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The White House remained steadfast in its DOGE agenda after 20 Democratic state attorneys general collaborated to file a lawsuit Friday challenging the legality of the administration’s planned cuts to the federal workforce.

“The Democrats have no plan on how to recover from their embarrassing loss, and it shows,” White House principal deputy press secretary Harrison Fields said Monday.

“Instead of working to become a party that focuses on the will of the people, they are hell-bent on keeping their heads in the sand and gaslighting on the widely supported mission of DOGE.”

Maryland’s top lawman led 19 other states in asking a federal court to halt what Attorney General Anthony Brown called illegal mass layoffs of federal probationary employees. His office also called for those already let go to have their jobs reinstated.

LAWMAKERS FROM STATE WITH MOST FEDERAL WORKERS PER-CAPITAL WARN AGAINST TRUMP BUYOUT BID

Maryland AG Anthony Brown, a former congressman from Prince Georges. (BaltoSun/Getty)

The lawsuit listed each of Trump’s top 21 acting or confirmed cabinet officials as defendants in their official capacity, and alleged the administration made “no secret of their contempt for the roughly 2 million committed professionals who form the federal civil service.”

“Nor have they disguised their plans to terminate vast numbers of civil servants, starting with tens of thousands of probationary employees,” the suit read.

Fields, a spokesman for President Donald Trump, said that slashing waste, fraud and abuse and “becoming better stewards of the American taxpayer’s hard-earned dollars” might “be a crime to Democrats.”

“But, it’s not a crime in a court of law,” Fields said.

Brown said in a statement that Trump’s “mass firings” have thrown thousands of Marylanders and others who work for the government into “financial insecurity.”

Lawmakers in the Old Line State, which is home to the most federal workers per capita, previously warned constituents against Trump’s offer to buy-out their jobs in February.

Rep. Sarah Elfreth — a Democrat who represents a line of bedroom communities including Columbia, Elkridge and Glen Burnie — said her constituents had been coming to her expressing worry about the situation.

“Pushing out career federal employees will only cripple agencies and undermine essential government services — it does nothing to make government more efficient,” she said.

In a statement, Gov. Wes Moore added that he supports the lawsuit and that Marylanders in public service are “dedicated patriots” whose work should be “praised, not villainized.”

TOP BLUE-STATE REPUBLICAN LAUNCHES COMPREHENSIVE DOGE EFFORT, WITH A TWIST

Meanwhile, the lawsuit alleged potential “chaos” nationwide due to these job cuts, and that under the law, cabinet agencies must follow protocols when conducting “Reductions in Force” (RIFs) which include 60 days advanced notice of termination.

It also alleged that the layoffs are being carried out in a manner that forces state governments to abruptly step in, providing safety nets for affected employees — placing additional strain on state services and budgets.

New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin echoed Brown, calling the firings “callous and reckless.”

Platkin claimed several military veterans in the Garden State have already been affected by the layoffs and that the endeavor has greatly damaged partnerships between Trenton and Washington.

“[These layoffs] are not only short-sighted but are illegal, and today we are taking the Trump administration to court in order to reverse them,” he said.

In California, Attorney General Robert Bonta claimed DOGE’s actions will do the opposite of its stated purpose to curb waste and inefficiency.

“The reality is that abrupt and indiscriminate terminations will lead to increased operation disruptions, higher rehiring costs, and long-term financial burdens on taxpayers,” Bonta said, adding that DOGE’s work has the potential to harm national parks within the Golden State.

Meanwhile, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha added in a statement that states need “appropriate notice” in order to prepare to help affected bureaucrats who live in the Ocean State.

“If [Trump] wants to reduce the size of the federal government, he must do so through legal means: This is another attempt to subvert the rule of law as an illegal means to an end and coalesce executive power in the process,” Neronha said.

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Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha. (AP)

“These protections are on the books for a reason, and we won’t stand for this attack on American workers and their families.”

In defense of Trump and his administration, several Republican governors have countered that investigating and enacting ways to cut bureaucracy is not new, but that the president and Elon Musk have turbo-charged such an endeavor at the federal level.

“Idaho was DOGE before DOGE was cool,” Gem State Gov. Brad Little said in his recent State of the State address.

“Florida has set the standard for fiscally conservative governance,” Sunshine State Gov. Ron DeSantis added last month.

Meanwhile, officials like New Jersey state Sen. Joe Pennacchio, Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano and Texas Senate President Brandon Creighton have crafted DOGE commissions or policy proposals in their respective states.

FIRST ON FOX: President Donald Trump is set to sign an executive order Monday that will put states and local jurisdictions in the driver’s seat of preparing and responding to disasters, Fox News Digital learned. 

“This Order restores state, local, and individual empowerment in disaster preparedness and response, and injects common sense into infrastructure prioritization and strategic investments through risk-informed decisions that make our infrastructure, communities, and economy more resilient to global and dynamic threats and hazards,” details on the order obtained by Fox News Digital show. 

The order emphasizes the role of states, localities and individual leadership over federal leadership while preparing for and coping with disasters — such as flooding or fires — and will “streamline” federal functions so local communities can more easily work with federal leaders in Washington, Fox News Digital learned. 

It also will establish the National Resilience Strategy, which will outline the “priorities, means, and ways to advance the resilience of the nation” while pinpointing risks to key national infrastructure and related systems, Fox Digital learned. 

TRUMP SIGNS EXECUTIVE ORDER AIMED AT ‘DRASTICALLY’ IMPROVING FEMA EFFICACY, PRIORITIES, COMPETENCE

President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office.  (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Officials will be called to review “all infrastructure, continuity, and preparedness and response policies” to ensure they fall in line with the National Resilience Strategy. 

The order will shift the federal government’s “all-hazards” approach to handling disasters to a “risk-informed approach” that will prioritize “resilience and action over mere information sharing,” Fox Digital learned. 

‘FEMA IS NOT GOOD:’ TRUMP ANNOUNCES AGENCY OVERHAUL DURING VISIT TO NORTH CAROLINA

Trump has railed against the nation’s response to natural disasters under the Biden administration. He told Fox News’ Sean Hannity just days after his inauguration that “FEMA has not done their job for the last four years” and he would like to see “states take care of their own problems” as they have historically relied on the federal government and its resources and funds to handle disasters. 

President Joe Biden participates in a briefing on a hurricane in 2021.  (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

FEMA came under the nation’s microscope in 2024 when Hurricane Helene ripped through North Carolina, devastating residents as it wiped out homes and businesses and killed more than 100 people. FEMA and the Biden administration faced fierce backlash for its handling of the emergency, while Trump accused the agency of obstructing relief efforts in Republican areas. 

TRUMP SAYS NEWSOM IS TO ‘BLAME’ FOR ‘APOCALYPTIC’ WILDFIRES

Trump signed a separate executive order in January establishing FEMA Review Council to “drastically” improve the federal agency tasked with handling disaster assistance across the nation. 

Firefighters battle the Lilac Fire along Interstate 15 near the Bonsall community of San Diego County, Calif., on Tuesday, Jan. 21. (AP/Noah Berger)

“Despite obligating nearly $30 billion in disaster aid each of the past three years, FEMA has managed to leave vulnerable Americans without the resources or support they need when they need it most,” that executive order read. “There are serious concerns of political bias in FEMA. Indeed, at least one former FEMA responder has stated that FEMA managers directed her to avoid homes of individuals supporting the campaign of Donald J. Trump for President.”

TRUMP WARNS FEMA FACES A RECKONING AFTER BIDEN ADMIN: ‘NOT DONE THEIR JOB’

Trump additionally has railed against left-wing policies that he says have compounded natural disaster response, most notably in California over its water infrastructure policies that he said contributed to the raging wildfires that destroyed swaths of areas around Los Angeles in January. 

A helicopter drops water on the Palisades Fire in Mandeville Canyon, Saturday, Jan. 11, 2025, in Los Angeles. (Etienne Laurent/The Associated Press )

“Governor Gavin Newscum refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way,” Trump posted to Truth Social in January as the wildfires spread. 

Trump signed a separate executive order on Jan. 24 that provides additional water resources to California to improve the state’s response to disaster. 

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The order Trump is expected to sign on Monday will serve as a continuation of his pledge “to shift power from Washington to the American people,” similar to the California executive order and establishing the FEMA Review Council in January, Fox Digital learned. 

Fox News Digital’s Greg Wehner contributed to this report. 

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., met with Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) employees on Friday who were fired as a result of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) federal workforce reductions. 

CFPB has provided over $21 billion in consumer relief, according to the agency’s latest data from Dec. 3. 2024. Kaine accused Musk of targeting the CFPB with DOGE cuts for his own gain. 

“The fact that the Trump administration would target these guys at the front end of a chainsaw massacre… Why are you going after these consumer protection advocates? It smells really bad. I mean, it makes it seem like it happened because Musk has some particular interest in gutting these regulators who are protecting everyday folks.”

In an interview with Fox News Digital following his meeting with former CFPB employees, Kaine said the CFPB saved “tens of thousands of Virginians” from unfair or abusive financial practices. 

FEDERAL WORKERS’ UNION FILES LAWSUITS TO STOP VOUGHT, DOGE ACTIVITY AT CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU

Sen. Tim Kaine met with CFPB employees on Friday who were fired as a result of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency federal workforce reductions. Kaine accused Musk of targeting the CFPB for his own gain. (Getty/Reuters)

“These folks are doing great work,” Kaine said. “This is an agency that returned $21 billion to consumers who got ripped off. I know the Virginia statistics. It’s tens of thousands of Virginians who got relief because of the work that these folks did.”

Virginia has the second-highest number of federal civilian employees in the United States, according to data from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Kaine has been a vocal opponent of DOGE’s federal workforce cuts, holding town hall meetings to address concerns from his constituents. 

‘SAVE FACE’: OFFICIALS AT LIZ WARREN’S PET PROJECT AGENCY DISMISSED DESPITE TELLING MEDIA THEY RESIGNED

Kaine said Musk and DOGE are “hurting people to help themselves” by promoting a government that yields a “huge giveaway to Elon Musk and people just like him.”

“There’s just too much bubbling up about Musk trying to get a contract here with the Department of State, trying to displace a contract at the DoD, and maybe steer it toward either his own companies or companies that he’s close to. When you allow an unelected guy to just come with the chainsaw and have access to people’s… and look, they’ve released data that they shouldn’t release: sensitive data, classified data, names of people who did not authorize them to put their data out to the world. They’re engaging in behavior that’s hurting people… why? I think they’re hurting people to help themselves,” Kaine said. 

Elon Musk, wields a chainsaw during an appearance at CPAC, on Feb. 20, 2025, in National Harbor, Maryland. (GETTY)

Regarding the ongoing federal workforce firings, Kaine said: “They ain’t using a hatchet. They’re using a chainsaw.” Kaine said Trump is relying on executive actions to dismantle government agencies because even congressional Republicans wouldn’t “go along with this stuff that he’s doing.”

“He is not confident he could get even Republican majorities to go along with this stuff. He’s going to do what he can, because even these Republican majorities that seem completely cowed and submissive, with no backbone and no willingness to exercise a vocal cord that they have, he doesn’t think they will go along with this stuff that he’s doing,” Kaine said. 

The White House did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment by the deadline of this article. 

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 10, 2025. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

Joe Valenti, a former CFPB term worker who met with Kaine on Friday, told Fox News Digital he was locked out of the CFPB office last month, received a stop-work order and then a termination letter with no severance. 

Valenti said consumer finance laws are “not necessarily being enforced” by halting CFPB operations. 

“The federal government is abdicating from its role in protecting working people from financial harms and that affects low-income constituents, like the people who I served at CFPB. It affects service members, affects veterans, seniors. The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act is one of the laws that CFPB would oversee and enforce. That goes back to World War I. If you don’t have a cop at the beat at all, what’s going on in the markets and what does it mean for people who are affected by market abuses?” Valenti said. 

CPFB is one of several agencies that has been impacted by DOGE’s federal workforce reductions. Elon Musk posted on X on Feb. 7, “CFPB RIP,” followed by a gravestone emoji. 

President Donald Trump has touted CFPB cuts, telling the Future Investment Initiative Institute Priority Summit on Feb. 19 that his administration “virtually shut down” CFPB. 

“We virtually shut down the out-of-control CFPB, escorting radical-left bureaucrats out of the building and locking the doors behind them. What they were doing was so terrible. Where they were spending the money was so terrible,” Trump said. 

President Donald Trump signs a series of executive orders in the Oval Office at the White House on Feb. 10, 2025. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Trump confirmed to reporters in the Oval Office on Feb. 10 his plan to have the agency “totally eliminated.” Trump said the CFPB was a “waste” used “to destroy some very good people” and it was a “very important thing to get rid of.” 

A complaint filed last month by the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) accuses Russell Vought, CFPB acting director and director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), of “preparing to conduct another mass firing, this time of over 95% of the Bureau’s employees.”

Russell Vought is sworn in during the Senate Banking Committee confirmation hearing on Jan. 22, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

Vought ordered CFPB employees to halt agency operations unless otherwise approved on Feb. 10. Seventy-three newly hired “probationary employees” and 70 to 100 “term employees” were subsequently fired while around 200 contracts were canceled, according to the lawsuit and media reports. 

Three CFPB leaders were placed on administrative leave in early February, Fox News Digital confirmed. An agency spokesperson said CFPB’s chief legal officer, Mark Paoletta, placed Lorelei Salas, the CFPB’s supervision director, and Eric Halperin, the agency’s enforcement chief, and Zixta Martinez, the agency’s deputy director, on administrative leave.

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There have been protests outside the CFPB headquarters in Washington since the firings, featuring Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass, who initially proposed the agency. 

CFPB is an independent government agency intended to protect consumers from unfair financial practices in the private sector. It was created by President Barack Obama’s administration in 2010 following the Great Recession of 2008. 

Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton contributed to this report.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ anti-Trump, anti-oligarch tour of the U.S. is under fire for hosting a transgender singer who performed a song with lyrics described as “pure evil,” and mocking God and Jesus.  

“The song specifically attacks Christianity with mentions of Easter and God’s son,” Conservative activist Robby Starbuck posted to X over the weekend. 

Sanders is in the midst of a “Fighting Oligarchy” tour in areas of the country where the 2024 race proved competitive for Democrats, including in battleground states such as Wisconsin and Michigan.

The self-described Democratic socialist senator traveled to Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Friday and was joined by transgender singer Laura Jane Grace, who performed an anti-Christian song on stage before Sanders thanked the musician for performing. 

BERNIE SANDERS SEETHES US HAS BECOME ‘OLIGARCHIC SOCIETY’ FOLLOWING TRUMP SPEECH

Musician Laura Jane Grace performed at a Bernie Sanders rally in Wisconsin on March 7, 2025. (Getty Images)

The song is titled “Your God (God’s D—),” with lyrics mocking Christianity, Easter Sunday and Jesus through sexually explicit language. Clips of the video, including on Grace’s Instagram page, circulated across social media over the weekend. 

BERNIE SANDERS REJECTS JAMES CARVILLE’S CALLS FOR DEMOCRATS TO ‘PLAY DEAD’

Critics and conservatives slammed Sanders and the musician for the performance of the song on social media, including taking issue with the Vermont senator for personally thanking the singer in his remarks during the event. 

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) speaks to a capacity crowd during an event at UW-Parkside on March 7, 2025, in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The event is the first of three Midwest speaking engagements billed as “Fighting Oligarchy: Where We Go From Here.” (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

“Wow. AFTER the anti-Christian ‘performance’ at his event, @BernieSanders thanked the trans singer that performed this hateful, evil song,” Starbuck posted in another X post. “If he attempts to apologize, just know his first instinct was to thank the singer after he sang it.” 

“This is who the Democrats are now. Pure evil,” Starbuck added on X. 

Grace gained notoriety in the early 2000s as the lead singer of the punk rock band Against Me!. The musician came out as transgender in 2012 during an interview with Rolling Stone. 

BERNIE SANDERS ‘FLIPS OUT’ WHEN PRESSED ON 4-DAY WORK WEEK PROPOSAL

Cyndi Lauper, left, and Laura Jane Grace perform during a concert in 2017. (Getty Images)

Fox News Digital reached out to Sanders’ office and the musician’s publicity team for comment on the performance and subsequent outrage but did not immediately receive responses. 

Sen. Bernie Sanders is in the midst of holding anti-oligarchy rallies in the U.S. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Sanders delivered a response speech to President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress on March 4, when he railed that the U.S. has become an “oligarchic society” under the Trump administration. 

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“The Trump administration is not hiding it,” Sanders said in a streamed response to Trump’s address. “The Trump administration is a government of the billionaire class by the billionaire class, and for the billionaire class. Notwithstanding some of their rhetoric, this is a government that could care less about ordinary Americans and the working families of our country. My friends, we are no longer moving toward oligarchy. We are living in an oligarchic society.”  

The Trump administration is moving to investigate as an “immediate priority” outstanding allegations of antisemitism and violence on college campuses across the U.S. after canceling roughly $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University “due to the school’s continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.”

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) said Friday the Biden administration “accumulated a backlog of complaints” across universities after the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel in October 2023. 

“American institutions of higher education erupted with antisemitic harassment and violence that denied Jewish students their right to equal access to learning, school activities, and campus facilities,” Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for the OCR, said in a statement. “Many college and university presidents took little or no credible action, and the Biden Education Department’s OCR political leadership inexplicably accumulated a backlog of complaints.”

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION LAUNCHES ‘ENDDEI’ PORTAL FOR PARENTS, STUDENTS, TEACHERS TO REPORT DISCRIMINATION

The Department of Education is moving to resolve a “backlog of complaints” involving allegations of antisemitism and violence during the Biden administration. (Getty Images)

“For the relatively few complaints actually resolved, the prior administration’s assistant secretary signed off on toothless resolution agreements that provided little to no remedy for Jewish students to this day,” Trainor said. “The Trump administration will not permit antisemitic protesters and antagonists to take over campus facilities and terrorize Jewish students and staff with impunity.” 

The Trump administration’s investigation of antisemitic allegations is in line with the president’s executive orders cracking down on antisemitic harassment of Jewish students since the Hamas-Israel conflict. As part of the orders, a multi-agency Task Force to Combat Antisemitism was created, making Columbia’s grant funds its first target.

Linda McMahon, Trump’s secretary of education, visited Columbia University on Friday to discuss concerns about ongoing antisemitic allegations on campus with school leaders.

HOUSE EDUCATION CHAIR BACKS TRUMP MOVE TO ABOLISH FEDERAL AGENCY

Anti-Israel protesters demonstrated at Barnard College in February 2025. (Getty; X)

“Americans have watched in horror for more than a year now, as Jewish students have been assaulted and harassed on elite university campuses – repeatedly overrun by antisemitic students and agitators. Unlawful encampments and demonstrations have completely paralyzed day-to-day campus operations, depriving Jewish students of learning opportunities to which they are entitled,” McMahon said in a statement last week.

“Institutions that receive federal funds have a responsibility to protect all students from discrimination. Columbia’s apparent failure to uphold their end of this basic agreement raises very serious questions about the institution’s fitness to continue doing business with the United States government.”

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

Anti-Israel protesters demonstrate in New York City on Oct. 5, 2024, ahead of the anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. (Adam Gray for Fox News Digital)

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Over the weekend, an activist who led protests and encampments on the Columbia University campus for months was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. 

“We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote in a post on X. 

America’s defenses will not be able to keep up with its peer adversaries if the Pentagon continues to take years to innovate its weapons systems, experts agreed at a security summit last week. 

The Pentagon’s modernization was given a “D” by the National Security Innovation Base Summit this week, a near-failing letter grade that national security leaders in Congress agreed was a fair assessment.

“Progress lives in the private sector, and we’re not seeing enough progress in the public sector,” said Govini CEO Tara Dougherty. “The department needs a massive kick in the pants in this area, and should be held accountable for catching up in progress to match what is happening among the investor community and among the technology sector.”

“I think the score is a deserved score, unfortunately,” House Armed Services Committee Vice Chair Rob Wittman said. 

US CONTINUES TO SHARE DATA TO PROTECT UKRAINIANS AGAINST RUSSIAN STRIKES, DESPITE INTEL PAUSE: SOURCES

The Navy currently has 295 deployable ships, though its shipbuilding plan calls for that number to be increased to 390 by 2054. (REUTERS/Stelios Misinas)

“The Pentagon is the Ford Motor Company of the 1950s. I mean, they the way they operate, slow, stoic,” Wittman explained. “‘Let’s spend years to write a requirement, then let’s spend years to go to a program or record, let’s spend years to acquire.’ By the time we acquire something, guess what? The threat’s way ahead of us.” 

“We want them to reflect the Apple 2025 model.”

Nowhere is this clearer to defense leaders than in the nation’s shipbuilding capabilities. The Navy currently has 295 deployable ships, though its shipbuilding plan calls for that number to be increased to 390 by 2054. The Maritime Security Program, which maintains privately owned, military-useful ships to deploy in wartime, is down to 60 in its fleet. 

“It’s precipitously low. We could not get to where we need to be in the Pacific right now if we needed to,” Wittman told Fox News Digital. 

The issue seemingly keeps President Donald Trump awake at night. 

“China specifically is better at cybersecurity than we are.” – Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa.

John Phelan, Trump’s nominee for Navy secretary, quipped during his confirmation hearing that the president texts him late at night, “sometimes after 1 a.m.” about “rusty ships or ships in a yard, asking me, what am I doing about it?” 

Phelan added that he has told the president, “I’m not confirmed yet and have not been able to do anything about it, but I will be very focused on it.”

‘STAR TREK SHIELD’ TECHNOLOGY GETS $250M BOOST TO KNOCK DRONE SWARMS FROM THE SKY WITH HIGH-POWERED MICROWAVE

The U.S. military needs to advance counter-drone systems, defense experts say. (AYMAN HENNA/AFP via Getty Images)

“We used to make so many ships,” Trump lamented during a speech to a joint Congress on Tuesday. “We don’t make them anymore very much, but we’re going to make them very fast, very soon. It will have a huge impact.” 

He announced he had establish a White House Office of Shipbuilding. 

With the Pentagon, “it’s process, process, process, not outcomes,” said Wittman, who announced he would be co-chairing a defense modernization caucus in Congress.

“We’re operating off of an innovation cycle right now that, you know, used to be a decade, and it used to be five years. Then it used to be three years, and now it’s a year or less innovation cycle,” said Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo. “In Ukraine, they’re actually operating off of week-long innovation cycles.” 

“China is eating our boxed lunch in the energy area, in our cellular phone infrastructure, they’re trying to get into Wall Street, they’re trying to get into agriculture…” – Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb.

Crow said it is up to Congress to give the Pentagon the “kick in the pants” it needs to move faster. 

“There are simply no demand signals being sent. So that requires a very real conversation about political will, which is actually bipartisan right now on this issue.” 

The Pentagon began work on the F-35 fighter jet 25 years ago, and it is “just now getting into full scale production,” noted Wittman. 

“The capability of that aircraft, the modernization that it needs to keep up with the Chinese threat, it’s just not where it has to be.”

The Pentagon began work on the F-35 fighter jet 25 years ago. (Andrej Tarfila/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Even the newest F-35s need to be taken back to the assembly line to be fitted with 360-degree motion sensors known as the digital aperture system and the other latest technology in radars, Wittman said. 

“We’re still not going to deliver the current jets coming off the line with technical refresh three hardware and have that software enabled until probably early next year.” 

Under a new DOGE memo, the Pentagon has kicked off a review of its contracting procedures. “Each Agency Head, in consultation with the agency’s DOGE Team Lead, shall conduct a comprehensive review of each agency’s contracting policies, procedures, and personnel,” a memo circulated this week read. 

Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., told Fox News Digital she worries most about the military being prepared to defend against a cyberattack. 

“China specifically is better at cybersecurity than we are,” she said. “It only takes one or two incursions that we don’t see coming or that we aren’t responsive to, to make an enormous difference here.” 

Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., suggested that the U.S. may need to start thinking about offensive cyber missions. 

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“When it comes to cyber, we’ve got to change the rules of engagement,” he said. “China is eating our boxed lunch in the energy area, in our cellular phone infrastructure, they’re trying to get into Wall Street, they’re trying to get into agriculture.” 

“We’re really good on cyberintelligence but we have [rules of engagement] that do not let us do nearly what China or Russia does,” he continued. “I don’t think it’s like taking punches to the face, saying ‘can I have another.’”

“We’ve got to be able to allow cyber command to fight fire with fire. I wouldn’t even advertise it that much. Just carry a big stick and, get them back.” 

EXCLUSIVE: Two top DOGE lawmakers are introducing a bill to claw back $3 billion authorized under former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which was designated to create an electric vehicle (EV) fleet for the United States Postal Service (USPS).

A South Carolina defense contractor responsible for the 60,000-vehicle order was already “far behind schedule” as of November. A Washington Post exposé revealed that by then, fewer than 100 of these vehicles had been delivered to USPS.

Citing that, Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, DOGE Caucus chair, and Rep. Michael Cloud, R-Texas, will be forwarding the “Return to Sender Act,” seeking to recoup what is about 30% of the overall appropriation in Biden’s law that was intended to be geared toward reducing inflation.

The Postal Service was to receive an initial order of 50,000 EV delivery trucks from defense contractor Oshkosh within the next three years, but only 93 had been produced by November, according to the Post.

DOGE SENATOR SEEKS TO ENSURE FEDS CAN CONTINUE PURSUING COVID FRAUDSTERS

One person involved in the production told the outlet that the “bottom line [is] we don’t know how to build a damn truck.”

That, along with a Post revelation that the government’s deliveryman agreed to pay more for the trucks after the contractor increased its prices, appeared to lead Ernst and Cloud to announce their bill.

The agreement forged between the Postal Service and the manufacturer ultimately finalized a $77,692 cost per EV truck for about 28,000 vehicles. While the company did not comment at the time of the exposé, its CEO told investors in October that Oshkosh “is really happy where we are” on the project.

“Biden’s EV postal fleet is lost in the mail,” said Ernst, chief sponsor of the legislation.

DOGE SENATOR PUSHES TO END ‘SLUSH FUND’ FOR FAILED PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES

“The order needs to be canceled with the unspent money returned to sender, the taxpayers. I am defunding this billion-dollar boondoggle to stamp out waste in Washington. Tax dollars should always be treated with first-class priority.”

Cloud told Fox News Digital the Inflation Reduction Act continues to be proven to be a misnomer, and that in this respect it “funneled billions into a failed USPS EV project that has delivered nothing but delays, defective trucks, and skyrocketing costs.”

“Three years later, taxpayers are still waiting while the Postal Service refuses to provide basic transparency on where the money went. The Return to Sender Act takes back the $3 billion in taxpayer money that has been wasted in this project,” Cloud said.

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In February, Ernst also cited the USPS EV project in her Billion Dollar Boondoggle Act that targets disclosures of government projects costing 10 figures or more over-budget, and/or five years behind schedule.

The text of the bill, which is less than one-page long, specifically directs “unobligated balances of amounts appropriated or otherwise made available by sections 70002 and 70003 of Public Law 117–169 (commonly referred to as the ‘Inflation Reduction Act’), as of the date of enactment of this Act are rescinded and those sections are hereby repealed.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is gearing up for a vote on Tuesday on a bill, which, if approved, will avert a partial government shutdown during the first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s term.

Given the lack of support from Democrats, Johnson is betting Republicans can muscle through largely by themselves on  the 99-page piece of legislation that would keep federal agencies funded until Sept. 30. 

Congress must act to avoid a partial government shutdown by Friday, March 14. Despite dozens of conservative defections on continuing resolutions over the past two years, Trump on Saturday called for Republicans to unite to support the bill. 

“The House and Senate have put together, under the circumstances, a very good funding Bill (‘CR’)! All Republicans should vote (Please!) YES next week,” Trump wrote on TRUTHSocial. “Great things are coming for America, and I am asking you all to give us a few months to get us through to September so we can continue to put the Country’s ‘financial house’ in order. Democrats will do anything they can to shut down our Government, and we can’t let that happen.” 

CONGRESS UNVEILS SPENDING PLAN AFTER TRUMP CALLS ON REPUBLICANS TO AVOID GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., walks through the Capitol, Monday, March 3, 2025, in Washington.  (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

“We have to remain UNITED — NO DISSENT — Fight for another day when the timing is right,” Trump added. “VERY IMPORTANT. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” 

Still, some Republicans have already signaled they would not support the CR. 

“I’m not voting for the Continuing Resolution budget (cut-copy-paste omnibus) this week,” Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., posted to X on Sunday. “Why would I vote to continue the waste fraud and abuse DOGE has found? We were told the CR in December would get us to March when we would fight. Here we are in March, punting again! WTFO.” 

Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., meanwhile, said he has never voted for a continuing resolution, but he is on board with Johnson’s effort. He says he has confidence in Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk, to make a difference on the nation’s debt. “I don’t like CRs,” Norman said. “But what’s the alternative? Negotiate with Democrats? No.”

In a call with reporters on Saturday, House Republican leadership aides outlined how the bill provides for $892.5 billion in discretionary federal defense spending, and $708 billion in non-defense discretionary spending.

The aides emphasized that the bill was “closely coordinated” with the White House – while stopping short of saying Trump backed the measure completely, noting he has not reviewed the specific pages yet.

It includes an additional $8 billion in defense dollars in an apparent bid to ease national security hawks’ concerns, while non-defense spending that Congress annually appropriates would decrease by about $13 billion.

President Donald Trump waves before departing on Marine One from the South Lawn of the White House, Friday, March 7, 2025, in Washington.  (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

There is  also an added $6 billion for healthcare for veterans.

REP. RALPH NORMAN BACKS TRUMP’S PLAN TO AVOID GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, PUSHES FOR CONGRESSIONAL TERM LIMITS

The White House has requested additional spending in areas that were not present in the last government funding extension, known as “anomalies.” Among the anomalies requested by Trump and being fulfilled by the bill is added funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Aides said the funding is meant to meet “an operations shortfall that goes back to the Biden administration.”

“That money, most of that, has already been obligated prior to the start of this administration. So that request reflects an existing hole,” a source said.

The bill also ensures that spending caps placed under a prior bipartisan agreement, the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA), are followed. The FRA mandated no more than a 1% federal spending increase in FY 2025. 

Cuts to non-defense discretionary spending would be found by eliminating some “side deals” made during FRA negotiations, House GOP leadership aides said. Lawmakers would also not be given an opportunity to request funding for special pet projects in their districts known as earmarks, another area that Republicans are classifying as savings.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., speaks during a news conference at the Capitol, in Washington, Thursday, March 6, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The bill does not cover the majority of government spending, including Social Security and Medicare. Funding for those two programs is on autopilot and not regularly reviewed by Congress. Still, Democratic leadership issued a statement Saturday saying they were troubled the bill does not take steps to protect those programs and Medicaid, which Republicans are eying to help pay for extending tax cuts passed in Trump’s first term.

“We are voting no,” a trio of House Democratic leaders, including House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said. 

The top Democrats on the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro and Washington Sen. Patty Murray, both issued statements blasting the legislation.

Murray said the legislation would “give Donald Trump and Elon Musk more power over federal spending — and more power to pick winners and losers, which threatens families in blue and red states alike.” DeLauro, in an X post, called the CR “a power grab for the White House.”

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who heads the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the focus must be on preventing a shutdown because closures have negative consequences all across government.

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“They require certain essential government employees, such as Border Patrol agents, members of our military and Coast Guard, TSA screeners, and air traffic controllers, to report to work with no certainty on when they will receive their next paycheck,” Collins said. “We cannot allow that to occur.”

Fox News Digital’s Elizabeth Elkind and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump is expected to have another busy week back in the Oval Office, including rallying Republican Congressional support to pass a continuing resolution ahead of Friday’s government shutdown deadline.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are in the midst of hammering out a stopgap spending bill that would fund the federal government through Sept. 30 or face a shutdown at the end of the week. 

“I am working with the GREAT House Republicans on a Continuing Resolution to fund the Government until September to give us some needed time to work on our Agenda,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Wednesday. 

“Conservatives will love this Bill, because it sets us up to cut Taxes and Spending in Reconciliation, all while effectively FREEZING Spending this year,” Trump added. 

SECRET SERVICE SHOOTS MAN IN OVERNIGHT ‘ARMED CONFRONTATION’ NEAR WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON, DC – MARCH 04: U.S. President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol on March 04, 2025 in Washington, DC. President Trump was expected to address Congress on his early achievements of his presidency and his upcoming legislative agenda. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images) (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Negotiators released a 99-page piece of legislation on Saturday that would roughly maintain current government funding levels through the beginning of fiscal year (FY) 2026, which begins Oct. 1. House Republicans have said that they are confident the bill will pass on Republican support alone, Fox Digital previously reported. 

House Republican leadership aides said in a media call on Saturday that the bill was “closely coordinated” with the White House, but noted that Trump has not reviewed this specific bill. 

CANADIANS FEEL ‘UNDER ECONOMIC ATTACK,’ FRUSTRATION WITH US OVER TRUMP TARIFFS, ANNEXATION TALK: AMBASSADOR

House Democrats, meanwhile, are rallying lawmakers to reject the legislation, claiming Republicans are trying to cut Medicare and Medicaid. 

Sunrise light hits the U.S. Capitol dome on Thursday, January 2, 2025, as the 119th Congress is set to begin Friday. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

“Republicans have decided to introduce a partisan continuing resolution that threatens to cut funding for healthcare, nutritional assistance and veterans benefits through the end of the current fiscal year,” House Democrats said in statement last week. “House Democrats would enthusiastically support a bill that protects Social Security, Medicare, veterans health and Medicaid, but Republicans have chosen to put them on the chopping block to pay for billionaire tax cuts.”

CONGRESS UNVEILS SPENDING PLAN AFTER TRUMP CALLS ON REPUBLICANS TO AVOID GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

In addition to the looming shutdown, this week will also include tariffs of 25% on imports of steel and aluminum taking effect on March 12, Trump told the media. 

President Trump survived an assassination attempt on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania in July. (Rebecca Droke/AFP via Getty Images)

The president is also set to receive a report on his assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July of last year that left him with an injury to the ear, as well as the assassination attempt in Florida in September that was thwarted. 

“They are giving me a report next week some time, and I do believe I’ll be releasing,” Trump said on Thursday while speaking with Fox News’ Peter Doocy. “I want to release a report. A lot of people have asked that question.”

DEMOCRATS PRIVATELY REBUKE PARTY MEMBERS WHO JEERED TRUMP DURING SPEECH TO CONGRESS: REPORT

Trump has also previewed that the administration could announce the creation of a “massive new program for building very large, the largest ships in the world” this week. 

“It’ll have to do with incentives, taxes, they’ll be coming from all over the world, just like they are with cars, with what we’ve done with tariffs,” Trump said from the Oval Office last week of the upcoming announcement. “And we have at least seven new, major car plants that are going to be starting very shortly because of what we’re doing with the tariffs, which will primarily start on April the 2nd.”  

On Monday, Trump is expected to meet with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte where a main discussion point will certainly be the ongoing negotiations to reach a cease-fire agreement between Russia and Ukraine.

On Wednesday Trump is expected to welcome Taoiseach Micheál Martin, the leader of Ireland. The President recently declared March Irish- American Heritage Month.

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Trump is entering his eighth week back in the White House with at least 87 executive orders under his belt since Jan. 20, which include 45 he signed in his first 10 days. Trump also enters the new work week after delivering his first address to a joint session of Congress last Tuesday, which broke records for length and was celebrated as “historic” by conservative allies. 

Fox News Digital’s Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report. 

The onslaught of legal challenges to President Donald Trump’s early actions brought by federal workers and advocacy groups have found their way into mostly friendly courts, overseen, for the most part, by sympathetic judges.

These plaintiffs have employed a well-known, pervasive strategy used by both sides of the political aisle, known as forum or “judge shopping”– that is, to have a case tried in a certain district court, and one that falls under the jurisdiction of a U.S. appeals court with a certain political makeup.

This strategy serves a distinct legal purpose. While the Supreme Court is the nation’s highest court, most cases don’t make it there. That’s because the Supreme Court hears an average of less than 100 cases annually, according to federal judiciary data. In contrast, the 13 U.S. appeals courts handle an average of more than 50,000 cases per year – meaning that these courts often get to rule on the most pressing legal issues. 

HERE’S WHY DOZENS OF LAWSUITS SEEKING TO QUASH TRUMP’S EARLY ACTIONS AS PRESIDENT ARE FAILING

The Supreme Court hears an average of less than 100 cases each year. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

And while plaintiffs suing the federal government used to have to establish a local, geographic connection to the district where they were filing their lawsuit, Congress broadly moved to lift that requirement more than 30 years ago – allowing the practice to quickly gain prominence. 

As president, Trump “is exercising Article II power to take care that our federal laws are faithfully executed,” Mike Davis, the founder and president of the Article III Project, or A3P, told Fox News Digital in an interview.

“That’s his constitutional duty. And that includes weeding out waste, fraud and abuse. That’s what he’s doing with Elon Musk and with DOGE,” said Davis, a former Supreme Court clerk for Justice Neil Gorsuch.

But recent years have seen a wave of new efforts to reform the system and stop the process of “judge shopping,” with detractors pointing to a spate of recent examples where cases were filed specifically in certain districts in an effort to yield more favorable outcomes.

It’s a strategy both Republican and Democrat plaintiffs have used with increasing regularity. Most recently, groups of Democratic-led plaintiffs filed three separate court challenges to Trump’s executive order seeking to ban birthright citizenship within the jurisdiction of the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals, or the Boston-based appeals court whose bench is composed primarily of Democratic-appointed judges.  

Other groups seeking to overturn Trump’s early actions have focused on courts within the jurisdiction of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which has a reputation for liberal decisions. 

Judges on that bench moved unanimously to block the Trump administration’s birthright citizenship order from taking force, leaving in place the decision of a Seattle district court, and potentially kicking the matter to the Supreme Court for consideration.

TRUMP STRIPS SECURITY CLEARANCES FROM LAW FIRM TIED TO JACK SMITH CASES

Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals courthouse in downtown New Orleans, Louisiana. (Rex Wholster via Getty Images)

Other notable examples include a wave of anti-abortion cases filed in the rural Texas town of Amarillo, where the sole federal judge, Matthew Kacsmaryk, is known for his anti-abortion beliefs and for siding on behalf of pro-life groups. (Texas is also under the jurisdiction of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, where 75% of the 26 judges on the bench are Republican-appointed.)

Kacsmaryk’s attempt to ban the abortion pill, mifepristone, in 2023 was upheld but narrowed by the Fifth Circuit Court. It was later dismissed completely by the Supreme Court, which noted that the plaintiffs in the case lacked proper standing. 

Still, judicial reform advocates have pointed to this case – and many others – as evidence of the lengths individuals will go to in an attempt to reshape the federal policy landscape by way of case law and legal precedent.

“Allowing plaintiffs to pick their judge is contrary to the bedrock federal court principle of randomly assigning cases to judges through an electronic version of drawing names from a hat,” Russell Wheeler, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies program, wrote in an op-ed. 

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

Demonstrators gather outside the Supreme Court. (Fox News Digital/Lisa Bennatan)

Davis, for his part, told Fox News that his organization, A3P, is currently working with the Senate Judiciary Committee to draft legislation to end the flurry of temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions that have come before single judges.

“The legislation will require a three-judge panel randomly assigned from around the country; a lottery system” to hear various cases and prevent the uptick in forum shopping, Davis said. Federal judiciary leaders and members of Congress have also introduced efforts within the last year aimed at stopping or curtailing the pervasiveness of judge-shopping.

Senate Democrats introduced a bill last spring that would require cases to be randomly assigned within a federal court district, though it has failed to gain traction in the rest of Congress. 

Last March, the U.S. Judicial Conference, the body that sets policy for the federal courts, issued fresh guidance urging courts to assign certain high-profile cases at random in a bid to stop judge shopping and restore public trust in the court system.

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“The random case-assignment policy deters judge-shopping and the assignment of cases based on the perceived merits or abilities of a particular judge,” Judge Robert J. Conrad, the U.S. Judicial Conference secretary, said in a statement at the time.

Rather, he said, the feature “promotes the impartiality of proceedings and bolsters public confidence in the federal Judiciary.”

A California sheriff is pushing back against the media narrative about President Trump’s deportations across the country and says that those opposing ICE raids both in the media and on the streets will cause people to get hurt. 

“It’s all fearmongering,” Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco told Fox News Digital. “So the reality right now is that the only people that ICE are going after are people who have already been deported for criminal issues. That’s it. The lie that they’re doing raids and that they’re just going through communities, that is an absolute lie spread by activists and dishonest politicians.”

The Associated Press reported last month that volunteers and activists were attempting to disrupt ICE efforts in Los Angeles by warning residents of ICE’s presence with bullhorns and sirens. 

Bianco, who recently announced he is running for governor of California, told Fox News Digital that those who are impeding ICE operations are “guilty of a crime” and could find themselves arrested.

GOP FIGHTS BACK AGAINST ‘TRUMP-PROOF’ SANCTUARY JURISDICTIONS

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco spoke to Fox News Digital about activists opposing Trump’s deportations. (Getty)

“It’s going to get people hurt because the reality is these people all have federal warrants to be deported,” Bianco said. “They’ve already gone through the process. They’ve already victimized us in the past. They’re not here to make a better life for themselves. They were here to victimize us, and a judge has ordered them removed. That’s the only people they’re going after.”

Bianco also warned of the potential danger to the community that impeding ICE actions could cause. 

TRUMP ADMIN ENDS DEPORTATION PROTECTIONS FOR MASSIVE NUMBER OF VENEZUELANS AMID ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION CRACKDOWN

Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States arrive at Simon Bolivar International Airport in Maiquetia, Venezuela, on Feb. 20, 2025. (AP)

“It’s going to cause a confrontation with these federal law enforcement officers and people are going to get hurt,” Bianco explained. “Law enforcement is going to get hurt. People are going to get hurt and, more than likely, in some situations, killed, and it is absolutely ridiculous.”

Bianco continued, “All of these people, they don’t even really know what they’re protesting. They’re protesting because they’re believing dishonest politicians, and they’re believing these activist groups, and it’s unfortunate. It’s very unfortunate.”

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ICE and ERO officers detain one of 216 illegal immigrants who have been convicted of drug dealing or drug possession. (Todd Packard/Immigration and Customs Enforcement)

Trump has continued to make deportations a focal point of his immigration plan and his promised border crackdown appears to be influencing groups of migrants looking to enter the United States illegally.

Despite the increase in criminal illegal immigrants being deported, many of them accused of heinous crimes, many Democrat politicians have pledged to defy his orders and refuse to work with ICE.

“The media should be reporting the truth. The politicians should be telling the truth,” Bianco said. “But we know that the only way for these politicians to win is to create this divide. There has to be this emotional divide that separates us from race and with sex and all of these different things, and they believe that that works, and it truly doesn’t, and right now it’s just placing people in danger.”

FIRST ON FOX: A study published this week details the degree to which the Biden administration infused DEI policies into the federal government in a report the authors say can serve as a resource for the Trump administration to continue to identify and “destroy” the practice. 

The new study, conducted by the Functional Government Initiative and the Center for Renewing America, identified 460 programs across 24 government agencies in the Biden administration that diverted resources to DEI initiatives.

At least $1 trillion of taxpayer money was infused with DEI principles, the study states.

The study lays out DEI infusion across several federal agencies, including the Defense Department‘s plan to “integrate environmental/economic justice tools” into training, FEMA’s need to “instill equity as a foundation of emergency management,” and the Labor Department’s push to “embed equity in a sustainable manner that recognizes the multiple and overlapping identities held by workers.”

TRUMP TO SHIFT AWAY FROM DEI VISA POLICY THAT ‘SURGED’ UNDER BIDEN, EXPERT SAYS

A new study reveals just how entrenched DEI became in the Biden adminisration. (Getty)

On his first day in office, President Joe Biden signed Executive Order 13985, which was aimed at carrying out the stated goal of “advancing equity and racial justice through the federal government.”

“This order mandated a whole of government approach to injecting DEI philosophy into the federal budget,” the study says. “In alignment with this directive, the Biden administration apparently spent trillions in DEI-related initiatives in a manner and at a speed that has shrouded public awareness of the financial burden.”

‘DISTURBING’: WHISTLEBLOWER FUMES AT BIDEN-ERA AGENCY PROMOTING DEI PROGRAM AS DEPARTMENT’S ‘MISSION’

The report outlines how, over the next four years, the amount spent on DEI efforts was “staggering.”

“The cumulative budget of these programs exceeds $1.1 trillion,” the report says. “However, this figure does not encompass all DEI-related expenditures, nor does it include every program across these agencies. The findings reveal a substantial increase in DEI spending, largely attributable to policy directives under the Biden administration.”

“Of the programs identified, 10 are exclusively dedicated to DEI and could be considered for quick elimination; 144 allocate significant resources to DEI initiatives and should be reviewed if those are to be ended; and 306 programs incorporate DEI to varying degrees, though the extent of their DEI focus is indeterminate based on the available documentation.”

The report goes department by department and calculates the DEI programs and provides recommendations on how they should be addressed. 

“DEI is deeply rooted throughout all aspects of the federal government, and it needs to be eliminated completely,” Center for Renewing America senior adviser Wade Miller told Fox News Digital in a statement. 

“Thankfully, the Trump administration has already embarked on a vitally necessary complete audit of each and every government program. We offer, in this report, what we hope are additional resources and tools that the new administration and Congress can use to identify, destroy and permanently remove DEI from the federal government.”

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President Joe Biden walks down the steps of Air Force One at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, July 17, 2024. (Susan Walsh/AP)

FGI spokesman Roderick Law explained to Fox News Digital that the dual study “could both expedite the elimination of DEI from the executive branch and show just how quickly pernicious ideologies can spread inside the government.”

“The nature of DEI is both divisive and anti-American,” Law added, “so why force it onto the military or the Commerce Department or the EPA? After President Biden lavishly funded and pushed these controversial principles into every possible area of government, our hope is that raising these questions and offering Congress and responsible executive branch officials tools and suggestions can keep it from happening again.”

The Trump administration has made it a top priority to rid DEI from the federal bureaucracy and the president has signed multiple executive orders aimed at addressing what it argues is a practice that does more harm than good by ignoring meritocracy. 

Fox News Digital reached out to Biden’s office for comment. 

Health and Human Services Department (HHS) employees have been offered up to $25,000 to part ways with the agency in order to help it downsize under President Donald Trump’s plans to shrink the federal workforce.

In the email sent on Friday, the HHS, which is led by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., said it has received authorization from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to offer Voluntary Separation Incentive Payments.

The OPM “allows agencies that are downsizing or restructuring to offer employees lump-sum payments up to $25,000 as an incentive to voluntarily separate,” according to the email. This incentive is aimed at those who are in surplus positions or have skills that are no longer needed within their department.

CIA OFFERING BUYOUTS TO ITS ENTIRE WORKFORCE: REPORT 

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., leads the Health and Human Services Department, which currently employs around 80,000 people and is the second-costliest agency in the U.S. budget. (Getty Images)

The payment is available to most employees within the HHS, which includes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Employees also have the option to take the payment if they are eligible for optional or early retirement, according to the OPM’s website.

ROUGHLY 75,000 FEDERAL EMPLOYEES AGREE TO TRUMP’S BUYOUT OFFER 

“By allowing employees to volunteer to leave the Government, agencies can minimize or avoid involuntary separations through the use of costly and disruptive reductions in force,” the website stated.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) all operate under the Department of Health and Human Services. (AP/Jacqueline Larma)

There are around 80,000 people currently working for the HHS in some capacity, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The offer becomes available on Monday and forms must be submitted to local HR offices by Friday at 5 p.m.

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The HHS is the second-costliest federal agency and accounts for 20.6% of America’s budget for Fiscal Year 2025 with $2.4 trillion in budgetary resources, according to USASpending.gov. Most of that money is spent by the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services.

The HHS spends the majority of its budget funding the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services. (iStock)

The only agency with more spending power is the Department of the Treasury.

President Donald Trump said the U.S. has “just about” lifted the intelligence pause on Ukraine, adding that his administration has to do anything it can to get Ukrainians serious about making a deal to end the war with Russia.

“You know, I say they don’t have the cards. Nobody really has the cards,” Trump told reporters during a gaggle on Air Force One on Sunday evening. “Russia doesn’t have the cards…What you have to do is you have to make a deal, and you have to stop the killing. It’s a senseless war, and we’re going to get it stopped.”

On Friday, Fox News Digital learned from three sources familiar with the situation that the U.S. was continuing to share some defensive intelligence with Ukraine to protect it against incoming Russian strikes.

Federal intelligence, the work of the CIA, FBI and human intelligence, and data that helps with offensive Ukrainian strikes against Russia had already been paused.

TRUMP EXEMPTS MEXICO FROM TARIFFS FOR USMCA GOODS UNTIL APRIL 2

President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met in the Oval Office at the White House on February 28, 2025 in Washington, DC. Trump and Zelenskyy met to negotiate a preliminary agreement on sharing Ukraine’s mineral resources that Trump says will allow America to recoup aid provided to Kyiv while supporting Ukraine’s economy. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

When asked during the gaggle if he would consider lifting the intel pause on Ukraine, Trump said the U.S. had.

“We, we just about have. I mean, we really just about have,” he said. “And we want to do anything we can to get Ukraine to be serious about getting something done.”

Trump also noted that he thinks Ukraine will sign the minerals deal, but he wants them to want peace at the moment.

TRUMP TO PUT TARIFF EXEMPTIONS ON CERTAIN GOODS FROM CANADA, MEXICO

Ukrainian soldier exits the cabin of the DS3 artillery as the Russia-Ukraine war continues, in the direction of Niu York, Ukraine, 5 March 2025. (Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu via Getty Images)

When asked how Ukraine should show it wants peace, Trump said they have not shown it to the extent he thinks they should.

“I think right now they haven’t, but I think they will be, and I think it’s going to become evident over the next two or three days,” the president said, adding that we have to have peace over anything. “This week, hundreds of people died in cities in Ukraine, and we got to get it stopped. It would have never happened if I was president.”

During the nearly 10-minute gaggle with reporters, Trump fielded questions on a variety of topics, including the types of sanctions or tariffs he may impose on Russia.

EMMANUEL MACRON CALLS ‘EMERGENCY MEETING’ FOR EUROPEAN LEADERS TO DISCUSS TRUMP: REPORT

President Donald Trump (center), Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy (left) and Russian President Vladimir Putin (right). (Alessandro Bremec/NurPhoto via Getty Images | Contributor/Getty Images | Scott Olson/Getty Images)

The president explained that he and his team had been looking at their options, but his focus was on a few big meetings coming up in Saudi Arabia, which will include Russia and Ukraine.

“We’ll see if we can get something done,” Trump said. “A lot of people died this week, as you know, in Ukraine – not only Ukrainians but Russians. So, I think everybody wants to see it get done. We’re going to make a lot of progress, I believe, this week.”

Trump was also asked what he would say to Americans watching their retirement accounts freefall from their highest in years amid concerns about tariffs.

NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR SAYS PUTIN, ZELENSKYY AGREE ‘ONLY PRESIDENT TRUMP COULD GET THEM TO THE TABLE’

U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks after signing an executive order on reciprocal tariffs in the Oval Office at the White House on February 13, 2025 in Washington, DC. Trump announced his plan to increase U.S. tariffs to match the rates other nations charge to import American goods. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

The president told the reporter the tariffs “are going to be the greatest thing we’ve ever done as a country,” adding that they will “make our country rich again.”

The tariffs, Trump explained, will bring companies and factories back, noting that 90,000 factories in the U.S. had closed since the beginning of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the U.S., Canada and Mexico, which was in effect from 1994 to 2020.

At the end of his time with reporters, Trump was asked if he was worried about a recession, after hesitating on the same question when asked by FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo.

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“Of course you hesitate. All I know is…we’re going to take in hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs, and we’re going to become so rich you’re not going to know where to spend all that money,” Trump said. “I’m telling you; you just watch. We’re going to have jobs. We’re going to have open factories. It’s going to be great.”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem tapped a new director and deputy director to lead U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as she works to reinstate a culture of results and accountability under President Donald Trump’s administration.

Noem announced the appointments on Sunday, saying Todd Lyons will serve as acting ICE director, and Madison Sheahan will serve as the deputy director of ICE.

“For the past four years, our brave men and women of ICE were barred from doing their jobs—ICE needs a culture of accountability that it has been starved of under the Biden Administration,” Noem said. “Todd Lyons and Madison Sheahan are work horses, strong executors, and accountable leaders who will lead the men and women of ICE to achieve the American people’s mandate to target, arrest and deport illegal aliens.”

In a press release, Homeland Security said Lyons currently serves as the acting executive associate director of ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO).

NOEM SENDS MESSAGE TO THOSE CONSIDERING ENTERING US ILLEGALLY: ‘DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT’

Todd Lyons was selected to serve as the acting director of ICE. (Matt Stone/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images)

He has served in a variety of other roles within ICE, including assistant director of field operations for ERO, where he oversaw all 25 field offices and domestic operations across the U.S. Prior to that, Lyons worked as the ERO field office director (FOD) in the Boston field office, where he oversaw ERO activities in Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Vermont.

Lyons started his career in federal service in 1993 as a member of the U.S. Air Force, and in 1999, he went into civilian law enforcement in Florida. Lyons joined ERO as an ICE agent in Dallas, Texas, in 2007.

Sheahan and Noem have worked together in the past, though most recently the new deputy director of ICE has served as the secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, where she oversaw a $280 million budget and led a team of over 800 employees across wildlife, fisheries and enforcement divisions.

DHS SECRETARY NOEM APPEARS TO ACCUSE ‘CORRUPT’ FBI OF LEAKING LA ICE RAIDS

Madison Sheahan was tapped by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to serve as the deputy director of ICE. (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images for Raising Cane’s)

She helped establish the Special Operations Group inside the enforcement division, which places priority on public safety through historic partnerships with federal, state and local law enforcement agencies when major events like Mardi Gras and the Super Bowl take place in The Big Easy.

Sheahan also advised Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry in her role.

Prior to that, she worked for then-South Dakota Gov. Noem in various leadership positions, including the state Republican Party and on special initiatives aimed toward advancing Noem’s agenda.

NOEM ENDS BIDEN-ERA USE OF CONTROVERSIAL APP TO ALLOW MIGRANTS TO BOARD FLIGHTS, EXCEPT TO SELF-DEPORT

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem joins an ICE raid in New York City. Noem said communities will be safer because of targeted raids that go after criminal illegal immigrants.  (Department of Homeland Security)

Sheahan and Lyons did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comments on their new positions.

Noem served as South Dakota governor from January 2019 to January 2025, when she was sworn-in as the nation’s eighth Department of Homeland Security chief. 

She was the fourth member of the Trump administration to gain approval from the Senate, and is leading the department at a time when securing the border and tackling illegal immigration are top priorities for the new administration.

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The administration has taken a number of actions to secure the border, including deploying the military, restarting wall construction and ending Biden-era parole programs.

President Donald Trump’s speech before a joint session of Congress put the final nail in the coffin of the Democrats’ recognition as the political party of compassion – which was first promoted by Franklin Delano Roosevelt 92 years ago – former Reagan speechwriter Clark Judge told Fox News Digital. 

“In the 1930s, thanks to the energy, determination and humanity that FDR projected in his first hundred days and thereafter, particularly in contrast to what was seen as four years of heartlessness and fecklessness in the Hoover administration, the Democratic Party claimed the mantle of the ‘compassionate’ party, the party of the common man and woman, the party of social justice. A new political era was born,” Judge, who served as speechwriter and special assistant to both President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George Bush, told Fox News Digital in an assessment of Trump’s speech last week. 

“On Tuesday night, with the Democrats sitting on their hands through story after heartrending story of overcoming the injustices of economic mismanagement and wokeness, even as a little boy, whose political ‘incorrectness’ went no farther than loving the police even as he struggles with brain cancer, and following a mere month (a third of a hundred days) of President Trump’s rapid-fire reform rivaling FDR’s, that 92-year-old political era came to an end. For good. Forever,” he added. 

Trump spoke for about an hour and 40 minutes, notching the longest address a president has delivered before a joint session of Congress, according to the American Presidency Project at the University of California at Santa Barbara. The longest speech on record was previously held by former President Bill Clinton, when he spoke for one hour and 28 minutes during his State of the Union Address in 2000. 

DEMOCRATS PRIVATELY REBUKE PARTY MEMBERS WHO JEERED TRUMP DURING SPEECH TO CONGRESS: REPORT

Franklin Roosevelt (1882-1945), 32nd U.S. president, at his desk in Washington, D.C., 1933. (Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

“To my fellow citizens, America is back,” Trump declared at the start of his speech. 

“Six weeks ago, I stood beneath the dome of this Capitol and proclaimed the dawn of the golden Age of America,” he said. “From that moment on, it has been nothing but swift and unrelenting action to usher in the greatest and most successful era in the history of our country. We have accomplished more in 43 days than most administrations accomplished in four years or eight years. And we are just getting started.” 

13-YEAR-OLD CANCER SURVIVOR EARNS STANDING OVATION AS HE BECOMES SECRET SERVICE AGENT DURING TRUMP SPEECH

Vice President JD Vance and Speaker Mike Johnson applaud as President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol on March 4, 2025. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Guests invited to the speech included “everyday Americans,” according to first lady Melania Trump’s office, including families who have lost their loved ones to murders carried out by illegal immigrants, the widow of a slain New York Police Department officer, a teenager who was the victim of AI-generated images passed around at school, and a young cancer survivor named DJ Daniel who stole the show with his dad when Trump made his dream of becoming a cop come true. 

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“Joining us in the gallery tonight is a young man who truly loves our police,” Trump told the crowd. “His name is DJ Daniel. He is 13 years old, and he has always dreamed of becoming a police officer. But in 2018, DJ was diagnosed with brain cancer. The doctors gave him five months at most to live. That was more than six years ago.”

“Tonight, DJ, we’re going to do you the biggest honor of them all,” Trump said. “I am asking our new Secret Service director, Sean Curran, to officially make you an agent of the United States Secret Service.”

Devarjay “DJ” Daniel holds an honorary U.S. Secret Service special agent ID as President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress, March 4, 2025. (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP)

Judge, who is the founder of the communications firm the White House Writers Group Inc., continued in his assessment of Trump’s speech that the president’s guests last Tuesday brought “life” to the “callousness of the old order.”

“Brilliant speech. Vivid. Great structure and flow. Unusually memorable illustrations. The stories of his well-selected guests in the gallery brought to undeniable life the senseless callousness of the old order and the hope for the nation and its future that the Trump administration’s electric beginning has now demonstrated is achievable,” he said. 

TOP 5 MOMENTS FROM TRUMP’S ADDRESS TO JOINT SESSION OF CONGRESS

“Great use of humor, too. Particularly clever was the section that climbed the ladder of rising ages in the supposedly active recipients in the Social Security rolls, all the way to the name of a 360-year-old, whoever that turns out to be, or have been. In a moment, wringing waste, fraud, and abuse out of Social Security and much else the government does was no longer code for heartless cutting and became a duty we could all embrace and expect our government to undertake for the benefit of all,” he continued. 

President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol on March 4, 2025. (Sha Hanting/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images)

Other former presidential speechwriters have weighed in favorably over Trump’s speech, including former President George W. Bush’s chief speechwriter, Bill McGurn, during an appearance on FOX Business’ “Mornings with Maria” on Wednesday.

“I greatly enjoyed just having to listen to it. I thought President Trump did exactly what he needed to do.  It was well received by Republicans, and he played the Democrats against themselves,” McGurn said. 

Trump’s director of speechwriting under his first administration, Stephen Miller – who serves as White House deputy dhief of staff for policy under the second administration – shared his criticisms of Democrats on X throughout the speech. 

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Democrats overwhelmingly remained seated throughout Trump’s address, including when he spotlighted various Americans for nonpolitical issues, such as when Daniel was spotlighted by the president, or when Trump remembered the lives of 22-year-old Laken Riley and 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray, who were killed at the hands of illegal immigrants. 

Democrats protested during the speech, including holding up signs reading “false,” “lies,” “Musk steals” and “Save Medicaid.” Some female Democratic lawmakers wore pink suits in protest of policies they claim are anti-woman, and other Democrats were heard jeering Trump throughout the speech. 

TOP 5 MOMENTS FROM TRUMP’S ADDRESS TO JOINT SESSION OF CONGRESS

Texas Democratic Rep. Al Green generated headlines just as Trump began his speech on Tuesday when he shouted at the president and waved his cane at him while Speaker of the House Mike Johnson demanded order be restored. The Sergeant-at-Arms escorted Green from the chamber. 

Rep. Al Green is removed from the chamber as President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol on March 4, 2025. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Image)

Former President Barack Obama’s speechwriters, including Jon Favreau and Jon Lovett, also weighed in on the speech on their podcast on Wednesday, saying Trump crafted a speech that was both a formal address and more relaxed, like his rally speeches. 

Democratic members of Congress hold up signs reading “Save Medicaid” and “Protect Veterans” as President Donald Trump speaks at the U.S. Capitol on March 4, 2025. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

“It was a greatest hit speech, peppered with some new stunts and interesting scary moments, but like a lot of what we’ve heard before, but he’s really relishing in it. He’s really enjoying his, he’s really, he’s really enjoying his time up there,” Lovett said. 

“I would say it was not surprising in any way,” Favreau said of the speech during their “Pod Save America” broadcast. 

“Like it felt what I expected, we said this before in our livestream, like a lot of accomplishments for most of the speech, very little news, new policy,” he added. 

David Frum, who was a speechwriter for George W. Bush, railed against the speech in an opinion piece titled, “Trump, by any means possible,” published in the Atlantic last week.

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“Eight years later, not even Trump’s staunchest partisans would describe his 2025 address as conciliatory,” Frum wrote. “He mocked, he insulted, he called names, he appealed only to a MAGA base that does not add up to even half the electorate. But in 2025, the big question hanging over the nation’s head is not one about oratory, but about democracy. In 2017, Americans did not yet know how far Trump might go. Now they do. They only flinch from believing it.”

“Had Trump lost the 2024 election, he would right now be facing sentencing for his criminal convictions in the state of New York. He would be facing criminal and civil trials in other states. He was rescued from legal troubles by political success. Now Trump’s acting in ways that seem certain to throw power away in the next round of elections – if those elections proceed as usual. If they are free and fair. If every legal voter is allowed to participate. If every legal vote is counted, whether cast in person or by mail. Those did not use to be hazardous ‘if’s. But they may be hazardous in 2026,” he continued. 

President Donald Trump speaks to a joint session of Congress, March 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

Conservatives and Trump allies have rallied around the speech as “historic” and “inspiring,” saying the president is coming through on his campaign promises at a breakneck pace. 

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“In just one month under President Trump, Americans have experienced record results and the renewal of the American Dream with the triumphant return of strong leadership to the Oval Office,” U.N. ambassador-designate Elise Stefanik, for example, said in a statement of the speech. “From securing the border, to cutting wasteful spending of our hard-earned taxpayer dollars, to reasserting America First peace through strength leadership to the world stage, President Trump has delivered the most exceptional first month of an American presidency in history. Promises made, promises kept. The American Golden Age is here.” 

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Judge added in his comment to Fox Digital that Democrats’ behavior on Tuesday evening only made Trump look better as the commander in chief. 

“To be fair, no matter what he did, the president would have looked good, thanks to the Democrats looking so awful. Central casting and Cecil B. DeMille could not have assembled and staged a more perfect cast of the nasty, self-enthralled, leftist elitists that has come to dominate the party’s establishment,” Judge added. 

Failed Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams is facing condemnation from conservatives after she appeared on MSNBC to defend a $2 billion initiative under the Biden administration’s EPA to purchase green energy appliances for Americans. 

“Stacey Abrams linked Power Forward Communities received $2 billion in tax dollars in 2024 after reporting just $100 in revenue the year before. They were so unqualified that the grant agreement required the NGO to complete ‘How to Develop a Budget’ training within 90 days,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in comment provided to Fox Digital on Sunday. 

“$2 billion in hard earned tax dollars should not have been doled out to this organization for many reasons, especially if they don’t even know how to put together a budget. The Biden EPA ‘gold bars’ scheme is riddled with self-dealing and conflicts of interest, unnecessary middlemen, unqualified recipients, and massively reduced government oversight. The funds are currently frozen, and the DOJ and FBI are investigating.”

Zeldin’s response followed Abrams joining MSNBC on Friday to defend the Biden administration granting $2 billion last year to a group called Power Forward Communities. 

BIDEN SENT $2 BILLION TO STACEY ABRAMS-LINKED GROUP IN GREEN ENERGY ‘SCHEME,’ EPA SAYS

Former Rep. Lee Zeldin appears before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Capitol Hill, Jan. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

The group is a consortium of housing nonprofits, such as Habitat for Humanity International, United Way Worldwide and Rewiring America. Abrams reportedly “played a pivotal role” in establishing the group, according to a LinkedIn post by Ian Magruder, who works at one of the coalition’s partners, Rewiring America, Fox Digital previously reported.

Abrams worked with Rewiring America to bring energy efficient appliances to a Georgia community in 2023 and 2024, she said on MSNBC while defending the billions in funds provided to Power Forward Communities. 

“What is this organization? What is your relation to to it? And what does it do,” MSNBC’s Chris Hayes asked Abrams during the program. 

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“In 2023 and 2024, I led a program called Vitalizing De Soto. We worked in a tiny town in south Georgia to demonstrate that by replacing energy-inefficient appliances with efficient appliances, you can lower your cost. And in fact, we accomplished that for 75% of the community. They got appliances that are lowering their bills,” Abrams said, explaining one woman in the Georgia town saw her energy costs slashed by half due to the project. 

Stacey Abrams speaks during an election night rally in Atlanta, Georgia, on Nov. 8, 2022. (Dustin Chambers/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Abrams continued that the project was so beneficial to Americans, that a coalition of organizations joined forces to call on the EPA under the Biden administration to copy the program and deliver the same results nationwide. 

“Based on that program, a coalition of organizations – famous organizations – came together and said to the EPA, ‘If we can do this here, we can do this for millions more Americans. Let us invest the money of America in lowering the cost for Americans.’ And the EPA said, ‘OK, great, go for it.’ And they then granted those dollars to this coalition of organizations who came together, bringing 250 years and $100 billion worth of experience to doing this project,” she said. 

The $2 billion was used for the “decarbonization of homes” in low-income communities and paid for new household appliances, such as water heaters, induction stoves, solar panels, EV chargers, and weatherization, according to an April 2024 press release from Power Forward Communities.

LEE ZELDIN LIKENS BIDEN ENERGY ‘SCHEME’ CONNECTED TO STACEY ABRAMS TO ‘THROWING GOLD BARS OFF THE TITANIC’

Power Forward Communities CEO Tim Mayopoulos told Politico last month that Abrams did not receive funds from the EPA grant. 

“Stacey Abrams has not received a penny of this EPA grant,” he said last month. “It was never the plan for her to receive any money from this grant. Power Forward Communities has no relationship with Ms. Abrams, other than the fact that she’s one of the people who have advised one of our coalition members in the past.” 

Conservatives on social media slammed Abrams over the media interview, as critics asked why the EPA didn’t provide rebates to Americans who purchased energy-efficient appliances, while others remarked the initiative was intended to “buy votes” in Georgia, which was a battleground state during the 2024 election cycle. 

Fox Digital reached out to the PR firm representing Abrams for comment on the matter on Sunday afternoon, but did not immediately receive a reply. 

Abrams argued in the MSNBC interview that conservatives, such as Zeldin and President Donald Trump, are “angry” over the funds provided to the group because Democrats “know how to serve the American people and lower their prices.”

“What they are angry about is that it’s going to work, because we know it can work. And in fact, the hypocrisy is that just today, the EPA quietly released funds for one portion of this program, $7 billion, where $100 million of that will go to West Virginia for solar projects. Another $60 million will go to Alaska for solar projects. They know this works. They know it will reduce cost. They are angry about the fact that it is Democrats who know how to serve the American people and lower their prices,” she said. 

President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress on March 4, 2025. (IMAGN)

The interview followed Trump calling Abrams out during his speech to a joint session of Congress last Tuesday. 

“$1.9 billion to recently created decarbonization of homes committee, headed up – and we know she’s involved – just at the last moment, the money was passed over — by a woman named Stacey Abrams. Have you ever heard of her?” Trump said during his speech, with some booing Abrams’ name as Trump spoke. 

LEE ZELDIN EXPOSES STACEY ABRAMS’ CLIMATE GROUP FUNDING

The Washington Post ran a fact-check on the remark, giving Trump four “pinocchios” for the comment, arguing Abrams “does not head the consortium; she did not even head one member of the consortium. She was only an adviser. Moreover, the money was delivered nine months before President Joe Biden left office, not at the last moment.”

Abrams notably did not distance herself from the project during her interview on MSNBC, instead celebrating her work on Vitalizing De Soto, which she explained led to the creation of Power Forward Communities. 

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said his team has uncovered billions of dollars that were wasted at the agency under the Biden administration. (Fox News)

The EPA hit back in its own fact check following the WaPo story that it “is no surprise that the Washington Post continues to toe the line for the radical left and are quick to defend apparent cronyism instead of actually doing the work to investigate on behalf of the American public.”

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Fox News Digital’s Aubrie Spady contributed to this report. 

The majority of official documents signed by President Joe Biden allegedly used the same autopen signature, reinvigorating concerns over the former president’s mental acuity and if he “actually ordered the signature of relevant legal documents,” a report published by an arm of the Heritage Foundation found. 

“WHOEVER CONTROLLED THE AUTOPEN CONTROLLED THE PRESIDENCY,” the Oversight Project, which is an initiative within the conservative Heritage Foundation that investigates the government to bolster transparency, posted to X on Thursday. 

“We gathered every document we could find with Biden’s signature over the course of his presidency. All used the same autopen signature except for the announcement that the former President was dropping out of the race last year. Here is the autopen signature,” the group claimed on X, accompanied by photo examples. 

Autopen signatures are ones that are automatically produced by a machine, as opposed to an authentic, handwritten signature.

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The Oversight Project posted three examples showing Biden’s signature, including two executive orders and the president’s announcement he was bowing out of the 2024 presidential race. The signature on the two executive orders, one of which was signed in 2022 and the other in 2024, showed the same signature that included what appeared to be a line, followed by “R. Biden Jr.”

President Joe Biden salutes while arriving for an event at the White House on Nov. 27, 2023. (Michael Reynolds/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

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Biden’s signature on the document announcing his departure from the 2024 race varied from the other two posted by the Oversight Project, showing a signature that wasn’t as clear as the one on the executive orders. 

Fox News Digital, at random, examined more than 20 Biden-era executive orders documented on the Federal Register’s office between 2021 and 2024 and found each had the same signature. 

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Fox News Digital reached out to Biden’s office for comment on the Oversight Project’s findings on the autopen investigation, but did not immediately receive a reply on Sunday. 

Fox News Digital also examined the signatures on President Donald Trump’s executive orders, which are often signed in public or in front of the media, during his first administration and second administration and found the signatures were also the same. 

President Donald Trump signs an executive order at the White House on Feb. 14, 2025. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Biden and his administration, however, came under fierce concern and scrutiny over his mental acuity last year. 

The year 2024 kicked off with Biden in the driver’s seat of the Democratic Party as he keyed up a re-election effort in what was shaping up to be a rematch against Trump. In February of that year, however, Biden’s 81 years of age and mental acuity fell under public scrutiny after years of conservatives questioning the commander in chief’s mental fitness. 

Special counsel Robert Hur, who was investigating Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents as vice president, announced he would not recommend criminal charges against Biden for possessing classified materials after his vice presidency, calling Biden “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

The report renewed scrutiny over Biden’s mental fitness, which rose to a fever pitch in June 2024 after the president’s first and only presidential debate against Trump. 

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Biden faced backlash for a handful of gaffes and miscues in the days leading up to his ill-fated debate against Trump, including former President Barack Obama taking Biden’s wrist and appearing to lead him off a stage during a swank fundraiser, and also abroad when Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni guided Biden back to a group of world leaders when he appeared to wander off to give a thumbs-up to a parachutist during the G-7 summit. 

When the big debate day arrived, Biden missed his marks repeatedly, tripping over his responses and appearing to lose his train of thought as he squared off against Trump. The disastrous debate performance led to an outpouring from both conservatives and traditional Democrat allies calling on the president to bow out of the race in favor of a younger generation. 

Biden dropped out of the race in July, with the signature on that official document showing it was noticeably different from the signature on his EOs. 

Republican Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey sent a letter to the Department of Justice on Wednesday of last week demanding an investigation be opened into whether Biden’s “cognitive decline allowed unelected staff to push through radical policy without his knowing approval.”

“There are profound reasons to suspect that Biden’s staff and political allies exploited his mental decline to issue purported presidential orders without his knowing approval,” the letter read. 

“Speaker Johnson, for example, reported that staff and elected officials – including former Vice President Kamala Harris and former Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer – tried to prevent Johnson from meeting with Biden,” it continued. 

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“Though presidents always have gatekeepers, in Biden’s case, the walls around him were higher and the controls greater, according to Democratic lawmakers, donors and aides who worked for Biden and other administrations. Staff limited Biden’s ability to speak with others and limited the sources of information he consumed.”

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson talks with reporters at the Capitol on Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

The Oversight Project shared Bailey’s letter in its thread investigating Biden’s signature on official documents, in addition to an interview with Speaker Johnson, R-La., when he recounted that Biden didn’t remember signing an order freezing new liquid natural gas exports in 2024. 

“I didn’t do that,” the president said, Johnson recounted during an interview with the Free Press’ Bari Weiss in January. 

“Sir, you paused it, I know. I have the export terminals in my state. I talked to those people in my state, I’ve talked to those people this morning, this is doing massive damage to our economy, national security,” Johnson said he told the president at the time. 

“I walked out of that meeting with fear and loathing because I thought, ‘We are in serious trouble – who is running the country?’” Johnson said of the 2024 meeting.

“Like, I don’t know who put the paper in front of him, but he didn’t know,” he added. 

The Oversight Project continued in its findings that investigators should determine “who controlled the autopen” during the Biden administration. 

President Joe Biden walks on the South Lawn of the White House on Sept. 4, 2023. (Michael Reynolds/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“For investigators to determine whether then-President Biden actually ordered the signature of relevant legal documents, or if he even had the mental capacity to, they must first determine who controlled the autopen and what checks there were in place. Given President Biden’s decision to revoke Executive Privilege for individuals advising Trump during his first Presidency, this is a knowable fact that can be determined with the correct legal process?” the Oversight Project posted to X. 

BIDEN HAD NO IDEA HE SIGNED NATURAL GAS EXPORT PAUSE, JOHNSON SAYS

Concerns over Biden’s mental acuity when he was in office, combined with the Oversight Project’s findings, have sparked outrage among conservative social media users as they question if Biden personally signed the executive orders. 

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Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., has established the beginnings of a maverick reputation in the Senate – as someone willing to stand against his own party. 

But this hasn’t necessarily lined up with his voting record, particularly on key issues, namely preventing biological males from dominating women’s and girls’ sports. 

Every Democratic senator present, including Fetterman, recently voted to block a bill from moving forward which would have barred men from women’s sports.

GOP’S TWO TOP DEM SENATE TARGETS JUSTIFY BLOCKING BILL TO BAR MEN FROM WOMEN’S SPORTS

Fetterman’s blunt, fearless style doesn’t translate to his voting record. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

The measure is supported by the vast majority of Americans, per recent polling by the New York Times and Ipsos. In fact, 67% of Democrats agreed with Republicans that biological males shouldn’t be allowed to participate in female sports. 

The bill would require Title IX to treat gender as “recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth,” and would disallow any adjustment for it to apply to gender identity. 

After being elected in 2022, Fetterman started ruffling feathers due to his blunt and vocal support of Israel. 

He also made waves in January by meeting with President Donald Trump following his 2024 electoral win. 

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Fetterman met with Trump in January. (Getty Images)

Recently, he co-sponsored the Republicans’ Laken Riley Act, a sweeping immigration enforcement bill, which was ultimately signed into law. 

In addition to backing several Trump Cabinet nominees early on, Fetterman hasn’t shied away from publicly criticizing his party, particularly after their behavior during the president’s joint address to Congress on Tuesday. 

“A sad cavalcade of self owns and unhinged petulance. It only makes Trump look more presidential and restrained. We’re becoming the metaphorical car alarms that nobody pays attention to – and it may not be the winning message,” the senator wrote on X after Democratic lawmakers caused disruptions. 

TRUMP’S BIPARTISAN-BACKED LABOR PICK CLEARS LAST HURDLE BEFORE CABINET CONFIRMATION

Vice President JD Vance and Speaker Mike Johnson applaud as President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol on March 4, 2025. (Win McNamee/Pool via Reuters)

However, Fetterman’s Democratic rebel persona hasn’t necessarily been reflected in his voting habits, as was the case with his party-line vote to block the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act. 

In 2023, he voted in line with President Joe Biden 97.3% of the time, according to ABC News’ 538. 

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Fetterman often voted in line with Biden. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

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Last year, he didn’t make the list of Senate Democrats who most frequently opposed Biden, as compiled by Roll Call. Those who voted against Biden most often included Sens. Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, of Oregon, Peter Welch, of Vermont, and former Sens. Jon Tester of Montana and Sherrod Brown of Ohio. Former West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, both independents, also made the list.

Fetterman’s office did not provide comment to Fox News Digital in time for publication. 

Canadians feel “frustrated” with the U.S. over President Donald Trump’s talk of annexing the country along with his tariffs on Canadian goods, Canadian Ambassador to the U.S. Kirsten Hillman said Sunday.

Hillman detailed the frustration that Canadians are feeling with their neighbor during an appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” saying its citizens “don’t really appreciate it.”

“They’re getting a little bit frustrated with that kind of rhetoric,” Hillman said, referring to Trump’s talk of making Canada the 51st state. “But more importantly, Canadians are frustrated with our neighbors.”

“Canadians feel under attack – under economic attack,” Hillman said about Trump’s tariffs. “And that is causing some challenges for sure across Canadian society.”

TRUMP TEASES TARIFFS AGAINST MEXICO, CANADA MAY GO HIGHER IN THE FUTURE

President Donald Trump pumps his fist before departing on Marine One from the South Lawn of the White House on Friday, March 7, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

The U.S. began imposing a 25% tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico on Tuesday, and an additional 10% levy on Chinese imports as Trump looks to curtail drug trafficking and illegal immigration. 

By Thursday, Trump suspended the 25% tariffs on most goods from Canada and Mexico covered under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) for one month. 

TRUMP TO PUT TARIFF EXEMPTIONS ON CERTAIN GOODS FROM CANADA, MEXICO

Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs come as Canada is set to elect a new leader who will succeed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has recently had a contentious relationship with Trump.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is set to step down as the country’s leader after nearly 10 years. (AP/Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press, File)

Hillman said Canada’s new leader will “prioritize trying to have a good and healthy and productive relationship” with Trump.

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“I am sure that that’s going to be possible,” she said. “Relationships go both ways, but I know that on our side, that’s going to be a priority.”