NationalWatch

Virginia Democrats’ redistricting push was meant to lock in an advantage. Instead, it’s unraveling after a costly court defeat—triggering a growing blame game inside the party.

The high-stakes effort to redraw congressional maps, backed by tens of millions of dollars and significant political capital, briefly delivered a narrow on-paper win. But in a 4–3 ruling, the Virginia Supreme Court struck down the maps, citing legal deficiencies, and forced a redraw—wiping out those gains.

Democrats are left arguing over whether party leaders ignored legal warnings and pushed a strategy that was always at risk of collapsing.

DAVID MARCUS: VIRGINIA DEMOCRATS STEP ON A $70M RAKE AND NOW THEY’RE CRYING

In hindsight, critics say the outcome was avoidable. Republicans had urged an earlier court review before votes were cast and money spent, a step they argued could have clarified the maps’ legality. 

Democrats pressed ahead anyway, betting the strategy would hold.

“Violating the Virginia Constitution and bypassing the rule of law to further one’s own political power is wrong,” Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Va., said in a statement to The Hill. “Had [Democratic Gov.] Abigail Spanberger and the rest of Virginia’s Democrats succeeded, they would have caused irreparable harm to our democracy and disenfranchised millions of Virginians.”

Allies of Spanberger say legal concerns were raised early and not fully heeded, pointing to state lawmakers for pushing forward. Lawmakers and other Democrats counter that litigation was inevitable and the maps were defensible.

DEMS WHO RAN ON AFFORDABILITY NOW FACE BACKLASH AS COSTS CLIMB IN NY, VIRGINIA

The dispute reflects a broader divide within the party over how aggressively to pursue redistricting. Some Democrats argue such efforts are necessary to counter Republican-led maps nationwide.

“I feel like the system is fundamentally broken, but let’s be clear. Republicans began the redistricting arms race,” Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., told Fox News Digital in an earlier interview. “And so Democrats are left with no choice but to level the playing field for the sake of democracy.”

“Look, in a perfect world, we wouldn’t have political gerrymandering,” Rep. Christian Menefee, D-Texas, added. “But because we don’t live in that world, we’ve got to fight fire with fire.”

Others, however, are more blunt in assigning blame.

“I put this all on Democrats,” Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Texas, said, arguing the party failed to respond forcefully to earlier GOP redistricting efforts and is now facing the consequences.

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The fallout is landing at a difficult moment.

A federal raid on May 6 on the office of a powerful state senator has added to a sense of instability, while former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder has suggested the turmoil could give Spanberger an opening to reset and impose discipline on a still-fractured political operation.

The episode underscores the growing role of courts in redistricting fights—and the risks of pushing legal boundaries in a high-stakes environment, with potential implications for control of Virginia’s congressional delegation.

In retrospect, even with the narrow 4–3 decision, it’s a steep price: roughly $70 million and much of Spanberger’s political capital spent on a campaign that won the battle but lost the war.

Democrats are left to sort out not just what went wrong—but who’s responsible.

Fox News Digital’s Leo Briceno contributed to this report.

President Joe Biden’s lawyers are expected to object to the Justice Department’s release of redacted written transcripts and audio recordings of Biden’s 2017 interactions with his book ghostwriter, according to a new court filing.

“President Biden, through counsel, has advised the Department that he intends to seek to intervene to prevent any such disclosures,” Assistant Attorney General Civil Division Brett Shumate wrote in a filing from a Freedom of Information Act request from the Heritage Foundation’s Mike Howell. “The Department does not oppose intervention.”

There is a Tuesday deadline for Biden’s lawyers to respond to the DOJ’s release for a response to Howell’s FOIA request, which would come shortly after Tuesday if there was no objection.

Shumate noted the release of 70 hours of redacted recordings would be delayed until June 15 if Biden objects before the deadline.

BIDEN INTERVIEW AUDIO REVEALS WHO BROUGHT UP BEAU’S DEATH — AND IT WASN’T HUR

“Defendant intends to disclose the written transcript and audio recordings at issue in this matter, with redactions, to Congress, pursuant to a request from the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, as well as to Plaintiffs,” the filing in Howell’s FOIA lawsuit with the DOJ read.

The interactions came between Biden and his ghostwriter for the 2017 book: “Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose.” The audio and transcript were obtained by special counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents after the Obama administration ended, which included storing them in his garage and at the Penn Biden Center.

“President Biden cooperated fully with special counsel Hur, and agreed to provide audiotapes of conversations with his biographer for a book about his deceased son on the condition that they would not be made public,” Biden spokesperson TJ Ducklo told Politico in a statement Sunday. “The DOJ themselves have said these tapes serve no public interest.

FEDERAL JUDGE BLOCKS RELEASE OF JACK SMITH REPORT’S SECOND VOLUME

“What’s happening now isn’t about transparency. It’s about politics,” Ducklo continued. “If this Administration were genuinely committed to transparency, they would release Volume 2 of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on Donald Trump’s own alleged mishandling of classified documents. That report contains information Americans actually deserve to see.”

Fox News reached out to Ducklo for independent confirmation on this report and has not yet heard back.

The FOIA requester remains in pursuit of the documents.

CONSERVATIVES REACT TO LEAKED BIDEN AUDIO ON SOCIAL MEDIA: ‘THIS IS PAINFUL’

“These tapes will further prove the massive lie regarding Biden’s fitness for office and the fact Biden revealed classified information,” Howell, president of Heritage’s Oversight Project, told Politico. “The shenanigans aren’t over: At the last possible second, and after every delay tactic possible, the autopen is objecting to the American People receiving transparency. “

Hur concluded his investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents, noting longstanding DOJ policy of not indicting a sitting president and saying a jury would be sympathetic to the oldest sitting American president, 82, because he was a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

“It appears that after lengthy negotiation covering several months — at no point seeking to intervene into this case on a timely basis — President Biden has changed position and now seeks to even enjoin release of the portions of transcripts that match exact phrases quoted in the Hur Report,” Shumate’s filing Friday read.

GREGG JARRETT: BIDEN, THE ‘MARIONETTE PRESIDENT; AND THE CASE OF THE RUNAWAY AUTOPEN

“The potential intervention by former President Biden and the new development of a discretionary release to the House Judiciary Committee in response to their March 23, 2026 letter, raises a number of issues”:

“As Plaintiffs understand the matter, President Biden would need an order barring release in this case and an order enjoining the Department from producing to the House Judiciary Committee all by June 15, 2026.”

The DOJ also accuses Biden’s lawyers of slow-walking responses and rejecting deadlines.

BIDEN WHITE HOUSE AIDES FACE OVERSIGHT DEADLINE AMID THREAT OF SUBPOENAS

“President Biden’s lead counsel was unable to provide any information about President Biden’s submissions arguing that such discussion was somehow premature (whereas, in reality it is 16 months late) and incredibly indicating that despite the June 15, 2026 production date, the motion to intervene would not be filed until mid-next week and that President Biden would seek up to three days after a ruling granting a motion to intervene to submit a proposed schedule for substantive relief,” the filing read.

“That is no way to conduct litigation and smacks of kicking the can down the road to justify delaying the June 15, 2026 production by some form of administrative injunction.”

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The DOJ issued a new warning of Tuesday’s deadline, regardless.

READ THE COURT FILING – APP USERS, CLICK HERE:

“The public deserves to hear the tapes and read the transcripts as redacted by President Donald J. Trump’s Department of Justice,” Shumate’s filing concluded. “Plaintiffs regret that they are currently unable to assist the Court in this process due to the repeated failure of counsel for President Biden to engage with Plaintiffs on this matter, putting off even initial substantive conversations until next week.”

Kirk Bangstad, the controversial Wisconsin brewery owner who seemed to offer free beer on Facebook for the assassination of President Donald Trump, is currently seeking the requisite 2,000 signatures for his burgeoning campaign for governor, warning his party he will win the primary if they try to silence him.

“I will win the primary if they don’t let me speak: I guarantee you that,” Bangstad told WISN 12 News this week when asked about speaking at the state Democratic convention.

Bangstad, the owner of Minocqua Brewing Company (MBC), launched his campaign for Wisconsin governor after drawing national scrutiny for a social media post that appeared on the brewery’s Facebook page after an alleged assassination attempt against Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner.

“Well, we almost got #freebeerday,” the April 12 post read just minutes after the WHCA Dinner security event. “Either a brother or sister in the Resistance needs to work on their marksmanship or he faked another assassination to get a positive news cycle. We’ll never know. Regardless, we stand at the ready to pour free beer the day it happens.”

WISCONSIN DEM’S BAR LAMENTS ‘WE ALMOST GOT FREE BEER DAY’ FOR TRUMP ASSASSINATION

The news spread so far on social media and in the news that it drew a visit from the U.S. Secret Service and the FBI days later, but Bangstad contends it was merely satirical commentary and not a dog whistle for political violence from leftist radicals like the past three Trump assassination attempts.

“It was satire,” he told WISN 12. “I meant it as satire. I’ve said that all along and it was taken out of context in order to create a feeding frenzy by the media, which it did, and allow Republicans to paint Democrats as politically violent.”

There has been caution from Democrats about Bangstad’s rhetoric for weeks, but it has not stopped him, and he acknowledged it led to his jumping into the gubernatorial race after the federal law enforcement visit, and even has proven lucrative for fundraising, if not his brewery business.

“Remember there was another half of that post that said, ‘or Donald Trump is trying to fake an assassination attempt to get a better news cycle,” Bangstad told WISN 12. “The first part was satire that was trying to set off the second part.”

WISCONSIN MOM ‘SEETHING’ AFTER DEMOCRATS GIVE HER 8-YEAR-OLD SON A CHILLING BRACELET CALLING FOR TRUMP’S DEATH

Bangstad said he resurfaced his “free beer day” MBC business campaign because “the assassination attempt seemed staged,” acknowledging it has allowed him to gain “name recognition.”

Bangstad pointed to his “250,000 followers on Facebook” and “170,000 subscribers to our Substack page.”

“Most of those people are progressives and a lot of those are progressives who live in Wisconsin, so I would think I have the best name recognition in the state of Wisconsin right now,” Bangstad continued.

“The Democratic Party who has a terrible approval rating across the country and in Wisconsin can say all they want to about me. I’m a true Democrat, a true progressive Democrat, and I have more name recognition than everybody in this race save for probably Mandela Barnes.”

DEM LAWMAKER SPARKS ONLINE OUTRAGE FOR BLAMING TRUMP’S LOW APPROVAL FOR WHCA DINNER SHOOTING

If he was blocked from speaking at the June 13-14 Wisconsin Democratic convention at the Monona Terrace Convention Center in Madison, Bangstad vowed, “I’d speak anyway; I’d speak outside the front door.”

“And if they try to not let me speak, they’re going to put me in office,” Bangstad said. “Let’s be honest.

“If they restrict my speech as a fellow Democrat, they are going to do so much harm to their appearance, and they’re going to do so much harm to other candidates, I will win the primary if they don’t let me speak. I guarantee you that.”

Bangstad said he has not “gotten that far” on whether he will attend the Democratic convention in June.

MANDELA BARNES JUMPS INTO WISCONSIN GOVERNOR RACE — BUT BAGGAGE FROM HIS 2022 SENATE BID FOLLOWS

“I’ve got to get my 2,000 signatures by June 1 – obviously, I’m in the race really late; we’ve got a month to get 2,000 signatures,” he said.

“I will of course attend the Democratic convention, I’m a Democrat. I want to drag the Democratic Party kicking and screaming to a realistic place that’s not owned by big money, and that’s what I plan to do.

“And I think I can get there in Wisconsin.”

FORMER NAVY SEAL AND ‘POLITICAL OUTSIDER’ ANNOUNCES GOP CAMPAIGN FOR WISCONSIN GOVERNOR

The Wisconsin primary is Aug. 11, but getting the signatures and his name out there is a first priority, according to Bangstad, admitting the campaign as “raised a ton of money so far” while demurring on exactly how much.

“I’ve got oodles of money in Facebook followers, in Substack followers, the equivalent of that in my being able to reach people and give them my message,” he said.

Bangstad’s small brewery has long leaned into liberal politics, selling progressive-themed merchandise and promoting itself through anti-Trump messaging and shirts reading, “I wish it was free beer day.”

PATTERN OF LEFTIST VIOLENCE GROWS AS TRUMP NEARS 10 MONTHS IN OFFICE

The controversy escalated after the April 25 security scare at the WHCA Dinner in Washington, D.C., where authorities say Cole Allen, 31, of Torrance, California, attempted to storm a Secret Service checkpoint with a loaded shotgun and other weapons. Allen was ordered held without bail, facing life in prison for attempted assassination of the president and assaulting a federal officer with a dangerous weapon.

After the brewery’s post, the FBI and Secret Service confirmed they followed up on the matter and conducted a voluntary interview with Bangstad.

“The U.S. Secret Service follows up on perceived threats against the President of the United States or any one of our protectees,” the agencies said in a joint statement to Fox News. “The FBI and Secret Service together followed up on information received and conducted further investigative steps, which included a voluntary interview with the individual. This is an ongoing matter and we do not have further comment.”

HASAN PIKER NO-SHOWS PRO-COMMUNIST EVENT OVER ALLEGED SAFETY FEARS WHILE MOCKING TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT

Bangstad livestreamed part of the encounter with two suited men who questioned him about whether he knew anyone who wanted to harm Trump or supported anyone who wanted to harm the president. The brewery also posted what it said was a transcription of a voicemail from a person Bangstad identified as a Secret Service agent and urged supporters to call the number.

Bangstad, a former Democrat candidate for Wisconsin’s 34th Assembly District, lost his 2020 general election bid. He also founded the Minocqua Brewing Company super PAC, which has targeted Trump and Republicans, and previously sued to keep Trump off Wisconsin’s 2024 ballot.

The latest controversy also put pressure on other Wisconsin Democrats who have past ties to Bangstad.

Trump-backed House candidate Michael Alfonso accused Democrats of trying to avoid the issue, pointing to Bangstad’s connections to Democrats in the state.

POPULAR LEFT-WING PODCAST HOSTS PUSH CONSPIRACY THEORY THAT TRUMP STAGED ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ON HIMSELF

“This brewery is owned by a man named Kirk Bangstad, and he’s not just some random crazy guy,” Alfonso wrote on X. “Kirk is friends with current Democratic gubernatorial frontrunner Francesca Hong. He previously employed Rebecca Cooke, the Democrat currently running against Derrick Van Orden, and was himself the Democratic nominee against my father-in-law, Sean Duffy, in Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District—where I am now running for office.”

Cooke’s campaign denounced political violence but did not mention Bangstad by name in its response to Fox News.

“This rhetoric is dangerous and unacceptable – showcasing just how broken our political system is,” Cooke said through her campaign manager. “I denounce all forms of political violence.

“We need to bring the temperature down, stop pitting working folks against each other, and come together to solve the very serious problems facing our communities.”

DISNEY UNDER FIRE AS ABC GRAPPLES WITH ANOTHER JIMMY KIMMEL CONTROVERSY

The National Republican Congressional Committee said Cooke’s response was insufficient and called on her to directly name her former employer.

“Rebecca Cooke needs to stop hiding and immediately denounce her former employer, Kirk Bangstad’s dangerous and unhinged comments,” NRCC spokesman Zach Bannon told Fox News. “Cooke’s previous employment by Bangstad makes her silence even more unacceptable. Voters deserve to know whether she stands with Wisconsinites who reject this rhetoric or with the same extremist voices pushing it.”

Hong also responded in a series of X posts after Fox News Digital reached out, condemning the normalization of political violence but not naming Bangstad. When asked specifically about the brewery or owner, Hong campaign manager Becky Cooper pointed back to the posts.

“That would fall under the ‘becoming numb’ portion,” Cooper told Fox News, declining to denounce Bangstad by name. “MBC’s tweet is intentionally inflammatory and a symptom of the normalization of political violence.”

LIBERAL WISCONSIN BREWING COMPANY PROMISES ‘FREE BEER, ALL DAY LONG’ AFTER TRUMP DIES

Wisconsin Republicans and national GOP figures have seized on the episode as evidence of overheated rhetoric on the left.

“Wisconsin Democrats are so sick in the head that an attempted murder is funny to them,” RNC spokeswoman Delanie Bomar told Fox News. “All Wisconsin Democrats, including Rebecca Cooke, must immediately condemn this disgusting behavior.”

Bangstad has also drawn scrutiny outside his anti-Trump messaging. Wisconsin Public Radio reported last year that he had been charged in a harassment case tied to a dispute with a local newspaper publisher.

“We only give comments to legitimate news organizations, not state propaganda agencies,” Bangstad told Fox News Digital after a request for comment about the Secret Service and FBI visit. “However, maybe one of our customers might want to respond to your question.”

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Fox News reached out to Bangstad for further comment Sunday and has not yet heard back.

Fox News has also reached out to the campaigns for Hong, Cooke and Barnes, along with the Wisconsin Democratic Party and the Democratic National Committee.

Fox News’ Peter D’Abrosca contributed to this report.

Michael Eisenberg, a top advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, says Israel and the newly-created Board of Peace will “take action” against Hamas if it does not comply with the peace terms it agreed to.

Eisenberg made the comments during an interview with Fox News on Sunday. He said Hamas is currently out of compliance with a wider peace agreement and is refusing to give up its weapons to “demilitarize” Gaza.

“I think all the options are on the table since Hamas is noncompliant with the 20-point plan, and they haven’t delivered their weapons like they were supposed to. And so we’ll have to wait and see. But like I said, this is incredibly well thought out. Give President Trump a tremendous amount of credit and his team of people credit. They’ve literally thought through every stage of this from beginning to end,” Eisenberg said.

“And by the way, and as President Trump said, there’s an easy way and a hard way. Everyone prefers the easy way, which is Hamas. With the help of the mediators delivers the weapons, but if they don’t, there’s a hard way too.,” he added.

TRUMP CONVENES FIRST ‘BOARD OF PEACE’ MEETING AS GAZA REBUILD HINGES ON HAMAS DISARMAMENT

Eisenberg went on to say that Iran must also eventually give up control over Gaza under the 20-pont plan agreed to between the U.S., Israel and Hamas.

“Hamas is still there. But the 20-point plan says they cannot be there. They cannot be a part of government. They cannot bear arms. They have to become Swedish, basically, in order for them to stay in any role in Gaza. And so I suggest they do that sooner rather than later. And I think progress is slow. You can’t microwave a 30-year problem. It doesn’t work. Sociologists,” he said.

Eisenberg’s comments come amid multiple peace negotiations across the Middle East. Israel is hashing out an agreement to deal with Hezbollah in Lebanon and the U.S. is in talks with Iran.

WHAT ISRAEL WANTS FROM AN IRAN PEACE DEAL: NO ENRICHMENT, MISSILE LIMITS AND STRICT ENFORCEMENT

Netanyahu said last week that Israel and the United States remain in “full coordination” as negotiations continue.

“We share common objectives, and the most important objective is the removal of the enriched material from Iran, all the enriched material, and the dismantling of Iran’s enrichment capabilities,” Netanyahu said at the opening of a security cabinet meeting.

On the nuclear issue, former Israeli National Security Advisor Yaakov Amidror said Israel’s position remains uncompromising.

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“Weaponized uranium must leave Iran,” Amidror said. “The Iranians must not be allowed to enrich uranium.”

Alongside the nuclear issue, Israeli analysts say Iran’s ballistic missile program has become equally central to Israel’s security concerns.

The statute of limitations on Dr. Anthony Fauci’s criminal referral for lying to Congress about gain-of-function research expires Monday, but Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is vowing to keep up the pressure on “the COVID coverup” with a Senate hearing this week.

“David Morens, Dr. Fauci’s top advisor, was indicted, but Fauci himself still walks free,” Paul, who has long pressed Fauci in heated exchanges in congressional hearings, wrote this week on X, continuing his urging of the Justice Department to pick up charges from his criminal referral despite former President Joe Biden issuing a sweeping preemptive pardon of Fauci on his last night in office Jan. 19, 2025.

“The DOJ has 5 days to indict Fauci before the statute of limitations runs out. The clock is ticking. Justice cannot wait.”

The Biden pardon and Fauci’s statute of limitations expiration Monday shields the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and chief medical advisor to Biden, but Morens was indicted late last month for having “deliberately concealed information and falsified records in an effort to suppress alternative theories regarding the origins of COVID-19.”

EX-FAUCI TOP ADVISOR INDICTED OVER ALLEGED COVID COVER-UP, HIDDEN EMAILS

“For years, I warned that Fauci and his inner circle buried the truth about Wuhan,” Paul wrote Wednesday on X. “Now his closest adviser has been indicted.

“Fauci lied to Congress under oath. The statute of limitations expires in 5 days. Will the DOJ finally indict Fauci?”

The Trump Justice Department under former Attorney General Pam Bondi or acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has made no public statements about bringing charges.

ANTHONY FAUCI MAY BE DEPOSED AS GOP INTENSIFIES COVID INVESTIGATIONS IN NEW CONGRESS

“While we can all have our beefs with Congress, this isn’t in our hands any longer,” Paul wrote Thursday on X. “I DID the work, investigated, and sent multiple CRIMINAL referrals to the DOJ.

“Whether he is indicted or not now is not up to Congress. It is up to the DoJ, and no one else.”

“He lied to Congress about NIH funding dangerous gain-of-function research in Wuhan and engaged in the worst cover-up in modern medical history,” Paul added in another X post. “The American people want Fauci behind bars.”

BIDEN TEAM REPORTEDLY CONSIDERING PREEMPTIVE PARDONS FOR FAUCI, SCHIFF, OTHER TRUMP ‘TARGETS’

President Donald Trump has publicly rejected the Biden autopen pardons as having no force or “legal effect,” but there is no precedent for a new president nullifying a past president’s pardons, because they would potentially render presidential pardon authority ultimately powerless against a new administration’s agenda.

“Anyone receiving ‘Pardons,’ ‘Commutations,’ or any other Legal Document so signed, please be advised that said Document has been fully and completely terminated, and is of no Legal effect,” Trump wrote in December on Truth Social.

Just two days after the Fauci clock runs out, Paul is chairing a Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs committee hearing with a “COVID coverup” whistleblower Wednesday.

FBI EXAMINING COVID-19 ORIGIN ‘COVER-UP’ AMID NEW STRAIN EMERGENCE: BONGINO

“Next week I’m holding a hearing with a whistleblower who will testify publicly about the COVID coverup,” Paul teased in an X post. “Mark your calendars: Wednesday, May 13 at 10 a.m.

“The truth is coming.”

Paul renewed a criminal referral to the DOJ last July to investigate whether Fauci’s May 2021 statements violated federal false-statements law. In the referral, Paul pointed to Fauci’s testimony that “the NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”

DOJ INVESTIGATING ANDREW CUOMO FOR ALLEGEDLY LYING ABOUT COVID DECISIONS, SOURCE CONFIRMS

Paul’s referral also noted Fauci later said he had “never lied before the Congress” and did “not retract that statement” after Paul warned him about the criminal implications of lying to Congress.

The referral cites a February 2020 email released by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, in which Fauci wrote that “scientists in Wuhan University are known to have been working on gain-of-function experiments” involving bat viruses and human infection.

Paul argued that the email contradicted Fauci’s sworn testimony.

COVID ‘MOST LIKELY’ LEAKED FROM WUHAN LAB, SOCIAL DISTANCING ‘NOT BASED ON SCIENCE,’ SELECT COMMITTEE FINDS

Paul also cited research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) that he said was funded under a NIAID award and involved combining spike genes from bat SARS-related coronaviruses with another coronavirus backbone to create chimeric viruses capable of infecting human cells.

“This research, conducted at the WIV and funded under NIAID Award R01AI110964, fits the definition of gain-of-function research,” the referral stated.

The criminal referral further cites a 2023 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that found the WIV and Wuhan University received NIH funding. According to Paul’s referral, the GAO said NIH funded a project that included “genetic experiments to combine naturally occurring bat coronaviruses with SARS and MERS viruses, resulting in hybridized coronavirus strains.”

SCIENTISTS EXPECT MAJOR ‘MEDICAL BREAKTHROUGHS’ DESPITE TRUMP’S CAP ON NIH RESEARCH FUNDING

Anyone who makes a materially false statement in a congressional investigation or review can face fines and up to five years in prison.

Paul’s July referral also challenged the legal effect of a preemptive pardon Fauci received from Biden’s autopen.

“New information has revealed that these pardons were executed via autopen, with no documented confirmation that the President personally reviewed or approved each individual grant of clemency,” Paul wrote. “According to reports, White House staff authorized the use of the autopen to issue the clemency documents.

“This raises serious constitutional and legal concerns about the legitimacy of Dr. Fauci’s pardon.”

GREGG JARRETT: BIDEN, THE ‘MARIONETTE PRESIDENT; AND THE CASE OF THE RUNAWAY AUTOPEN

Fauci has repeatedly denied lying to Congress, including forcefully to Paul himself in multiple congressional hearings.

“Dr. Fauci, knowing that it is a crime to lie to Congress, do you wish to retract your statement of May 11 [2021], where you claimed at the NIH never funded gain-of-function research and move on?” Paul asked in a July 2021 Senate hearing.

“Sen. Paul, I have never lied before the Congress, and I do not retract that statement,” Fauci shot back.

“Let me finish!” Fauci added, when Paul tried to interject. “Sen. Paul, you do not know what you’re talking about, quite frankly. And I want to say that officially, you do not know what you’re talking about.”

DR. FAUCI SAYS HE APPRECIATES PRESIDENT BIDEN’S PARDON BUT INSISTS ‘NO CRIME’ WAS COMMITTED

The nature of the alleged lie revolves around the definition and denials of gain-of-function research surrounding COVID-19.

“You’re dancing around this because you’re trying to obscure responsibility for four million people dying around them from a pandemic,” Paul said in the famed exchange, adding, “you are obviously obfuscating the truth.”

Fauci replied, “I’m not obfuscating the truth – you are.”

“You are implying that what we did was responsible for the deaths of individuals,” he added. “I totally resent that.”

Paul shot back, “It could have been.”

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“If there is any lying here, senator, it is you,” Fauci said, shaking his finger at Paul.

Sitting members of Congress are provided immunity under the speech and debate clause of the Constitution, while most of those investigated by Congress and subject to testifying under oath, which Fauci did.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson stood out from her colleagues this week when she broke with them to rail against the high court’s decision to fast-track its landmark order dismantling a key provision in the Voting Rights Act. 

But Jackson’s solo dissent was far from the first time the Biden-appointed justice has been on an island, as she has routinely blasted the court for not asserting more judicial authority over President Donald Trump’s executive actions and drawn rebukes from her colleagues for taking what they have viewed as flawed positions.

Ideological divides over high-profile cases have been common. The trio of liberals has remained unified against the Trump administration by opposing decisions, including on the interim docket, to curb universal injunctions, allow states to ban transgender medical treatments for minors, permit Trump to fire members of independent agencies, authorize the government to cancel immigrants’ temporary protected status and more.

But even in some of those cases, Jackson goes on solo diatribes, highlighting a deeper internal divide within the liberal bloc.

WHY JUSTICE JACKSON IS A FISH OUT OF WATER ON THE SUPREME COURT

Below are five recent times Jackson gave lone opinions.

1. Louisiana redistricting judgment

The Supreme Court struck down Louisiana’s map last month, finding 6-3 it contained an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

Upon request, the Supreme Court also decided 8-1 to fast-track the landmark decision — handing it down immediately rather than in roughly a month like it usually does — allowing several red states to more quickly attempt to implement new congressional lines after the high court weakened Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by limiting the role race may play in congressional redistricting.

Jackson, the bench’s most junior justice, broke with her eight colleagues in that decision, saying the court improperly “[dove] into the fray” of active elections by handing its judgment down immediately.

“Not content to have decided the law, it now takes steps to influence its implementation,” Jackson wrote.

LATEST SCOTUS LEAK A GIFT TO LIBERALS ‘SALIVATING’ OVER CONTROL OF HIGH COURT NARRATIVE: EXPERTS

Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, wrote a scathing concurrence for the sole purpose of ripping apart Jackson’s dissent, saying her claims were “groundless and utterly irresponsible.”

2. Universal injunctions

The Supreme Court is still weighing Trump’s signature plan to severely limit birthright citizenship, but it first entertained the subject last year by addressing how lower courts across the country uniformly issued nationwide injunctions against the plan. The high court decided 6-3 to ban such injunctions but left room for judges and plaintiffs to deploy other methods when seeking widespread relief.

Jackson gave a rogue, separate dissent in the case, drawing eyebrow-raising jabs from Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

“We will not dwell on Justice Jackson’s argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself,” Barrett wrote in the court’s opinion in 2025. “We observe only this: Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.”

Jackson wrote that nationwide injunctions should be permissible because the courts should not allow the president to “violate the Constitution.” 

Barrett disagreed.

“She offers a vision of the judicial role that would make even the most ardent defender of judicial supremacy blush,” Barrett wrote.

3. National Institutes of Health grants

The high court fractured last August in dual 5–4 decisions that allowed the National Institutes of Health to cancel nearly $800 million in research grants.

Jackson, in one of her most memorable one-person dissents, appeared to boil over with frustration, observing that the majority “bends over backward to accommodate” the Trump administration.

“This is Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist. Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed rules,” Jackson wrote. “We seem to have two: that one, and this Administration always wins.”

Some of the canceled grants were geared toward research on diversity, equity and inclusion; COVID-19; and gender identity. Jackson argued the grants went further and that “life-saving biomedical research” was at stake.

4. Colorado conversion therapy case

When the Supreme Court sided 8-1 with a Christian counselor who challenged Colorado’s ban on counseling minors about sexual orientation and gender identity — which the state barred as conversion therapy — Jackson was the lone dissenter, warning that “to be completely frank, no one knows what will happen now.”

Jackson said the key free speech decision defied “treatment standards” and bucked the medical profession, leading an unlikely colleague, Justice Elena Kagan, to openly reject her dissent.

Kagan, an Obama appointee, said Jackson’s view “rests on reimagining—and in that way collapsing—the well-settled distinction between viewpoint-based and other content-based speech restrictions.”

5. Reasonable suspicion for police

In a lower profile case about police stops, Jackson conspicuously found in April that the high court overstepped its authority by improperly meddling in a lower court’s assessment of how Washington, D.C., police decided to stop a man in a suspicious vehicle.

The Supreme Court reversed the decision by the lower court, saying it should have weighed the “totality of the circumstances” surrounding the vehicle and approved of an officer’s decision to briefly detain the man.

The decision was 7-2, but Justice Sonia Sotomayor opposed the ruling while also opting against joining Jackson’s dissent. Jackson accused the majority of trying to “wordsmith” and interfere with a typically routine evaluation of a police stop.

“I cannot fathom why that kind of factbound determination warranted correction by this Court,” Jackson wrote.

Jonathan Turley, George Washington University law professor and Fox News contributor, said in an op-ed this month that Jackson has “quickly developed a radical and chilling jurisprudence.”

Despite establishing herself as an outlier, Jackson also has a swathe of supporters from civil rights groups to celebrities. She has been showered with praise on “The View,” nominated for a Grammy for her audiobook and drawn encouragement from Democratic lawmakers.

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Jackson said during her appearance this year on “The View” that “criticism is part of the job.”

“Dissents are an opportunity for the justices who disagree with the majority to really describe their view of the law but also their concerns,” Jackson said, adding that “you hope that your view will prevail in the long run.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the Supreme Court’s press office for comment.

President Donald Trump and Republicans are hailing the blockbuster ruling by the Virginia Supreme Court to strike down the state’s congressional redistricting ballot measure, which was a major setback for Democrats in the battle for the U.S. House majority.

“Huge win for the Republican Party,” the president proclaimed in a social media post on Friday minutes after Virginia’s highest court struck down the referendum passed by voters last month.

The new map drawn by the Virginia legislature would have given Democrats four more left-leaning House districts in the Commonwealth ahead of this year’s midterm elections, when Republicans will be defending their razor-thin majority in the chamber.

The Virginia ruling, along with the recent opinion by the conservative majority on the Supreme Court to slash a key Voting Rights Act protection, is giving Trump and the GOP a major boost in their ongoing political fight with Democrats to redraw congressional district maps ahead of the midterms. At stake in this nationwide redistricting showdown is which party will control the House during the final two years of Trump’s second term in the White House.

BLOCKBUSTER RULING: VIRGINIA SUPREME COURT STRIKES DOWN DEMOCRAT-BACKED CONGRESSIONAL MAP

In Virginia, the decision means the map used in the 2024 elections will stay in place for the 2026 ballot box showdowns. Democrats currently control the state’s U.S. House delegation by a 6-5 margin. The now overturned map could have resulted in a 10-1 advantage for Democrats in the blue-leaning but competitive state.

In the wake of their latest legal setback, House Democratic Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York said, “We are exploring all options to overturn this shocking decision.”

And the House minority leader vowed, “No matter what it takes, House Democrats will win in November so we can help rescue this nation from the extremism being unleashed by Donald Trump and Republicans.”

But the 2026 redistricting wars are far from over, and the political landscape may get even rougher for Democrats going forward.

Here’s where things stand.

Louisiana

The Supreme Court’s decision reshaped the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act by ruling that race should not dictate the redrawing of legislative district maps. And the opinion specifically ruled that Louisiana’s congressional district map was unconstitutional.

Last week, the Supreme Court said that its decision declaring Louisiana’s map unconstitutional should go into effect immediately, breaking with its usual procedure of waiting roughly a month before its opinions become official.

That cleared the way for the GOP-controlled state legislature to begin the process of redrawing the map, and hearings got underway on Friday.

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, a top Trump ally, took swift action in the immediate aftermath of the high court’s ruling, when he delayed the May 16 U.S. House primary elections in Louisiana.

Louisiana Republicans are aiming to erase one or both of the two Black-majority House seats, which are represented by Democrats.

Tennessee

Republicans in Tennessee moved even faster.

The GOP-dominated Tennessee legislature on Thursday quickly adopted a new map that would eliminate the only Democrat-controlled congressional district in the state, and would likely give Republicans control of all nine districts.

TENN GOV LEE CALLS SPECIAL SESSION TO REDRAW HOUSE MAP IN GOP’S FAVOR 9-0

GOP Gov. Bill Lee quickly signed the new maps into law.

Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen, who represents the majority Black district that’s being carved up, vowed legal action.

“Trump knows he HAS TO rig the game to keep his majority in November. And the TN GOP was willing to go along with it. It’s shameful,” Cohen wrote on social media. “Next stop is the courts.”

Alabama

Lawmakers in the Alabama legislature, where the GOP holds a supermajority in both chambers, are advancing legislation as they met this past week in a special session focused on redistricting. The new maps may result in eliminating one or both of the state’s two blue-leaning U.S. House districts.

The special session was called by Republican Gov. Kay Ivey.

But any new map passed by Alabama lawmakers will need to be greenlit by the Supreme Court. That’s because Alabama is currently prohibited by the high court from redistricting until 2030. It’s unclear if the court will lift its injunction.

Protests rocked both the Alabama and Tennessee legislatures as Republican lawmakers pushed forward the new maps.

South Carolina

In South Carolina, the GOP-controlled legislature returns in special session on Monday, as Republican lawmakers consider a new map that could put longtime Rep. Jim Clyburn, the only Democrat in the state’s seven-person House delegation, out of a job.

Georgia

Republicans in Georgia are divided over GOP Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia’s decision not to call state lawmakers back into a special session on redistricting.

The state’s primary is on May 19 and early voting is already underway in Georgia.

Florida

Meanwhile, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday signed a bill passed last week by the GOP-dominated state legislature that redraws the red-leaning state’s congressional districts, adding four more right-leaning seats by eliminating districts currently controlled by Democrats.

Republicans currently control Florida’s U.S. House delegation by a 20-8 margin.

How we got here

The battle over the maps ignited last spring when Trump, aiming to prevent what happened during his first term in the White House when Democrats reclaimed the House majority in the 2018 midterms, first floated the idea of rare, but not unheard of, mid-decade congressional redistricting.

The mission was simple: redraw congressional district maps in red states to pad the GOP’s fragile House majority to keep control of the chamber in the midterms, when the party in power traditionally faces political headwinds and loses seats.

When asked by reporters last summer about his plan to add Republican-leaning House seats across the country, the president said, “Texas will be the biggest one. And that’ll be five.”

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas called a special session of the GOP-dominated state legislature to pass the new map.

But Democratic state lawmakers, who broke quorum for two weeks as they fled Texas in a bid to delay the passage of the redistricting bill, energized Democrats across the country. Among those leading the fight against Trump’s redistricting was Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California.

California voters in November overwhelmingly passed Proposition 50, a ballot initiative that temporarily sidetracked the left-leaning state’s nonpartisan redistricting commission and returned the power to draw the congressional maps to the Democratic-dominated legislature.

That led to five more Democratic-leaning congressional districts in California, which aimed to counter the move by Texas to redraw their maps.

But the fight quickly spread beyond Texas and California.

Republican-controlled Missouri and Ohio and swing state North Carolina, where the GOP dominates the legislature, drew new maps as part of the president’s push.

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But in blows to Republicans, a Utah district judge late last year rejected a congressional district map drawn by the state’s GOP-dominated legislature and instead approved an alternate that will create a Democratic-leaning district ahead of the midterms.

And Republicans in Indiana’s Senate in December defied Trump, shooting down a redistricting bill that had passed the state House.

Facing the president’s wrath, five of those Republican state senators in Indiana were ousted by Trump-backed challengers in last week’s GOP primary.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris accused President Donald Trump and Republicans of trying to “rig the 2026 elections” after the Virginia Supreme Court invalidated a voter-approved redistricting referendum, a ruling she said would “give a boost” to that effort.

“Today, the Virginia Supreme Court ignored the will of the people and overturned those democratically chosen maps,” Harris wrote on X on May 8.

“This ruling gives a boost to Donald Trump’s effort to rig the 2026 elections and the Republicans’ long game to attack voting rights,” she added.

The ruling marked a significant victory for Republicans ahead of the 2026 midterms and escalated an already intensifying national battle over redistricting and control of Congress.

VIRGINIA SUPREME COURT RULES ON NEW CONGRESSIONAL MAP

“We hold that the legislative process employed to advance this proposal violated Article XII, Section 1 of the Constitution of Virginia,” the state’s high court said in its decision. “This constitutional violation incurably taints the resulting referendum vote and nullifies its legal efficacy.”

The measure, which passed by a narrow 51% to 49% margin, would have temporarily shifted redistricting authority from Virginia’s nonpartisan commission to the Democrat-controlled legislature through 2030 and was expected to yield a 10-1 Democratic advantage in the state’s congressional delegation.

Trump praised the decision in a post on Truth Social, calling it a “Huge win for the Republican Party, and America, in Virginia.”

‘JUSTICE’: CELEBRATION, MOCKERY ERUPT AFTER SPANBERGER ‘GERRYMANDER’ IS BLOWN UP IN BLOCKBUSTER DECISION

“The Virginia Supreme Court has just struck down the Democrats’ horrible gerrymander,” he wrote.

Democrats sharply criticized the ruling. Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said “a group of unelected judges on the Virginia Supreme Court chose to put partisan politics over the will of the people.”

Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones also pushed back, saying the decision “silences the voices of the millions of Virginians who cast their ballots” and that his office is evaluating “every legal pathway forward.”

ERIC HOLDER ACCUSES GOP OF ‘STEALING SEATS’ WHILE DEFENDING ‘FAIR’ DEMOCRATIC REDISTRICTING PUSH

Harris echoed that sentiment in her post, writing, “We are rightfully outraged, but we will not give up. We must continue our fight to restore the power of the people.”

Her comments come as she has stepped up attacks on Trump in recent appearances while facing renewed questions about her political future.

At a recent event in Las Vegas, Harris said, “For far too many people in our country, the American dream, is not real. And in fact, for many people in their lived experience, it’s what they would consider an American myth.”

KAMALA HARRIS’ TRAVELS AND COMMENTS CLEARLY POINT TO 2028

She also declined to downplay Trump, saying, “I’m not going to dismiss him as being an idiot. He’s dangerous.”

At the same time, top Democrats have been reluctant to weigh in on whether Harris should lead the party in 2028.

“I have no idea,” Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., told Fox News Digital when asked about her future.

“I have no idea who’s running, and we’ll focus on 2028 after 2026,” Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., said.

Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., said the decision ultimately rests with Harris but added he believes Democrats should have “a wide-open Democratic primary.”

The Virginia ruling is the latest flashpoint in a broader redistricting fight as both parties position themselves ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Harris, for her part, signaled she intends to remain engaged.

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“I firmly and strongly believe that when you feel powerless, you are powerless,” Harris said. “And when you feel powerful, you are powerful. And we are powerful and we are powerful. And so let’s just show ourselves, each other, our power around the midterms and every day.”

Fox News Digital’s Breanne Deppisch, Leo Briceno, Olivia Palombo, and Paul Steinhauser contributed to this reporting.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and his wife, “Fox & Friends” co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy, fired back on Friday after former Sec. Pete Buttigieg and his husband launched a barrage of attacks against the Duffys’ upcoming “Great American Road Trip” reality TV series.

The feud ignited Friday after the couple announced the new show on “Fox & Friends.” Chasten Glezman Buttigieg quickly took to X to bash the project, accusing the Duffys of taking a “multi-month, taxpayer-funded family road trip” while gas and grocery prices soar due to “Trump’s war of choice.”

He went on to call the couple “unfocused, unserious, and out of touch,” and aired old grievances about the Duffys’ past criticism of Pete Buttigieg working from his son’s ICU bedside.

DUFFY BLASTS BUTTIGIEG, ACCUSING BIDEN-ERA OFFICIAL OF ‘MISMANAGEMENT’: ‘MAYOR PETE FAILED FOR FOUR YEARS…’

Pete Buttigieg joined in on the attack on X, adding, “I love a good road trip, but this is brutally out of touch: a Trump Cabinet member making a documentary about himself while regular families can’t afford road trips anymore, because Trump and his war put gas prices through the roof.”

Rachel Campos-Duffy replied to Chasten Buttigieg’s post, telling him to “stand down,” and clarifying the production was funded entirely by a nonprofit, The Great American Road Trip, Inc.

She said her family participated for free to celebrate America’s 250th birthday and noted the series was filmed in short one- and two-day stops over seven months.

SEC SEAN DUFFY: ‘ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’ IS DOWN PAYMENT ON A NEW, MUCH-NEEDED AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL SYSTEM

“You and I both know that my husband has done more in one year to transform the DOT and ATC than your husband did in over 4 years on the job,” Campos-Duffy said.

Sean Duffy waited until Saturday to deliver a blistering response, claiming the “radical, miserable left” hates the series because it is “too wholesome,” “too patriotic” and “too joyful.”

He confirmed career ethics and budget officials at the Department of Transportation fully reviewed and cleared his participation in accordance with federal rules, emphasized zero taxpayer dollars were used, and said filming took place strictly during short windows like weekends and his children’s spring break.

DOT CRACKS DOWN ON THOUSANDS OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT TRUCKERS, AS AGENCY LOOKS TO HOLIDAY TRAVEL: DUFFY

He also defended his fast-paced record at the DOT, highlighting modernized air traffic control, the removal of illegal truck drivers and a 20% annual increase in hiring controllers compared to his predecessor.

Following the Duffys’ corrections, Chasten Buttigieg pivoted his line of attack, reposting multiple creators on X Saturday who took aim at the road trip’s corporate sponsors, which include DOT-regulated entities like Boeing, United Airlines, Toyota and Shell.

The reposted critics alleged a conflict of interest, claiming the companies funded an “extended vacation” for the secretary. The posts also attempted to tie the sponsorships to claims that Duffy has halted safety standards, pardoned airlines that violated consumer laws, and hasn’t fined a single airline in over a year.

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Despite the political mudslinging and moving goalposts from critics, the Duffys continue encouraging families to ignore the “haters” and explore America’s national parks and monuments ahead of the nation’s 250th birthday.

“Our message is really simple: to love America is to see America,” Sec. Duffy said. “So put the phone down, hit the open road, and rediscover what makes America great.”

President Donald Trump is ramping up pressure on Congress to overhaul college sports, warning the system could be “lost forever” as a White House-backed committee pushes sweeping changes to rein in athlete pay, transfers and soaring costs.

The proposals include creating a task force to examine pooled media rights, limits on coaching salaries, rewritten eligibility rules and changes to the transfer portal, according to a draft document obtained by Yahoo Sports and reported by The Associated Press.

The push builds on a recent executive order from Trump, which described college athletics as an “out-of-control financial arms race” fueled by loosening rules around player compensation, transfers and eligibility — and urged federal action before the system destabilizes further.

The White House said the current model is “driving universities into debt,” threatening women’s and Olympic sports and undermining student-athletes’ educational opportunities.

TRUMP SIGNS EXECUTIVE ORDER TO REGULATE THE BUSINESS OF COLLEGE SPORTS

“Further delay is not an option given what is at stake,” the order states, citing roughly 500,000 annual educational, athletic and leadership opportunities and nearly $4 billion in scholarships.

Trump has also raised alarms about the direction of college sports, saying during a White House roundtable last month that “crazy things are happening” as players stay in school longer and earn more through NIL deals, according to previous Fox News Digital reporting.

The draft proposal calls on Congress to quickly pass legislation creating a task force with an antitrust exemption and authority to override individual state laws, a major priority for NCAA and college sports leaders seeking national standards.

I PLAYED DIVISION1 VOLLEYBALL — NIL CHAOS IS OUT OF CONTROL. THE SCORE ACT WILL SAVE SPORTS

Among the most divisive ideas is pooling media rights across conferences, a move opposed by the Southeastern Conference and Big Ten but backed by a group led by Texas Tech regent Cody Campbell, who has argued it could add billions in value, according to AP.

The draft also calls for rules targeting “salary-cap circumvention,” an apparent reference to schools using third-party NIL deals to get around current limits on direct payments to athletes.

That issue is already at the center of an arbitration case brought by Nebraska football players whose NIL deals were rejected by the College Sports Commission, which reviews third-party contracts.

NCAA SETTLEMENT CHAOS: NEW LEGAL MOVE COULD TRIGGER MASSIVE INCREASE IN NIL SPENDING

Trump’s executive order also directs agencies that contract with or give grants to higher education institutions to evaluate certain violations of college athletics rules, including eligibility limits, transfers, revenue sharing and “improper financial activities.”

The order defines those activities to include fraudulent NIL schemes, use of federal funds for NIL or revenue-sharing payments and interference with contracts between student-athletes and other schools.

The White House also urged college athletics governing bodies to clarify rules before Aug. 1, including limits on eligibility, transfer rules, medical care for athletes and protections for women’s and Olympic sports.

HOUSE VOTE ON NIL REGULATION ACT CANCELED DESPITE TRUMP’S BACKING AS SOME REPUBLICANS STILL NOT ON BOARD

Congress has been stalled for more than a year on legislation codifying parts of the House settlement that put revenue-sharing into place, according to AP.

The draft committee document calls for lawmakers to act before Congress leaves for its traditional August recess.

Without a national solution, the administration has warned, the financial pressure created by football and basketball could force schools to cut other sports or reshape college athletics entirely.

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

Fox News Digital’s Ryan Morik contributed to this reporting.

The Associated Press contributed to this reporting.

A new poll shows the race tightening for the Democratic primary in Massachusetts, with challenger Rep. Seth Moulton closing in on Sen. Ed Markey.

The race is one of the most hotly contested primaries in the country, with the more progressive Markey having led by as much as 20 points in previous polls, according to Axios.

Markey, 79, who has held his seat since 2013, has the backing of the Democratic establishment, with the 47-year-old congressman looking to unseat him.

Just last month, Markey comfortably led Moulton 47-30% in a Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll, according to Boston.com.

TRUMP-BACKED VIVEK RAMASWAMY WINS OHIO GOP GUBERNATORIAL PRIMARY, WILL FACE DEMOCRAT AMY ACTON

Markey has the backing of Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, while Moulton, who is considered more centrist, has been endorsed by groups like VoteVets PAC and the Massachusetts Teamsters.

In the new Emerson College poll that shows Markey leading Mouton 37-32%, 29% of voters remain undecided. Only 2% of voters back other candidates in the race.

“Senator Markey leads the Democratic primary by 13 points among registered Democrats, while Rep. Moulton holds a 38% to 32% edge among unenrolled voters,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said. “Markey leads women 37% to 29%, while men are essentially split, with 38% backing Moulton and 37% Markey.”

SQUAD MEMBER AYANNA PRESSLEY ANNOUNCES DECISION ON CHALLENGING ED MARKEY IN PRIMARY

The poll was taken on May 3 and 4 and included 451 likely Democratic primary voters. It also notably has a 4.5% margin of error.

Markey also has a 7% advantage among voters under 50, 33-to 26%, with voters over 50 years old split 40% for Markey and 38% for Moulton.

TRUMP’S GRIP OVER GOP TESTED AT BALLOT BOX AS INDIANA, OHIO, HOLD PRIMARIES

“Notably, groups that are more favorable toward Markey, including women and young voters, are also more undecided than their counterparts; women are ten points more undecided than men (33% to 23%), and 39% of voters under 50 are undecided compared to 21% of voters over 50,” Kimball added.

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The poll also showed Markey and Moulton both as less favorable than Warren, with Markey matching Warren’s unfavorable ratings of 35%. Moulton’s unfavorable rating was lower at 26%.

The primary will be held on Sept. 1.

President Donald Trump downplayed reports that he was getting ready to fire Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Marty Makary while speaking to reporters Friday.

“I’ve been reading about it, but I know nothing about it,” Trump said in response to a question about Makary’s potential firing. When asked what’s going on with Makary, Trump responded “nothing much.”

Initial buzz about a possible Makary ouster started circulating when The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Trump had pressured Makary to fast track approval for flavored nicotine vapes.

Makary, according to WSJ, pushed back on the request, drawing Trump’s ire.

The friction pushed Trump to sign off on a plan to fire Makary, WSJ reported Friday.

TRUMP FDA NOMINEE TURNS VACCINE QUESTION ON DEM, RECALLING CONTROVERSIAL BIDEN DECISION

Trump did not confirm the WSJ reporting, instead telling reporters “no, no” when asked if he was bringing in a new FDA head.

Makary has been embroiled in a number of controversies since being confirmed as the FDA head in March 2025.

Pro-life activists have accused the former oncology surgeon of slow-walking a safety review for abortion pill mifepristone.

PRO-LIFE GROUP FINDS BIDEN-ERA FDA POLICY IS DRIVING 500 ABORTIONS PER DAY, SAYS TRUMP HAS POWER TO END IT

“This is a five-alarm crisis for the pro-life movement and for the GOP,” SBA Pro-Life America president Marjorie Dannenfelser said in a statement calling for Makary’s firing.

“The GOP cannot win without its base and simply will not get the enthusiasm that drives turnout without leadership from the top,” she wrote.

Pharmaceutical and biotech firms have also opposed Makary. John Crowley, the head of the biotech trade group, Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), condemned some of Makary’s personnel cuts in a recent op-ed.

“Some of the administration’s recent efforts to reform the federal government through aggressive and often indiscriminate personnel cuts have lacked the strategic insights necessary to modernize and reform our nation’s health care agencies, especially the FDA,” Crowley wrote.

‘FOOD BABE’ VANI HARI: DON’T BOO THE MAHA MOVEMENT. OUR HEALTH AND SAFETY ARE BIGGER THAN BUREAUCRATS’ EGOS

But others, particularly those in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) camp, have come to Makary’s defense, arguing calls for his firing are corporate-funded attacks.

“Dr. Makary is an ally in the MAHA movement,” Kelly Ryerson, an author and popular advocate also known as Glyphosate Girl, told Fox News Digital.

“It is not surprising that his uncaptured approach to protecting human health has been met with the swamp calling for his firing,” she continued.

“The criticism is that he didn’t approve flavored vapes quickly enough. The mothers who don’t want their kids smoking find that reasoning alarming,” Ryerson concluded.

“The attacks against FDA Commissioner Marty Makary are coming from Big Pharma and the media outlets financially dependent on pharmaceutical advertising for survival,” Turning Point USA-affiliated podcaster Alex Clark wrote in a Friday post on X.

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“Washington SWAMP CREATURES hate Makary because he brings actual scientific scrutiny, independent thinking, and puts Americans’ health FIRST. President Trump has consistently said he wants to Make America Healthy Again. Replacing Makary with a pharma puppet would move us backward, not forward. DO NOT FIRE MAKARY. He is one of the strongest representatives of the MAHA movement inside the federal government. SCREW OFF BIG PHARMA,” Clark wrote.

Vani Hari, a popular food blogger and prominent media figure among the MAHA movement, also wrote that a Makary ouster “would be a horrible move.”

Fox News Digital contacted the White House, HHS, the FDA, BIO and SBA Pro-Life America for additional comment.

If negotiations with Iran collapse, the U.S. likely is to move quickly to degrade Tehran’s military capabilities — a campaign analysts say would begin with missile systems, naval assets and command networks before escalating to more controversial targets.

Negotiators are still working toward what officials describe as a preliminary framework agreement — effectively a one-page starting point for broader talks centered on Iran’s nuclear program and potential sanctions relief. But deep mistrust on both sides has left the process fragile, raising the stakes if diplomacy fails.

“We’re not starting at zero,” retired Army Lt. Col. Seth Krummrich, a former Joint Staff planner and current global risk analyst, told Fox News Digital. “We’re both starting at minus 1,000 because neither side trusts each other at all. This is going to be a pretty hard process going forward.” 

That tension was on display Thursday, when a senior U.S. official confirmed American forces struck Iran’s Qeshm port and Bandar Abbas — key locations near the Strait of Hormuz — while insisting the operation did not mark a restart of the war or the end of the ceasefire.

The strike on one of Iran’s oil ports came two days after Iran launched 15 ballistic and cruise missiles at the UAE’s Fujairah Port, drawing anger from Gulf allies. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine said earlier this week the attack did not rise to the level of breaking the ceasefire, describing it as a low-level strike.

President Donald Trump repeatedly has warned that if negotiations collapse, the U.S. could resume bombing Iran — even signaling before the recent ceasefire was implemented that Washington could target the country’s energy infrastructure and key economic assets. But any escalation would likely unfold in phases, beginning with efforts to dismantle Iran’s ability to project force across the region before expanding to more controversial targets.

If talks break down, any renewed conflict would likely become a “contest for escalation control,” where Iran seeks to impose costs without provoking regime-threatening retaliation while the U.S. works to strip away Tehran’s remaining leverage, according to retired Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula.

“The capabilities that would come into focus are the ones Iran uses to generate coercive leverage: ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, air defense systems, maritime strike assets, command-and-control networks, IRGC infrastructure, proxy support channels, and nuclear-related facilities,” he said, referring to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. 

“The military objective would be less about punishment and more about denying Iran the tools it uses to escalate,” he said. 

“President Trump has all the cards, and he wisely keeps all options on the table to ensure that Iran can never possess a nuclear weapon,” White House spokesperson Olivia Wales told Fox News Digital. The Pentagon could not immediately be reached for comment. 

One early focus could be Iran’s fleet of fast attack boats in the Strait of Hormuz — a central component of Tehran’s ability to threaten global shipping in one of the world’s most critical energy corridors.

RP Newman, a military and terrorism analyst and Marine Corp veteran, said leaving much of that fleet intact during earlier strikes was a mistake.

IRAN’S REMAINING WEAPONS: HOW TEHRAN CAN STILL DISRUPT THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ

“We’ve blown up six of them,” he said. “They’ve got about 400 left.” 

The small, fast-moving boats are a key part of Iran’s asymmetric maritime strategy, capable of harassing commercial tankers and U.S. naval forces — and could quickly become a priority target in any renewed campaign.

Much of Iran’s core military structure also remains intact.

INSIDE IRAN’S MILITARY: MISSILES, MILITIAS AND A FORCE BUILT FOR SURVIVAL

Newman said “we’ve only killed less than one percent of IRGC troops,” leaving a large portion of the force still capable of carrying out operations. He estimated the group “numbers between 150 and 190,000.”

But targeting the IRGC is far more complex than eliminating senior leadership.

“They’re not just a group of leaders at the top that you can kill away,” Krummrich said. “Over 47 years it’s percolated down to every level.”

Retired Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies policy institute, said Washington may continue tightening economic pressure before broadening military action, arguing the U.S. should “squeeze them for at least another three to six weeks” before considering more aggressive escalation.

“You could have blown Kharg Island back to smithereens,” Krummrich said, referring to Iran’s primary oil export terminal in the Persian Gulf. “But what the planner said was, no — what we can do is a maritime blockade. It will have the same effect.”

Iran has continued moving crude through covert shipping networks and ship-to-ship transfers, with tanker trackers reporting millions of barrels still reaching markets in recent weeks.

A CIA analysis found Iran may be able to sustain those pressures for another three to four months before facing more severe economic strain, according to a report by The Washington Post.

The question is how far a U.S. campaign could expand if initial pressure fails to force concessions.

Trump has signaled a willingness to go further, warning before the ceasefire that the U.S. could “completely obliterate” Iran’s electric generating plants, oil infrastructure and key export hubs such as Kharg Island if a deal is not reached.

“You don’t do that at first,” Montgomery said, describing strikes on dual-use infrastructure as a conditional step dependent on Iran’s response.

Targeting dual-use infrastructure presents significant legal and operational challenges.

“I’ve got 500 people standing on my target. You can’t hit that,” Newman said.

Such decisions carry political and legal risks, particularly given the likelihood of international scrutiny.

Broader infrastructure strikes also could create long-term instability if they push Iran toward internal collapse.

“In the short term, it might help. But in the long term, we’re all going to have to deal with it,” Krummrich said. “Once you pull that lever, you’re basically pushing Iran closer to the edge of the abyss.”

A collapse of state authority could create a failed-state scenario across the Strait of Hormuz, with armed groups, drones and missiles operating unchecked in one of the world’s most strategically important waterways.

Even some of the most discussed military options — such as seizing Iran’s highly enriched uranium — would be extremely difficult to execute.

“That’s much harder than it sounds,” said Montgomery.

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Such a mission would likely take months, and require engineers, technicians and heavy excavation equipment, in addition to thousands of U.S. operators providing continuous air coverage.

“When you start to stack that up, that becomes resource intensive and high risk — not even high, extreme risk,” said Krummrich.

As fraud concerns ramp up across the country, particularly involving Medicaid, North Carolina State Auditor Dave Boliek tells Fox News Digital that the problem is very real in his state, especially when it comes to autism therapy, an area that has been highly scrutinized in Minnesota.

Boliek is sounding the alarm on potential waste, fraud, and abuse within the state’s Medicaid program, specifically calling out in an interview with Fox News Digital a 47,000% explosion in autism therapy billings that he has flagged since taking office last year. 

“Those are vital services to folks and individuals that need that therapy,” Boliek said. “But when you have, like in North Carolina, a system that went from $1.4 million or so in total billings for autism therapy to more than $660 million a year in billings on autism therapy within a five-year range, that begs an audit from the state auditor, who in North Carolina, we are the top watchdog agency for taxpayer waste, fraud, and abuse prevention. So we’ve dug down into that or in the middle of that.“

Boliek, who was speaking to Fox News Digital from the State Financial Officers Foundation annual conference in Orlando, says his office is “hand-in-hand” with Vice President JD Vance’s focus on eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse to “make sure that the people who need the services and deserve those services get the services” without “wasting money.”

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One of the core problems, Boliek explained, is that the system is oftentimes designed in a way that fails to properly safeguard against waste and abuse.

“What we’ve got is we’ve seen examples where there might be three different clinical providers billing during the same tranche of time on an autism therapy client and that is because of poor rulemaking,” Boliek explained. “Some of it is possibly illegal and probably illegal, and we’re going to point that out, and we’re going to try to put people in cuffs because of it.”

“But some of it might be technically legal because of the lax oversight from a Democrat-led Department of Health and Human Services,” Boliek said, referencing the top state health agency in North Carolina.

In a March 10, 2026, hearing of the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Medicaid, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services presented data that matches Boliek’s narrative of exponential growth in the autism therapy space.

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The report confirmed that Medicaid spending on ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) therapy grew by 347% between 2022 and 2025 alone and that total spending is projected to hit $842 million in state fiscal year 2026 and $1.14 billion by state fiscal year 2027.

Medicaid fraud has been a hot-button issue across the United States when a scandal in Minnesota gained widespread attention last fall and spreading to places like California and Ohio, the latter being the subject of a recent Daily Wire exposé examining seven medical buildings in Columbus, Ohio, that house 288 Medicaid companies and bill the government $250 million.

The key issues with Medicaid and the ease with which it can be abused both illegally and legally, according to Boliek, are the “minutia of rulemaking” that is “built in by government.”

“For example, how individual entities, whether they are a provider of clinical medical services or whether they’re a provider of daycare services or other services that can be paid for through departments of Health and Human Services, how those rules are set up and what the billing rules are,” Boliek explained.

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“It really is minutiae, but in North Carolina, for example, we still have some services that are delivered on a fee-for-service basis, and they lack transparency and lack accountability with respect to who can bill and how much can be billed for particular services. That’s why we’ve taken a deep dive into some particular fee-for-service areas in North Carolina and are looking at provider data on exactly how those services are billed. That’s where the flaws are.“

During the developing fraud scandal in Minnesota, federal agents discovered that one suspected scammer defrauded the state’s autism-treatment program of roughly $14 million and allegedly billed Medicaid for fake therapy sessions, used untrained staff and paid parents $300 to $1,500 a month to keep their kids in the program. 

The state’s autism program’s budget jumped from $3 million in 2018 to nearly $400 million in 2023, according to Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

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“The fraud is so obvious, just simply looking at the exponential growth in some of these social services programs, that anybody kind of looking at how fast this was growing should have known that a fraud was a major reason why,” Minnesota state Sen. Michael Kreun, a Republican, told Fox News Digital in December about social services fraud in his state.

In terms of next steps in North Carolina, Boliek says his office is working with lawmakers to strengthen fraud enforcement by increasing financial accountability, expanding investigative and Medicaid audit resources and investing in staff and technology to recover misused funds. 

Boliek explained that one important tool to crack down on fraud is artificial intelligence. 

“Look, we’ve got to pour jet fuel on artificial intelligence in the area of state auditing because the fraudsters are using AI and if we’re not using AI to combat the fraud, then we’re going to be on our heels and the taxpayer isn’t going to be protected.”

He emphasized that these steps, especially enhancing oversight of programs like Medicaid, are aimed at holding individuals accountable and returning taxpayer dollars for more effective use. 

The State Financial Officers Foundation, a group of financial officers that collectively oversees more than $3 trillion in state funds, released a report earlier this year outlining how the organization safeguarded more than $28 billion of waste, fraud, and abuse in 2025 alone.

“Every wasted dollar is a dollar that can’t be spent on a person who actually needs service,” Boliek said.

President Donald Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, responded to a question about how many more deportations are needed to bring the U.S. back to a country of legal citizens, saying, “millions.”

Speaking with Fox News’ Will Cain on Thursday, Homan pushed back on rumors that the administration is ramping down its immigration enforcement surges, saying he expects the deportation numbers to actually increase.

“We’re going to continue to surge resources, especially to sanctuary cities, because we know we have a problem there,” he said. “So, I expect the numbers to increase while the border numbers continue to decrease.”

Asked how many more deportations are needed, Homan said, “Millions. Look … I see it all the time, there’s 12 million illegal aliens in the country, we used 12 million 25 years ago, I think its well over 20 million. So, we’re going to do everything we can to arrest as many people as we can.”

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Pressed on whether the logistics of such large-scale deportation operations are possible, Homan responded, “I’ll give it one hell of a shot.”

“I mean, bottom line is we’re not going to give up on President Trump’s promise to the American people on mass deportations,” he continued.

Homan confirmed that the administration is hiring 10,000 more immigration enforcement agents. He said there are about 7,000 “on board” and 3,000 more going through training.

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The border czar said he expressed his opinion to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin that the “vast majority” of these agents “need to go to sanctuary cities.”

“Why is that? We go to Florida, every sheriff, every [police] chief is working with us. They honor detainers, we’ve got less of a problem in states like that, Florida and Texas,” he explained. “However, in states that want to lock us out of jails, that refuse, sheriffs and chiefs, to work with us in any capacity, that’s where we know it’s a problem, because we know they are releasing public safety threats, illegal aliens every day.”

Homan recently issued a warning to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, vowing to “flood the zone” with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers despite her efforts to block federal operations.

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He responded to Hochul’s claim that federal agents aren’t welcome in her state without permission and that she is not asking for help, by saying, “Well, Governor Hochul, I’m not asking either. I said it. We’re going to do it.”

“This is what we have to do because she forces this position. And we’re going to do it. They’re not going to stop us. They can put all the roadblocks they want, but we’re [going to] do this job,” he said.

Fox News Digital’s Madison Colombo contributed to this report.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the time has come for Cuba’s government to be “put out to pasture” while speaking at a bill-signing event on Friday afternoon.

“If you look at the state of Cuba today and in 2026, it is time for the Cuban communist dictatorship to be put out to pasture once and for all,” DeSantis said.

“That would be a good thing for our country. It would be a good thing for Florida,” he continued.

Although he stopped short of calling on President Donald Trump to take military action to liberate the communist island that sits just 100 miles off the coast of Florida, DeSantis’ comments show that Trump isn’t the only Republican keeping an eye on instability in Havana.

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His comments framed his reasoning around a new Florida law that looks to restrict Cuban-linked businesses operating in the Sunshine State in violation of U.S. sanctions.

“You can’t do business with criminals,” DeSantis said.

DeSantis noted that, under Trump’s leadership, the U.S. has taken a renewed, aggressive posture toward securing its interests in the region, positing that some degree of American intervention would be consistent with the administration’s outlook.

“Certainly, President Trump, and how he’s viewed the importance of our own hemisphere, [has] kind of reinvigorated the Monroe Doctrine,” DeSantis said, referring to the interventionist geopolitical philosophy espoused by U.S. President James Monroe.

Trump sparked speculation that the U.S. might take military action against Cuba earlier this year, hinting that he might “take” the island.

“I do believe I’ll have the honor of taking Cuba… That’s a big honor. They’re a very weakened nation right now. They were for a long time,” Trump told reporters in March.

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Trump did not expand on what recourse the U.S. could take against the island or when such an action could occur. His comments came on the heels of a military operation that had removed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and, as a consequence, spurred local unrest in Cuba over energy shortages.

Cuba, which has depended on Maduro’s regime and Venezuelan oil to power its energy grid for much of the past 30 years, has found itself struggling to prevent rolling blackouts.

DeSantis’s comments on Cuba came as he signed the Foreign Interference Restriction and Enforcement Act on Friday — a bill that grants Florida the power to revoke business licenses with ties to Cuba, among other countries.

“It does a lot of different things, but particularly with respect to Cuba, it authorizes local governments and tax collectors to revoke business tax receipts for businesses operating in Cuba in violation of federal law.

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“It creates accountability for false declarations regarding business activities in Cuba; knowingly submitting a false declaration related to unlawful activity involving Cuba will now constitute a third-degree felony in the state of Florida,” DeSantis said.

When asked about DeSantis’ comments, a White House spokesperson didn’t comment on whether the U.S. would intervene in Cuba’s current situation, but reaffirmed that the administration believes the regime’s days are numbered.

“As the President stated, Cuba is a failing nation that has been horribly run for many years and whose rulers have had a major setback with the loss of support from Venezuela. As the President stated, Cuba is a failing country. Within a short period of time they will fall, ‘and we will be there to help them out,'” the spokesperson said.

Democrats accused the Trump administration of political prosecution after powerful Virginia Senate President Pro-Tem L. Louise Lucas’ Portsmouth office and cannabis dispensary was raided by the FBI.

However, reports surfaced after the raid that the investigation into the 81-year-old, three-decade senator was started under former President Joe Biden’s administration.

Scandal-plagued Attorney General Jay Jones — whose comments about envisioning the murder of the commonwealth’s former GOP House Speaker roiled his ultimately successful campaign – cast aspersions on President Donald Trump and “failed prosecutions” of his political “enemies.”

“We simply do not have sufficient information about the reported FBI activity in Portsmouth. However, several previous actions of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia have undermined public confidence in that office,” he said of the Alexandria-centered prosecutor’s office that handles cases in Lucas’ region.

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“These include the failed prosecutions against President Trump’s stated political enemies, former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James that were both dismissed by a judge well before trial. I urge everyone to exercise restraint in judgment until the relevant facts are known in this matter,” Jones said, referring in part to allegations of wrongdoing in connection to a home linked to James in nearby Norfolk.

Rep. Bobby Scott, a Newport News Democrat who has represented Lucas’ area for 33 years, slammed Trump after the raid.

“While we await the full facts of the investigation, it must be acknowledged that this FBI raid occurs in the broader context of President Trump’s repeated abuse of the Department of Justice to target his perceived political opponents,” Scott said, before adding the raid’s timing following Virginia voters approving Lucas’ redistricting bid is notable.

“Senator Lucas helped lead the successful effort by Virginia voters to reject President Trump’s attempt to rig the midterm elections,” he said, going on to echo Jones’ concerns about recent Trump-era prosecutions like those of James, Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell and ex-G-Man James Comey.

“Like all Americans, Senator Lucas has a right to due process and a presumption of innocence,” Scott said.

One of Lucas’ top allies in Richmond and a fellow Portsmouth lawmaker also expressed outrage and pointed the finger at the White House.

“Let’s start with this: Senator L. Louise Lucas has not been charged with anything! I am deeply concerned by today’s FBI raid,” fumed Virginia House Speaker Don Scott Jr.

“Given the politicization of this administration — an FBI led by Kash Patel and a Justice Department run by President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney — I think people should take this with a grain of salt and allow the facts to come out before jumping to conclusions,” he said.

Speaker Scott said “theatrics and speculation” are overpowering verifiable information about the case before also criticizing Fox News’ reporting of the matter.

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The Associated Press, New York Times and other outlets reported several sources within the federal government telling them the probe that sparked the raids began under the octogenarian Delawarean.

“One of the people said the investigation into Democratic Sen. L. Louise Lucas was opened during Democratic former President Joe Biden’s administration. Both spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing criminal investigation,” the AP reported.

Another official told News of the United States (NOTUS) that the probe into Lucas was “financial” in nature and also that it began under Biden, while the New York Times characterized the origination similarly and suggested “corruption and bribery” concerns.

Lucas’ deputy in Richmond also fired off a missive lambasting Trump, claiming he has proven his intent to “target the Commonwealth of Virginia” because it voted for Kamala Harris in 2024.

“Senator L. Louise Lucas is an outspoken and historic figure in Virginia politics and has not been charged with a single crime,” said Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Mount Vernon.

Surovell, an attorney in Fairfax County, said Trump “obliterated” the Justice Department’s independence and said the president wrongly removed ex-U.S. Attorney for Western Virginia Todd Gilbert – the same official Jones envisioned the murder of – and “purged” prosecutors’ offices of career staff members.

“Every Virginian should be very worried about the rule of law and how it will be applied in this Country and our Commonwealth,” Surovell said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Lucas fired back in a statement obtained by Richmond conservative radio host John Reid, the 2024 GOP lieutenant gubernatorial nominee.

“Today’s actions by Federal agents are about far more than one state senator; they are about power and who is allowed to act on behalf of the people. What we saw fits a clear pattern from this administration: when challenged, they try to intimidate and silence the voices who stand up to them,” Lucas said.

“I was proud to help lead [the redistricting] effort and I have never been afraid to stand up to Donald Trump or anyone else that has tried to undermine our democracy,” she said, before going on to say she is not backing down and will continue fighting for and representing Portsmouth.

“LOL, sure Louise,” Reid said in response on social media.

“Everyone knows you’re as honest and pure-hearted as the day is long.”

Reid said that casting blame on Trump is the “best play” in this situation because “lots of TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) zombies will believe you immediately.”

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No further information has been released by the FBI about any charges against Lucas, who was not detained in the operation.

The raid began a 48-hour period for Virginia Democrats, who on Friday saw Lucas’ redistricting effort implode in court, giving Republicans nationally a major boost in their efforts to hold the House majority.

After taking out five Indiana state senators who opposed his push for congressional redistricting, President Donald Trump and his allies are now moving on to two other top targets in upcoming Republican primaries.

They are Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who voted to convict Trump in his 2021 Senate impeachment trial, and Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a vocal GOP critic of the president.

The decisive victories this week in reliably red Indiana scored by Trump-backed challengers were the latest sign that the president’s immense grip on the Republican Party remains rock solid.

“I think Indiana sent a message to a lot of folks,” veteran Republican campaign strategist Matt Gorman told Fox News.

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Gorman, who has advised GOP presidential campaigns and top members of Congress, said the results in Indiana show that “Trump’s power within the party is unequivocal.”

Five months ago, Republicans in the GOP-dominated Indiana state Senate withstood immense pressure from Trump and his allies and voted down congressional redistricting, which would have given Indiana two more right-leaning U.S. House seats ahead of the midterms.

Eight of those state senators who are up for re-election this year faced GOP primary challenges. And seeking retribution, the president endorsed challengers to seven of those eight lawmakers.

Five of the Trump-endorsed candidates won, with just one incumbent surviving and one race still too close to call.

The political world was closely watching Indiana’s primary because it was the first of a series of major tests this month of Trump’s endorsement power in GOP nomination showdowns, and the president cleared his first hurdle with ease.

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Trump-allied groups that supported the Trump challengers and targeted the GOP incumbents spent over $10 million in Indiana as they poured resources in the races.

The intraparty battle was seen not just as a test of fealty to Trump but rather a fight between MAGA forces and more traditional conservatives for the future of the GOP.

One of the groups backing Trump was the politically potent Club for Growth.

“This is a big win for Trump,” Club for Growth President David McIntosh said on Tuesday night.

And McIntosh, a former congressman from Indiana, said the primary victories were “a signal to the entire party that our base wants us to fight for what we believe in.”

Trump’s clout will be on the line again next weekend in the Louisiana primary.

Cassidy is facing primary challenges from two Republicans: Rep. Julia Letlow and former Rep. John Fleming, who is currently the state treasurer. Trump earlier this year weighed in on the race by endorsing Letlow.

Cassidy was one of only seven Senate Republicans who voted in early 2021 to convict Trump after he was impeached by the House for his role in the violent Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters who aimed to upend congressional certification of former President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. Trump was acquitted by the Senate.

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But since the start of Trump’s second term 15 months ago, Cassidy has been supportive of the president’s agenda and his nominees, including voting to approve Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

But Kennedy and his Make America Healthy Again movement are out for revenge.

That’s because Cassidy, a doctor, has been a skeptic of Kennedy’s push to reform the nation’s health policies, including Kennedy’s efforts to cut back on vaccine recommendations.

And last week, Cassidy voted to nix the surgeon general nomination of Casey Means, a close Kennedy ally and top MAHA advocate.

If no candidate cracks 50% of the primary vote, the top two finishers will face off for the nomination in a June 27 runoff election.

Another major test comes three days later, on May 19, in the primary in Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District, where Massie is facing a challenge from Trump-backed Ed Gallrein.

Massie has long been one of Trump’s most vocal GOP critics in Congress, repeatedly taking aim at the president over the Epstein files and foreign policy.

Trump allies have spent big bucks to boost Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL, and to take aim at Massie.

Veteran Republican strategist Tim Murtaugh, who is advising Gallrein, said the Indiana results are a major warning sign for Massie.

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“Indiana is right across the border from this district so there’s no doubt Massie knows what those primary results mean to him—and it ain’t good news, that’s for sure,” Murtaugh told Fox News Digital. “It’s more evidence that Republican voters want America First candidates who will stand with President Trump rather than fight him and endlessly obstruct the agenda.”

But Massie has highlighted a surge in fundraising this year, as he faces off against Gallrein.

He hauled in $2.5 million during the first three months this year, and just in the past week he raked in nearly $1 million.

And Massie has criticized Gallrein for not debating, arguing this week that his challenger has “been AWOL for eight debates and forums so far.”

House Democrats are staying far away from questions about whether former Vice President Kamala Harris should run for president again in 2028.

“I have no idea,” Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., the former House majority whip, told Fox News Digital.

“I have no idea who’s running, and we’ll focus on 2028 after 2026,” Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., answered, referring to the November midterms.

Although the slate of presidential candidates has ample time to settle, the responses hint at party uncertainty about whether Harris is the strongest figure who could represent the party in 2028 and underscore reluctance from lawmakers to project what their party might look like two years down the road.

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“I won’t comment until I know whether she really actually is or not,” Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., said.

Democrats suffered a blistering defeat in 2024, losing the popular vote nationally as Republicans stormed to a governing trifecta across the White House, Senate and House of Representatives.

Harris, who did not outperform former President Joe Biden’s 2020 election performance in any county across the U.S., raised eyebrows when she passed up an opportunity to run for governor of California, freeing her up for another shot at the White House.

“In recent months, I have given serious thought to asking the people of California for the privilege to serve as their Governor,” Harris said in a statement posted to Instagram last July.

“I love this state, its people and its promise. It is my home. However, after careful reflection, I’ve decided not to run for Governor in this election.”

But — even if Harris decides to throw her name in the ring — she likely won’t be the only candidate with a national profile looking to flip Democratic fortunes in 2028.

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Alongside Harris, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer are all names being floated as potential presidential contenders, each of whom has made a name for themselves by opposing President Donald Trump.

Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., believes that Democrats will have choices — and not just among governors either.

“I think that’s her decision,” Larson said of Harris. “But I believe there should be a wide-open Democratic primary, and I think there’ll be a lot of contenders; you know, governors, senators. But I also think people outside of government will be interested in running too.”

“It’ll be a healthy experience, and that anyone who’s interested ought to run,” Larson added.

Larson did not list any specific names he would support or expect to be a frontrunner in that picture.

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Although he declined to definitively say whether he believes Harris ought to lead the Democratic ticket, at least one Democrat, Rep. Glenn Ivey, D-Md., said he wouldn’t rule Harris out.

“I think there’s definitely a lot of support still out there for her. And she seemed real sharp on the issues still. So, we’ll see how it goes. But there’s gonna be a lot of people jumping in that one,” Ivey said.

The U.S. and partners completed the removal of all remaining enriched uranium from a legacy research reactor in Venezuela, the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration announced on Friday.

“For decades, the RV-1 reactor supported physics and nuclear research. Once that work finished in 1991, its uranium, enriched above the crucial 20 percent threshold, became surplus material,” the NNSA said.

The NNSA’s Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation (DNN) team and technical experts from the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research “safely removed 13.5 kilograms (about 30 pounds) of uranium from the RV-1 reactor,” the administration said. “Working in close cooperation with the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] throughout, the team securely packaged the uranium into a spent fuel cask.”

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The material was then transported to the U.S., where it will be processed and reused, the NNSA noted.

“The group then escorted the material 100 miles overland to a Venezuelan port. There, they transferred the cargo to a specialized carrier supplied by the U.K.’s Nuclear Transport Solutions,” the announcement said. “The vessel carried the material to the United States arriving on U.S. shores in early May. Upon arrival, U.S. teams unloaded the casks and transported them to the Savannah River Site (SRS) for processing and reuse.”

The SRS is located in the state of South Carolina, near Augusta, Georgia.

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“The DOE Office of Environmental Management took custody of the material at SRS. There, technicians will process the material at the H-Canyon chemical separations facility to obtain high-assay low-enriched uranium for America’s nuclear renaissance,” the NNSA said.

The move comes months after President Donald Trump ordered the U.S. military operation capturing Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in early January.

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“The safe removal of all enriched uranium from Venezuela sends another signal to the world of a restored and renewed Venezuela,” NNSA Administrator Brandon Williams said in a statement. “Thanks to President Trump’s decisive leadership, the dedicated teams on the ground completed in months what would have normally taken years.”