NationalWatch

FIRST ON FOX: It was a lucrative two days for Nikki Haley in California.

The Republican presidential candidate hauled in $1.7 million during in-person fundraising events on Tuesday and Wednesday in California, the Haley campaign shared first with Fox News.

While in California, the former two-term South Carolina governor who later served as U.N. ambassador during former President Donald Trump’s administration also held a pair of campaign events, her first in one of the 15 states that hold nominating contests on Super Tuesday in early March.

HALEY ARGUES ‘WE DIDN’T EVEN COUNT NEVADA’ AFTER BALLOT SETBACK

Haley, the last remaining major rival to Trump in the 2024 GOP nomination race, in recent weeks has been showcasing her soaring fundraising as a means of spotlighting her momentum as she faces a steep uphill climb for the 2024 GOP nomination against her former boss.

On Sunday, Haley’s team highlighted they hauled in $16.5 million in fundraising last month across all of their campaign committees, including $11.7 million from small-dollar grassroots supporters.

WHAT NIKKI HALEY TOLD FOX DIGITAL ABOUT WHAT SHE NEEDS TO DO TO KEEP RUNNING

The January haul ws Haley’s best fundraising month to date since launching her presidential campaign a year ago. 

Haley has seen her fundraising continue to increase since launching her presidential campaign a year ago. She raised $7.3 million during the April-June second quarter of 2023 fundraising, $11 million during the July-September third quarter, and over $24 million during the final three months of last year, as first reported by Fox News.

“I’m in this for the long haul,” Haley emphasized at a campaign rally at the American Legion Hollywood Post 43 in Los Angeles on Wednesday evening.

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Minutes earlier, in a Fox News Digital interview, Haley noted that when it comes to campaign finances, “we have been smart.”

And she touted that you don’t end up being “the last one standing against Donald Trump if you don’t manage your money well. So yes, we are focused on making sure we have the resources.”

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

A convicted murderer who spent 27 years behind bars has been appointed to the Washington, D.C., prison sentencing commission that drafts and modifies criminal sentencing guidelines.

Joel Castón, who was convicted of murder at the age of 18 after he killed a man in a 1994 parking lot shooting, was appointed to be one of 12 voting members on the sentencing commission, according to The Washington Post. 

When he takes up the position, Castón will be the first person who has been incarcerated to serve on the commission.

“It’s not just a win for me, it’s a win for all returning citizens nationwide,” Castón said. “It sends a resounding message to all returning citizens that you can participate in civic engagement.”

TRUMP NOT IMMUNE FROM PROSECUTION IN 2020 ELECTION CASE, FEDERAL APPEALS COURT RULES

Council member Anita Bonds, one of 12 lawmakers who voted in support of Castón, said the appointment was “the right direction for us to move in.”

“We say as a society that giving individuals a second chance is tantamount to being and having the American experience. Well, here we go,” Bonds said, according to the Washington Post. 

Castón was released from prison in 2021, nearly three decades after he killed an 18-year-old man.

WOMAN LEFT TO CRAWL BACK HOME AFTER BEING ATTACKED, ROBBED IN WASHINGTON, DC

While in prison, he made history by becoming the first person to be elected to office in Washington, D.C., by winning a seat on his district’s Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC).

He also became a mentor and instructor while he learned several languages and developed a personal finance curriculum called “Currency Catchers,” according to the Georgetown University Prisons and Justice Initiative (PJI). The group provides programs for incarcerated people and aims to end mass incarceration. 

Castón has also advocated for restorative justice and prison reform as well as consulting and other work with criminal justice organizations, the Washington Post reports. 

“It hasn’t been 27 years of waiting to go home, it’s been 27 years preparing myself to never come back to prison again,” Castón said shortly after his release, according to PJI.

In a January interview, Castón said his time in prison gave him a unique understanding of the impact of sentences and that his years of studying the criminal justice system would help him determine just punishment guidelines.

“I am going to apply sound judgment based on the facts that are presented to me, without being influenced by any outside parties,” Castón said in a January interview. “It is not fair to put me in a box simply because I was a formerly justice-involved individual. That is not fair.”

Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, a Democrat, nominated Castón, arguing that he would bring a valuable perspective to the panel from his 27 years behind bars.

That view was echoed by The Sentencing Project, a group that aims to minimize imprisonment and criminalization.

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“The perspective of an individual with lived experience of incarceration will assist in providing a well-rounded understanding of the impact and implementation of those sentences,” said Kara Gotsch, the executive director of The Sentencing Project. 

Castón’s appointment wasn’t without opposition. 

The vote was initially scheduled for Jan. 9, but Mendelson postponed it after U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves sent a letter highlighting questions about Castón’s integrity and alleging that he would probably advocate for lesser sentencing ranges given his nearly three decades spent locked up, according to the Washington Post. 

Critics also argued the timing of the appointment was wrong, given the city’s crime concerns and calls for stiffer penalties for criminals. 

Last year D.C. had the fifth-highest per capita murder rate among the nation’s biggest cities, and this year began with high-profile carjackings, robberies and killings, the Washington Post reports. 

Attorney General Merrick Garland notified congressional lawmakers that Special Counsel Robert Hur has submitted his final report after months of investigating President Biden’s alleged improper retention of classified records.

Garland, in a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Ranking Member Jerry Nadler, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin and Ranking Member Lindsey Graham, Garland said Hur submitted the final report on Monday to the Justice Department.

BIDEN CAMP REPORTEDLY FEARS PHOTOS FROM SPECIAL COUNSEL CLASSIFIED DOCS PROBE COULD DEVASTATE REELECTION BID

“Prior to submitting his report to me, Special Counsel Hur engaged with the White House Counsel’s Office and President’s personal counsel to allow comments on the report,” Garland wrote. “That included review by the White House Counsel’s Office for executive privilege consistent with the President’s constitutional prerogatives.”

Garland, though, said the White House’s privilege review “has not yet concluded.” 

“As I have made clear regarding each Special Counsel who has served since I have taken office, I am committed to making as much of the Special Counsel’s report public as possible, consistent with legal requirements and Department policy,” Garland wrote.

Garland vowed to “produce to Congress the report, its appendices, and the letter from counsel following completion of the White House’s privilege review.” 

White House spokesman Ian Sams tells FOX that the White House anticipates the privilege review of Special Counsel Hur’s report will be complete by the end of the week.

Hur has been investigating Biden’s improper retention of classified records since last year. Reports suggest there will be no charges filed against the president. 

Classified records were first found inside the Washington, D.C., offices of the Penn Biden Center think tank on Nov. 2, 2022, but only disclosed to the public in early January 2023.

A second stash of classified documents was also found inside the garage of the president’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, in December 2022, prompting Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint former U.S. Attorney Rob Hur to serve as special counsel in January 2023.

Days later, additional classified documents were found in the president’s home in Delaware. The FBI conducted a more than 12-hour search of Biden’s Delaware home, seizing additional classified records.

Biden has defended the storing of classified documents in the past.

“By the way, my Corvette is in a locked garage, so it’s not like they’re sitting out on the street,” he once said.

But Garland, on Nov. 18, 2022, appointed former DOJ official Jack Smith to serve as special counsel to investigate whether Trump was improperly retaining classified records at Mar-a-Lago.

When Smith was appointed to investigate Trump, Garland and top DOJ officials were simultaneously conducting an internal review of President Biden’s mishandling of classified records. That review, and the discovery of classified records at Biden’s office, was not disclosed to the public until January.

BIDEN INTERVIEWED BY SPECIAL COUNSEL ABOUT CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS

Republicans and allies of former President Trump were outraged, blasting the Justice Department for a double standard.

Trump pleaded not guilty to all 37 felony charges out of Smith’s probe. The charges include willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice and false statements.

Trump, the 2024 GOP front-runner, was then charged with an additional three counts as part of a superseding indictment out of Smith’s investigation — an additional count of willful retention of national defense information and two additional obstruction counts. Trump pleaded not guilty.

That trial is set to begin on May 20. 

Biden’s aides told Axios earlier this week that they are fearful former President Trump’s campaign could use the photos against the Democrat incumbent ahead of their likely 2024 rematch.

COMER DEMANDS ANSWERS ON WHETHER BIDEN CLASSIFIED RECORDS MENTION COUNTRIES RELATED TO FAMILY BUSINESS DEALS

Anthony Coley, a former senior adviser to Garland, accused the Biden team of slow-walking discovery in the president’s classified records case, versus the handling of the Trump probe.

“Against the backdrop of former President Trump’s indictment on charges of willful and deliberate retention of classified documents, the Biden team’s drip, drip, drip of information made the discoveries seem even worse,” he wrote in an op-ed.

Reports this week suggested the Biden campaign was concerned about potentially embarrassing photos included in Hur’s expected report. 

The campaign was concerned that the images would show how Biden stored classified materials. The classified documents were carried over from Biden’s time as former President Obama’s vice president.

Hur interviewed Biden at the White House — an interview that lasted two days. The White House said the president’s interview with Hur was “voluntary.”

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Last year, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, who is co-leading the impeachment inquiry against President Biden, began investigating whether the sensitive, classified documents Biden retained involved specific countries or individuals that had financial dealings with Biden family members or their related companies. 

Comer questioned why Biden would have kept certain classified materials and asked Hur to provide his committee with a list of the countries named in any documents with classification markings recovered from Penn Biden Center, Biden’s residence, including the garage, in Wilmington, Delaware, or elsewhere; and a list of all individuals named in those documents with classification markings; and all documents found with classified markings.

It is unclear if Hur cooperated with Comer’s request. 

Fox News’ Patrick Ward contributed to this report.

LOS ANGELES – Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has her eyes on the next major contest in the GOP nominating calendar – the primary later this month in her home state of South Carolina, as well as on Super Tuesday in early March.

And Haley is downplaying this week’s primary and caucus in Nevada, saying they weren’t “anything we were looking at” and charging that the caucus is “rigged” for former President Donald Trump.

Haley made her comments Wednesday, one day after she lost by a more than two-to-one margin to the “none of these candidates” option in Nevada’s state-run GOP presidential primary. The contest was open only to registered Republican voters. 

HALEY LOSES NEVADA REPUBLICAN PRIMARY WHERE TRUMP WASN’T ON THE BALLOT

Trump, the commanding front-runner for the Republican presidential nominationas he bids a third straight time for the White House, was not on Tuesday’s ballot. And voters casting ballots in the state-run Republican nominating contest couldn’t write in Trump’s name, but they could vote for a “none of these candidates” option.

Trump supporters Fox News spoke with at polling stations on primary day in Las Vegas said they were casting a ballot for “none of these candidates.”

While her name was on the ballot, the former two-term South Carolina governor who later served as U.N. ambassador in the Trump administration ignored the Nevada primary.

HALEY CAMPAIGN CHARGES NEVADA GOP CAUCUSES ‘RIGGED’

Haley didn’t campaign in Nevada ahead of the primary and hasn’t been in the state since speaking in late October at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership conference.

“In terms of Nevada, we have not spent a dime nor an ounce of energy on Nevada,” Haley campaign manager Betsy Ankney told reporters on Monday. “So Nevada is not and has never been our focus.”

Haley, speaking Wednesday with FOX 11 Los Angeles during a stop in southern California, emphasized that “we knew months ago that we weren’t going to spend a day or a dollar in Nevada, because it wasn’t worth it. And so we didn’t even count Nevada. That wasn’t anything we were looking at.”

Hours earlier, as the votes were being counted on Tuesday night, the former president took to his Truth Social network to take aim at Haley.

“A bad night for Nikki Haley. Losing by almost 30 points in Nevada to “None of These Candidates.” Watch, she’ll soon claim Victory!” he argued.

And Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita charged: “More embarrassment coming in South Carolina …the @NikkiHaley Delusional Tour continues,’ LaCivita claimed in a social media post.

BIDEN HITS THE JACKPOT IN NEVADA’S DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY

While Trump wasn’t on the primary ballot, his name will be listed on Thursday in a presidential caucus being run by the Nevada GOP.

The confusion over having two competing contests dates to 2021, when Democrats, who at the time controlled both Nevada’s governor’s office and the legislature, passed a law changing the presidential nominating contest from long-held caucuses to a state-run primary. 

The Nevada GOP objected, but last year their legal bid to stop the primary from going forward was rejected. In a twist, the judge in the case allowed the state Republicans to hold their own caucuses, where all 26 delegates will be up for grabs.

The state GOP ruled that candidates who put their name on the state-run primary ballot could not take part in the caucuses. 

Haley and some of the other now-departed Republican presidential candidates viewed the Nevada GOP as too loyal to Trump and decided to skip a caucus they believed was tipped in favor of the former president.

Nevada GOP chair Michael McDonald and both of the state’s members of the Republican National Committee are supporting Trump.

WHAT NIKKI HALEY TOLD FOX DIGITAL ABOUT WHAT SHE NEEDS TO DO TO KEEP RUNNING

“We made the decision early on that we were not going to pay $55,000 to a Trump entity that, you know, to participate in a process that was rigged for Trump,” Ankney argued on Monday.

And Haley on Wednesday charged that “Nevada – it’s such a scam. They were supposed to have a primary. Trump rigged it so the GOP chairman – who’s been indicted – would go and create a caucus.”

“We knew that it was rigged from the start,” Haley argued “Our focus is on South Carolina, Michigan, Super Tuesday.”

Michigan holds its primary on Tuesday Feb. 27, three days after the South Carolina Republican primary. Fifteen states, including the behemoths of California and Texas, hold contests a week later, on Super Tuesday.

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Haley’s two campaign stops on Wednesday in California were her first to date in any of the Super Tuesday states. And the swing to the Golden State appears in part to be a marker for Haley as she pushes back against calls by some Republicans to drop out of the race and give up her uphill climb for the nomination. 

The trip also included a series of fundraisers. And as Fox News Digital first reported on Wednesday, Haley hauled in $1.7 million in fundraising during her two days in California.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

EXCLUSIVE: A top Senate Republican is heading across the country this month to hit the campaign trail with conservative firebrand Kari Lake in Arizona, a state seen by many in the GOP as crucial to the party winning a majority in Congress’ upper chamber, as well as the White House, in November.

Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., who serves as chair of the Senate Republican conference, will join Lake in Phoenix on Feb. 29 for a number of campaign stops that will focus on the border crisis and the economic issues they say are plaguing Americans under the Biden administration.

“Kari Lake has put Arizona on the map for a Republican takeover in November. Kari Lake will bring Arizona hard work and no-nonsense to the U.S. Senate. I’m excited to campaign with her in Arizona,” Barrasso told Fox News Digital on Wednesday.

HALEY MOCKS TRUMP IN EFFORT TO ENTICE DEBATE WITH FORMER PRESIDENT AHEAD OF SC PRIMARY: ‘CAN’T HIDE’

Barrasso was the first major congressional leader to endorse Lake, who ran unsuccessfully for Arizona governor in 2022, in the days following her campaign launch last October.

The move was followed by a number of other big names that view the former news anchor as the best chance for Republicans to flip the seat currently held by independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. Those names include former President Donald Trump, Sens. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., Roger Marshall, R-Kan., Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Reps. Jim Banks, R-Ind., and Burgess Owens, R-Utah.

“I am so thankful for Senator Barrasso’s endorsement, advice, and support. He is a conservative warrior in the Senate. The Senate Majority will run through Arizona, and having Senator Barrasso on the campaign trail shows just how important this race will be for the future of our country,” Lake told Fox News Digital.

TRUMP WORLD, DEMOCRATS UNITE IN TROLLING NIKKI HALEY AFTER LOSS TO ‘LITERALLY NO ONE’ IN NEVADA PRIMARY

Arizona is expected to be one of the most closely watched races in 2024, and is widely seen as one of the best flip opportunities for Republicans, alongside West Virginia, Ohio, Montana and Nevada. Democrats currently hold a 51-49 majority with the support of Sinema and her fellow independent Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Angus King, I-Maine.

In recent cycles, races in the state have been decided within tight margins, including in 2022 when incumbent Democrat Sen. Mark Kelly defeated Republican businessman Blake Masters by less than 5%, a 2020 special election when Kelly defeated appointed Republican Sen. Martha McSally by less than 3%, and in 2018 when Sinema defeated McSally by just over 2%.

This time, though, Republicans say Lake is a stronger candidate than her predecessors, and that the outlook of her race is already better than those in some of the other states holding elections this year.

HISPANIC BUSINESS OWNER, GOP CANDIDATE RIPS DEM CRIME POLICIES AFTER DRUG ADDICTS TORCH HIS LAS VEGAS PROPERTY

“Kari Lake is the presumptive Republican nominee and is running a really strong race in Arizona. Her fundraising numbers are very competitive, and she is polling better than other GOP challengers in Montana, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. She is in a strong position to flip this seat red,” one Republican strategist told Fox News Digital.

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Lake’s only major opponent in the Republican primary is Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, and, should she become the nominee, will likely face Phoenix-area Democrat Rep. Ruben Gallego in the general election.

Early polling of a hypothetical matchup between Lake and Gallego suggests a tight race, even when including Sinema, who has not yet said whether she will run for re-election after announcing her departure from the Democrat Party in Dec. 2022.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

U.S. Senate candidate Tim Sheehy called out New York officials for the release of an illegal immigrant accused of brutally assaulting law enforcement officers, suggesting the state is more focused on charging former President Donald Trump than violent criminals.

“The crime we’re seeing on our streets right now is a direct result of soft-on-crime policies from coast to coast in this country,” Sheehy, a Montana Republican and former Navy SEAL, told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview. “Soft-on-crime DAs that apparently have time to prosecute Donald Trump for decades-old spurious cases, yet they don’t have time to arrest and hold illegal immigrants who have assaulted police officers in the street.”

A group of illegal immigrants were recently arrested in New York after being caught on camera attacking an NYPD officer and lieutenant in Times Square, but the state sparked public outrage after one of the individuals was seen being freed from custody just days later. 

“It’s unconscionable what we’re seeing happen to law enforcement in this country; these soft-on-crime policies, anti-cop policies, defund the police, abolish ICE, the list goes on,” Sheehy said the New York assault is a result of failed crime policies.

MIGRANTS WHO FLED AFTER ALLEGEDLY BEATING NYC POLICE USE STOLEN PHONES TO BUY CARS, POOLS BACK HOME: REPORT

He added that the police officers didn’t fight back, “because they knew they would not be supported by their DA.” 

“Jon Tester and the Democrat Party have been anti-law enforcement for years, and now we’re seeing the results of it from big cities in New York to small towns across the country. We’re seeing our brave men and women in blue being sold down the river by Democrat elected officials,” he told Fox.

Sheehy pointed to the state focusing on cases surrounding Republican presidential front-runner Trump, but allowing violent criminals to walk the streets and flee the state.

“Meanwhile, we’re seeing millions and millions of dollars spent on political prosecutions of Donald Trump, other conservatives around the country,” the Republican said. “Apparently, the DAs and our law enforcement agencies have the time and money to do that, but they don’t have the time and money to arrest and deport illegal immigrants, protect our men and women in blue, and obviously, in the case of these men in New York City, arrest and hold violent criminals. It’s unconscionable.”

Sheehy added that if he is elected to the Montana Senate in 2024, he “will be extremely strict on only approving cabinet appointees and judicial nominees that are pro-law enforcement and pro-rule of law.”

SCHUMER-ALIGNED GROUP THAT MEDDLED IN GOP PRIMARY HIT WITH COMPLAINT ALLEGING FEC VIOLATIONS

The Republican added that rising theft and violent crime in Montana is directly related to the ongoing issues at the southern border.

Sheehy, who is running to unseat Democrat Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., said the “criminal element” of the southern border crisis is a top issue for Montana voters going into 2024.

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“Every state is a border state, and Montana is a northern border state with a southern border problem,” Sheehy told Fox. “The most consistent issue I’m hearing from grassroots voters is extreme frustration at the southern border and the criminal element that’s brought to Montana.”

The Senate on Wednesday failed to pass a supplemental spending agreement that included aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan as well as an ambitious border security and immigration package that drew widespread opposition from conservative Republicans in both chambers since its release on Sunday.

The vote was 49-50. It needed 60 votes to pass. The vote went mostly along party lines except five Democratic no votes, and four Republicans voting yes. Sens. Ed Markey, D-Mass., Bob Menendez, D-N.J., Alex Padilla, D-Calif., Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Elizabeth Warren voted against, with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer also voting against as a procedural move to allow it to be reconsidered at a future time.

Republicans voting yes were Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, James Lankford, R-Okla., Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Mitt Romney, R-Utah.

SENATE RELEASES LONG-AWAITED BORDER LEGISLATION, MAJOR ASYLUM CHANGES

The package had been negotiated for months by Sens. Lankford, Chris Murphy, D-Conn., Krysten Sinema, I-Ariz., and Biden administration officials — and it was unveiled on Sunday evening. The $118 billion package included $60 billion for Ukraine, $14 billion for Israel, aid to Taiwan and humanitarian assistance to Gaza, and $20 billion in measures to tackle the historic and ongoing crisis at the southern border. It came in response to a White House supplemental funding request submitted to Congress late last year. 

At the core of the border package was an “emergency border authority” to mandate Title 42-style expulsions of migrants when migration levels exceed 5,000 a day over a seven-day rolling average. It also would narrow asylum eligibility while expediting the process from years to months, provide immediate work permits for asylum seekers and fund a massive increase in staffing at the border and more immigration judges. It also includes increased numbers of green cards, extra funding for NGOs and cities receiving migrants, $650 million for border wall funding and $450 million for countries to take back and re-settle illegal immigrants.

But while the administration and negotiators talked the bill up as a tough but fair way to tackle the border crisis, Republicans in the House immediately declared it a non-starter and conservative opposition in the Senate quickly stacked up. More than 20 Republican lawmakers in the upper chamber argued this week the provisions would not sufficiently reduce the historic number of illegal migrant crossings, and warned it would normalize record-high levels of illegal immigration. 

“We supported a negotiation to bring commonsense border security to this country,” Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, said on Tuesday. “We did not agree to a border fig leaf to send another $61 billion to Ukraine.”

“But the fact of the matter is the package includes catch and release still providing additional continuing incentives for people to come to the country illegally knowing they’ll be released into the interior and it does nothing to stop the Biden administration from abusing something called parole” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said.

It also found opposition from some liberal Democrat senators and left-wing immigration groups who claimed it would harm migrants seeking asylum. Menendez had called the bill an outright betrayal to the communities we have sworn an oath to protect and represent.” The text was released on Sunday night and by Tuesday morning, GOP Leader Mitch McConnell said it had no chance of passing.

IMMIGRATION HAWKS WARN CONGRESS THAT SENATE DEAL WILL HANDCUFF FUTURE ADMINISTRATIONS ON SECURING BORDER

“I think, in the end, even though the product is approved by the [National Border Patrol Council] that adores President Trump, most of our members feel that we’re not going to be able to make a law here,” said McConnell, a strong supporter of aid to Ukraine. 

With the border and foreign aid package now dead, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., will proceed to tee up a vote on the supplemental package without the border security section, although the timing on that was not immediately clear. But Republicans are likely to oppose that too, having promised that they would only approve more funding for Ukraine once the southern border is secure.

Supporters of the package expressed disappointment about the bill’s failure.

“Both Democrats and Republicans are probably pretty happy that we’re not going to do anything about border security,” Sinema told Fox News’s Bill Hemmer on America’s Newsroom before the vote. “But as Arizona’s senator, I can tell you, this is devastating to my state.”

Schumer told reporters at their weekly press conference on Tuesday the package “is so important for the security of America at the border for the security of Ukraine and Israel” when asked if the Senate would consider repackaging the foreign aid provisions and move forward on just those items without the border bill.

“We’re going to keep at it,” Schumer said. “This is not the last Republicans will hear from us.”

IMMIGRATION HAWKS WARN CONGRESS THAT SENATE DEAL WILL HANDCUFF FUTURE ADMINISTRATIONS ON SECURING BORDER

Republicans, meanwhile, expressed their commitment to securing the border before agreeing to Ukraine aid. 

“Although that legislation has fallen short of expectations, Republicans must remain committed to securing the border and not walk away from the position that they have promised to uphold for months to the American people,” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah wrote on X. “Republicans should always put the safety and security of the American people FIRST. Passing Ukraine aid without achieving REAL border security not only betrays that agreement, but also undermines our unity as a conference.”

The debate over the border part of the package touched on years-long differences between Republicans and Democrats over how to handle the border. Republicans have demanded the administration stop releasing migrants into the interior, and have called for the restoration of Trump-era policies they believe solved the border crisis. They have subsequently claimed that President Biden does not need extra authority or legislation to solve the border crisis, and just needs to adopt the correct policies.

The administration has claimed it is working within a “broken” system that needs funding and comprehensive immigration reform. Officials have also repeatedly called for a mass amnesty of illegal immigrants already living in the U.S.

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Had the bill passed the Senate, it would have almost certainly been overwhelmingly rejected in the GOP-held House, where leadership had explicitly come out against the package and where more Democrats were also opposed to it due to objections about the border security provisions.

This is a breaking story. Check back for updates. 

President Biden’s latest mix-up, this one involving a dead French president, is just one in a string of similar occurrences in recent years.

On Sunday, Biden told a Las Vegas crowd he met with François Mitterrand, a French president who has been deceased for 28 years. Biden made the blunder while retelling the story of a gathering with French President Emmanuel Macron at a G7 meeting shortly before he entered the Oval Office.

“I sat down, and I said, ‘America’s back,'” Biden told the crowd. “And Mitterrand from Germany – I mean from France – looked at me and said …”

Biden then assembled his thoughts to complete the sentence: “Well, how long are you back for?”

BIDEN TORCHED FOR CLAIMING THAT HE RECENTLY MET WITH DEAD FORMER PRESIDENT OF FRANCE: ‘NOT A HEALTHY SIGN’

Mitterrand, to whom Biden had referenced, was France’s president from the early 1980s to mid-1990s and died in early 1996.  

Biden’s gaffe from this past weekend follows several instances that involved deceased people, from referencing conversations with people who died before he was born to asking where they were during events.

One such instance occurred at a Florida gathering in the fall of 2022 as Biden told supporters that he spoke with the man who “invented” insulin.

“How many of you know somebody with diabetes and needs insulin?” Biden asked the attendees. “Do you know how much it costs to make that insulin drug for diabetes? … It was invented by a man who did not patent it because he wanted it available for everyone. I spoke to him, OK?”

Insulin was co-discovered by Frederick Banting, who died in 1941, and John Macleod, who died in 1935. Biden, meanwhile, was born in 1942.

BIDEN REPEATEDLY ASSAILED ‘F—ING A–HOLE’ TRUMP IN PRIVATE TO AIDES: REPORT

Shortly before that, while speaking at a White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health in September 2022, Biden appeared to scan the audience for the late Indiana Republican Rep. Jackie Walorski who died in a car crash in August 2022.

“I want to thank all of you here, including bipartisan elected officials like … Senator Braun, Senator Booker, Representative … Jackie, Jackie, are you here?” Biden said while searching for her. “I think she was going to be here to help make this a reality.”

The incident led to Republican lawmakers questioning his cognitive abilities.

“Joe Biden’s diminished capacity is so blatantly obvious that even the White House press corps couldn’t hide their concern,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz told Fox News Digital at the time.

Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson, who acted as a physician for Presidents Obama and Trump, called for Biden to take a cognitive test.

BIDEN’S TOP SUPER PAC RECEIVES MILLIONS IN NEW DARK MONEY FUNDS, FILINGS SHOW

“In yet another pathetic display of incompetence, Joe Biden not only thought my departed colleague was alive, but he also had his puppet-master, Karine Jean-Pierre, deny he was confused,” Jackson said in a statement.

“It doesn’t take a neurologist to realize he’s in serious cognitive decline,” he continued. “The American people know what’s going on here, and they don’t think the Commander-in-Chief is capable of doing his job.”

Biden has also repeatedly told an Amtrak story that has been hit with multiple fact checks due to the timelines not matching up, including comments at a 50th anniversary event for Amtrak in 2021.

“There was an article, I guess my fourth or fifth year as vice president, saying Biden travels 1,300,000 miles on Air Force One [Two]. I used to – the Secret Service didn’t like it – but I used to like to take the train home,” Biden said in 2021. “My mom was sick, and I used to try to come home almost every weekend as vice president to see her. I got on the train, and Angelo Negri came up and he goes, ‘Joey, baby,’ and he grabbed my cheek like he always did. I thought he was going to get shot. I’m serious. I said, ‘No, no, he’s a friend.'”

“He said, ‘Joey, what’s the big deal? 1,300,000 miles on Air Force Two? Do you know how many miles you traveled on Amtrak?’ I said, ‘No, Angie, I don’t know.’ He gave me the calculation, and he said you traveled 1,500,000 miles on Amtrak. The fact is, I’d probably take Angie’s word before I’d take the word of what the article said.”

However, this narrative doesn’t add up. Biden’s office didn’t celebrate him hitting 1 million miles on Air Force Two until 2015, which was a year after former Amtrak conductor Angelo Negri died. Biden also entered the fourth year of his term as vice president around 2013, and Negri’s obituary states he retired from Amtrak in 1993, while Biden was still a senator. Meanwhile, Biden’s mother, Catherine Eugenia Finnegan, died in 2010.

A couple of years before that event, when Biden ran for president in 2019, he told a group of donors that former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who died in 2013, was worried about the United States under Trump’s leadership.

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Biden later rectified himself, explaining he meant to say British Prime Minister Theresa May. He chalked it up as a “Freudian slip.”

A White House spokesperson responded to Fox News Digital’s inquiry in a statement that said Biden has achieved “unprecedented results for the American people” and saying he has the “strongest economic and jobs growth in the world.”

“President Biden’s fighting every day to add to those results for families while many Republican officials are siding with fentanyl traffickers over the Border Patrol Union and quadrupling down on criticisms of the President that failed in 2020, 2022, and 2023 – except, that is, when it comes to entertaining headlines: ‘After Calling Joe Biden Senile, Republicans Complain He Outsmarted Them,'” White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates wrote.

Fox News Digital’s Bradford Betz and Evie Fordham contributed to this report.

In his bid for U.S. Senate in Ohio, Republican Bernie Moreno has cast himself in the mold of former President Donald Trump, who has endorsed him: that of “political outsider.”

“I’m the only outsider in the race. I’m the only one that has created businesses,” Moreno, a wealthy businessman from Cleveland, told Buckeye Patriots podcast host Joe Miller in October. “I’m the only one who is not part of the political system.”

But Moreno has, at times, served on the inside. Shortly before he entered politics, he sat on two government boards — one in Columbus, one in Cleveland. An Associated Press review found that each of those public entities boosted Moreno’s blockchain business while he served.

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Moreno faces Secretary of State Frank LaRose and state Sen. Matt Dolan in next month’s Republican primary. The winner will face third-term U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, viewed as among the nation’s most vulnerable Democrats, in November.

Moreno’s campaign says he was recruited to the executive committee of InnovateOhio, a state government technology initiative, and to the board of MetroHealth, Cleveland’s public hospital system, “because they wanted the perspective of a political outsider and successful businessman.” Both positions were unpaid.

“He didn’t make a cent from them and was donating his time, energy, and business expertise because he wanted to serve his community,” spokesman Conor McGuinness said in a statement. “His companies made a grand total of $0.00 as a result of his work.”

That isn’t to say Moreno walked away empty-handed. When he cashed out his shares in blockchain company Ownum in April 2023, in order to avoid conflicts of interest, Moreno reported they were worth at least $5 million. Some of the company’s earliest votes of confidence had come from InnovateOhio and MetroHealth.

Moreno was appointed to the InnovateOhio Executive Board by Lt. Gov. Jon Husted in April 2019. Moreno had stood beside Husted and Republican Gov. Mike DeWine as the new office was announced the previous September, and was a featured guest at their technology-themed inaugural celebration that January.

Moreno and Husted already had a history. Across 10 years beginning in 2007, when Husted was speaker of the Ohio House and a Republican rising star, Moreno contributed a combined $20,000 to his political campaigns, state campaign finance reports show. Moreno gave another $25,000 to the DeWine-Husted for Ohio gubernatorial campaign in June 2018 — shortly after Ownum was incorporated.

Ownum was in the business of developing technology products that could replace paper-based government processes through digitization. At the time of Moreno’s appointment, the company had just announced its first product: a paperless blockchain option for vehicle titling, called CHAMPtitles. Moreno already had made it known that Ownum would be pitching CHAMPtitles to Ohio, among other states.

Fast-forward to December 2019. In an address at the Blockland Solutions Conference in Cleveland, Husted said that InnovateOhio working groups had identified the Bureau of Motor Vehicles as the first place the state would try out blockchain technology, which generates “blocks” of information or transactions into ledgers that are secure and transparent. Husted said the office had received a “proposal” — he didn’t mention from whom — for the state to work with the private sector to modify Ohio’s vehicle titling system. CHAMPtitles tweeted the “exciting news.”

“We are live in Ohio,” Ownum’s then-CEO Shane Bigelow would proclaim in a Cincinnati Business Journal interview about a year later. He told the publication that Husted “navigated the circumstances exceedingly well” and brought paperless titles into the state. He said Ohio was “a first mover” on the technology and Ownum now hoped to become “a 50-state solution.” Neighboring West Virginia announced it would become the first state to take its car titling fully digital through CHAMPtitles in 2022.

Something like Husted’s backing — or the later support of MetroHealth’s CEO — held potential financial benefits for the company, said Jonah Berger, an associate professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. “It can almost act as a signal of quality,” he said, to other states, governors or hospital systems considering the product.

“If it’s a new company that nobody’s ever heard of before, either affiliations with people that others trust, or endorsements from people that others trust, can sometimes be beneficial,” he said.

Husted’s spokeswoman, Hayley Carducci, said InnovateOhio aims to make Ohio “the most innovative, entrepreneurial state in the Midwest” and its executive committee “is advisory in nature and has no standing in the determination of state contracting.”

“Bernie Moreno is no longer on the advisory board but was originally included because of his expertise in tech and business,” she said in a statement.

McGuinness said it’s “laughable” to suggest serving on such boards makes Moreno any less of a political outsider, casting Brown, LaRose and Dolan all as “career politicians.”

“Just like any number of political outsiders — President Trump, Senator JD Vance, Vivek Ramaswamy, to name a few — Bernie’s successful business career made his perspective incredibly sought after by any number of organizations,” he said.

In Cleveland, Democratic Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish nominated Moreno to the MetroHealth board of trustees in September 2019. Moreno had donated $5,000 to Budish’s re-election bid in July 2018, county campaign finance records show. Budish did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Then-Cuyahoga County Council member Shontel Brown, now a Democratic congresswoman, told The Plain Dealer at the time that it was abnormal that Moreno didn’t attend his own confirmation hearing. She also said the process was rushed at the request of MetroHealth CEO Dr. Akram Boutros, who wanted Moreno confirmed ahead of the health system’s October board meeting.

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Six months later, Ownum’s second product, Vital Chain — which provided blockchain birth and death certificates — landed MetroHealth as its first client. Boutros promoted the development as “a huge leap for public health efforts, such as those designed to combat infant mortality.”

Moreno stepped down from the health system’s board in February 2021 ahead of his first Senate run.

McGuinness said Moreno’s campaign contributions to Husted and Budish joined “hundreds of thousands of dollars (he has donated) to countless Republican candidates and causes across Ohio and throughout the nation” and played no role in either appointment.

A bill in Hawaii’s state legislature that could potentially keep former President Donald Trump off of the 2024 presidential ballot narrowly survived a procedural vote on Tuesday.

The Hawaii State Senate Judiciary Committee approved Senate Bill 2392 by a single vote, moving the bill to the full floor, HawaiiNewsNow reported. The proposal would place the decision to potentially disqualify Trump under the chief elections officer.

Advocates for the bill claimed Trump’s involvement in the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, amounted to an insurrection that should bar him from running for – or winning – the presidency.

The bill comes as several other states have initiated efforts to prevent Trump, the current Republican frontrunner, from appearing on the ballot in November.

TRUMP WASN’T ON THE BALLOT, BUT HALEY LOSES NEVADA’S REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY

Despite the bill clearing the procedural hurdle, the bill’s critics have been more outspoken than its supporters.

“This is tyrannical, to say the least,” said Jamie Detwiler, a resident who testified ahead of the vote, per the report. “He has not been convicted nor has he been charged with insurrection (cheers) there is no evidence of committing insurrection so please don’t waste our time on this poorly written piece of legislation.”

According to HawaiiNewsNow, the bill drew over 300 complaints or negative testimonies, with only about 20 favoring it.

Sen. Karl Rhoads, a Democrat, introduced the legislation as Hawaii does not have a legal process to exempt candidates from the ballot or disqualify them from appearing.

TRUMP NOT IMMUNE FROM PROSECUTION IN 2020 ELECTION CASE, FEDERAL APPEALS COURT RULES

Senate Bill 2392, which cleared the committee by a 3-2 vote, would establish such a process.

A description of the bill says it “specifies that election ballots issued by the chief election officer or county clerk shall exclude any candidate who is disqualified by a constitutional or statutory provision.”

It also “provides for a process for challenging an inclusion or exclusion of a candidate from a ballot. Includes a candidate’s disqualification as grounds for an election contest complaint. Specifies that electors of presidential and vice presidential candidates shall not be individuals who are disqualified by a constitutional or statutory provision. Prohibits electors from voting for any presidential or vice presidential nominee who has been disqualified pursuant to Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.”

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The bill is supported by the state’s Democratic Party.

Rhoads is a member of the Judiciary Committee, the Agriculture and Environment and the Public Safety Committee and the Intergovernmental and Military Affairs Committee.

FIRST ON FOX: Former U.N. Ambassador and presidential candidate Nikki Haley is poking fun at former President Donald Trump in a new effort to entice a debate between the two ahead of the South Carolina Republican primary later this month.

Her campaign announced on Wednesday the launch of a new digital ad — part of a previously announced $4 million ad buy — seeking to highlight the differences between the two candidates and their presences before audiences discussing important policy issues.

The ad, titled, “Exclusive Footage of the Haley-Trump Debate,” includes clips of Haley’s debate performances in recent months, as well as scenes from some of Trump’s various campaign speeches, shining light on the fact that the former president has yet to participate in a debate this election cycle.

TRUMP WORLD, DEMOCRATS UNITE IN TROLLING NIKKI HALEY AFTER LOSS TO ‘LITERALLY NO ONE’ IN NEVADA PRIMARY

The ad will also direct people who want to see a debate between the two candidates to sign a petition.

“It’s not surprising that Donald Trump refuses to debate Nikki Haley. He knows he’s not the candidate he used to be and that Nikki would mop the floor with him,” Haley campaign spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas told Fox News Digital. 

“He can’t hide behind a teleprompter and lie about her record in a debate, but that’s no excuse: the people of South Carolina deserve to hear from the candidates side-by-side,” she added.

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The ad comes after Trump challenged President Biden to an “immediate” debate during a Monday radio appearance.

“I’d like to debate him now because we should debate. We should debate for the good of the country,” Trump said.

Biden was asked about Trump’s comments later that day while campaigning in Nevada.

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“Immediately? Well, if I were him, I’d want to debate me too. He’s got nothing else to do,” he told reporters.

Trump and Haley are set to go head-to-head in her home state of South Carolina for its primary on Feb. 24. So far, polling shows Trump with a double-digit advantage.

Fox News Digital has reached out to Trump’s campaign for comment.

Fox News’ Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

House Republicans were dealt a crushing defeat on Tuesday when a months-long effort to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his handling of the crisis at the southern border failed – with three GOP lawmakers breaking ranks and voting against the measure.

The vote was 214-216. Lawmakers voted on a resolution combining two articles of impeachment that accused Mayorkas of having “refused to comply with Federal immigration laws” and the other of having violated “public trust.” 

While the House voted mostly along party lines, with Democrats remaining united against the measure, three Republicans voted against it, with another lawmaker switching his vote at the last minute to allow for the resolution to be brought back to the floor.

THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO WHY REP. BLAKE MOORE FLIPPED FROM YEA TO NAY ON IMPEACHING MAYORKAS

Those who voted no were Reps. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., Ken Buck, R-Colo., and Mike Gallagher, R-Wis. The lawmakers said while they disapproved of the job Mayorkas is doing at the southern border, the threshold for impeachment had not been met, and warned it could be used against future Republican administrations.

“Secretary Mayorkas is guilty of maladministration of our immigration laws on a cosmic scale. But we know that’s not grounds for impeachment, because the American Founders specifically rejected it,” McClintock said on the House floor. “They didn’t want political disputes to become impeachment because that would shatter the separation of powers that vests the enforcement of the laws with the president, no matter how bad a job he does.”

Gallagher said Mayorkas “has faithfully implemented President Biden’s open border policies and helped create the dangerous crisis at the southern border.” 

“But the proponents of impeachment failed to make the argument as to how his stunning incompetence meets the impeachment threshold Republicans outlined while defending former President Trump,” he said in a statement, warning that a lower standard wouldn’t secure the border, “and will set a dangerous new precedent that will be weaponized against future Republican administrations.”

HOUSE FAILS TO IMPEACH DHS SECRETARY ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS IN MAJOR BLOW TO GOP 

Buck was also critical of Mayorkas but did not believe the standard for impeachment had been met.

“In effect, we are now doing what we rightfully said House Democrats were doing in 2019 and 2021: pushing a partisan impeachment not based on what the Constitution actually states,” he said in an op-ed for the Hill.

Meanwhile, Rep. Blake Moore, R-Utah, technically voted no but switched his vote at the last minute in a procedural move to be able to bring the resolution back to the floor.

The defeat marks a significant blow for House Republicans, who had pushed the impeachment of Mayorkas for over a year, and have accused him of disregarding federal law with “open border policies” that have worsened the ongoing crisis at the southern border.

GOP LAWMAKER ON KEY IMMIGRATION SUBCOMMITTEE SLAMS MAYORKAS IMPEACHMENT

Democrats and DHS accused Republicans of running a politically motivated impeachment that had no constitutional basis.

“This baseless impeachment should never have moved forward; it faces bipartisan opposition and legal experts resoundingly say it is unconstitutional,” DHS spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg said after the vote on Tuesday. “If House Republicans are serious about border security, they should abandon these political games and instead support the bipartisan national security agreement in the Senate to get DHS the enforcement resources we need.”

“Secretary Mayorkas remains focused on working across the aisle to promote real solutions at the border and keep our country safe,” she said.

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Republicans, however, indicated that they would likely vote again on the resolution when Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., returns from cancer treatment.

“While I’m disappointed in the outcome of today’s vote, this is not the end of our efforts to hold Secretary Mayorkas accountable,” House Homeland Security Chair Mark Green, R-Tenn., said in a statement. “I look forward to Leader Scalise’s return.”

Fox News’ Elizabeth Elkind and Chad Pergram contributed to this report.

Just days after the long-awaited text of the border bill was released, it is on track to die after its first procedural vote in the Senate on Wednesday afternoon. Howerver, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has another plan.

According to a Senate Democrat aide, Schumer told the caucus he is planning to put the supplemental package — which includes billions of dollars of aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and humanitarian assistance to Gaza — on the floor without the border security portion of the legislation after the expected failed cloture vote.

“Schumer told members of his caucus and the White House last week that if the Republicans scuttled the bipartisan border and supplemental agreement, he had prepared a plan to use the motion to reconsider to force Republicans to vote on the foreign aid without the border,” the aide said.

The bill, negotiated by Sens. James Lankford, R-Okla., Krysten Sinema, I-Ariz., and Chris Muprhy, D-Conn., has drawn backlash from more than 20 GOP senators since its release, who argue it would not stem the historic levels of illegal migrant crossings. Several Democrats also oppose the bill, saying it would hurt migrants seeking asylum. 

SEN. RAND PAUL SLAMS GOP LEADERSHIP FOR ‘DRAGGING’ CAUCUS INTO ‘DEAD’ BIPARTISAN BORDER BILL WITH DEMOCRATS

Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., a strong supporter of aid to Ukraine, was initially optimistic about the bill’s passage, but his outlook appeared grim by Tuesday afternoon as mounting opposition from his conference came to a head. 

“I think, in the end, even though the product is approved by the border council that adores President Trump, most of our members feel that we’re not going to be able to make a law here,” said McConnell, a strong supporter of aid to Ukraine. 

“And if we’re not going to be able to make a law, they’re reluctant to go forward. There are other parts of this supplemental that are extremely important as well — Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan. We still, in my view, tackle the rest of it because it’s important,” McConnell added.

“Not that the border isn’t important, but we can’t get an outcome. So, that’s where I think we ought to head up to Sen. Schumer to decide how to repackage this if, in fact, we don’t hold onto it.”

Schumer told reporters at their weekly press conference on Tuesday the package “is so important for the security of America at the border for the security of Ukraine and Israel” when asked if the Senate would consider repackaging the foreign aid provisions and move forward on just those items without the border bill.

“We’re going to keep at it,” Schumer said. “This is not the last Republicans will hear from us. We’re going to keep at it. We will have a vote tomorrow. We will move forward.”

IMMIGRATION HAWKS WARN CONGRESS THAT SENATE DEAL WILL HANDCUFF FUTURE ADMINISTRATIONS ON SECURING BORDER

A standalone funding bill for Ukraine faces an uphill battle in the Senate. Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah wrote in letter posted to X on Wednesday that the Republican conference “agreed and has repeatedly stated that it would not vote to give another penny to Ukraine until our border is secure.”

The immigration portion of the doomed Senate bill, appended to the $118 billion national security supplemental package, includes heightened asylum restrictions and gives President Biden the authority to suspend the bill on an emergency basis.

The emergency bill introduces a new three-year authority, akin to COVID-era Title 42, enabling officials to shut down entries into the U.S. at the southern border. 

This provision occurs when there is a seven-day average of 5,000 daily encounters or 8,500 in a single day. DHS must then expel all migrants, except unaccompanied children, until encounters drop at least 25% for seven consecutive days, with a 14-day deadline for ending the authority.

However, the bill states that if the president “finds that it is in the national interest to temporarily suspend the border emergency authority, the President may direct the Secretary to suspend use of the border emergency authority on an emergency basis.” Essentially, the “border emergency” triggered at 5,000 crossings per day within a week can be overturned by Biden.

SENATE RELEASES LONG-AWAITED BORDER LEGISLATION, MAJOR ASYLUM CHANGES

Republicans quickly took aim at the number of encounters within hours of the bill’s release, arguing that there should be zero crossings. Former President Trump, the lead GOP presidential contender, also urged senators not to pass the bill. 

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It would also require migrants to prove “reasonable possibility” of persecution if returned to their home country when seeking asylum, rather than “significant possibility.” It also moves consideration of bars to asylum, including a criminal conviction, into the initial screening stage rather than later in the process.

Lankford, the lead Republican negotiator, also indicated this week he is considering voting against the package even though he supports it, which House Republicans have already vowed to tank.

Fox News’ Adam Shaw contributed to this report. 

Three candidates with deep family ties in West Virginia politics and one who moved to the state two decades ago staked their claims in a debate Tuesday night to being the best choice in the Republican primary for governor.

In a deeply red state that twice overwhelmingly voted for former President Donald Trump, Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, ex-state delegate Moore Capito and car dealer Chris Miller called themselves the most conservative candidate in the May 14 primary contest.

“I think West Virginia needs a proven conservative with a record of getting things done,” Morrisey said.

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Secretary of State Mac Warner, though, said the governor’s race “isn’t about being the most conservative. This is about serving the people of West Virginia.”

The four men took turns supporting additional income tax cuts, pay raises for teachers, the death penalty for fentanyl traffickers, and the state’s current restrictions on abortion. They gave differing views on way’s to grow the economy and stop the state’s decadelong exodus of residents. From 2010 to 2020, West Virginia lost a higher percentage of its residents than any other U.S. state.

The winner of the May 14 GOP primary will face Democrat Steve Williams in the November general election. Williams, who is mayor of Huntington, is running unopposed in his party’s primary. Republican Gov. Jim Justice is prohibited by law from seeking a third consecutive term.

Morrisey moved to the state from New Jersey in 2006 and was elected to the first of three terms as attorney general in 2012. To grow the state’s economy, he envisions a “robust” competition with bordering states through an examination of policies such as taxes, regulations, workforce and licensing rules, and teacher pay.

“That alone is going to drive economic growth,” Morrisey said.

Last year Justice signed a 21% cut in the state’s personal income tax. Miller wants to eliminate the tax altogether — and quickly, saying he’d do it as soon as he becomes governor. He said businesses and prospective workers are attracted to states with no such tax, such as Tennessee, Texas and Florida.

“Capital flows like water to the places it’s most welcome,” Miller said. “You have to unleash capitalism.”

Miller’s mother, Carol Miller, is a longtime state delegate who is seeking her fourth term in the U.S. House. His grandfather is the late U.S. Rep. Samuel Devine of Ohio.

Capito, the son of U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, is hoping to join his late grandfather, Arch A. Moore Jr., as governor. Arch Moore is the only governor elected to three terms.

Capito said completing roads, water and other infrastructure projects are one key to growing the state’s economy. He pointed to his record in the House of Delegates, “and as your governor, we’ll continue to get things done.”

Capito resigned his seat in the House of Delegates in December to run for governor, drawing criticism from Warner.

“That’s a quitter,” Warner said. “Nobody likes a quitter. You don’t walk away.”

Warner’s brother, Kris, is a former state GOP chairman who is running for secretary of state. Other brothers are Monty Warner, a GOP candidate for governor in 2004, and former U.S. attorney Kasey Warner.

Mac Warner said education is the way “to get West Virginia off the bottom.” He emphasized funding early education initiatives and further opening up opportunities in the career technical fields.

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Warner said he sees the primary as a “two-person race” between himself and Miller. In referring to Morrisey, he said, “No respectful Republican in West Virginia is going to vote for an out-of stater who comes in as an opportunist.” Warner also pointed out that former state Democratic Party chairman Larry Puccio, who was chief of staff to then-Gov. Joe Manchin, is a donor to Capito’s campaign.

“I am not for sale,” Warner said.

The debate was hosted at a resort in Daniels by the Raleigh County Republican Executive Committee and aired on West Virginia radio network MetroNews. Two other GOP candidates were not in attendance: Kevin Christian of Chloe, Calhoun County, and Mitch Roberts of Poca. It wasn’t known whether they were invited. A message left with a county GOP official wasn’t returned.

A local Hispanic business owner running for public office isn’t parsing words when it comes to Democrats’ soft-on-crime policies after one of his properties was torched by drug addicts over the weekend.

Rafael Arroyo, a Las Vegas Republican running for the Nevada Assembly in the 41st district, operates a small business that partners with the state DMV for emissions testing and vehicle registration. He awoke to news on Saturday that one of his office locations had partially burned down after yet another break-in, something he says is so frequent he no longer attempts to file police reports.

“There’s no point in filing a police report because they’re never going to get caught,” Arroyo told Fox News Digital in an interview. “That’s something that if the laws were there to back up small businesses, then they would be worth it, but they’re not.”

Arroyo said the area where that particular property was located was “not the best” side of town and that there is a plethora of mentally ill, homeless and drug-addicted people who roam the surrounding streets and have frequently broken into his business. He says the 7-Eleven next door blasts classical music just to try and mitigate the loiterers, and that police patrols and cameras aren’t enough to make a significant difference.

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“The cops have been called hundreds of times, hundreds of times, to get those people out of there,” noting the individuals had begun lighting fires at night, but would only get “a slap on the wrist” if they were ever caught doing anything illegal.

Arroyo suspects that when a shuttle bus he uses as a mobile office was broken into once again on Friday night by people who use it to get high, the perpetrators, who he does not know, this time decided to light a fire on the inside. It appeared to then get out of control before completely burning and causing damage to the surrounding infrastructure.

He explained that he didn’t have the video footage with an angle showing how the fire spread because police were reviewing it as part of their investigation, something he was told “could take up to a couple of months.”

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“When you have an addiction problem, and you get to a certain point, like you’re not mentally well, and they do things that make no sense. There’s no explanation for it,” Arroyo said. “These people — they need help. Some of them are to the point where they need real professional help.”

“Those are the type of things we have to focus on instead of just saying, hey, we’re going to give you a slap on the wrist, and it’s okay for you to stay here,” he said. “I understand trying to have compassion because it’s true, they’re humans, and you want to have compassion for them, but sometimes it goes from compassion to enabling.”

Arroyo pointed to major cities in states like California, and all across the West Coast, where he said the consequences of letting things go like that were evident in businesses deciding to shut down because they couldn’t operate in a safe environment and protect their employees. 

SWING DISTRICT DEMOCRAT WITH CLOSE TIES TO LARGEST TEACHERS UNION SILENT ON CALLS TO RESCIND BIDEN ENDORSEMENT

“So, for my opponent to bring these same exact policies here, it doesn’t make any sense. We already have the proof that they don’t work,” he said, referencing Nevada Assembly Majority Leader Sandra Jauregui, a Democrat, and noting legislation the body passed to reduce penalties for controlled substances.

“At the end of the day, if you’re just giving people a slap on the wrist, they’re going to continue to use drugs, and it’s going to affect them mentally, and then you get to a point where you’re at. You can see this in Portland, Seattle, Oakland, San Francisco, L.A. Like you see this stuff happening all up and down the West Coast, and they’re trying to bring it here,” he said.

Arroyo was born in Puerto Rico, but moved with his family to Las Vegas in the early 1990s and saw the city grow exponentially over the years. He says the homeless and crime problem really started to get worse in the early 2010s, and that he jumped into the race because he doesn’t believe in complaining from the sidelines.

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“I’m not going to sit here and allow our state to be taken over by bad policies from California. There’s a lot of good people that moved here from California. I welcome them. But don’t bring bad policies. You just left there for a reason. You got to be able to connect those two things together,” he said.

He stressed that this year’s local elections were important because the Democrat-controlled state Senate was only one seat away from being able to override any veto by Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, and that electing candidates to both houses of the state legislature who would stand up to these soft-on-crime policies was critical to preventing Nevada becoming the next California.

“We’re one seat away from that. I can’t allow that to happen. I grew up here, I established myself here, my family’s here. I’m not just going to run. I’m not going to run to Texas or Florida or wherever. I’m not doing that. No. We’re here. We’re going to fight,” he said.

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The 41st district in which Arroyo is a candidate is viewed by many across the state as a top target for Republicans to flip. 

Democrats currently hold a 14-seat majority in the 42-seat state Assembly, and a 5-seat majority in the 21-seat state Senate.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

FIRST ON FOX: Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, lashed out at Republican leadership over the botched bipartisan border deal that Republicans are planning to shoot down Wednesday afternoon. 

“The bill is flawed from top to bottom,” Paul told Fox News Digital in an interview. “No conservatives in the Senate will vote for this. No conservatives in the House are going to vote for it. The House speaker says it’s dead on arrival. It really shows incredibly bad strategy on Senate Republican leadership to bring this up at all.”

Paul made his comments after Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said Tuesday afternoon he thinks it’s time for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to step down, arguing the longstanding leader should have walked away from supporting the border bill negotiations with Democrats and Biden administration officials.

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“The Republicans who vote for this are going to be pilloried by Republicans at home,” Paul said. “So, there’s really no good logic in doing it this way. And I think it was because basically Sen. McConnell, Sen. [Chuck] Schumer and President Biden … they want to send more of our money to Ukraine. This was always sort of a sideshow for them in order to get what they really want, which is sending more of our money overseas.” 

Paul argued “the current law is sufficient” and that Biden has the authority to shut down illegal crossings. 

“When President Trump was president, his administration was able to control the border without any changes in the law,” he said. 

“Republicans have to realize when they vote as a minority to drag us into this, the majority of the caucus doesn’t want it,” Paul continued. “It really adds to discord and strife and really makes many of us wonder about our leadership just dragging us into Democrat deals that are all the Democrats and a handful of Republicans. Just doesn’t seem like a very unifying way to run our caucus.”

Paul, a hawkish figure who opposes additional Ukraine aid, criticized the ongoing talks on the border with little focus on oversight to foreign funds in the bill. 

“I think we’ll eventually get back to that issue,” he asserted. 

The U.S. has sent more than $100 billion to Ukraine since the war against Russia began in February 2022. 

GOP SENATORS DEMAND ‘ADEQUATE TIME’ TO REVIEW BORDER SECURITY BILL

Initially, when the White House urged Congress to pass the national security supplemental package in October, Republicans sought to separate Ukraine and Israel aid. While members were united in supporting Israel, they were divided on continued aid for Ukraine. 

However, the focus later shifted to the border, with the administration initially allocating $14 billion toward expediting asylum processing, which outraged Republicans who wanted a complete overhaul to the system. 

“But I think the overall deal is in all likelihood, dead,” Paul added.

The bill aims to end “catch and release,” permitting migrants and families to enter under federal supervision for 90 days to complete asylum interviews. Passing migrants will receive work permits, while failing ones are repatriated. It mandates detention for those entering outside official ports, with funding for up to 77 repatriation flights daily.

At least 22 GOP senators and three Democrats oppose the bipartisan bill. McConnell’s outlook on the bill’s passage, once checkered with optimism, appeared grim by Tuesday afternoon as mounting opposition from his conference bubbled over. 

SENATE RELEASES LONG-AWAITED BORDER LEGISLATION, MAJOR ASYLUM CHANGES

“I think, in the end, even though the product is approved by the border council that adores President Trump, most of our members feel that we’re not going to be able to make a law here,” said McConnell, a strong supporter of aid to Ukraine. 

“And if we’re not going to be able to make a law, they’re reluctant to go forward. There are other parts of this supplemental that’re extremely important as well — Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan. We still, in my view, tackle the rest of it because it’s important.

“Not that the border isn’t important, but we can’t get an outcome. So, that’s where I think we ought to head up to Sen. Schumer to decide how to repackage this if, in fact, we don’t hold onto it.”

The proposed legislation, released Sunday evening after months of negotiations, will total just over $118 billion, with 50,000 new visas. Biden’s original request amounted to around $106 billion. 

The emergency border proposal is aimed at gaining control of an overrun asylum system that has been overwhelmed by historic numbers of migrants illegally crossing the border. The bill proposes an overhaul to the system with tougher and quicker enforcement measures.

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At least 1.5 million illegal immigrants identified as “gotaways” crossed the border under the Biden administration, according to a 2023 report. 

The bill’s emergency provisions, which Biden would have the authority to suspend on an emergency basis, would go into effect when there is an average of 5,000 or more daily encounters with illegal immigrants over a seven-day period or, alternatively, when a combined total of 8,500 or more aliens are encountered on any single calendar day. 

However, the bill states that if the president “finds that it is in the national interest to temporarily suspend the border emergency authority, the President may direct the Secretary to suspend use of the border emergency authority on an emergency basis.” 

Essentially, the “border emergency” triggered at 5,000 crossings per day within a week can be overturned by President Biden.

The bill would allot $20 billion to immigration enforcement, including the hiring of thousands of new officers to evaluate asylum claims, as well as hundreds of Border Patrol agents. Some of those taxpayer funds would go to bailing out shelters and services in cities across the U.S. that are struggling to keep up with the influx of migrants in recent months.

Migrants who seek asylum, which provides protection for people facing persecution in their home countries, would face a tougher and faster process for having their claim evaluated. The standard in initial interviews, known as credible fear screenings, would be raised, and many would receive those interviews within days of arriving at the border. Final decisions on their asylum claims would happen within months, rather than the often years-long wait that happens now.

On Tuesday, Biden said the border package “doesn’t address everything” he would have liked, such as creating a pathway for citizenship for illegal immigrants who are already living in the U.S. However, he called it the “toughest, fairest law that has ever been proposed relative to the border.”

“I’m calling on Congress to pass this bill, get it to my desk immediately,” Biden said. “But if the bill fails … every day between now and November, the American people are going to know that the only reason the border is not secure is Donald Trump and his MAGA Republican friends.”

During negotiations, Trump urged senators on his platform, Truth Social, to reject a deal “unless we get EVERYTHING needed to shut down the INVASION of Millions & Millions of people.”

LAS VEGAS – He wasn’t on the ballot, but Donald Trump still managed to be a winner in Nevada’s state-run Republican presidential primary.

On Thursday, Trump’s expected to land an outright victory in the Nevada GOP’s caucus.

Trump’s absence from the primary ballot wasn’t enough to provide a path to victory for Nikki Haley – Trump’s last remaining major rival for the Republican nomination.

The former two-term South Carolina governor who later served as U.N. ambassador in the Trump administration lost to a “none of these candidates” option by a wide margin in a primary where no GOP convention delegates were at stake.

Voters casting ballots in the primary couldn’t write in Trump’s name, but they could vote for “none of these candidates.” And Trump supporters Fox News interviewed outside of polling stations said that is how they voted.

While Trump, the commanding front-runner for the 2024 GOP nomination as he makes his third straight White House run, wasn’t on the primary ballot, his name will be listed in Thursday’s caucus, where 26 delegates are up for grabs.

The confusion over having two competing contests dates to 2021, when Democrats, who at the time controlled both Nevada’s governor’s office and the legislature, passed a law changing the presidential nominating contest from long-held caucuses to a state-run primary. 

WHAT NIKKI HALEY TOLD FOX DIGITAL ABOUT WHAT SHE NEEDS TO DO TO KEEP RUNNING

The Nevada GOP objected, but last year their legal bid to stop the primary from going forward was rejected. In a twist, the judge in the case allowed the state Republicans to hold their own caucuses. No delegates will be at stake in the Republican primary, while all 26 will be up for grabs in the GOP caucus.

The state GOP ruled that candidates who put their name on the state-run primary ballot could not take part in the caucuses. 

Haley and some of the other now-departed Republican presidential candidates viewed the Nevada GOP as too loyal to Trump and decided to skip a caucus they believed was tipped in favor of the former president.

Nevada GOP chair Michael McDonald and both of the state’s members of the Republican National Committee are supporting Trump.

HALEY, TRUMP, TRADE SHOTS OVER WHO’S STRONGER AGAINST BIDEN

“We made the decision early on that we were not going to pay $55,000 to a Trump entity that, you know, to participate in a process that was rigged for Trump,” Haley campaign manager Betsy Ankney argued on Monday.

While the GOP presidential candidates had to choose either the caucus or primary ballot, registered Republicans in Nevada can vote in both contests.

Trump’s campaign has been working to get the message out to supporters in Nevada that if they want to vote for the former president, they need to show up at the caucuses.

HALEY APPLIES FOR SECRET SERVICE PROTECTION ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

“Your primary vote doesn’t mean anything. It’s your caucus vote,” Trump said at a rally in Las Vegas late last month. “So in your state, you have both the primary and you have a caucus. Don’t worry about the primary, just do the caucus thing.”

Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, who is supporting Trump, told the Nevada Independent last month that he would vote for “none of these candidates” in the primary, and would caucus for Trump in the state GOP’s contest on Thursday.

While her name was on the ballot, Haley ignored the Nevada primary.

Haley didn’t campaign in Nevada ahead of the primary and hasn’t been in the state since speaking in late October at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership conference.

“In terms of Nevada, we have not spent a dime nor an ounce of energy on Nevada,” Ankney emphasized. “So Nevada is not and has never been our focus.”

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As the vote count continued on Tuesday night, the former president took to his Truth Social network to take aim at Haley.

“A bad night for Nikki Haley. Losing by almost 30 points in Nevada to “None of These Candidates.” Watch, she’ll soon claim Victory!” he argued.

Trump is expected back in Las Vegas on Thursday, for a caucus celebration.

This week’s contests are just an appetizer for Nevada, which as a key general election battleground state will see plenty of campaign traffic this summer and autumn.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

Multiple Trump-era Homeland Security officials are claiming a new Senate border and immigration bill will be a “disaster” for border security despite claims from supporters that it would help stem the migrant crisis.

“The bill negotiated by three Senators and President Biden funds and facilitates more mass illegal immigration,” the officials said in a report. “It is a disaster for border security.”

The officials are former Customs and Border Protection (CBP) acting Commissioner Mark Morgan, former Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Thomas Homan, former U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Joe Edlow and former acting deputy Homeland Security Chief of Staff Lora Ries. All are fellows at The Heritage Foundation.

IMMIGRATION HAWKS WARN CONGRESS THAT SENATE DEAL WILL HANDCUFF FUTURE ADMINISTRATIONS ON SECURING BORDER

The $118 billion supplemental spending deal package was released late and includes funding for Ukraine and Israel and $20 billion in funding for the border and immigration.

It includes a new temporary emergency border authority to mandate Title 42-style expulsions of migrants when migration levels exceed 5,000 a day over a seven-day rolling average. And it narrows asylum eligibility while expediting the process, provides additional work permits for asylum seekers and funds a massive increase in staffing at the border.

It also increases temporary visas and green cards, while establishing an expedited pathway for Afghans who were evacuated to the U.S. The legislation also includes $1.4 billion in FEMA funding for non-governmental organizations and cities to help settle migrants and $650 million to build and reinforce the border wall. It will also provide $450 million to countries to help them remove and integrate illegal immigrants back into their countries.

“The result of all this hard work as a bipartisan agreement represents the most fair, humane reforms in our immigration system in a long time and the toughest set of reforms to secure the border ever,” President Biden claimed Tuesday.

Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., an author of the package, said the bill “changes our border from catch and release to detain and deport.” 

IMMIGRATION ACTIVISTS, LIBERAL SENATE DEMS TRASH BORDER DEAL OVER LACK OF AMNESTY FOR ILLEGALS

But the bill has hit a buzzsaw of conservative opposition in the House and Senate and among conservative groups. Some of the officials were part of a letter released Tuesday calling for congressional leaders to scrap the deal.

In the report, the former officials point to the funding for non-governmental organizations and cities, including “sanctuary” jurisdictions, to receive migrants released into the U.S. They argue that “machinery” should be shut down, not given more money to operate.

They also say the bill “accepts and codifies crisis levels of daily illegal immigration” with the current levels of the border emergency authority. They note that the authority is limited, with the secretary only being able to activate the authority for 180 days by year three and allowing for it to be suspended for 45 days.

“Continuing to allow these crisis-level numbers of illegal-alien encounters means that border agents would remain overwhelmed, and more illegal crossers would evade the agents — turning into ‘gotaways’ — and bad actors would slip through limited and rushed vetting,” they say.

5 KEY DETAILS IN CONTROVERSIAL SENATE BORDER DEAL

Despite claims by supporters of the bill that the measures would lead to an increase in expedited removals and therefore fewer releases into the interior, the officials say that the bill would continue “catch and release” and end the statute requiring detention by changing detention to “noncustodial detention,” applying it only to adults.

“If passed into law, families and children would be released without supervision. Worse, the bill codifies the Flores settlement agreement, as interpreted by a single U.S. district judge in California, who ruled that unaccompanied aliens could not be in immigration detention longer than 20 days. She later expanded her ruling to accompanied aliens, meaning families,” they say.

They also object to provisions expanding what they call “mass parole abuse” by the administration and for accelerating work permits for those released into the U.S. The officials also note that numerous inclusions, for instance an expansion of green cards and measures for “documented Dreamers,” are not directly related to the border.

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They also say Biden does not need to have legislation to secure the border despite claims from the White House.

“President Joe Biden opened the border and created the country’s crisis using only executive, not congressional, authority. He can end the chaos with the same executive authority; he does not need congressional authority,” they say.

President Biden hit the jackpot in Nevada, with a third straight ballot box victory in the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination race.

The Associated Press on Tuesday projected that the president would win Nevada’s Democratic primary, with the news service making its call a little over 90 minutes after the polls closed in the Battle Born State at 7 p.m. local time.

The projection came as no surprise, as Biden was expected to trounce long-shot Democratic primary challenger Marianne Williamson, the best-selling author and spiritual adviser who’s making her second straight White House run.

Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, another Democratic primary rival who faces a steep uphill climb to win the nomination, was not on the ballot in Nevada because he announced his candidacy in late October, after the state’s filing deadline.

TRUMP WASN’T ON THE BALLOT, BUT IS STILL A WINNER IN NEVADA’S GOP PRIMARY

Thirty-six pledged delegates were up for grabs in Tuesday’s primary.

With nearly two-thirds of ballots counted, Biden was winning 90% of the vote.

“I want to thank the voters of Nevada for sending me and Kamala Harris to the White House four years ago, and for setting us one step further on that same path again tonight,” the president said in a statement after his victory was projected.

Biden emphasized to supporters that “we must organize, mobilize, and vote. Because one day, when we look back, we’ll be able to say, when American democracy was a risk, we saved it — together.”

Biden’s victory in Nevada comes three days after a massive victory in South Carolina’s Democratic primary, where he captured over 96% of the vote against Williamson and Phillips.

And it comes two weeks after he captured 64% of the vote as a write-in candidate in New Hampshire’s unsanctioned Democratic presidential primary.

HALEY, TRUMP, TRADE SHOTS OVER WHO’S STRONGER AGAINST BIDEN

Biden’s second place finish to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont in the Nevada primary four years ago helped the then-former vice president rebound after dismal four and fifth place finishes in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. Biden’s landslide victory in the next contest – the South Carolina primary – boosted him towards the Democratic nomination and eventually the White House.

The president campaigned in the Las Vegas area on Sunday and Monday, holding a rally, a fundraiser, and meeting with leaders and rank-and-file members of the powerful Culinary Union, which struck a tentative agreement with several casinos to avert a strike just days before the Super Bowl is held in the city.

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Biden is all-but-certain to easily win renomination and will likely face off in a rematch in November’s general election with former President Donald Trump, who is the commanding front-runner for the GOP nomination.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.