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

**Please note the newsletter is going on a Christmas break through the rest of this week. It will return on Monday, Dec. 30.**

Here’s what’s happening…

– Biden signs defense bill despite ban on transgender treatment

– Trump plans to rename Denali ruffles feathers

– Former President Clinton discharged from hospital after being treated for flu

Biden Veto Kills Bill to Increase Number of Federal Trial Court Judges

President Biden on Monday vetoed a bill that would have added 66 federal district judgeships over a span of more than a decade, a once-bipartisan effort designed so that neither political party would have an advantage in molding the federal judiciary. 

Three presidential administrations, beginning with the incoming Trump administration, and six Congresses would have had the opportunity to appoint the new trial court judgeships, according to the legislation, which had support from organizations representing judges and attorneys.

Despite arguments from the organizations that additional judgeships would help with cases that have seen serious delays in resolution and ease concerns over access to justice, the White House said that Biden would veto the bill.

In a statement, Biden said he made his decision because the “hurried action” by the House of Representatives left open questions about “life-tenured” positions ...Read More

President Joe Biden signed the defense bill into law despite objections to the legislation. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)

White House

LAST MINUTE Biden signs defense bill despite ban on transgender treatment for military kids …Read more

Trump Transition

PEAK TENSION Trump plan to undo Obama’s ‘Denali’ rename ruffles feathers …Read more

Clouds partially obscure Denali, the highest mountain peak in North America, as seen from inside Denali National Park, Alaska, on September 22, 2022. (PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)

Capitol Hill

‘WAR’ POSTURE NY Republican compares sanctuary states to the Confederacy …Read more

‘IMMINENT THREATS’ House lawmakers rally around funding Afghan visa program as Trump vows major spending cuts …Read more

HOLDING THEM ACCOUNTABLE Top Dem committee chair reveals how party aims to win back majority during midterms …Read more

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington State is interviewed by Fox News Digital, on Dec. 12, 2024 in Washington D.C.  (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)

Trail Dust

TRUMP ON TRAIL Trump will be ‘very active on the campaign trail’ in 2026 midterms, Republican Party chair predicts …Read more

President-elect Trump at AmericaFest in Arizona.  (Rick Scuteri)

Across America

BACK ON THE HORSE Governor Jim Pillen recovering from multiple injuries after being bucked from horse …Read more

BOARDING CALL CA Dems urge feds to fund high-speed rail before DOGE …Read more

HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS Bill Clinton discharged from hospital after being treated for flu …Read more

BRING HIM HOME Rescue mission operator believes Marine veteran Austin Tice is alive, will be found soon …Read more

‘WARM HOSPITALITY’ University president has repeatedly cozied up to top CCP officials …Read more

VOTER FRAUD ARREST PA woman allegedly registered dead father, others …Read more

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

President-elect Trump on Monday pledged to seek the death penalty for certain federal criminal defendants, days after President Biden controversially commuted the death sentences for 37 inmates. 

Biden’s move to reclassify the death sentences to life without the possibility of parole was heavily criticized by Republicans and many Democrats. 

‘SQUAD’ DEM APPLAUDS BIDEN FOR SPARING MURDERERS FROM ‘RACIST’ DEATH PENALTY IN 11TH-HOUR CLEMENCY MOVE

President-elect Donald Trump points at AmericaFest, Sunday, Dec. 22, 2024, in Phoenix. On Monday, Trump pledged to have the Justice Department pursue the death penalty following President Biden’s move to commute death sentences for 37 inmates.  (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)

“As soon as I am inaugurated, I will direct the Justice Department to vigorously pursue the death penalty to protect American families and children from violent rapists, murderers, and monsters,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. We will be a Nation of Law and Order again!”

In his message announcing the move, the White House said Biden’s actions would prevent the incoming Trump administration from “carrying out the execution sentences that would not be handed down under current policy and practice.”

BIDEN SETS RECORD WITH FIRST-TERM CLEMENCY GRANTS, HERE’S HOW OTHER PRESIDENTS RANK

Only three men on federal death row failed to meet Biden’s requirements for having their sentences commuted. 

They are: Robert Bowers, the Tree of Life Synagogue shooter who killed 11 people in 2018; Dylann Roof, a White supremacist who killed nine Black parishioners at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who worked with his now-dead brother to carry out the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that killed three people and injured hundreds. 

Trump spokesman Steven Chueng on Monday said Biden’s action was a “a slap in the face to the victims, their families, and their loved ones.”

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During Trump’s first term, 13 federal prisoners were put to death, the most under any president in a century. Upon taking office in 2021, Biden declared a moratorium on federal executions.

A Pennsylvania woman was arrested on felony forgery, public records tampering and voter registration-related charges based on allegations she tried to fraudulently register dead people, including her own father, to vote in the 2024 election.

Jennifer Hill, from the Chester area, was arrested Thursday and accused of attempting to add four ineligible individuals to the voter rolls, including her late father.

Delaware County’s Democratic district attorney, Jack Stollsteimer, said in public remarks that Hill used an app to register 324 people as a staffer for a group called the New Pennsylvania Project.

Stollsteimer said the Pennsylvania Department of State makes the app available for legal voter registration drives. He said Hill successfully registered 181 people, but 129 other names – which he called a “big number” – were not successful.

LIBERTY BELLWETHERS: FIVE COUNTIES IN PENNSYLVANIA TO WATCH ON ELECTION DAY

A welcome sign greets drivers on U.S. Route 222 entering Peach Bottom, Pennsylvania, from Conowingo, Maryland. (Charlie Creitz)

“Literally what this woman did was to pad the numbers for her employment. She started registering people that were dead. One of them was her father.”

Hill allegedly tried to register a second deceased individual, whom Stollsteimer said Hill knew was dead because they passed away in 2011 in the house she is currently living in.

“She knows that because she was the person who called the police to come when he died in her house.”

“She did register a fraudulent person,” Stollsteimer said, adding that particular registrant did not vote this year. The fake person’s identity was a portmanteau of her grandmother’s name and a different birthday, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

In addition, prosecutors charged an 84-year-old man named Philip Moss with voting both in Florida and by mail in Delaware County.

PENNSYLVANIA’S AMISH: A KEY BUT HESITANT VOTING BLOC

Voters cast their ballots on Election Day. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)

In a statement obtained by Fox News Digital, an executive at the New Pennsylvania Project called the allegations “heartbreaking” and said the group does not provide financial incentives or bonuses for additional voter registrations. 

“Our employees have no quota to meet, and hourly wages paid to part-time canvassing employees remain the same no matter the number of voter registration applications collected,” Kadida Kenner said.

Kenner added that the Pennsylvania Department of State notified the group about potential issues with a canvasser and the person – believed to be Hill – was immediately suspended.

“Due to the hard work of many individuals to prevent disruptive actions by bad actors, our voting rolls and elections are secure, and no fraudulent ballots were cast,” she said.

“As a nonpartisan organization, our year-round voter registration efforts are not directed, in coordination, or aligned with any political party or candidate. Our registration efforts are not and will never be dictated by an election cycle,” Kenner went on.

Of the nearly 10,000 applicants the group successfully canvassed for, 48% registered as Democrats, 34% as unaffiliated or third-party and 18% as Republicans.

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Hill reportedly faces up to 10 counts for each of the four registrations that led to the indictment by prosecutors in Media.

The Democratic-majority Philadelphia suburb was once more a “swing” county – often voting Democratic on the presidential level while electing state legislative Republicans like then-Senate leader Dominic Pileggi in the 2000s.

But, “Delco,” as it is often called, along with neighboring Chester and Montgomery Counties, has swung heavily leftward in the age of Donald Trump.

Vice President Kamala Harris won the county with 61% of the vote.

A top ally of President Biden is “disappointed” after he vetoed a bill that would have increased the number of federal judges currently serving.

Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., who served as a campaign co-chair for both of Biden’s recent presidential campaigns, stressed that he and his Republican colleague Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., kept bipartisanship top of mind when crafting the bill.

“I am disappointed by this outcome, for my own state and for the federal judges throughout the country struggling under the burden of ever-higher caseloads. I’ve worked on this bill for years, and thanks to tireless bipartisan effort with Senator Young, it made it to the president’s desk. It’s highly unfortunate that it will not become law,” Coons said in a statement on Tuesday.

REPUBLICANS GIVE DETAILS FROM CLOSED-DOOR MEETINGS WITH DOGE’S MUSK, RAMASWAMY

Sen. Chris Coons said he was disappointed after President Biden made good on his veto threat. (Fox News Digital)

He then put the blame on House Republicans for the bill’s ultimate failure, however, for voting on it after the 2024 election.

“Senator Young and I took pains to make this a nonpartisan process, structuring the JUDGES Act so that Congress could pass the bill before any of us – Republican or Democrat – knew who would occupy the White House in 2025 and therefore nominate the new federal judges,” Coons said.

“The Senate did its part by passing the bill unanimously in August; the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, however, waited for election results before moving the bill forward. As a result, the White House is now vetoing this bill.”

DANIEL PENNY TO BE TAPPED FOR CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL BY HOUSE GOP LAWMAKER

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson accused Biden of politicizing the process. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Republicans in turn have accused Biden of making threats to veto the bill – which he issued two days before the House voted on it – to avoid giving President-elect Trump new roles to fill.

“This important legislation garnered broad, bipartisan support when it unanimously passed the Senate in August because it directly addresses the pressing need to reduce case backlogs in our federal courts and strengthen the efficiency of our judicial system,” Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., pointed out in a statement after the bill passed earlier this month.

 “At that time, Democrats supported the bill – they thought Kamala Harris would win the presidency. Now, however, the Biden-Harris administration has chosen to issue a veto threat and Democrats have whipped against this bill, standing in the way of progress, simply because of partisan politics.”

The Senate passed the bill weeks after Vice President Kamala Harris took over for Biden as the Democratic Party nominee. (Will Oliver/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The bill would have added 66 federal district judicial roles, spreading their creation out over more than 10 years to prevent a boon on new appointments for any one administration. 

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At the time of its Senate passage, Democrats’ morale was high after Biden ducked out of the 2024 race and was replaced by Vice President Kamala Harris.

It passed the Senate with unanimous consent, however, meaning no Republicans objected to the legislation’s advancement.

New York’s last Republican governor said this week that sanctuary jurisdictions are reminiscent of the Confederate states that balked at federal law and waged war against the Union.

Former Gov. George Pataki was speaking with businessman and 2013 New York City GOP mayoral candidate John Catsimatidis on 77WABC radio when he was asked about the state of the Big Apple in that regard.

“Right now, I’m concerned and people are concerned and rightfully so. But it comes down to leadership. We’ve had worse times in the past. I remember back in the ’60s and then in the early ’80s. And things got infinitely better,” Pataki said.

“And it comes down to having the right people with the right policies running the city, running the state and running the country. I think we’re going to have the right policies in Washington. Now we just need to have the right leadership doing the right thing in Albany and in New York City.”

MAGAVENUE: LAWMAKERS PREP LEGISLATION TO NAME SEVERAL HEARTLAND HIGHWAYS AFTER TRUMP

President Trump speaks with former New York GOP Gov. George E. Pataki. (Reuters)

Catismatidis said Trump has “put his foot down” against sanctuary policies, and quipped that he now has a “very large-sized shoe” given his overwhelming electoral victory.

Pataki agreed, adding that if the U.S. is to be based on the rule of law, it should apply equally everywhere.

“Cities or states that can pretend that the federal rules don’t apply to them are just violating the Constitution and violating our freedom… We had a Civil War over this,” he said.  “And, it became plain that under the Constitution, every city, every state has to follow the law of this country.”

Prior to the war-triggering attack on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, President James Buchanan, a Pennsylvania Democrat, was critical of Republican abolitionists and lamented his home state’s opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law. 

Following Illinois Republican Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 victory, southern states began to secede, which Buchanan opposed, while believing a military response was the wrong option. The election of Lincoln, who opposed the expansion of slavery into federal territories, alarmed Deep South states, with South Carolina leading the way in declaring secession from the Union on Dec. 20, 1860.

Pataki went on to say the nation’s largest city is bucking the feds in that regard, along with Los Angeles and other cities.

NEW YORK’S LAST GOP GOVERNOR CONDEMNS BIDEN’S INACTION AS IRAN STATE TV PLAYS SCENES OF US ‘ANARCHY’

Republican mayoral candidate and billionaire John Catsimatidis speaks at a news conference in 2013. (Getty Images)

“Trump must make them follow the law or cut off all federal funding. And I think that would be a very positive step to bring America together and to bring us forward,” he said.

The two discussed how New York City Council enacted a sanctuary city policy, and whether the state or federal government may step in against it.

“I think [Mayor Eric] Adams may go along with [Trump intervention],” Pataki predicted, as other observers have viewed the mayor as being critical of sanctuary city policy but hamstrung by the 45-6 Democratic-majority city council.

The former governor said he is optimistic about the New Year and that Trump must “dramatically reform” Washington instead of “tinker[ing] around the edges.”

He noted Trump does have limits, in that he cannot statutorily rein in New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg or other far-left officials.

Current Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat who has clashed with the MAGA wing of the Republican Party at times, once vociferously opposed another predecessor’s successful bid to make illegal immigrants eligible to receive driver’s licenses.

In 2007, Hochul balked at Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s policy while she was serving as clerk of Erie County – which includes Buffalo. 

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Then-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, left, and Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul during a cabinet meeting at the Capitol. (AP)

However, when she became governor upon the resignation of Andrew Cuomo, she reversed course.

In November, Hochul indicated she would be the “first one” to call Immigration & Customs Enforcement to help the feds capture migrants or illegal immigrants accused of another crime and “get them out of here.”

However, she maintained during her remarks in Queens that she supports helping otherwise law-abiding migrants find work in New York.

Trump’s pick for “border czar,” Tom Homan, notably hails from the Watertown area and has condemned his home state’s current policies.

President-elect Trump pledged this week to undo former President Obama’s 2015 decision to change the name of North America’s tallest peak to its Koyukon Athabascan name “Denali,” meaning “High One” or “Great One.”

Speaking to conservatives at a Phoenix conference, Trump made the pledge and noted President William McKinley was also a Republican who believed in tariffs. He first promised to undo Obama’s action in August 2015 and called it an “insult to Ohio,” where McKinley was born and raised.

During his Phoenix remarks, he also pledged to undo Democrats’ rebranding of southern military bases named for Confederates – like Fort Liberty in Fayetteville, North Carolina, which was formerly named after Gen. Braxton Bragg.

The 20,320-foot mountain was first dubbed Mount McKinley in 1896 by gold prospector William Dickey, after learning the Ohioan had won the GOP presidential nomination – and as a swipe at silver prospectors he met who preferred Democrat William Jennings Bryan and his plan for a silver standard for the dollar.

ALASKA OUTRAGED AT BIDEN’S FEDERAL OIL LEASE SALE SETUP AS ‘FITTING FINALE’ TO FOSSIL FUEL-AVERSE PRESIDENCY

Ohio’s William McKinley (1843-1901) was the 25th president of the United States, serving from March 4, 1897, until his assassination in September 1901. (Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Six months into his second term, McKinley was visiting Buffalo, New York, when anarchist laborer Leon Czolgosz assassinated him in a gladhanding line. Czolgosz believed the root of economic inequality stood with the government and was reportedly inspired by the 1900 assassination of Italian King Umberto I.

However, many Alaskans have appeared to prefer the historic name Denali:

GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski told KTUU that Trump’s plan to bring back “Mt. McKinley” is an “awful idea.”

“We already went through this with President Trump back and at the very, very beginning of his first term,” she said Monday.

Murkowski said both she and Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, – who originally hails from McKinley’s Ohio – support the name Denali.

“[Denali] is a name that has been around for thousands of years… North America’s tallest mountain – shouldn’t it have a name like ‘The Great One’?” Murkowski added.

MURKOWSKI SAYS SHE’S NOT ‘ATTACHED’ TO GOP LABEL

Denali, near Talkeetna, Alaska (AP Photo/Becky Bohrer, File)

In 2015, Sullivan told the Anchorage Daily News that “Denali belongs to Alaska and its citizens” and that the naming rights are held by Alaskan Natives.

In a statement to KTUU this week, Sullivan said many Alaskans prefer the “name that the very tough, very strong, very patriotic Athabascan people gave” the peak.

Meanwhile, then-Rep. Ralph Regula, R-Ohio, spent decades in Congress preventing any name change from McKinley to Denali – as the namesake president hailed from his Canton district.

Regula, who died in 2017, lambasted Obama over the name change, saying he “thinks he is a dictator.”

Appearing to cite his own work presenting procedural roadblocks and language added to Interior-related bills, Regula said Obama could not change such a law “by a flick of his pen.”

“You want to change the Ohio River?” he quipped.

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Sen. Lisa Murkowski speaks during a news conference. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

However, some Ohio officials have also been deferential to the will of Alaskans.

Current Lt. Gov. Jon Husted told the Dayton Daily News in 2015 that if Denali is what Alaskans want, then he in turn understood, as he wouldn’t want Alaskans dictating Ohio name changes.

“So, I guess we shouldn’t tell people in Alaska should do in their own state. But I’m a big fan of Canton and McKinley and I’m glad that he’s getting talked about some more,” he said at the time.

Several prominent California Democrats are calling on the U.S. Department of Transportation to approve a grant application for $536 million in federal funds to move forward with the state’s long-awaited high-speed rail network.

The monies would come from funds already allocated in general to “federal-state partnership[s] for intercity passenger rail grants” through the 2021 “Bipartisan Infrastructure Law” and made available via the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2024.

Democrats urged Secretary Pete Buttigieg to approve the funds, saying progress on the “California Phase I Corridor” is “essential to enhancing our nation’s and California’s strategic transportation network investments.”

“The Phase 1 Corridor aims to address climate concerns, promote health, improve access and connectivity, and boost economic vitality, while addressing current highway and rail capacity constraints,” a letter to the outgoing Cabinet member read.

BUILDING STARTS ON HIGH-SPEED RAIL LINE BETWEEN LAS VEGAS AND LOS ANGELES AREA

Drafted by Sen.-elect Adam Schiff, Sen. Alex Padilla, and California Democratic Reps. Jim Costa, Zoe Lofgren and Pete Aguilar, the letter calls for the funds to go to two projects in particular: tunneling through the Tehachapi Mountains in Southern California and through the Pacheco Pass of the Diablo Mountains in Northern California.

“These investments will continue to support living wage jobs, provide small business opportunities, and equitably enhance the mobility of communities in need – including disadvantaged agricultural communities – all while reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” Schiff and the other lawmakers wrote.

“Please consider the enormous value and meaningful impact that FSP-National grant funding will provide to advancing CAHSR beyond the Central Valley,” they told Buttigieg.

The bores are needed, the lawmakers said, to connect with other intercity passenger rail systems including the Brightline West, CalTrain, Metrolink and Altamont Commuter Express. 

FLASHBACK: COMER TOUTS HUNTER BIDEN HEARING: RASKIN, SCHIFF ‘PULL STUFF OUT OF THEIR REAR’

Ongoing construction of the California bullet train project is photographed in Corcoran, California, left, and Hanford, California, right. (Getty)

According to California Republicans, the overall high-speed rail project is nearly $100 billion over budget and decades behind schedule.

Trump’s DOGE duo of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy aren’t keen on the idea of continuing to fund what many Republicans consider a costly and unfruitful endeavor.

Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., said as much earlier this month in remarks on the House floor.

“I am very happy to report that the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency has honed-in on perhaps the single greatest example of government waste in United States history – and that is California’s high-speed-rail boondoggle,” Kiley said.

The official DOGE X account also described both California’s high-speed rail expenditures and requested funding in a November tweet.

Earlier this month, Ramaswamy also called the plans a “wasteful vanity project” that burned “billions in taxpayer cash with little prospect of completion in the next decade.”

He said Trump “correctly” rescinded $1 billion in federal funding for the project in 2019 and lamented President Biden’s reversal of that move.

“Time to end the waste,” Ramaswamy said.

California’s top state Senate Republican echoed the DOGE leaders’ concerns.

Sen. Alex Padilla (Getty Images)

“California’s ‘train to nowhere’ has already wasted billions of taxpayer dollars – now Biden wants all Americans to fund this boondoggle,” State Sen. Brian W. Jones of San Diego told Fox News Digital.

“When President Trump returns to office in a few weeks, he must defund the high-speed rail. This wasteful government experiment must end once and for all,” he added.

If approved, the federal funds will be bolstered by $134 million in state monies from California’s “cap & trade” program, according to the Sacramento Bee.

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At a 2013 conference, Musk floated the idea of a “hyperloop” which was also presented in a white paper. Though it has not yet come to fruition, Musk said at the time he had thought whether there is a better way to get from Los Angeles to San Francisco than what California has proposed.

“The high-speed rail that’s being proposed would actually be the slowest bullet train in the world and the most expensive per-mile,” he said. “Isn’t there something better that we can come up with?”

The world’s richest man described Hyperloop at the time as a combination of a Concorde, a rail gun and an air-hockey table.

President Biden on Monday vetoed a bill that would have added 66 federal district judgeships over a span of more than a decade, a once-bipartisan effort designed so that neither political party would have an advantage in molding the federal judiciary. 

Three presidential administrations, beginning with the incoming Trump administration, and six Congresses would have had the opportunity to appoint the new trial court judgeships, according to the legislation, which had support from organizations representing judges and attorneys.

Despite arguments from the organizations that additional judgeships would help with cases that have seen serious delays in resolution and ease concerns over access to justice, the White House said that Biden would veto the bill.

In a statement, Biden said he made his decision because the “hurried action” by the House of Representatives left open questions about “life-tenured” positions.

BIDEN’S DECISION TO COMMUTE SENTENCES FOR DEATH ROW INMATES SPARKS SOCIAL MEDIA FRENZY

President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the economy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 10, 2024.  (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo)

“The House of Representative’s hurried action fails to resolve key questions in the legislation, especially regarding how the new judgeships are allocated, and neither the House of Representatives nor the Senate explored fully how the work of senior status judges and magistrate judges affects the need for new judgeships,” Biden said.

“The efficient and effective administration of justice requires that these questions about need and allocation be further studied and answered before we create permanent judgeships for life-tenured judges,” Biden added.

The White House announced Monday that Biden vetoed a bill that would have added 66 federal district judgeships over a span of more than a decade. (Pete Marovich/Getty Images, File)

He said the bill would also have created new judgeships in states where senators have not filled existing judicial vacancies and that those efforts “suggest that concerns about judicial economy and caseload are not the true motivating force behind passage of this bill now.

GOP CONGRESSMAN CHARGES BIDEN ADMINISTRATION’S FOREIGN POLICY ‘LEFT THE WORLD IN A WORSE OFF PLACE’

When Biden’s plan to veto the legislation surfaced earlier this month, Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told “America’s Newsroom” that the act is “the last spasm of a lame-duck.”

“President Biden and his team don’t want to allow it to become law simply because a Republican administration would get to appoint some of the judges,” Kennedy said. 

“I wish they’d put the country first,” the senator added.

The legislation was passed unanimously in August under the Democratic-controlled Senate, though the Republican-led House brought the measure to the floor only after Donald Trump was reelected president in November, creating an air of political gamesmanship.

Biden’s veto essentially shelves the legislation for the current Congress. 

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Overturning Biden’s veto would require a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate, and the House vote fell well short of that margin.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

As President-elect Trump begins his second term in the White House, his days as a candidate are numbered.

But even though he’s term limited and his name will no longer be on the ballot, Republican National Committee chair Michael Whatley says Trump will play a “significant” role in supporting GOP candidates in the 2026 midterm elections.

“President Trump is going to be a very significant part of this because at the end of the day, what we need to do is hold on to the House, hold on to the Senate so that we can finish his term and his agenda,” Whatley emphasized in a recent interview with Fox News Digital at the RNC headquarters in the nation’s capital.

Republicans enjoyed major victories in last month’s elections, with Trump defeating Vice President Kamala Harris to win back the White House, the GOP flipping control of the Senate from the Democrats, and Republicans holding on to their razor-thin majority in the House.

VANCE TO LIKELY BE 2028 GOP PRESIDENTIAL FRONT-RUNNER, BUT RNC CHAIR ALSO LIKES PARTY’S ‘BENCH’

President-elect Trump speaks during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago club, on Monday, Dec. 16, 2024, in Palm Beach, Florida. (AP/Evan Vucci)

Whatley argued that “as we go forward into this next election cycle, the fundamentals are going to remain the same.”

“We need to make sure that we are building our state parties, that we’re building our ground game, we’re building our election integrity apparatus to be in place to make sure that when we get those candidates through those primaries in ‘26, that we’re going to be in a position to take them all the way to the finish line,” he emphasized.

HOUSE GOP CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE CHAIR MAKES 2026 PREDICTION

But the party in power traditionally suffers setbacks in the ensuing midterm elections. And Trump, who was a magnet for voter turnout in this year’s elections, won’t be on the ballot in 2026.

Whatley predicted, “Donald Trump will be very active on the campaign trail for Republicans. And his agenda is the agenda that we’re going to be running on.”

Former President Trump departs a campaign event at the Central Wisconsin Airport on Sept. 7, 2024 in Mosinee, Wisconsin. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

The Harris campaign and the Democratic National Committee outraised the Trump campaign and the RNC this past cycle, but Whatley is confident that with the party soon to control the White House, Republicans will be even more competitive in the campaign cash race in the midterms.

“We’re pretty excited about where we are in terms of the fundraising that we did throughout the course of this cycle and what we’re going to do going forward,” he said.

SENATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE CHAIR SPELLS OUT HIS 2026 MISSION

Whatley said his message to donors will be, “We were successful in putting Donald Trump into the White House, and we need to carry forward with his agenda by keeping these House majorities and Senate majorities.”

He also pushed back on the persistent questioning of the RNC and Trump campaign’s ground game efforts during the general election.

“We focused very hard on low propensity voters. This was an entirely new system that we put in place over the course of this election cycle. It worked very, very well,” he touted. 

And looking ahead, he said, “In a midterm election cycle, low propensity voters are going to, again, be very, very important for us. So, we’re going to continue to focus on building that type of a program.”

Republican National Committee chair Michael Whatley is interviewed by Fox News Digital, at the RNC headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 12, 2024. (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)

Whatley spotlighted that “we also focused on outreach to communities that the Republican Party has traditionally not reached out to – Black voters, Hispanic voters, Asian American voters. That’s why we were able to see such seismic shifts toward Donald Trump versus where those blocs had been in 2016 and 2020. We also saw seismic shifts among young voters and women voters because we were talking to every single American voter. Our ground game was very significant.”

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Whatley was interviewed earlier this month, a week after Trump asked him to continue as RNC chair.

In March, as he clinched the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, Trump named Whatley to succeed Ronna McDaniel as RNC chair. Whatley, a longtime ally of the former president and a major supporter of Trump’s election integrity efforts, had served as RNC general counsel and chair of the North Carolina Republican Party. 

The House Democrat who chairs the party’s campaign committee says she wants to “build on” the “things we did right” in the 2024 elections as she works to win back the chamber’s majority in the 2026 midterms.

While the party lost control of the White House and Republicans flipped the Senate majority while holding on to their fragile control of the House, Democrats were able to take a small bite out of the GOP congressional majority. 

Republicans will hold a razor-thin 220-215 majority in the next Congress, which means the Democrats only need a three-seat gain in the 2026 midterms to win back the chamber for the first time in four years.

HOUSE GOP CAMPAIGN CHAIR TOUTS HOMEFIELD ADVANTAGE

Republicans will hold a razor-thin 220-215 majority in the House of Representatives in the incoming Congress. (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)

“We won in tough districts, outperformed across the country,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington state emphasized in a recent Fox News Digital interview.

DelBene, who is sticking around for a second straight tour of duty steering the party’s campaign committee, said the 2024 successes are “a good example of what we need to continue to follow heading into 2026.”

VANCE TO LIKELY BE 2028 GOP PRESIDENTIAL FRONT-RUNNER, BUT RNC CHAIR ALSO LIKES PARTY’S ‘BENCH’

“Number one, have great candidates who are independent minded, focused on the needs of their communities,” DelBene said. “Those candidates and their voices were critically important in this election.”

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Rep. Suzan DelBene is interviewed by Fox News Digital, on Dec. 12, 2024, in Washington, D.C.  (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)

DelBene said “making sure that they [the candidates] have the resources they need to get information out to voters and to continue to address head on the issues that are most important to their communities, lowering costs, making sure there’s economic opportunity” are also top priorities.

SENATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE CHAIR SPELLS OUT HIS 2026 MISSION

With President-elect Trump returning to the White House next month, and the GOP in control of both chambers of Congress, DelBene said Republicans are “going to be accountable for what they do in this country and the impact that has on working families”

“We’re going to hold them accountable for their votes and the actions they take, especially if they aren’t supporting working families,” she emphasized. “I think people want to see governance work. So, if Republicans aren’t willing to work in a bipartisan way to get things done, that’s going to be a key part of the 2026 election as well.”

The party in power traditionally takes a gut punch in the ensuing congressional election, which means the Democrats will have historical winds at their backs. 

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Looking to the 2026 map, DelBene touted that Democrats will have “opportunities across the country.”

And she said it’s the DCCC’s job to “reach voters where they are and make sure they’re getting accurate information about where our candidates stand.”

Fox News’ Emma Woodhead contributed to this report

Donald Trump says it is “an absolute necessity” for our country to own Greenland.

He says the U.S. should take back the Panama Canal unless the “ridiculous” shipping fees are lowered.

He threatened that any Republican who opposed him on the bill to avoid a government shutdown can and should be primaried.

The president-elect is earning his reputation as a disruptor, with enough influence over what is now his party to blow up carefully negotiated bipartisan compromises. Let’s look at each of these.

HOW PRESIDENT-ELECT TRUMP COULD PULL OFF ‘THE DEAL OF THE CENTURY’ AS HE ENTERS OFFICE

Trump tried in his first term to buy Greenland, which is controlled by Denmark but under home rule. That went nowhere, though it created a diplomatic crisis with Danish officials.

While the U.S. built the Panama Canal in the early 20th century, it was turned over to Panama under a treaty approved by both countries. Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino says “every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent zone is Panama’s and will continue to be so. The sovereignty and independence of our country are not negotiable.”

That didn’t stop Trump from posting an AI image of an American flag flying over a waterway presumed to be the canal.

The incoming president has certainly demonstrated the ability to engineer primary challenges to those who cross him. But three dozen conservative Republicans voted against him on the government shutdown bill, including on final passage, which dropped his demand to eliminate the debt ceiling during his term. Would he really gin up primaries against all of them?

So the overwhelming likelihood is that the status of Greenland, the Panama Canal and rebellious Republicans won’t change in the second term.

The reason Trump does this is that it reinforces his role as a disruptor, someone taking on the decrepit Washington establishment, even though a president, by definition, is the new establishment. 

President-elect Donald Trump points at AmericaFest, Sunday, Dec. 22, 2024, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)

Beyond that, whether he’s making outrageous demands or not, Trump shapes, and often dominates, the news agenda. As the 47th president has acknowledged to me, he sometimes crosses the line because he knows it will provoke a strong media reaction. As Trump sees it, even negative coverage is good coverage because the press is playing on his turf.

And sometimes these are just negotiating positions to win concessions, as with the threatened 25 percent tariffs against Canada and Mexico. 

Remember, most people outside the media-political complex aren’t breathlessly following these developments. Since the government didn’t actually close down, they don’t see it as a setback for Trump that he didn’t get most of what he wanted. They probably don’t recall that he tried to buy Greenland before.

What Trump clearly has the power to do is to blow up carefully crafted bipartisan agreements. He did it after Speaker Mike Johnson–whose own future is in doubt because, like Kevin McCarthy before him, he didn’t have the votes–let the bill grow into a Christmas tree monstrosity. 

And he did it during the campaign when both parties agreed on a tough border enforcement deal, which was then trashed by Trump’s objections.

But there are clearly limits to Trump’s ability to shape events, especially with the country. For three dozen Republicans to defy him on as fundamental a matter as the debt ceiling shows that he can only push his party so far.

TRUMP’S FAMOUS CHRISTMAS CAMEO IS FAR FROM HIS ONLY ACTING CREDIT: SEE THE FULL LIST

Rep. Nancy Mace, a Trump supporter who voted against him on final passage–told me on Sunday’s Media Buzz that was because she wants to keep the debt ceiling.

But with the GOP clinging to a 1-vote House margin, for now, the cauldron of campaign rhetoric is running up against the cold, hard math of getting to the number 218. 

Democrats have to wonder if it’s worth negotiating with the other party if they’re just creating a target for Trump’s demolition derby.

It was Elon Musk who first tweeted about how bad the original bill was–at Trump’s suggestion–and after 70-plus tweets (including some falsehoods), the new president was drawn into the fight. 

BUTLER, PA – OCT. 5: Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk speaks with former president Donald Trump during a campaign event at the Butler Farm Show, Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024, in Butler, Pa.  ((Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images))

Over the weekend, Trump denied that he had surrendered his presidential powers to his billionaire buddy, and half-mockingly said Musk could never be president: 

“You know why? He wasn’t born in this country. Hahaha.”

A favorite media parlor game is whether the two strong-willed men will eventually have a falling out.

For now, though, Trump’s tough talk about Greenland and the Panama Canal shows that he’s most comfortable playing offense, even if nothing much comes of it.

In other news:

–The House Ethics report says Matt Gaetz “regularly” paid women for sex, including with an underage girl, and used illegal drugs.

In 2017, the former attorney general nominee “engaged in sexual activity with a 17-year-old girl,” who was also paid.

Gaetz used or had possession of such illegal drugs as cocaine and Ecstasy “on multiple occasions,” and also accepted lucrative gifts, such as transportation and lodging in the Bahamas.

“Many of the women interviewed by the committee were clear that there was a general expectation of sex,” with one woman telling the committee Gaetz paid her more than $5,000 and that sex was involved “99 percent of the time.”

The panel said Gaetz was “uncooperative” and that he “knowingly and willfully sought to impede and obstruct the committee’s investigation of his conduct.” The Justice Department investigated but brought no charges.

TRUMP COULD FACE RENEWED ISIS THREAT IN SYRIA AS TURKEY GOES AFTER US ALLY

Gaetz also misused House resources when he had his chief of staff “assist a woman with whom he engaged in sexual activity in obtaining a passport, falsely indicating to the U.S. Department of State that she was a constituent…

“There was substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House Rules, state and federal laws, and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, acceptance of impermissible gifts, the provision of special favors and privileges, and obstruction of Congress.”

If Gaetz was still in the running for AG, this would have blown him out of the water.

Says Gaetz: “I was charged with nothing: FULLY EXONERATED. Not even a campaign finance violation. And the people investigating me hated me. Then, the very ‘witnesses’ DOJ deemed not-credible were assembled by House Ethics to repeat their claims absent any cross-examination or challenge from me or my attorneys. I’ve had no chance to ever confront any accusers. I’ve never been charged. I’ve never been sued.” He says he even sent money to women he wasn’t dating.

–A dogged reporter the Dallas Express discovered what happened to Texas Rep. Kay Granger, who went “missing” months ago. He found her, and got on-the-record confirmation, at a nursing facility that specializes in dementia and other memory problems. She put out a statement about health challenges that utterly missed the point: How could she not tell her constituents about this? Why did she insist on hiding it? There would have been enormous sympathy for her. Instead, the congresswoman kept it all shrouded in secrecy.

–Actress Blake Lively was the target of an online smear campaign, as laid out in texts and emails that blatantly discuss planting stories to ruin her reputation, while cautioning that this must remain secret because they can’t very well admit that they are trying to “bury” her. “You know we can bury anyone.”

Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively (David Buchan/Variety/Penske Media via Getty Images/Lia Toby/Getty Images)

Lively obtained these documents through legal action against her co-star and director, Justin Baldoni, and reviewed by the New York Times. She is alleging sexual harassment, saying Baldoni and others routinely came into her trailer unannounced when she was topless, such as having body makeup removed, or breast-feeding.

The Wayfarer studio said that the company and its PR people “did nothing proactive or retaliatory” against the actress, accusing her of “another desperate attempt to ‘fix’ her negative reputation.”

Lively says Baldoni tried to add unneeded sex scenes, had improvised unwanted kissing and discussed his sex life, including instances in which he may not have gotten consent. Another member of the team showed her a video of his wife naked.

The sad thing is that this sort of thing goes on all the time. We just happened to get the goods this time, with Lively being portrayed as difficult, tone-deaf and a bully.

–The Daily Mail reported that Jeff Bezos was going marry his fiancé Lauren Sanchez this weekend in a $600 million extravaganza in Aspen.

The Amazon founder, who owns the Washington Post, says that’s a crock:

“This whole thing is completely false — none of this is happening…

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“The old adage ‘don’t believe everything you read’ is even more true today than it ever has been. Now lies can get ALL the way around the world before the truth can get its pants on. So be careful out there folks and don’t be gullible.”

Good for Jeff for punching back against a crappy story.

A leading progressive House Democrat is commending President Biden’s sweeping commutation order for people on the federal death row, calling the death penalty itself “racist.”

“The President’s decision to commute the death sentences of 37 individuals on federal death row is a historic and groundbreaking act of compassion that will save lives, address the deep racial disparities in our criminal legal system, and send a powerful message about redemption, decency, and humanity,” Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., said in a statement on Monday.

“The death penalty is a racist, flawed, and fundamentally unjust punishment that has no place in any society.”

BIDEN SETS RECORD WITH FIRST-TERM CLEMENCY GRANTS, HERE’S HOW OTHER PRESIDENTS RANK

Rep. Ayanna Pressley called the death penalty “racist” in a statement praising President Biden’s clemency decision. (Getty Images)

Pressley argued the death penalty has overwhelmingly targeted Black and Brown communities “and failed to make America any safer.”

The Massachusetts lawmaker, a member of the hardline-left group of House Democrats dubbed the “Squad,” has been on the forefront of the progressive push to abolish the death penalty.

Biden’s clemency order affects nearly everyone on the federal death row in the United States.

 Just three of 40 inmates remain – Dylann Roof, who murdered nine people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Carolina in 2015; Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was found guilty for carrying out the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing; and Robert Bowers, who killed 11 worshipers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in 2018.

TRUMP EXECUTION RESTART TO PUT BOSTON MARATHON BOMBER, CHARLESTON CHURCH SHOOTER, MORE KILLERS IN HOT SEAT

Democrats ratcheted up pressure on Biden to act after his controversial pardon of his son Hunter. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

Among those whose sentences were commuted to life imprisonment are Thomas Sanders, who kidnapped and killed a 12-year-old girl; Jorge Avila-Torrez, who sexually assaulted and stabbed two young girls to death and strangled a 20-year-old female Naval officer four years later; and Anthony Battle, who murdered an Atlanta prison guard with a hammer 30 years ago.

Democrats had been mounting pressure on Biden to use his clemency powers after the controversial and broad pardon he granted to his son, Hunter Biden, just weeks before he was expected to be sentenced on federal gun charges.

Biden heeded that pressure earlier this month when he commuted the sentences of roughly 1,500 Americans in the largest such single-day order. 

It comes as President-elect Trump has touted plans for months to expand the death penalty to drug traffickers, child rapists and illegal immigrants who kill U.S. citizens.

At the tail end of his first term, Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) performed the first federal executions in 20 years, carrying out sentences for 13 federal prisoners on death row.

BIDEN COMMUTES 1,500 JAIL SENTENCES, GRANTS PARDONS FOR 39 OTHERS: ‘LARGEST SINGLE-DAY GRANT OF CLEMENCY’

Sen. Tom Cotton criticized Biden’s decision. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

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Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., a top Trump ally, blasted Biden for his order on Monday.

“Once again, Democrats side with depraved criminals over their victims, public order, and common decency,” Cotton wrote on X.

“Democrats can’t even defend Biden’s outrageous decision as some kind of principled, across-the-board opposition to the death penalty since he didn’t commute the three most politically toxic cases. Democrats are the party of politically convenient justice.”

FIRST ON FOX: A conservative legal group is putting “sanctuary” jurisdictions across the U.S. on notice ahead of an expected mass deportation by the incoming Trump administration.

America First Legal says it has notified nearly 250 officials in jurisdictions which limit or forbid local law enforcement cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that there could be legal consequences for interfering with the feds or for concealing illegal immigrants.

President-elect Trump has promised to launch a “historic” deportation campaign when in office, and his transition team has already been making concrete steps toward that goal. America First Legal’s president is Stephen Miller, who will serve as deputy chief of staff for policy in the Trump White House.

TRUMP BORDER CZAR BLASTS NY GOVERNOR FOR TOUTING SUBWAY SAFETY HOURS AFTER HORRIFIC MURDER

President-elect Donald Trump speaks at AmericaFest, Sunday, Dec. 22, 2024, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)

But a number of Democratic officials in states including in Arizona, Colorado, California and Massachusetts have said they will not cooperate with the operation. Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, has hinted there could be legal consequences for those who get in the way of the operation.

Proponents of sanctuary policies argue that local jurisdictions cannot be compelled to assist the government, and that barring ICE cooperation encourages otherwise law-abiding illegal immigrants to work with police and report crimes, making the area safer. Opponents say that policies result in the release of otherwise-deportable criminals back onto the streets.

AFL’s notice letter to the 249 officials says that the federal government has ultimate authority over immigration, and points to clauses in federal law that prohibit state and local governments from restricting communications with DHS about immigration status, and that make concealing, harboring or shielding an illegal immigrant a federal crime.

The group argues that sanctuary policies can therefore lead to criminal liability, and that victims of illegal immigrant crime may be able to sue for damages.

“We have identified your jurisdiction as a sanctuary jurisdiction that is violating federal law. Such lawlessness subjects you and your subordinates to significant risk of criminal and civil liability. Accordingly, we are sending this letter to put you on notice of this risk and insist that you comply with our nation’s laws,” the letter says.

The group is also launching a new website that gives users a map of “sanctuary strongholds,” identifying jurisdictions with sanctuary policies and giving contact information for elected officials.

TRUMP’S INCOMING BORDER CZAR HAILS MEETING WITH MAYOR ERIC ADAMS: ‘NYC IS ABOUT TO GET A LOT SAFER’

REVERE, MA. – SEPTEMBER 25: ICE agents make arrests on September 25, 2019 in Revere, Massachusetts.   (Staff Photo By Matt Stone/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald)

The group also announced that it has also filed a petition with the DOJ’s Office of Violence Against Women to seek data on citizenship status and nationality information against those charged with a slew of crimes against women and children, including domestic violence, murder and child maltreatment. In addition, it is filing requests to officials, including mayors and governors, across the U.S. for information on organizations it believes are undermining federal immigration enforcement.

In a statement, America First Legal’s Senior Vice President Reed D. Rubenstein pointed to the recent arrest of an illegal immigrant in New York City in connection with the death of a woman who was set on fire and burned to death as “another reminder that open borders and sanctuary jurisdictions are sheer insanity.”

“The left-wing politicians who create and run them, and those who support them, put our citizens at risk, undermine our Constitution, and dangerously erode the rule of law. America First Legal will continue working tirelessly to protect our immigration laws and support the brave men and women who enforce them. Today’s actions are but a first step in our fight against sanctuary lawlessness,” Rubenstein said.

The new announcements shine a spotlight on what could be a fierce fight between the Trump administration, and its allies, and Democrats and left-wing activists over the deportation push and the extent to which it can be resisted at state and local level.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE COVERAGE OF THE BORDER SECURITY CRISIS

Some have doubled down on their opposition, with the Boston City Council recently voting to limit ICE cooperation and to ban police from keeping migrants in custody for possible deportation unless there is a criminal warrant.

The resolution adopted by the council states that “proposals for mass deportations represent a direct attack on Boston’s immigrant families, and threaten to tear communities apart.”

Some Democratic officials, however, have indicated their willingness to work with the incoming administration. Homan met with New York City Mayor Eric Adams last week to discuss areas of potential cooperation, including the deportation of violent illegal immigrant criminals. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker also said he wanted to see “violent criminals who are undocumented and convicted of violent crime” deported, and said he would welcome a meeting with Homan.

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Fox News reported this month on new data provided to Congress that showed there are 1.4 million noncitizens who have deportation orders but are not currently in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention.

The White House is concerned that Iran’s weakened position will prompt the regime to pursue a nuclear weapon, and national security adviser Jake Sullivan is coordinating with the Trump team on this concern. 

Iran has suffered a year of setbacks amid Israeli assaults on its proxy forces and a pull-out from Syria amid the takeover by Sunni Muslim forces, hostile to Iran’s Shiite government. 

Israeli strikes on Iranian facilities, including missile factories and air defenses, have reduced Iran’s conventional military capabilities, Sullivan told CNN on Sunday. 

“What I found over the last four years is that when good things happen, like Iran being weaker than it was before, there are frequently bad things lurking around the corner,” Sullivan said.

The White House is concerned that Iran’s weakened position will prompt the regime to pursue a nuclear weapon, and national security adviser Jake Sullivan is coordinating with the Trump team on this concern. (ATTA KENARE/AFP via Getty Image)

IRAN EXPANDS WEAPONIZATION CAPABILITIES CRITICAL FOR EMPLOYING NUCLEAR BOMB

“If you’re Iran right now and you’re looking around at the fact that your conventional capability has been reduced, your proxies have been reduced, your main client state has been eliminated, Assad has fallen, it’s no wonder there are voices saying: ‘Hey, maybe we need to go for a nuclear weapon right now,'” the outgoing national security official said. 

“They’re saying it publicly, in fact. They’re saying: Maybe we have to revisit our nuclear doctrine. A doctrine that has said: We’ll have a civilian nuclear program and certain capabilities, but we’re not going for a nuke,” he added. “It’s a risk we’re trying to be vigilant about now.”

While Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful, but it has expanded uranium enrichment since the last Trump administration to 60% purity, a short step away from the 90% needed for a nuclear weapon. 

Last week the United Kingdom, Germany and France publicly called on Iran to “reverse its nuclear escalation,” arguing there is no “credible civilian justification” to stockpile 60% uranium.

“If you’re Iran right now and you’re looking around at the fact that your conventional capability has been reduced, your proxies have been reduced, your main client state has been eliminated, Assad has fallen, it’s no wonder there are voices saying: ‘Hey, maybe we need to go for a nuclear weapon right now,'” Jake Sullivan said. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

While Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful, but it has expanded uranium enrichment since the last Trump administration to 60% purity, a short step away from the 90% needed for a nuclear weapon (Atomic Energy Organization of Iran via AP, File)

FALL OF ASSAD, RISE OF TRUMP: WHY 2024 WAS A VERY BAD YEAR FOR IRAN

Sullivan said there was a risk Iran would abandon its promise not to build nuclear weapons.

“It’s a risk we are trying to be vigilant about now. It’s a risk that I’m personally briefing the incoming team on,” Sullivan said, adding that he was consulting with Israel too. 

Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, could bring back his “maximum pressure” policy to cripple Iran’s oil financing.

Sullivan held out hope Trump could come in and use Iran’s weakened position to get them to agree to a new nuclear deal. 

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“Maybe he can come around this time, with the situation Iran finds itself in, and actually deliver a nuclear deal that curbs Iran’s nuclear ambitions for the long term,” he said.

Trump’s team is currently weighing its options to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, including preventive airstrikes. 

Former President Bill Clinton was admitted to a hospital Monday afternoon for testing and observation after developing a fever, a spokesperson for Clinton said.

“President Clinton was admitted to MedStar Georgetown University Hospital this afternoon for testing and observation after developing a fever. He remains in good spirits and deeply appreciates the excellent care he is receiving,” Angel Urena wrote.

Urena also confirmed to Fox News that he did not have much additional information at the moment regarding admittance or when they expected the hospital to discharge Clinton.

The former president made headlines earlier this month when he recalled the pardon of his brother, Roger Clinton, during an interview at the New York Time DealBook Summit, while talking about President Biden’s pardon of his son, Hunter Biden. 

BILL CLINTON LAMENTS KAMALA HARRIS HAD ‘IMPOSSIBLE JOB,’ AS ONLY PERSON WHO COULD LEGALLY USE CAMPAIGN FUNDS

Former President Bill Clinton speaks onstage during The New York Times Dealbook Summit 2024 at Jazz at Lincoln Center on December 04, 2024, in New York City. (Photo by Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for The New York Times) (Photo by Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for The New York Times)

“I think that the president did have reason to believe that the nature of the offenses involved were likely to produce far stronger adverse consequences for his son than they would for any normal person under the same circumstances,” Clinton said.

Clinton added that he read that it was comparable to when he pardoned his half brother, Roger Clinton, when he was president. Roger Clinton went to prison in the 1980s for cocaine charges, according to the Washington Post, and had served his sentence before Clinton pardoned him. Roger was arrested for drunk driving nearly a month after receiving a pardon.

According to the New York Times, “Mr. Clinton said that he did not believe the two situations were analogous, even as he stressed that presidential pardons are often complicated and politically fraught.”

BILL CLINTON RECALLS PARDONING HALF-BROTHER, SAYS IT’S NOT SIMILAR TO BIDEN’S CONTROVERSIAL ONE OF HUNTER

Former President Bill Clinton speaks in support of the Harris Walz presidential campaign during the Fort Valley GOTV Community Fish Fry at the Agricultural Technology Conference Center on October 13, 2024, in Fort Valley, Georgia. With 22 days until the election, recent polls in Georgia show that Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump leads his opponent Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris by one point.  ( Julia Beverly/Getty Images)

The ex-president contrasted, “My brother did 14 months in federal prison for something he did when he was 20, and I supported it, and he testified, told the truth about what he’d done when he had a drug problem and helped to bring down a larger enterprise. And they sentenced him, and then he served 14 months, and then he got out. The real question was, would he ever be able to vote again? Would he ever be able to have normal citizenship responsibilities?” 

Clinton continued, saying that politics can’t be taken out of the pardon decisions if presidents are involved, adding, “I wish he hadn’t said he wasn’t going to do it.”

“I think it does weaken his case,” he added.

Clinton also released a new memoir in November titled, ‘Citizen: My Life After the White House,” that is largely about Clinton’s post-presidential life in philanthropy, and claims that his encounters with his disgraced former associate, Jeffrey Epstein, focused on his charitable foundation.

BILL CLINTON WRITES ABOUT TENSE #METOO-ERA INTERVIEW IN NEW MEMOIR: ‘FOUGHT TO CONTAIN MY FRUSTRATION’

Using the Fifth Amendment, which gives Americans the right to not self-incriminate themselves, Epstein refused to answer at least three questions related to former President Bill Clinton and at least one related to the Clinton Foundation. (Getty Images)

“I wish I had never met him,” Clinton wrote in his new memoir, according to The Associated Press, which reviewed an advance copy.

Clinton took flights on Epstein’s prive jet on trips for the Clinton Foundation. He wrote that they only discussed “politics and economics” and that he never traveled to Epstein’s infamous Little St. James Island.

“Traveling on Epstein’s plane was not worth the years of questioning afterward,” he wrote, according to a review in the Telegraph, which also obtained an advance copy. “I wish I had never met him.”

Clinton has not been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, and Urena noted when Sjoberg’s testimony was released that the former president could have opposed the unsealing of his name but did not.

Urena also denied claims in the documents that Clinton and Epstein had any kind of personal relationship.

“I had always thought Epstein was odd but had no inkling of the crimes he was committing,” Clinton writes in the book.
 

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This is a developing story. Please check back for updates. 

Fox News’ Michael Ruiz, Jessica Sonkin and Hanna Panreck contributed to this report. 

Stepheny Price is writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business. Story tips and ideas can be sent to stepheny.price@fox.com

A spokesperson for President-elect Trump lashed out on Monday against President Biden‘s decision to commute the death sentences of 37 inmates on federal death row, calling the move a “a slap in the face to the victims, their families, and their loved ones.”

In a short statement, Steven Cheung, Trump’s communications director, noted the different approaches to crime between Biden and Trump. 

“These are among the worst killers in the world and this abhorrent decision by Joe Biden is a slap in the face to the victims, their families, and their loved ones,” he said in a statement. “President Trump stands for the rule of law, which will return when he is back in the White House after he was elected with a massive mandate from the American people.”

BIDEN SETS RECORD WITH FIRST-TERM CLEMENCY GRANTS, HERE’S HOW OTHER PRESIDENTS RANK

Social media erupted on Monday after President Biden announced he would commute the sentences of nearly all the inmates on federal death row. (AP )

The White House announced that Biden was commuting the death sentences to life without the possibility of parole on Monday. Among the victims of the 37 men are law enforcement officers, children and other inmates. 

“Biden’s decision is a slap in the face to the victims and to the families of the victims that thought justice was going to be served,” Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., wrote on X. 

Many other Republican lawmakers echoed the same reactions. 

Biden believes the federal death penalty should only be imposed for acts of terrorism and hate-motivated killings, the White House said. 

“When President Biden came into office, his Administration imposed a moratorium on federal executions, and his actions today will prevent the next Administration from carrying out the execution sentences that would not be handed down under current policy and practice,” the White House said. 

‘SQUAD’ DEM APPLAUDS BIDEN FOR SPARING MURDERERS FROM ‘RACIST’ DEATH PENALTY IN 11TH-HOUR CLEMENCY MOVE

Three federal inmates whose death sentences were not commuted are Robert Bowers, who is responsible for the mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018, which left 11 people dead; Dylann Roof, a White supremacist who killed nine Black parishioners at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who worked with his now-dead brother to perpetrate the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that killed three people and injured hundreds.

Biden said the move would prevent the incoming Trump administration from carrying out the executions. 

“In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted,” he said. 

The action came after Biden commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 prisoners placed in home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic and pardoned 40 others, including his son, Hunter.

As of Dec. 13, Biden has pardoned a total of 65 individuals and commuted sentences for 1,634 inmates during his time as president, according to the Department of Justice.

Hunter Biden flashes a big smile as he leaves an Arby’s  in Santa Barbara on Wednesday, December 4, 2024. This is the first time that the son of President Joe Biden has been photographed since he was pardoned by his father. (The Image Direct for Fox News Digital)

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“The President has issued more sentence commutations at this point in his presidency than any of his recent predecessors at the same point in their first terms,” White House officials said in a previous statement.

Trump has taken a tough stance on the death penalty, previously suggesting that drug dealers should be eligible for the ultimate punishment. 

“We’re going to be asking everyone who sells drugs, gets caught selling drugs, to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts,” Trump said earlier this year on the campaign trial. “Because it’s the only way.”

Allies of Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., are urging President-elect Trump to publicly reaffirm support for the House GOP leader to avoid a messy, protracted battle that could delay the certification of his own victory.

“If we have some kind of protracted fight where we can’t elect a speaker — the speaker’s not elected; we’re not sworn in. And if we’re not sworn in, we can’t certify the election,” Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., told Fox News Digital.

“I would hope that President Trump would chime in and talk to those who are maybe a little hesitant, and say, ‘We’ve got to get going. We don’t have time.’”

Meanwhile, Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas, told Fox News Digital “it would be immensely helpful” if Trump chimed in.

TOP TRUMP AIDES JOIN GROUP PREPPING TO SHORE UP SUPPORT FOR MAGA AGENDA

Speaker Mike Johnson’s allies are looking to President-elect Trump for help to avoid a messy, protracted speakership race (Getty Images)

“Any time would be great, but right after Christmas if President Trump said, ‘You know, listen’ — it would even be really cool if somehow Mike Johnson ended up at Mar-a-Lago for Christmas… wherever the president is,” Fallon said. “I think it would be incredibly powerful.”

House lawmakers are returning to Washington, D.C., for a chamber-wide vote to elect the speaker on Friday, Jan. 3. Just days later, on Monday, Jan. 6, the House will meet to certify the results of the 2024 election.

Johnson is facing a potentially bruising battle to win the speaker’s gavel for a full Congressional term, with several House Republicans vocally critical of the Louisiana Republican and his handling of government funding.

His predecessor went through 14 public defeats in his quest to win the gavel, finally securing it after days of negotiations with holdouts on the 15th House-wide vote.

When he was ousted, Johnson won after a three-week inter-GOP battle that saw Congress paralyzed for its duration.

But some House Republicans are now warning that they can afford few delays in what Trump himself said he hopes will be a very active first 100 days of his second term.

“To ensure President Trump can take office and hit the ground running on Jan. 20, we must be able to certify the 2024 election on Jan. 6. However, without a speaker, we cannot complete this process,” Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., told Fox News Digital. 

Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas, is one of Johnson’s defenders (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Tenney warned it could delay “the launch of his agenda.”

Congress narrowly avoided a partial government shutdown hours after the Dec. 20 federal funding deadline, passing a bill to extend that deadline to March 14 while also extending several other key programs and replenishing the FEMA Disaster Relief Fund.

It angered GOP hardliners who opposed the addition of unrelated policy riders to what they believed would be a more straightforward government funding extension.

Johnson also tried and failed to heed Trump’s demand to pair action on the debt limit — which was suspended until January 2025 — with his government funding bill, after 38 House Republicans and all but two Democrats voted against it.

Fallon told Fox News Digital that it did not necessarily mean they would defy Trump if he backed Johnson again ahead of Jan. 3.

“Some of the people in the 38 — that was more of a principle thing — they really want to attack the debt,” Fallon said. “They felt like just letting the debt ceiling latch for two years — they like to use that as a negotiating tool to say, ‘Let’s reduce the debt to GDP ratio.'”

SENATE PASSES BILL TO STOP SHUTDOWN, SENDING IT TO PRESIDENT BIDEN’S DESK

But one of Johnson’s biggest critics, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., has already told reporters he is not voting for Johnson next year.

Two more, House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md., and Rep. Michael Cloud, R-Texas, suggested they were no longer committed to backing Johnson over the weekend.

Meanwhile, there have been media reports that Trump is unhappy with how Johnson handled government funding and that his demand for the debt limit was not heeded. 

Trump himself has not mentioned Johnson publicly since the Friday vote. But top Trump allies, like Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, have come to Johnson’s defense.

It took 15 rounds of voting for ex-Speaker Kevin McCarthy to win the gavel (Valerie Plesch)

“He’s undoubtedly the most conservative Speaker of the House we’ve had in our lifetime,” Cruz said on his podcast “The Verdict.” “If Mike Johnson is toppled as Speaker of the House, we will end up with a speaker of the House who is much, much more liberal than Mike Johnson.”

Others have also signaled that Trump’s influence will weigh heavily on what ultimately happens.

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One House Republican granted anonymity to speak freely told Fox News Digital early last week that they considered opposing Johnson but said Trump would be the final deciding factor.

“I think, ultimately, it’s going to be decided who President Trump likes, because I believe that will weigh in heavily on the decision-making of that, because, currently, President Trump works very well with Mike Johnson. They have a great relationship,” Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., told CNN’s “State of the Union.”

When asked if he would support Johnson if Trump did, despite opposing his government funding plans, Burchett said “Possibly.”

Johnson will head into the Jan. 3 speaker vote with just a slim GOP margin of three votes — and is virtually unlikely to get Democratic support.

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

**Please note that while we plan on publishing tomorrow, Dec. 24, the newsletter will take a short hiatus for the Christmas holiday, returning on Monday, Dec. 30.***

Here’s what’s happening…

-TikTok divestment could be ‘deal of the century’ for Trump, House China Committee chair says

-Trump names several new White House picks to work on AI, crypto and more: ‘America First Patriots’

–Gaetz sues to block release of Ethics Committee report

$1 Trillion Worth of Grievances

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is calling out the Biden administration for spending over a trillion taxpayer dollars on “government waste” this year, including on a bearded lady cabaret show, Arabic Sesame Street, and “girl-centered climate action.”

The Kentucky senator released his annual “Festivus” report that details different ways in which the current administration spent taxpayer dollars throughout the year. 

The 2024 Festivus Waste Report found that the Biden-Harris administration spent over $1 trillion this year, including giving a $10,000 grant to “Beards on Ice” — an ice skating drag show on climate change put on by the Bearded Ladies Cabaret, a self-described “queer cabaret arts organization.”…Read more

White House

LOOKING BACK: Six household appliances that have taken heat from Biden’s crackdown on regulations…Read more

OFF THE NAUGHTY LIST?: Biden admin lifts $10M bounty on the head of leader of Islamist group now in charge in Syria…Read more

‘ACT OF COMPASSION’: ‘Squad’ Dem applauds Biden for sparing murderers from ‘racist’ death penalty in 11th-hour clemency move…Read more

SEE THE VICTIMS: Biden spares federal death row inmates: Murderers targeted sailor, young girls, law enforcement…Read more

Krystal Tobias, 9, left, and her friend Laura Hobbs, 8, who were killed by Jorge Avila-Torrez in Zion, Ill., in May 2005. Former Marine Jorge Avila-Torrez, who pleaded guilty to killing Tobias and Hobbs, reportedly was a friend of Tobias’ older brother at the time of their deaths.  (Zion Police Department/Getty Images)

BLOWING SMOKE: How Biden’s last-minute emissions target may prove short-lived when Trump takes office…Read more

‘SOFT ON CRIME’: Republicans hammer Biden for federal death row commutations ahead of leaving office…Read more

World Stage

CANAL CLASH: Panama’s president hits back at Trump idea to reclaim key canal…Read more

FALL OF ASSAD: Why 2024 was a very bad year for Iran…Read more

Iran’s religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (R) meets Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad (L) in Tehran, Iran on February 25, 2019.  (IRANIAN LEADER PRESS OFFICE / HANDOUT/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Trump Transition

BUILDING SUPPORT: Top Trump aides join group prepping to shore up support for MAGA agenda during second term…Read more

Capitol Hill

‘RAPID’ DECLINE: Retiring GOP congresswoman’s decline has been ‘very rapid,’ son says…Read more

Retiring Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, appeared for the unveiling of her portrait as Appropriations Committee Chairwoman in Washington, D.C., in November. (The Office of Kay Granger)

SEXUAL MISCONDUCT: House report accuses Matt Gaetz of paying women for sex, using illegal drugs, accepting improper gifts…Read more

Across America

SKIRTING THE RULES: Watchdog releases report highlighting the worst ethics violations it saw from public officials in 2024…Read more

FIRED: New York Gov. Hochul orders prison staffers involved in inmate’s deadly beating to be fired…Read more

LUIGI PLEADS NOT GUILTY: Ivy League suspect in UnitedHealthcare CEO’s killing pleads not guilty…Read more

Luigi Mangione appears for his arraignment at Manhattan Criminal Court on December 23, 2024 in New York City. Mangione, 26, was arraigned on state murder charges in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Manhattan street on December 4.  (Curtis Means-Pool/Getty Images)

‘SHEER INSANITY’: Conservative watchdog puts ‘sanctuary’ officials on notice ahead of Trump deportation push…Read more

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

After the White House announced President Joe Biden’s decision to commute the sentences of nearly all the inmates on federal death row, Republicans slammed him for being “soft-on-crime.”

“Joe Biden is an addled, corrupt, and demented failure. The White House has become a memory care facility as Biden is led around by his corrupt kids and his Marxist staffers. That’s why 37 depraved murderers have clemency,” wrote Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., on X. 

TOP TRUMP AIDES JOIN GROUP PREPPING TO SHORE UP SUPPORT FOR MAGA AGENDA DURING SECOND TERM

President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the economy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, U.S. December 10, 2024.  (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo)

Cotton is the incoming chairman of both the Senate GOP conference and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. 

House Majority whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., told Fox News Digital in a statement, “Unfortunately, this is not surprising given that the Biden-Harris administration has let murderers and rapists come in through our southern border for the last four years. Joe Biden’s soft-on-crime record is exactly why voters fired him and reelected President Trump on November 5.”

SENATE PASSES BILL TO STOP SHUTDOWN, SENDING IT TO PRESIDENT BIDEN’S DESK

Sen. Tom Cotton is slamming Kamala Harris over her refusal to be clear about her changing policy positions from 2020. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

“Violent murderers should not have their sentences commuted,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said on X. “We must end soft-on-crime policies.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., labeled the move “a slap in the face to the families who have suffered immeasurably at the hands of these animals.”

While Republicans made their displeasure known, Biden’s announcement was celebrated by some Democrats. 

BRIEF GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN USHERED IN BEFORE CHRISTMAS AS SENATE WORKS TO ADVANCE HOUSE BILL

U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (C), accompanied by U.S. House Majority Whip Rep. Tom Emmer (L), and U.S. House Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise (R) speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill on Nov. 19, 2024 in Washington, D.C. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

“The President’s decision today provides accountability with a term of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole and ensures that these individuals never again pose a threat to public safety, but without implicating the myriad issues associated with capital punishment. I have long advocated for the abolition of the federal death penalty and commend President Biden for this act of justice and mercy and for his leadership,” said Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., in a statement. 

SENATE DEMS RAIL AGAINST ‘SHADOW SPEAKER’ BILLIONAIRE ELON MUSK: ‘NOT ELECTED TO ANYTHING’

Rep. Jayapal applauded the Biden administration. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

In her own statement, Congressional Progressive Caucus Chairwoman Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., said, “This is a historic day in America. We thank President Biden for this extraordinary act to spare the 37 individuals facing the death penalty, a discriminatory and fundamentally inhumane punishment. This is a powerful use of executive action to save lives and deliver justice.” 

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She had previously encouraged the administration to take such action. 

Biden’s death penalty commutations came after he already rolled out commutations for roughly 1,500 people’s sentences in the largest single-day act of clemency. 

EXCLUSIVE: Republican Rep. Mike Lawler of New York, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is charging that overseas conflicts escalated under the Biden administration.

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken testified before the committee in December after a report on the administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, where he was pressed to “take responsibility” for the widespread conflicts that erupted across the globe following the deadly event.

Speaking with Fox News Digital on Monday, Lawler delved into the report that claimed the Biden administration “has left the world in a worse off place than it inherited it” — beginning with the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

“The report on the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan is his legacy and that of the Biden administration, because in my estimation, it’s set about a series of events around the globe that have left us in the most precarious place since World War Two, starting with that disastrous withdrawal in Afghanistan that resulted in the death of 13 U.S. service members,” Lawler told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview.

NEW REPORT WARNS OF GROWING NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT TO U.S. AS CHINA BUILDS AI: ‘SIGNIFICANT AND CONCERNING’

Representative Mike Lawler, a Republican from New York, during a news conference at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, March 6, 2024. (Tierney L. Cross)

The congressman detailed several tragic events under the Biden administration that followed the Afghanistan withdrawal, such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Oct. 7 terrorist attack in Israel, threats in the Indo-Pacific from China, and the “illicit” oil trade between China and Iran that Lawler says is “funding terrorism.”

EXPERTS WARN SYRIAN REBEL VICTORY POSES ‘WILDLY COMPLEX’ NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT: ‘WHO KNOWS WHAT’S NEXT?’

“This administration has left the world in a worse off place than it inherited it. And that, in my view, is the legacy of the Biden-Harris administration and that of Secretary Blinken,” the New York Republican said.

Lawler added that while national security has appeared in the most “precarious” position since WW2, foreign policy will soon look different under the incoming Trump administration.

A sign displaying photos and names of the 13 service members killed in a terrorist attack at Abbey Gate outside Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport is seen during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 9, 2024 in Washington, DC.  (Kent Nishimura)

“I think President Trump obviously had four years in which there was greater peace and prosperity around the globe. And the difference between Biden and Trump is that Biden is unable to stop conflicts. Trump is willing to act,” Lawler told Fox. “When you are strong, when your adversaries acknowledge and understand that you are willing to act and strike. They think twice about it.”

Lawler also said that he thinks “President Trump will be a very strong leader when it comes to foreign policy, when it comes to bringing these conflicts to an end.”

President-elect Donald Trump speaks at AmericaFest, Sunday, Dec. 22, 2024, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)

Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., will serve as chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee next Congress, where Lawler says there will be “a lot of the focus is going to be on reauthorizing the State Department operations,” such as how the agency programs operate and how its funds are used.

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“I think, obviously, with President Trump coming in, the foreign policy of the United States is going to change,” Lawler said of the incoming administration. “It is going to be much stronger, much more unforgiving on our adversaries. And certainly seek to bring these conflicts to an end.”