as expected, based on the transcript of the interview released in 2024 – showed Biden struggling with key memories, including when his son, Beau, died; when he left the vice presidency; and why he had classified documents he shouldn’t have had.
In a throwback to another special counsel investigation, the United States Secret Service last week paid a visit to former FBI Director James Comey after he posted a now-deleted image on social media that many interpreted as a veiled call for an assassination of Trump.
Comey on Thursday posted to Instagram an image of seashells on the beach arranged to show "86 47" with the caption, "Cool shell formation on my beach walk."
Some interpreted it as a coded message, with "86" being slang for "get rid of" and "47" referring to Trump, who is the 47th president.
Comey later deleted the post and wrote a message that said, "I didn't realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down."
Comey was the FBI director who, in 2016, allowed the opening of the bureau’s original Trump-Russia investigation, known inside the FBI as "Crossfire Hurricane." Trump fired Comey in May 2017. Days later, Mueller was appointed as special counsel to take over that investigation, thus beginning the string of special counsels.
Durham investigated the origins of the FBI probe and found that the FBI did not have any actual evidence to support the start of that investigation. Durham also found that the CIA, in 2016, received intelligence to show that Hillary Clinton had approved a plan to tie then-candidate Trump to Russia; intelligence that the FBI, led by Comey, ignored.
On July 28, 2016, then-CIA Director John Brennan briefed then-President Barack Obama on a plan from one of Clinton's campaign foreign policy advisers "to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service."
Biden, Comey, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper were in the Brennan-Obama briefing, according to the Durham report.
After that briefing, the CIA properly forwarded that information through a counterintelligence operational lead (CIOL) to Comey and then-Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok with the subject line "Crossfire Hurricane."
Fox News first obtained and reported on the CIOL in October 2020, which stated, "The following information is provided for the exclusive use of your bureau for background investigative action or lead purposes as appropriate."
"Per FBI verbal request, CIA provides the below examples of information the CROSSFIRE HURRICANE fusion cell has gleaned to date," the memo continued. "An exchange (REDACTED) discussing US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s approval of a plan concerning US presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering US elections as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server."
By January 2017, Comey had notified Trump of a dossier, known as the Steele dossier, that contained salacious and unverified allegations about Trump’s purported coordination with the Russian government, a key document prompting the opening of the probe.
The dossier was authored by Christopher Steele, an ex-British intelligence officer, and commissioned by Fusion GPS. Clinton's presidential campaign hired Fusion GPS during the 2016 election cycle.
It was eventually determined that the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee funded the dossier through the law firm Perkins Coie.
Durham, in his report, said the FBI, led by Comey, "failed to act on what should have been – when combined with other incontrovertible facts – a clear warning sign that the FBI might then be the target of an effort to manipulate or influence the law enforcement process for political purposes during the 2016 presidential election."
But that intelligence referral document is just one of many that tells the real story behind the investigation that clouded the first Trump administration.
And Trump has taken steps to ensure the American public has full access to all the documents.
Trump, in late March, signed an executive order directing the FBI to immediately declassify files concerning the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
The FBI is expected to release those documents in the coming weeks.
As for the other special counsels, Smith recently had his own moment in the news cycle.
FBI Director Kash Patel on Thursday disbanded a public corruption squad in the bureau’s Washington field office. That was the same office that aided Smith’s investigation into Trump.
As for Weiss, after the release of the Biden audio tapes calling further into question the former president’s mental acuity, some, including Trump, are now calling for a review of the pardon of Hunter Biden.
Hunter Biden was found guilty of three felony firearm offenses stemming from Weiss’ investigation. The first son was also charged with federal tax crimes regarding the failure to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes. Before his trial, Hunter Biden entered a surprise guilty plea. The charges carried up to 17 years behind bars. His sentencing was scheduled for Dec. 16, 2024, but his father, then-President Biden, pardoned him on all charges in December 2024.
Trump alleged in a Truth Social post in March that former President Biden's pardons were "void" due to the "fact that they were done by Autopen."
"The 'Pardons' that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen," Trump wrote.
"In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them! The necessary Pardoning Documents were not explained to, or approved by, Biden. He knew nothing about them, and the people that did may have committed a crime," Trump added.
Weiss, in his final report, blasted then-President Biden's characterizations of the probe into Hunter Biden, which Weiss said were "wrong" and "unfairly" maligned Justice Department officials. He also said the presidential pardon made it "inappropriate" for him to discuss whether any additional charges against the first son were warranted.
President Donald Trump evoked Elon Musk during his Oval Office meeting with South Africa's president on Wednesday, during talks about the ongoing attacks white farmers in the country are facing.
Trump went back and forth with President Cyril Ramaphosa over whether what is occurring in South Africa is indeed a "genocide" against white farmers. At one point, during the conversation, a reporter asked Trump how the United States and South Africa might be able to improve their relations.
The president said that relations with South Africa are an important matter to him, noting he has several personal friends who are from there, including professional golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, who were present at Tuesday's meeting, and Elon Musk.
Unprompted, Trump added that while Musk may be a South African native, he doesn't want to "get [him] involved" in the ongoing foreign diplomacy matters that played out during Tuesday's meeting.
"I don't want to get Elon involved. That's all I have to do, get him into another thing," Trump said to light laughter. "But Elon happens to be from South Africa. This is what Elon wanted. He actually came here on a different subject — sending rockets to Mars — OK? He likes that better. He likes that subject better. But Elon's from South Africa, and I don't want to talk to him about that. I don't think it's fair to him."
Musk, who was present at the Oval Office meeting Tuesday, has been an open critic of his native-born country's government and has described the ongoing conflict there as a "genocide."
Ahead of the meeting with Ramaphosa earlier this month, Musk-owned X garnered backlash over its AI chatbot, Grok, providing unsolicited responses about attacks against white farmers in South Africa.
Musk's artificial intelligence company, which makes the technology for Grok, said following complaints that an "unauthorized modification" to Grok's algorithm is the reason why it kept talking about race and politics in South Africa, according to the Associated Press.
But he asserted in a post on X that he is not at all interested in pursuing office in 2028.
"And FWIW, I've always said, while I'll never 100% rule it out down the line, I have ZERO interest in running for office in 28 or anytime soon," he said in a portion of that post.
There have been two father-son pairs in U.S. history who both served as president: George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, and John Adams and John Quincy Adams.
Before President Donald Trump’s dramatic reveal of the "Golden Dome" missile defense project on Tuesday, the proposal wasn’t even on the radar of many lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Several senators told Fox News Digital they had received no briefing on the initiative’s costs – and some hadn’t heard of it at all.
"I don’t support blank checks. I haven’t seen the cost figures," Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told Fox News Digital.
Two senior members of the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, one Republican and one Democrat, asked, "what’s Golden Dome?" in response to questions about the project Trump commissioned in January.
Trump’s sweeping plan – pitched as an American version of Israel’s Iron Dome – carries an ambitious price tag and timeline. He’s floated a $125 billion estimated cost and says it could be built in three years, by the end of his term. A government funding package moving through Congress, dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, includes $25 billion to jumpstart the project.
But defense experts and even some Republican allies anticipate the cost to be much higher.
"This is not going to be a $25 billion or $35 billion project. It will likely cost in the trillions if and when Golden Dome is completed," said Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., who announced plans to form a Golden Dome Caucus during a recent Washington Times defense industry event earlier this month.
Sheehy warned that simply scaling up Israel’s Iron Dome to protect the U.S. is "a fundamentally different technological proposition."
"The challenges don’t scale linearly with the size of Israel, which is the size of New Jersey," he added.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated the project could cost around $500 billion – though some believe even that figure is likely too low.
CBO estimated that the space-based interceptors portion of the dome could cost at least $161 billion but up to $542 billion. But it didn't account for any ground-based interceptors in that cost.
"I’ve been 34 years in this business, and I’ve never seen an early estimate that was too high," said Space Force chief of space operations Gen. Chance Saltzman. "We don’t always understand the full level of complexity until you’re actually in execution, doing the detailed planning."
Some Republican lawmakers suggest the potential benefits outweigh the massive spending required.
"It might very well prevent a war," Sen. Mike Rounds, R-N.D., said. "When we talk about spending billions on defense, that is small compared to one single major war – not only in trillions of dollars, but in bloodshed."
Once a missile is launched toward the U.S. homeland, the Golden Dome system aims to detect it, and orbital systems would aim to hit the missile during its "boost" phase, either with a laser or a kinetic interceptor. Otherwise, ground-based systems could deploy to knock it off its path.
Others noted competing defense priorities.
"That’s gonna be a long, drawn-out process, and it’s gonna cost a lot of money," said Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala. "Right now, we’re redoing our missile silos… we’re transitioning to different types of warfare. If we’re gonna do [Golden Dome], we do it the right way."
Supporters of the plan argue that technological advances have dramatically lowered the cost of missile defense, enough to potentially flip decades-old strategic assumptions.
Chuck DeVore, a defense expert at the Texas Public Policy Foundation and former Reagan administration official, said the old logic – that it’s always cheaper to build offensive missiles than defenses – may no longer apply.
"That calculation is changing now," DeVore said. "With low-cost orbital launches and inexpensive electronics, it may actually be less expensive to defend against nuclear missiles than to build them. If that’s the case, we’re at a truly revolutionary inflection point."
DeVore also warned that traditionalists in the defense establishment may push back.
"You’re going to see people defending the status quo," he said. "They’ll say we need that money for more conventional defense – more divisions, more jet fighters, maybe another aircraft carrier."
Still, DeVore argued that a homeland missile defense system is overdue.
"The ability to truly defend the homeland and save American lives is better than mutual assured destruction – especially in an age of nuclear proliferation where we can’t always be sure where the threat is coming from."
Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., agreed on the project’s importance, even as he said he hadn’t been briefed on the cost and needs of the project.
"I think it’s the most important thing we could do to keep our homeland safe."
