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Democratic Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy is under fire after a one-word social media post fueled accusations he was a “traitor” cheering against the United States amid the war in Iran.

“Awesome,” Murphy wrote on X in response to a post reporting that 26 ships in Iran’s shadow fleet have made it past the US blockade in the Gulf of Oman.

Murphy’s post adds to his long-running criticism of President Donald Trump’s foreign policy and revived scrutiny over his past posture toward Iran, giving critics fresh ammunition to cast the Connecticut Democrat as hostile to U.S. interests.

Social media commenters unleashed on Murphy for the message, with some asking if his account was “hacked” and others accusing him of cheering on Iran. 

SCHUMER BLASTED TRUMP FOR FAILING TO OUST MADURO — NOW WARNS ARREST COULD LEAD TO ‘ENDLESS WAR’

“First of all this is false,” assistant to the Secretary of War for public affairs Sean Parnell posted, denying the report Murphy responded to. “Second, a Dem senator cheering on the number one state sponsor of terror is shameful.” 

DOUG SCHOEN: AS A DEMOCRAT, I BACK TRUMP’S IRAN STRIKE — MY PARTY IS WRONG

Fox News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst notably told “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday morning that there is “no evidence” that Iranian shadow fleet vessels, ships used to evade international sanctions, have made it through the U.S. blockade.

Murphy’s office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on the X post and whether his message was intended seriously or in jest.

“The tweet was sarcasm. Chris obviously thinks it’s terrible that Donald Trump continues to mishandle every aspect of a war he started but clearly has no strategy to end,” a spokesperson for Murphy told Jewish Insider on Monday. 

Commenters continued criticizing Murphy on X on Tuesday morning. 

“This is what late stage TDS looks like: Cheering on Iran to defeat the U.S. Navy,” the Trump War room account wrote.

“This U.S. senator is publicly cheering for America’s enemy during war. The Senate should vote to censure him,” Mike Davis, Article III Project founder and President, commented.

SCHUMER CALLS TRUMP ‘A MILITARY MORON’ AND SAYS US ‘WORSE OFF’ NOW THAN WHEN IRAN WAR STARTED

“Was Sen. Murphy’s account hacked,” Washington Examiner chief political correspondent Byron York wrote.

“Chris Murphy roots against America,” conservative commentator Steve Guest posted.

“‘I love when Iran wins, it’s awesome…’ – a UNITED STATES SENATOR???????????!!!!!!!!!,” added Matt Van Swol, a former employee of the Department of Energy, according to his X bio.

CRUZ SAYS TRUMP’S MOVE TO STRIKE IRAN ‘MOST CONSEQUENTIAL DECISION’ OF HIS PRESIDENCY

Operation Epic Fury began on Feb. 28, 2026, when U.S. forces, alongside partner forces, launched a coordinated military campaign against Iran

As the Trump administration pressures Iran to curb its nuclear program, the U.S. is using its naval and air power to choke off Iranian shipping around the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman.

Murphy recently called out Trump for his posts related to the war with Iran saying it is a “a clear war crime.”

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Fox News’ Greg Norman-Diamond contributed to this report.

Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf threatened to “reveal new cards on the battlefield” in a Monday evening social media post just days before the agreed ceasefire between the United States and Iran is set to expire.

“Trump, by imposing a siege and violating the ceasefire, seeks to turn this negotiating table — in his own imagination — into a table of surrender or to justify renewed warmongering,” Ghalibaf wrote on X.

“We do not accept negotiations under the shadow of threats, and in the past two weeks, we have prepared to reveal new cards on the battlefield,” he concluded.

Ghalibaf led the Iranian delegation in Islamabad during April 11 peace talks with a U.S. delegation led by Vice President JD Vance. That meeting happened while a two-week ceasefire, mediated by Pakistan, was in effect. The ceasefire, announced on April 8, is set to expire on Wednesday.

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Vance is now expected to land in Pakistan again Tuesday to lead a second round of talks ahead of the deadline, according to PBS.

While Vance will hope to reach a long-term peace deal, Iran has signaled intransigence. Ghalibaf’s warning came two days after the Islamic Republic announced Saturday it was reimposing restrictions on the Strait of Hormuz, reversing a previously announced decision to open the key waterway up.

Trump announced the Strait was “COMPLETELY OPEN” in a Friday Truth Social post, but insisted that the maritime blockade would continue “until there is a ‘DEAL.’

IRAN’S LEADER THREATENS ‘EVEN BIGGER BLOW’ AGAINST US, TRUMP SAYS HE’S IN ‘NO RUSH’ TO TALK

The next day, Iran’s joint military command said that “control of the Strait of Hormuz has returned to its previous state… under strict management and control of the armed forces,” adding that the restrictions would remain as long as the U.S. blockade did.

Iranian leadership has gone as far as to declare they won’t participate in the Islamabad peace talks with the U.S., Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said Monday.

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“If the U.S. sends a team to Islamabad, that is a matter that concerns them,” Baqaei said in a press conference.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran does not accept any deadlines or ultimatums to safeguard its national interests. We have clearly stated our red lines from the beginning, and we will not change our principled positions,” he added.

Kevin Warsh heads into his Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday morning vying to be the richest-ever chair of the Federal Reserve amid mounting questions over his sizable financial portfolio.

Newly released disclosures reveal the extent of Warsh’s wealth but leave key portions of his holdings unclear, which could complicate his path toward confirmation since the position he is up for wields enormous influence over financial markets. 

The disclosures are likely to draw scrutiny from lawmakers due to potential conflicts of interest and concerns over transparency, both central focuses of the confirmation process — particularly at a time when the central bank’s credibility is already under a microscope.

TRUMP’S PICK TO LEAD THE FEDERAL RESERVE MEETS GOP SENATOR HOLDING UP HIS CONFIRMATION

According to documents submitted to the Senate last week, Warsh reported assets valued at roughly $135 million to $226 million, positioning him to become the wealthiest chair in the Federal Reserve’s history if confirmed.

The nearly 70-page filings, released by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics as part of the standard vetting process for senior nominees, detail a portfolio spanning investments, board roles and other financial interests.

TRUMP’S FED PICK DISCLOSES $131M FORTUNE AS NOMINATION FACES HEADWINDS

Still, the disclosures leave some gaps.

For example, certain holdings are listed in broad ranges or lack full detail, a common feature of such filings but one that can draw scrutiny when nominees are poised to oversee institutions with vast influence over financial markets.

In fact, a note from a government ethics official attached to the filings says Warsh is currently out of compliance with ethics rules for certain holdings where he did not disclose the funds’ underlying assets.

The Office of Government Ethics said the rest of the filing meets federal requirements and that Warsh would return to full compliance once he divests those assets, which he has pledged to do within 90 days of confirmation.

That dynamic could prove especially sensitive for Warsh as lawmakers weigh potential conflicts of interest and the steps he would need to take to avoid them.

Beyond that, the filings also underscore the scale of wealth tied to his family. 

They do not include the far larger fortune connected to his wife, Jane Lauder — granddaughter of Estée Lauder’s founder — which Forbes estimates at about $1.9 billion. Separate disclosures show Lauder holds millions of dollars in additional assets, further adding to the family’s overall financial footprint.

TRUMP’S FED PICK KEVIN WARSH FACES UNEXPECTED ROADBLOCK OVER ONGOING POWELL PROBE

Warsh’s potential ascent comes at a turbulent moment for the central bank.

Senators are still weighing ethics concerns tied to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, with at least one Republican vowing to block Warsh’s confirmation over the issue.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who has been holding up the nomination, said he supports Warsh but will not back his confirmation until a Justice Department investigation into Powell is resolved. But that’s unlikely considering President Donald Trump’s push for the probe and refusal to back off pressuring DOJ to investigate. 

On Jan. 11, Powell confirmed that the Justice Department opened a criminal investigation into his congressional testimony regarding the renovation of the Federal Reserve’s two historic buildings on Washington, D.C.’s National Mall.

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That probe comes as the Federal Reserve faces mounting pressure on multiple fronts, including a Supreme Court case testing its independence and persistent cost-of-living concerns weighing on President Donald Trump’s economic agenda.

Against that backdrop, scrutiny of Warsh’s finances — and how he manages them — is likely to intensify as his nomination advances.

Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene asserted in a Monday post on X that regardless of which political party wields power in Washington D.C., the nation continues traveling down the same path.

“Nothing ever changes in Washington. No matter which party is in charge. You still get a bigger debt. You still get foreign wars and you pay for them. Your cost of living still increases and the value of the dollar continues to shrink,” Greene wrote.

“Voting for both Democrats and Republicans is the worst ROI for the American people,” she added.

TRUMP TRASHES MTG AFTER REPUBLICAN WINS CONTEST TO FILL HER OLD SEAT ‘DESPITE THE STENCH LEFT BY GREENE’

Her criticism comes amid the 2026 midterm election cycle, which will determine whether Republicans maintain their majorities in the House and Senate.

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment on Tuesday.

Greene, who in the past had been a staunch ally of President Donald Trump’s, left Congress in the middle of her term early this year after a falling out with the president last year.

TRUMP PUSHES BACK AGAINST PUNDITS, SAYS ISRAEL DID NOT TALK HIM INTO THE IRAN WAR

Greene wrote “25th AMENDMENT!!!” in part of an April 7 post on X after Trump, in a Truth Social post, threatened regarding Iran that “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”

The president ultimately announced a ceasefire and did not follow through on his threat against Iran.

Trump-backed Republican Clay Fuller won the April 7 special election runoff to fill the House seat that had been vacated by Greene.

In an April 8 Truth Social post, the president congratulated Fuller and blasted Greene as “deranged.”

EX-TRUMP ALLY MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE JOINS LEFT-WING CALLS FOR THE 25TH AMENDMENT AS IRAN DEADLINE NEARS

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“Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown’s (GREEN TURNS TO BROWN UNDER STRESS!) seat in Congress has been taken over by a wonderful and talented man, Clay Fuller, who won convincingly, and right from the beginning, despite many people running for that ‘TRUMP’ +37 seat, and despite the stench left by Greene. Congratulations to Clay Fuller, a very large improvement over his deranged predecessor!” the president declared in the post.

LEESBURG, Va. — Virginians head to the polls on Tuesday to vote on a congressional redistricting referendum that, if passed, could give Democrats a significant boost in the battle for the U.S. House majority in this year’s midterm elections.

If the ballot measure is successful, it would give the Democrat-controlled Virginia legislature — rather than the state’s current nonpartisan commission — temporary redistricting power through the 2030 election. It could result in a 10-1 advantage for Democrats in Virginia’s congressional delegation, up from their current 6-5 edge.

That would give the Democrats four additional left-leaning U.S. House seats ahead of the midterms as the party tries to win back control of the chamber from the GOP, which currently holds a razor-thin majority.

“It’s the most partisan map in American,” former Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin told supporters at his final campaign stop on the eve of the election in this northern Virginia town on the far end of Washington, DC’s suburbs.

OBAMA GOES ALL IN ON HIGH-STAKES REFERENDUM THAT MAY IMPACT MIDTERM ELECTIONS

Pointing to the Democrats pushing new maps, Youngkin charged, “What they are doing is immoral.”

Teaming up with Youngkin to crisscross the state in leading the GOP opposition to the ballot initiative was former Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, who told the crowd the Democrats’ map is one that “you draw when you’re drunk with power.”

Speaking with Fox News Digital ahead of their final election eve rally, Miyares charged that Democrats want to take away the voices of millions of Virginians and gerrymander the state.

Youngkin, pointing to the duo’s relentless campaigning in recent weeks, said “what we’re hearing over and over and over again is Virginians want fair maps. And what the yes vote represents are unfair maps.”

And the two Republicans reiterated their charge that the referendum was an “unconstitutional power grab” by the Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger and the Democrats who control the state legislature.

As Youngkin and Miyares were speaking in Leesburg, President Donald Trump took to the airwaves on a popular Virginia-based conservative talk show and later teamed up with House Speaker Mike Johnson to urge voters to defeat the referendum.

SPANBERGER FACES ‘BAIT AND SWITCH’ BACKLASH AHEAD OF CRUCIAL ELECTION

Pointing to congressional Democrats, Trump warned that “if they get these additional seats, they’re going to be making changes at the federal level.”

Democrats counter that the redrawing of the maps is a necessary step to balance out partisan gerrymandering already implemented by Republicans in other states at Trump’s urging.

“By voting yes, you have the chance to do something important — not just for the Commonwealth, but for our entire country,” former President Barack Obama said in a video released Friday on the eve of the final day of early voting. “By voting yes, you can push back against the Republicans trying to give themselves an unfair advantage in the midterms.”

“By voting yes, you can take a temporary step to level the playing field. And we’re counting on you,” the former president added.

The video by Obama was the former president’s latest effort tied to the referendum. He has previously appeared in ads released by Virginians for Fair Elections, the Democrat-aligned group working to pass the ballot initiative.

BATTLE FOR THE HOUSE RUNS THROUGH VIRGINIA AS COURT OKS HIGH-STAKES REDISTRICTING VOTE

But Virginians for Fair Maps, the leading Republican-aligned group opposing redistricting, used past comments by Obama against political gerrymandering in its ads opposing the referendum.

“Because of things like political gerrymandering, our parties have moved further and further apart, and it’s harder and harder to find common ground,” the former president said in an old clip showcased in the spot.

Republicans are also pointing to comments from Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, a former Virginia governor and former chair of the Democratic National Committee, who acknowledged this past weekend in a Fox News Sunday interview that the new maps don’t represent Virginia’s partisan breakdown.

“Ninety percent of Virginians are not Democrats, that’s true,” Kaine said.

But Kaine added that “about 100% of Virginians want election results to be respected.”

SOROS-BACKED GROUP AMONG LIBERAL ORGS PUMPING EYE-POPPING CASH INTO VIRGINIA GERRYMANDERING EFFORT

And Republicans are also taking aim at Spanberger, who won last November’s gubernatorial election by over 15 points as Democrats also captured the lieutenant governor and attorney general offices.

“Abigail Spanberger told everybody last summer that she had no interest in redistricting and then the first bill she signs is a bill to enable the gerrymandering of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Virginians don’t like this and that’s why independents and a lot of Democrats are voting no too,” Youngkin told Fox News Digital.

Minutes later, Youngkin told the crowd that Spanberger is “trying to disenfranchise million, millions, of Virginians.”

Republicans have trained their redistricting firepower on Spanberger since a poll two weeks ago from The Washington Post indicated that the new governor’s approval rating was barely above water, with the highest unfavorable rating for a new Virginia governor in two decades.

“She’s an unpopular governor with an unpopular agenda and she lied to the voters,” Miyares charged.

And Miyares and other top Republicans have accused Spanberger of pulling a “bait and switch.”

Spanberger, in an ad in support of the referendum, said she’s backing the measure because “it’s directly in response to what other states decide to do and a president who says he’s quote entitled to more Republican seats before this year’s midterms. Our approach is different. It’s temporary. It preserves Virginia’s fair redistricting process into the future.”

Supporters of redistricting have dramatically outraised and outspent groups opposed to the referendum, with Virginians for Fair Elections outraising Virginians for Fair Maps by a roughly three-to-one margin. Much of the funding raised by both sides came from so-called “dark money” from nonprofit public policy groups known as 501(c)(4) organizations that are not required to disclose their donors.

Despite the Democrats’ funding advantage, recent polling suggested support for the ballot initiative was only slightly ahead of opposition amid a surge in early voting, which ended on Saturday.

“They have outspent us three to one. They’ve raised over $70 million. And yet this is a close vote,” Youngkin said.

Pointing to the ads in support of the referendum, Youngkin said Virginians “aren’t believing the mistruths. They aren’t believing the lies on TV. They’re actually doing the work themselves and understanding that a no vote is for fair maps and a yes vote is for the most gerrymandered maps in America.”

And Miyares emphasized that Democrats “outspent us but we have the truth.”

Virginia is the latest battleground in the high-stakes fight between Trump and the GOP and Democrats over congressional redistricting.

Aiming to prevent what happened during his first term in the White House when Democrats reclaimed the House majority in the 2018 midterms, Trump last spring 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.

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

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

The fight quickly spread beyond Texas and California.

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

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.

Republicans in Indiana’s Senate in December defied Trump, shooting down a redistricting bill that had passed the state House. The showdown in the Indiana statehouse grabbed plenty of national attention.

Florida is next up.

Two-term Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and state lawmakers in the GOP-dominated legislature are hoping to pick up an additional three to five right-leaning seats through a redistricting push during a special legislative session that kicks off April 28.

Hovering over the redistricting wars is the Supreme Court, which is expected to rule in Louisiana v. Callais, a crucial case that may lead to the overturning of a key provision in the Voting Rights Act.

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If the ruling goes the way of the conservatives on the high court, it could lead to the redrawing of a slew of majority-minority districts across the county, which would greatly favor Republicans.

But it is very much up in the air when the court will rule and what it will actually decide.

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, who is running as a Democrat for a U.S. Senate seat in Michigan, is facing online blowback over a podcast appearance where he took several pointed shots at Vice President JD Vance’s personal life, including his relationship with second lady Usha Vance.

“What do you think is going through Usha’s head when he talks? She’s like, ‘Damn, I have to sleep with him,’” El-Sayed said on “The Allen Analysis Show” posted on Friday.

“I guess she’s pregnant so something is happening,” El-Sayed continued, “Can you imagine, he’s got Brown kids, at some point he’s going to have a really awkward conversation with his kids, like, you made your career hating people who are different.”

El-Sayed went on to say that Vance’s political philosophy is “incoherent” because of the racial makeup of his family and that the vice president’s soul is “corrupted” by power.

MICHIGAN DEMOCRATIC SENATE CANDIDATE CLAIMS ISRAEL ‘JUST AS EVIL’ AS HAMAS

“He’s got to look at his kids and be like, ‘Yeah, those are Brown kids, they’re mine,'” El-Sayed said. “‘You know what I mean? And I had Brown kids. I had Brown kids?'”

Sayed continued, “I love my Brown kids, and I think my Brown kids are just as American as everyone else. JD Vance has Brown kids who he thinks are less American than everyone else.”

El-Sayed also said on the podcast appearance that Vance has the “charisma of a doorknob” and the “aura of a toad” while urging Usha Vance to “get out” of the marriage.

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Former Michigan GOP gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon was one of several people who took issue with El-Sayed’s comments and told Fox News Digital she doesn’t believe most Michigan voters will react positively to his message.

“When you’re running on racial division, you have to keep stoking racism, especially if you’re the racist,” Dixon said. “Imagine smugly trying to break up a family because you don’t believe a White man can love his children. Pretty pathetic, and I think Michigan voters will agree.”

Conservatives on social media quickly reacted to the clip, accusing El-Sayed of taking his criticism of the Vance family too far. 

“This isn’t politics,” Rev. Jordan Wells, founder of Christians Against Antisemitism Institute, posted on X, calling the comments a “low blow.”

“This is personal, cruel, and straight-up disgusting.”

Conservative influencer Laura Loomer blasted the “derogatory sexual comments” in a post on X.

“Democrats are trash,” Townhall writer Amy Curtis posted on X.

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Fox News Digital reached out to Vance’s office and El-Sayed’s campaign for comment. 

Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary will be held on Aug. 4 as El-Sayed squares off against Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow and Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens to advance to the general election in November against former Republican Congressman Mike Rogers.

With the six-month mark until Election Day 2026 closing fast, President Donald Trump’s top political advisers are meeting behind closed doors Monday with dozens of leading Republican political consultants from across the country for a strategy session as the party defends its razor-thin House and slim Senate majorities in the midterms.

The meeting, organized by White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, who was co-chair of Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, and Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair, comes as the party in power in the nation’s capital faces traditional political headwinds and is expected to lose congressional seats. Republicans are also battling a challenging political climate fueled by persistent inflation, rising gas prices tied to what polls show is an unpopular war with Iran, and the president’s underwater approval ratings.

The gathering, which was first reported by Politico, is aimed at establishing better coordination and sharing of data and strategy between the White House political team and consultants advising candidates in midterm showdowns.

STRATEGY SESSION: TRUMP’S TEAM HUDDLES ON MIDTERM MESSAGING

The meeting also comes two weeks after Trump announced that Blair would temporarily step down from his White House role to steer midterm strategy from the outside. The president said in a social media post that Blair would take “a short leave of absence to lead the charge from the outside” against Democrats, and after the midterms would “return again to the White House, so we can finish the job.”

This is the second major gathering ahead of the midterms. Wiles, Blair and other top Trump political advisers met in February at the party’s Capitol Hill Club with Cabinet officials and their top aides to discuss promoting the Trump agenda and other midterm messaging.

Trump made a two-day swing last week to Nevada and Arizona, two crucial swing states in this year’s elections, to highlight the tax cuts that congressional Republicans passed, and which he signed into law last summer.

BACK ON THE TRAIL: TRUMP HITS BATTLEGROUND STATES TO TOUT TAX CUTS

The president’s stops were part of a full-court press last week by Republicans, around last Wednesday’s tax filing deadline, to spotlight the tax cuts, which they insist will give them a political boost with voters in the midterms.

The tax cuts were a key component of Republicans’ massive domestic policy measure, which passed almost entirely along party lines in the GOP-controlled House and Senate.

The law, originally titled the One Big Beautiful Bill Act but rebranded as the Working Families Tax Cuts, is stuffed full of Trump’s 2024 campaign trail promises and second-term priorities, including extending the president’s signature 2017 tax cuts and eliminating taxes on tips and overtime pay. 

FIRST ON FOX: GOP TAKES AIM AT DEMOCRATS FOR OPPOSING TRUMP TAX CUTS

But much of the GOP messaging last week was overshadowed by coverage of the war with Iran and Trump’s very public spat with the pope.

Republicans in Congress are increasingly concerned about the political climate ahead of the midterms.

“If we lose the midterms, it’ll be because we didn’t talk about what moms and dads are worried about when they lie down to sleep at night…and that’s primarily the cost of living, GOP Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana said Saturday in an appearance on Fox News’ “The Big Weekend Show.”

And pointing to the tax cuts, Kennedy said the “One Big Beautiful Bill is going to help a lot of people in terms of their taxes and a lot of small businesses. And that’s what I wish the president would talk more about. If we talk about it, we’ll win the midterms.”

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Despite the Democratic Party’s poll numbers hitting all-time lows over the past year, Democrats are energized heading into the midterms thanks to a slew of off-year-election and special election victories and over performances, thanks in part to their laser focus on affordability since Trump returned to the White House.

The Democratic National Committee, in an email release Monday to supporters, claimed that “Republicans are in trouble ahead of the midterms — and they know it.”

Opponents of Virginia Democrats’ redistricting referendum are accusing Gov. Abigail Spanberger of a “bait and switch,” pointing to her campaign-trail pledge of “no plans” to redraw the state’s congressional map ahead of Tuesday’s vote.

Former Virginia Govs. George Allen and Glenn Youngkin, along with a slew of top conservatives, have opposed the effort, which would redraw the commonwealth’s 6-5 Democratic map to a 10-1 map crafted by Senate President L. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, and backed by Spanberger.

“Behold the great bait and switch,” Del. Michael Webert, R-Fauquier, said, sharing a screenshot of October reporting highlighting Spanberger’s apparent pledge not to support what she now is vocally behind.

“Vote No,” said Webert, whose district forms a boundary between the Washington, D.C., suburbs set to accrue political power if the referendum passes and the hundreds of miles of rural expanse south and west that are poised to lose their voice.

SOROS-BACKED GROUP AMONG LIBERAL ORGS PUMPING EYE-POPPING CASH INTO VIRGINIA GERRYMANDERING EFFORT

The latter is a major concern for U.S. Rep. Ben Cline, a Botetourt Republican whose district runs from Roanoke to the northernmost West Virginia line at Berryville along the Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah Valley, which Cline said stand to lose their otherwise homogenous voice in Washington.

Cline told Fox News Digital how Spanberger was previously a colleague on the House Agriculture Committee and “loved to talk about her connection to Virginia agriculture.”

“My district is currently the most agriculture-based district in Virginia and she has chopped it into five different districts and parceled it out to Northern Virginia Democrats to use to make their numbers work,” he said, adding that the referendum is offensive to Virginia farmers in particular.

In separate comments to “Ruthless”, Cline expounded on that point, saying the people of his current district stand to lose their voice because they will be split into five “spaghetti strands” originating from Arlington and Fairfax.

“But we’re optimistic we’re going to be able to stop the governor in her tracks,” he said.

OBAMA URGES VIRGINIANS TO VOTE YES ON REDISTRICTING MEASURE THAT COULD GIVE DEMOCRATS 4 MORE HOUSE SEATS

“They’ve pulled her ad from even running, yeah, because she’s so unpopular,” he said.

Spanberger had been featured in a multi-million-dollar advertising campaign encouraging voters to support the redistricting referendum, but the Virginia Scope reported that ad was recently pulled from circulation.

“[The situation] slid south for her and that’s what happens when you play bait-and-switch with the voters,” Cline said.

However, the Vote YES campaign denied Cline’s characterization in a statement to Fox News Digital.

“This is false,” the campaign said. “We’re running a strong statewide campaign featuring a range of voices — including Governor Spanberger. This election is about stopping Trump’s power grab and leveling the playing field — and that’s exactly what a YES vote does.”

In his remarks to “Ruthless,” Cline also cited the fact several Fairfax-area Democrats are already launching bids for the yet-unconfirmed “lobster”-shaped redrawn seat that is the most prominent slice of his district.

VIRGINIA CONGRESSMAN SAYS SPANBERGER WANTS TO ‘TURN US INTO NEW ENGLAND’

“I didn’t think Dan Helmer could find Shenandoah Valley on a map, but yet he’s going to be campaigning and asking for votes [here],” he said of the far-left delegate from Fairfax who helped spearhead the redistricting effort itself.

Helmer, a combat veteran, also crafted the commonwealth’s sweeping gun control bill lambasted as a “gun grab.”

“You have a leader in the Virginia House of Delegates, on the Democratic side, who crafts maps for his benefit… They’re enacting laws to help them get elected to Congress, not enacting laws to help Virginians get ahead” Del. Joe McNamara, R-Roanoke, told the Virginia Mercury of Helmer’s position.

When asked about Cline and others criticizing his decision to run in the redistricted district, Helmer told Fox News Digital that as the Virginia House Democrats’ campaign chair, he already succeeded in such rural areas.

“I’ve campaigned in every corner of this district — from Rockingham to Louisa, Arlington to Powhatan. Because of those efforts, 14 MAGA Republicans [in the state legislature] are now unemployed and doom scrolling LinkedIn instead of harming Virginia families — and this November, we’re going to add Ben Cline to that list,” Helmer said.

Several other Democrats including former first lady Dorothy McAuliffe and JP Cooney — an ex-aide to Jack Smith — are also running there.

Turning to the new maps, only Rep. Morgan Griffith’s district stands to remain Republican.

House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore, R-Gate City, represents much of that district in Richmond and has joined barnstorming efforts by Youngkin and former Attorney General Jason Miyares across his far southwestern district.

Youngkin’s 2021 victory was pegged in-part to Republicans running up the score in albeit sparsely populated counties like Wise, Scott, Dickenson and Lee, and the same strategy appeared afoot in the closing weeks of early voting.

DAVID MARCUS: RICH MEN NORTH OF RICHMOND SET TO STEAL THE VOTES OF RURAL VIRGI

In Dickenson County, home to late music legend Ralph Stanley, Kilgore recently joined local leaders to call for a surge to the polls.

“We just want everybody to vote ‘No’,” he said, as state Sen. Todd Pillion, R-Bristol, reported 500 people had already early voted in the sparse county that day.

“We can win this,” Kilgore said. “We do not want Fairfax County controlling our congressional districts and we want to protect rural Virginia.”

At the other end of the commonwealth, where another rural region is set to be sliced up and attached to Fairfax, Rep. Rob Wittman of the Northern Neck echoed concerns similar to Cline’s.

“Governor Spanberger said it clearly: ‘I have no plans to redistrict Virginia’. But now, Richmond politicians are pushing a referendum to do exactly that—redraw congressional maps in the middle of the decade,” Wittman said.

“A 10-1 map would erase millions of voices – that’s not representation; that’s partisan gerrymandering,” he said.

Tazewell County Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley — who issued an injunction against the referendum until the state Supreme Court stepped in — also led criticism of the term “restore fairness” being used on the ballot as the official description of what voting yes would do.

Hurley said the language was unconstitutionally misleading and that “[it] would lead a voter to believe he or she were doing something unfair by voting against the proposed amendment.”

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While the higher court mooted whether the election could move forward, filings from plaintiffs and defendants on the merits of the case are due Thursday – when the bench will ultimately decide whether to undo any prospective passage of the referendum.

Fox News Digital reached out to Spanberger, Helmer and Virginians for Fair Elections for comment.

Labor Secretary Lori Chavez DeRemer is leaving the Trump administration and will be temporarily replaced by Deputy Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling. 

Sonderling, who serves under DeRemer, will become the agency’s acting secretary. Her exit comes after a whistleblower complaint accused the labor secretary of an affair with her security guard, drinking on the job and using staff to fabricate official travel for personal trips at taxpayer expense.

“Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer will be leaving the Administration to take a position in the private sector,” Assistant to the President and White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said on Monday afternoon. “She has done a phenomenal job in her role by protecting American workers, enacting fair labor practices, and helping Americans gain additional skills to improve their lives.”

NANCY MACE MOVES TO EXPEL FELLOW REPUBLICAN CORY MILLS, SETTING UP RARE HOUSE VOTE THIS WEEK

The news of Chavez-DeRemer’s exit comes as an inspector general investigates a slew of complaints against her, such as that she created a hostile work environment, used work trips for personal leisure, engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a member of her security team, and that her husband was making unwanted advances toward Labor Department officials. 

Reporting on the complaints indicates Chavez-DeRemer requested staff to perform private errands for her and her husband, like picking up their dry cleaning, getting them wine and cleaning out the Secretary’s closet, while using threats to ensure compliance. Text messages obtained by the Labor Department’s Inspector General also reportedly showed Chavez-DeRemer’s family members routinely sending personal requests and messages to young staff members. Meanwhile, other complaints have alleged drinking on the job and keeping stashes of liquor around the office, according to the New York Post, which first reported the complaints in January. 

“It has been an honor and a privilege to serve in this historic Administration and work for the greatest President of my lifetime. At the Department of Labor, I am proud that we made significant progress in advancing President Trump’s mission to bridge the gap between business and labor and always put the American worker first. We created new pathways to mortgage-paying jobs, prepared workers to excel in the age of AI, took steps to lower prescription drug costs, promoted retirement security, and so much more,” Chavez-DeRemer said in a statement she posted on X after news of her leaving the department broke. 

HOUSE LAWMAKERS EXPRESS DISGUST OVER SWALWELL NOT BEING EXPOSED SOONER: ‘IT’S SHAMEFUL’:

“Thinking back to my first job packing peaches in rural California, it taught me the value of hard work – a value that I have carried with me every single day in this job and throughout my time in public service. We live in the best country in the world, and I am incredibly grateful that I had this opportunity to meet workers across the nation, listen to their stories, and deliver wins for them and their families,” she continued, before thanking President Donald Trump. 

“While my time serving in the Administration comes to a conclusion, it doesn’t mean I will stop fighting for American workers. I am looking forward to what the future has in store as I depart for the private sector,” Chavez-DeRemer concluded.

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Chavez-DeRemer becomes the third top-ranking official in the Trump administration to resign in the past few weeks, following former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and former Attorney General Pam Bondi.

The Department of Labor did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on the Labor Secretary’s resignation. 

FIRST ON FOX: U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers busted a massive drug smuggling attempt in Texas, resulting in more than $1.1 million in cocaine being seized at the southern border.

Fox News Digital learned that U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at the Pharr International Bridge cargo facility intercepted nearly 100 pounds of suspected cocaine in an empty commercial tractor-trailer. The trailer was stopped on April 15 while crossing into the U.S. from Reynosa, Mexico.

This comes as the Department of Homeland Security continues to report that Border Patrol agents have not released a single migrant into the U.S. interior for 11 consecutive months, pointing to what officials described as historically low levels of illegal crossings.

Acting CBP Deputy Commissioner Ron Vitiello remarked that, besides stopping the illegal crossings, an “effective combination of technological tools and inspections experience” is ensuring that “these narcotics will not enter the U.S. and wreak any further havoc on our communities.”

COAST GUARD CUTTER MUNRO RETURNS TO CALIFORNIA HOME AFTER RECORD-BREAKING 11-TON COCAINE SEIZURE

According to CBP, officers flagged the empty vehicle for secondary inspection using nonintrusive inspection equipment and screening from a canine team. A physical inspection led to the discovery of 32 packages of suspected cocaine with a combined weight of over 83 pounds, concealed within the trailer floor. The agency said the cocaine has an estimated street value of $1,111,503.

Officers seized the narcotics, tractor and trailer while special agents from Homeland Security Investigations initiated a criminal investigation into the seizure.

After the seizure, Vitiello said in a statement shared with Fox News Digital that “under the powerful leadership of President Donald J. Trump and Department of Homeland Secretary Markwayne Mullin, our frontline CBP officers utilized an effective combination of technological tools and inspections experience to zero-in on and interdict this significant cocaine load.”

Vitiello added that “these narcotics will not enter the U.S. and wreak any further havoc on our communities.”

FIVE MEXICAN NATIONALS INDICTED AFTER MASSIVE METH LAB BUST UNCOVERS ENORMOUS QUANTITIES OF DRUGS

Earlier this month, Mullin touted eleven straight months of “zero” releases at the border.

He said that “under President Donald Trump’s leadership, we are delivering the most secure border in American history,” adding, “The world knows America’s borders are closed to lawbreakers.”

DHS said that nationwide in March, CBP seized over 65,000 pounds of drugs, including 613 pounds of fentanyl.

CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott credited “America First policies, real consequences, and a unified federal effort—backed by personnel, infrastructure, and technology” for “how we’ve delivered the most secure border in U.S. history.”

GOP ZEROS IN ON SOUTH TEXAS DEM WHO URGED TRUMP TO ‘ALLOW PEOPLE TO CROSS FREELY’

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“Under President Trump and Secretary Mullin, we’re building on what works, refining our approach, and locking in real border security,” he said, adding, “This isn’t temporary—it’s the new normal.”

FIRST ON FOX: The House of Representatives could soon face another expulsion vote after Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., said she would seek the removal of an embattled Republican from Congress.

Mace filed a motion to expel Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., on Monday evening. The measure is not privileged, though Mace could move to force a vote in the future. 

Mace’s resolution, first obtained by Fox News Digital, accuses Mills of misrepresenting his military service, sexual misconduct, campaign finance violations and illicit involvement in federal contracts as a member of Congress, among other charges. 

The expulsion push comes after NOTUS reported on Monday that Mills was drafting a similar resolution to remove Mace from the chamber.

NANCY MACE CALLS ON CONGRESS TO RELEASE SEXUAL HARASSMENT RECORDS, WANTS AN ‘AVALANCHE OF RESIGNATIONS’

A spokesperson for Mills did not immediately return a request for comment on Mace’s expulsion resolution or the status of the congressman’s measure targeting Mace.

“As a survivor, I will always stand up and right the wrongs of others,” Mace, who is running for governor of South Carolina, wrote on social media Monday. “He is only coming after me because he knows he’s next.”

Mills has faced a bevy of recent scandals, including allegedly threatening an ex-girlfriend with revenge porn after they broke up and a separate assault allegation that law enforcement responded to in Washington, D.C., last year.

He has denied any wrongdoing and has not been criminally charged. Mills is seeking a third House term this November and President Donald Trump has endorsed his re-election campaign. 

It is unclear whether Mace’s resolution could clear the two-thirds threshold required to expel a member of Congress.

HOUSE LAWMAKERS EXPRESS DISGUST OVER SWALWELL NOT BEING EXPOSED SOONER: ‘IT’S SHAMEFUL’:

Lawmakers in both parties have largely stopped short of calling for Mills’ removal, though many have voiced concern about the serious allegations against him.

“If there’s evidence of criminal misconduct and wrongdoing, I hold the same standard for every member of Congress, whether they’re a Democrat or Republican,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., told Fox News Digital last week when asked about whether she would support expelling Mills.

Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Fla., is also expected to face an expulsion vote as soon as Tuesday if she does not resign. 

The House Ethics Committee is expected to recommend its suggested punishment against Cherfilus-McCormick for violating more than two dozen ethics rules during a hearing Tuesday afternoon. She is also facing a separate federal criminal indictment. 

Reps. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., and Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, resigned last week to avoid looming expulsion votes, though both scandal-plagued lawmakers were likely at higher risk of being successfully removed by their colleagues. Swalwell has been accused by at least five women of sexual misconduct, while Gonzales admitted to an extramarital affair with a staffer who later died by suicide. 

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The looming expulsion vote is not the first time Mace and Mills are set to clash on the House floor. 

Mace’s push to censure Mills and strip him of two committee assignments was overwhelmingly rejected by the House in November 2025. More than 300 lawmakers voted to send the matter to the House Ethics Committee, which is also investigating Mills for domestic violence and misrepresenting his military service, among other allegations of misconduct.

House GOP leadership has continued to stand by the embattled Florida Republican.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who has urged lawmakers to let Ethics Committee proceedings run their course prior to punitive measures, told reporters last week that he would be “looking into” the status of the Mills probe.

The House Ethics Committee released a statement Monday stating that its investigation into Mills that began in November 2025 was still ongoing. The panel noted its inquiry involves “sexual misconduct and/or dating violence.”

The traditionally secretive panel did not specify a timeline for when it plans to wrap up the probe.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., long a progressive force in New England, traveled to Maine over the weekend to boost left-wing Senate candidate Graham Platner ahead of the state’s pivotal Democratic primary. 

“Graham is a combat veteran. He’s an oyster farmer, he is an organizer, and he is the person who is going to beat Susan Collins,” said Warren at his campaign rally on Saturday in Portland. 

At one point during the rally, Warren said Platner was her “kind of man,” recalling that she first noticed him in an interview where he argued the system was “rigged” after the 2008 financial crash as no bankers were jailed.

Warren is championing Platner as a “fighter” for Maine voters, drawing national attention to the candidate ahead of a showdown with two-term Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, who has the backing of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. A series of controversies, however, trail Platner. 

MAINE SENATE CANDIDATE CITES COMBAT TRAUMA WHEN CONFRONTED ON ‘TERRIBLE’ POSTS ABOUT SEXUAL ASSAULT

“Insiders who go along to get along are not going to hose the corruption out of Washington. We need Graham Platner to come in and get the corruption out of Washington,” said Warren from the rally.

ELIZABETH WARREN ENDORSES NAZI-TATTOOED GRAHAM PLATNER IN HIGH-STAKES MAINE SENATE PRIMARY 

“There are people who realize that when the system is this broken, when there are this many billionaires who have this much control over our country, it is no longer time to make little change at the margins, it is time for big, structural change,” Warren added.

Maine’s Democratic primary is June 9, with Platner working to unseat Republican Sen. Susan Collins in November’s general election. 

Platner’s past controversies have been political fodder for the Mills campaign, including directing voters to his decade-old Reddit posts in which he appeared to place blame on sexual assault victims and defended Hamas military moves, among other messages from the 2013 and 2014 era. Platner also came under fire for having a chest tattoo recognized as a Nazi symbol, which he has since apologized for and covered.  

“For those of you who have read these things and been offended, have read these things and seen someone that you don’t recognize, I am deeply sorry,” Platner said in an apology video in 2025. 

Warren, who is one of President Donald Trump’s most relentless critics, notably condemned Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth last year for his Christian tattoos, which include the Jerusalem Cross and the Latin phrase “Deus Vult,” which translates to “God wills it.” 

“We cannot have a Defense Secretary whose fellow service members feel concerned enough about to report as a potential insider threat,” Warren wrote in a lengthy letter to Hegseth in 2025 over her concerns with his tattoos. 

The Massachusetts Democrat has downplayed Platner’s past controversies since her endorsement of the Senate candidate. 

“Look, he has apologized for that, and he’s out there talking to the people of Maine every single day,” Warren told HuffPost when asked about Platner’s controversies. 

DEMOCRATIC SENATE CANDIDATE LAUGHS WHEN PRESSED IF VOTERS CAN TRUST HER AFTER PUBLIC BIDEN DEFENSE

WARREN WARNED HEGSETH’S TATTOO MADE HIM A POTENTIAL ‘THREAT’ — NOW SHE BACKS CANDIDATE WITH NAZI-LINKED INK

The race has amplified divisions within the Democrat Party, with left-wing lawmakers such as Warren and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders back Platner, while Schumer and Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer have backed Mills for the Senate. 

Platner, angling himself a Washington outsider, spoke Saturday about wealth being shifted to the “ruling class” through a system created by establishment politicians.

“The money went somewhere, and it wasn’t down here. It was stolen from us, stolen from us in a system that was built by establishment politicians like Susan Collins,” said Platner, as Democrats increasingly lean into slamming the Trump administration and GOP for its economic policies in the lead up to the midterms. 

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Fox News Digital reached out to the offices of Warren and Planter for comment on Monday. 

Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser and Bonny Chu contributed to this report.

The Supreme Court’s emergency order blocking former President Barack Obama’s signature clean energy initiative in 2016 came after a series of leaked internal memos among the justices that revealed a fight along ideological lines about whether to intervene.

The rare glimpse at the high court’s internal memos, obtained by the New York Times, showed Chief Justice John Roberts, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, urging the Supreme Court to block Obama’s effort, while liberal justices pushed back.

Roberts and the court’s conservatives were concerned not just with Obama’s policy itself, but with the possibility that the Clean Power Plan could reshape the power sector before the justices could fully review whether it was lawful, the newly revealed memos show.

“Absent a stay, the Clean Power Plan will cause (and is causing) substantial and irreversible reordering of the domestic power sector before this court has an opportunity to review its legality,” Roberts wrote in one of the memos published by the New York Times on Friday. 

JACKSON-KAVANAUGH TENSIONS SURFACE IN CANDID EXCHANGE OVER SUPREME COURT ‘SHADOW DOCKET’

Fox News Digital reached out to the Supreme Court’s communications team Monday for comment on the leaks.

The push from Roberts came as the justices were considering what was viewed at the time as an unusual request on the emergency docket, sometimes called a “shadow docket,” from red states and outside groups to halt the Obama-era regulation, which aimed to cut carbon emissions over the next 25 years, before lower courts had fully weighed in, a step that the liberal justices warned would break from longstanding practice.

The emergency docket allows litigants to bypass typical court proceedings and seek immediate relief from the Supreme Court if lower courts block them through restraining orders or preliminary injunctions.

The Clean Power Plan would have involved the Obama Environmental Protection Agency regulating coal, oil and gas plants under the Clean Air Act. Roberts wrote that without the Supreme Court stepping in, “both the states and private industry will suffer irreparable harm from a rule that is — in my view — highly unlikely to survive.”

In another memo, Justice Elena Kagan, an Obama appointee, disagreed, saying “the unique nature of the relief sought in these applications gives me real pause.”

JONATHAN TURLEY: CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS COULD LEARN FROM BASEBALL GREAT TED WILLIAMS WHEN IT COMES TO LEAKS

Justice Samuel Alito, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, circulated a memo the same day as Kagan in which he agreed with Roberts.

“A failure to stay this rule threatens to render our ability to provide meaningful judicial review — and by extension, our institutional legitimacy — a nullity,” Alito wrote.

Within a matter of days, the justices temporarily blocked Obama’s Clean Power Plan 5-4 along ideological lines, effectively dealing it a death blow because Democrats would lose the White House later that year. The New York Times noted that the Obama White House dismissed the ruling at the time as a small hurdle but that “behind closed doors, officials were astonished that the court had intervened so quickly.”

The back-and-forth in the memos during the short period of time, from the end of January 2016 to Feb. 9, when the brief decision was issued, showed how fast the justices moved to weigh in on a major presidential action.

Jonathan Turley, law professor at George Washington University, wrote in an op-ed that the anonymous leak of the memos to the New York Times, the second leak of confidential material after the Dobbs opinion leak in 2022, was “clearly designed to wound some of its members.”

“For an institution that prides itself on its confidentiality and insularity, the court is looking increasingly porous and partisan in these leaks,” Turley wrote.

KAGAN SCREAMED SO LOUDLY AT LIBERAL ALLY AFTER DOBBS LEAK THE ‘WALL WAS SHAKING,’ BOOK CLAIMS

The New York Times’ report highlighted that legal experts have long viewed the Clean Power Plan decision as one of the first examples of the Supreme Court using the emergency docket in a way that limits executive power over national policy.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, has been among the most vocal dissenters in emergency cases during President Donald Trump’s second term as the president frequently benefits from the fast-paced docket. Jackson is sometimes joined by her two liberal colleagues, Kagan and Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in her dissents, and emergency cases have often split 6-3 in favor of Trump.

Last week, Jackson aired her grievances in a different forum, blasting emergency docket decisions during a Yale Law School speech as rushed, “scratch-paper musings” that undermine the high court’s purpose.

“Given the real world facts that a stay request asks the court to consider, the court’s stay decisions can, at times, come across utterly irrational,” Jackson said. “We cannot expect the public to have faith in our judicial system if, without clear explanation, we consistently greenlight harmful acts.”

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Legal experts have attributed the heightened activity on the emergency docket to a rise in presidents attempting to shape national policy through through executive orders.

“[An increase in emergency motions] coincides with the rise of executive orders and other forms of unilateral executive action really as the primary form of lawmaking in our country with the disappearance of Congress, and that has posed enormous challenges for the court,” attorney Kannon Shanmugam said during a Federalist Society panel last fall.

Fox News Digital reached out to Obama’s office for comment. 

The matter of American hostages wrongfully detained in Iran could be resolved during negotiations between Tehran and Washington as both sides navigate a fragile ceasefire amid attempts to end the conflict, one expert said.

Ryan Fayhee, a lawyer for Abdolreza “Reza” Valizadeh, 49, who has been detained by Iran for more than a year, stressed the urgency of a diplomatic solution to secure his client’s release as pressure on Iran remains high during the war against the United States and Israel.

“It is my job as Reza’s lawyer to make sure that it doesn’t get lost,” Fayhee told Fox News Digital. “While I have high confidence that this is part of the negotiations, even though the administration hasn’t stated so publicly… it is officially my job to make sure it remains part of those conversations. And equally so — and this is the bigger challenge, because obviously, I don’t have full control — it’s my job to make sure Reza is safe and alive to allow for those negotiations to take place that ideally will secure his release.”

Iran is currently holding six Americans, though only two have been publicly identified: Valizadeh and 61-year-old Kamran Hekmati. Both hold dual Iranian and American citizenship and were being held in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison.

WHY TRUMP, IRAN SEEM LIGHT-YEARS APART ON ANY POSSIBLE DEAL TO END THE WAR

In recent days, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have issued warnings on social media for residents living near the prison to evacuate the area amid continuing airstrikes.

“Despite Reza and Kamran Hekmati both being American citizens, the Iranians don’t recognize their American citizenship,” Fayhee said. “For that reason, they don’t receive traditional consular services. And even if they did, we don’t have an embassy there.”

In February, the State Department designated Iran a “State Sponsor of Wrongful Detention” for arbitrarily arresting Americans to use as bargaining chips in future negotiations.

“For decades, Iran has continued to cruelly detain innocent Americans, as well as citizens of other nations, to use as political leverage against other states,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at the time. “This abhorrent practice must end.”

IRAN THREATENS TO END CEASEFIRE OVER HEZBOLLAH’S EXCLUSION FROM TRUCE DEAL

The designation adds extra layers of isolating tools, such as sanctions and travel restrictions, Fayhee noted.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the State Department and the White House, which has called on Iran to release every American being detained.

“President Trump has been clear that he wants every American wrongfully detained to be returned home safe and sound, and that there will be dire consequences for regimes who treat Americans as political pawns,” a White House spokesperson told The Associated Press.

VANCE WARNS IRAN WILL ‘FIND OUT’ TRUMP IS ‘NOT ONE TO MESS AROUND’ IF CEASEFIRE DEAL FALLS APART

A second round of talks between Tehran and Washington has stalled as a clear path to a diplomatic resolution of the seven-week war remains uncertain. On Monday, President Donald Trump said he was under no pressure to make a deal with Iran, “although, it will all happen, relatively quickly!” he wrote on Truth Social.

Valizadeh was arrested in September 2024 during a visit to see family and was sentenced after being convicted of working with a “hostile government.” As a journalist, he previously reported on the 2009 pro-democracy protests in Iran and the regime’s heavy-handed response. As a result, he was exiled and began working for Radio Farda, the Iranian branch of the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Securing a deal to free any Americans being held in Iran could prove difficult given Tehran’s proclivity for deception, Roger Carstens, the former U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, previously told Fox News.

“Strangely, the Russians, the Chinese, the Taliban, and the Venezuelans — when you start getting into hostage discussions, they tell the truth, and they stick to what they promise. You can do a handshake deal with the Taliban, and they’re going to follow through,” Carstens said. “The Iranians? Absolutely not.”

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However, Fayhee, who also served as the lawyer for Paul Rusesabagina — the hotelier portrayed in the 2004 film “Hotel Rwanda” — said he maintains hope for Valizadeh’s release. He noted that Iran is increasingly isolated following its missile strikes on its Arab neighbors and the opposition it faces from Western powers.

“It is the easiest problem on the table to solve, and both sides should acknowledge that,” Fayhee said. “Both sides should focus on it because clearly they’re trying to build a relationship of trust in these negotiations, and this is the surest way to do that.”

“The easiest thing Iran can do to show they’re genuinely interested in backing themselves out of this corner is to release these Americans,” he added. “It is low-hanging fruit.”

Ahead of a special election on Tuesday, Virginia Republicans blasted a proposed constitutional amendment in their state that could soon cost them their congressional seats, calling the effort the most “unfair” of a string of redrawn maps across the country.

Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., believes it’s a sentiment shared by voters.

“I was with a group of Virginia Watermen this morning from across the state and they’re [feeling] the same way. They say ‘no, we’re not going to let them turn us into a state that’s only governed by a portion of the state,’” Wittman said.

The Virginia redistricting effort, which requires a statewide vote to go into effect, follows similar shakeups in Texas, California, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Utah.

BETO O’ROURKE DROPS F-BOMB AS HE URGES DEMS TO ‘MEET FIRE WITH FIRE’ AGAINST GOP REDISTRICTING PLANS IN TEXAS

But unlike many of those other states that already have a distinct party advantage one way or another, Virginia’s GOP blasted what they saw as a drastic power swing they say misrepresents the state’s purple voter base.

If successful, the new maps would temporarily turn the current 6-5 congressional split to a 10-1 advantage for Democrats by stretching the borders of traditionally Republican areas across Democratic strongholds. The state’s normal process, conducted by a nonpartisan redistricting commission, would go back into effect in 2030 at the next U.S. census.

With up to four more seats, Democrats hope to recapture control of the House of Representatives, where a razor-thin majority favors Republicans — for now.

The GOP holds a 217-213 advantage in the chamber.

Democrats supporting the idea argue that Virginia is key to balancing out Republican-led gerrymandering efforts that began in Texas, describing the push as purely retaliatory.

“Virginia’s redistricting referendum gives voters the power to respond to a president who says he’s ‘entitled’ to more GOP seats in Congress before Americans vote in the midterms [and] to efforts in other states to give those seats to him,” Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger said in a post after teeing up the vote last month.

Former Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin argued that the state’s current makeup more accurately reflects Virginia’s population.

AS AMERICA TURNS 250, TRUMP SHOULD RESTORE WASHINGTON DC’S ORIGINAL BORDERS

“We have fair maps today that represent Virginians, and what this constitutional amendment would mean is that we go to the most unfair maps in America, and therefore, ‘no’ is the right vote,” Youngkin said.

Although the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that politically favoring one party through the design of state’s district is constitutional, the practice, better known as gerrymandering, has been banned in Virginia since a constitutional referendum in 2020.

However, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled that the state could temporarily amend its constitution to allow the implementation of new maps.

“’Do you want to restore fairness in elections temporarily?’” Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Va., said, referencing the phrasing of the referendum.

“It’s insane how that question is worded. So wrong how it’s written. But here we are. This is our chance to use our voice and our vote. And that’s very powerful. But the ball is in our court.'”

Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., argued that undoing that prohibition now would be a mistake — even if it’s temporary in nature.

FIRST TIME VOTING? HERE IS THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO BALLOT BOXES, CRITICAL ISSUES ON ELECTION DAY

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“Virginians spoke in 2020; you know what they said? By a supermajority, they said no to gerrymandering. They said: ‘Let’s have a bipartisan determination of these districts.’ And by the way, they’ve been shown to be the most bipartisan districts across the United States,” Wittman said.

Polls open in Virginia at 6:00 a.m. and close at 7:00 p.m.

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., delivered a high-energy, revival sermon-style speech at the Michigan Democratic Convention, shouting and gesturing as he urged Democrats to become “foot soldiers for democracy” and warned that “darkness and wind” are sweeping the nation.

Booker was one of several out-of-state leaders, including former Vice President Kamala Harris and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, to participate in the Michigan Democratic Convention. All three have been floated as possible contenders for the 2028 presidential election.

Booker spoke for roughly 25 minutes and at several points bellowed at the crowd, adopting a poetic cadence and word choice.

“Ladies and gentlemen, there is a storm in our nation,” Booker exclaimed, finishing his speech. “There is darkness and wind. People are getting hurt. What we need is not from on high. We need foot soldiers of our democracy who in times of trial, are willing to stand up.”

MAJOR TRUMP CRITIC HAS ‘NOT DISMISSED’ ANOTHER PRESIDENTIAL RUN AHEAD OF 2028 ELECTION

Booker then announced that it was time for Democrats to “redeem the dream of America.”

“Will you stand for our democracy? Will you stand to get out the vote? Will you stand for our children? Will you stand up for our elders?” Booker said. “And will you stand together, unified, strong — be the hope that people need. We are Democrats. It’s time for a new deal. It’s time to redeem the dream of America.”

Booker, who unsuccessfully ran for president in 2020, used the speech as an opportunity to introduce himself to Michigan voters, sharing his career in politics and his family ties to the Great Lakes State.

CORY BOOKER ADMITS DEMOCRATS ‘FAILED IN MY GENERATION’ IN SCATHING ASSESSMENT OF HIS OWN PARTY

At one point, he expressed his dismay with voters who opted out of voting for presidential candidates Hillary Clinton or Vice President Kamala Harris because they disagreed “on ten percent of her views.”

“Well, you may disagree with her on 10% of her views, but you let someone get in office who you disagree with on everything,” Booker railed. “You let somebody get in office who is locking up our children. You let somebody in office who’s taking away our health care. You let somebody in office who’s taken away workers rights. You let somebody in office who got rid of the Department of Education.”

He then suggested that Democratic voters in Michigan turn the Michigan hand — a reference to the state’s shape — into the “Michigan fist.”

CORY BOOKER CONFRONTED WITH OLD CLIP OF HIMSELF SAYING HE LOVES DONALD TRUMP

“I don’t want the Michigan hand after your August primary, I want the Michigan fist,” Booker shouted. “I want you all to unite. I want you to punch a hole in the wall of resistance. I want you to grab a sledgehammer and knock some stuff down. I want you to reach up and grab somebody and get them off the couch and get him on the field. We got points to put on the board. I want that Michigan fist. I want some unity.”

However, former MSNBC commentator Medhi Hasan took issue with Booker’s assertion about Democratic voters who didn’t vote for Harris in 2024. Hasan said that Booker’s characterization places the blame on voters for a Democratic loss rather than the party platform.

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“I tried to tell people who didn’t vote Dem in 2024 ‘to teach Democrats a lesson’ that sadly Democrats will never learn that lesson,” Hasan said on X, sharing a video of Booker speaking. “Here’s Booker simply attacking and mocking people who didn’t show up to vote Dem. It’s always the voters’ fault, never the Dems or their candidates.”

Other critics poked fun at Booker’s emphatic deliverance.

“Calm down, Spartacus,” wrote America First Works, a non-profit group and the advocacy arm of the America First Policy Institute.

Fox News Digital reached out to Booker for comment.

“Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today,” said Ben Franklin.

If sloganeering was left to Congress, the motto might read, “Never do today what you can leave till tomorrow.”

That is emblematic of the recent scramble on Capitol Hill to renew the key terrorism prevention program known as FISA Section 702. Congress faced a deadline to re-up the program before 11:59:59 p.m. ET on April 20. Lawmakers fretted that it was risky to let the program expire. They worried that the U.S. may be vulnerable to a terrorist attack because of the war with Iran.

President Donald Trump insisted that Republicans “UNIFY, and vote together” to pass an 18-month extension of FISA without any add-ons. The president argued that the FISA program was among “the reasons we have had such tremendous SUCCESS on the battlefield.”

So the House GOP brass planned to pass the 18-month FISA reauthorization last Wednesday. But it’s about the math. An eclectic alliance of Democrats and Republicans both supported and opposed the bill. Either way, the measure lacked the votes to pass.

“The coalitions around FISA have traditionally been kind of scrambled,” said Rep. Kevin Kiley, I-Calif.

So despite the promise of a late-night vote Wednesday, the House GOP brain trust punted until Thursday as they scrambled to find the votes and prevent FISA from going offline.

“FISA will not go dark. We have a little slight delay. We’re working through and building consensus as we do on all difficult issues, and we’ll get there. We’ll get it done,” promised House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.

CONSERVATIVE FISA REVOLT POSES FRESH TEST FOR SPEAKER JOHNSON

Some Republicans balked at the 18-month extension.

“I want warrants to surveil American citizens. And the Fourth Amendment is not for sale. I don’t want our federal government buying data from private companies on American citizens,” said Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo.

FISA is designed to reap foreign intelligence data, but it sometimes vacuums up the telephone communications of Americans — and even documents their locations. Tapping so much metadata is what led to the government trying to tie Trump to Russian interference during the 2016 election cycle. But despite his past opposition, the president did an about-face and demanded passage of this FISA measure.

“The President of the United States has said, ‘This is what I want, this is what I need.’ And there are rank-and-file Republicans bucking him,” I pointed out to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rick Crawford, R-Ark.

“Well, it’s a little bit surprising,” replied Crawford, since most congressional Republicans routinely line up behind Trump. “I think I think maybe the president’s a little bit surprised by that, too.”

One Trump ally says if the bill is good enough for the president, it should be good enough for House Republicans.

“This program is critical. It helped us with the operation in Venezuela. It’s certainly helping us with the operation going on in Iran as we speak,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.

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But to some Republicans, entreaties by the president don’t matter on this bill.

“Look, he’s [President Trump], the executive [branch]. We’re the legislative [branch], and we’re going to see a little bit of conflict between those two today,” said Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., chairman of the House Freedom Caucus.

But as we said, support or opposition for FISA doesn’t break along party lines. Dozens of Democrats are leery about letting the program go dark.

“This is our single most important collection authority,” said Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee. “If we just go dark on that stuff, a lot of people are going to get hurt. And that’s why we just can’t let it expire.”

But even if the House passed the bill, it still needed to align with the Senate. Alarms were sounding around the Capitol as the Monday night deadline loomed.

So the daylight came and went last Thursday without action on the FISA bill as the deadline approached this week.

Yours truly chased down Johnson in Statuary Hall of the Capitol.

“You’re going to try to move this on the floor tonight?” I asked the speaker about FISA.

“I am. It will be late tonight, but we’ll get it done,” replied Johnson.

Fox was told that House Republicans would have an attendance problem on Friday. Some members of the Arizona delegation wanted to head to the Grand Canyon State for Trump’s speech there. Plus, waiting until this week wouldn’t give the Senate much turning radius to align with the House.

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“And the concern is that you have to get it done today because you might lose some people tomorrow, and the Senate doesn’t come back until Monday and that’s right up against the deadline?” I continued.

“A bird in hand is worth several in the bush. I’ve got them all here and I need to get it done,” answered Johnson.

A group of bipartisan lawmakers say an extension is essential to guard against terrorism. Especially as the U.S. fights with Iran.

“My concerns are significant because FISA is the single most important national security asset we have in the intelligence field,” said Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, a member of the Intelligence Committee.

“If you want to blind the United States intelligence community and the military, this is a perfect way to do it,” added Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.

But regardless of risks, FISA skeptics demand reforms like warrants and criminal prosecutions for alleged abuses.

“We’re always threatened that there’s something very bad is going to happen and people will die if we don’t reauthorize (FISA Section) 702,” said Boebert.

CONSERVATIVE FISA REVOLT POSES FRESH TEST FOR SPEAKER JOHNSON

But there was concern that even if the House passed something, the Senate wouldn’t have the availability to sync up until Monday. Most senators left Washington for the week on Thursday afternoon. Such a scenario would potentially give the Senate a few hours to align with the House when senators returned to Washington Monday, just hours before the deadline.

“Is that responsible by the Senate to leave?” I asked Sen. John Kennedy, R-La.

“Well, there’s no reason to stay if we’re not going to have votes,” replied Kennedy.

By nightfall, everyone watched to see if Johnson could make good on his promise of passing the 18-month extension. But not long before 11 p.m. ET, the House lurched from that plan to a five-year reauthorization.

The House blocked that plan. Then backpedaled and adopted an emergency bill to salvage FISA for a scant 13 days.

“What was Churchill’s line? ‘Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others?’ So sometimes it gets kind of messy when you’re trying to craft together an agreement,” said Jordan.

Democrats were appalled at the nocturnal whiplash.

“Are you kidding me? Who the hell is running this place?,” asked an incensed Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., the top Democrat on the Rules Committee, on the floor. “Republicans threw it together on the back of a napkin in a back room in the middle of the night.”

SENATE TEMPORARILY EXTENDS NATION’S CONTROVERSIAL SPYING POWERS AFTER HOUSE FUMBLES

Staunch conservatives argued for muscular spy powers.

“Failing to reauthorize this statutory authority would be a massive setback, and one that our adversaries would exploit immediately,” said Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga.

And liberals worried about government overreach.

“There have been so many abuses lately. And this is only going to grow with artificial intelligence,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a member of the Intelligence panel.

So congressional leaders are trying to strike a balance.

“What we’re trying to do is thread the needle of ensuring that we have this essential tool to keep Americans safe but also safeguard constitutional rights,” said Johnson.

FISA skeptics insist on warrants.

“We just want to make sure that the guardrails are there,” said Rep. Mark Harris, R-N.C., who voted to block the five-year extension early Friday.

So the House passed the Band-Aid bill by unanimous consent around early Friday morning. The Senate cleared the same package by unanimous consent later the same morning.

Wyden came to the floor Friday morning but didn’t object. The Oregon Democrat believes it would be harder to impose reforms had FISA lapsed. So he’s willing to keep it going, for now. However, Wyden made clear that he expected to see reforms between now and the new deadline. Otherwise, he might stand in the way next time.

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Another punt. Another new deadline. More parliamentary procrastination.

And at the rate Congress is going these days, if they didn’t delay issues, they might not have anything to show for their efforts at all.

LEESBURG, Va. — Former Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and former state Attorney General Jason Miyares are campaigning across their home state Monday on the eve of a referendum on congressional redistricting that, if passed, could give Democrats a significant boost in this year’s midterm elections.

Youngkin and Miyares are taking a lead in the Republican effort to defeat the ballot measure, which, if successful, would give the Democrat-controlled legislature — rather than the current nonpartisan commission — temporary redistricting power through the 2030 election. It could result in a 10-1 advantage for Democrats in Virginia’s congressional delegation, up from their current 6-5 edge.

That would give Democrats four additional left-leaning U.S. House seats ahead of the midterms as the party tries to win back control of the chamber from the GOP, which holds a razor-thin majority.

Youngkin, in an interview Monday on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom,” called the Democrat-pushed map a “power grab” and claimed it is the “most gerrymandered map in America. It’s wrong. Virginians should stand up and vote no tomorrow.”

OBAMA GOES ALL IN ON HIGH-STAKES REFERENDUM THAT MAY IMPACT MIDTERM ELECTIONS

The former governor, joined by Miyares, is making four stops Monday, with hours to go until voting on the referendum begins.

Democrats counter that the redrawing of the maps is a necessary step to balance out partisan gerrymandering already implemented by Republicans in other states at the urging of President Donald Trump.

“By voting yes, you have the chance to do something important — not just for the Commonwealth, but for our entire country,” former President Barack Obama said in a video released Friday on the eve of the final day of early voting. “By voting yes, you can push back against the Republicans trying to give themselves an unfair advantage in the midterms.”

BATTLE FOR THE HOUSE RUNS THROUGH VIRGINIA AS COURT OKS HIGH-STAKES REDISTRICTING VOTE

“By voting yes, you can take a temporary step to level the playing field. And we’re counting on you,” the former president added.

The video by Obama was the former president’s latest effort tied to the referendum. He has previously appeared in ads released by Virginians for Fair Elections, the Democrat-aligned group working to pass the ballot initiative.

But Virginians for Fair Maps, the leading Republican-aligned group opposing redistricting, used past comments by Obama against political gerrymandering in its ads opposing the referendum.

“Because of things like political gerrymandering, our parties have moved further and further apart, and it’s harder and harder to find common ground,” the former president said in an old clip showcased in the spot.

Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, a former Virginia governor and former chair of the Democratic National Committee, acknowledged this past weekend in a Fox News Sunday interview that the new maps don’t represent Virginia’s partisan breakdown.

“Ninety percent of Virginians are not Democrats, that’s true,” Kaine said.

But he added that “about 100% of Virginians want election results to be respected.”

REPUBLICANS TARGET VIRGINIA GOVERNOR IN BID TO DEFEAT DEMOCRAT-BACKED REDISTRICTING

Supporters of redistricting have dramatically outraised and outspent groups opposed to the referendum. But polling suggests support for the ballot initiative is only slightly ahead of opposition amid a surge in early voting.

Supporters of redistricting have dramatically outraised and outspent groups opposed to the referendum, with Virginians for Fair Elections outraising Virginians for Fair Maps by a roughly three-to-one margin. Much of the funding raised by both sides is so-called “dark money” from nonprofit public policy groups known as 501(c)(4) organizations that are not required to disclose their donors.

Despite the Democrats’ funding advantage, polling suggests support for the ballot initiative is only slightly ahead of opposition amid a surge in early voting.

“There is a chance, and that’s because it is viewed as being such a gerrymandered grab of power,” Youngkin argued. “What we’re seeing is not only Republicans coming together, but independents and a lot of Democrats. So this is going to be close.”

Virginia is the latest battleground in the high-stakes fight between Trump and the GOP and Democrats over congressional redistricting.

BATTLE FOR THE HOUSE RUNS THROUGH VIRGINIA AS COURT OKS HIGH-STAKES REDISTRICTING VOTE

Aiming to prevent what happened during his first term in the White House when Democrats reclaimed the House majority in the 2018 midterms, Trump last spring 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.

REPUBLICANS TARGET VIRGINIA GOVERNOR IN BID TO DEFEAT DEMOCRAT-BACKED REDISTRICTING

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

The fight quickly spread beyond Texas and California.

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

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.

Republicans in Indiana’s Senate in December defied Trump, shooting down a redistricting bill that had passed the state House. The showdown in the Indiana statehouse grabbed plenty of national attention.

Florida is next up.

Two-term Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and state lawmakers in the GOP-dominated legislature are hoping to pick up an additional three to five right-leaning seats through a redistricting push during a special legislative session that kicks off April 28.

Hovering over the redistricting wars is the Supreme Court, which is expected to rule in Louisiana v. Callais, a crucial case that may lead to the overturning of a key provision in the Voting Rights Act.

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If the ruling goes the way of the conservatives on the high court, it could lead to the redrawing of a slew of majority-minority districts across the county, which would greatly favor Republicans.

But it is very much up in the air when the court will rule and what it will actually decide.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit Monday against Democrat fundraising platform ActBlue, accusing them of misleading donors about safeguards meant to block fraudulent and foreign political contributions.

“BREAKING: I just filed a landmark lawsuit against ActBlue for deceiving Americans by lying about its donation processes that allow fraudulent and foreign donations,” Paxton wrote Monday on X.

The state’s lawsuit, filed in Tarrant County district court, seeks injunctions barring ActBlue from accepting contributions made through gift cards and prepaid debit cards, along with civil penalties, attorneys’ fees and costs.

“The radical left has relied on ActBlue as a way to funnel foreign donations and dark money into their political campaigns to subvert our laws and compromise the integrity of our elections,” Paxton said in a statement announcing the case. “ActBlue lied to Congress and to the American people, and I will ensure justice is served.

“It has blatantly ignored state law that prohibits deceptive practices, and it must pay for its illegal conduct. Fair elections are the foundation of our democracy, and I will work to ensure no illegal campaign donation flies under the radar.”

DEM FUNDRAISING GIANT IN THE HOT SEAT AS GOP LAWMAKERS DEMAND ANSWERS OVER DODGED SUBPOENA

The state is suing under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, alleging that ActBlue engaged in false, misleading and deceptive practices by marketing its service as compliant and secure, while continuing to allow payment methods Texas says can facilitate unlawful donations.

The allegations in the lawsuit have not been proven in court, and ActBlue spokesperson De’Andra Roberts-LaBoo fired back at Paxton’s lawsuit as an alleged deflection.

“This is a thinly veiled attempt to distract from Ken Paxton’s numerous legal and ethical issues ahead of next month’s runoff,” Roberts-LaBoo, when reached for comment, wrote in a statement to Fox News, referring to Paxton’s Senate GOP primary runoff against Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. 

“If he and his Republican allies actually cared about donor fraud, they would work to strengthen security standards across the board, including within their own operations, rather than targeting ActBlue. 

“Our platform has done more than any other, regardless of party, to prevent improper donations and protect donors. Full stop.”

In the complaint, Texas alleges that ActBlue falsely claimed it had tightened donor-vetting procedures and stopped accepting certain high-risk forms of payment while continuing to process donations that, according to the state, could mask a donor’s true identity.

The lawsuit argues that gift cards and prepaid debit cards are especially vulnerable to abuse because they can be used without the same level of identification tied to traditional payment methods.

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Paxton’s office said the lawsuit grew out of an investigation opened in 2023 into whether ActBlue was enabling donor fraud in violation of Texas law.

The attorney general’s office later petitioned the Federal Election Commission in 2024, arguing that suspicious actors appeared to still be using the platform to make straw donations.

Paxton now says recent reporting and the office’s own investigation show ActBlue’s public claims about its compliance systems were false.

The lawsuit leans heavily on allegations that ActBlue misrepresented its security practices to Congress and the public.

DEMOCRATS’ ACTBLUE FUNDRAISING PLATFORM FACES FEDERAL INVESTIGATION

According to the filing, the platform told congressional investigators it had stopped accepting gift card donations and had implemented multilayered checks to screen for foreign or otherwise impermissible contributions. Texas alleges those assurances were untrue and says investigators were later able to make donations through ActBlue using gift cards, including donations to the Democratic National Committee and Texas candidates.

“ActBlue claimed it stopped its illegal operations,” Paxton’s news release read. “Now, recent reporting and internal OAG investigations have shown that ActBlue lied about its donor vetting policies and its operations. As The New York Times recently reported, ActBlue’s own outside counsel acknowledged that the organization’s representations about its donation safeguards were not true.”

The complaint says those internal findings showed a “substantial risk” that some impermissible foreign contributions might have been processed, and alleges that ActBlue chose not to fully correct the record with Congress.

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The issue comes as the Democratic National Committee reportedly carries more than $17.5 million in debt, according to the FEC.

The House Administration, Judiciary and Oversight committees, amid an ongoing investigation, had issued a 2025 report titled “Fraud on ActBlue.”

“This report reveals that ActBlue made its fraud-prevention rules ‘more lenient’ twice in 2024 — even though there is extensive fraud on the platform, including from foreign sources,” a House Judiciary Committee news release related to the report said. “Internal documents show that ActBlue executives and staff are aware that both foreign and domestic fraudulent actors are exploiting the platform but do not take the threat seriously. In fact, they attempted to hide the changes to avoid sparking discussions about fraud on the platform.”

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ActBlue, founded in 2004, has processed more than $16 billion for Democrat and progressive candidates and causes, according to Paxton’s filing.

In the lawsuit, Texas says the platform handled $1.78 billion in donations in 2025 alone.

A Pennsylvania Democrat is apologizing for Facebook posts defending police officers during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 and supporting gun rights as he runs for his party’s nomination in a key battleground race.

Bob Brooks, a retired firefighter and former union leader, is seeking to unseat Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, R-Penn., who was first elected in 2024 after beating Democratic incumbent Susan Wild by roughly 4,000 votes. Brooks has centered his campaign around appealing to blue-collar Americans without college degrees on a platform that includes advocating for vocational trades training and support for unions, while also embracing more liberal policies like Medicaid for All.

A local blogger argued Brooks should not run on the Democratic ticket because he posted a pro-gun rights meme on his Facebook page a day after a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, in 2019, The Washington Post first reported. Twenty-three people were shot and killed by a white nationalist inside a Walmart.

Brooks shared a photo of Clint Eastwood holding a rifle with the following words overlaid on the image: “The problem is not guns. It’s hearts without God, homes without discipline, schools without prayer and courtrooms without justice.” The meme also included an image of a skull with the Roman numeral III across its forehead. The symbol is linked to the Three Percenters, a far-right extremist militia group rooted in anti-government ideology.

INSURGENT VIRGINIA DEMOCRAT SAYS HIS PARTY IS ‘COMPLETELY WRONG’ ON GUN RIGHTS AND GERRYMANDERING

Fox News Digital reached out to Brooks for comment.

On his campaign page, Brooks said he respects the Second Amendment and that he has been around guns his whole life. However, he is calling for stronger gun laws.

“We need common-sense laws: universal background checks, closing the gun show loophole, and enforcing waiting periods so dangerous people don’t get their hands on guns,” Brooks’ campaign page stated. “This wouldn’t change things for responsible gun owners, but it would for kids who are afraid to go to school.”

In another Facebook post from 2019, Brooks reportedly called NFL athlete Colin Kaepernick a “douchebag” amid controversy over Kaepernick kneeling during the National Anthem to protest police brutality. Kaepernick had publicly pushed for Nike to pull merchandise featuring the Betsy Ross flag from retail, prompting Brooks to share a meme of the American flag with the phrase “Colin Kaepernick doesn’t like this flag, so I’m gonna share it.”

Amid the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 following the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, Brooks wrote that people should not forget that there are good police officers. He cited police responses to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the Boston Marathon bombing as examples of officers stepping up to the call of duty.

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“I guess we have forgotten the good ones,” Brooks wrote. “Wanting change within the police departments to weed out the bad cops is fine. But please remember the good ones.”

In response to reports on the Facebook posts, Brooks accused “a bunch of DC insiders who don’t want more working people in office are selectively digging up years-old Facebook posts.” He also gave a vague apology.

“I’ve shared a few stupid things over the years, and for that I am sorry,” Brooks said in a statement to the Washington Post. “I believe who I’ve fought for and my values have always been clear.”

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Brooks has received endorsements from prominent Pennsylvania Democratic leaders, including Gov. Josh Shapiro and Lt. Gov. Austin Davis, as well as national Democratic figures such as Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

Pennsylvania’s primary is Tuesday, May 19.