NationalWatch

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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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.

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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. 

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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.”

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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.

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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. 

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“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. 

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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.

LAS VEGAS – Former President Donald Trump wasn’t on the ballot in Tuesday’s Republican presidential primary in the early voting state of Nevada.

But his absence wasn’t enough to help secure a victory for his last remaining major rival for the 2024 GOP nomination – Nikki Haley.

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.

And the Associated Press projected that the “none of these candidates” option would defeat Haley in a primary where no delegates to this summer’s Republican convention were at stake. Trump supporters Fox News spoke with at polling stations said they were casting a ballot for “none of the above.”

WHY NEVADA’S HOLDING DUELING REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY AND CAUCUS

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 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.”

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 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. 

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, 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.

“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.

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

And 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.

“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.”

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.

The “Keys to the White House” are being handed out, predicting President Biden currently holds a slight lead in a hypothetical 2024 matchup against former President Donald Trump.

Allan Lichtman, an election prognosticator who has correctly predicted nearly every presidential race since 1984, developed a formula that is used to make predictions about an upcoming presidential election – and in many cases, it proves to be accurate.

Lichtman’s “Keys to the White House” consists of 13 true or false questions that he believes establish a strong indication of who will be named the victor on the fall ballot. Each question is asked about the two dueling nominees; if “true” they are given a “key,” and if “false,” their competitor receives the point.

Thus far, Biden holds five of the “keys,” while Trump was able to capture about three, Lichtman revealed to MarketWatch. That leaves five keys still up for grabs, and enough room for the former president to secure a lead before November.

GROCERY PRICES DRIVING SOME VOTERS TO TRUMP IN 2024: ‘WANTS OT MAKE THE ECONOMY BETTER FOR PEOPLE LIKE US’

According to American University, where Lichtman teaches the “keys” are as follows: party mandate, contest, incumbency, third party, short term economy, long term economy, policy change, social unrest, scandal, foreign/military failure, foreign/military success, incumbent charisma, and challenger charisma.

BIDEN RESPONDS AFTER TRUMP CALLS FOR AN ‘IMMEDIATE’ PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE

Biden’s incumbency grants him one automatic point, that of key number 3. 

While Robert F. Kennedy Jr. met the requirements to appear on the Utah presidential election ballot, Biden was granted another “key” for not appearing to have any significant third party or independent primary challenge.

The Democrat was also given “keys” for having “real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms,” as well as implementing policy changes during his presidency.

Trump, however, secured key number one, which is granted to whoever’s political party holds the majority in the House of Representatives – which goes to the GOP.

Painting Biden as having a lack of charisma, Lichtman gave Trump the 12th key, and possibly another point if Biden fails to have “a major success in foreign or military affairs.”

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Lichtman correctly predicted Trump would win the 2016 election, and thereafter that Biden would win the 2020 presidential election against Trump. 

Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel plans to step down after the South Carolina primary later this month and has given notice to former President Donald Trump, according to reports.

The New York Times reported that people familiar with the plans say Trump will likely move Michael Whatley, the chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, into McDaniel’s position.

TRUMP MEETS WITH RONNA MCDANIEL–THEN CALLS FOR CHANGES AT REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE

“Nothing has changed,” Republican National Convention Spokesperson Keith Schipper told Fox News Digital. “This will be decided after South Carolina.”

The former president met on Monday with McDaniel at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.

Trump wrote in his Truth Social platform following the meeting that McDaniel was a “friend” but that he would be urging changes at the RNC after the Feb. 24 South Carolina GOP presidential primary, which is the next major contest in the Republican 2024 nominating calendar.

“Ronna is now Head of the RNC, and I’ll be making a decision the day after the South Carolina Primary as to my recommendations for RNC Growth,” the former president wrote.

Paul Steinhauser of Fox News Digital contributed to this report.

White House press secretary Karine Jeane-Pierre on Tuesday dodged a question on President Biden’s mental and physical health after the president appeared to confuse French President Emmanuel Macron with former French President François Mitterrand, who has been dead for nearly 30 years.

The gaffe came during a campaign stop in Las Vegas on Sunday. The president was recalling a meeting he had with Macron at the G7 summit in England, shortly after he assumed the White House in 2021.

But instead of Macron, Biden dropped the name of “Mitterrand,” who was the president of France between 1981 and 1995 and died in 1996.

Fox News’ Peter Doocy on Tuesday questioned how the president could convince large swathes of voters who are worried about his physical and mental health after making those comments.

Jean-Pierre, looking visibly annoyed, told Doocy, “I’m not even going to go down that rabbit hole with you, sir. We’re going to go ahead.”

“What is the rabbit hole?” Doocy asked.

“You saw the president in Vegas, in California. You’ve seen the president in South Carolina. You saw him in Michigan. I’ll just leave it there,” Jean-Pierre said.

HISTORIAN WHO CORRECTLY PREDICTED ALMOST EVERY ELECTION WINNER SINCE 1984 REVEALS WHO IS LIKELY TO WIN IN 2024

Later in the press conference, a reporter asked Jean-Pierre to respond to criticisms that Biden has given far fewer interviews during his presidency than his predecessors. The reporter noted that no press conference was scheduled during Biden’s hosting of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, nor was the president scheduled to give an interview during the Super Bowl.

“It just seems, again, like we’re in one of these instances where the president is not communicating with the press,” the reporter said.

“Stay tuned. That is the answer for you,” Jean-Pierre said, challenging the notion that the president was not engaging with the press.

The reporter pushed back, noting that Biden has given less than half the number of interviews his predecessors have given at this point in the presidency.

Jean-Pierre said the president communicates in “nontraditional ways.” As to why the president is not doing a Super Bowl interview – missing out on a “massive audience in an election year” – Jean-Pierre said people “want to see the game.”

“The president will find many other ways to communicate with Americans, the millions of Americans out there,” Jean-Pierre said. “And we will find those ways to do it, where we think the time is right.”

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Presidents have given pre-taped interviews with the networks broadcasting the NFL championship game for years now. This year the game is being broadcast by CBS. The practice became consistent starting during President Obama’s first term, though former President Trump skipped an NBC interview in 2018.

2024 will be the second Super Bowl interview in a row that Biden has declined.

The Republican-led House of Representatives on Tuesday failed to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his handling of the crisis at the southern border – marking a major blow for House Republicans who have pushed for Mayorkas’ removal.

The House voted mostly along party lines, but Republicans suffered a number of defections which torpedoed the vote. Four Republicans ultimately voted no: Rep. Tom Clintock, R-Calif., Ken Buck, R-Colo., Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and Blake Moore, R-Utah, who switched his vote at the last minute in a procedural move to be able to bring the resolution back to the floor.

But Democrats remained united. 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.” A Cabinet secretary has not been impeached since 1876, when Secretary of War William Belknap was impeached.

GOP LAWMAKER ON KEY IMMIGRATION SUBCOMMITTEE SLAMS MAYORKAS IMPEACHMENT 

The move is a crushing blow to the Republican majority, who held hearings throughout 2023 on Mayorkas’ “dereliction of duty” and additional hearings on the impeachment articles themselves earlier this year. Lawmakers accused Mayorkas of disregarding federal law with “open border policies” that have made the ongoing crisis at the southern border worse. They have pointed to the rolling back of Trump-era policies like border wall construction and Remain-in-Mexico as well as reducing interior enforcement and expanding “catch-and-release.” They say it has fueled record numbers at the southern border, where numbers breached the 300,000 mark in December.

“Under Secretary Mayorkas’ watch, Customs and Border Protection has reported more than 8.5 million encounters at our borders, including more than seven million apprehensions at the Southwest border,” Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green said on the House floor. “Even more terrifying is the approximately 1.8 million known gotaways, that Border Patrol agents detect, but are unable to apprehend. Millions of those inadmissible aliens who are encountered are eventually released into our communities. This has never happened before in our history. And it doesn’t happen by accident.”

Green said that Republicans had been left with “no other option” than to proceed.

“We, the people’s representatives, have no opinion, no option but to exercise this duty when branch officials blatantly refuse to comply with the laws we have passed threaten the separation of powers, imperiled the constitutional order, and expose Americans to untold suffering and death,” he said.

Democrats and the administration had painted the impeachment push as politically-motivated on nothing more than policy disagreements, and nothing that approaches high crimes and misdemeanors.

“Far from alleging high crimes and misdemeanors, this resolution relies on the same tired and untrue Republican talking points that Democrats have demonstrated for months are not true,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., said.

Homeland Security Committee Ranking Member Bennie Thompson called the push a “travesty” and an “affront to the Constitution.”

“Rather than doing what’s right for America because it’s clear that Republicans have failed to make the case for impeachment. They have failed to articulate a single high crime and misdemeanor. The other side of the aisle reeks of desperation,” he said.

Mayorkas himself had attacked the push against him, calling the allegations “false” and “baseless.”

MAYORKAS LASHES OUT AT ‘BASELESS’ GOP ALLEGATIONS AHEAD OF KEY IMPEACHMENT VOTE

“I assure you that your false accusations do not rattle me and do not divert me from the law enforcement and broader public service mission to which I have devoted most of my career and to which I remain devoted,” Mayorkas said.

DHS has pointed to more than 500,000 removals since May and record seizures of fentanyl at the border to counteract claims that it has pursued open border policies. It has also called on Republicans to provide more funding and to work with the administration to fix a “broken” immigration system. Meanwhile it has pointed to Republicans and former DHS officials who have opposed the impeachment effort.

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“This farce of an impeachment is a distraction from other vital national security priorities and the work Congress should be doing to actually fix our broken immigration laws,” a DHS official said in a recent memo. 

After the vote failed, Democrats were gleeful.

“House Republicans just tried to impeach Secretary Mayorkas purely as a political stunt: AND THEY FAILED,” Jayapal said on X, formerly known as Twitter. “As they keep wasting their time in the majority, Democrats will continue working for the American people.”

A former Obama administration official who infamously used inexperienced reporters to manufacture support for the former president’s failed Iran nuclear deal is reviving an advocacy group with the sole purpose of keeping Donald Trump out of the White House.

Ben Rhodes, the former deputy national security advisor to the 44th president, alongside other Obama administration veterans, is set to re-launch National Security Action (NSA) in an effort to boost President Biden’s re-election bid by touting his foreign policy, a Tuesday report by Axios said.

According to the report, the group plans to unite Democrats divided over the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, and make the case that Biden is better than another four years of Trump.

TIM SCOTT RESPONDS TO TRUMP CONSIDERING HIM FOR VICE PRESIDENT: ‘THE ONLY THING I CAN TELL YOU IS…’

NSA was founded in 2018 to help Democrats in that year’s midterm elections and in 2020, by countering Republicans, including Trump, on national security-related issues. It was largely inactive during the 2022 midterm elections, but decided to jump back into the fray this year amid Trump’s surge toward becoming his party’s likely presidential nominee.

Although he’s been critical of Biden’s approach to Israel, Rhodes told Axios that this year the group would seek to “remind people that this is a choice that Trump represents a different approach to foreign policy that is very dangerous, and rather than making the crises in the world better, he is likely to make all of them worse.”

Rhodes became a nationally recognized name in 2016 after boasting in an interview with The New York Times Magazine that he and Obama’s foreign policy team built an “echo chamber” of experts to help sell the controversial Iran nuclear deal.

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

The article detailed how Rhodes’ “war room” worked to influence Capitol Hill lawmakers and reporters as the details of the Iranian nuclear deal were being hammered out in negotiations. According to Rhodes, the “echo chamber” was created by using arms-control experts that appeared at think tanks and were then used as sources for hundreds of reporters – whom the article described as “clueless.”

Of those experts, Rhodes said: “They were saying things that validated what we had given them to say.”

He then took a shot at the modern media landscape, lamenting the closure of many newspapers’ foreign bureaus and the level of experience of many political reporters.

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“Most of the outlets are reporting on world events from Washington. The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing,” he said.

Trump later pulled the U.S. out of the Iran deal in 2018, calling it “defective at its core.”

Fox News Digital reached out to National Security Action for comment.

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

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Tuesday repeatedly blamed Republicans after the collapse of a bipartisan deal that paired border policy changes with billions in wartime aid for Ukraine. 

Throughout the press conference, Jean-Pierre accused the GOP of playing games with national security and not having a spine for supporting the deal. She said President Biden, in contrast, had taken the border issue seriously “from day one.” 

“He said, ‘I’m going to put forward a legislation,’ a comprehensive immigration legislation that was introduced more than three years ago … and [Republicans],” have failed to act, Jean-Pierre said when asked if President Biden bore some responsibility for the collapsed deal. 

Later on, Fox News’ Peter Doocy pressed Jean-Pierre on the matter.

“So, you guys talk a lot – including today – about how the border wouldn’t be such a big deal if Congress would have just passed your immigration bill on day one,” Doocy asked. “Who was in charge of Congress on day one?” 

SEN. ROGER MARSHALL DEMANDS SOUTHERN BORDER CRISIS BE CLASSIFIED AS ‘AN INVASION’

Jean-Pierre said the Biden administration has called on Congress to act since Biden took office more than three years ago, but Republicans “have gotten in the way” of trying to fix the border by using the immigration crisis as a political stunt. 

When President Biden took office, Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate. Republicans took back the House by a slim majority in the 2022 midterm elections. 

After taking office, Biden signed two executive orders on immigration and pledged to roll back many of the policies put in place by his predecessor, former President Donald Trump. Within a few months, Biden took more than 90 actions related to the border. 

Under the president’s stewardship, illegal immigration has skyrocketed to historic levels. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) report for fiscal 2023 showed that the number of illegal immigrants on the non-detained docket soared from 3.7 million in FY 2021 to nearly 4.8 million in FY 2022 to nearly 6.2 million in FY 2023. 

HOUSE CLEARS WAY TO ADVANCE IMPEACHMENT ARTICLES OF DHS SECRETARY MAYORKAS

The number of illegal immigrants being deported has increased, according to the report, but it is still a fraction of the increase in the illegal immigrant population. There were 142,580 removals in FY 23, up considerably from 72,177 in FY 22 and 59,011 in FY 21, but still down from the highs of 267,258 under the Trump administration in FY 19.

With the 2024 election looming, Biden has for months engaged in a plan to pair policies intended to curb illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border with $60 billion in wartime aid for Ukraine. The bill would have also sent tens of billions of dollars more for Israel, other U.S. allies in Asia, the U.S. immigration system and humanitarian aid for civilians in Gaza and Ukraine.

But after Republicans backed away from the compromise, the president and Senate leaders are now stranded with no clear way to advance aid for Ukraine through Congress. They have run into a wall of opposition from conservatives — led by Trump — who reject the border proposal as insufficient and criticize the Ukraine funding as wasteful.

Biden laid the blame for the bill’s demise squarely on Trump — his presumed Republican opponent in the November presidential election.

“For the last 24 hours he’s done nothing, I’m told, but reach out to Republicans in the House and the Senate and threaten them and try to intimidate them to vote against this proposal,” Biden said. “It looks like they’re caving. Frankly, they owe it to the American people to show some spine and do what they know to be right.”

Meanwhile, House lawmakers have cleared the way to advance an impeachment resolution against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, for alleging “refusing to enforce our nation’s laws.” 

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“An architect of destruction at our southern border, the secretary has caused serious injury to society, as the Founding Fathers discussed,” Rep. McCaul, R-Texas, said in a statement. 

Fox News’ Adam Shaw contributed to this report.