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Some of the Democratic Party’s most prominent voices are pushing for tighter limits on artificial intelligence, including former President Barack Obama, who has joined calls for a slower pace of frontier AI development after years of Democratic leaders touting the technology’s economic and strategic potential.

“We need government — and specifically our leaders in Washington — to get proactive in coming up with concrete proposals, laws and regulations that deal with serious safety concerns, anticipate AI’s impact on jobs and our kids and make sure that AI’s benefits are widely spread,” Obama said in a statement Monday night.

Obama’s latest comments put greater emphasis on slowing frontier AI development than his White House did in 2016, when his administration highlighted the technology’s economic potential while also warning about disruption and calling for policy responses. 

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Democrats have long paired enthusiasm for AI’s economic and strategic potential with warnings about its risks, but some of the party’s most prominent voices are now going further, calling for a slower pace of frontier AI development and tougher limits on how the technology is built and deployed.

Attorney General Todd Blanche argued Tuesday that Democrats’ renewed focus on the potential risks of artificial intelligence should not be treated as “breaking news,” suggesting the timing, months before the midterm elections, is politically significant.

“Every Democrat senator suddenly races to a microphone to talk about AI after being eerily silent for months and months, a month. So, to talk about the timing of this as being nothing but an effort to influence the midterms, I shouldn’t have to say that out loud, of course,” said Blanche.

The comments came as President Donald Trump has made rapid AI development and the data centers needed to power it a priority, while the administration promotes the technology’s potential economic benefits and faces growing political scrutiny over the cost and impact of expanding data-center infrastructure.

Obama issued a statement Monday on X, writing that AI is “moving at lightning speed – and even faster than those who are engineering it can keep up with.”

“Given what we know about technology, we can’t stuff AI back in a box. But we can collectively determine how it’s developed and how it’s used, rather than sitting back and letting AI and its fallout happen to us,” he wrote. 

He called for regulation, saying choices to slow down should not be left up to the tech companies.

Any “potential catastrophe will depend on the choices that we make right now,” said Obama.

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In 2016, Obama’s White House touted AI’s potential to open new markets and drive progress across industries while warning about job disruption and broader safety and policy challenges.

“Advances in AI technology hold incredible potential to help the United States stay on the cutting edge of innovation,” the White House said in its December 2016 Artificial Intelligence, Automation, and the Economy report.

“Advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology and related fields have opened up new markets and new opportunities for progress in critical areas such as health, education, energy, economic inclusion, social welfare, and the environment. … AI should be welcomed for its potential economic benefits,” the report added.

Similarly, then-Vice President Kamala Harris said in January 2025 that “it is imperative that the United States remain the global leader on AI” as the Biden administration moved to speed up the buildout needed to support large-scale AI operations.

The Biden administration announced an executive order aimed at accelerating AI infrastructure in the U.S., including large data centers and clean-energy projects, as the administration sought to keep the country ahead of its global competitors.

Harris has also recently called for slowing the pace of frontier AI development, arguing that the technology is advancing at an “alarming speed” and urging Congress to establish stronger oversight and safety standards.

“The frontier of artificial intelligence is advancing at an alarming speed. Over the weekend, industry leaders voiced support for an idea that the American people and many AI researchers in their own labs have been calling for: We must responsibly slow the pace of frontier AI development,” she wrote. 

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AI and data centers have quickly become a major midterm issue, as concerns over electricity costs, jobs and the rapid buildout draw increasing attention from candidates in both parties.

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President Donald Trump has pushed back on the Democrats’ urgency to caution about using AI, calling it a “hoax.”

Fox News Digital reached out to Obama, Harris and Schumer’s teams for comment.

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday passed the Ratepayer Protection Act (RPA), a bill that looks to shield communities from higher energy electricity and grid infrastructure costs associated with data center development.

The bill, which succeeded with broad bipartisan support in a 417-3 vote, is likely one of the last pieces of legislation lawmakers will consider until after the Nov. 3 midterm elections. 

It also puts a spotlight on the data center issue, which has garnered attention as a proxy for affordability, energy and regulatory debates.

It marks the first data center-related bill passed in the 119th Congress.

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In its current form, the bill does not seek to ban data centers, set limitations on their expansion or even set regulatory guidelines for them. Instead, it amends existing energy law, the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA), so states must consider a federal standard. Large data centers that consume 100 megawatts or more would pay the full extra cost of the generation, transmission and distribution upgrades built to serve them.

Companies would also be required to make financial assurances in the event a project is canceled or moved to prevent communities from being left holding the bill.

Its sponsor, Rep. Gabe Evans, R-Colo., framed it as a needed step toward keeping data center energy costs from spilling over to local communities.

“As America races to lead the world in AI, we must build the energy infrastructure needed to support this innovation and stay ahead of competitors like communist China,” Evans said in a statement earlier this year.

“But Colorado families, farmers and small businesses should not be forced to cover the costs of new power generation driven by these developments. The Ratepayer Protection Act is a bipartisan, commonsense solution that protects everyday Americans and ensures our nation can continue to win the AI race.”

The bill’s Democratic co-sponsor, Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., echoed Evans’ thinking.

AMERICA NEEDS AI TO SURVIVE. WORKING FAMILIES ALSO NEED TO SURVIVE IT

“My neighbors across Florida are grappling with skyrocketing electric bills. Ratepayers should not have to subsidize wealthy corporations’ growing energy demands, especially from AI data centers,” Castor said.

In recent months, candidates from both sides of the aisle have carefully framed their thinking about data centers. Democrats, in particular, have linked the issue to affordability.

Such is the case for Roy Cooper, former governor of North Carolina, who is now waging a bid for the seat of retiring Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.

Cooper, once having celebrated data center expansion as an avenue for job growth in the Tar Heel State, has since qualified his support.

“Roy believes local communities must have the final say on new projects coming to their area, which includes local moratoriums, and data centers must pay for all of the energy they use without passing on any of their costs to consumers,” a spokesperson for Cooper’s campaign said in a statement to Fox News Digital earlier this month.

Republicans have also navigated the political noise around data centers with care.

Cooper’s opponent, former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley, also stressed allowing local communities decide for themselves about whether data center expansion is right for them.

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“Michael Whatley’s standard is simple: Data centers pay their own way, families pay nothing and communities decide. That means Big Tech builds or buys every megawatt it needs and covers every dime of the grid upgrades to deliver it, with zero costs shifted onto residential ratepayers. It means no special subsidies and no sweetheart deals cut over the heads of taxpayers,” Whatley’s campaign said.

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Having cleared the House, the data center bill passed Wednesday heads to the Senate, where its fate is uncertain.

The Trump administration continues to crack down on voter fraud cases, including a noncitizen allegedly voting in a mayoral race he was fraudulently registered for and a noncitizen arrested for lying about her citizenship to vote in federal elections.

These allegations span a slate of federal election-related cases highlighted by the Justice Department in recent days, adding to a series of prosecutions targeting noncitizen voting, fraudulent voter registrations and other alleged election-related crimes. 

DOJ’s latest announcements span California, Kansas, Louisiana, Texas and Massachusetts, while federal prosecutors have brought a number of other cases across the country in recent weeks amid the Trump administration’s broader efforts to bolster election security ahead of the midterms.

The White House pointed to the new cases that continue to pile up as evidence supporting the administration’s crackdown.

DEMOCRAT NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR SAYS THOUSANDS OF NONCITIZENS DISCOVERED ON VOTER ROLLS, PURGED

“Despite extreme Democrats and the media claiming it never happens, the evidence of non-citizens registering and voting in our elections continues to pile up,” White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis told Fox News Digital. “Any non-citizens found registering and voting in our elections will be arrested and held accountable. Only Americans should be electing American leaders.”

The more than a dozen defendants charged in cases announced this week face allegations ranging from illegal voting and false claims of U.S. citizenship, to fraudulent voter registration and alleged identity fraud. U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche warned that individuals “gaming the election system, voting illegally, or committing voter fraud” will face prosecution, while federal prosecutors in Texas said their seven cases “send a clear message” that laws barring noncitizens from voting will be enforced.

Among the defendants were Louisiana mayoral candidate Bridget Johnson, who prosecutors allege fraudulently registered Jamaican noncitizen Michael Wedderburn before he went on to vote in the 2024 federal election and the same mayoral race in which Johnson was a candidate. Johnson allegedly submitted electronically a Louisiana voter-registration application in Wedderburn’s name on July 14, 2024, falsely stating that he was a U.S. citizen, according to court documents.

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Johnson was charged with fraudulent voter registration and voting by an alien, while Wedderburn was charged with voting by an alien. If convicted, Johnson faces up to five years in prison, while Wedderburn faces up to one year, along with potential financial penalties, according to federal prosecutors.

Other cases announced this week included allegations against three people in California accused in an alleged scheme that used stolen identities of registered voters to manufacture signatures on ballot-initiative petitions. California frequently uses ballot initiatives to put major policy questions directly before voters, with citizen-backed measures capable of changing state law or amending the state constitution. Recent initiatives have included Proposition 36, which increased penalties for certain drug and theft crimes, as well as measures dealing with the minimum wage and rent control.

Prosecutors allege James Brass and Courtney Price went to Los Angeles’ Skid Row, where they handed people stolen identities belonging to registered California voters and paid them to copy those voters’ personal information onto ballot petitions and forge their signatures. Brass and a third defendant, Jateisha Herron, then allegedly falsely certified that they had personally witnessed the registered voters sign the petitions. Brass allegedly received approximately $41,600 from coordinators working with a petition-management company helping collect signatures, according to prosecutors.

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The case is the second election-related federal prosecution announced this year involving alleged payments to people on Skid Row. In May, federal prosecutors charged a longtime ballot-initiative signature collector with allegedly paying individuals, including homeless people living on Skid Row, to register to vote.

Meanwhile, in Kansas, prosecutors charged 24-year-old Peruvian national and U.S. permanent resident Mariana Alexandra Dewey with falsely claiming U.S. citizenship, fraudulent election conduct and voting as an alien in a federal election, after arresting her earlier this month. In Massachusetts, federal prosecutors announced a case this week against Nigerian national Gladys Adaeze Okafor, who allegedly claimed to be a U.S. citizen while registering to vote before casting ballots in multiple federal elections.

A handful of cases were announced by federal prosecutors in Texas this week as well, including multiple cases where individuals registered to vote illegally when applying for a Texas driver’s license. On the same day those defendants were indicted, a Mexican national was also sentenced to 36 months in federal prison for aggravated identity theft, false statements of citizenship, and illegal voting by an alien, according to federal officials.

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The cases add to the growing list of federal election-related cases brought in the past few weeks, on top of other prosecutions earlier this year involving noncitizens accused of illegally registering or voting in U.S. elections. Less than two weeks ago, the Justice Department charged five people in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Wisconsin in cases involving alleged illegal voting or fraudulent registration tied to the 2022 or 2024 elections. DOJ separately charged an Indian national in Minnesota last week with falsely claiming U.S. citizenship in order to vote in the 2024 general election.

But, despite the mounting prosecutions, the Trump administration also faced a setback this week in its efforts to boost election security.

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) could not implement the president’s stricter ballot-mail requirements for the 2026 elections, leaving a lower court’s nationwide injunction in place. The blocked rules would have required states to use specially designed ballot-mail envelopes with unique voter barcodes, submit envelope designs to USPS for review and provide it with information about intended ballot recipients.

The ruling, however, did not block a separate part of Trump’s March executive order directing the federal government to create citizenship lists for states to use in checking their voter rolls.

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Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was appointed by Trump, agreed the rules should not take effect for this year’s elections, writing that state and local officials did not have sufficient time to reasonably implement them. Nonetheless, Kavanaugh said there was “at least a fair prospect” that the Postal Service ultimately has the statutory authority to impose the requirements. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented.

Trump blasted the decision Tuesday as another “bad decision” from the Supreme Court and praised Alito and Thomas as “legends,” while arguing the ruling would make cheating through mail ballots easier.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a series of exclusive interviews with Fox News Digital, lawmakers on the House Foreign Affairs Committee sounded the alarm on a sprawling network of “Trojan horse” activists, nonprofits and social media influencers allegedly amplifying the hostile messages of foreign adversaries straight through the open gates of American democracy.

The warning came into sharp focus Tuesday when CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin and two fellow activists walked into House Rayburn 2172 for a hearing on covert foreign influence operations, then strategically positioned themselves behind witnesses in T-shirts supporting the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Communist Party of Cuba.

About 30 minutes into the hearing, South and Central Asia Subcommittee Chairman Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., stopped the hearing and had Capitol Police escort them out.

“They’re coming in, trying to look like one thing, but we know that once they’re inside the gates that those doors are going to spring open and there’s a whole other motivation for what they’re trying to do,” Huizenga told Fox News Digital.

At the center of the controversy is communist tech tycoon Neville Roy Singham, who married CodePink co-founder Jodie Evans in a tropical wedding in Jamaica in 2017, soon after funneling $285 million to six pro-China, pro-communist, anti-American nonprofits in the U.S., including CodePink, according to a Fox News Digital investigation.

Lawmakers say the answer is transparency: following the money and exposing who finances the alleged “Trojan horse.”

In their series of interviews, Huizenga and other committee members explained how the modern “Trojan horse” isn’t made of wood but rather a network of activists, nonprofits, social-media influencers and other ostensibly American voices that foreign governments and foreign-linked actors can allegedly fund, amplify or exploit to carry their messages through the open gates of American democracy.

“They’re coming in, trying to look like one thing, but we know that once they’re inside the gates that those doors are going to spring open and there’s a whole other motivation for what they’re trying to do,” Huizenga told Fox News Digital.

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At the hearing, devoted to “Trojan Horses: Covert Foreign Malign Influence Operations in America,” lawmakers expressed concern about how the Communist Party of China, Russia, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Communist Party of Cuba spread their propaganda and influence in the U.S.

The phrase “Trojan horse” comes from the ancient Greek story of soldiers concealed inside a wooden horse presented to the city of Troy. Once the horse was brought behind the city’s fortified walls, the soldiers emerged and opened the gates, destroying Troy.

Huizenga stressed that Americans can hold sincere beliefs while also having those messages funded or amplified by foreign actors without necessarily knowing it. He argued that the answer to foreign influence is exposing the origins of the messaging through transparency and robust debate.

Rep. Huizenga: ‘It’s really about theatrics’

Inside the hearing room, as Fox News Digital reported, Benjamin and her fellow CodePink activists offered a vivid illustration of the debate over how political messages are created and amplified.

They sat directly behind the witnesses, placing their T-shirts in the sightline of the official committee cameras.

Benjamin then turned toward a television monitor on the side of the hearing room displaying the official video feed. She pulled out her phone, zoomed in on the image of herself and a fellow activist appearing behind the witnesses and took photo after photo of the screen.

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Huizenga said he viewed the episode as political theater designed for an audience beyond the committee room.

“This isn’t about discourse. This is about disruption,” Huizenga told Fox News Digital. “It’s all planned out. You see people in the crowd filming with their phones, getting ready. You knew something was going to happen because all of a sudden the phones would come out.”

“It’s really about theatrics,” he added, arguing that confrontations can subsequently be circulated on social media to attract attention, donations and volunteers.

The episode captured the central tension running through the hearing: how does the United States expose genuine covert foreign influence without treating protected American political speech as foreign subversion?

“Transparency, transparency is the watchword,” he told Fox News Digital. “We really need to make sure that people know not only the why, but the who is behind all this.”

Rep. Baumgartner: ‘We need to know who’s behind it’

Rep. Michael Baumgartner, R-Wash., told Fox News Digital that America’s open political system creates opportunities for foreign governments to try to influence legitimate domestic debates through social media, universities and other institutions.

“The American people need transparency and need to understand what is going on in this public policy discussions and whether it’s podcast hosts, certain actors on social media, or things going on our college campuses,” Baumgartner said. “We need to know who’s behind it and what their motivations are.”

Baumgartner pointed to “clear transparency on this issue” as a solution, adding that if evidence showed organizations were acting on behalf of foreign governments without complying with applicable disclosure laws, the matter could potentially be referred to the Justice Department, which oversees the Foreign Agent Registration Act, or FARA. The law requires that people and organizations acting on behalf of foreign interests register with the Justice Department.

Rep. Randy Fine: Trojan horses ‘poison people’s minds’

Other lawmakers said the modern Trojan horse doesn’t necessarily have to walk physically through the doors of Congress, but rather arrive via social media.

Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., described social media, influencers and protests as potential channels through which foreign governments influence American political debate. He said that “it’s a real issue, whether it’s on social media, influencers, protests, these things are all designed to destabilize our country.”

Fine characterized what experts call “cognitive warfare” as “using our information platforms to try to poison people’s minds and to create division from within.”

Rep. Darrell Issa: ‘It’s a network’

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., focused on another battlefield: artificial intelligence.

“Trojan horses are things like the announcement that we should slow down on AI,” Issa told Fox News Digital, arguing that foreign adversaries can benefit when American political pressure slows U.S. technological development.

“We are in a war in which the other side uses all the clandestine tools,” Issa said. “They use their, quite frankly, their social media to our detriment.”

Huizenga similarly argued that Americans should view the organizations under examination not individually but as a network.

“It’s a network. It’s not independent organizations or even people,” he said. “You will see some of the same people at different organizations, rallies, or protests.”

‘Origins aren’t organic’

At the center of much of the hearing were findings from a Fox News Digital investigation into Neville Roy Singham, an American-born communist tech tycoon who lives in Shanghai and has pumped $285 million into six nonprofits including CodePink, the People’s Forum and other groups examined during the hearing.

Huizenga alleged in his official opening remarks that Singham uses his wealth and relationships in China to support organizations that promote communist ideology and destabilize American society. He explicitly described Singham, CodePink and a growing network of pro-communist, pro-China groups as “Trojan horses.”

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Singham and CodePink have denied taking direction from the Chinese government. Singham has said his activities reflect his own political beliefs, while Benjamin has said CodePink doesn’t receive money from the Chinese Communist Party.

As Fox News Digital reported in June, the Justice Department and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York has convened a grand jury investigation into alleged money laundering, bank fraud and wire fraud by Singham and the organizations he has funded.

No criminal charges have been filed against Singham or CodePink in connection with those allegations.

Huizenga argued that the funding relationships deserve scrutiny.

“Oftentimes it’s frankly the origins aren’t organic, or if there is a part of it being organic, this is getting fed by outside organizations, oftentimes even outside countries,” Huizenga alleged.

 

‘Transparency is the watchword’

Being escorted through the committee-room doors didn’t end CodePink’s political theater.

Outside the hearing room, Benjamin positioned herself beside the House Foreign Affairs Committee placard and began recording another video, pulling out a comb first to straighten her hair.

When Rep. Fine emerged from the hearing, Benjamin followed him down the hallway firing questions as another member of her team recorded the encounter.

After Fine disappeared into an office, Benjamin returned to the committee entrance, straightened her hair with a comb and resumed recording.

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About two hours after Capitol Police escorted the activists from the hearing, CodePink posted a carefully edited video of the day’s confrontation on social media, where activists in the broader network began sharing it.

The physical protest was over, but the images it produced were just beginning to travel.

That sequence was precisely why lawmakers said Americans should look beyond the spectacle to who finances and amplifies political messaging.

“This is theater for many of these people,” Huizenga said. He said he wanted Americans, through “transparency and disclosure,” to understand “not just the what they are doing, but their who is financing them.”

The lawmakers gathered to investigate modern “Trojan horses” said the lesson of the ancient story wasn’t simply to keep the horse outside the gates but also to understand what — and who — might be inside.

“Transparency, transparency is the watchword,” Huizenga said.

Lawmakers say ‘transparency and disclosure’ are the best defense against influence campaigns exploiting America’s democracy

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Fox News Digital’s Reagan Schroeder and Brooke Curto contributed to this report.

Several Democrats voted with Republicans to pass a sweeping sanctions package targeting Russia on Wednesday, handing President Donald Trump a key authority the left has long raged against.

The House of Representatives passed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, named after the late Republican senator who was one of Ukraine’s biggest champions in Congress until his sudden death in July.

It comes despite opposition from key Democrats over a provision giving Trump tariff authority over countries fueling Russia’s war in Ukraine.

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“What we’re not for is, giving more tariff authority to this president. There is no guarantee in this legislation that the president could not use these tariffs against Ukraine if he decided to do so. There is no guarantee in this legislation that the president can impose these tariffs on Russia, with the enthusiasm that our friends on the other side have offered,” Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., said during debate on the bill.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said, “The manner in which this bill has been written doesn’t require the president of the United States to impose sanctions on Russia. In fact, there are so many loopholes written into the bill, I believe that it’s very unlikely that the sanctions relief contemplated in the legislation will ever see the light of day.”

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The bill was led in the House by Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, a longtime supporter of Ukraine.

“This is a critical time in history. A time my friend Lindsey Graham described as a magic moment, a moment that we cannot afford to waste,” McCaul said during debate. “We shared a fundamental belief that America is strongest at home when it projects strength abroad. This legislation does exactly that.”

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He continued, “It targets the money that fuels Russia’s war machine. It sanctions Russian officials and oligarchs, banks and financial institutions and the shadow fleet that helps cheap Russian energy moving and through precisely targeted tariffs. It also punishes countries providing financial support for the deadliest war in Europe since World War II. Why? Because, as we’ve heard from President Zelensky’s team, you can evade sanctions, which the Russians have done for years. But you cannot evade tariffs.”

The bill, which has gone through several iterations, still primarily focuses on kneecapping Putin’s war machine in Russia’s ongoing fight with Ukraine.

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But tweaks were needed to get sign-off from the White House.However, it reinserted sanctions targeting Iran’s weapons and energy sectors in the hopes of incentivizing a lasting peace deal as the war in the Middle East marches on.

Key components of the legislation allow for up to 500% tariffs on Russian imports; tariffs of up to 100% on the top five countries buying Russian energy, and it provides Trump flexibility for when to turn off some aspects of the sanctions.

The tariff authority has proven a hard sell for House Democrats, though their colleagues in the Senate largely bought in.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., helped create the bill and largely spearheaded Democrat support in the Senate.

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Blumenthal defended the tariff language in the bill to Fox News Digital, “If Donald Trump wants to break this law, he will be restrained by the courts, just as when he broke the law on tariffs previously.”

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It now heads to Trump’s desk for his signature.

At least two Democrats signaled early on that they would support the bill; Reps. Jared Golden, D-Maine, and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash., defied their party leaders on Tuesday to help Republicans break gridlock on advancing the legislation.

Their votes rescued the sanctions package from dying on the House floor amid a conservative rebellion over an unrelated issue. A similar move by the pair earlier this month earned a public reprimand by Jeffries, who called it a “breach of trust.”

“Congressman Golden has been a consistent supporter of America’s allies in Ukraine. He didn’t want to see the Russia sanctions bill die in a rule vote after passing with overwhelming bipartisan support in the Senate,” Golden’s spokesman told Fox News Digital of the vote.

FIRST ON FOX: Lindy Li, a former Democratic fundraiser who switched her party affiliation over unheeded warning signs about President Joe Biden’s decline in the 2024 election, says Democrats had internal polling showing that Kamala Harris was far from the party’s best shot at beating Donald Trump.

But that polling wasn’t convenient.

“The polling numbers went directly against the narrative that the party wanted to espouse,” Li said.

“They knew that skipping over Kamala Harris would be a slap in the face to the bedrock of the party, which is Black women in particular, and they just wouldn’t have it,” Li told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview.

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Li is chronicling the months leading up to Biden’s withdrawal from the race in her new book, “Unburdened,” revealing that the party’s internal thinking behind why Harris was made the nominee and how many of the party’s top figures had long known that Biden’s age had created an unavoidable political liability.

Li recalled that former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Harris had been floated as possible replacements for Biden before Biden announced his decision to step down.

According to Li, Harris was at the bottom of the group.

“Kamala Harris came in dead last. It wasn’t even close. Pete Buttigieg, who hilariously received 0% support from the Black vote, did better than she did. And yet the party is so straitjacketed by DEI that they had no choice but to appoint her,” Li said.

As a top fundraiser for both Biden and Harris, Li worked closely with top donors, high-profile members of the party and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). She recalled how the polling was guarded closely, but that it circulated among the party’s leading operatives and fundraisers like herself.

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“I’m part of the National Finance Committee. The list of membership is guarded like the papal conclave. But people talk. It’s a very small group of people. That poll was commissioned internally,” Li said.

“Most of the time I would say I don’t believe a candidate’s polling because it’s basically just funded propaganda. But in this case, we wanted an objective overview of who could actually mount the most formidable opposition to Trump.”

At the end of the day, Li believes that the decision to put Harris at the top of the ticket was made, at least partially, out of fear.

In addition to being the vice president and an obvious replacement consideration for Biden, Li recalled that Harris had devoted followers who would make it painful to explore other options.

“People were terrified of the online mob. The K-Hive isn’t that numerous, but they’re very, very toxic and they’re very coordinated. No one wants to be labeled as a racist,” Li said, referring to the nickname for Harris’ supporters.

Li believes that, using that fear and by positioning herself close to Biden’s donors, Harris made herself the choice the party couldn’t turn a blind eye to, despite knowledge of her weakness as a candidate.

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“Oscar-worthy. Honestly, truly Oscar-worthy,” Li said.

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Representatives for Harris did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

FIRST ON FOX: Anxieties over data centers have cranked up considerably, and one Senate Republican wants to close a tax loophole that he argues tech giants are using as “corporate welfare” to build facilities throughout the country.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., plans on introducing legislation that would tie up a tax loophole for data centers first unleashed by Republicans in 2017 that he charged has been exploited by tech companies to build their sprawling data center facilities. 

It comes as the GOP wrestles with how to handle the data center and AI issue, which has become a major political wedge on the campaign trail, one President Donald Trump has called a “hoax.”

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That loophole, Hawley told Fox News Digital in an interview, is for Opportunity Zones, which he said are generally meant for “for low-income areas, low-income housing, low-income businesses or businesses in low-income areas.”

“These data centers have figured out a way that they think that they can access all of this money,” Hawley said. “So, let’s be clear. This is a form of corporate welfare. They don’t need any welfare. These people are rich. They can pay their own way.”

The tax breaks were first approved by Congress as part of Trump’s first-term tax cuts package, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. That initial bite at the apple established them as a means to spur investment into lower income or forgotten areas where tracts of land were dubbed Opportunity Zones.

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They were then made permanent last year through the “big, beautiful bill,” and though not explicitly intended to be used for data centers, have since provided a route for tech companies to defer, reduce or outright eliminate corporate gains taxes on their investments in the zones.

Since both tax packages were passed, 8,746 Opportunity Zones have cropped up in the U.S., according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, just under half of all zones are in rural areas, where tech goliaths have set their sights on building data centers.

And, according to a report from the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, 14% of all data centers are in Opportunity Zones, while just over 17% of all permitted, approved and under construction data center projects are in the zones.

Hawley’s forthcoming bill would explicitly exclude data centers from being able to access the tax cuts, adding another barrier at the federal level in an attempt to try and slow their rapid development.

And it comes as Congress scrambles to answer the growing fears over unfettered AI development, which data centers play a key role in.

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Concerns have rippled through the halls of the Capitol since its return this week after a call from major players in the AI industry to slow development, which came after engineers at Anthropic revealed on X that there was a roughly 10% chance that AI could wipe out humanity within a decade. The topic of reining in the technology is not new.

Three years ago, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., convened several panels with tech CEOs, including one with Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, to hash out what AI legislation could look like in Congress.

Since then, there has been little to no legislative action taken.

Hawley argued that Congress needs to at least put guardrails on AI and give people the opportunity to sue tech companies if their data and personal information has been used without their consent.

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When asked why no real action had happened since Schumer’s series of AI summits, Hawley contended it was “because all the tech CEOs then promptly gave Schumer and the Democrats gobs and gobs money, and they decided that, you know what, maybe this industry is going fine.”

“And now what you see the same tech CEOs saying is they want an antitrust exemption so they can all talk together and work together,” Hawley said. ‘Any regulations, they want to write them themselves. And they’re out there saying, ‘The sky is falling, the sky is falling. You need to let us get together, write the regulations and figure out what we’re going to do.’ I’m pretty skeptical of that, I have to say.”

Are we playing with the old playbook or a new playbook in the midterm elections this fall?

That’s unclear. It’s hard to determine, simply because we’ve seen so much that’s “new” in politics lately.

Norms are cast aside. The American system quaked to its core in recent years. You’ve witnessed an American president win the election by prevailing in the Electoral College but losing the popular vote. To have that happen twice in 16 years (2000 and 2016) is astonishing, considering the fact that such an outcome only unfolded on three occasions before.

You then had a president impeached twice – yet return to office a few years later. There was the Capitol riot, as arguing continued about the 2020 election.

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If this is the old playbook, Democrats likely light up the scoreboard in November. The party of the President typically loses about 25 seats in a president’s first midterm. Midterm elections are frequently a referendum on the President. That’s why many Republicans are trying to keep President Donald Trump at arm’s length, considering that his polling numbers are anywhere from the mid-thirties to 40 percent on a good day. Gas prices are high. Grocery prices are skyrocketing. The war in Iran lingers. There’s a trade war with one of America’s best allies.

On the old playbook, this portends a disaster for the GOP in this fall’s midterms.

But what if we’re using the new playbook?

President Trump – and sometimes Republicans aligned with him – have shown a remarkable resilience to defy political gravity and norms. Control of the House could come down to just a few seats. What if there are questions about election security and the validity of who won and lost? There’s redistricting. On paper, Republicans probably redrew about five to six seats nationwide in their favor.

If things are tight, we might not know which party wins the House on election night. Perhaps a few days down the road – if not later. That is, unless it’s a Democratic blowout.

And, remember what we said a few moments ago about the president’s party losing so many seats in that first midterm? Yes, in a way, this is President Trump’s “first midterm.” But not really. He experienced a midterm in 2018. Not that things went in the GOP’s favor that year. There’s no contemporary data on how the party of a President might perform after he’s been out of office and rallied to victory a few years later.

Also, the sheer reduction by both parties of seats which are in play mitigates political “waves” which crash across the political shoreline in House midterm races. Think 1994 and 2010 for Republicans. 2018 for Democrats.Thus, even though many of the factors favor the Democrats, the possibility remains it could be tough for the party to flip the House.

In 2018, the Democrats’ carried an approval rating of 44%. For this time around, it’s 37%. That rivals polling related to the President. In 2018, voters had had enough of President Trump and wanted a change. But because of the polling parity this year, it’s not so obvious that voters are so turned off by President Trump that they automatically gravitate to the Democrats.

Here’s another factor: turnout.

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President Trump has worked hard to tell voters that he’s “on the ballot” this fall. That cuts two ways. President Trump’s presence on the ballot has historically driven people to the polls. In 2016, 60.1% of registered voters showed up. In 2020, an eye-popping 66.4% of all voters cast ballots. And in 2024, 64.3% of those registered to vote did so.

But considering the president’s unpopularity, the cognizance of voters that he’s “on the ballot” could also deter them from turning out. At least those who previously supported him. And those impacts ricochet down to House races. The President’s track record at turning out independent voters in races which count wasn’t great down ballot – even as he won the White House in 2024.

Consider that in the 2018 midterms, 50.1% of registered voters materialized. Just 46.1% voted in the 2022 midterms. It was 36.1% in the 2014 midterms — 41% in the historic 2010 midterms where Republicans won a record 63 House seats.

This “Trump on the ballot” initiative might not resound with voters. Especially since the President conceded – en route to his midterm convention in Dallas – that gas prices wouldn’t decrease until after the election. He also said the U.S. is stuck with the war in Iran through the midterms.

So how do we know what to anticipate in November?

It’s really hard to read if there’s not a clear wave coming. The best way to postulate control of the House is by going race to race. And that is a painstaking process.

For instance, will Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., have a district in which to run? Missouri Republicans tried to draw Cleaver out of his district earlier this year. Then a court ruled last week that the Show-Me-State must use the old Congressional districts – likely meaning that Cleaver was safe. Then another judge ruled that voters already cast ballots in primaries. So the new maps were back and Cleaver may be out.

All of this less than two months before the election.

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Is there a groundswell for Democrats in Iowa where the Senate seat and governor’s mansion are in jeopardy for Republicans? If that’s the case, Democrats might have a shot of claiming at least two if not three seats there: Republican Iowa Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Zach Nunn and maybe the seat that Rep. Ashley Hinson is vacating in her quest to become a senator.

How about Ohio? There are competitive gubernatorial and Senate contests. Does a Democratic surge boost Rep. Greg Landsman, D-Ohio? Do the accusations of spousal and child abuse bounce embattled Rep. Max Miller, R-Ohio., in what is otherwise a relatively safe Republican seat? Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, clung to her seat by fewer than 1,000 votes two years ago. But that was when President Trump carried the Buckeye State by 11 points – and Kaptur’s district. Redistricting actually turned Kaptur’s turf slightly more in her favor. But the 80-year-old Kaptur was in a car wreck in August, inhibiting her ability to campaign. Is that a factor?

How well do Democrats perform in Virginia? Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Va., faces former Rep. Elaine Luria, D-Va., who she vanquished in 2022. Could former Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Va., – who won in a 2008 upset in a differently-drawn district and promptly lost in 2010 – unseat Rep. John McGuire, R-Va.?

Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, is retiring. Former Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) is running for Golden’s seat. Does LePage benefit from Democratic chaos in the effort to unseat Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine? After all, President Trump won one of Maine’s three electoral votes in 2024, capturing that Congressional district over former Vice President Kamala Harris.

We could bounce around the map, district to district, all day like this. But sans a wave, that’s what you must do to properly filet the House races.

Most conventional arrows point in the direction of Democrats winning the House this fall. Yet it probably shouldn’t be this close.

That’s why you have to go by the playbook.

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The only question is if this is the old playbook or new playbook?

President Donald Trump’s latest surgeon general nominee, Dr. Nicole Saphier, defended the MMR vaccine and rejected claims that childhood vaccines cause autism during a Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday.

Saphier, a radiologist and a former Fox News contributor, would serve as the federal government’s top doctor and public health spokesperson at a time when measles cases are surging across the country.

“I believe the MMR vaccine is our greatest tool for combatting measles,” Saphier said during her appearance before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, the committee’s chairman, asked Saphier whether she agreed with Trump’s comments last month suggesting the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine could be “quite lethal.”

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“As a physician, I can tell you that I do not believe the MMR vaccine to be lethal,” Saphier responded.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who Saphier would serve under if confirmed, has said multiple times throughout his tenure that people should get the MMR vaccine.

“The two-dose MMR vaccine is our safest and most effective tool to prevent this highly contagious illness,” he told Fox News Digital in March 2025.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has also continued to recommend the MMR vaccine, although the Trump administration eventually favors splitting it into three shots.

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Saphier also differed with some of Kennedy’s past statements about a potential link between vaccines and autism.

“Well, humbly, I don’t know what causes autism, but I have not seen reputable evidence that would suggest that vaccines cause autism,” Saphier said. “I do not believe childhood vaccines cause autism.”

In a 2023 Fox News interview, while running for president as a Democrat, Kennedy told host Jesse Watters: “I do believe that autism does come from vaccines.”

Kennedy later backed away from claiming a definitive link between vaccines and autism, saying in his confirmation hearing last year that he would “do nothing as HHS secretary that makes it difficult or discourages people from taking vaccines.”

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Later, Saphier addressed a question from Cassidy, also a physician, about whether children should receive the hepatitis B vaccine at birth.

“Chairman Cassidy, you’re speaking to someone who tells people they have cancer every day. And the hepatitis B vaccine is one of the most tangible ways we have to prevent cancer,” she said, adding, “The most tried and true way to prevent hepatitis B infection and effectively lower hepatitis B associated illness is universal birth dosing.”

Cassidy repeatedly pressed Saphier on whether she supported the Trump administration’s move in December to stop universally recommending the vaccine at birth for babies whose mothers test negative for hepatitis B.

Saphier stopped short of saying whether she believed the policy should be reversed.

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Under questioning from other senators, Saphier said that as surgeon general, she would promote early cancer screening, review data on the harms of flavored e-cigarettes and study the mental health effects of AI chatbots on children and adolescents.

Saphier was nominated by Trump in April after his earlier pick for surgeon general, wellness influencer Dr. Casey Means, failed to gain enough traction in the Senate to be confirmed.

Before that, Trump withdrew his nomination of Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, another former Fox News contributor, in May 2025.

As the director of breast imaging at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center’s location in Monmouth, New Jersey, Saphier would bring extensive medical experience to the role.

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She has also authored several books on health and wellness, including “Make America Healthy Again: How Bad Behavior and Big Government Caused a Trillion-Dollar Crisis,” published in April 2020, mere months after the COVID-19 pandemic began.

Kennedy later adopted the phrase “Make America Healthy Again” as the slogan for his presidential campaign before bringing it into the Trump administration’s broader public health agenda.

Before being nominated, Saphier openly criticized Kennedy, writing in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last year that she was “deeply concerned” about his approach after he described autism as an “epidemic” and pledged to identify the cause of the developmental disorder by September 2025.

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Specifically, she took issue with Kennedy hiring David Geier, a vaccine critic, to analyze CDC data on autism. She called his experience “limited” and said his research has been “widely criticized within the scientific and medical communities.”

A review of the Health and Human Services employment database shows Geier still works at the department as a “senior data analyst.”

“Families deserve more than passionate speeches and fringe science,” Saphier wrote in the op-ed. “If Mr. Kennedy truly wants to be a champion for families facing autism spectrum disorder, he should form partnerships with the nation’s most reputable researchers.”

Despite widespread predictions of major Democratic electoral victories this November, South Texas GOP candidate Eric Flores is predicting a “red tidal wave” in the Lone Star State, with controversial Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico as the most prominent Democrat at the top of the ticket.

Flores, a U.S. Army veteran running in Texas’ 34th Congressional District, called out Talarico for his recent “flip-flop” on some of his most controversial stances, including calling God “nonbinary” and saying there are six sexes. He argued that Talarico’s decision to walk back those statements is proof that he and other Democrats in the state “don’t have a record to run on.”

In an interview with Fox News last week, Talarico said he supports banning gender surgery for minors and opposed transgender-identifying men competing in women’s sports. He also addressed his controversial “God is non-binary” comment, saying, “I was being provocative with that statement. I get that,” and “what I was trying to say is that you can’t use human categories to define God, and that’s not controversial theologically. In fact, the late Charlie Kirk, the late Pope Benedict, all said the same thing.”

In response, Flores shot back, “Those aren’t provocative statements; those were statements that were made with intention, and that’s showing who he truly is.”

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Flores is running in a competitive race for a heavily Hispanic district that has long been a Democratic stronghold. The seat is currently held by Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-Texas. Despite long being considered a solidly blue district, President Donald Trump won it in 2024. Republicans have also narrowed Democrats’ advantage in the district over the past several election cycles. Flores argued that, with Talarico as the most prominent Democrat running statewide in Texas, this will be the year the GOP finally seals the deal.

“They’re saying that there’s a blue wave. Well, I got news for folks, there’s a red tidal wave coming because we’re going to be getting rid of the wrong type of Democrats like my opponent,” he said.

He credits the GOP’s rising chances in the district to eroding trust in Democrats in South Texas. He said, “the voters are finally asking the questions that South Texas deserves to hear.”

“Everything that I hear throughout Texas 34 is simple, and they are thinking about their pocketbook; they’re thinking about inflation and the cost of living,” he explained.

Flores’ pitch to try to break through the Democrats’ longtime hold on South Texas is “that this isn’t a contract election, it’s a contrast election.”

“What does that mean? That it’s common sense, which is the Republican Party, against communism and fake and the wrong type of Democrats like my opponent who are voting 80 to 85% of the time with AOC,” he said.

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In response, Gonzalez told Fox News Digital that “Eric Flores is a rubber-stamp intellectual lightweight that can’t think for himself. He will continue to support the Iran war and policies that raise the cost of living for hardworking South Texans. All while shamelessly taking his ‘Trump Endorsement’ language off all his political ads and sending fundraising messages asking for donors to help him pay back his personal primary campaign debt instead of trying to win his race.”

“That should certainly feel like an air of confidence to the party,” Gonzalez continued, adding, “Trust me, he’s not fooling Democrats or Republicans for that matter. And it won’t be long before he’s back representing child molesters in South Texas.”

Fox News Digital is not aware of any evidence that Flores represented child molesters in his capacity as either a private practice attorney or assistant U.S. attorney.

Fox News Digital also reached out to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., for comment.

Regarding Talarico’s Fox interview, Flores said, “They’re asking him, do you really think that there are six genders? Do you really support these gender surgeries against minors? That’s the same thing with Talarico and my opponent, when they get questioned, all they can do is flip-flop because they actually don’t have a record to run on other than this far-left woke DEI agenda.”

A spokesperson for Talarico’s campaign directed Fox News Digital back to comments he made during his interview last week. Fox News spoke with Talarico at a food drive campaign event in Dallas on Tuesday. Talarico’s event took place as the first-ever GOP midterm convention kicked off just miles away in downtown Dallas.

Asked whether he would vote as a U.S. senator in favor of a national ban on gender surgery for minors, Talarico answered, “Absolutely.”

He said, “I’ve been consistent on this issue,” explaining his opposition to a Texas bill to ban transgender surgeries on minors by saying the measure “was overly broad.”

“If you go back and check, I voted for a major amendment to limit the bill to banning surgeries for minors,” he said. “As a lawmaker, my job is to try to sift through everything the bill does. And sometimes there’s stuff in it that’s really harmful, and I have no choice but to oppose the bill as a whole.”

In 2023, as a member of the Texas House of Representatives, Talarico voted against Senate Bill 14, which prohibited certain gender surgeries, puberty blockers and certain hormone treatments for minors. Democrats proposed 18 amendments to the bill, all of which Talarico supported and all of which ultimately failed.

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“It’s why I try to use amendments, to narrow the focus of the bill so that it does exactly what we intend it to do,” he continued. “It’s what I tried to do with that piece of legislation, and unfortunately, the amendment I supported was unsuccessful.”

Talarico also told Fox News, “I supported amendments that would have given the power to make these decisions to local communities,” adding, “like conservatives used to believe, I believe in local control.”

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In the same interview, Talarico acknowledged that men in women’s sports is a significant issue in Texas. He said, “I oppose trans athletes playing in girls’ sports if it endangers safety or fairness.”

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“Every sport has to be safe and fair. As a former public school teacher, I care a lot about our student athletes. I care a lot about our students. And so, I will oppose trans athletes playing in girls’ sports if it risks safety or fairness,” he said.

Comparing himself to his Republican opponent, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Talarico said, “I am proud of my legislative track record delivering for Texans. I brought Democrats and Republicans together to pass 60 bipartisan bills that lower people’s costs and get the economy back on track. I’ll put my record up against Ken Paxton’s every day of the week and twice on Sunday.”

“Doomer”-driven AI regulation could kneecap the U.S. against China while helping tech giants lock in their lead over smaller startups, a former Pentagon AI official who also worked for AI company Palantir Technologies told Fox News Digital.

The warning follows the resignation of an Anthropic researcher who said increasingly powerful AI could threaten humanity, while President Donald Trump called fears of rogue AI a “hoax” and compared those advancing such warnings to climate-change alarmists whose predictions, he argued, haven’t come true.

“The notion that I think the president and I share is that we should let the race play out, that the risk of global extinction is not real, it is in fact a hoax,” Will Thibeau, a former Palantir deployment strategist who later worked in the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office told Fox News Digital.

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“The stakes of losing to China, of losing the opportunity to transform our economy, are so high that we shouldn’t let ‘doomerism’ define public policy,” the retired Army Ranger added.

Thibeau’s position is not that Washington should take a hands-off approach to AI, but that the U.S. should race aggressively at the frontier while narrowly addressing concrete risks — threading the needle between denying China an advantage and preventing regulations backed by today’s leading AI firms from entrenching a “duopoly” at the expense of new American innovators.

“We must maintain an edge at the frontier, so our economy has the license on the first benefits of artificial intelligence. Enhanced manufacturing capabilities, enhanced processing power, decision-making in financial markets,” he said, disputing the idea that Beijing will not race full bore because the technology could countervail the CCP’s grip by incidentally empowering civilians.

“Artificial intelligence has the potential to redefine our economy and transform the country for the good,” Thibeau said, while rejecting both predictions that it will make life “unrecognizable” and that it poses an uncontrollable “extinction” risk.

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Those “hyperventilating” over either extreme, he argued, miss the “clearly defined middle path” for AI development.

Thibeau said some of AI’s most important applications are military, where it can process battlefield data quickly enough to give U.S. forces an advantage while helping preserve civilian life.

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“I’m very bullish, if you will, on how artificial intelligence can be applied for the military,” he said.

While Thibeau said fears of “drone swarms run amok” are not realistic, he acknowledged AI carries real risks that policymakers should address without allowing those concerns to justify sweeping rules that slow U.S. development or undermine its military edge.

The larger danger, he argued, is that leading AI firms can absorb regulations that smaller newcomers cannot.

“There is a duopoly, perhaps a triopoly if you include Google,” Thibeau said, naming Anthropic and OpenAI as the two companies clearly in the lead.

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“They want to slow the game so they can use their built-in advantages and their current lead to solidify this market dominance… to make it harder for new entrants to rise the market chain [and capture] the regulatory incentives of the government.”

Fox News Digital reached out to all three firms for comment.

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Anthropic policy documents outline concerns about biological risks, cyber risks, loss of control and the automation of research and development while also underlining that regulations must “protect innovation.”

In terms of government oversight, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters Tuesday that AI should be the rare time for bipartisan collaboration on regulation.

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“If there’s ever a time for Republicans to break from their blinded allegiance to Trump, it is now. The world is in danger and Republicans are on the sidelines sucking their thumbs,” the Senate Minority Leader claimed.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris added in a statement that AI is “advancing at an alarming speed,” and signaled she sides with the Big Tech firms calling for pacing the “frontier” — which Thibeau warned about.

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“A slowdown is critical in order to ensure AI serves the public interest,” she said in part of a lengthy statement.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said guardrails are necessary for the AI sphere but that Congress should not respond with a heavy hand.

“We have to put up some guardrails, some safety measures in place to ensure that AI doesn’t run away …. But at the same time, we’ve got to make sure that we don’t lose our edge in the global competition on this with China,” he told NBC News.

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“It’s got to be done right, safely [and] wisely,” he said.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, released a batch of unclassified emails between FBI agents stemming from Operation Crossfire Hurricane, a Justice Department investigation launched during the Obama administration into whether then-presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign was colluding with Russia during the 2016 election.

Grassley argued that the email exchanges, which included former FBI Special Agent Kevin Gounaud seeking to open an investigation into Elon Musk over the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), revealed that the “Deep State” was at work to undermine Trump.

“The previous Democrat administrations under Obama and Biden conducted secret, insidious and downright evil operations that almost took down our government,” Grassley said during an Oversight hearing with FBI Director Kash Patel. “That’s arguably worse than Watergate.”

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Over the past decade, the Senate Judiciary Committee, at the direction of Grassley, has released several rounds of documents from a few FBI operations such as Operation Arctic Frost and Round River, alleging that the Justice Department was being weaponized against Trump and Republicans.

“The overall sustained efforts by the Deep State in the dark corners of the bureaucracy is worse than anything Trump has been accused of. At least he’s upfront and open so people can judge,” Grassley said.

At the center of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s most recent document release are three former FBI agents: Gounaud, Walter Giardina, who was fired by Patel in August over accusations of political weaponization, and Timothy Thibault.

Gounaud, who left the bureau in February, according to his LinkedIn, sent an email in February 2025 seeking to begin a criminal investigation of Musk. At the time, Musk was a special government employee overseeing DOGE. Gounaud’s complaint centered on Musk announcing on X his plan to have all government employees share five things they worked on that day.

“Musk used a non government system (twitter) to relate information that allegedly was for official purposes. In doing so, because he is monetized (he is a majority owner of twitter) he likely generated income for himself based on Twitter’s monetization model and/or advertising revenues,” Gounaud wrote. “His use of twitter in this and other instances is conceptually similar to Hillary Clinton’s misuse of a private email server for government business.”

Grassley later criticized the former FBI agent in a post on X.

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“Here is an email I released 2day showing an FBI agent who was ready2 open a CRIMINAL CASE all bc Elon Musk asked govt bureaucrats 2 report 5 things they did in a wk,” Grassley wrote. “Compare that 2 Iowans who work frm sunup to sundown EVERY DAY Washington rlly is an island surrounded by reality.”

The document dump also shows that Giardina emailed at least seven times over the course of four weeks beginning in January 2017 asking to be assigned to Crossfire Hurricane. The findings of the investigation were handed off to Special Counsel Robert Mueller a few months later in May.

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The emails show that Giardina was in correspondence with Thibault, who Grassley had accused of violating the Hatch Act. The allegation, which was investigated and dismissed by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC), stemmed from Thibault resharing a post on then Twitter by the Lincoln Project, which called Trump a “psychologically broken, embittered, and deeply unhappy man.”

Thibault is included in several emails sent by Giardina to former Supervising Agent Joe Pientka.

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“Based on the records known to date, that case didn’t advance,” Grassley said. “His efforts, as well as the case he tried to open on Senator Sinema, undercut public statements by former FBI officials that agents don’t get to pick their cases.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the FBI for comment.

FIRST ON FOX: House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is ratcheting up his crackdown against sanctuary jurisdictions across the country.

Jordan is sending subpoenas to district attorneys in Boulder, Colorado, and Fairfax, Virginia, accusing both of giving “preferential treatment” to “criminal aliens” when weighing whether and how to prosecute wrongdoing.

“Despite repeated requests for responsive documents and communications, you have not produced a single document. Accordingly, because you have failed to comply with the Committee’s requests, the Committee is serving compulsory process,” he wrote in separate letters to Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano and Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty, both obtained by Fox News Digital.

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“Your office’s lenient treatment of foreign national criminals endangers communities and ensures that criminal aliens escape both criminal and immigration accountability for their actions.”

Jordan’s committee has for weeks investigated district attorneys who have been accused of taking immigration status into account when pursuing criminal complaints, even when the alleged crime has nothing to do with the suspect’s legal status.

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Descano, in particular, has recently made headlines after the stabbing death of 41-year-old U.S. citizen Stephanie Minter, whose accused killer came to the U.S. illegally from Sierra Leone in 2012. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said the man had been arrested over 30 times before Minter’s killing.

Descano, who has led the Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office since January 2020, issued plea bargaining guidance that year saying prosecutors should “consider immigration consequences where possible” and consider “the collateral immigration consequences of the specific crime(s) the defendant is charged with,” according to local outlet WTOP News.

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Meanwhile, Dougherty recently lost his Democratic primary campaign to be attorney general of the state of Colorado.

He told Boulder Reporting Lab in May that Jordan’s probe was “political theater that ignores serious failures within the federal immigration system.”

The city of Boulder issued an ordinance in January 2017, after President Donald Trump was elected, directing government employees not to work with federal immigration authorities or “inquire into a person’s immigration status.”

Boulder and Fairfax counties are known as a sanctuary jurisdictions, meaning local law enforcement is not bound to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

WATCH: SOROS PROSECUTOR’S HEARING DEVOLVES INTO ANGRY CHAOS OVER ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT RAPE CASE: ‘BE QUIET!’

Jordan’s probe is being conducted alongside Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., who chairs the Judiciary panel’s subcommittee on immigration enforcement.

Jordan previously told Fox News Digital that he would not rule out subpoenas if the district attorneys did not comply with Republicans’ requests for information.

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“There’s a process we always go through. We ask for things, we ask again, we explain why, we work with their office — in some cases their counsel — and back and forth,” he said in late August. “And then if we have to use subpoenas, we certainly will do that … but we want to know the facts.”

Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, R-Pa., fired back at the Pennsylvania House speaker, a Democrat, after she suggested the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration could invite 9/11-like violence.

“She used her time to actually denounce securing our border and saying that, somehow, the efforts to keep our country safe could lead to another attack,” Mackenzie told Fox News Digital.

“She’s totally wrong. She’s answering to the far-left radicals and globalists. I would actually call on Joanna McClinton to apologize for what she said at that event,” he added.

McClinton’s criticism highlights a challenge Democrats face as they search for vulnerabilities in Trump’s immigration agenda: attacking the administration’s aggressive enforcement tactics even as illegal border crossings have fallen sharply.

DEM REP SETH MOULTON SAYS PARTY HAS NO IMMIGRATION PLAN, IS ONLY ‘OPPOSITION TO TRUMP’

Speaking at a panel discussion on the 250th anniversary of American independence, McClinton said she feared the threat of retaliation for Trump’s “brutality.”

“When we think of just the brutality of this federal government for almost two years, it’s been heartless. It’s been too silent on the other side of the aisle. They are treating people with no respect or dignity — people who came here to do better. It’s horrible. So, when we think about where we are in 2026 and that it’s been 25 years, thank God we have not had another attack,” McClinton said.

“Thank God we haven’t seen another plane go down in Pennsylvania. But we also have to recognize that our policies are impacting our perception around the world,” McClinton added.

McClinton first became speaker in the Pennsylvania House in 2023 and first joined the chamber in 2015. Before her time in politics, she worked as a public defender.

McClinton has voiced similar criticisms of immigration enforcement before, framing Trump’s use of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as a tool that has gone too far.

DEMOCRAT COMPARES ICE TO ‘DOMESTIC TERRORISTS’ AS 111 HOUSE DEMS DEMAND TEXAS DETENTION CENTER CLOSE

“On our 250th birthday we’re seeing the worst horrors unfold in our beloved nation!!! Completely horrified by ICE agents so brutally hunting down, harming people every day – and now using deadly force!!!! God have mercy,” McClinton wrote in a post to X, referring to deadly encounters between ICE and protesters earlier this year.

Since Trump returned to office, illegal border crossings have sunk to historic lows. Since the end of 2024, encounters have gone from 144,000 in December 2024 to just 33,800 in July — a reduction of 76.5%.

Mackenzie believes Democrats like McClinton are ignoring that record.

“What she should be doing is making sure that we’re protecting and defending American citizens in our country at every single turn,” Mackenzie said.

SHAPIRO VS TRUMP-BACKED GARRITY SET FOR HIGH-STAKES PENNSYLVANIA GOVERNOR SHOWDOWN

In addition to demanding an apology from McClinton, Mackenzie also called on other Democrats, like his own congressional opponent, to condemn her thinking.

“My opponent in the congressional race, Bob Brooks, should condemn that kind of rhetoric. We need to make sure that we are always pushing back on these types of things that are really inappropriate and being said by Democrat leaders who are trying to push their radical agenda instead of doing what is right for our country,” Mackenzie said.

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McClinton’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

EXCLUSIVE: Vice President JD Vance energized Republicans during a huddle on Capitol Hill Tuesday where he urged lawmakers to “kick a–” in the 49 days before the midterm elections, according to audio obtained by Fox News Digital from a person in the room.

He wants members of Congress who are on the campaign trail to tell Americans how Trump administration’s policies benefit them daily.

“There’s people out there right now whose lives are going to get better, or their lives are going to get worse based on whether we’re in the majority or whether we’re in the minority,” Vance told the Republican lawmakers in spelling out the stakes of the 2026 midterms.

“There are going to be people who are going to be poorer. Who are going to be less able to afford their prescription drugs, who are going to be less safe in the homes in their neighborhoods if the other guys get the majority,” he continued. “And there are people who are going to be able to walk down the street in safety if you guys keep the majority. If we keep the majority together.”

Specifically, Vance told incumbents to hammer home the issue of crime, noting that the homicide rate has reached a 126-year low. Vance explained that in a country of 330 million people, that crime stat translates to “thousands of people,” including mothers and fathers, who are coming home to their families instead of being victims of deadly crimes.

FBI REPORTS LARGEST DROP IN VIOLENT CRIME AND MURDER SINCE 1937 AS HOMICIDES FALL MORE THAN 18%

“There are tens of thousands of children who will come home tonight and work on their homework with mom or dad, rather than a stranger, because of what we’ve been able to do in supporting law enforcement,” Vance said in the closed-door meeting.

“This is not an abstraction, ladies and gentlemen,” the vice president continued. “This is not about what you see on CNN or Fox News. This is not whether someone with an ‘R’ or a ‘D’ next to their name wins. This is about whether the American people in this country that we love have a government that they deserve, that protects them, that fights for them, or whether they have a government that treats them as a means to end.”

Fox News Digital caught up with some lawmakers after the meeting.

One House Republican granted anonymity to speak candidly told Fox News Digital the meeting was  “a pep rally for the midterms. It was about raising money, showing up, making sure that everybody’s all hands on deck going into November.”

“I think he did a great job,” Rep. Tim Burchett, R- Tenn., assessed. “He’s very good. He’s very personable.”

“He’s got some kind of voodoo thing going on where he remembers everybody’s dadgum name,” Burchett told Fox News Digital. “It kind of freaks me out a little bit. But, I mean, every time I’ve run into him — I remember one time I was waiting in line to go to the bathroom and he walked out of the bathroom. ‘Hey, Tim, what’s going on?’ I invited him to a [University of Tennessee] game.”

Vance offered some campaign tips to the lawmakers while ribbing the political consulting class for sometimes being out of touch, and saying “the American people are not dumb.”

He said voters understand President Donald Trump and his administration inherited problems, including inflation, massive debt and “a country that was weaker on the national stage.”

“They know that Rome wasn’t built in a day,” he said.

THE ONE LINE FROM JD VANCE’S GOP KEYNOTE THAT REVEALS HIS VISION FOR AMERICA

The vice president directed members to “pound the pavement” in their home districts to personally connect with as many voters as possible.

Just as importantly, Vance said, Republicans in safe districts who have no real opposition from the left should contribute money to the campaigns of fellow Republicans who are in competitive districts.

“So here’s the thing, this is not rocket science. You guys know this better than I do, you know your districts better than I do,” Vance said . “We know that most voters, particularly the voters who are open-minded, who are not hardcore partisans, they don’t really start paying attention to the election until right about now.”

THUNE-ALIGNED GROUPS UNLEASH HISTORIC WAR CHEST TO DEFEND SENATE MAJORITY: ‘WINNING MESSAGE’

Vance also spoke fondly of when late Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina joined him in Ohio while he was campaigning for the Senate in 2022.

“I’ll never forget this,” said Vance. ” Lindsey Graham comes out — I didn’t know Lindsey Graham at all, and you guys know how the campaign trail is in the final stretches. You wake up in a crappy hotel, you haven’t seen your wife, your kids in a few days, and it’s a lot more fun when you have some company out there.”

“You’re telling jokes, you’re enjoying it. That energy — people pick up on it. So, get out there and campaign with your friends.”

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Vance recalled how Graham told him stories that had him “aching with laughter,” half of which he said he could not repeat.

One source told Fox News Digital that Vance stayed after his remarks in tacit encouragement for House Republicans to pledge more money to their campaign arm, which several did. One person said Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, for example, pledged $1.1 million to the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC).

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters afterward that the meeting raised $20 million toward Republicans’ re-election efforts.

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., introduced a resolution to impeach Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and read eight articles of impeachment against Hegseth on the House floor Tuesday.

Massie formally entered a resolution to impeach Hegseth for “high crimes and misdemeanors” on the House floor for, among other things, allegedly violating the War Powers Resolution of 1973 in Iran and for his role in the operation that led to former Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro’s capture and extradition.

The first three of the eight articles of impeachment Massie introduced accused Hegseth of violating the War Powers Resolution of 1973, arguing that Hegseth’s Department of War is “waging the Iran war despite no declaration of war, statutory authorization, attack on the United States, or imminent threat.”

His first article seeks to establish “that the war was unlawful from its inception.” The second article claims that Hegseth disobeyed Congress after both the House and the Senate directed the removal of troops from Iran. The third article claims that Hegseth is “continuing hostilities in Iran after expiration of the War Powers Resolution’s 60-day termination period and any potential 30-day withdrawal period.”

4 HOUSE REPUBLICANS REBEL AGAINST TRUMP, VOTE WITH DEMS TO BLOCK IRAN WAR POWERS

The fourth and fifth articles accuse Hegseth of refusing to minimize civilian casualties and engaging in extrajudicial killing, with the latter charge accusing Hegseth of “replacing maritime law enforcement with unauthorized lethal military targeting of suspected drug traffickers” during operations striking suspected narcotraffickers in the Caribbean Sea.

REP SETH MOULTON SAYS HEGSETH IS ‘GUILTY’ OF WAR CRIMES, LINKS HIM TO NAZIS TRIED DURING WORLD WAR II

Also related to military action in the Caribbean and South America, Massie’s seventh article accuses Hegseth of the “Kidnapping of a Sovereign Foreign Leader” for his role in Operation Absolute Resolve, the January mission in which U.S. Special Forces apprehended and extracted former Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores from Caracas. Massie’s article condemns Hegseth for doing so “without constitutional or legal authority.”

Article six accuses Hegseth of using his authority to suppress the free speech of Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., by retaliating against the senator for his video in which the senator joined a group of other lawmakers in a video which critics claimed encourage active military members to disobey lawful orders.

The final article charges Hegseth with carrying out unlawful orders in Yemen. The article “charges Secretary Hegseth with initiating Operation Rough Rider without congressional authorization or an imminent threat to the United States, while also violating war powers reporting requirements. It further addresses extensive civilian deaths and unlawful strikes on civilian objects, rescuers, and other protected persons.”

After reading out his articles for over an hour on the House floor, Massie closed out his introduction.

“In all of this, Secretary Hegseth abused the powers entrusted to him as Secretary of Defense by subordinating the constitutional limits on the use of military force and the laws governing the conduct of hostilities to his own policy objectives,” Massie said.

Massie also added that Hegseth “has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to civilians, the lawful conduct of United States military operations, the integrity and credibility of the United States Armed Forces and the Constitution, if allowed to remain in office, and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with his duties, and the rule of law.

This, Massie said, “warrants impeachment and trial, removal from office and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States.”

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Fox News Digital contacted Massie’s office and the Pentagon for further comment.

Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed faced roughly an hour of pointed questions Tuesday over his ties to controversial streamer Hasan Piker, his views on Israel, campaign money and his socialist ties after his Republican rival Mike Rogers declined to participate in a scheduled debate in Detroit Tuesday night.

El-Sayed offered one of his most explicit condemnations yet of Piker’s controversial rhetoric, declined to give a yes-or-no answer when pressed on U.S. recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and pushed back on questions about his relationship with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) during the wide-ranging conversation with the moderator.

Rogers did not attend Tuesday’s event after declining the station’s invitation earlier in the day, leaving El-Sayed to field questions from moderator Roop Raj, viewers and members of the studio audience. 

FOX 2 said both campaigns were invited on Aug. 5, the day after Michigan’s primary, and that El-Sayed quickly accepted, while Rogers did not formally decline until the morning of the Tuesday debate due to objections over Raj serving as the moderator, arguing he was biased.

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On Tuesday evening, Raj pressed El-Sayed on whether he could “completely, 100%” disavow offensive comments Piker had made. The question came just two days after El-Sayed resisted questioning about Piker during an appearance on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”

“Absolutely,” El-Sayed responded to Raj about disavowing Piker’s controversial comments, before specifically addressing the streamer’s recent remarks about Jewish Americans.

“When Hasan made these comments about Jewish Americans and Jewish Michiganders, I disavowed them entirely,” El-Sayed said.

EL-SAYED DISTANCES HIMSELF FROM HASAN PIKER AFTER DISTURBING REMARKS ABOUT JEWISH AMERICANS

El-Sayed went further Tuesday when Raj continued pressing him, saying there were “many, many things” Piker has said that he disagreed with and specifically pointing to the streamer’s comments about 9/11 and Jewish Americans. Still, El-Sayed defended his decision to engage with Piker, arguing that speaking with someone does not amount to endorsing all of that person’s views and saying he wanted to offer Piker’s millions of followers “a pathway back into our politics.”

Meanwhile, El-Sayed declined to give a yes-or-no answer when pressed on whether the United States should continue recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, instead saying he believes “in equal rights to peace, dignity and self-determination for Palestinians and Jewish Israelis alike.”

“People ask this question about the right of the state that actually exists to exist, but I never get asked about the right of the state that does not exist to exist,” he continued. “I don’t get asked about whether or not the state that exists has a right to use our tax dollars to do heinous things. I don’t get asked about whether or not the kids in Detroit have a right to their tax dollars, so I just think the premise of the question is built around trying to ask people to agree to the current status quo that we have seen become a deeply unstable, deeply violent equilibrium.”

ABDUL EL-SAYED PROTESTED AGAINST ‘EX-TERRORISTS’ WHO CONVERTED TO CHRISTIANITY, UNEARTHED REPORT REVEALS

At another tense point, El-Sayed accused Rogers of trying to turn the race into a “culture war” focused on El-Sayed’s ethnicity and Muslim faith. The accusation came as El-Sayed bypassed a direct answer on whether he would return campaign contributions from individuals affiliated with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

Fox News Digital previously reported that El-Sayed’s campaign received more than $115,000 from at least 41 individuals who worked for, previously worked for or held leadership roles with CAIR, which has faced longstanding controversy over alleged ties to Hamas and was named as an unindicted co-conspirator by federal prosecutors in the 2007 Holy Land Foundation terrorism-financing case. CAIR has also been designated a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates and formally designated or labeled as such in Florida and Texas.

MICHIGAN SENATE HOPEFUL CALLS AIPAC DONATIONS ‘LEGALIZED BRIBERY,’ REMAINS SILENT ON OTHER DONATIONS

El-Sayed defended the organization as a civil rights group and accused Rogers of trying to make the election “about the color of my skin or how I pray.”

The exchange came after El-Sayed repeatedly criticized Rogers over his own campaign funding, accusing the Republican of being beholden to corporations. El-Sayed also questioned Rogers earlier in the event over his attendance at American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) fundraisers while discussing Israel.

“I believe in an America that is big enough for all of us: Mike Rogers, Donald Trump, JD Vance,” El-Sayed said Tuesday night. “They believe that some people are more American than others. They think that if you pray a different way, your family comes from a different place, that somehow there’s an asterisk on your American identity.”

Raj, the moderator, followed up, noting that, “JD Vance is the father of the children to an Indian-American,” and adding that the “second lady is an Indian woman who came to this country.”

EL-SAYED’S HASAN PIKER PROBLEM FOLLOWS HIM TO DEM CONVENTION AS JEWISH VOTERS BREAK RANKS

“I think there is diversity amongst that party,” he said.

El-Sayed also pushed back Tuesday night when he was questioned about his relationship with the DSA and whether he shares significant values with the group.

“I’m not a part of the organization,” El-Sayed responded before defending his view of capitalism and arguing that corporate consolidation, rather than government regulation, poses the greater threat to free markets.

“We don’t live in capitalism. We live in corporatism,” he continued. “You don’t have to be a socialist to believe that people deserve health care. You don’t have to be a socialist to believe that we need good roads.”

El-Sayed has repeatedly rejected the socialist label and described himself as a capitalist. The DSA did not endorse his Senate campaign, though prominent democratic socialists have supported, or have been affiliated with his candidacy. CBS News reported last month that El-Sayed said he was not part of DSA but believed the group’s supporters should be welcomed into the Democratic Party’s coalition.

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Fox News Digital previously reported that El-Sayed spoke at six events held by DSA chapters between 2017 and 2020, including a 2019 fundraiser where he served as a keynote speaker. Socialist organizers have also described El-Sayed as a “longtime friend of Detroit DSA,” while El-Sayed told the Wall Street Journal in July that he was “not technically or practically DSA.”

The candidates are scheduled to meet Oct. 8 at WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids and again Oct. 21 at WXYZ in Detroit ahead of the November general election.

A colossal crypto regulatory package backed by President Donald Trump stumbled in the Senate, and another shot is unlikely.

The Clarity Act failed to move through a key procedural hurdle on Tuesday, serving proponents of the bill, including major players in the cryptocurrency industry and the White House, a major blow in their pursuit of folding the novel currency into the nation’s web of financial regulations.

Democrats dealt the bill a mortal blow, but a handful of Republicans with outstanding concerns, including Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Jerry Moran, R-Kan., were not assuaged, either. And with little time left on the Senate’s calendar and major bills piling up ahead of the midterm elections, the bill’s biggest backers believed that the Clarity Act might end up back on the shelf.

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“I think we’re done. It’s over,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., the bill’s primary architect, said. “Because we’ve been working on this bill for over a year. And we’ve given them over 120 of their requests and that’s enough.”

When asked if the bill would come back to the floor, Lummis said, “Nope.”

A midnight hour update was made to the bill to try and pull anyone on the fence off to at least let the package move forward. But it wasn’t enough. And negotiations ran until the very end, just before the vote opened. 

DEMOCRATS HAND TRUMP ONE POWER THEY SPENT YEARS FIGHTING

The issues with the package were many and varying among Democrats and Republicans. Several Senate Democrats were not satisfied with the ethics language baked into the Clarity Act that sought to slow the Trump family’s rapidly growing crypto empire.

That’s because Trump’s income between 2024 and 2025 erupted by about 250% — from just over $620 million to about $2.2 billion.

And much of that increase is attributed to his various holdings and ventures in crypto, which are run by his sons, Don Jr. and Eric, according to the president’s financial disclosure forms reviewed by Fox News Digital.

“We could talk a lot about it,” Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., said of his vote against the bill. “But the simple thing is, it allows the corruption of the president to continue.”

Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., who was working with Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., to strengthen the ethics provision in the package, told Fox News Digital, “We were actually getting very, very close, and at the last minute, the banking staffer from [Sen. Tim] Scott’s office came in and just said, ‘negotiations are over.’”

“And so, I don’t know what happened. You know, we were getting to the point where we were probably going to be able to pass, at least get the motion to proceed, move forward, and then, again, an ethics amendment vote,” Gallego said. 

“But I think they got scared with the fact that they had to take an ethics amendment vote. And that’s why they killed it. They pulled it at that last minute, so it’s bulls—. We were negotiating at the end. At the end of the day, they cared more about protecting the president’s right to grift than trying to get a good bill on digital currency.”

Others didn’t believe that the language dealing with foreign money laundering had enough teeth.

“I have not seen the kind of engagement yet from the Republican side when it comes to countering terrorist financing and cartel financing that would get me to a yes,” Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., said. “I’m still engaged. I didn’t get on board with the GENIUS Act till the very last vote.”

TRUMP’S $5,000 DIVIDEND CHECKS WOULD COME WITH A MAJOR CATCH UNDER GOP SENATOR’S PLAN

Still, some lawmakers argued they should at least move forward with the bill to tweak it as needed.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, was still undecided before the vote. He was worried about how bringing crypto into the fold could affect deposit yields at community banks and guardrails on the currency being “diverted for criminal purposes,” but he argued the bill could be strengthened if they moved forward.

“What we used to do around here is something called legislate,” Cornyn said. “You know where you’d actually vote to get on the bill, but then you amend it, and then you decide whether you’re going to support it on the back end.”

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The bill’s failure does open up the Senate to speedily move to other legislative priorities, like Sen. Ted Cruz’s, R-Texas, college sports bill to add protections to student-athletes and slow the big money train ripping through collegiate athletics.

“We committed to ensure that we got a vote on college sports,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said. “So we’ll see if we have 60 [votes]. I don’t know the answer for sure to that yet. I hope we do.”

The U.S. has weapons orbiting Earth that can be used to defend American forces from attacks in space, the Air Force secretary revealed this week in a rare public acknowledgment of capabilities the Pentagon has largely kept secret.

Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said Monday that the Space Force now has “on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the joint force against hostile adversary action,” but declined to say what the weapons are, how they work or when they were deployed.

The carefully worded disclosure marks a shift in how openly the U.S. military talks about weapons in orbit as China and Russia develop their own capabilities to disrupt, disable or destroy satellites.

TRUMP TO TRANSFORM SPACEFLIGHT FROM SPECTACLE TO STATUS QUO TARGETING 3 LAUNCHES PER DAY

“Is there any question in the room, by anybody, about whether or not the Chinese or Russians have been developing these sorts of weapons?” Meink told reporters after his remarks at the Air & Space Forces Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland — right outside of Washington, D.C.

“For over a decade, we’ve been talking about the fact, and we have expressed concern, that the Chinese and Russians were developing weapons for space,” he continued. “We need to focus on making sure we can protect ourselves operating in that environment.”

Exactly what the U.S. has put into orbit remains a mystery.

The U.S. has previously discussed placing weapons in space, including plans to deploy space-based interceptors capable of destroying incoming missiles as part of President Donald Trump’s Golden Dome missile defense system.

But Meink’s disclosure goes a step further: The Space Force already has weapons in orbit for “space control,” a mission aimed at protecting U.S. access to space and, if necessary, denying an adversary the ability to use it.

The Pentagon has historically revealed little about the weapons developed for that mission, with publicly known U.S. counter-space capabilities largely based on the ground.

“What the U.S. is going for is a wow factor here,” Clayton Swope, deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Fox News Digital. “Wow. The U.S. has never talked about space weapons like this before.”

“That’s really what is exceptional and newsworthy about this revelation,” Swope said. “The U.S. is saying we’re putting weapons in space to make sure that our adversaries can’t use space, or to make sure that we can continue to use space.”

Meink appeared to make clear that the ambiguity surrounding the weapons is intentional. He told reporters his language was “very well thought out” and declined to say whether the systems are kinetic or non-kinetic. Kinetic weapons physically strike or destroy a target — think bombs, bullets and missile — while non-kinetic systems can disrupt or disable it without blowing it up — like cyber attacks or radio jams.

“There are a lot of factors that roll into how we talk about these things,” Meink said, explaining that publicly revealing a capability can contribute to deterrence while disclosing too much about it can undermine that advantage.

“We’re not going to talk about the specifics of what we’re doing, whether we’ve tested it, not tested it, or anything else,” he said. That leaves a wide range of possibilities.

Fox News Digital did not hear back from the Space Force when reached for details of the weapon.

INSIDE AMERICA’S LASER REVOLUTION AS THE MILITARY NEARS BIG BATTLEFIELD BREAKTHROUGH

Swope said “space control weapons” could encompass everything from kinetic systems capable of firing missiles or projectiles at another satellite to jammers that interfere with satellite communications or lasers designed to temporarily overwhelm imaging sensors.

“We really don’t have enough information to know precisely which one of these types of capabilities we’re talking about,” Swope said. “It’s really anybody’s guess what type of weapon we’re talking about.”

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But whatever the Pentagon has deployed, putting a weapon in orbit rather than launching it from Earth could offer one potentially significant advantage: speed and surprise.

A weapon launched from Earth toward a satellite could potentially give an adversary warning that an attack was underway. A capability already positioned in orbit could dramatically shorten that window.

“Maybe something measured at dozens of minutes could be compressed into just mere minutes,” Swope said.

“And you wouldn’t have any indication that maybe a jammer was turned on, on the satellite, other than all of a sudden your signal is being interfered with,” he added.

“If you can act fast without your adversary knowing, if you can have surprise, that gives you a strategic or an asymmetric advantage in combat,” Swope said. “And having systems in orbit do just that.”

Even observing the spacecraft itself may offer few clues about what it can do.

“Space is a very transparent place,” Swope said, noting that governments and civilian observers can track where satellites are, how fast they are moving and what orbits they occupy.

“But what you’ll see often is, oh, it’s a satellite,” he said. “It’s a lot of technology with solar panels and antenna on it. And you don’t really know much beyond that.”

A satellite equipped to jam another spacecraft’s signals, for example, might look much like an ordinary communications satellite.

“Any signal can be a jamming signal,” Swope said. “It just depends on if it’s the one you want to receive, or the one that someone’s trying to use to jam you.”

The concept of weapons operating in orbit is not new. Swope pointed to the Soviet Union’s work on co-orbital anti-satellite weapons dating to the 1960s. Russia has continued developing counterspace capabilities, including systems designed to operate in orbit near other satellites.

China has also developed and tested technologies that could threaten spacecraft, including satellite-servicing and debris-removal systems that have legitimate civilian uses but could potentially be repurposed to interfere with another satellite.

Other forms of interference are already widespread.

“When we talk about jamming and spoofing and cyberattacks against space systems, these happen all the time, both from Russia and China and other countries like North Korea and Iran,” Swope said. “There is so much jamming and spoofing happening around the world right now, it’s almost ubiquitous.”

Those attacks can target systems such as GPS and satellite communications without physically destroying a spacecraft.

That distinction could become critical during a conflict. Jamming, spoofing or cyberattacks may remain below the threshold that prompts a major military response, while physically destroying a satellite could represent a significant escalation.

“If you drop a bomb on a satellite ground station or you shoot a missile at a satellite in space, that’s a big difference,” Swope said. “That’s a huge escalation.”

The stakes are particularly high because modern U.S. warfare is deeply dependent on space-based systems for communications, navigation, intelligence, missile warning and targeting.

“Space is an enabler of joint operations,” Swope said. “We can’t do military operations the way that we do them today without satellites, without systems in space.”

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China increasingly faces the same dependency, making control of space potentially decisive in a conflict between the two powers.

“Whoever has space and can deny that to their adversary has a huge asymmetric advantage in a conflict,” Swope said.

“China depends on space as well, and their use of space for joint operations looks very much like the United States,” he added. “Both countries, I would go so far as to say, depend on space to conduct military operations on Earth.”

The Trump administration announced new visa restrictions Tuesday targeting foreign nationals in South Africa who it says are responsible for race-based discrimination, uncompensated land seizures or inciting imminent violence against racial and ethnic minorities.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the policy under a provision of federal immigration law allowing him to deem foreign nationals inadmissible when their entry into the U.S. could have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.

The restrictions will target foreign nationals who are responsible for, or complicit in, enacting or implementing laws or policies that the State Department says enable uncompensated land seizures, race-based discrimination or the incitement of imminent violence against minority ethnic or racial groups in South Africa.

RUBIO UNVEILS VISA RESTRICTIONS TARGETING CYBERCRIME NETWORKS

Rubio sharpened the administration’s criticism of the South African government in a post on X announcing the restrictions Tuesday.

“As @POTUS has made clear, the South African people are being failed by a government that is destroying its economy through an obsessive pursuit of racial grievance against the Afrikaner minority,” Rubio wrote.

Rubio accused South Africa‘s government of failing to adequately address rural crime, what he described as “violent and dehumanizing rhetoric,” and discriminatory policies targeting Afrikaners and other minority groups.

RUBIO PUSHES BACK ON INDIA’S CONCERNS OVER US VISA CURBS, SAYS POLICY MUST BE ‘AMERICA FIRST’ UNDER TRUMP

“Those responsible for these injustices have no place in the United States,” Rubio wrote.

Family members may also be subject to the restrictions, according to the State Department.

The announcement marks the latest escalation in the Trump administration’s dispute with the South African government over its treatment of Afrikaners and other minority populations.

‘NARCO-TERRORIST’ FAMILY MEMBERS TARGETED IN RUBIO’S LATEST VISA CRACKDOWN

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in February 2025 directing federal agencies to halt aid to South Africa to the extent permitted by law and directing the State and Homeland Security departments to prioritize humanitarian relief for Afrikaners who the administration says are victims of racial discrimination.

The order specifically cited South Africa’s Expropriation Act and accused the government of enabling the seizure of Afrikaner agricultural property without compensation, along with pursuing other discriminatory policies.

Rubio said Tuesday that the administration does not believe South Africa has adequately addressed its concerns.

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The new restrictions are being imposed under Section 212(a)(3)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, according to the State Department.

The White House and State Department did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.