Columbia University said it will cut around 180 staff members Tuesday following the Trump administration’s announcement in March that it canceled $400 million in federal grants over the Ivy League school’s “failure to protect Jewish students from antisemitic harassment.” 

“Across the research portfolio we have had to make difficult choices and unfortunately, today, nearly 180 of our colleagues who have been working, in whole or in part, on impacted federal grants, will receive notices of non-renewal or termination,” acting Columbia University President Claire Shipman said in a statement. “This represents about 20% of the individuals who are funded in some manner by the terminated grants.

“In the coming weeks and months, we will need to continue to take actions that preserve our financial flexibility and allow us to invest in areas that drive us forward,” she added. “This is a deeply challenging time across all higher education, and we are attempting to navigate through tremendous ambiguity with precision, which will be imperfect at times.” 

The White House did not immediately respond Tuesday to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. 

LINDA MCMAHON BLASTS HARVARD IN SCATHING LETTER TELLING ELITE UNIVERSITY IT WILL NO LONGER GET FEDERAL GRANTS 

Columbia University said in early March that it was “notified of federal action from Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Department of Education (ED), and the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) cancelling $400 million in federal funding to the University. 

“The federal agencies cite ‘the school’s continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.’ There is no question that the cancellation of these funds will immediately impact research and other critical functions of the University, impacting students, faculty, staff, research, and patient care,” it added at the time. 

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY JANITORS SUE ANTI-ISRAEL AGITATORS ACCUSED OF HOLDING THEM HOSTAGE IN CAMPUS BUILDING 

Then in April, Columbia University caved in to demands from the Trump administration in an effort to restore federal funding. 

The Ivy League school agreed to ban masks for the purpose of concealing identity, empower 36 campus police officers with new powers to arrest students and appoint a senior vice provost with broad authority to oversee the department of Middle East, South Asian and African Studies, as well as the Center for Palestine Studies.  

As of today, “Columbia’s leadership continues discussions with the federal government in support of resuming activity on these research awards and additional other awards that have remained active, but unpaid,” according to Shipman. 

“Increasing budget constraints combined with uncertainty related to future levels of federal funding for research, including proposed reductions in facilities and administration (i.e., indirect costs) reimbursements, requires us to make difficult choices,” Shipman said about the layoffs. “We have had to make deliberate, considered decisions about the allocation of our financial resources. Those decisions also impact our greatest resource, our people. We understand this news will be hard.” 

Fox News’ Louis Casiano and Alexis McAdams contributed to this report. 

EXCLUSIVE — Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill., is calling on sheriffs in her state to defy Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker and the state’s sanctuary laws and instead uphold federal immigration law.

Miller said the state’s sanctuary policies have transformed the Land of Lincoln into a “cesspool of crime and drugs.” She is calling on sheriffs in the state to “act now” and ignore Pritzker’s attempts to circumvent President Donald Trump on immigration law and instead work directly with U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) on deportations.

This comes as Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, also a Democrat, have emerged as some of the nation’s leading resistance voices against the Trump administration, especially when it comes to his crackdown on illegal immigration.

The Democratic-majority Illinois legislature passed the TRUST Act in 2017, which limits local law enforcement’s ability to cooperate with ICE and bars them from enforcing immigration law.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT RELEASED BY BIDEN ADMIN PLEADS NOT GUILTY TO MURDER OF GEORGIA GRANDMOTHER

Pritzker, who is seen as a possible 2028 presidential candidate, has continued to fight the administration, even denouncing Trump as an “authoritarian” and calling for mass protests to disrupt the president’s agenda, saying Republicans “cannot know a moment of peace.”

The Democratic governor has also vowed to resist the administration’s immigration agenda and has said that Trump and border czar Tom Homan are “the ones who are threatening people.”

ICE has said that state and local policies inhibiting law enforcement from cooperating with ICE endangers federal agents and communities by allowing public safety threats to walk free.

The Trump Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed legal charges against Pritzker, Johnson and several other Chicago officials for refusing to honor ICE detainers, which the department said, “obstructs ICE from assuming custody of an alien in a safe and controlled manner.”

In its filing, the DOJ said that “when a detainer is not honored or an alien is released from a non-federal facility without notification or transfer to ICE, ICE must conduct investigations and perform targeted enforcement actions to re-apprehend the alien. And while ICE is undertaking re-apprehension efforts, the alien remains at-large in the community and free to commit further crimes or otherwise threaten public safety.”

DHS UNLEASHES POSSIBLE MONEY-SAVING MEASURE FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS TO SELF-DEPORT: ‘SAFEST OPTION’

Though police departments are typically under the direct control of city officials, sheriffs are elected by the people they serve and often have more leeway to enforce the law unimpeded by political pressure.

As such, Miller is urging sheriffs across the state to stand against Pritzker and state authorities and enforce immigration law.  

“I call on every local sheriff in Illinois to defy these dangerous directives, cooperate with ICE, and support President Trump’s deportation efforts,” Miller said to Fox News Digital.

She said that “Pritzker’s sanctuary state policies have transformed Illinois into a cesspool of crime and drugs brought by the illegals he is actively resettling.”

FATHER WHOSE SON DIED FROM FENTANYL WARNS OVERDOSES ‘CAN HAPPEN TO ANYONE’ AS STATES FIGHT DEADLY CRISIS

“Our communities are being overwhelmed, innocent girls are being raped, and Americans are being ruthlessly murdered,” she added. “These are the tragic consequences of his failed leadership.”

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“We must act now before one more innocent American life is lost or harmed,” she said.

Pritzker’s office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. 

The governors of six northeastern U.S. states have invited the premiers of six Canadian provinces to meet in Boston as both sides face the impacts of tariffs.

President Donald Trump’s policy of imposing tariffs on products imported from America’s northern neighbor and other nations has sparked controversy both in the U.S. and abroad.

The group of governors includes five Democrats — Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, Maine Gov. Janet Mills, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, and Rhode Island Gov. Daniel McKee — and one Republican — Vermont Gov. Phil Scott.

CANADIAN PM CARNEY TO MEET TRUMP AT WHITE HOUSE AFTER ELECTION INFLUENCED BY ANNEXATION THREATS

The governors are inviting the premiers of the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island and Québec, Healey and Mills press releases indicate.

“While the international uproar over tariffs threatens to upend the economies of our respective communities, we write to reaffirm our friendship and unique interdependence. Ours is a cherished relationship that is founded not only on mutual financial advantages but also on centuries-old familial and cultural bonds that supersede politics,”  the U.S. politicians said in their invitation.

“As Governors of the Northeast, we want to keep open lines of communication and cooperation and identify avenues to overcome the hardship of these uninvited tariffs and help our economies endure. As we continue to navigate this period of great uncertainty, we are committed to preserving cross border travel, encouraging tourism in our respective jurisdictions, and promoting each other’s advantages and amenities,” they noted.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS ACCUSED OF POCKETING THOUSANDS BY SMUGGLING HUNDREDS OF ALIENS EACH WEEK FROM CANADA TO US

Trump, who has repeatedly indicated that he would like Canada to become America’s 51st state, is meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Tuesday.

“Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker asked Trump if he would speak to Carney about making the country the 51st state. 

TRUMP BLASTS ‘DISHONEST INTERVIEW’ DURING CONTENTIOUS DEBATE ON TARIFFS

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“I’ll always talk about that. You know why? We subsidize Canada to the tune of $200 billion dollars a year. We don’t need their cars, in fact we don’t want their cars. We don’t need their energy, we don’t even want their energy, we have more than they do. We don’t want their lumber, we have great lumber, all I have to do is free it up from the environmental lunatics. We don’t need anything that they have,” Trump declared.

Mills said that the economic and cultural relationships between the U.S. and Canada have been “strained by the president’s haphazard tariffs and harmful rhetoric targeting our northern neighbors,” according to the press releases.

A new study exposing a significant number of “serious adverse events” occurring among women who have taken mifepristone, also known as the “abortion pill,” has sparked an outcry from the pro-life community, including experts who spoke to Fox News Digital about what the study means for women in the United States. 

“The biggest thing that will shock most readers of this report is just how different the findings in this study are from what the FDA claims on the abortion drug label,” Katie Glenn Daniel, SBA Pro Life America director of legal affairs, told Fox News Digital about the recently released study. 

“What they found is that more than one in ten women will go to the emergency room seeking follow-up care after taking the abortion drugs. The FDA claims that’s more like one in 20 women, which is still concerning, right? If you’ve got a one in twenty chance of something happening, you might take that seriously, but one in 10. It is shocking,” she continued. “This means hundreds of thousands of American women have gone to the hospital for complications from abortions through these abortion drugs and the FDA was not collecting information about those situations. So this study shines a light on what has been happening, what ER doctors certainly know is happening. But what our public health institutions have turned a blind eye to.”

Mifepristone is a “pregnancy blocker” that is used in combination with another medication, misoprostol, to terminate pregnancies, according to Mayo Clinic. It is also used to manage early miscarriages, as it helps prepare the body to empty the uterus.

 ROE V. WADE IS GONE, BUT ABORTION STILL THE NUMBER 1 KILLER WORLDWIDE

Research by the Ethics & Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., has revealed that the rate of serious side effects is 22 times higher than what is indicated on the FDA-approved drug label.

After going through an abortion assisted by mifepristone, nearly 11% of women — more than one in 10 — reported experiencing “infection, hemorrhaging, or another serious or life-threatening adverse event,” according to the study summary.

“These reports, which analyzed the largest known data set of real-world mifepristone use, confirm what physicians like me and our members are seeing in our clinical practice: that abortion drugs pose significant dangers to women,” Dr. Christina Francis, a board-certified OB/GYN, told Fox News Digital. 

“I have had patients face life-threatening hemorrhage, infection, and more after taking these drugs, which are now available to order online without an in-person physician visit to confirm the age of the pregnancy and rule out risk factors. The fact that these data show a serious complication rate that is 22 times higher than what the FDA states reveals the urgent need for further investigation into complications of drug-induced abortions and for policymakers and agencies to reprioritize women’s safety over the interests of the abortion industry. Women and their children deserve better care than these dangerous drugs.”

SCOOP: REPUBLICANS DISCUSS DEFUNDING ‘BIG ABORTION’ LIKE PLANNED PARENTHOOD IN TRUMP AGENDA BILL

Mifepristone, which the Biden administration took steps to ensure was made available to women through the mail, is the most well-known abortion pill in the United States, and approximately 63% of all abortions in the U.S. in 2023 were medication abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute. 

This was an increase from 53% in 2020.

“We knew that the Biden administration’s changes to the abortion drug prescribing, which included allowing these drugs to be sent through to mail. We knew that that was harmful for women and girls because there is no medical oversight,” Daniel told Fox News Digital. “You don’t even know if a pregnant woman’s getting these drugs. There have been cases where men order these drugs, to slip them to somebody. The state of Louisiana has a case right now where a mother ordered them and forced her daughter to take them, even though the pregnancy was wanted. So you really lose a lot of the safeguards that are in place when somebody actually physically goes to a doctor’s office.”

Daniel told Fox News Digital she hopes this report will encourage the Trump administration’s FDA to take action to ensure that women and unborn children are protected. 

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“A drug that puts one in ten women in the hospital is certainly not a drug that is quote unquote good for women or caring for women and I think we need to be realistic about that,” Daniel said. 

Daniel also explained that the true harm from the pill is likely even worse than the study only includes certain years and only women who used insurance.

“So there are tons of women, including those who are the most vulnerable, who are left out of this data,” Daniel pointed out. 

“There is a lot more to look out here,” Daniel continued. “We see this as the starting point of what the FDA, the CDC, our public health institutions, and our physicians need to be looking at. And we need to have an honest conversation about the fact that 20 years of data shows that these drugs are deadly for children, but they’re also very dangerous for in girls.”

Fox News Digital’s Melissa Rudy contributed to this report

The Democratic Party will be the “Titanic at the bottom of the ocean” come 2028, according to Gen Z political commentator Brilyn Hollyhand, who is on a mission to continue building conservative support among the youth vote following President Donald Trump‘s strides with the demographic in 2024. 

“They’ve actually put up figures like Jasmine Crockett and AOC and Bernie Sanders as their leaders. None of those people are inspiring Gen Z. None of those people are bringing more voters into the party. It’s just making this weird, radical wing of the party be the vocal voices. So, by all means, let Jasmine Crockett, AOC and Bernie Sanders be the voice, the future of the DNC. It’ll make our job easier come the midterms and come 2028,” Hollyhand told Fox News Digital in an exclusive Zoom interview this week. 

“It’s a really weird position that they’ve taken to go more radical than Kamala Harris. And that’s why Kamala lost, because she was too radical,” he said.  

Hollyhand, 18, is a political commentator and chair of the RNC’s Youth Advisory Council who was invited to meet one-on-one with Trump in Alabama on Thursday, when the president delivered the University of Alabama’s commencement speech. Hollyhand said that he and Trump discussed how to keep momentum among young voters following the 2024 election, when Gen Z voters swung to the right as Trump courted young people on TikTok and in podcasts. The youth vote, he explained, had long been in the Democrat Party’s court before Trump upped the ante on youth outreach during last year’s election cycle. 

The 18-year-old activist does not graduate high school until later this month, but he has met Trump five times as of Thursday. The pair discussed how the Trump White House can continue expanding on the strides the Trump campaign made with young people, including Hollyhand suggesting Trump tweak former President Ronald Reagan’s famed 1980 campaign question: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”

DEMOCRATS ACCUSED OF BEING ‘OUT OF TOUCH’ AS NEW POLL SHOWS DROP IN SUPPORT FROM YOUNG VOTERS

“A comment I made to him was, ‘Mr. President, I’m a huge history nerd. And so I loved when you talked about that famous Reagan quote of, ‘Are you better off than you were four years ago?’ And that’s something he echoed on the campaign trail a bunch himself. But something I specifically pointed out to the president is, ‘We can tweak that a little bit.’ And he said, ‘What do you mean? What can we do?’ I said, ‘Well, now all you have to do is walk out on that stage and ask Gen Z, ’Are you’re better off then you were 100 days ago?'” Hollyhand recounted. 

“The resounding answer every single time is going to be, ‘Yes.’ I mean, gas is cheaper, the border’s secure, and the president performed CPR on the American dream. So, I think everybody in my generation can agree, whether you love Trump or hate Trump, he is improving the nation and making life better for us,” he added. 

The political activist said that he floated to Trump that he could hold a 2025 version of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fireside chats to talk directly to voters in a virtual setting, and he also told Trump that he has a “secret weapon” going into the 2026 midterms. 

“I said, ‘Mr. President, you’re doing this crazy novel concept in politics called actually doing what the people elected you to do in office and actually keeping your promises. I know we never see politicians doing that, but you’re doing that and Gen Z loves it,'” Hollyhand said. 

On the flip side, Democrats have dangled promises of free college and cheaper costs of living to young people, while comparing Trump to Adolf Hitler and Elon Musk to a king, he argued. Hollyhand said such messaging has swayed some youths to rally around left-wing Democrats, such as New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, but that many Gen Zers are able to see through the “false bill of goods from the Democrats.” 

DEMOCRATS’ IDENTITY CRISIS: YOUTH REVOLT ROCKS PARTY AFTER TRUMP COMEBACK

The Democrat Party is in the midst of finding its footing and platform on a swath of issues ranging from transgender ideology to immigration and the economy after voters poured out in support of Trump and his policies in 2024 in an election that was viewed as a rebuke of left-wing policies. High-profile Democrats such as Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders have amplified their positions within the party in recent months, including hosting anti-Trump rallies and speculation mounting that Ocasio-Cortez could make a Senate or presidential run. 

Hollyhand said that Trump could use his “secret weapon” ahead of the midterms and publish bullet-point lists of his accomplishments, which he argued Democrats will struggle to campaign against. 

DEMOCRATS’ VICE CHAIR IGNITES CIVIL WAR, TARGETING ‘ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL’ INCUMBENTS IN PRIMARIES

“I think that’s going to be a really hard thing to campaign against come the midterms. I think it’s going to be super hard to campaign against this list of accomplishments come 2028. Where the Democrats are trying to … scare Gen Z with these emotions and dangle free things in front of them and say, ‘oh, well, they’re Nazis and they’re Hitler and Elon Musk is trying to be a king.’ And then we come out and just say, ‘Hey, here’s a bullet point list of the things we’ve accomplished in the first 100 days.’ That’s a really hard thing to campaign against,” he said.

Hollyhand underscored that his meeting with Trump backstage at the commencement speech was relaxed and stood in stark contrast with how the media portrays the president. 

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“This guy is genuine. Like the first thing he said was, ‘You’ve been killing it.’ He took the time to say, ‘Hey, I actually watched your hit on Fox News this morning.’ He could have been saying, ‘Hey, Brilyn, get these youth numbers up, improve our numbers in this college campus, get more students out there in that arena.’ He immediately turned it to, ‘Hey man, you’ve been killin’ it. …. That shows just the testament of who the guy is. And it wasn’t like a serious back and forth. We were laughing, we’re cutting it up,” Hollyhand said.

Tensions on the Supreme Court have flared this term as justices have clashed with each other and with lawyers at oral arguments amid a wave of Trump-era emergency appeals. 

These exchanges at any other forum would hardly even raise an eyebrow. But at the Supreme Court, where decorum and respect are bedrock principles and underpin even the most casual cross-talk between justices, these recent clashes are significant. 

After one particularly acrimonious exchange, several longtime Supreme Court watchers noted that the behavior displayed was unlike anything they’d seen in “decades” of covering the high court.

Here are two high-profile Supreme Court spats that have made headlines in recent weeks.

100 DAYS OF INJUNCTIONS, TRIALS AND ‘TEFLON DON’: TRUMP SECOND TERM MEETS ITS BIGGEST TESTS IN COURT

Last month, Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Sonia Sotomayor quarreled briefly during oral arguments in Mahmoud v. Taylor, a case focused on LGBTQ-related books in elementary schools and whether parents with religious objections can “opt out” children being read such material. 

The exhange occurred when Sotomayor asked Mahmoud attorney Eric Baxter about a book titled “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” a story that invoked a same-sex relationship. Sotomayor asked Baxter whether exposure to same-sex relationships in children’s books like the one in question should be considered “coercion.”

Baxter began responding when Alito chimed in.

“I’ve read that book as well as a lot of these other books,” Alito said. “Do you think it’s fair to say that all that is done in ‘Uncle Bobby’s Wedding’ is to expose children to the fact that there are men who marry other men?”

After Baxter objected, Alito noted that the book in question “has a clear message” but one that some individuals with “traditional religious beliefs don’t agree with.”

Sotomayor jumped in partway through Alito’s objection, “What a minute, the reservation is – “

“Can I finish?” Alito said to Sotomayor in a rare moment of frustration. 

He continued, “It has a clear moral message, and it may be a good message. It’s just a message that a lot of religious people disagree with.”

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ASKS SUPREME COURT TO REVIEW EL SALVADOR DEPORTATION FLIGHT CASE

“There is a growing heat to the exchanges between the justices,” Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley observed on social media after the exchange. 

The Sotomayor-Alito spat made some court-watchers uncomfortable. But it paled in comparison to the heated, tense exchange that played out just one week later between Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and Lisa Blatt, a litigator from the firm Williams & Connolly.

The exchange took place during oral arguments in A.J.T. v. Osseo Area Schools, a case about whether school districts can be held liable for discriminating against students with disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. 

Gorsuch scolded Blatt, an experienced Supreme Court litigator who was representing the public schools in the case, after she accused the other side of “lying.” 

What played out was a remarkably heated exchange, if only by Supreme Court standards. Several court observers noted that they had never seen Gorsuch so angry, and others remarked they had never seen counsel accuse the other side of “lying.”

“You believe that Mr. Martinez and the Solicitor General are lying? Is that your accusation?” Gorsuch asked Blatt, who fired back, “Yes, absolutely.”

 Counsel “should be more careful with their words,” Gorsuch told Blatt in an early tone of warning.

“OK, well, they should be more careful in mischaracterizing a position by an experienced advocate of the Supreme Court, with all due respect,” Blatt responded.

Several minutes later, Gorsuch referenced the lying accusation again, “Ms. Blatt, I confess I’m still troubled by your suggestion that your friends on the other side have lied.”

“I’d ask you to reconsider that phrase,” he said. “You can accuse people of being incorrect, but lying, lying is another matter.”

He then began to read through quotations that she had entered before the court, before she interrupted again. 

“I’m not finished,” Gorsuch told Blatt, raising his voice.

“Fine,” she responded.

Shortly after, Gorsuch asked Blatt to withdraw her earlier remarks that accused the other side of lying.

“Withdraw your accusation, Ms. Blatt,” Gorsuch said.

“Fine, I withdraw,” she shot back.

Plaintiffs said in rebuttal that they would not dignify the name-calling.

The exchange sparked some buzz online, including from an experienced appeals court litigator, Raffi Melkonian, who wrote on social media, “I’ve never heard Justice Gorsuch so angry.”

“Both of those moments literally stopped me in my tracks,” said Steve Vladeck, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. “You might want to listen somewhere where you can cringe in peace.”

‪Mark Joseph Stern‬, a court reporter for Slate, described the exchange as “extremely tense” and described Blatt’s behavior as “indignant and unrepentant.”

A federal judge on Monday ordered the North Carolina elections board to certify results showing Democrat Allison Riggs as the winner of the state Supreme Court race against Republican Jefferson Griffin, ruling that thousands of contested ballots in the November contest must remain in the final count. 

U.S. District Judge Richard Myers – who was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2019 – agreed with Riggs and others who argued it would violate the U.S. Constitution to carry out recent decisions by state appeals courts that could remove potentially thousands of ballots for overseas military and their family members who were not required to attach a copy of their photo IDs, as well as ballots for a category of “Never Residents,” or U.S. citizens with family ties to North Carolina who have never lived in the United States. Myers wrote that votes could not be removed six months after Election Day without damaging due process or equal protection rights of the affected residents.

Myers ordered the State Board of Elections to certify results that, after two recounts, had Riggs as the winner — by just 734 votes — over Griffin. 

FEDERAL JUDGE KICKS BATTLE OVER NC SUPREME COURT ELECTION BACK TO STATE COURT

“The State Board SHALL certify the results of the election for Seat 6 based on the tally at the completion of the canvassing period on December 10, 2024,” Myers wrote, denying Griffin’s petitions for judicial review and injunctive relief. 

The judge delayed his order for seven days in case Griffin wants to appeal the ruling to the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. 

More than 5.5 million ballots were cast in what has been the nation’s last undecided race from November’s elections. 

Myers said the “case concerns whether the federal Constitution permits a state to alter the rules of an election after the fact and apply those changes retroactively to only a select group of voters, and in so doing treat those voters differently than other similarly situated individuals.” 

The board “must not proceed with implementation of the North Carolina Court of Appeals and Supreme Court’s orders, and instead must certify the results of the election for (the seat) based on the tally at the completion of the canvassing period,” Myers wrote.

Griffin, himself a state Court of Appeals judge, filed formal protests after the election in hopes that removing ballots he said were unlawfully cast would flip the outcome to him.

Griffin’s legal team was reviewing Myers’ order Monday night and evaluating the next steps, Griffin campaign spokesperson Paul Shumaker told the Associated Press. 

FEDERAL JUDGE WEIGHS IN ON LAST UNDECIDED 2024 ELECTION

“Today, we won,” Riggs said in a statement. “I‘m proud to continue upholding the Constitution and the rule of law as North Carolina’s Supreme Court Justice.”

Griffin wanted Myers to leave undisturbed the state courts’ decisions, which also directed that most of the voters with otherwise ineligible ballots get 30 days to provide identifying information for their race choices to remain in the tally.

Riggs, the state Democratic Party and some affected voters said Griffin was trying to change the 2024 election outcome after the fact by removing ballots cast by voters who complied with voting rules as they were written last fall.

Myers wrote that Griffin’s formal protests after the election, which were rejected by the State Board of Elections, constituted efforts to make retroactive changes to the voting laws that would arbitrarily disenfranchise only the voters who were targeted by Griffin. Griffin’s challenges over voters not providing photo identification only covered at most six Democratic-leaning counties in the state.

“You establish the rules before the game. You don’t change them after the game is done,” Myers wrote in a 68-page order. “Permitting parties to ‘upend the set rules’ of an election after the election has taken place can only produce ‘confusion and turmoil'” that “‘threatens to undermine public confidence in the federal courts, state agencies, and the elections themselves,'” he added.

One category of ballots that state appellate courts found to be ineligible covered military or overseas voters who did not provide copies of photo identification or an ID exception form with their absentee ballots. A state rule exempted them from the requirement. The appeals courts had permitted a “cure” process for these voters, so their ballots could still count in the race.

The other category of ballots that the appellate courts declared violated the state constitution were cast by overseas voters who have never lived in the U.S. but whose parents were declared North Carolina residents. A state law had authorized these persons to vote in state elections. 

Griffin filed formal protests that appeared to cover more than 65,000 ballots. Ensuing state court rulings whittled down the total to between 1,675 and 7,000, according to court filings.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

A resurfaced clip of Dem. Rep. Ilhan Omar, a member of the progressive “Squad” in Congress, sparked a frenzy on social media this week with conservatives blasting the congresswoman over her comments regarding the “radicalization of White men.”

“I would say our country should be more fearful of White men across our country, because they are actually causing most of the deaths within this country,” Omar said in a 2018 interview with Al-Jazeera while discussing the domestic terrorism threats in the United States and responding to a question on how much concern “jihadism” poses to the United States. 

 “And so if fear was the driving force of policies to keep America safe, Americans safe inside of this country, we should be profiling, monitoring, and creating policies to fight the radicalization of White men.”

The clip, posted by conservative influencer accounts including Laura Loomer and LibsofTikTok with millions of impressions, sparked outrage from conservatives on social media, including from inside the White House. 

OMAR SLAMS TRUMP, MUSK FOR CHANGES AT USAID, ACCUSES PRESIDENT OF RUNNING DICTATORSHIP

“This isn’t just sick; it’s actually genocidal language,” Vice President JD Vance posted on X. “What a disgrace this person is.”

“This is blatant racism,” GOP Sen. Mike Lee posted on X. “Who condemns it?”

ILHAN OMAR BLASTS HARRIS-WALZ CAMPAIGN FOR COURTING LIZ CHENEY: ‘HUGE MISSTEP’

“@ilhanMN never ceases to be an embarrassment for Minnesota,” GOP Majority Whip Rep. Tom Emmer, who represents Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, posted on X. 

“There’s never been a more anti-American member of Congress than Ilhan Omar,” conservative influencer Paul Szypula posted on X. 

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

The social media firestorm comes shortly after Omar sparked controversy for telling Daily Caller News Foundation reporter Myles Morell to “f— off” after he asked her a question about fellow Democratic Party figures traveling to El Salvador to defend illegal immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was deported to the country by the Trump administration.

Omar later responded to the clip being shared on X, stating, “I said what I said. You and all your miserable trolls can f— off.”

Americans will need a REAL ID-compliant driver’s license, passport or other approved federal identification document to fly on an airplane starting tomorrow. However, there are ways around it.

Obtaining a REAL ID includes more stringent requirements for verifying a person’s identity than has been used in the past with non-REAL ID driver’s licenses. The switch to this new form of identification has caused a lot of chaos and confusion, with many travelers expressing fear they won’t be able to get a REAL ID before the Wednesday deadline. 

However, lucky for these folks, there will be alternative ways that can help people get around if need be.

MARRIED WOMEN FACE REAL ID DOCUMENTATION HURDLES: ‘I CAN’T ACCEPT THIS’

To begin, driving will not be impacted by the new requirement, so road trips are still fair game for anyone without a REAL ID. Just ensure you’re not traveling to any secure federal facilities though, because you won’t be able to get in if you don’t have one. 

Buses would be an option as well as there are no federally owned or operated bus lines. But you still subject to any rules the company you are traveling with may have.

While Amtrak is federally chartered, a REAL ID will not be required to take their trains after the deadline. If you buy a ticket from Amtrak conductors, the train line’s policy does state that passengers must present a valid form of photo identification, and passengers over 18 must have a valid photo ID while riding, but Amtrak’s policy does not say it must be REAL ID compliant.

REAL ID REJECTION BY AMERICANS MAY COME DOWN TO ONE SURPRISING FACTOR 

Cruise lines are also unaffected by the new REAL ID requirement, but most people have to fly to the ship’s port, so that could pose potential problems.

Travelers without a REAL ID can use their passport, but even without that there are still alternatives to the new requirement, though they just might add delays to your trip and aren’t guaranteed to work.

Passengers will be required to fill out a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Form 415, also known as a Certification of Identity form, and if the TSA officials are able to confirm the details given to them, passengers will be allowed to go through the security checkpoint and board their flight. Passengers who go this route may be subject to additional pat-downs, questioning or other extra security screening.

Even if you get denied, you may still be able to take advantage of airline policies that allow passengers to re-book their flight the following day, providing those without the proper identification time to get it. 

The Department of Homeland Security is offering $1,000 to illegal aliens who opt to self-deport via the CBP Home App, but Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., floated the idea of charging fines and granting work visas instead.

“Why don’t we make them pay a $5k fine, go through a background check and give them a work visa for a few years, renewable with good behavior,” he asked in a Monday post on X.

Gallego suggested in another post that immigrants would pay for the cost of their background check. 

DHS UNLEASHES POSSIBLE MONEY-SAVING MEASURE FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS TO SELF-DEPORT: ‘SAFEST OPTION’

“Make them pay. That is what we do now for other immigrants. Part of the filing fee,” noted Gallego, who defeated Republican Kari Lake in Arizona’s 2024 U.S. Senate contest.

The $1,000 offer comes as the Trump administration cracks down on illegal immigration and seeks to conduct a mass deportation effort.

ICE NABS ILLEGAL MIGRANT AFTER BLUE CITY AUTHORITIES DROP HOME INVASION, CHILD ABDUCTION CHARGES

“Any illegal alien who uses the CBP Home App to self-deport will also receive a stipend of $1,000 dollars, paid after their return to their home country has been confirmed through the app,” a DHS release noted. “Even with the cost of the stipend, it is projected that the use of CBP Home will decrease the costs of a deportation by around 70 percent. Currently, the average cost to arrest, detain, and remove an illegal alien is $17,121.”

DHS also indicates that illegal aliens will receive travel assistance to return to their home country.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT RELEASED BY BIDEN ADMIN PLEADS NOT GUILTY TO MURDER OF GEORGIA GRANDMOTHER

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“The first use of travel assistance has already proven successful. An illegal alien that the Biden Administration allowed into our country recently utilized the program to receive a ticket for a flight from Chicago to Honduras. Additional tickets have already been booked for this week and the following week,” DHS noted.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s regime does not direct the activities of the Tren de Aragua, according to a newly public memo released by U.S. intelligence agencies last month.

The memo, published Monday by the New York Times, undercuts President Donald Trump’s justifications for using the Alien Enemies Act to facilitate deportations. The report represents the “sense of the community” of the National Intelligence Council and states they have not found a direct link between Maduro’s regime and TdA leadership.

“While Venezuela’s permissive environment enables TDA to operate, the Maduro regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States,” the report states.

“The IC bases this judgment on Venezuelan law enforcement actions demonstrating the regime treats TDA as a threat; an uneasy mix of cooperation and confrontation rather than top-down directives [that] characterize the regime’s ties to other armed groups; and the decentralized makeup of TDA that would make such a relationship logistically challenging,” the memo continues.

FEDERAL JUDGES IN NEW YORK AND TEXAS BLOCK TRUMP DEPORTATIONS AFTER SCOTUS RULING

While the memo cuts against the claim that support for TdA is a direct policy from Maduro’s regime, it does note that FBI analysts agree that “some Venezuelan government officials facilitate TDA members’ migration from Venezuela to the United States and use members as proxies … to advance what they see as the Maduro regime’s goal of destabilizing governments and undermining public safety in these countries.”

NOEM RIPS DEMOCRATS OVER SUPPORT FOR DEPORTED MIGRANT

The Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which allows deportation of natives and citizens of an enemy nation without a hearing, has been invoked three times, during the War of 1812, World War I and World War II.

Trump’s administration declared in March that all Venezuelan citizens 14 years or older who are members of TdA, are within the U.S. and are not naturalized or lawful permanent residents of the U.S. may be apprehended, restrained, secured and removed as “alien enemies.”

Key to the White House’s argument is its claim that TdA operates in conjunction with Cártel de los Soles, the Nicolás Maduro regime-sponsored narco-terrorism enterprise based in Venezuela.

In 2020, Maduro and other regime members were charged with narco-terrorism and other crimes in an alleged plot against America.

Fox News’ Alexandra Koch contributed to this report.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris headlines a top-dollar Democratic National Committee fundraising dinner on Tuesday, marking the latest step back into the political spotlight by the Democrats’ 2024 presidential nominee.

The New York City gathering of top party officials, politicians and donors, where tickets range upwards of $25,000 per person, according to an invitation obtained by Fox News, comes as Harris is mulling her political future after last November’s election defeat at the hands of Republican President Donald Trump.

Among her campaign options that she’s weighing is a 2026 run for the open governor’s seat in her home state of California and another bid in 2028 for the White House.

The event also comes as the Democratic Party, facing historically low favorable ratings in national polling, aims to leave the political wilderness after the party lost control of the White House and the Senate and fell short in its bid to regain the House majority in the 2024 elections.

KAMALA HARRIS REVEALS POLITICAL TIMETABLE FOR MAKING KEY DECISION

And it is being held as an increasingly angry and energized base of Democrats is pushing for party leaders to take a stronger stand in pushing back against Trump’s sweeping and controversial agenda during the opening months of his second administration.

“Kamala Harris understands the fight that we are in,” DNC committee member and veteran Democratic strategist Maria Cardona told Fox News.

She added that “Kamala Harris is a beloved figure in the Democratic Party.”

“The DNC is using every tool in their toolbox to bring people together, to get people excited about the campaigns that are coming in the next two cycles,” said Cardona, a member of the DNC’s influential Rules and Bylaws committee. “I think it’s super smart for the DNC to use her, to use every other elected [official], to use governors, to use former administration officials. … I think this is just par for the course for what the DNC needs to do going forward.”

CLICK HERE FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS REPORTING AND OPINION ON FORMER VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS

The fundraiser is being held the day after the president helped haul in big bucks as he headlined a gathering of major donors at one of his golf courses in Virginia for MAGA Inc., which was the top Trump-aligned super PAC during the 2024 election cycle.

Harris proved her fundraising prowess last year, hauling in over $1 billion during her three-and-a-half-month White House campaign after replacing then-President Joe Biden atop the Democrats’ national ticket in late July, amid mounting questions over the then-81-year-old president’s physical and mental stamina. 

“She raised an eye-popping record amount of money,” Cardona noted. “She is still a tremendous draw for the Democratic faithful and donors and that will continue to be the case going forward.”

The DNC is using much of the money brought in at its fundraisers to build its ground operations and messaging efforts ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

A top progressive leader agreed that using Harris to help fundraise for the DNC makes sense. 

HERE ARE THE DEMOCRATS WHO MAY EVENTUALLY RUN FOR WHITE HOUSE IN 2028

But Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a major grassroots organization that promotes economic populism and democracy through electoral and issue advocacy efforts, pointed to Harris’ 2024 setback as well as her flameout in the 2020 Democrat presidential primary when asked about how the left would receive a potential 2028 White House bid by Harris.

“She had her chance. Sometimes you have to know when to step away,” Green told Fox News.

He argued that Harris felt more like a candidate from the party’s establishment than a shake-up of the system, populist, during her two presidential campaigns, and that the more voters got to know her, the less they supported her.

Harris’ appearance at Tuesday’s DNC fundraiser, where she’ll take part in a question-and-answer session with national party chair Ken Martin, comes a week after she made some of her first major public remarks since her 2024 defeat.

The former vice president at an event in San Francisco took aim at Trump’s economic agenda. She said the president’s controversial implementation of tariffs, which initially triggered a massive stock market selloff, “as I predicted, are clearly inviting a recession.”

The stepped-up appearances by Harris come as she continues to meet with advisors and friends as she considers her political future.

A source in the former vice president’s political orbit confirmed to Fox News Digital two months ago that Harris had told allies she would decide by the end of summer on whether to launch a 2026 gubernatorial campaign.

TOP TRUMP ALLY TEASES BID FOR CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR IF HARRIS RUNS

Harris served as San Francisco district attorney, California attorney general and represented the Golden State in the U.S. Senate before joining Biden’s 2020 ticket and winning election as vice president.

And Harris would be considered the clear frontrunner for governor in heavily blue California in the race to succeed term-limited Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Meanwhile, extremely early polls in the next Democratic Party presidential nomination race, which are heavily reliant on name recognition at this point, indicate that the former vice president holds a significant lead over other potential White House contenders.

It is unlikely she could do both. Running and winning election in 2026 as governor of California, the nation’s most populous state and home to the world’s fifth-largest economy, would likely take a 2028 White House run off the table, allies and political analysts have indicated.

While no decisions have been made, the former vice president has vowed to remain politically involved.

Harris, in a video message to the Democratic National Committee as it huddled for its winter meeting in early February, pledged to be with the party “every step of the way.”

And in an early April speech in California, Harris reiterated that she’ll stay politically active, noting that “I’m not going anywhere.”

2028 WATCH: VIRAL VIDEO SPARKS MORE AOC SPECULATION

But Harris is far from the only Democrat sparking 2028 speculation.

Among those making headlines in the extremely early moves for the next Democrat presidential nomination race is two-term Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois, who took aim at Trump and his own party as he headlined a state Democratic Party fundraiser a week and a half ago in New Hampshire, which traditionally has held the first primary in the White House race.

Also grabbing plenty of 2028 buzz is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the four-term, outspoken progressive from New York City.

A viral video of her nationwide series of rallies with longtime liberal champion Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, drew large crowds and sparked more speculation that the lawmaker known as AOC might have presidential ambitions in 2028 or that she could potentially primary challenge longtime Democrat Senate Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York in three years.

Green, in contrasting Harris and Ocasio-Cortez, said “this moment calls for authentic outsiders who want to shake up the broken political system and an economic status quo rigged for billionaires against working people. That’s why Kamala Harris lost, and it’s why a lot of people are looking at AOC.”

President Donald Trump unveiled a budget blueprint last week that includes roughly $6 billion in federal funding cuts to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). 

Despite the multibillion-dollar slash, a senior official at the space agency told Fox New Digital that the reduction in funding is actually beneficial for efficiency and exploration.

“The reductions in the President’s blueprint budget counterintuitively represent an opportunity to truly innovate in how we conduct our space missions,” senior NASA official Ryan Whitley told Fox News Digital in an exclusive statement. 

“Now is the time to reduce the bureaucracy at NASA and turn our attention to the execution of bold new human missions to the Moon and Mars.”

HOUSE FREEDOM CAUCUS EMBRACES TRUMP BUDGET PROPOSAL ‘PARADIGM SHIFT’

The proposed plan would cut roughly 24% of NASA’s entire budget, and could phase out some major projects like the Artemis moon program. Artemis, which was conceptualized by Trump in his first term, was designed to push the U.S. to return to moon exploration and came after President Barack Obama canceled the Constellation program in 2011.

The original timeline of the Artemis program included a mission to land astronauts on the moon by 2024 via the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, but technical challenges have delayed the undertaking several years, and it is now set for at least September 2026 should the program survive the cuts. 

While funding reduction threatens some existing programs, the White House touted new investments that would bolster the agency in an effort to beat Chinese space innovations.  

TRUMP, GOP PUSH FOR MAJOR REDUCTION OF GOVERNMENT SPENDING IN NEW BUDGET PLAN

“By allocating over $7 billion for lunar exploration and introducing $1 billion in new investments for Mars-focused programs, it ensures that America’s human space exploration efforts remain unparalleled, innovative, and efficient,” the White House topline preview reads. “To achieve these objectives, the Budget would streamline the NASA workforce, IT services, NASA Center operations, facility maintenance, and construction and environmental compliance activities.”

Aligning with the Trump administration’s movement to improve government efficiency, the White House clarified that the budget “refocuses [NASA] funding on beating China back to the Moon and on putting the first human on Mars.”

With a heavy reduction in federal funding, it is most likely that outside contractors and companies like Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX will most likely play a bigger role in launching rockets and exploring space.

SpaceX has conducted 479 launches thus far, and Blue Origin has conducted 31.

As the current head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), though he has announced his intention of leaving the agency to focus more on Tesla and his other ventures, Musk clarified he had no involvement in NASA budget discussions in a post on X last month.

GOP LEADERS FIND NEW MAJOR HOLIDAY DEADLINE FOR TRUMP’S ‘BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’ AMID MEDICAID, TAX DIVISIONS

The budget blueprint and the funding changes to NASA still have to make their way through the legislative process, but the U.S. space agency has stood fast in its position that the current proposal will bolster innovation and exploration.

“We have accomplished the impossible time and time again, but even the best organizations need to take a hard look in the mirror,” Whitley told Fox News Digital.

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“For the past 25 years, NASA has had access to billions of dollars to advance human exploration beyond Low Earth Orbit. Despite that, in all that time, the United States has only successfully conducted one—uncrewed—test flight around the Moon,” he said. “We know we are capable of accomplishing much more.”

Egypt and China wrapped up their first-ever joint military exercises on Sunday, in a show of force involving the U.S.’ top rival and one of its top recipients of military aid. 

Running from mid-April until Sunday, the drills consisted of joint aerial exercises, simulated air combat and modern warfare lectures. 

China deployed its J-10C fighter jets, KJ-500 airborne early warning aircraft and Y-20 transport tankers in a display of its military prowess beyond Asia, according to footage posted by Chinese state media outlet CCTV.

Egypt has, in recent years, also purchased large amounts of military machinery from Russia, prompting questions about how the U.S. should address a top Middle East ally and aid recipient growing closer to its biggest adversaries. 

CHINESE FIRM AIDING HOUTHI ATTACKS ON US VESSELS

“We’ve never seen a crisis like this,” said Joel Rubin, a former senior State Department official who worked on the Egypt desk under former President George W. Bush and pens “The Briefing Book” on Substack. “Egypt is essentially flouting us right now and looking to China, looking for more stable, long-term partners after nearly four and a half decades of stability in terms of the peace deal under Camp David.”

Egypt operates a number of U.S.-made aircraft – F-16 fighter aircraft, CH-47 Chinook and AH-64 Apache helicopters – and is slated to receive C-130 J transport aircraft. Egypt also possesses 32 American Patriot missile defense systems. 

The China-Egypt Eagles of Civilization 2025 is expected to bolster Beijing’s ties to Africa’s strongest military and a longtime strategic U.S. ally. 

Egypt has received roughly $1.3 billion each year in U.S. military aid since the Camp David Accords that normalized relations between Israel and Egypt. That figure puts it behind only Israel, which scores around $3.8 in U.S. military aid. 

Ukraine receives more aid than Egypt and Israel, but only since Russia’s invasion – prior to 2022, it got between $200 and $350 million each year. 

ISRAEL APPROVES PLAN TO CAPTURE ALL OF GAZA, CALLS UP TENS OF THOUSANDS OF RESERVE TROOPS

When the Trump administration took office and froze all foreign aid, Egypt and Israel were the only two nations who were exempted from the freeze. 

Egypt partners with U.S. security forces across the region to fight terrorism in places like Iraq and Syria. 

The Camp David Accords, per Rubin, were the “final piece to the puzzle that peeled off the most important Arab military from the Soviet Union.” Prior to the accords, Egypt was aligned with Russia’s priorities in the Middle East. “It was about getting them into our column, and this is a sign they may be again moving into a different column.” 

Around $300 million of U.S. military aid to Egypt can be conditioned on human rights concerns, and that money has been frozen and unfrozen in recent years due to complaints about Egypt’s human rights record under President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. 

“Cairo’s hedging tactics are not new. This has been a slow and steady effort, and this exercise marks a clear escalation. For Cairo, they want to diversify their patrons. Washington has long conditioned its aid to Egypt on human rights and democratization efforts. While the U.S. has routinely issued waivers on these conditions and allowed the aid to flow, Cairo does not want to remain beholden to Washington,” said Mariam Wahba, an Egypt-focused researcher at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. 

However, with a new administration with little appetite for foreign aid, Egypt may be concerned that further aid cuts are on the table. 

“This exercise should certainly sound the alarm in Washington,” said Wahba. 

The exercises, according to former Deputy Assistance Secretary of Defense Simone Ledeen, “are both about capability building and sending a geopolitical signal.” 

“Egypt is hedging, showing the U.S. it has options,” added Ledeen, who worked in the first Trump administration. “China is making clear it intends to expand its influence in the Mediterranean. Everyone should be paying attention.”

The latest development, according to Rubin, calls for “very agile diplomacy.”  

“It’s indicative of the broader global uncertainty and panic about the Trump administration’s position towards international affairs,” he said. “If we do threaten in a way that pushes them out, then even if we might feel justified morally, we could potentially be losing a crucial ally and partner, one that has significant impact on global shipping routes, counterterrorism work across the Arab Middle East, and we would be giving China a toe hold right into the heart of the Middle East at the worst possible time.”

John Fetterman has always been an eccentric character on a star-crossed path.

He is the only United States senator who has adopted a hoodie as his official uniform. 

He is also the only one who suffered a stroke on the eve of his primary victory, making it difficult for him to speak, but won the general election anyway.

And the Pennsylvania Democrat doesn’t toe the line on all party positions, especially when it comes to his fierce support for Israel.

AS JUDGE IS CHARGED WITH OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE IN MIGRANT CASE, SPINNERS CAST IT AS AN ANTI-TRUMP STORY

But now comes a troubling story in New York Magazine that casts the senator in a much darker light.

The New York Times put it this way: Fetterman’s former chief of staff “was so alarmed with his ex-boss’s erratic behavior last year that he wrote a lengthy letter to his doctor warning that the senator was spiraling out of control and that his mental health issues could cost him his life.”

The staffer, Adam Jentleson, added in writing Fetterman’s Walter Reed doctor: “I’m worried that if John stays on his current trajectory he won’t be with us for much longer.” 

Other former staff members told the Times that colleagues were sometimes “frightened” to be in his presence when he was manic, and that his “volatile” behavior has gotten worse since the election.

Fetterman issued a statement saying that “my ACTUAL doctors and my family affirmed that I’m very well.” He called the magazine story a “hit piece” and promoted the idea that its author, Ben Terris, was “best friends” with Jentleson and that they “sourced anonymous, disgruntled staffers with lies or distorted half-truths.”

Terris, for his part, disclosed in the article that Adam Jentleson is a “personal friend.” So it wasn’t a state secret.

Jentleson wrote to the medical director who supervised Fetterman’s hospitalization for mental health problems in 2023: “He does not see his doctors. I am not sure when he last saw a cardiologist, but I don’t think he’s seen one since he was released. He long ago ordered us to stop putting regular drop-bys with Dr. Monahan on his schedule, despite the fact that he had agreed to those as part of the plan.” Brian Monahan is the Capitol and Supreme Court physician. 

Fetterman was the first Democratic senator to visit Trump, who carried Pennsylvania and the other swing states, at Mar-a-Lago. 

STATE OF WAR: HOW TRUMP IS FIGHTING A 9-FRONT BATTLE

Jentleson wrote another doctor: “We do not know if he is taking his meds, and his behavior frequently suggests he is not.”

Among other things, wrote Jentleson, his ex-boss drives recklessly and recently bought a gun. There are “high highs and low lows; long, rambling, repetitive and self-centered monologues lying in ways that are painfully, awkwardly obvious to everyone in the room.”

Joe Biden, who does his first post-White House interview today, with his wife on “The View,” is a whole other story.

His problem was not depression but making other Democrats depressed when he insisted on running for a second term. We now know how his wife and his staff protected him from the press and even his own staff to avoid revealing his mental decline.

And that blew up on them in the horrible debate with Trump. Ron Klain has gone on the record with his frustration that his longtime boss walked out on one prep session and fell asleep by the pool.

Now comes a new revelation in a forthcoming book by Josh Dawsey of the Wall Street Journal, Tyler Pager of the New York Times and Isaac Arnsdorf of the Washington Post.

The Times writes, citing the book, that “his top White House aides debated having him undergo a cognitive test to prove his fitness for a second term” in the early weeks of 2024.

Here was the dilemma, according to “2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America.” And that’s an accurate title.

Biden’s closest aides “worried that the mere fact of his taking one would raise new questions about his mental abilities.”

SENATOR’S WARNING FOR DISTRICT JUDGES AS SUPREME COURT SET TO HEAR LANDMARK CASE

Which is precisely what would have happened. Rather than persuading the former president not to run, they wouldn’t even let him do a soft-focus Super Bowl interview.

During this period in 2022, the Times published an interview with David Axelrod, the former Obama White House official turned CNN commentator. Axelrod said Biden “looks his age”–then 79–and added:  “The stark reality is the president would be closer to 90 than 80 at the end of a second term, and that would be a major issue.”

Axelrod angrily called Klain, then the chief of staff, to ask why he was fueling doubts about a Democratic president.

“There’s no Obama out there, Axe,” Klain told him, according to the book. “Who’s going to do it if he doesn’t do it?”

This was also around the time that special counsel Robert Hur, declining to prosecute Biden on the classified documents he voluntarily turned over, called the president “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” That seems incredibly mild now. Biden held a news conference to declare his memory was fine, but referred to the president of Egypt as the president of Mexico.

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Talk about good days and bad days. Everyone has bad days, but it has national and international resonance when it involves a senator or a president.

None of this should be used to stigmatize those with mental health or mental acuity problems. But there are red flags here that deepen our understanding of what’s really happening.

A lawyer who represented a government whistleblower in a case that led to President Donald Trump’s first impeachment sued the Trump administration on Monday for “unconstitutional retaliation” after his security clearance was revoked.

Lawyer Mark Zaid argued that the administration’s decision to pull his clearance in March was in retaliation for representing former Department of Homeland Security intelligence chief Brian Murphy, who was key to Trump’s 2019 impeachment.

Murphy filed a whistleblower complaint in 2019 alleging Trump, amid his re-election campaign, pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate then-U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s business dealings in Ukraine. 

The U.S. House of Representatives voted later that year to impeach Trump for abusing the power of his office and obstructing Congress, but he was later acquitted by the Senate.

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Zaid’s lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., claims the decision to rescind his security clearance represents a “dangerous, unconstitutional retaliation by the President of the United States against his perceived political enemies” that “eschews any semblance of due process.”

The complaint accuses the Trump administration of violating the Administrative Procedures Act, the First Amendment and parts of the Fifth Amendment.

“No American should lose their livelihood, or be blocked as a lawyer from representing clients, because a president carries a grudge toward them or who they represent,”  Zaid said in a statement. “This isn’t just about me. It’s about using security clearances as political weapons.”

FORMER VP PENCE VOWS TO SPEAK OUT IF PRESIDENT TRUMP VEERS FROM ‘CONSERVATIVE AGENDA’ 

The lawsuit cites a 2019 incident in which Trump called Zaid a “sleazeball” at a Louisiana rally and told reporters that the lawyer was a “disgrace” who “should be sued.”

The move to pull Zaid’s clearance was “a bald-faced attack on a sacred constitutional guarantee: the right to petition the court or federal agencies on behalf of clients,” the lawsuit says, noting that an “attack on this right is especially insidious because it jeopardizes Mr. Zaid’s ability to pursue and represent the rights of others without fear of retribution.”

Trump has also revoked clearances of several other political foes, including former President Joe Biden, former Vice President Kamala Harris, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and his own former national security advisor John Bolton, as well as attorneys at other law firms.

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Zaid urged the court to rule that Trump’s revocation decision was unconstitutional and reinstate his clearance. He has had access to classified information since 1995 and a security clearance since 2002.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House for comment.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Secretary of Education Linda McMahon sent a scathing letter to Harvard University President Alan Garber on Monday, not only blasting the Massachusetts Ivy League school’s handling of antisemitism on campus but also advising school officials to refrain from applying for future federal grants because they will not “be provided.”

In her no-holds-barred letter, McMahon told Garber that the federal government has a “sacred responsibility” to be an important steward of American taxpayer funds, adding that the school has amassed a largely tax-free $53.2 billion endowment and receives billions of dollars in taxpayer funds each year.

“Receiving such taxpayer funds is a privilege, not a right,” she wrote. “Yet instead of using these funds to advance the education of its students, Harvard is engaging in a systemic pattern of violating federal law. Where do many of these ‘students’ come from, who are they, how do they get into Harvard, or even into our country – and why is there so much HATE? These are questions that must be answered, among many more, but the biggest question of all is, why will Harvard not give straightforward answers to the American public?”

She also said the university has “made a mockery” of the higher education system in the U.S., inviting foreign students to its campuses who engage in violent behavior and show contempt for the U.S.

TRUMP SAYS HE’LL REVOKE HARVARD’S TAX-EXEMPT STATUS

McMahon slammed the school for adopting an “embarrassing” remedial math program for undergraduates, questioning why a school that’s so difficult to get admitted to has to teach low-level mathematics.

She called Harvard out for being embroiled in plagiarism scandals and lambasted the school for allowing Harvard University and the Harvard Law Review to engage in “ugly racism.”

McMahon blasted Harvard for hiring former Mayors Bill de Blasio of New York City and Lori Lightfoot of Chicago to teach “leadership” at its School of Public Health.

“This is like hiring the captain of the Titanic to teach navigation to future captains of the sea,” she said.

IVY LEAGUE SUICIDES, PRINCETON’S 8TH STUDENT DEATH IN 4 YEARS EXPOSE CRISIS AT ELITE SCHOOLS

“The above concerns are only a fraction of the long list of Harvard’s consistent violations of its own legal duties. Given these and other concerning allegations, this letter is to inform you that Harvard should no longer seek GRANTS from the federal government, since none will be provided,” McMahon later wrote. “Harvard will cease to be a publicly funded institution and can instead operate as a privately-funded institution, drawing on its colossal endowment, and raising money from its large base of wealthy alumni.

“You have an approximately $53 billion head start, much of which was made possible by the fact that you are living within the walls of, and benefiting from, the prosperity secured by the United States of America and its free-market system you teach your students to despise,” she added.

In closing, McMahon reminded Garber that the Trump administration had been willing to maintain federal funding to Harvard as long as the school complied with federal law to protect and promote student welfare and stop racial preferencing.

HARVARD PRESIDENT APOLOGIZES FOR FAILURE TO ADDRESS ANTISEMITISM, ISLAMOPHOBIA AFTER NEW REPORTS RELEASED

“The proposed common-sense reforms – which the Administration remains committed to – include a return to merit-based admissions and hiring, an end to unlawful programs that promote crude identity stereotypes, disciplinary reform and consistent accountability, including for student groups, cooperation with Law Enforcement, and reporting compliance with the Department of Education, Department of Homeland Security, and other Federal Agencies,” McMahon said. “The Administration’s priorities have not changed, and today’s letter marks the end of new grants for the university.”

Harvard confirmed to Fox News Digital that it received a letter from the administration on Monday.

“Today, we received another letter from the administration doubling down on demands that would impose unprecedented and improper control over Harvard University and would have chilling implications for higher education,” a Harvard spokesperson said. “Today’s letter makes new threats to illegally withhold funding for lifesaving research and innovation in retaliation against Harvard for filing its lawsuit on April 21.

“Harvard will continue to comply with the law, promote and encourage respect for viewpoint diversity, and combat antisemitism in our community. Harvard will also continue to defend against illegal government overreach aimed at stifling research and innovation that make Americans safer and more secure,” the spokesperson continued.

TRUMP BRANDS HARVARD ‘ANTISEMITIC’ AND A ‘THREAT TO DEMOCRACY’ DURING FUNDING BATTLE

McMahon’s letter comes just days after President Donald Trump declared that his administration was going to be taking away Harvard’s tax-exempt status.

Trump made the announcement after Fox News reported that his administration asked the Internal Revenue Service to revoke Harvard University’s tax-exempt status. The Ivy League school’s failure to address antisemitism on campus is grounds for losing its 501(c)(3) status, sources said at the time.

Trump argued in mid-April that Harvard had “lost its way” and didn’t deserve federal funding.

“Harvard has been hiring almost all woke, Radical Left, idiots and ‘birdbrains’ who are only capable of teaching FAILURE to students and so-called ‘future leaders,'” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Look just to the recent past at their plagiarizing President, who so greatly embarrassed Harvard before the United States Congress.”

Harvard has become a target of Trump’s broader crackdown on universities, much of which is in response to last year’s anti-Israel unrest that erupted on campuses across the country.

On April 11, the Trump administration sent a letter to Garber and Harvard Corporation Lead Member Penny Pritzker outlining the institution’s failures and a list of demands from the White House. In the letter, the administration accused Harvard of failing to uphold civil rights laws and to foster an “environment that produces intellectual creativity.”

The Trump administration threatened to pull federal funding if Harvard did not reform governance and leadership as well as its hiring and admissions practices by August 2025. The letter emphasized the need for Harvard to change its international admissions process to avoid admitting students who are “hostile” to American values or support terrorism or antisemitism. 

Harvard refused to comply with the demands, with Garber saying that “no government… should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”

The Trump administration then froze $2.2 billion in funding to Harvard and is reportedly looking to slash another billion, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The university later filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its “unlawful” freezing of funds.

Fox News’ Greg Norman, Andrea Margolis, Alexis McAdams and Rachel Wolf contributed to this report.

The Trump administration is asking a federal judge in Texas to dismiss a case that aims to restrict access to the abortion drug mifepristone. 

The request continues the Biden administration’s position in defense of the drug: that Texas isn’t the proper venue for the lawsuit.

In a Justice Department court filing, the Trump administration said Idaho, Missouri and Kansas have no ties to Texas, where the lawsuit was filed, arguing they lack standing in the suit against the Food and Drug Administration over its rules over the pills, which are available online and by mail.

MAJOR DRUG STORES START SELLING ABORTION PILL SOME SAY IS ‘DANGEROUS’ FOR WOMEN AHEAD OF LANDMARK SCOTUS CASE

“Aside from this litigation, the States do not dispute that their claims have no connection to the Northern District of Texas,” the DOJ wrote. “The states cannot keep alive a lawsuit in which the original plaintiffs were held to lack standing, those plaintiffs have now voluntarily dismissed their claims, and the States’ own claims have no connection to this District.” 

The three Republican-led states are challenging FDA actions that loosened restrictions on the drug in 2016 and 2021, including allowing for medication abortions at up to 10 weeks of pregnancy instead of seven, and for mail delivery of the drug without a woman first seeing a clinician in-person, Reuters reported. 

ABORTION PILL USE HAS SPIKED IN RECENT YEARS, NEW REPORT REVEALS: ‘SUBSTANTIAL INCREASE’

A lower court previously rebuffed a request to reverse FDA approval of mifepristone. 

“The States are free to pursue their claims in a District where venue is proper,” the federal attorneys said. But the brief pointed to weaknesses in the states’ argument beyond standing, noting, for instance, that their challenge to the FDA’s 2016 action allowing the pills to be used up to 10 weeks of pregnancy rather than the previous seven is outside the statute of limitations.

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Last year, the Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit filed by anti-abortion doctors and medical associations after the justices ruled the plaintiffs could not show they had been personally harmed by the federal government’s regulation of the pill. 

The Trump administration also argued for the dismissal, saying the states’ challenge to FDA’s 2016 actions is outside the six-year statute of limitations.

Fox News Digital’s Melissa Rudy contributed to this report. 

Welcome to the Fox News Politics newsletter, with the latest updates on the Trump administration, Capitol Hill and more Fox News politics content.

Here’s what’s happening…

–REAL ID ‘unnecessary in keeping us safe,’ GOP lawmaker says as deadline looms

-Former Vice President Mike Pence honored by Kennedy family in receiving the JFK ‘Profile in Courage Award’

-Senator warns of ‘unconstitutional’ judicial overreach ahead of SCOTUS showdown

FIRST ON FOX: The Department of Homeland Security will front the cost of commercial flights and provide a $1,000 stipend to illegal aliens who opt to self-deport from the United States in a move DHS says will save thousands of dollars.

The department says this will be 70% cheaper for American taxpayers, as it currently costs DHS, on average, over $17,000 to arrest, detain, and deport someone. DHS told Fox News that paying for aliens to remove themselves, even with the stipend, is anticipated to cost only around $4,500 on average. 

The stipend would not be paid until it was verified that an individual self-deported. Aliens will use the CBP Home self-deportation app to access this assistance, and DHS expects self-removals, already in the thousands, to ramp up significantly with this announcement…READ MORE

FREED PRISONER: Trump meets with American ballerina freed from Russian prison

‘NOT ALLOWED’: Trump shoots down rumors he will seek 3rd term: ‘Not something I’m looking to do’

DISORDER IN COURT: Trump questions judges who block deportations of ‘criminals, including murderers’

‘AUTHORITY TO REGULATE’: Trump admin sues Colorado, Denver over ‘sanctuary laws,’ alleged interference in immigration enforcement

KEEPING TRUMP HONEST: Former VP Pence vows to be a ‘voice against’ Trump when president veers from ‘conservative agenda’

‘RAPIDLY’: Trump fields question about his timeline for judicial nominations: ‘We’re putting ’em in rapidly’

TRUMP’S 16TH WEEK BACK: Trump’s 16th week in office to include WH meeting with Canada, ongoing trade negotiations

‘SHE IS SO AFRAID’: Trump says Mexican president is afraid of cartels after she rejected his offer to send US troops to Mexico

LAST CHANCE: Israel says Trump’s Middle East visit is the ‘window of opportunity’ for hostage deal

TOTAL CONTROL: Israel approves plan to capture all of Gaza, calls up tens of thousands of reserve troops: report

ACROSS THE ATLANTIC: Rwanda ‘in discussions’ with US to receive deported migrants: report

TRUMP CARD: GOP leaders find new major holiday deadline for Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ amid Medicaid, tax divisions

‘BRUTAL’ PREDICTION: Senate Democrats predicting very rough confirmation hearing for UN ambassador pick Mike Waltz

‘LOSING THE BASE’: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene airs frustrations, warns that she represents a ‘not happy’ Republican base

‘WHEELS ARE COMING OFF’: GOP rep urges lawmakers to ‘right-size’ bloated bureaucracy, national debt

‘FIRST THEY CAME’: Democrat Hank Johnson draws Holocaust comparison while blasting deportations

‘RACIAL DISPARITIES’: DOJ opens probe after left-wing DA requires prosecutors to consider race in plea deals

‘WE DELIVER ON THAT PROMISE’: Texas Gov. Abbott signs $1 billion voucher program into law, capping off win for school choice advocates

BALLOTS CAST: REAL ID is about to go into effect. Here’s how it may impact voting

LASTING LEGACY: Cornyn bringing bill to enshrine Trump EO renaming refuge after Jocelyn Nungaray into law

FIRST ON FOX: Red state school district hit with complaint to Trump admin alleging unlawful DEI practices

MAY 20 DEADLINE LOOMS: Deadline looms allowing left-wing court to select US attorney as state AGs urge confirmation of Trump pick

Get the latest updates on the Trump administration and Congress, exclusive interviews and more on FoxNews.com.

A series of Facebook ads funded by the California Democratic Party is claiming that Republicans are against stronger laws to protect 16- and 17-year-old sex trafficking victims amid a legislative fight over a minor solicitation bill in which Democrats successfully forced the exclusion of harsher penalties for the purchase or solicitation of older teens. 

The ads began appearing on social media after a vote in the California Assembly last week when Democrat leaders refused to move forward with AB 379, which would have made it an automatic felony to purchase or solicit 16- and 17-year-olds for sex. 

Featured in each ad is the name and image of a state Republican lawmaker who “voted against stronger laws protecting” older teens from sex trafficking, accusing them of protecting their “political party, not our kids.”

SON OF SUSPECTED WOULD-BE TRUMP ASSASSIN ARRESTED ON CHILD PORN CHARGES

AB 379, authored by Democratic Assemblymember Maggy Krell, was an attempt to crack down on the buyers in the child sex trafficking trade and to align their punishments with the traffickers. The ad campaign came after the Democrat-controlled Assembly Public Safety Committee decided to move the bill forward as long as it didn’t carry the felony provision for those who solicit older teens for sex. 

At the time, Krell told Fox News Digital that she was forced to exclude the felony provision in order for the legislation to move forward. 

“I wholeheartedly disagree with that amendment,” she said. “This has been my life’s work and I will continue to partner with sex trafficking survivors and law enforcement to ensure all minors are protected from the horrors of sex trafficking.”

On Thursday, Democrats voted to strip the bill completely from Krell, a former prosecutor who investigated human trafficking, while excluding the automatic felony clause. They also inserted text that read, “It is the intent of the Legislature to adopt the strongest laws to protect 16-and 17-year old victims and strengthen protections in support of survivors of human trafficking.”

“Just when you thought the @CA_Dem couldn’t go any lower, any more pathetic and desperate, here they are, trying to falsely spin themselves out of siding with predators over children, (poorly) playing politics over people. SO excited for 2026,” the California Republican Party shared Monday on X. 

WANDA BARZEE, ONE OF ELIZABETH SMART’S CAPTORS, ARRESTED ON ALLEGED SEX OFFENDER VIOLATION

Several Republican lawmakers also pushed back against the accusation that their party doesn’t protect children. 

“You see my friend Democrats lie… After we called @AsmDems out on the floor last week for removing protections for 16 and 17-year-old victims, they run ads accusing us… of the very thing they are doing,” Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher wrote on X. “You can’t hide from the truth with deceptive ads. It is Democrats who can’t bring themselves to part with weird ideological politics to protect kids.”

Assemblyman Josh Hoover, one of several Republicans targeted in the ad campaign, said Democrats were attempting to gaslight Californians. 

“Make no mistake, these ads are nothing but a distraction from their own failed record on public safety,” he wrote on social media. “I will continue to fight to restore the protections they removed, hold perpetrators accountable, and make sure all minors are treated equally under the law.”

The ad campaign was reportedly being pushed by the campaign of Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas. Fox News Digital has reached out to the California Democratic Party and Rivas’ campaign. 

FATHER PRESSES FOR ANSWERS IN COLLEGE FRESHMAN DAUGHTER’S DEATH AFTER FALL FROM DORM: ‘SHE WAS OUR WORLD’

AB 379 came together after older teens were left out of a state law that went into effect this year that makes it a felony to purchase a child aged 15 and younger for sex. Last year, California State Sen. Shannon Groven authored a bill that made it illegal to buy minors for sex, but it excluded 16- and 17-year-olds.

Currently, traffickers, not the buyers, face the harshest consequences when convicted of trafficking anyone under 18. 

Last week, Democrat California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he supported harsher consequences for those who solicit minors for sex.

Assemblyman Joe Patterson said Newsom has lost control of his own party and that the state Democratic Party is treating him “like a lame duck.” Assemblywoman Kate Sanchez said Democrats across the state have failed Californians on a range of issues, including public safety, affordability and homelessness.

“All they have left are dirty lies that are easily rebutted by journalists,” she wrote. 

The National Republican Congressional Committee also weighed in on the matter. 

“California Democrats chose predators over children and out-of-touch Democrats Derek Tran and Dave Min have said nothing,” Christian Martinez, a spokesperson for the NRCC, told Fox News Digital while calling out Democrat lawmakers. “Worse, they’re letting their fellow Democrats whitewash their disgusting record of protecting the absolute worst among us.”

Last week, Krell said she didn’t care if the bill had her name on it or not, but would support any proposal that included protections for 16- and 17-year-olds.