State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said the United States does not support recent Israeli airstrikes on Syria and called for "dialogue" between the two Middle East powers.
"The United States unequivocally condemns the violence. All parties must step back and engage in meaningful dialogue that leads to a lasting ceasefire," Bruce announced at a State Department press briefing Thursday afternoon.
On Wednesday, Israeli airstrikes in the Syrian capital of Damascus struck the country's Defense Ministry headquarters and an area near the presidential palace, killing three and injuring dozens of others, according to reports.
The Israeli military said it was intervening to defend the minority Druze population in southern Syria, a community that shares a border with Israel, amid armed skirmishes between local Bedouin Sunni tribes and the recently installed Syrian government.
"We are acting decisively to prevent the entrenchment of hostile elements beyond the border, protect Israeli citizens and prevent harm to Druze civilians," Eyal Zamir, chief of the Israeli Defense Forces' general staff, said during a situational assessment at the Syrian border.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Wednesday afternoon that an agreement had been reached between Israel and Syria to end the "troubling and horrifying situation."
"This will require all parties to deliver on the commitments they have made, and this is what we fully expect them to do," he added.
"Thankful to all sides for their break from chaos and confusion as we attempt to navigate all parties to a more durable and peaceful solution in Syria," U.S. Special Envoy to Syria Tom Barrack added.
When asked Thursday what prompted the Israeli strikes and whether the U.S. suspected any foreign fighters, like ISIS, of being involved in the conflict in Syria between the Bedouins and the Druze, Bruce said there will need to be continued investigation to figure out exactly why this Israeli airstrike occurred.
Rubio said Wednesday he believed Israel’s strike on the Syrian capital of Damascus was "likely" due to "a misunderstanding."
Bruce on Thursday responded to reporters' questions about what U.S. officials meant when they said "confusion" and "misunderstanding" from Israel were what led to their involvement.
"This is an ancient rivalry between the Druze and the Bedouins and violence ensued, the Syrians moving to that area to quell and stop that violence. And the Israelis, who see that occurring to the Druze community and their concerns, then entered what they assessed was something larger than what, or even not what it was at all," Bruce said at Thursday's briefing.
"The good news is, the story is, it stopped, as within the management of that larger conflict. Again, there's still skirmishes and other issues. … The Syrian government is going to have to lead — obviously, there will be other involvement — but lead in to this de-escalation and to the stability."
Despite some claiming they spent money out of their own pockets, several Democrats spent thousands in campaign funds to visit illegal alien and alleged MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador, according to reporting by the New York Post.
Democrats rallied around Abrego Garcia after they claimed he was wrongly deported by the Trump administration to his home country of El Salvador in March.
Several Democrats, including representatives Maxwell Frost, D-Fla.; Robert Garcia, D-Calif., Yassamin Ansari, D-Ariz., Maxine Dexter, D-Ore.; and Glenn Ivey, D-Md., flew to El Salvador to advocate for Abrego Garcia’s return.
The New York Post reported that Frost, Garcia, Ansari and Dexter, all of whom made a joint trip to San Salvador to pressure the Trump administration to return Abrego Garcia April 21, paid for the trip through campaign funding, despite all except Garcia claiming they paid out of pocket.
The New York Post wrote that Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings show Frost’s campaign reported spending $1,362 on Salvadoran-Colombian airline Avianca May 8, about a week after his trip to visit Abrego Garcia.
Dexter’s campaign similarly reportedly spent $1,315 on travel with Taca Airlines April 18, despite the representative saying he had self-funded the trip.
Despite telling a local news outlet she had used her own money for the trip, Ansari’s campaign reported in FEC filings that the congresswoman spent $2,616 on travel with Salvadoran airline Avianca the same month she flew to visit Abrego Garcia.
Meanwhile, California Democrat Garcia’s office confirmed he spent $1,982 on another Salvadoran airline, Taca International Airlines, in April, and an additional $502 for "event space rental" at the Hilton San Salvador, the outlet reported.
Ivey, who attempted to visit Abrego Garcia in late May, spent $291 in campaign funds, according to the Post report.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., the first Democrat to make the trip and who remained an outspoken voice on Abrego Garcia’s behalf, notably did not report any campaign spending for Salvadoran air travel or lodging in mid-April, when he made his trip.
Abrego Garcia, who was returned to the U.S. in June, faces charges of human smuggling and conspiracy.
According to an indictment, Abrego Garcia played a "significant role" in a human smuggling ring operating for nearly a decade. Attorney General Pam Bondi described him as a full-time smuggler who made more than 100 trips, transporting women, children and MS-13 gang-affiliated persons throughout the U.S.
According to police and court records shared with Fox News Digital, Abrego Garcia was arrested in Hyattsville in October 2019, at which point he was identified by the Prince George's County [Maryland] Police Gang Unit as a member of MS-13.
Senators are not thrilled with a top White House official's comments that the government funding process should become more partisan, and fear that doing so could erode Congress’ power of the purse.
Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought told reporters during a Christian Science Monitor Breakfast Thursday morning that he believed "the appropriations process has to be less bipartisan."
His sentiment came on the heels of Senate Republicans advancing President Donald Trump’s $9 billion clawback package, which would cancel congressionally approved funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting, just a few hours before.
Unlike the hyper-partisan bills that have dominated the Senate’s recent agenda, including the rescissions package and the president's "big, beautiful bill," the appropriations process is typically a bipartisan affair in the upper chamber.
That is because, normally, most bills brought to the floor have to pass the Senate’s 60-vote threshold, and with the GOP’s narrow majority, Senate Democrats will need to pass any spending bills or government funding extensions to ward off a partial government shutdown.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who alluded to issues down the line with the appropriations process if Republicans advanced Trump's resicssions package, took a harsh stance against Vought.
"Donald Trump should fire Russell Vought immediately, before he destroys our democracy and runs the country into the ground," Schumer said.
Members of the Senate Appropriations Committee also did not take kindly to Vought’s comments.
"I think he disrespects it," Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said. "I think he thinks that we are irrelevant, and I wish I had actually heard the speech, because, you know, again, everything in context."
"But you have to admit that when you look at the quotes that are highlighted in the story this morning, it is pretty dismissive of the appropriations process, pretty dismissive," she continued.
Vought has no intention of slowing the rescissions train coming from the White House, and said that there would be more rescissions packages on the way.
He noted another would "come soon," as lawmakers in the House close in on a vote to send the first clawback package to the president’s desk.
"There is no voter in the country that went to the polls and said, ‘I’m voting for a bipartisan appropriations process,’" Vought said. "That may be the view of something that appropriators want to maintain."
Both Murkowski and Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, voted against the rescissions package, and warned of the cuts to public broadcasting, lack of transparency from the OMB and the possible effect it could have on legislating in the upper chamber.
"I disagree with both those statements," Collins said of Vought’s push for a more partisan appropriations process. "Just as with the budget that the President submitted, we had to repeatedly ask him and the agencies to provide us with the detailed account information, which amounts to 1000s of pages that our appropriators and their staff meticulously review."
Fox News Digital reached out to the OMB for comment.
Vought’s comments came at roughly the same time as appropriators were holding a mark-up hearing of the military construction and veterans’ affairs and Commerce, Justice and Science spending bills.
Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said during the hearing that Senate Republicans coalescing behind the rescissions package would only make hammering out spending bills more difficult, and argued that "trust" was at the core of the process.
"That's part of why bipartisan bills are so important," she said. "But everyone has to understand getting to the finish line always depends on our ability to work together in a bipartisan way, and it also depends on trust."
Other Republicans on the panel emphasized a similar point, that, without some kind of cooperation, advancing spending bills would become even more challenging.
Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., said that finding "critical mass" to move spending bills was important, and warned that people have to "quit saying it's gotta just be my way or the highway," following threats Schumer's threats last week that the appropriations process could suffer should the rescissions package pass.
"People better start recognizing that we're all gonna have to work together and hopefully get these [appropriations] bills to the floor and see what we can move," he said. "But if somebody just sits up and says, ‘Oh, because there's a rescission bill, then I'm not going to work on Appropriations,’ you can always find an excuse not to do something. Let's figure out how we can work forward."
Welcome to the Fox News Politics newsletter, with the latest updates on the Trump administration, Capitol Hill and more Fox News politics content. Here's what's happening…
- Hamas losing iron grip on Gaza as US-backed group gets aid to Palestinians in need
- Two Republicans vote against Trump's $9 billion clawback of foreign aid, NPR funding
- AOC talks meeting with Zohran Mamdani, ICE activity in NYC
EXCLUSIVE: An environmental advocacy group accused of trying to manipulate judges organized a years-long, nationwide online forum with jurists to promote favorable info and litigation updates regarding climate issues – until the email-styled group chat was abruptly made private, Fox News Digital found.
The Climate Judiciary Project (CJP) was founded in 2018 by a left-wing environmental nonprofit, the Environmental Law Institute (ELI), and pitches itself as a "first-of-its-kind effort" that "provides judges with authoritative, objective, and trusted education on climate science, the impacts of climate change, and the ways climate science is arising in the law."
But critics, such as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, say CJP is funded by China and left-wing activists for one purpose… READ MORE.
NO MORE GAMES: Trump signs fentanyl bill into law, earning praise from state attorneys general
REIGN OF TERROR: Trump's Treasury Department targets dangerous Venezuelan prison gang with sanctions on 6 top leaders
'DEAR GOD': Democrats storm out of vote on controversial Trump nominee
'DEEPLY INAPPROPRIATE': Exclusive: Army secretary vows 'grievous error' targeting pro-life groups will never happen again
'POLITICAL RETRIBUTION': Civil rights group declares 'state of emergency,' pointing at Trump admin
NOT BACKING DOWN: Powell shares what it would take for him to leave the Fed, book reveals
EUROPE PAYS UP: Trump's NATO deal to arm Ukraine wins over GOP skeptics
BITTERSWEET 16: UK government to lower voting age to 16 before next national election despite strong conservative opposition
'UNACCEPTABLE': Pope demands ceasefire after Gaza's Catholic church is hit in apparent Israeli strike
BYPASSING TERROR: Hamas losing iron grip on Gaza as US-backed group gets aid to Palestinians in need
KREMLIN IRE RISES: Russia threatens West with ‘preemptive strikes’ as NATO looks to deliver Patriots 'as quickly as possible'
POWER PLAY: Ukraine's Zelenskyy names new prime minister for first time since Russia's war began
MILITARY PIVOT: Calls for Trump to dislodge Iran-backed Houthis as terrorist movement continues attacks on commercial ships
THUMBS DOWN: Democrats hit rock bottom as American voters turn away in record numbers from liberal agenda: poll
ANTISEMITISM EXPOSED: Bipartisan House resolution condemns phrase that's created firestorm for Zohran Mamdani
SHOWSTOPPER: Cornyn says he's spoken to Trump about a potential endorsement: 'If he endorsed me, the race would be over'
NAMING NAMES: Karine Jean-Pierre, more top Biden aides to appear in House cover-up probe
MOVING ON: Senate panel advances Trump's former defense attorney Emil Bove toward federal appeals court position
'SUSTAINED PATTERN': Timeline of 'scam artist' Adam Schiff's mortgage fraud allegations stretching back years
FIRST ON FOX: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Secretary Kristi Noem announced Thursday the cancellation of $18.5 million in taxpayer-funded grants for the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships (CP3).
The grants were designated by the Biden administration to provide taxpayer funds to various organizations that DHS says are "ideologically driven programs" promoting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and LGBTQ agendas.
"These cancellations reflect DHS’s commitment to fiscal responsibility and national security," DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Fox News Digital.
"By eliminating wasteful and ideologically driven programs, we are redirecting resources to initiatives that uphold American values, respect the rule of law and effectively combat terrorism and violence."
Some of the cuts include $851,836 to the Eradicate Hate Global Summit, which DHS refers to as a DEI organization, and $209,407 to the Supporting and Mentoring Youth Advocates and Leaders group, which DHS says promotes radical gender ideology learning to K-12 students while targeting kids as young as kindergarten.
CP3, which replaced the Office of Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention in 2021, was originally designed to be a division within DHS with a mission of strengthening the nation’s ability to prevent targeted violence and terrorism through being guided by public health principles.
However, the Biden administration, which once touted its commitment to DEI principles, directed the grants toward the controversial organizations.
This is not the first time DHS has made major spending cuts to radical programs. Last month, Fox News Digital reported the agency uncovered and killed $1.5 million in additional Biden-era taxpayer-funded grants that went toward similar organizations.
The DOGE-like approach will allow DHS to divert taxpayer funds within the agency, and a spokesperson said the money "will be redirected to efforts that actually protect the American people."
A Mexican illegal alien living in Los Angeles was charged with orchestrating her own fake ICE "kidnapping" to generate sympathy and solicit donations, the Justice Department announced Thursday.
Yuriana Julia Pelaez Calderon, 41, a resident of South Los Angeles, was charged with conspiracy and making false statements to federal officers, the DOJ said.
Calderon had been living in the U.S. based on a federal law enforcement parole that expired in 2023. She is in federal custody after she allegedly faked her kidnapping.
This comes after local outlet KTLA reported on a news conference held by Calderon’s "loved ones and attorneys," who claimed she had been "kidnapped" by uniformed men in unmarked cars June 25.
The outlet reported that a woman identified as an attorney named Stephano Medina claimed Calderon was cornered in a Jack in the Box parking lot in Los Angeles by men who did not identify themselves but were possibly bounty hunters. Medina claimed Calderon was taken to the border and presented to an "ICE staffer," who demanded she sign self-deportation paperwork.
Medina said that when Calderon refused to sign the paperwork, she was taken to a warehouse until she agreed to sign the document.
Fox News Digital obtained a copy of the criminal complaint against Calderon, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. An affidavit filed with the complaint alleges that Calderon and others "planned a hoax kidnapping" for their benefit, "including their own pecuniary gain."
The affidavit said that Calderon’s daughter set up a GoFundMe page to raise $4,500 after her mother was "taken by masked men in an unmarked vehicle."
The daughter filed a missing person report with the Los Angeles Police Department, which notified Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) of Calderon’s supposed kidnapping.
HSI determined Calderon was not in DHS custody and, out of concern for her safety, the agency launched its own investigation to find her. During the investigation, HSI noticed several irregularities, including that the phone calls to loved ones that Calderon had supposedly made via borrowed phones were made from her cell phone, intentionally masked to appear as an unknown number.
According to the affidavit, video surveillance of Calderon’s alleged forced abduction further showed her calmly leaving the Jack in the Box parking lot and getting into a nearby sedan. Despite the video showing a marked LAPD car in the vicinity, Calderon did not make any attempts to alert officers that she was in danger.
The affidavit states that "when confronted with true information that contradicted their kidnapping story," Calderon and others lied to federal agents and "attempted to thwart law enforcement efforts" by keeping her whereabouts from law enforcement.
According to a DOJ statement, HSI agents tracked Calderon down July 5 in a shopping plaza parking lot in Bakersfield, California. The statement said Calderon continued to claim she was taken by masked men and held in custody with others.
She is in U.S. immigration custody and is facing a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison for conspiracy and up to five years for false statements if convicted of the charges.
Commenting on the charges, U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli thanked HSI and "all federal agents facing unprecedented levels of assaults" for "providing cool heads and professionalism during these difficult times."
Essayli said "dangerous rhetoric that ICE agents are ‘kidnapping’ illegal immigrants is being recklessly peddled by politicians and echoed in the media to inflame the public and discredit our courageous federal agents."
HSI Los Angeles Special Agent in Charge Eddy Wang also decried the scheme, saying, "My office invested valuable time and resources working this alleged kidnapping investigation only to discover that it was a hoax.
"Diverting critical law enforcement resources is not only reckless and irresponsible, but it also endangers the community," Wang added. "The real cost of a fraud like this is the amount of fentanyl not seized, child predators not removed from the communities and human trafficking victims not rescued because law enforcement redirected resources to recover the defendant.
"We want to assure the public that allegations of criminal activity will be thoroughly investigated by HSI and our law enforcement partners and that those who engage in fraud and deception will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was recently granted access to Medicaid enrollee data, aiding officers tasked with fulfilling the Trump administration's objective of tracking down and deporting illegal immigrants.
Medicaid, which uses taxpayer dollars to provide health insurance to low-income adults and children, has more than 71 million enrollees as of March 2025.
The information shared with ICE will include home addresses and ethnicities, according to a report from The Associated Press.
The agreement, brokered between the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), was signed Monday, according to the report.
Though the true number of illegal immigrants on Medicaid is unknown, about 1.4 million people currently on Medicaid do not meet citizenship and immigration status requirements for Medicaid enrollment, according to a document from the Congressional Budget Office.
DHS assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Fox News Digital the initiative will ensure illegal immigrants do not receive taxpayer-funded health benefits.
"President Trump consistently promised to protect Medicaid for eligible beneficiaries," McLaughlin wrote in a statement. "To keep that promise after Joe Biden flooded our country with tens of millions of illegal aliens CMS and DHS are exploring an initiative to ensure that illegal aliens are not receiving Medicaid benefits that are meant for law-abiding Americans."
The deal was signed weeks after California and 19 other states sued the Trump administration for transferring Medicaid data to the DHS.
"The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)’s Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) handed over a trove of individuals’ protected health data obtained from States, including California, Illinois, and Washington, to other federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)," according to court documents. "Millions of individuals’ health information was transferred without their consent, and in violation of federal law."
The lawsuit claims the public’s sensitive health data can only be used for purposes that Congress has authorized, accusing the Trump administration of violating federal laws including the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Ron Johnson is demanding the National Archives turn over all records related to former President Joe Biden’s "mental and physical health and cognitive decline," Fox News Digital has learned.
Fox News Digital exclusively obtained a letter Johnson, R-Wis., sent to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is serving as the acting archivist of the United States.
Johnson, who leads the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said he is now conducting an investigation into "the cover-up of former President Biden’s health and cognitive decline."
"My office has been reviewing the allegations that former President Biden, cabinet members, and his staff covered up his declining mental and physical health over the course of his presidency," Johnson wrote to Rubio, adding that the allegations "raise serious questions about who was making key presidential decisions if the former president was incapable of doing so.
"One of these key decisions may have involved the presidential power to grant clemency or pardons — a matter that the White House Counsel’s Office, among other entities, are currently investigating," Johnson wrote.
Fox News Digital exclusively reported Tuesday that the White House Counsel’s Office, in conjunction with the Justice Department, is investigating Biden’s use of an autopen and already is reviewing more than 27,000 documents turned over by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
"The reporting further suggests that these records represent only a portion of the information in NARA’s possession that may be related to the coverup of former President Biden’s alleged mental and physical decline," Johnson wrote to Rubio, referring to the Fox News Digital exclusive report.
Johnson is now demanding that NARA turn over all records provided to the White House Counsel’s Office referring to or relating to Biden’s mental or physical health or the alleged cover-up, including all communications.
Johnson also is demanding communications between or among any former White House officials, members of Biden’s Cabinet or their staff or other staff relating to Biden’s mental or physical health.
Specifically, Johnson is demanding records belonging to former White House chief of staff Ron Klain, former White House chief of staff Jeff Zients, former advisor Mike Donilon, former counselor to the president Steve Ricchetti, Biden personal attorney Bob Bauer, Biden senior advisor Anita Dunn, former White House Physician Kevin O’Connor and others.
Johnson gave Rubio until July 30 to turn over the records.
Trump sent a memo in June to the Department of Justice directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate the autopen use and to determine whether it was related to a decline in Biden's mental state.
The White House Counsel's Office is investigating Biden's use of an autopen, a machine that physically holds a pen and features programming to imitate a person’s signature. Unlike a stamp or a digitized print of a signature, the autopen has the capability to hold various types of pens, from a ballpoint to a permanent marker, according to descriptions of autopen machines available for purchase.
Biden used an autopen to sign a slew of documents while in office. He also used an autopen to sign final pardons, including preemptive pardons for members of his family, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Gen. Mark Milley and members and staff of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots. He only signed one pardon by hand, for his son Hunter, after vowing to the American people for months he would not pardon Hunter.
In his final weeks in office, Biden granted clemency and pardoned more than 1,500 individuals in what the White House described at the time as the largest single-day act of clemency by a U.S. president.
Biden, in a recent interview with The New York Times, defended his use of an autopen, saying he "made every decision" on his own.
"We’re talking about (granting clemency to) a whole lot of people," Biden said.
However, the Times reported that Biden "did not individually approve each name for the categorical pardons that applied to large numbers of people," according to the former president and his aides.
Congressional committees, like the House Oversight Committee, are also investigating the autopen use and Biden's health while in office.
A senior administration official recognized the simultaneous efforts but stressed that the White House Counsel's investigation is separate from any congressional probes.
Officials told Fox News Digital the investigation is a "massive effort," and one that they hope to finish "as soon as possible."
As for Trump, officials told Fox News Digital he does not use an autopen for anything that could be considered official business.
The only time Trump may use the autopen is for unofficial business, including correspondence, letters for birthdays or commissioned records for widely shared documents, his office said.
EXCLUSIVE: New legislation would create harsher penalties for executives of publicly traded companies who knowingly fail to comply with federal employment eligibility verification laws.
The proposal comes as federal immigration authorities continue to crack down on alleged violations of immigration laws, including a criminal search warrant that was executed in California earlier this month on a cannabis facility, which resulted in multiple arrests of illegal immigrants and a child labor investigation.
"While liberals like Gavin Newsom pretend to care about human rights, the sad truth is that the Democrats’ open-borders agenda is really about undercutting American wages and ensuring their billionaire donors have a constant supply of cheap, foreign labor," Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, said in a statement.
"So, let’s make this simple, executives who abuse illegal immigrants with slave wages should be held personally liable and face severe consequences if they’re caught. This cannot be a country built on servitude. American workers must come first," he added.
Specifically, Moreno’s "Strengthening Accountability for Employers Hiring Individuals and Reforming Enforcement Act" (SAFE HIRE Act) would require a company's CEO and chief human resources officer to sign off on their employment practices in annual SEC reports, including confirming that the company verified the legal work status of all employees.
In addition, companies will certify in their SEC reports that they have disclosed to the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice any "significant deficiencies" that would interfere with their ability to follow federal employment eligibility requirements or of any known violations.
Executives could face up to 10 years in prison and up to a $1 million fine for knowingly making false certifications. Those found responsible for violations involving employing people in the country illegally can face up to 20 years behind bars and a $5 million fine.
"This isn’t about labor laws or penalizing employers – and the federal government has made that clear. They care more about lining the pockets of private for-profit detention centers than the children and families wasting away in their care or the billions spent by taxpayers to hold them in these facilities indefinitely," a spokesperson for Gov. Gavin Newsom told Fox News Digital.
It's been against the law to intentionally hire people who cannot work in the country legally since the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.
In Congress, Republicans and Democrats continue to face off on immigration policy, most recently with the passage of the reconciliation bill signed by President Donald Trump, which ramps up resources for Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations.
The White House is pushing back against criticism of the administration’s handling of files pertaining to Jeffrey Epstein as figures on both sides of the aisle demand their release.
"The fact that Democrats have now seized on this as if they ever wanted transparency when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein, which is an asinine suggestion for any Democrat to make. The Democrats had control of this building, the White House, for four years, and they didn't do a dang thing when it came to transparency in regards to Jeffrey Epstein and his heinous crimes," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday.
Leavitt then attempted to shift focus, saying that President Donald Trump cared more about other issues, such as the GENIUS Act and the border. This echoed a sentiment expressed by Trump, who said that the Justice Department has "bigger problems" than the Epstein case.
Additionally, Leavitt told reporters that Trump is not recommending a special prosecutor in the Epstein case, saying that "the idea was floated from someone in the media to the president." A recent joint Justice Department-FBI memo obtained by Axios showed the department and the bureau concluded they had no evidence of Epstein blackmailing powerful people, keeping a client list or being killed.
Republicans have grown frustrated with what they see as a lack of transparency from the Trump administration. The president has lashed out amid the criticism, claiming that it is a "hoax" and that those on the right concerned about the release of the files were being "duped" by Democrats.
On Wednesday, Trump said Attorney General Pam Bondi would release "whatever’s credible" related to the Epstein case.
"He's dead. He's gone," Trump said of Epstein. "And, all it is, is the Republicans, certain Republicans got duped by the Democrats, and they're following a Democrat playbook and no different than Russia, Russia, Russia and all the other hoaxes."
The infighting isn’t limited to Republican lawmakers. A source recently told Fox News Digital that FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino was considering resigning over the handling of the files. However, he has not made any announcements about leaving.
Fox News Digital's Danielle Wallace and Amanda Macias, and Fox News' Jacqui Heinrich, David Spunt and Jake Gibson contributed to this report.
Senators are not thrilled with a top White House official's comments that the government funding process should become more partisan, and fear that doing so could erode Congress’ power of the purse.
Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought told reporters during a Christian Science Monitor Breakfast Thursday morning that he believed "the appropriations process has to be less bipartisan."
His sentiment came on the heels of Senate Republicans advancing President Donald Trump’s $9 billion clawback package, which would cancel congressionally approved funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting, just a few hours before.
Unlike the hyper-partisan bills that have dominated the Senate’s recent agenda, including the rescissions package and the president's "big, beautiful bill," the appropriations process is typically a bipartisan affair in the upper chamber.
That is because, normally, most bills brought to the floor have to pass the Senate’s 60-vote threshold, and with the GOP’s narrow majority, Senate Democrats will need to pass any spending bills or government funding extensions to ward off a partial government shutdown.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who alluded to issues down the line with the appropriations process if Republicans advanced Trump's resicssions package, took a harsh stance against Vought.
"Donald Trump should fire Russell Vought immediately, before he destroys our democracy and runs the country into the ground," Schumer said.
Members of the Senate Appropriations Committee also did not take kindly to Vought’s comments.
"I think he disrespects it," Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said. "I think he thinks that we are irrelevant, and I wish I had actually heard the speech, because, you know, again, everything in context."
"But you have to admit that when you look at the quotes that are highlighted in the story this morning, it is pretty dismissive of the appropriations process, pretty dismissive," she continued.
Vought has no intention of slowing the rescissions train coming from the White House, and said that there would be more rescissions packages on the way.
He noted another would "come soon," as lawmakers in the House close in on a vote to send the first clawback package to the president’s desk.
"There is no voter in the country that went to the polls and said, ‘I’m voting for a bipartisan appropriations process,’" Vought said. "That may be the view of something that appropriators want to maintain."
Both Murkowski and Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, voted against the rescissions package, and warned of the cuts to public broadcasting, lack of transparency from the OMB and the possible effect it could have on legislating in the upper chamber.
"I disagree with both those statements," Collins said of Vought’s push for a more partisan appropriations process. "Just as with the budget that the President submitted, we had to repeatedly ask him and the agencies to provide us with the detailed account information, which amounts to 1000s of pages that our appropriators and their staff meticulously review."
Fox News Digital reached out to the OMB for comment.
Vought’s comments came at roughly the same time as appropriators were holding a mark-up hearing of the military construction and veterans’ affairs and Commerce, Justice and Science spending bills.
Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said during the hearing that Senate Republicans coalescing behind the rescissions package would only make hammering out spending bills more difficult, and argued that "trust" was at the core of the process.
"That's part of why bipartisan bills are so important," she said. "But everyone has to understand getting to the finish line always depends on our ability to work together in a bipartisan way, and it also depends on trust."
Other Republicans on the panel emphasized a similar point, that, without some kind of cooperation, advancing spending bills would become even more challenging.
Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., said that finding "critical mass" to move spending bills was important, and warned that people have to "quit saying it's gotta just be my way or the highway," following threats Schumer's threats last week that the appropriations process could suffer should the rescissions package pass.
"People better start recognizing that we're all gonna have to work together and hopefully get these [appropriations] bills to the floor and see what we can move," he said. "But if somebody just sits up and says, ‘Oh, because there's a rescission bill, then I'm not going to work on Appropriations,’ you can always find an excuse not to do something. Let's figure out how we can work forward."
The Trump administration reversed a Biden-era legal opinion from the Department of Justice on Thursday that permitted taxpayer dollars to be used for ancillary services associated with helping someone obtain an abortion, such as transportation costs.
The policy was particularly used in aiding unaccompanied minor migrants to get abortions, according to the Trump administration.
In the wake of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022, the Health and Human Services Department took the view that taxpayer dollars – even though prohibited by Congress from being used to pay for abortions directly under the Hyde Amendment – could be used to provide transportation services for patients seeking an abortion. The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), charged with interpreting the laws for the president and executive branch agencies, agreed at the time under the Biden administration.
However, that interpretation and opinion have been upended after Trump's OLC issued a new one Thursday that bars taxpayer funds from going toward any "ancillary services" that might help someone get an abortion.
The 2022 Biden-era OLC opinion formed the basis for HHS's Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) to use federal funds to help unaccompanied minors obtain transportation and other services in support of getting an abortion, according to the July 11 opinion released Thursday.
"Current regulations require ORR to ‘ensure that all unaccompanied children in ORR custody… be provided with… access to… family planning services,’ and recognize that ‘transportation across State lines and associated ancillary services’ may be ‘necessary to access’ such ‘family planning services,'" the new opinion stated.
"Where such transportation services are necessary for an individual to obtain an abortion, the associated costs constitute the kind of indirect expense that the post-1993 Hyde Amendment limits," the opinion continues. "Under current circumstances, interstate transportation expenses could dwarf the cost of the abortion procedure itself. It would thus be inconsistent with longstanding congressional policy – as reflected in the Hyde Amendment’s textual bar on ‘expend[itures] for any abortion’ – for HHS to fund such expenses merely because they do not go directly to the person or entity performing the abortion."
In 1993, Congress changed the statutory language of the Hyde Amendment, which resulted in years of disputes over the measure's interpretation.
The new OLC opinion released Thursday argues that the 1993 change expanded the Hyde Amendment to include anything done in service of someone receiving an abortion, not just the abortion itself.
Fox News Digital did not receive a response from the Justice Department prior to publication of this story.
The move to strengthen the Hyde Amendment's protections follows the president's Executive Order 14182, instructing agencies to "end the forced use of Federal taxpayer dollars to fund or promote elective abortion."
As suspected Maryland MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia stands trial in a high-profile criminal case, three more alleged MS-13 members in the state are being charged with racketeering conspiracy, including murder and drug trafficking.
Commenting on the charges, acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Galeotti said the men's actions "furthered MS-13’s reign of terror across communities in Maryland."
The charges, filed against Salvadoran nationals living in Maryland – Maxwell Ariel Quijano-Casco, 24, Daniel Isaias Villanueva-Bautista, 19, and Hyattsville, Maryland man, Josue Mauricio Lainez, 21 – were announced in a Department of Justice statement on Wednesday.
According to the statement, the three men allegedly killed a homeless man as part of their involvement with MS-13. The DOJ said the three allegedly killed the man on July 4, 2024, in a "retaliatory murder."
The victim was found dead in a blue Dodge Caravan that was parked in a used car lot in Hyattsville the next day.
The department said a nearby surveillance camera caught the murder on video. According to the statement, the video shows the victim wielding what appears to be a pole at Quijano-Casco, who then flees and returns with Villanueva-Bautista, Lainez and another unnamed person. The four approach the blue van where the victim fled, open the door and appear to strike someone inside.
Police arriving at the scene the next day found the victim, who appeared to have been stabbed in the neck.
Fox News Digital reached out to the DOJ, FBI and Prince George’s County Police Department to request to review the video. Neither agency immediately responded to Fox News Digital’s request.
Quijano-Casco and Villanueva-Bautista were arrested by Prince George’s County Police on Aug. 23, according to the DOJ. Quijano-Casco was found in possession of a semi-automatic handgun and about eight grams of cocaine at the time of his arrest. Both admitted that they were present for the altercation where the victim was murdered and Quijano-Casco allegedly admitted to police to stabbing the individual.
The three are being charged with racketeering conspiracy, including the July 4, 2024, murder. If convicted, they face sentences of up to life in prison.
In the statement, Galeotti of the DOJ’s Criminal Division said the "senseless murder" was carried out "in exchange for promotions within the gang and drugs."
Galeotti said, "Their actions furthered MS-13’s reign of terror across communities in Maryland."
U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland Kelly Hayes called the killing a "brutal retaliatory murder" that serves as a "chilling reminder of the MS-13 gang’s callous disregard for human life."
She said her office will continue to work with law enforcement to dismantle criminal organizations such as MS-13 that "terrorize our communities."
This comes as Abrego Garcia, 29, another Salvadoran national who was living in Maryland, faces charges of human smuggling and conspiracy.
According to the indictment, Abrego Garcia played a "significant role" in a human smuggling ring operating for nearly a decade. Attorney General Pam Bondi described him as a full-time smuggler who made more than 100 trips, transporting women, children and MS-13 gang-affiliated persons throughout the U.S.
According to police and court records shared with Fox News Digital, Abrego Garcia was arrested in Hyattsville in October 2019, at which point he was identified by the Prince George's County Police Gang Unit as a member of MS-13.
The State Department will now only weigh in on foreign elections when there is a "clear and compelling" U.S. interest to do so, focusing on strategic significance over spreading democratic values.
"Consistent with the administration’s emphasis on national sovereignty, the Department will comment publicly on elections only when there is a clear and compelling U.S. foreign policy interest to do so," according to a new memo articulating Secretary Marco Rubio’s directive obtained by Fox News Digital.
"Messages should avoid opining on the fairness or integrity of an electoral process, its legitimacy, or the democratic values of the country in question."
The memo, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, said the U.S. would "hold firm to its own democratic values and celebrate those values when other countries choose a similar path," but would continue relationships where "strategic interests align," instead of focusing on values.
Overseas outposts can still post public messages congratulating the winner of an election without high-level signoff, unless the outcome is contested, but are instructed to focus on the "outcome of an election, not the process."
If a bureau wants to post messages denouncing the process of an election, such as in the case of violence during voting or sham elections, they need a senior-level signoff from the bureau and such permissions will be "rare."
"DO use messaging on elections to advance a U.S. foreign policy goal," the memo read. "DON’T use it to promote an ideology."
Those writing official statements are instructed to ask themselves, "Would the president say it?"
The U.S.’ view on an election is closely watched by opposition groups and human rights activitists, and sometimes defines whether a nation is sanctioned or granted foreign aid.
In a speech in Saudi Arabia in May, President Donald Trump said the U.S. would refrain from telling other countries how to manage their domestic affairs, reorienting U.S. policy that prompted interventions across the Middle East for decades.
But still, in some cases, Trump has weighed in on the affairs of other countries: last week he imposed a 50% tariff on Brazil due to the trial of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who prosecutors accuse of trying to overturn the 2022 election results in a violent coup plot.
EXCLUSIVE: An environmental advocacy group accused of trying to manipulate judges organized a years-long, nationwide online forum with jurists to promote favorable info and litigation updates regarding climate issues – until the email-styled group chat was abruptly made private, Fox News Digital found.
The Climate Judiciary Project (CJP) was founded in 2018 by a left-wing environmental nonprofit, the Environmental Law Institute (ELI), and pitches itself as a "first-of-its-kind effort" that "provides judges with authoritative, objective, and trusted education on climate science, the impacts of climate change, and the ways climate science is arising in the law."
But critics, such as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, say CJP is funded by China and left-wing activists for one purpose.
"They fund CJP to train judges," Cruz said during a June hearing. "So, quote, unquote, train in climate science and make them agreeable to creative climate litigation tactics. Then, these left-wing bankrollers turn around and fund the climate litigators who will bring these bogus cases before those same judges that they've just indoctrinated.
"This is like paying the players to play and paying the umpire to call the shots the way you want."
The group, however, says it provides "neutral, objective information to the judiciary about the science of climate change as it is understood by the expert scientific community and relevant to current and future litigation."
One of the efforts CJP launched included rolling out an email-styled listserv by which leaders from the Climate Judiciary Project could message directly with judges, documents obtained by Fox News Digital show. The listserv was launched in September 2022 and maintained until May 2024, according to the documents. A portal website page for the forum was previously publicly available, with an archived link saved in July 2024 showing there were 29 members in the group.
"Judicial Leaders in Climate Science," the archived website link reviewed by Fox Digital reads, accompanied by a short description that the group was a "Forum for Judicial Leaders in Climate Science to share resources."
A link to the forum now leads to an error warning, stating, "Sorry, but that group does not exist."
Fox News Digital obtained the archived chat history of the forum, which detailed numerous messages between at least five judges and CJP employees trading links on climate studies, congratulating one another on hosting recent environmental events, sharing updates on recent climate cases that were remanded to state courts, and encouraging each other to participate in other CJP meet-ups.
One message posted by Delaware Judge Travis Laster, vice chancellor of the Delaware Court of Chancery, features a YouTube video of a 2022 climate presentation delivered by a Delaware official and a Columbia University professor that focused on the onslaught of climate lawsuits since the mid-2000s. It also included claims that such lawsuits could one day bankrupt the fuel industry.
Laster shared the video in the group with a disclaimer to others: "Please do not forward or use without checking with me" as the video is "unlisted" on YouTube and not publicly available.
A handful of other judges responded to Laster's video and message, praising it as "great work."
"This is great work/great stuff, Travis; congrats on a job well-done, & thank you so much for sharing this!," Indiana Court of Appeals Judge Stephen Scheele responded, according to documents obtained by Fox News Digital.
Another judge in a Nebraska county court added that he had not watched the video yet but said the state court administrator's office was interested in a similar program focused on "litigation and climate change." The Nebraska judge said he "may need to lean on all of you for guidance and direction."
The judges' correspondence on the forum included their typical email signatures, showcasing their job titles as "judge" as well as which court they preside over.
The climate activists also posted messages directed to the judges on the listserv, Fox News Digital found, including a science and policy analyst at the Environmental Law Institute posting a lengthy message on Nov. 15, 2023. The message encouraged judges and climate activists alike to review the government's publication of the Fifth National Climate Assessment that year, which the environmental crusader said contained "good news and bad news."
"The bad news is that the impacts of climate change are being felt throughout all regions of the United States, and these impacts are expected to worsen with every fraction of a degree of additional warming. The report finds that climate change will continue to affect our nation's health, food security, water supply, and economy," the message read.
"The good news is that the report also notes that it isn't too late for us to act," the message continued, before encouraging the 28 other members of the group to go over CJP's climate curricula, such as "Climate Science 101" and "Climate Litigation 101," and send over any feedback.
"As you know, our Climate Judiciary Project exists to be as beneficial to judges as possible, so any insights you might have for us would be very helpful!" the message added when asking members to review the curricula.
In another message, CJP's manager, Jared Mummert, sent a message to the group in May 2024 praising the judges for their mentorship of a second group of "Judicial Leaders in Climate Science" – which included 14 judges from 12 states and Puerto Rico – as part of a partnership between CJP and the National Judicial College. The National Judicial College provides judicial training for judges across the country from its Reno, Nevada, campus.
"We want to give a special ‘thank you’ to those who are serving as mentors to this second cohort!" the message read. It added that CJP was ramping up its number of "engagement opportunities" to "every six months for both cohorts of judges to come together to share updates and connect with one another."
Fox News Digital reached out to five of the judges on the listserv for comment, four of whom did not respond.
Scheele's office told Fox News Digital on Thursday that he first joined the 2022 National Judicial Conference on Climate Science, more than two years before he was appointed to the Court of Appeals of Indiana, after another delegate was unable to attend.
"At the last minute, when another appointed delegate was unexpectedly unable to attend, Judge Scheele was asked by Indiana’s state court administration to fill in as Indiana’s representative, and he accepted the invitation. As is normal in conferences attended by our judges, this conference addressed emerging, hot button issues that might come before the courts," Scheele's office said.
It added: "Judge Scheele does not recall any substantive communication on the ‘listserv’ mentioned. He, like all of our Court of Appeals of Indiana judges, is dedicated to the unbiased, apolitical administration of justice in the State. He, like all of our judges, educates himself on emergent topics in the law and applies his legal training to evaluate the legal issues before him."
CJP, for its part, said the now-defunct email list was created in September 2022 to help members of its Judicial Leaders in Climate Science program communicate and network with one another for the duration of the program.
The one-year program, established by CJP in coordination with the National Judicial College, "trains state court judges on judicial leadership skills integrated with consensus climate science and how it is arising in the law," the group told Fox News Digital.
Judges quietly working behind the scenes with climate and environmental activists have drawn criticism from conservative lawmakers in recent years as climate-focused suits increased, including those who have accused CJP of manipulating the justice system.
Cruz, for example, has been at the forefront of condemning CJP for joining forces with the National Judicial College. Cruz argued in a 2024 opinion piece that he is "concerned that this collaboration means court staff are helping far-left climate activists lobby and direct judges behind closed doors."
Cruz again railed against CJP during a Senate subcommittee hearing in June, called "Enter the Dragon – China and the Left’s Lawfare Against American Energy Dominance," where the Texas Republican argued there is a "systematic campaign" launched by the Chinese Communist Party and American left-wing activists to weaponize the court systems to "undermine American energy dominance." CJP, Cruz said, is a pivotal player in the "lawfare" as it works to secure "judicial capture."
Cruz said CJP's claims of neutrality are bluster, and the group instead allegedly promotes "ex parte indoctrination, pressuring judges to set aside the rule of law, and rule instead according to a predetermined political narrative."
Judges have previously landed in hot water over climate-related issues in group forums, including in 2019, when a federal judge hit "reply all" to an email chain with 45 other judges and court staff regarding an invitation to a climate seminar for judges hosted by the Environmental Law Institute. The judge was subsequently chastised by colleagues for sharing "this nonsense" and suggested it was an ethics violation, while others defended that flagging the event to others was not unethical.
Fox News Digital spoke with Heritage Foundation senior legal fellow Zack Smith, who explained there has been an overarching increase in courts promoting trainings for judges on issues they would eventually be asked to preside over impartially, pointing to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts’ DEI trainings for judges during the Biden era. The office works as the administrative agency for the U.S. court system, handling issues from finances to tech support.
"There's a problem right now with many courts putting forward, seeming to take sides on issues they will be asked to address through the trainings that they're putting forward. And this was a particular problem with the DEI trainings that different federal district courts were putting on, that the Administrative Office of U.S. courts were sponsoring. It appeared that the judiciary itself was encouraging violations of the Constitution, violations of federal law, and most problematically was taking sides in issues they would eventually be asked to sit and preside over impartially," he said.
Justice Department officials did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment on the CJP program in question, or other efforts to educate judges more directly on climate issues.
Still, news of the program’s outreach comes as the U.S. has seen a sharp uptick in climate-related lawsuits in recent years, including cases targeting oil majors Shell, BP and ExxonMobil for allegedly engaging in "deceptive" marketing practices and downplaying the risks of climate change, as well as lawsuits bought against state governments and U.S. agencies, including the Interior Department, for failing to adequately address risks from pollution or adequately protect against the harm caused by climate change, according to plaintiffs who filed the suits.
CJP's educational events are done "in partnership with leading national judicial education institutions and state judicial authorities, in accordance with their accepted standards," a spokesperson for the group said in an emailed statement. "Its curriculum is fact-based and science-first, grounded in consensus reports and developed with a robust peer review process that meets the highest scholarly standards."
"CJP’s work is no different than the work of other continuing judicial education organizations that address important complex topics, including medicine, tech and neuroscience," this person added.
The number of climate-related lawsuits in the U.S. has increased significantly in recent years, including during the last two years of the Biden administration. To some extent, the educational efforts led by CJP appear to have been enacted in earnest to address real questions or concerns judges might have in presiding over these cases for the first time – many of which seek tens of millions of dollars in damages.
The Supreme Court agreed earlier this month to grant a request from ExxonMobil and Chevron to transfer two Louisiana lawsuits from state to federal court.
While the move itself is not immediately significant, it will be closely watched by oil and gas majors, as they look to navigate the complex landscape of environmental lawsuits, including lawsuits filed by state and local governments. Oil majors typically prefer to have their cases heard by federal courts, which are seen as more sympathetic to their interests.
Since Trump’s re-election in 2024, the cases appeared to have died down, at least to an extent. U.S. appeals courts have declined to take up many challenges filed on behalf of plaintiffs in several states who have sued claiming government inaction and failure to act to protect against known harms from fossil fuel extraction and production in the U.S.
CJP’s program is run by ELI in partnership with the Federal Judicial Center, the latter of which bills itself as the "research and education center" for judges across the country.
Their work includes partnerships with myriad outside groups beyond the CJP aimed at informing and educating judges on a range of issues, including neuroscience and bioscience, constitutional law, and bankruptcy, among other things.
According to their website, the effort is important to help judges understand relevant case law and ethics, sentencing guidelines, and other types of issue-specific programs they might be encountering for the first time.
Fox News Digital has previously reported on CJP's cozy relationship with judges, including when the group's president, Jordan Diamond, detailed in a Wall Street Journal letter to the editor in September that the group "doesn’t participate in litigation, support or coordinate with any parties in litigation, or advise judges on how they should rule in any case."
A subsequent Fox News Digital review published in December found that several CJP expert lawyers and judges continued to have close ties to the curriculum and are deeply involved in climate litigation, including tapping insight from university professors who have also filed several climate-related amicus briefs.
"CJP doesn’t participate in litigation, support or coordinate with any parties in litigation, or advise judges on how they should rule in any case," an ELI spokesperson defended in a comment to Fox News Digital in December. "Our courses provide judges with access to evidence-based information about climate science and trends in the law."
Fox News Digital's Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this piece.
In the 2026 midterm elections battle for control of the House, when Republicans will be defending their razor-thin majority, it seems nothing's out of bounds.
The GOP-controlled state legislature in Texas meets in special session next week, as top Republicans in the red state push to redraw the current congressional maps to reduce the number of districts controlled by already marginalized Democrats.
It's part of a broader effort by the GOP across the country to keep control of the chamber, and cushion losses elsewhere in the country, as the party in power traditionally faces political headwinds and loses seats.
And President Donald Trump is aiming to prevent what happened during his first term, when Democrats stormed back to grab the House majority in the 2018 midterms.
"Texas will be the biggest one," the president told reporters earlier this week, as he predicted the number of GOP-friendly seats that could be added through redistricting in the Lone Star State. "Just a simple redrawing, we pick up five seats."
Hours earlier, Trump held a call with Texas' Republican congressional delegation and sources confirmed to Fox News that the president told the lawmakers that he was aiming to redraw the maps to create five new winnable seats.
Democrats control just 12 of the state's 38 congressional districts, with a blue-leaning seat vacant after the death in March of Rep. Sylvester Turner.
The idea is to relocate Democratic voters from competitive seats into nearby GOP-leaning districts, and move Republican voters into neighboring districts the Democrats currently control.
Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, both conservative Republicans and Trump allies, said they needed to redistrict because of constitutional concerns raised by the Justice Department over a handful of minority-dominated districts.
But the move is potentially risky.
"There is some risk of making safe Republican seats more competitive, and I think that the incumbents are certainly worried about that," veteran Texas-based Republican strategist Brendan Steinhauser told Fox News. "If you talk to Republican members of Congress, they're going to be worried about their own seats. They don't want to be in a seat that's more competitive."
Steinhauser noted "that's the tradeoff for Republicans, if you want to grow the majority."
But he added that "the people drawing the maps… they don't want to make any seat too competitive because that will defeat the purpose."
Redistricting typically takes place at the start of each decade, based on the latest U.S. Census data. Mid-decade redistricting is uncommon – but not without precedent.
Democrats are slamming Trump and Texas Republicans for what they describe as a power grab, and vowing to take legal action to prevent any shift in the current congressional maps.
"Democrats are going to push back aggressively because it’s the right thing to do," House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told reporters this week.
Democrats in blue-dominated states are now considering similar tactics.
"Two can play this game," California Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote on social media this week.
The next day, after a meeting, Democrats in California's congressional delegation said they were on board with an ambitious plan to try and gain at least five seats through redistricting. Democrats currently control 43 of the Golden State's 52 congressional districts.
But it won't be easy to enact the change, because in California, congressional maps are drawn by an independent commission that is not supposed to let partisanship influence their work.
Newsom this week suggested that the state's Democratic-controlled legislature move forward with a mid-decade redrawing of the maps, arguing that it might not be forbidden by the 17-year-old ballot initiative that created the independent commission.
The governor also proposed quickly holding a special election to repeal the commission ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
Both plans are considered long shots, as they would face plenty of legislative, legal and financial hurdles.
Democrats are also hoping to alter congressional maps in battleground Wisconsin, but the new liberal majority on the state Supreme Court recently declined to hear the case. Democrats and their allies are now in the midst of a second legal push for redistricting in Wisconsin.
Democrats have also filed redistricting litigation in Utah and Florida, which are both red states.
Meanwhile, Ohio is required by law to redistrict this year, and a redrawing of the maps in the red-leaning state could provide the GOP with up to three more congressional seats.
The White House dismissed comments that the Trump administration's efforts to yank already approved federal funds for foreign aid and public broadcasting pose a public safety threat.
The rescissions package the Senate approved early Thursday pulls more than $1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) that provides federal funding for NPR and PBS.
"These are not honest news organizations," Leavitt told reporters Thursday. "These are partisan left wing outlets that are funded by the taxpayers. And this administration does not believe it's a good use of the taxpayers' time and money."
PBS and NPR could not be immediately reached for comment by Fox News Digital.
This is a breaking news story that will be updated.
The White House dismissed comments that the Trump administration's efforts to yank already approved federal funds for foreign aid and public broadcasting pose a public safety threat.
The rescissions package the Senate approved early Thursday pulls more than $1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) that provides federal funding for NPR and PBS.
"These are not honest news organizations," Leavitt told reporters Thursday. "These are partisan left wing outlets that are funded by the taxpayers. And this administration does not believe it's a good use of the taxpayers' time and money."
PBS and NPR could not be immediately reached for comment by Fox News Digital.
This is a breaking news story that will be updated.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt revealed additional details on President Donald Trump's health after photos showed some bruising on the back of his hands, and apparently swollen legs.
"I know that many in the media have been speculating about bruising on the president's hand and also swelling in the president's legs," she said Thursday. "So in the effort of transparency, the president wanted me to share a note from his physician with all of you today."
Leavitt went on to read a memo explaining that the swollen legs were part of a "benign and common condition" for individuals older than age 70, while the bruising on his hands were attributable to "frequent handshaking and the use of aspirin."
"In recent weeks, President Trump noted mild swelling in his lower legs," Leavitt said Thursday during a press briefing. "In keeping with routine medical care and out of an abundance of caution, this concern was thoroughly evaluated by the White House Medical Unit."
"The president underwent a comprehensive examination including diagnostic vascular studies, bilateral lower extremity … venous Doppler ultrasounds were performed and revealed chronic venous insufficiency, a benign and common condition, particularly in individuals over the age of 70," Leavitt said.
"Importantly, there was no evidence of deep vein thrombosis or arterial disease," she continued. "Laboratory testing included a complete blood count, comprehensive metabolic panel coagulation profile, D-dimer, B-type natriuretic peptide, and cardiac biomarkers. All results were within normal limits. An echocardiogram was also performed and confirmed normal cardiac structure and function. No signs of heart failure, renal impairment, or systemic illness were identified."
Photos of Trump's swollen legs circulated in July, when he joined the FIFA Club World Cup final Sunday at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey accompanied by first lady Melania Trump, spurring headlines and social media speculation that the president was allegedly concealing a health issue. While concern also spread after photos of Trump's hands showed bruising when he met with the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Bahrain Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa Wednesday.
Leavitt went on to explain that the bruising on the back of Trump's hands was due to his Asprin intake and frequently shaking hands with other people.
"Additionally, recent photos of the president have shown minor bruising on the back of his hand," Leavitt said. "This is consistent with minor soft tissue irritation from frequent handshaking and the use of aspirin, which is taken as part of a standard cardiovascular prevention regimen. This is a well-known and benign side effect of aspirin therapy, and the president remains in excellent health, which I think all of you witness on a daily basis here. So the president wanted me to share that note with all of you."
Trump's White House physician released his medical report in April that found was in "excellent health."
"President Trump remains in excellent health, exhibiting robust cardiac, pulmonary, neurological, and general physical function," read the release by Navy Capt. Sean P. Barbabella, the physician to the president.
The release included Trump’s vital statistics, noting that the president is 75 inches tall, weighs 224 pounds, has a resting heart rate of 62 beats per minute, a blood pressure of 128/74 mmHg, a pulse oximetry of 99% on room air and a temperature of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit.
FIRST ON FOX: Kentucky’s attorney general filed a lawsuit Thursday against e-commerce giant Temu, alleging that its app illegally gives the Chinese government access to Americans’ user data and that the company lifts intellectual property from U.S.-owned companies.
In a complaint filed in Woodford County Circuit Court, state attorneys asked for an injunction against Temu, an Amazon rival with a China-originating parent company, for what they described as "multifold" harms.
Kentucky investigators identified "code-level behaviors" in the Temu app that involved the collection of users' sensitive personal data in a manner that was not secure, in violation of state consumer protection laws, the attorneys said.
"These privacy and security harms are compounded both because the Temu app is purposely designed to evade detection … and because Defendants — by their own [acknowledgment] — have a portion of their operations located on mainland China, where cybersecurity laws allow the government unfettered access to data owned by Chinese businesses whenever it wishes," the attorneys wrote.
The complaint alleged that Temu improperly collects users' Wi-Fi and GPS information, as well as camera data without appropriate permission.
The attorneys also alleged that Temu brazenly sells products using stolen intellectual property of large and small brands, including that of Kentucky’s historic horse racetrack in Louisville.
"As of the date of this filing, Temu features dozens of what appear to be unlicensed products claiming to be from Kentucky brands like the University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, Buffalo Trace Distillery and Churchill Downs," the complaint reads.
Temu’s parent company is PDD Holdings, which originated in China but moved to Ireland. Before launching Temu in the United States in 2022, PDD Holdings founded Temu’s sister company, Pinduoduo, a Chinese online retailer.
Temu has become known for its heavily discounted products and aggressive advertising strategy, which included three multimillion-dollar animated Super Bowl ads last year. Temu was Apple's most downloaded free app in 2023, according to TechCrunch.
Temu's tagline is "Shop like a billionaire," though its pricing structure has in recent months been disrupted by Trump's trade war with China.
Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman said the company's "cheap products and flashy marketing" distract from more insidious problems.
"Their platform can infect Kentuckians’ devices with malware, steal their personal data and send it directly to the Chinese government," Coleman, an elected Republican and former U.S. attorney, said in a statement. "At the same time, they’re eroding trust in some of Kentucky’s most iconic brands, which could lead to job losses and hardship."
The lawsuit is the latest instance of Temu coming under scrutiny, mainly by Republicans, for its ties to China, a top U.S. adversary. Last year, 20 GOP state attorneys general demanded information from Temu's ownership about allegations brought by Congress that its China-based suppliers used forced labor. Temu denied the claim at the time.
