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A Georgia judge on Friday said that District Attorney Fani Willis can continue prosecuting the case against former President Trump if she removes her ex-lover from her legal team, after deciding he could put no “stock” in a key witness’ testimony.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee issued an order Friday that Willis must either withdraw herself and her team from the sweeping 2020 election interference case against former President Trump or remove special prosecutor Nathan Wade – with whom she was accused of having an “improper” affair. 

McAfee said that he was “unable to place any stock” in the testimony of Terrance Bradley, the former law partner and divorce attorney for Wade and considered a key witness of the defense team trying to prove Wade was romantically involved with Willis prior to his hiring. 

Attorney Ashleigh Merchant, lawyer for co-defendant Michael Roman, who first submitted the allegations against Willis and Wade, had grilled Bradley on the witness stand last month about what he knew and when he knew about their romance.

KEY WITNESS IN FANI WILLIS CASE TESTIFIES HE MAY HAVE LIED IN TEXTS ABOUT FRIENDS’ AFFAIR

Both Willis and Wade insisted that their relationship started in 2022, after Wade was hired. However, that claim conflicted with some witness testimony during the two-day evidentiary hearing last month. 

Bradley, when pressed under oath, said he could not recall several details and timelines about conversations he had with former client Wade about Wade’s romantic relationship with Willis.

Merchant at one point referenced text messages between her and Bradley in which she had asked Bradley if he thought the relationship started before Willis hired Wade in 2021. Bradley responded “absolutely” in the text exchange.

NATHAN WADE’S PHONE DATA SHOWS HE MADE MIDNIGHT TRIPS TO FANI WILLIS’ CONDO BEFORE HE WAS HIRED: ATTORNEY

In his order on Friday, McAfee said Bradley’s “inconsistencies, demeanor, and generally non-responsive answers left far too brittle a foundation upon which to build any conclusions.”

“While prior inconsistent statements can be considered as substantive evidence under Georgia law, Bradley’s impeachment by text message did not establish the basis for which he claimed such sweeping knowledge of Wade’s personal affairs,” McAfee said.

Robin Yeartie, a former “good friend” of Willis and past employee at the DA’s office, testified in court that she had “no doubt” Willis and Wade’s relationship started in 2019, after the two met at a conference. 

FANI WILLIS WHO ‘RELISHED IN’ DONALD TRUMP PROSECUTION SHOULD BE REMOVED FROM CASE FOR ILLICIT AFFAIR: EXPERTS

She testified to observing Willis and Wade “hugging” and “kissing” and showing “affection” prior to November 2021 and that she had no doubt that the two were in a “romantic” relationship starting in 2019 and lasting until she and Willis last spoke in 2022.

Willis dismissed Yeartie’s testimony and said she no longer considers Yeartie a friend.

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Judge McAfee in his order Friday said that “while the testimony of Robin Yearti raised doubts about the State’s assertions, it ultimately lacked context and detail.” 

“[N]either side was able to conclusively establish by a preponderance of the evidence when the relationship evolved into a romantic one,” he added. 

Still, the judge said that “an odor of mendacity remains,” and added that “reasonable questions about whether the District Attorney and her hand-selected lead SADA [special assistant district attorney] testified untruthfully about the timing of their relationship further underpin the finding of an appearance of impropriety and the need to make proportional efforts to cure it.”

The judge in former President Trump’s Georgia election interference case has allowed District Attorney Fani Willis to continue leading the prosecution, but he said her racially charged rhetoric about “playing the race card” was “legally improper.”

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee issued a ruling that quashed a motion from one of the case’s 19 defendants seeking to remove Wilis from the case due to her alleged improper affair with special counsel Nathan Wade.

McAfee ruled that an insufficient amount of evidence was provided to justify the removal of Willis outright, but he ordered Wade must be fired for the district attorney to continue without the “appearance of impropriety” — otherwise Willis must step down.

JUDGE RULES FANI WILLIS MUST STEP ASIDE FROM TRUMP CASE OR FIRE SPECIAL PROSECUTOR NATHAN WADE

In his order, McAfee separately took issue with a speech made by Willis at an Atlanta church in January of this year, when she claimed she and Wade were being scrutinized because of their race. 

While Willis later claimed not to be referring to the defendants in her accusations of racism, McAfee warned that such a distinction was not clear.

“In these public and televised comments, the District Attorney complained that a Fulton County Commissioner ‘and so many others’ questioned her decision to hire SADA Wade. When referring to her detractors throughout the speech, she frequently utilized the plural ‘they.’ The State argues the speech was not aimed at any of the Defendants in this case. Maybe so. But maybe not. Therein lies the danger of public comment by a prosecuting attorney,” McAfee wrote.

KEY WITNESS IN FANI WILLIS CASE TESTIFIES HE MAY HAVE LIED IN TEXTS ABOUT FRIENDS’ AFFAIR

The judge found that Willis’s reference to “so many others” in her speech at the church left ambiguous who she was accusing of racial motivations — coming dangerously close to compromising the case.

He went on to complain about the district attorney’s own continued references to the race of individuals involved in the case.

“More at issue, instead of attributing the criticism to a criminal accused’s general aversion to being convicted and facing a prison sentence, the District Attorney ascribed the effort as motivated by ‘playing the race card,'” McAfee wrote. “She went on to frequently refer to SADA Wade as the ‘black man’ while her other unchallenged SADAs were labeled ‘one white woman’ and ‘one white man.’ The effect of this speech was to cast racial aspersions at an indicted Defendant’s decision to file this pretrial motion.”

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Despite finding Willis’s speech “legally improper,” McAfee ruled that the questionable statements regarding race did not deny the defendants “opportunity for a fundamentally fair trial.”

“The Court cannot find that this speech crossed the line to the point where the Defendants have been denied the opportunity for a fundamentally fair trial, or that it requires the District Attorney’s disqualification,” McAfee wrote. “But it was still legally improper. Providing this type of public comment creates dangerous waters for the District Attorney to wade further into.”

It has not yet been announced whether Willis will fire Wade or step down from the trial.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp will back his fellow Republicans’ presidential ticket in November. That does not mean he will cheerlead for former President Donald Trump or even endorse him by name.

“I’m going to support the nominee,” Kemp told reporters this week after Trump won his state’s primary on his way to clinching the GOP nomination.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, once a favorite potential presidential candidate for anti-Trump Republicans, officially endorsed the former president last week. But he did so only after Trump won the Virginia primary on Super Tuesday. And Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, one of the nation’s highest-ranking Black Republicans, still won’t endorse him.

MORNING GLORY: TRUMP’S BIG CHANCE TO PUT THIS ELECTION AWAY NOW

“Everybody has to make their own decision,” she told reporters after Trump’s victory. She then cited an Old Testament verse, Hosea 8:4, that reads in part, “They have set up kings, but not by me.”

While Trump coasted to his third consecutive Republican nomination, his domination of the party isn’t seamless. Some high-profile members of his party, particularly in swing states full of voters skeptical of Trump, are trying to keep their distance while preserving their own futures.

For figures like Kemp and Youngkin who could make their own presidential bids in four years, that means careful positioning intended to satisfy enough Trump backers without alienating voters repelled by the former president. For Trump, it means a rockier road to winning coalitions in battleground states he lost to Biden in 2020 and Kemp and Youngkin won since, proceeding to enact policies popular with the right.

“He’s the King Kong of Republican politics,” Whit Ayres, who worked for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign in 2016, said in an interview leading up to Trump officially securing the nomination. But, Ayres said, that’s not the same thing as unifying the party and expanding the coalition in a general election.

A Trump campaign spokesman did not respond to an Associated Press inquiry about how the former president plans to build party unity or seek more endorsements ahead of November.

Trump heads into a rematch with President Joe Biden facing a contingent of Republican dissenters, many of whom backed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley before she dropped out after Super Tuesday. Haley ran above her statewide margins throughout the primary in areas with lots of suburban voters and college graduates, highlighting Trump’s enduring weaknesses with those groups.

Haley won 35% of Virginia’s primary vote. And nearly 78,000 people in Georgia — about 13% of the total vote — chose her in Tuesday’s primary, though early voting was open before she dropped out.

Haley declined to endorse Trump as she suspended her campaign and instead urged him to try “bringing people into your cause, not turning them away.”

Trump “has to earn the votes of people who have moved away from the party,” said Eric Tanenblatt, a national GOP fundraiser who backed Haley over Trump.

Tanenblatt said he sees “no evidence” so far that Trump or his team are reaching out aggressively to court skeptical Republicans, and he argued that successful Republican elected officials are well-positioned to let 2024 play out on their own terms.

In 2021, a year after Biden won Virginia by double digits, Youngkin maintained Trump’s advantage across rural areas and small towns but flipped enough Biden voters in more urban and suburban areas. In Georgia, Trump underperformed in the Atlanta suburbs, helping Biden win statewide by less than 12,000 votes out of 5 million cast. Two years later, Kemp romped to a 7.5-point reelection victory, outperforming Trump’s marks across the state.

Kemp, for his part, seems to have settled on how to navigate his party’s divided politics: hammer Biden, focus on Georgia and talk about the future.

“It doesn’t really matter who our nominee is or would have been — my goal is to make sure we’re keeping our legislative majorities,” Kemp said this week, making clear that his top electoral priority is his own state.

Like Trump, Kemp has been especially animated about immigration, especially since Laken Riley, a nursing student, was killed in Athens, Georgia, prompting authorities to charge a man they say came into the U.S. illegally from Venezuela.

“The president had control of the House and the Senate from 2020 to 2022 and did nothing about the border, and we were complaining just as much then as we are now,” Kemp said this week, chiding Biden for using his State of the Union to remind voters that Senate Republicans stymied a border security deal.

But Kemp remains dismissive of Trump’s continued lies that his loss was somehow rigged, saying often that Republicans “don’t need to be looking in the rearview mirror” or “complaining about the 2020 election.” He typically skips naming Trump when offering that advice, too.

The governor and the former president have had an uneasy relationship since Kemp rejected Trump’s pressure to help overturn Biden’s victory in Georgia — a campaign for which the former president now faces a racketeering indictment in Fulton County.

“We got to give people a reason to vote for us, not just be against the other candidate,” Kemp said. Of course, when asked explicitly why he would support Trump after how aggressively the former president skewered him after 2020, Kemp pivoted to the opposition. “Well, I think he’d be better than Joe Biden,” Kemp said. “It’s as simple as that.”

Youngkin was a bit more complimentary. In his endorsement, Youngkin praised Trump’s record on taxes, immigration and the economy and said “it’s time to unite around strong leadership and policies that grow our great nation, not four more years of President Biden.”

Still, that argument came in a written statement issued by Youngkin’s political action committee and circulated on social media, not in a live event with voters or where the governor could take questions.

Whether or not Trump wins in November, Republicans who distance themselves from him now may have to placate Trump’s most ardent fans in a future presidential primary.

Rose McDonald, an 87-year-old who voted Tuesday for Trump in the northern suburbs of Atlanta, insisted “there were things that happened that we know weren’t right with all those mail votes.” Federal and state investigations have found no evidence of tampering with mail-in ballots that could have swung the election.

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“I’m mostly satisfied with Kemp,” she said. “Mostly – I still think he was a chicken in 2020 for not letting Trump challenge the election.”

Kemp believes his political organization, even if it stays focused exclusively on legislative races, will prove his value and loyalty to the party.

“My belief is if we do that well as Republicans and tell people what we’re for and stay focused on the future, we’ll have a great night,” Kemp said, “and that’ll be all the way up and down the ticket.”

A decision on the future of former President Trump’s Georgia election interference case is imminent.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee is tasked with deciding whether to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from the case against Trump and 18 other defendants charged with attempting to interfere in the 2020 election.

McAfee told local reporters on Thursday that his decision is forthcoming.

AS RULING ON DA FANI WILLIS LOOMS IN GA TRUMP CASE, DEFENSE SOURCES SAY ‘THE COURT IS BEING PLAYED’

“I made a promise to everybody. These kind of orders take time to write. I need to say exactly what I want to, and I plan to stick to the timeline I gave everyone,” McAfee told reporter Mark Winne with local outlet WSB-TV 2 Atlanta.

“So this week?” the reporter asked McAfee.

“Should be out tomorrow,” McAfee replied, according to WSB-TV 2 Atlanta.

McAfee is presiding over allegations brought by a handful of co-defendants that Willis hired special counsel Nathan Wade when they were secretly romantic lovers and financially benefited from his hiring.

FULTON COUNTY ETHICS BOARD WON’T HEAR COMPLAINTS AGAINST FANI WILLIS

The bombshell allegations led to a blockbuster evidentiary hearing last month, when Willis and Wade denied the allegations they were in a relationship when he was hired and that Willis never benefited from Wade’s position because she would reimburse him with cash for all the vacations they took together.

“The message I want to convey is no ruling of mine is ever going to be based on politics. I’m going to be following the law the best I understand it,” McAfee told the outlet about his forthcoming decision.

Following the Willis decision, McAfee will return his focus to the Georgia election interference accusations against the former president.

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McAfee already stated in an order Wednesday that the state failed to allege sufficient detail for six counts of “solicitation of violation of oath by public officer.” 

“The Court’s concern is less that the State has failed to allege sufficient conduct of the Defendants – in fact it has alleged an abundance. However, the lack of detail concerning an essential legal element is, in the undersigned opinion, fatal,” McAfee wrote. 

“As written, these six counts contain all the essential elements of the crimes but fail to allege sufficient detail regarding the nature of their commission, i.e., the underlying felony solicited,” the judge continued. 

Fox News Digital’s Claudia Kelly-Bazan contributed to this report.

No Labels is taking another step toward forming a bipartisan presidential ticket in November’s general election.

The centrist group announced the formation of a committee to vet candidates for the potential bipartisan ticket.

“Today, No Labels is taking the next step toward providing it by announcing our process to choose the candidates for a unity ticket,” former Sen. Joe Lieberman, a No Labels founding co-chair, said in a statement Thursday.

Lieberman, the 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee who ran for the party’s 2004 presidential nomination before becoming an independent a couple of years later, will be part of a panel called the Country Over Party Committee, which will vet potential contenders.

HOW NO LABELS IS MOVING TOWARDS LAUNCHING A THIRD-PARTY PRESIDENTIAL TICKET

No Labels national co-chair Ben Chavis, a civil rights activist and former NAACP executive director and CEO, will also serve on the 12-member panel.

“The committee will consider input from the No Labels community and serve as representatives in meeting with potential candidates,” former Dallas Mayor and No Labels national convention chair Mike Rawlings said in a video released by the group.

NO LABELS CHARGES OPPONENTS ARE TRYING TO KEEP IT OFF THE BALLOT

Rawlings said that to be considered for the national ticket, candidates must adhere to the group’s six core beliefs, including “that we care about this country more than demands of any political party.”

And Rawlings added that contenders must also endorse “the No Labels commonsense policy booklet, which includes 30 ideas to address our nation’s most important challenges, ranging from immigration and border security to the budget, inflation, and growing threats from abroad.”

Lieberman explained that “If we find two candidates that meet our high threshold, we will recommend that ticket to No Labels’ delegates for a nomination vote at a national nominating convention that will be held later this spring.”

While the group didn’t set any timetable, Lieberman said Thursday in a CNN interview that a candidate could be announced as early as next Thursday.

The announcement comes nearly a week after roughly 800 No Labels delegates who took part in a virtual meeting voted to give a thumbs up to fielding a presidential ticket.

For over a year, No Labels has mulled a third-party ticket, as it pointed to poll after poll suggesting that many Americans were anything but enthused about a 2024 election rematch between President Biden and former President Donald Trump.

And No Labels had long said that it would decide whether to launch a presidential ticket following Super Tuesday, when 16 states from coast to coast held nominating primaries and caucuses.

The latest move by No Labels comes two days after Biden and Trump clinched the Democratic and Republican presidential nominations, becoming the two major parties’ 2024 presumptive nominees.

The moves by No Labels also come after former two-term Republican Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, a former leader of the group who was considered a potential contender for the “unity” ticket, recently took his name out of contention as he announced a run this year for an open Senate seat in his home state.

REMATCH: TRUMP, BIDEN, CLINCH GOP AND DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATIONS

And moderate Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, another former No Labels leader who is not seeking re-election this year and who flirted with a White House run, has also said he won’t launch a presidential bid.

There was also plenty of speculation that former U.N. ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who was the final 2024 GOP presidential nomination rival to Trump before she ended her White House run last week, would consider running on a No Labels ticket. No Labels had expressed interest in her earlier this year.

But Haley repeatedly nixed joining a No Labels ticket, most recently last week in an interview on “FOX and Friends.”

The No Labels spotlight now appears to be shining on former Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan of Georgia, a former health care executive and minor league baseball player who served three terms in the Georgia House of Representatives before winning election as lieutenant governor in 2018.

People familiar with the discussions confirmed to Fox News that No Labels “is talking to him,” adding that conversations are “moving fast” and “nothing’s set.”

A source in Duncan’s political orbit said he hasn’t ruled anything out when it comes to a potential third-party presidential run this year. The news was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Duncan grabbed national attention in the weeks after the 2020 election for speaking out against then-President Trump’s unfounded claims of “massive voter fraud” in Georgia, which was one of a half-dozen states where Biden narrowly edged Trump to win the White House.

Duncan, along with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, both Republicans, resisted Trump’s requests to overturn the election results in the Peach State.

Duncan decided months later against seeking re-election in 2022 and instead launched “GOP 2.0,” an effort to try and move the Republican Party past Trump.

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No Labels said last week that it is already on the ballot in 16 states and currently working in 17 other states to obtain access. 

There’s been a chorus of calls from Democrats warning that a No Labels ticket would pave a path to victory for Trump in November, but the group dismisses that criticism.

“That’s not our goal here,” Lieberman told Fox News Digital late last year. “We’re not about electing either President Trump or President Biden.”

Thursday’s announcement came a day after the resignation of No Labels co-chair Pat McCrory, a Republican and former North Carolina governor.

McCrory, who hasn’t detailed his departure from the group, said in a statement to the Wall Street Journal that “I wish them [No Labels] the best.”

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon on Thursday dismissed former President Trump’s motion to dismiss charges of retaining classified documents on the grounds of “unconstitutional vagueness.” 

This is only one of two motions from Trump’s legal team. The judge has not ruled on the other motion to dismiss based on the Presidential Records Act (PRA). 

Defense attorney Todd Blanche argued earlier that the Trump position is that the PRA gives the president the authority to retain documents he sees fit, and essentially take them home or out of the White House, and if that’s accurate, that alone is “fatal” to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictment. 

“Presidents since George Washington have taken material out of the White House,” said Blanche, adding that the PRA was passed in the late ’70s and nothing in the statute says anything about documents with markings or anything that gives the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) the ability to challenge a president’s decision about which documents are personal versus presidential.

Team Trump also points out often that then-President Trump caused these boxes to be moved while he was still president and that this is the first time NARA has challenged a decision made by a president about which documents are personal versus presidential. They claim NARA only took this action because the president in question was Donald Trump.

TRUMP HOLDS SLIGHT EDGE OVER BIDEN IN CRUCIAL BATTLEGROUND STATE: POLL

Judge Cannon told Blanche, “All that might be right. But I don’t see how it leads to a dismissal of the indictment…Maybe a defense at trial…”

Blanche replied that this was a “proper” avenue for a dismissal because the government must prove that the possession of the documents was unauthorized.

However, Cannon seemed to double down, saying the arguments might have “some force at trial, but it’s hard to see how it gets you to a dismissal.”

The judge at one point remarked that the Trump defense team’s view of the Presidential Records Act would essentially “gut the PRA,” giving presidents the unfettered ability to classify clearly presidential records as personal. 

TRUMP ATTENDS FLORIDA HEARING ON POSSIBLE DISMISSAL OF CLASSIFIED DOCS CASE

Blanche replied that it is up to Congress to change the law. “That’s what’s supposed to happen. DOJ can’t just decide… [what is personal versus presidential],” he said. 

“We don’t have a lot of case law on this because this has never been done before,” added Blanche. “While he was the president he took records, like many presidents… For the first time ever, NARA took a different path and made a criminal referral,” instead of negotiating with the president as had been done in the past.

Cannon at one point said, “Correct… the seizure of a president’s records was seen to be an extraordinary act.”

Blanche pointed out that in the aftermath of the Clinton presidency, “President Clinton hid tapes in his socks and NARA said there’s nothing we can do about that.”

Cannon asked if those tapes contained any classified information. Blanche said no one knows because the tapes were never recovered from President Clinton.

“They can’t have it both ways,” said Blanche. “No effort to investigate whether there was national defense information in President Clinton’s socks,” but still referring the Trump matter to the DOJ for a potential criminal prosecution.

DOJ prosecutor David Harbach told Cannon that the documents seized at Mar-a-Lago “were not personal, nowhere close to that… The only inference is that they were presidential, not personal.”

Harbach also went back to one of Cannon’s questions to the defense: “Our view is that President Trump’s position would completely gut the PRA.”

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Harbach also took pains to stress the independence of Special Counsel Smith’s team: “We are not appendages or puppets of the Biden Administration.”

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is pushing for a delay to the start of former President Trump’s New York hush-money criminal trial. 

In a Thursday court filing, the DA’s office said it was not opposed to adjourning the start of the trial for up to 30 days to give Trump’s legal team time to review evidence that was recently turned over. 

Trump’s lawyers are seeking a 90-day delay or the dismissal of charges against Trump, alleging violations of the “discovery process,” whereby both sides exchange evidence. 

TRUMP FLORIDA JUDGE CANNON SEEMS TO HINT DISMISSAL UNLIKELY

The new records came from the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, which previously investigated the hush-money arrangement at the heart of Trump’s New York criminal case.

Trump’s legal team has also sought a delay to the trial until after the Supreme Court rules on Trump’s presidential immunity claim. Oral arguments in that case are slated to begin in late April. 

The judge in the hush-money case, Juan Manual Merchan, has yet to rule on either request. Jury selection in the trial is scheduled to begin March 25.

Since March 4, Trump’s lawyers have received at least 84,000 pages of records from the federal prosecutor’s office in Manhattan, including a batch of 31,000 pages on Wednesday, according to a court filing.

TRUMP HOLDS SLIGHT EDGE OVER BIDEN IN CRUCIAL BATTLEGROUND STATE: POLL

The records pertain to a federal investigation that touched on the hush-money matter and led to prison time for former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen.

Federal prosecutors in 2018 charged Cohen with campaign finance violations related to the hush-money payments, with evading taxes related to his investments in the taxi industry and with lying to Congress.

Cohen, who blamed Trump for his legal problems, pleaded guilty and served about a year in prison before being released to home confinement because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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He is now a key prosecution witness in the Manhattan district attorney’s case. Trump and his lawyers have portrayed Cohen as completely untrustworthy. 

Welcome to Fox News’ Politics newsletter with the latest political news from Washington D.C. and updates from the 2024 campaign trail. 

What’s happening? 

-Biden announces infrastructure projects during tour of Democratic states

-Congress once again embraces earmark spending 

-Democrats increasingly worry about third party spoiler bid

Schumer Intervenes 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is taking a lot of heat over his comments about Isreal. During a floor speech Thursday, the Senate majority leader called on Israel to elect a new prime minister and advance a two-state solution for Israel and Gaza. Schumer said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was one of four obstacles to lasting peace. 

Republicans quickly demanded he apologize for his comments. The top four GOP lawmakers held an impromptu press conference during their annual retreat at the Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia, just after Schumer’s statement. “As we were in a work session here within the last half hour, there was a buzz among the audience as people were seeing notices come across their phone as something that was rather shocking to us,” Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said. 

Johnson suggested in an interview with Fox News Digital that the House may move ahead with a standalone Israel aid package, given the “urgency” after Schumer’s comments.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the upper chamber, said Israel deserved “an ally who acts like one.”

“It is grotesque and hypocritical for Americans who hyperventilate about foreign interference in our own democracy to call for the removal of a democratically elected leader of Israel,” McConnell added.

White House

BLUE WALL: Biden announces infrastructure projects during tour of Democratic ‘blue wall’ states …Read more

‘IMMORAL’: Kamala Harris becomes first VP to visit abortion clinic, where she says people don’t need to ‘abandon their faith’ to back access to abortion …Read more

Capitol Hill

$12 BILLION: Congress embraces earmarks in bipartisan fashion — Until they don’t …Read more

TIME IN A BOTTLE: Bernie Sanders moves to reduce work hours for millions of Americans …Read more

‘RUNNING AWAY’: Hunter Biden’s ex-business partner slams him for not appearing at House hearing …Read more

COUNTERING AIPAC: Left-wing coalition forms to protect the ‘Squad’ against massive election spending …Read more

THUMBSCREWS: Johnson says House will ‘apply every amount of pressure’ to Senate to pass TikTok bill …Read more

‘SANCTUARY’ CRACKDOWN: GOP rep eyes punishing blue states for not cooperating with ICE …Read more

Tales from the Campaign Trail

PARTY CRASHERS: Democrats increasingly worried about third-party spoilers for Biden …Read more

REMATCH: Trump & Biden face off again in history-making fight for the White House – what to know …Read more

SPEAKING OUT: Lauren Boebert won’t ‘further imperil’ slim GOP majority by running in special election for Ken Buck’s seat …Read more

Across America

‘LYING’: DeSantis and Libs of TikTok get into spat over online post …Read more

CUTTING BACK: Illinois moves to cut back on experimental healthcare programs for illegal migrants …Read more

‘HELPING HAND’: More blue cities, states beg private residences to help house migrants …Read more

TIKTOK: TikTok CEO voices disappointment in House vote to ban Chinese-run social media platform …Read more

Subscribe now to get Fox News Politics newsletter in your inbox.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more on FoxNews.com.

Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-Texas, in an article published this week, compared Latinos who support former President Trump to “Jews for Hitler” as he discussed GOP outreach in the area, and the remark immediately drew accusations of racism from his Republican challenger in the upcoming election.

“For [Republicans] to stay in power, even at the state level, they need to convince at least a percentage, even a small percentage, of Latinos to start voting Republican,” Gonzalez, who represents an area that includes some of the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, told The New Republic. “If not, they will eventually lose elections.

“If they didn’t have that racist, divisive element within their party, they would have a lot of Latinos, but they can’t seem to shake that off. The rhetoric you hear from the Republican Party is shameful and disgraceful for Latinos. And, you know, when you see Latinos for Trump, to me it is like seeing ‘Jews for Hitler,’ almost, you know?”

MANHATTAN DA BRAGG ASKS FOR DELAY TO TRUMP’S HUSH MONEY TRIAL

Democrats have accused Republicans of embracing racist rhetoric in their platform of securing the border and limiting illegal immigration. But the New Republic article emphasized how Trump could win both Texas and the Rio Grande Valley as he pushes to restore the tougher border security measures seen during his presidency amid a record-setting border crisis.

The remarks from Gonzalez drew an immediate rebuke from both the National Republican Congressional Committee and former Rep. Mayra Flores, who is seeking to unseat Gonzalez in November.

SPEAKER JOHNSON FLOATS STAND-ALONE ISRAEL AID PLAN AFTER SCHUMER’S COMMENTS MADE SITUATION ‘EVEN MORE URGENT’

“Hispanic voters, especially those living in border communities, know that Democrats are failing them on the border, the economy and community safety. Vicente Gonzalez’s comments are insulting, and he should apologize,” NRCC spokeswoman Delanie Bomar said in a statement.

“Vicente Gonzalez’s racist comments are incredibly hurtful to our entire Latino community in the Rio Grande Valley,” Flores told Fox News Digital. “While he continues peddling in hate and division, I’m going to focus on policies that uplift our entire community, including lower costs, a secure border, safer communities and a focus on faith, family and more opportunities in TX-34.”

Reached for comment Thursday, Gonzalez stood by his remarks.

“I’m stating the obvious. Mayra Flores champions President Trump, who was quoted calling hard-working Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals — saying they’re not our friends,” he said. “She threw her lot in with Marjorie Taylor Greene and George Santos instead of with South Texans.”

The controversy comes as the border crisis, which is now into its third year, looks likely to be a top election issue this year.

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President Biden and former President Trump both visited the southern border this month. Biden has renewed calls for the Senate to pass a bipartisan border funding bill that he supports, saying it is needed to fix a broken system. Conservatives have said the bill doesn’t go far enough.

Republicans say Biden has the power to fix the border crisis, including by restoring Trump-era policies, and passed a border bill of their own last year in the House.

A group linked to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is jumping in with last-minute funds to influence Ohio’s GOP Senate primary, one of the closest-watched races in the country. 

Duty and Country PAC, affiliated with the Schumer-linked Senate Majority PAC, launched at least $2.5 million on a TV ad in Ohio that will promote businessman Bernie Moreno, endorsed in the race by former President Trump, as too conservative in a presumed effort to boost him in the GOP Senate primary, Politico reported.

“Bernie Moreno is too conservative for Ohio,”the narrator says in the 30 second ad, which began running in Ohio on Thursday morning. “In Washington, Moreno would do Donald Trump’s bidding. “That’s why Trump endorsed Moreno, calling him ‘exactly the type of MAGA fighter that we need in the United States Senate.”

The ad explains that Moreno would “lead the charge” to lead Trump’s agenda to “repeal Obamacare” and “institute a national abortion ban.”

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“Donald Trump needs Bernie Moreno,” the narrator adds. “Ohio doesn’t.”

“When Ohio voters head to their polling place they deserve to know the truth about Bernie Moreno — and the truth is that Moreno is a MAGA extremist who embraced Donald Trump just like he embraced his policies to ban abortion nationwide and repeal the ACA,” Senate Majority PAC spokesperson Hannah Menchhoff said in a statement.

Moreno’s primary opponents, Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose and Republican State Sen. Matt Dolan, took to social media and claimed the ad is evidence that Schumer views Moreno as the most favorable candidate for his Democratic colleague Sen. Sherrod Brown.

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“Chuck Schumer is funding pro-Moreno ads because he knows Bernie’s background makes him the weakest candidate to face Sherrod Brown,” LaRose posted on X. “The more Ohioans learn about Moreno, the less they trust him.” 

“Seen those ads supporting Bernie Moreno? Know who is paying for them? It’s Chuck Schumer,” Dolan wrote on X. “Schumer just got CAUGHT meddling in our primary because he wants the weakest opponent for Sherrod Brown. Enough is enough.”

The Moreno campaign told Fox News Digital that Democrats “constantly underestimate the America First movement at their own peril.”

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“They thought President Trump would be easy to beat in 2016 and then they got their clocks cleaned when he demolished Hillary Clinton. The same thing is going to happen to Sherrod Brown this year,” Moreno campaign communications director Reagan McCarthy said.

Tuesday’s Senate primary will be closely watched as the 3 Republican candidates are locked in what many believe is a tight race to move on to challenge Brown, the only Democrat to win statewide in Ohio in the past decade. 

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An Emerson College poll released this week showed Dolan in the lead by 3 points about a week after Moreno released an internal poll showing him in the lead by 10 points. 

Both polls showed a significant amount of voters, around 30%, still undecided.

Cook Political Report ranks the Ohio Senate race in November as a “toss up” making it one of the few opportunities Republicans have to try and regain control of the Senate.

In what’s been called an “unprecedented” and “ridiculous” move by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, GOP political powerhouses are rallying against the New York senator’s suggestion Israel hold new elections and oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

It comes at a time of growing U.S. pressure on Israel over the war in Gaza and as the Biden administration is preparing to build a temporary floating dock along the Gaza shoreline to allow for large-scale delivery of food and humanitarian aid to Gazans. 

The Israeli-Hamas conflict has become an increasingly polarizing issue for many Americans, making it a flash point during an already hotly contested upcoming race for the presidency. 

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During his speech on the Senate floor Thursday, Schumer implored Israel to hold new elections and warned it of becoming a “pariah” if Netanyahu remained in power. He claimed Netanyahu had “lost his way by allowing his political survival to take the precedence over the best interests of Israel.”

His comments sparked bitter reactions from Republican leaders in the House and Senate, many of whom criticized his apparent lack of understanding or appreciation of Israel’s role as the closest and friendliest ally to the U.S. in the Middle East. 

“Ridiculous. An absolute dereliction of duty. Undermining the leadership of an ally in the middle of a war and interfering in elections is downright dangerous,” Sen. Tim Scott, R–S.C., wrote on X, formerly Twitter. 

“Chuck Schumer should be ashamed for turning his back on our greatest ally in the Middle East,” wrote Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, a Republican running to become the Senate GOP Conference chair. 

“While he gives lip service to Israel, his statements today show he will follow in lockstep with terrorist sympathizers while American lives are on the line.”

“The primary ‘obstacles to peace’ in Israel’s region are genocidal terrorists and corrupt PA (Palestinian Authority) leaders who repeatedly reject peace deals,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., wrote on X. “Foreign observers who cannot keep this straight ought to refrain from interfering in the democracy of a sovereign ally.”

Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a nonpartisan, nonprofit national security think tank based in Washington, D.C., called Schumer’s suggestion “unprecedented.” 

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“Somehow, Chuck Schumer knows the politics of Israel better than the people who live in Israel – that’s really where you’ve jumped the shark,” Goldberg said. “And if, for some reason, we as Americans, on both sides of the aisle, accept this as a new form of behavior to do this to other allies – this will just be the starting point. And you will start seeing the White House trying to insert itself and to put its muscle on scales to meddle in elections in other democracies. 

“And now you’re on a slippery slope, where you really have to question our own democratic values when we do that.” 

Goldberg served on the National Security Council under former President Donald Trump.

Schumer, who is Jewish, is among the top recipients of American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) campaign cash – upward of $1.7 million, according to The Jerusalem Post. According to Opensecrets.com, he is seventh on the list of pro-Israel recipients in the Senate from 1994 to the present, below President Joe Biden; Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J.; former senator and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton; former Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill.; former Sen. Joe Leiberman, D-Conn.; and McConnell.

In a post on X, AIPAC wrote, “Israel is an independent democracy that decides for itself when elections are held and chooses its own leaders. America must continue to stand with our ally Israel and ensure it has the time and resources it needs to win this war. Hamas bears sole responsibility for this conflict. The hope for a brighter future for the Middle East begins with Israel’s decisive defeat of Hamas.”

Schumer’s remarks have largely been welcomed by congressional Democrats, many of whom have called for a cease-fire in Gaza as the conflict continues to escalate. 

Joel Rubin, a Democratic strategist and former deputy assistant secretary of state in the Obama adminstration, said Schumer has the “single most pro-Israel voting and legislative record of any member of Congress in the history of the United States.” He defended Schumer by arguing the speech came from an Israeli perspective and one that would facilitate peace in the long term.

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“Schumer said quite bluntly, ‘Look, I’ve known [Netanyahu] for decades. And the way that Netanyahu’s policy is advancing … it is his extreme kowtowing to the most dangerous voices in Israeli politics,'” Rubin said.

“Schumer believes that there are a lot of culprits to blame … and he named them … extremist thinkers who want to essentially kick out all the Palestinians from Gaza. And he said that that is unhealthy for the long-term safety and security of Israel – and by extension for the American-Israeli relationship.”

SAGINAW, Mich. (AP) — Hurley Coleman Jr.’s parents were drawn to Michigan from the South by the promise of middle-class jobs in the booming automotive industry, an origin story shared by many African American families in Saginaw.

Mass layoffs beginning in the late 20th century precipitated a dramatic decline in Saginaw’s population and economy, accompanied by a sharp rise in political turmoil within the city and throughout the region around it. This unrest peaked in 2016, mirroring the trend set off by economic stress in many Rust Belt cities, when the area voted Republican for the first time in decades and helped Donald Trump win the state.

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“There was unrest in so many corners, in so many ways and it just happened that you had a candidate who was irascible enough to be able to tap into that unrest,” said Coleman. “There are a lot of people who still have that unrest, but they’re paying attention now.”

Turning Saginaw County blue again in 2020 — by a margin of 303 votes — contributed to Joe Biden’s success in securing the critical “blue wall” states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, all pivotal in Trump’s previous victory as well. Leaders in both parties have said that it will be next to impossible for either presidential candidate to win the White House this year without winning Michigan.

Biden, who traveled to Saginaw on Thursday to meet with supporters and volunteers, understands its importance.

“Our democracy’s at stake” Biden told the group that packed the front porch of a Saginaw city council member’s home to meet with him. “I really mean it.”

Later, Biden sat down with a Michigan family at a local public golf course. With the campaign season heating up, the president has made intimate conversations with families and small groups to discuss policy matters most impacting their lives a set part of his travels around the country.

The visit was part of a two-day swing through Wisconsin and Michigan that started Wednesday as the president looks to create momentum for his reelection campaign after clinching the Democratic nomination on Tuesday night.

“President Joe Biden knows that if there is a place in America that he can tell his story to a people that need to hear it, Saginaw is that typical place,” said Coleman, a pastor who is planning to help Biden in his reelection bid.

Saginaw, a Democratic stronghold, is encircled by predominantly Republican areas within the larger county. Described as a microcosm of the entire state, Saginaw County is the only Michigan county to have voted for the winning presidential candidate in the last four elections. In that respect it has largely replaced Macomb County north of Detroit as the go-to destination for political consultants and media looking to take the temperature of what might well be the ultimate swing state, with Macomb sliding steadily further into the Republican camp.

The Saginaw area boasts a large number of union-affiliated voters, a demographic that Biden has targeted in his reelection campaign. He has received multiple key union endorsements even as Trump lays claim to being the candidate of choice for working people despite many union leaders saying his first term showed otherwise.

The 44,000-person city at the heart of the county is also home to a significant Black community, comprising 46% of Saginaw’s residents. Energizing this demographic could be pivotal in November as Biden’s campaign navigates challenges in other regions of the state.

“I think that the president recognizes the importance of getting into a community as diverse as Saginaw and having the conversation and having the face-to-face time with folks,” said Michigan Democratic Party chair Lavora Barnes.

Over 100,000 Democratic voters in Michigan opted to vote “uncommitted” in the state’s Feb. 27 primary in what had been pushed by activists as a protest vote against Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza. Top Biden advisors, both from the campaign and the White House, have traveled frequently over the past several months to places like Dearborn, a Detroit suburb with the nation’s highest concentration of Arab Americans, in their efforts to win back what had been a reliably Democratic constituency.

But some Michigan Democrats in recent weeks have cautioned the party about overlooking restlessness within a significantly larger and politically influential demographic: Black voters.

Biden’s support among Black voters has waned considerably since he assembled his winning coalition four years ago, when he was backed by 91% of Black voters nationwide, according to AP VoteCast.

His approval rating among Black adults is 42% in the latest Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, a substantial drop from the first year of his presidency. Biden also is working to energize Black voters in the key swing states of Georgia, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

Wayne County Executive Warren Evans was among the 13% of Democratic voters who voted “uncommitted” in Michigan’s primary, but for a different reason than the one pushed by activists. He said he withheld his support to make a point to the Michigan Democratic Party that they are “not doing the things that they need to do to engage significant portions of the African American community.”

“We don’t see these programs and things that are talked about trickling down to us,” said Evans. “We don’t feel invested in. The philosophical stuff that you might hear in a speech, we’re not feeling that.”

Saginaw resident Jeffery Bulls shares Evans’ sentiment, opting not to vote at all in the state’s primary rather than vote “uncommitted.” Once a Democratic voter, Bulls said that both Biden and Trump have proven to be “more of the same.” He said he “probably will be skipping that top spot on the ballot” in November.

“We look around our community and 10, 20, 30 years go by and the same blight is here, the same joblessness is here, the same issues are here,” said Bulls. “Nothing has changed. That starts to click after a while and then you get cynical.”

The city of Saginaw’s poverty rate of nearly 35% is more than double Michigan’s average of 13%, as per the latest U.S. Census data. Average income in the city is also half that of the state’s average, though unemployment in the county has declined steadily since Biden first took office.

While Black voters are unlikely to support Trump in significant numbers in November, a lack of turnout could prove just as fatal for Biden’s reelection campaign. In 2016, Trump won Michigan by fewer than 11,000 votes, a thin margin attributed in part to reduced turnout in predominantly Black areas like Detroit’s Wayne County, where Hillary Clinton received far fewer votes than Barack Obama did in previous elections.

Biden reclaimed much of that support four years ago, when he defeated Trump in Michigan by a 154,000-vote margin, but he has work to do. Detroit, which holds a population that is nearly 78% Black, saw a 12% turnout in the Feb. 27 primary, almost half that of the 23% total turnout in the state.

Biden’s team is keenly aware of the pushback his reelection has encountered in certain minority communities in Michigan. Thursday’s visit is Biden’s second in six weeks, and his team is establishing over 15 field offices across Michigan, including Saginaw.

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The campaign has been “working to ensure that Black Michiganders are aware of all the promises made and kept by” Biden, said Eddie McDonald, senior adviser for Biden-Harris in Michigan, in a statement. He added that the campaign is “not taking a single voter for granted — especially when the stakes are this high.”

“The fundamental choice in this election is between Joe Biden, who is fighting to make life better for Black voters, and Donald Trump, who drove up Black unemployment, tried to rip away health care access, and attempted to slash funding for HBCUs,” said McDonald. “That difference is stark and we’re going to make sure Michiganders know it.”

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — Retired Army Capt. Sam Brown, who lost Nevada’s 2022 GOP Senate primary, filed his formal candidacy Thursday for the seat held by first-term Sen. Jacky Rosen in a race Republicans have targeted nationally as one of their best chances to knock off an incumbent Democrat.

Brown, a Purple Heart recipient, has been considered the early GOP front-runner in a crowded primary field since he announced he was running last summer, less than a year after he lost his bid to challenge Nevada‘s other Democratic senator in the western battleground state.

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Last time, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto went on to defeat Republican Adam Laxalt by just 8,000 votes in the western battleground state — the closest Senate race in the nation in 2022.

Brown, who was nearly killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan that scarred his face, has made national security a priority in his campaign again this time around while painting Rosen as a loyalist to President Joe Biden and Democratic leaders.

“The Biden administration and Democrat leadership in the Senate have not served Nevadans well. This is a movement of `We the People’ and we are going to put people over politics,” Brown said at a rally outside the state capitol in Carson City after he and his wife, Amy, submitted his filing papers at the secretary of state’s office.

“Joe Biden and Jacky Rosen had their chance, and they’ve destroyed the American Dream,” he wrote in a post Thursday on X, previously known as Twitter.

Laxalt won ex-President Donald Trump’s endorsement in the 2022 race and called Brown a carpetbagger who moved to Nevada after he unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the Texas state Legislature in 2014.

Brown’s GOP primary opponents include Jim Marchant, a former state Assembly member who lost the 2022 race for Nevada secretary of state after promoting Trump’s lies of a stolen 2020 election, and Tony Grady, an Air Force veteran and former candidate for lieutenant governor.

Marchant and Grady were among seven Republicans seeking the nomination who faced off at a debate in Reno in January and spent much of the time criticizing Brown for refusing to participate. They have characterized him as an “establishment” candidate.

Rosen formally filed her candidacy earlier this month and has not drawn any well-known opposition for the Democratic nomination. She was a first-term congresswoman from a Las Vegas-area district when she defeated GOP Sen. Dean Heller in 2018.

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Nevada State Democratic Party spokesperson Katharine Kurz said Thursday that Brown was Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s handpicked candidate in “one of the messiest and most crowded Republican Senate primaries in the country.”

“MAGA extremist Sam Brown is a self-serving politician who puts the interests of his party leaders in Washington, out-of-state billionaires, and special interests over what’s best for hardworking Nevadans,” she said in a statement.

Rachael Rollins, the disgraced former U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts nominated by President Biden, has had her law license suspended less than a year after resigning from her position amid a lengthy DOJ investigation, court documents show.

According to Massachusetts Appellate Court records, Rollins — who was paraded as a rising “national leader” after Biden nominated her for U.S. attorney — had her license to practice law in the state suspended effective Feb. 20 due to the nonpayment of registration fees. 

Prior to the DOJ investigation that centered on her alleged unethical misconduct relating to political activities in favor of the Democrat Party, Rollins — the then-Suffolk County district attorney — was praised by liberal media outlets and Democrats in Congress over her approach to crime in the Boston area.

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“Rollins has been among President Biden’s smartest appointments, and if her nomination is finally approved in the Senate she would become the top federal prosecutor in Massachusetts, handling cases involving national security, white-collar crime, public corruption, cybercrime, gang violence and civil rights violations,” The Los Angeles Times’ editorial board wrote as it defended her from Republican criticism at the time.

“Biden’s nomination of Rollins, while hardly radical, represents a threat to the Republican narrative about Democrats and crime, as do Boston’s enviable crime stats … The point is that when GOP senators claim that Rollins’ policies increase crime, they’re just making things up to justify blocking one of the nation’s most successful criminal justice leaders,” it added.

Massachusetts Democrat Senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren described Rollins as “a great choice for U.S. Attorney,” and that they were “proud to recommend her to the Biden administration.”

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“District Attorney Rollins is a national leader on transforming the criminal justice system and shifting away from an approach based on punishment and penalization to one that combats the root causes of injustice, whether it be poverty, substance use, or racial disparity,” they said in a statement at the time.

“She has prosecutorial experience, and is dedicated and committed to advancing equal justice for all, and we are certain that she will be a tremendous U.S. Attorney. We will work to make sure she is confirmed as quickly as possible,” they added.

Rollins was ultimately confirmed by the Democrat-controlled Senate, but was later found by the DOJ to have unethically attended a partisan Biden fundraiser last summer and “falsely testified under oath” about leaking “sensitive DOJ” information to the press in an effort to help a Democrat win elected office.

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Details of Rollins’ misconduct — highlighted in the DOJ’s report released ahead of her resignation last May by Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s office — showed that Rollins attempted to swing an election by assisting “Ricardo Arroyo with his Democratic primary campaign for Suffolk D.A.”

Rollins, according to the report, went so far as to offer Arroyo advice on how to handle the sexual assault allegations levied against him during his campaign and also provided media outlets with “negative information” about his challenger, Kevin Hayden.

The DOJ also concluded that Rollins “falsely testified under oath during her OIG interview when she denied that she was the federal law enforcement source that provided nonpublic, sensitive DOJ information to the Herald reporter about a possible Hayden criminal investigation.”

Rollins later admitted to being the source after she “produced relevant text messages, which definitively showed that Rollins had indeed been a source for the reporter and had disclosed to him the internal DOJ recusal memorandum quoted in the story,” the report said.

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The report also found that Rollins, despite ethics advice not to, attended a Biden fundraiser the year prior that included an appearance by first lady Jill Biden.

Fox News Digital has reached out to Rollins, Markey, Warren and The Los Angeles Times for comment.

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia Republicans powered a voucher plan funding private school tuition and homeschooling through the state House on Thursday, nearing a goal that has long eluded the state’s school choice advocates as GOP leaders overcame longstanding skepticism from some rural members of their party

The House voted 91-82 for Senate Bill 233, passing it with one vote to spare. The same bill failed last year when 16 Republicans voted against it. Thursday, seven Republicans and one Democrat who opposed the measure last year flipped to support it.

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The vote sends the bill back to the Senate for what could be a single up-or-down vote on final passage. Republican Gov. Brian Kemp backs the voucher plan, including devoting a substantial portion of his State of the State speech to advocating for it. And Republican House Speaker Jon Burns of Newington began to forcefully advocate for the bill after spending the summer on the sidelines.

“We are going to empower our parents to make the best educational decisions for their children and give them the tools to succeed for generations to come!” Burns said in a statement after Thursday’s vote.

The bill would provide $6,500 education savings accounts to students attending public schools that rank in Georgia’s bottom 25% for academic achievement. That money could be spent on private school tuition, home schooling supplies, therapy, tutoring or even early college courses for high school students.

It differs from last year’s failed measure, having been combined with a number of other education initiatives. But opponents argue it would subtract resources from public schools, with school districts losing state aid as children depart, even as other students will remain behind.

Rep Vance Smith of Pine Mountain, one of eight House Republicans who continued to oppose the bill, said lawmakers should instead seek to solve dysfunction in schools.

“When the dust settles, you’ve still got children in the classroom,” Smith said. “What are we doing for those children that are left in the classroom?”

The new program would be limited to spending 1% of the $14.1 billion that Georgia spends on its school funding formula, or $141 million. Lawmakers would appropriate money for the voucher separately, and not take it directly out of the formula. That could provide more than 21,000 scholarships. Students who could accept them are supposed to have attended an eligible public school for at least two consecutive semesters, or be about to enter kindergarten at an eligible public school.

Students from households with incomes of less than four times the federal poverty level would prioritized for the scholarships. Four times the federal poverty level is about $100,000 for a family of three.

Parents would have to provide proof of allowed expenditures to a new Georgia Education Savings Authority to claim the money. All of a family’s eligible children could qualify for the program

Democrats argue the money isn’t enough to pay tuition at most private schools, and that private schools aren’t available in some rural areas. They also say private schools don’t have to accept all applicants and could discriminate against people with differing social and religious views. Rep. Karlton Howard, an Augusta Democrat, said the plan increases inequality, favoring people with the resources to make up the difference.

“It is leaving the least and the less behind to fend for themselves,” Howard said.

Republicans see it differently, though. Mesha Mainor, an Atlanta Republican, switched from the Democratic Party in part because of her support for vouchers. She said the bill would help at least some people, claiming members of her former party don’t want to help any students in poorly performing schools.

“They are growing up in a cycle of poverty and a cycle of desperation,” Mainor said “Today, you can make a change for them.”

The Georgia effort is part of a nationwide GOP wave favoring education savings accounts following the pandemic and fights over what children should learn in public schools.

Other parts of the revamped bill include writing current teacher pay raises into Georgia’s K-12 school funding formula, letting public school prekindergarten programs qualify for state aid to construct and furnish buildings, letting students enroll in other public school districts that will accept them and increasing tax credits for donations to public schools.

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The language on teacher raises is partly symbolic — lawmakers have been increasing pay using budget bills in recent years.

Georgia already gives vouchers for special education students in private schools and $120 million a year in income tax credits for donors to private school scholarship funds.

A new poll in Michigan – one of the key states that may decide November’s presidential election – indicates that former President Donald Trump holds a three-point advantage over President Biden.

According to a survey released Thursday by Quinnipiac University, Trump stands at 48% among registered voters in Michigan, with Biden at 45%, and eight percent undecided. 

In the head-to-head match up, independents favored Trump by a narrow 46%-42% margin. The poll was conducted March 8-12 (last Friday through Tuesday).

When third-party and independent candidates are included, the survey indicates Trump at 41%, Biden at 36%, Democrat-turned-independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at 10%, Green Party candidate Jill Stein at 4%, and progressive independent Cornell West at 3%. Five percent were undecided.

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The Quinnipiac poll was released as the president campaigned in the crucial Midwestern general election battleground state.

Since delivering a vigorous State of the Union address last week, Biden has stopped in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, and now Michigan. He plans a trip to Nevada and Arizona next week. 

Biden narrowly edged Trump in all six of those states in the 2020 presidential election to win the White House.

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Biden and Trump clinched the Democratic and Republican presidential nominations, as they swept primaries in Georgia, Mississippi and Washington State on Tuesday, becoming the major party 2024 presumptive nominees.

With over seven and a half months to go until Election Day on November 5, Trump currently enjoys the early edge in public opinion polling – in most national surveys and in many in the key battleground states.

A Fox News poll in Arizona that was released on Wednesday indicated Trump topping Biden by four points, both in a two-way matchup and a five-way showdown that also includes Kennedy Jr., Stein and West. 

Trump edges Biden by two points, which is within the survey’s sampling error, in a Fox News poll in Pennsylvania that was also released on Wednesday. The survey indicates that the two are deadlocked in a five-way matchup including Kennedy Jr., Stein, and West.

While third-party and independent candidates didn’t play much of a role in the 2020 presidential election, they did in the 2016 showdown between Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. And they may again in 2024.

The Biden-Trump rematch offers up stark contrasts when it comes to their styles and demeanors, and on where they stand on key issues, such as the economy, health care and entitlements, immigration, abortion, foreign policy, the war in Ukraine and America’s overseas role going forward.

The 81-year-old Biden, who four years ago made history as the oldest American ever elected president, will continue to face questions about his mental and physical durability, even after last week’s vigorous State of the Union address.

The president needs to show that he can energize younger voters, progressives, and Black and Latino Americans, who are all key parts of the Democratic base. Biden is also facing primary ballot box protests – materializing in “uncommitted” votes – over his support for Israel in its war in Gaza against Hamas.

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The former president is also dealing with plenty of problems. 

Trump, who last year made history as the first president or former president to face criminal charges, now faces four major trials and a total of 91 indictments – including federal cases on his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and on handling classified documents. There’s also a $355 million civil fraud judgment that Trump is appealing. He will have to juggle his appearances in court with his time on the campaign trail. 

The 77-year-old Trump will also need to court the sizable block of Republican voters who backed Nikki Haley in the GOP nomination race. The former U.N. ambassador and former South Carolina governor was Trump’s last remaining rival before she ended her White House campaign last week. Haley’s support is shining a spotlight on Trump’s weakness with suburban and highly educated voters.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

When President Biden and former President Donald Trump face off in an election rematch this November, one man will remain a one-term president. 

Trump, a Republican whom Biden unseated in 2020, seeks to return the favor in 2024 as the incumbent Democratic president struggles with lackluster approval ratings reminiscent of infamous one-term president Jimmy Carter. As of February, Biden’s job approval rating stood at 38% in a Gallup poll — less than one point above President Carter’s record-low Gallup rating of 37.4% after his third year in office. 

There is reason to believe that Biden today is in a weaker position than Carter was in 1980, when the Democratic incumbent lost re-election to Republican Ronald Reagan. In March 1980, a Gallup head-to-head poll showed Carter at 58% to Regan’s 33% — but the gap would narrow in the ensuing months, and Reagan ultimately defeated Carter in a 44-state landslide with 50.8% of the popular vote to Carter’s 41%. 

There is no comparable Gallup survey for Biden and Trump in 2024, but other recent polls show a much closer race, with Trump maintaining a slight 2.1 point lead over Biden in the RealClearPolitics average of polls. A Fox News Poll released Sunday found Trump at 49% support, while Biden registered at 47%, a statistical tie within the margin of sampling error.

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Craig Shirley, a Reagan biographer who wrote about the 1980 campaign in his book “Rendezvous with Destiny,” attributed Carter’s early lead over Reagan to “public sympathy and an outpouring of support for the Iranian hostage crisis.” 

The Iran hostage crisis began on November 4, 1979, when radicalized students seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran to protest Carter’s decision to allow the deposed Shah of Iran into the U.S. for medical treatment. Fifty-two Americans — mostly State Department employees and Marines — were held captive for 444 days while Ayatollah Khomeini spurned Carter’s attempts to free the captives. 

“Public attitudes turned about the hostage crisis, because I think people were starting to realize that Carter was using it to his political advantage,” Shirley told Fox News Digital in an interview. “The goal was to get the hostages released in October. And Americans, in an outpouring of gratitude, would vote for Carter for his re-election. That’s what the Carter campaign really wanted, was to get the hostages out right at the crest of the election. Didn’t happen, of course.” 

Carter’s re-election effort faced economic challenges as well, with inflation and unemployment both in double digits, a phenomenon economists have dubbed “stagflation.” The crisis in Iran intersected with the U.S. economy when Iranian oil workers went on strike, triggering a supply shock that led to notorious lines at the gas station and incidents of gas theft. 

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The final years of Carter’s presidency saw inflation rise by an average 11% in 1979 and nearly 14% in 1980. 

Biden faces similar foreign and domestic crises. While the president proclaimed an economic “comeback” in his State of the Union address last week, inflation remains persistent at 3.2% year-over-year, according to the Labor Department’s February consumer price index (CPI) report. 

Under Biden’s watch, inflation surged to 9.1% in 2022 after a series of coronavirus spending packages that began under Trump and culminated in the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan signed into law by Biden. Inflation has since come down but remains higher than the Federal Reserve’s target 2% rate. But compared with January 2021, shortly before the inflation crisis began, prices are up a dramatic 18.49%. 

High inflation has created severe financial pressures for most U.S. households, which are forced to pay more for everyday necessities like food and rent. The burden is disproportionately borne by low-income Americans, whose already-stretched paychecks are heavily affected by price fluctuations.

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Progress on inflation has largely flatlined since June, with the consumer price index hovering at or above 3% for the past nine months, stoking concerns on Wall Street over the possibility of renewed “stagflation.” 

On the foreign policy front, Biden lost public support, and his poll numbers never recovered after 13 U.S. service members died during the chaotic military withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. His term in office has also seen war erupt in Ukraine and Israel with no end in sight. Repeated military aid packages to Ukraine have failed to stop the Russian offensive or turn the tide in the war. And despite efforts to negotiate a ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, war rages on in Gaza.

Biden also faces his own hostage crisis as at least five Americans are still held in captivity by Hamas. Israeli authorities say the terrorist group took at least 250 hostages during the October 7 surprise attack on Israel, during which Hamas killed 1,200 people, including 32 Americans. 

But Trump must overcome his own challenges to make Biden a one-term president. He made history last year as the first president or former president to face criminal charges and now faces four major trials and a total of 91 indictments — including federal cases on his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and on handling classified documents. He must also juggle an appeal of a $355 million civil fraud judgment as he splits time between courtrooms and campaign stops before the November election. 

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Shirley said that for Trump to repeat Reagan’s success, he must make Biden the issue in this campaign. 

“Now, Trump’s already proved that he can be an acceptable alternative,” he explained, noting that he has already been president and is ready to “step into the job and replace the other guy.” 

In Shirley’s estimation, Trump has done a good job attacking Biden on the illegal immigration crisis and on inflation. He said that immigration is Trump’s “signature issue, just as anti-communisim was Regan’s signature issue.” 

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“The issue cluster that Reagan ran on in 1980, the winning issue cluster was strong national defense, federalism, tax cuts, individual rights. All those issues are still the issues of the Republican Party, still the winning issues,” Shirley said. 

“That was Reagan’s gift, to bequeath the party a firm set of values on which the party stood for all, emanating from Reagan’s bedrock belief in personal freedom.” 

Fox News Digital’s Rémy Numa, Paul Steinhauser, Taylor Penley, Megan Henney and Ronn Blitzer contributed to this report. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has called on Israel to elect a new prime minister to replace Benjamin Netanyahu in order to move towards a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians in the form of a two-state solution. 

In what was billed as a major speech on a two-state solution, Schumer said on the Senate floor on Thursday that Netanyahu was one of four obstacles to this solution. 

The majority leader said he believed that “Prime Minister Netanyahu has lost his way by allowing his political survival to take the precedence over the best interests of Israel.”

Along with Netanyahu, Schumer listed “Hamas, and the Palestinians who support and tolerate their evil ways, radical, right-wing Israelis in government and society, [and] Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas” as the other obstacles. 

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According to Schumer, who is Jewish, Israeli elections are “the only way to allow for a healthy and open decision-making process about the future of Israel.” He added that he believed a majority of Israelis also recognize a need for change in their government. 

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In his reasoning for calling on elections to potentially replace Netanyahu, Schumer explained: “He has put himself in coalition with far-right extremists like Ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, and as a result, he has been too willing to tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza, which is pushing support for Israel worldwide to historic lows.”

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Schumer emphasized that Israel will not be able to overcome such a poor public image. “Israel cannot survive if it becomes a pariah,” he said.

After Schumer’s speech, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R–Ky., took to the floor and addressed the remarks of his Democratic colleague, but did not call him out by name.

“The Jewish state of Israel deserves an ally that acts like one,” he said, condemning the call for new Israeli elections as “unprecedented.”

“Israel’s unity, government and security cabinet deserve the deference befitting a sovereign democratic country.” 

The Kentucky Republican added that “foreign observers” who aren’t able to recognize these important distinctions should not give their own prescriptions. McConnell additionally claimed the Democratic Party’s issue is not with Netanyahu, but with the state of Israel itself.

Michael Herzog, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S., posted his reaction to the news on X, formerly Twitter:

“Israel is a sovereign democracy. It is unhelpful, all the more so as Israel is at war against the genocidal terror organization Hamas, to comment on the domestic political scene of a democratic ally. It is counterproductive to our common goals.”

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As recently as January, Netanyahu rejected the prospect of two states, claiming, “I will not compromise on full Israeli security control over all the territory west of Jordan — and this is contrary to a Palestinian state.” 

The Palestinian Authority has also reiterated its desire for the territories of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, with Jerusalem as the capital. 

President Joe Biden is getting to be a familiar face around the Great Lakes — and with a November rematch against Donald Trump looming, that’s no accident.

He started a two-day swing through Wisconsin and Michigan in Milwaukee on Wednesday as he tried to shore up a Democratic “blue wall” and build momentum for his re-election campaign after a fiery State of the Union address last week.

Aiming to show voters that his administration has improved their lives, Biden used the stop to announce $3.3 billion for infrastructure projects in disadvantaged communities, including $36 million to reconnect parts of Milwaukee’s 6th Street, which had been divided by highway construction in the 1960s.

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“We’re rebuilding the roads, we’re filling in the cracks in the sidewalk, we’re creating spaces to live and work and play safely, and to breathe clean air, and to shop at a nearby grocery stocked with fresh and healthy food,” he said.

“You’ve lived and felt decisions made decades ago,” Biden said. “Today, today, we’re making decisions to transform your lives for decades to come.”

The money comes from the bipartisan infrastructure law that Biden signed in the first year of his presidency.

Biden told voters that Donald Trump, his Republican predecessor and likely opponent in this year’s election, had promised infrastructure improvements but never delivered.

“He didn’t get a single thing done,” Biden said. “Not one.”

Biden and Trump clinched their parties’ nominations on Tuesday after decisive victories in the primaries, setting up what promises to be a grinding rematch between the two men.

Much of that battle will be fought in Michigan and Wisconsin, as well as Pennsylvania, which was Biden’s first stop after his State of the Union. They’re collectively known as a “blue wall” because of their historic support for Democrats.

Trump flipped all three to win the White House in 2016, but Biden took them back four years ago and likely needs to hold them if he’s going to secure a second term.

Biden also plans to travel to North Carolina and other battleground states in the coming weeks. He has been overseeing openings of field offices as his campaign hires and trains organizers and begins assembling volunteers.

That’s meant as a show of political organizing strength — an area where the president has so far outpaced Trump, who has been occupied for months with a competitive primary and four ongoing criminal cases in which he faces 91 felony counts.

Biden’s re-election campaign hopes on-the-ground organization can neutralize the president’s low approval ratings and polling showing that a majority of voters — even a majority of Democrats — don’t want him to seek re-election.

“This particular president is a really impressive retail politician. He doesn’t just do the rally and leave,” said Jim Paine, the mayor of Superior, Wisconsin, a port city on the border with Minnesota. Biden has been there twice, including in January to promote a bridge built as part of the infrastructure law.

“He really puts time in with people, listens to individual stories, he talks about his own life one-on-one,” Paine said.

The $3.3 billion in grants announced on Wednesday covers 132 total projects, including in Atlanta; Los Angeles and Philadelphia as well as Birmingham, Alabama; Syracuse, New York; and Toledo, Ohio. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said that some of the projects are relatively modest and can be completed in “short order,” while others are “massive and ambitious undertakings that will take many years.”

Biden visited the opening of his campaign headquarters in Milwaukee, where nearly 40% of residents are Black, rather than Madison, the state capital that typically serves as the fulcrum for Democratic campaigns.

He said volunteers and staff in places like Milwaukee would help ensure his victory over Trump.

“This is how we are going to win again,” he said. “A lot of you helped me in 2020, and we made sure he was a loser and is a loser and we’re going to make sure that happens again, right?”

It’s Biden’s ninth visit to Wisconsin as president and his fifth to Milwaukee, where Republicans are holding their national convention this summer. Chris LaCivita, an adviser to Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson ‘s successful re-election campaign in 2022, is also a top Trump campaign aide — another signal that the state is a top GOP priority.

On Thursday, the president heads to Saginaw, north of Detroit, which has high concentrations of Black and union-affiliated voters. It was once reliably Democratic, but swung to Trump in 2016 and only narrowly backed Biden four years ago.

Biden and top advisers, both from the campaign and the White House, have made frequent trips to Michigan recently amid criticism of his administration’s handling of the war in Gaza, visiting places like Dearborn, a Detroit suburb with the nation’s highest concentration of Arab Americans.

His challenge was demonstrated in Michigan’s Democratic presidential primary last month, when activists promoted an “uncommitted” movement that garnered about 13% of the vote.

Thursday’s visit won’t take him to Dearborn, but will instead help Biden connect with key constituencies in other parts of the state. The campaign promises to open more than 15 Michigan field offices, complementing the 44 it and the state Democratic Party have in Wisconsin.

Early polls have shown Biden faring better against Trump in Wisconsin than in Michigan. Richard Czuba, a longtime Michigan pollster, said far more potentially decisive in November than supporters of the “uncommitted” movement during the Democratic primary are many “double-unfavorable” voters. He described those as state residents who plan to vote in November but don’t like either Trump or Biden.

“If they are persuaded to vote for Joe Biden, Joe Biden will win the state of Michigan,” Czuba said. “But, for Donald Trump, I think it’s an easier assignment to make sure that those double-unfavorables get divided.”

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One way Biden can win over such voters might be to make the race about issues like abortion rights, rather than himself, Czuba said. He noted that the president’s criticism of a suggestion by Trump that he’d allow Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to some NATO allies might resonate with Michigan’s large Polish-American population as well as immigrants from the Baltic nations.

Biden’s campaign moved quickly to highlight those comments in a three-week, six-figure digital ad campaign that targeted roughly 900,000 Baltic Americans in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

Still, that may not be enough for some voters in Michigan, where apathy about the Trump-Biden rematch is palpable. Said Saginaw resident Jeffrey Bulls: “I probably will be skipping that top spot on the ballot.”

FIRST ON FOX: Texas Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales wants to ramp up pressure on “sanctuary” jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in deporting illegal immigrants – and he is urging the Biden administration to take “aggressive action” to help.

Gonzales, in an interview with Fox News Digital, highlighted the emergence of Tren De Aragua, a violent Venezuelan street gang that federal authorities have warned has expanded into other countries and is trying to establish itself in the U.S. The Texas congressman called it “essentially the new MS-13.”

“They’re going to be entrenched in all our cities, and so it doesn’t make sense to me, if you’re a sanctuary city, that you should not be working with law enforcement to keep your city safe. That’s what it boils down to – to keep your city safe,” Gonzales said. 

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“Sanctuary” jurisdictions are those that, as a policy, do not honor ICE detainers. When ICE believes a removable illegal immigrant has been arrested on criminal charges, it will lodge a detainer – a request that they be notified before the immigrant is released from custody and to keep them in custody until ICE can take custody of them. Proponents of sanctuary policies argue that enforcing federal law is not the responsibility of local jurisdictions and that working with ICE has a chilling effect on relations between people seeking asylum and members of the local community.

But such policies have recently been brought under heightened scrutiny after a number of high-profile incidents where jurisdictions ignored ICE detainers and released illegal immigrants, only for them to subsequently commit serious crimes. Gonzales, who recently spoke to acting ICE Director Patrick Lechleitner, sits on the House Appropriations Committee and said his team is working on items that can empower ICE and also limit sanctuary cities.

“If you really want to move the needle, put money behind it,” he said. “Appropriations is where you do that. So that is one of the things that our team is looking at.” 

“I want to empower ICE to go out there and catch these bad actors,” he said. “This is no longer a partisan issue. I think there’s a lot of fertile ground for you to get people to agree on it.“

Along with more funding for ICE, Gonzales said he was tying federal grants to cooperation with ICE – something the Trump administration implemented with certain DOJ grants. However, he also floated something even stronger – a mandate for that cooperation with ICE.

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“I think one of the things that we can solve is getting these sanctuary cities to not be an option, that they work with federal agencies, for there to be a mandate,” he said. “Like, ‘Here’s the deal. You will work with federal agencies to… tackle these bad actors and keep your city safe.’”

In the meantime, Gonzales is leading a letter to the White House and the Department of Homeland Security. That letter, a copy of which was obtained by Fox News Digital, carries the signatures of nearly two dozen Republicans and says sanctuary policies pose a “direct threat” to public safety.

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“We are asking you to take aggressive action to end the abuse of our nation’s border laws and discourage sanctuary cities from providing safe harbor to violent criminals who have entered our country illegally,” it reads.

While Republicans and the administration have been at loggerheads over immigration policy, there may be some common ground. 

Lechleitner recently told Fox News that such jurisdictions are “inherently more unsafe.”

“It is a concern, and I’m very baffled by it,” he said.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told mayors in 2022 that he would be seeking to persuade leaders to change their policies.

“We are not engaged in indiscriminate enforcement, but we are focused on making our communities safe and allowing those who have been contributors to it and productive members of it, to allow them to continue in their contributions and their productivity,” he told the U.S. Conference of Mayors in 2022.

“And so, I will be coming to you and asking you to reconsider your position of non-cooperation and see how we can work together.”

The White House, in a statement to Fox News Digital last month, said it welcomes local law enforcement cooperation “in apprehending and removing individuals who pose a risk to national security or public safety.”

“When a local jurisdiction has information about an individual who could pose a threat to public safety, we want them to share that information with ICE,” a spokesperson said.

The Republican lawmakers cited that statement as they continue to urge the administration to crack down on sanctuary jurisdictions.

“We urge you to act on these demands and ensure that sanctuary cities cooperate – our national security depends on it,” the letter reads. Fox reached out to the White House and DHS for comment regarding the letter but did not hear back at press time. 

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Gonzales also noted that any moves to crack down on sanctuary jurisdictions could be helpful to a future Trump administration.

He said: “Even though he’s going to implement all these new policies, there needs to be a buildup ahead of time… And I think there’s an opportunity here to do that through the appropriations process by punishing those sanctuary cities that aren’t cooperating and rewarding ICE that is actually… getting back to doing their job.”