NationalWatch

California Gov. Gavin Newsom called for invoking the 25th Amendment against President Donald Trump, calling the president “mentally ill” following Trump’s controversial remarks involving Los Angeles and San Diego.

“Donald Trump is mentally ill. TIME FOR THE 25TH!” Newsom said in statements provided to multiple media outlets.

The Democratic governor’s comments came after Trump referenced the two California cities while discussing Iran during a campaign rally in Grand Island, Nebraska, on Monday.

“They can take out a city. Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego,” Trump said. “This is a very small price to pay.”

GAVIN NEWSOM ACCUSES TRUMP OF EXPLOITING WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS’ DINNER SHOOTING TO ATTACK ENEMIES

Newsom blasted the president as “deranged and dangerous” in a post on X responding to the remarks.

It is not the first time Newsom has called for using the 25th Amendment against Trump. In July, the California governor said Trump’s election integrity speech represented a “legitimate 25th Amendment moment” and described it as “the rambling of a mad king.”

That earlier call drew sharp pushback from Republicans, who accused Newsom and other Democrats of applying a double standard after defending former President Joe Biden amid questions about his age and cognitive fitness while he was in office.

HOUSE DEMS UNVEIL BILL TO EXAMINE REMOVING TRUMP USING 25TH AMENDMENT

The 25th Amendment, ratified in 1967, provides a process under which the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet — or another body designated by Congress — can declare a president unable to discharge the powers and duties of the office.

The White House has pushed back on interpretations of Trump’s latest comments, saying the president was arguing that American cities could have faced threats from Iran if Tehran had obtained a nuclear weapon.

White House communications director Steven Cheung said the ensuing “media freakout” was “not rooted in reality,” adding that Trump “was clearly stating U.S. cities would have been threatened if a nuclear Iran hadn’t been stopped.”

“America is safer because of the President. Iran has no nuclear, no navy, no air force, and no money,” Cheung said.

Trump’s remarks came as he discussed the costs associated with the conflict with Iran, telling the Nebraska crowd that Americans were paying a “small price … for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe,” before referencing the potential threat to U.S. cities.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Fox News Digital reached out to Newsom’s office and the White House, but did not immediately receive responses.

China nearly doubled the number of military and coast guard ships it sent to a key flashpoint in the South China Sea last month, according to Manila’s military.

It comes as a series of increasingly tense encounters raises the risk of confrontation with a U.S. treaty ally located in the disputed waters. The Armed Forces of the Philippines said it tracked 101 different Chinese navy and coast guard vessels around four disputed areas over the course of September, up from 56 in August and 48 in July.

The sharp increase comes as Chinese and Philippine forces have faced off both at sea and in the air, including an encounter over the weekend in which Manila accused a Chinese fighter jet of repeatedly maneuvering dangerously close to an unarmed Philippine patrol plane.

China claims sovereignty over most of the South China Sea, including waters that fall within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, and uses coast guard ships, naval vessels and aircraft to assert those claims. Manila has continued patrolling the waters and resupplying Philippine positions, bringing forces from the two countries into repeated close contact.

US, CHINA STRIKE DEAL TO LOWER TARIFFS ON $30B IN GOODS AFTER TRUMP-XI WASHINGTON SUMMIT

The confrontations carry particular stakes for Washington: the Philippines is a U.S. treaty ally, and the U.S. has repeatedly said its Mutual Defense Treaty with Manila applies to armed attacks on Philippine armed forces, public vessels and aircraft — including in the South China Sea.

The latest Philippine count showed the largest number of Chinese vessels around Scarborough Shoal, where 39 different Chinese coast guard and People’s Liberation Army Navy ships were observed during September.

Another 28 were tracked around Thitu Island, known in the Philippines as Pag-asa; 23 around Second Thomas Shoal; and 11 around Sabina Shoal.

Rear Adm. Roy Vincent Trinidad, an Armed Forces of the Philippines spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea, said the figures showed China’s continued “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive” activities in the region.

But Philippine officials stopped short of concluding that the jump represented a broader shift in China’s strategy. Asked why the number had nearly doubled from August, Trinidad said the military wanted to examine a longer period before drawing conclusions about the trend.

The increase comes as the two sides have repeatedly confronted each other around some of the same contested waters.

On Saturday, a Philippine C-208 maritime patrol aircraft was flying near Scarborough Shoal when it encountered two Chinese military aircraft, according to the Philippine military.

Manila said one of the aircraft, a Chinese J-16 fighter, repeatedly approached the unarmed Philippine plane and maneuvered in front of and behind it at what the military described as an unsafe distance.

“This incident is part of a recurring pattern of unsafe and coercive behavior against Philippine government vessels and aircraft conducting lawful operations,” the Philippine military said.

The Philippine aircraft completed its mission and returned safely to base.

TRUMP ENVOY WARNS CHINA’S POWER MOVE AT SEA IS THREAT ‘WE CANNOT AFFORD TO IGNORE’

Beijing offered a sharply different account, saying the Philippine aircraft had entered airspace over Huangyan Dao, China’s name for Scarborough Shoal, without permission and that Chinese forces took “necessary measures” in response.

Scarborough Shoal sits about 120 miles west of the Philippine island of Luzon and has become one of the most persistent flashpoints between Beijing and Manila. China has effectively controlled access to the shoal since a 2012 standoff, while the Philippines maintains that it falls within its exclusive economic zone.

China claims sovereignty over Scarborough and much of the South China Sea, overlapping claims by the Philippines and several other Southeast Asian nations. An international tribunal ruled in 2016 that China’s sweeping historic-rights claims in the South China Sea had no legal basis, a ruling Beijing rejects.

The encounters have continued despite a recent diplomatic thaw between Washington and Beijing, with President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping emphasizing stability in the relationship during Xi’s state visit to Washington.

Days before the latest air encounter, Chinese coast guard and naval vessels moved to block a Philippine resupply mission to Second Thomas Shoal, another major flashpoint in the dispute.

The Philippines deliberately grounded the aging BRP Sierra Madre at Second Thomas in 1999 and keeps a small contingent of troops aboard the rusting ship to maintain its presence. Chinese vessels have repeatedly tried to block missions carrying food, water and other supplies to those troops.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

The latest incidents put renewed attention on Washington’s defense commitment to Manila. The two countries have been bound by their Mutual Defense Treaty since 1951, and the U.S. has said an armed attack on Philippine armed forces, aircraft or public vessels anywhere in the South China Sea would invoke U.S. obligations under the treaty.

Former Special Counsel Jack Smith told lawmakers he had “never met” former CIA Director and vocal Trump critic John Brennan when pressed about whether Brennan provided consultation or counsel during his tenure, but records just declassified by the White House reveal members of Smith’s team met with Brennan while preparing the classified-documents case against President Donald Trump.

The revelation about Brennan’s meeting with Special Counsel Smith’s team adds another wrinkle to Republicans’ broader scrutiny of Smith’s investigations into Trump, which has included claims of political bias, overreach and other investigative missteps.

“Jack Smith was a tool of the Biden administration to put Trump in prison,” said Harvard Law professor and former Trump impeachment counsel, Alan Dershowitz, who described Smith’s work as “a partisan weapon that broke the rules, lied to the court and engaged in bad faith throughout” in an 2025 Op-Ed for the Wall Street Journal. Another critic, investigative reporter John Solomon, recently described the probes as among a “10-year conspiracy to stop Donald Trump using the resources of the United States government.”

EXPLOSIVE NEW REPORT PUTS JACK SMITH BACK IN HOT SEAT AS JIM JORDAN ALLEGES HE TRIED TO ‘SWAY’ 2024 ELECTION

Two assistant special counsels working under Smith joined FBI agents for a November 2023 meeting with Brennan at CIA headquarters in McLean, Virginia, according to documents that were declassified Monday by the White House. The meeting was held “to discuss expert testimony to National Defense Information in the forthcoming trial,” indicating prosecutors were exploring the possibility of using the former CIA chief’s national security expertise as they prepared their case against Trump.

Meanwhile, Smith appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week as part of the Republican-led panel’s oversight of his investigations into Trump. During the hearing, GOP lawmakers pressed Smith over allegations of political bias, investigative overreach and misconduct in both the Arctic Frost 2020 election probe and his classified-documents case known as “Plasmic Echo.”

In particular, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, asked Smith whether he had ever received “consultation or counsel” from Brennan, including during his tenure as special counsel.

EX-CIA CHIEF ACCUSED OF ORCHESTRATING ‘RUSSIA HOAX’ SUES TRUMP ADMIN FOR ‘VINDICTIVE PROSECUTION’

“Have you ever received any consultation or counsel by John Brennan, former CIA director, whether during your time as special counsel or otherwise? If so, when and for what purpose?” Grassley asked.

“I’ve never met John Brennan,” Smith responded.

FORMER CIA DIRECTOR BRENNAN SUBPOENAED TO TESTIFY IN FEDERAL TRUMP CONSPIRACY CASE

Grassley’s question, however, was broader than whether Smith personally met Brennan, and the newly declassified records show prosecutors working directly under Smith met with the former CIA director as they prepared the government’s case against Trump.

“This meeting occurred during Jack Smith’s time as Special Counsel and constitutes ‘consultation or counsel’ from John Brennan to Smith and his team,” Grassley told Fox News Digital. “Smith’s response before the Senate Judiciary Committee was highly evasive and misleading, at minimum.”

During the hearing, Grassley later returned to the issue, asking Smith whether he had ever had a conversation with Brennan.

“I have no recollection of having a conversation with John Brennan,” Smith responded.

FBI QUESTIONING CURRENT AND FORMER CIA OFFICIALS IN DOJ PROBE INTO JOHN BRENNAN’S ROLE IN RUSSIA ASSESSMENT

In addition to the memo outlining the 2023 Brennan meeting, the declassified release also included two pages of notes bearing CIA Headquarters headers where lines of text beneath Brennan’s name are blacked out by government redactions, leaving the remainder of the ruled pages blank.

Brennan was not serving as CIA director during the period covered by Smith’s classified-documents case and the released records do not indicate he had firsthand knowledge of Trump’s alleged handling of the documents.

JACK SMITH’S TRUMP PROBE SWEPT UP FOX NEWS, OTHER MEDIA COMMUNICATIONS AS INVESTIGATION WENT BEYOND LAWMAKERS

Grassley, as well as other GOP lawmakers and critics, have accused the former special counsel of investigative overreach and political bias, including pointing to records showing his Arctic Frost investigation obtained financial information involving thousands of Trump donors and phone records of Republican lawmakers, among other investigative steps. Grassley has separately raised questions about the origins and conduct of Smith’s classified-documents prosecution.

Smith, meanwhile, has rejected allegations that his investigations were politically motivated, and has maintained that his decisions were driven by the evidence and defending the work of prosecutors and investigators on his team.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Fox News Digital reached out to attorneys for Smith to obtain comment about the Brennan meeting, as well as the Justice Department, but did not receive a response.

A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s attempts to fine migrants up to $1.8 million for failing to leave the country after receiving final deportation orders.

U.S. District Judge George O’Toole in Boston issued the ruling on Monday in response to a class-action lawsuit filed last year by two of the thousands of migrants who have received civil penalties from the Department of Homeland Security.

The judge granted preliminary relief to the plaintiffs, finding that the administration’s process for imposing the fines violated federal law, and that migrants in the  “economically precarious position” of addressing the fines could be pushed into “insolvency.”

“The plaintiffs live in an economically precarious position even without the imposition of the government’s exorbitant fines,” he wrote.

DHS ISSUES $84B IN FINES TO ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS UNDER TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

“They face the possible garnishment of their already modest wages, loss of any vehicles and homes, federal collections lawsuits and other adverse collateral consequences,” O’Toole added. “If they were ultimately successful in this suit, there is no indication that simply requiring the government to vacate their fine notices would –– or even could, at that point –– make the plaintiffs whole or return the circumstances to the status quo.”

O’Toole, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, described how the plaintiffs worked for low salaries and had come to the U.S. to escape political violence.

“Nancy M. was fined over $1.8 million,” O’Toole wrote, referring to one of the plaintiffs. “She is a laborer working over 60 hours a week with two jobs, and she reports feeling serious anxiety affecting her ability to sleep, eat and live a normal life.”

The judge also found that the administration’s fine notices violated the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to provide specific allegations explaining why an individual’s conduct warranted a penalty.

Fox News Digital reached out to DHS for comment.

As recently as July, DHS said it had issued more than 103,000 fines to migrants totaling about $84 billion since President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January 2025.

DHS has defended the penalties, saying people who refuse to leave the country after receiving a final order of removal could face fines of $998 per day.

Although Congress authorized civil penalties under the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, no administration had attempted to impose the fines until Trump’s first term.

Last year, the Trump administration began imposing fines of $998 per day for migrants who did not leave the country following a final order of deportation. The fines have been imposed retroactively for up to five years, with a maximum penalty of $1.8 million.

20 STATES SUE TO BLOCK TRUMP ADMIN RULE THAT WOULD MAKE IT HARDER FOR IMMIGRANTS TO OBTAIN VISAS, GREEN CARDS

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

In July 2025, DHS and the Department of Justice implemented changes aimed at streamlining the assessment of fines by scrapping a 30-day notice period and shortening the process for challenging penalties.

The plaintiffs successfully challenged that policy and what they described as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement policy of issuing fines using boilerplate forms without independently assessing whether a person’s failure to leave was “willful” or “voluntary.”

O’Toole also found that the administration had failed to comply with rulemaking processes in implementing its streamlined fine-imposition process because it did not offer the public a chance to first comment on the policy change.

Congressional lawmakers have attempted to challenge the administration’s fines against migrants through the Immigration and Nationality Act. Sens. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., urged DHS and DOJ to pause the “improper application of certain civil penalties” in the law to “law-abiding immigrants.”

Reuters contributed to this report.

Dayton, Ohio – Former employees of Fuyao Glass America Inc., a Chinese-linked glass manufacturer that moved into an old General Motors plant in Ohio, gathered around one of the most prominent congressmen in the U.S. today to share their stories of misery, pain and neglect they claimed to have suffered while working for the CCP-linked corporation.

“My experience at Fuyao was not a good experience,” Tiffany Moore, a woman who identified herself as a three-year veteran of the factory, told a group that gathered at the International Union of Electrical Workers in Dayton, Ohio, on Tuesday. 

“The heat in there is unbearable; they don’t care,” she told the group — a group that included Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif.

WHAT THE GOLF CART INDUSTRY CAN TEACH US ABOUT CHINA’S THREAT TO AMERICAN JOBS

Khanna, the ranking member on the House Select Subcommittee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), made the trek to Dayton to conduct Congressional oversight on Fuyao.

Khanna had previously sent Fuyao a letter asking them to submit a packet of information to his committee, including information on wage suppression, worker conditions and violating U.S. immigration and labor laws.

DEMAND TO END ‘SCAM’ VISA PROGRAM REPLACING AMERICAN WORKERS SURGES, WEST VIRGINIA CONGRESSMAN REVEALS

“Fuyao Glass America Inc. (FGA) has only provided a single supposed reply letter, dated September 23, that answers virtually none of the Committee’s questions in a material way and fails to include any document submissions,” Khanna wrote in an Oct. 1 letter to the company’s leadership.

“Thus far, a generous interpretation of your approach toward this investigation would be that Fuyao does not appreciate Congress’s oversight function and the American system of government,” Khanna wrote.

“A less generous interpretation of your lack of transparency would be that your companies have something to hide, beyond even what multiple federal investigations, documentaries, and press reports about Fuyao’s conduct have already uncovered,” the letter, shared exclusively with Fox News Digital, read.

Khanna, despite requesting permission to visit the Lorraine, Ohio, factory, did not receive express permission from the company to do so. Despite the lack of response, Khanna continued to conduct his business, convening a roundtable that included a wide swath of former Fuyao workers.

BLUE STATES SET TO TRIGGER FRESH MINIMUM WAGE HIKES WITH PAY FLOORS MORE THAN DOUBLE FEDERAL RATE

Demetria Hodges, who identified herself as having worked at Fuyao for five years, explained how she believed the company went to great lengths to prevent the workers from unionizing.

“First they were trying to use scare tactics to get us to not vote for the union,” Hodges said.

DAVID MARCUS: WHY JD VANCE’S RESHORING MESSAGE IS A PERFECT FIT FOR STRUGGLING SMALL TOWNS LIKE ST. CLOUD

“Then they offered a $2 an hour pay raise … which they have never given again. And that was like 10 years ago,” she added.

An attendee named Darrell, who identified themselves as a former employee, also pointed out the company’s failure to cease operations when 57-year-old Ricky Patterson was killed in a grisly industrial accident in the factory.

LARGEST-EVER US STEEL PLANT IS COMING TO A KEY RED STATE AS TRUMP UNVEILS $15B INVESTMENT

“When that guy got smashed by … glass, we had to work the next day, we were stressed out. He was trying to load up the glass. He was a little shaky because he had just lost his mom,” Darrell told the roundtable.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

“They made us work,” he told the group, who all expressed shock at the revelation.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday he will speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin “very soon” as his administration closely tracks reports of a suspected pneumonic plague death in Siberia that have prompted a U.S. health alert and heightened health precautions across several countries bordering Russia.

Trump revealed the planned call while taking questions from reporters Tuesday.

Asked whether he had spoken with Putin about the situation, Trump said he already had a call scheduled.

“I have a call scheduled, yup,” Trump said.

TRUMP RESPONDS TO CONCERNS OVER SUSPECTED PLAGUE CASE IN RUSSIA, SAYING US ‘WILLING TO HELP’

Asked when the call would take place, the president responded, “Very soon.”

Trump said the administration was in “very deep discussions” when asked what U.S. intelligence agencies were saying about the reports.

The president’s comments came as the U.S. Embassy in Moscow issued a health alert Tuesday saying it was aware of press reports from Russia’s Irkutsk region of “suspected pneumonic plague resulting in the death of an individual,” along with associated quarantine measures and hospital closures.

“We continue to track the situation closely,” the embassy said.

NEW YORK DECLARES MEASLES DISASTER EMERGENCY AS CASES SURGE IN PENNSYLVANIA

A State Department spokesman told Fox News Digital that the department, along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other interagency partners, is “closely monitoring the fatal case of suspected pneumonic plague” in Russia’s Irkutsk Oblast.

“The Trump Administration has no higher priority than the safety and security of Americans,” the spokesman said.

The spokesman cautioned that “many details remain unconfirmed” and called on Moscow to provide greater clarity.

“We encourage Russian authorities to share accurate information quickly and openly,” the spokesman said.

The alert advised Americans in the area to follow local health guidance, avoid affected medical facilities and seek prompt medical care if they develop fever or respiratory symptoms. Those who have traveled to an area experiencing an outbreak were advised to monitor their health for 14 days.

The State Department’s existing Level 4 “Do Not Travel” advisory for Russia remains unchanged. The embassy reiterated that Americans currently in Russia should depart and warned that the U.S. government’s ability to assist citizens there is limited, particularly outside Moscow.

UKRAINE STRIKES DEEP INTO RUSSIA’S ARCTIC GAS HEARTLAND AS TRUMP PUSHES PUTIN TOWARD PEACE

Several countries bordering Russia are also implementing new health precautions in response to the reports.

Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are moving to implement what their governments have described as “enhanced health and sanitary measures” in response to reports of pneumonic plague in Siberia.

A 28-year-old employee of the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute of Siberia and the Far East died last week from what Russian authorities described as pneumonia of undetermined origin. Russia has not said the woman died of plague and said testing found no microorganisms in her body linked to her work.

Russian officials told the WHO that her contacts tested negative for dangerous infectious pathogens. The WHO has assessed the risk to the general population as low.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has also said it is closely monitoring the reports and working across the U.S. government as additional information becomes available. The agency said there is currently no indication of a broader threat to the United States.

Pneumonic plague is a serious bacterial infection caused by Yersinia pestis. It can spread between people through respiratory droplets during close contact and can progress rapidly if untreated. The disease can be successfully treated with antibiotics, particularly when identified and treated early.

For now, U.S. officials are continuing to seek additional information about what occurred in Irkutsk and whether the incident poses any wider threat.

The president suggested his administration could have more to say as soon as Wednesday.

“We’ll be able to report about it probably tomorrow,” Trump said.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.

A top official at the Department of War discussed how artificial intelligence is playing a role in war readiness strategy, and said foreign adversaries are carrying out “psyop” operations to fuel the anti-data center and anti-artificial intelligence movement across the U.S.

During an interview with Fox News Digital in the White House, Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering Emil Michael warned that the movement to decrease production for artificial intelligence infrastructure is being pushed by America’s adversaries.

“It is natural from a propaganda standpoint that your adversary, who doesn’t want you to be developing super intelligence ahead of them, is going to try to psyop your population into believing that. And to some degree, it’s worked. And I think that’s why you see the president push back and say, ‘no, this is a good thing,’” he said.

CRUZ SAYS WINNING AI RACE AGAINST CHINA IS ‘SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT ECONOMIC QUESTION’ FOR AMERICA

Data center production has been at the center of debate ahead of the midterm elections, with lawmakers taking near-partisan stances as to whether developments should continue. Michael referred to data centers as the “electricity that fuels the superintelligence revolution,” and explained that continued production of facilities are a crucial part of ensuring the U.S. maintains the lead in the artificial intelligence race.

Protests have popped up across the country against data centers and artificial intelligence advancements in general, with some lawmakers raising questions about the role that foreign influence plays in the demonstrations.

DATA CENTERS COULD BE THE SLEEPER ISSUE OF THE 2026 MIDTERM ELECTIONS

“It’s the same reason we saw Middle Eastern countries paying for anti-fracking movements,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told Fox News Digital in an interview last month. “Because if they can convince America, ‘Don’t develop your oil and gas, just buy it from us,’ well, that’s great for them and terrible for us.

“The same is true on data centers. If they can convince Americans, ‘You don’t want data centers here, you want to just rely on the Chinese for AI,’ that’s great for China, and it’s terrible for America.”

CHINA ‘THROWING GASOLINE ON THE FIRE’ IN AI DATA CENTERS RACE, SAY LAWMAKERS

Michael echoed some of Cruz’s concerns about foreign influence, though he did not specifically name China as the culprit.

Lawmakers have raised questions about hundreds of millions of dollars that American-born communist tech tycoon Neville Roy Singham pumped into nonprofits and organizations that are now among the leading organizations fighting data center development throughout the country. Recipients of Singham’s largesse include the Party for Socialism and Liberation and the ANSWER Coalition, both self-described pro-China communist groups.

HOUSE PANEL TO PROBE FOREIGN ‘TROJAN HORSES’ AS SINGHAM SCRUTINY WIDENS

Last month, activists from both groups carried signs in a Chapel Hill, N.C., protest, merging anti-Trump sentiments with support for communist Cuba and opposition to data centers and AI development, including the message, “SHUT IT DOWN!”

Singham, a 72-year-old American who sold his tech company for $785 million in 2017 and now lives in Shanghai, is known to fund pro-Chinese Communist Party groups that operate in the U.S. He has funneled $278 million into the broad network of nonprofits since 2017, according to a Fox News Digital investigation.

MARXIST ORGANIZER LEADS CAMPAIGN AGAINST VIRGINIA AI DATA CENTER AS FOREIGN INFLUENCE CONCERNS MOUNT

The Party for Socialism and Liberation Boston, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit whose national chapter regularly partners with and supports the Singham network, posted to social media in July openly opposing data centers, saying the control of AI and data centers is in the hands of billionaires.

“Workers are rising up across the country in a growing movement against the tech billionaires – from fights against data centers in hundreds of cities, to labor organizing at the world’s biggest tech corporations,” the post read.

As for how the Department of War utilizes artificial intelligence, Michael told Fox News Digital that usage has skyrocketed since Secretary Pete Hegseth assumed the cabinet role, growing from roughly 70,000 users out of a 3.5 million-person workforce to approximately 1.7 million today.

He explained that the Department of War is deploying artificial intelligence across three main areas: enterprise operations, warfighting and intelligence.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

“We have incredible vignettes and stories about how people took 200 hours of work and combined it down to two hours,” he added. “They can see what we have as assets. They can see what the adversary has as assets – they can time things better, they write quicker, they can consolidate orders quicker.”

FIRST ON FOX: A blue city in one of the country’s hottest battleground states is accused of being a potential hotbed of foreign worker visa fraud, according to the House lawmaker who represents the area.

Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., is writing to the Trump administration on Tuesday asking for an investigation into alleged abuse of the H-1B work visa program in his own district. He warned in the letter that his district is a “suspected hotspot of this fraud” and offered himself as “an interlocutor to help enable cooperation with state-level agencies and law enforcement.”

Georgia’s 7th Congressional District, which McCormick represents, encompasses part of the Atlanta metro area including the city’s northern suburbs. That includes part of Fulton County, whose top prosecutor, Fani Willis, has been under heavy scrutiny by Republicans in recent years.

FEDERAL JUDGE STRIKES DOWN TRUMP’S $100K H-1B VISA FEE, RULING IT AN UNCONSTITUTIONAL TAX

“Established by the Immigration Act of 1990, the purpose of the H-1B program is to allow American businesses to temporarily bring in foreign citizens to fill key, high-skill employment positions when the domestic workforce demonstrably cannot provide the necessary labor,” McCormick wrote.

“Unfortunately, the H-1B program has become the subject of rampant fraud and abuse for the nefarious purposes of obtaining labor that bad actors can exploit below-market-rate wages and abusive work conditions given H-1B holders’ dependence on retaining their employment in order to avoid removal back to their country of origin.”

FURY ERUPTS AS US BRAND FIRES 1,600 EMPLOYEES AFTER SECURING THOUSANDS OF FOREIGN WORKER VISAS

He said the alleged fraud is sowing uncertainty in the U.S. labor market by undercutting wages and unfairly increasing competition for American workers, particularly those fresh out of college.

“Bad actors have developed illicit methods for meeting the requirements for obtaining H-1B visas and the necessary work authorizations, and they employ these methods at scale to enrich themselves through fraud and exploitation via the most threadbare compliance with the letter of the law,” McCormick wrote.

VICE PRESIDENT VANCE SAYS MIGRANT COMMUNITIES SHOW ‘CLEAR PATTERN’ IN FEDERAL FRAUD AS INVESTIGATIONS WIDEN

The Georgia Republican said his suspicions were raised by “stakeholder engagement, reports from my constituents, and recent federal investigation and enforcement activity targeting entities in and around GA-07.”

And while he did not name specific businesses or people he believes are associated with such fraud, McCormick argued, “Metro Atlanta’s recent economic growth and international airport unfortunately make it a logical area of concentration for these bad actors.”

EXCLUSIVE: ‘PHANTOM EMPLOYEES’ SCANDAL SPURS GOP CRACKDOWN ON $36B INCENTIVE FOR COMPANIES TO BYPASS AMERICANS

The Trump administration launched an investigation into suspected H-1B visa fraud in July.

H-1B visas have become the subject of fierce debate on the right, with prominent critics like Vice President JD Vance calling it a “broken” system while calling to eliminate it altogether.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Supporters of H-1B visas, like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, have argued it’s critical for attracting global talent in fields like technology and engineering that are key to keeping the U.S. at the forefront of global innovation.

Republicans are quietly warning that the true consequence of losing the Senate could be one that shapes the makeup of courts and the law for years to come.

While Republican candidates and surrogates on the campaign trail are warning of a rise in socialism and a return to Biden-era policy should Democrats flip Congress this cycle, some are pushing a different message: if Democrats win the Senate, they’ll block future Supreme Court nominees.

“I think the key over the next 34 days is bringing home Republicans. And I think it’s important to remind some of these Republicans who are not energized yet that the Supreme Court’s on the ballot,” Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., told Fox News Digital.

BATTLE OVER DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME ERUPTS AS PUSH TO STOP CHANGING CLOCKS HITS SENATE WALL

Daines, who chaired the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) in 2024, played a key role in flipping the Senate two years ago. That election was dominated by pocketbook issues, much like this midterm cycle, and Democrats have pounced upon that message.

But the Supreme Court and the implications of the balance of power in the Senate are a message Daines contended the GOP wasn’t pushing enough.

“I mentioned that to the White House. And it’s — that’s not a silver bullet, it’s a silver buckshot,” of several issues Republicans should be talking about, Daines said.

If Trump doesn’t have a GOP majority in the upper chamber, he said, “if we have a vacancy, Sotomayor, Clarence Thomas, who knows — we could not, President Trump could not move through a Supreme Court justice.”

DEMS HAND GOP FRESH MIDTERM WEAPON BY OPPOSING WIDELY USED VOTER ID

The high court is aging, with conservative stalwarts on the bench, Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas, 78, and Samuel Alito, 76, nearing octogenarian status. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, 72, and Chief Justice John Roberts, 71, aren’t that far behind.

“The Supreme Court as we know it would cease to exist under Troy Jackson, Abdul El-Sayed and James Talarico, who are hell-bent on replacing it with a bloated, lawless body designed to advance Democrats’ socialist agenda,” NRSC spokeswoman Bernadette Breslin told Fox News Digital.

Speculation has swirled over Alito after NPR earlier this year published a report declaring his retirement before swiftly retracting it.

Alito added some fuel to that fire, however, during an interview with CBS earlier this month. When asked if he was considering retirement, he admitted to considering it earlier this year, and noted that “it’s something I think that somebody at my age has to think about every term.”

DEMOCRATS THINK A BLUE WAVE IS BUILDING. HERE ARE 3 FORCES THAT COULD STOP IT

Democrats haven’t been keen to support several of Trump’s nominees for a variety of positions throughout the government over the last two years. Notably, Republicans went nuclear last year to change the Senate’s rules to move through bundles of nominees that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Democrats were blocking.

And Schumer suggested that a Supreme Court pick, should there be a vacancy, and other positions in the judiciary may suffer the same fate.

“The bottom line is one of the reasons that we want to make sure we do everything we can to take back the Senate is not let Trump put such horrible justices, MAGA justices on the Supreme Court and the lower courts,” Schumer said.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Daines noted that sometimes voters look for a shortcut to head to the polls, and that the Supreme Court being a quiet issue on the ballot could very well be that path to energizing a Republican base to getting out and voting as the midterm cycle winds down.

“Without a Republican majority, President Trump will not be able to move his Supreme Court nominee through, and that’s a nominee that’ll be on the bench for 25 years,” Daines said. “We need Republicans to connect those dots. Disgruntled Republicans in Texas, come home and vote for Ken Paxton, because the Supreme Court’s on the ballot.”

Revelations that the Biden-era FBI tracked Trump family travel and top aide Susie Wiles’ phone records received a blistering rebuke from a former top Democratic official who compared the behavior to Nixon-era abuses of federal power that surfaced amid the Watergate scandal.

The FBI investigation codenamed “Plasmic Echo,” later taken over by special counsel Jack Smith, examined Trump’s alleged improper retention of classified and national-defense material and possible obstruction. Records show agents tracked first lady Melania Trump’s and Barron Trump’s travel while planning the 2022 Mar-a-Lago search and later logged metadata from now-Chief of Staff Susie Wiles’ calls with attorneys, journalists and others.”

Julian Epstein, the former chief counsel for the House Judiciary Committee’s Democratic bench, compared the situation to the scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon.

JACK SMITH’S PROBE SWEPT UP FOX NEWS, OTHER MEDIA COMMUNICATIONS WITH GOVERNMENT SOURCES

“It’s hard to think of good justifications for this. To me, it feels a little Nixonian,” said Epstein, who also served as staff director to Democrats on a second powerful panel, the House Oversight Committee.

“If this report is true, then it’s pretty bad. If true, then those in charge at the time better have some darn good explanations for surveillance of family members and advisors talking privately to lawyers or exercising their free-speech rights with the news media,” he said.

Nixon, a California Republican, maintained an “Enemies List” developed by White House aides around top adviser Charles Colson and later formalized by White House counsel John Dean. Dean – now a vocal critic of Republicans like Trump – once described it in a 1971 memo as intended to “use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.”

Epstein questioned what legal justification investigators had for monitoring the contacts, particularly those involving lawyers and journalists.

VETERAN DEM BREAKS PARTY LINE AS JACK SMITH SPYING SCANDAL GRIPS CAPITOL HILL

“[That] seems like a stretch,” he said.

Epstein appeared to be among the few prominent Democrats publicly criticizing the newly disclosed investigative tactics Tuesday, including the tracking of Melania and Barron Trump’s travel and the collection of Wiles’ call metadata.

SECRET PHONE-RECORD SEIZURE SPARKS PERSONAL LAWSUIT FROM GOP SENATOR

Fox News Digital reached out to Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat who just months ago similarly broke party-silence to object to prior revelations from Smith’s probe.

Blumenthal told Fox News Digital in July that Republicans were right to be upset that some of their communications were subpoenaed without their notice.

“I think we need to have more facts. Look into it. Republicans are rightly concerned about the possible breach of norms and improper access to email,” Blumenthal said at the time.

In a separate disclosure on July 14, the GOP-led Senate Judiciary Committee released records showing that Smith’s 2020-election investigation obtained and reviewed text messages exchanged between Trump White House officials and 44 current and former members of Congress, including Republicans and Democrats.

Theo Wold, a former acting assistant U.S. attorney general under Trump who later served as Idaho’s solicitor general, said the new disclosures involving Melania, Barron and Wiles vindicate Republicans who have long warned of a so-called “Deep State.”

“But now we know that DOJ, the FBI, and the wider intelligence community have targeted Catholics, homeschool families, pro-life prayer warriors, and even the then-leading Republican Presidential candidate and his family,” Wold said.

“The Deep State is real. They have abused their authority for political gain. They have wielded government power against innocent Americans to coordinate their attack on opposition political figures and dissident movements.”

The White House also condemned the newly disclosed tracking of Trump family travel and collection of Wiles’ call metadata.

“Jack Smith’s surveillance operation was a disgraceful abuse of government power. Spying on political opponents is weaponization of law enforcement, plain and simple,” White House spokesperson Lauren Bis told Fox News Digital. “Those responsible must be held accountable.”

On one day in March 2023, documents showed investigators logged metadata for 39 calls made or received by Wiles.

Calls to and from multiple campaign contacts, a lawyer and an extension associated with Melania Trump were among those logged in Wiles’ phone metadata.

SIGN UP TO GET THE POLITICS NEWSLETTER

Former RNC official Elizabeth Pipko highlighted Wiles as someone that critics should be emulating, not celebrating the surveillance of.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

“She managed a historic and victorious presidential campaign and became the first woman to serve as White House chief of staff. Her story should inspire young women. Instead, hatred from President Trump’s opponents teaches young people that if you work for the ‘wrong’ candidate, you and those around you can become targets,” Pipko told Fox News Digital.

The revelations come after Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, told Fox News Digital exclusively that Smith’s probe had also captured communications with dozens of journalists, including some from Fox News.

Fox News Digital reached out to counsel for Smith for comment.

The unexplained death of a researcher at a Russian anti-plague institute has one former senior U.S. arms official warning it could be ‘far worse’ than the bacteria that caused the Black Death.

Marshall Billingslea, who served as President Donald Trump’s special presidential envoy for arms control, said a top Soviet bioweapons defector told him decades ago about secret work on antibiotic-resistant plague at the same facility where the recent plague-related death occurred.

“This may not be just ‘the plague.’ It may be far worse,” Billingslea wrote on X.

He spent much of the 1990s working on proliferation and arms control issues on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — and during that time worked with Ken Alibek, the former No. 2 official in the Soviet biological weapons program who defected to the U.S.

BIOWEAPON THREAT EXPOSED AS ANTHROPIC SOUNDS ALARM ON FOREIGN ACTORS PLOTTING VIRUS EXPERIMENTS

“He claimed that they had engineered a strain of plague that was antibiotic-resistant & that they had worked on plague chimeras (fusing 2 or more pathogens),” Billingslea wrote of Alibek.

“He specifically called out Irkutsk for being involved in the BW program,” he added.

Billingslea’s warning comes after a 28-year-old employee of the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute of Siberia and the Far East died last week from what Russian authorities have described as pneumonia of undetermined origin.

Russia has not said the woman died of plague and said testing found no microorganisms in her body linked to her work.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said Tuesday that Russian officials told the agency no plague or other high-threat pathogen had been detected among her close contacts, though they are still awaiting confirmation of what caused her fatal pneumonia.

DEFENSE DEPARTMENT SCIENTIST’S ACCIDENTAL DEATH RAISES QUESTIONS AS PROBE INTO MISSING SCIENTISTS GROWS

About 60% of the woman’s identified contacts have been tested so far, according to Russian authorities, with two cases of COVID-19 and two rhinovirus infections detected — but no other infectious disease pathogens.

Still, the unexplained death at a facility that works with dangerous pathogens has drawn scrutiny from biosecurity experts — including questions about why the cause remains unknown.

Kevin Esvelt, an MIT professor who studies biological security and catastrophic pandemic risks, said Russia’s latest explanation suggests the researcher did not die from plague while leaving unanswered what killed her.

“If we take the Russian authorities at their word, it is not plague,” Esvelt wrote Tuesday.

“But untargeted research-grade sequencing reliably identifies pathogens, and people seldom die of pneumonia without pathogens, let alone 28-year-olds,” he added. “It would be surprising if they did not know the cause.”

Esvelt cautioned that more alarming explanations remain hypothetical.

“The concerning possibility is still only a possibility,” he wrote.

The questions surrounding the death come against the backdrop of the Soviet Union’s documented history of secretly developing biological weapons, including weaponized plague, and U.S. assessments that elements of that program continued after the Soviet collapse.

In its 2025 arms control compliance report, the State Department assessed that Russia maintains an offensive biological warfare program in violation of the Biological Weapons Convention and that the Soviet program was “absorbed, not dismantled” after the Soviet collapse.

The department said the program “has continued and evolved” under the Russian Federation and that Moscow continues activities prohibited under the convention. Russia has repeatedly denied maintaining an offensive biological weapons program.

The U.S. assessment does not establish any connection between Russia’s biological weapons program and the researcher’s death in Irkutsk, and no such connection has been confirmed.

NEW YORK DECLARES MEASLES DISASTER EMERGENCY AS CASES SURGE IN PENNSYLVANIA

The Soviet program Billingslea referenced was one of the world’s largest clandestine biological weapons efforts. Alibek, born Kanatjan Alibekov, rose to become the first deputy chief of Biopreparat, the ostensibly civilian network that formed a major part of the Soviet biological weapons apparatus, before defecting to the United States in 1992.

After his defection, Alibek provided U.S. officials with extensive information about the scale and capabilities of the Soviet program. He described Soviet scientists working to weaponize pathogens including plague and developing strains designed to withstand antibiotics.

His claims about some aspects of the Soviet program have faced scrutiny over the years, making independent documentation particularly important. But the existence and enormous scale of the Soviet biological weapons effort — conducted despite Moscow’s 1975 ratification of the Biological Weapons Convention — is well established.

The Irkutsk institute says it was founded in 1934 as a scientific and operational center for combating plague. Its mission later expanded to other highly dangerous diseases, including cholera and anthrax, and it describes itself today as a research and anti-epidemic facility responsible for helping protect the region from infectious disease.

The Trump administration has said it is closely monitoring the situation and pressed Moscow for greater transparency about what happened.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that while travel between the U.S. and Russia remains limited, an infectious disease could quickly spread beyond Russia’s borders.

“If something like that gets out, it could quickly spread,” Rubio said.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

President Donald Trump said the U.S. would offer assistance to Russia if needed.

“I hate to see them having it,” Trump told reporters Monday. “It’s a rough disease.”

Former President Joe Biden has been largely absent from the campaign trail as Democrats fight to win back House and Senate majorities in November, even as former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Kamala Harris step up efforts to boost the party’s candidates.

Biden, 83, has kept a limited public schedule while battling advanced, metastatic prostate cancer. He has endorsed candidates and is helping Democrats raise money, according to a source in Biden’s political circle. But the former president has made few political appearances this year.

The contrast is increasingly visible with four weeks to go until Election Day.

Obama is cutting ads for Senate and gubernatorial candidates, helping the party fundraise and preparing to hit the trail during the closing stretch of the midterm campaign. Harris, the Democrats’ 2024 presidential nominee, is also campaigning across key battleground states, including a recent stop in Michigan with Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed.

MIDTERM MATH: THE THREE FORCES THAT COULD STOP A DEMOCRATIC BLUE WAVE

Biden has appeared at just a handful of political events this year. He spoke in February at a reception honoring his 2020 South Carolina primary victory, which propelled him toward the Democratic nomination and eventually the presidency. In June, he addressed a Maryland Democratic Party event.

Longtime Democratic strategist Michael Ceraso told Fox News Digital that some in the party’s elite and fundraising class are concerned that “if Biden were to be pushed out there in any sort of way for virtual or in-person opportunities, he could be a liability.”

Veteran Democratic strategist Maria Cardona had a different take, telling Fox News Digital, “there are still a ton of Americans who love Joe Biden.”

Biden did weigh in on a handful of Democratic primary showdowns this cycle. The former president endorsed former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms for governor. Bottoms, who later served as a senior advisor in the Biden administration, won the Georgia Democratic gubernatorial nomination.

The former president also backed Dan Koh, another Biden administration veteran, who captured the Democratic nomination in Massachusetts’ 6th Congressional District.

HEAD HERE FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS REPORTING ON FORMER PRESIDENT BIDEN

Biden is also advocating on behalf of efforts to secure democracy.

“American democracy begins and ends at the ballot box. There is no more important civic duty nor fundamental right to be defended,” the former president wrote on social media last month, as he cast his ballot in his home state of Delaware’s primary. “Voting defines our freedom and makes everything possible.”

But mostly, Biden has served as a foil for President Donald Trump, who Biden ousted from the White House in the 2020 election. Four years later, Biden ended his re-election bid after a disastrous debate performance against Trump in their 2024 rematch.

Trump and fellow Republicans are repeatedly blaming Biden for high prices at the gas and diesel pumps, even though public opinion polls indicate most Americans now point fingers at Trump and his administration.

Biden left the presidency with poor approval ratings, as he faced high inflation, foreign policy divides, and lingering questions about his ability to serve in office. He stood at 42% approval and 57% disapproval in January 2025, in the final Fox News poll during his White House tenure.

Post-presidency, Biden held a 71% favorable rating among Democrats in a CNN poll conducted in May. But Biden’s favorable rating among Democrats was 25 points lower than that of Obama.

DEMOCRACY ’26: STAY UP TO DATE WITH THE FOX NEWS ELECTION HUB

Meanwhile, some Democrats still blame him for Trump’s 2024 re-election, arguing that Biden did not get out of the race in time to allow Harris to mount a successful campaign.

Ceraso, a veteran of two presidential campaigns, pointed back to the 2024 election and told Fox News Digital that Biden left a “bad taste with some Democrats, especially within the in the party’s elite and fundraising class.”

He added, “I do not think Biden has the same level of charisma as Vice President Harris and former President Obama, and if I’m organizing an event to get thousands of people to come out, I would not do that around Biden.”

Cardona, a Democratic National Committee member, said that Biden’s health is stifling requests for campaign trail appearances.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

“I guarantee you no one would try to bother him to come campaign for them while, at 83-years-old, he is battling cancer and in the toughest fight of his life,” Cardona emphasized.

Fox News Digital reached out to a Biden spokesman for comment, but did not receive a response at the time this story was published.

The Trump administration is turning to a defense technology giant in a $6.6 billion effort to speed production of submarines as the U.S. struggles to keep pace with China’s vast shipbuilding capacity.

The ramp-up in production brings a Silicon Valley-style manufacturer into one of the Pentagon’s most troubled industrial bases as they fall behind expected pace of two Virginia-class attack submarines per year.

Anduril will build a more than 2-million-square-foot shipyard at Sparrows Point shipyard just outside of Baltimore to manufacture critical submarine components, eventually scaling up to large sections of the vessels. A senior administration official said the facility could add roughly 9 million labor hours a year, equivalent to about a 15% increase in submarine production capacity.

President Donald Trump will visit the shipyard on Tuesday afternoon to formally announce the new initiative in Baltimore alongside Anduril leadership.

NAVY SECRETARY WARNS SHIPYARDS MUST ‘ACT LIKE WE’RE AT WAR’ AS CHINA’S AI-POWERED FLEET RACES AHEAD

The investment takes aim at a problem the Navy has struggled for years to solve: shipyards are delivering roughly 1.3 Virginia-class submarines a year, well short of the Navy’s goal of two, even as demand for the nuclear-powered attack boats grows. The Navy currently projects reaching the two-per-year rate around 2032. It currently has 26 Virginia-class submarines and expects to add two more in the spring, according to a senior administration official.and

For the submarine project, Anduril plans to invest $3.7 billion of its own capital to build the facility, workforce and manufacturing capacity. The Navy could spend up to another $2.9 billion purchasing the resulting production.

The deal represents an unusual bet on a commercial model for fixing one of the Pentagon’s most stubborn industrial problems: Anduril will risk billions of dollars of its own capital building new submarine production capacity, while the Navy pays for what the company can successfully produce.

“I wouldn’t say that the government’s paying us back. We feel the government [is] buying the results of what we’re able to produce,” an industry official told reporters of the deal.

EMERGING TECH HAS NEW ARMY LEADERS WARNING TROOPS CAN’T ‘AI’ THEIR WAY TO VICTORY ON THE BATTLEFIELD

The deal also deepens Anduril’s growing relationship with the Pentagon just days after War Secretary Pete Hegseth tapped company founder Palmer Luckey, along with Elon Musk and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, to launch Project Meridian — a 120-day study of how future wars will be fought and what weapons and technologies the U.S. military will need.

The arrangement puts Luckey in a position to help shape recommendations about the Pentagon’s future technology needs as the company he founded expands its own business selling weapons and other systems to the department. Project Meridian does not have procurement authority, and the Pentagon has said “appropriate” safeguards will be used to address potential conflicts of interest.

Anduril will work under General Dynamics Electric Boat and alongside HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding, initially producing components that have become bottlenecks in the construction of new Virginia-class boats.

Among the first will be torpedo tubes , which a senior administration official described as a current “gating component” holding up production. The official said getting those tubes earlier could allow the Navy to move.

Anduril has already begun work on torpedo tubes at a facility in California and plans to shift that production to Baltimore as the new shipyard, dubbed Arsenal-2, comes online. The company eventually hopes to move from individual components to complex modules and large sections of submarines.

“We just need new production capacity,” an industry official said. “We need to grow the maritime industrial base, the submarine industrial base, so that we can produce more submarines.”

The company plans to build Arsenal-2 around software, automation and digital manufacturing to break historically complex shipbuilding work into simpler tasks that can be done without years of shipyard experience.

The push comes as the Navy faces growing pressure to expand the attack-submarine fleet while also preparing to transfer Virginia-class submarines to Australia under the AUKUS security pact. Meeting those commitments will require the industrial base not only to reach the Navy’s longstanding two-per-year goal, but eventually move beyond it.

Arsenal-2 is expected to create 3,100 direct jobs and another 11,000 indirect jobs nationwide. Anduril expects the Baltimore facility to begin operations around 2030, though the company said production of some submarine components is beginning now in California.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

The approach will still have to clear the certification and safety requirements that govern nuclear submarine construction. Anduril acknowledged that it will have to prove it can meet those standards before graduating from individual components to increasingly complex sections of the boats.

FIRST ON FOX: The Treasury Department blocked $175 million in federal payments tied to deceased recipients in fiscal year 2026, up sharply from the $99 million identified just months earlier as the Trump administration expanded government-wide screening for improper payments.

“I applaud Secretary [Scott] Bessent for slamming the door on these fraudsters before they can pick taxpayers’ pockets,” Republican Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy told Fox News Digital.

“Unless you were playing Frisbee in the quad during Econ 101, you know the federal government shouldn’t be sending taxpayer money to dead people,” Kennedy went on. “I fought for years to pass my common-sense bill to stop fraudsters from gaming the system, and now it’s the law.”

Kennedy has for years pushed to give Treasury greater access to Social Security death records, helping pass a 2020 law that temporarily authorized the Social Security Administration to share its full Death Master File with the department. That three-year data-sharing program began in December 2023. Trump then signed Kennedy’s Ending Improper Payments to Deceased People Act into law in February 2026, making access permanent.

TRUMP’S WAR ON FRAUD EXPANDS AS TREASURY LAUNCHES NEW SITE WITH WHISTLEBLOWER INCENTIVES

Trump has tasked his administration with rooting out fraud, waste and abuse across the federal government and tightening safeguards around taxpayer dollars — the latest effort to stop federal benefit payments to dead people is just another initiative within that broader effort.

“President Trump continues to deliver for Americans where previous administrations have fallen short. This Administration is setting new standards in record time to prevent fraud and improper payments before hard-earned taxpayer dollars leave the Treasury. Under President Trump’s leadership, there is no tolerance for waste, fraud, and abuse,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers told Fox News Digital.

Treasury screened more than 1.1 billion federal payments totaling roughly $3.7 trillion in FY2026, identifying and returning about 13,500 payments worth $175 million that otherwise would have been distributed to individuals no longer eligible for payments due to death.

“Treasury continues to transform how the federal government protects taxpayer dollars by using better data, stronger controls, and advanced technology to stop fraud and improper payments before money goes out the door,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a press release shared with Fox News Digital.

“In the past year alone, Treasury built and deployed new safeguards that verified more than $3.7 trillion in federal payments and increased Do Not Pay access from 4 percent of programs to 99 percent, ensuring agencies have access to the data they need,” Bessent added. “We are moving beyond ‘pay and chase’ and making prevention the federal government’s first line of defense.”

WHITE HOUSE PUSHES ‘WATERSHED’ FRAUD-FIGHTING REFORM IN CONGRESS AS VANCE CONVENES TASK FORCE

More than 99% of federal programs now have access to the “Do Not Pay” tool, up from roughly 4% at the end of FY2025.

The expansion fulfills key requirements of a March 2025 executive order from Trump directing his administration to strengthen safeguards against fraud, waste and abuse involving federal payments.

Treasury also screened more than 2.3 billion records against Do Not Pay data sources in FY2026, nearly four times the 641 million records screened the previous fiscal year.

The jump comes as the program has expanded across the federal government, alongside new payment verification efforts and additional screenings for states.

VANCE TO HOST CONGRESS AT WHITE HOUSE TO DISCUSS LEGISLATIVE ACTION ON FRAUD

Treasury also tested new safeguards aimed at verifying that bank accounts belong to the intended recipients and checking Taxpayer Identification Numbers tied to federal payments.

The checks became fully operational Sept. 30 and allow Treasury to flag and return payments that fail verification before the money is sent.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

The latest figures build on Treasury’s July announcement that it had screened more than 885 million payments worth roughly $2.77 trillion and flagged more than 4,900 payments worth about $99 million tied to deceased recipients.

Amid a global health scare sparked by the death of a 28-year-old woman who worked at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East, President Donald Trump indicated that the U.S. would be willing to provide assistance to Russia.

Russian public health entity Rospotrebnadzor said Sunday that the deceased individual had been diagnosed with “pneumonia of unknown etiology,” or origin, but that testing revealed “no microorganisms associated with the patient’s professional activities.”

Rospotrebnadzor indicated it didn’t discover any incidents at the facility “involving pathogenic microorganisms.”

MYSTERY DEATH AT RUSSIAN PLAGUE LAB TRIGGERS SWEEPING PRECAUTIONS AS US WATCHES CLOSELY

During remarks on Monday, Trump said, “The germs have really become relatively stronger than they were, and things that used to work on pneumonia don’t work as well anymore.

“Anybody that has that kind of a problem, we’re always willing to help,” he said.

RUSSIAN BIO-LEAK SECRECY FOLLOWS CHERNOBYL PLAYBOOK, EX-CIA OFFICER WARNS

“While the circumstances of this reported case remain unconfirmed, plague is a serious bacterial disease that is treatable with antibiotics, particularly when recognized and treated early,” a Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson noted in a statement, according to NBC News. 

“At this time, there is no indication from available reporting of a broader threat to the United States,” the statement said. 

US MONITORING SUSPECTED FATAL PNEUMONIC PLAGUE CASE IN RUSSIA, STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL SAYS

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Fox News Digital reached out to HHS on Tuesday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

The New York Times is under fire after one of its columnists suggested that President Donald Trump is responsible for creating the culture that led to an alleged sexual assault against a woman at Cornell University by seven men.

“What this is, is it’s a fundamental disrespect for women,” columnist Michelle Cottle said on ABC News on Sunday. “You can’t send those messages no matter how drunk you are as a frat boy without having some kind of misunderstanding about what women are there for and whether this is a real person you’re dealing with.”

“And that, I think, starts, you know — we can go to the president for this one,” Cottle went on. “I mean, we are in a moment in this culture where the glorification of being thuggish and swaggering and mistreating women is kind of making you a cool kid.”

CORNELL PRESIDENT SAYS UNIVERSITY ‘MUST DO BETTER’ ON HANDLING OF SEXUAL ASSAULT ALLEGATIONS

A woman identified as Jane Doe in court records has filed a civil lawsuit against seven men she alleges gang-raped her during a ketamine- and alcohol-induced incident at Cornell University in 2024. Former President Joe Biden occupied the White House at that time.

The men have denied wrongdoing, with some saying the sex was consensual, and others saying they didn’t participate. No charges have been filed.

AOC’S DRAMATIC RETELLING OF CORNELL RAPE ALLEGATIONS COLLIDES WITH COMPLAINT DETAILS

The backlash to Cottle’s comments was fierce, especially among those pointing out that the incident happened when Biden was president, including Fox News contributor Joe Concha.

“This happened in 2024 when Biden was President. Did she not know that?” another X user asked.

“Latest edition of ‘Trump turned me into a newt!’ brought to you by a very very smart person,” said CNN contributor Scott Jennings.

“Media and pundits fall all over themselves trying to make everything and anything about Donald Trump. It’s embarrassing and so incredibly lazy,” said Tricia McLaughlin, former assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security.

“This take is SO far beyond delusional that you can’t even see sanity from here…” said conservative commentator John Ziegler.

“Of course, it’s Trump’s fault,” said the Media Research Center, which first posted the clip.

ATTORNEY FOR ACCUSED CORNELL STUDENT CALLS ON LETITIA JAMES TO STEP ASIDE OVER PRIOR COMMENTS

Trump has commented on the case, which is now being investigated by longtime foe New York Attorney General Letitia James, who in 2022 filed a civil fraud lawsuit against him. Trump in 2024 was found liable for fraud and ordered to pay more than $350 million, but the penalty was overturned on appeal.

Asked about James being appointed to investigate the alleged gang rape, Trump launched into an attack on the state attorney general.

“Well, Letitia James is a corrupt person,” Trump said. “She’s totally corrupt, and I can’t imagine it — I feel badly for whoever she’s looking at because they won’t get a fair shake. Letitia James is a corrupt person.”

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Fox News Digital reached out to The New York Times and the White House for comment.

FIRST ON FOX: Democrats’ largest campaign fundraising platform says it has strengthened its donor verification standards days after House GOP investigators accused it of potentially taking in foreign donations for U.S. campaigns, according to a new letter obtained by Fox News Digital.

Attorneys for ActBlue sent a letter to the House of Representatives on Monday announcing it is launching a new “passport verification program” as part of its “ongoing investment in the security of contributions processed from donors located abroad.”

House Republicans have for years accused ActBlue of having insufficient verification standards for weeding out illegitimate campaign donations.

The platform has long been used by a myriad of Democrats to raise money for their political campaigns, including Democratic leaders in the House and Senate. ActBlue said it paused donations from Americans abroad in 2025, however.

REPUBLICANS ZERO IN ON KEY PLAYER ACCUSED OF HELPING DEMOCRAT FUNDRAISING GIANT HIDE FOREIGN CASH

ActBlue has consistently denied wrongdoing in responses to Fox News Digital and communications to House investigators. Ten top figures within the company, including executives and founders, have pleaded the Fifth Amendment to avoid answering questions in both public and private sitdowns with GOP-led committees.

ANOTHER ACTBLUE LEADER PLEADS FIFTH AS HOUSE INVESTIGATES ALLEGED FOREIGN DONATIONS

But a new report released earlier this month, first reported by Fox News Digital, appears to show employees green-lighting donations despite some questions about where they came from.

Chief among the GOP’s concerns is ActBlue’s passport number verification. According to the report, the field only required the correct number of characters for a U.S. passport number rather than a valid code for a donation to be accepted.

GOP LAWMAKER WARNS ACTBLUE ‘GOT CAUGHT’ AS FOREIGN CASH PROBE TRIGGERS FIFTH AMENDMENT PLEAS

But the Monday letter said ActBlue’s new program “adds passport-based identity verification as a further enhancement to ActBlue’s multi-layered approach to fraud and foreign-contribution prevention.”

“In doing so, it also enables U.S. citizens located abroad—who have been unable to contribute on the ActBlue platform since 2025—to resume participating in the political process by supporting the candidates and causes of their choice,” the letter said. “The new program uses the best available technology to allow eligible donors located abroad to verify their identity using a valid U.S. passport. It reflects substantial engineering investments by ActBlue to ensure that, as it resumes processing contributions from foreign addresses, its compliance systems can withstand scrutiny.”

Committee on House Administration Chairman Bryan Steil, R-Wis., said it amounted to a confession.

“This decision to implement a NEW passport verification program only confirms what we’ve been saying: ActBlue failed to verify the citizenship of individuals who made donations from abroad. That’s unacceptable,” Steil told Fox News Digital. “This new policy should have been in place on day one. Right now, far too many questions remain unanswered, including what percentage of the billions of dollars that have flowed through ActBlue came from illegal foreign sources. Chairman Jordan, Chairman Comer, and I will continue to seek answers for the American people.”

ACTBLUE SCRUTINY FUELS NEW GOP BILLS TO TIGHTEN ELECTION DONATION RULES

The probe is being co-led by his panel as well as House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky.

A spokesperson for Jordan told Fox News Digital, “This action confirms that the platform’s fraud prevention measures were not as robust as [ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones] told Congress. We will continue to demand answers.”

The GOP’s earlier report cited a letter by Wallace-Jones to Steil, which maintained that donations on the platform made by people with addresses outside the U.S. required a passport number for verification.

But the Republicans’ report alleged that the verification “only ensures that the entered passport number contains a certain number of characters, not that it is a valid U.S. passport number,” rendering it an essentially meaningless step.

ActBlue told Fox News Digital in response to the report at the time, “There’s nothing to see here. After we released findings of a third-party forensic analysis that completely undermined a central claim that they have made against ActBlue, Republicans are refusing to move on.”

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

“Instead, they are orchestrating another political stunt before rushing out of town weeks early to go campaign. This coordinated campaign against ActBlue isn’t about the facts, or legislating, it’s about Republicans’ efforts to silence organizations they believe threaten their agenda,” the platform said.

A spokesperson for ActBlue pointed Fox News Digital to a blog post announcing the update when reached for comment.

“In 2025, amid unprecedented attacks from President Trump and his allies, our organization took the proactive step of temporarily suspending all contributions from outside the United States,” the statement said. “ActBlue has now further enhanced its verification process to allow eligible Americans with a U.S. Passport who are located abroad to participate through the platform while maintaining the robust security and compliance standards that donors, campaign, and the public expect.”

It also said ActBlue “accurately described” its vetting process to Congress.

President Donald Trump endorsed Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray, the Republican candidate for the state’s at-large U.S. House seat.

“Chuck Gray has been a tremendous Secretary of State for the Great State of Wyoming, a place I love and WON BIG in 2016, 2020, and 2024!” the president declared in part of a Monday Truth Social post.

“Chuck Gray has my Complete and Total Endorsement to be the next U.S. Representative from Wyoming — HE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!” Trump asserted.

TRUMP-ALIGNED CONSERVATIVE EMERGES FROM CROWDED PRIMARY TO DECIDE WHO FILLS WYOMING’S LONE HOUSE SEAT

Gray, who won the Wyoming GOP U.S. House primary in August, thanked the president on Monday for backing him.

“Thank you President Trump for your endorsement!” he declared in a post on X.

‘AMERICA FIRST’: WYOMING SECRETARY OF STATE CHUCK GRAY LAUNCHES HOUSE BID

“As President Trump said, I have a real track record of advancing the key priorities of the people of Wyoming, and I will continue that track record in Congress. Together, we will defend our Wyoming way of life!” Gray added.

GOP Rep. Harriet Hageman, the current occupant of the state’s only U.S. House seat, is running for U.S. Senate.

WYOMING MAN KICKS MOUNTAIN LION IN THE FACE TO SAVE HIS DOG, THEN FIGHTS IT OFF BARE-HANDED

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., is not running for a second six-year Senate term.

The battle over Americans’ clocks reemerged in an unlikely way over the weekend, with President Donald Trump picking a fight with one of his top allies over the issue.

There have been many fights in Congress over the nearly two years that Trump has been in office for his second term that either ended in partisan victory or gloriously fizzled out, but one has quietly gone onto the shelf despite his pressure on Republicans to do something about it.

And that fight is over allowing states to voluntarily observe Daylight Saving Time year-round to effectively do away with the twice-a-year ritual of changing clocks. It’s a popular issue with voters and the president, and there’s a bill that passed the House this summer to enact the change. But it’s a policy issue that has divided both sides of the aisle and ground to a halt in the upper chamber.

TRUMP URGES SENATE TO PASS BILL MAKING DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME PERMANENT AFTER OVERWHELMING HOUSE VOTE

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., has been one of the more vocal opponents of the bill, vowing to block any attempts to fast-track it on the floor. That resistance earned him a Truth Social post from Trump, who over the weekend shared his personal phone number in a bid to pressure the lawmaker to change his stance on Daylight Saving Time.

“Almost everybody wants “The Sunshine Protection Act” to pass, except for Tom Cotton,” Trump said. “To the Great People of Arkansas, please let your Senator know it would be a GREAT Bipartisan WIN for the United States Senate, and for America, itself.”

Cotton responded, and noted that Congress has tackled Daylight Saving Time before, only to roll back the change shortly after.

“No one likes changing the clock, me included, but Congress has enacted permanent Daylight Saving Time multiple times before and repealed it each time once Americans experienced absurdly late sunrises in the winter,” Cotton said on X. “Arkansans don’t want their kids going to school in the pitch dark, and I’ll always put Arkansas first.”

TRUMP FACES REPUBLICAN REBELLION OVER DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME AS SENATE BILL NEARS DEAD END

In the 1970s, lawmakers did enact year-round Daylight Saving Time. But Americans rapidly soured on the change, especially parents whose children had to wait in the dark for the school bus. It was repealed about a year later.

And Cotton recently answered an off-the-cuff question from a fellow Republican during their weekly closed-door policy lunches, a source told Fox News Digital, where he made a similar case as his response to Trump. No one pushed back during the meeting.

The issue of Daylight Saving Time, and supporting a permanent fix or sticking to the status quo is more geographical than political.

It’s, in part, mountainous and Western states versus coastal states. On one side of the spectrum are lawmakers like Sens. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., who introduced a Senate version of the bill last year.

“Every year, more Americans grow more frustrated setting their clocks back and forth, and every winter folks in Washington state despair at the prospect of losing an hour of precious sunlight when we are forced off Daylight Saving Time,” Murray said in a statement at the time.

HOUSE PASSES DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME REFORM AS TRUMP SIGNALS SUPPORT FOR ENDING CLOCK CHANGE

While lawmakers in landlocked states out West, like Sens. Steve Daines, R-Mont., and Mike Rounds, R-S.D., warn that it would cause kids in their states to go to school in the dark.

“I can see where Florida likes it for tee times at certain times of the year, but it doesn’t work so well for moms and dads putting kids on buses when the sunrise in Western Montana wouldn’t be till 9:30 in the morning. It’s not going to work for us,” Daines told CNN in July.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

The most vital currency in the Senate is floor time. And lawmakers won’t have much floor time to spare when they return after the midterm elections in November. Though it’s popular, more pressing issues like the National Defense Authorization Act, supplemental funding for the war and a looming government funding battle will likely take precedence.

And Republican leaders acknowledge that it’s not as easy a simple yes-or-no vote for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

“Depends where you’re living in the country and the impact — what it would be, in your own home state,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said in July. “So it’s not as simple as what one state might like.”

Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer is sounding increasingly bullish about his party’s chances of riding a potential blue wave into November, declaring Democrats have “the wind in our sails” as national and battleground polling points to a favorable political environment in the midterm elections.

But beneath that confidence are three variables that could determine whether the Democratic advantage becomes a wave — or breaks before Election Day: a potential polling undercount of Republicans, persistent voter skepticism of the Democratic brand, and the GOP’s financial firepower advantage.

Schumer, speaking to reporters last week as the Senate adjourned until after Election Day, predicted that Democrats are “on the edge of taking back the Senate.”

After nearly two years of President Donald Trump back in the White House and Republican control of the Senate and the House, Schumer emphasized, “Americans are frustrated with higher costs and a government they don’t believe is working for them.”

AI IS SUPERCHARGING THE CAMPAIGN AD WARS, BUT VIRAL DOESN’T MEAN VICTORIOUS

The GOP is fighting political history, which has traditionally seen the party in power in Washington lose congressional seats during midterm election years. Add to that a challenging political climate fueled by persistent inflation Americans see at the grocery store, high gas prices tied to what polls show is an unpopular war with Iran, and Trump’s negative approval ratings.

The latest polls indicate Democrats holding an advantage over Republicans in the battle for Congress and that they are more enthusiastic to vote in the midterms.

But Trump predicts that Republicans will perform much better in the midterms than critics and pollsters expect.

“I think we’re going to have a big surprise, because they don’t know what’s happening,” the president told supporters at a rally Saturday night in Ohio, as he referred to Democrats.

Here’s a closer look at the three variables.

Polling problems?

Republicans control the Senate 53-47, which means Democrats need a net gain of four seats to win back the majority. But with one month to go until Election Day, Democrats are treading deeper and deeper into red territory as Republicans stay mostly on defense.

The latest Fox News polls indicate margin of error races in Michigan, a must hold for the Democrats, and in Texas, Maine and Iowa, three seats the party is working to flip to win the majority. An average of the latest surveys also points to very close contests in Alaska, Ohio, and Kansas, where the Democrats are playing offense, and Minnesota, a leading flip opportunity for the GOP.

WHO’S UP AND WHO’S DOWN IN THE LATEST FOX NEWS MIDTERM POWER RANKINGS

But what if the polls are off?

“Polls considerably underestimated Donald Trump and other Republicans on the ticket with him in 2016, 2020, and, to a slightly lesser extent, in 2024,” polling guru, political analyst and statistician Nate Silver noted this past weekend.

But Silver added that polls in the previous two Trump-era midterms, 2018 and 2022, were essentially unbiased.

Fast-forward to this cycle, and polls in some high-profile Democratic primaries were off the mark. Among the miscues this summer, overestimating Abdul El-Sayed’s narrow victory in Michigan’s Senate showdown, and underestimating victories by Lt. Gov Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota’s Senate primary, state Rep. Angie Nixon’s win in Florida’s Senate contest, and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley’s upset victory to capture the Wisconsin gubernatorial nomination.

Coverage of the miscues grabbed widespread media attention and sparked fresh criticism of public opinion polling.

DEMOCRACY ’26: STAY UP TO DATE WITH THE FOX NEWS ELECTION HUB

If the surveys are overestimating Democratic turnout and underestimating Republican enthusiasm, even a modest polling miss could reshape several of the close Senate contests.

“I don’t think any Democrat is over optimistic after…2024. We all understand that anything can happen in the closing days, and we’re preparing for that,” longtime New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley told Fox News Digital.

Bad brand?

Trump’s approval ratings remain well underwater, as do favorable ratings for the GOP.

But surveys indicate the Democrats’ brand is nothing to brag about.

The Democrats’ favorable rating hovered in negative territory in the most recent Fox News national poll, at 44%-55%. And it was even lower in the latest Wall Street Journal national survey, at 38% favorable and 58% unfavorable.

“I think just because Americans are outraged because of how Republicans have failed them and made their life more expensive doesn’t automatically mean that they’re going to embrace and trust Democrats,” former Biden administration Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told Fox News Digital on Saturday.

Buttigieg, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate who is considering another White House run in 2028, said it’s crucial Democrats “make sure that our candidates get out there, make it very clear who they are, what they’re about, and what we would do differently.”

Making life even tougher for the Democrats: the victories by left-wing and socialist-aligned candidates over more moderate contenders in the party’s primaries, which gave the GOP more messaging ammunition to portray all Democrats on the ballot this year as radicals.

SIGN UP TO GET THE POLITICS NEWSLETTER

That’s the case in Michigan, Minnesota and Florida, where El-Sayed, Flanagan and Nixon all defeated establishment-backed rivals.

Meanwhile, in Texas, a trail of controversial past comments by Talarico is handing the GOP more firepower.

But Democrats in all four of these Senate showdowns are returning fire by anchoring the Republicans on the ballot to Trump.

In the latest Fox News poll in Texas, 53% of those questioned said they were extremely or very concerned that Talarico is too liberal. But a near equal amount, 51%, said they were extremely or very concerned that Paxton is too close to Trump.

Money matters

Republicans are winning the ad wars, thanks to a major money advantage. Boosted by massive cash infusions from the Trump-aligned MAGA Inc. and other leading Republican groups and donors, the GOP is outspending the Democrats in all of the crucial Senate showdowns.

That includes a roughly $70 million advantage in Ohio and nearly $30 million in Maine and Texas, three top targets for the Democrats, according to figures from AdImpact, a top ad-tracking firm. The GOP’s outspending the Democrats by approximately $25 million in Michigan, which Republicans are aiming to flip.

Republicans are also outspending Democrats in swing state New Hampshire, in the battle to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.

“The amount of money being spent is enormous,” Buckley told Fox News Digital, as he pointed to all the Republican-aligned ads flooding the small state.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

But Buckley said Democrats have organizing and enthusiasm advantages.

“We might not be as competitive as we’d like on television, but we’re certainly competitive knocking on the doors. We’ve got the energy out there. The voters are excited. You saw that with the turnout in the primaries throughout the country,” he said.