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Mark Zuckerberg, who often bends with the political winds, is getting out of the fact-checking business.

And this is part of a broader effort by the Meta CEO to ingratiate himself with Donald Trump after a long and testy relationship.

After a previous outcry, Zuck made a great show of declaring that Facebook would hire fact-checkers to combat misinformation on the globally popular site. That was a clear sign that Facebook was becoming more of a journalistic organization rather than a passive poster of users’ opinions (and dog pictures).

But it didn’t work. In fact, it led to more info-suppression and censorship. Why should anyone believe a bunch of unknown fact-checkers working for one of the increasingly unpopular tech titans?

MESSY BACKSTAGE JOCKEYING IN TRUMP TRANSITION COULD SHAPE HILL STRATEGY 4 YEARS AFTER JAN 6

A side-by-side of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and President-elect Donald Trump. (Getty Images)

Now Zuckerberg is pulling the plug, announcing his decision in a video to underscore its big-deal nature:

“The problem with complex systems is they make mistakes. Even if they accidentally censor just 1 percent of posts. That’s millions of people. And we’ve reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship. The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech.”

Let me jump in here. Zuckerberg bluntly admits, with that line about “cultural tipping point,” that he’s following the conventional wisdom–and, of course, the biggest tipping point is Trump’s election to a second term. And skeptics are portraying this as a bow to the president-elect and his team.

TRUMP THREATENS MORE LAWSUITS AGAINST MEDIA AS ABC TO PAY $15 MILLION TO SETTLE CASE

“So we’re gonna get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms…

“We’re going to get rid of fact checkers” and replace them with community notes, already used on X. “After Trump first got elected in 2016, the legacy media wrote nonstop about how misinformation was a threat to democracy. 

“We tried in good faith to address those concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth. But the fact checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created, especially in the U.S.” 

SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk speaks at a town hall with Republican candidate U.S. Senate Dave McCormick at the Roxain Theater on October 20, 2024 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Michael Swensen/Getty Images)

It was Zuckerberg, along with the previous management at Twitter, that banned Trump after the Capitol riot. This led to plenty of Trumpian attacks on Facebook, and the president-elect told me he had flipped his position on banning TikTok because it would help Facebook, which he viewed as the greater danger.

Trump said last summer that Zuckerberg plotted against him in 2020 and would “spend the rest of his life in prison” if he did it again.

The president-elect boiled it down in a posting: “ZUCKERBUCKS, DON’T DO IT!”

Here’s a bit more from Z: “We’re going to simplify our content policies and get rid of a bunch of restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are just out of touch with mainstream discourse. What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas. And it’s gone too far.” 

Indeed it has. And I agree with that. In 2020, social media, led by Twitter, suppressed the New York Post story on Hunter Biden’s laptop, dismissing it as Russian disinformation, though a year and a half later the establishment press suddenly declared hey, the laptop report was accurate.

DONALD TRUMP’S TOUGH TALK—BUY GREENLAND! TAKE BACK PANAMA CANAL!—SPARKS DEFIANCE FROM MANY REPUBLICAN REBELS

Let’s face it: People like Zuckerberg and Elon Musk (now embroiled in a war of words with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer over an alleged coverup of gang rapes of young girls when Starmer was chief prosecutor) have immense clout. They are the new gatekeepers. With so-called legacy media less relevant–as we see with the mass exodus of top talent from Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post and the recent rise of podcasts–they control much of the public dialogue. And yes, they are private companies that can do what they want. 

Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer listens to the speech of Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool, England, Monday, Sept. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Jon Super)

At yesterday’s marathon news conference, a reporter asked Trump about Zuckerberg: “Do you think he’s directly responding to the threats that you have made to him in the past with promises?”

“Probably. Yeah, probably,” Trump said, twisting the knife a bit.

Meanwhile, having made the obligatory trek to Mar-a-Lago for dinner, the CEO has taken a number of steps to join forces with the new administration. And it doesn’t hurt that Meta is kicking in a million bucks to the Trump inaugural.

Zuck named prominent Republican lawyer Joel Kaplan as chief of global affairs, replacing a former British deputy prime minister. On “Fox & Friends” yesterday, Kaplan said: 

“We’ve got a real opportunity now. We’ve got a new administration and a new president coming in who are big defenders of free expression, and that makes a difference. One of the things we’ve experienced is that when you have a U.S. president, an administration that’s pushing for censorship, it just makes it open season for other governments around the world that don’t even have the protections of the First Amendment to really put pressure on US companies. We’re going to work with President Trump to push back on that kind of thing around the world.”

We’re going to work with President Trump. Got it?

What’s more, Zuckerberg is adding Dana White, chief executive officer of United Fighting Championship, to the Meta board. White is a longtime Trump ally, so MAGA now has a voice inside the company.

In other words, get with the program.

Footnote: At his news conference, where Trump seemed angry about the latest court battles and plans to sentence him, the incoming president said–or “didn’t rule out,” in journalistic parlance– “military coercion” against two of his latest targets.

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“Well, we need Greenland for national security purposes,” he said. And Americans lost many lives building the Panama Canal. “It might be that you’ll have to do something.” 

He’s not going to use military force against either one. But his answer stirs the pot, as he knew it would.

Jimmy Carter, the centenarian former president who lived long enough to see Donald Trump elected again but died just before the start of the new year, has a foreign policy legacy that wasn’t just defined by his four years in the White House. 

Over the term of his presidency, the former Georgia governor could boast of helping to establish peace between Israel and Egypt and reestablishing relations with China. But by the time he suffered one of the nation’s most decisive defeats by President Ronald Reagan in 1980, Carter still had ambitions that he was not ready to stop pursuing. 

Carter is largely celebrated for the altruistic nature of his post-presidency, volunteering with Habitat for Humanity well into his 90s. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his peace negotiations, but some accused the former president of meddling in international affairs without any official title. 

Here’s a look Carter’s forays on the world stage, both as president and beyond: 

Unauthorized North Korea peace treaty 

In 1994, Bill Clinton was in office in the midst of a standoff with North Korea over the communist country’s nuclear program. The U.S. was floating the idea of sanctions – and even considered a preemptive strike on North Korea’s nuclear facilities to destroy their capabilities. 

Carter had received invitations from North Korea to visit, and was eager to try his hand at defusing the situation and hashing out an agreement to unify the north and the south. As Clinton weighed his options, Carter called. He had negotiated the framework of a peace agreement, without authorization. 

Carter had flown to North Korea with a CNN crew and hashed out the deal. He called Clinton to warn him he was about to go on CNN to announce the deal, which infuriated the Clinton White House, according to Carter biographer Douglas Brinkley’s book, “The Unfinished Presidency.”

Carter also accepted a dinner invitation from Kim Il-Sung, where he stated the U.S. had stopped pursuing sanctions at the U.N., which was untrue. Backed into a corner, Clinton had to accept the peace deal and stop pursuing sanctions. 

Carter’s discussions with leader Kim Il-Sung may have averted conflict with North Korea in the 1990s. The nation, of course, continued pursuing nuclear weapons and acquired them in 2006. 

South Koreans watch a TV program showing Carter arriving in Pyongyang, North Korea.

Carter tells Arab states to abandon US in Bush’s Gulf War 

In the Middle East, Carter declared he could have resolved the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians in a second term, a prospect that has still not been achieved by any president. 

“Had I been elected to a second term, with the prestige and authority and influence and reputation I had in the region, we could have moved to a final solution,” he told The New York Times in 2003. 

Throughout the 1990s, Carter befriended Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat and coached him on how to appear more moderate to the west, even as Arafat continued to lead attacks on Israel and led the Second Intifada in 2000. 

JIMMY CARTER, PIONEER OF THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT

When President George H.W. Bush decided to launch the Persian Gulf War after Iraq’s Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, Carter was vehemently opposed to the idea. Five days before Bush’s deadline for Hussein to withdraw, Carter wrote to leaders of nations on the U.N. Security Council and key Arab states – Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria – imploring them to abandon the U.S. and its war efforts.

“I urge you to call publicly for a delay in the use of force while Arab leaders seek a peaceful solution to the crisis. You may have to forego approval from the White House, but you will find the French, Soviets, and others fully supportive. Also, most Americans will welcome such a move.” 

The move prompted former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft to accuse Carter of violating the Logan Act, which says private citizens cannot negotiate with foreign governments. 

Carter meets with Hamas, angering Bush administration 

In 2008, President George W. Bush’s secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, publicly tore into Carter for meeting with Hamas, a designated terrorist group, after the administration explicitly told him not to. 

Rice told reporters Carter’s meeting could confuse the message that the U.S. would not work with Hamas.

“I just don’t want there to be any confusion,” Rice said. “The United States is not going to deal with Hamas and we had certainly told President Carter that we did not think meeting with Hamas was going to help” further a political settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.

JIMMY CARTER, 39TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, DEAD AT 100

Carter, a strong advocate of the Palestinians after his presidency, claimed that Israel’s policies amounted to an apartheid worse than South Africa’s. 

Carter speaks to the media at the ruins of the American International School, which was destroyed during Israel’s offensive in the northern Gaza Strip, June 16, 2009.

Egypt-Israel peace treaty

In 1978, the groundbreaking possibility of Egypt and Israel normalizing relations had screeched to a halt. President Anwar Sadat of Egypt suggested ceasing contact with the Israelis. 

In September of that year, Carter brought Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to Camp David, where Carter spent more than a week mediating negotiations on an agreement between the two sides. A framework of a treaty known as the Camp David Accords came out of that meeting, and six months later, Egypt became the first Arab state to establish relations with Israel. 

The agreement included the return of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt and a “pathway” for Palestinian self-rule in Gaza. Sadat was assassinated in 1981 after Arab fury over the peace agreement. 

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, left, Carter, center, and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin clasp hands at the White House after signing the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, March 26, 1979.

Normalization of US-China relations

In 1978, following months of secret negotiations, Carter established formal U.S. relations with China, breaking decades of hostility between the two nations. That meant rescinding a defense treaty with Taiwan, where Carter remains a controversial figure. 

It also prompted Congress to pass the Taiwan Relations Act to continue to provide arms to Taiwan and “maintain the capacity to resist” any attempts to take it over. 

1979 Iranian hostage crisis

In 1979, the Iranian regime’s shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, and Carter had a strategic relationship, with Carter quiet on his questionable human rights record even as the shah’s grip on power was slipping. 

Protests had kicked up in Iran over the shah’s oppressive policies, but Carter continued to support him, fearing the alternative: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. 

Pahlavi fled into exile in January 1979, and Carter initially resisted requests to grant him refuge in the U.S. before allowing him to seek cancer treatment in New York City in October of that year. And on Nov. 4, Iranian students angry at the decision stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran, taking 52 hostages. 

The hostage crisis spanned the rest of Carter’s term and, for many, defined his legacy on the world stage. Without any resolution, in April 1980, Carter moved to a military rescue. 

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The mission ended in tragic failure: several helicopters were grounded outside Tehran in a sandstorm, and eight special forces members were killed when their helicopter crashed. Iran then captured U.S. equipment and intelligence. 

The hostages were not released until Jan. 20, 1981 – minutes after President Ronald Reagan was inaugurated.

Signing Panama Canal back to Panama 

President-elect Trump has brought Carter’s Panama Canal treaties back into the spotlight, musing on Tuesday that offering control of the canal to Panama lost Carter the 1980 election.

Despite fierce opposition from the right, Carter believed returning the canal would improve U.S. relations in Latin America and ensure peace between U.S. shipping lanes, fearing that opposition to U.S. control could lead to violence on the waterway. 

“It’s obvious that we cheated the Panamanians out of their canal,” Carter wrote in a diary. But he’d also received intelligence that it could take up 100,000 troops to defend the canal in the event of an uprising. 

In recent days, Trump has suggested taking the canal back – claiming the U.S. is paying too much to use it, and it is controlled by China. 

“Giving the Panama Canal to Panama was a big reason why Jimmy Carter lost the election, even more so than the hostages,” Trump said. 

President-elect Trump on Tuesday again suggested that Canada should be added as the U.S.’s 51st state, sharing maps showing Canada as part of the U.S.

Trump shared a pair of posts to his social media platform Truth Social on Tuesday night — one with a map of the U.S. and Canada with “United States” written across the two countries and another post with the U.S. and Canada covered in an American Flag.

“Oh Canada!” he wrote in one post.

The incoming president has been pushing recently for Canada to be added to the U.S., including earlier on Tuesday.

TRUMP TROLLING CANADA AS 51ST STATE COULD BOOST DEMOCRATS WITH ‘BLUE-STATE BEHEMOTH’

U.S. President Donald Trump, left, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau talk prior to a NATO round table meeting at The Grove hotel and resort in Watford, Hertfordshire, England, Dec. 4, 2019. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

“Canada and the United States. That would really be something,” Trump said at a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. “They should be a state.”

On Monday, the president-elect argued in a social media post that “many people in Canada LOVE being the 51st State.”

WHAT TRUMP IS SAYING ABOUT CANADA BECOMING THE 51ST STATE

“The United States can no longer suffer the massive Trade Deficits and Subsidies that Canada needs to stay afloat,” he wrote on Truth Social.

“Justin Trudeau knew this, and resigned. If Canada merged with the U.S., there would be no Tariffs, taxes would go way down, and they would be TOTALLY SECURE from the threat of the Russian and Chinese Ships that are constantly surrounding them,” he added. “Together, what a great Nation it would be!!!”

President-elect Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images, left, CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images, right.)

Trudeau, who announced Monday that he will resign as Canadian prime minister once a replacement is chosen, said Tuesday there is no way Canada would join the U.S.

“There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States,” Trudeau wrote on the social media platform X. “Workers and communities in both our countries benefit from being each other’s biggest trading and security partner.”

Trump has been trolling Canada in recent weeks, floating the idea of it becoming the 51st state and posting a doctored photo of him standing beside a Canadian flag on top of a mountain.

President-elect Donald Trump arrives to speak at a news conference at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

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The president-elect has also mocked Trudeau, repeatedly referring to him as “governor.” Additionally, Trump has threatened to impose massive tariffs on Canada.

Trump has also been pushing for Denmark to sell the North Atlantic island of Greenland to the U.S.

During a press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday, President-elect Donald Trump renewed his criticisms of the Biden administration for selling off border wall materials at “five cents on the dollar,” saying: “These people either hate our country or they’re stupid.”

He also slammed the private company managing the border wall sales for attempting to sell the materials back to his incoming administration at a significant upcharge.

“You know what they were doing. They were calling us up and saying: ‘We’ll sell it back to you at 200 cents.’ In other words, double what we paid for it,” he said. “So, they were going to buy it from this guy [President Joe Biden] for five cents on the dollar. They were making deals.”

SEAN HANNITY: THESE ACTIONS ARE DESIGNED TO UNDERMINE TRUMP

The Biden administration has been auctioning off border wall parts since at least 2023, with parts listed for sale on auction marketplaces, after it abruptly shut down most border wall construction in 2021.

An official at the Department of Defense told Fox News Digital in December that the materials being sold through online auctions were already sold off by the federal government earlier in 2024, with a large percentage of the materials being sold to a government surplus retailer called Gov Planet.

Following a lawsuit by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton the Biden administration agreed to a court order to stop further wall material sales.

Speaking in December, Trump said the Biden administration’s border wall sales were “almost a criminal act” that would cost American taxpayers “hundreds of millions of dollars.”

A SECURE BORDER SAVES LIVES, TOM HOMAN SAYS

Piles of unused border fence sit at one of the border wall construction staging areas on the Johnson Ranch near Columbus, N.M., on Monday, April 12, 2021.  (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Trump said on Tuesday the private retailer was “calling us, asking us to pay them 200 cents because it’s a good deal because we can have it immediately.”

But to this, Trump said: “You know what ‘immediately’ is? Just leave it in place.”

“Fortunately, we had a very smart judge that stopped it cold,” he went on. “But think of it. They were selling the wall. That was exactly the wall that the Border Patrol wanted that was designed by them: steel, concrete, rebar… Everything was top of the line, very expensive. It would be double what we paid for it then, six years ago.”

CLICK HERE FOR MORE IMMIGRATION COVERAGE

President Donald Trump tours a section of the border wall, Tuesday, June 23, 2020, in San Luis, Ariz. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

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Speaking of the Biden administration, Trump said: “These people either hate our country or they’re very stupid.”

“They were selling the wall for five cents on the dollar and trying to resell it back to us for 200 cents, or less, but for 200 cents on the dollar.” he said. “That deal is like all the other things that these people do.” 

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s newly unveiled freedom of speech policies signal a major shift in the Facebook social media platform’s content moderation strategy, following years of congressional clashes over alleged “censorship” and the regulation of political information.

“We’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms,” Zuckerberg said in a video posted Tuesday morning. “More specifically, we’re going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with Community Notes similar to X, starting in the U.S.” 

META ENDS FACT-CHECKING PROGRAM AS ZUCKERBERG VOWS TO RESTORE FREE EXPRESSION ON FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM

From left, Discord CEO Jason Citron, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, X CEO Linda Yaccarino and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, are sworn in during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, Jan. 31, 2024, to discuss child safety. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)

Zuckerberg’s shift in content moderation comes amid a history of being grilled by politicians on both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill. 

In January 2024, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., confronted Zuckerberg during a heated exchange about the harmful impact of social media on users, particularly young girls. The questioning followed revelations from internal Meta studies that indicated a significant number of teenage girls were exposed to harmful content, including unwanted nudity, sexual advances, and material promoting self-harm, within just one week.

“So, you didn’t take any action, you didn’t fire anybody, you haven’t compensated a single victim. Let me ask you this. There are families of victims here today. Have you apologized to the victims? Would you like to apologize now?” Hawley said, drawing applause from the audience.

In response, Zuckerberg rose from his seat and addressed the crowd directly, saying, “I’m sorry for everything you’ve all been through. No one should have to go through the things that your families suffered.”

MUSK PROVES HUNTER BIDEN CENSORSHIP CAME FROM COLLUSION AMONG BIDEN CAMPAIGN, LAW ENFORCEMENT AND TWITTER

A PoltiFact executive torched Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg for announcing the end of fact-checking on his social media platforms. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

Zuckerberg added, “This is why we’ve invested so much… and will continue through industry-leading efforts to make sure that no [one has] to go through what your families have had to suffer.”

In that same hearing, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, delivered a scathing rebuke of the tech giant CEO.

“Mr. Zuckerberg, you and the companies before us. I know you don’t mean it to be so, but you have blood on your hands,” Graham said. “You have a product that’s killing people.”

Graham’s remark came in light of South Carolina state Rep. Brandon Guffey suing Instagram following the suicide of his 17-year-old son, Gavin. Gavin took his own life after falling victim to an extortion scheme run by a group operating through the Meta-owned app.

In 2018, then-House lawmakers grilled Zuckerberg over the site’s failure to protect the personal information of 87 million users. Zuckerberg, who co-founded Facebook in 2004 from his Harvard dorm room, said in a Facebook post at the time, “Looking back, it’s clear we were too slow identifying election interference in 2016, and we need to do better in future elections.”

In November 2020, then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Zuckerberg both faced the Senate Judiciary Committee in a hearing titled “Breaking the News: Censorship, Suppression, and the 2020 Election.” The session put the spotlight on the tech giants’ controversial content moderation decisions, including the suppression of the New York Post story about Hunter Biden just weeks before the presidential election.

HOUSE WEAPONIZATION PANEL RELEASES 17,000-PAGE REPORT EXPOSING ‘TWO-TIERED SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT’

Human Rights President and CEO Maya Wiley and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg attend the “AI Insight Forum” in the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on Sept. 13, 2023. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Testifying remotely, both CEOs acknowledged missteps and outlined how they’d handle similar challenges in the future. Zuckerberg highlighted Facebook’s expansive voting initiatives, which he called “the largest voting information campaign in American history.” According to his testimony, over 140 million users visited the Voting Information Center on Facebook and Instagram, with 33 million accessing it on Election Day alone. The campaign reportedly helped 4.5 million people register to vote.

To combat misinformation and voter suppression, Zuckerberg detailed measures like partnerships with election officials, the removal of false claims, and warnings applied to over 150 million pieces of content reviewed by independent fact-checkers. Facebook also implemented “policies prohibiting explicit or implicit misrepresentations about how or when to vote as well as attempts to use threats related to COVID-19 to scare people into not voting,” according to Zuckerberg’s testimony.

Meta’s third-party fact-checking program was put in place after the 2016 election and had been used to “manage content” and misinformation on its platforms, largely due to “political pressure,” executives said, but admitted the system has “gone too far.” 

Last year, Zuckerberg sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee, in which he admitted that he felt pressure from the Biden administration, particularly with regard to COVID-19 content, and even subjects like satire and humor. 

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“The thing is, as American companies, when other governments around the world that don’t have our tradition or our First Amendment, when they see the United States government pressuring U.S. companies to take down content, it is just open season then for those governments to put more pressure [on their companies],” explained Meta’s chief global affairs officer, Joel Kaplan. “We do think it is a real opportunity to work with the Trump administration and to work on free expression at home.”

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Liz Huston, Trump-Vance transition spokesperson said, “President Trump has always been a champion of free speech, and his landslide victory put an end to the Biden era of oppressive censorship.”

‘President Trump’s return to the White House is a signal to Americans that their fundamental right to free speech is once again safe,” she added.

Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman and Adonis Hoffman contributed to this report.

Minnesota Democrat Sen. Amy Klobuchar is facing blowback from both X users and the platform itself over her post about the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill riot in which she claimed police officers were “injured and killed.”

“Four years ago, the electoral vote certification was interrupted by a violent mob. Police officers were injured and killed,” Klobuchar posted on X on Tuesday. “Our democracy hung in the balance. I knew we had to do our duty and complete the count – and in the early hours of January 7th, we did.”

That post was soon slapped with a “Community Note” by X that said, “No officers were killed.”

“The medical examiner found Sicknick died of natural causes which means ‘a disease alone causes death. If death is hastened by an injury, the manner of death is not considered natural.’ Four other officers committed suicide days to months later.”

DOJ CONSIDERS CHARGING 200 MORE PEOPLE 4 YEARS AFTER JAN 6 CAPITOL ATTACK

President-elect Trump and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Getty Images)

“No police officers were killed,” conservative commentator Dana Loesch posted on X. 

“Zero police officers were killed,” Red State writer Bonchie posted on X. “The time to stop lying about this was a long time ago.”

“Can someone explain to me why it’s okay for politicians to continually lie about this?” Bonchie added. “Let’s say you think J6 is the worst thing ever. Fine, but how does that make it acceptable to say officers were killed? It’s four years later and the fact-checkers still won’t touch this.”

DOJ IG REVEALS 26 FBI INFORMANTS WERE PRESENT ON JAN 6

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Nathan Howard/Bloomberg via Getty Images/File)

“It is so sick to see people lie about who was killed,” Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway posted on X. “A Trump supporter was shot and killed, but no police officers were killed. Someone of your stature should not be lying brazenly about this. Just sick.”

“She should be censured for this lie,” Right Turn Strategies President Chris Barron posted on X.

“Not a single officer was killed on Jan 6,” Federalist Election Correspondent Brianna Lyman posted on X. “Sicknick died of natural causes on Jan. 7 Two officers died by su*cide in the weeks following while two other officers who were not present at the time of the protest later died by su*cide that could not directly be tied to J6.”

“No police officers were killed,” conservative writer Ben Kew posted on X. “The only person who was murdered was Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter.”

Fox News Digital reached out to Klobuchar’s office for comment but did not receive a response. 

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Trump supporters occupy the West Front of the Capitol and the inauguration stands on Jan. 6, 2021. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images)

U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick suffered two strokes and died of natural causes the day after he confronted rioters on Jan. 6, according to Washington’s top medical examiner. 

“The USCP accepts the findings from the District of Columbia’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner that Officer Brian Sicknick died of natural causes,” the Capitol Police said in a 2021 press release. “This does not change the fact Officer Sicknick died in the line of duty, courageously defending Congress and the Capitol.”

Law enforcement officials testified in 2021 that about 140 police officers were injured in the riot. 

Democrats held onto their narrow majorities in Virginia’s legislature as they won two of three special elections on Tuesday in the first ballot box showdowns of 2025.

The closely-watched contests were seen by the political world as the first gauge of the mood of voters since President-elect Trump’s convincing victory in November, in elections that also saw Republicans win control of the U.S. Senate and hold their fragile House majority.

They’re also viewed as an early barometer for high-profile gubernatorial showdowns later this year in Virginia and New Jersey and next year’s battle for Congress in the midterm elections.

The Associated Press projected that the Democrats would win both special elections in Loudon County, in northern Virginia.

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In a special state Senate election, Democrat Kannan Srinivasan, currently a member of the state House, defeated Republican Tumay Harding. The seat became vacant after Democratic state Sen. Suhas Subramanyam was elected to Congress in November. 

And in a special state House race to fill Srinivasan’s vacant seat, Democrat JJ Singh, a small business owner and former congressional aide, topped Republican Ram Venkatachalam. 

THIS REPUBLICAN WOMAN MAY BECOME THE NATION’S FIRST BLACK FEMALE GOVERNOR

Loudon County, on the outer edges of the metropolitan area that surrounds the nation’s capital, in recent years has been an epicenter in the national debate over bathroom policy for transgender students and allowing them to play female sports. 

The one-time Republican-dominated county has trended for the Democrats over the past decade as Loudon’s population has continued to soar. Vice President Kamala Harris easily carried the county in November’s White House election, although Trump improved his showing compared to four years ago.

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump arrives at a campaign rally at the Salem Civic Center, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024, in Salem, Virginia. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

The third special election on Tuesday took place in a state Senate district in the central part of the state, where Republican Luther Cifers defeated Democrat Jack Trammell. 

The seat became vacant when state Sen. John McGuire, who with the support of Trump, narrowly edged U.S. Rep. Bob Good in a contentious GOP primary last June before winning election to Congress in November.

WHAT’S NEXT FOR THIS POPULAR REPUBLICAN GOVERNOR WHEN HE LEAVES OFFICE IN A YEAR

Democrats will retain their 21-19 majority in the Virginia Senate and their 51-49 control of the state House of Delegates, during Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s final year in office.

Youngkin energized Republicans nationwide three years ago, as the first-time candidate who hailed from the party’s business wing edged out former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe in 2021 to become the first GOP candidate in a dozen years to win a gubernatorial election in the one-time swing state that had trended towards the Democrats over the previous decade.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin speaks before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Salem Virginia, on  Saturday, Nov 2, 2024.  (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

Virginia is unique due to its state law preventing governors from serving two consecutive four-year terms, so Youngkin cannot run for re-election next year.

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Virginia and New Jersey are the only two states in the nation to hold gubernatorial elections in the year after a presidential election. Because of that, both contests receive outsized national attention, and Virginia in particular is often seen as a bellwether of the national political climate and how Americans feel about the party in the White House.

The Biden administration is asking a federal appeals court for an injunction to temporarily block a plea deal agreement with three detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, which would see the defendants avoid the death penalty. 

The three prisoners were set to enter their pleas as early as Friday at the military prison.

On New Year’s Eve, a military appeals court shot down Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin‘s effort to block the deal between military prosecutors and defense lawyers, saying Austin did not have the power to cancel plea agreements.

Specifically, the court opinion said the plea deals reached by military prosecutors and defense attorneys were valid and enforceable and that Austin exceeded his authority when he later tried to nullify them.

MILITARY APPEALS COURT RULES DEFENSE SEC AUSTIN CANNOT RESCIND 9/11 PLEA DEALS

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the organizer of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks (HO/AFP via Getty Images/File)

In its appeal this week, the government says, “Respondents are charged with perpetrating the most egregious criminal act on American soil in modern history—the 9/11 terrorist attacks.”

“The military commission judge intends to enforce pretrial plea agreements that will deprive the government and the American people of a public trial as to the respondents’ guilt and the possibility of capital punishment, despite the fact that the Secretary of Defense has lawfully withdrawn those agreements,” the appeal read. “The harm to the government and the public will be irreparable once the judge accepts the pleas, which he is scheduled to do in hearings beginning on January 10, 2025.”

The appeal also noted that once the military commission accepts the guilty pleas, there is likely no way to return to the status quo.

BIDEN ADMIN SENDS 11 GUANTANAMO DETAINEES TO OMAN FOR RESETTLEMENT

The control tower of the Camp VI detention facility in Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon/File)

“The government and the public will lose the opportunity for a public trial as to the respondents’ guilt and to seek capital punishment against three men charged with a heinous act of mass murder that caused the death of thousands of people and shocked the nation and the world,” it continued. “The government is likely to prevail on the merits of its petition for a writ of mandamus and prohibition, but it will be a pyrrhic victory unless this Court first issues a stay of the military commission’s proceedings, at least as they relate to enforcing the withdrawn pretrial agreements and accepting the respondents’ pleas, until this Court can decide the merits of the government’s petition.”

The plea deal in the long-running case against the terrorists was struck over the summer and approved by the top official of the Guantánamo military commission.

A number of 9/11 victims and U.S. politicians have condemned the plea deals. 

BIDEN WHITE HOUSE TO SEND $1.25 BILLION IN WEAPON AID TO UKRAINE BEFORE TRUMP TRANSITION: REPORT

Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba (AP Photo/Alex Brandon/File)

“Joe Biden, Kamala Harris have weaponized the Department of Justice to go after their political opponents, but they’re cutting a sweetheart deal with 9/11 terrorists,” now-Vice President-elect JD Vance said at the time.

The Pentagon revoked the deals in July.

“Effective immediately, in the exercise of my authority, I hereby withdraw from the three pretrial agreements that you signed on July 31, 2024,” a letter from Austin states. 

On Monday, the Biden administration announced the transfer of 11 Yemeni detainees, including two former bodyguards for Osama bin Laden, who were being held at Guantánamo Bay, to Cuba.

JUDGE RESTORES CONTROVERSIAL 9/11 TERRORIST PLEA DEALS INVOLVING KHALID SHEIKH MOHAMMED: REPORT

President Biden (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta/File)

All the men were captured in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and were held for more than two decades without being charged or put on trial.

The transfer was carried out as part of an early morning secret operation on Monday, days before Mohammed, Guantánamo’s most notorious prisoner, was scheduled to plead guilty to plotting the 9/11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in exchange for a life sentence rather than face a death-penalty trial, the New York Times reported.

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The move had been in the works for about three years after an initial plan to conduct the transfer in October 2023 faced opposition from congressional lawmakers. 

Fox News Digital’s Danielle Wallace and Louis Casiano contributed to this report.

A prominent fact-checking organization used by Facebook to moderate political content reacted to news that it will revamp its fact-checking to better avoid bias with an article outlining its disappointment and disagreement with the move. 

“Lead Stories was surprised and disappointed to first learn through media reports and a press release about the end of the Meta Third-Party Fact-Checking Partnership of which Lead Stories has been a part since 2019,” Lead Stories editor Maarten Schenk wrote on Tuesday in response to an announcement from Meta that it would be significantly altering its fact-checking process to “restore free expression.”

Lead Stories, a Facebook fact checker employing several former CNN alumni including Alan Duke and Ed Payne, has become one of the more prominent fact checkers used by Facebook in recent years. 

Fox News Digital first reported on Tuesday that Meta is ending its fact-checking program and lifting restrictions on speech to “restore free expression” across Facebook, Instagram and Meta platforms, admitting its current content moderation practices have “gone too far.” 

CONSERVATIVES REJOICE OVER ‘JAW DROPPING’ META CENSORSHIP ANNOUNCEMENT: ‘HUGE WIN FOR FREE SPEECH’

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks about the new Facebook News feature at the Paley Center For Media on October 25, 2019 in New York City. 

“After Trump first got elected in 2016 the legacy media wrote nonstop about how misinformation was a threat to democracy,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a video message on Tuesday. “We tried in good faith to address these concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth. But fact-checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they created, especially in the U.S..”

“What political bias?” the article from Lead Stories asks before explaining that it is “disappointing to hear Mark Zuckerberg accuse the organizations in Meta’s U.S. third-party fact checking program of being “too politically biased.’”

“Especially since one of the requirements Meta imposed for being part of a partnership included being a verified signatory of the IFCN’s Code of Principles, which explicitly requires a “commitment to non-partisanship and fairness,’” the article states. “In all the years we have been part of the partnership, we or the IFCN never received any complaints from Meta about any political bias, so we were quite surprised by this statement.”

Meta said in its announcement that it will move toward a system of moderation that is more in line with Community Notes at X, which Lead Stories seemed to take issue with. 

“However, In our experience and that of others, Community Notes on X are often slow to appear, sometimes downright inaccurate and unlikely to appear on controversial posts because of an inability to reach agrement [sic] or consensus among users,” Lead Stories wrote. “Ultimately, the truth doesn’t care about consensus or agreement: the shape of the Earth stays the same even if social media users can’t agree on it.”

JONATHAN TURLEY: META’S ZUCKERBERG MAKES A FREE SPEECH MOVE THAT COULD BE TRULY TRANSFORMATIONAL

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, arrives to testify before the US Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, “Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis,” in Washington, DC, on January 31, 2024.  (ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)

Lead Stories added that Community Notes is “entirely non-transparent about its contributors: readers are left guessing about their bias, funding, allegiance, sources or expertise and there is no way for appeals or corrections” while “fact-checkers, on the other hand, are required by the IFCN to be fully transparent about who they are, who funds them and what methodology and sources they use to come to their conclusions.”

Schenk added, “Fact-checking is about adding verified and sourced information so people can make up their mind about what to believe. It is an essential part of free speech.”

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Duke said that Lead Stories plans to press on.

“Lead Stories will continue, although we have to reduce our output with no support from Meta,” Duke said. “We are global, with most of our business now outside the USA. We publish in eight languages other than English, which is what will be affected.”

Some conservatives took to social media to blast Lead Stories over their article lamenting the change at Meta after years of conservative pushback to Facebook’s fact checkers as a whole on key news stories, including the suppression of the bombshell reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop.  

“Of all the fact-checking companies, Lead Stories is the worst,” British American conservative writer Ian Haworth posted on X. “Couldn’t be happier that they’ll soon be circling the drain.”

TRUMP SAYS META HAS ‘COME A LONG WAY’ AFTER ZUCKERBERG ENDS FACT-CHECKING ON PLATFORMS

(Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

The executive director of Politifact, a fact checker also used by Facebook, issued a strong rebuke of Zuckerberg following Tuesday’s announcement. 

“If Meta is upset it created a tool to censor, it should look in the mirror,” Aaron Sharockman said in a statement he posted on X following Zuckerberg’s announcement.

Sharockman fumed, “The decision to remove independent journalists from Facebook’s content moderation program in the United States has nothing to do with free speech or censorship. Mark Zuckerberg’s decision could not be less subtle.”

He threw back Zuckerberg’s accusation of political bias, stating that Meta’s platforms, not the fact-checkers, were the entities that actually censored posts. 

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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg once claimed Facebook had suppressed  18 million posts that contained “misinformation” about COVID-19. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“Let me be clear: the decision to remove or penalize a post or account is made by Meta and Facebook, not fact-checkers. They created the rules,” Sharockman said.

At the conclusion of his Lead Stories post, Schenk wrote, “Even though we are obviously disappointed by this news, Lead Stories wishes to thank the many people at Meta we have worked with over the past years and we will continue our fact checking mission. To paraphrase the slogan on our main page: ‘Just because it’s now trending without a fact-checking label still won’t make it true.’”

Fox News Digital’s Gabriel Hays and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has meetings with over a dozen senators over the next two days, including top progressive Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., in addition to others in the Democratic caucus.

President-elect Donald Trump announced last year that RFK Jr. was his pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in his second administration. Since the news broke, Kennedy has been on Capitol Hill meeting with various senators. 

Up until this point, he had only met with Republicans in the upper chamber. But on Wednesday, Kennedy begins his sit-downs with a handful of Democrats, who could be crucial to his getting confirmed. 

TRUMP, GOP SENATORS TO HUDDLE AT CAPITOL, WEIGH STRATEGY ON BUDGET, TAXES AND BORDER

RFK Jr. will begin several meetings with Democrats on Wednesday. (Reuters)

Kennedy, a former Democrat and independent presidential candidate, will attend meetings with Democratic caucus members, Sens. Catherine Cortez-Masto of Nevada, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Michael Bennet of Colorado, Mark Warner of Virginia, Warren and Sanders. 

The one-on-ones with Democrats are coming as several in the party have expressed openness to some of Kennedy’s positions, particularly as it relates to agriculture and food production. 

But some of those same policy stances pose a potential problem for his support among Republicans in the Senate. 

MIDWESTERN STATE SENATOR REVIVES DOGE-ALIGNED BILLS AS GOP PREPARES FOR DC TAKEOVER

Kennedy endorsed Trump after dropping out.  (IMAGN)

He will also be joining Sens. Jim Banks, R-Ind., Bill Cassidy, R-La., Susan Collins, R-Maine, John Cornyn, R-Texas and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, for meetings on the hill this week. 

Grassley is one of a handful of Republicans that have flagged concerns regarding Kennedy’s positions on agriculture and how they could affect farmers. 

“They’ve got to be able to use modern farming techniques, and that involves a lot of things, not only really sophisticated equipment, but also fertilizers and pesticides. So, we have to have that conversation,” Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., recently told reporters. 

TRANSGENDER BILL BARRING MEN FROM WOMEN’S SPORTS TO GET FLOOR VOTE IN NEWLY GOP-LED SENATE

Some Senate Republicans want answers from RFK Jr. on agricultural beliefs before confirming him. (Reuters)

Grassley previously emphasized the need for genetic engineering to keep up with food demand and feed the country. 

However, others have expressed confidence that Kennedy will make the right calls for farmers. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., said he warned Kennedy not to go “overboard” with agriculture regulations during their meeting last year.

He added that Trump’s HHS pick was “very on board” and “understands our farmers are in trouble, and we want to make sure that we have farmers that can make a living.” 

Tuberville is supporting RFK Jr. for HHS.  (IMAGN)

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After Kennedy endorsed Trump ahead of the 2024 election, the two debuted their campaign to “Make America Healthy Again.” 

This slogan has been adopted by a caucus formed by some Senate Republicans who are supporting Kennedy for the HHS role and hope to facilitate his and Trump’s policies to promote health in the country. 

Welcome to the Fox News Politics newsletter, with the latest updates on the Trump transition, exclusive interviews and more Fox News politics content.

Here’s what’s happening…

–Judge denies Trump motion to stop NY criminal case sentencing

-Laken Riley Act passes House with 48 Dems, all Republicans

-Trump threatens to tap allies for military shipbuilding if US can’t produce

Who will be the next leader of Canada? 

Canada’s Justin Trudeau announced his resignation as prime minister Monday, with his Liberal Party in turmoil amid declining poll numbers and an election on the horizon. 

Whoever assumes leadership in the unpopular governing party will become the next prime minister, and that person must tackle rising costs of living, an immigration crisis and aggressive economic pressure from President-elect Trump – not to mention the challenge from Canada’s ascendant Conservative Party in the next election, to be held no later than October. 

The next Liberal Party leader will be chosen in a national leadership contest, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Party President Sachit Mehra said Monday he would call a meeting “to be held this week to begin the nationwide democratic process of selecting a new leader of the party.”…Read more

Former Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland, former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney, Minister of Finance Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly, former B.C. Premier Christy Clark and former Liberal MP Frank Baylis are all potential candidates to replace Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. (REUTERS/Blair Gable, Peter Summers/Pool via REUTERS, REUTERS/Blair Gable, REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz, Government of Canada, REUTERS/Ben Nelms, Parliament of Canada)

White House

CURTAIN CALL: Pardons, Israel, domestic terrorism and more: Biden’s plans for final days of presidency…Read more

‘BIG MISTAKE’: Trump: Carter was a ‘very fine’ person but Panama Canal moves were ‘a big mistake’…Read more

World Stage

NOT FOR SALE: Danish prime minister has blunt message for Trump: Greenland is not for sale…Read more

Trump has taken a new interest in Greenland. (iStock / Getty Images)

‘DEAL THAT MUST HAPPEN’: Donald Trump Jr arrives in Greenland as his father says Denmark ‘give it up’…Read more

BLUE STATE BEHEMOTH: Trump trolling Canada as 51st state could boost Democrats with ‘blue-state behemoth’…Read more

‘POINT OF NO RETURN’?: Iran’s nuclear program is nearing ‘a point of no return,’ France’s Macron says…Read more

BIG GUNS: Kim Jong Un’s big guns spotted on Russian front lines: report…Read more

Trump Transition

‘A BAD IDEA’: Physician governor urges Capitol Hill to block RFK Jr.’s confirmation: ‘Our children’s lives depend on it’…Read more

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s alliance with Trump may have changed the course of the election, Charles Hurst argues. (REUTERS/Go Nakamura)

‘PLAYING WITH THE COURTS’: Trump blasts ongoing ‘lawfare’ in first public remarks since Congress certified his election…Read more

Capitol Hill

STOPPING TRAFFIC: House Republican’s bill would rip federal funds from states that give illegal immigrants driver’s licenses…Read more

‘QUIT PLAYING AROUND’: Ex-Obama adviser calls out Schumer for ‘foolish’ claim Dems didn’t mislead on Biden…Read more

DEFINING DOGE: What to know about DOGE and its quest to slash government waste, spending…Read more

Trump announced Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy would be leading the Department of Government Efficiency (“DOGE”) on Tuesday, November 12, 2024.  (Getty Images)

Across America

‘COME A LONG WAY’: Trump says Meta has ‘come a long way’ after Zuckerberg ends fact-checking on platforms…Read more

‘BEAUTIFUL NAME’: Trump announces Gulf of Mexico will get new, pro-America revamp…Read more

Get the latest updates on the Trump presidential transition, incoming Congress, exclusive interviews and more on FoxNews.com

FIRST ON FOX: Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate are renewing a push to crack down on noncitizen voting in federal elections, reintroducing a bipartisan bill that was repeatedly touted last year by the GOP.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, are reintroducing the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which looks to ensure that noncitizens cannot vote in federal elections.

While only citizens can vote in federal elections, Republicans have claimed that it is impossible to enforce because noncitizens and illegal immigrants are eligible for driver’s licenses and other benefits in states, which can lead them to being registered to vote.

LAKEN RILEY ACT PASSES HOUSE WITH 48 DEMS, ALL REPUBLICANS

People arrive to cast their ballots during early voting. (Christopher Mark Juhn/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The bill requires states to obtain documentary proof of U.S. citizenship and identity in person when registering an individual to vote. It also requires states to establish a program to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls, and allows citizens to bring suits against officials that fail to uphold the law.

The bill was passed in the House last year, with five Democrats voting in favor, but stalled in the Senate – where the Democrat-controlled chamber passed a spending bill without the SAVE Act being included, as Republicans had hoped. President Biden had promised to veto the bill.

The bill has gained increasing importance among Republicans amid a surge of migrants into the U.S. during the Biden administration, as well as recent announcements by states that they had identified thousands of noncitizens on their rolls.

But now Republicans control the Senate and soon the White House, where President-elect Trump has voiced support for legislation to prevent noncitizens from voting.

SENATE PASSES FUNDING BILL WITHOUT SAVE ACT, AVOIDING POTENTIAL SHUTDOWN

“Republicans must pass the Save Act, or go home and cry yourself to sleep,” he said in July.

Roy, who is introducing the bill in the House with Rep. Andrew Garbarino, R-NY., said, “American elections belong to American citizens, and the public’s confidence in those elections is the cornerstone of our republic,” 

“We in Congress have a duty to our fellow citizens to provide that confidence. We must have concrete enforcement mechanisms in place to ensure that our elections and our sovereignty cannot be hijacked and influenced by foreign nationals who have no business voting in this country,” he said.

Rep. Chip Roy nominates Rep. Jim Jordan to be speaker before the third round of voting in the House chamber on Jan. 3, 2023. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

“The House passed this critical bipartisan bill last year – we must do it again. I look forward to working with the Republican Senate to put this policy on President Trump’s desk,” he said.

Lee said public trust in election integrity “is absolutely essential for the legitimacy of our democratic institutions.” 

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“A vast majority of our countrymen agree: only American citizens should be able to register and vote in American elections. The SAVE Act gives states the ability to prevent illegal voter registration and protect the ballot box from foreign election interference,” he said.

Garbarino, meanwhile, criticized New York City for disregarding the principle of American citizens deciding their elections by allowing noncitizens to vote in local elections.

“The SAVE Act upholds the integrity of our elections by requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote, ensuring this fundamental right is reserved exclusively for American citizens,” he said.

The bill also has the support of groups including the Only Citizens Vote Coalition, Tea Party Patriots Action and the Immigration Accountability Project. It has 59 co-sponsors in the House. The bill was introduced in the lower chamber on Friday and is expected to be introduced in the Senate next week.

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The bill comes as Congress is expected to have immigration-related issues as a top priority. On Tuesday, the House passed the Laken Riley Act, which would require federal immigration authorities to detain illegal immigrants found guilty of theft-related crimes. It also would allow states to sue the Department of Homeland Security for harm caused to their citizens because of illegal immigration.

Fox News’ Julia Johnson and Liz Elkind contributed to this report.

Hawaii’s Democratic Governor and practicing physician, Josh Green, is visiting Capitol Hill this week to lobby lawmakers against the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary. In a Tuesday op-ed for The New York Times, he argued that “our children’s lives depend” on preventing Kennedy from leading the agency.

Green, who worked as a physician before entering politics, has continued practicing emergency room medicine throughout his legislative career. In 2019, as Hawaii’s lieutenant governor, Green helped spearhead efforts to increase vaccination rates in Samoa amid a measles outbreak in the region. Green arrived in the nation’s capital on Sunday evening to begin his meetings that will go until he returns to Hawaii on Thursday. 

“As the only physician governor, I need to explain what are good picks and what maybe aren’t so good picks for the cabinet,” Green said in a video ahead of his planned trip to Washington, noting that his lobbying against Kennedy is not anything personal or politically motivated. “[RFK Jr’s] appointment to be the head of Health and Human Services is not consistent with safety for our children,” he said. 

RFK JR. SAYS HE PLANS TO ALSO MEET WITH DEMS IN BID TO GET CONFIRMED AS TRUMP HHS HEAD

During his trip to Washington, Green said that he would be discussing with lawmakers and other leaders to explore “a better place for [RFK Jr.] to be” rather than HHS, calling his potential confirmation “a bad idea.”

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green speaks at the 2024 summer meeting of the National Governors Association, Thursday, July 11, 2024, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

Questions over the likelihood of Kennedy’s confirmation took a turn this week after Sen. Bill Cassidy, R–La., the incoming chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, called out the potential future HHS Secretary for being “wrong” on the issue of vaccines. The criticism follows concerns that Kennedy may seek to get rid of the polio vaccine, after news broke that one of his previous colleagues at Childrens Health Defense, a health-focused nonprofit Kennedy previously chaired, petitioned the government in 2019 to revoke its approval.

Green’s criticism of Kennedy has largely revolved around his anti-vaccine views as well, in particular Kennedy’s response to a measles outbreak in Samoa, during which the potential future HHS Secretary promoted doubts around vaccine efficacy, according to Green and others, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. Those efforts included a letter Kennedy sent to the country’s prime minister, as chairman of Children’s Health Defense, suggesting that the measles vaccine could have potentially exacerbated the outbreak.

DIET AND NUTRITION EXPERTS WEIGH IN ON HOW RFK JR’S NOMINATION COULD IMPACT HOW WE EAT 

President-elect Trump nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head HHS. (Getty Images)

The Democratic governor penned an op-ed published in The New York Times on Tuesday, continuing to drill at Kennedy’s anti-vaccine efforts in 2019 amid Samoa’s measles outbreak. According to Greene, Kennedy “used misinformation to scare all the people of Samoa away from being vaccinated” and served to “torpedo” the country’s vaccination efforts.

“Too much depends on our commitment to truth and the lifesaving power of vaccines to entrust Mr. Kennedy with the direction of these programs. Our children’s lives depend on it,” Green wrote.

RFK JR. LOOKS TO REASSURE SENATORS OVER VACCINE COMMENTS 

Kennedy’s team has not responded to repeated efforts by Fox News Digital to get in touch, but in 2023, Kennedy said during an appearance in a short film that he “never told anybody not to vaccinate” and that he “didn’t go [to Samoa] with any reason to do with that.” Furthermore, amid concerns about how Kennedy might approach the polio vaccine, he told reporters on Capitol Hill last month that he is “all for the polio vaccine.”

Medical professional preparing injection of vaccine or treatment. (iStock)

Proponents of Kennedy’s nomination have suggested his proposed plans, if confirmed, will be rooted in logic and science.

“I think that Kennedy has aimed to stand for evidence-based changes to policy,” said Nina Teicholz, a nutrition expert and founder of The Nutrition Coalition, a New York-based nonprofit organization. 

“Right now, the media is covering RFK Jr. poorly and unfairly, giving him no credit for ideas that are well within the bounds of discussion,” added Dr. Vinay Prasad, in an article published by The Free Press. “Many of RFK Jr.’s ideas have a logic.”

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Fox News Digital reached out to Green’s office for comment but did not hear back by publication time.  

FIRST ON FOX – Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., introduced a bill that would pull federal highway funding from states such as New York that issue driver’s licenses and identification cards to illegal immigrants. 

Tenney, who co-chaired the House Election Integrity Caucus amid the 2024 race that ended in President-elect Trump’s victory, re-introduced her bill – named the Red Light Act – at the start of the new Congress. 

The proposal says it aims to “withhold federal highway funds from States that provide drivers licenses or identification cards to aliens who are unlawfully present in the United States, and for other purposes.” 

“Our nation is grappling with an unprecedented migrant crisis, yet some states, like New York, are incentivizing and rewarding criminals with driver’s licenses and identification cards,” Tenney said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “In New York, the Green Light Law has given licenses to illegal immigrants, allowing these dangerous individuals to roam freely in our country, brutally attacking, raping, and murdering members of our community. In addition, this law also restricts law enforcement from accessing DMV records, preventing the enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws. This legislation ensures states that refuse to comply with our nation’s immigration policies are not rewarded with federal funding.” 

TRUMP BORDER CZAR BLASTS NY GOVERNOR FOR TOUTING SUBWAY SAFETY HOURS AFTER HORRIFIC MURDER: ‘SHAME ON YOU’

Rep. Claudia Tenney greets Mike Johnson before he was re-elected House speaker for the 119th Congress, Friday, Jan. 3, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Passed by the state legislature in 2019 and signed by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the Green Light Law allows New York to issue driver’s licenses to undocumented individuals. As part of a sanctuary policy intended to block deportations, it also directed the state Department of Motor Vehicles to withhold records from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or other federal law enforcement without a court order or judicial warrant signed by a judge for such information. 

Law enforcement leaders have blasted the law as legislating obstruction. 

Trump’s incoming border czar Tom Homan, a native of upstate New York, floated the idea of blocking vehicles with New York license plates from entering the U.S. from the Canadian border if the state does not repeal the Green Light Law. 

“To me, this is a high priority,” Homan told the Buffalo News. “I grew up in New York state, I still own a home in the state. What happens in New York means a lot to me.” 

Tom Homan speaks at the National Conservative Conference in Washington, D.C., July 8, 2024. (Dominic Gwinn/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)

TOM HOMAN TOUTS MAYOR ADAMS’ COMMITMENT TO WORKING WITH TRUMP ADMIN ON BORDER CRISIS

“That would be bizarre to me that anyone thinks that stopping our vehicles from coming in and out of our country, keeping New Yorkers in a foreign country, is a smart path forward,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said at an unrelated press conference on Monday, responding to Homan’s proposal. “I’d like to sit down and have that conversation.” 

Gov. Kathy Hochul visits Newsday headquarters on Jan. 22, 2024, in Melville, New York. (Howard Schnapp/Newsday RM via Getty Images)

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Tenney’s bill would grant the secretary of transportation authority to withhold 100% of the amount required to be apportioned to a state’s federal highway system for fiscal year 2025 and each fiscal year afterward. 

The measure also allows the secretary to reapportion the funding to states that repeal any such laws that provide driver’s licenses or identification cards to aliens who are unlawfully present in the U.S. 

President-elect Donald Trump railed against the ongoing “lawfare” against him in his first public remarks since Congress certified his decisive election win over Vice President Kamala Harris. 

“They’re playing with the courts, as you know, they’ve been playing with the courts for four years. Probably got me more votes because I got the highest number of votes ever gotten by a Republican by far, actually, by a lot. And, you know, we had a great election, so I guess it didn’t work. But even to this day, they’re playing with the courts and they’re friendly judges that like to try and make everybody happy .. It’s called lawfare, it’s called weaponization of justice,” Trump said Tuesday during a press conference from Mar-a-Lago. 

Trump held the press conference, which was his first since Congress certified his election win on Monday, to announce DAMAC Properties will invest $20 billion in new data centers across the country. DAMAC’s owner, Hussain Sajwani, said the investment is aimed at facilitating the development of AI and cloud-based technologies.

JUDGE MERCHAN DENIES TRUMP’S REQUEST TO DELAY SENTENCING

CEO of DAMAC Properties Hussain Sajwani makes remarks next to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, U.S. January 7, 2025. REUTERS/Carlos Barria (Reuters)

Trump took aim at the legal battles he has faced in the last four years during the address, slamming special counsel Jack Smith as well as New York Judge Juan Merchan. 

“I call it the Injustice Department. What they’ve done is so bad, the whole world has watched that. And, it took work, but it got me a lot of votes, because when explained, we have a judge in New York is a very crooked judge,” he said, referring to Justice Juan Merchan who presides over the New York v. Trump case. “I’m under a gag order. I can’t even talk about aspects of the case that are the most vital aspects I’m going to do. You know that I’m the president-elect of the United States of America. I’m a former very successful president.”

Merchan announced earlier this month that he will sentence Trump in the New York v. Trump case on Jan. 10, ahead of his inauguration as president on Jan. 20. Trump’s legal time filed a motion to delay sentencing, which Merchan denied on Monday afternoon. 

TRUMP FILES MOTION TO STAY ‘UNLAWFUL SENTENCING’ IN NEW YORK CASE

“Today, President Trump’s legal team moved to stop the unlawful sentencing in the Manhattan D.A.’s Witch Hunt. The Supreme Court’s historic decision on Immunity, the state constitution of New York, and other established legal precedent mandate that this meritless hoax be immediately dismissed,” Trump spokesperson and incoming White House communications director Steven Cheung told Fox Digital on Monday morning.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump makes remarks at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, U.S. January 7, 2025. REUTERS/Carlos Barria (Reuters )

“The American People elected President Trump with an overwhelming mandate that demands an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and all of the remaining Witch Hunts. We look forward to uniting our country in the new administration as President Trump makes America great again,” Cheung continued. 

​​Trump was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the Manhattan case in May. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office worked to prove that Trump falsified business records to conceal a $130,000 payment to former porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election to quiet her claims of an alleged affair with Trump in 2006. Trump has maintained his innocence in the case. 

NEW YORK JUDGE SETS TRUMP SENTENCING DAYS BEFORE INAUGURATION

Smith, who led the investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents after his first term in the White House, is set to release a final report on the investigation. Two of Trump’s former co-defendants in the classified documents case, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, filed an emergency motion on Monday in an effort to block the report’s release. 

FILE – Judge Juan M. Merchan poses in his chambers in New York, March 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

“These Defendants will irreparably suffer harm as civilian casualties of the Government’s impermissible and contumacious utilization of political lawfare to include release of the unauthorized Report,” Nauta and De Oliveira’s attorneys wrote in an emergency motion filed on Monday. “The Final Report relies on materials to which Smith, as disqualified special counsel, is no longer entitled access— making his attempt to share such materials with the public highly improper.” 

The judge presiding over the case blocked Smith’s efforts to release the report on Tuesday. 

Trump slammed Smith as “deranged” during his Tuesday remarks, while taking a victory lap that the court cases brought against him since the 2020 election have fizzled out since the 2024 election. Trump has maintained his innocence in the various state and federal cases brought against him, arguing they were examples of “lawfare” intended to hamper his campaign to reclaim the White House. 

NY JUDGE ANNOUNCES UNCONDITIONAL DISCHARGE SENTENCING FOR TRUMP ON JAN 10

Jack Smith, US special counsel, speaks during a news conference in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2023. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“I defeated deranged Jack Smith. He’s a deranged individual. I guess he’s on his way back to The Hague. And we won those cases. Those were the biggest ones. And, the press made such a big deal out of them. But we did nothing wrong. We did nothing wrong on anything. And the people saw that, you know, when they vote to when you went to Republicans,” he said. 

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Fox News Digital’s Anders Hagstrom and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

The Biden administration secured an agreement to implement police reforms in Minneapolis ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

The consent decree agreement Monday with the Minneapolis Police Department follows a similar decree that the department agreed upon with Louisville, Kentucky, police last month. The agreements follow the Biden administration’s initiation of 12 investigations in 2021, which probed possible “pattern or practice” of civil rights abuses by police departments around the country following the anti-police riots that took place after the death of George Floyd in 2020. 

Both decrees await approval by the courts. The 171-page Minneapolis agreement would overhaul the city’s police training and use of-force-policies, while requiring officers to “promote the sanctity of human life as the highest priority in their activities.” The decree also mandates that officers must not allow race, gender or ethnicity “to influence any decision to use force, including the amount or type of force used.”

MINNEAPOLIS POLICE STAFFING LEVEL PLUMMETS TO HISTORIC 4-DECADE LOW 3 YEARS AFTER GEORGE FLOYD’S DEATH: REPORT

Other elements of the Minneapolis agreement include bolstering protections for protesters, new data collection requirements aimed at reducing racial discrimination, guidelines restricting officers from going after fleeing subjects, new interrogation requirements, a mandate against racial profiling in investigations, traffic stop reforms and more.

A local resident looks at a police vehicle driving along a street north of Minneapolis on Sept. 9, 2021. (REUTERS/Carlos Barria)

Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division was asked repeatedly during a Monday press conference from Minneapolis whether the Trump administration could derail the agreement.

“I can’t predict the future,” Clarke said. “What I can tell you is that the findings we identified in Minneapolis are severe. These are real issues that impact people’s lives. The community wants reform. The city wants reform, the police department wants reform, and the Justice Department stands here today as a full partner in the effort of achieving reform and transformation for this community.”

BIDEN DOJ OPPOSES COURT DECISION ALLOWING DEREK CHAUVIN CHANCE TO EXAMINE GEORGE FLOYD’S HEART

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian OHara addresses more than 100 uniformed law enforcement officers while waiting for the release of an officer who was shot in the line of duty in north Minneapolis, Saturday, Aug. 12, 2023. (Photo by Aaron Lavinksy/Star Tribune via Getty Images)

Meanwhile, in an email to constituents, Minneapolis City Council Member Robin Wonsley said she has no faith that the incoming Trump administration will be a “serious partner” in supporting the recently agreed-upon consent decree.

A similar consent decree agreed upon by the Biden administration and the Loisville police roughly three weeks ago also compels the department to revise its use-of-force policies, places new restrictions around traffic stops and police searches, and challenges how law enforcement deals with protesters. 

A local police union in the city is challenging the reforms, calling on a judge not to approve the agreement. Meanwhile, the conservative Heritage Foundation has argued that the point of the consent decree coming so late in Biden’s term is “to bind the Trump 47 Administration and future elected Louisville administrations who may well vehemently and categorically disagree with the Proposed Consent Decree.”

Protestors demonstrate outside a burning fast-food restaurant on Friday, May 29, 2020 in Minneapolis. (John Minchillo)

Both Minneapolis and Louisville were flash points for debates around police reform after both cities saw the high-profile deaths of Floyd and Breonna Taylor in 2020. Both cities, and numerous others, saw protesters rampage through the streets following their deaths, leading to multiple fatalities and billions of dollars in damage that year.  

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Fox News Digital reached out to the Justice Department for comment, but they declined to comment.

Conservatives on social media took a victory lap on Tuesday in response to the news that Meta had ended its controversial fact-checking practices and promised to move toward a system more focused on free speech.

“Meta finally admits to censoring speech…what a great birthday present to wake up to and a huge win for free speech,” GOP Sen. Rand Paul posted on X on Tuesday in response to news, first reported by Fox News Digital, that Meta is ending its fact-checking program and lifting restrictions on speech to “restore free expression” across Facebook, Instagram and Meta platforms, admitting its current content moderation practices have “gone too far.”

“Jaw dropping—he explicitly says Meta will ‘adopt a system like X has of community notes’ because of the bias/abuse of 3rd party fact checkers,” Independent Women’s Forum visiting fellow Lyndsey Fifield posted on X in response to Meta’s chief global affairs officer, Joel Kaplan, speaking to Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends” Tuesday morning for an exclusive interview to discuss the changes. 

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Conservatives reacted with joy on Tuesday, responding to a censorship protocol announcement from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, right. (Getty Images)

“Nature is healing,” Fifield said. 

“There is absolutely 0 chance this would have happened if Trump didn’t win,” Abigail Jackson, communications director for GOP Sen. Josh Hawley, posted on X. 

“Here is the full video from Mark Zuckerberg announcing the end of censorship and misinformation policies,” Breaking Points co-host Sagaar Enjeti posted on X. “I highly recommend you watch all of it as tonally it is one of the biggest indications of ‘elections have consequences’ I have ever seen.”

“Zuck is committed to cleaning house,” journalist Jordan Schachtel posted on X. “Question the motives or not, this is a very real commitment and it’s good news for speech on the internet. Of course, probably not possible to pull off without Trump winning.”

Meta’s third-party fact-checking program was put in place after the 2016 election and had been used to “manage content” and misinformation on its platforms, largely due to “political pressure,” executives said, but admitted the system has “gone too far.” 

Since then, the process has drawn the ire of conservatives who have accused the platform of politically driven censoring while pointing to several examples of content being silenced, including the bombshell New York Post reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop, which Zuckerberg admitted the Biden White House pressured him to do and later called the move a mistake. 

FACEBOOK HAS ‘INTERFERED’ WITH US ELECTIONS 39 TIMES SINCE 2008: STUDY

Meta had ended its controversial fact-checking practices. (AP Photo/Patrick Sison, File)

Kaplan said Meta currently uses automated systems, which he said make “too many mistakes” and removes content “that doesn’t even violate our standards.” He also said there are certain things Meta will continue to moderate, like posts relating to terrorism, illegal drugs and child sexual exploitation.

Zuckerberg also pointed out in his video message on Tuesday that moderation teams will be moving from California to Texas, where he suggested there will be “less concern about the bias of our teams.”

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Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Meta Platforms Inc., center, arrives following a break during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024. (Kent Nishimura)

“We’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms,” Zuckerberg said. “More specifically, we’re going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with Community Notes similar to X, starting in the U.S.” 

Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is moving forward with a regulatory rule in the final days of the Biden administration that would effectively ban cigarettes currently on the market in favor of products with lower nicotine levels, which could end up boosting business for cartels operating on the black market, an expert tells Fox News Digital.

“Biden’s ban is a gift with a bow and balloons to organized crime cartels with it, whether it’s cartels, Chinese organized crime, or Russian mafia. It’s going to keep America smoking, and it’s going to make the streets more violent,” Rich Marianos, former assistant director of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the current chair of the Tobacco Law Enforcement Network, told Fox News Digital of the proposal. 

The FDA confirmed to Fox Digital on Monday that as of Jan. 3, the Tobacco Product Standard for Nicotine Level of Certain Tobacco Products had completed a regulatory review, but that the proposed rule has not yet been finalized. 

“The proposed rule, ‘Tobacco Product Standard for Nicotine Level of Certain Tobacco Products,’ is displaying in the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) ROCIS system as having completed regulatory review on January 3,” an FDA spokesman told Fox Digital. “As the FDA has previously said, a proposed product standard to establish a maximum nicotine level to reduce the addictiveness of cigarettes and certain other combusted tobacco products, when finalized, is estimated to be among the most impactful population-level actions in the history of U.S. tobacco product regulation. At this time, the FDA cannot provide any further comment until it is published.”

Fox New Digital reached out to the White House regarding concerns over the proposal if it were to take effect but did not receive a response. 

BIDEN ADMIN FACING CONGRESSIONAL PROBE OVER PROPOSED BAN ON MENTHOL CIGARETTES

President Biden speaks in Washington, DC, US, on Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. The FDA confirmed to Fox Digital that as of Jan. 3, the Tobacco Product Standard for Nicotine Level of Certain Tobacco Products had completed a regulatory review but that the proposed rule has not yet been finalized. (Samuel Corum/Sipa/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Former President Barack Obama signed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act in 2009, which granted the FDA the power to regulate tobacco products. In the years since, the agency has worked to lower nicotine levels, including in July 2017 under the Trump administration, when then-FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb announced it would seek to require tobacco companies to drastically cut nicotine in cigarettes in an effort to help adult smokers quit.

In 2022, the FDA under the Biden administration announced plans for the proposed rule that would lower levels of nicotine so they were less addictive or non-addictive.

“Lowering nicotine levels to minimally addictive or non-addictive levels would decrease the likelihood that future generations of young people become addicted to cigarettes and help more currently addicted smokers to quit,” FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said at the time. 

POPULAR ITALIAN CITY OFFICIALLY BANS CIGARETTE SMOKING OUTDOORS

Lowering the levels of nicotine in commonly purchased cigarettes and other tobacco products would open the floodgates to the illicit trafficking of tobacco products into the U.S., Marianos told Fox News Digital. 

“This decision is being thrown down the public’s throat without one ounce of thought and preparation. Nobody sat down with law enforcement, nobody sat down with any doctors, No one sat down with any regulators to find out, ‘Hey, look, what are the unintended ramifications of such a poor choice,’ and that’s what I’m going to call it, a poor choice,” Marianos said. 

Woman lighting a cigarette. (Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP)

He explained that Mexican cartels are well-positioned to bring illegal tobacco across the border, as they do with substances such as fentanyl that have devastated communities across the U.S., while Chinese criminal organizations have some of the best counterfeit operations stretching from baby formula to cigarettes, and Russian organized crime groups have their foot in the door in cities across the nation, including in bodegas and other stores that sell tobacco products. 

Marianos said that criminal groups would likely quickly catch on to the proposal if it takes effect and subsequently amplify their tobacco operations – which he says will serve as an economic boon for the criminals. 

Immigrants attempt to cross into the U.S. from Mexico at the border Dec. 17, 2023 in Jacumba Hot Springs, California. (Photo by Nick Ut/Getty Images)

Americans who want to purchase cigarettes with higher levels of nicotine would then need to go through the illicit channels to obtain them, similar to buying “loosie” cigarettes on the streets of New York, putting average Americans at further criminal risk while also offering them cigarettes that are not regulated and originating from foreign nations. 

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Both Democrat and Republican lawmakers have already warned that tobacco trafficking in the U.S. poses a grave national security threat and already has its foot in the door. 

 A couple smoking cigarettes. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

“In 2015, the State Department cited activity by terrorist groups, and criminal networks who have used tobacco trafficking operations to finance other crimes, including ‘money laundering, bulk cash smuggling, and the trafficking in humans, weapons, drugs, antiquities, diamonds, and counterfeit goods,’” Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La.; Mark Warner, D-Va.; Marco Rubio, R-Fla.;  Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn.; and then-Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., wrote in a 2023 letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken. 

BIDEN ADMIN ABRUPTLY DELAYS PLAN TO BAN MENTHOL CIGARETTES AMID WIDESPREAD OPPOSITION

“Recently, public reporting has also noted these financial linkages between Mexican transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) involved in narcotics and fentanyl trafficking, and these tobacco smuggling activities. Mexican TCOs pose a grave threat to American national security and public health.”

Marianos added that in addition to the criminal effect posed to America and its residents, lowering nicotine levels would also defeat the stated mission of weaning smokers off cigarettes and instead lead to an increase in smoking. 

The FDA is moving forward with a regulatory rule in the final days of the Biden administration that would effectively ban cigarettes currently on the market in favor of products with lower nicotine levels. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

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“You’re going to create more smoking. And I thought that’s what we’re trying to get away from, right? Smoking is bad. I thought we’re trying to do everything possible to get away from that and get the country safer. Well, if you take down the nicotine levels, people are going to smoke more. That is proven. All you have to do is just drive here in DC and see, you know workers on their smoke break,” he said, saying work productivity will even be driven down as people take more smoke breaks in alleys to get their nicotine fix. 

The Biden administration previously attempted to outright ban menthol cigarettes, in what was described as a “critical” piece of President Biden’s Cancer Moonshot initiative, but announced last year it was abruptly delaying such regulations as the public decried the move. A handful of groups argued that banning menthol unfairly targeted minority communities, while others argued the ban would open the floodgates to illicit menthol sales.

FIRST ON FOX: Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., is reintroducing a measure to prevent biological male participation in women’s and girls’ sports in the newly Republican-led Senate, and with the approval of leadership, it’s expected to get a floor vote. 

The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act has been a yearslong crusade for the Alabama Republican, who originally introduced it in 2023.

The measure would maintain that Title IX treats gender as “recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth” and does not adjust it to apply to gender identity. 

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Sen. Tommy Tuberville has led an effort to safeguard women’s and girls’ sports for years. (Getty Images)

Tuberville’s legislation would ban federal funding from going toward athletic programs that allow biological men to participate in women’s and girls’ sports.  

This would apply to biological men and boys who identify as transgender and seek to participate in events and leagues for women and girls. 

“President Trump ran on the issue of saving women’s sports and won in a landslide,” the senator said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “70% of Americans agree—men don’t belong in women’s sports or locker rooms. I have said many times that I think Title IX is one of the best things to come out of Washington. But in the last few years, it has been destroyed.”

“While I’m glad that the Biden administration ultimately rescinded the proposed rule, Congress has to ensure this never happens again. I am welcoming my first granddaughter this spring and won’t stop fighting until her rights to fairly compete are protected. I hope every one of my colleagues will join me in standing up for our daughters, nieces, and granddaughters by voting for this critical bill.”

NEW SENATOR BERNIE MORENO WANTS BORDER BILL ON TRUMP’S DESK ON DAY 1, PUTTING DEMS ON RECORD

Protecting women’s and girls’ sports has become a hot-button issue. (Tamir Kalifa/Getty Images)

The measure is co-sponsored by 23 Republican senators, including Sens. James Risch and Mike Crapo of Idaho, Ron Johnson, R-Wis., Thom Tillis and Ted Budd of North Carolina, Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., Cindy Hyde-Smith and Roger Wicker of Mississippi, Tom Cotton, R-Ark., James Lankford, R-Okla., Steve Daines and Tim Sheehy of Montana, Roger Marshall, R-Kan., Mike Lee, R-Utah, John Kennedy, R-La., John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Katie Britt, R-Ala., and Pete Ricketts, R-Neb. 

According to Tuberville’s office, he is working closely with President-elect Donald Trump to ensure there is fair competition under his administration. 

With the new Senate under the authority of Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., Tuberville’s bill has gotten the proper blessing to move forward. A vote on the measure could come as soon as the end of the week. 

PRO-ISRAEL DEM COULD TIP SCALES IN KEY SENATE COMMITTEE AS MIDDLE EAST WAR CONTINUES

Sen. John Thune (AP Photo/Susan Walsh/File)

Democrats will be forced to put themselves on record about the transgender issue, which managed to rear its head during the 2024 presidential election and get pushback from Americans at the ballot box. One of the most memorable ads from the Trump campaign claimed, “Kamala is for they-them; President Trump is for you.” 

Last month, the Biden administration withdrew a proposed Title IX rule change in a lame-duck move after a long fight to adjust the policy. 

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Biden sought to include protections for gender identity. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta/File)

During his term, the administration sought to expand the definition of sex discrimination to include both sexual orientation and gender identity in order to protect LGBTQ students. 

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The proposal received inordinate levels of resistance and delayed plans to implement the new rule. 

Additionally, Biden’s effort was tied up in legal challenges. His rule change was struck down in several states by a U.S. district judge over the summer. 

Two of President-elect Trump’s former co-defendants in the classified documents case want a judge to block Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report from being released to the public. 

Trump’s valet Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, the property manager of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, want U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to keep Smith’s report out of the public eye.

Fox News is told the report is days from being released. It could be later this week or sometime next week. Smith will resign from his position before Trump takes office on January 20. 

“These Defendants will irreparably suffer harm as civilian casualties of the Government’s impermissible and contumacious utilization of political lawfare to include release of the unauthorized Report,” Nauta and De Oliveira’s attorneys wrote in an emergency motion filed on Monday. “The Final Report relies on materials to which Smith, as disqualified special counsel, is no longer entitled access— making his attempt to share such materials with the public highly improper.” 

SPECIAL COUNSEL JACK SMITH PLANS TO RESIGN, FILE REPORT BEFORE TRUMP CAN FIRE HIM: REPORT

Jack Smith, US special counsel, speaks during a news conference in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2023. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The emergency motion asked the Court for an immediate hearing to “establish the impropriety of unchecked release; the scope of the resulting prejudice; and the specific materials contained in the Report for which release is impermissible.” 

“The Final Report promises to be a one-sided, slanted report, relying nearly exclusively on evidence presented to a grand jury and subject to all requisite protections—and which is known to Smith only as a result of his unconstitutional appointment—in order to serve a singular purpose: convincing the public that everyone Smith charged is guilty of the crimes charged,” Nauta and De Oliveira’s attorneys wrote. 

“But Nauta’s and De Oliveira’s criminal cases are not over; the appeal of this Court’s dismissal order by Smith is still pending,” the motion says. “The Government notably continued briefing the appeal even following the dismissal of the appeal as to President Trump. There remains the threat of future criminal proceedings as to Nauta and De Oliveira, and those proceedings will be irreversibly and irredeemably prejudiced by dissemination of the Final Report.” 

It is customary for a special counsel to release a final report when his or her work is done, detailing the findings of their investigation and explaining any prosecution or declination decisions they reached as a result of the probe. In Smith’s case, the prosecution decision is immaterial, given Trump’s status as president-elect and longstanding Justice Department policy against bringing criminal charges against a sitting president. 

The report would first go to Attorney General Merrick Garland’s office for review, according to standard practice.

Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche, who is poised to be in a senior role at the Department of Justice, is asking Garland not to release the report. 

“Smith’s proposed plan for releasing a report is unlawful, undertaken in bad faith, and contrary to the public interest,” Blanche wrote in an exhibit attached to the same motion. “Smith’s conduct also raises grave concerns under Article II because it unlawfully encroaches on the Executive authority of the incoming Administration of President Trump to resolve the issues surrounding Smith’s Office in accordance with President Trump’s commanding national mandate from the voters.” 

Wal Nauta, a personal aide to former President Trump, arrives at the Alto Lee Adams Sr. US Courthouse in Fort Pierce, Florida, on Aug. 10, 2023.  (CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images)

SPECIAL COUNSEL JACK SMITH REQUIRED TO SUBMIT TRUMP FINDINGS TO DOJ BEFORE LEAVING. WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

“The time has come to put an end to this weaponization of the justice system and move forward constructively,” he argued further. “No report should be prepared or released, and Smith should be removed, including for even suggesting that course of action given his obvious political motivations and desire to lawlessly undermine the transition.” 

Trump, Nauta and De Oliveira all pleaded not guilty to federal charges alleging they conspired to obstruct the FBI investigation into classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago. 

Smith was tapped by Garland in 2022 to investigate both the alleged effort by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election, as well as Trump’s keeping of allegedly classified documents at his Florida residence. 

Carlos De Oliveira, center, an employee of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, arrives for a court appearance with attorney John Irving, at the James Lawrence King Federal Justice Building, Monday, July 31, 2023, in Miami. (Wilfredo Lee/AP)

But he still must outline the investigation and its findings in his report to Garland, who will then decide whether to share it publicly. 

Notably, Garland has opted to release the reports from two other special counsels whose investigations concluded during his tenure — publishing both the summary reports submitted by John Durham, who was tapped by then-Attorney General Bill Barr in 2019 to review law enforcement and intelligence gathering during the 2016 presidential campaign and the origins of the Trump-Russia probe, as well as the final report from Robert Hur, a former U.S. attorney whom he tapped in 2023 to investigate President Biden’s handling of classified documents.

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These reports were made public at the same time as they were shared with members of Congress. It is unclear whether Garland will move to do the same with Smith’s findings, given their sensitivity and Trump’s status as president-elect.

Fox News’ Breanne Deppisch contributed to this report.