Donald Trump Poll News

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., is seeing more staff turnover as he fosters his reputation as a sometimes-rebellious Democrat. 

Two top staffers are leaving Fetterman, a source familiar confirmed to Fox News Digital.

Both Deputy Chief of Staff and Legislative Director Tré Easton and Communications Director Charlie Hills decided to leave the Pennsylvania senator’s office, as NBC News first reported. 

SCOOP: TOP GOP SEN. COTTON TO MEET WITH EMBATTLED TRUMP DEFENSE NOMINEE AS DOUBTS SWIRL

In a statement, Easton said, “Working for John afforded me the opportunity to build a diligent policy team from scratch,” per NBC News. 

“Together we created a legislative body of work that I think is a blueprint for how Democrats should be governing when they have power. I’ll forever be grateful,” he continued. 

Easton and Hills are only the latest departures from the controversial Democrat’s office. 

In early 2024, three communications staffers for the senator all left within the span of one month. Former Communications Joe Calvello, former Deputy Communication Director Nicholas Gavio and former Digital Aide Emma Mustion each departed, taking on roles with other Democratic lawmakers and with a progressive political party, respectively. 

BATTLE OF THE CHAMBERS: TRUMP BUDGET TEST VOTE CLEARED IN SENATE AS HOUSE GOP LAGS BEHIND

The departures didn’t end there, however. 

After getting a new communications chief in Carrie Adams, she virtually disappeared from the Senate hallways after publicly disagreeing with Fetterman in an August 2024 conversation with the Free Press. 

“I don’t agree with him,” the publication quoted Adams as saying about her boss’ stance on Israel and its war with Hamas. 

Her absence around the Capitol left reporters wondering whether she was still in the senator’s office. 

It wasn’t reported until last month that Adams had stopped working for Fetterman. 

MCCONNELL’S MENTAL ACUITY TARGETED BY TRUMP AFTER EX-SENATE LEADER JOINS DEMS AGAINST CABINET NOMINEES

Since entering the Senate, Fetterman has made waves due, in part, to his colorful vocabulary and also his willingness to cross the aisle and side with Republicans, particularly when it comes to supporting Israel. 

The Democrat notably expressed openness to President Donald Trump’s proposal to annex Gaza, bringing it under U.S. control. “It’s a provocative part of the conversation, but it’s part of the conversation, and that’s where we are,” he told Jewish Insider. 

Fetterman has also been willing to buck his party on illegal immigration. He signed onto Republicans’ Laken Riley Act recently, an immigration bill deemed too harsh and too broad by most Democrats. He was the first Democrat to co-sponsor the bill. 

DEMS TORCHED OVER DOGE SECURITY CLAIMS AFTER ALLOWING ‘WIDE-OPEN’ BORDER, ‘EMPOWERING IRAN’

“Laken Riley’s story is a tragic reminder of what’s at stake when our systems fail to protect people. No family should have to endure the pain of losing a loved one to preventable violence. Immigration is what makes our country great. I support giving authorities the tools to prevent tragedies like this one while we work on comprehensive solutions to our broken system,” the senator said in a statement at the time. 

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The Pennsylvania senator has further crossed the ideological threshold on multiple occasions to back Trump cabinet nominees, in some cases being the only Democratic supporter. 

Fetterman’s office did not immediately provide comment to Fox News Digital. 

President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy exchanged terse insults on Wednesday, following meetings between the U.S. and Russian officials in Saudi Arabia Tuesday without representatives from Ukraine. 

Trump repeatedly has said that he is the only one who can bring an end to the war between Ukraine and Russia, and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump was in contact with Zelenskyy and was working to ensure “that all parties are heard” during the peace talks. 

Yet Ukraine’s absence from the negotiations Tuesday appears to have exacerbated a wedge between Washington and Kyiv. 

While Zelenskyy accused Trump of perpetuating Russian “disinformation” on Wednesday, Trump clapped back and labeled Zelenskky a “dictator” who has failed his country. 

“A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left. In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only ‘TRUMP,’ and the Trump Administration, can do,” Trump said in a social media post Wednesday. 

“I love Ukraine, but Zelenskyy has done a terrible job, his Country is shattered, and MILLIONS have unnecessarily died,” Trump said. 

RUSSIA, UKRAINE TAKE ‘SIGNIFICANT FIRST STEP TOWARD PEACE’ AFTER RUBIO-LED NEGOTIATIONS, WHITE HOUSE INSISTS

Trump’s post included a series of inaccurate statements, including that Zelenskyy “talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start.” Meanwhile, Congress has appropriated $175 billion since 2022 for aid to Ukraine, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. 

Trump’s comments build on statements he delivered Tuesday at his Florida Mar-a-Lago estate, where he said that Russia wasn’t the only one exerting pressure to force Ukraine to hold an election. One of Russia’s conditions for signing a peace deal includes Ukraine holding an election, nearly a year after Zelenskyy’s five-year term was slated to end. 

But Zelenskyy has remained in his position leading Kyiv because the Ukrainian constitution bars holding elections under martial law. Ukraine has been under martial law since February 2022. 

Additionally, Trump chastised Ukraine on Tuesday for not ending the war sooner, and also appeared to suggest that Ukraine started the conflict, even though Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

‘MAKE NATO GREAT AGAIN’: HEGSETH PUSHES EUROPEAN ALLIES TO STEP UP DEFENSE EFFORTS 

“I think I have the power to end this war, and I think it’s going very well. But today I heard, ‘Oh, we weren’t invited,'” Trump said Tuesday at Mar-a-Lago. “Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it three years (ago). You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.”

In response, Zelensky delivered his own jabs toward Trump, and said the U.S. president lived in a “disinformation space” peddling inaccurate information that originated from Russia. 

“We have seen this disinformation,” Zelenskyy said at a news conference Wednesday before meeting with retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellog, the U.S. special envoy for Ukraine and Russia. “We understand that it is coming from Russia.”

“I think Putin and the Russians are very happy, because questions are discussed with them,” Zelenskyy said. 

Zelenskyy has stressed in recent days that Ukraine must be involved in negotiations for a peace deal with Russia, and said Sunday that Ukraine wouldn’t accept a peace deal if his country was absent from negotiations. 

He also announced Tuesday he would postpone a scheduled trip to Saudi Arabia until March, after revealing during a joint press conference with Turkish President Recept Tayyip Erdoğan that Ukraine wasn’t invited to the U.S.-Russia discussions in Riyadh.  

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff met in Riyadh with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and President Vladimir Putin’s foreign affairs advisor Yuri Ushakov to hash out ways to end the conflict. 

TOP RUSSIAN, US OFFICIALS MEET IN SAUDI ARABIA TO BEGIN TALKS ON UKRAINE WAR WITHOUT OFFICIALS FROM KYIV

The first action the U.S. plans to take after the meetings with Russian officials is to “reestablish the functionality of our respective missions in Washington and in Moscow,” Rubio told reporters from the Associated Press and CNN.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“For us to be able to continue to move down this road, we need to have diplomatic facilities that are operating and functioning normally,” Rubio said, according to a State Department transcript. 

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and Trump vowed on the campaign trail in 2024 that he would work to end the conflict if elected again.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Three new national polls released on Wednesday indicate President Donald Trump’s approval ratings are edging down slightly since taking over the White House one month ago.

Forty-five percent of voters questioned in a Quinnipiac University survey said they approve of the way Trump is handling his job as president, with 49% disapproving.

That’s down from a 46%-43% approval/disapproval in a Quinnipiac poll conducted in late January, during the president’s first week back in office following his inauguration.

And a new national poll from Gallup indicated the president at 45% approval and 51% disapproval, down from 47%-48% approval/disapproval late last month.

CLICK HERE FOR FOX NEWS COVERAGE OF TRUMP’S FIRST 100 DAYS

And according to a Reuters/Ipsos national survey also released on Wednesday, the president stood at 44% approval and 51% disapproval. Trump registered at 45%-46% approval/disapproval in the previous poll by Reuters/Ipsos, which was conducted late last month during the first week of the president’s second administration.

The latest Quinnipiac poll was conducted Feb. 13-17, with Gallup in the field Feb. 3-16, and Reuters/Ipsos conducting their survey Feb. 13-18.

HEAD HERE FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS POLLING

Recent surveys from other polling organizations indicate Trump’s approval ratings remain above water.

Trump has kept up a frenetic pace during his opening weeks back in the White House, with an avalanche of executive orders and actions. His moves not only fulfilled some of his major campaign trail promises, but also allowed the returning president to flex his executive muscles, quickly put his stamp on the federal government, take a meat cleaver to the federal workforce, and also settle some longstanding grievances.

Trump has signed nearly 70 executive orders since his inauguration, according to a count from Fox News, which far surpasses the rate of any recent presidential predecessors during their first weeks in office.

The president, never shy about advertising his accomplishments, took to social media last week to tout “THREE GREAT WEEKS, PERHAPS THE BEST EVER.”

And at a news conference Tuesday, Trump argued that “incredible things are happening in our country.”

“I think we’ve made more progress in three weeks than they’ve made in four years,” he added, as he appeared to point to his predecessor in the White House, former President Biden.

While Trump’s approval ratings for his second term are an improvement from his first term — he started in 2017 in negative territory and remained underwater throughout his tenure in the White House — his numbers are below where Biden began his single term in office.

Biden’s approval rating hovered in the low to mid 50s during his first six months in the White House, with his disapproval in the upper 30s to low to mid 40s. 

However, Biden’s numbers sank into negative territory in the late summer and autumn of 2021, in the wake of his much-criticized handling of the turbulent U.S. exit from Afghanistan and amid soaring inflation and a surge of migrants crossing into the U.S. along the nation’s southern border with Mexico.

Biden’s approval ratings stayed underwater throughout the rest of his presidency.

The new polls indicate a massive partisan divide over Trump’s performance.

Nine in 10 Republicans questioned in the Quinnipiac survey gave Trump a thumbs-up. But his approval dropped to 43% among independents and just 4% among Democrats.

It was a similar story in the Gallup poll.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“Ninety-three percent of Republicans, 37% of independents and 4% of Democrats approve of Trump’s job performance overall,” the release from Gallup highlighted.

Meanwhile, the Gallup poll noted that while Trump’s ratings have edged down, Americans’ approval of Congress has surged 12 points since early January, to 29% in their latest survey. That’s the highest approval rating for Congress in Gallup polling since May 2021.

The Trump administration revised federal acquisition rules this week requiring the government to stop considering diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) when awarding contracts. This change aligns with the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) broader efforts to fundamentally transform federal operations.

The General Services Administration (GSA) on Tuesday announced changes to the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) that are meant to align with the president’s executive order aimed at restoring meritocracy and ending discrimination in the public and private sectors. The move reverses previous Biden administration executive orders that made it mandatory to consider DEI when reviewing contract proposals. 

Elon Musk, who has been leading the charge to radically reform the government, praised the move on X, formerly Twitter, in advance of the GSA’s formal announcement about the changes. “Major FAR reform is needed,” Musk said in a post highlighting GSA acting administrator Stephen Ehikian’s announcement about the changes. 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION CANCELS ANOTHER $350M IN ‘WOKE’ SPENDING FOR CONTRACTS, GRANTS

“These actions are the first steps in transforming the FAR into a sensible, common sense guideline to ensure that the federal government is working with industry as an attractive partner for business,” Josh Gruenbaum, commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service, told Fox News Digital on Wednesday. 

“Coming from private industry, I know how convoluted working through government regulations that don’t make sense can be. We’re going to streamline the FAR and make it industry friendly, more efficient, and deliver cost savings and better value.”

FEDERAL JUDGE TEMPORARILY STOPS TRUMP ADMIN FROM FIRING 11 INTELLIGENCE OFFICERS ASSIGNED TO DEI PROGRAMS

Trump’s Day One executive order, which the GSA is aligning its actions with, directed the federal contracting process to “be streamlined to enhance speed and efficiency, reduce costs, and require Federal contractors and subcontractors to comply with our civil-rights laws.” The order also commanded the Office of Federal Contract Compliance to “immediately cease” promoting “diversity,” as well as any encouragement of federal contractors and subcontractors to engage in affirmative action-like efforts that consider race, color, sex, sexual preference, religion or national origin when making hiring decisions.

Trump’s order added that the heads of each executive agency must begin including contractual language that requires federal contractors to agree to comply with federal anti-discrimination laws. Meanwhile, language associated with DEI principles was also ordered to be removed from any federal acquisition, contracting, grant or financial assistance procedures.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“The steps taken by GSA will make it easier for industry to sell their products and services to the government,” acting administrator Ehikian said Tuesday. “GSA is leading the way in transforming government and strongly encourages other agencies to follow our lead.”

Trump and fellow Republicans have pushed hard against DEI policies in recent weeks, making the case that the government should instead focus on meritocracy. DOGE claims it has already addressed hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in DEI-related contract cuts, including $350 million at the Department of Education last week. 

Last month, DOGE announced that taxpayers would see just over a $1 billion savings through the elimination of 104 DEI contracts. 

An immigration judge appointed by former President Joe Biden is lashing out after being fired by President Donald Trump.

“It was political,” Judge Kerry Doyle said, according to a report from WGBH.

Doyle, who worked in Massachusetts, was one of more than 20 immigration judges fired in recent days without explanation, with Doyle saying she received an email from the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) last week that read the agency had “determined that retaining” her was “not in the best interest of the agency.”

Administrative judges like Doyle do not have the same protection from firing as federal judges, who are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate to fill lifetime terms.

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION FIRES MORE THAN A DOZEN IMMIGRATION JUDGES

Nevertheless, Doyle told WGBH in an interview that Trump’s decision will undermine faith in the nation’s immigration system.

“If you start making it political, it really does blow the system up and blow up people’s faith in the system,” said Doyle, who previously helped lead a court challenge against Trump’s 2017 travel ban for people from multiple Muslim-majority countries. “None of us were there to drive a political agenda. We were there to do our jobs.”

Doyle noted that many judges in the Boston area have served on the immigration court across multiple administrations, arguing that those appointed to fill the roles don’t act in a partisan manner.

“It would be problematic for it to be political because what civil servants do is they serve the public – we swear an oath to the Constitution,” she said.

But the firings have raised concerns that the already large backlog of immigration cases will now take even longer to clear, with International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers President Matthew Biggs pointing out that a single judge can rule on 500 to 700 cases per year.

US IMMIGRATION BACKLOG REACHES NEW RECORD OF 3 MILLION PENDING CASES: REPORT

“Look up the definition of ‘hypocrisy.’ It’s ‘when someone says one thing but does another.’ The firing of immigration judges when we need more judges to enforce our immigration laws by this administration is a perfect example of hypocrisy,” Briggs, whose organization represents the nation’s roughly 700 immigration judges, told WGBH.

Massachusetts alone has a backlog of about 160,000 cases, the report notes. Doyle was readying to take over the cases of a colleague who had just left the court, meaning some of those cases could now be on an extended timeline.

“Those cases will have to be handed out to all the other judges. So it’s going to be even more work for them,” she said. “They need every judge, every person available. And so it will just make the court more congested. Folks are working very hard already.”

The report notes that the recent firings are not the first time a new administration has fired judges, pointing to a 2021 example in which Judge Marna Rusher, who was hired by Trump, was fired shortly after Biden took office.

CLICK TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

But Doyle had less of an issue with that decision, reasoning Biden’s decision was less likely to be “politically motivated.”

“Maybe it’s just that each president wants to have his imprimatur and people who will follow his agenda. I don’t know,” Doyle said. “I don’t think that I would call that politically motivated in as much as they think they have a better idea for America and fairly treating people that come across the border.”

FIRST ON FOX: GOP Sen. Joni Ernst sent a letter to newly confirmed Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins calling for cooperation on key measures to address the bird flu epidemic ravaging farms across the country. 

“We know many pressing concerns await you as you begin your new role. We write to ask that you enhance the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) response to the ongoing outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in our nation’s animal agriculture sector, which we greatly appreciate you announcing as a top priority in your testimony before the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry,” the letter from Ernst, a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, states. 

“The United States is now entering the fourth year of an outbreak of HPAI that has devastated farms, required the depopulation of more than 136 million birds on commercial poultry operations, and infected a small but growing number of farm workers. A new urgency is required from the USDA to address the evolving situation.”

The letter promotes ways to address the crisis that have been outlined by egg and turkey farmers, including an aggressive vaccination strategy for hens and turkeys, stockpiling vaccines, and outreach to trading partners to ensure that trade is not negatively impacted. 

MINNESOTA DECLARES STATE OF EMERGENCY AS DISEASES CRIPPLE MIDWESTERN FARMS

The senators also called on the USDA to shift attention to a Biden order in 2024 that requires biosecurity audits on previously infected farms, or farms placed within a buffer zone of a control area, to be eligible for indemnities.

“In principle, this change would appear to enhance biosecurity measures and accountability for indemnity, but the rule was rushed,” the letter states. “As a result, nearly no auditors have been trained to complete these audits, and the audit itself was posted in draft form. USDA should provide adequate numbers of qualified auditors prior to enforcement of the rule.”

The letter explains that “current indemnity rates for laying hens and pullets are based on inaccurate data and are artificially low” and offers solutions on how to address that, including an egg industry proposal to revise the calculations relying on data from USDA and land grant institutions that would make the indemnities “fairer.”

BIRD FLU FOUND IN ARIZONA DAIRY CATTLE MILK AFTER BEING FIRST DETECTED IN NEIGHBORING NEVADA

“Even with revisions to indemnity formulas proposed by egg farmers, these payments will not come close to making producers whole for their losses. In reviewing indemnity activities, we would also urge you to ensure proper outreach to all farmers,” the letter says.

The bipartisan letter was signed by Democratic Sens. John Fetterman, Amy Klobuchar, Tina Smith, Raphael Warnock, Mark Warner and Jon Ossoff, and Republicans Sens. Bernie Moreno, Jerry Moran, Roger Marshall, Todd Young, Dave McCormick, Ted Budd, Thom Tillis and Chuck Grassley. 

“I’m working to protect and preserve the livelihoods of our farmers, the stability of our local economies, and our food supply chain impacted by the spread of HPAI,” Ernst told Fox News Digital in a statement. “By partnering with the Trump administration to identify solutions, we can ensure our producers have the tools they need to stop avian flu.” 

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

American farmers and those in the agricultural business continue to reel over the spread of H5N1 bird flu, which apparently shows no sign of slowing to “disaster” status, FOX Business previously reported. 

“The real crisis is that we’re going through the worst bird flu outbreak that we’ve had in the last 10 years since 2015, potentially the worst bird flu outbreak that we’ve ever had in the history of this country,” Eggs Unlimited Vice President Brian Moscogiuri said on “Fox & Friends” last week. 

“We’ve lost 120 million birds since the beginning of 2022. In the last few months alone, since the middle of October, we’ve lost 45 million egg-laying hens,” he added. “We’ve lost a significant amount of production, more than 13%. So we’re just dealing with supply shortages. And it’s just a disaster right now because this virus is in three of the top egg-laying states in the country. It doesn’t seem like it’s stopping anytime soon.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

During her confirmation hearing, Rollins said she is “hyper focused” on finding the team to combat bird flu and other diseases.

“Secretary Rollins received the letter from Sen. Ernst and her colleagues yesterday,” a USDA spokesperson told Fox News Digital. 

“She will respond in short order and is looking forward to working with Sen. Ernst and her colleagues to tackle this critical issue. The Biden administration failed to sufficiently address the avian flu, and his inflationary economic policies only made the problem worse. The American people deserve affordable eggs, and Secretary Rollins is fully committed to taking aggressive action to combat the avian flu and help lower the price of eggs. She is working with the White House to implement a comprehensive strategy that will be rolled out very soon.”

Fox News Digital’s Kristen Altus contributed to this report

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday requesting the Domestic Policy Council to examine ways to make in vitro fertilization, known as IVF, more affordable and accessible for Americans – despite the fact Democrats cautioned that Trump would seek to ban the procedure. 

“Americans need reliable access to IVF and more affordable treatment options, as the cost per cycle can range from $12,000 to $25,000,” the executive order said. “Providing support, awareness, and access to affordable fertility treatments can help these families navigate their path to parenthood with hope and confidence.”

Specifically, the order requires the assistant to the president for domestic policy to provide a list of policy recommendations aimed at “protecting IVF access and aggressively reducing out-of-pocket and health plan costs for IVF treatment” within 90 days, according to the order. 

‘PROMISES KEPT’: TRUMP SIGNS EXECUTIVE ORDER TO ‘AGGRESSIVELY’ MAKE IVF MORE AFFORDABLE AND ACCESSIBLE 

The directive comes months after former Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate in the 2024 election against Trump, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, accused the Trump administration of being “anti-IVF.” 

Specifically, Walz singled out Trump’s running mate, then-Sen. JD Vance, a practicing Catholic who voted in June against the Right to IVF Act. The Catholic Church opposes IVF, saying unused embryos pose a moral dilemma. 

But Vance said in August 2024 he doesn’t believe all his religious views should translate to public policy since the U.S. is a “democratic society,” he told the New York Post. 

“Catholic social teaching is obviously very robust,” he told the Post. “I think that no person who, or at least no one I know who’s Catholic, doesn’t accept that just because the Catholic Church teaches something, doesn’t mean you necessarily as a legislator need to affect that to public policy.” 

The Right to IVF measure would establish a nationwide right to IVF and other assisted reproductive technology, but it failed to pass in the Senate. 

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“JD Vance opposing the miracle of IVF is a direct attack on my family and so many others,” Walz said in a social media post on X in July 2024. 

Walz previously claimed that he and his wife, Gwen, struggled to conceive and shared details during the 2024 campaign about the couple’s experience using IVF to become pregnant with their two children. 

But Gwen Walz later clarified in August 2024 in an interview with Glamour magazine that the couple actually used intrauterine insemination, known as IUI, to conceive. The process involves using a catheter to place the sperm directly into the uterus to increase odds of conception. 

DOGE SCORES BIG COURT WIN, ALLOWED ACCESS DATA ON 3 FEDERAL AGENCIES

In contrast, IVF requires the removal of a woman’s eggs and injecting them with sperm to create embryos, which then are placed back into the woman’s uterus. 

More than 85,000 babies born in 2021 were from IVF, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. 

Costly IVF treatments are rarely fully covered by health insurance, and only 25% of employers report providing coverage to their employees, according to the White House.

Trump unveiled plans in August 2024 that he’d seek to require insurance companies to cover the cost of IVF, stating he was pushing the policy “because we want more babies, to put it nicely.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

The Senate voted Tuesday to confirm the nomination of President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Small Business Administration (SBA). 

Kelly Loeffler, a prominent business executive and philanthropist who served as a senator from Georgia for two years, will now lead the agency. She unveiled plans during her confirmation hearing to reduce regulatory burdens on small business owners, and enhance access to SBA-backed loans and grants. 

The agency aims to provide small business owners with counseling, capital and contracting expertise to advance their businesses. 

Loeffler appeared before the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee Jan. 28 to outline her vision and promised that Trump’s policies would “restore the small business economy” that would lead to a “golden era of prosperity and growth.” 

TRUMP’S SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION NOMINEE ADVANCES TO THE SENATE FLOOR 

“That’s exactly what the America First agenda does — by ending inflation, cutting taxes, unleashing American energy dominance, slashing regulation, and reining in fraud, waste, and abuse across government,” Loeffler said in her opening remarks. 

Loeffler and her husband, Jeff, created a Fortune 500 financial services and technology company together, and she has told lawmakers she intends to donate her annual $207,500 salary as SBA administrator to charity.

Loeffler, whose net worth is estimated at roughly $1 billion, previously donated her annual Senate salary of $174,000 between 2019 and 2021 to more than 40 Georgia charities and nonprofits. 

Those organizations included food banks, faith groups and organizations opposed to abortion, foster care/adoption groups as well as organizations promoting health care, agriculture, education, law enforcement and disaster relief.

The Senate voted Thursday by a 51–43 margin to advance Loeffler’s nomination for the final confirmation vote.

Chair of the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, backed Loeffler’s nomination, citing Loeffler’s “zero-tolerance policy for waste, fraud and abuse” within the agency. 

Additionally, Ernst voiced support for Loeffler’s plans to conduct a full-scale audit of the SBA to weed out any wasteful spending. 

TRUMP CABINET NOMINEE LOEFFLER PLEDGED TO DONATE SALARY IF CONFIRMED 

“Senator Loeffler is immensely qualified for this role,” Ernst said on the Senate floor Thursday. “As a successful businesswoman, it is abundantly clear that Senator Loeffler truly understands what it takes to be an entrepreneur and will be an effective voice for small businesses across America.”

However, ranking member of the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass, pushed back on Loeffler’s nomination amid concern that her confirmation would pave the way for the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to “illegally cut off funding” for small business owners. As a result, he said that Trump is looking to fill his cabinet with those that will follow his “illegal bidding.” 

Markey and Loeffler also sparred during her confirmation hearing in January after the Trump administration announced Jan. 27 that it would freeze federal funds and grants that aimed to eradicate “wokeness” and the “weaponization of government.” 

TRUMP SIGNS ORDER INSTRUCTING DOGE TO MASSIVELY CUT FEDERAL WORKFORCE

While the White House rescinded the memo on Jan. 29, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the federal funding freeze remained in effect. 

As a result, Markey pressed Loeffler on whether she believed the move was lawful or not, following backlash from members of Congress that the Trump administration attempted to illegally circumvent Congress and withhold funds. 

CLICK TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“I fully agree with President Trump’s decision to stop wasteful spending,” Loeffler told Markey. “It resulted in a landslide victory that many Americans were waiting for relief against excessive government spending.” 

The Trump administration has frozen applications for three Biden-era migrant parole programs, including for Ukrainians and migrants from Latin America, as it continues to crack down on what conservatives say was an abuse of parole by the prior administration.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has implemented an agency wide administrative pause on all pending benefit requests for migrants filing under the three programs.

“This is an administrative hold on all pending USCIS Benefit Requests filed by Parolees Under the Uniting for Ukraine (U4U) Process, Processes for Haitians, Cubans, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans (CHNV) Process, or Family Reunification Parole (FRP) Process,” a DHS spokesperson told Fox News Digital. 

“This is pending the completion of additional vetting to identify any fraud, public safety, or national security concerns,” they said.

DHS SAYS IT ‘CAN, SHOULD AND WILL’ ADMINISTER POLYGRAPH EXAMS AMID ICE RAID LOCATION LEAKS

President Donald Trump had already ordered an end to multiple parole programs on his first day in office, which was quickly enacted. The DHS has also allowed for those in the U.S. on parole processes to have their parole status canceled. 

However, CBS News first reported that a Feb. 14 memo also pauses pending requests already allowed into the U.S. under three programs. The first program is Uniting for Ukraine, which used humanitarian parole to allow in Ukrainians in the wake of the Russian invasion.

The CHNV program was highly controversial and allowed for migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to receive travel authorization and fly into the United States under parole. Over 500,000 migrants flew in under that program. It was briefly paused last year after DHS discovered fraud in sponsor applications, a development first reported by Fox News Digital.

The third program impacts the family reunification parole process, which was opened up to nationals from countries including Guatemala, Ecuador, Colombia, Cuba and Haiti, and allowed nationals who have relatives who are U.S. citizens or green card holders to enter the U.S. for parole as they also apply for a green card.

“The Family Reunification Parole process promotes family unity consistent with our laws and our values,” then-DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in 2023. 

‘RAMPANT’ ABUSE IN BLUE STATE MIGRANT SHELTER SYSTEM, SAYS FORMER DIRECTOR: ‘COLOSSAL MESS’

At the time, the Biden administration said the expanded “lawful pathways” were part of an effort to reduce illegal crossings, but Republicans accused the administration of abusing limited parole power and allowing in migrants who should not legally have entered.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE IMMIGRATION COVERAGE

A DHS memo from last month said that parole “has been repeatedly abused by the Executive Branch over the past several decades in ways that are blatantly inconsistent with the statute.”

“Most important, the parole statute does not authorize categorical parole programs that make aliens presumptively eligible on the basis of some set of broadly applicable criteria,” it says.

ACTIVISTS IN MEXICO REPORT FLOW OF MIGRANTS HAS ‘ENORMOUSLY DECREASED’ ONE MONTH INTO TRUMP ADMIN

The new pause is the latest in a slew of measures to overhaul the immigration system and shake off programs championed by the Biden administration. The Trump administration has suspended refugee resettlement and has also ended the use of the CBP One app to allow migrants to be paroled into the U.S. at ports of entry.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

That is connected to a mass deportation operation launched by the administration on day one, as well as a rapid-fire series of moves to increase border security. The administration has also ordered a review of parole programs, and has also taken limits off the use of expedited removals in order to quickly remove recently-arrived illegal immigrants. 

House Democrats have a new coordinated pressure campaign aimed at restricting Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), based on leveraging the GOP’s razor-thin majority.

Recent days have seen Democratic lawmakers take to both traditional and social media to publicly urge “just three House Republicans” to cross the aisle and vote for a bill designed to stop Musk from accessing U.S. citizens’ records in the Department of Treasury. 

“I’m supporting the Taxpayer Data Protection Act because it will protect Americans’ private data from Elon Musk and his reckless DOGE employees,” Rep. Susie Lee, D-Nev., wrote on X. “Republican leadership has to let us vote. If they don’t, it only takes three lone Republicans to join us and make it happen.”

Generally, legislation needs to have the blessing of majority party leaders to get a House-wide vote. 

BLACK CAUCUS CHAIR ACCUSES TRUMP OF ‘PURGE’ OF ‘MINORITY’ FEDERAL WORKERS

But Lee’s comments appear to signal that House Democrats are prepared to use a discharge petition to end-run GOP leaders’ likely opposition. It’s a mechanism to force legislation up for a House-wide vote, provided the petition gets signatures from a majority of House lawmakers.

Meanwhile, in an MSNBC interview earlier this week, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., suggested Democrats’ highlighting of Republicans’ thin majority could be a running theme in the 119th Congress.

“What we’ve been saying to our Republican colleagues is that on any issue that the American people are concerned about, it only takes three Republicans to break with the other side of the aisle, join the 215 Democrats, and we can stop them in their tracks. It only takes three,” Jeffries said.

“Meanwhile, they’re in the witness protection program as it relates to the things that are taking place – don’t want to take a stand, don’t want to offend Elon Musk, don’t want to offend Donald Trump, but they’re really offending the people that they were elected to represent.”

SCOOP: KEY CONSERVATIVE CAUCUS DRAWS RED LINE ON HOUSE BUDGET PLAN

He stopped short of endorsing any specific legislation, however. Fox News Digital reached out to Jeffries’ office to ask if he would be supportive of a discharge petition.

Other Democrats were more targeted in their approach, like progressive Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., who wrote on X, “It’s not rocket science: an unelected billionaire should NOT have access to your personal financial info!”

“If just three House Republicans join us, we can pass a bill that stops Musk from accessing your private info. But the [House GOP] is siding with their favorite billionaire donor over everyday Americans,” Pocan wrote on Tuesday.

Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Fla., said on the site, “This isn’t complicated: allowing access to these sensitive IRS records by an unelected businessman is dangerous. We can protect your privacy if just three House Republicans join us to pass legislation that stops accessing your private information.”

It will likely be an ongoing theme for the next two years as Republicans navigate a majority of less than a handful of House seats.

The number three also coincides with how many House Republicans won districts that former Vice President Kamala Harris prevailed over Trump in last year. 

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Those Republicans – Reps. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., and Don Bacon, R-Neb. – are likely to be main targets for Democrats.

The vast majority of House Republicans have been supportive of Musk’s DOGE efforts, however, even as Democrats sound alarm bells about the billionaire’s lack of government experience and accuse him of possible conflicts of interest.

Republicans have argued that the $36 trillion national debt amounted to a fiscal crisis that called for extraordinary measures.

President Donald Trump‘s return to the White House appears to have sparked a change in tune on K Street, the heart of lobbyist influence in Washington, D.C., as several prominent lobbyist voices are now pledging to work with the new president after previously criticizing him.  

“Manufacturers are ready to work with @realDonaldTrump to roll back the federal regulatory onslaught, unleash American energy and build on the success of the pro-growth Trump Tax Cuts,” Jay Timmons, president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), posted on X after Trump’s victory, adding in a press release that he congratulates Trump on “on his historic victory and strong performance across manufacturing intensive states.”

The praise of Trump comes after years of vigorously criticizing him, including after the January 6 riot, when he said that Trump “incited violence in an attempt to retain power, and any elected leader defending him is violating their oath to the Constitution and rejecting democracy in favor of anarchy.”

Additionally, Timmons called on then-Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Trump from office.

NEW POLL REVEALS WHICH TRUMP POLICIES AMERICANS LOVE AND HATE

“What we saw on January 6th was absolutely one of the most horrifying things that any of us who love America could have ever witnessed,” Timmons said.

Timmons also said that Trump’s handling of the coronavirus appeared to have been “weaponized, and it became a political tool.”

Timmons also had a long history of praising the Biden administration for its accomplishments, saying that he “built a substantial legacy” in four years and celebrating Biden’s work on the coronavirus when he was elected by saying “it is fantastic to have a partner in the White House”, adding that “we felt like we were fighting this fight, frankly, all alone for the last year.”

In a statement to Fox News Digital, a NAM spokesperson said, “President Trump wants to grow manufacturing in the United States. The NAM is working with him to do that.” 

Shortly after Biden announced he was dropping out of the presidential race, NAM put out a press release saying that Biden “Has Rallied the World to the Cause of Democracy.”

SETH ROGEN EXPLAINS TRUMP VICTORY BY SAYING PEOPLE GOT ‘SICK OF F—ING HIPPIES DOING ACID’ IN THE STREETS

Stephen Ubl, president and chief executive officer of PhRMA, also spoke out about January 6, calling it “appalling,” and took issue with some aspects of Trump’s agenda items, including his executive order push to “Buy American,” which Ubl said would create “even more barriers to innovation and efforts to develop a vaccine for COVID-19.”

Ubl’s company, along with other organizations, filed a lawsuit in 2020 “against the Trump administration’s new rules for lowering drug prices.”

Ubl, who has donated at least $15,000 to Democrats, has struck a more positive tone since Trump’s victory, posting on X that he is “committed to working with the Trump administration and the new Congress to make our health care system work better for patients while preserving our unique ecosystem that enables greater innovation and lower costs for patients.” 

Ubl met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in early December, and PhRMA donated funds to Trump’s inauguration. 

“With President Trump now officially sworn into office, I look forward to working with his administration to address key challenges facing our industry and fighting for solutions to help patients access and afford the treatments they need,” Ubl posted on X in January. 

Neil Bradley, the vice president of the Chamber of Commerce, said after January 6 that Trump’s words and actions “have no place in a free and Democratic society” and the New York Times reported that he said the chamber is “evaluating how lawmakers voted last week during the electoral vote certification process and how they vote in the coming days when the House moves to impeach Mr. Trump when making decisions about donations.”

Bradley was also critical of President Trump’s decision to end DACA, saying in 2017 that it “runs contrary to the president’s goal of growing the U.S. economy.”

Bradley, a Democratic donor who donated to former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney after she voted to impeach Trump, said after Trump’s election that “his actions are a long overdue change in direction that will help unleash the American economy, resulting in more innovation and faster growing paychecks for American workers.”

Shortly after Trump’s victory, the Business Roundtable (BRT) put out a press release saying that it “congratulates President-elect Donald Trump on his election as the 47th President of the United States.”

“We look forward to working with the incoming Trump Administration and all federal and state policymakers.”

Before Trump’s re-election, several members of the BRT were highly critical of Trump, including CEO Joshua Bolten, who called Trump unfit for office in 2016, before he joined BRT in 2017, and donated to prominent Trump critic Liz Cheney in 2021 and 2022. 

Bolten also donated to Trump critic and former GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger in 2021 after he voted to impeach Trump. 

Kristen Silverberg, president and COO of BRT, signed a letter opposing Trump’s election in 2016, before she joined BRT in 2019, and donated several thousand dollars to Cheney’s re-election efforts after she voted to impeach Trump, FEC records show. 

Records also show that Silverberg donated multiple times to Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign against Trump in the Republican primary in 2023, as well as Chris Christie’s campaign in the same primary. 

CLICK TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

BRT hosted President Trump twice during CEO Quarterly Meetings with Bolten and Silverberg at the helm, and the group also met with then-vice presidential candidate JD Vance during their Q3 2024 meeting with CEOs in September. 

The organization pointed to Bolten and Silverberg making no public anti-Trump statements since 2016 and said they have worked “closely” with both Trump administrations on important policy initiatives. The organization also said that donations to Cheney, a former colleague, were for her reelection and not her anti-Trump efforts.

“Business Roundtable worked with President Trump to advance tax reform and USMCA during his first term, and we look forward to working together in his second to continue advancing economic policies that expand opportunity for all Americans,” BRT spokesperson Michael Steel told Fox News Digital. “Those policies include extending and strengthening the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, securing major regulatory and permitting reforms, and ensuring a skilled U.S. workforce.”

FIRST ON FOX: The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) still employs more people than it did in 2019, despite “Democrat hysteria” over recent cuts within the department’s agencies, Fox News Digital exclusively learned. 

A senior Trump administration official told Fox News Digital that there have been 6,000 departures from HHS since Jan. 20, Inauguration Day. The agency, however, still employs nearly 6,000 more people than it did in 2019, including more than 2,000 employees at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) relative to 2019 numbers, and 1,200 employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

Hiring at HHS ballooned between fiscal year 2019 and 2024, the senior Trump administration official said, with 17% more full-time employees by 2024. Fifty percent of overall jobs in the U.S. that were created in 2024 were indirect or direct government jobs, the official added. 

“Democrat hysteria about essential offices in HHS being culled — again, every operating division has either more or roughly stagnant headcount relative to” fiscal year 2019, a senior Trump administration official told Fox News Digital. 

ACADEMIC UNIONS PLAN DEMONSTRATIONS OUTSIDE HHS BUILDING, AT MED SCHOOLS, TO PROTEST TRUMP RESEARCH CUTS

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed and sworn-in as the nation’s 26th secretary of Health and Human Services on Thursday, when President Donald Trump also signed an executive order creating the Make America Healthy Again Commission, which is “investigating and addressing the root causes of America’s escalating health crisis.” The commission initially will focus its investigations into childhood chronic diseases, such as autism. 

News reports spread shortly after Kennedy’s confirmation that widespread layoffs were headed to HHS employees, including within the CDC and FDA. The Trump administration is in the midst of working to streamline the federal government by cutting overspending and stamping out potential fraud or mismanagement, which has included mass layoffs at various agencies. 

RFK JR’S HEALTH AGENDA GAINS POPULARITY AMONG STATE LAWMAKERS

The head of the FDA’s food division, Jim Jones, submitted his resignation letter Monday, according to various news reports, arguing the administration’s “indiscriminate firing” of staff in his division will be a “roadblock to achieving the Secretary’s stated objectives of making America healthy again.”

“I was looking forward to working to pursue the Department’s agenda of improving the health of Americans by reducing diet-related chronic disease and risks from chemicals in food,” Jones said. “It has been increasingly clear that with the Trump Administration’s disdain for the very people necessary to implement your agenda, however, it would have been fruitless for me to continue in this role.”

Federal employees also staged a protest outside HHS in Washington, D.C., on Friday, while a cohort of academic unions around the country are rallying the science community to join another protest outside HHS on Wednesday, billed as a “National Day of Action.”

TRUMP’S ‘MAKE AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN’ COMMISSION TO TARGET AUTISM, CHRONIC DISEASES

The Trump administration explained to Fox News Digital that those who were terminated over the weekend included probationary employees — who are individuals recently hired by the agency and still under consideration for long-term employment. 

“Not people carrying longtime essential ‘institutional’ knowledge,” the admin official said of those terminated. 

The recent HHS culling over the weekend did not include key personnel focused on emergency preparedness and response within the Administration for Strategy Preparedness and Response (ASPR), the CDC and other divisions of HHS, nor did it cull research scientists at the CDC or National Institutes of Health, or frontline healthcare providers at the Indian Health Service, employees working on Medicare and Medicaid at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or those reviewing and approving drugs or conducting inspections at FDA. 

Additionally, employees working on refugee resettlement within the Administration of Children and Families were exempt from the weekend layoffs. 

TRUMP SIGNS EXECUTIVE ORDER TO BLOCK FEDERAL MONEY FOR SCHOOLS, UNIVERSITIES WITH COVID VACCINE MANDATES 

“Cuts we made at HHS over the weekend did not compromise health and safety of Americans,” the admin official added.

Kennedy vowed during his Senate confirmation hearings that he would scrutinize the department’s previous modus operandi, remove potential financial conflicts and ensure tax dollars were spent on both bolstering healthy foods for Americans, and providing “unbiased” scientific reports. 

“We will make sure our tax dollars support healthy foods. We will scrutinize the chemical additives in our food supply. We will remove the financial conflicts of interest in our agencies,” he told the Senate Finance Committee in describing his goals. “We will create an honest, unbiased, science-driven HHS, accountable to the president, to Congress, and to the American people.”

Both Kennedy and Trump pledged on the campaign trail to “Make America Healthy Again,” including directing their focus on autism among youths in recent years. The recently minted MAHA commission will investigate chronic conditions for both adults and children, including those related to autism, which the White House said affects one in 36 children.

The commission is expected to publish “an assessment that summarizes what is known and what questions remain regarding the childhood chronic disease crisis, and include international comparisons,” within 100 days of the commission’s founding. Within 180 days, it is expected to “produce a strategy, based on the findings of the assessment, to improve the health of America’s children,” Fox Digital reported. 

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Since Kennedy’s confirmation, state-level lawmakers have introduced a wave of bills aimed at advancing priorities championed by Kennedy and the MAHA movement, including prohibiting junk food like candy and soda from school lunches and other bills aimed at amending state vaccine rules. 

Fox News Digital’s Alec Schemmel contributed to this report. 

An Arizona state bill would allow local and state authorities to shoot down drones used by drug cartels.

House Bill 2733, sponsored by Republican state Rep. David Marshall, would provide qualified immunity to authorities for injuries that may be caused by taking out an “unmanned” drone within 30 miles of the southern border. Cartels regularly use drones as a tool to monitor law enforcement activity around the border in hopes of evading them in their own smuggling operations, even using the technology to send their drugs into the country.  

Although the situation at the border is calming down, there are still plenty of issues to tackle when it comes to crime, according to one sheriff. 

BOSTON POLICE COMMISSIONER DOUBLES DOWN ON ICE RESISTANCE: ‘WE DON’T ENFORCE’ DETAINERS

“As the border gets more secure under President Trump’s new administration, we didn’t think for a second that drug cartels were just gonna go away,” Yavapai County Sheriff David Rhodes, who is the president of the Arizona Sheriffs’ Association, told Fox News Digital in an interview.

“They’re getting more creative now – drone technology for smuggling drones over the border and dropping them, you know, external loads out in the desert to be picked up. They’ve been doing that for a while, but it’s increasing in frequency. And so local law enforcement can literally see these things fly through the air, but you don’t know where they’re going,” he continued.

HOMAN TAKES VICTORY LAP AFTER ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT CROSSINGS PLUMMET DURING TRUMP ADMIN: ‘HE IS DELIVERING’

The use of small aircraft is becoming a key concern for not only local and state authorities, but also federal border agents, as an expert recently told Fox News Digital that the cartels are trying to find ways to keep the cash flowing in despite the recent border crackdown.

The state-level legislation is co-sponsored by a mix of Republicans and Democrats, which is a rare moment of bipartisanship, as some of the state’s leaders are bitterly divided on the new administration’s border and immigration policies. Still, drug interdiction has been a point of common ground in the Grand Canyon State.

ILLEGAL-SMUGGLING COYOTES NOW ADVERTISING AT CANADA BORDER AMID TRUMP MIGRANT CRACKDOWN: REPORT

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“This bill gives them the tools they need to do exactly that. Let’s empower Arizona law enforcement to disable these cartel drones. Let’s give our sheriffs the authority to fight back by passing this bill. And let’s work together to take back our border from the Mexican drug cartels,” Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes said at a news conference on Monday, as she’s been asking for a policy to be enacted on the issue as of last spring.

If the bill passes the Republican-majority legislature, it will then head to Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs’ desk. The governor’s office did not respond in time to comment on whether she plans to sign the legislation. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy lashed out at President Donald Trump on Wednesday, suggesting that Trump is in a “disinformation space” regarding peace talks with Russia.

Zelenskyy made the comments to reporters in Kyiv after canceling a trip to Saudi Arabia, where the U.S. and Russia held peace talks earlier in the week. 

“Unfortunately, President Trump – I have great respect for him as a leader of a nation that we have great respect for, the American people who always support us – unfortunately lives in this disinformation space,” Zelensky said.

Zelenskyy’s canceled trip to Saudi Arabia was widely seen as a rebuke of the agreements Trump’s team made with Russian counterparts during their Tuesday meeting there. Trump also followed up the meeting with aggressive criticism of Zelenskyy and Ukraine.

FREED AMERICAN HOSTAGE MARC FOGEL LANDS IN US AFTER YEARS IN RUSSIAN CAPTIVITY

“Today I heard, ‘Oh well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should’ve ended it after three years. You should’ve never started it. You could’ve made a deal,” Trump said, appearing to suggest Ukraine was at fault in the war.

PUTIN VIEWED AS ‘GREAT COMPETITOR’ BUT STILL A US ‘ADVERSARY’ AS UKRAINE NEGOTIATIONS LOOM, LEAVITT SAYS 

Trump envoy Keith Kellog, a retired 3-star general, arrived in Kyiv to hold talks with Zelenskyy on Wednesday. Ukrainian officials have emphasized that any peace deal will require U.S. security guarantees in order to ensure Russia does not continue the violence.

“We understand the need for security guarantees,” Kellog told Ukrainian media.

“It’s very clear to us the importance of the sovereignty of this nation and the independence of this nation as well…. Part of my mission is to sit and listen,” he added.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio led the U.S. delegation in Saudi Arabia, meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce also confirmed that Rubio’s team agreed to “lay the groundwork for cooperation” with Russia on various issues in addition to Ukraine. They also agreed to appoint “high-level teams” to begin working on a path to ending the conflict in Ukraine.

Their proposed framework for a peace agreement would see a ceasefire, followed by elections in Ukraine and the signing of a final agreement.

Reports from multiple foreign diplomatic sources say forcing Ukraine to hold new elections could be a key part of a peace deal. Both the U.S. and Russia believe Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has a low chance of winning re-election, the sources say.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“Putin assesses the probability of electing a puppet president as quite high and is also convinced that any candidate other than the current President of Ukraine will be more flexible and ready for negotiations and concessions,” the diplomatic sources said in a readout of the meeting.

Fox News’ Jacqui Heinrich and the Associated Press contributed to this report

Former Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, a pro-union Republican, will go before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) on Wednesday for a confirmation hearing to be the next Secretary of Labor. 

President Donald Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Labor will be questioned by committee senators beginning at 10 a.m. 

Chavez-DeRemer has already found an opponent in Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who is a member of HELP.

“Her support for the PRO Act, which would not only oppose national right to work, but it would preempt state law on right to work,” he previously told reporters. “I think it’s not a good thing, and it’d be sort of hard for me since it’s a big issue for me to support her. So I won’t support her.”

MCCONNELL’S MENTAL ACUITY TARGETED BY TRUMP AFTER EX-SENATE LEADER JOINS DEMS AGAINST CABINET NOMINEES

The Protecting the Right to Organize Act (PRO Act) is a piece of legislation designed to protect union workers and was introduced in Congress several years ago. It would effectively kill state-level laws that prohibit employers and unions from requiring workers to pay union dues as a condition of their employment. Republicans have traditionally supported such Right-to-Work laws, and many have opposed the PRO Act for that reason.

As of the night before the confirmation hearing, Paul was still planning to oppose Trump’s pick. “If she wanted to make a public statement saying that her support for the PRO Act was incorrect and she no longer does, then I’d think about her nomination,” he told Fox News Digital in a statement. 

 Fox News Digital asked a representative for Chavez-DeRemer whether her support for the bill had changed but did not receive a response. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., foreshadowed the questions Chavez-DeRemer would face while speaking with reporters recently. 

DEMS TORCHED OVER DOGE SECURITY CLAIMS AFTER ALLOWING ‘WIDE-OPEN’ BORDER, ‘EMPOWERING IRAN’

“[S]upport for the PRO Act is not something that most Republicans have tolerated in the past, but I think she’s attempted to address that, and my hope is that she can further clarify her position on some of those issues when she goes through the hearing process,” Thune said.  

If Paul chooses to vote “no” or abstain from voting at the committee level, Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination could fail to get a majority of “yes” votes or end up tied. However, it could still be reported and scheduled for a floor vote, without a favorable recommendation from the committee. In this case, she would need to amass 60 votes in the full Senate to move on to confirmation. 

TRUMP AGRICULTURE PICK CONFIRMED AS PRESIDENT RACKS UP CABINET WINS

Following his election in November, Trump announced Chavez-DeRemer as his choice to lead the Labor Department. 

“Lori has worked tirelessly with both Business and Labor to build America’s workforce, and support the hardworking men and women of America,” he said in a statement at the time. “I look forward to working with her to create tremendous opportunity for American Workers, to expand Training and Apprenticeships, to grow wages and improve working conditions, to bring back our Manufacturing jobs. Together, we will achieve historic cooperation between Business and Labor that will restore the American Dream for Working Families.”

TULSI GABBARD SWORN IN AT WHITE HOUSE HOURS AFTER SENATE CONFIRMATION

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“Lori’s strong support from both the Business and Labor communities will ensure that the Labor Department can unite Americans of all backgrounds behind our Agenda for unprecedented National Success — Making America Richer, Wealthier, Stronger and more Prosperous than ever before!”

Medicaid is quickly emerging as a political lightning rod as House Republicans negotiate on a massive bill to advance President Donald Trump’s agenda.

Some Republican lawmakers are worried about the level of spending cuts being sought by fiscal hawks to offset the cost of Trump’s policies, arguing the current deal could force potentially unworkable cuts on Medicaid and other federal safety net programs.

“I’m concerned that $880 billion out of [the House Energy & Commerce Committee] is likely very steep cuts to Medicaid – and it’s the very thing President Trump asked us not to do,” Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., told Fox News Digital on Tuesday.

GOP lawmakers are working to pass a broad swath of Trump policies – from investments in defense and border security to extending his 2017 tax cuts and eliminating taxes on tips – via the budget reconciliation process. The mechanism allows the party in control of both houses of Congress to pass a tax and budget bill without help from the opposing party.

KEY CONSERVATIVE CAUCUS DRAWS RED LINE ON HOUSE BUDGET PLAN

But conservative spending hawks are looking for deep cuts in federal dollars to offset money going toward Trump’s priorities. The current resolution advancing through the House would aim to cut government spending by at least $1.5 trillion, while allocating $4.5 trillion toward Trump’s tax cuts.

An amendment added after conservatives balked at that deal would cut funding going toward Trump’s tax cuts by $500 billion if at least $2 trillion total spending cuts were not reached. 

Even before the additional cuts, however, some Republicans like Bacon are concerned that the $880 billion that the Energy & Commerce Committee is tasked with cutting will negatively impact their constituents.

Conservatives have pushed back, arguing that significant cuts could be found in Medicaid work requirements. But skeptics of that argument say that the level of spending cuts being sought go past what work requirements can cover.

“We want to ensure that it’s not going to hurt… our hospitals, or our organizations that serve the developmentally disabled, and we’re asking for clarity on where the $880 billion in savings come from,” Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., the only House Republican representing part of New York City, told Fox News Digital.

She did agree with GOP rebels that there was “mismanagement” and waste to root out in those programs.

Malliotakis and other Republicans on the Ways & Means Committee tasked with writing tax policy are also uneasy about the new amendment that could cut funds allocated to their panel.

“I don’t think that is doable without affecting beneficiaries, and I’ve expressed that concern to leadership and in talking to some of my colleagues,” Malliotakis said.

Another House Republican who declined to be named told Fox News Digital that “there’s a bunch of us” who think the proposed cuts “are too big.”

“They’re trying to sell us $1.5 trillion, but in reality, there’s another $500 billion attached to it that they’re trying to cut. And it’s not going to pass,” the GOP lawmaker said.

Meanwhile, Rep. Rob Bresnahan, R-Pa., who unseated a Democrat in a close race last year, wrote on X over the weekend, “I ran for Congress under a promise of always doing what is best for the people of Northeastern Pennsylvania. If a bill is put in front of me that guts the benefits my neighbors rely on, I will not vote for it.”

GOP LAWMAKER CALLS FOR CONGRESSIONAL HEARING OVER DC PLANE CRASH

The budget reconciliation process allows legislation to advance with only GOP votes by lowering the threshold for Senate passage from two-thirds to a simple 51-seat majority. The House already operates on a simple majority.

But currently, Republicans can lose just one vote in the House to pass anything on party lines – meaning they can afford almost no dissent to get their reconciliation bill over the line.

Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., a conservative on the House Budget Committee who would not have supported the resolution last week without the last-minute amendment, told reporters last week, “Medicaid’s got to be in it. You don’t get to the [$1.5 trillion figure], much less two, without it.”

“And it’s not cuts to Medicaid. Work requirements have an $800 billion savings on it… able-bodied 40-year-old men who can work don’t need to be on Medicaid,” Norman said.

Democrats are waiting to pounce on the discord.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The House Majority PAC, which is aligned with House Democratic leadership, released a memo on Tuesday accusing Republicans of seeking to make “deep cuts” to Medicaid “to fund $4.5 trillion in tax cuts to Elon Musk and other billionaires.”

“In battleground congressional districts across the country, House Republicans are putting Medicaid on the chopping block – a move that would rip life-saving health care away from tens of thousands of their own constituents – roughly half of whom are children,” the memo said.

But according to Ways & Means Republicans, the average American household could see taxes raised by over 20% if the Trump tax cuts expired.

Bipartisan Virginia lawmakers are putting forward a criminal justice reform bill proponents say is modeled after a 2022 Florida law that featured the unlikely pairing of Gov. Ron DeSantis and rap mogul Jay-Z.

State Del. Wren Williams, R-Stuart, is spearheading the effort that already garnered the support of the entire Democratic majority in Virginia’s lower House earlier this month.

The Democratic-majority state Senate is set to vote on its version of the legislation on Wednesday, after which it will then be conferenced into a final bill for Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s review.

Williams’ legislation will offer convicts on supervised probation the ability to fulfill certain criteria in exchange for lighter treatment.

One example is that probates who can prove they are holding a job, seeking educational opportunities or partaking in rehabilitation programs for several months could see their probationary period shortened.

Those provisions and others in the bill are similar to DeSantis’ legislation from three years ago that had been championed by the Jay-Z-founded criminal justice “REFORM Alliance.”

The Florida law, authored by a Tampa Republican, allows probates to earn education and workforce credits that in turn get them out of the system faster, according to Axios.

In Virginia, Williams told Fox News Digital he was inspired both by Florida’s law and the fact that reform initiatives like the First Step Act on the federal level have been key priorities for President Donald Trump.

YOUNGKIN TO DRAFT SANCTUARY CITY BAN, MAKING STATE FUNDING CONTINGENT ON COOPERATION

“Virginia [is] offering conservative solutions that emphasize rehabilitation and second chances,” Williams said.

“Virginia’s approach mirrors Florida’s successful model, focusing on providing individuals under supervision the opportunity to reduce their probation terms by engaging in rehabilitative programs like job training, education, and mental health services.”

While typically viewed as a liberal or Democratic bailiwick, Williams added that Virginia’s legislation proves conservatives can create a consensus on reforms that also align with their values while remaining compassionate.

“By focusing on rehabilitation and offering individuals the chance to prove their commitment to change, the state has demonstrated that reducing recidivism, lowering costs, and promoting public safety are achievable goals,” he said.

Crime and reform were top issues in the last gubernatorial election, with Youngkin and former Gov. Terry McAuliffe trading barbs, including about Democrats’ “defund the police” group that had endorsed the Democrat and purportedly “criminals-first” appointees McAuliffe had made to the parole board.

YOUNGKIN INVITES NEW TRUMP ADMIN TO SETTLE IN VA OVER DC, MD

Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears, the front-running Republican gubernatorial candidate in November’s race, heartily endorsed the legislation in comments to conservative radio host John Fredericks this week.

“What I’m talking about is we have about 50,000 men and women who are on probation. And if we can give them incentives, we can get them engaged, get them education; then if you have a job, of course, then there’s something about work that dignifies the soul,” Sears said. 

“And all work, of course, is dignified. This is America, where dreams come to see the realization of it. It’s where you can say to your children, ‘You can make it in America.’”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“So I’m all for lifting up that soul,” Sears concluded.

Top Democratic candidate, former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, has also been a proponent of some criminal justice reforms, vociferously supporting the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act while in Congress.

A spokesperson for Youngkin told Fox News Digital the “governor will review any bills that come to his desk.”

In 2024, he vetoed a similar bill, HB-457, which would decrease probationary periods and establish criteria for reduction of such.

The first openly gay federal judge in D.C. spent hours Tuesday grilling the Trump administration over its attempt to codify terms of service for transgender service members in the U.S. military, seeking to determine the extent of potential harm to transgender military personnel.

At issue is a Jan. 27 executive order signed by President Donald Trump requiring the Defense Department to update its guidance regarding “trans-identifying medical standards for military service” and to “rescind guidance inconsistent with military readiness.” 

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes harshly questioned the Trump administration at length over the order, demanding to know whether it was a “transgender ban” and if the government’s position is that being transgender is an “ideology.” 

Civil rights groups this month sued to block the order on behalf of six transgender U.S. service members, arguing that the order is discriminatory and unconstitutional. They alleged it threatens U.S. national security as well as years of training and financial investments by the Department of Defense.

JUDGE DENIES DEMOCRAT-LED EFFORT TO BLOCK DOGE ACCESS, CITING LACK OF PROVEN HARM

Tuesday’s court hearing focused largely on how, or to what extent, the order might cause harm to transgender service members. While Trump has instructed that “radical gender ideology” be banned from all military branches, the executive order stopped short of detailing how the Pentagon should do this, prompting a flurry of questions and concerns from plaintiffs and the judge.

Reyes, a Biden appointee, spent much of the hearing Tuesday asking how the order would be implemented and whether the transgender service members named in the lawsuit would be removed from their roles or separated from their units.

LAWSUIT TRACKER: NEW RESISTANCE BATTLING TRUMP’S SECOND TERM THROUGH ONSLAUGHT OF LAWSUITS TAKING AIM AT EOS

“Can we agree that the greatest fighting force that world history has ever seen is not going to be impacted in any way by less than 1% of soldiers using a different pronoun than others might want to call them,” she asked DOJ attorney Jason Lynch. 

At another point in the hearing, she challenged lawyers for the Justice Department to find her a declarant or any commissioned officer who would get on the stand and tell the court that they’ve been harmed by the pronoun use of transgender military members. 

“I’ll get you a box of cigars,” Reyes told Lynch.

“If you can find someone who will tell me we’re less prepared because we have to use pronouns for a few thousand people … have at it.”

 DOGE SCORES BIG COURT WIN, ALLOWED ACCESS DATA ON 3 FEDERAL AGENCIES

Lynch noted in response that the administration is awaiting further guidance on the terms of the transgender executive order, which will determine its impact on personnel, including the six transgender plaintiffs named in the case.

That answer did little to assuage concerns of Reyes, who told Lynch the government must inform the court by Wednesday whether they can ensure that the named service members would not be removed from their roles in the military or face discrimination as a direct result of the executive order.

Should they fail to do that, the judge said, the court will reconvene Friday to consider plaintiffs’ request for a temporary restraining order.

Beyond the facts of the case, Reyes did little to disguise her displeasure with the order itself.

At one point during the hearing, she posed a hypothetical to the Justice Department’s attorney by asking, “If you were in a foxhole” with another service member, “you wouldn’t care about their gender ideology, right?”

CLICK TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

She went on to suggest Lynch would be happy to be next to someone with their commendations and bravery.

Lynch agreed he doubted that gender identity would be on his mind in that situation.

The Senate confirmed Howard Lutnick on Tuesday to serve as President Donald Trump’s secretary of commerce. 

The Republican-controlled Senate voted to confirm Lutnick on Tuesday, less than a week after senators voted to invoke cloture on his nomination. He needed a simple majority for a full Senate confirmation, getting confirmed on a 51- 45 tally on Tuesday.

Lutnick passed his procedural vote last week after the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee voted 16-12 to motion for cloture on Feb. 5. 

Lutnick said he aligns with Trump’s “trade and tariff agenda,” which seeks to remedy trade imbalances by imposing reciprocal tariffs. His confirmation indicates a milestone for Trump’s America First policy agenda. 

US WILL BE ‘FLOODED WITH JOBS’ AS FOREIGN NATIONS AVOID TARIFFS, TRUMP SAYS

Lutnick, chair and CEO of investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald, is one of the wealthiest people to serve in a presidential administration. Lutnick vowed to divest his financial interests upon confirmation to remain impartial. 

TRUMP’S BILLIONAIRE COMMERCE SECRETARY PICK VOWS TO SELL ALL HIS BUSINESS INTERESTS IF CONFIRMED

“My plan is to only serve the American people. So I will divest, meaning I will sell all of my interests, all of my business interests, all of my assets, everything,” Lutnick said. “I’ve worked together with the Office of Government Ethics, and we’ve reached agreement on how to do that, and I will be divesting within 90 days upon my confirmation.”

During his confirmation hearing on Jan. 29, Lutnick said he would sell his businesses and elect someone else to lead them once confirmed. Lutnick aligned closely with Trump’s trade and tariff policies during the hearing. He said it’s “nonsense” that tariffs create inflation and advocated for reciprocity. 

“We are treated horribly by the global trading environment. They all have higher tariffs, non-tariff trade barriers and subsidies. They treat us poorly. We need to be treated better. We can use tariffs to create reciprocity,” Lutnick said.

Trump last week directed federal agencies to explore the implementation of reciprocal tariffs to remedy tariff imbalances imposed by countries that sell American products. The presidential memorandum directed Lutnick to study reciprocal trade relations within 180 days. Lutnick said Thursday he will have the report ready by April 1. 

Trump also announced last week a 25% tariff on all steel and aluminum imports from all countries, adding up to a 35% tariff for Chinese steel and aluminum imports. The tariffs are set to begin March 12. 

Trump nominated Lutnick to serve as commerce secretary two weeks after he was elected. Lutnick was a co-chair of Trump’s 2024 presidential transition team. 

“I am thrilled to announce that Howard Lutnick, Chairman & CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, will join my Administration as the United States Secretary of Commerce. He will lead our Tariff and Trade agenda, with additional direct responsibility for the Office of the United States Trade Representative,” Trump said in the announcement.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Trump praised Lutnick’s leadership during the presidential transition and said he “created the most sophisticated process and system to assist us in creating the greatest Administration America has ever seen.”

The Senate voted Tuesday along party lines to advance the nomination of Kash Patel, President Donald Trump’s pick for FBI director, clearing a procedural hurdle to set up a final vote on the controversial Trump ally to lead the federal law enforcement agency.

Lawmakers in the Upper Chamber voted 48-45 to advance Patel’s nomination, as Democrats hold concerns that he would operate as a loyalist for the president and target the administration’s political enemies.

This sets up a final confirmation vote later in the week. Some of Trump’s other more controversial picks — including new Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — have received enough support from Republican lawmakers seeking to fall in line to push the president’s agenda.

KASH PATEL’S NOMINATION TO LEAD FBI CLEARS FIRST MAJOR SENATE HURDLE

A former intelligence and Defense Department official in Trump’s first term, Patel has supported reshaping the FBI, including by expanding its role to carry out Trump’s mission targeting immigration.

He has been a vocal critic of past FBI investigations into Trump, including on Trump’s mishandling of classified documents, his attempts to overturn the 2020 election and debunked allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Patel has been panned for his lack of management experience compared to past FBI directors and for his many incendiary past statements, including calling investigators who probed Trump “government gangsters” and claiming that at least some defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot were “political prisoners.”

Democrats have also criticized Patel for supporting false claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election and his refusal to affirm that former President Joe Biden defeated Trump in that year’s election. But Patel has still received support from many Republicans, including moderates.

“I’ve spoken to multiple people I respect about Kash Patel this weekend—both for and against. The ones who worked closely with Kash vouched for him. I will vote for his confirmation,” Louisiana GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy said Tuesday on X.

PATEL CAMP DECRIES DURBIN ACCUSATIONS AS ‘POLITICALLY MOTIVATED’ ATTEMPT TO DERAIL FBI CONFIRMATION

Patel said at his confirmation hearing last month that Democrats were taking some of his comments out of context or misunderstanding his point, including when he proposed shutting down the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. and turning it into a museum for the “deep state.” Patel also denied the accusation that his book’s inclusion of a list of government officials who he claimed were part of the “deep state” constituted an “enemies list,” pushing back on that allegation as a “total mischaracterization.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 12-10 along party lines last week to advance his nomination to the full Senate.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.