A Florida city commissioner said she was shocked to find herself "standing alone" after her colleagues in the state's southernmost municipality voted this week to end an agreement between the police department and federal immigration authorities.
Key West city Commissioner Lissette Carey told Fox News Digital that she considered the potential consequences of severing the 287(g) agreement, which allows police officers to stop, question and detain illegal immigrants.
"I did my research prior to the meeting," Carey said. "I was the only member of the Commission who understood the consequences and respected our state and federal government enough to uphold the law."
In a 5-1 vote, the commission voted to void the agreement, a move that came amid the Trump administration's crackdown on illegal immigration and nationwide mass deportation operations.
"I was deeply disturbed by the lack of understanding and the disregard for the safety, security, and long-term well-being of our city," Carey said. "As the first to cast a vote on this matter, I was disheartened—and frankly shocked—to find myself standing alone in recognizing the importance of upholding this agreement."
The move has already met opposition from leaders in the state capital of Tallahassee.
In a letter dated Wednesday to the commissioners, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said their vote violates state law and has essentially made Key West a "sanctuary city."
"Florida law unequivocally forbids sanctuary cities," Uthmeier wrote while demanding the city leaders reverse course. "Failure to take corrective action will result in the enforcement of all applicable civil and criminal penalties, including removal from office by the governor."
He added that they could face removal from office if they don't reverse course.
Carey, whose mother and grandparents arrived in Key West from Cuba in the 1950s, said she supports legal immigration.
"I am proud of my heritage, and I honor the many contributions immigrants make to our communities," she said. "But I also believe in following the law and ensuring public safety."
"Key West is often seen as a carefree, liberal town, but it's also home to conservatives like me who support law enforcement," added Carey.
Earlier in the week, Gov. Ron DeSantis said the issue is a matter of following state law.
"I think the attorney general has weighed in on that, and I’ll let him do the analysis and send them whatever warnings need to be sent," DeSantis said at the opening of the new "Alligator Alcatraz" immigration detention center in the Everglades.
"But the reality is you have a responsibility for full participation," he added. "And you can virtue signal and try to make political statements, but the reality is local governments have to abide by Florida law."
Choosing not to cooperate with immigration authorities only puts residents in those municipalities at risk, a White House spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
"Local officials refusing to work with federal law enforcement will not stop the Trump Administration's mission to remove dangerous, criminal illegal aliens from American communities," the spokesperson said. "It will only put American citizens living in their jurisdiction at risk. Quickly and efficiently deporting violent aliens makes every American community safer."
Other Florida cities have done the opposite. In Miami, city commissioners there narrowly voted in favor last month to allow police officers to work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by entering into its own 287(g) partnership.
President Donald Trump signs the sweeping Republican-crafted domestic policy package that he and the GOP call the "One Big Beautiful Bill," into law on Friday at the White House.
The massive tax cuts and spending bill passed the House and Senate this week by razor-thin margins along near party lines.
But the political battle over the bill is far from over, as it moves from Capitol Hill to the campaign trail.
"I'm deeply concerned about this bill and what this will do. We’re going to be talking a lot about it," Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas of New Hampshire told Fox News Digital on Friday.
Pappas, who's running in the crucial 2026 race to succeed retiring longtime Sen. Jeanne Shaheen for a Democrat-held seat Republicans would love to flip, took aim at the bill.
"This was a one-party effort and unfortunately it arrived at a conclusion that I think is not good for our state and for our country,"
Former Republican Sen. Scott Brown, who last month announced his candidacy for the Senate, sees things differently, and he praised the president for helping GOP leaders in Congress get the bill to his desk at the White House.
"The things he said he was going to do, he’s actually done. For somebody in politics to actually do that I think is very rare," Brown said of Trump.
The bill is stuffed full of Trump's 2024 campaign trail promises and second-term priorities on tax cuts, immigration, defense, energy and the debt limit.
It includes extending his signature 2017 tax cuts and eliminating taxes on tips and overtime pay.
By making his first-term tax rates permanent - they were set to expire later this year - the bill will cut taxes by nearly $4.4 trillion over the next decade, according to analysis by the Congressional Budget Office and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
The measure also provides billions for border security and codifies the president's controversial immigration crackdown.
And the bill also restructures Medicaid — the nearly 60-year-old federal program that provides health coverage to roughly 71 million low-income Americans. Additionally, Senate Republicans increased cuts to Medicaid over what the House initially passed in late May.
The changes to Medicaid, as well as cuts to food stamps, another one of the nation's major safety net programs, were drafted in part as an offset to pay for extending Trump's tax cuts. The measure includes a slew of new rules and regulations, including work requirements for many of those seeking Medicaid coverage.
And the $3.4 trillion legislative package is also projected to surge the national debt by $4 trillion over the next decade.
Democrats for a couple of months have blasted Republicans over the social safety net changes.
"We’re going to be talking about this bill because the results are that 46,000 people in New Hampshire will lose their health insurance. We’ll have people that will go hungry, that won’t be able to access assistance," Pappas warned. "And we know that insurance premiums for all Granite Staters could go up as a result of uncompensated care costs and the burden that this places on our hospitals."
The four-term congressman, who was interviewed by Fox News on Friday as he arrived for the annual July 4th naturalization ceremony in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, noted that "we’ve been hearing from folks and engaging with people all across the state on this issue."
Democrats have spotlighted a slew of national polls conducted last month that indicate the bill's popularity in negative territory.
By a 21-point margin, voters questioned in the most recent Fox News national poll opposed the bill (38% favored vs. 59% opposed).
The bill was also underwater in other national surveys conducted last month by the Washington Post (minus 19 points), Pew Research (minus 20 points) and Quinnipiac University (minus 26 points).
About half of respondents questioned in the Fox News poll said the bill would hurt their family (49%), while one quarter thought it would help (23%), and another quarter didn't think it would make a difference (26%).
Asked about criticism from Democrats on the Medicaid cuts, Brown said "my mom was on welfare. Those are very important programs and I’ve said already that the people that actually need them the most, the ones who are disabled, the ones who can’t get out and work, they should have them."
"It’s meant for lower and middle-income people and I support them getting those benefits. But I don’t support who are here illegally get them," Brown said.
And he added that he doesn't support giving the benefits to "people who are able-bodied and can absolutely go out and do some volunteerism, go out and work."
Republicans are also going on offense over the bill, targeting Democrats for voting against the tax cuts.
Republicans are shining a spotlight on recent polls conducted by GOP-aligned groups that indicate strong support for the bill due to the tax cut provisions.
Brown, who was interviewed by Fox News after he marched in the annual Brentwood, New Hampshire July 4th parade, said "obviously keeping the 2017 tax cuts in place. Certainly for individuals and businesses, it’s really really critical."
And pointing to Pappas, whose family for over a century has owned Manchester's iconic Puritan Backroom restaurant, Brown said "for someone like Chris Pappas, imagine walking into the restaurant he owns and telling his employees ‘oh by the way I’m not going to support your no tax on tips, your no tax on overtime.’ How do you do that?"
Asked about the GOP attacks, Pappas said "I support targeted tax cuts for working people, for our small businesses and to make sure we are targeting that relief to the people that need it, not to billionaires, to the biggest corporations in way that adds $4 trillion to the national debt as this bill does."
"We hoped there would be an opportunity for a bipartisan conversation on taxes and how we can invest in the middle class and working people and our small businesses and unfortunately that didn’t happen," he added.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo are calling for a full investigation into allegations that Zohran Mamdani falsely identified himself as African American on his Columbia University application.
However, Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa says the controversy is a distraction from Mamdani’s socialist agenda and only turns him into a victim, energizing his supporters and swaying undecided voters.
Both Adams and Cuomo warned that Mamdani’s alleged racial misrepresentation could signal deeper deceit — with the Adams campaign calling the move "possibly fraudulent" and Cuomo’s campaign warning it might be "just the tip of the iceberg."
Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, identified as "Black or African American" on his 2009 Columbia University application, even though he now says he does not consider himself Black, The New York Times reported Thursday. Mamdani, then a high school senior, also checked "Asian" and reportedly wrote in "Ugandan" in the space for additional background. He was ultimately not accepted to Columbia, even though his father is a professor at the elite school. He was not a U.S. citizen at the time.
Mamdani told The Times he identifies as "an American who was born in Africa," and said checking multiple boxes was an effort to reflect his "complex background" and not to gain an edge in the competitive admissions process.
However, Adams condemned Mamdani’s actions as "an insult to every student who got into college the right way."
"The African American identity is not a checkbox of convenience," Adams said. "It’s a history, a struggle, and a lived experience. For someone to exploit that for personal gain is deeply offensive."
Rich Azzopardi, a spokesperson for the Cuomo campaign, echoed the calls from the Adams camp.
"This should come as no surprise as Mamdani — his proposals, his funding, and his background — received absolutely no scrutiny," Azzopardi said. "This issue must be fully investigated because, if true, it could be fraud and just the tip of the iceberg."
Adams is running as an Independent, having been elected as a Democrat in late 2021, while Cuomo is weighing an independent route to Gracie Mansion, having lost to Mamdani in the Democratic primary.
Sliwa, on the other hand, is taking the high road and sees the controversy as a political distraction that will only help Mamdani’s cause.
"There’s so much we can criticize Zoran for…to me, what are we doing here?" Sliwa told Fox News Digital. "We're making him a martyr. We're victimizing Zohran and getting away from the issues of why his election would be a threat to New York City.
"He’s being attacked as a Muslim, he’s being mocked for how he eats in a video. Stop that. You’re enraging people who might otherwise disagree with him on the issues. You’re galvanizing his support."
Mamdani’s win has caused a political earthquake in the Big Apple, striking fear into moderates, independents, conservatives — and even parts of the Democrat Party — who believe his socialist policies could have devastating and long-lasting consequences on the financial capital of the world. Mamdani ran on a platform that included economic policies aligned with progressives and socialists in the Democratic Party, such as a $30 minimum wage, tax hikes on businesses and the rich, and other policies, like creating city-owned grocery stores and imposing a rent freeze for stabilized tenants.
Sliwa warned critics that critics are handing Mamdani a political gift.
"Even people who don’t agree with him on the issues will rally to his defense when they think the attacks are unfair or over the top," Sliwa added. "Let's get back to the issues where there are clear differences between how Zohran Mamdani wants to run the city and the way I want to run this city — or Eric Adams or Andrew Cuomo. Stop this, you're just victimizing him."
The Adams campaign is calling on Columbia University to publicly release Mamdani’s 2009 admissions records, clarify whether his non-citizen status influenced admissions or financial aid decisions, and conduct a formal review to determine whether any university policies were violated.
"We need answers," Adams spokesperson Todd Shapiro said. "Because the people of New York deserve to know whether the man asking for their vote built his career on a possibly fraudulent foundation."
Fox News Digital reached out to the Mamdani campaign about the controversy and his opponents' takes on it but did not immediately receive a response.
Mamdani told The Times that aside from those college forms, he doesn’t recall ever identifying as Black or African American. His parents are both of Indian descent. His father, Columbia professor Mahmood Mamdani, has lived in East Africa for generations, but Mamdani said there had been no intermarriage in the family with native African groups.
Mamdani has leaned into his South Asian and Muslim identity on the campaign trail.
During a June speech at Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, he also stressed his African roots, saying, "I was born in Kampala, Uganda... I was given my middle name, Kwame, by my father, who named me after the first Prime Minister of Ghana."
Fox News’ Jasmine Baehr contributed to this report.
It’s not just the waves making a splash in Los Angeles this Fourth of July – lifeguards' sky-high paychecks are turning heads, too.
According to a new report by fiscal watchdog group OpenTheBooks, at least one L.A. County lifeguard raked in more than half a million dollars last year. Meanwhile, 34 lifeguards brought in $300,000 or more during 2024, while 134 brought in at least $200,000 in base pay, overtime and other benefits.
Taxpayers in Los Angeles County are used to getting soaked, but it might be "unsettling" for some to hear how much lifeguards are being paid while the city still faces a shortage of firefighters and police, and struggles to extinguish wildfires or return violent crime to pre-pandemic levels, said OpenTheBooks CEO John Hart.
"Lifeguards who risk their lives protecting the public deserve to be well compensated, but paying them more than $500,000 may be unsettling to taxpayers who are drowning in debt," Hart told Fox News Digital. "Once again, Los Angeles — a city that is struggling to extinguish fires and looting — is leading the way in lavish pay that needs to be addressed."
L.A. County’s 134 highest-paid lifeguards earned a combined $70.8 million last year, according to OpenTheBooks — averaging over $500,000 in total compensation per person. In addition to base and overtime pay, the dollar amount also includes "other" pay, leave time payouts, health insurance payments, pension contributions, deferred contributions, long-term disability and life insurance payouts.
The highest paid lifeguard OpenTheBooks found brought in $523,351 in base pay, "other pay," and benefits in 2024.
L.A. County's lifeguard division is recognized as one of the largest professional lifeguard services in the country. According to OpenTheBooks, in addition to higher-paid lifeguards, whose duties can range from watching swimmers to major maritime rescues and emergency response, there are a slew of lower-paid lifeguards that bring the total number of them in the Los Angeles-area to around 1,500.
OpenTheBooks, which tracks wasteful spending across the government, reported in 2021 that the top-paid lifeguards in Los Angeles County earned up to $510,283 – nearly half of which was overtime pay. That year, 98 lifeguards in L.A. County made at least $200,000.
In 2024, overtime pay played a major role in boosting lifeguard earnings in Los Angeles.
Beyond Los Angeles, excessive overtime pay has sparked debate in other cities — particularly those grappling with major budget shortfalls.
In Seattle, police officers have had to be disciplined for repeatedly violating the city's overtime policy. Per The Seattle Times, a patrol officer made more than the mayor, the police chief or any other city employee in 2019 after raking in more than $414,000.
Overtime abuse has been an issue in other major cities like New York and Chicago, as well. In Chicago, where the city faces a growing budget shortfall, records obtained by a local news outlet found that during the first six months of 2024, the city had already spent 30% more than was allocated for police overtime pay. In New York, a former department chief for the NYPD is currently under investigation for alleged overtime abuse and other crimes.
Republicans' "big beautiful bill" is purported to help overtime workers bring home even more, with its "no tax on tips" provision. Initially, the House's version of the bill had no limit on how much overtime pay could be exempt, but the Senate's version of the bill capped it at $12,500.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Los Angeles County public information office for comment but did not hear back by press time.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s top aide who was recently placed on leave over a sexual harassment allegation, reportedly had previous complaints filed against him which led to an investigation.
Avi Small, Hochul’s press secretary, was reportedly the subject of complaints for allegedly berating junior staff members, according to Politico. The outlet cited five people with direct knowledge of the probe who were granted anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the matter. According to Politico, the governor’s human resources department and an outside law firm conducted the investigation.
The people familiar with the matter who spoke with Politico said Small had a history of yelling at younger staff, making several employees afraid to work with him. Politico reported that four out of the five who spoke with the outlet said they witnessed Small chastising staffers over errors in press releases or if the governor’s speaking engagements did not go as planned.
The investigation into Small’s treatment of junior staff did not result in a human resources violation, Politico reported, citing another person familiar with the outcome. That source reportedly told Politico that Hochul had inadvertently created a system in which allegations quickly led to serious probes that could tarnish a subject’s reputation.
Law firm Calcagni & Kanefsky reportedly conducted interviews with Hochul’s staff regarding Small’s conduct. According to Politico, which cited sources, staffers were worried when they learned an expansion of deputy secretaries’ responsibilities would mean Small would work more closely with underlings.
Politico reported that several staffers met with human resources after the conclusion of the 2024 investigation to ask about the lack of information on the probe’s outcome. The staffers were reportedly encouraged not to discuss the allegations against Small. Additionally, multiple sources reportedly told Politico that there was information given to human resources about Small cornering a subordinate in a supply closet and questioning them.
Small was recently placed on leave over an allegation that he inappropriately touched a staffer during an office retreat in Albany on June 16, according to reports. Multiple outlets said that the governor’s office claimed action was taken against Small shortly after the complaint was filed.
When Hochul took over for former Gov. Andrew Cuomo after he was ousted amid sexual harassment allegations in 2021, she vowed that "no one will ever describe my administration as a ‘toxic work environment.’" Cuomo has denied any wrongdoing.
In October 2021, according to a press release from Calcagni & Kanefsky, Hochul announced new initiatives aimed at tackling workplace bullying and discrimination.
Hochul’s office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment, which was submitted on July 4. Fox News Digital was also unable to get in contact with Small.
President Donald Trump quickly took aim at Democrats for opposing his sweeping domestic policy bill.
"Not one Democrat voted for us, and I think we use it in the campaign that's coming up the midterms, because we've got to beat them,"
The president spoke as he headlined a July 4th-eve event at the Iowa State Fairgrounds to kickoff celebrations of next year's 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Hours earlier, the GOP-controlled House of Representatives, in a 218-214 vote on Thursday nearly entirely along party lines, lifted the so-called "One Big Beautiful Bill" to final congressional passage. Earlier in the week, Vice President JD Vance broke a tie in the Senate to advance the measure 51-50.
The president is scheduled to sign the massive spending and tax cut bill into law Friday at 5pm, at a White House signing ceremony.
With the legislative battle over the bill finished, and Trump and congressional Republican leaders victorious, the campaign trail war now begins over the controversial measure, which most public opinion polls suggest is not very popular with Americans.
"Every Democrat voted to hurt working families and to protect the status quo," argued a memo from the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) released minutes after the final House passage of the bill.
And the NRCC, which is the campaign arm of the House GOP, emphasized that "House Republicans will be relentless in making this vote the defining issue of 2026."
House Republicans will be defending their razor-thin majority in the chamber (220-215 when the House is at full strength) when all 435 seats are up for grabs in next year's midterm elections.
NRCC chair Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, in an opinion piece published on Friday morning, charged that House Democrats "rejected common sense" by voting against the bill.
"And we will make sure each one of them has to answer for it," he vowed, as he pointed to next year's congressional elections.
The bill is stuffed full of Trump's 2024 campaign trail promises and second-term priorities on tax cuts, immigration, defense, energy and the debt limit.
It includes extending his signature 2017 tax cuts and eliminating taxes on tips and overtime pay.
By making his first-termtax rates permanent - they were set to expire later this year - the bill will cut taxes by nearly $4.4 trillion over the next decade, according to analysis by the Congressional Budget Office and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
The measure also provides billions for border security and codifies the president's controversial immigration crackdown.
And the bill also restructures Medicaid — the nearly 60-year-old federal program that provides health coverage to roughly 71 million low-income Americans. Additionally, Senate Republicans increased cuts to Medicaid over what the House initially passed in late May.
The changes to Medicaid, as well as cuts to food stamps, another one of the nation's major safety net programs, were drafted in part as an offset to pay for extending Trump's tax cuts. The measure includes a slew of new rules and regulations, including work requirements for many of those seeking Medicaid coverage.
And the $3.4 trillion legislative package is also projected to surge the national debt by $4 trillion over the next decade.
Democrats for a couple of months have blasted Republicans over the social safety net changes.
"BREAKING: House Republicans vote to kick 17 million people off health care," screamed the headline in an email from the Democratic National Committee to supporters, moments after the bill passed the House on Thursday.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries charged that "extreme House Republicans just approved the largest cut to Medicaid and food assistance in American history to fund tax breaks for their billionaire donors."
And Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) chair Rep. Suzan DelBene pledged that "the DCCC will make sure every battleground voter knows how vulnerable House Republicans abandoned them by passing the most unpopular piece of legislation in modern American history, and we’re going to take back the House majority because of it."
Expect to see ads from Democrats as early as this holiday weekend taking aim at Republicans over their passage of the bill. And the Democrats are expected to turn up the volume on the messaging campaign next month, during the August congressional break.
But Republicans are also going on offense, targeting Democrats for voting against tax cuts.
Republicans are shining a spotlight on a poll conducted by a GOP-aligned public policy group that indicates strong support for the bill due to the tax cut provisions.
A release earlier this week from the group, One Nation, argued that "polling shows that the public supports the Republican plan to cut taxes for families, eliminate taxes on Social Security, overtime, and tips, and reign in waste and abuse in the federal budget."
The president, as he returned to the nation's capital early Friday after his event in Iowa, touted his bill.
"I think it's very popular. It does many things, but one of them is the biggest tax cuts in our country's history. And that alone makes it very popular," Trump said.
But Democrats spotlighted a slew of national polls conducted last month that indicate the bill's popularity in negative territory.
By a 21-point margin, voters questioned in the most recent Fox News national poll opposed the bill (38% favored vs. 59% opposed).
The bill was also underwater in other national surveys conducted last month by the Washington Post (minus 19 points), Pew Research (minus 20 points) and Quinnipiac University (minus 26 points).
About half of respondents questioned in the Fox News poll said the bill would hurt their family (49%), while one quarter thought it would help (23%), and another quarter didn't think it would make a difference (26%).
Sixty percent felt they had a good understanding of what is in the measure, and while those voters were more likely to favor the legislation than those who are unfamiliar with it, more still think it will hurt rather than help their family (45% vs. 34%).
The latest surveys all indicated a wide partisan divide over the measure.
According to the Fox News poll, which was conducted June 13-16, nearly three-quarters of Republicans (73%) favored the bill, while nearly nine in ten Democrats (89%) and nearly three-quarters of independents (73%) opposed the measure.
The race to develop 6th-generation aircraft is no longer a future vision – it’s now a defining force behind U.S. defense strategy.
With cutting-edge platforms like the B-21 Raider, the F-47 and the Navy’s F/A-XX on the horizon, the Pentagon is reshaping how the U.S. projects airpower for the next 50 years.
These aircraft promise unprecedented advances in speed, stealth and autonomy – but they’re also colliding with budget pressures, industrial capacity limits, and an increasingly uncertain global threat environment.
Northrop Grumman’s B-21 Raider is poised to become the backbone of U.S. long-range strike capability. With its next-gen stealth design, reduced maintenance burden and affordability compared to its B-2 predecessor, the B-21 is seen as critical to deterring strategic threats like China and Iran.
The urgency became clear last week when seven B-2 bombers flew an 18-hour mission to Iran, dropping bunker-busting bombs on nuclear targets. While effective, the B-2’s high cost and aging systems underscore the need for its replacement. At $692 million per aircraft — compared to $2 billion for a B-2 — the B-21 offers strategic reach at a more sustainable price.
The high-tech stealth bomber can carry nuclear and conventional weapons and is designed to be optionally manned, meaning it could fly without a crew on board.
Flight tests are already underway at Edwards Air Force Base, with three B-21s in the air and the first units expected to achieve operational capability by 2027. The Air Force has committed to at least 100 Raiders, with internal discussions floating a potential scale-up to 200.
"What we need to consider is doubling the production capacity as rapidly as possible to bring up that inventory," said Gen. David Deptula.
Once stalled, the Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program roared back to life this spring under a new name and a new contract. Now designated the F-47, the program – awarded to Boeing – is designed to be the most advanced manned fighter in U.S. history. Its capabilities will include stealth, extended range, speeds exceeding Mach 2 and integration with a new class of AI-enabled drones called Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA).
The F-47 will serve as the "quarterback" for a team of 1,000 CCAs, controlling them in battle and coordinating sensor and targeting data in real time.
"It's critically important that President Trump proceeded with the manned platform for the Air Force," said former Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Calif. "This academic debate about unmanned-only platforms is aspirational – but the networks just aren’t there yet."
The aircraft has an ambitious timeline for initial operational capacity – within the 2025-2029 range, according to a graphic posted by Air Force chief of staff David Allvin on X.
The Pentagon is going all-in on the F-47 in the 2026 budget: requesting $3.5 billion while decreasing its request for F-35s from 74 to 47. Garcia, a former Navy pilot, emphasized that human pilots are still essential for managing the complexity of 21st-century warfare.
However, others within the Pentagon argue that manned fighters may become obsolete before the F-47 is even fully fielded.
"AI technologies are evolving far more rapidly than anyone predicted," a former senior defense official said. "If they continue to evolve in five years... you’re on exactly the wrong path."
Deptula decried "arbitrary" budgets that were set by Congress rather than defense officials' determination of what they need for readiness and argued the more-expensive F-47 might be able to do far more work than less elite aircraft.
"Individually, F-47 might be costlier than a previous fighter aircraft, but if it can achieve 15, 20, 30, 40 times what it would take to accomplish the particular outcome using non-stealthy or other less expensive aircraft, which one provides the most value? So that's where the decision calculus needs to go."
Unlike the Air Force, the Navy is moving slowly with its own 6th-gen project — the F/A-XX. Garcia sees this as intentional, noting that naval airframes must withstand far greater environmental challenges than their Air Force counterparts.
Officials are still unsure whether the Navy’s next-gen fighter jet, F/A-XX, will move forward at all, according to the FY 2026 budget proposal.
"Waiting for a decision from the secretary of the Navy, secretary of defense, and the president," a defense official told reporters. "That's an active conversation, whether to continue with the program or not."
The program will proceed right now with "minimal funding" for design in the budget, the official said.
"Designing a naval variant of an Air Force aircraft on the same timeline? It’s impossible to do it correctly."
Instead, the Navy is expected to borrow technology – like engines and sensors – from NGAD while building a unique carrier-capable fighter suited for saltwater, catapults and fight deck operations.
However, Garcia warned that the Navy has a deeper, under-reported problem: a shortfall in carrier-based strike fighters.
"A gold-plated 6th-gen aircraft in low quantities isn’t the answer. Slightly less capability in higher numbers is what the Navy needs."
However, Deptula said there’s a question of whether aircraft carriers will even continue to be viable in the future.
"The question that a lot of people in the Department of Defense are asking now is what's the viability of an aircraft carrier in a future world proliferated by hypersonic, very precise missiles with 1,500-mile-plus ranges."
Carriers "project power" in low-threat environments, Deptula said, but "most people recognize you're not going to put aircraft carriers close enough to use the aircraft."
"The Navy wants to lean in and get trillions more for sixth generation. The people that want to watch our $2 trillion deficit ought to keep that in mind here," the former defense official said.
FIRST ON FOX — The Democratic National Committee (DNC) on Friday launched a new campaign accusing President Donald Trump of "killing the American dream"through price hikes, market volatility and the GOP-backed megabill passed by Congress.
Party officials plan to lean heavily on the message in the months ahead as they work to broaden their appeal and regain momentum ahead of the 2026 midterms.
The DNC's messaging campaign, previewed exclusively to Fox News Digital, seeks to tie Trump directly to recent price hikes on consumer goods, such as groceries and baby food, as well as cost of living increases and insurance costs, which they argue will soar under the so-called "big beautiful bill."
"America should be the land of opportunity but under Donald Trump, the American dream is dying," they said Friday in an email previewed by Fox News.
The campaign will feature new memos and ads under the broader mantle of the "Trump killing the American dream" campaign, which is slated to run through December.
The initiative is part of the DNC’s broader upheaval of its messaging in the wake of the 2024 elections, which saw longtime Democrat voting blocs, including some minority voters and young people, shift towards Trump and the Republican Party.
This includes Hispanic voters, whose support for Trump nearly broke even with former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024, according to exit poll data, as well as larger shares of registered Independent voters and young voters.
The new messaging strategy unveiled Friday focuses largely on what Democrats argue is the daylight between Trump's campaign trail promises, contrasting his pledge to return America to a "golden age," with the situation for many working-class Americans.
It highlights expected cuts to Medicaid, food assistance programs and other community-based housing affordability programs that stand to be reduced, if not altogether eliminated, by the Republican spending bill.
"After ramming Trump's [budget bill] through Congress, one thing is abundantly clear: Republicans own this mess, and it's an albatross around their necks heading into the midterms," DNC Chair Ken Martin told Fox News Digital.
"This is the least popular legislation in modern history, and the more voters learn about it the more they hate it. That's a clear directive for Democrats — we're going to make sure every single voter knows who is responsible for taking away their healthcare, food, hospitals, and nursing homes."
That message is expected to be a central Democratic theme through 2026. Party officials say they’re now better positioned to make their case to voters — and that the American people, in return, are more willing to listen to them.
The launch comes on the heels of the party’s "Organizing Summer" campaign, aimed at boosting Democratic operations in battleground states. The DNC has ramped up state-level funding, voter registration and volunteer recruitment — drawing more than 15,000 volunteers to date.
Officials say they will continue to hammer their message hard in the run-up to 2026, including in 35 Republican-held congressional seats the Democratic Party's House campaign arm has identified as "districts in play" in the 2026 election cycle, or areas where they could find a path to winning back the House majority.
Friday’s launch is not the first time the DNC has tried to tie Trump to economic pain — but past efforts have had limited success. It remains unclear whether this latest push will resonate with Independents and Republicans, who delivered sweeping victories for Trump and the GOP in 2024, especially as the economy shows signs of resilience. Just Thursday, the Labor Department reported the U.S. added 147,000 jobs in June — blowing past expectations — while unemployment ticked down to 4.1%.
However, DNC officials insist the economic situation has changed as a result of tariff threats, volatility and unpopular legislation they see as a new opportunity to break through to voters who may have been less receptive in previous elections.
They point to a Congressional Budget Office analysis which estimates the spending bill backed by Trump will increase federal deficits by roughly $2.4 trillion over 10 years and have a knock-down impact on working-class Americans, who could see a spike in insurance costs, housing prices, and cuts to Medicaid, SNAP and education programs, including Pell grants. They also cite projections that the bill could eliminate 1.2 million jobs by 2029.
"Let’s be clear: The Trump administration has taken aim at the very things that make America the greatest country in the world," party officials said.
"Americans are overwhelmingly rejecting his agenda, rife with buyers' remorse. Democrats are standing with the American people, organizing everywhere, and fighting back — in Congress, in the courts, and on the ground in states across the country."
Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House and Republican National Committee for comment.
President Donald Trump and his administration have taken a hatchet to left-wing policies that infiltrated the federal government, which has included directly combating policies originating in the state of California, where local leaders repeatedly have sparred with the president since even before Inauguration Day.
"Governor Gavin Newscum is trying to KILL our Nation’s beautiful California," Trump posted to Truth Social just days after his November 2024 election win. "For the first time ever, more people are leaving than are coming in. He is using the term ‘Trump-Proof’ as a way of stopping all of the GREAT things that can be done to 'Make California Great Again,' but I just overwhelmingly won the Election."
California's embrace of sanctuary status designations to protect illegal immigrants from deportation efforts, environmental and education policies, and its handling of anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement riots and massive wildfires that rocked Southern California have all fallen under Trump's ire, Fox Digital found.
Trump's long battle with California Gov. Gavin Newsom, which stretches back to his first presidential administration, regarding his handling of wildfire prevention and response was resurrected in the waning days of the Biden administration when massive fires broke out in the Los Angeles area ahead of Trump reclaiming the Oval Office.
"Governor Gavin Newscum refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way," Trump posted to Truth Social as the fires raged just weeks ahead of his inauguration.
"He wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, by giving it less water (it didn’t work!), but didn’t care about the people of California. Now the ultimate price is being paid. I will demand that this incompetent governor allow beautiful, clean, fresh water to FLOW INTO CALIFORNIA! He is the blame for this. On top of it all, no water for fire hydrants, not firefighting planes. A true disaster!"
Newsom's office shot back that "there is no such document as the water restoration declaration – that is pure fiction. The Governor is focused on protecting people, not playing politics, and making sure firefighters have all the resources they need."
Trump has a long history of putting Newsom’s handling of wildfires under the microscope across his first four years in the White House, including in January 2019 when he threatened to cut off federal funds to California if reforms were not made to the state’s forest management services.
Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office in 2025, titled "Putting People over Fish: Stopping Radical Environmentalism to Provide Water to Southern California," that ordered water resources to be re-routed to the Los Angeles area.
"The water is flowing in California," Trump posted to Truth Social in February. "These once empty ‘halfpipes’ are now brimming with beautiful, clean water, and heading to farmers throughout the State, and to Los Angeles. Too bad they refused to do this during my First Term - There would have been no fires!"
When asked about the repeated barbs between Newsom and Trump since Inauguration Day, the White House said the governor should stop "daydreaming about his 2028 presidential campaign" and focus on leading California.
"Gavin Newscum has turned the California Dream into a nightmare – violent illegal immigrants invade communities, enabled criminals destroy small businesses, and men compete in women’s sports," White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers told Fox Digital Thursday when asked about Trump and Newsom repeatedly trading barbs. "President Trump will always prioritize people over politics because he wants to see the entire country succeed. Gavin should stop daydreaming about his 2028 presidential campaign and prove that he can successfully run just one of fifty states."
The governor's office directed Fox News Digital to a Wednesday press conference where Newsom touted a $750 million tax credit for films and TV programs made in California.
"How did you get this thing through considering everything else that's happening?" a reporter asked Newsom during the press conference of the tax credit.
"I think because of everything else happening this year," Newsom responded. "I think, frankly, the conditions only further the imperative of this. From October when we announced this, to the devastation of these fires, to the reality of what we're up against in the headwinds in Washington, DC, that we're on our own in many respects, and we've got to step things up. And we've got to be more intentional. We've got to be more targeted. And we've got to knit together different economic strategies."
Newsom's woes grew larger on the national stage in June when riots broke out in Los Angeles in response to federal law enforcement converging on the city to conduct raids to deport illegal immigrants.
Riots formed in the left-wing city in early June as local leaders such as Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Newsom, quickly denounced the immigration raids in public statements while offering words of support for illegal immigrants in the state.
Protests over the raids soon devolved into violence as rioters targeted federal law enforcement officials, including launching rocks at officials, as well as videos showing people looting local stores, setting cars on fire and taking over a freeway.
Trump announced shortly after violence broke out in the city that he would deploy 2,000 National Guard members to help quell the violence, bypassing the governor, who typically activates the National Guard. California subsequently filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for efforts to allegedly "federalize the California National Guard."
"Governor Gavin Newscum and 'Mayor' Bass should apologize to the people of Los Angeles for the absolutely horrible job that they have done, and this now includes the ongoing L.A. riots. These are not protesters, they are troublemakers and insurrectionists," Trump posted to Truth Social on June 8 amid the riots.
The riots quieted in mid-June following the "No Kings Day" protests June 14, the same day Trump held a military parade in Washington, honoring the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army.
The Trump administration's Department of Justice Monday filed a lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles for its sanctuary city policies, which the DOJ said discriminates against federal immigration law enforcement officials.
"Sanctuary policies were the driving cause of the violence, chaos, and attacks on law enforcement that Americans recently witnessed in Los Angeles," Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News of the suit. "Jurisdictions like Los Angeles that flout federal law by prioritizing illegal aliens over American citizens are undermining law enforcement at every level — it ends under President Trump."
The suit follows Trump signing an April executive order that works to withhold federal funding from jurisdictions that identify as sanctuaries for illegal immigrants and fail to comply with federal law enforcement.
Newsom slammed Trump again in June when reports spread the Trump administration was considering revoking national monument status from two natural areas in the Golden State enshrined into protection by former President Joe Biden.
"This is just getting petty. Grow up," Newsom said on X June 13 in response to reports Trump was considering abolishing the Chuckwalla and Sattitla Highlands National Monuments.
"If it’s a day ending in Y, it’s another day of Trump’s war on California," Newsom’s office said in a separate X post.
The Trump Justice Department issued a July memo ruling that the president’s power to revoke national monument status is reversible by future administrations. The White House told Reuters that the U.S. needs to "liberate our federal lands and waters to oil, gas, coal, geothermal, and mineral leasing."
Trump signed a trio of congressional resolutions June 12 ending California's restrictive rules for diesel engines and mandates on elective vehicle sales, with Trump celebrating that his signature "will kill the California mandates forever."
"Under the previous administration, the federal government gave left-wing radicals in California dictatorial powers to control the future of the entire car industry all over the country, all over the world, actually," Trump said Thursday from the White House ahead of singing the resolutions.
"They approved Governor Gavin 'Newscum's' ridiculous plan to impose a 100% ban on all new gas-powered cars within a very short period of time," he said. "Think of this, you can't buy any other car except an electric powered car, and in California they have blackouts and brownouts. They don't have enough electricity right now."
The resolutions work to end California's plan to end the sale of gasoline-only vehicles by 2035, including one ending a waiver issued by the Biden-era EPA that mandated at least 80% of vehicles be electric vehicles in California by 2035, as well as another resolution ending the Biden-era EPA's approval of a plan to increase the number of zero-emission heavy-duty trucks in California, and another on California's low-nitrogen oxide regulations for heavy-duty vehicles, including off-road vehicles.
Trump was able to revoke the state's rules as they were based on the Biden administration granting the state special permission to exceed federal standards related to pollution. Trump's signature overturned the Biden administration's approval of California's rules.
Newsom called the resolutions an ongoing "all-out assault on California," and announced the state filed a suit against the Trump administration over the resolutions.
"Trump’s all-out assault on California continues — and this time he’s destroying our clean air and America’s global competitiveness in the process," Newsom said in a press release. "We are suing to stop this latest illegal action by a President who is a wholly-owned subsidiary of big polluters."
Trump's resolutions follow him signing a bevy of executive orders that aim to "unleash American energy" as part of his 2024 campaign vow to again make the U.S. energy independent, including by revitalizing the coal industry by cutting red tape and regulations, and unleashing oil and gas development in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.
The Trump administration's Department of Justice announced a federal probe into California over potential Title IX violations regarding its policy allowing trans athletes in girls' sports earlier in June, following the Department of Education finding the California Department of Education and the California Interscholastic Federation were in violation of Title IX and failed to protect women and girls from sex-based discrimination.
"A Biological Male competed in California Girls State Finals, WINNING BIG, despite the fact that they were warned by me not to do so. As Governor Gavin Newscum fully understands, large scale fines will be imposed!" Trump wrote on Truth Social in June after a biological male trans athlete won multiple girls' state titles in track and field.
The office of California Attorney General Rob Bonta told Fox Digital in June that the state was working to ensure all students were free from discrimination and harassment.
"We’re very concerned with the Trump Administration’s ongoing threats to California schools and remain committed to defending and upholding California laws and all additional laws which ensure the rights of students — including transgender students — to be free from discrimination and harassment. We are reviewing the letter and closely monitoring the Trump Administration’s actions in this space," the statement read.
The Trump administration also gave California's federally funded sex education program 60 days June 20 to remove all references to gender identity or face potential termination of its funding.
California's Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) grant has been under scrutiny by the Trump administration since at least March, when the HHS's Administration for Children and Families (ACF) requested the federally funded state-operated program send copies of its curriculum and other relevant course materials to them for review.
"The Trump administration will not tolerate the use of federal funds for programs that indoctrinate our children," said ACF's acting Assistant Secretary Andrew Gradison. "The disturbing gender ideology content in California’s PREP materials is both unacceptable and well outside the program’s core purpose. ACF remains committed to radical transparency and providing accountability so that parents know what their children are being taught in schools."
Among the materials ACF found, which it now wants to be removed, was a lesson for middle school-aged students that seeks to introduce them to the concepts of transgenderism.
"We’ve been talking during class about messages people get on how they should act as boys and girls—but as many of you know, there are also people who don’t identify as boys or girls, but rather as transgender or gender queer," the lesson states to students. "This means that even if they were called a boy or a girl at birth and may have body parts that are typically associated with being a boy or a girl, on the inside, they feel differently."
Trump's administration put California's high-speed rail proposal, which had been in the works for nearly two decades but with very little progress to show, on notice in February when the administration called for an audit of the multibillion dollar project.
"It's been 17 years and $16 billion and no rail has been built," Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in February.
Newsom had touted just in January that California was on the verge of launching a high-speed rail that would ultimately stretch from Los Angeles to San Francisco. The project is expected to cost $106 billion, with federal taxpayers already spending nearly $3 billion on the project, Fox Digital previously reported.
"No state in America is closer to launching high-speed rail than California — and today, we just took a massive step forward," Gov. Gavin Newsom said in January. "We’re moving into the track-laying phase, completing structures for key segments, and laying the groundwork for a high-speed rail network."
The Department of Transportation proposed in a 300-page report in June that $4 billion in grants for the proposed line be terminated.
"We’re not going to fund that … it’s out of control," Trump said of the project in June.
"It doesn’t go where it’s supposed to. It’s supposed to go from LA to San Francisco now, because they don’t have any money ... and they made it much shorter," he added.
Fox News Digital's Cameron Arcand, Alec Schemmel, Charles Cretiz and Jackson Thompson contributed to this report.
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele has released a video highlight reel showing Kilmar Abrego Garcia apparently thriving during his imprisonment, in an attempt to refute the migrant’s claims that he was tortured while in custody.
Abrego Garcia, who was erroneously deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador and then returned after a court order, is seen in the video gardening, playing soccer, fishing and enjoying other leisurely activities while imprisoned in his home country.
The video appears at odds to Abrego Garcia's claims in legal filings that he was severely beaten, deprived of sleep and psychologically tortured while detained in the country’s Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, a notorious anti-terrorism prison.
According to court documents, Abrego Garcia’s physical condition deteriorated quickly upon arrival there and, within two weeks, he lost roughly 31 pounds.
But Bukele pushed back against those claims on Thursday, claiming he actually put on weight and released video evidence to refute claims of torture.
The video shows Abrego Garcia in seemingly good spirits, playing chess and soccer, working out with fellow inmates, doing gardening and relaxing while watching a widescreen television in his cell, among other leisurely activities.
"If he’d been tortured, sleep-deprived, and starved, why does he look so well in every picture?" Bukele wrote on X. "Why would he gain weight? Why are there no bruises, or even dark circles under his eyes?"
"The man wasn’t tortured, nor did he lose weight. In fact, photos show he gained weight while in detention. There’s plenty of footage from different days, including his meeting with Senator Van Hollen, who himself confirmed the man seemed fine."
Bukele went on to rip the mainstream media for seemingly believing the claims.
"Apparently, anything a criminal claims is accepted as truth by the mainstream media and the crumbling Western judiciary," Bukele wrote.
Under Bukele’s state of emergency, the government has detained more than 1% of the Central American nation’s population in its war on the country’s gangs. The president has turned what was once the most dangerous country in the world -- with a homicide rate of 103 per 100,000 people in 2015 -- into one of the safest in the Western Hemisphere, with 1.9 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2024. The U.S. rate was 5.5 per 100,000 people in 2023, which are the most recent records available.
Hundreds of people have died in the El Salvador prisons, according to the Associated Press, citing human rights groups, which have also documented cases of torture and deteriorated conditions.
Abrego Garcia, who was living in Maryland after coming to the U.S. illegally, was deported to El Salvador in March 2025. He became a prominent face of the Democrats' resistance to the Trump administration’s mass deportation plans.
The Trump administration accuses them of being an MS-13 gang member, a human trafficker and a serial domestic abuser amid police reports by his wife that he used violence against her.
Abrego Garcia's lawyers claimed when he arrived at the prison he was immediately frog-marched to his cell by prison guards, who kicked him with boots and struck him with wooden batons along the way, leaving visible bumps and bruises across his body.
He and other detainees in the cell slept on metal mattresses, with minimal access to food and satiation. They were also forced to kneel for approximately nine hours, from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., "with guards striking anyone who fell from exhaustion," per the filings.
They claim he was also psychologically tortured and received threats of violence during his time at CECOT where prison guards repeatedly told him they would transfer him to other prison cells housing violent gang members, whom they assured him would "tear" him apart.
Fox News’ Breanne Deppisch and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
