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EXCLUSIVE – A leading conservative organization that is already a big spender in Republican primary politics is looking to up its game in the 2026 election cycle as it aligns with President Donald Trump and his political team.

“Our goal is going to be even bigger and do more,” Club for Growth President David McIntosh emphasized in an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital.

The Club for Growth is a political advocacy organization which pushes a fiscally conservative agenda, including a focus on tax cuts and other economic issues. 

Its political arm, the Club for Growth Action super PAC, has been a major player in GOP primary showdowns.

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Then-former President Donald Trump, left, shakes hands with Club for Growth President David McIntosh as Trump speaks at the group’s annual donor retreat at The Breakers in Palm Beach, Florida, on March 1, 2024. (Club For Growth)

Club for Growth Action says it and its affiliated super PACs raised $163 million in the 2024 election cycle, and touts that it won 73% of the races where it made political investments. The group says it aims to up the ante in the 2026 cycle, and it works to strengthen the Republican majorities in the House and Senate.

McIntosh said that when it comes to increasing its investments this year and next year, “a lot of that depends on the members. We’re dependent on our donors to help us fund these races.”

However, he added, “we’ve got some very good, generous people who support us in that.”

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“One of the key factors,” McIntosh emphasized, “is going to be President Trump and his endorsement. That literally trumps everything else. So what we would do is recommend to him and his political team what candidates that we think would support his agenda, the free market, limited government conservatives that we could support together.”

McIntosh and the Club have had an up-and-down relationship with Trump. They opposed Trump as he ran for the White House in 2016 before embracing him as an ally. In the 2022 cycle, Trump and the Club teamed up in some high-profile GOP primaries but clashed over combustible Senate nomination battles in Alabama, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Former Rep. David McIntosh, the president of the fiscally conservative group The Club for Growth, is interviewed by Fox News Digital on Jan. 16, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)

Additionally, the Club was on the outs with Trump as the 2024 Republican presidential nomination race got underway. Trump repeatedly criticized McIntosh and the Club, referring to them as “The Club for NO Growth,” and claimed they were “an assemblage of political misfits, globalists, and losers.”

However, Trump and McIntosh made peace about a year ago, with Trump saying in March 2024, as he was wrapping up the GOP presidential nomination, that they were “back in love” after the protracted falling out.

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“I think you’ll see Club for Growth PACs work closely with President Trump, his political team,” McIntosh told Fox News. “We’re definitely going to be working closely with his policy team to get the tax bill through, a lot of the legislation that we both agree is really important for turning things around in the country.”

Club officials say that they are planning an eight-figure federal advocacy campaign to support what they call the pro-growth, free-market initiatives proposed by the Trump administration. A top item their campaign will spotlight is the push to expand and permanently codify the Trump tax cuts passed during his first term in the White House.

The group is also advocating for federal school freedom legislation, which would allow parents “to use federal tax dollars to send their students to the public, private, charter, or homeschool that best fits their learning needs.”

Club for Growth Action last year teamed up with allied groups to target and defeat 10 GOP incumbent state lawmakers in Texas who had opposed the so-called school choice legislation. The group also spent big bucks in Tennessee on a similar mission, and this year is continuing its crusade in five other states where school choice bills are being considered.

The Club on Thursday kicks off its annual donor retreat for top-dollar contributors, which is held each year at an exclusive beachfront resort in the upper crust seaside community of Palm Beach, Florida.

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas speaks at a donor conference hosted by the conservative group the Club for Growth on March 3, 2023 in Palm Beach, Florida. (Fox News )

Some of the best-known names on the right will be speaking at the confab, as they mingle with big-pocketed donors.

Among the politicians attending are Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Mike Lee of Utah, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Tim Scott of South Carolina (who is the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Senate GOP’s campaign arm), Rick Scott of Florida and freshman lawmaker Bernie Moreno of Ohio.

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Among the House members attending are House Speaker Mike Johnson and Reps. Byron Donalds, who is moving towards a 2026 run for governor in Florida, and Nancy Mace of South Carolina, who is also mulling a gubernatorial bid.

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is also attending, as is Vivek Ramaswamy, who earlier this week launched a 2026 campaign for Ohio governor.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., chair of the House Oversight DOGE subcommittee, threatened potential “criminal referrals” during a hearing Wednesday on the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).  

“This committee, based on this hearing and witness testimonies, will consider recommending investigations and criminal referrals,” Greene said, beginning a line of questioning after several witnesses made opening remarks to the committee. The congresswoman reiterated that Hunter Biden was on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma when his father, Joe Biden, was vice president. 

“The prosecutor general of Ukraine at the time, Viktor Shokin, was investigating Burisma for corruption. Biden threatened, and it’s on video, to withhold 1 billion of USAID grant to Ukraine if Shokin wasn’t fired,” Greene said, before questioning one of the witnesses, former USAID official and Heritage Foundation senior research fellow, Max Primorac.

MUSK TELLS CABINET THAT DOGE EMAIL WAS ‘PULSE CHECK’ FOR WORKERS, WARNS US WILL ‘GO BANKRUPT’ WITHOUT ACTION

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., presides over a House Oversight DOGE subcommittee hearing in the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 26, 2025.  (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

“Is USAID supposed to be used as leverage by a president to protect his son?” she asked. 

Primorac responded, “No, we call that corruption.” 

“In your estimation, roughly what percentage of USAID funding is doled out to bad actors or to efforts that don’t have the best interests of Americans in mind?” Greene added. 

Primorac said it was discovered through the work of the House Foreign Affairs Committee that USAID has been paying out over 50% to overhead charges and the inspector general of USAID “criticized the agency for not knowing the overhead charges being handed out to all of these actors for $142 billion of disbursements.” 

“That is extremely troubling,” he added. 

Another witness, Middle East Forum Executive Director Gregg Roman, said in his opening statement that he was there to testify “because there’s a fox loose in the henhouse of our foreign aid system – a system intended to uplift lives abroad that instead has funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to radical and terrorist-linked organizations.” 

House DOGE subcommittee ranking member Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M., during a hearing on Feb. 26, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

“If we don’t fix these fences now, we risk fueling violence against our allies, our troops, and potentially ourselves,” he said, later adding: “I urge this committee to make a formal criminal referral to the Department of Justice regarding USAID’s systemic failure to prevent taxpayer dollars from reaching terrorist organizations. USAID’s reckless bureaucrats should be dragged not just in front of this committee, but before a criminal court judge who can get to the bottom of this travesty and lock up any government official who risked the lives of innocent people around the world to advance these radical anti-American pet projects.” 

HOUSE DOGE HEARING ERUPTS OVER DEMOCRAT DEEMING TRUMP ‘GRIFTER IN CHIEF,’ REFERRING TO ‘PRESIDENT MUSK’

Greene did not specify who would potentially be the recipients of the criminal referrals. 

U.S. Capitol Police arrest protesters staging a die-in inside the rotunda of the Cannon House Office Building as part of a protest against cuts to foreign aid, in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 26, 2025.  (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The chairwoman said that the “Democrat-run USAID should not get to use our federal government – our U.S. taxpayer dollars – as their party piggy bank to push their radical agenda in countries that we have no business giving money to.”

Greene said 95% of all political contributions from USAID employees go to Democratic Party candidates or PACs. 

“The revolving door between USAID employees and NGOs that receive USAID funding is undeniable. Maybe we should consider investigating whether USAID funding has made it back to Democrat campaigns?” she later asked. 

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In her closing remarks, Greene again posed bringing criminal referrals in connection to USAID funding. 

“What we have heard today is that USAID has been used as a tool by Democrats to brainwash the world with globalist propaganda to force regime changes around the world,” she said. “But if USAID funded terrorism that resulted in the death of Americans,” Greene added, “then this committee will be making criminal referrals.”

Committee Democrats spent the hearing arguing that the Trump administration’s dismantling of USAID was illegal, and is “reordering the global stage” to favor foreign adversaries and “undermining global democracy.” 

The sheer scale of cuts the Trump administration is looking to carry out at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has been revealed, with nearly 15,000 grants worth $60 billion set to be eliminated, according to internal documents.

The grants amount to about 90% of foreign aid contracts and come after a review on spending by the State Department. 

USAID aid became an early target of the Trump administration, with the president being a longtime critic of overseas spending, arguing that it does not benefit the American taxpayer and going so far as to call those who run the top agency “radical lunatics.”

USAID aid became an early target of the Trump administration, with the president being a longtime critic of overseas spending, arguing that it does not benefit the American taxpayer and going so far as to call those who run the top agency “radical lunatics.” (Getty Images)

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Republicans argue it is wasteful, promotes liberal agendas and should be enfolded into the State Department, while Democrats say it saves lives abroad and helps U.S. interests by stabilizing other countries and economies.

In all, the Trump administration said it will eliminate 5,800 of 6,200 multi-year USAID contract awards, for a cut of $54 billion. Another 4,100 of 9,100 State Department grants were being eliminated, for a cut of $4.4 billion, according to a State Department memo reviewed by the Associated Press.

The State Department memo described the administration as spurred by a federal court order that gave officials until the end of the day Wednesday to lift the Trump administration’s monthlong block on foreign aid funding.

“In response, State and USAID moved rapidly,” targeting USAID and State Department foreign aid programs in vast numbers for contract terminations, the memo said.

The memo said officials were “clearing significant waste stemming from decades of institutional drift.” More changes are planned in how USAID and the State Department deliver foreign assistance, it said, “to use taxpayer dollars wisely to advance American interests.”

U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts on Wednesday paused a federal judge’s order that required the Trump administration to pay around $2 billion in foreign aid funds to contractors by midnight. 

Flowers and a sign are placed outside the headquarters of USAID on Feb. 7, 2025, in Washington.  (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

SECRETARY OF STATE RUBIO CONFIRMS BECOMING ACTING USAID CHIEF

The ruling comes after the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court for an emergency order to block the release of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funding, which the federal judge had required by midnight. Officials had said they would not be able to comply with the judge’s order.

USAID was set up in the early 1960s to act on behalf of the U.S. to deliver aid across the globe, particularly in impoverished and underdeveloped regions. The agency now operates out of 60 nations and employs some 10,000 people, two-thirds of whom work overseas – though most of the on-the-ground work is contracted out to third-party organizations funded by USAID, according to a BBC report.

But the agency has come in for considerable criticism as Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) look to root out waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government. 

Musk likened the agency to “not an apple with a worm in it,” but “just a ball of worms.” 

“You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It’s beyond repair., Musk wrote on X earlier this month.

Trump has moved to gut the agency after imposing a 90-day pause on foreign aid. The Trump administration plans to gut the agency and intends to leave fewer than 300 staffers on the job out of the current 8,000 direct hires and contractors. He has also appointed Secretary of State Marco Rubio as the acting director of USAID.

The news comes as thousands of staffers were notified weeks ago about pending dismissals. Some were seen leaving Washington, D.C., offices for the last time on Friday carrying boxes scrawled with messages that seemed to be directed at President Donald Trump.

Recently fired U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) staff carry boxes with messages during a sendoff outside USAID offices in Washington, D.C., U.S., Feb. 21, 2025.  (REUTERS/Brian Snyder)

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Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, the Senate DOGE Caucus Chairwoman, recently published a list of questionable projects and programs she says USAID has helped fund over the years, including $20 million to produce a Sesame Street show in Iraq. 

Several more examples of questionable spending have been uncovered at USAID, including more than $900,000 to a “Gaza-based terror charity” called Bayader Association for Environment and Development and a $1.5 million program slated to “advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities.”

Fox News’ Bill Mears, Andrew Mark Miller, Aubrie Spady, Deirdre Heavey, Caitlin McFall, Morgan Phillips and Emma Colton as well as Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

FIRST ON FOX: In a Jan. 29 executive order, President Donald Trump directed additional measures to fight antisemitism, noting that Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks in Israel spawned “an unprecedented wave of vile anti-Semitic discrimination, vandalism, and violence against our citizens, especially in our schools and on our campuses.”

Leo Terrell, senior counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights who is heading up a new Justice Department Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, told Fox News Digital that the president has directed his task force “to use every tool in our toolbox as Department of Justice to stop this antisemitic behavior.”

He added that Attorney General Pam Bondi “has been following President Trump’s directive. … She has given me the green light to do everything possible and use the power of the federal government to stop this.”

Terrell said that since Oct. 7, the country “has turned its back on Jewish Americans at schools in day-to-day life,” with Jewish Americans not being “protected like other citizens,” including at colleges and in K-12 schools.

Antisemitic prejudice appears to be thriving within New York City Public Schools. A pressure group called the New York Public Schools Alliance, a network of concerned teachers, students and administrators led by co-founder Karen Feldman, undertook an investigation into alleged anti-Jewish, anti-Israel and anti-American prejudice within the city’s public schools in October 2024.

The group said its findings demonstrate a failure to protect teachers and students against discrimination, the presence of implicitly and explicitly biased materials in education and curriculum development, and an atmosphere of political activism in schools that has “deepened divisions.”

TRUMP EDUCATION DEPT LAUNCHES PROBE INTO ‘EXPLOSION OF ANTISEMITISM’ AT 5 UNIVERSITIES’

Anti-Israel protesters stand outside the Susan E. Wagner High School in Staten Island. (Ary Weiss/Staten Island Shomrim)

Multiple sources who spoke to Fox News Digital noted with particular concern the atmosphere of antisemitism at the Susan E. Wagner High School in Staten Island, which was the subject of a Fox News Digital report last spring.

New York City Council member David Carr told Fox News Digital that many parents of Susan E. Wagner students contacted him with concerns about what they perceived as hatred on display at the school’s International Festival in January. Carr said the event is typically a “wonderful celebration” by the school’s “incredibly diverse student body,” but this year there were people in the audience who shouted “Free Palestine” as the Israeli Student Club finished each of its three performances.

Carr said there were additional antisemitic remarks made about the students before they took the stage during their final performance. Carr said the spectators “were escorted out of the venue and … have been banned from returning for future events.”

A student from Susan E. Wagner High School who spoke on condition of anonymity told Fox News Digital that the students who were removed from the building called out “stinky Jews” as dancers with the Israeli Club made their way to the stage. The student was not aware of the repercussions for the audience members but said that school personnel apologized to offending audience members while escorting them from the facility.

Leo Terrell (Christian Monterrosa/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Carr said he has “spoken to the school leadership, and we’re going to be talking again” with the goal of creating “an atmosphere where everybody feels comfortable.” He added that “it clearly needs to be an ongoing conversation.”

“It’s unacceptable that students be subjected to hate speech,” Carr said. “Antisemitism is the most pernicious form of hate, I think, in human history,” he explained. “It needs to be stood up to whenever it rears its ugly head.”

The Susan E. Wagner student who shared their concerns with Fox News Digital said students have not only endured hate speech in their school, but multiple staff members have worn pro-Palestine paraphernalia. Though some teachers “never said anything” discriminatory, the student said that “you still know what they think.” 

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Wagner administrators have also allegedly participated in programming that promotes a one-sided interpretation of the Israel-Gaza conflict. In April 2024, the Wagner Arab Student Association posted on Instagram that it hosted a “survivor of the ongoing genocide in Gaza” to speak to students, with teachers and Principal David Cugini present.

The student said that in an environment of anti-Israel sentiment, “[N]obody wants to say anything, because they’re so sure that nothing will get done. That’s what the school has done. It has pretty much shown these kids that no matter what you do … Jewish kids are just going to be at the bottom of the food chain.”

Fox News Digital obtained a photograph of the pro-Hamas slogan “Free Palestine. From the River to the Sea” scrawled on a teacher’s blackboard at the Susan E. Wagner High School. (Fox News Digital)

Part of this silencing also appears to involve mislabeling reported incidents of antisemitic hate.

The New York City Public School Alliance showed Fox News Digital five New York City school occurrence reports that described acts of alleged anti-Israel or antisemitic hate reported by staff and students at a variety of public schools. Each was recorded as not being bias-related. 

Fox News Digital asked interim Superintendent Roderick Palton and Cugini about a number of the aforementioned incidents, the methods of recording antisemitic incidents and whether Jewish students have a safe learning environment at the Susan E. Wagner High School. They did not respond.

A New York City Department of Education spokesperson told Fox News Digital that New York City Public Schools (NYCPS) were taking part in training and workshops to “foster respectful and empathetic classroom conversation on difficult topics.” The spokesperson mentioned that “our Hidden Voices curricular resources highlight the diverse communities and experiences of New Yorkers, including the AAPI community, LGBTQ community, Americans with Disabilities, and the Global African Diaspora. To meet this moment across our city, we are currently expanding Hidden Voices to include both the Jewish American and Muslim American communities.”

The NYCPS Alliance report cites the Hidden Voices curriculum as containing lessons that “emphasize resistance to colonialism, oppression, and marginalization.” The report says “the tendency to present incomplete or one-sided narratives may contribute to biased worldviews, potentially fostering a hostile learning environment for Jewish students. These materials raise concerns about whether the school is meeting its obligations to provide a harassment-free and inclusive environment for all students.”

A pro-Israel supporter holds a sign during the March for Israel on the National Mall in Washington on Nov. 14, 2023. (Michael Nigro/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

According to the schools’ spokesperson, “[R]eligious bias incidents in our schools [are] down by 46% so far this year.” The spokesperson explained that “we are working closely with this school to ensure that reports of anti-Semitism or other bias are swiftly investigated and consequences are imposed for any violations of our policies so that every student feels safe and respected in their school.”

Feldman questioned the findings. “I find it interesting how they could assess [a] 46% decrease when they’re not even logging the incidents of Jewish hate properly. They’re not even logging it as biased incidents,” she told Fox News Digital.

Feldman also expressed alarm at the environment at Susan E. Wagner, where administrators are “witness to the indoctrination and the twist of history” and the “fear, intimidation, [and] silencing tactics” that allow incidents to “go unreported or unresolved.” 

“These kids are being guided poorly by their school. They’re not being supported. They feel alienated. They feel threatened,” she said. While “it’s showing up as antisemitism now,” Feldman warned that anti-Jewish prejudice is “an alarm system. It’s a warning sign that something is rotten in society.”

Terrell noted several coming changes that will protect Jewish students and teachers who feel they are not being heard by their own schools. These include a “complaint number that is going to come directly to the task force” for victims of antisemitic prejudice.

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“Help is on its way,” Terrell said.

Fox News Digital reached out to New York City Mayor Eric Adams about the atmosphere of antisemitism in the city’s public schools but received no reply.

Legislation that would quadruple the pensions of Medal of Honor recipients passed the House with unanimous bipartisan support on Wednesday. 

The bill sailed through the House 424-0. If passed by the Senate and signed by the president, it would boost pay for those who receive the nation’s highest military award from $16,880 per year to $67,500 per year. 

Proponents of the bill, led by Reps. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, and Chris Pappas, D-N.H., say the pay would ease the financial burden for medal recipients who often traverse the country for speaking engagements on their own dime.

The increased pensions are paid for through disability compensation out of Veterans’ Affairs funding. Costs associated with the pay boost would be offset by extending a limitation on pensions for veterans with no spouses or dependents from 2031 to 2033. 

VETERANS ASK TRUMP TO AWARD MEDAL OF HONOR TO MARINE CORPS WAR HERO SNUBBED BY BIDEN

Medal of Honor recipients take a photo on the inauguration day of President-elect Donald Trump in Washington, Jan. 20, 2025. (Greg Nash/Pool via Reuters)

The legislation would affect the 60 living Medal of Honor recipients. Some 3,500 have been awarded the medal since its inception in 1863.

Pension rolls for Medal of Honor recipients were first created in 1916, with pensioners receiving $10 per month from the federal government. The monthly stipend was raised to $100 in 1961 and $1,000 in 2002. 

The Medal of Honor for retired U.S. Army Capt. Florent “Flo” Groberg before it is presented to him in the East Room of the White House, Nov. 12, 2015. (Reuters/Gary Cameron)

The legislation comes as a national Medal of Honor museum is set to open in Arlington, Texas, next month to share the stories of Americans who took heroic actions in battle.

President Donald Trump has not yet awarded the medal in his second term, but veterans and members of Congress are lobbying for him to extend it to Maj. James Capers, a Black Vietnam War veteran who saved seven fellow Marines when his recon group was ambushed and outnumbered by North Vietnamese troops in Phú Lộc in 1967. 

PRESIDENT BIDEN AWARDS MEDAL OF HONOR TO SEVEN ARMY VETERANS

President Joe Biden awards the Medal of Honor to Kenneth J. David for actions in the Vietnam War, at the White House, Jan. 3, 2025. (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)

According to the sworn testimony of the surviving Marines, then-Lt. Capers’ unit was ambushed in the jungle, with blasts from claymore mines inflicting devastating injuries on him and his men. Despite the blasts ripping open his stomach and breaking his leg, a heavily bleeding Capers kept command of his Marines and, together with two others, held off the enemy long enough for the medevac flight to arrive.

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When the overloaded aircraft struggled to take off, Capers attempted to sacrifice himself by jumping from the helicopter and insisting he be left behind until he was pulled back on board by the medevac crew chief. 

Capers received multiple gunfire wounds and 19 pieces of shrapnel in the firefight, and suffers from the wounds to this day. But due to his heroic actions, Capers and all of his Marines survived. 

Fox News’ Peter Pinedo contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump‘s nominee for labor secretary is expected to pass a key vote before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) on Thursday after picking up Democrat support from Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H. 

Lori Chavez-DeRemer’s past support for the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act jeopardized her confirmation last week, when Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said he would not vote for her if she continued to support the PRO Act. Paul’s reluctance meant Chavez-DeRemer would likely need a Democrat’s vote to pass a key confirmation hurdle. 

Hassan’s support, as a Democrat on the HELP Committee, all but confirms Chavez-DeRemer will pass through her committee vote.

“The Department of Labor plays an integral role in supporting workers and small businesses alike, and after hearing significant support from constituents, including members of labor unions in New Hampshire, I will support Representative Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination as Secretary of Labor,” Hassan shared in a statement to Fox News Digital. 

TRUMP’S NOMINEE FOR LABOR SECRETARY WALKS BACK SUPPORT FOR PRO ACT, EMBRACES REPUBLICAN RIGHT-TO-WORK LAWS

Lori Chavez-DeRemer, labor secretary nominee, attends her Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee confirmation hearing in Washington on Feb. 19, 2025. (Allison Robbert/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Hassan admitted that she “may not agree on everything” with Chavez-DeRemer, but she is “qualified” to serve and earned “significant support” from New Hampshire voters.

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“Though we may not agree on everything, after meeting with Representative Chavez-DeRemer and listening to her testimony during her confirmation hearing, I believe that she is qualified to serve as the next secretary of labor, and I look forward to working with her to support New Hampshire’s workers and small businesses,” Hassan added. 

Chavez-DeRemer supported the PRO Act as a representative for Oregon’s 5th Congressional District but told senators during her confirmation hearing that she no longer supports overturning Republican-supported right-to-work laws under the PRO Act.

The PRO Act would effectively kill state-level laws that prevent employers and unions from requiring workers to pay union dues as a condition of their employment. Republicans oppose the PRO Act for overturning right-to-work laws. 

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, speaks during a confirmation hearing in Washington on Jan. 17, 2025. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Chavez-DeRemer could still earn back Paul’s vote after she distanced herself from the PRO Act during her Senate hearing. With Hassan’s support, Chavez-DeRemer is no longer reliant on Paul for confirmation. 

“If she wanted to make a public statement saying that her support for the PRO Act was incorrect and she no longer does, then I’d think about her nomination,” Paul told Fox News Digital in a statement ahead of Chavez-DeRemer’s hearing. 

“So you no longer support the aspect of the PRO Act that would have overturned state right-to-work laws?” Paul asked during the hearing. 

“Yes, sir,” she replied. 

Paul’s office did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on how he will vote in committee today.

Lori Chavez-DeRemer, labor secretary nominee, attends her Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee confirmation hearing in Washington on Feb. 19, 2025. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Chavez-DeRemer testified before the HELP Committee on Feb. 19. If the committee votes to send Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination before the full Senate, Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., can file a motion to end Senate floor debate on the nominee, triggering a cloture vote to halt deliberations. Once debate closes, senators cast their final confirmation vote. 

During her hearing, Chavez-DeRemer advocated for trade school investments to expand “educational pathways beyond the traditional four-year degree” to strengthen the American workforce. She said she is committed to leveling the playing field for American businesses, workers and unions. 

Chavez-DeRemer also thanked Trump and credited him with the “single greatest political achievement of our time” in building a “new coalition of working-class Americans.”

Donald Trump (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

“President Trump has united a new coalition of working-class Americans like never before. With 59.6% of Teamsters backing him, historic support from African-American and Latino voters, and record-breaking turnout in once-solid blue cities and states, Americans are speaking loud and clear. They are calling for action, progress and leadership that puts the American worker first,” Chavez-DeRemer said.

Trump nominated Chavez-DeRemer for secretary of labor less than three weeks after he was elected president.

“Lori has worked tirelessly with both Business and Labor to build America’s workforce, and support the hardworking men and women of America,” Trump wrote.

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“I look forward to working with her to create tremendous opportunity for American Workers, to expand training and apprenticeships, to grow wages and improve working conditions, to bring back our manufacturing jobs. Together, we will achieve historic cooperation between Business and Labor that will restore the American Dream for Working Families,” he added.

Fox News Digital’s Julia Johnson contributed to this report.

Former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti spoke to staff after the Trump administration ousted her and other top leaders at the Pentagon Friday, asserting that the Navy’s mission will continue “unabated and undisrupted.”

Franchetti, the first woman to serve as the chief of naval operations and on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described leading the sea service as the “honor of a lifetime” and thanked Navy sailors for their service supporting the U.S. 

“We are America’s Warfighting Navy and America is counting on us to deter aggression, defend our National security interests, and preserve our way of life,” Franchetti, who had served as the Navy’s top officer since 2023, said in a Tuesday LinkedIn post that has since been deleted. “We operate from seabed to space, around the globe and around the clock. Our mission continues, unabated and undisrupted…There is no time to waste.”

After publication, the Navy clarified that the post was not intended to be shared on social media. A U.S. official with knowledge of the situation told Fox News Digital that the message was sent to a “small group” of staff and senior Navy leaders, but it was not intended to be shared with a wider audience. 

“She did not post or direct the message to be posted on LinkedIn,” the U.S. official said in a statement. “The message was improperly posted by a junior staffer who had access to the LinkedIn account but did not have authorization to post the content of Admiral Franchetti’s Friday email.”

TRUMP NOMINATES AIR FORCE LT. GEN. DAN ‘RAZIN’ CAINE FOR JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF CHAIRMAN

Adm. Lisa Franchetti became the first woman to serve as the chief of naval operations in 2023.   (Navy )

Franchetti joined the Navy Reserve Officer Training Corps as a student at Northwestern University and was commissioned in 1985. She told Navy Times in 2023 that she met other ROTC students at a barbecue during freshman orientation week, who notified her about the scholarship opportunities ROTC provided.

At the time of her commissioning, women were barred from serving on combatant ships and aircraft and were instead assigned to ships like oilers and destroyer tenders. However, Congress repealed the law in 1993 — paving the way for women like Franchetti to serve in top leadership positions in the Navy. 

“I joined for free college and books, but I stayed for our mission, the opportunity to serve something greater than myself, and the chance to be part of amazing teams in the world’s most lethal fighting force: America’s Warfighting Navy,” Franchetti wrote on LinkedIn. 

Ultimately, Franchetti went on to command two carrier strike groups, and served as the deputy commander of U.S. Naval Forces Europe and Africa and the commander of the U.S. 6th Fleet, which falls under U.S. Naval Forces Europe and Africa.

Other leaders the Trump administration removed Friday included Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. CQ Brown and Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Jim Slife. 

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth requested nominations to replace Franchetti and Slife, and said that both had “distinguished careers.”

“We thank them for their service and dedication to our country,” Hegseth said in a Friday statement. 

Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. James Kilby announced that he would take over responsibilities as the top officer in the Navy until a permanent replacement was found for Franchetti. 

FORMER CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF BIDS FAREWELL IN HEARTFELT SOCIAL MEDIA POST: ‘DISTINCT HONOR’

Adm. Lisa Franchetti’s previous assignments include serving as the commander of U.S. 6th Fleet based in Naples, Italy.  (Defense Department)

“The work of our Navy continues without disruption,” Kilby said in a statement Saturday. “We will sustain forward-deployed lethal forces that enhance the peace and deter our adversaries.”

The Navy did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. It remains unclear where Franchetti will be reassigned. 

Hegseth didn’t provide any additional comment on Franchetti or her career, but previously described her as a “DEI hire” in his 2024 book, “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free.” 

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Hegseth also announced Friday that President Donald Trump plans to nominate retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine to replace Brown, claiming that Caine embodies the “warfighter ethos” the U.S. military needs. 

“Under President Trump, we are putting in place new leadership that will focus our military on its core mission of deterring, fighting and winning wars,” Hegseth said. 

The White House fired back at “disgraced” progressive filmmaker and activist Michael Moore’s criticism of the Trump administration’s deportations, saying his comments are “a strong contender for dumbest statement of the year.”

Moore, who has directed a score of highly politically-charged documentaries, published a lengthy blog post on Tuesday titled, “Our Muslim Boy Wonder,” in which he warned that by deporting illegal immigrants, the U.S. may miss out on the person who could cure cancer, the next equivalent of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, or the person who will save the world from “the asteroid that’s gonna hit us in 2032.”

“Who’s really being removed by ICE tonight?” Moore asked. “The child who would’ve discovered the cure for cancer in 2046? The 9th grade nerd who would’ve stopped that asteroid that’s gonna hit us in 2032? Do we care?”

The filmmaker declared, “For every time I have heard a negative word or blatant hatred spewed toward those who came from afar, I have felt that I should pause, get down on one knee, and thank all of those who gave up their lives elsewhere to come here and be with us.”

MAYOR OF AMERICA’S BIGGEST CITY THANKS TRUMP FOR CRACKDOWN ON CRIMINAL IMMIGRANTS

In response, the White House released a statement on Wednesday saying that illegal immigrant killers and rapists “aren’t scholars — they’re criminals.”

“In a strong contender for dumbest statement of the year, disgraced ‘filmmaker’ Michael Moore lamented illegal immigrant criminals being apprehended because they might’ve ‘discovered the cure for cancer’ or ‘stopped that astroid [sic],’” the White House statement said. “The only thing more foolish than that statement are the politicians who oppose the deportations.”

The statement included a listing of some of the worst criminal illegal immigrants arrested thus far. The list included nine child sex predators and rapists as well as kidnappers, murderers and gang members.

TOM HOMAN TELLS MIGRANT TERROR GROUPS TRUMP WILL ‘WIPE YOU OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH’

On Jan. 23, 2025, ICE New York administratively arrested Gokhan Adriguzel, a Turkish national, for Entry without Inspection. (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)

One of those listed was a documented member of the bloodthirsty gang MS-13, Salvadoran national Sergio Arquimides Pineda, who was arrested by ICE Homeland Security Investigations Corpus Christi and convicted of driving while intoxicated and aggravated assault with bodily injury.

Another illegal, Guatemalan national, Edilio Agustin-Orellana, was arrested by ICE Boston and is facing five counts of assault with a dangerous weapon, three counts of kidnapping, intimidation and armed home invasion.

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A third arrested migrant listed by the White House was Turkish national Gokhan Adriguzel, who is a known or suspected terrorist, according to officials.

ALLEGED FENTANYL-SMUGGLING IMMIGRANTS LEAD POLICE ON DANGEROUS CORNFIELD CHASE

Trump is pictured in front of the Capitol Building, surrounded by fencing in Washington, D.C., on Friday, Jan. 17, 2025.  (Fox News Digital/Trump-Vance Transition Team)

“Michael Moore is free to visit the quantum computing and particle physics labs that MS-13, TDA [Tren de Aragua], and the cartels are now going to have to set up back home in El Salvador, Venezuela, and Mexico,” quipped White House deputy press secretary Kush Desai.

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In the meantime, Desai said, “the Trump administration will remain focused on putting our own citizens first by mass deporting illegal migrant rapists, murderers, and other criminals out of American communities.”

Fox News Digital reached out to Moore for comment but did not hear back by publication time. 

Fox News Digital writers Adam Shaw and Alexander Hall contributed to this report.

The line against Beijing is drawn in Little Rock.

“We are taking a strong stand against China infiltrating our state,” says Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders. “We’re going to continue to push back.”

Arkansas is the first state in the nation that forced a Chinese-connected company to divest farmland, and now says it is taking additional action against the CCP.

SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS ON TARIFF THREAT: TRUMP IS TIRED OF AMERICA GETTING RIPPED OFF

Sanders is introducing new legislation that adds further measures to stop China state-owned businesses from operating in her state and shut down programs sponsored by China.

The measures include banning CCP-linked companies from buying or leasing property, blocking ownership near critical infrastructure sites, scraping Sister City partnerships and cutting funding for universities and colleges that have Chinese-funded programs.

“We’ve seen a number of cases where China is trying to infiltrate things that matter to our critical infrastructure, buying up land around our military bases, our substations. These are things that we’re taking strong action against here in Arkansas, expanding existing legislation so that we can continue to hold their feet to the fire and push them out,” says Sanders.

Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders speaks during a campaign rally for former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on November 4, 2024. (CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images)

In 2023, the state ordered Syngenta Seeds, whose parent company is a Chinese conglomerate, to divest farmland used for seed production. 

The company said that “the suggestion that China is using Syngenta to purchase land or conduct operations for any purpose other than supporting the company’s commercial business in North America is simply false.”  But the state fined the company $280,000 for not initially disclosing its foreign ownership by the deadline.

“Syngenta is foreign-owned — ultimately by the Chinese Communist Party,” said Arkansas Attorney General Tim Miller in announcing the penalty.

“This serves as a warning to all other Chinese state-owned companies operating in Arkansas.”

REPUBLICAN GOVERNORS CAN’T WAIT FOR TRUMP TO UNLEASH PROSPERITY IN THE STATES

“Agriculture is the number one industry here in the state of Arkansas and so protecting our agricultural security and protecting the components that make it so strong, are one of the things that are really important,” says Sanders.

Two other firms are being investigated for possible ties to China, but in December a Federal Judge issued a preliminary injunction to halt the probe of one of them.  

At least 22 states have enacted some form of restrictions on Chinese-owned companies.

“The CCP has aggressive intent and has become more aggressive and threatening, both at home as well as abroad, and we need to be aware of these threats,” says Congressman John Moolenaar, (R) Michigan, Chairman of House Select Committee on the CCP.  He says more states should follow Sanders’ lead.

“She is taking a leadership role and protecting farmland and green spaces in Arkansas and making sure the CCP doesn’t gain a foothold in Arkansas. We want to see more states taking this kind of action,” he says.

The national flags of the United States and China flutter at the Fairmont Peace Hotel on April 25, 2024 in Shanghai, China. (Photo by Wang Gang/VCG via Getty Images)

For several years, officials have been warning about China’s entry into the U.S., through businesses and other organizations that they say pose a national security threat.

Michael Pillsbury, a former top U.S. government official on China matters and Senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, has been sounding the alarm. He authored “The One Hundred Year Marathon, China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower” a decade ago and says not much has changed since then.

“What Governor Sanders is launching is pretty important,” he says, “part of building the long-term foundation to protect ourselves against the CCP, but it is not the end of the story unless she is successful in persuading Homeland Security and the FBI to make this a federal issue.”

“The state of Arkansas doesn’t have a CIA or FBI to do this. The intelligence collection that triggers the alarm is what the federal government has to do.”

FORMER USAID OFFICIAL WARNS CHINA IS ALREADY LOOKING TO FILL VOID LEFT BY PAUSED PROGRAMS

Experts say it can be difficult to determine if a company is really owned by a Chinese firm, which is part of the CCP’s strategy.

“There really is no such thing as a private company in China,” says Rep. Moolenaar. “All the companies are affiliated in some way and directed in some way by the Chinese Communist Party. And secondly, it is important to note that they have something called military fusion, where technologies, even in the civil area, are used for military purposes.”

He says Chinese-funded programs that operate under the guise of educational programs also serve to further the CCP’s interests, which is one target of Sanders’ push. Moolenaar points to a recent case in his state of Michigan that raised alarms.

“The Chinese Communist Party will leverage people,” he says. “Five Chinese national students were caught spying at Camp Grayling. Camp Grayling is a military facility, where according to public reports, we train military leaders, including Taiwanese military leaders. So when you consider the threat of the leverage of the Chinese Communist Party, we need to be vigilant and protect American universities and American taxpayer dollars.”

Michael Pillsbury, Senior Fellow and Director for Chinese Strategy, Hudson Institute, on FutureSocieties during the final day of Web Summit 2019 at the Altice Arena in Lisbon, Portugal.  (Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile for Web Summit via Getty Images)

The five Chinese students were charged last fall with lying to the FBI after they claimed to be observing meteor showers at midnight at the base, but instead were found to have taken photos of the installation.  The FBI said all five  graduated last spring from the University of Michigan, and were part of a joint program between the university and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University in Shanghai, China.

This is exactly the type of suspicious scenario Sanders is trying to address.

“We know that so often China is looking for any way possible into and developing a relationship for the purpose of exploiting it, and for the purpose of taking that information back and using it against us,” she says. “We want to make sure that we are protecting against that.”

China’s embassy in Washington has accused the U.S. of “politicizing and weaponizing economic and trade issues.” Embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu says U.S. officials “deliberately obstruct normal economic and trade exchange for (a) political agenda.”

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But critics charge that is exactly what the CCP is doing under the guise of commerce and friendship.

“We need to be proactive,” warns Rep. Moolenaar. “We need to not so much look for a smoking gun, we need to look for a loaded gun that is actually a threat to America.”

U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts on Wednesday paused a federal judge’s order that required the Trump administration to pay around $2 billion in foreign aid funds to contractors by midnight. 

The ruling comes after the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court for an emergency order to block the release of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funding, which the federal judge had required by midnight. Officials had said they would not be able to comply with the judge’s order.

The Trump administration said U.S. District Judge Amir H. Ali’s order had created “an untenable payment plan at odds with the President’s obligations under Article II to protect the integrity of the federal fisc and make appropriate judgements(sic) about foreign aid – clear forms of irreparable harm.”

Any response from the groups that are fighting the Trump administration is due before Friday at 12 p.m., meaning the pause could potentially be relatively short-lived. 

USAID INSTRUCTIONS FOR FIRED EMPLOYEES GIVES THEM 15 MINUTES TO GATHER BELONGINGS FROM SHUTTERED DC BUILDING

An American flag and USAID flag fly outside the USAID building in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 1, 2025.  (REUTERS/Annabelle Gordon)

The Trump administration said it was eliminating more than 90% of USAID’s foreign aid contracts and $60 billion in overall U.S. assistance around the world, putting numbers on its plans to eliminate the majority of U.S. development and humanitarian help abroad.

The cuts detailed by the administration would leave few surviving USAID projects for advocates to try to save in what are ongoing court battles with the administration.

Flowers and a sign are placed outside the headquarters of the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, Friday, Feb. 7, 2025, in Washington.  (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Wednesday’s disclosures also give an idea of the scale of the administration’s retreat from U.S. aid and development assistance overseas, and from decades of policy that foreign aid helps American interests by stabilizing other countries and economies and building alliances.

TRUMP ADMIN TO SLASH 1,600 USAID POSITIONS JUST BEFORE MIDNIGHT

The memo said officials were “clearing significant waste stemming from decades of institutional drift.” More changes are planned in how USAID and the State Department deliver foreign assistance, it said, “to use taxpayer dollars wisely to advance American interests.”

 President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk pose for a photo during the UFC 309 event at Madison Square Garden on November 16, 2024 in New York City. (Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC)

President Donald Trump and ally Elon Musk have hit foreign aid harder and faster than almost any other target in their push to cut the size of the federal government. Both men say USAID projects advance a liberal agenda and are a waste of money.

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The administration has filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court in one other case so far, arguing that a lower court was wrong to reinstate the head of a federal watchdog agency after Trump fired him.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Fox News’ Bill Mears and Shannon Bream contributed to this report.

EXCLUSIVE: Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard recalled the energizing atmosphere inside President Donald Trump’s first Cabinet meeting on Wednesday at the White House, as his team comes together in record time. 

“What I got was a high level of energy and really just a positive outlook,” Gabbard told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview at the White House after the meeting. 

“We are all in sprint mode,” she said. 

EXCLUSIVE: INSIDE REPUBLICANS’ LONG GAME TO CONFIRM TRUMP FBI DIRECTOR KASH PATEL

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard described the energetic feeling in the room during President Donald Trump’s first Cabinet meeting with his newly assembled team on Wednesday at the White House. (Getty Images)

“We have a Cabinet full of great Americans who are dedicated to serving our country and the American people, ensuring safety, security, freedom and prosperity,” the national intelligence director added, noting the inspiration that billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has already sparked in Trump’s administration. 

Per Gabbard, part of what makes Trump’s Cabinet so special is that “most of us have known each other for a long time. We’ve worked together. We’re actually friends.”

GOP SENATOR SUFFERS SEIZURE, BRAIN BLEED AFTER FALLING ON ICE

Gabbard was one of several women Cabinet members at the meeting.  (Getty Images)

She went as far as calling this level of collaboration “unprecedented” in a president’s Cabinet. 

Trump’s second-term Cabinet has accomplished several firsts, including appointing Gabbard as the first Pacific Islander director of national intelligence, Secretary of State Marco Rubio as the first Hispanic in his role and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as the first Republican Cabinet member who is openly gay. 

DEMS DEMAND TRUMP RESUME CASH FLOW AS THEY FINALLY GET LEVERAGE IN RACE TO PREVENT SHUTDOWN

Trump convened his first Cabinet meeting on Wednesday. (Getty Images)

Additionally, Trump has already surpassed the number of women he had in his first Cabinet, with five appointed already and eight nominated in total. 

EXCLUSIVE: TRUMP WARNS MAJOR DEM AGAINST MOVE THAT COULD COST VOTERS TRILLIONS

Gabbard was selected by Trump to be DNI in November. (Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images)

But, “you don’t hear anything about it,” Gabbard pointed out. 

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“I experienced this from my former party, even when I ran for president in 2020, that they were all about [Diversity, Equity and Inclusion] unless they didn’t like what a woman of color had to say, for example.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi made an explosive revelation on Wednesday when she told Jesse Watters on “Jesse Watters Primetime” that some information about Jeffrey Epstein would be released by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Thursday.

She told Watters there are over 250 alleged victims, and her office needs to ensure all of their identities are protected.

“What you’re going to see, hopefully tomorrow, is a lot of flight logs, a lot of names, a lot of information,” Bondi said when asked about the type of information that will be released Thursday. “But, it’s pretty sick what that man did, along with his co-defendant.”

Bondi’s revelation comes after Republican lawmakers pressed the Department of Justice (DOJ) for the release of classified documents and records related to Jeffrey Epstein and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, among other federal secrets, received a response, though it fell a bit flat.

GOPERS PRESS FOR THE RELEASE OF JFK, EPSTEIN FILES: HERE’S WHY THEY’RE NOT OUT

Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein smile in this undated photograph. Attorney General Pam Bondi said the DOJ will release information about Epstein tomorrow. (U.S. Department of Justice/Mega)

President Donald Trump signed an executive order last month calling on agencies to create plans to release and distribute top-secret documents, including those pertaining to the assassinations of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., is leading the House Oversight Committee’s Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, and, after sending letters to the DOJ Feb. 11 and Feb. 19, said she finally heard back.

“My office just received a formal response from the DOJ on the Jeffrey Epstein, JFK, MLK, & RFK files,” Luna wrote in a post on X, attaching a copy of the letter.

In the letter, the DOJ thanked Luna for the two letters, in which she requested briefings and any documents in the department’s possession relating to the classified investigations.

The DOJ also acknowledged Luna’s request for written confirmation of the date and location of the release of those records.

“The integrity of criminal investigations and prosecutions is essential to every component of the Department’s mission to uphold the rule of law, keep our nation safe, and protect civil rights,” Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Patrick D. Davis wrote. 

“The Department remains committed to meeting its legal recordkeeping obligations as it pursues that mission. We are reviewing your requests and look forward to engaging further to accommodate your oversight and legislative needs.

“We hope this information is helpful,” Davis added. “Please do not hesitate to contact this office if we may provide additional assistance regarding this or any other matter.”

ANNA PAULINA LUNA TO LEAD TASK FORCE ON DECLASSIFICATION OF JFK ASSASSINATION RECORDS, EPSTEIN CLIENT LIST

Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., pressed the Department of Justice for the declassification of files associated with Jeffrey Epstein, JFK, RFK and MLK and received a response Wednesday. (Getty Images)

The response came two days after Luna said she had faced silence from the DOJ.

“On Feb 11 & Feb 19, house oversight sent a letter to the DOJ asking for status on releasing the Epstein files as well as JFK etc.,” Luna said in a post on X Monday. “The DOJ has not responded. Reaching out on X because we can’t seem to get a response from the AG. @AGPamBondi what is the status of the documents? These documents were ordered to be declassified.”

Luna also sent a letter to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Attorney General Pam Bondi, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz and White House Counsel David Warrington requesting a briefing by Thursday on plans for the release of the documents.

TRUMP SIGNS ORDER TO DECLASSIFY FILES ON JFK, RFK AND MLK ASSASSINATIONS

Tulsi Gabbard is sworn in as director of national intelligence by Attorney General Pam Bondi in the Oval Office of the White House Feb. 12, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Trump’s executive order instructed the Department of Justice to coordinate with Gabbard, Waltz and Warrington to establish a plan by Feb. 7 for the release of the JFK files and to create a plan for the release of the MLK and Robert F. Kennedy files by March 9. 

Additionally, Luna is pushing the Justice Department to share details regarding Jeffrey Epstein’s client list. The American financier died in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

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Bondi previously said Epstein’s client list was awaiting review and that she was looking over the Kennedy and King files. 

Fox News Digital’s Diana Stancy and Haley Chi-Sing contributed to this report.

Democrats in the Senate failed to pass a resolution that would have reversed President Donald Trump’s executive order on “Unleashing American Energy” in a 53-47 party-line vote.

The White House argued that scrapping the emergency would endanger nearly 900,000 jobs and have a negative $3.6 trillion impact. The order encourages domestic energy production on federal lands and nixed a Biden-era push to strive for more electric vehicles on the road.

“Tim Kaine wants to impoverish Americans. President Donald Trump’s executive order brings America into the future and unleashes prosperity. Senator [Tim] Kaine wants to cost the economy trillions and risk losing nearly a million jobs,” deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said in an exclusive statement to Fox News Digital on Tuesday.

STATE, TREASURY DEPARTMENTS REIMPOSE ‘MAXIMUM PRESSURE’ SANCTIONS ON IRAN’S OIL TRADE

DCOR LLC’s Edith offshore oil and gas platform, right, and Beta Operating Company LLC’s Eureka oil and gas platform stand in the Beta Field off the coast of Long Beach, California, on Tuesday, May 18, 2010.  (Tim Rue)

The resolution was introduced by Democratic Sens. Tim Kaine and Martin Heinrich as they argued the emergency declaration made by the president would “benefit big oil” but harm Americans, according to a statement provided by the lawmakers to Fox News Digital on Tuesday.

“The Trump Administration is living in a fantasy land,” the Democratic senators stated. “Energy demand is high and only getting higher, which is why it’s great that America is producing more energy than at any other point in our history. Decreasing the supply of American-made energy when demand is high is the quickest way to raise prices—and that’s exactly what President Trump’s sham energy emergency will do.”

“By tampering with the market to favor some forms of energy over others and making it easier for fossil fuel companies to take Americans’ private property, Trump’s emergency declaration will benefit Big Oil, but leave American consumers with fewer choices and higher bills.”

3 LONG-TERM CONSEQUENCES FROM BIDEN’S CANCELATION OF THE KEYSTONE PIPELINE

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., left, and President Donald Trump (Al Drago/Joe Raedle/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Earlier on Wednesday, Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., slammed the resolution as Democrats ‘trying to block common-sense measures” to tackle “painfully high prices.”

“After four years of reckless regulations and restrictions, energy prices have jumped 31 percent. Families are feeling it all across the country. To most Americans, this is the definition of an energy emergency. To Senate Democrats, it’s an inconvenient truth,” he said in a floor speech.  

“This National Energy Emergency is part of President Trump’s swift actions, actions to unleash American energy. It’s part this broader vision of affordable, reliable, available American energy. Democrats oppose that,” the Republican continued.

GOP GOVERNOR IN TOP ENERGY STATE OUTLINES HOW PRODUCTION ‘HELD BACK’ BY BIDEN WILL ‘OPEN UP’ UNDER TRUMP

Sen. John Barrasso speaks alongside other Republican Senators during a press conference on rising gas an energy prices at the U.S. Capitol on Oct. 27, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images)

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., also slammed the Democrat effort: “Thanks in substantial part to a movement to shut down fossil-fuel-fired power plants before reliable sources of clean energy are available to replace them, America is running out of power even as we face huge new power demands. … If we don’t take action, we are going to be facing some very serious problems in the very near future, so I’m grateful to have a president who recognizes and acknowledges the energy emergency facing our nation.”

Senate Energy Committee Chairman Mike Lee, R-Utah, said, “Senate Democrats are yet again attempting to block President Trump’s efforts to secure cheaper, more reliable energy—just when America needs it most. Their message to families is clear: pay more, expect less.”

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The Trump administration emphasized that ending the emergency would bring back Biden-era policies. A White House document obtained by Fox News Digital stressed that under those policies, during Biden’s first two years, families spent an extra $10,000 in energy costs on average, citing a study published by the Committee to Unleash Prosperity. 

The document cited that estimates of liquefied natural gas (LNG) growth in the new administration were projected to bring in half a million jobs annually and boost U.S. GDP by $1.3 trillion through 2040, per a study by S&P Global in December. 

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) issued a letter ordering New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to eliminate its controversial congestion pricing tolls by mid-March.

The letter, dated and signed by Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Executive Director Gloria Shepherd on Feb. 20 and released Wednesday, notes that the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) and its project sponsors “must cease” the collection of tolls on Federal-aid highways in New York’s Central Business District Tolling Program by March 21.

It noted the program’s implementation was initially approved by the FHWA prior to DOT Secretary Sean Duffy sending a letter on Feb. 19 terminating the program.

Shepherd called for agencies and project sponsors to “terminate operations” in an “orderly manner,” according to the letter.

Heavy traffic enters Lower Manhattan after crossing the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)

TRUMP ADMIN MOVES TO BLOCK NYC CONGESTION TOLL PROGRAM

Last week, the Trump administration issued a federal order halting the program, which began Jan. 5 and aimed to limit traffic and fund mass transit by adding a $9 toll on “most” vehicles entering Manhattan’s core south of Central Park.

Despite Trump’s action, the tolls have continued due to a federal lawsuit filed by the MTA, a state agency that runs public transit in New York City. 

“Our position is clear: this is not a lawful order. We have already filed a lawsuit and now it’s up to the courts to decide,” John J. McCarthy, MTA chief of policy and external relations, wrote in a statement on Wednesday.

Critics say the tolling negatively impacts suburban commuters or those without access to the subway system, causing increased costs for working-class Americans and small business owners. The “cordon pricing” method of tolling means drivers are required to pay a toll regardless of which roads they use, as there are no toll-free options.

President Donald Trump halted the program over concerns about working-class Americans and small businesses. (Donald Trump 2024 campaign)

HOCHUL SPURS BIPARTISAN OUTRAGE OVER MASSIVE TOLL REBOOT AS DEMS WORRY TRUMP WILL BLOCK IT

Advocates argue the fees will limit traffic congestion and reduce air pollution.

The MTA on Monday announced tolls from the Congestion Relief Zone (CRZ) generated $48.66 million in revenue, with a net of $37.5 million, from Jan. 5 to Jan. 31.

The figures show the program is on track to generate the $500 million that the MTA initially projected.

“We are on track for the projected $500 million in net revenue, especially as we get into warmer months when traffic will increase which provides confidence in the forecast,” said MTA co-chief financial officer Jai Patel. “All indicators show the program is reducing traffic but also projecting the revenue to be on target for what we had in 4,000 pages of studies and what we were looking at in the fall.”

Of the nearly $50 million generated from the program’s start in January, 22% came from taxis and for-hire vehicles ($10.6 million), 68% came from passenger vehicles, 9% came from trucks, and 1% came from buses and motorcycles, according to the MTA.

Manhattan became the nation’s first city to enforce a congestion pricing system.  (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)

About 85% of non-taxi and for-hire vehicles revenue was generated from passenger vehicles, and 15% was generated from trucks, buses, and motorcycles, the agency reported. And 95% of revenue was generated during peaking tolling hours.

Expenses from the program, which include operating camera infrastructure and customer service, amounted to $9.1 million. Factoring in another $2 million for mitigation efforts, the results were a net surplus of $37.5 million.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a proponent of the program, met with Trump to discuss the issue.

The Democrat claimed the city is “paralyzed with gridlock,” and the program could “make the city move again.”

“The people in my state need to know I’m willing to take the fight wherever I have to,” Hochul said.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has been outspoken about her thoughts on the controversial tolling program, vowing not to end it. (AP/ Getty Images)

As the situation unfolds, Hochul said she expects the state’s case to be won in court and the program will continue.

The Federal Highway Administration and NYSDOT entered into an agreement on Nov. 21, 2024, approving the Central Business District Tolling Program (CBDTP) under the Value Pricing Pilot Program (VPPP). 

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The VPPP, which was approved by Congress in 1991, is an exception to the general rule outlawing tolling on highways as a pilot to test congestion reduction techniques. 

New York is one of about a dozen states allowed to implement the program. 

Fox News Digital’s Danielle Wallace, Charles Creitz and Stephen Sorace contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday requiring government payments and travel expenses to be justified and made public where possible.

The requirement is part of Trump’s executive order to implement the cost efficiency initiative for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Using modern technology, the order aims to transform spending by putting all federal grants and contracts through rigorous standards to justify their existence. Trump’s order will have federal agencies acting immediately, reviewing all contracts and grants for waste, fraud and abuse.

Travel expenses and government payments are also being analyzed closely, as they must be justified and made public if possible.

MUSK TELLS CABINET THAT DOGE EMAIL WAS ‘PULSE CHECK’ FOR WORKERS, WARNS US WILL ‘GO BANKRUPT’ WITHOUT ACTION

President Donald Trump and DOGE head Elon Musk sit down for a “Hannity” exclusive interview. (Fox News)

The order also tells agencies to treat their credit cards as if they were frozen for 30 days.

“To the maximum extent permitted by law, all credit cards held by agency employees shall be treated as frozen for 30 days from the date of this order, except for any credit cards held by employees engaged in, or charges related to employees utilizing such credit cards for, disaster relief or natural disaster response benefits or operations or other critical services as determined by the Agency Head, and subject to such additional individualized or categorical exceptions as the Agency Head, in consultation with the agency’s DOGE Team Lead, deems appropriate,” Trump’s executive order reads.

Working with DOGE, agency heads will review and terminate any contracts deemed unnecessary.

HOUSE DOGE HEARING ERUPTS OVER DEMOCRAT DEEMING ‘GRIFTER IN CHIEF,’ REFERRING TO ‘PRESIDENT MUSK’

President Donald Trump signed an executive order implementing a DOGE cost efficiency initiative. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Additionally, the executive order will look at how the government manages property, requiring the General Services Administration to submit a plan for disposing of unnecessary owned or leased properties.

Trump’s order is being implemented to add “discipline to a wasteful system.”

“The existing system fails to safeguard taxpayer dollars or promote merit among contractors and grant recipients,” White House officials said in a fact sheet, noting that the government spends large sums of money on contracts and grants.

FEDERAL WATCHDOG RELEASES FIRST DOGE-ERA REPORT DETAILING AREAS OF GOVERNMENT PRONE TO FRAUD, WASTE AND ABUSE

President Trump has given SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and DOGE the reins for going through all federal agencies and looking for government waste. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

The sheet also notes that in fiscal year 2023, the government committed about $759 billion in contracts.

“This flood of spending historically had minimal safeguards,” the fact sheet read. “In the Biden Administration, GSA directed its efforts to promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) rather than merit and efficiency.”

Since his return to the Oval Office, Trump has set sort of a wildfire on federal government spending, unleashing DOGE, which is led by billionaire Elon Musk.

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According to the DOGE website, the total estimated savings as of Tuesday were $65 billion, which is a combination of fraud detection and deletion, contract and lease cancelations, contract and lease renegotiation, asset sales, grant cancelations, workforce reductions, programmatic changes and regulatory savings. The site is updated two times a week.

The DOGE site also has a “Wall of Receipts,” showing a breakdown of how much was saved and where the savings were found.

Welcome to the Fox News Politics newsletter, with the latest updates on the Trump administration, Capitol Hill and more Fox News politics content.

Here’s what’s happening…

–FBI investigating claims of Comey-era ‘honeypot’ operation against Trump 2016 campaign

-Ratcliffe shrugs off concerns about potential threat of fired agents armed with CIA’s secrets

-States fire back against ‘sanctuary’ resistance as they rally around Trump’s deportation efforts

It’s Not Rocket Science

President Donald Trump tapped Elon Musk to speak at the top of the first full Cabinet meeting Wednesday to discuss the progress made by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). 

Musk, standing in his signature black suit jacket with a T-shirt underneath, spoke at the meeting in which the media was present and made some clarifications about what he and DOGE are doing, as well as a recent email sent to government employees.

“I think that email was perhaps interpreted as a performance review, but actually it was a pulse check review. Do you have a pulse?” Musk said. “And if you have a pulse and two neurons, you could reply to an email.” Read more

Department of Government Efficiency Chair Elon Musk met at the Trump administration’s Cabinet meeting Feb. 26, 2025, to discuss the progress made in his quest to cut out government waste.  (The Associated Press)

White House

READ IT: Trump admin directs agency heads to prep for ‘large-scale reductions in force’ 

IMMUNE TO ORDERS?: CDC seems to defy Trump executive order by participating in WHO vaccine conference

TRUMP’S BRUISE EXPLAINED: White House explains bruise on Trump’s hand seen during Macron meeting

GET OUR GEAR: Trump pushes to recover ‘billions of dollars’ of military equipment left behind in Afghanistan withdrawal

President Donald Trump wants to recover billions of dollars’ worth of equipment U.S. troops left in Afghanistan following their 2021 withdrawal from the country, including aircraft and weapons. (Sgt. Isaiah Campbell/Marine Corps)

World Stage

BAD FOR BUSINESS: Mexican drug cartel leader extradited to the US to face federal drug trafficking charges

‘BLATANT PROVOCATION’: Taiwan dispatches navy, air force after China launches live-fire drills with no warning

‘WE HAVE NO TIME’: Former Hamas hostage briefs UN Security Council on the ‘pure hell’ that was captivity in Gaza

Israeli hostage Eliya Cohen, center, is escorted by Hamas fighters before being handed over to the Red Cross in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, Feb. 22, 2025. (Abdel Kareem Hana/The Associated Press)

Capitol Hill

‘CLASSY’: Dem Rep unloads on Elon Musk outside Capitol: ‘F— off’

DOGE FIGHT: House DOGE hearing erupts over Democrat deeming Trump ‘grifter in chief,’ referring to ‘President Musk’

Across America 

‘ENDANGERS’ WOMEN: Blue state’s abortion-pill shield law harms women by depriving follow-up care, pro-life docs say

‘RESOURCES TO FIGHT’: Dem governor fundraises off dust-up with Trump over trans sports in Maine: ‘I told him we’d see him in court’

WITH PREJUDICE: Eric Adams’ lawyers seek to dismiss charges with prejudice

New York City Mayor Eric Adams departs Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse in New York City, November 2024. (Adam Gray for Fox News Digital )

‘DOING THE RIGHT THING’: Blue state sheriff unleashes on ‘un-American’ sanctuary laws, makes special offer to Homan

‘HELL NO’: Gretchen Whitmer sounds off on push to condemn Supreme Court’s gay marriage ruling: ‘Hell no’

REMOVED: Massachusetts select board removes town administrator following controversy over Trump flag

YOUNG AND RESTLESS: New poll finds about half of rural young people feel job market pressures in their hometowns

Get the latest updates on the Trump administration and Congress, exclusive interviews and more on FoxNews.com.

Former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti is speaking out after the Trump administration ousted her and other top leaders at the Pentagon Friday, asserting that the Navy’s mission will continue “unabated and undisrupted.”

Franchetti, the first woman to serve as the chief of naval operations and on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described leading the sea service as the “honor of a lifetime” and thanked Navy sailors for their service supporting the U.S. 

“We are America’s Warfighting Navy and America is counting on us to deter aggression, defend our National security interests, and preserve our way of life,” Franchetti, who had served as the Navy’s top officer since 2023, said in a Tuesday LinkedIn post. “We operate from seabed to space, around the globe and around the clock. Our mission continues, unabated and undisrupted…There is no time to waste.”

TRUMP NOMINATES AIR FORCE LT. GEN. DAN ‘RAZIN’ CAINE FOR JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF CHAIRMAN

Adm. Lisa Franchetti became the first woman to serve as the chief of naval operations in 2023.   (Navy )

Franchetti joined the Navy Reserve Officer Training Corps as a student at Northwestern University and was commissioned in 1985. She told Navy Times in 2023 that she met other ROTC students at a barbecue during freshman orientation week, who notified her about the scholarship opportunities ROTC provided.

At the time of her commissioning, women were barred from serving on combatant ships and aircraft and were instead assigned to ships like oilers and destroyer tenders. However, Congress repealed the law in 1993 — paving the way for women like Franchetti to serve in top leadership positions in the Navy. 

“I joined for free college and books, but I stayed for our mission, the opportunity to serve something greater than myself, and the chance to be part of amazing teams in the world’s most lethal fighting force: America’s Warfighting Navy,” Franchetti wrote on LinkedIn. 

Ultimately, Franchetti went on to command two carrier strike groups, and served as the deputy commander of U.S. Naval Forces Europe and Africa and the commander of the U.S. 6th Fleet, which falls under U.S. Naval Forces Europe and Africa.

Other leaders the Trump administration removed Friday included Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. CQ Brown and Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Jim Slife. 

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth requested nominations to replace Franchetti and Slife, and said that both had “distinguished careers.”

“We thank them for their service and dedication to our country,” Hegseth said in a Friday statement. 

Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. James Kilby announced that he would take over responsibilities as the top officer in the Navy until a permanent replacement was found for Franchetti. 

FORMER CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF BIDS FAREWELL IN HEARTFELT SOCIAL MEDIA POST: ‘DISTINCT HONOR’

Adm. Lisa Franchetti’s previous assignments include serving as the commander of U.S. 6th Fleet based in Naples, Italy.  (Defense Department)

“The work of our Navy continues without disruption,” Kilby said in a statement Saturday. “We will sustain forward-deployed lethal forces that enhance the peace and deter our adversaries.”

The Navy did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. It remains unclear where Franchetti will be reassigned. 

Hegseth didn’t provide any additional comment on Franchetti or her career, but previously described her as a “DEI hire” in his 2024 book, “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free.” 

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Hegseth also announced Friday that President Donald Trump plans to nominate retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine to replace Brown, claiming that Caine embodies the “warfighter ethos” the U.S. military needs. 

“Under President Trump, we are putting in place new leadership that will focus our military on its core mission of deterring, fighting and winning wars,” Hegseth said. 

House and Senate Republicans are heading for a messy showdown over how long to extend President Donald Trump’s tax cuts.

The two chambers are at odds over how to advance Trump’s agenda via the budget reconciliation process, a maneuver that will allow Republicans to advance their agenda without Democratic support.

As part of that, GOP lawmakers are aiming to extend the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) before its provisions expire at the end of 2025, as well as implement more recent Trump tax priorities.

House Republicans adopted a resolution on Tuesday evening that would provide roughly $4.5 trillion for Trump’s tax priorities over the next 10 years, with a goal of working to eventually make them permanent. The Senate adopted a narrower competing resolution earlier this month that would leave taxes for a second bill to come later.

KEY CONSERVATIVE CAUCUS DRAWS RED LINE ON HOUSE BUDGET PLAN

House and Senate Republicans are at odds over Trump’s tax cuts. (Getty Images)

But Senate GOP leaders are pushing to make the tax cuts permanent while Republicans are working through the reconciliation process.

Senate Republicans are signaling they would rewrite the House’s product significantly, a push that’s irked Republicans in that chamber.

“The Senate resolution punted on accomplishing the majority of President Trump’s agenda, and now they are further delaying and endangering it by announcing they will rewrite what narrowly passed the House,” a senior House GOP aide told Fox News Digital.

Nevertheless, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., congratulated House Republicans on passing their resolution but added, “A key part of that agenda is making the pro-growth Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent, which is why we’ll work closely with our House colleagues to ensure the final package includes all of the president’s key tax priorities, including permanency, which will create long-term certainty for working families in America.”

Trump himself even weighed in on the matter. He wrote on his Truth Social app on Wednesday morning, “I hope the House and Senate are able to agree on making the Tax Cuts PERMANENT!”

But Republicans are also dealing with razor-thin margins in both chambers of Congress. In the House, they can currently only lose one Republican vote with full attendance, while Senate Republicans can afford three defectors. 

Getting the House resolution across the line proved dramatic on Monday night, with Republican leaders working up until the final moments to convince conservative fiscal hawks who were wary of how much the legislation would add to the federal deficit.

President Donald Trump said he wants Republicans to make his 2017 tax cuts permanent. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

It could prove more difficult if they did the exercise again, but with even more funding allocated toward Trump’s tax priorities.

“The Senate can push all they want to. This is being driven by the House,” Ways & Means Committee member Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., told Fox News Digital.

“I don’t see how it can be permanent,” another House Republican on Ways & Means told Fox News Digital. 

Murphy denied that Trump’s earlier Truth Social post made the situation more difficult for their side, however, explaining the ultimate “goal is” to make those provisions permanent.

The Senate advanced its own narrower version of the plan that would split Trump’s priorities into two parts earlier this month. The resolution that passed would repeal some progressive Biden administration policies and provide new funding for defense and border security, while leaving taxes for a second bill.

A significant number of House Republicans balked at that plan, worried that tax cuts could expire for millions of Americans if two reconciliation bills prove too heavy a lift.

But Senate Republicans want to spend more time cobbling together a tax plan they believe is closer to what Trump wants, and that this reconciliation opportunity is the best lane to do it.

GOP LAWMAKER CALLS FOR CONGRESSIONAL HEARING OVER DC PLANE CRASH

House Ways & Means Committee Chair Jason Smith is spearheading the push for one bill. (Tom Williams/Getty Images)

“A short-term extension of President Trump’s signature tax cuts would potentially leave future extensions vulnerable to Democrat presidents and Democrats in Congress, where we risk losing them forever and undoing President Trump’s legacy,” a senior Senate GOP aide told Fox News Digital.

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“We have to give greater certainty for working families. With President Trump in the White House, we have a unique opportunity to make the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent. The Senate will have to rewrite House Republicans’ budget resolution in order to do so.”

The senior House GOP aide who spoke with Fox News Digital said, however, “Republicans in both chambers want to deliver on President Trump’s promise and the American people’s mandate for a lengthy extension of the Trump tax cuts.”

“Congress can do this quickly by passing the only resolution that has already passed through one chamber of Congress – the House resolution – that has the capacity to implement the full Trump agenda,” they said.

President Donald Trump’s plan to offer a “gold card” visa to wealthy immigrants is similar to policies in use in more than three dozen countries, although the U.S. proposal would come with the highest price tag, an expert tells Fox News Digital.

“What you’re doing is you’re bringing in wealthier individuals, clearly job creators, consumers,” Anthony Esposito, the Founder & CEO of Island Capital Investments, told Fox News Digital.

Esposito’s comments come after Trump said Tuesday that he planned to offer a “gold card” visa that gives recipients a path to U.S. citizenship for $5 million, telling reporters such a program would be “extremely successful.”

“They’ll be wealthy and they’ll be successful, and they’ll be spending a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of people, and we think it’s going to be extremely successful,” Trump said Tuesday from the Oval Office, according to a report from the Associated Press.

TRUMP TO INTRODUCE ‘GOLD CARD’ VISA FOR WEALTHY INVESTORS WITH $5 MILLION PRICE TAG: ‘ROUTE TO CITIZENSHIP’

President Donald Trump’s plan to offer a “gold card” visa to wealthy immigrants is similar to policies in use in more than three dozen countries (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that the new gold card would replace the current EB-5 Immigrant Investor visa program within two weeks, a program that was created by Congress in 1990 and offers residency to people who spent about $1 million on a business while employing at least 10 people, the report notes.

Trump has also touted the program as a way of trimming the national debt.

“It’s the exact opposite of the Biden administration’s policy. On one side of the curve we had the mass migrations of unvetted, undocumented immigrants coming in the southern border that were essentially living on the taxpayer dime[.]”

“Companies can go and buy a gold card, and they can use it as a matter of recruitment,” Trump told reporters Wednesday. “At the same time, the company is using that money to pay down debt. We’re going to pay down a lot of debt with that.”

Esposito shares Trump’s view for how the money can be used, noting that 1 million gold card recipients would result in $5 trillion for the U.S. Treasury.

“A million individuals coming in would be $5 trillion in payment to the government, off the bat, that doesn’t include the derivative growth of those individuals being here,” Esposito said.

“Companies can go and buy a gold card, and they can use it as a matter of recruitment,” Trump told reporters. (Sean Rayford/Getty Images)

TRUMP STATE DEPARTMENT DECLARES TREN DE ARAGUA, MS-13, MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS AS FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS 

Nearly 40 other countries have similar so-called “citizenship by investment” programs, according to Henley & Partners, a law firm who represents clients looking to use such arrangements. However, the U.S. investment of $5 million proposed by Trump would make the United States the most expensive of the group.

Esposito believes allowing such investments would benefit the U.S. economy.

“It is the greatest nation in the world. It is the greatest economy in the world. This is just simply a way of vetting people and having people come in that will create a mutually beneficial relationship…”

“The job growth, the job creation, the taxes paid, the consumer spending, 10 million cards would be $50 trillion. The numbers are real walking in, and the numbers are real as of derivative benefits of these individuals being here,” Esposito said.

While some critics have expressed fears that the program could be abused or lead to threats to national security, Esposito argued that the Trump administration should be trusted to put the right vetting procedures in place.

“It’s the exact opposite of the Biden administration’s policy. On one side of the curve, we had the mass migrations of unvetted, undocumented immigrants coming in the southern border that were essentially living on the taxpayer dime,” Esposito said, adding that Trump’s policy would call for “a program where we have fully vetted the individuals on a personal basis and on an economic basis.”

Former President Joe Biden speaks with US Customs and Border Protection officers as he visits the US-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas, on January 8, 2023.  (JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)

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Ultimately, Esposito says, Trump’s program will cause a “mutually beneficial” partnership between the U.S. and gold card holders.

“It is the greatest nation in the world. It is the greatest economy in the world,” Esposito said. “This is just simply a way of vetting people and having people come in that will create a mutually beneficial relationship between the United States, and the United States economy, and those gold card holders.”

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

EXCLUSIVE: Fox News Digital spoke to GOP Rep. Abe Hamadeh about the state of the U.S. military after four years of the Biden administration, following the freshman congressman’s visit to an Arizona Air Force base to meet with service members and fly in an F-16 fighter jet. 

“Under President Trump’s leadership, there’s a renewed sense of purpose in our military. He has made it clear from day one that his mission is to reenergize and refocus our armed forces,” Hamadeh said after his visit to Luke Air Force Base in Maricopa County, Arizona, where 70% of the world’s F-35 pilots train. 

Hamadeh, who flew in an F-16 at the base, met with airmen of the 56th Fighter Wing and posted the video on X, spoke about how the military is returning to its “core mission” under Trump. 

“Eliminating the failed woke DEI agenda pushed by the Democrats has already boosted morale,” Hamadeh said. 

FRESHMAN GOP LAWMAKER TARGETS ‘PROPAGANDA’ FROM TOP ADVERSARY IN FIRST BILL OF CONGRESSIONAL CAREER

GOP Rep. Abe Hamadeh told Fox News Digital that Trump’s leadership is already paying dividends for the military. (Getty/Rep Abe Hamadeh)

“When I served overseas as a captain and intelligence officer in the U.S. Army Reserve, I saw firsthand how Biden and Secretary Lloyd Austin’s first order of business was a military-wide stand-down to lecture service members about so-called ‘right-wing extremism.’ That kind of political nonsense has no place in our armed forces. Now, with President Trump and Secretary Hegseth at the helm, the military is returning to its core mission, being the most lethal fighting force on earth and defending America’s national security interests.”

Fox News Digital extensively reported on sagging military recruitment during the Biden administration, which Hamadeh said was due in part to “lost focus” during those years. 

“Americans watched in horror as our heroes were disrespected by their own government. One of Biden’s worst decisions was forcing service members to take the COVID vaccine, disregarding their personal and religious freedoms,” Hamadeh explained. 

TRUMP PENTAGON LEADERSHIP SHAKEUP AIMS TO RECAPTURE ‘WARRIOR ETHOS,’ EXPERT SAYS

Rep. Abe Hamadeh visited Luke Air Force Base in Arizona last week. (Rep. Abe Hamadeh )

“This culture of disrespect was only magnified by the catastrophic Afghanistan withdrawal, which resulted in unnecessary tragedy and humiliation. President Trump has already taken action to correct these wrongs – by executive order, he reinstated thousands of service members who were wrongfully discharged for refusing an experimental vaccine. Under his leadership, respect for our troops is being restored, and recruitment will rise again because service members know they’ll be treated with the dignity they deserve.”

Hamadeh, whose flight on the F-16 was one of the last on the base before the aircraft training is moved to New Mexico and the base focuses on F-35s, emphasized to Fox News Digital that DEI was a “disaster” for the military. 

“Warfighters should be focused on strength, discipline, and mission success – not political indoctrination,” Hamadeh said. “The left’s obsession with identity politics has weakened recruitment, lowered standards, and distracted from what actually matters: making sure our military is the most dominant force in the world. If anything should be merit-based, it’s the entity tasked with protecting us and keeping us safe.”

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President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in the Oval Office at the White House, Feb. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Trump signed an executive order in January banning DEI in the military in a move Hamadeh, who serves on both the House Armed Services Committee and House Veterans Affairs Committee, said will improve the military’s effectiveness. 

“President Trump understands that victory, not virtue signaling, is the priority,” Hamadeh said. “By removing DEI and refocusing on warfighting, we are ensuring that our troops are prepared, our adversaries are deterred, and America remains strong.”

Fox News Digital previously reported that military recruitment appeared to be trending higher since Trump’s November victory, highlighted by the U.S. Army announcing that December 2024 was its most productive recruiting month in 15 years.