As President-elect Donald Trump continues to express interest in the U.S. acquiring Greenland, Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., conveyed a willingness to entertain the concept.
Fetterman noted that he would not support forcibly seizing Greenland — but the senator, who made the comments during an appearance on Fox News Channel's "Special Report," pointed to historical American land acquisitions, including the Louisiana purchase and the purchase of Alaska.
Trump declared in a post on Truth Social last month, "For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity."
"Greenland is an incredible place, and the people will benefit tremendously if, and when, it becomes part of our Nation. We will protect it, and cherish it, from a very vicious outside World. MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN!" he said in a Truth Social post on Monday.
The icy island "has its own extensive local government, but it is also part of the Realm of Denmark," according to denmark.dk. "Greenland was a Danish colony until 1953, when it was redefined as a district of Denmark. In addition to its own local government, Greenland has two representatives in the Danish Parliament, the Folketing."
The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Laken Riley Act in a bipartisan 264-159 vote on Tuesday, and Fetterman said that he plans to support passage in the Senate.
The measure is named after the 22-year-old Augusta University nursing student slain last year by an illegal alien in Georgia.
The legislation calls for the Homeland Security secretary to issue a detainer for an illegal alien who admits to, or is charged with, arrested, or convicted of actions that comprise the key elements of theft or similar offenses, and to take custody of the person if they have not been detained by federal, state, or local authorities.
Fetterman said he doesn't know why anyone finds it controversial that people illegally in the U.S. who commit crimes "need to go."
"Do you think that this was one of, if not the biggest issue for this election?" Fox News' Brett Baier asked Fetterman.
The senator replied that if Senate Democrats cannot muster 7 votes in support of the measure, that is one of the reasons they lost.
President-elect Trump on Wednesday morning filed an emergency petition to the United States Supreme Court in an effort to block his sentencing in New York v. Trump.
Judge Juan Merchan set Trump's sentencing in New York v. Trump for Jan. 10, after a jury found the now-president-elect guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree, stemming from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's investigation. Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges and has appealed the ruling, but was rejected last week by Merchan.
"President Trump’s legal team filed an emergency petition with the United States Supreme Court, asking the Court to correct the unjust actions by New York courts and stop the unlawful sentencing in the Manhattan D.A.’s Witch Hunt," Trump spokesman and incoming White House communications director Steven Cheung told Fox News Digital. "The Supreme Court’s historic decision on Immunity, the Constitution, and established legal precedent mandate that this meritless hoax be immediately dismissed."
Cheung said the "American People elected President Trump with an overwhelming mandate that demands an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and all of the remaining Witch Hunts."
He added: "We look forward to uniting our country in the new administration as President Trump makes America great again."
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
The Mexican government is working hard to break up migrant caravans trying to make the treacherous journey north to the U.S. ahead of President-elect Trump’s inauguration in less than two weeks' time.
Faced with the prospect of massive tariffs on goods under the new administration, Mexico has been dispersing migrants throughout the country to keep them far from the U.S. border, including dropping them off at the once vibrant tourist hotspot of Acapulco, a beach resort town on Mexico's Pacific coast made famous by the jet set in the 1950s and ’60s.
Once a crown jewel of Mexico's tourism industry, the city now suffers under the thumb of organized crime and is still struggling to climb back after taking a direct hit from powerful Hurricane Otis in 2023. It now has one of Mexico's highest rates of homicides.
Yet authorities are dropping busloads of migrants there with little support and few options.
The Mexican government has embraced a policy of "dispersion and exhaustion" to reduce the number of migrants reaching the U.S. border. Authorities let migrants walk for days until they're exhausted and then offer to bus them to various cities where they say their immigration status will be reviewed.
The migrants tell the Associated Press that they accepted an offer from immigration officials to come to the city under the premise that they could continue their journey north toward the U.S. border, but instead they have essentially been abandoned there.
On Monday, desperate migrants could be seen sleeping in the streets in tents and say they fear Mexico's drug cartels could target them for kidnapping and extortion, though many migrants say authorities extort them too.
"Immigration (officials) told us they were going to give us a permit to transit the country freely for 10, 15 days and it wasn't like that," 28-year-old Venezuelan, Ender Antonio Castañeda, told the Associated Press. "They left us dumped here without any way to get out. They won't sell us (bus) tickets. They won't sell us anything."
Castañeda, is one of thousands of other migrants who had left the southern city of Tapachula near the Guatemalan border in recent weeks in the hope of crossing the Mexican border into the U.S. before Trump takes office.
It would take an adult migrant about 16 days of non-stop walking to get to the most southern point of the U.S. border is at the crossing at Matamoros, near Brownsville, Texas. Migrants prefer traveling in caravans because they believe there is safety in numbers as it is hard or impossible for immigration agents to detain large groups of hundreds of migrants.
Trump has threatened Mexico with a 25% tariff on imported goods from Mexico, and the country hopes the lower numbers will give them some defense from Trump's pressures.
Trump is expected to clamp down heavily on illegal crossings, which have soared under the Biden-Harris administration. He has also vowed to carry out the largest deportation operation in the history of the U.S. and has appointed hardliner South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to serve as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) while Tom Homan will be the new "Border Czar."
Additionally, he has also pledged to end the use of parole programs by the Biden administration that allow migrants to enter via the expanded "lawful pathways."
On Tuesday, Trump reiterated his threat in a press briefing where he also said he would change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
"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.
A federal judge on Monday kicked the battle over an election to fill a spot on North Carolina's Supreme Court back to the state's highest court.
North Carolina's highest court on Tuesday then blocked the certification of the election results between Democratic Associate Justice Allison Riggs and GOP challenger Jefferson Griffin.
Griffin lost the general election, and two recounts later, one statewide machine recount and a partial hand-to-eye recount of ballots from randomly selected early voting sites and Election Day precincts in each county, still showed Riggs in the lead, according to WUNC. The results show the Democrat ahead by just 734 votes from over 5.5 million ballots cast, but Riggs is contending that 60,000 ballots cast should be invalidated.
The ultimate winner gets an eight-year term on a Supreme Court where five of the seven current justices are registered Republicans.
Most of the ballots that Griffin is challenging came from voters whose registration records lacked either a driver’s license number or the last four digits of a Social Security number — which a state law has required be sought in registration applications since 2004. Before the federal Help America Vote Act, or HAVA, of 2002, voter registration forms did not clearly require that people list the last four digits of their Social Security number or their driver's license number.
Yet it's still legal to vote in cases where a person's last four Social Security numbers or driver's license digits cannot be validated. People can still present a HAVA document, such as a utility bill, and the state elections administration office is required to then assign that person a special identification number to register to vote, according to WUNC.
Other large categories of votes that Griffin is challenging were cast by overseas voters who have never lived in the U.S. but whose parents were deemed North Carolina residents and by military or overseas voters who did not provide copies of photo identification with their ballots. In accordance with federal law, the state administrative code says overseas voters are exempt from that requirement, WUNC reported.
Lawyers for Griffin, who is a judge on the intermediate-level state Court of Appeals, initially asked the state Supreme Court to intervene three weeks ago.
But the elections board quickly moved the matter to federal court, saying Griffin's appeals involved matters of federal voting and voting rights laws.
Griffin disagreed, and so did U.S. District Judge Richard Myers, who on Monday returned the case to the state Supreme Court.
Myers — a nominee to the bench by Donald Trump — wrote that Griffin’s protests raised "unsettled questions of state law" and had tenuous connections to federal law.
Hours later, Griffin's attorneys asked the state Supreme Court for the temporary stay, which the court granted.
"In the absence of a stay from federal court, this matter should be addressed expeditiously because it concerns certification of an election," Tuesday's order read.
The order said that Riggs recused herself from the matter and that Associate Justice Anita Earls, the other Democrat on the court, opposed the stay in part because the "public interest requires that the Court not interfere with the ordinary course of democratic processes as set by statute and the state constitution."
Attorneys for the State Board of Elections and Riggs quickly filed appeals notices for Myers’ decision with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The state board later on Tuesday asked the appeals court to direct Myers to take back the litigation from the state Supreme Court and block its return to the state court while the matter is appealed.
Barring intervention by federal appeals judges, the Republican-majority state Supreme Court would essentially be asked to decide the winner for one of its own seats.
The State Board of Elections dismissed Griffin's written protests challenging the ballots last month. That initiated a timeline in which the board would issue a certificate confirming Riggs' election this Friday — ending the litigation — unless a court stepped in. Tuesday's order stops such certification and tells Griffin and the board to file legal briefs with the justices over the next two weeks.
Democratic allies of Riggs have accused Griffin and the state GOP of trying to overturn legitimate election results.
Riggs "deserves her certificate of election and we are only in this position due to Jefferson Griffin refusing to accept the will of the people," state Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton said in a news release.
The state election board that dismissed Griffin's protests is composed of three Democrats and two Republicans.
The Supreme Court in the nation's ninth-largest state has been a partisan flash point in recent years in court battles involving redistricting, photo voter identification and other voting rights.
FIRST ON FOX: Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab is launching a campaign for the state's Democrat-held governor's seat in 2026, announcing his run exclusively with Fox News Digital on Wednesday.
Schwab, who is running as a Republican, is seeking to replace Kansas' Democrat Gov. Laura Kelly, who will have held the seat for eight years when her term ends next cycle.
"We need to return to the values and principles that have always fueled us, and gave me the strength to lead in Topeka," Schwab, Kansas' two-term secretary of state, said in a press release shared with Fox News Digital. "I have a proven conservative record. And a servant’s heart. It’s important for Kansas to take the right path."
Schwab was first elected to the Kansas House of Representatives in 2002, serving as speaker pro tempore of the state's House of Representatives before being elected secretary of state in 2018.
"A Christian, a father, and a believer in the American dream. I believe that to do something great, you need to throw off the chains holding you back," Schwab said in his official campaign launch. "For Kansas, that’s big government, and that is why I am running for Governor."
Schwab noted his alignment with President-elect Donald Trump on several key issues as one of the reasons he is launching a bid for governor.
Specifically, Schwab noted in his first campaign ad that, if elected, he intends to stop China from buying farmland, increase security as it pertains to elections and cut property taxes.
The candidate, who made his Christian faith a focal point of his campaign launch, also highlighted that he wants the U.S. to return to the "values that have always fueled us."
Although the state currently has a Democrat governor, its leadership is predominantly Republican, with two GOP senators and three of its four congressional seats held by Republicans.
Kelly, who has served two terms as governor, insinuated that she might not seek re-election in the 2026 midterms.
"It is really time for me to move on and to let others come up and serve," Kelly told KCUR's Up To Date in 2024.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, the recently elected chair of the Republican Governors Association, said the Kansas race is going to be a top priority for the GOP in 2026.
"I'm going to be very engaged, you can rest assured, to making sure that my [successors] are Republican," Kemp, who is term-limited next cycle, previously told Fox News Digital.
"We'll be working with the Trump administration and a lot of other people to make sure that that's happening not only in Georgia, but in other states around the country, in places like Kansas, where we have a Democratic governor right now, in places like Arizona, where we have a really good shot at winning the governor's races. So we're going to be on offense."
"It is out of the question that the European Union would let other countries ... attack its sovereign borders, whoever they are," Barrot said on French radio, according to Politico.
Barrot added that he doubts Trump would take the extraordinary step of invading Greenland.
"If you're asking me whether I think the United States will invade Greenland, my answer is no. But have we entered into a period of time when it is survival of the fittest? Then my answer is yes," Barrot said.
That stark warning comes after Trump made various statements calling the island territory vital to U.S. national and economic security interests and expressing interest in purchasing it from Denmark. He has made similar comments about wresting the Panama Canal from Panama's control after the U.S. relinquished the canal in 1977.
On Tuesday, the incoming U.S. president would not rule out using military force to gain control of Greenland or the Panama Canal when asked about the issue at a press conference.
A reporter asked Trump if he could assure the world he would not use military or economic coercion to gain control of the Panama Canal and Greenland.
"No, I can't assure you on either of those two. But I can say this, we need them for economic security," Trump said.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen emphasized Tuesday that Greenland is not for sale.
Frederiksen told a Danish TV station 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 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!"
At Tuesday's press conference, Trump said of Greenland, "Denmark should give it up."
Most Americans believe President Biden will be remembered as a below-average president once he leaves office, according to a Wednesday poll.
The new poll from Gallup found that 54% of Americans say Biden will be remembered as either "below average" (37%) or "poor" (17%). Meanwhile, just 19% are confident he will have a positive legacy, with 6% saying he was "outstanding" and 13% saying he was "above average."
Just over a quarter of Americans, 26%, predict Biden will be remembered as an average president, the poll found.
Gallup's poll ranked Biden alongside nine other recent presidents, and only President Richard Nixon proved to be less popular. Nixon received a net positivity rating of -42, compared to Biden's -35. The next closest president was George W. Bush at -9.
Gallup noted that presidents who serve challenging terms like Biden typically see their approval ratings rise in the years after they leave office. The pollster noted that Presidents Jimmy Carter, Trump and Bush all benefited from this trend.
President-elect Trump's first term received a net positivity rating of -4. The most popular president was John F. Kennedy, at +68, followed by Ronald Reagan at +38.
Gallup conducted the poll from Dec. 2 - 18, surveying 1,003 U.S. adults via cellphone and landline. The poll advertises a margin of error of 4%.
The poll came the same day that Biden acknowledged concerns about his age and discussed his legacy in an interview with USA Today in the Oval Office. He still claimed he would have won another term if he'd run against Trump, but he admitted he's not sure if he could have lasted four more years.
"Do you think you would've had the vigor to serve another four years in office?" USA Today's Susan Page asked.
"I don't know," Biden said. "That's why I thought when I first announced, talking to Barack [Obama] about it, I said I thought I was the person. I had no intention of running after [my son] Beau died – for real, not a joke. And then when Trump was running again for re-election, I really thought I had the best chance of beating him."
"But I also wasn't looking to be president when I was 85 years old, 86 years old. And so I did talk about passing the baton," Biden added, reflecting on concerns over his age, especially before he dropped out of the presidential race.
Biden says his "hope" is that history remembers "that I came in and I had a plan how to restore the economy and reestablish America's leadership in the world."
"I hope that my legacy is one that says I took an economy that was in disarray and set it on track to lead the world, in terms of the new sort of rules of the road," he said.
The White House declined to comment on the record when contacted by Fox News Digital regarding the poll.
On the heels of President-elect Donald Trump's announcement on Tuesday about renaming the Gulf of Mexico the "Gulf of America," Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., swiftly served up legislation to enact the idea.
"The Gulf of America, what a beautiful name," Trump said after declaring that the name would be changed.
Greene quickly announced that she would introduce a measure "ASAP" to rename the body of water.
Later on Tuesday she released the text of the proposal, indicating in a statement that it would be filed on Thursday morning.
"The Gulf of Mexico shall be known as the 'Gulf of America,'" the text of the proposal reads in part, calling for federal documents and maps to be updated accordingly.
"Mexican cartels currently use the Gulf of Mexico to traffic humans, drugs, weapons, and God knows what else while the Mexican government allows them to do it," Greene said in a statement.
"The American people are footing the bill to protect and secure the maritime waterways for commerce to be conducted. Our U.S. armed forces protect the area from any military threats from foreign countries. It’s our gulf. The rightful name is the Gulf of America and it’s what the entire world should refer to it as," she asserted. "We already have the bill written with legislative council and ready to file first thing Thursday morning."
Other lawmakers also jumped on the "Gulf of America" bandwagon after Trump's announcement.
In a post on X, Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., invited people to "visit our beautiful district and take a dip in the Gulf of AMERICA!"
"Proud to represent Alabama's First District on the beautiful GULF OF AMERICA," Rep. Barry Moore, R-Ala. declared in a tweet.
"Alabamians know just how important the Gulf and Gulf Coast are for our great country. The Gulf of AMERICA sounds pretty good to me," Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., noted in a post.
FIRST ON FOX: Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., became the second Democrat to co-sponsor the Laken Riley Act, which will get a vote on the Senate floor Friday after passing the House on Tuesday.
The measure would require Immigration and Customs Enforcement to arrest and detain illegal immigrants that have committed theft, burglary or shoplifting until they are deported. Under the bill, states would also have standing to take civil action against members of the federal government who do not enforce immigration law.
"Arizonans know the real-life consequences of today’s border crisis," Gallego told Fox News Digital in a statement. "We must give law enforcement the means to take action when illegal immigrants break the law, to prevent situations like what occurred to Laken Riley."
"I will continue to fight for the safety of Arizonans by pushing for comprehensive immigration reform and increased border security."
The bill was re-introduced in the 119th Congress by Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., in the House and Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., in the Senate. It was named for the 22-year-old Augusta University nursing student who was found dead on the University of Georgia campus in February. Jose Ibarra, a 26-year-old illegal immigrant, was found guilty on 10 total counts, including felony murder. He initially pleaded not guilty.
He was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in November.
The House passed the bill, 264 to 159, on Tuesday, with 48 Democrats joining Republicans.
"I’d like to thank Senator Gallego for cosponsoring the bipartisan Laken Riley Act. This commonsense legislation would keep American families safe, and every single senator should support it," Britt said in a statement after Gallego joined the bill.
The Alabama senator reintroduced the bill in the Senate on Tuesday after first debuting it last year. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., quickly teed the measure up for a floor vote on Friday.
Britt's bill has the full backing of every Republican in the Senate and is now co-sponsored by Democrat Sens. John Fetterman, D-Pa., and Gallego.
Gallego notably voted in favor of the bill in the House last year, one of a few dozen Democrats to do so.
The Arizona Democrat won the swing state's Senate race in November, taking over the seat vacated by former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., who did not run for re-election. Gallego defeated Trump ally Kari Lake in the election, despite President-elect Donald Trump carrying the battleground state.
On Tuesday, a spokesperson for Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., revealed to Fox News Digital he would be voting in favor of the measure. The Democrat is up for re-election in Michigan in 2026, another state won by Trump.
Republicans will ultimately have a 53-seat majority in the Senate. However, because Sen.-elect Jim Justice of West Virginia delayed his swearing-in, the conference only has a 52-seat majority.
To overcome the legislative filibuster, the bill needs 60 votes. The measure's fate is thus expected to come down to the votes of a handful of Democrats.
In particular, the vote will put a spotlight on the Georgia Senate delegation, as Riley was a constituent of theirs. All eyes will be on Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., who has his own re-election battle in 2026 in yet another Trump-won state.
Ossoff did not provide comment to Fox News Digital in time for publication.
A member of House GOP leadership has introduced a new bill to radically expand concealed carry permissions for Americans across the country.
National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Richard Hudson, R-N.C., the leader of the House GOP campaign arm, is unveiling his Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act on Tuesday, a bill already backed by more than 120 fellow House Republicans.
It's also gotten support from a lone member of the House Democratic Caucus, Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine.
"What we're talking about is just requiring states to recognize the permit of another state just like you recognize a driver's license," Hudson told Fox News Digital. "When I drive to D.C. from North Carolina across Virginia, I don't stop at the Virginia line and take a driver's test to get another license. The state recognizes that North Carolina license."
President-elect Trump has already said he would sign such a bill if it reached his desk.
"I will sign concealed carry reciprocity. Your Second Amendment does not end at the state line," he said in a video from the beginning of his 2024 campaign.
His son, Donald Trump Jr., shared the clip days after his father won the presidency in early November.
Hudson said he has discussed the issue with Trump but not about the specific legislation.
"I know I'll need his help to get it through the Senate," the North Carolina Republican said.
He is optimistic this time, however, that the bill can get all the way to the White House, given Republicans' control of Congress and the presidency.
"I think we've got the best chance of getting this into law we've had since 2017," Hudson said.
Nearly 22 million Americans have some form of concealed carry permit, according to data published by the Social Science Research Network in 2023.
He raised the example of Shaneen Allen, a single mother from Philadelphia who was pulled over during a routine traffic stop in New Jersey but was arrested for unlawful possession when she informed officers of her concealed carry permit and the firearm in her vehicle.
"There's a hodgepodge of different state laws when it comes to concealed carry, and so this bill just clarifies that and then rectifies the situation where a law-abiding citizen can become a criminal just by crossing an invisible state line," Hudson said.
The bill is also backed by pro-gun groups Gun Owners of America (GOA), the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, the National Shooting Sports Foundation and the U.S. Concealed Carry Association.
"With all 50 states now issuing concealed carry permits, 49 states allowing nonresident carry and 29 states with permitless or constitutional carry, it is simply common sense for Congress to ensure that each state’s concealed carry license is valid in every other state," GOA Director of Federal Affairs Aidan Johnston told Fox News Digital.
Former President Jimmy Carter's body was brought to the District of Columbia on Tuesday afternoon and will lie in state at the U.S. Capitol before a state funeral set for Thursday across town at the Washington National Cathedral.
Carter died Sunday, Dec. 29, at 100 years old. His death came just over a year after the death of his wife of 77 years, Rosalynn Carter.
Carter’s ceremonial arrival at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda came after the start of six days of funeral ceremonies that began Saturday morning in the 39th president's hometown of Plains, Georgia.
Carter's casket was greeted at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington, D.C., on Tuesday by the U.S. Air Force Band playing "Abide with Me." From Andrews, a hearse took Carter's casket to the U.S. Navy Memorial for a brief ceremony. Carter, a Naval Academy alumnus, served as a submarine officer before leaving the Navy to take over his family's farm.
At the Navy Memorial, the casket was transferred to a horse-drawn caisson for a procession up Pennsylvania Avenue to the U.S. Capitol.
Vice President Harris delivered a eulogy at the Capitol's lying-in-state ceremony and was joined by second gentleman Doug Emhoff in presenting a memorial wreath on behalf of the executive branch of the government.
The U.S. Capitol ceremony on Tuesday featured remarks from both House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., representing their respective houses of Congress.
Johnson praised Carter in his speech as an "extraordinary man" and applauded both his service in the military and his work for charitable causes such as Habitat for Humanity and The Carter Center, the latter founded in 1982 by the former first couple.
"I'm reminded of his admonition to quote, 'Live our lives as though Christ were coming this afternoon,'" Johnson remarked on Tuesday. "And of his amazing personal reflection, 'If I have one life and one chance to make it count for something.'"
"We all agree that he certainly did," he concluded. "So today, in these hallowed halls of our republic, we honor President Carter, his family and his enduring legacy that he leaves not only upon this nation but upon the world."
Johnson announced last month that Carter would lie in state in a letter to Carter's second-eldest son, James Carter III.
"In recognition of President Carter’s long and distinguished service to the nation, it is our intention to ask the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate to permit his remains lie in state in the Rotunda of the United States Capitol," the leaders wrote.
Besides Carter, just 12 presidents have lain in state in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, the use of which requires approval by both the House and Senate. The last president to lie in state was George H.W. Bush in December 2018. Since 1865, nearly all services held in the Capitol Rotunda have used the catafalque that was constructed in 1865 for displaying President Lincoln's casket.
Members of the public can view Carter’s casket from early Wednesday through early Thursday, when his official state funeral service will be held at the Washington National Cathedral.
The former president will be honored and remembered through several days of funeral services before returning to his hometown for private funeral and interment ceremonies. He will be laid to rest by his wife.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced he will step down as the country’s leader, capping off nearly 10 years in office that included a handful of public blunders and controversies.
"I intend to resign as party leader, as prime minister, after the party selects its next leader through a robust nationwide competitive process," Trudeau told reporters Monday. "Last night, I asked the president of the Liberal Party to begin that process. This country deserves a real choice in the next election, and it has become clear to me that if I'm having to fight internal battles, I cannot be the best option in that election."
His resignation comes after pressure from his own party, the Liberal Party, mounted over his handling of the economy and immigration.
Fox News Digital took a look at Trudeau’s years in office and compiled his top five biggest blunders that sparked condemnation from Canadians and other nations.
Trudeau found himself in a scandal in 2019 after photos surfaced of him wearing blackface in 2001. The prime minister said in an interview after the fact that he could not give a definitive number on how many times he had worn blackface.
"Darkening your face, regardless of the context or the circumstances, is always unacceptable because of the racist history of blackface," he said in 2019.
"I should have understood that then, and I never should have done it."
One photo from 2001 showed Trudeau at an Arabian Nights-themed gala wearing brownface. He also admitted that while in high school he wore blackface while singing the popular Jamaican song "Day-O." In another instance, video footage from the 1990s showed Trudeau in blackface. The prime minister said at the time he could not recall how many times he wore blackface or brownface, a comment that haunted him in the following years as right-leaning lawmakers unleashed on Trudeau for his handling of the coronavirus in the 2020 era.
"I will ask the prime minister, who may I remind this House wore blackface on more times than he can remember, apologize to the peace-loving, patriotic Canadians who are outside right now," Conservative Member of Parliament Candice Bergen said of Trudeau in 2022 while demanding that he apologize to protesters who spoke out against the country’s strict coronavirus mandates.
Canada had some of the strictest coronavirus mandates and requirements in the world, including making vaccinations mandatory in federally regulated workplaces, shutting down businesses for months and arresting citizens if they violated lockdown protocols.
In response to the lockdowns that disrupted the economy and day-to-day life, Canadians staged multiple protests across the country in 2022. Known as the "Freedom Convoy," thousands of 18-wheelers and other trucks traveled to cities, as well as the Ambassador Bridge between Canada and Michigan, to protest vaccine mandates.
Trudeau slammed the truckers and protesters as spreading "hateful rhetoric" while heaping praise on Black Lives Matter, which was at the forefront of the "defund the police" protests that rocked the U.S. in 2020.
"I have attended protests and rallies in the past when I agreed with the goals, when I supported the people expressing their concerns and their issues. Black Lives Matter is an excellent example of that," Trudeau said in 2022.
"But I have also chosen to not go anywhere near protests that have expressed hateful rhetoric, violence toward fellow citizens, and a disrespect not just of science but of the front-line health workers and, quite frankly, the 90% of truckers who have been doing the right thing to keep Canadians safe, to put food on our tables. Canadians know where I stand. This is a moment for responsible leaders to think carefully about where they stand and who they stand with," he continued.
The Freedom Convoy protests were reported as being overwhelmingly peaceful by local media.
Canadian pastor Artur Pawlowski was repeatedly arrested, fined and imprisoned for breaking lockdown measures during the pandemic, sparking fierce condemnation from Christians and others worldwide.
In one viral video from 2021, police in Alberta were seen arresting and charging Pawlowski for "organizing an illegal in-person gathering" during Holy Week ahead of Easter.
"Shame on you guys, this is not Communist China. Don't you have family and kids? Whatever happened to 'Canada, God keep our land glorious and free'?" Pawlowski told the arresting officers.
Amid his legal battles, Pawlowski slammed Trudeau for his arrests.
"I am a Canadian, a free Canadian, free to worship as I see fit, free to stand up for what I believe is right," Pawlowski told Fox Digital in 2023. "Should we throw all of that out and move to Saudi Arabia? I think Justin Trudeau would fit in perfectly over there. Or maybe North Korea would be better for him. He loves dictatorship. I'll buy him a ticket. Go, please enjoy it."
Restaurants and other business owners in the country were rocked by lockdown orders, including some businesses bucking the mandates and opening their doors during the pandemic.
In Toronto, one restaurant owner was seen handcuffed by police for defying the orders in 2020, while other business owners launched lawsuits at their government for imposing mandates on businesses during the pandemic.
A report published in 2023 found an increase in restaurants that filed for bankruptcy as they dealt with a "post-pandemic hangover phase," the CBC reported at the time.
Trudeau, while describing himself as a "proud feminist," admonished U.S. voters for electing President-elect Donald Trump after his decisive win over Vice President Harris in November.
"We were supposed to be on a steady, if difficult, march towards progress," Trudeau said in December. "And yet, just a few weeks ago, the United States voted for a second time to not elect its first woman president."
"Everywhere, women’s rights and women’s progress is under attack, overtly and subtly," Trudeau continued. "I want you to know that I am, and always will be, a proud feminist. You will always have an ally in me and in my government."
The remarks came after Trudeau's meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Florida. Trump reportedly suggested to Trudeau during the meeting that Canada become the 51st state and has since publicly referred to Canada as such.
The Canadian Parliament came under fire in 2023 when members gave a man who fought for the Nazis a standing ovation. Trudeau and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy were both present in parliament when the man, 99-year-old Yaroslav Hunka, received applause.
Hunka, a Ukrainian-Canadian who fought in the SS Division Galicia for the Nazis, was invited to Parliament to attend Zelenskyy's address to government officials. Members of Parliament from political parties on either side of the aisle stood and applauded Hunka for his military service before news broke that he fought on behalf of Nazi Germany.
Trudeau apologized for the embarrassment, while the speaker of Canada's House of Commons stepped down for inviting Hunka.
"This is a mistake that deeply embarrassed Parliament and Canada," Trudeau said at the time.
"All of us who were in this House on Friday regret deeply having stood and clapped even though we did so unaware of the context," he added. "It was a horrendous violation of the memory of the millions of people who died in the Holocaust."
Mark Zuckerberg, who often bends with the political winds, is getting out of the fact-checking business.
And this is part of a broader effort by the Meta CEO to ingratiate himself with Donald Trump after a long and testy relationship.
After a previous outcry, Zuck made a great show of declaring that Facebook would hire fact-checkers to combat misinformation on the globally popular site. That was a clear sign that Facebook was becoming more of a journalistic organization rather than a passive poster of users’ opinions (and dog pictures).
But it didn’t work. In fact, it led to more info-suppression and censorship. Why should anyone believe a bunch of unknown fact-checkers working for one of the increasingly unpopular tech titans?
Now Zuckerberg is pulling the plug, announcing his decision in a video to underscore its big-deal nature:
"The problem with complex systems is they make mistakes. Even if they accidentally censor just 1 percent of posts. That’s millions of people. And we’ve reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship. The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech."
Let me jump in here. Zuckerberg bluntly admits, with that line about "cultural tipping point," that he’s following the conventional wisdom–and, of course, the biggest tipping point is Trump’s election to a second term. And skeptics are portraying this as a bow to the president-elect and his team.
"So we’re gonna get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms…
"We’re going to get rid of fact checkers" and replace them with community notes, already used on X. "After Trump first got elected in 2016, the legacy media wrote nonstop about how misinformation was a threat to democracy.
"We tried in good faith to address those concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth. But the fact checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created, especially in the U.S."
It was Zuckerberg, along with the previous management at Twitter, that banned Trump after the Capitol riot. This led to plenty of Trumpian attacks on Facebook, and the president-elect told me he had flipped his position on banning TikTok because it would help Facebook, which he viewed as the greater danger.
Trump said last summer that Zuckerberg plotted against him in 2020 and would "spend the rest of his life in prison" if he did it again.
The president-elect boiled it down in a posting: "ZUCKERBUCKS, DON’T DO IT!"
Here’s a bit more from Z: "We’re going to simplify our content policies and get rid of a bunch of restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are just out of touch with mainstream discourse. What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas. And it’s gone too far."
Indeed it has. And I agree with that. In 2020, social media, led by Twitter, suppressed the New York Post story on Hunter Biden’s laptop, dismissing it as Russian disinformation, though a year and a half later the establishment press suddenly declared hey, the laptop report was accurate.
Let’s face it: People like Zuckerberg and Elon Musk (now embroiled in a war of words with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer over an alleged coverup of gang rapes of young girls when Starmer was chief prosecutor) have immense clout. They are the new gatekeepers. With so-called legacy media less relevant–as we see with the mass exodus of top talent from Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post and the recent rise of podcasts–they control much of the public dialogue. And yes, they are private companies that can do what they want.
At yesterday’s marathon news conference, a reporter asked Trump about Zuckerberg: "Do you think he’s directly responding to the threats that you have made to him in the past with promises?"
"Probably. Yeah, probably," Trump said, twisting the knife a bit.
Meanwhile, having made the obligatory trek to Mar-a-Lago for dinner, the CEO has taken a number of steps to join forces with the new administration. And it doesn’t hurt that Meta is kicking in a million bucks to the Trump inaugural.
Zuck named prominent Republican lawyer Joel Kaplan as chief of global affairs, replacing a former British deputy prime minister. On "Fox & Friends" yesterday, Kaplan said:
"We’ve got a real opportunity now. We’ve got a new administration and a new president coming in who are big defenders of free expression, and that makes a difference. One of the things we’ve experienced is that when you have a U.S. president, an administration that’s pushing for censorship, it just makes it open season for other governments around the world that don’t even have the protections of the First Amendment to really put pressure on US companies. We’re going to work with President Trump to push back on that kind of thing around the world."
We’re going to work with President Trump. Got it?
What’s more, Zuckerberg is adding Dana White, chief executive officer of United Fighting Championship, to the Meta board. White is a longtime Trump ally, so MAGA now has a voice inside the company.
In other words, get with the program.
Footnote: At his news conference, where Trump seemed angry about the latest court battles and plans to sentence him, the incoming president said–or "didn’t rule out," in journalistic parlance– "military coercion" against two of his latest targets.
"Well, we need Greenland for national security purposes," he said. And Americans lost many lives building the Panama Canal. "It might be that you’ll have to do something."
He’s not going to use military force against either one. But his answer stirs the pot, as he knew it would.
President-elect Trump on Tuesday again suggested that Canada should be added as the U.S.'s 51st state, sharing maps showing Canada as part of the U.S.
Trump shared a pair of posts to his social media platform Truth Social on Tuesday night — one with a map of the U.S. and Canada with "United States" written across the two countries and another post with the U.S. and Canada covered in an American Flag.
"Oh Canada!" he wrote in one post.
The incoming president has been pushing recently for Canada to be added to the U.S., including earlier on Tuesday.
"Canada and the United States. That would really be something," Trump said at a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. "They should be a state."
On Monday, the president-elect argued in a social media post that "many people in Canada LOVE being the 51st State."
"The United States can no longer suffer the massive Trade Deficits and Subsidies that Canada needs to stay afloat," he wrote on Truth Social.
"Justin Trudeau knew this, and resigned. If Canada merged with the U.S., there would be no Tariffs, taxes would go way down, and they would be TOTALLY SECURE from the threat of the Russian and Chinese Ships that are constantly surrounding them," he added. "Together, what a great Nation it would be!!!"
Trudeau, who announced Monday that he will resign as Canadian prime minister once a replacement is chosen, said Tuesday there is no way Canada would join the U.S.
"There isn't a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States," Trudeau wrote on the social media platform X. "Workers and communities in both our countries benefit from being each other’s biggest trading and security partner."
Trump has been trolling Canada in recent weeks, floating the idea of it becoming the 51st state and posting a doctored photo of him standing beside a Canadian flag on top of a mountain.
The president-elect has also mocked Trudeau, repeatedly referring to him as "governor." Additionally, Trump has threatened to impose massive tariffs on Canada.
Trump has also been pushing for Denmark to sell the North Atlantic island of Greenland to the U.S.
Democrats held onto their narrow majorities in Virginia's legislature as they won two of three special elections on Tuesday in the first ballot box showdowns of 2025.
The closely-watched contests were seen by the political world as the first gauge of the mood of voters since President-elect Trump's convincing victory in November, in elections that also saw Republicans win control of the U.S. Senate and hold their fragile House majority.
They're also viewed as an early barometer for high-profile gubernatorial showdowns later this year in Virginia and New Jersey and next year's battle for Congress in the midterm elections.
The Associated Press projected that the Democrats would win both special elections in Loudon County, in northern Virginia.
In a special state Senate election, Democrat Kannan Srinivasan, currently a member of the state House, defeated Republican Tumay Harding. The seat became vacant after Democratic state Sen. Suhas Subramanyam was elected to Congress in November.
And in a special state House race to fill Srinivasan's vacant seat, Democrat JJ Singh, a small business owner and former congressional aide, topped Republican Ram Venkatachalam.
Loudon County, on the outer edges of the metropolitan area that surrounds the nation's capital, in recent years has been an epicenter in the national debate over bathroom policy for transgender students and allowing them to play female sports.
The one-time Republican-dominated county has trended for the Democrats over the past decade as Loudon's population has continued to soar. Vice President Kamala Harris easily carried the county in November's White House election, although Trump improved his showing compared to four years ago.
The third special election on Tuesday took place in a state Senate district west of Richmond, Virginia's capital city, where Republican Luther Cifers defeated Democrat Jack Trammell.
The seat became vacant when state Sen. John McGuire, who with the support of Trump, narrowly edged U.S. Rep. Bob Good in a contentious GOP primary last June before winning election to Congress in November.
Democrats will retain their 21-19 majority in the Virginia Senate and their 51-49 control of the state House of Delegates, during Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin's final year in office.
Youngkin energized Republicans nationwide three years ago, as the first-time candidate who hailed from the party’s business wing edged out former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe in 2021 to become the first GOP candidate in a dozen years to win a gubernatorial election in the one-time swing state that had trended towards the Democrats over the previous decade.
Virginia is unique due to its state law preventing governors from serving two consecutive four-year terms, so Youngkin cannot run for re-election next year.
Virginia and New Jersey are the only two states in the nation to hold gubernatorial elections in the year after a presidential election. Because of that, both contests receive outsized national attention, and Virginia in particular is often seen as a bellwether of the national political climate and how Americans feel about the party in the White House.
The Biden administration is asking a federal appeals court for an injunction to temporarily block a plea deal agreement with three detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, which would see the defendants avoid the death penalty.
The three prisoners were set to enter their pleas as early as Friday at the military prison.
On New Year’s Eve, a military appeals court shot down Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's effort to block the deal between military prosecutors and defense lawyers, saying Austin did not have the power to cancel plea agreements.
Specifically, the court opinion said the plea deals reached by military prosecutors and defense attorneys were valid and enforceable and that Austin exceeded his authority when he later tried to nullify them.
In its appeal this week, the government says, "Respondents are charged with perpetrating the most egregious criminal act on American soil in modern history—the 9/11 terrorist attacks."
"The military commission judge intends to enforce pretrial plea agreements that will deprive the government and the American people of a public trial as to the respondents’ guilt and the possibility of capital punishment, despite the fact that the Secretary of Defense has lawfully withdrawn those agreements," the appeal read. "The harm to the government and the public will be irreparable once the judge accepts the pleas, which he is scheduled to do in hearings beginning on January 10, 2025."
The appeal also noted that once the military commission accepts the guilty pleas, there is likely no way to return to the status quo.
"The government and the public will lose the opportunity for a public trial as to the respondents’ guilt and to seek capital punishment against three men charged with a heinous act of mass murder that caused the death of thousands of people and shocked the nation and the world," it continued. "The government is likely to prevail on the merits of its petition for a writ of mandamus and prohibition, but it will be a pyrrhic victory unless this Court first issues a stay of the military commission’s proceedings, at least as they relate to enforcing the withdrawn pretrial agreements and accepting the respondents’ pleas, until this Court can decide the merits of the government’s petition."
The plea deal in the long-running case against the terrorists was struck over the summer and approved by the top official of the Guantánamo military commission.
A number of 9/11 victims and U.S. politicians have condemned the plea deals.
"Joe Biden, Kamala Harris have weaponized the Department of Justice to go after their political opponents, but they’re cutting a sweetheart deal with 9/11 terrorists," now-Vice President-elect JD Vance said at the time.
The Pentagon revoked the deals in July.
"Effective immediately, in the exercise of my authority, I hereby withdraw from the three pretrial agreements that you signed on July 31, 2024," a letter from Austin states.
On Monday, the Biden administration announced the transfer of 11 Yemeni detainees, including two former bodyguards for Osama bin Laden, who were being held at Guantánamo Bay, to Cuba.
All the men were captured in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and were held for more than two decades without being charged or put on trial.
The transfer was carried out as part of an early morning secret operation on Monday, days before Mohammed, Guantánamo’s most notorious prisoner, was scheduled to plead guilty to plotting the 9/11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in exchange for a life sentence rather than face a death-penalty trial, the New York Times reported.
The move had been in the works for about three years after an initial plan to conduct the transfer in October 2023 faced opposition from congressional lawmakers.
Fox News Digital’s Danielle Wallace and Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
A prominent fact-checking organization used by Facebook to moderate political content reacted to news that it will revamp its fact-checking to better avoid bias with an article outlining its disappointment and disagreement with the move.
"Lead Stories was surprised and disappointed to first learn through media reports and a press release about the end of the Meta Third-Party Fact-Checking Partnership of which Lead Stories has been a part since 2019," Lead Stories editor Maarten Schenk wrote on Tuesday in response to an announcement from Meta that it would be significantly altering its fact-checking process to "restore free expression."
Lead Stories, a Facebook fact checker employing several former CNN alumni including Alan Duke and Ed Payne, has become one of the more prominent fact checkers used by Facebook in recent years.
Fox News Digital first reported on Tuesday that Meta is ending its fact-checking program and lifting restrictions on speech to "restore free expression" across Facebook, Instagram and Meta platforms, admitting its current content moderation practices have "gone too far."
"After Trump first got elected in 2016 the legacy media wrote nonstop about how misinformation was a threat to democracy," Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a video message on Tuesday. "We tried in good faith to address these concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth. But fact-checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they created, especially in the U.S.."
"What political bias?" the article from Lead Stories asks before explaining that it is "disappointing to hear Mark Zuckerberg accuse the organizations in Meta's U.S. third-party fact checking program of being "too politically biased.’"
"Especially since one of the requirements Meta imposed for being part of a partnership included being a verified signatory of the IFCN's Code of Principles, which explicitly requires a "commitment to non-partisanship and fairness,’" the article states. "In all the years we have been part of the partnership, we or the IFCN never received any complaints from Meta about any political bias, so we were quite surprised by this statement."
Meta said in its announcement that it will move toward a system of moderation that is more in line with Community Notes at X, which Lead Stories seemed to take issue with.
"However, In our experience and that of others, Community Notes on X are often slow to appear, sometimes downright inaccurate and unlikely to appear on controversial posts because of an inability to reach agrement [sic] or consensus among users," Lead Stories wrote. "Ultimately, the truth doesn't care about consensus or agreement: the shape of the Earth stays the same even if social media users can't agree on it."
Lead Stories added that Community Notes is "entirely non-transparent about its contributors: readers are left guessing about their bias, funding, allegiance, sources or expertise and there is no way for appeals or corrections" while "fact-checkers, on the other hand, are required by the IFCN to be fully transparent about who they are, who funds them and what methodology and sources they use to come to their conclusions."
Schenk added, "Fact-checking is about adding verified and sourced information so people can make up their mind about what to believe. It is an essential part of free speech."
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Duke said that Lead Stories plans to press on.
"Lead Stories will continue, although we have to reduce our output with no support from Meta," Duke said. "We are global, with most of our business now outside the USA. We publish in eight languages other than English, which is what will be affected."
Some conservatives took to social media to blast Lead Stories over their article lamenting the change at Meta after years of conservative pushback to Facebook’s fact checkers as a whole on key news stories, including the suppression of the bombshell reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop.
"Of all the fact-checking companies, Lead Stories is the worst," British American conservative writer Ian Haworth posted on X. "Couldn't be happier that they'll soon be circling the drain."
The executive director of Politifact, a fact checker also used by Facebook, issued a strong rebuke of Zuckerberg following Tuesday's announcement.
"If Meta is upset it created a tool to censor, it should look in the mirror," Aaron Sharockman said in a statement he posted on X following Zuckerberg’s announcement.
Sharockman fumed, "The decision to remove independent journalists from Facebook’s content moderation program in the United States has nothing to do with free speech or censorship. Mark Zuckerberg’s decision could not be less subtle."
He threw back Zuckerberg’s accusation of political bias, stating that Meta’s platforms, not the fact-checkers, were the entities that actually censored posts.
"Let me be clear: the decision to remove or penalize a post or account is made by Meta and Facebook, not fact-checkers. They created the rules," Sharockman said.
At the conclusion of his Lead Stories post, Schenk wrote, "Even though we are obviously disappointed by this news, Lead Stories wishes to thank the many people at Meta we have worked with over the past years and we will continue our fact checking mission. To paraphrase the slogan on our main page: ‘Just because it's now trending without a fact-checking label still won't make it true.’"
Fox News Digital's Gabriel Hays and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has meetings with over a dozen senators over the next two days, including top progressive Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., in addition to others in the Democratic caucus.
President-elect Donald Trump announced last year that RFK Jr. was his pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in his second administration. Since the news broke, Kennedy has been on Capitol Hill meeting with various senators.
Up until this point, he had only met with Republicans in the upper chamber. But on Wednesday, Kennedy begins his sit-downs with a handful of Democrats, who could be crucial to his getting confirmed.
Kennedy, a former Democrat and independent presidential candidate, will attend meetings with Democratic caucus members, Sens. Catherine Cortez-Masto of Nevada, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Michael Bennet of Colorado, Mark Warner of Virginia, Warren and Sanders.
The one-on-ones with Democrats are coming as several in the party have expressed openness to some of Kennedy's positions, particularly as it relates to agriculture and food production.
But some of those same policy stances pose a potential problem for his support among Republicans in the Senate.
He will also be joining Sens. Jim Banks, R-Ind., Bill Cassidy, R-La., Susan Collins, R-Maine, John Cornyn, R-Texas and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, for meetings on the hill this week.
Grassley is one of a handful of Republicans that have flagged concerns regarding Kennedy's positions on agriculture and how they could affect farmers.
"They've got to be able to use modern farming techniques, and that involves a lot of things, not only really sophisticated equipment, but also fertilizers and pesticides. So, we have to have that conversation," Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., recently told reporters.
Grassley previously emphasized the need for genetic engineering to keep up with food demand and feed the country.
However, others have expressed confidence that Kennedy will make the right calls for farmers. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., said he warned Kennedy not to go "overboard" with agriculture regulations during their meeting last year.
He added that Trump's HHS pick was "very on board" and "understands our farmers are in trouble, and we want to make sure that we have farmers that can make a living."
After Kennedy endorsed Trump ahead of the 2024 election, the two debuted their campaign to "Make America Healthy Again."
This slogan has been adopted by a caucus formed by some Senate Republicans who are supporting Kennedy for the HHS role and hope to facilitate his and Trump's policies to promote health in the country.
Minnesota Democrat Sen. Amy Klobuchar is facing blowback from both X users and the platform itself over her post about the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill riot in which she claimed police officers were "injured and killed."
"Four years ago, the electoral vote certification was interrupted by a violent mob. Police officers were injured and killed," Klobuchar posted on X on Tuesday. "Our democracy hung in the balance. I knew we had to do our duty and complete the count – and in the early hours of January 7th, we did."
That post was soon slapped with a "Community Note" by X that said, "No officers were killed."
"The medical examiner found Sicknick died of natural causes which means ‘a disease alone causes death. If death is hastened by an injury, the manner of death is not considered natural.’ Four other officers committed suicide days to months later."
"No police officers were killed," conservative commentator Dana Loesch posted on X.
"Zero police officers were killed," Red State writer Bonchie posted on X. "The time to stop lying about this was a long time ago."
"Can someone explain to me why it's okay for politicians to continually lie about this?" Bonchie added. "Let's say you think J6 is the worst thing ever. Fine, but how does that make it acceptable to say officers were killed? It's four years later and the fact-checkers still won't touch this."
"It is so sick to see people lie about who was killed," Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway posted on X. "A Trump supporter was shot and killed, but no police officers were killed. Someone of your stature should not be lying brazenly about this. Just sick."
"She should be censured for this lie," Right Turn Strategies President Chris Barron posted on X.
"Not a single officer was killed on Jan 6," Federalist Election Correspondent Brianna Lyman posted on X. "Sicknick died of natural causes on Jan. 7 Two officers died by su*cide in the weeks following while two other officers who were not present at the time of the protest later died by su*cide that could not directly be tied to J6."
"No police officers were killed," conservative writer Ben Kew posted on X. "The only person who was murdered was Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter."
Fox News Digital reached out to Klobuchar’s office for comment but did not receive a response.
U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick suffered two strokes and died of natural causes the day after he confronted rioters on Jan. 6, according to Washington's top medical examiner.
"The USCP accepts the findings from the District of Columbia's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner that Officer Brian Sicknick died of natural causes," the Capitol Police said in a 2021 press release. "This does not change the fact Officer Sicknick died in the line of duty, courageously defending Congress and the Capitol."
Law enforcement officials testified in 2021 that about 140 police officers were injured in the riot.
The White House’s outgoing cyber czar, Harry Coker, called for three key things to meet the growing threat of digital attacks: more funding, deregulation and opening up cyber jobs to those without college degrees.
As adversaries like Iran, China and Russia lob near-constant attacks on the U.S. digital infrastructure, "we have to prioritize cybersecurity within federal budgets" President Joe Biden’s national cyber director said at an event with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C.
"I would love for the incoming administration, or any administration, to recognize the priority of cybersecurity," Coker said.
He added that he understands the U.S. is in a "tough budget situation."
"I get that, and I support making progress towards reducing the deficit, but we have to prioritize cybersecurity within our current budgets," he said.
At the same time, the Biden appointee railed against "duplicative federal regulation" and said he’d heard from those working to protect the nation’s online infrastructure that they spend "a staggering 30 to 50%" of their time working to comply with regulation, rather than ensuring protection from hacks.
"Armed with the industry's call to streamline, we worked with Congress to write bipartisan legislation that would bring all stakeholders, including independent regulators, to the table to advance the regulatory harmonization," he went on.
"Many of us were disappointed that this has not become law yet, but we have laid the groundwork for the next administration in Congress to do the right thing for our partners in the private sector."
His urging comes as the U.S. is grappling with the fallout of one of China’s biggest attacks on American infrastructure in history, dubbed Salt Typhoon.
A Chinese intelligence group infiltrated nine U.S. telecommunications giants and gained access to the private text messages and phone calls of Americans, including senior government officials and prominent political figures.
The Salt Typhoon hackers also gained access to an exhaustive list of phone numbers the Justice Department had wiretapped to monitor people suspected of espionage, granting them insight into which Chinese spies the U.S. had caught onto and which they had missed.
China was also behind a "major" hack of the Treasury Department in December, gaining access to unclassified documents and the workstations of government employees.
And earlier this year, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s communications were intercepted by Chinese intelligence, just as she was making determinations about new export controls on semiconductors and other key technologies. The same hacking group also targeted officials at the State Department and members of Congress.
Amid this onslaught of attacks, Coker said the cyber industry is suffering a recruitment issue.
"Today there are nearly 500,000 open cyber jobs in this great nation," he said.
"The federal government is leading by example… removing federal employee and contractor hiring from a focus on college degrees to a focus on what we're really after: skills.
"When we do away with the four-year college degree requirement, we expand our talent pool," Coker went on. "Many Americans don't have the time or the means to go to college for four years, but they can do it for two years or less."
