During a press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday, President-elect Donald Trump renewed his criticisms of the Biden administration for selling off border wall materials at "five cents on the dollar," saying: "These people either hate our country or they’re stupid."
He also slammed the private company managing the border wall sales for attempting to sell the materials back to his incoming administration at a significant upcharge.
"You know what they were doing. They were calling us up and saying: ‘We'll sell it back to you at 200 cents.’ In other words, double what we paid for it," he said. "So, they were going to buy it from this guy [President Joe Biden] for five cents on the dollar. They were making deals."
The Biden administration has been auctioning off border wall parts since at least 2023, with parts listed for sale on auction marketplaces, after it abruptly shut down most border wall construction in 2021.
An official at the Department of Defense told Fox News Digital in December that the materials being sold through online auctions were already sold off by the federal government earlier in 2024, with a large percentage of the materials being sold to a government surplus retailer called Gov Planet.
Speaking in December, Trump said the Biden administration’s border wall sales were "almost a criminal act" that would cost American taxpayers "hundreds of millions of dollars."
Trump said on Tuesday the private retailer was "calling us, asking us to pay them 200 cents because it's a good deal because we can have it immediately."
But to this, Trump said: "You know what ‘immediately’ is? Just leave it in place."
"Fortunately, we had a very smart judge that stopped it cold," he went on. "But think of it. They were selling the wall. That was exactly the wall that the Border Patrol wanted that was designed by them: steel, concrete, rebar… Everything was top of the line, very expensive. It would be double what we paid for it then, six years ago."
Speaking of the Biden administration, Trump said: "These people either hate our country or they’re very stupid."
"They were selling the wall for five cents on the dollar and trying to resell it back to us for 200 cents, or less, but for 200 cents on the dollar." he said. "That deal is like all the other things that these people do."
Jimmy Carter, the centenarian former president who lived long enough to see Donald Trump elected again but died just before the start of the new year, has a foreign policy legacy that wasn't just defined by his four years in the White House.
Over the term of his presidency, the former Georgia governor could boast of helping to establish peace between Israel and Egypt and reestablishing relations with China. But by the time he suffered one of the nation's most decisive defeats by President Ronald Reagan in 1980, Carter still had ambitions that he was not ready to stop pursuing.
Carter is largely celebrated for the altruistic nature of his post-presidency, volunteering with Habitat for Humanity well into his 90s. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his peace negotiations, but some accused the former president of meddling in international affairs without any official title.
Here's a look Carter's forays on the world stage, both as president and beyond:
In 1994, Bill Clinton was in office in the midst of a standoff with North Korea over the communist country's nuclear program. The U.S. was floating the idea of sanctions – and even considered a preemptive strike on North Korea's nuclear facilities to destroy their capabilities.
Carter had received invitations from North Korea to visit, and was eager to try his hand at defusing the situation and hashing out an agreement to unify the north and the south. As Clinton weighed his options, Carter called. He had negotiated the framework of a peace agreement, without authorization.
Carter had flown to North Korea with a CNN crew and hashed out the deal. He called Clinton to warn him he was about to go on CNN to announce the deal, which infuriated the Clinton White House, according to Carter biographer Douglas Brinkley's book, "The Unfinished Presidency."
Carter also accepted a dinner invitation from Kim Il-Sung, where he stated the U.S. had stopped pursuing sanctions at the U.N., which was untrue. Backed into a corner, Clinton had to accept the peace deal and stop pursuing sanctions.
Carter’s discussions with leader Kim Il-Sung may have averted conflict with North Korea in the 1990s. The nation, of course, continued pursuing nuclear weapons and acquired them in 2006.
In the Middle East, Carter declared he could have resolved the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians in a second term, a prospect that has still not been achieved by any president.
"Had I been elected to a second term, with the prestige and authority and influence and reputation I had in the region, we could have moved to a final solution," he told The New York Times in 2003.
Throughout the 1990s, Carter befriended Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat and coached him on how to appear more moderate to the west, even as Arafat continued to lead attacks on Israel and led the Second Intifada in 2000.
When President George H.W. Bush decided to launch the Persian Gulf War after Iraq's Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, Carter was vehemently opposed to the idea. Five days before Bush's deadline for Hussein to withdraw, Carter wrote to leaders of nations on the U.N. Security Council and key Arab states – Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria – imploring them to abandon the U.S. and its war efforts.
"I urge you to call publicly for a delay in the use of force while Arab leaders seek a peaceful solution to the crisis. You may have to forego approval from the White House, but you will find the French, Soviets, and others fully supportive. Also, most Americans will welcome such a move."
The move prompted former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft to accuse Carter of violating the Logan Act, which says private citizens cannot negotiate with foreign governments.
In 2008, President George W. Bush's secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, publicly tore into Carter for meeting with Hamas, a designated terrorist group, after the administration explicitly told him not to.
Rice told reporters Carter's meeting could confuse the message that the U.S. would not work with Hamas.
"I just don't want there to be any confusion," Rice said. "The United States is not going to deal with Hamas and we had certainly told President Carter that we did not think meeting with Hamas was going to help" further a political settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.
Carter, a strong advocate of the Palestinians after his presidency, claimed that Israel's policies amounted to an apartheid worse than South Africa's.
In 1978, the groundbreaking possibility of Egypt and Israel normalizing relations had screeched to a halt. President Anwar Sadat of Egypt suggested ceasing contact with the Israelis.
In September of that year, Carter brought Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to Camp David, where Carter spent more than a week mediating negotiations on an agreement between the two sides. A framework of a treaty known as the Camp David Accords came out of that meeting, and six months later, Egypt became the first Arab state to establish relations with Israel.
The agreement included the return of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt and a "pathway" for Palestinian self-rule in Gaza. Sadat was assassinated in 1981 after Arab fury over the peace agreement.
In 1978, following months of secret negotiations, Carter established formal U.S. relations with China, breaking decades of hostility between the two nations. That meant rescinding a defense treaty with Taiwan, where Carter remains a controversial figure.
It also prompted Congress to pass the Taiwan Relations Act to continue to provide arms to Taiwan and "maintain the capacity to resist" any attempts to take it over.
In 1979, the Iranian regime’s shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, and Carter had a strategic relationship, with Carter quiet on his questionable human rights record even as the shah’s grip on power was slipping.
Protests had kicked up in Iran over the shah’s oppressive policies, but Carter continued to support him, fearing the alternative: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Pahlavi fled into exile in January 1979, and Carter initially resisted requests to grant him refuge in the U.S. before allowing him to seek cancer treatment in New York City in October of that year. And on Nov. 4, Iranian students angry at the decision stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran, taking 52 hostages.
The hostage crisis spanned the rest of Carter’s term and, for many, defined his legacy on the world stage. Without any resolution, in April 1980, Carter moved to a military rescue.
The mission ended in tragic failure: several helicopters were grounded outside Tehran in a sandstorm, and eight special forces members were killed when their helicopter crashed. Iran then captured U.S. equipment and intelligence.
The hostages were not released until Jan. 20, 1981 – minutes after President Ronald Reagan was inaugurated.
President-elect Trump has brought Carter's Panama Canal treaties back into the spotlight, musing on Tuesday that offering control of the canal to Panama lost Carter the 1980 election.
Despite fierce opposition from the right, Carter believed returning the canal would improve U.S. relations in Latin America and ensure peace between U.S. shipping lanes, fearing that opposition to U.S. control could lead to violence on the waterway.
"It’s obvious that we cheated the Panamanians out of their canal," Carter wrote in a diary. But he'd also received intelligence that it could take up 100,000 troops to defend the canal in the event of an uprising.
In recent days, Trump has suggested taking the canal back – claiming the U.S. is paying too much to use it, and it is controlled by China.
"Giving the Panama Canal to Panama was a big reason why Jimmy Carter lost the election, even more so than the hostages," Trump said.
FIRST ON FOX:Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate are renewing a push to crack down on noncitizen voting in federal elections, reintroducing a bipartisan bill that was repeatedly touted last year by the GOP.
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, are reintroducing the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which looks to ensure that noncitizens cannot vote in federal elections.
While only citizens can vote in federal elections, Republicans have claimed that it is impossible to enforce because noncitizens and illegal immigrants are eligible for driver’s licenses and other benefits in states, which can lead them to being registered to vote.
The bill requires states to obtain documentary proof of U.S. citizenship and identity in person when registering an individual to vote. It also requires states to establish a program to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls, and allows citizens to bring suits against officials that fail to uphold the law.
The bill was passed in the House last year, with five Democrats voting in favor, but stalled in the Senate – where the Democrat-controlled chamber passed a spending bill without the SAVE Act being included, as Republicans had hoped. President Biden had promised to veto the bill.
The bill has gained increasing importance among Republicans amid a surge of migrants into the U.S. during the Biden administration, as well as recent announcements by states that they had identified thousands of noncitizens on their rolls.
But now Republicans control the Senate and soon the White House, where President-elect Trump has voiced support for legislation to prevent noncitizens from voting.
"Republicans must pass the Save Act, or go home and cry yourself to sleep," he said in July.
Roy, who is introducing the bill in the House with Rep. Andrew Garbarino, R-NY., said, "American elections belong to American citizens, and the public's confidence in those elections is the cornerstone of our republic,"
"We in Congress have a duty to our fellow citizens to provide that confidence. We must have concrete enforcement mechanisms in place to ensure that our elections and our sovereignty cannot be hijacked and influenced by foreign nationals who have no business voting in this country," he said.
"The House passed this critical bipartisan bill last year – we must do it again. I look forward to working with the Republican Senate to put this policy on President Trump's desk," he said.
Lee said public trust in election integrity "is absolutely essential for the legitimacy of our democratic institutions."
"A vast majority of our countrymen agree: only American citizens should be able to register and vote in American elections. The SAVE Act gives states the ability to prevent illegal voter registration and protect the ballot box from foreign election interference," he said.
Garbarino, meanwhile, criticized New York City for disregarding the principle of American citizens deciding their elections by allowing noncitizens to vote in local elections.
"The SAVE Act upholds the integrity of our elections by requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote, ensuring this fundamental right is reserved exclusively for American citizens," he said.
The bill also has the support of groups including the Only Citizens Vote Coalition, Tea Party Patriots Action and the Immigration Accountability Project. It has 59 co-sponsors in the House. The bill was introduced in the lower chamber on Friday and is expected to be introduced in the Senate next week.
The bill comes as Congress is expected to have immigration-related issues as a top priority. On Tuesday, the House passed the Laken Riley Act, which would require federal immigration authorities to detain illegal immigrants found guilty of theft-related crimes. It also would allow states to sue the Department of Homeland Security for harm caused to their citizens because of illegal immigration.
Fox News’ Julia Johnson and Liz Elkind contributed to this report.
President-elect Donald Trump, fed up with the U.S.' lagging ship-building capabilities, offered an out-of-character solution to the problem: Outsource production if the U.S. can’t keep up.
"We’re going to do something with ships. We need ships. And we may have to go a different route than you would normally go," the incoming president suggested to radio host Hugh Hewitt.
"We don’t build ships anymore. We used to build a ship a day. We don’t build ships anymore. We want to get that started. And maybe we’ll use allies, also, in terms of building ships. We might have to."
"China’s building, from what I’m hearing, every four days, they’re knocking out a ship. We’re sitting back and watching, and we’ve suffered tremendously."
Trump’s stance is sure to put the domestic shipbuilding industry and labor groups on alert. But it comes as China’s shipbuilding capacity is more than 232 times greater than that of the U.S., and the Navy has for decades struggled to build ships on time.
And it's a divergence from his campaign promise to bring manufacturing back to the U.S., and trigger a blanket tariff on global imports into the U.S., along with a 60% tariff on all goods imported from China.
China’s navy is the largest in the world, with more than 370 ships and submarines. The U.S.' battle force includes 295 vessels, including 11 active aircraft carriers. In 2017, Congress passed a law requiring the Navy to keep and maintain 355 ships.
Without disclosing details, Trump hinted at a plan to grow the Navy's ship fleet.
"We’re going to be announcing some things that are going to be very good having to do with the Navy. We need ships. We have to get ships. And you know, everybody said, ‘Oh, we’ll build them.’ We may have to go to others, bid them out, and it’s okay to do that. We’ll bid them out until we get ourselves ready," he said.
The U.S. also lags in nuclear submarines, according to military experts. The U.S.’ nuclear submarines reached a Cold War high of 140, according to Jerry Hendrix, retired Navy captain and senior fellow at the Sagamore Institute, in an op-ed for American Affairs.
"The bottom line is that the American submarine force, the ‘point of the spear’ of American power, upon which so many military plans depend, is unprepared to meet the current threat environment, and there are no quick fixes. It has taken decades—and a sequence of bad assumptions and poor decisions—to fall into the current state of unpreparedness," he wrote.
The most recent figures show the U.S. submarine flight at 68, only 50 of which are classified in the hunter-killer "fast attack" category.
Currently, China controls 46.59% of the global shipbuilding market. South Korea comes in second at 29.24%, and Japan third with 17.25%. The U.S. has a relatively insignificant control of the market at 0.13%. And it costs roughly twice as much to build a ship in the U.S. as it does elsewhere in the world.
Congress' $895 billion annual defense policy bill authorized $33.5 billion for new ships and submarines.
According to a Navy report last year, several key shipbuilding programs are years behind schedule, in large part due to a lack of workers.
Trump also called out management of the Navy’s Constellation-class frigate program, blaming Biden-era officers for "playing around and tinkering," adding to costs.
Speaking with Hewitt, Trump seemed to refer to a deal the Pentagon struck with the American arm of Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri for the new class of ships in 2020.
"And they were going and really doing a good job, and the generals, you know, the Biden admirals and generals and all of the people that are involved, they started playing around and tinkering and changing the design, and this, you know, that costs. That costs a lot of money," Trump said.
"But the generals or the admirals went in, and they said, ‘Oh, why don’t we make it a little bit wider? Why don’t we do this? Why don’t we do that?’ And it was designed specifically for speed and other things. When you start making it wider, you start making it slower," Trump continued.
"We had it down, and they made changes. They always have to make changes. You know, these guys get in there, and they think they’re smart, and in many cases, unfortunately, they’re not smart, and they take something, and they make it worse for a lot more."
Then-President Ronald Reagan had a 600-ship goal for the Navy when he assumed office, dedicated to rebuilding the nation's fleet after the Vietnam War. But his administration also terminated a subsidy for shipbuilding that decimated the commercial market, meaning U.S. shipyards were solely dedicated to meeting the needs of the military.
President-elect Trump will meet with Republicans in the Senate on Wednesday as he prepares to take office again at the end of the month and hit the ground running on his agenda.
The Trump transition team confirmed the meeting with the Senate GOP, who are now in control of the upper chamber, to Fox News Digital.
The president-elect is being hosted for the huddle by the chairwoman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., her office said.
Trump will be in Washington, D.C., this week for the funeral of former President Jimmy Carter, who passed away this month at 100 years old after being in hospice care.
The meeting, which will include Senate Republican leadership, among others, will be held in the Mansfield room of the Capitol at 6 p.m. The room is used for weekly Senate caucus lunches and other large meetings.
The group will address plans for a budget reconciliation bill, or two, in the coming months. Trump has said he wants "one powerful Bill," as opposed to the proposal initially put forth by Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., for two different reconciliation bills, one addressing the border and another to tackle taxes.
The reason this process is so integral to Republicans' work in this Congress is that it allows them to bypass the Senate's legislative filibuster, lowering the 60-vote threshold. This way, the GOP can push through legislation with the support of their conference alone.
"Members of Congress are getting to work on one powerful Bill that will bring our Country back, and make it greater than ever before. We must Secure our Border, [Unleash] American Energy, and Renew the Trump Tax Cuts, which were the largest in History, but we will make it even better - NO TAX ON TIPS. IT WILL ALL BE MADE UP WITH TARIFFS, AND MUCH MORE, FROM COUNTRIES THAT HAVE TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF THE U.S. FOR YEARS. Republicans must unite, and quickly deliver these Historic Victories for the American People. Get smart, tough, and send the Bill to my desk to sign as soon as possible. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!" Trump wrote on Truth Social this week.
However, Trump has not ruled anything out, including the two-bill strategy, he told radio host Hugh Hewitt.
It's unclear exactly which GOP senators will be attending the meeting with Trump on Wednesday night, but Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., is planning on going, according to his office.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., will also attend the discussion, telling Fox News Digital in a statement that he was "[l]ooking forward to meeting with President Trump tomorrow. It’s important that we work together to pass a conservative, Pro-American agenda."
Hawaii's Democratic Governor and practicing physician, Josh Green, is visiting Capitol Hill this week to lobby lawmakers against the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary. In a Tuesday op-ed for The New York Times, he argued that "our children's lives depend" on preventing Kennedy from leading the agency.
Green, who worked as a physician before entering politics, has continued practicing emergency room medicine throughout his legislative career. In 2019, as Hawaii's lieutenant governor, Green helped spearhead efforts to increase vaccination rates in Samoa amid a measles outbreak in the region. Green arrived in the nation's capital on Sunday evening to begin his meetings that will go until he returns to Hawaii on Thursday.
"As the only physician governor, I need to explain what are good picks and what maybe aren't so good picks for the cabinet," Green said in a video ahead of his planned trip to Washington, noting that his lobbying against Kennedy is not anything personal or politically motivated. "[RFK Jr's] appointment to be the head of Health and Human Services is not consistent with safety for our children," he said.
During his trip to Washington, Green said that he would be discussing with lawmakers and other leaders to explore "a better place for [RFK Jr.] to be" rather than HHS, calling his potential confirmation "a bad idea."
Questions over the likelihood of Kennedy's confirmation took a turn this week after Sen. Bill Cassidy, R–La., the incoming chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, called out the potential future HHS Secretary for being "wrong" on the issue of vaccines. The criticism follows concerns that Kennedy may seek to get rid of the polio vaccine, after news broke that one of his previous colleagues at Childrens Health Defense, a health-focused nonprofit Kennedy previously chaired, petitioned the government in 2019 to revoke its approval.
Green's criticism of Kennedy has largely revolved around his anti-vaccine views as well, in particular Kennedy's response to a measles outbreak in Samoa, during which the potential future HHS Secretary promoted doubts around vaccine efficacy, according to Green and others, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. Those efforts included a letter Kennedy sent to the country's prime minister, as chairman of Children's Health Defense, suggesting that the measles vaccine could have potentially exacerbated the outbreak.
The Democratic governor penned an op-ed published in The New York Times on Tuesday, continuing to drill at Kennedy's anti-vaccine efforts in 2019 amid Samoa's measles outbreak. According to Greene, Kennedy "used misinformation to scare all the people of Samoa away from being vaccinated" and served to "torpedo" the country's vaccination efforts.
"Too much depends on our commitment to truth and the lifesaving power of vaccines to entrust Mr. Kennedy with the direction of these programs. Our children’s lives depend on it," Green wrote.
Kennedy's team has not responded to repeated efforts by Fox News Digital to get in touch, but in 2023, Kennedy said during an appearance in a short film that he "never told anybody not to vaccinate" and that he "didn't go [to Samoa] with any reason to do with that." Furthermore, amid concerns about how Kennedy might approach the polio vaccine, he told reporters on Capitol Hill last month that he is "all for the polio vaccine."
Proponents of Kennedy's nomination have suggested his proposed plans, if confirmed, will be rooted in logic and science.
"I think that Kennedy has aimed to stand for evidence-based changes to policy," said Nina Teicholz, a nutrition expert and founder of The Nutrition Coalition, a New York-based nonprofit organization.
"Right now, the media is covering RFK Jr. poorly and unfairly, giving him no credit for ideas that are well within the bounds of discussion," added Dr. Vinay Prasad, in an article published by The Free Press. "Many of RFK Jr.'s ideas have a logic."
Fox News Digital reached out to Green's office for comment but did not hear back by publication time.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen emphasized that Greenland is not for sale, as President-elect Trump has ramped up calls for the U.S. to acquire the island.
Frederiksen's comments to a Danish TV station come as the president's son, Donald Trump Jr., paid a visit to Greenland on Tuesday. The trip is a personal one and Trump Jr. is not expected to meet with any government officials.
The Danish prime minister said in an interview that Greenlandic Prime Minister Múte Egede "has been very, very clear – that there is a lot of support among the people of Greenland that Greenland is not for sale and will not be in the future either," according to The Hill.
She reportedly told Danish television station TV 2 that Greenland will choose its own future and said, "We need to stay calm and stick to our principles," while praising the U.S. as a key Danish ally.
In a Truth Social post on Monday, Trump said he was "hearing that the people of Greenland are ‘MAGA'." The Republican attached a video that purportedly shows a Greenlander asking the U.S. to buy his country.
Trump's son arrived Tuesday in Nuuk, the Arctic territory's capital. He met with locals, visited cultural sites and shot video for a podcast. The president-elect posted a video showing a plane emblazoned with the word "TRUMP" landing in Nuuk.
"Don Jr. and my Reps landing in Greenland," Trump wrote. "The reception has been great. They, and the Free World, need safety, security, strength, and PEACE! This is a deal that must happen. MAGA. MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN!"
Trump also spoke with locals over speakerphone in video that supporters shared online.
A source familiar told Fox News Digital on Monday that Trump Jr. is "popping in for a quick day-long trip to shoot some fun video content for podcasting. He will not be meeting with any government officials or political figures."
Trump has previously flirted with the idea of buying the territory from Denmark, claiming it is of vital national security interest to the United States.
At a press conference at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate Tuesday afternoon, the president-elect again said, "Denmark should give it up."
The newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is preparing to roll out once the Trump administration is sworn in with the stated goal of slashing government waste and providing increased transparency when it comes to government spending.
DOGE is not a Cabinet-level department but rather a blue-ribbon committee outside of the government that will be tasked with examining issues of government spending, waste, efficiency and operations.
Proponents of DOGE, headed by Tesla and Space X CEO Elon Musk and tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, have suggested that $2 trillion dollars in government waste can be cut from the federal budget through the reduction of spending, eliminating government programs and trimming the federal workforce.
Although the commission does not have formal authority, it has pledged to work closely with the Office of Management and Budget to reform regulatory recissions, administrative reductions and cost savings.
In addition to a working relationship with certain government agencies, DOGE will likely suggest executive actions that may be taken by President Trump.
Several House Committees and caucuses have already expressed the intention and willingness to work with DOGE until it ceases operations on July 4, 2026, the 250th anniversary of 1776’s Independence Day, to accomplish the goal of slashing government waste.
"Our national debt has surpassed a staggering $36 trillion and should be a wakeup call for all Americans," House Delivering Outstanding Government Efficiency Caucus Co-Chair Rep. Aaron Bean (R-Fla.) has explained. "We must take action to avoid diving headfirst off the cliff of fiscal ruin. I’m thrilled with President-elect Trump’s appointment of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead DOGE, but taking on Crazy Town will be no easy task—they will need partners.
"Our DOGE Caucus, will work closely with the Department of Government Efficiency to help rein in reckless spending and stop the abuse of taxpayer dollars."
House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) intends to establish a new subcommittee next, led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) that will oversee Delivering on Government Efficiency. The subcommittee will be tasked with coordinating with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) through investigating wasteful spending, looking at how to reorganize federal agencies with an eye to improving efficiency and identifying solutions to eliminate bureaucratic "red tape."
"It is time to cut red tape, hold the unchecked federal workforce accountable, ensure programs are efficient, & work with@DOGE to tackle waste, fraud, & abuse," Comer posted on X in December.
On the Senate side, GOP Sen. Joni Ernst will chair the Senate Delivering Outstanding Government Efficiency Caucus.
"’Iowans elected me with a mandate to cut Washington’s pork!" Ernst said about the DOGE efforts. "From billion-dollar boondoggles to welfare for politicians and trillion-dollar slush funds, my decade-long investigations have exposed levels of abuse that are almost too insane to believe.
"The tables are finally turning, the knives are out, and waste is on the chopping block. As President Trump, Elon Musk, and Vivek Ramaswamy prepare to take action, the Senate DOGE Caucus is ready to carry out critical oversight in Congress and use our legislative force to fight against the entrenched bureaucracy, trim the fat, and get Washington back to work for Americans.’"
Several historical examples exist in American history, with mixed results and less ambitious goals, of government-led efforts to cut back on unnecessary spending and staffing.
President Theodore Roosevelt, in 1905, set up the Keep Commission, which attempted to "place the conduct of the Government on the most economical and effective basis in the light of the best modern business practice" and has been hailed as the "first of the orderly examinations into [Federal] administrative problems."
Five years later, President William Howard Taft was appropriated $100,000 by Congress to "inquire into the methods of transacting the public business of the government in the several executive departments and other government establishments, with the view of… changing old methods…so as to attain greater efficiency… and recommend to Congress what changes in law may be necessary."
President Bill Clinton’s administration launched the National Partnership for Reinventing Government (NPR), led by Vice President Al Gore, with the goal to make the federal government "work better, cost less, and get results Americans care about."
Gore said, "We are turning some of today’s agencies into smaller, sleeker organizations that won’t look like government at all. They will be like private companies, with a real CEO on contract to cut costs, and a free hand when it comes to the remaining government rules."
President Obama signed an executive order in June 2011 establishing the Campaign to Cut Government Waste that created an 11-member Oversight and Accountability Board with a stated mission to give "taxpayers the same ability to track where their dollars are going and to have the same confidence that the dollars are not being lost to waste, fraud, or abuse, not just for Recovery Act dollars, but more broadly."
Steve Davis, president of Boring Co., Musk’s tunneling operation, and Michael Kratsios, former US chief technology officer, are among those leading interviews of potential DOGE employee candidates, according to people familiar with the effort.
DOGE is believed to have hired roughly 10 individuals so far and is seeking software engineers as well as people with experience in artificial intelligence. Other high-profile names believed to be associated with getting DOGE off the ground include Palantir co-founder and investor Joe Lonsdale, investor Marc Andreessen, hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and former Uber chief executive Travis Kalanick.
For now, DOGE is operating out of glass-walled office space in Washington leased by SpaceX, another Musk-owned company, about four blocks away from the White House.
Some other key areas that DOGE hopes to make progress in, Musk and Ramaswamy have previously outlined, include simplifying the U.S. tax code, auditing the Department of Defense, returning National Institutes of Health money to taxpayers and foreign aid transparency.
"I expect DOGE to operate in ‘founder mode’ — lean, decisive and led by two great people in Vivek and Elon who are obsessed over every detail," said James Fishback, a Ramaswamy confidant, and the co-founder of investment firm Azoria Partners.
President-elect Trump said on Tuesday that negotiating away the Panama Canal was a "very big mistake" by former President Jimmy Carter – ahead of Carter's state funeral later this week.
Trump said at a press conference that he believes the canal, which he would like the the U.S. to reclaim, is why Carter lost the 1980 presidential election to Ronald Reagan, who also opposed the treaty Carter negotiated to hand over the canal.
"It's a bad part of the Carter legacy," Trump said.
"He was a good man. I knew him a little bit, and he was a very fine person. But that was a big mistake."
"Giving the Panama Canal to Panama was a very big mistake. We lost 38,000 people. It cost us the equivalent of a trillion dollars, maybe more... They say it was the most expensive structure… ever built. And giving that away was a horrible thing. And I believe that's why Jimmy Carter lost the election, even more so than the hostages," he said.
Speaking in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump lamented the fact Carter purportedly "gave" the canal lands back to the Panamanians "for $1." According to reports, no part of the treaty mentioned a $1 sale.
"I thought [giving the canal back] was a terrible thing to do," Trump said.
When reporters pressed Trump on criticizing Carter on the day of his Washington wake, the president-elect said he was a "very fine person" but that his politics left something to be desired.
Trump has also sparred verbally with Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino about his plans for the canal.
However, more than a century ago, another Republican – Theodore Roosevelt – celebrated the way the United States spearheaded the canal project in part through some diplomatic maneuvering.
In the early 1900s, as the Colombian Senate balked at a treaty favoring U.S. control, Panama was in the process of declaring its independence from Bogota – and America quickly recognized the new nation and effectively circumvented the Colombians.
In 1903, President Roosevelt boasted of the accomplishment.
"Fortunately, the crisis came at a period when I could act unhampered [by Congress]. Accordingly, I took the Isthmus, started the canal and then left Congress not to debate the canal, but to debate me," he said.
Trump’s plans to retake the canal have earned him praise from otherwise regular critics.
Meghan McCain, daughter of the late Sen. John McCain – with whom Trump often sparred – backed the man she otherwise tends to critique.
"Trump is right about the Panama Canal. This is very personal – my dad was born in the Panama Canal Zone."
The elder McCain was born in 1936 at the then-Coco Solo U.S. Navy installation – as a U.S. citizen since the canal zone was controlled by Americans.
The late Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina also expressed reservations about canal negotiations in the 1970s.
In a letter to then-President Ford, Thurmond warned the Panamanians were cozying up to the Communist Cuban government, and that "any action on the part of the United States that indicates the slightest position of weakness or a willingness to accommodate anti-American sentiment in Panama, would result in many other Latin American countries moving in the same leftward direction."
Thurmond led 35 senators in crafting a resolution opposing what he called the surrender of U.S. sovereignty in the PCZ.
"Any loss of control of the Canal would be extremely detrimental to our vital interests, especially in Latin America. We should make it clear that U.S. vital interests there are not negotiable."
Carter's negotiations led to Panama taking full control of the canal by 1999. His other major diplomatic negotation – peace accords between Egypt and Israel – also remain intact today.
FIRST ON FOX – Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., introduced a bill that would pull federal highway funding from states such as New York that issue driver's licenses and identification cards to illegal immigrants.
Tenney, who co-chaired the House Election Integrity Caucus amid the 2024 race that ended in President-elect Trump's victory, re-introduced her bill – named the Red Light Act – at the start of the new Congress.
The proposal says it aims to "withhold federal highway funds from States that provide drivers licenses or identification cards to aliens who are unlawfully present in the United States, and for other purposes."
"Our nation is grappling with an unprecedented migrant crisis, yet some states, like New York, are incentivizing and rewarding criminals with driver's licenses and identification cards," Tenney said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "In New York, the Green Light Law has given licenses to illegal immigrants, allowing these dangerous individuals to roam freely in our country, brutally attacking, raping, and murdering members of our community. In addition, this law also restricts law enforcement from accessing DMV records, preventing the enforcement of our nation's immigration laws. This legislation ensures states that refuse to comply with our nation's immigration policies are not rewarded with federal funding."
Passed by the state legislature in 2019 and signed by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the Green Light Law allows New York to issue driver's licenses to undocumented individuals. As part of a sanctuary policy intended to block deportations, it also directed the state Department of Motor Vehicles to withhold records from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or other federal law enforcement without a court order or judicial warrant signed by a judge for such information.
Trump's incoming border czar Tom Homan, a native of upstate New York, floated the idea of blocking vehicles with New York license plates from entering the U.S. from the Canadian border if the state does not repeal the Green Light Law.
"To me, this is a high priority," Homan told the Buffalo News. "I grew up in New York state, I still own a home in the state. What happens in New York means a lot to me."
"That would be bizarre to me that anyone thinks that stopping our vehicles from coming in and out of our country, keeping New Yorkers in a foreign country, is a smart path forward," New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said at an unrelated press conference on Monday, responding to Homan's proposal. "I'd like to sit down and have that conversation."
Tenney's bill would grant the secretary of transportation authority to withhold 100% of the amount required to be apportioned to a state's federal highway system for fiscal year 2025 and each fiscal year afterward.
The measure also allows the secretary to reapportion the funding to states that repeal any such laws that provide driver's licenses or identification cards to aliens who are unlawfully present in the U.S.
"We're going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, which has a beautiful ring. That covers a lot of territory," Trump said on Tuesday. "The Gulf of America. What a beautiful name. And it's appropriate."
Trump made the announcement in his first press conference since Congress certified his election win over Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday from Mar-a-Lago. He opened the press event announcing DAMAC Properties will invest $20 billion in new data centers across the country in addition to previewing a bevy of policy issues ahead of his inauguration this month.
Trump did not detail how his administration will go about renaming the body of water, but went on to slam Mexico for the immigration woes in the U.S. under the Biden White House.
"Mexico has to stop allowing millions of people to pour into our country. They can stop them. And we’re going to put very serious tariffs on Mexico and Canada, because Canada, they come through Canada too, and the drugs that are coming through are at record numbers, record numbers. So we’re going to make up for that by putting tariffs on Mexico and Canada, substantial tariffs," he said.
Trump has referred to Canada as the nation's "51st state," while his son and other Trump allies traveled to Greenland this week following Trump repeatedly called for the U.S. to acquire the autonomous territory under the Kingdom of Denmark.
"As someone who has traveled to some fascinating places across the globe as an outdoorsman, I’m excited to stop into Greenland for a little bit of fun this week," Donald Trump Jr. told Fox News Digital of his trip to Greenland.
A source familiar told Fox News Digital that Trump Jr. is "popping in for a quick day-long trip to shoot some fun video content for podcasting." Trump Jr. is not meeting with government officials while in Greenland, Fox Digital previously reported.
Fox News Digital's Anders Hagstrom and Brooke Signman contributed to this report.
The Laken Riley Act passed the House of Representatives on Tuesday afternoon, the first piece of federal legislation approved by the 119th Congress after the House agreed to its rules for the term.
All voting Republicans supported the bill, along with 48 Democrats – more than the total left-wing lawmakers who voted for it last year. It passed on a 264 to 159 margin and will now be sent to the Senate.
The bill is named after a nursing student who was killed by an illegal immigrant while jogging on the University of Georgia's campus.
The bill would require federal immigration authorities to detain illegal immigrants found guilty of theft-related crimes. It also would allow states to sue the Department of Homeland Security for harm caused to their citizens because of illegal immigration.
Jose Ibarra, who was sentenced to life in prison for Riley's murder, had previously been arrested but was never detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, the agency previously said.
The bill passed the House along bipartisan lines last year after it was first introduced by Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga.
All voting Republicans plus 37 Democrats voted for the bill by a margin of 251 to 170. All the "no" votes on the bill were Democrats.
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said of the Democrats who opposed it last year, "I think they put politics ahead of principle. And we're going to find out where they stand on this now."
"We have every intention of doing, really important, bipartisan work," Johnson said hours before the vote on Tuesday. "We welcome with open arms any Democrat who wants to help us solve these problems because the American people demand and deserve it, it's overdue. And, we'll be looking for that and we'll see how it shakes out."
It was not taken up in the Senate, however, which at the time was controlled by then-Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
"[T]he Laken Riley Act, sponsored by Rep. Mike Collins, holds the Biden Administration accountable for their role in these tragedies through their open border policies, requires detention of illegal aliens who commit theft and mandates ICE take them into custody, and allows a state to sue the Federal government on behalf of their citizens for not enforcing the border laws, particularly in the case of parole," House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said in his daily House floor lookout.
"House Republicans won’t stop fighting to secure the border and protect American communities. When will Democrats finally decide enough is enough?"
The Senate is also poised to vote on the bill this week.
It is one of several border security bills House Republicans have reintroduced this year as they prepare to take over all the levers of power in Washington, D.C.
Republicans held the House and took over the Senate in the November elections. President-elect Donald Trump will take office on Jan. 20.
