In a video message about the Federal Aviation Administration doing "drone-detection testing" in New Jersey, Transportation Sec. Sean Duffy indicated that the Trump administration is committed to "radical transparency," juxtaposing that approach with what he referred to as the Biden administration's "drone fiasco."
The FAA noted in a post on its website last week that the testing is slated to occur "in Cape May, New Jersey, between April 14-25."
"The FAA will operate several large drones and more than 100 commercial off-the-shelf drones during the two-week period. Testing will take place over the water and near the Cape May Ferry Terminal during the daytime on weekdays only. The public should not fly recreational drones near this area during the test period," the post stated.
In a video message shared on social media this week, Duffy explained that the testing is being performed "to ensure we can properly detect drones in our airspace and make sure they don't interfere with aircraft navigation systems."
Many Americans were concerned by a spate of sightings in the skies last year.
A joint Department of Homeland Security, FBI, FAA, and Department of Defense statement in December addressed the issue, declaring that "we assess that the sightings to date include a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and stars mistakenly reported as drones. We have not identified anything anomalous and do not assess the activity to date to present a national security or public safety risk over the civilian airspace in New Jersey or other states in the northeast."
Shortly after President Donald Trump took office in January, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt delivered what she described as a statement from Trump, explaining that the drones over the Garden State were cleared by the FAA to fly "for research and various other reasons," and that many drones had been flown by hobbyists.
"This was not the enemy," she concluded, describing the remarks as "a statement from the president … "
The FAA's post last week noted, "The agency has been testing drone detection technologies at airports over the last few years and is expanding testing to off-airport locations. These tests will help determine the effectiveness of these technologies and whether they might interfere with FAA or aircraft navigation systems."
Former President Joe Biden, while reflecting on his youth and witnessing segregation firsthand, referred to Black students as "colored kids" in his first major address since exiting the Oval Office.
"We lived in an apartment complex, and she'd [Biden's mom] drive us only about half a mile to Holy Rosary School in Claymont. But it was so dangerous, she wouldn't let us walk up," Biden said Tuesday evening while delivering a speech on the Social Security Administration before a disability advocacy conference in Chicago.
"There were hardly any Black people in Scranton at the time … and I was only going into fourth grade. And I remember seeing kids going by, at the time called colored kids, on a bus going by," Biden added in his anecdote to explain the importance of civil rights laws to him and why he got involved in politics.
The 46th president was reflecting on how his family moved from Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Wilmington, Delaware, when he was in fourth grade and how he witnessed segregated schools in the nation's second-smallest state.
"They never turned right to go to Claymont High School," Biden said of Black students not attending a White school. "I asked my mom why? Why? In Delaware, they're not allowed to go to school in public school with White kids.
"And it sparked my sense of outrage as a kid, just like it does [now]."
The Supreme Court effectively ended segregation in public schools across the country in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision.
The former president joined the Advocates, Counselors and Representatives for the Disabled (ACRD) conference in Chicago Tuesday evening, where he received the "beacon of hope award" for his accomplishments as president and addressed the gathering about the Social Security Administration, including attacking the Trump administration for its policies.
"Why are these guys taking aim at Social Security now?" Biden asked, referring to the Trump administration. "Well, they're following that old line from tech startups. The quote is ‘move fast, break things.’ They're certainly breaking things. They're shooting first and aiming later.
"The result is a lot of needless pain and sleepless nights."
Biden added that the Trump administration is looking to "wreck" Social Security to "rob it."
"My friend, Gov. O'Malley, knows what they're really up to. He says, and I love his quote, ‘They want to wreck it so they could rob it.’ They want to wreck it so they could rob it. Why do they want to rob it? In order to deliver huge tax cuts to billionaires and big corporations and keep it going. They want to make permanent the 2017 tax cuts, which overwhelmingly benefits the wealthiest Americans and the biggest corporations. That's going to cost $5 trillion. Where are they going to get $5 trillion to pay for (it) when they continue to run the deficit up?
"What they always do … by running up the national debt, No. 1. Then by taking the money from someplace else. What are the two big pots of money out there in raw numbers? Social Security and Medicaid. …. Republicans, these guys are willing to hurt the middle class and the working class in order to deliver significant, greater wealth to their already very wealthy. Who in the hell do they think they are?"
The Trump administration has cut about 7,000 Social Security Administration staffers since taking office as part of its mission to cut government fat and bureaucracy and realign agencies with "America First" policies. Democrats have slammed President Donald Trump over the cuts, claiming he will cut Social Security benefits to seniors.
The White House has repeatedly rejected claims that the Trump administration will cut such benefits, vowing to "always protect" Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits.
The Trump administration's official Social Security X account responded after the speech that "Biden is lying to Americans," before providing a detailed list of "facts," including that Trump has repeatedly pledged to protect benefits and that no field office has been closed since Jan. 20.
The ACRD conference was billed as the 46th president's first public speech since leaving the White House. Biden however, has delivered other public remarks since Jan. 20, Fox Digital found, such as speaking at the National High School Model United Nations in March, but those events received little media coverage.
Former President Joe Biden took shots at the Trump administration's Social Security policies in his first major speech since leaving the White House on Tuesday evening.
"Seriously, people are now genuinely concerned for the first time in history, for the first and only time in history, that Social Security benefits may be delayed or interrupted," Biden said from the Advocates, Counselors and Representatives for the Disabled (ACRD) conference in Chicago on Tuesday evening.
"In the 90 years, since Franklin Roosevelt created the Social Security system, people have always gotten their Social Security checks. They've gotten them during wartime, during recessions, during the pandemic. No matter what, they got them. But now, for the first time ever, that might change. It would be calamity for millions of families, millions of people," he added.
The ACRD conference was billed as the 46th president's first public speech since leaving the White House. Biden however, has delivered other public remarks since Jan. 20, Fox Digital found, including speaking before the National High School Model United Nations in March, which received little media attention, as well as joining an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers event this month.
ACRD is an advocacy organization that works to equip "disability professionals with the tools, technology, and training to lead the industry forward," according to its website.
Biden's keynote address, which ran less than an hour, overwhelmingly focused on his accomplishments with Social Security when he served as president, taking aim at how the Trump administration is allegedly keeping the elderly up at night with worry over their Social Security benefits, as well as cracking a few jokes about his decades in politics.
"Why are these guys taking aim at Social Security now?" Biden asked, referring to the Trump administration. "Well, they're following that old line from tech startups. The quote is ‘move fast, break things.’ They're certainly breaking things. They're shooting first, and aiming later."
"The result is a lot of needless pain and sleepless nights," Biden said.
The Trump administration has cut about 7,000 Social Security Administration staffers since taking office as part of its mission to cut government fat and bureaucracy, and realign agencies with "America First" policies. Democrats have slammed President Donald Trump over the cuts, claiming he will cut Social Security benefits to seniors.
The White House has repeatedly rejected claims that the Trump administration will cut such benefits, vowing to "always protect" Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits.
Biden continued that the Trump administration is allegedly looking to "wreck" Social Security to "rob it."
"My friend Gov. O'Malley knows what they're really up to. He says, and I love his quote, ‘They want to wreck it so they could rob it.’ They want to wreck it so they could rob it. Why do they want to rob it? In order to deliver huge tax cuts to billionaires and big corporations and keep it going. They want to make permanent the 2017 tax cuts, which overwhelmingly benefits the wealthiest Americans and the biggest corporations. That's going to cost $5 trillion. Where are they going to get $5 trillion to pay for, when they continue to run the deficit up?"
"What they always do … by running up the national debt, number one. Then by taking the money from someplace else. What are the two big pots of money out there in raw numbers? Social Security and Medicaid. …. Republicans, these guys are willing to hurt the middle class and the working class, in order to deliver significant, greater wealth to their already very wealthy. Who in the hell do they think they are?" he said.
Former Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and former Democrat Maryland Gov. and Social Security Administrator Martin O’Malley also joined the event. O'Malley presented Biden with ACRD's "beacon of hope award" for his accomplishments as president, including his leadership during the pandemic and fighting for the "dignity of every person."
Biden added during that the nation is "divided" under Trump and can't continue on the same path.
"We can't go on like this as a divided nation, as divided as we are. I said, I've been doing this a long time, it's never been this divided. Granted, it's roughly 30%, but it's a 30% that has no heart," he continued.
The Trump administration's official Social Security X account hit back after the speech that "Biden is lying to Americans," before providing a detailed list of "facts," including that Trump has repeatedly pledged to protect benefits and that no field office has been closed since Jan. 20.
"SSA is taking commonsense steps to transform how we serve the public - last month, we spent $16.5 million to modernize telephone services nationwide. We’re developing cutting-edge, AI-powered tools to streamline simple tasks," the thread continued. "SSA Inspector General report released while Joe Biden was President found $72 billion in improper payments from fiscal years 2015 through 2022."
The event comes as political books investigating the 2024 campaign cycle hit the shelves, including "Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History" and "FIGHT: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House."
Excerpts from Chris Whipple's "Unchartered" reported that White House staffers allegedly kept Biden from socializing with others, including close allies and friends, out of fear the 46th president "might say the wrong thing or might feed the mental acuity narrative." While he also appeared "absolutely exhausted" ahead of his ill-fated debate against Trump in June, according to the book, which opened the floodgates to public concern over Biden's mental acuity as he tripped over his words and lost his train of thought during the debate.
Biden has been spending his days in both Delaware and the nation's capital since his Oval Office exit, with the 46th president working on his own book while also meeting with various Democratic Party leaders, NBC News reported in March.
Former President Joe Biden is expected to deliver what is billed as his first public speech since leaving the Oval Office, delivering the keynote address on Tuesday before the national conference of Advocates, Counselors and Representatives for the Disabled (ACRD).
"We are deeply honored President Biden is making his first public appearance at ACRD’s sold-out conference," the group's executive director, Rachel Buck, said in a press release provided to Fox Digital. The conference will be held in Chicago.
"As bipartisan leaders have long agreed, Americans who retire after paying into Social Security their whole lives deserve the vital support and caring services they receive. As a result, we are thrilled the President will be joining us to discuss how we can work together for a stable and successful future for Social Security."
The event is billed as the 46th president's first public speech since leaving the White House, with the former president expected to address the conference sometime after 5 p.m. ET, Fox Digital learned. Biden, however, has delivered other public remarks since Jan. 20, Fox Digital found, including speaking before the National High School Model United Nations in March, which received little media attention, as well as joining an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers event this month.
ACRD is an advocacy organization that works to equip "disability professionals with the tools, technology, and training to lead the industry forward," according to its website. "Our mission is to empower and educate disability representatives by providing comprehensive training, fostering leadership skills, promoting technological proficiency, and offering valuable networking opportunities."
Biden will headline the event, which will focus on strengthening Social Security, and will be joined by Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., former Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and former Democrat Maryland Gov. and Social Security Administrator Martin O’Malley, according to the press release.
Blunt reported in comments provided in the press release that discussions on Tuesday will focus on bolstering the Social Security system so it can meet the needs of Americans by "reducing red tape, strengthening claims processing, and ensuring unnecessary spending is eliminated."
"Social Security is a sacred promise between generations," O’Malley, who serves as chair of ACRD’s Advisory Board, added in the press release. "It’s a promise that ensures dignity in retirement, security after tragedy, and support for those with disabilities. We are deeply grateful to the President for joining us at ACRD to discuss how we can keep that promise for all Americans."
Biden has been out of the public's view since leaving the Oval Office on Jan. 20, when President Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 47th commander in chief. Biden attended the inauguration and was seen chatting with his successor after offering five family members pardons in the final minutes of his tenure, including to his two brothers and his sister.
Biden was slated to face off against Trump for the second time during the 2024 presidential election cycle but dropped out of the running in July as concerns mounted over his mental acuity and age. Biden passed the torch to his then-vice president, Kamala Harris, who failed to rally enough support to defeat Trump after just over 100 days on the campaign trail.
The Bidens have been spotted at various events since Trump's Inauguration Day, including attending the opening night of "Othello" on Broadway last month in New York City and traveling to Santa Barbara County, California, immediately following the end of his administration.
Biden has been spending his days in both Delaware and the nation's capital since his Oval Office exit, with the 46th president working on his next memoir while meeting with various Democratic Party leaders such as DNC Chair Ken Martin, NBC News reported in March.
Fox Digital reached out to Biden's office for additional comment on the matter but did not immediately receive a reply.
President Donald Trump issued a stern warning to the Houthis by saying it was time for them to hide now that he has removed "dangerous red tape" from the Biden administration, allowing U.S. troops to protect Somalia against terrorists.
"Time for the terrorists to hide, but it won’t do them any good. Our Warfighters, the Greatest the World has ever seen, will find them, and bring them to a swift Justice," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. "I just got rid of Joe Biden’s dangerous red tape, and empowered our Warfighters, once again, just like I did against our fight with ISIS, who were completely obliterated in three weeks under General Daniel Caine, our new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"We will support the Somali People, who should not allow the Houthis to embed (which they are trying to do!), to end terrorism, and bring prosperity to their Country," the president added.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the State Department on the matter and is waiting to hear back.
For years, the U.S. has helped Somali forces with airstrikes and other support against the al-Shabab extremist group and an affiliate of the Islamic State, or ISIS.
Last month, Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud drafted a letter to Trump offering the U.S. exclusive access to air bases and seaports, which reignited tensions between the government of Somalia and the breakaway region of Somaliland, the Associated Press reported.
In the letter, Somalia offered "exclusive operational control" over the Berbera and Baledogle air bases and the ports of Berbera and Bosaso to "bolster American engagement in the region."
The letter was dated March 16 and leaked on social media during the last week of March. In it, the Somali leader spoke of "ensuring uninterrupted military and logistical access while preventing external competitors from establishing a presence in this critical corridor."
The letter was confirmed as "an authentic draft" by a senior official in Somalia’s foreign ministry, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give press interviews.
The official was not sure if the final letter, which made the same offer, was sent.
One of the ports, Berbera, is in a key city located in Somaliland, whose long assertion as an independent state has not received international recognition.
Somaliland, a former British protectorate, declared independence from Somalia in 1991 after the collapse of the central government. It maintains its own government, security forces and currency and has held elections.
President Donald Trump ramped up steep tariffs against Chinese imports to the U.S. this week while alleviating them for other countries during trade negotiations this week. He also signed a series of executive orders aimed at repealing Biden-era restrictions.
The Trump administration announced Wednesday it would lower reciprocal tariffs on other countries, while also revealing that the administration would immediately hike tariffs on Chinese goods to 145%. In response, China has raised its tariffs on U.S. goods to 125%.
Trump disclosed historic tariffs in a ceremony at the White House’s Rose Garden for a "Make America Wealthy Again" event on April 2, asserting that these new duties would generate new jobs for U.S. workers.
The tariff plan established a baseline tax of 10% on all imports to the U.S., along with customized tariffs for countries that place higher tariffs on U.S. goods. The baseline tariffs of 10% took effect Saturday, while the others took effect Wednesday at midnight.
But Trump announced in a post on Truth Social Wednesday that reciprocal tariffs announced last week would remain paused for 90 days, during which period the countries would only face the baseline 10% tariff.
"At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable," Trump posted on his Truth Social media platform on Wednesday.
Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said that the tariffs suggest that China is at odds with the rest of the world.
"China is the most imbalanced economy in the history of the modern world," Bessent told reporters Wednesday. "They are the biggest source of the U.S. trade problems, and indeed they are the problem for the rest of the world."
Here’s what also happened this week:
Trump also signed an executive order this week aimed at reinvigorating the shipbuilding industry in the U.S., amid concerns that China is outpacing the U.S. in production.
China is responsible for more than 50% of global shipbuilding, compared to just 0.1% from the U.S., according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The executive order requires agencies to craft a Maritime Action Plan and instructs the United States Trade Representative to provide a list of recommendations to deal with China’s "anticompetitive actions within the shipbuilding industry," among other things.
Trump also signed an executive order to reverse Obama- and Biden-era conservation measures that limited water pressure in showers in an attempt to "make showers great again." Former President Barack Obama initially imposed the water pressure restrictions, and Trump sought to ease some of them during his first term.
However, former President Joe Biden reinstated the measure, which limited multi-nozzle shower heads from releasing more than 2.5 gallons of water per minute.
"I like to take a nice shower, take care of my beautiful hair," Trump said Wednesday. "I have to stand in the shower for 15 minutes until it gets wet. Comes out drip, drip, drip. It’s ridiculous."
The Trump administration also unveiled plans this week for upcoming talks to negotiate with Iran on Saturday. While Trump has reiterated that these discussions will be "direct" nuclear talks, Iran has pushed back on that description and characterized them as "indirect" negotiations instead.
Middle East envoy Stever Witkoff will travel to Oman on Saturday and is slated to potentially meet with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. However, Iran has maintained that the discussions will be held through a third party instead.
"The ultimate objective is to ensure that Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon," Leavitt told reporters Friday. "The president believes in diplomacy, direct talks, talking directly in the same room in order to achieve that goal. But he's made it very clear to the Iranians, and his national security team will, as well, that all options are on the table and Iran has a choice to make. You can agree to President Trump's demand, or there will be all hell to pay. And that's how the president feels. He feels very strongly about it."
Fox News’ Bonny Chu, Danielle Wallace, and Caitlin McFall contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump redecorated the Oval Office.
SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images
Donald Trump has brought his love of maximalism and gold furnishings to the Oval Office.
He added gold embellishments to the walls, ceiling trim, and fireplace mantle.
He also swapped out Joe Biden's rug and presidential portrait choices.
The Oval Office is looking a little bit different lately.
Every US president makes new interior design choices upon entering the White House, often reflecting their personal tastes or political views.
In his second nonconsecutive term, President Donald Trump has incorporated his love of maximalism and gold furnishings into the Oval Office.
More White House renovations are in the works. Trump told Fox News he plans to install stone tiles over the grass in the White House Rose Garden to turn it into a patio that he says will be better suited for large events.
"The grass just doesn't work," Trump told Fox News host Laura Ingraham in March.
Take a look inside Trump's redecorated White House to see the changes he's made since former President Joe Biden left office.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Biden's dark-blue Oval Office rug was originally designed for Bill Clinton.
Joe Biden's Oval Office rug.
Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz
The rug, which featured the presidential seal in the center, was designed by Kaki Hockersmith, an interior designer based in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Upon returning to the White House, Trump replaced it with a lighter rug used by Ronald Reagan.
Donald Trump's Oval Office rug during his first term.
Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian
The rug's design includes the presidential seal, a sunbeam pattern, and olive branches along the border as a symbol of peace.
Trump also used the rug during his first term.
Biden only had two flags in the Oval Office.
Joe Biden in the Oval Office.
Alex Wong/Getty Images
Biden displayed an American flag and a flag with the presidential seal.
Trump added the flags of different branches of the US military.
Donald Trump at the Resolute Desk.
JIM WATSON/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Trump's Oval Office features the flags of the Army, the Marine Corps, and the Navy.
During Biden's presidency, the Oval Office's ceiling didn't feature any additional embellishments.
Joe Biden on a video call in the Oval Office.
Official White House Photo by Erin Scott
The crown molding on the ceiling matched the cream wallpaper.
Trump added gold trim to the crown molding on the ceiling.
Donald Trump's Oval Office.
Avi Ohayon /Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images
The gold embellishments matched the gold curtains, which remained in place from Biden's presidency.
Biden's Oval Office featured a prominent portrait of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Donald Trump and Joe Biden in the Oval Office.
Alex Wong/Getty Images
Biden also hung portraits of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton together to symbolize the benefits of different opinions, as well as portraits of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
Trump added additional portraits and numerous gold embellishments to the space.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with Donald Trump in the Oval Office.
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Trump added more portraits with decorative frames to create an Oval Office gallery wall. He also replaced Biden's portrait of FDR with one of George Washington and displayed historic gold urns and baskets from the White House collection on the mantle.
Trump also incorporated smaller gold details, such as coasters, branded with his name.
A gold coaster in Donald Trump's Oval Office.
MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images
Trump's love of gold decor is well-known. His Trump Tower penthouse in New York City features numerous gilded ceilings, furniture pieces, and artwork. Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, also includes a ballroom covered in gold from floor to ceiling.
The Biden administration engaged in a "cover-up" by failing to disclose details about the health of former President Joe Biden, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
"I can tell you there was certainly a lack of transparency from the former president, from the entire former administration," Leavitt told reporters on Friday. "And frankly, a lot of people in this room, when it came to the health in the competence of the former President of the United States, Joe Biden — there was one of the greatest cover-ups and, frankly, political scandals this nation has ever seen. It's been unraveled in some recent books that are being written by journalists who engaged in that cover-up in scandal, which is quite ironic."
A spokesperson for Biden did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
New books out have detailed Biden’s mental and physical well-being during his time in the White House.
"Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History," published Tuesday and authored by Chris Whipple, a former producer for CBS' "60 Minutes," claims that the White House kept Biden from socializing with those who previously worked alongside him — a tactic that backfired and contributed to his declining mental agility.
Leavitt’s remarks come as President Donald Trump is receiving an annual physical at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Friday. The White House says it will provide a readout of the appointment.
"But this president is clearly committed to transparency," Leavitt said. "You in this room see him and hear from him on a daily basis. You in this room know from covering him. It's hard to keep up with him. He is a machine working around the clock every single day. And the physician, after today's physical, will provide an update on the report in the effort of transparency."
FIRST ON FOX: Republicans in Congress are launching a probe into a Biden-era green energy grant program that sent billions in funding to climate groups tied to Democrats and former President Joe Biden's allies.
GOP leaders on the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent letters to the eight nonprofits awarded grants from the $20 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), seeking answers to ensure the Biden Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) followed proper ethics and conflict of interest protocols in distributing the funds.
In February, the Trump administration's EPA announced it would take steps to get the money back, citing concerns over a lack of oversight related to how the money was being disbursed. In the announcement, new EPA administrator Lee Zeldin cited comments from a former Biden EPA political appointee, who described disbursements made through GGRF as akin to "tossing gold bars off the Titanic," because Biden officials were allegedly trying to get money out the door before Trump took over.
It was also revealed that $2 billion from GGRF went to a Stacy Abrams-linked group, Power Forward Communities, which had not been established until after the Biden administration announced the GGRF application process. Meanwhile, during Power Forward's first few months of operations — prior to receiving the funding — the group reported just $100 in revenue.
Climate United, another group that received the most money from the GGRF, roughly $7 billion, currently staffs a former Biden climate advisor who worked during the last two years of the former president's term. The same group is also run by a CEO with ties to the Obama administration and a board member who was among those invited to Biden's signing ceremony for his multitrillion-dollar infrastructure bill in 2021.
Several GGRF grant recipients have ties to Democrats and Biden advisors, and some were reportedly founded shortly before or after the Biden administration announced the program. Meanwhile, these groups, according to Zeldin, had sole discretion on how to use the funds.
House Energy and Commerce Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., alongside fellow committee members Reps. Gary Palmer of Alabama and Morgan Griffith of Virginia, both Republicans, said in a joint statement that their investigation into the GGRF recipients will be "key" to understanding whether these funds were allocated "fairly and impartially to qualified applicants," while also helping to determine the manner in which the money has been used.
"The Committee has had concerns about the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund program since its creation—including concerns about the program’s unusual structure, a potential lack of due diligence in selecting award recipients, and the recipients’ ability to manage the large influx of federal dollars they received from the EPA," the lawmakers said in their statement.
"A recent Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee hearing that examined these concerns coupled with the speed with which money was pushed out the door by the Biden Administration’s EPA heightened the Committee’s concerns and raised additional questions about certain Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund recipients."
Several of the groups that were recipients of GGRF money sued the Trump administration in March over its attempts to rake back the funds.
Subsequently, Obama-appointed Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a temporary restraining order preventing the EPA from freezing $14 billion in GGRF funds awarded to three of the climate groups.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris took to social media this month to cheer on the growing resistance by Democrats to President Donald Trump.
"Today in every state across our nation, Americans are standing up to the administration," Harris wrote.
Also taking aim at Trump's most visible advisor and the world's richest person — Elon Musk — the former vice president emphasized that "the voices of working people will always be louder than the unelected billionaires."
Harris, in a possible tease of potential future political plans, spotlighted on social media a clip from the closing line of a speech from earlier this month.
Railing against moves by the Trump administration and vowing to remain active in the fight, Harris said, "I'll see you out there. I'm not going anywhere."
And earlier this year, Harris, in a video message to the Democratic National Committee as it huddled for its winter meeting, pledged to be with the party "every step of the way."
But five months after losing the presidential election to Trump, Harris' public appearances are still few and far between.
And unlike her 2024 running mate — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz — and other top Democrats, she has not appeared at rallies or town halls to directly address a Democratic Party base that is increasingly angry and energized over Trump's sweeping and controversial upending of the federal government during the first three months of his second tour of duty in the White House.
Harris has also avoided doing any television interviews or taking part in any podcasts, ceding the spotlight to others in the party.
But her every public word is quickly dissected.
"I’m not here to say I told you so," Harris said on April 3 in Dana Point, California, to a gathering of Black female business leaders, politicians and other prominent people, as she pointed to her warnings about Trump on the campaign trail last summer and autumn.
The clip, during which both Harris and the crowd cracked up, instantly went viral.
And there's intense speculation over what may be Harris' next political move.
Two potential options are launching a gubernatorial run next year in her home state of California, in the race to succeed term-limited Gov. Gavin Newsom, or seeking the presidency again in 2028.
Extremely early polls in the next Democratic Party presidential nomination race — which are heavily reliant on name recognition at this point — indicate that the former vice president holds a significant lead over other potential White House contenders.
It is very unlikely she could do both. Running and winning election in 2026 as governor of heavily blue California, the nation's most populous state and home to the world's fifth-largest economy, would likely take a 2028 White House run off the table, allies and political analysts have indicated.
Harris previously served as San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general, and represented the Golden State in the U.S. Senate before joining former President Joe Biden's 2020 ticket and winning election as vice president.
A source in the former vice president's political orbit confirmed to Fox News Digital last month that Harris has told allies she will decide by the end of summer on whether to launch a gubernatorial campaign. The news was first reported by Politico.
But other California Democrats aren't waiting, as the gubernatorial field is growing.
Some of the candidates are criticizing Harris for waiting until the summer to decide. Among them are former Los Angeles Mayor Anotonio Villaraigosa.
"The challenges facing California are too great for us to wait for a candidate who wants to come in late in the game," Villaraigosa, who launched his 2026 campaign last summer, recently told the Los Angeles Times. "California is not a steppingstone to higher office."
"This will not be a coronation," he said in his interview. Pointing to Harris' three-and-a-half-month-long presidential campaign — she succeeded Biden as the party's nominee after he dropped his bid last July — Villaraigosa said, "You can’t run at the end of the rainbow. We saw a 100-day campaign. Look what that brought us."
Two other Democrats running for California governor — former Rep. Katie Porter and former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra — made similar arguments.
But polls indicate Harris would be the clear front-runner if she entered the 2026 race in California, and other candidates already in the field have indicated they would defer to the former vice president if she ends up running.
One of those candidates who would likely drop their bid is California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, a close friend and ally of the former vice president.
Harris has reportedly received encouragement from top Democrats to run for California governor. Among them is former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a former DNC chair, according to a report from The New York Times.
Harris also received some unexpected encouragement — and a bit of advice — from her 2024 opponent.
"Let her run," Trump said in a recent podcast interview. "One thing she’s going to do, she’s got to start doing interviews."
Chinese officials acknowledged behind closed doors at a December meeting that their government was responsible for a series of cyberattacks on U.S. infrastructure, according to a Wall Street Journal report based on information from people familiar with the matter.
The news comes as the two countries continue to spar over tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump and reciprocated and upped by President Xi Jinping.
In an exclusive, the Wall Street Journal reported that those who spoke on condition of anonymity claimed Chinese officials connected the cyberattacks on U.S. ports, airports, utilities and other important targets to America’s support for Taiwan.
The report noted that Biden administration officials learned of the discovery first hand during a summit in Geneva, as their Chinese counterparts blamed the campaign, referred to as Volt Typhoon, on a criminal organization.
Chinese officials also accused the U.S. of pointing blame at China based on their imagination.
A State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital the State Department has made clear to Beijing that the U.S. will continue to take actions in response to Chinese malicious cyber activity targeting the U.S.
"Chinese cyber threats are some of the gravest and most persistent threats to U.S. national security," the spokesperson said. "The United States will continue to use all the tools at its disposal to safeguard U.S. critical infrastructure from irresponsible and reckless cyberattacks from Beijing. President Trump is committed to protecting the American people and U.S. critical infrastructure from these threats."
The Chinese Embassy told FOX Business that China "firmly opposes" the smear attacks against it without any factual basis.
"Cyberspace is characterized by strong virtuality, difficulty in tracing origins, and diverse actors, making the tracing of cyberattacks a complex technical issue," Embassy spokesperson Mr. Liu Pengyu said. "We hope that relevant parties will adopt a professional and responsible attitude when characterizing cyber incidents, basing their conclusions on sufficient evidence rather than unfounded speculation and accusations.
"The US needs to stop using cybersecurity to smear and slander China, and stop spreading all kinds of disinformation about the so-called Chinese hacking threats," he added.
The Biden administration warned state leaders in March 2024 that cyberattacks by hackers linked to Iran and China could take down water systems across the U.S. if cybersecurity measures were not taken out of precaution.
Then Environmental Protection Agency administrator Michael S. Regan and Jake Sullivan, the assistant to Biden for national security affairs, said in an email to state governors that cyberattacks were targeting water and wastewater systems throughout the U.S.
In the letter, the two Biden administration officials said the attacks could disrupt clean and safe drinking water and impose significant costs on affected communities.
While one attack was linked to Iran, the other threat came from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-sponsored hacker group, Volt Typhoon, which compromised information technology of critical infrastructure systems, including drinking water facilities in the U.S. and its territories.
As U.S. officials issued warnings about Volt Typhoon’s effort, they also accused the PRC of attempting to get into U.S. computer networks in an effort to unleash cyberattacks during any unforeseen conflicts in the future.
The FBI said in December that hackers in Beijing infiltrated networks of "multiple" telecommunication companies, gaining access to customer call records and private communications of "a limited number of individuals." But the targets, the FBI noted in December, were Americans involved in government and politics.
A federal investigation uncovered a massive cyber-espionage campaign by the Chinese government, targeting U.S. telecommunications networks to steal Americans' information. A top White House official confirmed in December that at least eight U.S. telecom companies had been affected by the hacking spree.
The campaign was believed to have started a year or two ago, The Associated Press reported.
President Donald Trump is making "America’s showers great again."
On Wednesday, Trump signed an executive order ending a Biden-era conservation measure that placed "excessive regulations" on water pressure.
The restrictions were previously imposed by former President Barack Obama. While Trump attempted to loosen the water-saving measures during his first term, his efforts to restore "shower freedom" were eventually reversed by former President Joe Biden.
"I like to take a nice shower, take care of my beautiful hair," Trump said as he signed an executive order at the White House. "I have to stand in the shower for 15 minutes until it gets wet. Comes out drip, drip, drip. It’s ridiculous."
"What you do is you end up washing your hands five times longer, so it’s the same water," he added. "And we’re going to open it up so that people can live."
During the Obama-Biden administration, the former presidents "aggressively" limited the amount of water that could be discharged from appliances such as showerheads, washing machines and toilets, the White House said.
"These changes served a radical green agenda that made life worse for everyday Americans," the White House said in a statement.
With the new executive order, Trump will be resetting the definition of "showerhead" from a 1992 energy law, which sets a simple 2.5-gallons-per-minute standard for showers.
"The Order frees Americans from excessive regulations that turned a basic household item into a bureaucratic nightmare," the White House said. "No longer will showerheads be weak and worthless."
The White House added "these appliances worked perfectly fine before Biden’s meddling piled on convoluted regulations that made those appliances worse."
The U.S. Department of Energy previously said conservation standards would significantly cut energy waste and harmful carbon pollution while also saving Americans billions of dollars per year on energy and water bills.
"Almost every U.S. household has a water heater, and for too long outdated energy efficiency standards have led to higher utility bills for families," said former U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm in a 2024 statement.
White House aides cut off outside access to former President Joe Biden, which ultimately backfired and worsened his cognitive function, according to a new book.
The book, "Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History," published Tuesday, claims the White House kept Biden from socializing even with those he regarded as friends and allies.
"Even Biden’s acquaintances were kept at bay," Chris Whipple, a former producer for CBS’ "60 Minutes," wrote. "Bill Daley, former White House chief of staff to Barack Obama, paid frequent visits to one of the president’s senior advisors in the West Wing. ‘I went to the White House a dozen times,’ he told me. ‘Never once did somebody say, ‘Oh, come on in and see the president.’ Never. Everything was scripted."
Not everyone in the White House thought it was a wise strategy, according to the book. Whipple wrote that one White House aide suggested "walling Biden off from the world was a grave mistake."
"‘They were afraid he might say the wrong thing or might feed the mental acuity narrative,’ he told me. ‘And so he started seeing fewer and fewer people. They allowed his faculties to atrophy. But I think, like knives, they have to be sharpened. They get sharpened by rubbing them up against steel. And they don’t get sharpened by sitting in a drawer,’" Whipple wrote.
"Uncharted" chronicles the 2024 election cycle and the aftermath of Biden’s appearance at the presidential debate with Donald Trump June 27 that prompted Biden to bow out of the race in July.
The book also details how, after the debate, Biden conducted an interview with ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos July 5 in an attempt to prove to the public his mental faculties were intact amid calls for him to exit the race.
But Whipple wrote that Biden sounded "semi-coherent" during the interview, which occurred weeks before Biden withdrew his candidacy July 21.
"Stephanopoulos questioned the president gently, like a grandson," Whipple wrote. "Afterward, when I asked the ABC anchor by email for his impressions, he replied: ‘Heartbreaking up close.’"
A spokesperson for Biden did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
Fox News' Lindsay Kornick and Hanna Panreck contributed to this report.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris engaged in a "dark-arts operation" to undercut other potential running mates for former President Joe Biden in the 2020 election, according to a new book.
The book, "Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House," published April 1 by William Morrow and Company, claims that Harris spread unfavorable information about other possible vice presidential picks for Biden.
"In 2020, when she beat out a crowded field to join Biden’s ticket, Harris advisers ran a dark-arts operation to undermine the competition, circulating negative information on her rivals," write political journalists Jonathan Allen of NBC News and Amie Parnes of The Hill.
Specifically, the book singled out Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, former Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
"‘We stabbed Karen Bass a little bit. We stabbed Susan Rice a little bit. We stabbed Stacey Abrams a little bit," one adviser said of the effort four years earlier. ‘We stabbed Gretchen Whitmer.’"
The book did not delve into the specifics Harris took to undercut her opponents as they all vied for the vice presidential nomination.
But any steps Harris took to undermine those women didn’t damage their relationships enough to stop them from backing her in the 2024 election.
Bass endorsed Harris, and both Whitmer and Abrams appeared at Harris campaign events in 2024. Additionally, Rice also defended Harris in July after Rep. Ted Burchett, R-Tenn., described Harris as a "DEI hire." Rice described the comment as "incredibly insulting," in an interview with CNN.
Harris, who previously served as a senator from California, has signed with CAA Speakers, which represents high-profile celebrities. CAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
"Fight" chronicles how President Donald Trump secured the White House for a second term. Allen and Parnes conducted interviews with more than 150 political insiders for the book, according to the book's description.
The book also details how former President Barack Obama remained wary of supporting Harris in the 2024 election to replace Biden, amid concerns about his mental fitness. Likewise, the book shares that Obama doubted Biden’s political abilities as the race dragged on.
A federal judge in Texas threw out a national mandate on nursing home staffing from the Biden era.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk sided with nursing homes regarding a rule that would have required them to add nurses to meet minimum staffing to patient ratios.
"The agency lacks authority to eliminate consideration of a facility's nursing ‘needs’ when prescribing minimum staffing standards," Kacsmaryk wrote, referring to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The plaintiffs, the American Health Care Association (AHCA), represented "approximately 15,000 nursing homes and long term care facilities across the country that provide care to approximately five million people each year," according to a media release.
"This unrealistic staffing mandate threatened to close nursing homes and displace vulnerable seniors," Clif Porter, president and CEO of AHCA and the National Center for Assisted Living, said in a statement. "The court decision not only upholds the rule of law and balance of powers, but it protects access to care for our aging population."
Porter is now calling on Congress to act, but says that "federal policymakers should not be dictating staffing hours but encouraging innovation and high-quality outcomes. The staffing mandate is a 20th Century solution that should be blocked by Congress once and for all."
In the U.S., "97.8% of nursing homes participate in Medicare and 95.4% participate in Medicaid," Judge Kacsmaryk wrote in the ruling, meaning they must meet a "consolidated set of regulations."
"As we have said from the beginning, nursing homes would love to hire more nurses and caregivers, and despite limited resources, we are doing everything within our power to grow our workforce," AHCA's Porter said in a statement.
"Even prior to the introduction of the staffing mandate, AHCA was offering federal policymakers a variety of workforce solutions that would help build a pipeline of new caregivers, attract them to long term care, and develop their skills and career," he said.
Hunter Biden's former business partners are no longer under the same scrutiny now that investigations into whether the former president's son used his family name for financial gain are over.
Devon Archer and Jason Galanis, who both collaborated with Biden on various business ventures between 2012 and 2015, received pardons and commutations, respectively, from President Donald Trump after he took office.
Archer, who has worked over the years to gain favor with Trump's world, signaled he would be interested in working for the Trump administration were a position offered to him, according to the New York Times. "I’m full MAGA now," he told the Times. "They’re more my people."
Archer was reportedly given the cold-shoulder by the Biden family during President Joe Biden's tenure in the Oval Office, and as he protested his innocence amid Republicans' probe into the Biden family, Archer quietly made inroads with the Trump administration.
While Archer awaits a potential job in the Trump administration, he is reportedly working on a book and documentary chronicling his experiences. Archer is also reportedly working on a business project in the crypto industry as well.
As a result of their pardons, both Archer and Galanis did not have to serve prison sentences handed down to them in relation to defrauding investors and a Native American tribal entity of tens of millions of dollars through a company for which Hunter Biden was listed as the vice chairman.
In an interview on Fox News' "Hannity" this month, Galanis thanked President Trump and lauded Republicans, such as Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, for bringing "the proof" to light about "the Biden crime family."
Galanis said during the interview that his "legitimate" businesses became "illegitimate" after they were aligned with the president's son. "100% of it was influence peddling," Galanis said when asked about his view of the Biden family's business practices. "I saw it firsthand."
Meanwhile, James Biden, Hunter's uncle, is not sailing so smoothly, with Republicans requesting that the Trump administration prosecute the former president's brother for lying to Congress.
James Biden allegedly denied that his brother, the former president, met in May 2017 with his son's business associate Tony Bobulinski while pursuing a deal with a Chinese-owned energy company, CEFC China Energy.
Bobulinski, a key witness during the GOP's impeachment inquiry on account of claims he was privy to unethical business dealings by the Biden family, recently lost a defamation battle in court against Fox News host Jessica Tarlov.
Bobulinski was seeking $30 million in damages after Tarlov claimed during an episode of "The Five" that Bobulinski's legal fees were being paid for by a Trump-aligned political action committee.
Another notable ex-business partner of Hunter Biden, Eric Schwerin, has kept a low profile ever since Republicans on the House Oversight Committee released his testimony from the GOP's impeachment inquiry. In his testimony, Schwerin stated he was "not aware of any financial transactions or compensation" that Joe Biden received as vice president related to his family's business dealings.
Hunter Biden's "Sugar brother" and lawyer, Kevin Morris, who helped finance the first son's legal fees with a reported $6.5 million, later told associates that his generosity left him financially tapped.
According to a report by the N.Y. Post, Morris faced his own ethical issues when he was accused of spying on a movie production about President Biden called "My Son Hunter" that was being made in Serbia. The filmmaker involved with the project, filmaker Phelim McAleer, hit Morris with a bar complaint in 2022.
"He used deceit to secure such access by not disclosing he was Mr. Biden’s lawyer. Mr. Morris used his cover as a documentary filmmaker to conceal his true purpose: performing legal investigative work on behalf of his client, Mr. Hunter Biden," McAleer said in his bar complaint.
The California Bar Association declined to disbar Morris in late 2024.
Ye Jianming, a Chinese billionaire and former chairman of CEFC China Energy, one of the companies Republicans alleged Hunter Biden sought to gain favor with using his family name, has reportedly disappeared from public view, Reuters reported in 2023. While his whereabouts are unknown, according to Reuters, Jianming's name has appeared in graft trials of senior Chinese Communist Party officials and state bank executives.
EXCLUSIVE: Biden administration State Department officials held private talks with Beijing counterparts about the Chinese spy balloon that intercepted U.S. airspace in 2023, and discussed the implications the balloon's publicity would have on the relationship between the U.S. and China, according to Trump administration officials.
U.S. officials identified the spy balloon infiltrating U.S. airspace on Jan. 28, 2023, and an Air Force fighter jet shot down the Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina Feb. 4, 2023, two days after the Pentagon issued a statement on the matter.
Biden officials held discussions with Beijing Feb. 1, 2023, about the balloon, and discussed the impact disclosing the balloon to the public could have on the relationship with China, internal State Department documents show, two Trump administration officials told Fox News Digital.
An internal State Department readout of the talks between Blinken and a top Chinese diplomat said Blinken stated that if the presence of the balloon were revealed publicly, it could have "profound implications for our relationship" with China, particularly amid efforts to stabilize the bilateral relationship with Beijing, two Trump administration officials familiar with the documents told Fox News Digital.
The readout said that the incident could also have complicated Blinken’s travel plans to China in early February 2023, if not quickly resolved. Blinken ultimately postponed the trip until June 2023.
A former Biden administration official told Fox News Digital that the State Department summoned senior Chinese diplomat Zhu Haiquan Feb. 1, 2023, so that the U.S. could notify China to remove the balloon, and issue a warning that the U.S. could take action to eliminate the balloon.
"Former Secretary Blinken advocated strongly to tell the American people about China’s rogue balloon, which is exactly what happened," a spokesperson for the former secretary of state said in a Tuesday statement to Fox News Digital. "He has a long history of being tough on China while actually delivering results."
Likewise, another senior State Department official also held private talks on Feb. 1, 2023, with Chinese counterparts. A readout from that discussion says that the official claimed the longer it took to mitigate the issuewould only increase the likelihood that news of the balloon would become public, posing greater challenges managing the situation, the Trump administration officials said.
Ultimately, the Pentagon issued a statement Feb. 2, 2023, claiming that the U.S. government had detected a "high-altitude surveillance balloon."
While then-White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that Biden received a briefing on the balloon on Jan. 31, 2023, she did not provide details regarding why his administration didn’t issue a statement on the matter until Feb. 2, 2023.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, then a U.S. senator from Florida, repeatedly criticized the Biden administration for how it handled disclosing information to the public about the balloon — and how long it took the administration to shoot it down.
Biden’s failure to address the situation sooner was the "beginning of dereliction of duty," Rubio said during an appearance on CNN with Jake Tapper.
"Why didn’t the president go on television?" Rubio told Tapper. "He has the ability to convene the country in cameras and basically explain what we’re dealing with here."
On Feb. 4, 2023, an Air Force F-22 Raptor fighter jet from Virginia's Langley Air Force Base shot down the balloon off the coast of South Carolina with an AIM-9X Sidewinder missile.
At the time, the Pentagon said that while the balloon was not a military or physical threat, its presence in U.S. airspace did violate U.S. sovereignty. The Pentagon also shut down China’s initial claims that the balloon was a weather balloon blown off course and labeled such statements false.
"This was a PRC surveillance balloon," a senior defense official told reporters at the time. "This surveillance balloon purposely traversed the United States and Canada, and we are confident it was seeking to monitor sensitive military sites."
The Pentagon also said after shooting down the balloon that similar balloons from China transited continental U.S. airspace in at least three instances during Trump’s first administration.
Additionally, Biden "gave his authorization to take down the Chinese surveillance balloon as soon as the mission could be accomplished without undue risk to us civilians under the balloon's path," the senior defense official said, noting that there was concern debris could harm civilians.
The Pentagon later said in June 2023 that it did not believe that the balloon gathered information as it traveled across the U.S.
Blinken is now a speaker with CAA Speakers, which represents high-profile celebrities.
A spokesperson for Biden did not immediately provide comment to Fox News Digital.
FIRST ON FOX: A former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) senior staffer is speaking out about problems at the agency under the Biden administration, including diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), and failures to combat China flooding the U.S. market with illicit vapes after the FDA’s top tobacco official was removed from his position.
"I think many of us had been anticipating it for quite some time, we knew that change was drastically needed at FDA when it came to tobacco control, because tobacco control had really gotten out of control," David Oliveira, who recently left the FDA after six years, said in response to FDA chief tobacco regulator Brian King being removed from his post earlier this month.
"There were many, many failures in the key core missions for the center that needed dramatic change in new leadership. Many of us, whether it be from public health, consumers, small business owners, industry, including even Senator Dick Durbin, who last year at a hearing said to Brian King, ‘It looks to me like you have fallen down on the job.’ So really it runs the spectrum with the people that are unhappy with what's gone on recently with the FDA in terms of tobacco regulation."
One of the most prominent missteps at the FDA over the past few years, according to Oliveira, was the influx of illicit Chinese vapes into the U.S. market, which he says made him feel like a "canary in a coal mine" as he warned about the potential dangers and little was done.
Although the rate of youths smoking cigarettes is now at an all-time low, according to the CDC, youth use of Chinese vapes has increased dramatically since 2020, as China has become the world’s leading producer of e-cigarettes, often promoting illicit vapes with flavors appealing to children.
Sales of unauthorized, flavored disposable vapes in the United States amounted to around $2.4 billion in 2024, or 35% of the e-cigarettes from outlets such as convenience stores and supermarkets, Reuters reported.
That compares to sales worth $3.2 billion in 2023 and $2.8 billion in 2022, the data, which comes from market research firm Circana, shows.
"We have set up a regulated system, which most of the American players have said, okay, these are the rules of the road, we will obey them, we will comply, and we expect, we hope that our products will be authorized," Oliveira explained. "The Chinese have said, well, forget that. There's huge consumer demand for these products for billions of dollars, and we will shamelessly, recklessly, irresponsibly market these products, dump them on our shores because they know there's billions of dollars to be had. And then, unfortunately, the FDA was ill-equipped, ill-prepared. Didn't have the skill to go after and shut that down. And now we have an industry that's absolutely out of control with these products."
Oliveira told Fox News Digital that the agency has been delegating too much power to other departments like Border Patrol and Department of Justice rather than using the authority it has to crack down with boots on the ground against China’s market flooding, adding that a "lack of focus" and "cavalier attitude" has left the U.S. behind the 8-ball.
Oliveira says that the FDA approves or authorizes only about two products a year, which has allowed China to dominate the market.
Under King, the FDA rejected applications for millions of flavored e-cigarettes, citing insufficient data that the products would help adult smokers. Those rejections have resulted in multiple lawsuits against the FDA from vape makers, including one that was argued before the Supreme Court in December.
Another issue under King, Oliveira explained, was that DEI became a prominent focus that ultimately led to less focus on getting the job in front of them done correctly.
"I think we saw a lot more of that once Brian King came in and the fact of the matter is his version of DEI was some of the things that many people don't find appealing," Oliveira said. "The idea of virtue signaling or doing it just to be able to wear it on your sleeve and talk about it. So you just do things around the edges like, oh, let's change and stop using the word grandfathered because of the historical overtones and origins of that term. And then let's have everyone put their pronouns in their email."
The FDA recently removed DEI materials from its website amid President Donald Trump signing executive orders to rid the practice from the federal government and instead focus on meritocracy. Oliveira told Fox News Digital that DEI was a distraction from the mission at the FDA.
"I think it made some people uncomfortable just because of the focus on it when we knew that our work was so critical to helping people live healthier lives, that there was so much work to be done, that we were behind the 8-ball because of all the mistakes and because of this very fast-moving industry that government will always struggle to keep up with the technology. There was much work to be done. There was so more that we could have been doing that we weren't doing. So anytime you have anything that you feel like takes your eye off the ball a little bit, that can be frustrating in the workplace for sure."
Oliveira also told Fox News Digital that the FDA under King in the Biden years was beholden to the "crusade" against menthol cigarettes, led by prominent voices like billionaire Michael Bloomberg, which he says was based more on a "paternalistic" attitude toward the Black community than it was about making a positive difference.
In recent years, the FDA’s tobacco center has been besieged by criticism from all sides.
Politicians, parents and anti-tobacco groups want the FDA to do more to stamp out unauthorized vaping products that can appeal to teens, many of which are imported from China. Tobacco and vaping companies say the FDA has been too slow to approve newer products for adult smokers — including e-cigarettes — that generally carry much lower risks than traditional cigarettes.
"King’s crusade against vaping was public health sabotage, fueled by half-truths and a vendetta against flavors that saved lives," Jim McCarthy, spokesman for American Vapor Manufacturers, the leading trade association for the independent vape industry which penned a recent scathing op-ed against King, told Fox News Digital in a statement.
"He crushed small American businesses, sparked black markets, and ushered in hundreds of new combustible cigarette products. It was a masterclass in hypocrisy: he preached health equity while his policies ravaged marginalized communities by stripping them of safer alternatives to smoking. And while tobacco companies thrived, he sneered at the powerless and never found the simple integrity to tell Americans the truth that vaping is the most effective way to quit smoking and is vastly safer than cigarettes."
Fox News Digital reached out to the FDA and King for comment.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
A communications director for former Vice President Kamala Harris created a so-called "death-pool roster" of federal judges appointed by a Republican that could swear in Harris as president – in the event that President Joe Biden suddenly died, according to a new book.
The book, "Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House," published Tuesday by William Morrow and Company, claims that Harris’ White House communications director Jamal Simmons crafted an entire communications strategy to employ in the event of Biden’s death.
The book, authored by political journalists Jonathan Allen of NBC News and Amie Parnes of the Hill, said Simmons imagined that losing Biden unexpectedly would be akin to when Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in on Air Force One following John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963.
But he worried people would question her legitimacy as president, and was specifically concerned that "Trump people" would go "apes---" if Harris became president, the book claims.
"Simmons believed Harris would be strengthened by an institutional stamp of approval if she were sworn in hurriedly because Biden had died unexpectedly," Allen and Parnes wrote. "Her legitimacy might be questioned, he worried, recalling the January 6 effort to stop Biden from being certified as president."
As a result, Simmons created a spreadsheet of various judges nominated by a Republican who might be equipped to help bolster her legitimacy.
"The strongest validator, he believed, would be a federal judge who had been appointed by a Republican other than Trump," Allen and Parnes wrote. "He compiled a spreadsheet of those jurists across the country, down to a city-by-city breakdown, and carried it with him when he traveled with Harris."
Simmons said he never told Harris about the so-called "death-pool roster" before his departure with her communications team in January 2023, however he instructed colleagues to notify him immediately if something did happen to Biden so he could implement the communications strategy. Ultimately, Simmons left the spreadsheet with another Harris staffer, according to the book.
The book did not specify which judges were included on the list.
Harris, who previously served as a senator from California, is now a speaker with CAA Speakers, which represents high-profile celebrities. CAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
The book also includes details revealing how former President Barack Obama remained hesitant to back Harris in the 2024 election to replace Biden, amid concerns about his mental fitness, while also doubting Biden and Harris' political abilities.
According to the book, Obama didn’t believe Harris could beat now-President Donald Trump in the November 2024 race – an issue that frustrated Harris.
"Fight" chronicles how Trump secured the White House for a second term and the ramifications of his victory on the Democratic Party. Allen and Parnes conducted interviews with more than 150 political insiders for the book, according to the book's description.
Legacy media and longtime politics reporters are increasingly reporting on scandals that rocked the Democratic Party ahead of the November election, shining additional light on political issues that Republicans had long spotlighted and railed against.
"A full 4½ years after The Post’s bombshell series on Hunter Biden’s influence-peddling schemes, The New York Times has deigned to take an interest in the former First Son’s corruption," the New York Post's editorial board wrote in a piece last week slamming the New York Times for reporting on Biden corruption allegations years after other outlets had already uncovered reported details.
"We’d say the Times’ willingness to at long last cover this comes better late than never, but it only published the story now that it doesn’t remotely matteranymore," the editorial board continued.
The New York Times declared in an article published on Friday that former first son Hunter Biden "sought support from the State Department" to aid his former employer, Ukrainian energy company Burisma, while his father served as vice president. Hunter Biden allegedly leveraging his last name and father's political status in the U.S. has long been criticized by conservatives, who have alleged that Hunter and his father engaged in influence-peddling through Burisma.
Hunter Biden was paid millions of dollars while serving on the board of Burisma after joining the company as legal counsel in the spring of 2014 before being elevated to the Board of Directors later that year.
The Bidens were accusedby Republicans of having "coerced" the Burisma CEO into paying them millions of dollarsin exchange for their help in getting the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating the company fired during the Obama administration.
The 46th president denied any involvement in his son's business dealings.
Biden issued his son a sweeping 10-year pardon before exiting the Oval Office in January that protects Hunter Biden from offenses he "has committed or may have committed" from Jan. 1, 2014, to Dec. 1, 2024. Alleged Biden family influence-peddling has echoed from the halls of Congress to social media channels on X, but legacy outlets and left-wing media outlets often didn't give a platform to the allegations.
Jonathan Turley, Fox News' contributor and Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, published an op-ed for Fox News Digital on Sunday remarking on the NYT's piece that was published years after other outlets and experts investigated alleged Biden family influence-peddling.
"For years, some of us have written about the Biden family’s multimillion-dollar influence-peddling operation and the Justice Department’s refusal to charge Hunter Biden with being an unregistered foreign agent. Now, years later, The New York Times has found evidence suggesting that the former president's son was acting as a foreign agent as early as the Obama administration, when his father was vice president," Turley wrote.
Media veterans and legacy outlets have leaned into reporting on and investigating a handful of other scandals and political news that conservatives had long sounded the alarm on, including that the coronavirus likely originated out of a lab in China, as well as on President Biden's mental decline in the lead-up to the election last year.
The New York Times ran a column last month claiming the scientific community "badly misled" the public in an effort to suppress the theory that COVID-19 originated in a lab in Wuhan, China, even after the paper's own science writer called the theory "racist."
"We Were Badly Misled About the Event That Changed Our Lives," the March 16 piece published by NYT columnist and Princeton sociology professor Zeynep Tufekci, argued that the scientific community long suspected COVID-19 originated in a Wuhan lab, but purposefully "hid or understated crucial facts," to mislead the public about the lab’s "terrifyingly lax" safety precautions.
"We have since learned, however, that to promote the appearance of consensus, some officials and scientists hid or understated crucial facts, misled at least one reporter, orchestrated campaigns of supposedly independent voices and even compared notes about how to hide their communications in order to keep the public from hearing the whole story," Tufekci wrote.
The Trump administration's CIA reported earlier this year that the lab leak was the likely origin of the COVID-19 virus, which had previously been passed off by media outlets and scientists as a likely conspiracy theory.
The New York Times defended that it had reported on the lab leak theory multiple times across the years, including in 2021, when approached for comment by Fox News Digital on the recent articles on both Hunter Biden and the lab leak theory.
"The New York Times has intensely pursued every theory and lead on the origins of Covid-19, documented the political debate, funding, influence, and shifts in thinking among the scientific community, and reported on China’s censorship campaign that has stifled the search for truth. The Times has helped readers navigate the coronavirus pandemic through independent, verified reporting, and any insinuation that we have not thoroughly pursued leads is false," a NYT spokesperson said.
And a newly released book by longtime D.C. reporters Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, "Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House," investigates Biden's mental decline in the lead-up to the general election, calling him a "shell of himself."
"All of them," Parnes told Vanity Fair of who in Biden's inner circle is most to blame for covering up his mental decline when he was in office. "It’s pretty remarkable how they kept him very closed off. He was a shell of himself. When he entered the White House, he was so, so different from the man who I covered as vice president, a guy who would hold court in the Naval Observatory with reporters until the wee hours."
"We’d been watching Biden’s decline for a long period of time and, honestly, thought he had lost his fastball some when he was running in 2020. And it was still so shocking to see the leader of the free world so bereft of coherent thought," Allen added of Biden's mental decline.
Biden's mental acuity had been under conservatives' microscope since before the 2020 election, with concerns heightening in February 2024 when Special Counsel Robert Hur, who was investigating Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents as vice president, announced he would not recommend criminal charges against Biden for possessing classified materials after his vice presidency, calling Biden "a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory."
The report renewed scrutiny over Biden’s mental fitness, which rose to a fever pitch in June 2024 after the president’s first and only presidential debate against Trump. Biden's debate performance was seen as an abject failure, with traditional allies soon joining conservatives in their concern over the president's health in the context of encouraging Biden to pass the mantle to a younger generation of U.S. leaders.
Biden dropped out of the race in July, and shortly thereafter endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the party's presidential candidate. Harris ultimately failed to rally enough support to defeat Trump at the polls in November.
Jake Tapper, a CNN anchor and longtime Trump critic, has also touted his upcoming book, "Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," which is also anticipated to detail Biden’s mental decline and the alleged cover-up by members of the Democratic Party.
Fox News Digital reached out to Biden's post-presidential office but did not immediately receive a reply.
Fox News Digital's Andrew Mark Miller, Gabriel Hays, and David Spector contributed to this report.
