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High profile Democrats aren’t backing off their support for Maine Senate candidate Troy Jackson following reports he fathered children with his cousin.

Former Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Donna Brazile was among the chorus of party voices throwing cold water on the claims about Jackson in a scandal-plagued Senate race that was already upended after former far-left candidate Graham Platner was forced to drop out earlier this summer following a series of controversies that culminated in a rape allegation.

And now, Jackson is facing even more turmoil with the most recent revelations of a 1988 police report accusing him of assault.

“There’s a lot of people who are doing a lot of gossip as news, and I don’t want to break news that might not be true — especially on something so personal — that’s not what I do,” Brazile told Fox News Digital when asked about the report Jackson had two children with his cousin and longtime partner Lana Pelletier.

INTERNET ERUPTS OVER REPORT THAT PLATNER’S REPLACEMENT IN KEY SENATE RACE FATHERED CHILDREN WITH SECOND COUSIN

Jackson became the Democrat nominee for Senate in Maine despite Platner winning the June 9 primary race. Platner formally dropped out on July 10 — just in time for the Democratic Party to select a replacement for the November general election ballot.

But just weeks after being nominated to step into the race, Jackson came under fire when a shocking report hit the internet claiming his longtime partner, with whom he shares two children, is his cousin.

Brazile, a veteran Democrat and longtime operative for the party, told Fox News Digital she doesn’t “know anything about Mr. Jackson,” when asked about the relationship with his cousin.

“I wish him the best of luck. I don’t know many… some of the nominees, but I wish them the best luck,” Brazile said, remaining agnostic to those particular claims.

“There are so many lies,” Brazile went on. “I don’t really want to comment on salacious gossip — innuendos.”

“All I know is that that’s going to be one of the most competitive races, and we’ll all be watching in the fall,” she concluded.

The bombshell report introduces another threat to the already tumultuous race where Democrats are trying to flip the Senate seat currently held by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

FOX NEWS POLL: NEW MATCHUP, SAME RESULT: MAINE SENATE RACE STAYS LOCKED

The Maine Wire editor Steven Robinson reported that Jackson shares two children with his second cousin “by blood” and alleged high school sweetheart, Lana Pelletier. In posting the genealogical findings, the independent journalist claimed Pelletier’s father is a cousin of Jackson’s mother.

“I think it’s important to get the facts,” Brazile said about the report.

A longtime political strategist, Brazile served as interim chair of the Democratic National Committee in 2011 and again in 2016. She has remained an influential voice within Democratic politics through multiple midterm election cycles and has often weighed in on candidates and the party’s overall direction following major electoral setbacks.

Shortly after Brazile and other Democrats refused to abandon their support for Jackson in the Maine Senate race, a police report from 1988 resurfaced accusing Jackson of assaulting a man in an altercation over Pelletier.

The same report states that Pelletier told the police that Jackson “pushed her around.”

Jackson said in a statement obtained by Fox News Digital said, “I took responsibility for [the fight] then, and I take responsibility for it now.”

Pelletier, for her part, claimed the statements attributed to her in the report are “not accurate,” and defended Jackson in a separate statement to Fox News Digital.

“I do not remember making the statements attributed to me and they are not accurate,” she said. “This is the first time I have seen this report from 40 years ago. Troy and I have built a life and family together and I know the person he has been through the decades since, both as a caring partner and father.”

EMBATTLED MAINE DEMOCRAT DEADLOCKED WITH COLLINS DESPITE CONTROVERSIES IN KEY SENATE RACE, NEW POLL SHOWS

Jackson is up against Collins, who has held her Senate seat since 1997. The Democrat candidate accused Collins’ team of being responsible for the accusation that he fathered his second cousin’s children as a “shameful and desperate” attempt to bruise his campaign.

But he has never directly denied in previous statements to Fox News Digital the claims that Pelletier, the mother of his two children, is his cousin.

“Susan Collins will do anything to distract from the fact that she votes with Trump 96% of the time and has sold out working people in Maine. Personal attacks on Troy’s family are shameful and desperate,” Jackson’s campaign said in the statement.

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Jackson’s campaign did not respond to Fox News Digital’s most recent requests for comment.

Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.

A combustible and divisive Democratic Senate primary in battleground Michigan is giving Republicans an early edge as they aim to flip a crucial Democrat-held seat in the midterm elections.

A Fox News poll conducted after this month’s primary showdown, in which left-wing candidate Abdul El-Sayed narrowly edged more moderate Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens to capture the party’s nomination in the race to defend the seat held by retiring Sen. Gary Peters, indicates El-Sayed is having difficulty unifying the Democratic base.

That appears to be giving Republican nominee and former Rep. Mike Rogers more ammunition to court Democrats uncomfortable with some of El-Sayed’s controversial past comments and far-left policy positions. Democrats must hold the swing state seat as part of their uphill climb to win back the Senate majority from the GOP.

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According to a Fox News survey of Michigan registered voters conducted Aug. 6-10 and released this week, Rogers held a 51%-47% edge over El-Sayed, within the survey’s margin of sampling error.

Rogers’ edge is fueled largely by stronger party unity among Republicans. Nearly all Republicans (96%), including both MAGA (99%) and non-MAGA Republicans (89%), backed Rogers, the poll indicates.

El-Sayed’s support among Democrats is slightly lower, at 91%. While 98% of self-described Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) supporters backed El-Sayed, that number dropped to 69% of non-DSA Democrats and independents.

WHO’S UP AND WHO’S DOWN: CHECK OUT THE FOX NEWS POWER RANKINGS ON THE MIDTERM ELECTIONS

Meanwhile, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, the more moderate Democratic gubernatorial nominee in the race to succeed term-limited Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, grabbed 81% support among non-DSA Democrats and independents. That helped fuel Benson’s overall 52%-47% advantage over Republican gubernatorial nominee Rep. John James.

“El-Sayed is clearly underperforming in some groups…There is damage done from the primary,” veteran pollster and strategist Chris Anderson, the Democratic partner on the Fox News Poll, said.

Anderson told Fox News Digital that El-Sayed “needs to bring home Democrats…He has his work cut out for him and he needs to convince some folks, but I think there’s favorable ground for him to be playing on despite the concerns that a lot of voters hold.”

Rogers, in an interview with Fox News Digital ahead of the primary, said “we’ve unified the Republican Party in a way I haven’t seen in decades here on this particular race.”

“We’re building our team, our resources, and ready for the fight…in a way I don’t think Democrats are expecting,” Rogers, who is backed by President Donald Trump as he runs for the Senate for a second straight cycle, touted.

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A former Wayne County Health Department director, El-Sayed, if elected in November, would make history as the nation’s first Muslim senator. He is an epidemiologist who unsuccessfully ran for governor as an insurgent candidate in 2018. He has made support for “Medicare-for-all” a major component of his campaign.

He has also called for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and is a vocal critic of Israel during its war with Hamas — even characterizing Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocide” against Palestinians. El-Sayed, who was endorsed and joined on the campaign trail by progressive champions Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, has also vowed not to accept PAC donations.

Republicans argue that El-Sayed is too far to the left and too radical for the Great Lakes swing state.

Rogers, in his Fox News Digital interview, called El-Sayed “way too extreme for Michigan. I mean, Abdul, he has his own special sauce of crazy.”

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In a campaign video released last week, Rogers reached out to Democrats he called “hopeless, because the person who won [their party’s primary] does not represent your values, well, just know, there is still hope” and said they have a “home” with his campaign.

El-Sayed, speaking to Fox News Digital on the eve of the primary, was confident that he would be able to unite Democrats.

“I think we all understand the risk of Donald Trump. We all understand the risk of Mike Rogers,” El-Sayed said.

Referring to voters who supported Stevens, he emphasized, “I think everybody understands what the stakes are. So I’m looking forward to welcoming everybody who might have voted differently in the primary.”

Anderson, the veteran Democratic pollster, said he expects El-Sayed to better unify the Democratic base as Election Day nears.

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“These are folks who in highly partisan environment are going to be faced with do they vote for a Democrat or a Republican,” Anderson said.

A legal expert is calling for a leadership overhaul at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (NMAH), arguing the museum has embraced a negative, “self-loathing” portrayal of the nation’s past.

“I think this is part of a broader effort by radicals on the left to redefine the history of the United States and reframe it in an oppressor-versus-oppressed narrative,” Cully Stimson, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation and former assistant U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., told Fox News Digital.

“Instead of looking at American history chronologically with all the triumphs and tragedies, including slavery, and then the things that our country did to eradicate the vestiges of slavery, and then passing the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments and the Civil Rights Acts and getting rid of various other laws that were discriminatory in practice or in spirit. They take a very pro-reparations, ‘we’re a bad country,’ oppressor-versus-oppressed narrative.”

The comments come after a July 2026 White House report accused the Smithsonian of advancing DEI and left-wing agendas, prompting a pair of heated congressional hearings that put National Museum of American History Director Anthea Hartig under the national spotlight.

DESCENDANT OF SLAVES SHAMES SMITHSONIAN’S WOKE ‘INDOCTRINATION’ AGAINST THE ‘GREATEST NATION ON EARTH’

Lawmakers accused museum leaders of allowing political activism to seep into exhibits and influence how history is presented, while Hartig maintained that the museum is nonpartisan and “does not take sides in America’s political debates.”

Stimson said the hearings are exposing “bile that they’re trying to pass off as history,” saying “sunlight’s a good disinfectant.”

“If the head of the Smithsonian had any shame whatsoever, she would have resigned in disgrace already and she doesn’t have any shame because she’s perfectly happy with what she’s done,” Stimson said. “She’s just the pointy end of the radical spear that’s out there trying to force this thing down the throats of Americans.”

Stimson said Hartig should have been fired “the minute after the hearing” for what he called “smug and self-righteous” behavior during her testimony and for failing to take accountability.

“Her little writing the question down and her smugness was really evincing of what she really thinks of the American people and congressional oversight,” he said.

REP GILL CHALLENGES ‘GENUINELY INSANE AND OBJECTIVELY OFFENSIVE’ DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISTS AFTER VIRAL HEARING

Looking back to America’s 250th anniversary celebrations in July, when hundreds of thousands of people came to D.C. to celebrate the milestone, Stimson said families and children were instead greeted with “all sorts of disgusting things, bondage, and all sorts of other nasty things” at the museum.

Some of the controversial exhibits highlighted in the report and hearings featured sexually explicit material, focused on race, gender and sexuality, and portrayed the Founding Fathers through their ties to slavery rather than their roles in building America.

“There should be an entire section dedicated toward the Founding Fathers and the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and the Reconstruction Amendments and all the things that happened, the Civil War, but no,” he said.

Stimson said America has gone through many ups and downs “to get beyond the ugly parts of our history,” giving Americans reason to celebrate the country today.

“We should not have a museum dedicated to flagellation and self-loathing,” he said. “That is not how you celebrate your country.”

Many Democrats have also accused Republicans of trying to “whitewash” history, a claim Stimson rejected, saying that celebrating America does not mean ignoring the darker parts of its past.

MIKE ROWE SAYS HISTORY SHOWS WHY AMERICANS KEEP REJECTING SOCIALISM

“Celebrating doesn’t mean whitewashing history,” he said. “Every civilization throughout mankind has had slavery. That doesn’t make it right, it makes it reality.”

But Stimson said this approach to teaching history goes further than the museums and that the concern is “something you need to be aware of.”

“You see this in higher ed, you see this unfortunately in high school and even below in lower schools, and unfortunately at our premier national museums, including the American History Museum,” he said.

Stimson said people should take away the same lessons that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, when parents isolated at home got a firsthand look at what their children were being taught.

“That’s why you saw more and more homeschoolers, more and more people in the school choice movement just explode across the country,” he said.

He added “parents are the first educators of their children” and it’s up to them “to present American history” the right way.

A complete reset could be what the museum needs, according to Stimson.

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“That’s all it is,” he said. “It’s bile. It needs to be ripped out, root and branch, and redone.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the Smithsonian for comment but did not receive a response before publication.

The suspect accused of vandalizing the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., has been charged with two federal offenses for injuring/depredating U.S. property and the destruction of a veterans’ memorial, according to court documents.

The DOJ is accusing Kentucky woman Melissa L. Farris of an act of vandalism which occurred Thursday. The words “Clean hands, dirty money,” were spray-painted on the memorial in bright pink paint along with dumping bubble soap into the fountain at the center of the memorial, according to authorities.

Federal prosecutors allege that cleanup and restoration costs already exceeded $1,000.

Fox News Digital scanned Farris’ social media pages, which were cited in the court documents, and found she posted to Facebook Friday morning in a video. 

“It’s me. I am going to turn myself in … I’m outside district federal court,” she said in a Facebook live. 

PROSECUTORS MOVE TO DISMISS FELONY VANDALISM CASE AGAINST OLYMPIAN DAVID HEARN OVER REFLECTING POOL

“I am just trying to do the right thing … I was trying to get people to listen… I tried to reach the media, I tried to fight back. I tried to ignore it,” she said in tears. 

Farris claimed she lived in a paper-thin camper that she “boarded up with cardboard in the winter to feel a little bit warmer.”

Fox News Digital reached out to U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for comment.

“Vandalizing our World War II Memorial is a despicable attack on a sacred monument honoring the Americans who fought and died for our freedom. Those Americans include my father and grandfather. This morning, we are filing two felony charges, Depredation Against Property of the United States and Destruction of Veterans’ Memorials, in Federal District Court against Melissa L. Farris, offenses that carry penalties of up to ten years in prison. She is now in custody,” United States Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro announced earlier Friday morning.

President Donald Trump reacted strongly to the memorial’s defacement. 

“Our beautiful World War II Memorial was just hit by Spray Painting Vandals. THERE CAN BE NO GREATER INSULT TO THOSE AMERICAN HEROES WHO DIED IN WORLD WAR II. First the Reflecting Pool, now this. We are on their trail! Where do these animals come from???” he wrote in a Friday post on Truth Social.

The memorial is the latest D.C. monument targeted this year.

TRUMP DOUBLES DOWN ON REFLECTING POOL VANDALISM ALLEGATIONS, CITES NEW WITNESS ACCOUNT 

Trump continues to seek the prosecution of a former Olympian accused of ripping the Lincoln Monument Memorial Reflecting Pool’s coating.

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In June, U.S. Park Police also launched an investigation after the numbers “8647” were burned into the grass near the Washington Monument.

Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed compared President Donald Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot to Osama bin Laden’s role in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in a 2021 blog post that argued America has an obligation to hold the president accountable and “send the same message” it did after 9/11.

The post, which appeared on a blog El-Sayed has since made private, is titled “Why aren’t we treating Donald Trump like we treat other terrorists?” El-Sayed argued that racism explained what he described as a double standard in how the country responded to the terrorists behind 9/11 and Trump and his supporters after Jan. 6.

“I was a junior in high school 20 years ago when I watched the second plane hit the Twin Towers from my chemistry classroom,” he wrote in 2021.

“Then nearly 20 years later, on January 6th, 2021, I watched terrorists attack the symbol of my country and the Democracy my parents came here to partake in decades ago. And 36 year-old me was taken back to the pain of that high school chemistry classroom,” he continued.

AS AMERICAN PRIDE HITS A 25-YEAR LOW, A NEW 9/11 EDUCATION PLATFORM URGES THE NATION TO NEVER FORGET

He went on to say that Trump “recruited, radicalized and reassured” the Jan. 6 rioters in the same way bin Laden “recruited, radicalized and reassured” the “nineteen hijackers who attacked our country on 9/11.”

He also described Trump’s conduct as “terrorism,” arguing that lawmakers had both a constitutional and “moral” obligation to convict him and bar him from seeking office again.

“So, yes, Donald Trump deserved his impeachment just like he deserves to be convicted and removed from the right to ever run for office again. Of course. Every single member of Congress who believes in an America true to the ideals we claim for her has a constitutional—a moral—obligation to hold Donald Trump accountable for his terrorism,” El-Sayed wrote.

On May 1, 2011, a team of U.S. Navy SEALs shot and killed bin Laden during an early morning raid in Pakistan.

“Holding Osama bin Laden accountable is something we got right,” El-Sayed wrote in his blog post. “It sent a message—attacking our country comes at a cost.”

Campaign spokeswoman Roxie Richner pushed back on any suggestion that El-Sayed was calling for Trump to face the death penalty over Jan. 6, saying he was advocating legal accountability. 

“That’s an absurd and false interpretation of what he said,” Richner told Fox News Digital. “Abdul believes no one is above the law and that includes the president.”

“As Abdul said: He believes that if anyone attacks American democracy, they must be held accountable,” Richner said. 

El-Sayed’s past statements and current associations came under a microscope during his contentious primary battle with Rep. Haley Stevens. For instance, he drew considerable backlash for campaigning with streamer Hasan Piker, who once said that “America deserved 9/11.”

El-Sayed has disavowed Piker’s notorious remark, but he has declined to renounce Piker himself, framing pressure to do so as “cancel culture.” With El-Sayed now the Democratic nominee, Republicans are seizing on his controversies in attack ads as GOP-aligned groups pour millions into the Michigan Senate race.

ABDUL EL-SAYED SAYS RALLYING WITH HASAN PIKER DOESN’T MEAN HE ENDORSES ‘AMERICA DESERVED 9/11’ REMARK

Referring to Trump and Jan. 6, El-Sayed stated that “we have to send the same message we did after 9/11: If you attack our democracy, we will hold you accountable.”

El-Sayed also accused lawmakers who opposed conviction of engaging in “hypocrisy rooted in racism” and said Trump and those who helped him deserved to be held accountable “for their crimes to the fullest extent of the law.”

UNEARTHED INTERVIEW REVEALS EL-SAYED’S SHARIA ‘OBLIGATION’

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Critics have accused El-Sayed of attempting to mislead voters by scrubbing large quantities of his content off the internet before launching his 2026 Senate bid, including YouTube videos where he floated replacing the Second Amendment and railed against 4th of July fireworks.

KITTERY, Maine – Republican Sen. Susan Collins says her Democratic challenger in Maine’s high-stakes U.S. Senate race apparently “struggles to control his temper.”

Collins broke her silence about Democratic Senate nominee Troy Jackson on Friday after a newly resurfaced 1988 police record detailed accusations that Jackson assaulted a man and pushed his longtime partner during a late-night confrontation in Fort Kent, Maine.

Jackson, a one-time logger and a former state Senate president, was chosen a couple of weeks ago by Maine Democrats to replace embattled oysterman Graham Platner, who won the June Democratic Senate nomination in a landslide before imploding and dropping out of the race last month amid rape allegations that he denied.

WHAT THE NEW FOX NEWS POLL IN MAINE’S CRUCIAL SENATE RACE SHOWS

Jackson is challenging Collins in a crucial race that’s among a dozen that will determine if the GOP holds onto its slim Senate majority.

Asked by Fox News Digital about recent reports regarding Jackson, Collins said, “He’s the one that needs to respond to the reports. I’m not going to comment on them. But I will say that, based on widespread reporting, it appears that he struggles to control his temper.”

Collins spoke with reporters after kicking off a statewide bus tour on Friday in Kittery, Maine. The longtime senator is the only GOP incumbent running for re-election in a state President Donald Trump lost in the 2024 election. A Fox News poll in Maine released on Wednesday indicated Jackson holding a slight two-point edge over Collins, which was within the survey’s sampling error.

RESURFACED ASSAULT REPORT PUTS DEM SENATE NOMINEE IN GOP CROSSHAIRS: ‘GRAHAM PLATNER 2.0’

The Bangor Daily News reported this week that the police report accused Jackson of assaulting another man during a late-night brawl on March 12, 1988.

The brawl was over Jackson’s longtime partner Lana Pelletier, who, according to records, is also his second cousin. Jackson and Pelletier share two adult children.

The police report indicates that Pelletier told officers at the time that Jackson “pushed her around,” a statement she now denies making.

According to the report, the then-19-year-old Jackson went to a home in Fort Kent, Maine, around 2 a.m.

After the occupant of the house told Jackson to go away, the report says the future state lawmaker “kicked the door in” and grabbed his rival by the throat before punching him in the face, causing the victim’s glasses to leave a cut. The report added that a friend broke up the ensuing fight.

“Troy Jackson is Graham Platner 2.0: Violent and unhinged,” the Republican National Committee charged in a social media post after the initial report went viral.

DEMOCRATS STAND BY JACKSON AFTER LATEST CONTROVERSY

Meanwhile, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, referring to Senate Democratic Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chair Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, wrote on X, “Is this incredibly disturbing report of violence and abuse not enough for you to drop Troy Jackson?”

Jackson said in a statement obtained by Fox News Digital, “Nearly forty years ago, when I was 19 years old, I got into a fight with another man. I took responsibility for it then, and I take responsibility for it now.”

“But let me be clear: I have never been violent with my partner Lana, or any other woman. This happened nearly four decades ago, and I assure Mainers this incident in no way reflects the man I am today or the life I’ve led in the years since,” the Democratic Senate nominee added.

Pelletier told Fox News Digital in a statement, “I do not remember making the statements attributed to me and they are not accurate. This is the first time I have seen this report from 40 years ago. Troy and I have built a life and family together and I know the person he has been through the decades since, both as a caring partner and father.”

WHO’S UP AND WHO’S DOWN: CHECK OUT THE FOX NEWS POWER RANKINGS ON THE MIDTERM ELECTIONS

“I understand Maine voters want to learn about Troy as he seeks to represent them but personal attacks on my family are unacceptable,” she added. “In the 40 years since he made a mistake as a 19-year-old kid, Troy has grown to be a passionate advocate for Mainers and dedicated his life to making things better for our state while Susan Collins has been in Washington enriching herself at our expense.”

Meanwhile, the Jackson campaign told Fox News Digital that Troy “acknowledges going to the residence and getting into a physical confrontation with another man. The case was resolved with a $50 fine.”

On Thursday, the conservative-leaning Maine Wire reported that a man from Allagash, Maine, who says he’s known Jackson for decades alleged that he witnessed Jackson strike Pelletier in a separate incident years ago.

Jackson, who hails from the remote northern tip of Maine, is a one-time conservative Republican who became a Democrat over two decades ago.

As he quickly became the frontrunner in the abbreviated race to replace Platner, he faced a slew of reports over his alleged temper and workplace conduct, as well as reported claims of mortgage improprieties and other potential liabilities, including his past strict anti-abortion stance.

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Asked by Fox News Digital last month about any vetting concerns, Jackson said, “I think a lot of this obviously is Sen. Collins trying to make sure she can win the election on a really bad record. But, for me, I’ve been in the legislature for 20 years. I do believe I’ve been vetted, I’ve been tested. People know exactly what I’m fighting for. I have their back. And they know they can trust me.”

The scrutiny and negative reports are raising concerns by some in the party that Democrats landed another unvetted nominee after the Platner implosion.

INSIDE THE SLAPDASH PLATNER VETTING JOB THAT IGNORED WARNINGS BEFORE BID BLEW UP: SOURCE

“This is a bit of a rocket vetting process,” a Democratic strategist who works on Senate races who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely, told Fox News Digital. “Maine Democrats have made their choice, and they’re just going to have to ride with it.”

Asked about the Democrats’ vetting of Jackson, Collins told reporters on Friday, “From my perspective, it seems that vetting is very important. We learned the failure of vetting with Graham Platner. But that’s really up to the Democrats.”

The NRSC, in a series of social media posts directed at Democratic senators and Senate nominees who have endorsed Jackson since he landed the nomination, asked if those politicians will “call on Troy Jackson to drop out?”

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Jackson, who unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, campaigned alongside Platner during the primary. And he quickly made the case that he was the best equipped candidate to grab the mantle of the progressive and populist movement that had backed Platner.

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Similar to Platner, Jackson is running on a platform aimed at working-class voters. He backs raising taxes on billionaires, the universal healthcare system known as “Medicare-for-all,” and abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He also opposes military aid to Israel as Democrats are increasingly divided over support for America’s longtime Middle East ally.

Controversial socialist Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is facing fresh scrutiny after it was revealed that his close relative is a far-left professor who was arrested on a felony charge last year for her role in an anti-ICE riot.

Eman Abdelhadi is a polarizing figure. She works as an associate professor at the University of Chicago‘s Department of Comparative Human Development, and has a years-long history of landing in the national spotlight for radical activism and inflammatory statements.

She’s also El-Sayed’s half sister.

MICHIGAN SENATE CANDIDATE ABDUL EL-SAYED DODGES QUESTION ON WHETHER HE STILL SUPPORTS DEFUNDING THE POLICE

Last fall, as leftist zealots spent months protesting, sometimes violently, outside an ICE detention facility in suburban Chicago, Abdelhadi was booked after allegedly spitting on an Illinois state trooper. She was charged on Oct. 3 with two counts of aggravated battery to a government employee, a Class 3 felony, and two counts of resisting/obstructing peace, a Class A misdemeanor.

A day before her arrest, she appeared on a podcast called “Movement Memos,” which is affiliated with the far-left publication Truthout. During that interview, she recalled her previous experiences at the riots at the Broadview facility. 

“These people are terrorizing our communities and they’re setting up shop,” she said, referring to federal immigration officials. “I mean, in Broadview, ICE has been setting up shop in our backyard. Just brazenly taking up community resources to terrorize this very same community.”

“And so it felt really important to join protesters out there to say, not in our city, not in our name, not in our backyard,” she added.

PROGRESSIVE MICHIGAN SENATE CANDIDATE’S STAFFER RAGED AT WHITE WOMEN IN UNEARTHED POSTS

Abdelhadi later expressed her frustration at establishment Democrats and claimed there is no wiggle room to accept centrist liberals in the left-wing.

“There’s no center left,” she said. “You’re either resisting or you’re complicit.”

On April 17, 2025, Abdelhadi celebrated on X El-Sayed’s announcement that he would seek elected office in his bid for Senate in Michigan.

“The feeling when you think you’ve accomplished a lot but then your older brother runs for senate!!! In all seriousness—Abdul is fighting for healthcare, housing, and an economy that serves people over oligarchs. I am a proud little sister,” she posted at the time to social media.

The pair share a mother — Fatten Elkomy — who works as a psychiatric nurse practitioner and lives in Missouri. That’s where Abelhadi was raised, while El-Sayed was raised by his Egyptian-born father and American stepmother in the Detroit suburbs.

A profile of the candidate confirms Elkomy is El-Sayed’s mother.

Abdelhadi’s familial relationship with Elkomy is the subject of an independent film which explores her journey of coming out as queer in her traditionally Muslim family.

ABDUL EL-SAYED SAYS RALLYING WITH HASAN PIKER DOESN’T MEAN HE ENDORSES ‘AMERICA DESERVED 9/11’ REMARK

Fox News Digital reached out to Abdelhadi and El-Sayed’s campaign, but did not hear back by time of publication.

Before her high-profile arrest, in July 2025, Abdelhadi made headlines for cursing out her employer at the Socialism 2025 conference. That conference is the largest annual gathering of collectivist leftists and describes itself as bringing thousands of “radical activists from around the country to take part in discussions about social movements, abolition, Marxism, decolonization, working-class history, and the debates and strategies for organizing today.” 

“F— the University of Chicago, it’s evil, you know it’s a colonial landlord. Like, why would I put any of my political energy into this space? I kind of had a little bit of disdain for people who spent their time doing that,” she said.

However, Abdelhadi reasoned that teaching there was her only chance to have any power.

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“Turns out, I work at one of the biggest employers in the city of Chicago. I work at a place that is a landlord, a healthcare provider, a police force, f— that s—, but, they are, and a place where I have access to thousands of people that I could potentially organize… actually, this is where I need to build power. That’s possible structural leverage,” she said.

Despite her rant against the school and her subsequent criminal charges, the University of Chicago still employs Abdelhadi.

Abdelhadi also has a history of anti-White social media posts.

“Someday I’m going to make a twitter account called profoundwhiteguy and it will be the wisdoms of a basic white boy who thinks he’s wise,” she said in a 2017 post.

“Yesterday at the airport, 2 white women sat at the gate then boarded our plane without masks. No one intervened. I kept thinking about how Muslims have been thrown off planes for speaking Arabic or ‘looking scary’. But these women actually risking our lives were left alone,” she said in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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“It never ceases to amaze me that white people, statistically the safest members of our society, are also the most fearful,” she said in 2023.

“Abdul loves his sister and also disagrees with her on a number of political positions and the rhetoric she’s chosen to use, including on foreign policy,” campaign spokesperson Sophoie Pollok told Fox News Digital. “But Abdul is the one on the ballot and his record of public service and his platform is what matters to voters here in Michigan. His campaign has always been about his love for America and Michigan.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the Cook County Clerk of Court, but a status update on Abdelhadi’s case was not immediately available and is reportedly still pending.

FIRST ON FOX — The Kennedy Center Board of Trustees wants to name the famed arts institution’s grounds the “President Donald J. Trump Plaza,” one of several new ways the board is seeking to honor the president as the center moves ahead with a sweeping renovation, Fox News Digital has learned.

The board also wants the words “Endowed by the Trump Kennedy Center Fund” inscribed on the building once the fund reaches a $100 million endowment, according to information obtained by Fox News Digital.

The previously unreported moves come after the board voted Thursday to add an inscription crediting Trump with restoring and renovating America’s cultural center, and approved a partial closure of the complex for renovations.

KENNEDY CENTER BOARD MEMBER KNOCKS SEN WHITEHOUSE FOR IGNORING INVITES AS DEM FEUDS WITH TRUMP-RUN LANDMARK

The resolution recognizing Trump’s contributions passed by a 20-3 supermajority vote, while the partial-closure resolution passed 23-3, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Democratic Reps. Joyce Beatty of Ohio and Rick Larsen of Washington voted “no” on both resolutions, the source said.

The board’s resolution calls for an inscription below the name of the center reading, “The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump.”

The board said it wants to recognize Trump’s contributions to the Kennedy Center after the president secured $257 million from Congress to address decades of deferred maintenance.

VIDEO EXPOSES DISREPAIR LURKING BENEATH TRUMP KENNEDY CENTER AS $257M RENOVATION LOOMS

The board also approved a partial closure following an independent analysis conducted in accordance with Judge Cooper’s orders. The Kennedy Center said the plan would leave a $3.4 million surplus, compared with a projected $78 million deficit under an alternative involving four years of revolving closures.

The massive renovation will address water infiltration, damaged electrical rooms, hundreds of structural failure points in the parking garage and 2,000-plus-pound soffit panels that have reached “end-of-life” status and present a public safety risk.

“The Kennedy Center Board of Trustees has reaffirmed its unwavering commitment to the responsible stewardship of America’s Cultural Center. With the confidence of the Board and Chairman President Trump’s unprecedented support, this historic revitalization project can commence, ensuring the Kennedy Center emerges from this next chapter as a stronger, more resilient home for the arts — one that will serve audiences and artists for generations to come,” a Kennedy Center spokesperson told Fox News Digital.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST’: JUDGE WHO AXED TRUMP NAME FROM DC LANDMARK TIED TO ANTI-TRUMP CONSPIRACY THEORY

Free Millennium Stage programs, film events, educational programming and the JFK memorial exhibit will remain available at the REACH during the partial closure.

The National Symphony Orchestra will perform its 2026-2027 Classical Season at venues around the Washington, D.C., area and across the country.

The latest moves come after a federal judge blocked an earlier effort to rename the center after Trump, along with an earlier closure plan.

“Under President Trump’s bold leadership, the Kennedy Center is on its way to becoming the finest cultural institution anywhere in the world,” White House spokeswoman Liz Huston said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

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The JFK Library and Jack Schlossberg — Kennedy’s grandson, who has been outspoken about the center — did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.

President Donald Trump stepped off the stage on Friday while making a speech in New York to comfort the family of a 12-year-old boy who was killed by a stray bullet in the Bronx.

Trump was speaking to the Nassau County Police Academy when he mentioned Jacob Freytes, a boy who was killed late last month by a stray bullet while sitting on his bike outside a bodega.

“In a beautiful impromptu moment, President Trump exits the stage in the middle of his speech to embrace Migdalia Martinez and retired NYPD Sergeant Jesus Freytes, whose 12-year-old son Jacob was tragically killed by a stray bullet in the Bronx,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on social media after capturing the moment on video.

CRIME IS FALLING, OFFICIALS SAY — VICTIMS CLAIM REPORTING ISN’T WORTH IT

Before leaving the stage to meet his parents, Trump mentioned Freytes while talking about his administration’s effort to lower crime.

“Two weeks ago, a 12-year-old boy named Jacob Freytes — You read about this one? — was tragically shot and killed by a stray bullet fired by a repeat offender in a gun battle.”

He added: “Jacob was the son of a loving mom and a retired New York City police detective, and they are incredible people, and I think I heard that they may be with us today. Are you with us?”

He then left the stage and hugged Freytes’ teary-eyed mom, Migdalia Martinez, and his father, retired NYPD Sgt. Jesus Freytes, saying a few private words to both of them.

AS SOCIALIST MAYOR BATTLES ICE, SEATTLE POLICE AND CRIME VICTIMS SAY REPEAT OFFENDERS ARE TERRORIZING THE CITY

“Incredible. Horrible story. What a horrible thing,” he said when he returned to the stage. “But we’re going after them. These are bad, sick people.”

Freytes’ death has prompted Republicans to introduce “Jacob’s Law” in the New York Legislature that would put harsher penalties on criminals whose reckless actions result in the death of a child.

“I gave him a kiss, and I walked out, and we always do a little dolphin kiss. And I walked out and went to work,” Martinez told “Fox & Friends” Tuesday.

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“Around five o’clock, they called me and said that he had gotten shot. And all I could do was try to think of different ways to get here faster,” she added. “When I got there, I just seen my boy gone.”

Police said William Ferrer, 45, was arrested and faces multiple charges, including second-degree murder. He has pleaded not guilty. Ferrer has an arrest record dating back more than 25 years, including prior charges for drunk driving, drug possession, menacing and criminal contempt, according to the New York Post.

Fox News’ Madison Colombo contributed to this report.

A new radar system has been installed at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in the Washington, D.C., area after a 2025 midair collision that killed 67 people due to multiple systemic failures.

The airport has received the Surface Movement Radar, known as SMR-4, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Friday. The technology will help air traffic controllers identify aircraft and vehicles moving along runways and taxiways, even in bad weather and low-visibility conditions.

“This new radar is our latest reinforcement tool to equip our controllers as they safeguard our air travel. We’re working at the speed of Trump to deliver the world-class air traffic control system America deserves,” Duffy said.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL AUDIO CAPTURES TENSE MOMENT TWO PLANES NEARLY COLLIDED AT BOSTON LOGAN AIRPORT

He said the new radar system will give air traffic controllers a “clearer portrait” of airport activity.

Reagan Airport is the fifth airport to install the system. Newark Liberty International Airport received the technology earlier this week.

Over the next three years, $30.5 million will be invested in safety and technology upgrades at Reagan National, the Transportation Department said.

The new upgrades came after the Jan. 29, 2025, midair collision between American Airlines Flight 5342, a regional jet operated by PSA Airlines, and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River near the airport.

FAA INVESTIGATES SOUTHWEST NEAR MISS AFTER AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL SENDS JETS ON COLLISION COURSE

All 64 people aboard the American Eagle flight and three aboard the military helicopter were killed.

The federal government admitted liability for the deadly collision. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said systemic failures in airspace design, safety oversight and risk management by the Federal Aviation Administration and the Army contributed to what happened.

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“This complex and comprehensive one-year investigation identified serious and long-standing safety gaps in the airspace over our nation’s capital,” Jennifer Homendy, chairwoman of the NTSB, said in a January 2026 report. 

“Sadly, the conditions for this tragedy were in place long before the night of Jan. 29.”

University of Chicago professor Eman Abdelhadi, who is the half sister of Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, delivered an “October 7th blessing” one year after Hamas militants killed approximately 1,200 people in widespread terrorist attacks.

“I want to say, Allahu Akbar,” Abdelhadi said, opening her blessing in a video posted to Instagram on Oct. 7, 2024. “That phrase means God is greater, and it’s an important phrase in the Muslim tradition. It’s one that I’ve been thinking about a lot over the last year, because it’s a phrase that reminds us that no matter how great the brutality, the oppression, the intensity of what we’re going through. The horizon of justice is just around the corner.”

Throughout her video commemorating the anniversary of terrorist attacks, Abdelhadi makes no mention of the Jews killed by Hamas. She filmed her blessing wearing a keffiyeh, a traditional cloth associated with Palestinian militant movements.

“Abdul loves his sister and also disagrees with her on a number of political positions and the rhetoric she’s chosen to use, including on foreign policy,” a campaign spokeswoman told Fox News Digital when asked about the video. “But Abdul is the one on the ballot and his record of public service and his platform is what matters to voters here in Michigan. His campaign has always been about his love for America and Michigan.”

EL-SAYED’S HALF SISTER REVEALED AS RADICAL PROFESSOR ARRESTED FOR ALLEGEDLY ASSAULTING A COP AT ANTI-ICE RIOT

“There is something greater than even the strongest armies and for me that’s God,” Abdelhadi continued in the video. “Reflecting on that reaffirms my commitment to justice, my commitment not to get caught up in the narratives that colonial powers enforce on us … I hope you know that we have a lot of work ahead of us and that we need each other to do that work. We have an imperative to not just imagine a better future, but to build one together.”

“I’ll see you on the streets,” she said, concluding her statement.

The video was posted on Instagram on Oct. 7, 2024, in a collaborative post by “Rabbis4Ceasefire” and Abdelhadi’s account. Rabbis4Ceasefire described it in a caption on the post as an “October 7th blessing from Eman Abdelhadi, Scholar, Writer & Organizer.”

In a new comment added Friday, Abdelhadi said Rabbis4Ceasefire had organized and named the event as “a moment of grief for lives lost between 10/7/23 and 10/7/2024,” asked her to participate and described the video as her “offering” to the gathering.

The resurfaced video drew sharp criticism on X. 

“Jewish Michiganders are proudly putting country over party and rejecting Abdul El-Sayed’s extremism. We must put country over party and elect Mike Rogers,” Democrats for Mike Rogers, El-Sayed’s GOP challenger, posted in response. 

“Abdul El-Sayed’s Sister, Eman Abdelhadi, recorded a celebration video in reaction to October 7th,” commentator Eyal Yakoby wrote.

Abdelhadi has previously faced legal trouble over her activism, including an October 2025 arrest after she allegedly spat on an Illinois state trooper during protests outside a suburban Chicago ICE detention facility. She was charged with two felony counts of aggravated battery to a government employee and two misdemeanor counts of resisting or obstructing a peace officer.

UNEARTHED EL-SAYED ESSAY DRAWS EXPLOSIVE TRUMP-BIN LADEN PARALLEL

Abdelhadi’s half brother has engendered ample controversy over his statements on the Israel-Palestine conflict while on the campaign trail.

El-Sayed, for instance, sent a fundraising email on the second anniversary of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks where he criticized the Israeli government’s military operations, but said nothing of Hamas’ initial killings. The Michigan Democrat has equated Hamas and the Israeli government, calling both evil.

ABDUL EL-SAYED SAYS RALLYING WITH HASAN PIKER DOESN’T MEAN HE ENDORSES ‘AMERICA DESERVED 9/11’ REMARK

He has also received criticism for his continued association and campaign appearances with streamer Hasan Piker, who once said that America “deserved 9/11.” Though El-Sayed has called the streamer’s statement “dumb,” he has declined to disavow Piker, accusing critics of engaging in cancel culture.

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Abdelhadi did not respond to requests for comment when reached by Fox News Digital on Friday. 

The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday dismissed as moot a challenge to President Donald Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Tren de Aragua members, leaving the legality of his invocation of the 18th-century law unresolved.

The New Orleans-based court said the case became moot after all three Venezuelan plaintiffs, whom the administration alleged were members of Tren de Aragua, had already been removed from the United States under other immigration authorities.

While the Alien Enemies Act dates back hundreds of years, prior to Trump, it was most recently invoked by President Harry Truman in 1946. The law allows the president, under specified wartime or invasion circumstances involving a foreign nation or government, to detain and remove certain non-naturalized individuals of that hostile power.

The Trump administration has argued that Tren de Aragua’s gang activity amounts to an “invasion or predatory incursion” under the law and has sought to use the authority as part of its broader immigration agenda, including efforts to speed the removal of suspected gang members.

DC APPEALS COURT ORDERS JUDGE BOASBERG TO HALT TRUMP CONTEMPT PROBE OVER DEPORTATION FLIGHTS

The Supreme Court previously blocked the administration from removing the detainees under the Alien Enemies Act while the case proceeded, but stopped short of deciding whether Trump had lawfully invoked the statute, sending the dispute back to the Fifth Circuit.

Advancing American Freedom senior legal fellow Bryce Poole described the ruling as a mixed result for the Trump administration.

“The Fifth Circuit’s en banc decision in W.M.M. v. Trump represents one step forward, one step sideways for the Trump Administration,” Advancing American Freedom senior legal fellow Bryce Poole told Fox News Digital. “Last year, in A.A.R.P. v. Trump, the Supreme Court blocked the removals but declined to decide whether President Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act was lawful, sending that question back to the Fifth Circuit.”

Advancing American Freedom is a conservative public policy advocacy organization founded by former Vice President Mike Pence.

“It’s a step forward because it vacates the prior ruling that said Trump’s invocation was unlawful, leaving the President’s AEA powers intact,” Poole explained. “It’s a step sideways because the court dodged the merits, so the AEA’s legality remains a live question the Supreme Court will likely decide — probably in a different case like J.A.V. v. Trump, which has a certified class, so mootness won’t apply.”

BIDEN JUDGE OVERRULED ON KEY TRUMP IMMIGRATION POLICY

Even though the court declined to rule on the merits, two judges signaled their belief that the president’s use of the law was appropriate in their concurring opinions.

“I agree that this case is moot,” Judge James Ho wrote. “But I also agree with the United States that we should address the merits questions directed to us by the Supreme Court — and affirm the President’s actions under the Alien Enemies Act and the Due Process Clause.”

“As I’ve also noted, judges are supposed to defer to a President’s declaration of a state of invasion — including the ones issued on January 20, 2025.” Ho, a Trump appointee, added. “And if courts must defer when the President treats illegal immigration as an invasion, see id., then a fortiori we must defer when it comes to the narrower question of an invasion by Tren de Aragua.”

Ilya Somin, a George Mason law professor and scholar at the libertarian Cato Institute, disagreed strongly with Ho’s rationale.

“If the president could create an ‘invasion’ simply by claiming that it exists, it would convert dangerous emergency powers that can only be used in extreme circumstances into blank checks the president can invoke any time he wants” he wrote. “That’s contrary to the text of the AEA (which limits its use to situations where these circumstances actually exist) and to the text and original meaning of the Constitution.”

SUPREME COURT’S LATEST IMMIGRATION RULING WILL CAUSE AMERICANS TO ‘DIE AND SUFFER’ ATTORNEY WARNS

Judge Andrew Oldham, another Trump appointee, also agreed that the president’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act was legally sound.

With all 17 active Fifth Circuit judges participating, the court refused a request from the plaintiffs’ lawyers to substitute in new plaintiffs for the men who the Trump administration deported.

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Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act remains legally unresolved following the dismissal, with the court’s actions likely delaying a possible final decision at the Supreme Court.

President Donald Trump said Friday that far-left Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., are now trying to distance themselves from some of the radical positions they once championed.

In an interview with Fox News correspondent Alexis McAdams, Trump was asked about Ocasio-Cortez’s perceived shift away from her earlier calls to defund police departments, as well as other soft-on-crime policies.

“If you really look at it, they’re all saying the same thing,” Trump said of progressive Democrats. “They’re all trying to disavow themselves from what they said about crime and, well, they’re saying, ‘We love sanctuary cities.’”

ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ SHRUGS OFF PAST ‘DEFUND THE POLICE’ COMMENTS, JOKING ‘WOKE 1 WAS CRAZY’

During an interview with ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, the congresswoman attempted to dismiss the extreme rhetoric of the so-called “Woke 1” era.

The term is used by some progressive politicians to describe the pandemic-era social justice activism and far-left political rhetoric around 2019 and 2020, when some called for the defunding of law enforcement agencies, the abolition of police and prisons, the elimination of cash bail, as well as open borders and unchecked migration.

Trump said some Democrats are now trying to distance themselves from sanctuary cities, which generally don’t cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

“I think you’re going to see sanctuary cities start to end, because sanctuary cities are a disaster. And somebody like her, she was big for sanctuary cities,” Trump said of Ocasio-Cortez. “They cause crime.”

EXCLUSIVE: LEGAL GROUP TELLS NYPD COPS THEY CAN CONTACT ICE DIRECTLY DESPITE BLUE CITY’S SANCTUARY RULES

“That’s when it all started. No cash bail,” he added. “Somebody kills somebody, and they just say, all right, go ahead and come back in two weeks.”

During her ABC interview, Jonathan Karl briefly pressed the congresswoman — who is a member of the New York chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) — on radical comments made by fellow socialist and Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong in 2020 and 2021.

“I have a local city councilman that has this saying, ‘Woke 1 was crazy,'” Ocasio-Cortez said while grinning. “And I think that what’s important is that we have to assess what a candidate is saying now.”

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The congresswoman has refused to rule out a run for president, but she hasn’t looked past November’s midterm elections.

Ocasio-Cortez’s office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

The Justice Department is planning its next move after a federal judge in Boston dismissed its case accusing Harvard University of repeatedly turning a “blind eye” to antisemitism on campus.

“We disagree with the ruling and are assessing next steps,” Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Harmeet Dhillon said in a statement. “The Civil Rights Division has an extensive and active portfolio of antisemitism enforcement, including indictments, prosecutions, settlements, and investigations across the country.”

Judge Richard Stearns, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, dismissed the Trump administration’s lawsuit against the Ivy League on Thursday, determining that the incidents of antisemitism were too isolated to establish a pattern showing that the school remained in violation of federal civil rights law after the federal government issued its complaint.

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“Without diminishing any concern arising from these occurrences, the court finds them, singly and collectively, to be too isolated and episodic to support a plausible inference that any institutionalized noncompliance with Title VI persists at Harvard to this day,” Stearns wrote.

The Justice Department filed its lawsuit against Harvard on March 20, 2026, following a wave of anti-Israel protests that erupted on college campuses nationwide after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza.

At Harvard, protests during the 2023-24 school year included repeated occupations of libraries and other campus buildings and a weeks-long encampment in Harvard Yard. Jewish students reported being harassed, intimidated and excluded from campus spaces. The Justice Department alleged that Harvard violated Title VI by failing to protect Jewish and Israeli students from harassment despite complaints to university leaders about the conduct.

But Stearns said the Justice Department referred to only three antisemitic incidents on Harvard’s campus during the following school year that the school had allegedly failed to address.

UCLA STUDENT COUNCIL CONDEMNS CAMPUS EVENT WITH FORMER ISRAELI HOSTAGE

Those incidents included protesters allegedly breaching barricades outside an event featuring former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, a Harvard employee allegedly removing posters of Israeli hostages, and more than 60 masked protesters staging a “die-in” outside Widener Library, where they chanted, “we will honor all our martyrs.”

Stearns did not rule on whether Harvard had violated Title VI during the height of the campus unrest. Instead, his decision focused on whether the Justice Department had sufficiently alleged that violations continued after the government formally put Harvard on notice.

The Trump administration sent Harvard a warning letter on June 30, 2025, saying the school had violated Title VI over its response to antisemitism on campus.

Under the statute, the government is required to notify a recipient of a violation and try to resolve it voluntarily before taking enforcement action.

DOJ SPRINGS ANTISEMITISM REVIEW ON BLUE STATE COLLEGE AFTER ‘LEBANESE RESISTANCE’ FUNDRAISER

In his dismissal, Stearns said the Trump administration’s amended June 2026 complaint did not identify any incidents in which Harvard failed to address antisemitism after the government sent its warning letter.

“The Government provided the requisite notice underlying this action on June 30, 2025,” Stearns wrote. “As noted above, the Amended Complaint is devoid of any factual allegations plausibly establishing that any events that might be construed as evidence of noncompliance occurred after June 30, 2025.”

Stearns also rejected the Trump administration’s allegation that Harvard University’s failure to cooperate with every demand in the federal government’s proposed voluntary agreement showed that the school was not in compliance with Title VI.

“Harvard’s refusal to follow every specific demand from the administration wasn’t enough, because the legal question was whether Harvard was complying with Title VI— not whether Harvard was doing exactly what the administration told it to do,” Stearns wrote.

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The dismissal comes as the Trump administration pursues two lawsuits against the University of California over alleged discrimination against Jewish and Israeli students, faculty and staff at UCLA.

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Fox News Digital reached out to Harvard University for comment.

As tensions between the U.S. and Iran remain unsettled more than five months since the start of the war, the number of ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz appears to be far below pre-conflict levels.

“Despite a brief recovery in late June, vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains significantly reduced, AIS [Automatic Identification System] transit information suggests operators increasingly favouring the Northern route following projectile attacks, ongoing security concerns, and heightened enforcement activity,” a United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) voluntary reporting area overview noted.

“Traffic remains well below normal levels, with AIS-detected transits approximately 90% below pre-conflict baselines and declining since the 24-26 (June) peak.”

The trade intelligence company Kpler reported in part of a post Friday on X that “Maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz picked up on 13 August, with 13 confirmed crossings, a 44% day on day increase from nine. Of these, nine vessels used the Iranian Unilateral Scheme, none were confirmed on the Hormuz TSS and four routes remained undetermined.”

TANKERS ATTACKED AS TEHRAN, TRUMP BATTLE OVER CONTROL OF STRAIT OF HORMUZ

International Chamber of Shipping Marine Director John Stawpert told Fox News Digital Friday that while “traffic is significantly lower” compared to before the war started, “it’s not completely stopped.”

“Essentially, what we see is a cyclical process,” Stawpert said. He explained that when a ceasefire is announced, there is an “uptick” in vessels entering and exiting the Persian Gulf, but “as those ceasefires break down … you’ll see that drop off again.”

He also noted there is still a mine threat in the waters, which affects how much traffic can enter and exit the Persian Gulf.

Stawpert indicated that, to resolve the issue, there would need to be “a meaningful ceasefire that everybody has faith in,” an end to the Iranian threat, an end of the U.S. blockade against Iran and a grasp on which waters are “safely navigable” in the face of the threat posed by mines.

President Donald Trump has claimed the U.S. has full control over the waterway.

“The U.S.A. has total control over the Strait of Hormuz. I THINK WE WILL KEEP IT! Our Naval Blockade is being called, by everyone, ‘A WALL OF STEEL,’ and there is nothing Iran can do about it,” Trump wrote in a Wednesday Truth Social post.

“They have no Navy, they have no Air Force, their remaining soldiers are unpaid, the IRGC is decimated and fleeing, and their ‘Leadership’ is uncertain, at best! They have No Money — Their country is “shot.” All they have is FAKE NEWS and 300% INFLATION, and getting worse! Iran is all talk and no action, the Bully of the Middle East No Longer. Praise be to Allah!” he added.

But the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority said in a post Wednesday on X, “Claims and repeated posts by U.S. officials that the Strait of Hormuz is no longer blocked do not change the reality: the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked and will not be reopened until Iran’s conditions are accepted.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi posted on X Thursday claiming “the U.S. has long miscalculated due to intelligence failures. Case in point: The war on Iran. Now, an even bigger miscalculation on the Strait of Hormuz. Worse than fake news is fake intelligence. Be careful. Allah is Great, Greater than ANY power on Earth. In Allah we trust.”

IRAN SAYS US MISCALCULATED OVER STRAIT OF HORMUZ DESPITE TRUMP’S CLAIM OF ‘TOTAL CONTROL’

The recently appointed leader of the Iranian Basij paramilitary unit said Thursday that the passage is “under Iran’s control and management,” Reuters reported.

“There’s a northern route which is essentially Iranian controlled. There’s a southern route through Omani waters which is overseen by the U.S. Navy,” Stawpert explained to Fox News Digital, noting that control over the passage is “divided.”

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright has touted the flow of oil out of the strait.

“Thanks to the coordinated efforts of the U.S. military and our gulf allies, the seven-day average for oil leaving the Strait of Hormuz is currently up to almost 9 million barrels per day,” Wright wrote in a post on X Tuesday.

“When combined with the additional 5-7 million barrels per day leaving the region via newly upgraded pipelines and export facilities, total oil flows are currently averaging approximately 15 million barrels per day. On Sunday alone, over 20 million barrels left the Arabian gulf region, which is above the pre-conflict average.”

“In coordination with the U.S. military, the U.S. Department of Energy maintains the best available data related to oil and oil products leaving the Arabian gulf. Many private businesses undercount the number of ships leaving the Strait of Hormuz due to ships moving covertly through the waterway,” Wright added in another post.

“We need to bear in mind that there’s human beings on board these ships,” Stawpert told Fox News Digital, asserting that the “risk” they face is “unacceptable.”

IRAN DEFIES TRUMP, DECLARES STRAIT OF HORMUZ BLOCKED AFTER PRESIDENT CLAIMS US HAS ‘TOTAL CONTROL’

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“And that’s why this needs to end,” he continued, “for those humanitarian reasons, more than anything.”

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

FIRST ON FOX — An independent federal agency is under review for allegedly listing foreign-made products as American, including technology manufactured in China, and the Trump administration is demanding a sweeping audit of its products, pricing and supply chains.

In a draft letter viewed exclusively by Fox News Digital, the General Services Administration directs the U.S. AbilityOne Commission to verify the country of origin of every product on its Mandatory Procurement List and conduct a comprehensive audit of products offered through GSA on pricing, sourcing and compliance with federal law and procurement policy. 

“Federal tax dollars spent on the AbilityOne program should support jobs for blind and disabled Americans, not foreign competitors,” GSA Administrator Edward Forst wrote in a statement.

AbilityOne oversees a federal purchasing program intended to provide employment opportunities for people who are blind or have significant disabilities. Federal agencies are generally required to buy products and services placed on the commission’s mandatory list from participating nonprofit organizations.

“Many of AbilityOne’s product offerings raise serious national security concerns and cast doubt on its ability to carry out its mission,” Forst added in the statement. “GSA will not allow questionable products to undermine the security of the federal marketplace.”

TOP TRUMP AGENCY PURGES OVER 20 SUSPECTED CHINA-LINKED PRODUCTS FROM FEDERAL MARKETPLACE

Forst’s department sent a letter to AbilityOne Commission Chair Christina Brandt to follow through on President Donald Trump’s March 2026 executive order requiring truthful “Made in America” advertising across federal procurement. The audit has also drawn interest from Vice President JD Vance’s anti-fraud task force.

“GSA requests that the Commission promptly conduct a full audit of all items offered for sale through GSA and related procurement data to verify COO [Country of Origin] representations, pricing, sourcing, and compliance with applicable law and policy,” Forst’s letter dated Friday read.

“Such an audit is necessary to provide transparency and accountability to the American people, protect the integrity of Federal procurement, and ensure that taxpayer dollars are not supporting inaccurate or misleading claims.”

GSA said it found multiple examples of AbilityOne-associated technology products labeled on GSA procurement platforms as “Country of Origin: USA” that are, in fact, from foreign countries like China.

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AbilityOne was given until Nov. 16 to respond to GSA’s “areas of concern” and provide corrected country-of-origin information for products offered through the Federal Acquisition Service Verified Product Portal, address products currently listed with unclear origin designations and provide documentation explaining how it will conduct ongoing reviews.

“GSA holds all its contractors to the highest standards,” Forst’s letter concluded. “To ensure we apply the same rules to the AbilityOne Program, I’m instructing my Senior Procurement Executive to promptly take appropriate action to eliminate the exception that permits the Commission to offer items originating in China and other non-allied nations. He will work with GSA and the Commission to ensure effective implementation.”

“GSA appreciates the Commission’s prompt attention to this matter. Ensuring that PL products available through GSA channels are fully compliant is essential to maintaining the integrity of the AbilityOne Program, the Federal marketplace, and the Government’s procurement obligations,” he added.

NEWSOM ADMIN FACES QUESTIONS OVER $6.2M DIAPER CONTRACT AFTER TOUTING ‘COMPETITIVE’ PROCESS

The letter goes beyond country-of-origin concerns, raising questions about pricing and executive compensation at nonprofits participating in the program.

GSA said AbilityOne-affiliated nonprofits can sell products to the government with markups of as much as 55%, depending on pricing arrangements. The agency alleged that some products provide “limited or no meaningful employment or value added to the taxpayer” while nonprofit executives receive compensation reaching more than $1 million annually.

The letter contrasts those figures with an average annual salary of approximately $33,000 for blind workers, citing National Industries for the Blind data. An appendix identifies several AbilityOne nonprofits where executive compensation reportedly ranged from $500,000 to more than $1 million.

GSA also pointed to previous False Claims Act cases involving AbilityOne nonprofits.

Industries for the Blind and Visually Impaired, a Wisconsin nonprofit, agreed to pay $1.9 million in 2020 to resolve federal allegations involving false claims and kickbacks on government contracts. GSA also cited a 2021 settlement in which Connecticut-based CW Resources paid $600,000 to resolve allegations that it falsely certified compliance with AbilityOne labor requirements.

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Those settlements involved allegations resolved in prior cases and are separate from the country-of-origin findings outlined in the new GSA letter.

Those figures are expected to intensify scrutiny of whether participating organizations are directing enough federal contract revenue toward their workforce and whether executive compensation is consistent with AbilityOne’s mission.

The National Council on Disability (NCD), an independent federal advisor, is concerned the “policy relic” is “failing” in its mission, another example of how government waste, fraud and abuse must be audited by the Trump administration’s anti-fraud task force led by Vance.

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“For years, NCD has reported that AbilityOne is a policy relic that hasn’t kept up with the needs of Americans with disabilities,” NCD Acting Chair Neil Romano wrote in a statement Friday. “This is just another example of that overall failing.”

Fox News Digital reached out to AbilityOne for comment on the allegations and the call for an audit and has not yet heard back.

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GSA is also scrutinizing an AbilityOne policy known as “Essentially the Same,” which allows certain products to be substituted for items already approved for the mandatory list. According to the draft letter, foreign-made goods have quietly displaced American products through that process, undercutting domestic manufacturers while continuing to benefit from preferential federal purchasing rules.

A growing number of states facing noncitizen and illegal voting allegations and disputes over voter registration policies is intensifying a national fight over election safeguards ahead of the midterms.

The disputes exposed a broader fight over how states verify citizenship when registering voters — maximum access versus maximum verification — and how far the federal government can go in demanding state voter data when suspecting illegal activity. The issue recently exploded after New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill disclosed 6,600 noncitizens had been registered to vote through Trenton’s Motor Vehicle Commission (MVC).

“This isn’t just a New Jersey problem. This is a national problem,” Texas Public Policy Foundation chief national initiatives officer Chuck DeVore told Fox News Digital in an interview. DeVore wrote after Sherrill’s disclosure about the problems that can arise if noncitizen and illegal voting continue relatively unchecked.

“Historically, inappropriately pumping up the vote has been a path to gaining power,” DeVore said, adding that a plurality of Americans “are concerned” about noncitizen voting.

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President Bill Clinton signed the National Voter Registration Act in 1993. Commonly called the “Motor Voter Law” the law requires covered states to offer voter registration through motor vehicle agencies while administering their own voter rolls, DeVore said.

“The intention … was to make it really easy to register to vote, especially when you touched a very common part of government,” DeVore said, “which was the Department of Motor Vehicles or whatever the equivalent is.”

DeVore argued that architects of the voter registration system failed to account for the narrower mission of motor vehicle agencies, which he said historically focused on two things: “You who you say you are — and can you safely operate [automotive] machinery.”

Neither function has anything to do with election security, DeVore said.

“And then if you add an additional layer on top of it, which is If the people in charge want as many people registered as possible because it creates the raw material for election fraud, well, now you have a whole other set of problems that kind of supercharges the weakness.”

That broader fight has increasingly pitted the Justice Department against states including New Jersey and Pennsylvania over federal demands for voter registration data.

Both states’ election agencies — led by a Democrat and a Republican, respectively — resisted the demands, raising privacy and legal objections to releasing unredacted sensitive information.

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The DOJ, meanwhile, has adopted a “broken-windows theory” approach to investigating potential election violations.

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon said the agency is applying the crimefighting theory popularized during former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s administration, which focused on enforcing lower-level offenses in an effort to deter more serious crimes.

Under Dhillon and Attorney General Todd Blanche, the DOJ has prioritized pursuing provable fraud and irregularities in state election processes.

“We need to go after every single one of these violations … I can’t talk about a lot of what we’re doing publicly, but activists and others are giving us leads,” Dhillon recently told Fox News Digital. “And we are carefully running down each.”

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The push has brought the federal government into conflict with states, with critics citing Tenth Amendment concerns over the balance between federal authority and states’ role in administering elections.

Congress has previously used federal funding to pressure states to change policies traditionally administered at the state level. In the 1980s, federal law conditioned a portion of highway funding on states adopting a minimum drinking age of 21.

The Justice Department has similarly sued or threatened to sue states including New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York over voter data and election-record disputes.

Democrats in states facing increased federal scrutiny have pushed back against allegations of intentional wrongdoing.

New Jersey Senate President Nicholas Scutari, D-Scotch Plains, recently told Fox News Digital he agrees that a “healthy democracy” depends on voter-roll security and proper “stewardship” of those trusted to execute “free, fair and accessible elections.”

“It also depends on public trust, and Governor Sherrill deserves credit for being transparent about these failures, taking swift action to launch an independent investigation of what went wrong, and pledging to hold anyone responsible to account,” Scutari said.

At the same time, Scutari’s critics have accused Democrats in New Jersey of failing to prevent voter-roll problems despite repeated warnings about vulnerabilities in the system.

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“People were on the honor system,” said New Jersey Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Kristin Corrado, R-Totowa.

“The fact is that the people in charge for so long said this absolutely was impossible; Republicans were ‘conspiracy theorists’,” added Sen. Declan O’Scanlon of Little Silver, the top Republican on the State Joint Budget Committee.

Other states, including Pennsylvania, have also resisted federal demands for voter data, citing privacy concerns. DeVore said that while serving as a California state lawmaker, he regularly had access to similar voter information.

“Many Democrats see elections as mere census exercises. All they are is a body count. They’re not, in fact, informed citizens casting a ballot with their enlightened self-interest guiding their ballot.”

Pennsylvania officials similarly resisted the Trump administration’s demand for the state’s voter rolls, even after DOJ sued Harrisburg’s elections chief in September.

“This request and reported efforts to collect broad data on millions of Americans represent a concerning attempt to expand the federal government’s role in our country’s electoral process,” Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt — a Philadelphia Republican appointed by Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro — wrote in his reply.

“I take seriously the obligations under both federal and Pennsylvania law to ensure that only eligible voters have access to the ballot box and to see to it that Pennsylvania’s voter rolls are appropriately maintained and updated,” Schmidt wrote in a more recent letter to the Justice Department in July.

The SAVE America Act — which would require voter registrants to provide proof of citizenship and voters to show ID — remains stalled in the Senate after Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., sent the chamber into summer recess, angering President Donald Trump and election-security advocates.

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DeVore warned, however, that Congress has previously pursued sweeping federal voting legislation and argued that states should take the lead on election safeguards.

He pointed to Democrats’ previous effort to pass the “For the People Act,” legislation sponsored by former Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Md., which would have restricted some state voter-ID requirements.

“So we need to be somewhat circumspect about using the sledgehammer of federal law to sweep away state powers to order their own affairs,” DeVore said.

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Fox News Digital reached out to Sherrill for additional comment.

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., slammed what she deemed “hypocrisy” shown by Democratic socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., arguing that the two officials are betraying their constituents by refusing to support voter identification measures.

“I think the Democrats are showing the two sides that they have,” she told Fox News Digital in an interview.

“They go to their district, they tell their constituents that they support voter ID, and then they turn around to go to Washington and vote against it,” she continued.

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Malliotakis called on the Senate to pass President Donald Trump’s Safeguard America’s Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act, a piece of legislation that would require voters to prove American citizenship before casting a ballot.

“If you want people to be confident in the outcome of the election, then we need to pass the Save America Act. We need to require voter ID,” Malliotakis told Fox News Digital.

“Over 80% of America wants it,” Malliotakis continued, adding “the only people that don’t seem to want it are the Democrats who are in Congress right now and they’re not representing the people of their districts who are overwhelmingly saying they want it. Regardless of political affiliation, regardless of race, they are saying that they want a voter ID and the Senate Democrats should vote for it,” she continued.

“Let’s make sure that we show America that we’re taking the integrity of our elections seriously. And voter ID is really the most common-sense step that we should be taking as a body,” she added.

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Malliotakis pinned the blame in particular on Schumer for blocking the SAVE Act.

“We’ve passed it out of the House now four times and is up to the Senate to get the job done. These Senators keep going to their district saying that they support the SAVE America act, or at least they’re telling their constituents that they support voter ID, and then they go to Washington and they vote against it, and so citizens need to hold those senators accountable,” she told Fox News Digital.

“Unfortunately that dissent is being led by my own senator, Senator Chuck Schumer. Who always seems to be at odds with his constituents and America these days,” she said.

Malliotakis, New York City’s lone Republican in Congress, also laid into Mamdani, highlighting what she called his hypocrisy in requiring identification for city programs.

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“Sadly, you see the hypocrisy when you see programs like Mayor Mamdani wanting to require photo ID to utilize a government-run supermarket or when he wanted you to use a photo ID, not just one, but multiple IDs for a snow shoveling program,” she told Fox News Digital.

“This is the hypocrisy we’re seeing where things like that for everyday activities, they want ID, but when it comes to voting, the most important thing you do as a United States citizen is vote in your elections and elect your representatives, they don’t want any type of accountability, any type a transparency or any type of requirement for voter identification to prove who you are, that you’re eligible to vote, that you actually reside in the district in which you’re voting and that you are an American citizen,” she said.

Malliotakis also pointed to a recent event in her Staten Island district where Mamdani was booed off the stage.

“This was an event for National Night Out Against Crime. It was in support of our law enforcement and the NYPD. Mamdani, in his career as a state assembly member, led the fight for the defund the police movement. And my constituents have not forgotten that. So number one, they were calling him out on his hypocrisy. But number two, they are making very clear they do not support his communist agenda and my borough of Staten Island is the only borough in the five boroughs of New York City that did not vote for Zohran Mamdani,” she concluded.

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Fox News Digital contacted the offices of Mamdani and Schumer for further comment.

The suspect accused of vandalizing the World War II Memorial in Washington D.C., has been taken into custody, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro announced Friday.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Columbia are charging Melissa L. Farris with two felony charges for her alleged role in the vandalism.

“Vandalizing our World War II Memorial is a despicable attack on a sacred monument honoring the Americans who fought and died for our freedom. Those Americans include my father and grandfather. This morning, we are filing two felony charges, Depredation Against Property of the United States and Destruction of Veterans’ Memorials, in Federal District Court against Melissa L. Farris, offenses that carry penalties of up to ten years in prison. She is now in custody,” Pirro added.

The DOJ is accusing Farris of an act of vandalism which occurred Thursday. Farris allegedly spray-painted the memorial with the words “Clean hands, dirty money,” in bright pink paint.

The alleged vandal also dumped bubble soap into the fountain at the center of the memorial.

President Donald Trump reacted strongly to the memorial’s defacement. 

“Our beautiful World War II Memorial was just hit by Spray Painting Vandals. THERE CAN BE NO GREATER INSULT TO THOSE AMERICAN HEROES WHO DIED IN WORLD WAR II. First the Reflecting Pool, now this. We are on their trail! Where do these animals come from???” he wrote in a Thursday post on Truth Social.

The memorial is the latest DC monument to endure a bout of sabotage this year.

The high-profile saga of the alleged Lincoln Monument Memorial Reflecting Pool has been ongoing as Trump continues to seek the prosecution of a former Olympian accused of ripping the pool’s coating.

In June, U.S. Park Police also launched an investigation after the numbers “8647” were burned into the grass near the Washington Monument.

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

Michigan’s highest-ranking House Republican is crying foul on Abdul El-Sayed’s claim that he is not a socialist.

“If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck,” House GOP Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain, R-Mich., told Fox News Digital. “So maybe he’s not a socialist. Maybe he’s a full-blown communist.”

El-Sayed, a former public health official, scored an upset victory for Democrats’ leftmost flank in Michigan’s Senate primary earlier this month. He defeated Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., a House lawmaker who was heavily favored by the Democratic establishment, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

It was part of a larger wave of victories by candidates aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), several of whom have toppled sitting House Democratic lawmakers in primaries in New York and Colorado in addition to Michigan.

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And while El-Sayed himself is not a DSA member, some of the biggest names to campaign alongside him — including Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich. — are self-proclaimed democratic socialists.

El-Sayed told CBS News in an interview posted to YouTube last week that he was working on building a broad coalition that included supporters of President Donald Trump as well as DSA members, even though he is neither.

“Folks who come here, like, with two weeks left in the election, really, really want to label me a socialist. I don’t know why, except for maybe it fits into a nice telling of a broader national story. But I’m a scientist, right? And I like solutions that solve problems,” El-Sayed said. “I don’t do ideology. I’d rather think of myself as a capitalist who actually read about capitalism, in the sense that the biggest risk to capitalism was always going to be corporate consolidation and monopoly, rather than government regulation.”

McClain, meanwhile, argued that El-Sayed’s platform is inherently socialist.

“He wants to take money out of your pockets. He wants free everything. Well, at the end of the day, if everything is free, someone has to pay for it,” McClain said. “Are the farmers not gonna get paid? Are the teachers not going to get paid? He wants higher taxes, and he wants to take money out of your pockets so you can pay for your neighbors. To me, that’s socialism. That’s borderline communism.”

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El-Sayed’s policy platform includes promises to fight for Medicare for all, raising taxes on millionaires and billionaires, using “wage insurance and basic income” programs to counter artificial intelligence automating industries, and abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to his website.

Republicans have argued that the majority of policies supported by the progressive and socialist left will amount to higher taxes for everyday Americans. But Democrats have insisted that their plans will lead to more affordable living for working- and middle-class people.

Traditionally, the party in power in the White House tends to lose seats in Congress during the midterms. That, combined with low approval numbers for President Donald Trump, means Republicans have an uphill battle to buck past political trends to keep control of the House and Senate.

But McClain pointed out that El-Sayed failed to clinch an outright majority in Michigan Democrats’ Senate primary and predicted it would mean Republicans running up and down the ballot in the Wolverine State will see big gains with the far-left progressive at the top of the ticket.

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“I think it’s gonna help us tremendously, right? Because if you look at El-Sayed’s numbers, 50%, over 50% — the majority didn’t vote for him. So what are those voters gonna do?” McClain posed. “How is El-Sayed and his crazy progressive, socialist, communist party going to bring those Democratic voters over to the Democratic side of the ticket? I don’t think they are. I think those voters are going to look for a common-sense candidate, and I think those voters are either going to one, stay home or two, vote for Mike Rogers.”

Mike Rogers, a former House Republican and FBI agent, is the Republican nominee in Michigan.

He made an appeal to Democrats days after the matchup became official, stating in a video, “If you’re among the majority of Democratic voters that woke up on Wednesday feeling, well, hopeless, because the person who won does not represent your values, well, just know, there is still hope.”

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Fox News Digital reached out to El-Sayed’s campaign for comment.