Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, has been living in a retirement facility, a source told Fox News on Sunday. The source also denied a local news report that said she was in a memory care facility.
Granger, who is retiring at the end of this congressional term, has largely remained absent from the Capitol in recent months, having last cast votes on July 24. She was not present for over 54% of votes this year.
The Dallas Express investigated the 81-year-old congresswoman's absence, publishing a report on Friday that quoted a constituent of her district who said that Granger was residing in a memory care facility in Texas. The report was later picked up by other news outlets.
Fox News spoke with a source from Granger's office who denied that Granger was in a memory care unit. The source told Fox News that Granger is in a retirement facility where memory care is provided, though not in the memory care unit itself.
Granger released a statement to Fox News, saying that she has faced "health challenges" and is "deeply grateful for the outpouring of care and concern" over the weekend.
"As many of my family, friends, and colleagues have known, I have been navigating some unforeseen health challenges over the past year," Granger said in the statement. "However, since early September, my health challenges have progressed making frequent travel to Washington both difficult and unpredictable. During this time, my incredible staff has remained steadfast, continuing to deliver exceptional constituent services, as they have for the past 27 years."
Granger, who did not seek re-election for the coming term, has served in the House since 1997. She previously served as the first female mayor of Fort Worth, Texas.
While Granger appears to not have cast a vote since July, she did return to the Capitol in November for the unveiling of her portrait as Appropriations Committee Chairwoman, and a reception that followed. House Speaker Johnson, R-La., and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., both spoke at the event.
One senior Republican source told Fox News that Granger did not step down earlier due to the paper-thin GOP House majority.
"Frankly, we needed the numbers," the source told Fox News.
The slim majority presents a challenge for the speaker of the 119th Congress, in which vote attendance could be the difference between success or defeat for Republicans.
Fox News reached out to Johnson's office for comment.
Granger’s long absence was blasted by Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., in a post on X.
"Kay Granger's long absence reveals the problem with a Congress that rewards seniority & relationships more than merit & ideas," he wrote. "We have a sclerotic gerontocracy. We need term limits. We need to get big money out of politics so a new generation of Americans can run and serve."
Khanna was one of the few lawmakers who previously criticized what he referred to as the "gerontocracy." In May 2023, he called on Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who was then aged 89, to step down as her own health issues kept her away from the Capitol. Feinstein died months later in September 2023.
Conservatives and allies of President-elect Trump are dismantling a narrative put forth by Democratic lawmakers such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren that Republicans blocked funding for childhood cancer research in the spending bill, pointing to a stand-alone bill that had languished in the Democratic-controlled Senate for months.
Congress passed a pared-down spending bill early Saturday morning as the government careened toward a prolonged shutdown. The bill’s passage followed tech billionaire Elon Musk and other Trump allies slamming a more than 1,500-page piece of legislation earlier last week as "outrageous" and "full of excessive spending, special interest giveaways and pork barrel politics," demanding lawmakers return to the negotiation table.
The Senate advanced a third version of a short-term funding bill on Saturday morning, following negotiations that whittled down the legislation to not include measures such as providing lawmakers a pay raise.
As negotiations were hashed out, Warren and other Democrats attempted to slam Republicans for allegedly blocking funding for childhood cancer research in the bill.
"We actually are now getting our first taste – this is it live and in living color – about what it means to have this DOGE," Warren said on CNN as the government prepared to shut down on Friday evening.
DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, is an upcoming presidential advisory committee that will be led by Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to cut excessive government spending and slash the size of the government under Trump’s second administration.
"Right out here, and what that's going to mean. And that's where Elon Musk's fingerprints are all over this. Because, for example, what this bill says is all, let's get rid of funding for research on pediatric cancer. Let's get rid of funding for research on early detection of cervical cancer and breast cancer. Let's get rid of funding for research on children with Down Syndrome and on sickle cell anemia. Let's get rid of those things so that we could make way for tax cuts for billionaires, that is Elon Musk's notion of efficiency," she continued.
While the Democratic Party’s war room published a press release declaring: "Trump and his MAGA minions in Congress have decided to threaten a government shutdown for his political gain – and now they’ve stooped as low as cutting child cancer research."
Other conservatives and Trump allies slammed the narrative that the GOP blocked funding for childhood cancer research, pointing to a stand-alone bill that passed in the Republican-led House in March, and had for months languished in the Democratic-led Senate.
"Elizabeth Warren repeats the lie that @elonmusk and Republicans blocked funding for child cancer research. A stand alone bill for child cancer research funding passed the Republican controlled House in March and got held up in the Democrat controlled Senate," popular conservative X account Libs of TikTok posted in response to Warren’s CNN interview.
"Democrats blocked funding for child cancer research."
The House passed a stand-alone bill on March 5, at a vote of 384-4, that allocated millions of dollars per year for pediatric research through 2028. The bill was delivered to the Senate on March 6, but Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., had not taken action on the legislation, sparking condemnation from conservatives months later that Democrats used the research funding as a "bargaining chip."
"Democrats are using children with cancer as political shields in the shutdown game to blame Republicans after using them as political shields to help defend all the slop Democrats wanted included in the bill. If this funding is so important, it can be passed on its own as a stand-alone bill. You know, like how the government is supposed to work, instead of cramming hundreds of useless proposals into the same bill as pediatric cancer research funding in a 1,500-page mess that no one actually reads so that you can attack anyone who doesn’t support the useless stuff by claiming they hate children with cancer," an op-ed published in the Washington Examiner outlined.
A review of the legislation shows that on Friday evening, the Senate passed the legislation by a voice vote, following condemnation targeting the GOP for allegedly blocking funding for the research.
The legislation extends $12.6 million a year in cancer research funding through 2031.
Fox News Digital reached out to Warren’s office for additional comment Sunday morning, but did not immediately receive a reply.
Cybersecurity has been a major subject of discussion in recent years, with purported Chinese spy balloons floating overhead, a major Appalachian oil pipeline hacked with ransomware and questions about mysterious drones over New Jersey skies.
But one overlooked area of focus in this regard is agriculture, several prominent figures have said — especially with America’s ag states primed to lend their top political leaders to Washington in the new year.
Dakota State University President Jose-Marie Griffiths told Fox News Digital how important the heartland has become geopolitically, with several Dakotans gaining leadership or cabinet roles in the new year — including Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., chairing the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Cybersecurity.
"I said quite a lot in the past and in [congressional] testimony about my concerns about agriculture and food production’s critical infrastructure, which came rather late to the cybersecurity critical infrastructure table," Griffiths said.
"People [will] start to realize the agricultural vehicles they're using increasingly are autonomous and connecting to broadband [via] satellite — and other ways that these become vulnerable. And for people who wish to do us harm, they're exploiting vulnerabilities as much as they can."
Residents across the heartland pay much more attention to the threats China and other rivals pose to the U.S. agriculture sector, she said.
With advancements in technology, hackers can now find their way into harvesters, granaries and the nation’s freight-train network, Griffiths and Rounds said separately.
Whether the cash crop is Pennsylvania potatoes, Florida oranges or Dakotan wheat, all are crucial to the U.S. economy and supply chain, and all can be subject to cyberthreats, Griffiths suggested.
Rounds told Fox News Digital he has studied for some time the potential vulnerabilities of the American agriculture sector when it comes to foreign actors and cybersecurity.
"It’s more than just the vehicles and so forth," he said.
"A lot of it has to do with the infrastructure that we rely on. A good example is your water systems; your electrical systems... All of those right now are connected and they all have cyber-points-of-entry.
"And so, we have been, for an extended period of time, looking at threats that could come from overseas by adversaries that would like to infiltrate not only the water supplies, but also the electrical systems… and in some cases, sewer systems."
Rounds said he and other lawmakers have been focused on where malign actors can proverbially "shoot the arrows at us," and figure out who they are and how to stop them.
He said the Chinese firm Huawei had been selling cheap hardware to rural telecom entities and could be able to infiltrate communications systems.
"Once we found out that that was in there… that they could be putting in latent materials that could be activated at a later date, we've gotten most of them pulled out. But that's just one example of the ways in which rural areas can be a way into the rest of our communication systems," he said.
Rounds said drones are becoming increasingly used in agriculture, and they, too, have the danger of being hacked.
Vehicles like harvesters and tractors have also greatly advanced technologically in the near term and face similar challenges.
"A lot of that right now is done with GPS. You get into your tractor, you plug it in and basically it'll drive it for you. We leave people in those tractors, but at some stage of the game, some of those might very well become autonomous as well — and they're subject to cyber-intervention…" he said.
Grain elevators also can be interfered with, which stymies marketing and transportation, and endangers the greater supply chain and the ability for a farmer to sell on the open market, Rounds said.
Asked if he preferred today’s agriculture sector to the era before automation, Rounds said it’s not about what he thinks, but what is going to happen in the future.
"We will have more and more autonomous vehicles being used in farming. And the reason is we don't have the manpower — and we replace it with machinery. The machinery is going to get bigger. It's going to become more sophisticated, and we're going to be expected to do more things with fewer people actually operating them.," he said.
"The supply chain is so critical. We rely on autonomy in many cases for a lot of the delivery of our resources, both to the farmer, but also back out from the farmer in terms of a commodity that he wants to market."
If that new technologically-advanced system malfunctions or is hacked, it will greatly disrupt the ability to provide the raw materials to the people and companies "actually making the bread" and such.
Amit Yoran, CEO of exposure management firm Tenable, recently testified before the House Homeland Security Committee and spoke at length about cyber threats to critical U.S. infrastructure.
Asked about cybersecurity in the agriculture realm, Yoran told Fox News Digital recently that there is "no singular defense paradigm that could effectively be applied across all sectors."
"Some critical infrastructure providers have a high degree of cybersecurity preparedness, strong risk understanding and risk management practices, and very strong security programs. Others are woefully ill-prepared," said Yoran, whose company is based in Howard County, Maryland.
EXCLUSIVE: Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears of Virginia could make history next year as the nation's first Black woman to win election as a governor.
She would also make history as Virginia's first female governor.
But Sears, in an exclusive national interview with Fox News Digital, emphasized that "I'm not really running to make history. I'm just trying to, as I've said before, leave it better than I found it, and I want everyone to have the same opportunities I had."
Sears, who was born in the Caribbean island nation of Jamaica and immigrated to the U.S. as a six-year-old, served in the Marines and is a former state lawmaker. She made history three years ago when she won election as Virginia's first female lieutenant governor.
"You've got to remember that my father came to America in ‘63 just 17 days before Dr. King gave his ’I Have a Dream speech,' she said.
Sears noted that her father "saw opportunity here, even though . . . you really couldn't, as a Black person, live where you wanted."
"And yet, here I am, here I am sitting right now as second in command in the former capital of the Confederate States," she said. "With me, we can see once again, there are still opportunities, still opportunities to grow, still opportunities to do even better. We are going to be better, not bitter. We're not going to be victims. We're overcomers."
Sears has a major supporter in popular Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who three years ago became the first Republican in a dozen years to win a gubernatorial election in Virginia, a onetime key swing state that had shaded blue in recent cycles.
But Virginia is unique due to its state law preventing governors from serving two consecutive four-year terms, so Youngkin cannot run for re-election next year.
Youngkin told Fox News Digital last month that Sears "is going to be a fabulous governor of Virginia."
"I have to make sure that we have Winsome Sears as our next governor," he emphasized. "I’m going to be campaigning hard."
Making the case that Youngkin as a "successful businessman" has "brought that success to government," Sears highlighted that "we want to continue what he has begun."
"There's still much work to do, still regulations that we've got to get rid of, still educational opportunities that are needing to be taken advantage of, and I am the one to carry that, because I've been part of that," she added.
Virginia and New Jersey are the only two states in the nation to hold gubernatorial elections in the year after a presidential election. Because of that, both contests receive outsized national attention, and Virginia in particular is often seen as a bellwether of the national political climate and how Americans feel about the party in the White House.
Sears was interviewed in Virginia Beach on Thursday, with a month to go until President-elect Trump returns to the White House.
In late 2022, she described Trump as a liability after Republican candidates that the then-former president had backed underperformed in the midterm elections. And she said that she would remain neutral in the 2024 GOP presidential primary.
"I supported him in ‘16 and in ’20 why? Because I saw that he was good for our country," Sears noted.
But she added that Trump "said some things, and it bothered me. And as I said, I come at this as a Christian. And so I figured, well, let's see if there's somebody else."
Sears pointed to July's attempted assassination of Trump as the moment that changed her mind.
"I was waiting to hear a change, and after he was shot and he was accepting the nomination, I heard him say, ‘miracles are happening every day. I am one of those. God has spared my life. And so, I humbly ask for your vote.’ I was on board right then," she emphasized.
But a top Trump supporter in Virginia, conservative radio host John Fredericks, has continued to criticize Sears.
"She’ll ruin Republicans' chances in Virginia in 2025, and we need a different GOP candidate that REALLY has President Trump’s back," he argued last month on his radio program and in a social media post.
Asked whether she'd like Trump to campaign with her over the next 10 months leading up to the 2025 election, Sears said, "Ithink he's going to be having a lot to do in, well, in D.C. And if he wants to come here, fine. If he wants to help, fine. I mean, you know, we could use all the help that we can get."
Sears, who launched her gubernatorial bid in early September, avoided a competitive primary when Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares announced last month that he would seek re-election rather than run for governor.
Three-term Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA officer, is her party's candidate for governor.
Spanberger announced 13 months ago that she would run for governor in 2025 rather than seek congressional re-election this year. While a Sears-Spanberger general election showdown is expected, recent reports indicate longtime Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott is mulling a gubernatorial run.
"We will see what shakes out on the Democrat side, but I will face whoever comes, because I believe that we have the better policies," Sears said.
She is viewed by political pundits as more socially conservative than Youngkin, who hailed from the GOP's business wing.
Asked whether Sears was too far to the right for Virginia voters, Youngkin pushed back in his Fox News Digital interview, saying, "Not at all. And Winsome is a commonsense conservative leader. We have been partners literally from day one. We campaigned together. We were elected together. We have governed together."
But the Democratic Governors Association (DGA), pointing to the criticism from Fredericks, who chaired Trump's Virginia campaign in 2016 and 2020, argued that "Virginia Republicans are kicking off the 2025 election divided and already publicly calling out Winsome Sears."
"This once again confirms that Sears will have to run even further to the right and take deeply harmful and out-of-touch positions to win the GOP nomination," DGA national press secretary Devon Cruz claimed.
Sears, asked about the DGA criticism, which also includes spotlighting her stances on issues such as abortion and IVF, argued that "the Democrats are trying to figure out a way to hit me . . . I don't worry about it. I let them say what they want to say. I am proven, proven to do the right thing."
"I've always said I'm a Christian first and a Republican second. That's always who I am," she added. "So, it must mean that I don't care about politics. I care about serving."
Over 30 House Republicans voted Friday against a bill to avert a partial government shutdown.
Lawmakers scrambled to reach consensus on a spending package ahead of the looming partial government shutdown deadline Friday. An initial 1,547-page bipartisan deal that would have extended the government funding deadline until March 14 was released Tuesday night, but the proposal crumbled after Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy criticized the spending bill.
A more condensed, Trump-backed version was brought to the floor Thursday night but failed to pass.
In a last-minute vote Friday, the House succeeded in passing a funding bill with 34 Republicans voting against the legislation and zero Democrats voting against it. One Democrat, Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, voted present.
Among those who voted against the bill was Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., who told Fox News Digital, "I don't know why we're giving Joe Biden $100 billion to play with in 30 days.
"Oddly enough, it didn't have what Trump wanted most of all."
House Speaker Mike Johnson's vow that the federal government won't shutdown is holding true.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
House lawmakers voted to avoid a federal government shutdown on Friday.
The Senate passed the stopgap funding bill minutes after the midnight deadline passed.
The vote caps a week full of drama on Capitol Hill.
President Joe Biden signed a stopgap funding bill on Saturday that prevents a government shutdown. Senate lawmakers passed the bill minutes after the Saturday midnight deadline passed.
Earlier on Friday, House lawmakers voted 366 to 34 for the bill, with one Democratic lawmaker voting present. House Democrats provided significant cover for House Speaker Mike Johnson, who lost 34 Republicanson the measure.
The White House Office of Management and Budget said in a statement on Friday that it had ceased shutdown preparations.
Trump downplayed the stakes of a shutdown, but it likely would have affected the transition of power and some planning for his inauguration.
Now that the bill has been signed into law, government funding will run through March 14, giving President-elect Donald Trump a little breathing room once he retakes office next month.
Republicans denied Trump's request to suspend or even eliminate the debt ceiling, which would have resolved a thorny political issue in advance of a likely GOP effort to extend Trump's 2017 tax law. According to Punchbowl News, Johnson said Republicans have agreed to address the nation's borrowing limit next year when the GOP will retake entire control over Washington.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer gives a thumbs up after announcing that the Senate had reached an agreement to pass the stopgap funding bill.
Kent Nishimura/Getty Images
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and his fellow Democrats ultimately backed a deal stripped of many of the incentives initially included to garner more support among his party.
Elon Musk and other conservative activists opposed the initial bipartisan bill earlier this week, effectively killing it. Trump then urged Republicans to pass a pared-down funding bill and an extension of the debt ceiling. On Thursday night, 38 House Republicans and nearly every House Democrat voted against that plan, raising the stakes as a shutdown approached.
"The last 72 hours highlighted the positive impact that DOGE can have, but it also laid bare the massive lift ahead next year," Vivek Ramaswamy, who will co-lead Trump's "Department of Government Efficiency" with Musk wrote on X, "We're Ready for It."
Musk also announced his support of the legislation before its passage. Johnson told reporters he had a brief conversation with him.
"The Speaker did a good job here, given the circumstances," Musk wrote on X. "It went from a bill that weighed pounds to a bill that weighed ounces. Ball should now be in the Dem court."
The episode illustrated that significant divisions remain among Republican lawmakers that even Trump can struggle to paper over. Trump has ambitious plans for his second term, including the potential of using a special procedural power known as reconciliation to ram through tax extensions and border security measures. He'll only be successful if the GOP can remain almost entirely united.
Several Pennsylvania officials, particularly in the Scranton area where President Joe Biden hails from, are calling on the city to undo its 2021 renaming of a freeway spur in his honor.
State Rep. Jamie Walsh, R-Dallas, appeared to lead the charge with a scathing statement highlighting Biden’s recent pardon of a judge convicted in a "kids-for-cash" scandal wherein he received kickbacks for sentencing juveniles to for-profit prisons.
Wilkes-Barre Common Pleas Judges Michael Conahan and Mark Ciavarella Jr. were convicted in 2008. The former served time in prison, followed by COVID-induced house arrest until Biden’s pardon.
Walsh said some of the children affected had been convicted of minor offenses like jaywalking. The Democratic-majority Pennsylvania Supreme Court threw out 4,000 juvenile convictions as a result of the scandal.
"In light of the recent decision made by the Biden administration to commute former Judge Conahan’s sentence, I implore city officials and Mayor [Paige Gebhardt Cognetti] to remove President Joe Biden’s name from the expressway sign that leads to the heart of the ‘Electric City’s’ downtown area."
In 2021, the mayor and city council unanimously approved the rebranding of the three-quarter-mile Central Scranton Expressway spur off Interstate 81 and its continuance via then-Spruce Street through downtown as the "President Biden Expressway" and "Biden Avenue," respectively.
The President Biden Expressway initially serves as a short bypass of PA-307 into the city, and continues as "Biden Ave" toward northbound US-11, which, in-turn, meets the terminus of the colloquial "Route 9" -- the Pennsylvania Turnpike’s Northeast Extension.
"The children affected by Conahan’s actions of nearly 15 years ago are now adults suffering in their own ‘mental’ prisons due to his deeds of self-fulfillment," Walsh said in a statement.
"Crimes against children are everlasting, and there is no escape from the irreparable damage these predators caused by their actions."
Walsh argued that the issue is non-partisan but "right versus wrong" and that Biden no longer deserves the commemoration because his pardon "exonerates [Conahan’s] behavior" as a signal to future corrupt public officials.
State Rep-elect. Brenda Pugh, R-Luzerne, told WBRE that Conahan’s conduct is a "blight on Pennsylvania" and that Biden’s pardon is "nothing short of a travesty."
"[H]is clemency is a miscarriage of justice," Pugh said, adding the President Biden Expressway will therefore "forever be a scar reminding people of what happened here [in NEPA]."
State Sen. Doug Mastriano, R-Gettysburg, who was the GOP's 2022 gubernatorial nominee, told Fox News Digital it is embarrassing to see Biden's name while driving up I-81, especially given his choices of pardons.
"He's a failed president who couldn't help himself to pardon his corrupt criminal son from so many illegals schemes. His name is to be off the highway," Mastriano said.
Meanwhile, Lackawanna County Commissioner Chris Chermak made his case directly to Cognetti, writing the mayor a letter saying that reverting "Biden Avenue to Spruce Street" would help restore confidence in city leadership and reaffirm a commitment to governing in the best reflection of city values.
"This [pardon] has brought significant negative attention to Scranton, tarnishing the city's reputation and reflecting poorly on Lackawanna County as a whole," Chermak wrote.
In a Friday interview, Cognetti said that Biden’s commutation of Conahan was a "grave error" that freshly opened "deep and horrific" wounds for Scrantonians and NEPA residents.
She echoed Gov. Josh Shapiro’s remark earlier this week that Conahan’s sentence was too light in the first place.
"[The case] was just the stuff that you think a screenwriter couldn't make up -- how systemic and how deep that scandal went," Cognetti said.
She said she had contacted the White House with her concerns and that she was sad to learn Conahan’s commutation is irreversible.
Cognetti noted she is currently mayor in part because of other officials’ public corruption as well.
Predecessor Bill Courtright resigned in July 2019 amid a conviction for bribery, corruption and conspiracy. Courtright’s departure led to two brief interim mayors before Cognetti was elected that November as an independent and, in 2021, as a Democrat.
Cognetti added that the calls to strip Biden’s name from roadways are not new and continue to be mostly grounded in partisanship.
"The president is from here, and there are few communities that can boast of being the hometown of a President of the United States. We will continue to celebrate and be very proud of having a hometown son of Scranton as president."
"The two issues are conflated, I think, for political reasons. And I'd like us to treat these things as what they are. We need to continue to address corruption in government," Cognetti added.
"That’s separate from the president's legacy of 50 years in office and being the most successful son of Scranton."
When recently asked about Biden granting Conahan a pardon, Shapiro said that presidents have the "unique and absolute" power to do so, but should wield it "incredibly carefully."
"I study every single case that comes across my desk where there's a request for a pardon or clemency or worse, or a reduction in sentence. And I take it very seriously," said Shapiro, who previously served as attorney general.
"I do feel strongly that President Biden got it absolutely wrong and created a lot of pain here in northeastern Pennsylvania. This was not only a black eye on the community because of the scandal, but it also affected families in really deep and profound and sad ways," he said.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre volleyed away reporters’ questions on Friday about President Biden’s lack of public appearances amid the ongoing government funding fight as a partial shutdown looms.
Jean-Pierre refused to answer why the president has not spoken to the American public about his position, and she instead blamed Republicans, President-elect Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and their "billionaire friends" like Elon Musk for the chaos on Capitol Hill.
"Why hasn’t President Biden said anything in the public about this? Don't the American people deserve to know why millions of federal workers could enter this holiday period without a paycheck?" Jean-Pierre was asked during her daily press briefing.
"All Americans need to know that Republicans are getting in the way here and they are the ones who have created this mess. That's the reality. That's the fact," she responded. "This is not the first time we've been here. And the president has had this approach before. He understands how Congress works. He's been around for some time. He understands what strategy works here to get this done."
Jean-Pierre said Friday that Biden has held phone calls with Democratic leaders in Congress — Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. — but would not say if the president has spoken to the House speaker with regard to the ongoing discussions.
"He has been getting regular updates from his team. His team has been in touch with congressional members from both sides of the aisle," she said.
A streamlined version of a bill backed by Trump to avert a partial government shutdown failed to pass the House of Representatives on Thursday night.
The bill, which needed two-thirds of the House chamber to pass, failed by a vote of 174 to 235. The national debt has soared to over $36 trillion, and the national deficit is over $1.8 trillion.
Jean-Pierre said Republicans went back on their word and "blew up this deal."
"Republicans need to stop playing politics with a government shutdown. And they are doing the bidding. They're doing the bidding of their billionaire friends. That's what we're seeing at the expense of hard-working Americans," she said.
"There is a bipartisan agreement that Republicans tanked because of what they were directed to do by Elon Musk and President-elect Trump. That's what happened. That is the reality that we're in now."
Musk, an outspoken critic of government waste, has weighed in on the spending bill debate and led a conservative revolt against the first 1,547-page bill due to its bloated spending provisions, calling for lawmakers who supported the bill to lose their seats.
He supported the newer, slimmer version, which was ultimately rejected by House members.
Reporters tried several different ways to try and get Jean-Pierre to comment on the president’s role in the matter, but she continued to sidestep.
"The president is the President of the United States, and he is leading," she told a reporter, to which he responded: "To be clear, the strategy is he is leading by staying in the background?"
"The strategy is that Congress, Republicans in particular, need to do their jobs and get out of their own way and focus on the American people, not their billionaire friends. That is what needs to happen. And that's what the president wants to see," she replied.
Jean-Pierre also warned that a shutdown could disrupt the presidential transition process for the incoming administration.
"If there is a shutdown — and I don't want to get too much into hypotheticals — but this is the reality, transition activities will be restricted with limited exceptions, obviously, such as to prevent imminent threats to the safety of human life or the protection of property," she said.
Meanwhile, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said Friday that Republicans have a "good plan" to avoid a partial government shutdown.
Rep. Stephanie Bice, R-Okla., added: "I think you come to an agreement, then you get together and sit down and figure out, you know, if we can get across the finish line. And that's probably what we're about to do now."
The Senate’s top DOGE Republican will send 24 letters – one to each major federal agency head – demanding a halt to last-minute work-from-home negotiations before President Biden returns to Delaware.
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, chair of the Senate GOP Policy Committee, made the demand days after crafting legislation for 2025 that would "decentralize" and relocate one-third of the federal workforce outside Washington, D.C.
Ernst said that not a single government agency’s office space is half-occupied two-plus years on from the COVID-19 pandemic, and she previously called for the Biden administration to sell off unused real estate for taxpayers’ benefit.
In her letters, Ernst laid out that 90% of telework-eligible federal employees are still working from home and only 6% report they are working on a "full-time basis."
Additionally, she wrote that public-sector unions are purportedly "dictating personnel policy" without regard to federal directives from the Office of Management & Budget (OMB), which is running up a massive tab and leading to wastes of time, space and money.
"The union bosses are rushing to lock in last minute, lavish long-term deals with the lame-duck Biden administration—extending beyond President Trump’s next term in office—guaranteeing that bureaucrats can stay at home for another four years or longer," Ernst wrote in one letter prepped for Office of Personnel Management director Robert Shriver III.
"Apparently, protecting telework perks for public employees is a higher priority than showing up to serve American taxpayers," she wrote, calling Biden’s submission to union demands "shocking and unacceptable."
She noted it was a similarly liberal president who vociferously opposed unionization of public employees in the first place, as Democrat Franklin Roosevelt wrote in a letter to a union steward declining a 1937 invitation to a national federal employee union convention.
"All government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service," Roosevelt said.
"It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with government employee organizations."
"The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress."
Ernst suggested federal workers and their union representatives have forgotten Roosevelt’s warning, citing the last-minute push to ratify collective bargaining agreements and telework privilege pacts before President-elect Donald Trump can begin his oversight endeavors through DOGE.
The lawmaker told Fox News Digital on Thursday that her report cited in the letters "exposed that telework abuse is so rampant in Washington that there are more reindeer on Santa’s sleigh than employees showing up at the Department of Energy headquarters."
"As if that was not bad enough, President Biden is working hand in hand with unions to help ink more last-minute contracts allowing for telework privileges for years. Bureaucrats have forgotten their job is to serve the public, and I am happy to remind them with a little Christmas cheer."
In the letter, Ernst pointed out situations she said show union bosses and career agency management have the "government wrapped around their finger."
In the letters, she embedded a photo of former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley while he was serving as Biden’s Social Security Administration chief and who was wearing a Captain America T-shirt alongside a purported union official at a party.
Ernst cited news reports of O’Malley going to Florida to party with union members before endorsing a contract preventing easy reduction of work-from-home ability.
She said O’Malley spent the trip "crooning" Irish ballads on his guitar and drinking alcohol.
"This buddy-buddy relationship between the Social Security Commissioner and the union bosses representing his workforce during what is supposed to be a negotiation resulted in a contract unbelievably slanted towards the union and against the interests of taxpayers and the mission of the agency," she said.
In another case, she pointed to Housing & Urban Development employees who may not have deserved the TFUT or "taxpayer-funded union time" they filed for.
One such worker successfully claimed compensation while in jail.
Ernst demanded the agencies report data on TFUT claims and payouts, unused or underused real estate holdings designated for use through collective bargaining, and any cases of each agency permitting unions or their employees to use department property at a discount or for free.
"Giving bureaucrats another four-year vacation from the office is unacceptable. Bureaucrats have had enough gap years—it’s time to get them back to work," she said.
Fox News' Julia Johnson contributed to this report.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images, Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
The House of Representatives failed to pass a pared-down spending bill.
The vote came after President-elect Donald Trump tanked a bipartisan version that looked set to pass.
The move pushes the government closer to a holiday shutdown.
The House of Representatives on Thursday failed to pass a stripped-down spending bill following a tumultuous 48 hours on the Hill, pushing the government closer to a partial shutdown right before the holidays.
Republicans in the House said they had settled on a new version of the continuing resolution ahead of the vote on Thursday after President-elect Donald Trump tanked a previous spending bill that initially won bipartisan support.
But the final vote was 174-235-1. Thirty-eight Republicans flouted Trump and voted against the continuing resolution.
On Wednesday, Trump came out hard against the original continuing resolution, urging Republican lawmakers to renegotiate the bill and threatening to primary those who failed to fall in line.
The president-elect's apparent turnabout came after billionaire Elon Musk publicly backed the idea of shutting down the government until the day Trump is inaugurated. Musk railed against the resolution, which he said included items unrelated to government funding, such as pay raises for lawmakers and pandemic preparedness.
Musk, who has been tapped to lead the Department of Government Efficiency alongside fellow billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, celebrated the pared-down spending bill ahead of the failed Thursday vote.
"This shows how much your voice matters!" the Tesla CEO wrote on X. "And having a President like @realDonaldTrump means that your voice is finally heard."
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle seem to agree that Musk played a major role in killing the original bill. Some have expressed concern about the outsized influence Musk seems to have on Trump. The president-elect, for his part, has pushed back on suggestions that Musk is the one in control.
The continuing resolution that failed to passon Thursday was smaller in scope than the original legislation. Among the items cut from the bipartisan resolution included funding for a child cancer research program, funding for research on premature labor, money for treatment of sickle cell disease, money for early cancer detection, a program for Down syndrome research, and an anti-deepfake porn bill.
The newer version of the resolution would have kept the government funded through mid-March and suspended the nation's debt ceiling until January 2027.
Trump encouraged Republican lawmakers to back the new version of the bill on Thursday.
House Democrats, on the other hand, expressed frustration about the series of events. CNN reported Thursday that Democrats could be heard chanting "hell no" during a caucus meeting ahead of the vote.
If lawmakers fail to reach an agreement, a partial shutdown would lead to suspended funding for many government entities and withheld paychecks for thousands of federal employees right before the holidays.
A bill to avert a partial government shutdown that was backed by President-elect Trump failed to pass the House of Representatives on Thursday night.
Congress is inching closer to the possibility of a partial shutdown, with the deadline coming at the end of Friday.
The bill needed two-thirds of the House chamber to pass, but failed to even net a majority. Two Democrats voted with the majority of Republicans to pass the bill, while 38 GOP lawmakers bucked Trump to oppose it.
The margin fell 174 to 235.
It comes after two days of chaos in Congress as lawmakers fought among themselves about a path forward on government spending – a fight joined by Trump and his allies Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
Meanwhile, the national debt has climbed to over $36 trillion, and the national deficit is over $1.8 trillion.
The legislation was hastily negotiated on Thursday after GOP hardliners led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy rebelled against an initial bipartisan deal that would have extended the government funding deadline until March 14 and included a host of unrelated policy riders.
The new deal also includes several key policies unrelated to keeping the government open, but the 116-page bill is much narrower than its 1,547-page predecessor.
Like the initial bill, the new iteration extended the government funding deadline through March 14 while also suspending the debt limit – something Trump had pushed for.
It proposed to suspend the debt limit for two years until January 2027, still keeping it in Trump's term but delaying that fight until after the 2026 Congressional midterm elections.
The new proposal also included roughly $110 billion in disaster relief aid for Americans affected by storms Milton and Helene, as well as a measure to cover the cost of rebuilding Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge, which was hit by a barge earlier this year.
Excluded from the second-round measure is the first pay raise for congressional lawmakers since 2009 and a measure aimed at revitalizing Washington, D.C.'s RFK stadium.
The text of the new bill was also significantly shorter – going from 1,547 pages to just 116.
"All Republicans, and even the Democrats, should do what is best for our Country, and vote ‘YES’ for this Bill, TONIGHT!" Trump wrote on Truth Social.
But the bill hit opposition before the legislative text was even released.
Democrats, furious at Johnson for reneging on their original bipartisan deal, chanted "Hell no" in their closed-door conference meeting on Thursday night to debate the bill.
Nearly all House Democrats who left the meeting indicated they were voting against it.
Meanwhile, members of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus also said they would vote against the bill.
"Old bill: $110BB in deficit spending (unpaid for), $0 increase in the national credit card. New bill: $110BB in deficit spending (unpaid for), $4 TRILLION+ debt ceiling increase with $0 in structural reforms for cuts. Time to read the bill: 1.5 hours. I will vote no," Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, wrote on X.
Elon Musk helped kill a major government funding bill. He's likely just getting started.
AP/Evan Vucci
Elon Musk has demonstrated his ability to upend Washington.
Trump allies' and Musk's posts have once again shown the power of X.
Recently, they nuked a government funding bill and possibly saved a cabinet nomination.
Washington better turn on its Twitter, er, X alerts again.
Elon Musk and a loose band of MAGA influencers have shown that even if Twitter wasn't real life, X just might be.
In recent days, Musk's platform has been at the center of efforts to save Pete Hegseth's embattled nomination to lead the Pentagon and to torpedo the type of 1,000-page, year-end spending bills that have joined the National Christmas Tree as a marker of the holiday season.
Democrats are saying that the world's richest man is akin to a shadow president. Some Republicans, like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, are floating Musk to become the next speaker of the House.
Musk was already set to wield significant power through Trump's "Department of Government Efficiency," an advisory panel the Tesla CEO will co-lead with former GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy.
Trump had said relatively little about how Republicans should finish their final business before he returns to the White House. Musk upended that silence on Wednesday when he began a full-on assault on X against Speaker Mike Johnson's continuing resolution, which would have extended government funding until March 14.
"The voice of the people was heard," Musk wrote on X, quoting a Republican lawmaker's comments that cited his influence in helping kill the funding bill. "This was a good day for America."
Republicans have long complained about how party leaders fund the government with sweeping proposals, via either continuing resolution or omnibus. The conservative opposition then forces Republicans to cater more to Democrats, as leaders have to find the votes somewhere. Case in point, the year-end 2024 continuing resolution included everything from a congressional pay raise to opening the door to Washington's NFL team returning to the city proper to entice Democrats to support it. There was also $100 billion in disaster relief and a one-year extension to the law that prevents the US from reverting to decades-old farm policies. The total bill was 1,547 pages long.
Musk is also using X to urge Republicans to shut down the federal government if they don't get what they want, potentially affecting everything from pay for US service members to the status of US National Parks.
This isn't the first time Trump and his allies have wielded X. His supporters have been highly alert over the president-elect's Cabinet picks since former Rep. Matt Gaetz pulled out of contention to be the next Attorney General. Hegseth, a former Fox News host, looked to be in jeopardy amid a series of reports about his drinking habits and his treatment of women, including allegations of sexual assault.
Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, a combat veteran, expressed concern about Hegseth. In response, a wave of conservative influencers called her out by name on X, and some threatened her with a primary challenge.
"People in Iowa have a well-funded primary challenger ready against her," Charlie Kirk wrote on X. "Her political career is in serious jeopardy."
Ernst, amid the pressure campaign and after additional meetings with Hegseth, later signaled a change in tone on Hegseth's nomination. Without naming her directly, one of Ernst's incoming colleagues said one senator felt "like the entire world coming after her" for not supporting one of Trump's nominees.
"She's being plummeted with threats, with all sorts of things that don't belong in political arena, and her staff is. And so you talk about pressure, right?" Sen.-elect John Curtis of Utah said at a recent event, per Politico. "And speaking with her, she has to worry about things like, 'Well, if I vote against this nominee, what happens to my state when I need something from this administration?'"
Musk alone didn't make X powerful. He is remaking the platform, though, as evidenced by the exodus to Blue Sky and other competitors. He aims to create a free-speech oasis where it is "the best source for truth."
The X CEO has changed policies on the platform based on polls, including when he reinstated Trump's prized account after a simple survey. Musk's posts, including the ones he used to take down the government funding bill, aren't always truthful, such as when he falsely claimed Congress would receive a 40% pay raise (it was 3.5% at most).
It seems like Musk often just wants to dominate the conversation. And while his lofty goals are still in progress, Congress and the rest of the nation's capitol can't afford to ignore him.
They should also turn on Truth Social notifications for good measure.
Some House Republicans are privately fuming after Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy got involved in congressional talks on government funding, leading the charge to tank a bipartisan deal.
Several GOP lawmakers granted anonymity to speak freely about a sensitive situation were either frustrated about the pair getting involved or believe they exacerbated long-standing weaknesses within the House Republican Conference.
"Musk and Vivek should not have jumped in at the 11th hour and should have handled it directly with the speaker. Folks on the same side shouldn’t act like these two," one House Republican said. "They’re more about the clicks and bright lights than getting the job done. I’ll have nothing to do with them after watching them publicly trash the speaker."
A second GOP lawmaker said, "If Elon and Vivek are freelancing and shooting off the hip without coordination with [President-elect Trump], they are getting dangerously close to undermining the actual 47th President of the United States."
A third lawmaker accused Ramaswamy of distorting facts.
"He didn't read the entire [continuing resolution] and the vast majority of what he was talking about is misinformation," they said.
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., was gearing up to hold a vote on a bipartisan, 1,547-page deal to extend current government funding levels through March 14 – known as a continuing resolution (CR).
The goal was to give congressional negotiators more time to cobble together an agreement on how to fund the government for the remainder of fiscal year (FY) 2025, while also kicking the fight into a term where Republicans control the House, Senate and White House.
But GOP hardliners were furious about what they saw as unrelated measures and policy riders being added to the bill at the last minute.
In addition to averting a partial government shutdown through March 14, the bill also includes provisions on health care and ethanol fuel, plus more than $100 billion in disaster aid funding, measures to fund the rebuilding of Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge and the first pay raise for lawmakers since 2009.
Musk and Ramaswamy soon joined the opposition, with Musk even threatening to back primary challengers to Republicans who supported the CR.
Less than 24 hours after the legislation was released, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., told reporters the bill was dead.
House GOP leaders have been working toward a plan B, but it's unclear they'll get much, if any, Democratic support.
A fourth House Republican who spoke with Fox News Digital said of Musk's involvement, "I think he influenced weak members who didn't have direction until he tweeted."
"He's just highlighting bad governance and indirectly a weak legislative branch," they said.
Trump, meanwhile, threatened to primary Republicans who supported a "clean" CR without an increase of the debt limit – which expires January 2025.
The issue threw a wrench into negotiations on Wednesday night, given the months-long and politically brutal talks that normally accompany a debt limit increase or suspension.
One Republican bristled at his threat: "Trump threatening to ‘primary’ us also reduces his standing with many of us. I don’t want anything to do with him."
Marjorie Taylor Greene and Rand Paul floated naming Elon Musk as speaker of the House.
Musk could become speaker, given there are few requirements for the job.
Republicans backed Mike Johnson to retain the gavel in November, but that vote isn't binding.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia joined a growing effort on Thursday by saying she would consider supporting Elon Musk being the next speaker of the House.
"I'd be open to supporting @elonmusk for Speaker of the House," Greene wrote on X. "DOGE can only truly be accomplished by reigning in Congress to enact real government efficiency."
Greene, who has repeatedly tussled with Speaker Mike Johnson, said electing the Tesla CEO as speaker "could be the way" to send a major message to those who want to continue business as usual.
"The establishment needs to be shattered just like it was yesterday," said wrote.
House Republicans voted unanimously last month for Johnson to be their candidate for speaker. But that closed-door result is not binding, as evident by then-Rep. Kevin McCarthy's struggles in early 2023. The entire House will vote in January on the next speaker.
Johnson is facing major unrest among his colleagues after Musk, President-elect Donald Trump, and others effectively blew up a bipartisan deal to avoid a government shutdown that included a number of unrelated provisions to entice Democrats to support it.
Greene tried to oust Johnson in May. But according to Politico reporter Olivia Beavers, she was planning to support Johnson in January.
"Not too long ago, Rep. MTG was telling me she was planning to back Speaker Johnson," Beavers wrote on X.
The US Constitution outlines few requirements for to become speaker of the House. Musk or anyone else would not need to be an elected member of Congress to serve as speaker.
Greene quoted a separate post from Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, which kicked off the effort to make Musk for one of the most powerful jobs in Washington.
"Nothing would disrupt the swamp more than electing Elon Musk . . . think about it . . . nothing's impossible (not to mention the joy at seeing the collective establishment, aka 'uniparty,' lose their ever-lovin' minds)," Paul, a Republican, wrote on X.
Paul's comment is reminiscent of previous efforts to push now-President-elect Donald Trump as speaker. Then-Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican, voted for Trump during the initial days-long stand off that ended up with Johnson as speaker.
As the world's wealthiest person, Musk would have unprecedented power in the unlikely event he were to become speaker — posing a multitude of conflicts of interest. The speaker of the House is also part of the so-called "Gang of 8," a group of top congressional leaders regularly briefed on highly classified US intelligence. While Musk is known for his tendency to plow himself into his work, the day-to-day duties as speaker of the House are considerable.
Musk would also have to give up one powerful aspect of the speakership: the ability to become president. Musk was born in South African to non-US citizens, making him unable to satisfy the US Constitution's requirement that only "natural-born" citizens can become president.
In this event, the House Speaker would not be second in line of succession after the vice president. Instead, the president pro tempore of the US Senate would move up. The president pro tempore is often the senior most member of the majority party, meaning it will likely be Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who is 91.
Some House Republicans are privately fuming after Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy got involved in congressional talks on government funding, leading the charge to tank a bipartisan deal.
Several GOP lawmakers granted anonymity to speak freely about a sensitive situation were either frustrated about the pair getting involved or believe they exacerbated longstanding weaknesses within the House Republican Conference.
"Musk and Vivek should not have jumped in at the 11th hour and should have handled it directly with the speaker. Folks on the same side shouldn’t act like these two," one House Republican said. "They’re more about the clicks and bright lights than getting the job done. I’ll have nothing to do with them after watching them publicly trash the speaker."
A second GOP lawmaker said, "If Elon and Vivek are freelancing and shooting off the hip without coordination with [President-elect Trump], they are getting dangerously close to undermining the actual 47th President of the United States."
A third lawmaker accused Ramaswamy of distorting facts.
"He didn't read the entire [continuing resolution] and the vast majority of what he was talking about is misinformation," they said.
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., was gearing up to hold a vote on a bipartisan, 1,547-page deal to extend current government funding levels through March 14 – known as a continuing resolution (CR).
The goal was to give congressional negotiators more time to cobble together an agreement on how to fund the government for the remainder of fiscal year (FY) 2025, while also kicking the fight into a term where Republicans control the House, Senate and White House.
But GOP hardliners were furious about what they saw as unrelated measures and policy riders being added to the bill at the last minute.
In addition to averting a partial government shutdown through March 14, the bill also includes provisions on health care and ethanol fuel, plus more than $100 billion in disaster aid funding and measures to fund the rebuilding of Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge and the first pay raise for lawmakers since 2009.
Musk and Ramaswamy soon joined the opposition, with Musk even threatening to back primary challengers to Republicans who supported the CR.
Less than 24 hours after the legislation was released, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., told reporters the bill was dead.
House GOP leaders have been working toward a plan B, but it's unclear they'll get much, if any, Democratic support.
A fourth House Republican who spoke with Fox News Digital said of Musk's involvement, "I think he influenced weak members who didn't have direction until he tweeted."
"He's just highlighting bad governance and indirectly a weak legislative branch," they said.
Trump, meanwhile, threatened to primary Republicans who supported a "clean" CR without an increase of the debt limit – which expires January 2025.
The issue threw a wrench into negotiations on Wednesday night, given the months-long and politically brutal talks that normally accompany a debt limit increase or suspension.
One Republican bristled at his threat: "Trump threatening to ‘primary’ us also reduces his standing with many of us. I don’t want anything to do with him."
The revolt by conservatives and the sudden infusion into negotiations of President-elect Donald Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance and Elon Musk has House Speaker Mike Johnson and others struggling to find a way out of their political cul-de-sac and avoiding a government shutdown at 12:00:01 a.m. ET Saturday.
Fox News is told that Trump’s unexpected demand to tackle the debt ceiling in this package has complicated matters exponentially. Many conservatives won’t vote for any debt ceiling increase. And Democrats are balking because Republicans reneged on the deal.
Moreover, there may not be enough time to avoid a shutdown, especially if a new bill is to be produced – and conservatives demand that it lay fallow for three days before voting.
That does not even address getting it through the Senate.
Many members with whom Fox News spoke Wednessday night are now resigned to a very high chance of a government shutdown – perhaps one which bleeds through Christmas. There simply isn’t a combination of votes that unlocks this puzzle yet.
Congress also hasn't addressed disaster aid. Some conservatives are opposed to that for North Carolina and Florida without offsets. The fate of assistance after Hurricanes Helene and Milton is now in serious limbo.
The returning head of the House Republican campaign committee says President-elect Trump's convincing 2024 White House victory gives the GOP plenty of home field advantage as the party aims to defend its razor-thin majority in the 2026 midterm elections.
"The battlefield is really laying out to our advantage. There are 14 Democrats who won seats also carried by Donald Trump. There are only three Republicans in seats that were carried by Kamala Harris. So that tells me we're going to be on offense," National Republican Congressional Committee chair Rep. Richard Hudson emphasized in a recent Fox News Digital interview.
Trump carried all seven crucial battleground states and, for the first time in three presidential elections, won the national popular vote as he defeated Vice President Harris last month.
The Republicans also flipped control of the Senate from the Democrats, and even though they had a net loss of two seats in the 435-member House, they'll hold a fragile 220-215 majority when the new Congress convenes next month.
Eight years ago, when Trump first won the White House and the GOP held onto their House majority, Democrats targeted roughly two-dozen Republicans in the 2018 midterms in districts Trump lost in the 2016 election.
The Democrats, in a blue-wave election, were successful in flipping the House majority.
Fast-forward eight years, and it's a different story, as this time Republicans will be defending seats on friendly turf in districts that the president-elect carried.
"There's a whole lot more opportunity for us to go on offense," Hudson, who's represented a congressional district in central North Carolina for a dozen years, touted.
Hudson also made the case that House Republicans who will once again be targeted by the Democrats in the upcoming election cycle are "really battle tested. I mean, they're folks who've been through the fire before. They've gone through several cycles now with millions of dollars spent against them."
"They've been able to succeed because they work very hard in their districts. They've established very strong brands, as you know, people who know how to get things done and how to deliver for their community," he emphasized. "The Republicans who are in tough seats are our best candidates."
The three House Republicans who are in districts that Harris carried last month are Reps. Don Bacon of Nebraska, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, and Mike Lawler of New York.
But there will be a big difference in 2026: Trump, who helped drive low propensity voters to the polls this year, won't be on the ballot in the 2026 midterms.
"I certainly would rather have him on the ballot because he turns out voters that don't come out for other candidates," Hudson acknowledged.
But he argued, "If you look at the way this race is shaping up, we campaigned on a key set of issues of things that we promised we would deliver. If we deliver those things and have Donald Trump there with us campaigning with our candidates, I believe we can drive out a higher percentage of those voters than we have in midterms in the past."
Hudson said Trump "was a great partner" with House Republicans this year and will be again in the upcoming election cycle.
"[Trump] cares deeply about having a House majority because he understands that a Democrat House majority means his agenda comes to a grinding halt. And so he's been very engaged, was a very good partner for us this last election, and I anticipate that continuing."
Hudson, who is returning for a second straight cycle chairing the NRCC, said that at the top of his committee to-do list are candidate recruitment and fundraising.
"I mean, first thing, we've got to go out and recruit candidates. You know, candidate quality matters. And then we've got to go raise the money. And so I'll be on the road and be out there helping our incumbents. But I'm looking forward to it," he emphasized.
Fox News' Emma Woodhead contributed to this report
Editors note: Fox News Digital also interviewed Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington. That report will be posted on Friday.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., while speaking at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., called out House Republicans for breaking a bipartisan agreement to fund the government and avoid a government shutdown, accusing them of hurting everyday Americans across the country.
On Wednesday, House GOP leaders scrambled to search for a backup plan after reaching an initial bipartisan deal to avoid a partial government shutdown this Friday was buried by a barrage of opposition from conservative leaders.
Jeffries spoke about the failed deal, accusing Republicans and their leaders for not reaching the agreement.
"House Republicans, house democrats, Senate. Republicans and Senate Democrats reached a bipartisan agreement to fund the government, keep it open and meet the needs of the American people," Jeffries said, pointing out the agreement would provide disaster assistance for those affected by extreme weather events. "House Republicans have now unilaterally decided to break a bipartisan agreement that they made. House Republicans have been ordered to shut down the government and hurt everyday Americans all across this country…An agreement is an agreement. It was bipartisan and there was nothing more to say."
The minority leader also fired off a post on X, saying, "House Republicans have been ordered to shut down the government. And hurt working class Americans they claim to support. You break the bipartisan agreement; you own the consequences that follow."
As of Wednesday, the U.S. national debt – which is a measure of what U.S. taxpayers were on the hook for to the nation’s creditors – had reached $36,189,345,826,140.62, and was climbing at a rapid pace, showing no signs of slowing down. The federal government's budget deficit in the recently concluded fiscal year totaled $1.834 trillion, ranking the third largest in U.S. history.
Billionaire Elon Musk, who was appointed by President-elect Trump to serve as a co-chair of the newly-established Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, lambasted the bill on his social media platform, saying the 1,547-page continuing resolution (CR) bill is full of "pork."
Musk also wrote in a separate post, "The voice of the people was heard. This was a good day for America."
Trump adamantly opposed the bill on Wednesday through a series of posts on Truth Social.
"Sounds like the ridiculous and extraordinarily expensive Continuing Resolution, PLUS, is dying fast, but can anyone imagine passing it without either terminating, or extending, the Debt Ceiling guillotine coming up in June?" the incoming president asked. "Unless the Democrats terminate or substantially extend [the] Debt Ceiling now, I will fight ‘till the end. This is a nasty TRAP set in place by the Radical Left Democrats!"
He continued, saying Democrats are looking to embarrass Republicans when it comes up for a vote in June, and the people who extended it from Sept. 28 to June 1, "should be ashamed of themselves."
Trump called the extension "political malpractice," and reiterated the bad timing of Congress asking for pay increases.
"Hopefully, you’ll be entitled to such an increase in the near future when we, "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!" he said.
In another post, Trump explained that trying to pass a clean CR without all of the bells and whistles Democrats want will be destructive to the country and his administration instead of the Biden administration.
"Any Republican that would be so stupid as to do this should, and will be Primaried," Trump warned. "Everything should be done, and fully negotiated, prior to my taking office on January 20th, 2025."
Congressional leaders released the text of their 1,547-page CR on Tuesday evening after last-minute negotiations delayed its original planned release on Sunday. A source familiar with discussions told Fox News Digital more specifically that the deal was largely struck between the top two Democrats and Republicans in each chamber.
Since its release, the CR has seen fierce pushback from conservatives and House GOP hardliners, many of whom are frustrated with unrelenting policy riders attached to the legislation, rather than a "clean" extension of government funding.
While the bill would avert a partial government shutdown through March 14 if passed, it also includes provisions on health care and ethanol fuel, along with $100 billion in disaster aid funding and measures to fund the reconstruction of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. The bill also includes the first pay raise for lawmakers since 2009.
Fox News Digital’s Anders Hagstrom and Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that he plans to double the number of state jobs that will no longer require a college degree — joining states like Minnesota, Virginia and Pennsylvania, which have already dropped degree requirements for most public jobs.
Newsom unveiled his Master Plan for Career Education framework on Monday, which included eliminating the college degree requirement for 30,000 jobs in the state.
The Democratic governor plans to double the number by removing the requirement for an additional 30,000 in the coming years in an overall effort to "help Californians translate their skills and knowledge into real progress toward a degree or career."
"Every Californian deserves the opportunity to build real-life skills and pursue a fulfilling career — including those that don’t require college degrees," Newsom said in a statement. "California is working to ensure that every person has what they need to get a well-paying, long-lasting job so we can build an economy for the future that supports all families."
The framework also includes plans to establish "Career Passports" for citizens that will create a digital record of their skills and abilities for job applications.
Veterans will also see new benefits, with the plan allowing them to gain college credit for their military experience.
Reducing the emphasis on needing a college degree to secure a career has been endorsed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a close ally of President-elect Donald Trump. Musk recently stated that he believes "the value of a college education is somewhat overweighted."
"Too many people spend four years, accumulate a ton of debt and often don't have useful skills that they can apply afterwards. I have a lot of respect for people who work with their hands, and we need electricians and plumbers and carpenters and that's a lot more important than having incremental political science majors," Musk said while on the campaign trail for Trump. "I think we should not have this idea that in order to be successful you need a four-year college degree."
Newsom's framework was released just months after a report found that the majority of students at for-profit colleges never graduate, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. The report found that only 36% of students graduate in four years at California State University, while 62% graduate within six years.
The elimination of college degree requirements for state jobs has received bipartisan support in recent years.
Maryland, under Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, became the first state in the nation to eliminate degree requirements for most state jobs in 2022, setting the stage for more than a dozen other states to follow in his footsteps with similar orders.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro issued an executive order in 2023 to establish that 92% of state government jobs would no longer require a college degree, a move that received praise from Republican state lawmakers who said the decision was "a step in the right direction."
Additionally, the 2024 GOP platform framework, released during the presidential campaign cycle, stated that "Republicans will support the creation of additional, drastically more affordable alternatives to a traditional four-year college degree."
Multiple Missouri lawmakers are reportedly preparing legislation to name several highways after President-elect Trump in the new year.
The most expansive reported bill would bestow Trump's name on carriageways of the Missouri state highway system not yet designated otherwise before next August, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
That bill, from state Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, R-Arnold, however, exempts roadways in counties encompassing St. Louis, Columbia and Kansas City, the paper reported.
Coleman previously floated a bill to rename a portion of Interstate 55 in her district the "Donald J. Trump Highway" in 2021, but the effort failed in the Republican-majority legislature.
Under both the defunct and current proposals, MoDOT would erect and maintain the commemorative signage, but private donations would foot the bill for the signs.
A separate proposal from state Sen. Nick Schroer, R-St. Charles, would designate a portion of MO Route D west of St. Louis the "President Donald J. Trump Highway."
Fox News Digital also reached out to Missouri Senate President Pro-Tempore Caleb Rowden, R-Columbia.
In announcing her 2021 bill, Coleman said Trump deserved the honor for "strengthening Missouri’s economy, defending our values, and making America great again during his historic first term."
Missouri lawmakers have also tried to commemorate other national conservatives, including the late radio host Rush Limbaugh – who was born and raised in Cape Girardeau.
Language to commemorate Jan. 12 as "Rush Limbaugh Day" did not make it to the final text of a 2021 designations bill, according to the Columbia Missourian.
Trump’s name has made it onto a handful of highways outside the Show-Me State, including in some politically-unfriendly areas.
In 2019, a man "adopted" portions of Burke Lake Road and Fairfax County Rte. 620 in the deep-blue Washington, D.C., suburb of Springfield, Virginia, in Trump’s name.
The man also successfully had the incoming president’s name festooned on VDOT adopt-a-highway signage on heavily-trafficked Ox Road in nearby Lorton, according to the Washingtonian.
In 2021, Oklahoma Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt signed legislation designating a 20-mile stretch of U.S. 287 in the state’s panhandle after Trump.
Meanwhile, Hialeah, Florida, Mayor Esteban Bovo joined Trump at a 2023 rally in the Miami suburb and offered him a commemorative sign after an avenue near a casino in the city was renamed Donald J. Trump Avenue.
In Trump’s home state, a controversial 430-acre tract of parkland also bears his name. Donald J. Trump State Park in Putnam Valley came into being in 2006 after he donated the parcel to New York state.
After Trump was unable to successfully develop a golf course on the site due to town permit roadblocks and the like, he passed the land on to Albany after originally purchasing it in two pieces in 1998 for about $2.5 million.
Donald J. Trump State Park soon fell into disrepair and remains largely unmaintained. New York Democrats have attempted to pass legislation stripping Trump’s name from the park, including a 2019 bid to rename it after the woman killed during the 2017 Charlottesville riot.
After Trump’s May conviction in his hush-money trial, New York state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal told The New York Times he hopes it "primes the pump" to restart talks to rename the park.
Hoylman-Sigal, a Democrat, indicated he has visited the park and has seen "some improvements" since Trump gifted it to the Pataki administration.
