EXCLUSIVE – As House GOP leaders advance President Donald Trump’s so-called "big, beautiful bill" toward a floor vote this week, Democrats, who are in the minority, are sounding a warning.
"We’re going to hold Republicans accountable and there will be a price to pay," Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington State, the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, emphasized as she pointed to next year's midterm elections during a Fox News Digital interview.
Republicans are holding onto an extremely razor-thin majority in the chamber right now, and Democrats only need a three-seat pickup to win back the House majority in the 2026 elections.
Additionally, they view the sweeping and controversial GOP-crafted measure stocked full of Trump's second-term priorities on tax cuts, immigration, defense, energy and the debt limit – which is currently making its way through numerous votes and hurdles in the House – as political ammunition.
"This is a terrible piece of legislation," DelBene argued.
Democrats from across the party are shining a spotlight on the Republicans' restructuring of Medicaid, the nearly 60-year-old federal government program that provides health insurance for roughly 71 million adults and children with limited incomes.
"Let’s be clear, all Republicans are talking about right now is how many people and how fast they’re going to take away healthcare. They have these huge cuts to Medicaid, 14 million people lose healthcare across the country, and they’re talking about how fast they can do that," DelBene charged on Tuesday.
She claimed that House Republicans are "all blindly following the president and going to blindly follow him off the cliff."
Rep. Ted Lieu of California, another member of the House Democrat leadership, argued as he took questions from reporters that the bill "has the largest cut to healthcare in U.S. history."
The cuts to Medicaid, being drafted in part as an offset to pay for extending Trump's 2017 tax cut law, which is set to expire later this year, include a slew of new rules and regulatory requirements for those seeking coverage. Among them are a new set of work requirements for many of those seeking coverage.
"When you go across the country and talk to folks, folks are outraged, and they’re scared. They’re scared about the cuts to healthcare, not only cutting 14 million people off of healthcare but then raising costs beyond that for everyone and things like rural hospitals closing," DelBene argued. "This would have devastating impacts across the country. This is policy that Republicans are fighting for, cutting nutrition health programs so that families don’t even have healthy food."
House Republicans push back against the Democrats' attacks and say what they are doing is putting an end to waste, fraud and abuse currently in the Medicaid system, so the program can work for the public in the way that it was intended.
They call any talk that they are cutting aid to mothers, children, people with disabilities and the elderly a "flat out lie."
DelBene countered, saying, "we’re not buying the argument because what we’ve seen in committee, what they’ve written down on paper is massive cuts in healthcare and all to pay for tax breaks for the wealthiest in our country. This isn’t a bill about helping working families. This bill is devastating for working families."
However, her counterparty, Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, told Fox News Digital in a statement that "Republicans are ending waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicaid so the most vulnerable get the care they need."
Additionally, Hudson argued that "Democrats are lying to protect a broken status quo that lets illegal immigrants siphon off billions meant for American families. We’re strengthening Medicaid for future generations by protecting taxpayers and restoring integrity."
Dating back to last year's presidential campaign, Trump has vowed not to touch Medicaid. On Tuesday, as he made a rare stop on Capitol Hill to meet behind closed doors with House Republicans in order to shore up support for the bill, Trump's message to fiscally conservative lawmakers looking to make further cuts to Medicaid was "don't f--- around with Medicaid."
While there are divisions between Republicans over Medicaid, and a chasm between the two major parties over the longstanding entitlement program, there is one point of agreement – this issue will continue to simmer on the campaign trail in one form or another long after the legislative battles on Capitol Hill are over.
Limited civil rights enforcement resources were prioritized to resolve cases related to pronoun usage and alleged book banning under the Biden administration, while hundreds of civil rights cases pertaining to antisemitism went unresolved, according to a senior Education Department official who spoke to Fox News Digital.
Almost 200 antisemitism complaints filed with the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights (OCR), either in the early evaluation stages or in later investigatory stages, were left unresolved under the Biden administration, according to the official.
More than 150 of those unresolved complaints, according to the official, were filed after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack that killed nearly 1,200 innocent people and sparked an Israeli military campaign in Gaza that led to an uptick in anti-Israel sentiment across the United States, especially on college campuses.
"The Biden administration placed an undue burden on OCR by stretching the scope of civil rights law beyond its statutory purview," said Julie Hartman, a Department of Education spokesperson. "The Trump OCR is cleaning that up daily. By enforcing the law as it is written, the Trump administration’s OCR is using its personnel and resources responsibly and eliminating wasteful and unfounded investigations."
So far, the Trump administration has dismissed at least 11 complaints related to so-called "book bans" across the country, which alleged that school districts' removal of content deemed by parents as age-inappropriate violated students' civil rights.
The Trump administration also reversed the Biden administration's decision to include "gender identity" within the scope of Title IX and instructed educational institutions receiving federal funds to halt the continuance of what the Trump administration has called racially discriminatory diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
"[The Biden administration] expanded the sex-based protections of Title IX to include gender identity, thereby creating a whole avenue of issues, such as pronoun misgendering cases, which would be pursued by OCR investigators as possibly constituting discrimination," Hartman said. "Similarly, the previous administration’s OCR stretched Title VI to its breaking point by claiming DEI, which is often racially discriminatory, was consistent with Title VI, incentivizing educational institutions to double down on DEI programming and policies lest they risk meritless Title VI investigations."
Under Biden, civil rights officials also let a complaint against transgender swimmer Lia Thomas languish without any resolution, the senior agency official confirmed. In March 2022, Thomas became the first transgender woman swimmer to win a Division I national championship after tying a biologically female opponent, setting off a firestorm over whether transgender athletes should be allowed to compete in women's sports.
Shortly after taking office, Trump signed an executive order withholding federal funding from any schools allowing biological males, such as Thomas, to compete in women's sports.
Trump also signed an early executive order to combat the rise in antisemitism since Oct. 7, 2023, and established a Justice Department task force to help hold educational institutions accountable. In March, the Education Department announced it had sent letters to 60 institutions of high education warning them of potential civil rights violations if they do not adequately protect their Jewish students as required under Title VI.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration's effort to dismantle the Department of Education has led critics to claim its civil rights enforcement, in particular related to students with disabilities, has tanked.
But according to a senior OCR attorney, the Trump administration's disability-related OCR resolutions have been on par with the pace of the previous administration.
So far, since the Trump administration took over, more than 200 disability-related complaints have been opened, the official indicated. The administration has also closed 100 disability-related civil rights cases filed with the Education Department since Trump's inauguration in January.
FIRST ON FOX:Sen. Ashley Moody will roll out a measure on Wednesday that will expedite the removal of criminal illegal immigrants from the United States involved in gangs, foreign terrorist organizations or convicted of any felony on U.S. soil, Fox News Digital has learned.
Moody, R-Fla., is expected to introduce her legislation Wednesday morning, titled "The Expedited Removal of Criminal Aliens Act."
Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., is co-sponsoring the legislation.
Moody’s team told Fox News Digital that the legislation is "critical" to supporting the Trump administration’s immigration priorities.
"Following four years of systematic dismantlement of our country’s immigration and national security structure under Joe Biden, the American people gave President Trump a mandate to clean up Biden’s mess," Moody told Fox News Digital. "Democrats and lower-level partisan judges, however, have sought to block his efforts at every turn."
Moody told Fox News Digital that they have claimed that "dangerous criminal illegal aliens and MS-13 gang members like Kilmar Abrego Garcia are just family men living quiet lives in America, and they couldn’t be more wrong."
"Democrats have fought against the quick removal of illegal aliens who have committed atrocious crimes against children or even those that have been convicted of murder," Moody said. "It makes no sense."
Moody’s bill authorizes the expedited removal of an immigrant who is a member of a criminal gang or organization; a member of a foreign terrorist organization or has provided material support to such an organization; or has been convicted of a felony or misdemeanor.
Those potential felony or misdemeanor convictions include any assault of a law enforcement officer, any sexual offense, any crime of domestic violence, any stalking offense, any crime against children or any violation of a protection order.
"Today we are finally putting common-sense immigration policies first by introducing legislation to authorize the expedited removal of dangerous criminals and prevent activist-judges from keeping known terrorists, criminals and gang members on American soil and endangering our communities," Moody told Fox News Digital.
Moody’s bill comes amid a court battle over Abrego Garcia — the Salvadorian migrant and alleged MS-13 member who was deported from Maryland to El Salvador in March.
Abrego Garcia was suspected of partaking in labor/human trafficking, according to a 2022 Homeland Security Investigations report obtained by Fox News. The report also stated that "official law enforcement investigations" revealed that Abrego Garcia was a member of the notorious gang MS-13, which Trump has designated as a terror organization.
A Homeland Security Investigations report also notes that in October 2019, the Prince Georges County Police Gang Unit identified Abrego Garcia as a member of the notorious Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang.
Abrego Garcia was also recently revealed to have a record of being a "violent" repeat wife beater, according to court records filed in a Prince George’s County, Maryland, district court by his wife, Jennifer Vasquez.
The Trump administration has continued to maintain it was right to deport Abrego Garcia to CECOT, despite many Democrats suggesting he was wrongly deported, even going as far as to say he was kidnapped by the administration.
China is concerned by President Donald Trump's proposal for a new U.S. missile defense system, called the Golden Dome, which is designed to protect against adversarial attacks on America.
Golden Dome has a "strong offensive nature and violates the principle of peaceful use in the Outer Space Treaty," Chinese Foreign Minister Mao Ning said Wednesday.
"The project will heighten the risk of turning space into a war zone and creating a space arms race, and shake the international security and arms control system," Mao said. "We urge the U.S. to give up developing and deploying global anti-missile system."
Both China and Russia have placed offensive weapons in space, like anti-satellite capabilities that could potentially be used to try to take the U.S. offline, American intelligence officials have warned.
However, China said it was the U.S. that was "obsessed" with offensive space dominance.
"The U.S., by putting itself first, and being obsessed with pursuing absolute security, violates the principle of, and diminishes, the security for all and undermines the global strategic balance and stability," Mao said.
"China is gravely concerned about this," she added. "We urge the U.S. to give up developing and deploying the global anti-missile system at an early date and take concrete actions to enhance strategic mutual trust between major countries and safeguard global strategic stability."
Trump laid out a broad overview of the Golden Dome plan from the White House on Tuesday, projecting the cost figure at $125 billion. The current government funding bill working its way through Congress includes an initial $25 billion to kick off the project.
Trump also offered an ambitious timeline for the project to be completed before he leaves office.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House for comment on China's reaction.
The Kremlin, meanwhile, said the Golden Dome project could prompt talks on strategic arms control between Russia and the U.S.
The U.S. withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019 and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, citing Russian violations which Moscow denied.
"Now that the legal framework in this area has been destroyed, and the validity period has expired, or deliberately, let's say, a number of documents have ceased to be valid, this base must be recreated both in the interests of our two countries and in the interests of security throughout the planet," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
China’s space-based targeting capabilities have "grown most impressively" in recent years, according to Space Force Vice Chief Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, with hundreds of satellites now dedicated to tracking U.S. assets in orbit. He called China’s rapid advances "mind-boggling" during a hearing on Capitol Hill last month and said the U.S. was at risk of losing its dominance in orbit.
Weeks before that, Space Force Vice Chief of Operations Gen. Michael Guetlein revealed that China has been practicing satellite "dogfighting," a sign of its growing ability to conduct complex operations in orbit.
Space Force has observed "five different objects in space maneuvering in and out and around each other in synchronicity and in control," he said.
"That’s what we call dogfighting in space," Guetlein said. "They are practicing tactics, techniques and procedures to conduct on-orbit operations from one satellite to another."
We are now in the range where the House could potentially debate and vote on the "big, beautiful bill."
A vote could come as early as later today or tonight. That may still be a little optimistic, but when things are ready, the House could vote at any time of the day or night between now and Sunday.
The goal of House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is to vote on the plan before Memorial Day. Fox is told that slamming this up against the holiday recess actually helps the GOP get votes, because members really want to get away for events, graduations and Memorial Day parades.
The House Rules Committee – which serves as the gateway to the House floor for legislation – began its meeting at 1 a.m. ET. It could go all day, but what we’re waiting for is a final "manager’s amendment" from Johnson to make all of the fixes to court the votes of skeptical Republicans. The key to that amendment is to repair things – and not break something else.
Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., has passed away following a bitter cancer battle, his family announced on Wednesday.
The lawmaker announced his initial diagnosis with esophageal cancer more than six months ago. He was 75 years old.
"It is with immense sadness that we share that our devoted and loving father, husband, brother, friend, and public servant, Congressman Gerald E. Connolly, passed away peacefully at his home this morning surrounded by family," his family announced in a statement.
"Gerry lived his life to give back to others and make our community better. He looked out for the disadvantaged and voiceless. He always stood up for what is right and just. He was a skilled statesman on the international stage, an accomplished legislator in Congress, a visionary executive on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, a fierce defender of democracy, an environmental champion, and a mentor to so many. But more important than his accomplishments in elected office, Gerry lived by the ethos of ‘bloom where you are planted.’ From the Silver Line to the Oakton Library, Mosaic District to the Cross County Trail and beyond, his legacy now colors our region," the family added.
This is a developing story. Check back soon for updates.
The U.S. Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation into former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for allegedly lying to Congress about his decisions made during the COVID-19 pandemic while serving as governor, a source familiar with the probe confirmed to Fox News.
The New York Times first reported that the U.S. attorney's office in Washington opened the inquiry into Cuomo about a month ago after senior officials in the DOJ demanded an indictment of New York City Mayor Eric Adams for corruption charges be dismissed.
The DOJ declined to comment to Fox News.
The Trump administration is now in an unusual spot of ending a criminal case against Adams while opening a new case into Adams’ main rival within months of each other.
Cuomo is running in the Democratic primary to serve as the next mayor of New York City, while Adams is seeking re-election as an independent candidate.
"We have never been informed of any such matter, so why would someone leak it now? The answer is obvious: This is lawfare and election interference plain and simple—something President Trump and his top Department of Justice officials say they are against," Rich Azzopardi, Cuomo’s spokesperson told Fox News. "Governor Cuomo testified truthfully to the best of his recollection about events from four years earlier, and he offered to address any follow-up questions from the Subcommittee — but from the beginning this was all transparently political."
The former governor was grilled by Republican lawmakers last year about his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. House Republicans subsequently recommended the Justice Department pursue criminal charges against him. They accused him of intentionally lying to Congress during the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into the excessive number of nursing home deaths.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., referred Cuomo to President Donald Trump's Justice Department for criminal prosecution.
Cuomo – the Democratic scion now considered the current frontrunner in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary in June – was first referred to the Biden Justice Department for criminal prosecution in October 2024.
Former Rep. Brad Wenstrup, then-chairman of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, said Cuomo made "multiple criminally false statements" to Congress about his handling of the 2020 COVID-19 nursing home death scandal.
Cuomo, who was governor at the time, issued a March 2020 directive that initially barred nursing homes from refusing to accept patients who had tested positive for COVID-19. The directive was aimed at freeing up beds for overwhelmed hospitals.
More than 9,000 recovering coronavirus patients were released from hospitals into nursing homes under the directive, which was later rescinded amid speculation that it had accelerated outbreaks.
The eight plaintiffs in the case argued that their loved ones contracted COVID-19 in nursing homes and died as a result of the directive. They accused Cuomo and his administration of being civilly liable for their deaths as well as being liable for failing to accurately report the number of nursing home deaths in New York state that resulted from the virus.
Cuomo has previously said that the directive was based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) guidance at the time.
A report released in March 2022 by the New York state comptroller found Cuomo's Health Department "was not transparent in its reporting of COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes" and it "understated the number of deaths at nursing homes by as much as 50%" during some points of the pandemic.
In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi last month, Comer said "to our knowledge, the Biden Administration ignored this referral despite clear facts and evidence." He requested that Bondi review the referral and "take appropriate action."
"Andrew Cuomo is a man with a history of corruption and deceit, now caught red-handed lying to Congress during the Select Subcommittee’s investigation into the COVID-19 nursing home tragedy in New York," Comer said in a statement Monday. "This wasn’t a slip-up – it was a calculated cover-up by a man seeking to shield himself from responsibility for the devastating loss of life in New York’s nursing homes. Let’s be clear: lying to Congress is a federal crime. Mr. Cuomo must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The House Oversight Committee is prepared to fully cooperate with the Justice Department’s investigation into Andrew Cuomo’s actions and ensure he’s held to account."
Fox News Digital’s Michael Dorgan and Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.
New Jersey Rep. LaMonica McIver will make her first court appearance Wednesday after being charged with assaulting two federal agents at an immigrant detention facility in Newark earlier this month.
McIver was there with two other members of Congress on May 9 to conduct what they claimed were their congressionally-mandated oversight duties, as was Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who was subsequently arrested following the incident but later had his charges dropped.
The Democrat will now appear in front of a United States Magistrate Judge for the District of New Jersey at 11 a.m. and be read her rights and charges. The judge will then decide her bail package.
"I think the charges are absurd. You know, it's ridiculous. I was there to do my job along with my other colleagues. We have done this before. This is our obligation to do. It's in our job description to have oversight over a facility. And the entire situation was escalated by ICE," McIver said during an appearance on CNN Tuesday.
"They caused the confrontation. Homeland came and caused this chaos that we see. It was a very tense situation, but it could have been easily not, it could've easily not happened. They had every opportunity to not allow this to happen. It was very unnecessary. And it just, once again, we were there to do our jobs," she added. "And if I'm going to be charged with a crime for doing my job, it just speaks to where we're headed in this country and what we are dealing with as leaders and as congress members, you know, here in this country."
A charging document cites bodycam footage from law enforcement officers who recorded events as McIver and two other New Jersey lawmakers stormed the ICE facility. Prosecutors say the first officer McIver allegedly assaulted was a Homeland Security Investigations agent, and the second was an ICE agent.
The Justice Department accuses McIver of having "slammed her forearm into the body of a uniformed HSI agent and reached out and tried to restrain the agent by forcibly grabbing him."
The charging document also states that McIver "pushed an ICE officer & used her forearms to forcibly strike the agent."
McIver rejected the charges in a public statement, arguing they are "purely political."
"Earlier this month, I joined my colleagues to inspect the treatment of ICE detainees at Delaney Hall in my district," she wrote. "We were fulfilling our lawful oversight responsibilities, as members of Congress have done many times before, and our visit should have been peaceful and short. Instead, ICE agents created an unnecessary and unsafe confrontation when they chose to arrest Mayor Baraka."
Witnesses told The Associated Press that the arrest happened after Baraka attempted to join McIver and New Jersey Reps. Robert Menendez and Bonnie Watson Coleman when entering the facility. When federal officials denied Baraka access, an argument then broke out, the AP reported, citing an activist with the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice.
Prosecutors said McIver helped create a "human shield" and blocked agents from handcuffing Baraka after he ignored numerous warnings to leave the property and was told he would be arrested.
Fox News Digital’s Anders Hagstrom and Alec Schemmel contributed to this report.
A federal judge ruled that President Donald Trump's administration must maintain custody of illegal immigrants deported to South Sudan in case he rules the removals unlawful and they must be transferred back to the U.S.
U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Massachusetts issued the ruling Tuesday night after lawyers for illegal immigrants from Myanmar and Vietnam accused the Trump administration of illegally deporting their clients to third-party countries. They argue there is currently a court order blocking such removals.
Murphy's ruling said the government must "maintain custody and control of class members currently being removed to South Sudan or to any other third country, to ensure the practical feasibility of return if the Court finds that such removals were unlawful."
Attorneys for the immigrants argue that the deportations violated a court order mandating that migrants be granted "meaningful opportunity" to establish that sending them to a third country would make them unsafe.
The attorneys asked Murphy for an emergency court order to prevent the deportations. Murphy, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, previously found that any plans to deport people to Libya without notice would "clearly" violate his ruling, which also applies to people who have otherwise exhausted their legal appeals.
Murphy said in his Tuesday order that U.S. officials must appear in court on Wednesday to identify the immigrants impacted, address when and how they learned they would be removed to a third country and what opportunity they were given to raise a fear-based claim. He also ruled that the government must provide information about the whereabouts of the migrants apparently already removed.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced in April that the U.S. would revoke visas held by South Sudanese passport holders and no others would be issued, effective immediately. Rubio attributed the change to "the failure of South Sudan's transitional government to accept the return of its repatriated citizens in a timely manner," according to a statement posted on X.
The U.S. has third-party deportation agreements with only a handful of countries, the most prominent of which is El Salvador, which has accepted hundreds of Venezuelan illegal immigrants from the Trump administration.
The East African country, founded in 2011, is on the verge of civil war, with escalating armed conflict, mass displacement and severe food insecurity.
Previously, theU.S. Embassy in Khartoum,Sudan, suspended its operations to include visa, passport and other routine consular services on April 22, 2023.
Fox News' Alexandra Koch and The Associated Press contributed to this report
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene introduced a bill to punish those who perform gender transition measures on minors.
"Left-wing activists and medical institutions are targeting America’s children with dangerous drugs, disfiguring surgeries, and permanent sterilization," Greene said, according to a press release. "My bill stops the mutilation of kids and holds those responsible for performing or facilitating these barbaric procedures accountable."
The bill would punish those who commit chemical castration of minors, or perform or attempt to perform "genital or bodily mutilation" on minors in circumstances linked to "interstate or foreign commerce," or when it occurs "within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, or any territory or possession of the United States."
The bill indicates that chemical castration refers to puberty blockers and supraphysiologic doses of testosterone and estrogen.
The "Protect Children's Innocence Act of 2025" would slap offenders with a fine, imprisonment of not over a decade, or both.
The proposal would allow exceptions in certain circumstances, one of which would be if necessary for the minor's health, though the measure stipulates that this "does not include a mental health disorder."
The order declares that "it is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures."
