The Senate’s lead "DOGE" lawmaker said Friday her quest for government efficiency is beginning to come full-circle, as the Agriculture Department instituted a return-to-work mandate she said was first spurred by a 2024 whistleblower who contacted her office.
"The Trump administration, DOGE, and I are already racking up wins for taxpayers," Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, told Fox News Digital on Friday.
"Growing up on a farm, I know what working from home really means."
President Donald Trump too, highlighted the difference between telework in white-collar jobs and Americans in agriculture and manufacturing who don’t have the luxury of working from a desk.
In remarks to reporters, Trump said federal workers appear less productive when working-from-home and that the dynamic is "unfair to the millions of people in the United States who are in fact working hard from job sites and not from their home."
He also warned federal workers they would have to report to the office or, "you’re fired."
In that regard, Ernst looked back on a whistleblower who came to her and alleged USDA's District of Columbia offices were largely vacant.
That, she said, spurred her to outline policy proposals that eventually became "DOGE" – a term popularized by Trump ally Elon Musk.
"When I first discovered that the Department of Agriculture was a ghost town, I took action to end federal employees’ abuse of telework and get the agency working for Iowa farmers," said Ernst.
"I have put bureaucrats on notice that their four-year vacation is over, and we are just beginning to get Washington back to work and serving the American people."
A memo from Acting Agriculture Secretary Gary Washington obtained by Politico on Thursday ordered senior staff "with assigned duty stations" to work from their offices full-time. Additional guidance would follow for workers without a preassigned workstation.
Ernst characterized the memo as that full-circle moment.
Ernst reportedly brought up her early concerns about teleworking bureaucrats and unused Washington office space running up tabs on the federal ledger during a meeting with Trump and Musk at Mar-a-Lago last year.
She previously compiled a report following an investigation into government waste and abuse through which $2 trillion in savings could be realized if the issues were attended to.
In a December statement highlighting that report, the House Budget Committee – now led by Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas -- said the Biden administration’s condoning of mass telework "generated complacency in the workforce while costing taxpayers billions in unnecessary maintenance and upkeep costs."
"Early success means there is much more to come," a person familiar with the Senate’s DOGE work added.
According to a report from the Government Accountability Office, only 11% of the USDA's office space was occupied in the first quarter of 2023, and 75% of available space across 17 federal agencies has remained empty since the pandemic.
Ernst built her initial pre-formal-"DOGE" probes off of the USDA whistleblower, which is why she believes the latest development mandating return-to-work for agriculture bureaucrats is the issue now coming full-circle.
Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla., – the chairman and founder of the DOGE Caucus – praised Ernst's work and said taxpayers deserve to have a government operating at "full capacity."
"President Trump’s executive order requiring federal employees to return to work is the first step in improving government efficiency."
"This is just common sense, and the exact type of waste DOGE will continue to crack down on," Bean said.
Ernst’s first DOGE "win" came with the passage of an otherwise Democrat-favored bill named for former President Joe Biden’s longtime friend Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., and signed as both Delawareans were departing public service.
Within the Thomas R. Carper Water Resources Development Act was a provision to compel the General Services Administration to sell the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building.
The block-long "stripped classicist" building southwest of the U.S. Capitol was designed by Philadelphia architect Charles Z. Klauder in the 1930s, and originally hosted the Social Security Administration.
However, its total occupancy dwindled to 2% -- largely Voice of America workers – by 2025.
Another "DOGE" amendment sponsored by Ernst that requires agency oversight and reporting regarding telework was successfully added to a major appropriations bill passed in December.
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment for purposes of this story but did not receive a response by press time.
There was a heavy focus on systemic racism and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs during the final debate among the eight candidates vying to chair the Democratic National Committee (DNC), as the party aims to exit the political wilderness.
The forum, moderated and carried live on MSNBC and held at Georgetown University in the nation's capital city, develed into chaos early on as a wave of left-wing protesters repeatedly interrupted the primetime event, heckling over concerns of climate change and billionaires' influence in America's elections before they were forcibly removed by security.
Thanks in part to their repeated targeting of DEI efforts under former President Joe Biden's administration, President Donald Trump recaptured the White House in November's elections, with Republicans also retaking control of the Senate from the Democrats and the GOP holding onto its razor-thin majority in the House.
Jaime Harrison, the DNC chairman for the past four years, declined to seek another term steering the Democrats' national party committee. The DNC will vote for a new chair on Saturday, as they hold their annual winter meeting this year at National Harbor, Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C.
"Unlike the other party, that is demonizing diversity, we understand that diversity is our greatest strength," Harrison said at the start of the debate before bringing the candidates out.
Biden and many Democrats portrayed DEI efforts as a way to boost inclusion and representation for communities historically marginalized. However Trump and his supporters, on the 2024 campaign trail, repeatedly charged that such programs were discriminatory and called for restoring "merit-based" hiring.
Since his inauguration on Jan. 20 and his return to power in the White House, Trump has signed a slew of sweeping executive orders and actions to end the federal government's involvement in DEI programs, reversing in some cases decades of hiring practices by the federal government. Trump's actions are also pushing large corporations in the private sector to abandon their diversity efforts.
At Thursday's showdown, there was plenty of focus on diversity and racism.
At one point, the candidates were asked for a show of hands about how many believed that racism and misogyny played a role in former Vice President Kamala Harris' defeat in the 2024 election to Trump.
All eight candidates running for DNC, as well as many people in the audience, raised their hands.
"That's good. You all pass," MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart, one of the moderators of the forum, quipped.
However, far from everyone in the party wants to see such issues dominate the discussion without the added inclusion of economic concerns such as inflation, which were top of mind at the ballot box in November.
"The Democrats pathway to power runs directly through kitchen table economics and the notion we can fight for economic opportunity and ensuring everyone is treat with dignity and respect," said Democratic strategist Joe Caiazzo, a veteran of Sen. Bernie Sanders' 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns, who is attending the party's winter meeting.
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, considered one of the frontrunners in the DNC chair race, in speaking with reporters after the forum, pointed to the gains made by Trump and Republicans among diverse voters in the 2024 election and argued that the party did not spend enough time concentrating on "the kitchen table issues."
"Whether you're Hispanic, whether you're transgender, whether you're gay, whether you're straight, whether you're Black, whether you're White. Everybody needs to eat. And the people we lost in every segment were people who struggled the most to put food on their family's table. And they were the ones we lost across the board," O'Malley argued.
The protests, staged in waves, include calls for the DNC chair candidates to bring back the party's ban on corporate PAC and lobbyist donations that was in effect during former President Barack Obama's administration.
The youth-led, left-wing climate action organization known as the Sunrise Movement, said the first three protesters were affiliated with their group.
Another protester, who was not believed to be affiliated with the Sunrise Movement, as he was dragged out of the debate hall by security, yelled, "What will you do to get fossil fuel money out of Democratic politics? We are facing a climate emergency!"
Much of the audience, which consisted of many DNC voting members, appeared frustrated by the repeated interruptions.
"Protest the Republicans. Protest the people who are actually hurting you!" a member of the audience shouted out.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., is being criticized by Republicans after pledging Democrats would fight President Donald Trump’s agenda "in the streets."
"Right now, we're going to keep focus on the need to look out for everyday New Yorkers and everyday Americans who are under assault by an extreme MAGA Republican agenda that is trying to cut taxes for billionaires, donors, and wealthy corporations and then stick New Yorkers and working class Americans across the country with the bill," Jeffries said.
"That's not acceptable. We are going to fight it legislatively. We are going to fight it in the courts. We're going to fight it in the streets."
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., immediately demanded that Jeffries apologize.
"House Minority Leader [Jeffries] should promptly apologize for his use of inflammatory and extreme rhetoric," Emmer wrote on X. "President Trump and the Republicans are focused on uniting the country; Jeffries needs to stop trying to divide it."
Fox News Digital reached out to Jeffries’ office for clarification.
A senior White House official told Fox News, "Hakeem Jeffries must apologize for this disgraceful call to violence."
The House Democratic leader was holding a press conference in Brooklyn on Friday aimed at criticizing Trump’s federal funding freeze and his handling of the tragic aircraft collision in Washington, DC earlier this week.
Jeffries credited Democrats with stopping the Trump administration’s federal funding freeze.
"As was demonstrated this week, House Democrats, Senate Democrats, Democratic governors, and everyday Americans all across the country rose up in defiance as it relates to the illegal, unlawful, and extreme federal funding freeze that is part of the Republican rip-off agenda," Jeffries said. "We fought it, we stopped it, and we will never surrender."
The Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued an order earlier this week pausing most federal funding while directing agencies to conduct thorough reviews of where taxpayer dollars are being spent.
The White House later clarified the memo to mean funding going toward progressive causes that Trump had explicitly blocked through executive orders.
Nevertheless, it was still blocked by a federal judge, and hours later, the memo was rescinded.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the OMB memo was rescinded in light of the court order but clarified that funding blocks set up by Trump’s executive orders were still in effect.
Environmental groups appear to be breaking with the Democratic Party after protesters disrupted a recent leadership meeting, which comes as the party attempts to regain its footing after suffering defeat in the 2024 presidential election.
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) held a candidate forum on Thursday evening in Washington, D.C., ahead of their upcoming election to determine who will lead the campaign arm into the next election cycle.
While the event was intended to showcase some of the party's potential new faces, it was interrupted by several protesters, including climate activists from the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led, left-wing climate action organization, who demanded the DNC establish a working election strategy for the party after the 2024 loss.
"What will you do to get fossil fuel money out of Democratic politics? We are facing a climate emergency!" Fox News Digital heard one protester shout.
Other protesters made calls for the DNC chair candidates to bring back the party's ban on corporate PAC and lobbyist donations.
"To defeat Trump, the Democratic Party needs to loudly and proudly take a stand against billionaires and show voters that Democrats are the only party ready to fight for working people," Adah, an activist from the Sunrise Movement who made an interruption, said in a statement issued by Sunrise.
"That’s how we will win back young voters and working class voters and defeat Trump," Adah added.
About a dozen protesters interrupted and were kicked out of the event — the final meeting ahead of Saturday's DNC election.
The Democratic candidates and moderates grew frustrated with the protesters who were interrupting the event.
Jason Paul, a candidate running for DNC chair, said the protesters were "hijack[ing] the whole evening" and turning the event "into scream night."
"I’m surprised I haven’t seen more of it," former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley told reporters after the event. "They’re going to be on this planet a lot longer than I am, and if they stop caring passionately about the planet, then we have no hope at all. So it didn’t bother me."
Eight candidates are running to serve as chair of the DNC next cycle, including O'Malley, Wisconsin chair Ben Wikler, Minnesota chair Ken Martin, and former two-time Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson.
Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clarke has accused President Donald Trump of trying to "purge" non-White workers from the federal government.
"Ourrepublic’s president, Donald Trump, chose to address a nation in mourning with only fiction and White supremacist ideologies," Clarke said during a Friday press conference in Brooklyn, New York.
"Yesterday, he spun that fiction for one reason and one reason alone, and that is to further his administration's purge of America's minority employees."
Her comments are in response to Trump’s press conference on the deadly midair collision in Washington, D.C. this week. A Black Hawk military helicopter crashed into an American Eagle passenger plane that was moments away from landing, likely killing all 67 people aboard both aircraft.
Trump speculated whether diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts played a role in the tragedy during a press conference Thursday, though both he and other officials maintain the cause is not yet clear.
"It just could have been," Trump said when asked if he believed the crash was caused by diversity hiring. "We’ve had a much higher standard than anybody else. And there are things where you have to go by brainpower. You have to go by psychological quality, and psychological quality is a very important element of it. These are various, very powerful tests that we put to use. And they were terminated by Biden."
He claimed former President Joe Biden "went by a standard that seeks the exact opposite."
"But certainly, for an air traffic controller, we want the brightest, the smartest, the sharpest. We want somebody that’s psychologically superior. And that’s what we’re going to have," Trump said.
Investigations into the collision are still ongoing, and there currently is no evidence that points to DEI or other specific causes.
Though Trump did not mention race during his press conference, Clarke claimed Trump’s remarks were evidence of a "racist" agenda.
"We wait for the absolute truth of the matter. It is with great and righteous indignation that I recognize the comments and actions of one individual in particular, who did not attempt whatsoever to wait for those facts," Clarke said.
"The individual who, rather than empathize with the families of the 67 victims of this heartbreaking disaster, attempt to unify a grieving country, or even offer his prayers, chose to capitalize on this tragedy by furthering his racist, insane agenda against America's diverse employees."
She later said, "He will continue with the vilification and demonization, he will continue with this madness, until our republic is as White and as male as this administration can bend and break the law to make it."
Democrats have hammered Trump for tying the collision to DEI policies under the last administration.
Meanwhile, there are voices on the left pushing blame on Trump's aim to slash the federal workforce and other Republican policies.
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment on Clarke's remarks.
The top Republican on the Senate health committee, Sen. Bill Cassidy, faced criticism from fellow Republicans after he suggested his vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary is not a lock.
Cassidy, chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, said during closing remarks at Kennedy's second confirmation hearing of the week that he was "struggling" to confirm the HHS secretary nominee over his inability to admit vaccines are safe and don't cause autism. "A worthy movement called ‘MAHA,’" Cassidy said Thursday, "to improve the health of Americans, or to undermine it, always asking for more evidence, and never accepting the evidence that is there … That is why I've been struggling with your nomination."
GOP Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., did not hold back his anger over Cassidy's remarks, saying, "RFK is going to run HHS whether you like it or not." The post included a photo of Cassidy and Kennedy shaking hands at Thursday's confirmation hearing.
"The Senate is ours, and the moment Trump decides he’s had enough of random senators delaying our mission, JD [Vance] is walking in and taking the gavel as president of the Senate," Higgins said. Vice President JD Vance would be the tie-breaking vote if the resulting tally goes along party lines and Cassidy and two other Republicans defect. Vance did so after GOP Sens. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine voted against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's nomination.
"There’s zero you can do about that," Higgins said. "We, the people, will not be stopped. We’re saving the country and RFK is part of the formula. So, vote your conscience, senator, or don’t. Either way, we’re watching."
GOP organizer and strategist Scott Presler said that if Cassidy did not vote for Kennedy, that he would "personally come to Louisiana" to organize a primary challenge against Cassidy in an effort to oust him. "We already have a home base in Iberia Parish," Pressler said. Meanwhile, a chapter of the Louisiana Republican Assembly replied to Pressler's threats, noting they were "ready to mobilize when needed."
Charlie Kirk, another GOP organizer and activist who is also a close ally of President Donald Trump, shared a slightly more measured condemnation of Cassidy. "I believe this was a sincere moment from Chairman Bill Cassidy," Kirk wrote in response to the senator's closing remarks at Thursday's hearing. However, Kirk added that he "respectfully" thinks that Cassidy "has this backwards."
"Many already don't trust vaccine manufacturers who enjoy legal immunity for any injuries they cause. Many already don't trust our big food producers and the ingredients they use. Many already don't trust big medicine, big hospitals, or big pharma," Kirk said. "RFK Jr. has said repeatedly he's pro-vaccine, but he's willing to ask the same questions millions of parents are asking right now about ramped-up vaccine schedules, harmful ingredients, and a blind trust in the manufacturers that are enriched by government mandates, even after COVID."
While Republicans were incensed by Cassidy's remarks, the president of Advancing American Freedom (AAF), a conservative nonprofit founded by Trump's former Vice President Mike Pence, applauded Cassidy's critical approach to Kennedy's nomination.
"It’s refreshing to see senators taking their advise and consent role seriously," AAF President Tim Chapman said when asked about Cassidy's comments. "We have separate branches of government for a reason, and nominees, such as RFK, who will be handling the largest amount of taxpayer dollars and controlling the federal response to the life issue deserve serious consideration. Every senator must treat this nominee with the same gravitas that Senator Cassidy is."
Fox News Digital reached out to representatives for Cassidy but did not receive a response by publication time.
A federal appeals court on Thursday ruled a nationwide ban on handgun sales to young adults is unconstitutional.
A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans found a federal law that prohibits adults aged 18-20 from buying handguns violates the Second Amendment. The ruling comes as key firearms regulations have been struck down across the country following a landmark Supreme Court decision that expanded gun rights in 2022.
"Ultimately, the text of the Second Amendment includes eighteen-to-twenty-year-old individuals among ‘the people’ whose right to keep and bear arms is protected," the opinion of the court states. The decision refers the case back to a lower court judge.
Previously, the appeals court had upheld the requirement that adults must be at least 21 to purchase a handgun. But since the Supreme Court's decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, judges are required to determine if a firearm restriction being challenged is firmly rooted in the nation's historical traditions. Judges in Minnesota, Virginia and Texas have already found that state laws restricting handgun sales to young adults do not pass that test.
The Biden administration fought those rulings, but the Trump administration is expected to be friendlier towards gun rights. At a National Rifle Association event last year during the presidential campaign, President Donald Trump said, "no one will lay a finger on your firearms."
Constitutional law attorney and Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley observed that the Trump administration may not appeal the fifth circuit's decision, which could mean the Supreme Court will not have a chance to review it.
"For gun rights advocates, it may have been better if this decision had been handed down during the Biden Administration," Turley posted on X. "The Trump Administration will likely support the ruling and not appeal to the Supreme Court. Such an appeal could have extended this precedent nationally."
The Supreme Court, meanwhile, decided to keep a federal gun law on the books last year. The high court overturned a different ruling from the 5th Circuit and upheld a law intended to protect victims of domestic violence.
"Today’s ruling is yet another critical FPC win against an immoral and unconstitutional age-based gun ban," said Firearms Policy Coalition President Brandon Combs in a statement. Two FPC members sued to overturn the law, along with the Second Amendment Foundation and the Louisiana Shooting Association.
"We look forward to restoring the Second Amendment rights of all peaceable adults throughout the United States," Combs added.
Federal law requires a person to be 21 to purchase a handgun from a licensed firearm dealer and 18 to buy a long gun from a dealer, according to Everytown for Gun Safety. There is an 18-year-old minimum for handgun purchases from unlicensed sellers and no minimum age for long guns, according to the group’s research.
"The law that prohibits dealers from selling handguns to those under twenty-one is both constitutional and crucial for public safety," said Janet Carter, senior director of issues and appeals at Everytown Law. "Firearms are the leading cause of death for children and teens, and 18-to-20-year-olds commit gun homicides at triple the rate of adults 21 and over, according to FBI statistics."
"We hope the federal government will fight this reckless ruling by seeking rehearing en banc, or taking the case directly to the Supreme Court. We look forward to supporting the defense of this common sense law."
EXCLUSIVE: Republican lawmakers representing the Northern Border Security Caucus are looking to meet with border czar Tom Homan about the "overlooked" northern border -- with Homan telling Fox News Digital he is keen to work with them "ASAP."
Reps. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., and Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., have written to Homan, congratulating him on his new role as border czar in the new Trump administration.
"As this new administration begins, we, as co-chairs of the Northern Border Security Caucus, want to highlight the importance of protecting the Northern border, which as you well know has been overlooked considering the ongoing crisis at our Southwest border," they write to Homan, in a letter obtained by Fox News Digital.
While the overall numbers of migrant encounters are vastly outnumbered by the southern border, with just under 200,000 encounters for FY 2024, it has seen a sharp increase in numbers during the Biden administration. In FY 23, there were more apprehensions than the prior 10 years combined.
"The Northern border has faced an unprecedented rise in encounters during the last administration with FY2024 encounters rising nearly 82% over FY2022. The number of unaccompanied children encountered skyrocketed 262% in the same period," the lawmakers say. "The Swanton Sector, where a Border Patrol agent was shot and killed on January 20th, has seen an outrageous 1,720% increase in encounters from FY2022 to FY2024."
Kelly and Zinke announced the reintroduction of the caucus earlier this month for the 119th Congress. The 24-member caucus calls for secure borders and looks to raise awareness of the immigration issues facing the states at the border with Canada.
Telling Homan that he has made it clear that he shares "our same vision for a more safe and secure Northern border," they invited him to a meeting with the caucus on how "Congress and the new Administration can work together to secure the Northern Border."
In response to a request for comment from Fox News Digital, Homan said he will "engage with them ASAP on ways to secure the northern border to decrease illegal crossings of aliens and narcotics and address the national security vulnerabilities."
The caucus was founded in 2023 as numbers were spiking at the northern border, and the members have raised concerns about the number of migrants on the terror watchlist who have crossed via the border. They have noted that 87% of all terror watchlisted individuals encountered at ports of entry were apprehended at the northern border.
FIRST ON FOX: House Republicans are rolling out a new package of election security legislation this week, with GOP lawmakers already setting eyes on 2026.
Republican Study Committee Chairman August Pfluger, R-Texas, introduced the bills this week, with four lawmakers co-sponsoring the entire package and various other members supporting specific pieces.
The three pieces of legislation are a bill to prohibit noncitizen residents of Washington, D.C., from voting in local elections, a bill to block noncitizens from helping administer elections and a constitutional amendment to prevent noncitizens from voting.
It is currently illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections. Though the law does not apply to state and local elections, there is currently no state in the U.S. that allows noncitizens to vote in statewide elections.
Some areas, however, allow for noncitizens to vote in local-level elections – including Washington, D.C.
"Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy, which is why protecting them from noncitizen influence is essential to our nation’s sovereignty and will ensure America has a flourishing democracy for decades to come," Pfluger told Fox News Digital.
"These bills are three commonsense steps we can take to ensure noncitizens are not influencing our elections by voting in them or administering them. We must safeguard the integrity of our electoral system, and these bills will work to do just that."
The majority of Democrats have cried foul at GOP-led efforts to crack down on noncitizen voting, with progressive lawmakers accusing Republicans of trying to spread doubt about the country’s election processes by targeting something that’s already illegal in most cases.
Democrats also criticized Republicans for pushing bills like the SAVE Act just weeks before the November election.
However, Pfluger and his GOP allies are now side-stepping that criticism by introducing the bills well ahead of the 2026 midterm races, when historical precedent suggests that House Republicans face an uphill battle to keeping their majority.
Among the co-sponsors of the entire package is House Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, who is playing a critical role in congressional Republicans’ efforts to pass a massive conservative policy overhaul via the budget reconciliation process.
Border security and immigration reform are expected to be a significant part of that forthcoming legislation.
FIRST ON FOX— The Democratic National Committee (DNC) plans to focus much of its campaign efforts on winning over rural voters in the 2026 midterm elections, according to the party's outgoing chairman— a sprawling effort they hope will help the party engage with and educate new voters, and loosen what many see as President Donald Trump's ironclad grip on many red state voters.
The new strategy was previewed exclusively to Fox News Digital by outgoing DNC Chair Jaime Harrison ahead of the DNC's slated vote Saturday to select his successor as next party leader.
In an interview, Harrison said the strategy, which has been weeks, if not months in the making, is designed to refute many of Trump's campaign trail claims on the economy, health insurance and taxes for average Americans.
Rather, Harrison said the aim is to tie Trump more closely to these policies and to make the case to voters directly that Trump is "using rural America, and giving rural voters nothing in return."
"An examination of Trump’s second term agenda and first administrative actions reveals that rural families and the resources they rely on are in greater jeopardy than ever before," the DNC said in a preview of its new election strategy memo, shared exclusively with Fox News.
"One can conclude, Donald Trump is using rural America and giving rural voters nothing in return," the memo continued.
Trump's rhetoric has long been praised as refreshing by voters, who resonate with what many said they see as his unorthodox, anti-establishment bona fides. However, there is a difference between Trump as a presidential candidate and Trump as president. It is "him just saying things and not having the power to implement them," compared to being back in the Oval Office, Harrison said.
The DNC's effort, however, will seek to challenge that assumption by highlighting victories secured by former President Joe Biden in his first term, including tightening CAFE fuel economy standards for gas-fired vehicles, investing in EV manufacturing and battery supply chains, cracking down on PFAS contaminants and pollution, and allocating billions of dollars in clean energy and climate spending.
Trump has vowed to undo many of these policies after retaking control of the Oval Office.
To date, he has made good on his promise. Trump used his first week in office to sign hundreds of executive orders and actions, a dizzying flurry of orders that, among other things, sought to crack down on immigration, unleash U.S. liquefied natural gas exports and freeze all congressionally approved spending, if only temporarily.
Democrats, for their part, have sought to use Trump's vice-grip on the post-inauguration news cycle to double down on their efforts to appeal to voters and prepare for the midterms, no matter how far-off they might seem.
This includes focusing on issues like healthcare coverage and medical providers, both of which have suffered "major" disparities in rural America, and where doctors have exited en masse amid a flurry of hospital closures and a dearth of insured patients.
Many of the Republican-led states that did not opt to expand Medicaid saw wide hospital closures, higher out-of-pocket costs for prescriptions and much more limited access to opiod recovery or substance abuse programs, Harrison said.
Rural communities are also seeing more limited access to doctors, emergency treatment centers and a lack of access to important medication, as Biden-era programs wane.
"These things are going to have a detrimental impact on rural America," he said.
Still, Harrison acknowledged that the Democratic Party also needs to do its part to meet voters where they are at in 2026, just months after the party's humbling defeat in the 2024 presidential election.
However, changing hearts and minds will not happen overnight, he said.
Rather, it will require many conversations from state party leaders at the local level, who can both identify key issues for voters and help recruit good candidates for the upcoming election cycle.
"I think what we have to do is paint a picture for the American people of all the things that we rely upon— all the things that are necessary and needed in these communities, and that sometimes we don't even know are [programs] that the federal government is funding," Harrison said.
"Those things are in jeopardy under this administration."
"We want to let people know these things aren't just happening by happenstance. It's happening because Donald Trump is taking this radical right wing extremist agenda and trying to implement and therefore impacting the quality of your life."
The DNC's effort will also spell out to voters what they say will happen if these policies are rolled back, in accordance with Trump's plans, Harrison said.
"The second thing is having our cannons— we go out, and we work with our state parties, and recruit candidates to run in 2026," he said of candidates who are well-positioned to speak to the communities they are representing.
In Harrison's view, this will also help explain to voters how Trump's drastic cuts or reductions will impact their communities specifically.
"And then we continue to have that conversation, one-on- one, in small and larger groups with the people in those communities," he said. "And that is how we put ourselves on a much stronger foot going into the 2026 midterm election. "
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg fired back at President Donald Trump on Thursday after the commander in chief blasted the Democrat during a press briefing about the deadly midair collision between a military helicopter and a passenger airplane that occurred on Wednesday night.
Trump sarcastically called Buttigieg "a real winner."
"He's a disaster. He was a disaster as a mayor. He ran his city into the ground. And he's a disaster now. He's just got a good line of bulls---," the president said.
Buttigieg, the former South Bend, Indiana Mayor who served as secretary of the Transportation Department under former President Joe Biden, sounded off in a post on social media.
"Despicable. As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying. We put safety first, drove down close calls, grew Air Traffic Control, and had zero commercial airline crash fatalities out of millions of flights on our watch," Buttigieg declared in a post on X.
"President Trump now oversees the military and the FAA. One of his first acts was to fire and suspend some of the key personnel who helped keep our skies safe. Time for the President to show actual leadership and explain what he will do to prevent this from happening again," he added.
Buttigieg mounted a presidential bid in 2019, but dropped out the next year and endorsed Biden.
Buttigieg is reportedly "taking a serious look" at the possibility of running for U.S. Senate in in Michigan.
"Pete is exploring all of his options on how he can be helpful and continue to serve," a source familiar with Buttigieg's thinking told Fox News Digital. "He's honored to be mentioned for this, and he's taking a serious look."
Fox News Digital's Julia Johnson contributed to this report
A top government accountability group will send a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the U.S. Selective Service System (SSS) for data on illegal immigrants who did not register for the draft and therefore committed a felony.
Oversight Project executive director Mike Howell – whose group is filing the action – underlined the move is not an illustration of any support for illegal immigrants serving in the military.
By law, all U.S. males aged 18-26 must register with the SSS under penalty of felony conviction and $250,000 fine under the Military Selective Service Act of 1917, Howell’s group noted in their filing.
Additionally, the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 makes failure to register with the SSS a deportable offense, and the SSS website clearly states undocumented aliens are required to sign up for the draft, Howell noted.
However, the Oversight Project’s filing also cites a passage on the SSS website saying the agency does not share or collect information on a man’s immigration status and has "no authority to collect such information, has no use for it, and it is irrelevant to the registration requirement."
Given that discrepancy, the letter goes on to cite a 2023 SSS report to Congress cataloging 23,249 registrations from USCIS – the federal agency responsible for overseeing legal immigration – but no data from ICE, the Office of Refugee Resettlement or other agencies engaged in handling illegal immigration and asylees.
In a Thursday interview, Howell and attorney Kyle Brosnan said SSS registration has been flat during the Biden administration as far as it relates to the obvious uptick in "military-aged males" crossing the border and being "caught-and-released" by federal immigration authorities.
"The absence of such a surge indicates that there is widespread criminal non-compliance by such aliens," they wrote in their FOIA request.
"There should be a large increase in [SSS registration] with 10 million illegals that have come over the border in the last four years," Brosnan said.
"Former Secretary Mayorkas went on the Hill and talked about how good [Biden’s DHS] was at processing people – well, how didn’t that processing lead to an increase in registrations for Selective Service?"
"What we are really looking at now is whether the Selective Service under the Biden administration took this into account and they purposely avoided this issue for political reasons."
"If you look at their website… they go out of their way to assure illegal aliens like we're not going to share information with ICE... So I want, you know, whether those people have any culpability for failing to register the biggest population surge of military age males in U.S. history when their job is to register military."
Howell said the FOIA request’s results could go beyond the scope of just determining whether undocumented residents of the U.S. may have attempted to avoid the draft – but also potentially offer an additional avenue for Border Czar Thomas Homan’s mass deportation plans.
With failure to register with SSS being a felony and a deportable offense, Howell said that if the threads are pulled further on this situation, it could provide simplified legal grounds for the mass deportation plans of the Trump administration.
"Now that this little quirk has been figured out, how can ICE and other entities in the federal government use this new authority to drastically scale-up immigration enforcement?"
"You can turn a class of individuals into potential criminals overnight. What it also means is you don't need ICE necessarily to do it. [Alleged SSS violators] would be prosecuted by DOJ. That means they're in other beds that aren't ICE beds. So you're looking at all of them being in federal prison potentially, as opposed to taking up space in ICE custody," Howell said.
"All of these things open up the aperture for immigration enforcement in a huge way."
The Oversight Project went on to formally request at least a dozen data points from SSS in hopes of ascertaining how many asylum seekers and illegal immigrants are violating the law twofold with their avoidance of the draft.
Copies of the letter will also be sent to Homan, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.
President Donald Trump's pick for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, faced an hourslong hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, fielding a bevy of questions related to her qualifications and previous remarks related to national security.
Gabbard appeared before the intelligence committee on Thursday morning where she worked to rally support from lawmakers ahead of Senate committee and floor votes.
Fox News Digital reported ahead of the hearing that Gabbard did not have a majority of its committee members' votes, which are necessary to move to the full Senate, according to a senior Intel Committee aide. Gabbard likely will need every Republican vote to move past the committee, assuming Democrats vote against her.
A spokesperson for Gabbard brushed off concerns that Gabbard would not have enough committee votes in a statement to Fox News Digital ahead of the hearing.
"Anonymous sources are going to continue to lie and smear to try and take down the President’s nominees and subvert the will of the American people and the media is playing a role in publishing these lies," the spokesperson said. "That doesn’t change the fact that Lt. Col. Gabbard is immensely qualified for this role and we look forward to her hearing."
Fox News Digital compiled the top five moments, exchanges and highlights from the hearing, which ended ahead of 1 p.m. on Thursday before it moved to a closed session later in the afternoon.
Gabbard kicked off her Thursday hearing by preemptively combating "lies and smears" she anticipated to hear from some Senate lawmakers, including that she simultaneously operates as a "puppet" for Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and others.
"Before I close, I want to warn the American people who are watching at home: You may hear lies and smears in this hearing that will challenge my loyalty to and my love for our country," Gabbard said.
"Those who oppose my nomination imply that I am loyal to something or someone other than God, my own conscience and the Constitution of the United States," she continued. "Accusing me of being Trump's puppet, Putin's puppet, Assad's puppet, a guru's puppet, Modi's puppet, not recognizing the absurdity of simultaneously being the puppet of five different puppet masters."
"The same tactic was used against President Trump and failed," she said of the accusations against her.
Gabbard's critics have slammed her since Trump's election win and her nomination, including claiming she lacks the qualifications for the role, questioning her judgment over her 2017 meeting with then-Syrian dictator Bashar Assad and labeling her a "likely a Russian asset," as Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz claimed in November 2024.
"The American people elected President Trump with a decisive victory and mandate for change," Gabbard said. "The fact is, what truly unsettles my political opponents is I refuse to be their puppet. I have no love for Assad or Gadhafi or any dictator. I just hate al-Qaeda. I hate that we have leaders who cozy up to Islamist extremists, minimizing them to so-called rebels."
Gabbard was questioned on her views of National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden repeatedly throughout the hearing, including by ranking member Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., as well as Sens. Angus King, I-Maine, Michael Bennet, D-Colo., Susan Collins, R-Maine, James Lankford, R-Okla., and others.
"Was Edward Snowden a traitor to the United States of America?" Bennet asked Gabbard.
"He broke the law," Gabbard responded.
"Was Edward Snowden a traitor?" Lankford also asked.
"Senator, my heart is with my commitment to our Constitution and our nation's security," she responded. "I have shown throughout my almost 22 years of service in the military, as well as my time in Congress, how seriously I take the privilege of having access to classified information and our nation's secrets. And that's why I'm committed, if confirmed as director of national intelligence, to join you in making sure that there is no future Snowden-type leak."
Gabbard previously has made favorable remarks related to Snowden across the years, including in 2019 on Joe Rogan's podcast, and calling on Trump in 2020 to pardon "brave whistleblowers exposing lies and illegal actions in our government," such as Snowden.
"If it wasn’t for Snowden, the American people would never have learned the NSA was collecting phone records and spying on Americans," she said on "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast in 2019.
Snowden was working as an information technology contractor for the National Security Agency in 2013 when he traveled to Hong Kong to meet with three journalists and transferred thousands of pages of classified documents about the U.S. government’s surveillance of its citizens to them. He soon traveled to Russia and planned to head to Ecuador, but federal authorities canceled his passport and indicted him for espionage.
Snowden ultimately remained in Russia and became a naturalized citizen in 2022.
"Until you are nominated by the president to be the DNI, you consistently praised the actions of Edward Snowden, someone, I believe, jeopardized the security of our nation and then, to flaunt that, fled to Russia," Warner said to Gabbard on Thursday morning.
"You even called Edward Snowden, and I quote here, ‘a brave whistleblower,’" he said. "Every member of this committee supports the rights of legal whistleblowers. But Edward Snowden isn't a whistleblower, and in this case, I'm a lot closer to the chairman's words where he said Snowden is, quote, 'an egotistical serial liar and traitor' who, quote, 'deserves to rot in jail for the rest of his life.' Ms. Gabbard, a simple yes or no question: Do you still think Edward Snowden is brave?"
Gabbard pushed back that Snowden "broke the law" and does not agree with his leak of intelligence.
"Mr. Vice Chairman, Edward Snowden broke the law," she said. "I do not agree with or support with all of the information and intelligence that he released nor the way in which he did it. There would have been opportunities for him to come to you on this committee or seek out the IG to release that information. The fact is, he also, even as he broke the law, released information that exposed egregious, illegal and unconstitutional programs that are happening within our government."
Gabbard argued that the attack on 9/11 likely could have been prevented if government "stovepiping" had not suppressed intelligence communications from reaching other officials.
Stovepiping is understood as information being delivered through an isolated channel of communication to government higher-ups without broadening the distribution of the information.
"There's a general consensus that there was a massive intelligence failure," Republican Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said during Gabbard's hearing regarding 9/11. "This caught us all by surprise, even though the World Trade Center had been attacked earlier. Do you think stovepipeing was a problem in our intelligence failure?"
"There's no question about it, senator," Gabbard said before Wicker asked her to elaborate.
"Senator, when we looked back at the post-9/11 reporting and the post-assessments that were made, it was very clear that there was stovepiping of information and intelligence that occurred at many levels, at the highest but also at the lowest levels," she said.
"Information that was collected by the FBI, information that was collected by the CIA was not being shared," she said. "It was almost ships passing in the night, where if there was an integration of those intelligence elements and information being shared, it is highly likely that that horrific attack could have been prevented."
Wicker pressed if the intelligence community could face another "stovepipe" issue in the future if plans to trim the director of national intelligence office of redundant jobs and increase efficiency, as Gabbard has said she will do, is put into effect.
"The problem that we had in 2001, senator, remains at the forefront of my mind," she responded. "And as you said, this is exactly why the ODNI was created. Given my limited vantage point not being in this seat, I am concerned that there are still problems with stovepiping that need to be addressed. And in some cases, my concern would be that unnecessary bureaucratic layers may be contributing to that problem."
Critics and Democrat lawmakers have slammed Gabbard for a 2017 meeting with then-Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, claiming it is evidence she would be a "danger to the American people" if confirmed.
Gabbard met with Assad in 2017, years before his government was overthrown in 2024, and publicly revealed the meeting after she returned from Syria. Gabbard was a member of the U.S. House representing Hawaii at the time of the meeting.
"There is not a great deal in the public record about what you and Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad discussed for so long in January of 2017," Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., said to Gabbard on Thursday. "And I think there's a great deal of interest from the American people about what was discussed in that meeting. So what did you talk about? And did you press Assad on things like his use of chemical weapons, systematic torture and the killing of so many Syrians?"
"Yes, Senator. I, upon returning from this trip, I met with people like then-Leader Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, talked to them and answered their questions about the trip," Gabbard responded.
Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi had met with Assad in 2007, despite then-President George W. Bush's criticism of the visit.
Gabbard remarked that she was surprised by the lack of interest at the time from the intelligence community regarding her own meeting.
"I was surprised that there was no one from the intelligence community or the State Department who reached out or showed any interest whatsoever in my takeaways from that trip," Gabbard said. "I would have been very happy to have a conversation and give them a backbrief. I went with former Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who had been there many times before and who had met with Assad before. A number of topics were covered and discussed. And to directly answer your question, yes. I asked him tough questions about his own regime's actions. The use of chemical weapons and the brutal tactics that were being used against his own people."
"Were you able to extract any concessions from President Assad?" Heinrich asked Gabbard.
"No, and I didn't expect to, but I felt these issues were important to address," she said.
Heinrich continued to press whether now Gabbard considers "this trip as good judgment?"
"Yes, Senator. And I believe that leaders, whether you be in Congress or the president of the United States, can benefit greatly by going and engaging boots on the ground, learning and listening and meeting directly with people, whether they be adversaries or friends," Gabbard said.
Gabbard vowed that she would cut redundancies from the office of the director of national intelligence in an effort to streamline efficiency and prevent intelligence failures that can lead to devastation and tragedy.
"I'll work to assess and address efficiencies, redundancies and effectiveness across ODNI to ensure focus of personnel and resources is on our core mission of national security," she said as part of her opening remarks on Thursday. "In my meetings that I've had with many of you, you expressed bipartisan frustration about recent intelligence failures as well as the lack of responsiveness to your requests for information, whether it's the surprise Oct. 7th Hamas terrorist attack to the sudden takeover of Syria by Islamist extremists, failures to identify the source of COVID, anomalous health incidents, UAPs, drones and more. If confirmed, I look forward to working with you to address these issues."
The chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., asked Gabbard to elaborate on her mission of cutting government fat from the office, including asking her if she would restore it to "its original size, scope and function."
"Over the years, however, the ODNI has strayed from this vision to an organization that now publicly boasts nearly 2,000 people, more than half of whom are not detailed from an intelligence agency but rather are career ODNI bureaucrats," Cotton said. "They've even developed centers that are producing their own analysis. Will you commit today to working with this committee, to restoring the ODNI to its original size, scope and function?"
"Yes, Senator," Gabbard responded. "I look forward to working with you and the committee as I, if confirmed, assess the current status of who is working in the ODNI and the function that they fulfill to make sure of its effectiveness and elimination of redundancies and bloating."
Gabbard has served as a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserves since 2021 after previously serving in the Hawaii Army National Guard for about 17 years. She was elected to the U.S. House representing Hawaii during the 2012 election cycle, serving as a Democrat until 2021. She did not seek re-election to that office after throwing her hat in the 2020 White House race.
Gabbard left the Democratic Party in 2022, registering as an independent, before becoming a member of the Republican Party in 2024 and offering her full endorsement of Trump in his presidential campaign.
Gabbard has been outspoken against creating new wars, declaring in her speech in October 2024 during Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally that a vote for Harris was a vote for "war."
"I've served now for over 21 years," she said. "I've deployed to different war zones three times over that period, and I've seen the cost of war for my brothers and sisters who paid the ultimate price. I carry their memories and their sacrifice in my heart every day. So, this choice that we have before us as Americans is critical. It's important to us. It's important to those of us who serve, who have volunteered to put our lives on the line for the safety, security and freedom of our country and our people."
"A vote for Kamala Harris is a vote for Dick Cheney," she said at the time. "And it's a vote for war, more war, likely World War III and nuclear war. A vote for Donald Trump is a vote for a man who wants to end wars, not start them, and who has demonstrated already that he has the courage and strength to stand up and fight for peace."
Fox News Digital's Morgan Phillips and Julia Johnson contributed to this report.
But Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump's nominee for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), still faces crucial committee and full Senate confirmation votes in his mission to lead 18 powerful federal agencies that oversee the nation's food and health.
Testifying in front of the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday and the Health Committee on Thursday, the vaccine skeptic and environmental crusader who ran for the White House in 2024 before ending his bid and endorsing Trump faced plenty of verbal fireworks over past controversial comments.
And while most of the tough questions and sparring over his stances on vaccines, abortion, Medicaid and other issues, came from Democrats on the two committees, Thursday's hearing ended with the top Republican on the Health panel saying he was "struggling" with Kennedy's nomination.
"Your past of undermining confidence in vaccines with unfounded or misleading arguments concerns me," GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy told the nominee.
The physician from Louisiana, who is a crucial vote and who has voiced concerns over Kennedy's past stance on vaccines, asked whether Kennedy can "be trusted to support the best public health."
And the senator told Kennedy, who seeks to lead key health agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, that "you may be hearing from me over the weekend."
Kennedy faced two days of grilling over his controversial past comments, including his repeated claims in recent years linking vaccines to autism, which have been debunked by scientific research.
And Democrats have also spotlighted Kennedy's service for years as chair or chief legal counsel for Children's Health Defense, the nonprofit organization he founded that has advocated against vaccines and sued the federal government numerous times, including a challenge over the authorization of the COVID vaccine for children.
One of Thursday's most heated exchanges came as independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont pushed Kennedy over his past of linking vaccines to autism.
Sanders stated that "vaccines do not cause autism" and asked Kennedy "do you agree with that?"
After the nominee didn't answer, Sanders responded, "I asked you a simple question, Bobby."
Kennedy replied, "Senator, if you show me those studies, I will absolutely … apologize."
"That is a very troubling response because the studies are there. Your job was to have looked at those studies as an applicant for this job," Sanders said.
Later in the hearing, the two also clashed over political contributions to the pharmaceutical industry, with Kennedy referring to Sanders simply as "Bernie."
"Almost all the members of this panel, including yourself, are accepting millions of dollars from the pharmaceutical industry and protecting their interests," Kennedy said.
Sanders immediately pushed back, "I ran for president like you. I got millions and millions of contributions. They did not come from the executives, not one nickel of PAC [political action committee] money from the pharmaceutical [companies]. They came from workers."
Another fiery moment came as Democrat Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire appeared to fight back tears as she noted her son's struggles with cerebral palsy amid accusations that "partisanship" was behind the Democrats' blistering questions to Kennedy.
Hassan, who at Wednesday's hearing charged that Kennedy "sold out" to Trump by altering his position on abortion, on Thursday accused the nominee of "relitigating settled science."
But many of the Republicans on the panel came to Kennedy's defense, including conservative Sen. Rand Paul.
The ophthalmologist from Kentucky defended Kennedy and took aim at comments about vaccines not causing autism.
"We don’t know what causes autism, so we should be more humble," Paul said to applause from Kennedy supporters in the committee room audience wearing "Make America Healthy Again" garb.
The 71-year-old Kennedy, a scion of the nation's most storied political dynasty, launched a long-shot campaign for the Democrat presidential nomination against President Joe Biden in April 2023. But six months later, he switched to an independent run for the White House.
Kennedy made major headlines again last August when he dropped his presidential bid and endorsed Trump. While Kennedy had long identified as a Democrat and repeatedly invoked his late father, former Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, and his late uncle, former President John F. Kennedy – who were both assassinated in the 1960s – Kennedy in recent years built relationships with far-right leaders due in part to his high-profile vaccine skepticism.
Trump announced soon after the November election that he would nominate Kennedy to his Cabinet to run HHS.
Kennedy, whose outspoken views on Big Pharma and the food industry have also sparked controversy, has said he aims to shift the focus of the agencies he would oversee toward promotion of a healthy lifestyle, including overhauling dietary guidelines, taking aim at ultra-processed foods and getting to the root causes of chronic diseases.
"Our country is not going to be destroyed because we get the marginal tax rate wrong. It is going to be destroyed if we get this issue wrong," Kenendy said Thursday as he pointed to chronic diseases. "And I am in a unique position to be able to stop this epidemic."
The Finance Committee, which will decide on whether to send Kennedy's nomination to the full Senate, has yet to schedule a date for a confirmation vote.
With Republicans controlling the Senate by a 53-47 majority, Kennedy can only afford to lose the support of three GOP senators if Democrats unite against his confirmation.
And besides Cassidy, two other Republicans on the Health Committee – Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska – are potential "no" votes on Kennedy.
Collins on Thursday questioned Kennedy about vaccines, herd immunity as well as his views on Lyme disease. Kenendy pledged that there's "nobody who will fight harder for a treatment for Lyme disease."
A 50-50 vote in the full Senate would force Vice President JD Vance to serve as the tiebreaker to push the Kennedy nomination over the top, as the vice president did last week with the confirmation of another controversial nominee, now-Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
President Donald Trump's FBI director nomineeKash Patel sparredwith Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday in his lengthy confirmation hearing, where he faced off with lawmakers on issues ranging from Trump's pardoning of Jan. 6 rioters, his role in elevating a song released by the Jan. 6 inmate choir, and his previous call to shut down the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C.
He also answered questions about his views on QAnon and on his book, "Government Gangsters."
Here were the four biggest clashes of the day.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., blasted Patel for refusing to share his grand jury testimony from the probe into Trump’shandling of classifieddocuments after leaving the White House.
The charges against Trump were dropped in Florida and New York after he won the presidential election, in keeping with a long-standing DOJ policy against prosecuting a sitting president.
Blumenthal told Patel on Thursday that refusing to share his remarks with the panel gave "the appearance" that he is being less than transparent.
"The appearance here is that you have something to hide," Blumenthal told him. "I submit to my colleagues on the committee, we need to know what the grand jury testimony is ... and you have no objection to our seeking it, but you won't tell us."
"Even in a classified, confidential setting, I think that position is disqualifying," he said, before adding, "What are you hiding?" "Why won't you tell us?"
Patel declined to give a satisfactory answer.
"The appearance here is that you have something to hide," Blumenthal said.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., also traded barbs with Patel on Thursday over the president’s sweeping pardon and sentence commutations to the more than 1,500 defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots.
Durbin, the ranking Democrat on the panel, asked whether Patel believed the U.S. is "safer" after the mass pardons were granted, to which Patel attempted to equivocate the action to pardons issued by former President Joe Biden.
He told Durbin that he has "not looked at all 1,600 individual cases" before adding, "I also believe America is not safer because of President Biden's commutation of a man who murdered two FBI agents," Patel said, referencing Biden’s decision to commute the sentence of Leonard Peltier, a Native American activist convicted of murdering two FBI agents on a South Dakota reservation.
The agents' families, he said, "[D]eserve better than to have the man that point-blank range fired a shotgun into their heads and murdered them released from prison."
"So it goes both ways."
The January 6 rioters, and their pardons, were a frequent topic of the hearing.
Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., hit Patel with rapid-fire questions regarding his involvement in and promotion of a song recorded by the "J6 Prison Choir," a group of Capitol rioters, during their incarceration.
Patel shared the song, "Justice for All," on social media. He said that at the time he "did not know about the violent offenders," noting that he "did not participate in any of the violence in and around Jan. 6."
In response, Schiff gave Patel a harsh public dressing-down over the violence and assault endured by the Capitol Police on Jan. 6, 2021.
"Turn around and look at them," Schiff told Patel before motioning to the officers lined up for protection along the back of the room.
Patel declined to do so.
"I want you to look at them if you can, if you have the courage to look them in the eye, Mr. Patel. Tell them you're proud of what you did," Schiff said.
"Tell them you're proud that you raised money off of people that assaulted their colleagues, that pepper sprayed them, that beat them with poles. Tell them you're proud of what you did," Schiff said, adding, "They're right there. They are guarding you today."
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker's questions to Patel regarding any efforts by Trump to declassify documents after leaving the White House were among the most heated moments of the hearing.
Booker, a New Jersey Democrat, asked Patel repeatedly whether he witnessed Trump handling documents marked as classified or moving to declassify them after leaving the Oval Office.
"In the name of all the values you have said today, did you or did you not testify to witnessing the president of the United States declassify documents?" Booker asked, his voice rising several octaves.
Patel told Booker he did not know if the documents he saw being declassified at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida were seized by FBI agents in the special counsel probe, and he urged Booker to obtain them legally.
"The question is: Will you lie for the president of the United States?" Booker said. "Would you lie for Donald Trump?"
Booker urged Patel to testify to the Senate over what he said to the grand jury.
It "would be utterly irresponsible for this committee to move forward with his nomination … if we do not know that the future head of the FBI would break the law and lie for the president of the United States," Booker said.
"He's refusing the transparency that he claims to adhere to. He is refusing to be direct with the United States Senate," he continued.
"Did he or did he not lie for the president? That is the question."
The Trump administration has told top officials at the FBI to resign or lose their jobs, Fox News has learned.
The exact number has not been disclosed, but the ultimatum was allegedly given to senior employees promoted under former FBI Director Christopher A. Wray.
President Donald Trump’s administration took these steps as his nominee to lead the bureau, Kash Patel, said he would not begin his tenure with retribution or focus on past transgressions.
"I have no interest, no desire and will not, if confirmed, go backwards. There will be no politicization at the FBI. There will be no retributive actions taken," Patel said at the Senate Judiciary Committee.
According to reporting from The New York Times, an email to colleagues from one of the senior agents outlined that he had learned he would be dismissed "from the rolls of the F.B.I." as soon as Monday morning.
"I was given no rationale for this decision, which, as you might imagine, has come as a shock," he wrote.
During the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Patel said he is unaware of any plans of retribution by the Trump administration.
"Are you aware of any plans or discussions to punish in any way, including termination, FBI agents or personnel associated with Trump investigations?" asked Democratic Sen. Cory Booker.
Although Patel has been nominated, a director has not been officially confirmed to take charge, so the news of the ultimatum was alarming for those involved.
Until the vote comes to a close, Brian Driscoll remains the bureau’s acting director.
The FBI declined to comment when reached by Fox News.
President Donald Trump on Thursday signed two executive orders appointing a new Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) deputy administrator and ordering an immediate assessment of aviation safety.
The orders came after an American Airlines plane carrying 64 people and an Army Black Hawk helicopter carrying three soldiers crashed in midair at about 9 p.m. Wednesday.
The aircraft plummeted into the frigid Potomac River near Reagan National Airport, leaving 67 people presumed dead.
Rocheleau most recently served as National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) CEO and held multiple leadership roles at the FAA during his more than 20-year tenure, including director of the office of emergency operations and investigations.
The NBAA wrote in a statement it "welcomed" the announcement.
"Chris is an outstanding leader who will be good for the FAA, good for aviation and good for the country, especially at this challenging time," said NBAA President and CEO Ed Bolen. "He has demonstrated excellence at every level in the government, military and aviation industry."
Trump called Rocheleau a "very capable guy" while signing the order.
A second executive order ordered an immediate assessment of aviation safety and an elevation of "competence" over diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).
While signing the order, he said former presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama's DEI policies were "just crazy."
The memorandum says the Obama administration introduced a biographical questionnaire at the FAA to shift the hiring focus away from objective aptitude, and the Biden administration later encouraged the recruitment of people with "severe intellectual disabilities."
"During my first term, my Administration raised standards to achieve the highest standards of safety and excellence," Trump wrote in the memo. "The Biden Administration egregiously rejected merit-based hiring, requiring all executive departments and agencies to implement dangerous ‘diversity equity and inclusion’ tactics, and specifically recruiting individuals with ‘severe intellectual’ disabilities in the FAA."
While Trump ordered an immediate return to merit-based recruitment, hiring and promotion on his second day in office, he noted the recent plane crash "underscores the need to elevate safety and competence as the priority of the FAA."
Trump said Thursday the collision was a "confluence of bad decisions that were made, and you have people that lost their lives, violently lost their lives."
When asked about the roles those with "severe intellectual disabilities" were hired to fill, the FAA told Fox News Digital it would not comment.
Fox News Digital's Louis Casiano contributed to this story.
A former U.S. congressman, the Gainesville, Georgia, native also serves as a chaplain in the U.S. Air Force Reserve.
Collins was not expected to face a difficult confirmation fight and received bipartisan support in his committee hearing, the lone exception being Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, who voted against him.
If confirmed as VA secretary, Collins would oversee a beleaguered system of healthcare and benefits for the nation's veterans.
Long wait times to see providers, lack of access to community care, inadequate mental health support and budget shortfalls are just a few of many problems that have plagued past secretaries in both Republican and Democratic administrations.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson continued his attack on President Donald Trump on Wednesday, saying anyone questioning what the U.S. would look like had the Confederacy won, should have no question at this point under his administration.
A reporter asked Johnson during a press conference on Wednesday if he planned to go to Washington, D.C. to testify about sanctuary cities as the Trump administration continues to conduct operations targeting criminal illegal aliens.
House Republicans, including U.S. Rep. James Comer, R-Tenn., chair of the GOP-controlled House Committee on Oversight and Reform, called on sanctuary city mayors to testify next month about the policy’s impact on public safety and the refusal to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.
This oversight committee, of all the things that they want to have sight over, they should look at the White House right now," Johnson said. "That White House is being ran in one of the most raggedy forms of government that I've ever seen. If anybody is questioning whether or not what our country would look like had the Confederacy won, there should be no question now. They want us to be afraid. Do not be afraid, Chicago."
The mayor said he will not be intimidated by an individual who refuses to stand up to another individual who believes "he’s a supreme being."
Johnson also accused Trump of rejecting the U.S. Constitution by carrying out his responsibilities.
"If they want to have a real discussion about undocumented individuals who are criminals, they should look at the very individuals who enslaved my people and colonized this land," Johnson said.
Earlier in the press conference, another reporter asked the mayor if he had toned down rhetoric about relitigating the civil war.
"I still believe that there are people who have not accepted the results of the Civil War, and here’s the thing: I said that before this administration took office," Johnson said. "Unfortunately, I’m right. I mean, you have an entire administration that is looking to take away federal protections for the people who are most vulnerable.
"So, no, my position has not changed," he added.
The mayor’s statement comes more than a week after he doubled down on a vow to oppose Trump’s sweeping reform aimed at removing dangerous illegal immigrants accused of crimes from the U.S. once he returns to the Oval Office.
On day one of his second term, Trump issued ten executive orders aimed at overhauling U.S. immigration law and policy, and since then, armed federal immigration agents have swept cities in the first deportation raids.
In a letter, Comer, Johnson and other mayors of sanctuary cities, to provide documents and information related to the sanctuary policies of each city.
Sanctuary cities limit cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities. Supporters argue that enforcement of immigration is the job of the federal government.
Opponents say sanctuary policies harbor criminals, as well as those in the country illegally, and put the public, including legal and illegal immigrants, at risk.
Fox News Digital’s Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
The Senate Thursday evening advanced President Donald Trump's nominee to head the Department of Energy to a final confirmation vote.
The vote was 62-35.
Chris Wright, the CEO and founder of Liberty Energy Inc., an energy industry service provider based in Colorado, was tapped by the 47th president to head the Department of Energy under his administration.
The Trump nominee has received bipartisan support for his nomination, being introduced by a Democrat, Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, during his confirmation hearing with the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee this month.
The Senate held a late-night cloture vote for Wright, to end discussion over his nomination.
The cloture vote passed with bipartisan support, meaning Wright will advance to a final Senate vote, likely to take place on Friday.
Wright, during his confirmation hearing, said he had identified three "immediate tasks" where he would focus his attention: unleashing American energy, leading the world in innovation and technology breakthroughs and increasing production in America.
