NationalWatch

The Biden administration is asking a federal appeals court for an injunction to temporarily block a plea deal agreement with three detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, which would see the defendants avoid the death penalty. 

The three prisoners were set to enter their pleas as early as Friday at the military prison.

On New Year’s Eve, a military appeals court shot down Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin‘s effort to block the deal between military prosecutors and defense lawyers, saying Austin did not have the power to cancel plea agreements.

Specifically, the court opinion said the plea deals reached by military prosecutors and defense attorneys were valid and enforceable and that Austin exceeded his authority when he later tried to nullify them.

MILITARY APPEALS COURT RULES DEFENSE SEC AUSTIN CANNOT RESCIND 9/11 PLEA DEALS

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the organizer of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks (HO/AFP via Getty Images/File)

In its appeal this week, the government says, “Respondents are charged with perpetrating the most egregious criminal act on American soil in modern history—the 9/11 terrorist attacks.”

“The military commission judge intends to enforce pretrial plea agreements that will deprive the government and the American people of a public trial as to the respondents’ guilt and the possibility of capital punishment, despite the fact that the Secretary of Defense has lawfully withdrawn those agreements,” the appeal read. “The harm to the government and the public will be irreparable once the judge accepts the pleas, which he is scheduled to do in hearings beginning on January 10, 2025.”

The appeal also noted that once the military commission accepts the guilty pleas, there is likely no way to return to the status quo.

BIDEN ADMIN SENDS 11 GUANTANAMO DETAINEES TO OMAN FOR RESETTLEMENT

The control tower of the Camp VI detention facility in Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon/File)

“The government and the public will lose the opportunity for a public trial as to the respondents’ guilt and to seek capital punishment against three men charged with a heinous act of mass murder that caused the death of thousands of people and shocked the nation and the world,” it continued. “The government is likely to prevail on the merits of its petition for a writ of mandamus and prohibition, but it will be a pyrrhic victory unless this Court first issues a stay of the military commission’s proceedings, at least as they relate to enforcing the withdrawn pretrial agreements and accepting the respondents’ pleas, until this Court can decide the merits of the government’s petition.”

The plea deal in the long-running case against the terrorists was struck over the summer and approved by the top official of the Guantánamo military commission.

A number of 9/11 victims and U.S. politicians have condemned the plea deals. 

BIDEN WHITE HOUSE TO SEND $1.25 BILLION IN WEAPON AID TO UKRAINE BEFORE TRUMP TRANSITION: REPORT

Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba (AP Photo/Alex Brandon/File)

“Joe Biden, Kamala Harris have weaponized the Department of Justice to go after their political opponents, but they’re cutting a sweetheart deal with 9/11 terrorists,” now-Vice President-elect JD Vance said at the time.

The Pentagon revoked the deals in July.

“Effective immediately, in the exercise of my authority, I hereby withdraw from the three pretrial agreements that you signed on July 31, 2024,” a letter from Austin states. 

On Monday, the Biden administration announced the transfer of 11 Yemeni detainees, including two former bodyguards for Osama bin Laden, who were being held at Guantánamo Bay, to Cuba.

JUDGE RESTORES CONTROVERSIAL 9/11 TERRORIST PLEA DEALS INVOLVING KHALID SHEIKH MOHAMMED: REPORT

President Biden (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta/File)

All the men were captured in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and were held for more than two decades without being charged or put on trial.

The transfer was carried out as part of an early morning secret operation on Monday, days before Mohammed, Guantánamo’s most notorious prisoner, was scheduled to plead guilty to plotting the 9/11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in exchange for a life sentence rather than face a death-penalty trial, the New York Times reported.

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The move had been in the works for about three years after an initial plan to conduct the transfer in October 2023 faced opposition from congressional lawmakers. 

Fox News Digital’s Danielle Wallace and Louis Casiano contributed to this report.

A prominent fact-checking organization used by Facebook to moderate political content reacted to news that it will revamp its fact-checking to better avoid bias with an article outlining its disappointment and disagreement with the move. 

“Lead Stories was surprised and disappointed to first learn through media reports and a press release about the end of the Meta Third-Party Fact-Checking Partnership of which Lead Stories has been a part since 2019,” Lead Stories editor Maarten Schenk wrote on Tuesday in response to an announcement from Meta that it would be significantly altering its fact-checking process to “restore free expression.”

Lead Stories, a Facebook fact checker employing several former CNN alumni including Alan Duke and Ed Payne, has become one of the more prominent fact checkers used by Facebook in recent years. 

Fox News Digital first reported on Tuesday that Meta is ending its fact-checking program and lifting restrictions on speech to “restore free expression” across Facebook, Instagram and Meta platforms, admitting its current content moderation practices have “gone too far.” 

CONSERVATIVES REJOICE OVER ‘JAW DROPPING’ META CENSORSHIP ANNOUNCEMENT: ‘HUGE WIN FOR FREE SPEECH’

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks about the new Facebook News feature at the Paley Center For Media on October 25, 2019 in New York City. 

“After Trump first got elected in 2016 the legacy media wrote nonstop about how misinformation was a threat to democracy,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a video message on Tuesday. “We tried in good faith to address these concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth. But fact-checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they created, especially in the U.S..”

“What political bias?” the article from Lead Stories asks before explaining that it is “disappointing to hear Mark Zuckerberg accuse the organizations in Meta’s U.S. third-party fact checking program of being “too politically biased.’”

“Especially since one of the requirements Meta imposed for being part of a partnership included being a verified signatory of the IFCN’s Code of Principles, which explicitly requires a “commitment to non-partisanship and fairness,’” the article states. “In all the years we have been part of the partnership, we or the IFCN never received any complaints from Meta about any political bias, so we were quite surprised by this statement.”

Meta said in its announcement that it will move toward a system of moderation that is more in line with Community Notes at X, which Lead Stories seemed to take issue with. 

“However, In our experience and that of others, Community Notes on X are often slow to appear, sometimes downright inaccurate and unlikely to appear on controversial posts because of an inability to reach agrement [sic] or consensus among users,” Lead Stories wrote. “Ultimately, the truth doesn’t care about consensus or agreement: the shape of the Earth stays the same even if social media users can’t agree on it.”

JONATHAN TURLEY: META’S ZUCKERBERG MAKES A FREE SPEECH MOVE THAT COULD BE TRULY TRANSFORMATIONAL

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, arrives to testify before the US Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, “Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis,” in Washington, DC, on January 31, 2024.  (ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)

Lead Stories added that Community Notes is “entirely non-transparent about its contributors: readers are left guessing about their bias, funding, allegiance, sources or expertise and there is no way for appeals or corrections” while “fact-checkers, on the other hand, are required by the IFCN to be fully transparent about who they are, who funds them and what methodology and sources they use to come to their conclusions.”

Schenk added, “Fact-checking is about adding verified and sourced information so people can make up their mind about what to believe. It is an essential part of free speech.”

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Duke said that Lead Stories plans to press on.

“Lead Stories will continue, although we have to reduce our output with no support from Meta,” Duke said. “We are global, with most of our business now outside the USA. We publish in eight languages other than English, which is what will be affected.”

Some conservatives took to social media to blast Lead Stories over their article lamenting the change at Meta after years of conservative pushback to Facebook’s fact checkers as a whole on key news stories, including the suppression of the bombshell reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop.  

“Of all the fact-checking companies, Lead Stories is the worst,” British American conservative writer Ian Haworth posted on X. “Couldn’t be happier that they’ll soon be circling the drain.”

TRUMP SAYS META HAS ‘COME A LONG WAY’ AFTER ZUCKERBERG ENDS FACT-CHECKING ON PLATFORMS

(Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

The executive director of Politifact, a fact checker also used by Facebook, issued a strong rebuke of Zuckerberg following Tuesday’s announcement. 

“If Meta is upset it created a tool to censor, it should look in the mirror,” Aaron Sharockman said in a statement he posted on X following Zuckerberg’s announcement.

Sharockman fumed, “The decision to remove independent journalists from Facebook’s content moderation program in the United States has nothing to do with free speech or censorship. Mark Zuckerberg’s decision could not be less subtle.”

He threw back Zuckerberg’s accusation of political bias, stating that Meta’s platforms, not the fact-checkers, were the entities that actually censored posts. 

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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg once claimed Facebook had suppressed  18 million posts that contained “misinformation” about COVID-19. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“Let me be clear: the decision to remove or penalize a post or account is made by Meta and Facebook, not fact-checkers. They created the rules,” Sharockman said.

At the conclusion of his Lead Stories post, Schenk wrote, “Even though we are obviously disappointed by this news, Lead Stories wishes to thank the many people at Meta we have worked with over the past years and we will continue our fact checking mission. To paraphrase the slogan on our main page: ‘Just because it’s now trending without a fact-checking label still won’t make it true.’”

Fox News Digital’s Gabriel Hays and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has meetings with over a dozen senators over the next two days, including top progressive Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., in addition to others in the Democratic caucus.

President-elect Donald Trump announced last year that RFK Jr. was his pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in his second administration. Since the news broke, Kennedy has been on Capitol Hill meeting with various senators. 

Up until this point, he had only met with Republicans in the upper chamber. But on Wednesday, Kennedy begins his sit-downs with a handful of Democrats, who could be crucial to his getting confirmed. 

TRUMP, GOP SENATORS TO HUDDLE AT CAPITOL, WEIGH STRATEGY ON BUDGET, TAXES AND BORDER

RFK Jr. will begin several meetings with Democrats on Wednesday. (Reuters)

Kennedy, a former Democrat and independent presidential candidate, will attend meetings with Democratic caucus members, Sens. Catherine Cortez-Masto of Nevada, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Michael Bennet of Colorado, Mark Warner of Virginia, Warren and Sanders. 

The one-on-ones with Democrats are coming as several in the party have expressed openness to some of Kennedy’s positions, particularly as it relates to agriculture and food production. 

But some of those same policy stances pose a potential problem for his support among Republicans in the Senate. 

MIDWESTERN STATE SENATOR REVIVES DOGE-ALIGNED BILLS AS GOP PREPARES FOR DC TAKEOVER

Kennedy endorsed Trump after dropping out.  (IMAGN)

He will also be joining Sens. Jim Banks, R-Ind., Bill Cassidy, R-La., Susan Collins, R-Maine, John Cornyn, R-Texas and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, for meetings on the hill this week. 

Grassley is one of a handful of Republicans that have flagged concerns regarding Kennedy’s positions on agriculture and how they could affect farmers. 

“They’ve got to be able to use modern farming techniques, and that involves a lot of things, not only really sophisticated equipment, but also fertilizers and pesticides. So, we have to have that conversation,” Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., recently told reporters. 

TRANSGENDER BILL BARRING MEN FROM WOMEN’S SPORTS TO GET FLOOR VOTE IN NEWLY GOP-LED SENATE

Some Senate Republicans want answers from RFK Jr. on agricultural beliefs before confirming him. (Reuters)

Grassley previously emphasized the need for genetic engineering to keep up with food demand and feed the country. 

However, others have expressed confidence that Kennedy will make the right calls for farmers. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., said he warned Kennedy not to go “overboard” with agriculture regulations during their meeting last year.

He added that Trump’s HHS pick was “very on board” and “understands our farmers are in trouble, and we want to make sure that we have farmers that can make a living.” 

Tuberville is supporting RFK Jr. for HHS.  (IMAGN)

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After Kennedy endorsed Trump ahead of the 2024 election, the two debuted their campaign to “Make America Healthy Again.” 

This slogan has been adopted by a caucus formed by some Senate Republicans who are supporting Kennedy for the HHS role and hope to facilitate his and Trump’s policies to promote health in the country. 

Welcome to the Fox News Politics newsletter, with the latest updates on the Trump transition, exclusive interviews and more Fox News politics content.

Here’s what’s happening…

–Judge denies Trump motion to stop NY criminal case sentencing

-Laken Riley Act passes House with 48 Dems, all Republicans

-Trump threatens to tap allies for military shipbuilding if US can’t produce

Who will be the next leader of Canada? 

Canada’s Justin Trudeau announced his resignation as prime minister Monday, with his Liberal Party in turmoil amid declining poll numbers and an election on the horizon. 

Whoever assumes leadership in the unpopular governing party will become the next prime minister, and that person must tackle rising costs of living, an immigration crisis and aggressive economic pressure from President-elect Trump – not to mention the challenge from Canada’s ascendant Conservative Party in the next election, to be held no later than October. 

The next Liberal Party leader will be chosen in a national leadership contest, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Party President Sachit Mehra said Monday he would call a meeting “to be held this week to begin the nationwide democratic process of selecting a new leader of the party.”…Read more

Former Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland, former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney, Minister of Finance Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly, former B.C. Premier Christy Clark and former Liberal MP Frank Baylis are all potential candidates to replace Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. (REUTERS/Blair Gable, Peter Summers/Pool via REUTERS, REUTERS/Blair Gable, REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz, Government of Canada, REUTERS/Ben Nelms, Parliament of Canada)

White House

CURTAIN CALL: Pardons, Israel, domestic terrorism and more: Biden’s plans for final days of presidency…Read more

‘BIG MISTAKE’: Trump: Carter was a ‘very fine’ person but Panama Canal moves were ‘a big mistake’…Read more

World Stage

NOT FOR SALE: Danish prime minister has blunt message for Trump: Greenland is not for sale…Read more

Trump has taken a new interest in Greenland. (iStock / Getty Images)

‘DEAL THAT MUST HAPPEN’: Donald Trump Jr arrives in Greenland as his father says Denmark ‘give it up’…Read more

BLUE STATE BEHEMOTH: Trump trolling Canada as 51st state could boost Democrats with ‘blue-state behemoth’…Read more

‘POINT OF NO RETURN’?: Iran’s nuclear program is nearing ‘a point of no return,’ France’s Macron says…Read more

BIG GUNS: Kim Jong Un’s big guns spotted on Russian front lines: report…Read more

Trump Transition

‘A BAD IDEA’: Physician governor urges Capitol Hill to block RFK Jr.’s confirmation: ‘Our children’s lives depend on it’…Read more

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s alliance with Trump may have changed the course of the election, Charles Hurst argues. (REUTERS/Go Nakamura)

‘PLAYING WITH THE COURTS’: Trump blasts ongoing ‘lawfare’ in first public remarks since Congress certified his election…Read more

Capitol Hill

STOPPING TRAFFIC: House Republican’s bill would rip federal funds from states that give illegal immigrants driver’s licenses…Read more

‘QUIT PLAYING AROUND’: Ex-Obama adviser calls out Schumer for ‘foolish’ claim Dems didn’t mislead on Biden…Read more

DEFINING DOGE: What to know about DOGE and its quest to slash government waste, spending…Read more

Trump announced Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy would be leading the Department of Government Efficiency (“DOGE”) on Tuesday, November 12, 2024.  (Getty Images)

Across America

‘COME A LONG WAY’: Trump says Meta has ‘come a long way’ after Zuckerberg ends fact-checking on platforms…Read more

‘BEAUTIFUL NAME’: Trump announces Gulf of Mexico will get new, pro-America revamp…Read more

Get the latest updates on the Trump presidential transition, incoming Congress, exclusive interviews and more on FoxNews.com

FIRST ON FOX: Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate are renewing a push to crack down on noncitizen voting in federal elections, reintroducing a bipartisan bill that was repeatedly touted last year by the GOP.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, are reintroducing the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which looks to ensure that noncitizens cannot vote in federal elections.

While only citizens can vote in federal elections, Republicans have claimed that it is impossible to enforce because noncitizens and illegal immigrants are eligible for driver’s licenses and other benefits in states, which can lead them to being registered to vote.

LAKEN RILEY ACT PASSES HOUSE WITH 48 DEMS, ALL REPUBLICANS

People arrive to cast their ballots during early voting. (Christopher Mark Juhn/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The bill requires states to obtain documentary proof of U.S. citizenship and identity in person when registering an individual to vote. It also requires states to establish a program to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls, and allows citizens to bring suits against officials that fail to uphold the law.

The bill was passed in the House last year, with five Democrats voting in favor, but stalled in the Senate – where the Democrat-controlled chamber passed a spending bill without the SAVE Act being included, as Republicans had hoped. President Biden had promised to veto the bill.

The bill has gained increasing importance among Republicans amid a surge of migrants into the U.S. during the Biden administration, as well as recent announcements by states that they had identified thousands of noncitizens on their rolls.

But now Republicans control the Senate and soon the White House, where President-elect Trump has voiced support for legislation to prevent noncitizens from voting.

SENATE PASSES FUNDING BILL WITHOUT SAVE ACT, AVOIDING POTENTIAL SHUTDOWN

“Republicans must pass the Save Act, or go home and cry yourself to sleep,” he said in July.

Roy, who is introducing the bill in the House with Rep. Andrew Garbarino, R-NY., said, “American elections belong to American citizens, and the public’s confidence in those elections is the cornerstone of our republic,” 

“We in Congress have a duty to our fellow citizens to provide that confidence. We must have concrete enforcement mechanisms in place to ensure that our elections and our sovereignty cannot be hijacked and influenced by foreign nationals who have no business voting in this country,” he said.

Rep. Chip Roy nominates Rep. Jim Jordan to be speaker before the third round of voting in the House chamber on Jan. 3, 2023. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

“The House passed this critical bipartisan bill last year – we must do it again. I look forward to working with the Republican Senate to put this policy on President Trump’s desk,” he said.

Lee said public trust in election integrity “is absolutely essential for the legitimacy of our democratic institutions.” 

CLICK HERE FOR MORE IMMIGRATION COVERAGE

“A vast majority of our countrymen agree: only American citizens should be able to register and vote in American elections. The SAVE Act gives states the ability to prevent illegal voter registration and protect the ballot box from foreign election interference,” he said.

Garbarino, meanwhile, criticized New York City for disregarding the principle of American citizens deciding their elections by allowing noncitizens to vote in local elections.

“The SAVE Act upholds the integrity of our elections by requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote, ensuring this fundamental right is reserved exclusively for American citizens,” he said.

The bill also has the support of groups including the Only Citizens Vote Coalition, Tea Party Patriots Action and the Immigration Accountability Project. It has 59 co-sponsors in the House. The bill was introduced in the lower chamber on Friday and is expected to be introduced in the Senate next week.

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The bill comes as Congress is expected to have immigration-related issues as a top priority. On Tuesday, the House passed the Laken Riley Act, which would require federal immigration authorities to detain illegal immigrants found guilty of theft-related crimes. It also would allow states to sue the Department of Homeland Security for harm caused to their citizens because of illegal immigration.

Fox News’ Julia Johnson and Liz Elkind contributed to this report.

Hawaii’s Democratic Governor and practicing physician, Josh Green, is visiting Capitol Hill this week to lobby lawmakers against the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary. In a Tuesday op-ed for The New York Times, he argued that “our children’s lives depend” on preventing Kennedy from leading the agency.

Green, who worked as a physician before entering politics, has continued practicing emergency room medicine throughout his legislative career. In 2019, as Hawaii’s lieutenant governor, Green helped spearhead efforts to increase vaccination rates in Samoa amid a measles outbreak in the region. Green arrived in the nation’s capital on Sunday evening to begin his meetings that will go until he returns to Hawaii on Thursday. 

“As the only physician governor, I need to explain what are good picks and what maybe aren’t so good picks for the cabinet,” Green said in a video ahead of his planned trip to Washington, noting that his lobbying against Kennedy is not anything personal or politically motivated. “[RFK Jr’s] appointment to be the head of Health and Human Services is not consistent with safety for our children,” he said. 

RFK JR. SAYS HE PLANS TO ALSO MEET WITH DEMS IN BID TO GET CONFIRMED AS TRUMP HHS HEAD

During his trip to Washington, Green said that he would be discussing with lawmakers and other leaders to explore “a better place for [RFK Jr.] to be” rather than HHS, calling his potential confirmation “a bad idea.”

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green speaks at the 2024 summer meeting of the National Governors Association, Thursday, July 11, 2024, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

Questions over the likelihood of Kennedy’s confirmation took a turn this week after Sen. Bill Cassidy, R–La., the incoming chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, called out the potential future HHS Secretary for being “wrong” on the issue of vaccines. The criticism follows concerns that Kennedy may seek to get rid of the polio vaccine, after news broke that one of his previous colleagues at Childrens Health Defense, a health-focused nonprofit Kennedy previously chaired, petitioned the government in 2019 to revoke its approval.

Green’s criticism of Kennedy has largely revolved around his anti-vaccine views as well, in particular Kennedy’s response to a measles outbreak in Samoa, during which the potential future HHS Secretary promoted doubts around vaccine efficacy, according to Green and others, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. Those efforts included a letter Kennedy sent to the country’s prime minister, as chairman of Children’s Health Defense, suggesting that the measles vaccine could have potentially exacerbated the outbreak.

DIET AND NUTRITION EXPERTS WEIGH IN ON HOW RFK JR’S NOMINATION COULD IMPACT HOW WE EAT 

President-elect Trump nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head HHS. (Getty Images)

The Democratic governor penned an op-ed published in The New York Times on Tuesday, continuing to drill at Kennedy’s anti-vaccine efforts in 2019 amid Samoa’s measles outbreak. According to Greene, Kennedy “used misinformation to scare all the people of Samoa away from being vaccinated” and served to “torpedo” the country’s vaccination efforts.

“Too much depends on our commitment to truth and the lifesaving power of vaccines to entrust Mr. Kennedy with the direction of these programs. Our children’s lives depend on it,” Green wrote.

RFK JR. LOOKS TO REASSURE SENATORS OVER VACCINE COMMENTS 

Kennedy’s team has not responded to repeated efforts by Fox News Digital to get in touch, but in 2023, Kennedy said during an appearance in a short film that he “never told anybody not to vaccinate” and that he “didn’t go [to Samoa] with any reason to do with that.” Furthermore, amid concerns about how Kennedy might approach the polio vaccine, he told reporters on Capitol Hill last month that he is “all for the polio vaccine.”

Medical professional preparing injection of vaccine or treatment. (iStock)

Proponents of Kennedy’s nomination have suggested his proposed plans, if confirmed, will be rooted in logic and science.

“I think that Kennedy has aimed to stand for evidence-based changes to policy,” said Nina Teicholz, a nutrition expert and founder of The Nutrition Coalition, a New York-based nonprofit organization. 

“Right now, the media is covering RFK Jr. poorly and unfairly, giving him no credit for ideas that are well within the bounds of discussion,” added Dr. Vinay Prasad, in an article published by The Free Press. “Many of RFK Jr.’s ideas have a logic.”

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Fox News Digital reached out to Green’s office for comment but did not hear back by publication time.  

FIRST ON FOX – Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., introduced a bill that would pull federal highway funding from states such as New York that issue driver’s licenses and identification cards to illegal immigrants. 

Tenney, who co-chaired the House Election Integrity Caucus amid the 2024 race that ended in President-elect Trump’s victory, re-introduced her bill – named the Red Light Act – at the start of the new Congress. 

The proposal says it aims to “withhold federal highway funds from States that provide drivers licenses or identification cards to aliens who are unlawfully present in the United States, and for other purposes.” 

“Our nation is grappling with an unprecedented migrant crisis, yet some states, like New York, are incentivizing and rewarding criminals with driver’s licenses and identification cards,” Tenney said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “In New York, the Green Light Law has given licenses to illegal immigrants, allowing these dangerous individuals to roam freely in our country, brutally attacking, raping, and murdering members of our community. In addition, this law also restricts law enforcement from accessing DMV records, preventing the enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws. This legislation ensures states that refuse to comply with our nation’s immigration policies are not rewarded with federal funding.” 

TRUMP BORDER CZAR BLASTS NY GOVERNOR FOR TOUTING SUBWAY SAFETY HOURS AFTER HORRIFIC MURDER: ‘SHAME ON YOU’

Rep. Claudia Tenney greets Mike Johnson before he was re-elected House speaker for the 119th Congress, Friday, Jan. 3, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Passed by the state legislature in 2019 and signed by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the Green Light Law allows New York to issue driver’s licenses to undocumented individuals. As part of a sanctuary policy intended to block deportations, it also directed the state Department of Motor Vehicles to withhold records from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or other federal law enforcement without a court order or judicial warrant signed by a judge for such information. 

Law enforcement leaders have blasted the law as legislating obstruction. 

Trump’s incoming border czar Tom Homan, a native of upstate New York, floated the idea of blocking vehicles with New York license plates from entering the U.S. from the Canadian border if the state does not repeal the Green Light Law. 

“To me, this is a high priority,” Homan told the Buffalo News. “I grew up in New York state, I still own a home in the state. What happens in New York means a lot to me.” 

Tom Homan speaks at the National Conservative Conference in Washington, D.C., July 8, 2024. (Dominic Gwinn/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)

TOM HOMAN TOUTS MAYOR ADAMS’ COMMITMENT TO WORKING WITH TRUMP ADMIN ON BORDER CRISIS

“That would be bizarre to me that anyone thinks that stopping our vehicles from coming in and out of our country, keeping New Yorkers in a foreign country, is a smart path forward,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said at an unrelated press conference on Monday, responding to Homan’s proposal. “I’d like to sit down and have that conversation.” 

Gov. Kathy Hochul visits Newsday headquarters on Jan. 22, 2024, in Melville, New York. (Howard Schnapp/Newsday RM via Getty Images)

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Tenney’s bill would grant the secretary of transportation authority to withhold 100% of the amount required to be apportioned to a state’s federal highway system for fiscal year 2025 and each fiscal year afterward. 

The measure also allows the secretary to reapportion the funding to states that repeal any such laws that provide driver’s licenses or identification cards to aliens who are unlawfully present in the U.S. 

President-elect Donald Trump railed against the ongoing “lawfare” against him in his first public remarks since Congress certified his decisive election win over Vice President Kamala Harris. 

“They’re playing with the courts, as you know, they’ve been playing with the courts for four years. Probably got me more votes because I got the highest number of votes ever gotten by a Republican by far, actually, by a lot. And, you know, we had a great election, so I guess it didn’t work. But even to this day, they’re playing with the courts and they’re friendly judges that like to try and make everybody happy .. It’s called lawfare, it’s called weaponization of justice,” Trump said Tuesday during a press conference from Mar-a-Lago. 

Trump held the press conference, which was his first since Congress certified his election win on Monday, to announce DAMAC Properties will invest $20 billion in new data centers across the country. DAMAC’s owner, Hussain Sajwani, said the investment is aimed at facilitating the development of AI and cloud-based technologies.

JUDGE MERCHAN DENIES TRUMP’S REQUEST TO DELAY SENTENCING

CEO of DAMAC Properties Hussain Sajwani makes remarks next to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, U.S. January 7, 2025. REUTERS/Carlos Barria (Reuters)

Trump took aim at the legal battles he has faced in the last four years during the address, slamming special counsel Jack Smith as well as New York Judge Juan Merchan. 

“I call it the Injustice Department. What they’ve done is so bad, the whole world has watched that. And, it took work, but it got me a lot of votes, because when explained, we have a judge in New York is a very crooked judge,” he said, referring to Justice Juan Merchan who presides over the New York v. Trump case. “I’m under a gag order. I can’t even talk about aspects of the case that are the most vital aspects I’m going to do. You know that I’m the president-elect of the United States of America. I’m a former very successful president.”

Merchan announced earlier this month that he will sentence Trump in the New York v. Trump case on Jan. 10, ahead of his inauguration as president on Jan. 20. Trump’s legal time filed a motion to delay sentencing, which Merchan denied on Monday afternoon. 

TRUMP FILES MOTION TO STAY ‘UNLAWFUL SENTENCING’ IN NEW YORK CASE

“Today, President Trump’s legal team moved to stop the unlawful sentencing in the Manhattan D.A.’s Witch Hunt. The Supreme Court’s historic decision on Immunity, the state constitution of New York, and other established legal precedent mandate that this meritless hoax be immediately dismissed,” Trump spokesperson and incoming White House communications director Steven Cheung told Fox Digital on Monday morning.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump makes remarks at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, U.S. January 7, 2025. REUTERS/Carlos Barria (Reuters )

“The American People elected President Trump with an overwhelming mandate that demands an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and all of the remaining Witch Hunts. We look forward to uniting our country in the new administration as President Trump makes America great again,” Cheung continued. 

​​Trump was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the Manhattan case in May. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office worked to prove that Trump falsified business records to conceal a $130,000 payment to former porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election to quiet her claims of an alleged affair with Trump in 2006. Trump has maintained his innocence in the case. 

NEW YORK JUDGE SETS TRUMP SENTENCING DAYS BEFORE INAUGURATION

Smith, who led the investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents after his first term in the White House, is set to release a final report on the investigation. Two of Trump’s former co-defendants in the classified documents case, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, filed an emergency motion on Monday in an effort to block the report’s release. 

FILE – Judge Juan M. Merchan poses in his chambers in New York, March 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

“These Defendants will irreparably suffer harm as civilian casualties of the Government’s impermissible and contumacious utilization of political lawfare to include release of the unauthorized Report,” Nauta and De Oliveira’s attorneys wrote in an emergency motion filed on Monday. “The Final Report relies on materials to which Smith, as disqualified special counsel, is no longer entitled access— making his attempt to share such materials with the public highly improper.” 

The judge presiding over the case blocked Smith’s efforts to release the report on Tuesday. 

Trump slammed Smith as “deranged” during his Tuesday remarks, while taking a victory lap that the court cases brought against him since the 2020 election have fizzled out since the 2024 election. Trump has maintained his innocence in the various state and federal cases brought against him, arguing they were examples of “lawfare” intended to hamper his campaign to reclaim the White House. 

NY JUDGE ANNOUNCES UNCONDITIONAL DISCHARGE SENTENCING FOR TRUMP ON JAN 10

Jack Smith, US special counsel, speaks during a news conference in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2023. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“I defeated deranged Jack Smith. He’s a deranged individual. I guess he’s on his way back to The Hague. And we won those cases. Those were the biggest ones. And, the press made such a big deal out of them. But we did nothing wrong. We did nothing wrong on anything. And the people saw that, you know, when they vote to when you went to Republicans,” he said. 

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Fox News Digital’s Anders Hagstrom and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

The Biden administration secured an agreement to implement police reforms in Minneapolis ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

The consent decree agreement Monday with the Minneapolis Police Department follows a similar decree that the department agreed upon with Louisville, Kentucky, police last month. The agreements follow the Biden administration’s initiation of 12 investigations in 2021, which probed possible “pattern or practice” of civil rights abuses by police departments around the country following the anti-police riots that took place after the death of George Floyd in 2020. 

Both decrees await approval by the courts. The 171-page Minneapolis agreement would overhaul the city’s police training and use of-force-policies, while requiring officers to “promote the sanctity of human life as the highest priority in their activities.” The decree also mandates that officers must not allow race, gender or ethnicity “to influence any decision to use force, including the amount or type of force used.”

MINNEAPOLIS POLICE STAFFING LEVEL PLUMMETS TO HISTORIC 4-DECADE LOW 3 YEARS AFTER GEORGE FLOYD’S DEATH: REPORT

Other elements of the Minneapolis agreement include bolstering protections for protesters, new data collection requirements aimed at reducing racial discrimination, guidelines restricting officers from going after fleeing subjects, new interrogation requirements, a mandate against racial profiling in investigations, traffic stop reforms and more.

A local resident looks at a police vehicle driving along a street north of Minneapolis on Sept. 9, 2021. (REUTERS/Carlos Barria)

Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division was asked repeatedly during a Monday press conference from Minneapolis whether the Trump administration could derail the agreement.

“I can’t predict the future,” Clarke said. “What I can tell you is that the findings we identified in Minneapolis are severe. These are real issues that impact people’s lives. The community wants reform. The city wants reform, the police department wants reform, and the Justice Department stands here today as a full partner in the effort of achieving reform and transformation for this community.”

BIDEN DOJ OPPOSES COURT DECISION ALLOWING DEREK CHAUVIN CHANCE TO EXAMINE GEORGE FLOYD’S HEART

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian OHara addresses more than 100 uniformed law enforcement officers while waiting for the release of an officer who was shot in the line of duty in north Minneapolis, Saturday, Aug. 12, 2023. (Photo by Aaron Lavinksy/Star Tribune via Getty Images)

Meanwhile, in an email to constituents, Minneapolis City Council Member Robin Wonsley said she has no faith that the incoming Trump administration will be a “serious partner” in supporting the recently agreed-upon consent decree.

A similar consent decree agreed upon by the Biden administration and the Loisville police roughly three weeks ago also compels the department to revise its use-of-force policies, places new restrictions around traffic stops and police searches, and challenges how law enforcement deals with protesters. 

A local police union in the city is challenging the reforms, calling on a judge not to approve the agreement. Meanwhile, the conservative Heritage Foundation has argued that the point of the consent decree coming so late in Biden’s term is “to bind the Trump 47 Administration and future elected Louisville administrations who may well vehemently and categorically disagree with the Proposed Consent Decree.”

Protestors demonstrate outside a burning fast-food restaurant on Friday, May 29, 2020 in Minneapolis. (John Minchillo)

Both Minneapolis and Louisville were flash points for debates around police reform after both cities saw the high-profile deaths of Floyd and Breonna Taylor in 2020. Both cities, and numerous others, saw protesters rampage through the streets following their deaths, leading to multiple fatalities and billions of dollars in damage that year.  

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Fox News Digital reached out to the Justice Department for comment, but they declined to comment.

Conservatives on social media took a victory lap on Tuesday in response to the news that Meta had ended its controversial fact-checking practices and promised to move toward a system more focused on free speech.

“Meta finally admits to censoring speech…what a great birthday present to wake up to and a huge win for free speech,” GOP Sen. Rand Paul posted on X on Tuesday in response to news, first reported by Fox News Digital, that Meta is ending its fact-checking program and lifting restrictions on speech to “restore free expression” across Facebook, Instagram and Meta platforms, admitting its current content moderation practices have “gone too far.”

“Jaw dropping—he explicitly says Meta will ‘adopt a system like X has of community notes’ because of the bias/abuse of 3rd party fact checkers,” Independent Women’s Forum visiting fellow Lyndsey Fifield posted on X in response to Meta’s chief global affairs officer, Joel Kaplan, speaking to Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends” Tuesday morning for an exclusive interview to discuss the changes. 

FACEBOOK ADMITS ‘MISTAKE’ IN CENSORING ICONIC TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT PHOTO: ‘THIS WAS AN ERROR’

Conservatives reacted with joy on Tuesday, responding to a censorship protocol announcement from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, right. (Getty Images)

“Nature is healing,” Fifield said. 

“There is absolutely 0 chance this would have happened if Trump didn’t win,” Abigail Jackson, communications director for GOP Sen. Josh Hawley, posted on X. 

“Here is the full video from Mark Zuckerberg announcing the end of censorship and misinformation policies,” Breaking Points co-host Sagaar Enjeti posted on X. “I highly recommend you watch all of it as tonally it is one of the biggest indications of ‘elections have consequences’ I have ever seen.”

“Zuck is committed to cleaning house,” journalist Jordan Schachtel posted on X. “Question the motives or not, this is a very real commitment and it’s good news for speech on the internet. Of course, probably not possible to pull off without Trump winning.”

Meta’s third-party fact-checking program was put in place after the 2016 election and had been used to “manage content” and misinformation on its platforms, largely due to “political pressure,” executives said, but admitted the system has “gone too far.” 

Since then, the process has drawn the ire of conservatives who have accused the platform of politically driven censoring while pointing to several examples of content being silenced, including the bombshell New York Post reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop, which Zuckerberg admitted the Biden White House pressured him to do and later called the move a mistake. 

FACEBOOK HAS ‘INTERFERED’ WITH US ELECTIONS 39 TIMES SINCE 2008: STUDY

Meta had ended its controversial fact-checking practices. (AP Photo/Patrick Sison, File)

Kaplan said Meta currently uses automated systems, which he said make “too many mistakes” and removes content “that doesn’t even violate our standards.” He also said there are certain things Meta will continue to moderate, like posts relating to terrorism, illegal drugs and child sexual exploitation.

Zuckerberg also pointed out in his video message on Tuesday that moderation teams will be moving from California to Texas, where he suggested there will be “less concern about the bias of our teams.”

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Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Meta Platforms Inc., center, arrives following a break during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024. (Kent Nishimura)

“We’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms,” Zuckerberg said. “More specifically, we’re going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with Community Notes similar to X, starting in the U.S.” 

Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is moving forward with a regulatory rule in the final days of the Biden administration that would effectively ban cigarettes currently on the market in favor of products with lower nicotine levels, which could end up boosting business for cartels operating on the black market, an expert tells Fox News Digital.

“Biden’s ban is a gift with a bow and balloons to organized crime cartels with it, whether it’s cartels, Chinese organized crime, or Russian mafia. It’s going to keep America smoking, and it’s going to make the streets more violent,” Rich Marianos, former assistant director of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the current chair of the Tobacco Law Enforcement Network, told Fox News Digital of the proposal. 

The FDA confirmed to Fox Digital on Monday that as of Jan. 3, the Tobacco Product Standard for Nicotine Level of Certain Tobacco Products had completed a regulatory review, but that the proposed rule has not yet been finalized. 

“The proposed rule, ‘Tobacco Product Standard for Nicotine Level of Certain Tobacco Products,’ is displaying in the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) ROCIS system as having completed regulatory review on January 3,” an FDA spokesman told Fox Digital. “As the FDA has previously said, a proposed product standard to establish a maximum nicotine level to reduce the addictiveness of cigarettes and certain other combusted tobacco products, when finalized, is estimated to be among the most impactful population-level actions in the history of U.S. tobacco product regulation. At this time, the FDA cannot provide any further comment until it is published.”

Fox New Digital reached out to the White House regarding concerns over the proposal if it were to take effect but did not receive a response. 

BIDEN ADMIN FACING CONGRESSIONAL PROBE OVER PROPOSED BAN ON MENTHOL CIGARETTES

President Biden speaks in Washington, DC, US, on Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. The FDA confirmed to Fox Digital that as of Jan. 3, the Tobacco Product Standard for Nicotine Level of Certain Tobacco Products had completed a regulatory review but that the proposed rule has not yet been finalized. (Samuel Corum/Sipa/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Former President Barack Obama signed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act in 2009, which granted the FDA the power to regulate tobacco products. In the years since, the agency has worked to lower nicotine levels, including in July 2017 under the Trump administration, when then-FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb announced it would seek to require tobacco companies to drastically cut nicotine in cigarettes in an effort to help adult smokers quit.

In 2022, the FDA under the Biden administration announced plans for the proposed rule that would lower levels of nicotine so they were less addictive or non-addictive.

“Lowering nicotine levels to minimally addictive or non-addictive levels would decrease the likelihood that future generations of young people become addicted to cigarettes and help more currently addicted smokers to quit,” FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said at the time. 

POPULAR ITALIAN CITY OFFICIALLY BANS CIGARETTE SMOKING OUTDOORS

Lowering the levels of nicotine in commonly purchased cigarettes and other tobacco products would open the floodgates to the illicit trafficking of tobacco products into the U.S., Marianos told Fox News Digital. 

“This decision is being thrown down the public’s throat without one ounce of thought and preparation. Nobody sat down with law enforcement, nobody sat down with any doctors, No one sat down with any regulators to find out, ‘Hey, look, what are the unintended ramifications of such a poor choice,’ and that’s what I’m going to call it, a poor choice,” Marianos said. 

Woman lighting a cigarette. (Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP)

He explained that Mexican cartels are well-positioned to bring illegal tobacco across the border, as they do with substances such as fentanyl that have devastated communities across the U.S., while Chinese criminal organizations have some of the best counterfeit operations stretching from baby formula to cigarettes, and Russian organized crime groups have their foot in the door in cities across the nation, including in bodegas and other stores that sell tobacco products. 

Marianos said that criminal groups would likely quickly catch on to the proposal if it takes effect and subsequently amplify their tobacco operations – which he says will serve as an economic boon for the criminals. 

Immigrants attempt to cross into the U.S. from Mexico at the border Dec. 17, 2023 in Jacumba Hot Springs, California. (Photo by Nick Ut/Getty Images)

Americans who want to purchase cigarettes with higher levels of nicotine would then need to go through the illicit channels to obtain them, similar to buying “loosie” cigarettes on the streets of New York, putting average Americans at further criminal risk while also offering them cigarettes that are not regulated and originating from foreign nations. 

WANT TO STOP SMOKING FOR GOOD? CDC LAUNCHES NEW CAMPAIGN WITH FREE RESOURCES TO QUIT

Both Democrat and Republican lawmakers have already warned that tobacco trafficking in the U.S. poses a grave national security threat and already has its foot in the door. 

 A couple smoking cigarettes. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

“In 2015, the State Department cited activity by terrorist groups, and criminal networks who have used tobacco trafficking operations to finance other crimes, including ‘money laundering, bulk cash smuggling, and the trafficking in humans, weapons, drugs, antiquities, diamonds, and counterfeit goods,’” Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La.; Mark Warner, D-Va.; Marco Rubio, R-Fla.;  Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn.; and then-Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., wrote in a 2023 letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken. 

BIDEN ADMIN ABRUPTLY DELAYS PLAN TO BAN MENTHOL CIGARETTES AMID WIDESPREAD OPPOSITION

“Recently, public reporting has also noted these financial linkages between Mexican transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) involved in narcotics and fentanyl trafficking, and these tobacco smuggling activities. Mexican TCOs pose a grave threat to American national security and public health.”

Marianos added that in addition to the criminal effect posed to America and its residents, lowering nicotine levels would also defeat the stated mission of weaning smokers off cigarettes and instead lead to an increase in smoking. 

The FDA is moving forward with a regulatory rule in the final days of the Biden administration that would effectively ban cigarettes currently on the market in favor of products with lower nicotine levels. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

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“You’re going to create more smoking. And I thought that’s what we’re trying to get away from, right? Smoking is bad. I thought we’re trying to do everything possible to get away from that and get the country safer. Well, if you take down the nicotine levels, people are going to smoke more. That is proven. All you have to do is just drive here in DC and see, you know workers on their smoke break,” he said, saying work productivity will even be driven down as people take more smoke breaks in alleys to get their nicotine fix. 

The Biden administration previously attempted to outright ban menthol cigarettes, in what was described as a “critical” piece of President Biden’s Cancer Moonshot initiative, but announced last year it was abruptly delaying such regulations as the public decried the move. A handful of groups argued that banning menthol unfairly targeted minority communities, while others argued the ban would open the floodgates to illicit menthol sales.

FIRST ON FOX: Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., is reintroducing a measure to prevent biological male participation in women’s and girls’ sports in the newly Republican-led Senate, and with the approval of leadership, it’s expected to get a floor vote. 

The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act has been a yearslong crusade for the Alabama Republican, who originally introduced it in 2023.

The measure would maintain that Title IX treats gender as “recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth” and does not adjust it to apply to gender identity. 

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Sen. Tommy Tuberville has led an effort to safeguard women’s and girls’ sports for years. (Getty Images)

Tuberville’s legislation would ban federal funding from going toward athletic programs that allow biological men to participate in women’s and girls’ sports.  

This would apply to biological men and boys who identify as transgender and seek to participate in events and leagues for women and girls. 

“President Trump ran on the issue of saving women’s sports and won in a landslide,” the senator said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “70% of Americans agree—men don’t belong in women’s sports or locker rooms. I have said many times that I think Title IX is one of the best things to come out of Washington. But in the last few years, it has been destroyed.”

“While I’m glad that the Biden administration ultimately rescinded the proposed rule, Congress has to ensure this never happens again. I am welcoming my first granddaughter this spring and won’t stop fighting until her rights to fairly compete are protected. I hope every one of my colleagues will join me in standing up for our daughters, nieces, and granddaughters by voting for this critical bill.”

NEW SENATOR BERNIE MORENO WANTS BORDER BILL ON TRUMP’S DESK ON DAY 1, PUTTING DEMS ON RECORD

Protecting women’s and girls’ sports has become a hot-button issue. (Tamir Kalifa/Getty Images)

The measure is co-sponsored by 23 Republican senators, including Sens. James Risch and Mike Crapo of Idaho, Ron Johnson, R-Wis., Thom Tillis and Ted Budd of North Carolina, Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., Cindy Hyde-Smith and Roger Wicker of Mississippi, Tom Cotton, R-Ark., James Lankford, R-Okla., Steve Daines and Tim Sheehy of Montana, Roger Marshall, R-Kan., Mike Lee, R-Utah, John Kennedy, R-La., John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Katie Britt, R-Ala., and Pete Ricketts, R-Neb. 

According to Tuberville’s office, he is working closely with President-elect Donald Trump to ensure there is fair competition under his administration. 

With the new Senate under the authority of Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., Tuberville’s bill has gotten the proper blessing to move forward. A vote on the measure could come as soon as the end of the week. 

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Sen. John Thune (AP Photo/Susan Walsh/File)

Democrats will be forced to put themselves on record about the transgender issue, which managed to rear its head during the 2024 presidential election and get pushback from Americans at the ballot box. One of the most memorable ads from the Trump campaign claimed, “Kamala is for they-them; President Trump is for you.” 

Last month, the Biden administration withdrew a proposed Title IX rule change in a lame-duck move after a long fight to adjust the policy. 

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Biden sought to include protections for gender identity. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta/File)

During his term, the administration sought to expand the definition of sex discrimination to include both sexual orientation and gender identity in order to protect LGBTQ students. 

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The proposal received inordinate levels of resistance and delayed plans to implement the new rule. 

Additionally, Biden’s effort was tied up in legal challenges. His rule change was struck down in several states by a U.S. district judge over the summer. 

Two of President-elect Trump’s former co-defendants in the classified documents case want a judge to block Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report from being released to the public. 

Trump’s valet Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, the property manager of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, want U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to keep Smith’s report out of the public eye.

Fox News is told the report is days from being released. It could be later this week or sometime next week. Smith will resign from his position before Trump takes office on January 20. 

“These Defendants will irreparably suffer harm as civilian casualties of the Government’s impermissible and contumacious utilization of political lawfare to include release of the unauthorized Report,” Nauta and De Oliveira’s attorneys wrote in an emergency motion filed on Monday. “The Final Report relies on materials to which Smith, as disqualified special counsel, is no longer entitled access— making his attempt to share such materials with the public highly improper.” 

SPECIAL COUNSEL JACK SMITH PLANS TO RESIGN, FILE REPORT BEFORE TRUMP CAN FIRE HIM: REPORT

Jack Smith, US special counsel, speaks during a news conference in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2023. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The emergency motion asked the Court for an immediate hearing to “establish the impropriety of unchecked release; the scope of the resulting prejudice; and the specific materials contained in the Report for which release is impermissible.” 

“The Final Report promises to be a one-sided, slanted report, relying nearly exclusively on evidence presented to a grand jury and subject to all requisite protections—and which is known to Smith only as a result of his unconstitutional appointment—in order to serve a singular purpose: convincing the public that everyone Smith charged is guilty of the crimes charged,” Nauta and De Oliveira’s attorneys wrote. 

“But Nauta’s and De Oliveira’s criminal cases are not over; the appeal of this Court’s dismissal order by Smith is still pending,” the motion says. “The Government notably continued briefing the appeal even following the dismissal of the appeal as to President Trump. There remains the threat of future criminal proceedings as to Nauta and De Oliveira, and those proceedings will be irreversibly and irredeemably prejudiced by dissemination of the Final Report.” 

It is customary for a special counsel to release a final report when his or her work is done, detailing the findings of their investigation and explaining any prosecution or declination decisions they reached as a result of the probe. In Smith’s case, the prosecution decision is immaterial, given Trump’s status as president-elect and longstanding Justice Department policy against bringing criminal charges against a sitting president. 

The report would first go to Attorney General Merrick Garland’s office for review, according to standard practice.

Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche, who is poised to be in a senior role at the Department of Justice, is asking Garland not to release the report. 

“Smith’s proposed plan for releasing a report is unlawful, undertaken in bad faith, and contrary to the public interest,” Blanche wrote in an exhibit attached to the same motion. “Smith’s conduct also raises grave concerns under Article II because it unlawfully encroaches on the Executive authority of the incoming Administration of President Trump to resolve the issues surrounding Smith’s Office in accordance with President Trump’s commanding national mandate from the voters.” 

Wal Nauta, a personal aide to former President Trump, arrives at the Alto Lee Adams Sr. US Courthouse in Fort Pierce, Florida, on Aug. 10, 2023.  (CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images)

SPECIAL COUNSEL JACK SMITH REQUIRED TO SUBMIT TRUMP FINDINGS TO DOJ BEFORE LEAVING. WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

“The time has come to put an end to this weaponization of the justice system and move forward constructively,” he argued further. “No report should be prepared or released, and Smith should be removed, including for even suggesting that course of action given his obvious political motivations and desire to lawlessly undermine the transition.” 

Trump, Nauta and De Oliveira all pleaded not guilty to federal charges alleging they conspired to obstruct the FBI investigation into classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago. 

Smith was tapped by Garland in 2022 to investigate both the alleged effort by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election, as well as Trump’s keeping of allegedly classified documents at his Florida residence. 

Carlos De Oliveira, center, an employee of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, arrives for a court appearance with attorney John Irving, at the James Lawrence King Federal Justice Building, Monday, July 31, 2023, in Miami. (Wilfredo Lee/AP)

But he still must outline the investigation and its findings in his report to Garland, who will then decide whether to share it publicly. 

Notably, Garland has opted to release the reports from two other special counsels whose investigations concluded during his tenure — publishing both the summary reports submitted by John Durham, who was tapped by then-Attorney General Bill Barr in 2019 to review law enforcement and intelligence gathering during the 2016 presidential campaign and the origins of the Trump-Russia probe, as well as the final report from Robert Hur, a former U.S. attorney whom he tapped in 2023 to investigate President Biden’s handling of classified documents.

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These reports were made public at the same time as they were shared with members of Congress. It is unclear whether Garland will move to do the same with Smith’s findings, given their sensitivity and Trump’s status as president-elect.

Fox News’ Breanne Deppisch contributed to this report.

FIRST ON FOX: Meta is ending its fact-checking program and lifting restrictions on speech to “restore free expression” across Facebook, Instagram and Meta platforms, admitting its current content moderation practices have “gone too far.” 

“We’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a video posted Tuesday morning. “More specifically, we’re going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with Community Notes similar to X, starting in the U.S.” 

Meta’s chief global affairs officer, Joel Kaplan, will be on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends” Tuesday morning for an exclusive interview to discuss the changes. 

Meta’s third-party fact-checking program was put in place after the 2016 election and had been used to “manage content” and misinformation on its platforms, largely due to “political pressure,” executives said, but admitted the system has “gone too far.” 

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Mark Zuckerberg is shown at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Jan. 31, 2024. (Kent Nishimura)

“We went to independent, third-party fact-checkers,” Kaplan told Fox News Digital in an interview. “It has become clear there is too much political bias in what they choose to fact-check because, basically, they get to fact-check whatever they see on the platform.” 

Kaplan told Fox News Digital that Meta is “ending that completely” and will replace it with a “Community Notes” model similar to the one used on X, formerly Twitter.

“Instead of going to some so-called expert, it instead relies on the community and the people on the platform to provide their own commentary to something that they’ve read,” Kaplan explained, noting that if a note gets support from “the broadest cross-section of users,” that note can be attached to the content for others to see. 

“We think that’s a much better approach rather than relying on so-called experts who bring their own biases into the program,” Kaplan said.

ZUCKERBERG SAYS TRUMP FIST-PUMP REACTION TO SHOOTING WAS ‘BADA–’

Kaplan also told Fox News Digital that Meta is changing some of its own content moderation rules, especially those that they feel are “too restrictive and not allowing enough discourse around sensitive topics like immigration, trans issues and gender.”

“We want to make sure that discourse can happen freely on the platform without fear of censorship,” Kaplan told Fox News Digital. “We have the power to change the rules and make them more supportive of free expression. And we’re not just changing the rules, we are actually changing how we enforce the rules.”

Meta is ending its fact-checking program and lifting restrictions on speech to “restore free expression” across Facebook, Instagram and Meta platforms. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

Kaplan said Meta currently uses automated systems, which he said make “too many mistakes” and removes content “that doesn’t even violate our standards.”

He also said there are certain things Meta will continue to moderate, like posts relating to terrorism, illegal drugs and child sexual exploitation.

But as for the timing of the changes, Kaplan told Fox News Digital the company has “a real opportunity now.”

ZUCKERBERG, EXPRESSING REGRETS, ADMITS BOWING TO BIDEN ADMINISTRATION PRESSURE TO REMOVE CONTENT

“We have a new administration coming in that is far from pressuring companies to censor and [is more] a huge supporter of free expression,” Kaplan said, referring to the incoming Trump administration. “It gets us back to the values that Mark founded the company on.”

(AP Photo/Michael Dwyer/File)

Last year, Zuckerberg sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee in which he admitted that he felt pressure from the Biden administration, particularly with regard to COVID content, and even items like satire and humor. 

“The thing is, as American companies, when other governments around the world that don’t have our tradition or our First Amendment, when they see the United States government pressuring U.S. companies to take down content, it is just open season then for those governments to put more pressure [on their companies],” Kaplan explained. “We do think it is a real opportunity to work with the Trump administration and to work on free expression at home.”

MUSK PROVES HUNTER BIDEN CENSORSHIP CAME FROM COLLUSION AMONG BIDEN CAMPAIGN, LAW ENFORCEMENT AND TWITTER

Kaplan also said Meta sees “opportunities for partnership” with the Trump administration, not only on issues of free expression but also in “promoting American business and America’s technological edge.” 

“Those are issues of great importance to Meta and our sector,” Kaplan told Fox News Digital. “And we’re excited to work with the Trump administration to advance those goals.”

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Meanwhile, Meta also said it plans to take a more personalized approach to political content, so that users who want to see more posts of that kind can do so.

Meta said it will refocus its enforcement efforts to “illegal and high-severity violations.”

The Georgia Republican Party’s State Executive Committee has voted to expel former GOP Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan from being associated with the party, pointing to his alleged efforts to undermine Republican candidates.

The decision, approved unanimously, was finalized on Jan. 6, cutting Duncan’s ties to the GOP after years of accusations of disloyalty.

The resolution makes several allegations against Duncan, including accusations that he undermined GOP candidates, endorsed Democrat opponents and used his affiliation with the Republican Party for personal gain.

In a post on X, Duncan suggested that the resolution was not a good use of the party’s time.

JIMMY CARTER’S FUNERAL SERVICES BEGIN WITH TREK TO CHILDHOOD HOME, ATLANTA

Geoff Duncan, former lieutenant governor of Georgia, during the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago on Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024. (Getty Images)

“Hard to believe this is a good use of time for a party that’s only got a limited amount of time to figure out mass deportations, world peace and global tariffs. Learn how to take a victory lap not light another dumpster fire @JoshMcKoon,” he wrote, calling out the Georgia GOP chair.

According to the resolution, Duncan is “banned from all property owned or leased by the Georgia Republican Party and all events held by or under the authority of the Georgia Republican Party.”

The Georgia GOP said Duncan is prohibited from qualifying as a candidate for the Georgia Republican Party. The group also said his previous GOP nominations for lieutenant governor and, before that, the state House of Representatives, both races in which he won the primary and general elections, have been expunged.

The Georgia Republican Party’s State Executive Committee has voted to expel former GOP Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan from being associated with the party over his alleged disloyalty. (Getty Images)

The resolution demanded Duncan cease calling himself a Republican for personal profit or to undermine and sabotage the Republican Party and its candidates.

The state party also urged media outlets to refer to Duncan as an “expelled Republican” in future references.

The resolution claims Duncan undermined and sabotaged some Republican candidates, including current Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and failed 2022 Senate candidate Herschel Walker. 

It also notes Duncan’s public endorsements during the 2024 presidential race of President Biden and, when Biden dropped out, his subsequent endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris as a violation of his allegiance to the GOP.

GEORGIA AG URGES STATE SUPREME COURT TO REJECT DA WILLIS’ APPEAL IN TRUMP CASE

The Georgia Republican Party has asked that Duncan be referred to as an “expelled Republican” going forward. (Ben Hendren/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

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Georgia Republican Party chair Josh McKoon previously demanded that Duncan stop using his Republican credentials in public and media appearances.

The resolution also claims Duncan engaged in a “pattern of false and exaggerated claims” about his education and career.

The Georgia GOP additionally said Duncan, in his role as a CNN commentator, used his Republican title to “attack the Republican Party.”

FIRST ON FOX: Senate Republicans are preparing to take up several measures in the new year that were denied votes by Democrats in the last Congress. The first of these is the Laken Riley Act, being reintroduced by Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., and teed up for a vote by the end of the week. 

The measure was named for the 22-year-old Augusta University nursing student who was found dead on the University of Georgia’s campus in February. Jose Ibarra, a 26-year-old illegal immigrant, was found guilty of 10 total counts, including felony murder. He initially pleaded not guilty. 

He was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in November. 

The bill would require Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to arrest and detain illegal immigrants that have committed theft, burglary or shoplifting until they are deported. Additionally, states would have standing under the legislation to take civil action against members of the federal government that do not enforce immigration law. 

KAMALA HARRIS MAKES TRUMP’S 2024 PRESIDENTIAL WIN OFFICIAL DURING JOINT SESSION OF CONGRESS

The Laken Riley Act was first introduced in the House by Rep. Mike Collins in March and in the Senate by Sen. Katie Britt.  (Getty Images)

“It’s impossible to fully describe what was taken from Laken and from our family on February 22, 2024. Laken’s life was abundantly and exceptionally full of promise. She was a beautiful, shining beacon in the life of everyone who knew her. Not only did the people who knew and loved Laken lose a beautiful soul, but so did our world. Laken shared her love for Jesus with everyone she encountered. Laken’s passion for sharing her faith through acts of kindness were felt by everyone she met. Laken was selfless, hardworking and made those around her feel special. Laken did not just talk about her faith, she led by example,” said Allyson and John Phillips, Laken Riley’s mother and stepfather, in a statement. 

“The Laken Riley Act has our full support because it would help save innocent lives and prevent more families from going through the kind of heartbreak we’ve experienced. Laken would have been 23 on January 10th.  There is no greater gift that could be given to her and our country than to continue her legacy by saving lives through this bill. Every single member of Congress should be able to get behind this purely commonsense bill that will make our country and communities safer. We thank Congressman Mike Collins, Senator Katie Britt, and Senator Ted Budd for continuing to work to honor Laken’s legacy and get this legislation enacted into law.”

It was first introduced in the House by Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., in March and in the Senate by Britt. 

PRO-ISRAEL DEM COULD TIP SCALES IN KEY SENATE COMMITTEE AS MIDDLE EAST WAR CONTINUES

Ibarra pleaded not guilty. (Brynn Anderson/Pool via AP)

However, the bill never received a Senate floor vote relating to the standalone legislation. 

Republicans have an incoming trifecta in the federal government, unified in its prioritization of the southern border and tackling illegal immigration, and GOP lawmakers see a big opportunity to push through key legislation. 

“Last year, Laken Riley was stolen from this earth—from her family and friends and from achieving her dreams—by a brutal, heartless killer. Make no mistake—he never should have been in the United States, much less allowed to freely roam American streets after being charged with multiple crimes. Laken’s murder was the direct consequence of willful open border policies,” Britt said in a statement to Fox News Digital. 

HOUSE REPUBLICANS REJOICE OVER QUICK SPEAKER VOTE WITH ONLY ONE DEFECTOR

Britt introduced the bill last year. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

“The American people did not just deliver a mandate on November 5, they delivered a verdict. They made it clear they want to remove criminal illegal aliens and protect American families. We will soon know whether Democrats hear, respect, and obey that verdict. Congress has an obligation to Laken, her family, and to families in every corner of our country to do everything in our power to help prevent this type of tragedy from occurring again. That’s why it’s imperative we pass the commonsense Laken Riley Act with all due haste. No other American family needs to feel the pain Laken’s family still feels 320 days after losing her,” she added. 

Collins said in his own statement, “An illegal criminal came into my district and killed Laken Riley because our local law enforcement did not have the tools to stop him. Laken fought until her last breath, and so will I until this bill crosses the finish line and lands on the President’s desk.”

The measure was co-led in the Senate by Sen. Tedd Budd, R-N.C., who said in a statement, “What happened to Laken Riley should never happen to any American citizen. As we turn the page from the disastrous open-border policies of Joe Biden, the Laken Riley Act will empower the Trump administration to enforce our laws, keep our nation secure, and prevent tragedies. I thank Senator Britt for her partnership and her leadership in this bipartisan effort.”

Now that Republicans control the Senate, with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., at the helm, a vote is expected on the bill, and in short measure. 

‘LIVES DEPEND ON IT’: REPUBLICANS PUSH FOR PROMPT TRUMP CONFIRMATIONS IN WAKE OF NEW ORLEANS ATTACK

Thune is the new Senate majority leader.  (TING SHEN/AFP via Getty Images)

A source familiar shared with Fox News Digital that a vote in the upper chamber is likely to take place on Friday, and Democrats will be forced to go on the record. 

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If the measure is only backed by Republicans, it will fail to overcome the legislative filibuster, which requires that bills garner 60 votes in order to end debate and proceed. Notably, new Democratic Sens. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., and Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., voted in favor of the bill in the House last year. 

The vote will put a spotlight on the Georgia Senate delegation, as Riley was a constituent of theirs. In particular, all eyes will be on Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., who is up for re-election in 2026 in the state that President-elect Donald Trump won. 

President Biden is expected to designate two new national monuments in California this week, which will bar roughly 850,000 acres of tribal lands from future development.

After signing the new orders, Biden will have shut down development on more public lands than any other president in history besides former President Jimmy Carter, according to the Washington Post.  

The move would establish a 644,000-acre Chuckwalla National Monument located in the southern part of the state near Joshua Tree National Park, sources familiar with the matter said. While no public plans about the new monument have been announced, sources have leaked details to the media and the president’s public schedule shows he will be traveling Tuesday to Southern California’s east Coachella Valley, site of the designated tribal land. 

BIDEN ISSUES SWEEPING OFFSHORE OIL, GAS DRILLING BAN IN 625M ACRES OF FEDERAL WATERS AHEAD OF TRUMP TRANSITION

President Biden is expected to establish a new national monument in the Chuckwalla Valley, south of Joshua Tree National Park. (Watchara Phomicinda/MediaNews Group/The Press-Enterprise via Getty Images)

In addition to Biden’s plans to designate a large swath of the Colorado Desert located in Southern California as a national monument, the president also plans to designate roughly 200,000-acres of land in Northern California, near the Oregon border, as a national monument. The move would establish the Sáttítla National Monument and would also bar any future energy development in that area.

While environmentalists, tribal groups and Democrat lawmakers have urged Biden to designate these two new national monuments, Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Calif., has argued that designating the roughly 200,000-acres of land in Northern California is unnecessary because it is already protected from development, according to local California news outlet, the Redding Record Searchlight. Additionally, he added, getting permits approved on forest service lands is already difficult and prohibiting them further could make it more difficult to fight wildfires in the area due to a scarcity of roads. 

Chairman Yatch Bamford of the Pit River Nation, Sáttítla – Medicine Lake Highlands, speaks at a rally to urge the Biden administration to expand national monuments and sacred lands, outside the U.S. Capitol on April 16, 2024. (Getty Images)

The new monuments will be designated by Biden via his authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906, which allows presidents to bypass Congress when seeking to protect lands and water for the benefit of the nation. Since the start of his presidency, Biden has already used his executive authority under the act to establish eight new national monuments, while expanding four others, the Washington Post reported.

BIDEN MOVING TO BAN OIL AND GAS LEASES FOR 20 YEARS IN NEVADA REGION, JUST WEEKS BEFORE TRUMP INAUGURATION

President-elect Trump has vowed to unleash U.S. domestic energy dominance during his upcoming term. Meanwhile, in the final weeks and months ahead of Biden’s departure from the White House, his administration has made efforts to bolster its green energy priorities against any potential blowback from Trump.

Last month, the Biden administration unveiled a report detailing the negative public impact on increasing liquefied natural gas exports, a move that experts said could provide fodder for environmentalists seeking to challenge Trump’s efforts to increase U.S. energy production.

BIDEN ADMIN REPORT COULD SLOW TRUMP’S EFFORTS TO UNLEASH DOMESTIC NATURAL GAS, EXPERTS SAY 

Steve Milloy, a fellow at the Energy and Environmental Legal Institute, said Biden’s latest national monuments designation could serve the same purpose. “While Trump can undo whatever Biden does, Biden is trying to create litigation traps for Trump that will discourage investors from projects on public lands,” he said.

On Monday, Biden also used his executive authority to ban new oil and gas drilling off nearly all U.S. coasts. “The decision to unilaterally block areas from future offshore oil and gas development is a strategic error, driven not by science or voter mandate, but by political motives,” the National Ocean Industries Association said.

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Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment but did not receive a response by publication time. 

A Republican senator was expressing his unhappiness to Susie Wiles, the incoming White House chief of staff.

“I texted you three days ago,” the lawmaker said.

Wiles, who ran Donald Trump’s campaign, said she got it and would respond, without sounding like she was in a rush.

There’s little doubt that her phone must be flooded with messages from people who want a job – or influence – in the incoming Trump administration.

DONALD TRUMP’S TOUGH TALK—BUY GREENLAND! TAKE BACK PANAMA CANAL!—SPARKS DEFIANCE FROM MANY REPUBLICAN REBELS

Backstage jockeying in the leadup to the second Trump presidency might be shedding light on the legislative and administrative battles the next White House will be forced to fight. (Getty Images)

But the jockeying sheds light on a dilemma that Trump may face in a city that he controls, with both houses of Congress under Republican management (and Kamala Harris peacefully certifying the transfer of power yesterday, four years to the day after the Capitol riot).

The flip side of nearly unlimited clout is that when things go wrong, there’s no one else to blame.

And then there’s the black hole known as Congress. Having dragged Mike Johnson across the finish line in the election for speaker, by making calls even from his golf course, Trump now faces a dilemma after the Christmas debt ceiling battle that just delayed the budget fight until March.

Using a process known as reconciliation, which lowers the threshold from 60 Senate votes to 51 – both parties have used this for party-line dominance – Trump favors “one big beautiful bill.” That would include budget cuts, energy deregulation, tax cuts, the border crackdown and other presidential priorities.

But many on the Hill support two separate bills, and some in Trump World believe Congress simply doesn’t have the bandwidth to take the kitchen-sink approach.

So the big beautiful bill might not get passed until June, depriving the 47th president of an early win. 

TRUMP MAKES A BLIZZARD OF NEWS, SHOWS RESTRAINT AT PRESSER, EVEN WHILE SLAMMING THE MEDIA

Johnson will have just a 1-vote margin, making it hard for him to deliver the deep spending cuts that the hardliners want in an echo of the battle that toppled Kevin McCarthy.

In the meantime, the Homeland Security Department would have difficulty mounting a major initiative because, like other agencies, it’s operating on the stopgap spending budget that nearly shut down the government at Christmas.

The risk of pushing two bills is that once the first one passes, the momentum may dissipate for approving a second measure, even if it contains such Trump priorities as tax cuts.

House Speaker Mike Johnson’s one-vote majority leaves him little room for error in his bids to corral his caucus around the incoming president’s agenda. (Valerie Plesch)

Trump hedged his bets yesterday, telling radio host Hugh Hewitt: “I would prefer one, but…I’m open to either way, as long as we get something passed as quickly as possible.”

Washington is a city obsessed with titles and perceived influence, and that will impact the way the White House is run.

Wiles has helped downgrade some jobs that have always been assistant to the president titles to deputy assistant to the president–something no sane outsider would care about but which is a major deal for the insiders. That’s because after reaching the limit for assistant jobs, the only alternative was to create a bunch of deputy slots.

Wiles, for her part, has told Axios: “I don’t welcome people who want to work solo or be a star… My team and I will not tolerate backbiting, second-guessing inappropriately, or drama. These are counterproductive to the mission.”

Karoline Leavitt, the incoming press secretary, is also being deprived of the big office that has been used by her predecessors for at least three decades. That’s going to another communications aide.

I can remember being in that second-floor office when Mike McCurry was press secretary, and Bill Clinton walking in and chatting while I was working on my book “Spin Cycle.” The reason for the large office was the gaggles taking place with the press, and sometimes interviews, which could not be accommodated by most smallish West Wing offices.

Anyone in Wiles’ sensitive position would invariably upset some officials during a process that determines winners and losers. But Trump views her as a grandmother and doesn’t yell at her the way he might at other officials over a disagreement. 

As for Elon Musk’s powerful role, Trump enjoys the company of wealthy people, and the X owner is the richest person on the planet. So he has influence until he doesn’t, if there is a future falling out. 

MUSK RENEWS HARSH REBUKE OF DEMS WHO REJECTED DEPORTING SEX OFFENDERS: VOTE OUT ‘EVERY ONE’

Besides, it will be harder for Musk to hang around once Trump moves from Mar-a-Lago to the White House, unless he wants to give Elon the Lincoln Bedroom.

For now, the transition is organized chaos. But as Trump knows all too well, having done this job before, when there’s a terror attack or border incident or rising grocery prices on his watch, he owns it.

Meanwhile, with Kamala Harris certifying her own defeat in routine fashion yesterday – drawing live coverage considering the history of Jan. 6 – Donald Trump posted this:

Trump has made his feelings on Team Biden’s handling of the presidential transition no secret. (Getty/AP)

“Biden is doing everything possible to make the TRANSITION as difficult as  possible, from Lawfare such as has never been seen before, to costly and ridiculous Executive Orders on the Green New Scam and other money wasting Hoaxes. Fear not, these ‘Orders’ will all be terminated shortly, and we will become a Nation of Common Sense and Strength. MAGA!!!”

Is that worse than what happened on Jan. 6, 202?

SUBSCRIBE TO HOWIE’S MEDIA BUZZMETER PODCAST, A RIFF ON THE DAY’S HOTTEST STORIES

It’s true that the outgoing president has, among other things, issued orders to stop oil exploration along 625 million acres offshore, but there’s no reason the “drill, baby, drill” president can’t reverse that, although it could slow him down.

Harris gave a short talk yesterday about the peaceful transfer of power, and Biden made the case in a Washington Post op-ed that we must never forget what happened on that dark day.

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No matter who you agree with, I think it’s fair to say that issue was litigated in the election, and Americans voted to put Trump back in the White House knowing full well what happened during the televised riot.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has arrested a Dominican illegal immigrant charged with sex crimes and kidnapping in Boston, after he was released from local custody despite a request by the agency to hand him over.

In a statement, ICE said it had arrested Emilio Jose Pena-Casilla, a 46-year-old, who is charged with assault to rape, kidnapping, two counts of indecent assault and battery on a person 14 or older, and intimidation of an official, witness, or juror, was arrested Dec. 17 in Boston.

Pena-Casilla entered the U.S. illegally near Eagle Pass, Texas, in January 2023, and was enrolled in the Alternatives to Detention program. Under that program, migrants are monitored by a GPS tracking device or check in via an app. He was removed from the program a month later.

‘SHEER INSANITY’: CONSERVATIVE WATCHDOG PUTS ‘SANCTUARY’ OFFICIALS ON NOTICE AHEAD OF TRUMP DEPORTATION PUSH

Emilio Jose Pena-Casilla, arrested by ICE last month.

In July this year, he was arraigned in Massachusetts. ICE says its Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) in Boston issued a detainer, but it was ignored by the district court and he was released on GPS on bail. ICE would eventually track him down in December.

“Emilio Jose Pena-Casilla stands accused of some very serious offenses against a Massachusetts resident,” acting Field Office Director Patricia Hyde of ERO Boston said in a statement. “We hold a sacred duty to protect the residents of our communities, and we will continue to do so by apprehending and removing egregious noncitizen offenders from our neighborhoods. Today, another victim in Massachusetts no longer needs to fear their predator.”

Boston is one of a number of “sanctuary” cities that limit or forbid cooperation by local law enforcement with ICE. Supporters of sanctuary policies say they allow illegal immigrants to cooperate with local law enforcement, but opponents say they result in the release of criminal illegal immigrants back onto the streets.

Boston City Council recently doubled down on its sanctuary policies, voting in favor of a resolution to limit ICE cooperation and to ban police from keeping migrants in custody for possible deportation unless there is a criminal warrant.

The resolution adopted by the council states that “proposals for mass deportations represent a direct attack on Boston’s immigrant families, and threaten to tear communities apart.”

TRUMP’S INCOMING BORDER CZAR HAILS MEETING WITH MAYOR ERIC ADAMS: ‘NYC IS ABOUT TO GET A LOT SAFER’

Incoming border czar Tom Homan spoke with Dr. Phil about the Trump administration’s plan to deport illegal migrants. (The Dr. Phil Podcast YouTube channe;l)

Sanctuary policies have been back in the spotlight with the approaching Trump administration, which has promised to ramp up deportations and launch a historic operation to potentially remove millions of illegal immigrants.

A number of Democratic officials in states, including Massachusetts, have said they will not cooperate in the deportation push. President-elect Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, has hinted there could be legal consequences for those who get in the way of the operation.

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Recently, America First Legal notified nearly 250 officials in jurisdictions that limit or forbid local law enforcement cooperation with ICE that there could be legal consequences for interfering with the feds or for concealing illegal immigrants.

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“We have identified your jurisdiction as a sanctuary jurisdiction that is violating federal law. Such lawlessness subjects you and your subordinates to significant risk of criminal and civil liability. Accordingly, we are sending this letter to put you on notice of this risk and insist that you comply with our nation’s laws,” the letter says.

Congressional Republicans were buoyant on Monday after lawmakers gathered to certify President-elect Donald Trump’s White House victory.

“It went great. It went smooth. This is a textbook transition of power. This is how democracy is supposed to operate,” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., told Fox News Digital.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., shared praise for both Republican and Democratic leaders who led the largely ceremonial event.

“It was really neat to see the certification go smoothly. I thought Vice President Harris handled it well. It was neat to have JD Vance in the chamber too, as a sitting senator at the time, but getting ready to become the vice president of the United States so that, you know, it’s very historic,” he told reporters.

A USER’S MANUAL TO CERTIFYING THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and Sen. Ted Cruz were two of the Republicans who signaled it was time for the GOP to get to work after certifying President-elect Trump’s victory. (Getty Images)

Like Comer, House GOP Policy Committee Chair Kevin Hern, R-Okla., remarked on how calm the process was.

“Everybody accepts the fact that President Trump won the Electoral College and the popular vote. So there really isn’t much of a denial by the Democrats, that he didn’t have a mandate to do his agenda. And we’re going to make sure we help him get it done,” Hern told Fox News Digital.

Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., said Monday marked “a great day in American history.”

“We have no time to waste. We’ve got to get right to work immediately, ASAP, as soon as humanly possible,” Mace said.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, emphasized Republicans’ commanding victory in the November elections, telling Fox News Digital, “It was a clear mandate from the voters, and we now need to get to work delivering on that mandate.”

HARRIS TO OVERSEE CERTIFICATION OF HER DEFEAT TO TRUMP IN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: ‘SACRED OBLIGATION’

First-term lawmaker Rep. Mike Haridolopos, R-Fla., said he was excited to now begin executing the GOP’s agenda and remarked on the snow storm that shut down much of Washington, D.C. save for Capitol Hill on Monday.

“I think we’re all excited to get started with the Republican trifecta,” he said. “I’m so excited about it and glad it’s behind us. It took a snow day to make it happen, but we are definitely here and ready to go to work.”

Vice President Kamala Harris presided over the certification process. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., who is also just beginning his first term in Congress, called the process “fascinating.”

“It was really great to see the process today. It was an honor to be there, and I was just privileged to be a part of it,” Sheehy said. “And the snow storm, I think, is symbolic — winds of change are coming. We’re gonna get this country back on track.”

House and Senate lawmakers gathered for a joint session of Congress to certify Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, who was constitutionally bound to preside over the proceedings.

The orderly process was a stark contrast to the scene in the House chamber four years ago when rioters protesting the results of the 2020 election halted proceedings and forced lawmakers into hiding for several hours.

Unlike four years ago, when lawmakers were forced to finish certification hours after midnight, Monday’s event was wrapped inside an hour.

Freshman Sen. Tim Sheehy said the snowy conditions were symbolic of the ‘winds of change’ in Washington. (Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)

No Democrats raised objections to Trump’s victory, unlike 2016, which saw several progressives cast doubt on his win.

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“I think that just showed that America is really ready for… a new page and a new start,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., said of the certification. “You saw that, at least on the Republican side, that we were pretty excited about the results for our elections.”

And Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., another Florida lawmaker and ally of Trump, told Fox News Digital, “We’re happy that we had no issue with certification, no contesting of the certification. And everyone’s very happy that we have Donald J. Trump and JD Vance in the White House, in the Naval Observatory, and we’re ready to make America great again.”