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An official with the Department of Homeland Security told state election officials Wednesday that federal immigration agents will not be stationed at polling locations during the November midterm elections, as some Democrats have warned the Trump administration could attempt to interfere in the elections through intimidation or racial profiling.

Heather Honey, DHS’ deputy assistant secretary for election integrity, told secretaries of state on a call that “any suggestion that ICE will be present at any polling location is simply not true,” according to Arizona’s Democrat Secretary of State Adrian Fontes.

A spokeswoman for Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read, also a Democrat, said Honey likewise assured officials that immigration agents would not be stationed at polling locations. Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams, a Republican, also posted on X that DHS “confirms to Secretaries of State that ICE agents will not be at voting locations this year.”

Honey, who has previously endorsed claims that President Donald Trump won the 2020 election against former President Joe Biden, participated in the call, which also included representatives of the FBI, US Election Assistance Commission, Postal Service and other federal agencies to discuss coordination ahead of the midterms.

Fox News Digital has reached out to DHS for comment.

This comes as several Democrats have expressed concern that immigration agents may be placed at polling locations to intimidate Americans who fear they could be racially profiled and targeted if they show up to vote.

“I’m talking about something that I think would be extraordinary in American history, which is uniformed and masked ICE agents encircling polling places,” Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., said at a recent congressional hearing. “And it’s not fantasy, and it’s not made up. We need to be clear-eyed about that. These are things that the president and his cabinet have suggested.”

The Department of Justice has been filing lawsuits seeking detailed voter data, though the department has not publicly detailed its specific rationale for each request.

Trump has also renewed his claims that there was widespread fraud in the 2020 election, claims that have been widely disputed and rejected by courts, and has called on administration officials to investigate that election.

Earlier this month, the FBI executed a search warrant at an election office in Fulton County, Georgia, seizing ballots and other voting records from 2020, according to local officials. A Democratic stronghold, Fulton County includes Atlanta. The Peach State went to Biden in 2020, but Trump carried the state in 2024.

Democratic officials and public interest lawyers across the country have been concerned for months about the possibility of Trump’s interference in the midterms voting and ballot counting.

Democrats have pointed out that Trump was willing to attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss, pardoned those involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and has filled his administration with allies who backed his attempts to overturn the election defeat.

The U.S. Constitution affirms that states run elections, not federal officials. Most states have their Secretary of State oversee elections.

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Participants on the call said Democrat secretaries of state asked Honey several questions about the administration’s cuts to election security funding and its efforts to root out noncitizen voting, which is already illegal and rare, as well as concerns about federal law enforcement officers appearing at polling places.

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The White House has dismissed those concerns, saying there was no disruption during last year’s election when Democrats performed well.

During a congressional hearing earlier this month, Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons and Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott both said they were not involved in any efforts to patrol voting places.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Democrats were mocked on social media Tuesday night and Wednesday after multiple clips from their State of the Union boycott rally went viral, including when a Trump supporter crashed a speech by Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.

The People’s State of the Union, which is what the Democrats called their boycott rally, included several Democratic lawmakers like Murphy; Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz.; Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.; Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash.; and others.

“Go, Trump!” the protester said while throwing up the peace sign in front of Murphy, who was on the stage at the time and watched as security pulled the man away from the podium.

“Hey Murphy, you’re a scumbag,” the protester said.

“Thanks, buddy,” Murphy replied.

Audiences online immediately began mocking the incident and hailing the Trump supporter as an American “patriot.”

“A patriot CRASHED the Democrats’ little counter-State of the Union out in front of the Capitol, making his way on stage. Tonight was just a MASSIVE, all-around failure for Democrats,” one commentator said in a post to social media. 

While the group struggled to attract supporters, Democratic lawmakers flocked to the event as a reason to skip President Donald Trump’s address Tuesday.

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Over 20 Democrats from both chambers of Congress attended the event, including senators Ed Markey, D-Mass.; Merkley.; Murphy; Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.; and Tina Smith, D-Minn.

From the House of Representatives, members who joined included Reps. Yassamin Ansari, D-Ariz.; Becca Balint, D-Vt.; Greg Casar, D-Texas; Veronica Escobar, D-Texas; Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash.; John Larson, D-Conn.; Sydney Kamlager-Dove, D-Calif.; Delia Ramirez, D-Ill.; Sara Jacobs, D-Calif.; Emily Randall, D-Wash.; and Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J.

These Democrats framed the event as a way to address the country’s state in their own words.

“I am not at the State of the Union speech tonight because Donald Trump is making a mockery of this institution, and he doesn’t deserve an audience,” Murphy said.

“I am not at the State of the Union speech tonight because these are not normal times, and Democrats have to stop behaving normally.”

TRUMP’S ‘HOME RUN’ SOTU SPEECH SPARKS PRAISE FROM CONSERVATIVES ONLINE WHILE LEAVING DEMOCRATS SEETHING

Viewers online, however, mocked the effort as little more than a partisan tantrum.

“COURIER, the fake news organization led by Sen. Chris Murphy’s girlfriend, held a SOTU counterprogramming event w/ Miles Taylor’s group Defiance,” Chuck Ross, a senior investigative reporter at The Washington Free Beacon, wrote on X. 

“One speaker posed as ‘K-K-Karoline Leavitt.’ which is a pretty bizarre and lazy dig.”

“I felt like crying tonight, so I turned on the ‘People’s State of the Union,’” a GOP communications director wrote in a X post.

“A patriot just crashed the stage at Chris Murphy’s protest outside the State of the Union,” conservative influencer CJ Pearson wrote on X.

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After the Trump supporter was escorted off the stage, former MSNBC host Joy Reid said, “Attention MAGA trolls, your bulls— is not welcome here.”

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

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The Department of Veterans Affairs announced that the backlog of VA disability compensation and pension benefit claims is “consistently” under 100,000 for the first time since 2020.

The last time the backlog was this low was in May 2020, during President Donald Trump’s first term in the White House.

“Under President Trump, VA is providing Veterans, families, caregivers and survivors all of the benefits they have earned as quickly and conveniently as possible,” Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins said in a news release.

This milestone means the department has now slashed the backlog of veterans waiting for VA benefits by 63% since Trump returned to office in January 2025 after it rose 24% under the Biden administration, according to the release.

The department said that reducing the claims backlog has been an urgent priority for Collins.

The claims backlog was well above 100,000 from 2021 to 2024 during the Biden administration and was at 264,717 when Trump returned to office. During Trump’s first administration, the department reached the lowest disability claims backlog on Dec. 21, 2019, when it was at 64,783 claims.

A VA claim for compensation or pension is considered backlogged once it has been pending in the claims inventory for more than 125 days, the department said.

VA TO RESTORE EDUCATION BENEFITS ELIGIBILITY TO VETERANS OUSTED UNDER BIDEN-ERA COVID VACCINE MANDATE

In 2013, a record-high 70% of claims were more than 125 days old. Today, that figure has dropped to just 17%, according to the department.

“VA’s claims processing productivity is the highest it has ever been, and we look forward to continuing to provide record levels of service to Veterans and VA beneficiaries,” Collins said in the release.

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The department said this is one of several nationwide achievements during Trump’s second term, which also include opening more than 30 new VA health care facilities, expanding veterans’ access to health care, and permanently housing more than 50,000 homeless veterans in fiscal year 2025 — the highest total in seven years.

“We’re not just talking about the American Dream; we’re making it more accessible for the heroes who defended it,” Collins wrote on X.

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The FBI subpoenaed Kash Patel and Susie Wiles’ phone records in 2022 and 2023, when both were private citizens, as part of a federal probe into then former President Donald Trump, Fox News has confirmed.

Patel is the current FBI director, and Wiles is White House chief of staff.

At least 10 FBI employees were also fired Wednesday, Fox News was told. Names were not given due to privacy reasons, with the FBI Agents Association (FBIAA) later criticizing the firings.

“The FBIAA condemns today’s unlawful termination of FBI Special Agents, which—like other firings by Director Patel—violates the due process rights of those who risk their lives to protect our country,” the organization said in a statement.

“These actions weaken the Bureau by stripping away critical expertise and destabilizing the workforce, undermining trust in leadership and jeopardizing the Bureau’s ability to meet its recruitment goals—ultimately putting the nation at greater risk.”

Reuters first disclosed the subpoenas, which were issued during the Biden administration, while special counsel Jack Smith was investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.

Smith ended up charging Trump in 2023 with multiple felony offenses related to alleged efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 election and Trump’s handling of the documents after he left office.

A federal judge later dismissed the election interference case after Smith moved to drop it following Trump’s re-election, citing a Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president. 

Smith also dropped the Justice Department’s appeal of a separate ruling that dismissed the classified documents case. Trump has denied any wrongdoing in both matters.

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In a statement to Fox News Wednesday, Patel called the move to seize the phone records “outrageous and deeply alarming.” 

“It is outrageous and deeply alarming that the previous FBI leadership secretly subpoenaed my own phone records — along with those of now White House chief of staff Susie Wiles — using flimsy pretexts and burying the entire process in prohibited case files designed to evade all oversight,” he said.

The FBI had found the phone records in files labeled as “Prohibited,” Reuters reported.

Patel also said he recently ended the FBI’s ability to categorize files as “Prohibited.”

Fox News also learned from two FBI officials that in 2023, FBI agents recorded a phone call between Wiles and her attorney.

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

According to those officials, Wiles’ attorney was aware the call was being recorded and consented, but Wiles was not informed.

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Smith testified last year that records of members’ calls helped investigators verify the timeline of events surrounding the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

He said prosecutors “followed all legal requirements in getting those records” and told a House panel the records obtained from lawmakers did not include the content of conversations, Reuters reported.

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Legal experts and commentators toed a careful line Wednesday in responding to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address, with many using the moment to weigh in on the broader legal and political climate itself, rather than Trump’s actual remarks.

Some of the biggest moments of Trump’s address included his response to the Supreme Court’s 6–3 ruling that invalidated his use of a 1977 emergency law to impose tariffs on most U.S. trading partners, as well as his administration’s crackdown on violent crime in major U.S. cities, among other things.

“This is the golden age of America,” Trump proclaimed Tuesday night. “And you’ve seen nothing yet. We’re going to do better, and better, and better.” 

Trump struck a notably measured tone in responding to the Supreme Court’s tariff ruling during the State of the Union, briefly describing the 6–3 majority decision as “unfortunate” before pivoting to highlight the 10% import fees his administration had announced shortly after the high court’s ruling under Section 122 of the U.S. Trade Act of 1974.

“Countries that were ripping us off for decades are now paying us hundreds of billions of dollars,” Trump said of the tariffs, which he previously described as “life or death” for the nation’s economy. 

“The good news is that almost all countries and corporations want to keep the deal that they already made” with the U.S., Trump said Tuesday night, “knowing that the legal power that I as president have to make a new deal could be far worse for them.” 

“Therefore, they will continue to work along the same successful path that we had negotiated before the Supreme Court’s unfortunate involvement,” he added. 

Four of the nine Supreme Court justices present for the State of the Union, including Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Elena Kagan and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who had ruled against Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, to unilaterally enact his tariffs. 

Trump’s comments marked a shift from his more abrasive tone in the immediate aftermath of the tariff decision, when he said the high court was “incompetent” and that the majority should be “absolutely ashamed” of themselves “for not having the courage to do what’s right for our country.”

TRUMP TAKES DIRECT SOTU SWIPE AT DEMOCRATS OVER TAXES: ‘TO HURT THE PEOPLE’

Trump’s remarks during the State of the Union were a nod to his new tariffs he invoked under Section 122, or a statute that allows a sitting president to impose sweeping tariffs for up to 150 days in response to either large or serious U.S. “balance-of-payments deficits,” or in response to situations that pose “fundamental international payments problems” for the U.S. Congress can extend them once the 150-day period ends. 

But some experts have questioned the legality of using Section 122 to invoke the broad global tariffs — signaling what could be more legal challenges to come. 

Gita Gopinath, Harvard economics professor and former senior International Monetary Fund official, noted on social media: “As long as there is plenty of demand for US debt and equities, which is the case, the US does not have a ‘payments’ problem. It can finance its trade deficits easily.” 

“The first thing to note is that the statute does not apply to the current US international payments position,” the Peterson Institute’s Kimberly Clausing and Maurice Obstfeld said Monday. “Indeed, the president’s own lawyers argued in the IEEPA case that Section 122 was no substitute for IEEPA, since balance of payment deficits are conceptually distinct from the current account and trade deficits that Trump has characterized as an emergency.” 

Separately, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., vowed that his caucus would not approve Trump’s bid to extend tariffs beyond the 150-day period. 

“We will not extend those tariffs,” Schumer declared, urging Republicans to join Democrats in blocking them.

Schumer linked the tariffs to higher costs of groceries, cars, and homes. 

“Americans are suffering, because (Trump) is raising tariffs,” Schumer said. 

Trump also used his remarks to tout the significant drop-off in violent crime during his first year back in the White House, reiterating his administration’s claim that the U.S. murder rate dropped to its lowest point in 125 years in 2025. 

FROM GRIEF TO GOLD MEDALS, TRUMP’S SOTU GUEST LIST TELLS A BIGGER STORY

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt previously pointed Fox News Digital and other outlets to recent data from the Council on Criminal Justice that she said shows that Trump is “delivering overwhelmingly on his promise” to restore law and order in the U.S.

“A study from the Council on Criminal Justice shows that the murder rate across America’s largest cities plummeted in 2025 to its lowest level since at least 1900,” Leavitt told reporters. “Let me repeat to put this in perspective, this marks the largest single-year drop in murders in recorded history.” 

Nationwide homicide data released later in 2026 could show killings in 2025 falling to roughly 4.0 per 100,000 residents – the lowest rate ever recorded in law enforcement or public health data dating back to 1900 and the largest single-year percentage drop on record.

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Reactions to the speech — and Trump’s policies — vary, but the president did win some praise from across the aisle.

“As a voter, I may not like him. I may find his long form exhausting. But when he speaks, he never wavers from American exceptionalism,” Michael Ceraso, a Democratic strategist with a background in speechwriting, told Fox News Digital.

“I see someone protecting our cities against those he deems a threat to democracy, revving up the economy, managing global partners, and defeating terrorism.

Fox News Digital’s Charlie Creitz, Emma Colton and Michael Ruiz contributed to this report.

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Symone Sanders, who formerly served as a top advisor to Vice President Kamala Harris and the 2020 Biden campaign, complained during President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday night that the Olympic gold-winning U.S. men’s hockey team “allowed themselves to be used as political props.”

“They should not be used as political props though, and, frankly, allowed themselves to be used as political props,” Sanders, who is co-hosting a weeknight show on MS NOW, said after the president introduced the team during his address. He later gave the nation’s highest civilian honor to the team’s goalie. 

“I think that is going to be the question and the discussion going forward,” she continued. “It is very clear why the president did this. What is unclear, to me, is why the men’s hockey team allowed themselves to be utilized in this particular fashion.”

Sanders went on to claim that “no one is against USA and our Olympic athletes.”

Critics on X slammed the MS NOW host as a “political prop” herself in response to her criticism. Others pointed out that the hockey team’s appearance was one of the only times Democrats stood throughout Trump’s speech.

“Miserable people. Just miserable,” a prominent conservative video producer wrote on X.

“Shut the puck up!” conservative media personality Bo Snerdley posted on X.

“Because Democrats never use people as political props,” Tim Graham, the NewsBusters executive editor, sarcastically wrote on X.

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Polling data showed that the president’s introduction of the gold medal-winning USA men’s Olympic hockey team during the State of the Union address on Tuesday night was met with largely positive bipartisan reactions among voters.

Lee Carter of the polling group Maslansky + Partners, said independent voters especially loved the moment when the players entered the House Chamber wearing their gold medals and USA sweatshirts and were met with thunderous “U-S-A” chants.

Trump had invited the team to the State of the Union address Sunday night as it celebrated a 2-1 win over Canada in the finals of the Winter Olympics. While honoring the team during his address, President Trump added he would honor goaltender Connor Hellebuyck with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

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According to the polling group, visual dials showed independent voter reaction had the largest spike during the moment. Dials showed reaction from Republican voters, who were already energized by the speech, also increased, while reaction from Democrat voters, who were overall the least enthused during Trump’s speech, also saw a slight bump.

The polling group said 29 Democrat voters, 41 Republican voters and 30 Independent voters were involved in the voter dials.

Fox News Digital’s Stephen Sorace contributed to this report

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The Trump administration has moved to block the Venezuelan government from covering the legal expenses of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro as he fights federal drug trafficking and weapons charges in New York, according to a court filing from his attorney.

Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, pleaded not guilty in federal court in New York on Jan. 5 to drug trafficking and weapons charges, days after American forces captured them at the presidential palace in Venezuela.

In a letter to U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who is overseeing the case in the Southern District of New York, Maduro’s lawyer, Barry Pollack, said the U.S. was preventing the Venezuelan government from covering his client’s legal fees.

“The government of Venezuela has an obligation to pay Mr. Maduro’s fees. Mr. Maduro has a legitimate expectation that the government of Venezuela would do so, and Mr. Maduro cannot otherwise afford counsel,” Pollack wrote.

In the letter, dated Feb. 20, Pollack argued that under “Venezuelan law and custom, the government of Venezuela pays the expenses of the President and First Lady.”

Pollack said that Maduro and the Venezuelan government were subjected to sanctions by the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), and his legal counsel would need to be granted a license to represent him and be paid.

While Pollack said OFAC granted licenses for both Maduro and Flores on Jan. 9, Maduro’s license was amended “without explanation” to not allow the Venezuelan government to pay for his defense costs.

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Flores’ license was not impacted, according to Pollack.

Pollack said that OFAC is “interfering with Mr. Maduro’s ability to retain counsel” and violating his Sixth Amendment right to counsel of his choice.

Maduro’s attorney said OFAC has not responded to his request to reinstate the original license and threatened to take legal action if it continued to do so.

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“If OFAC fails to act on the request to reinstate the original license, or denies that request, Mr. Maduro will file a formal motion in the coming days seeking relief from the Court,” he wrote.

The U.S. military conducted an operation to capture Maduro in Caracas on Jan. 3. He was flown to New York, where he is being held in a federal jail.

Maduro was charged with narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.

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Flores faces three charges: cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.

Fox News Digital reached out to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the Treasury Department for comment.

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Prominent figures from across the media, business and political landscapes showed up as guests to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday evening.

Notable attendees included Erika Kirk, the widowed wife of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, David Ellison, the media mogul and CEO of Paramount, and Kevin O’Leary, the Shark Tank media personality and businessman.

Several of the more notable attendees were highlighted by Trump during his address.

Kirk received a mention from the president as he condemned political violence of all kinds in his address.

“We must all come together to reaffirm that America is one nation under God, and we must totally reject political violence of any kind,” Trump said.

Charlie Kirk, who was just 31-years-old at the time of his death, was killed by a gunman on Sept. 10, 2025, while conducting a political debate event at Utah Valley University.

The U.S. men’s hockey team also made an appearance on Tuesday, receiving praise from Trump fresh off their gold medal victory in the 2026 Winter Olympic Games.

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“Congratulations to team U.S.A.,” Trump said as the players streamed into the chamber during the address.

Trump also highlighted guests brought by others, like First Lady Melania Trump. She invited 10-year-old Everest Nevraumont, a youth advocate for education through artificial intelligence.

“I challenge keeping America’s next generation positioned to succeed and strongly succeed in the future,” Trump said.

Trump also used guests like Enrique Márquez, a former political prisoner of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, to remind audiences of his international achievements under his second administration.

In early 2026, the U.S. stormed Venezuela’s capitol city and captured Maduro, giving Trump newfound leverage in negotiations over the country’s future.

“We’re working closely with the new president of Venezuela to unleash extraordinary economic gains for both of our countries,” Trump said.

The White House reunited Márquez with his family at the State of the Union. 

Trump also awarded the Purple Heart to Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe and deceased Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, two National Guard members who were critically injured and fatally shot by a gunman who ambushed them while on duty last year in Washington, D.C.

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“I’m going to ask a highly respected General James Seward to present Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe and the great family of Sarah Beckstrom, with the award created by our late, great president, George Washington himself,” Trump, who invited her parents as his State of the Union guests, said. “It’s called the Purple Heart. We love you all.”

As Trump spoke, Major General James “Jim” D. Seward, Adjutant General of the West Virginia National Guard, presented Specialist Beckstrom’s medal to her parents and pinned the Purple Heart on Staff Sergeant Wolfe in the viewing gallery above.

Guests like O’Leary and Ellison did not receive a shoutout from the president, but mingled with multiple lawmakers.

O’Leary, primarily known for his television presence on ABC’s Shark Tank, owns companies like O’Leary Ventures and O’Leary Fine Wines. 

In recent years, O’Leary has surfaced as a political commentator, giving his thoughts on the effectiveness of political party messaging, voter sentiments and more.

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Ellison is the current chairman and CEO of Paramount Skydance Corporation keeps a relatively low political profile but, in the past, has made several high-dollar donations to many Democratic candidates despite now calling himself a friend of President Trump.

Trump has boasted publicly about a personal relationship with Ellison.

Most recently, Ellison has made headlines for his attempt to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery — a move that would solidify Ellison and Paramount as titans in the media world.

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He was seen walking into the House of Representatives on Tuesday alongside Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who invited him.

“Honored to have David Ellison as my guest to POTUS’ State of the Union address this evening,” Graham said in a post to X.

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The crackdown on fraud in Minnesota will serve as a blueprint for a new Department of Justice office focused on protecting taxpayer funds from scams, President Donald Trump‘s pick to serve as the nation’s “fraud czar” explained in his nomination hearing Wednesday. 

“The work in Minnesota has been pivotal. The work of the U.S. Attorney’s office there, and the personnel there, has been pivotal to highlighting the problems of fraud that permeate our taxpayer funded programs,” nominee to serve as assistant attorney general for a new Justice Department division tasked with rooting out fraud, Colin McDonald, said Wednesday. 

“That sort of effort … is what the National Fraud Enforcement Division will be looking to do and scale to an extent that we’ve not seen before within the Department of Justice,” he continued. 

Trump tapped McDonald as the nominee in January, just days after establishing the Department of Justice’s new division for national fraud enforcement that will “investigate, prosecute, and remedy fraud affecting the Federal government,” according to the White House. The new office follows a sweeping Minnesota fraud scandal, where hundreds of millions of dollars was allegedly swindled from taxpayers through welfare and social services programs.

“I will be working with the inspectors general community,” McDonald continued. “With our federal agencies and federal partners, with our state and local partners to ensure that we find the fraud where it’s occurring and that we have the resources to prosecute it, to investigate it and prosecute it, and ultimately ensure that the fraud that we’re seeing annually, perpetrated against these programs comes to an end.”

McDonald appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday morning, where lawmakers grilled the nominee about the new office, how it will operate and if it will operate independently of the White House. 

Trump delivered his State of the Union address Tuesday evening and announced Vice President JD Vance will lead the administration’s “war on fraud.” 

McDonald explained that his office will work to tackle all fraud bleeding taxpayers, citing Government Accountability Office data that estimates between $320 billion to $520 billion in taxpayer funds is lost to fraud on an annual basis. 

“My commitment is to work tirelessly to build a division, a national fraud enforcement division, where no fraud is too big for the Department of Justice, and no fraud is too small for the Department of Justice,” he continued. 

At the top of lawmakers’ minds were fraud concerns surrounding Obamacare and senior citizens. 

Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn cited that the Government Accountability Office could not reconcile over $21 billion in Obamacare marketplace subsidies in tax year 2023 during his questioning of McDonald. 

HEAVILY-REDACTED AUDIT FINDS MINNESOTA MEDICAID HAD WIDESPREAD VULNERABILITIES

“I commit to working tirelessly to root out the sort of fraud that you’ve identified there, and to make sure that every single dollar that’s supposed to go to these programs actually goes to the programs, to the beneficiaries, the intended beneficiaries of these programs, and not to fraudsters. That is my commitment,” McDonald told Cornyn during the hearing regarding potential fraud surrounding Affordable Care Act subsidies. 

Scams targeting the elderly also took the spotlight throughout the hearing. Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, pressed McDonald on his efforts to protect seniors from scams, noting that America’s seniors lose $28 billion annually to financial schemes. 

The fraud czar nominee pledged that the DOJ would work to protect seniors from the increasingly high-tech scams, which often include using artificial intelligence to confuse and swindle people, noting that the fraud affects entire families. 

“It’s not just the grandmothers and the grandfathers, it’s also their family members who bear the weight of these scams and the fraud that’s perpetrated against them,” he said. “My grandmother, one of them, turns 89 years old in two days. And she has seen these … sorts of efforts toward her. And it’s a major issue that the Department of Justice is focused on, and we will be using all available tools to ensure that we combat that problem.”

The massive Minnesota fraud case has reverberated across the nation, with federal Republican lawmakers reinvigorating calls to tighten and monitor the release of taxpayer funds to various programs, most notably social and welfare offices. 

DR OZ DETAILS ‘WEAPONIZATION OF FRAUD’ IN MINNESOTA, ESTIMATES TOTAL MEDICAID FRAUD TO BE $100 BILLION

Trump spotlighted the fraud in his State of the Union address Tuesday, claiming the scams are even worse in states such as California, Massachusetts, Maine.” 

“When it comes to the corruption that is plundering — it really, it’s plundering America — there’s been no more stunning example than Minnesota, where members of the Somali community have pillaged an estimated $19 billion from the American taxpayer. Oh, we have all the information,” Trump said Tuesday. 

“And in actuality, the number is much higher than that, and California, Massachusetts, Maine and many other states are even worse. This is the kind of corruption that shreds the fabric of a nation, and we are working on it like you wouldn’t believe,” he continued, before naming Vance as the administration leader taking on fraud. 

The White House referred Fox Digital to Trump’s State of the Union comments and McDonald’s testimony when approached for additional comment on the federal fraud crackdown efforts. 

FEDERAL WELFARE SPENDING IS A FRAUD MAGNET — AND TAXPAYERS ARE PAYING THE PRICE

Vance joined Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom” Wednesday, and said his efforts will include a “full, whole government approach” to investigating fraud concerns, and enlisting the Justice and Treasury Departments to lead probe on fiscal records. 

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“There’s a whole host of tools that we have that have never been used, and the president and I talked about this a couple of months ago and said, ‘What if we just did everything that we could to stop the fraud that’s being committed against the American taxpayer?’ The president said, ‘Great idea, let’s do it,’ and we’re going to work on that very aggressively over the next year,” Vance said. 

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As President Donald Trump vowed to wage a “war on fraud” during his State of the Union address Tuesday, a panel of voters across the political spectrum had mixed reactions.

The panel, assembled by polling group Maslansky & Partners and comprising 29 Democrats, 30 independents and 41 Republicans, gave real-time reactions as Trump spoke. The reactions were displayed on a line graph where high values represented positive reactions and low values indicated negative reactions.

Trump said corruption was “plundering America” and said the most “stunning example” was in Minnesota, where welfare fraud has been a focal point and a child nutrition program scheme, in particular, led to dozens of prosecutions under the Biden administration.

A line graph showed Republican voters were receptive as Trump spoke, while Democratic voters had a negative reaction and independents were neutral.

“Members of the Somali community have pillaged an estimated $19 billion from the American taxpayer,” Trump said, an apparent reference to the potential cost of Medicaid fraud in the state since 2018, as revealed by a Minnesota federal prosecutor last year. While it is unclear what links the Somali community has to the Medicaid claim, the vast majority of defendants in the separate $250 million child nutrition program fraud findings were of Somali descent.

Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz has said Trump is “demonizing” the Somali community, that Trump’s claims about his state are overstated and a political distraction, and that the president is the “biggest fraudster.”

OMAR SHOUTS ‘YOU ARE A MURDERER’ AND ‘LIAR’ AT TRUMP DURING STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS

Trump contended during his speech that California, Massachusetts, Maine and “many other states” were “even worse” than Minnesota.

The White House has taken a multi-agency approach to its fraud initiative, giving the Departments of Justice, Treasury, Health and Human Services and others roles in identifying abuse of welfare systems across the country.

“This is the kind of corruption that shreds the fabric of a nation, and we are working on it like you wouldn’t believe,” Trump said. “So tonight, although it started four months ago, I am officially announcing the war on fraud to be led by our great vice president, JD Vance.”

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Trump claimed that if the administration could find enough fraud, “we will actually have a balanced budget overnight.”

“It’ll go very quickly,” Trump said. “That’s the kind of money you’re talking about. We’ll balance our budget.”

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Vice President JD Vance announced Wednesday that the Trump administration is temporarily halting Medicaid funding to the state of Minnesota, giving Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz 60 days to clean up how the state doles out funding. 

“We have decided to temporarily halt certain amounts of Medicaid funding that are going to the state of Minnesota in order to ensure that the state of Minnesota takes its obligations seriously to be good stewards of the American people’s tax money,” Vance said Wednesday in a press event attended by Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Mehmet Oz. 

The announcement comes after President Donald Trump railed against fraud in the Gopher State Tuesday evening in his State of the Union address. 

The administration and Congress have zeroed in on rampant abuse of federal taxpayers’ funds since December 2025, when details of Minnesota’s fraud surrounding social programs and welfare programs stretching back to the COVID-19 pandemic first came under the national spotlight. Investigators have since estimated the Minnesota scheme could top $9 billion. 

Trump pointed to his vice president as leading the administration’s “war on fraud” amid his State of the Union remarks. 

Vance explained Wednesday that “we are stopping the federal payments that will go to the state government until the state government takes its obligations seriously to stop the fraud that’s being perpetrated against the American taxpayer.”

The vice president continued that officials have verified that a program in Minnesota intended to provide after-school care to autistic children actually benefited fraudsters. 

“A lot of people are getting rich off the generosity of American taxpayers,” Vance said. “But more fundamentally, and more importantly than that, it means that there are kids in Minnesota who deserve these services, who need these services, and they’re not going to those kids. They’re going to fraudsters in Minneapolis. That is unacceptable. And that’s the sort of thing that we’re cutting off with this action today.” 

Oz added that it is that the pause marks “the largest action against fraud that we’ve ever taken” at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, before launching into how the administration is deferring funds to the state.

HEAVILY-REDACTED AUDIT FINDS MINNESOTA MEDICAID HAD WIDESPREAD VULNERABILITIES

“It’s going to be $259 million of deferred payments for Medicaid to Minnesota, which we’re announcing as I speak, to Governor Walz and his team,” Oz said. “That’s based on an audit of the last three months of 2025. Restated: a quarter billion dollars is not going to be paid this month to Minnesota for its Medicaid claims.” 

“We have notified the state and said that we will give them the money, but we’re going to hold it and only release it after they propose and act on a comprehensive corrective action plan to solve the problem,” Oz said. “If Minnesota fails to clean up the systems, the state will rack up $1 billion of deferred payments this year.”

Walz has 60 days to respond to a letter Oz and the administration sent to Walz on the matter, Oz said. 

Fox News Digital reached out to Walz’s office Wednesday afternoon for comment and has yet to receive a reply. 

Oz continued that he believes Walz will take the matter seriously, and noted fraud is not exclusive to Minnesota, but also other states. 

“These schemes disproportionately involve immigrant communities,” Oz continued. “They’re insulated, they’re able to … organize efforts, and sometimes they don’t understand what’s going on.” 

Vance added that the administration does not want to make this move, but it is needed due to Minnesota being “careless with federal tax dollars.”

“All we need the governor and the administration of Minnesota to do is something quite simple, which is to show that before you give Medicaid funds to somebody, you’re taking seriously whether they provided the services that they say that they’re providing,” the vice president said, calling the fraud a “disgrace.”

MINNESOTA DEMOCRATS DEMAND REPARATIONS FROM ICE AFTER LOSING $18 BILLION TO SOMALI FRAUD

Trump spotlighted the fraud in his State of the Union address Tuesday, underscoring that while Minnesota has taken the spotlight, schemes run deep in other states as well. 

“When it comes to the corruption that is plundering — it really, it’s plundering America — there’s been no more stunning example than Minnesota, where members of the Somali community have pillaged an estimated $19 billion from the American taxpayer,” Trump said. “Oh, we have all the information.” 

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“And in actuality, the number is much higher than that, and California, Massachusetts, Maine and many other states are even worse. This is the kind of corruption that shreds the fabric of a nation, and we are working on it like you wouldn’t believe,” he continued, before naming Vance as the administration leader taking on fraud. 

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Republicans were pleased when President Donald Trump spoke during the State of the Union address Tuesday about his plan to continue imposing global tariffs after the Supreme Court dealt him a setback, according to live reactions from a panel of voters.

The panel, assembled by polling group Maslansky & Partners and made up of 29 Democrats, 30 independents and 41 Republicans, gave real-time reactions as Trump spoke. The responses were displayed on a line graph, with higher values indicating positive reactions and lower values indicating negative reactions.

Trump called the Supreme Court’s decision striking down the tariffs “unfortunate” as four justices sat stone-faced in the front row of the House chamber.

It is customary for justices to be invited to the address, though not all typically attend. Chief Justice John Roberts and justices Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh attended Tuesday.

Trump touted the tariffs, which he unilaterally imposed last year under an emergency law, as a key negotiating tool, saying they helped him broker peace deals between other countries and generated billions of dollars in revenue. The Supreme Court found that Trump illegally bypassed Congress by invoking the law, known as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

But “just four days ago, an unfortunate ruling from the United States Supreme Court, it just came down, a very unfortunate ruling,” Trump said, as the dials on the line graph showed Republicans reacting approvingly and Democrats and independents responding negatively.

SPEECHWRITERS FROM REAGAN TO BIDEN AGREE: TRUMP’S SOTU IS A CRITICAL TEST FOR HIS SECOND TERM

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“The good news is that almost all countries and corporations want to keep the deal that they already made … knowing that the legal power that I as president have to make a new deal could be far worse for them. And, therefore, they will continue to work along the same successful path that we had negotiated before the Supreme Court’s unfortunate involvement,” Trump said.

Trump said he had “time-tested” alternatives to the IEEPA that he planned to use so he could again sidestep Congress’ role in authorizing tariffs, which the Supreme Court said functioned like a tax and therefore required congressional approval under the Constitution.

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Fact-checkers delivered a mixed verdict on President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address, backing some immigration and crime claims while disputing others on voter fraud, Medicaid and foreign conflicts.

Reviews from PolitiFact, FactCheck.org, The New York Times and others found that Trump’s assertion that “zero illegal aliens” were admitted into the country was an accurate characterization even though illegal crossings have continued at low levels. 

The fact-checkers also confirmed his claim that the national murder rate is at a historic low but labeled his statements about “rampant” voter fraud, Medicaid and the number of wars he ended as misleading.

The fact-checks underscored how Trump’s address was a blend of verifiable points and broader claims that grabbed headlines but could be misleading to voters, who Trump is hoping will keep Republicans in power in Congress as he stares down a tough 2026 midterm election cycle.

Immigration

When Trump said Tuesday that “zero illegal aliens have been admitted to the United States,” he was referencing U.S. Border Patrol detaining or deporting migrants attempting to enter the country illegally or by using asylum claims, rather than following the Biden administration’s protocol and releasing them into the country.

Fact-checkers acknowledged the reversal in illegal immigration policies under Trump. They pointed out that illegal border crossings are still happening, but at a far lower pace.

“Encounters with people trying to illegally cross the U.S. southern border have dropped significantly during Trump’s second term,” PolitiFact noted, adding that authorities encountered about 10,000 migrants in January compared to more than 60,000 in January 2025. 

Trump’s comments about illegal immigrants committing crimes were more disputed, fact-checkers found, noting that the Department of Homeland Security’s figures did not reflect that the Biden administration allowed nearly 12,000 murderers to enter the country illegally, as Trump claimed during his speech.

TRUMP TAKES DIRECT SOTU SWIPE AT DEMOCRATS OVER TAXES: ‘TO HURT THE PEOPLE’

NPR noted that Trump called Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska’s killer an immigrant, despite lacking evidence of that. The outlet noted that local media have reported that the suspect, Decarlos Dejuan Brown Jr., was born in Charlotte, North Carolina. 

Brown was seen in grisly surveillance footage repeatedly stabbing Zarutska, 23, while she was riding the light rail home from work in August 2025. Her murder has become a national example of local prosecutors’ lax policies toward repeat offenders.

When Trump said more broadly that the nation’s murder rate is the lowest it has been in 125 years, fact-checkers found that was true.

‘Eight wars’

Several fact-checkers took issue with Trump touting that he ended “eight wars.”

Trump gained widespread praise for brokering a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that led to a return of Israeli hostages, and the president has been credited with establishing a truce between Israel and Iran after carrying out damaging airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The New York Times said that eight wars, though, was “exaggerated,” and FactCheck.org called the figure “inflated.”

The fact-checkers pointed to Trump’s disputed involvement in India’s ceasefire with Pakistan. Trump also “counts some international disagreements that weren’t wars,” FactCheck.org said.

Trump was involved in mediating a border dispute between Cambodia and Thailand, and brokered peace agreements between Armenia and Azerbaijan and also Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 

Trump also has referenced wars between Serbia and Kosovo, and Egypt and Ethiopia, but some have said those involve tense disagreements and do not amount to war.

Voter fraud

A top flashpoint for fact-checkers was Trump’s assertion that “cheating is rampant” in federal elections.

“Trump made a rapid-fire series of false claims about US elections,” wrote CNN reporter Daniel Dale.

Trump made the comments while demanding Congress pass the SAVE America Act, which would impose a physical proof of citizenship requirement on anyone registering to vote in federal elections.

It is illegal for noncitizens to vote, and voters must declare under penalty of perjury that they are U.S. citizens as part of the registration process. State officials are required by federal law to practice voter roll maintenance to make sure voters who are registered are valid. 

State and federal prosecutions of noncitizen voting have been exceedingly rare, but Trump and his base have contended that noncitizen voting is prevalent and simply going undetected.

WHITE HOUSE SAYS MURDER RATE PLUMMETED TO LOWEST LEVEL SINCE 1900 UNDER TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

NPR pointed to observations by election expert David Becker, who runs the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research.

“Even states that are looking everywhere to try to amplify the numbers of noncitizens … when they actually look, they find a surprisingly, shockingly small number,” Becker said.

The New York Times said the number of noncitizens casting ballots is “infinitesimally small,” noting a Trump DHS study that found up to 0.2% of registered voters could potentially be noncitizens.

Jobs

Fact-checkers labeled Trump’s assertion that more Americans were working than ever before as true, but they said the president’s claim about job growth was misleading.

Job growth remained steady under Trump while the population was the largest it has ever been, meaning labor force participation has not kept up with the population, the New York Times noted.

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Protecting Medicaid

Fact-checkers swatted down Trump’s claim that he would “always” protect Medicaid, noting that the “big, beautiful bill,” his signature tax and spending plan enacted in July 2025, cut nearly $1 trillion from the program by changing its eligibility requirements.

“With fewer people on Medicaid, the program costs less,” FactCheck.org noted.

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

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FIRST ON FOX: In exclusive comments to Fox News Digital, U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem threw her support behind President Donald Trump’s proposed “Dalilah Law” after Tuesday’s State of the Union, arguing the legislation is needed to prevent more tragedies like the crash that left a young girl unable to walk or talk.

The Dalilah Law is named after Dalilah Coleman, a young girl who sustained life-changing injuries in a June 2024 California crash allegedly caused by Partap Singh, an illegal immigrant from India.

The legislation would bar all states from issuing commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) to illegal immigrants.

Singh is accused of causing a multi-car pileup while driving a commercial tractor-trailer in the sanctuary state of California. His CDL was issued by Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Department of Motor Vehicles.

According to Dalilah’s father, Marcus Coleman, the crash resulted in her inability to walk, talk, eat orally and attend kindergarten as planned.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, we have worked to deliver justice for the families impacted by illegal alien crime, and have ensured that the tragedies they endured will no longer continue,” Noem told Fox News Digital. “What happened to Dalilah Coleman is a tragedy that could have been PREVENTED if California did not grant commercial driver’s licenses to illegal aliens who should have never been here in the first place.”

“DHS is working every single day to remove dangerous criminal illegal aliens who are unlawfully in the U.S.,” she continued.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents obtained an arrest warrant and took Singh into custody in Fresno, California, on Aug. 29.

He will remain in ICE custody pending immigration proceedings.

Echoing the president’s message during Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, DHS said allowing illegal immigrants, many of whom do not speak English, to obtain commercial driver’s licenses — operating tractor-trailers and transporting hazardous materials on American roads — is “reckless and incredibly dangerous to public safety.”

Earlier this month, ICE arrested illegal immigrant and Kyrgyzstan national Bekzhan Beishekeev, 30, who allegedly swerved into oncoming traffic on Feb. 3 and struck a van head-on, killing four people.

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Beishekeev, who illegally entered the country under former President Joe Biden, was issued a CDL in Pennsylvania.

In December, DHS and the Department of Transportation announced that a 54-year-old Chinese national by the name of “Huang” caused a Tennessee crash that killed Kerry Smith and injured two other Americans.

He illegally entered the U.S. from Mexico in 2023, but was released into the country, given work authorization papers and a social security card, and issued a CDL.

Huang failed the English proficiency test after the crash, according to DHS.

SEMI-TRUCK DRIVER HELD ON ICE DETAINER AFTER 4 KILLED IN HEAD-ON CRASH

In August, ICE lodged an arrest detainer for illegal immigrant Harjinder Singh, who is charged with three counts of vehicular homicide after allegedly attempting to make an illegal U-turn through an “official use only” access point in St. Lucie County, Florida, blocking all lanes of highway traffic with his truck and causing a wreck that killed three people.

Video obtained by Breaking911 from inside the tractor-trailer showed the moment Singh turned his truck into traffic, with DHS claiming “his face shows no shock or remorse for his actions or the lives he destroyed.”

He was issued a CDL in California, despite having no legal right to be in the U.S.

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“DHS law enforcement is protecting American communities every day from another senseless tragedy like this taking place in another town, to another family,” DHS said. 

Victims of illegal immigrant crime can receive support from the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) Office by calling 1-855-488-6423.

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A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the Trump administration from deporting illegal immigrants to so-called “third countries” without first giving them notice and an opportunity to challenge their removal, in a high-stakes case that is likely headed to the Supreme Court.

The ruling from U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy, a Biden appointee, comes months after lawyers filed a class-action lawsuit in Boston challenging the Department of Homeland Security’s process of deporting illegal immigrants in the U.S. to so-called “third countries” — countries that are not their home country and were not previously designated in their removal orders.

Murphy ultimately sided with the migrants Wednesday, ruling that DHS’s third-country removal policy is unlawful and violates due process protections under the U.S. Constitution. 

“This case is about whether the government may, without notice, deport a person to the wrong country, or a country where he is likely to be persecuted, or tortured, thereby depriving that person of the opportunity to seek protections to which he would be undisputedly entitled,” Murphy said.

The Department of Homeland Security “has adopted a policy whereby it may take people and drop them off in parts unknown — in so-called ‘third countries,’ and, ‘as long as the Department doesn’t already know that there’s someone standing there waiting to shoot . . . that’s fine,’” Murphy continued.

“It is not fine, nor is it legal,” he said.

Neither DHS nor DOJ immediately responded to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on the case or whether it plans to appeal the ruling. 

Murphy also rejected the Trump administration’s claim that certain migrants living in the U.S. illegally lacked due process, noting that the clause applies to all “persons” within the U.S., regardless of immigration status.

“These are our laws, and it is with profound gratitude for the unbelievable luck of being born in the United States of America that this Court affirms these and our nation’s bedrock principle: that no ‘person’ in this country may be ‘deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,'” Murphy said.

Murphy stayed the ruling from taking force for 15 days to allow the Trump administration time to appeal the case to the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, given what the judge acknowledged was the “importance” and “unusual history” of the case in question. 

The ruling comes after Murphy presided for months over a class-action lawsuit filed by migrants challenging deportations to third countries, including South Sudan and El Salvador, as well as Costa Rica and Guatemala, which the administration has reportedly eyed in its ongoing wave of deportations.

‘WOEFULLY INSUFFICIENT’: US JUDGE REAMS TRUMP ADMIN FOR DAYS-LATE DEPORTATION INFO

He has sparred with the Trump administration while overseeing the case, including in May, when he accused the administration of failing to comply with a court order requiring it to keep in U.S. custody six migrants who were deported to South Sudan without due process or notice.

Murphy previously ordered that the migrants remain in U.S. custody at a military base in Djibouti until each of them could be given a “reasonable fear interview,” or a chance to explain to U.S. officials any fear of persecution or torture, should they be released into South Sudanese custody.  

The judge’s order is the latest attempt by federal court judges to rein in the Trump administration as it continues to deport migrants to third countries, including El Salvador and South Sudan.

Murphy previously acknowledged the criminal histories in question after Trump officials blasted the individuals removed as the “worst of the worst.” 

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“The court recognizes that the class members at issue here have criminal histories,” Murphy wrote in an order last year.

“But that does not change due process,” he wrote. “The court treats its obligation to these principles with the seriousness that anyone committed to the rule of law should understand.”

White House officials, meanwhile, have blasted so-called “activist” judges as attempting to enact a political agenda, and have repeatedly rejected the notion that illegal immigrants are not entitled to due process. 

Lower court judges have repeatedly ruled that the Trump administration has violated due process by failing to notify migrants of their imminent removals, or afford them the opportunity to challenge their deportations in court — a view reiterated, albeit narrowly, by the Supreme Court four separate times since Trump took office. 

The Trump administration, for its part, succeeded in a separate Supreme Court case last year that narrowed the ability of federal courts to issue so-called nationwide injunctions blocking executive orders from taking force.

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Virginia’s Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger was widely panned by conservatives on social media over her rebuttal to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union, with many calling out the governor for labeling herself as a “moderate” during the campaign but changing her tune.

Spanberger’s speech contained several examples of supporting far-left causes that drew criticism online, including school walkouts over ICE, touting “affordability” despite pushing to raise taxes, and slamming Trump.

Her overall speech quickly drew heat from conservatives online over her policies and her tone. 

“This Spanberger speech can basically be summed up as ‘I AM A DEMOCRAT WHO IS MODERATE AND NORMAL. PLEASE BELIEVE I AM MODERATE AND NORMAL,’”  Mark Hemingway, senior writer for Real Clear Investigations, posted on X.

“Abigail Spanberger comes off like the radical psychopath she is,” Matthew Boyle, Washington Bureau Chief for Breitbart News, posted on X. “Anyone who claims she is a ‘moderate’ is a liar. Plain and simple.”

“Abigail Spanberger campaigned as a moderate but governs as a left-wing activist,” GOP Sen. Marsha Blackburn posted on X. “There is no room for moderates in today’s Democrat party.”

“It’s despicable to hear Abigail Spanberger speak so plainly like a supposed moderate when she’s governing with a legislature that’s more akin to Gavin Newsom in California or, say, Maura Healy in Massachusetts,” Newsbusters managing editor Curtis Houck posted on X.

TRUMP’S ‘HOME RUN’ SOTU SPEECH SPARKS PRAISE FROM CONSERVATIVES ONLINE WHILE LEAVING DEMOCRATS SEETHING

“Spanberger passed exactly one test,” Ruthless podcast co-host Josh Holmes posted on X. “A year from now you’ll have absolutely no idea who gave the Democrat response.”

“Abigail Spanberger tanks,” Trump-Kennedy Center President Richard Grenell posted on X. “She’s so nervous. It’s like she didn’t practice the actual speech.”

“The focus of Abigail Spanberger’s rebuttal is ‘affordability’ as her party proposes sweeping tax hikes on nearly every sector of the Virginia economy,” Daily Caller senior editor Amber Duke posted on X.

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

A top Republican told Fox News Digital earlier this week that Spanberger would never have been given airtime in the Democrats’ official response to Trump’s State of the Union if it weren’t for her support of the commonwealth’s controversial redistricting and adherence to the party line.

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“Our president has sent poorly trained federal agents into our cities, where they have arrested and detained American citizens and people who aspire to be Americans,” Spanberger said during her speech. “They have done it without a warrant. They have ripped nursing mothers away from their babies. They have sent children — a little boy in a blue bunny hat — to far-off detention centers, and they have killed American citizens in our streets.

“And they have done it all with their faces masked from accountability,” she continued. “Every minute spent sowing fear is a minute not spent investigating murders, crimes against children or the criminals defrauding seniors of their life savings.”

At one point in her speech, Spanberger appeared to briefly lose her place on the teleprompter:

“But as the President spoke of his perceived successes tonight, he continues to cede economic power and technological strength to Russia … bow down to … China …to bow down to a Russian dictator, and make plans for war with Iran,” she said, as her prepared remarks cited China as the technological rival.

Fox News Digital’s Charles Creitz contributed to this report.

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Democrats were not happy with President Donald Trump‘s State of the Union remarks implementing voter ID requirements and the SAVE America Act.

A dial test administered by Lee Carter, the president of maslansky+partners, showed Democrats taking a serious dive when the president spoke about the issue. During his speech, Trump asked lawmakers to pass the SAVE America Act in order “to stop illegal aliens and others who are unpermitted persons from voting in our sacred American elections.” He decried allegedly “rampant” cheating in American elections.

“It’s very simple. All voters must show voter ID. All voters must show proof of citizenship in order to vote. And no more crooked mail in ballots except for illness, disability, military or travel. None,” Trump said.

“Why would anybody not want voter ID? One reason, because they want to cheat,” Trump added, referring to Democrats. “They make up all excuses. They say it’s racist. They come up with things. You almost say what imagination they have! They want to cheat, they have cheated, and their policy is so bad that the only way they can get elected is to cheat.”

While Democrats reacted negatively, Republicans had a positive response to Trump’s call for the passage of the SAVE America Act. While Independents did not react as positively as Republicans, their line in the dial test remained above the Democrats.

The group monitored by Carter, which included 29 Democrats, 41 Republicans and 30 Independents, had mixed reactions to a number of moments in Trump’s speech. Carter found that the most polarizing issue of the night was gender policy. One of the president’s special guests was Sage Blair, a young woman whose family filed a 2023 lawsuit alleging that Appomattox County High School staff socially transitioned her and treated her as a boy without her parents’ knowledge.

“But surely we can all agree no state can be allowed to rip children from their parents’ arms and transition them to a new gender against the parents’ will,” Trump said. “We must ban it, and we must ban it immediately.”

INDEPENDENTS LOVED MOMENT TRUMP INTRODUCED TEAM USA MEN’S HOCKEY TEAM, VOTER DIAL SHOWS

When the president saw that Democratic lawmakers in the chamber did not stand at that remark, he ripped them as “crazy.”

Supporters in the focus group reacted mostly positively to the gender policy remarks, saying things like “Protect children. Crazy people there” and “If someone wants to change gender, they should do it as an adult. Period.” Meanwhile, critics in the group slammed the president, with one saying that it was “a bold-faced lie” and that Trump was taking “every opportunity to divide the country.”

Despite the disparate reactions on the issues of voting and gender, there were some moments in which people of opposing views overlapped, both in favor and against the president. 

Many supporters and opponents expressed concerns about Trump’s tone during the speech, the dial test showed. Carter noted that some supporters were unhappy with the president’s jokes, remarks about the Supreme Court and mentions of former President Joe Biden. Meanwhile, the president’s critics said the tone was “embarrassing,” “divisive” and “selfish.”

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While there were many moments that caused disagreement among American across the political spectrum, there were points of unity in the speech. Republicans and Democrats had positive responses when Trump awarded the Purple Heart to Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe and deceased Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom. Wolfe and Beckstrom were shot by a gunman who ambushed them last year in Washington, D.C. Wolfe was critically injured in the attack, while Beckstrom was fatally shot. Beckstrom’s parents accepted the award in their daughter’s honor.

Another unifying moment came when Trump brought out the U.S. men’s hockey team, which just scored a historic overtime victory against Canada in the Olympics. Carter noted that the president’s critics were pleased with the recognition of the Olympians, with one calling it a “nice moment.”

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Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., announced that he left President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address before it ended on Tuesday night, claiming the speech was riddled with lies.

“Walked out of the State of the Union because I couldn’t sit through hours of Trump’s lies,” the senator wrote in a post on X. “Americans know the truth: he’s spiking prices and wrecking our economy. We’re a better country than this.”

Warner posted about 17 minutes before the end of the president’s remarks. Trump concluded his State of the Union speech at approximately 10:59 p.m., breaking the record for the longest State of the Union address in recent history. 

Warner had already suggested before the speech that the president would lie while delivering the address.

“Buckle up for hours of lies tonight from the President. Americans know the truth: he’s wrecking our economy, spending tens of billions on an out-of-control secret police, and lining his own pockets with grift after grift,” Warner declared in a post on X ahead of Trump’s speech on Tuesday.

Then, during the president’s speech, Warner asserted in a post, “We’re hearing more of the same from Trump tonight… endless lies.”

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

JASMINE CROCKETT TRASHES TRUMP, BOYCOTTS HIS SPEECH: ‘THE CURRENT STATE OF OUR UNION IS GRIM’

Rep. Bill Foster, D-Ill., also noted that he walked out of the president’s speech.

“Like last year, I gave myself 5 bald-faced lies before I walked out of Trump’s joint address. Less than one hour into his speech, I’m out,” he noted in a Tuesday night post.

Rep. Lauren Underwood, D-Ill., said in a video that she “had to leave” the address “early.”

“After hearing him make light of the healthcare crisis that he created, and then to not even be serious about prescription drugs, acting like TrumpRx is some real solution, give me a break. It’s outrageous. And I couldn’t stay in there a moment longer,” she declared.

‘SQUAD’ MEMBER WEARS ‘F— ICE’ PIN ON HOUSE FLOOR DURING TRUMP ADDRESS

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Other lawmakers also walked out, reports indicate, while many opted to skip the event entirely. Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, who held a sign that read, “BLACK PEOPLE AREN’T APES!,” was ejected from the chamber.

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A panel of U.S. voters from all parties showed strong reactions when President Donald Trump began listing his administration’s economic policy achievements during his State of the Union address on Tuesday.

The panel, assembled by polling group Maslansky & Partners, was composed of 29 Democrats, 30 Independents and 40 Republicans. Their live reactions to Trump’s comments were displayed as lines on a graph, with high values representing positive reactions and low values indicating negative reactions.

Democrats’ reactions were represented in blue, Republicans in red and Independents in yellow.

Trump started off strong with both Republicans and Independents as he touted a steep drop in inflation compared to when former President Joe Biden left office.

“In 12 months, my administration has driven core inflation to the lowest level in more than five years, and in the last three months of 2025 it was down to 1.7%,” Trump said as lawmakers applauded.

Even support among Democratic viewers hovered just below the 50% mark as Trump discussed falling inflation.

Support among Republicans reached its maximum as Trump listed off a drop in gasoline prices, saying some regions of the U.S. were paying just $1.85 a gallon.

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Independent support remain high as he talked about gas, but it reached its highest point as the president was discussing mortgage rates.

“Mortgage rates are the lowest in four years and falling fast,” Trump said. “And the annual cost of a typical new mortgage is down almost $5,000 just since I took office. In one year.”

The general finding from the Maslansky poll found the speech largely reinforced existing beliefs for all voters, rather than persuading.

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“There was almost no evidence of movement. Instead, voters expressed strong affirmation or strong rejection,” the group said in a statement.

“It did not soften opposition. It did not significantly broaden appeal. But in a turnout-driven environment, reinforcement may be the point,” the statement continued.

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President Donald Trump’s decision to rip Democrats as “crazy” during his State of the Union address on Tuesday — after they remained seated while he demanded a ban on socially transitioning minors without parental consent — drew sharply divided reactions from a live panel of voters.

The panel, assembled by polling group Maslansky & Partners, included 29 Democrats, 30 Independents and 40 Republicans. Their real-time reactions were displayed as colored lines on a graph, with higher values representing positive reactions and lower values indicating negative ones.

“But surely we can all agree no state can be allowed to rip children from their parents’ arms and transition them to a new gender against the parents’ will,” Trump said. “Who would believe that?… We must ban it, and we must ban it immediately.”

As Trump delivered the remarks, the Republican line, shown in red, climbed sharply into positive territory. Independents, represented in yellow, also ticked upward, while Democrats, shown in blue, trended downward into negative territory.

The comments drew applause from Republicans in the chamber, but the president became incensed when he realized that Democrats refused to stand.

“Look, nobody stands up,” Trump said.  

“These people are crazy. I’m telling you. They’re crazy,” Trump said, pointing his finger at Democratic senators and House members who remained seated. 

Republican reactions stayed elevated during the remarks, while Democratic responses remained negative and independent voters held relatively steady.

Trump made the remarks as he called on Sage Blair, a Virginia teenager whose family filed a 2023 lawsuit alleging that Appomattox County High School staff socially transitioned her without parental knowledge.

According to a lawsuit filed by her family, Blair began identifying as male at school, where staff used male names and pronouns and allowed her to use male facilities without informing her parents.

WATCH: Trump highlights teen whose family says school hid her gender transition during State of the Union

TRUMP TAKES DIRECT SOTU SWIPE AT DEMOCRATS OVER TAXES: ‘TO HURT THE PEOPLE’

The family alleges the situation escalated after Blair ran away from home and later became a victim of sex trafficking, with the lawsuit alleging she was kidnapped and raped in multiple states.

Highlighting the case during his address, Trump said Blair was 14 when school officials sought to socially transition her “to a new gender,” treating her as a boy and hiding it from her parents.

“But today, all of that is behind them because Sage is a proud and wonderful young woman with a full-ride scholarship to Liberty University. Sage and Michelle, please stand up,” Trump said as Republicans in the chamber cheered.

“Thank you for your great bravery,” he added.

The gender policy segment generated some of the strongest reactions of the night from the panel.

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Among supporters, several comments focused on protecting children and parental involvement, including: “Protect children,” and “Parents should be informed.”

Opponents pushed back on the scope of the proposal, writing comments such as: “Every case is unique,” and “A total ban is not good.”

The issue appeared to trigger deeply personal reactions on both sides.

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