House Republicans are celebrating the major victory they delivered early Thursday morning for President Donald Trump.

Minutes after the GOP majority in the House of Representatives stood nearly entirely united to pass Trump’s sweeping tax and spending cuts package by a razor-thin 215-214, Speaker Mike Johnson touted that “the House has passed generational, truly nation-shaping legislation.”

Johnson predicted the measure would, among other things, “reduce spending and permanently lower taxes for families and job creators … and make government work more efficiently and effectively for all Americans.”

And Majority Whip Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota said that House Republicans have “shown time and time again that we deliver for the American people, especially when it matters most.”

HOW TRUMP’S SWEEPING BILL PASSED THROUGH THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

But with Republicans clinging to a fragile House majority, Democrats view the House passage of what’s called Trump’s “One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act” as political ammunition as they aim to win back control of the chamber in next year’s midterm elections.

Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin, in deriding the legislation, pledged that “Democrats will do everything we can to kick those who are responsible for this bill out of office. We have Americans at our side. This vote will cost many, many Republicans their seats in the midterms.”

And Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington State said in a Fox News Digital interview ahead of the final House vote that “we’re going to hold Republicans accountable, and there will be a price to pay.”

But the rival National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) disagrees.

“House Democrats just signed their own political death warrant. Voters won’t forget how they betrayed working families. And Republicans won’t let them,” NRCC spokesman Mike Marinella argued in a statement.

The GOP-crafted measure is stuffed full of Trump’s campaign trail promises and second-term priorities on tax cuts, immigration, defense, energy and the debt limit. It includes extending his signature 2017 tax cuts and eliminating taxes on tips and overtime pay, providing billions for border security and codifying his controversial immigration crackdown.

Passage of the bill in the House comes as the national debt currently sits at $36,214,475,432,210.84, according to Fox Business’ National Debt Tracker. 

The massive package now heads to the Senate, where Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the top Democrat in the chamber, said that “this is not one big, beautiful bill. It’s ugly.”

As Democrats attack the measure, they’re highlighting the GOP’s proposed restructuring of Medicaid—the nearly 60-year-old federal program that provides health coverage to roughly 71 million low-income Americans.

FIRST ON FOX: THESE REPUBLICAN GOVERNORS SAY THEY ‘STAND UNITED’ IN SUPPORT OF TRUMP’S ‘ONE BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’

The changes to Medicaid, as well as cuts to food stamps, another one of the nation’s major safety net programs, were drafted in part as an offset to pay for extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which are set to expire later this year. The measure includes a slew of new rules and regulatory requirements for those seeking Medicaid coverage. Among them are a new set of work requirements for many of those seeking coverage.

“Let’s be clear, all Republicans are talking about right now is how many people and how fast they’re going to take away healthcare. They have these huge cuts to Medicaid, 14 million people lose healthcare across the country, and they’re talking about how fast they can do that,” said DelBene.

Schumer argued that “there’s nothing beautiful about stripping away people’s healthcare, forcing kids to go hungry, denying communities the resources they need, and increasing poverty.”

And Martin claimed that “the GOP budget will decimate local communities, blow an economic hole in rural America, and make us into a nation governed by and for a handful of elites.”

House Republicans push back against the Democrats’ attacks and say what they are doing is putting an end to waste, fraud and abuse currently in the Medicaid system, so the program can work for the public in the way that it was intended.

They call any talk that they are cutting aid to mothers, children, people with disabilities and the elderly a “flat out lie.”

And NRCC chair Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina told Fox News Digital in a statement ahead of the vote that “Republicans are ending waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicaid so the most vulnerable get the care they need.”

“Democrats are lying to protect a broken status quo that lets illegal immigrants siphon off billions meant for American families. We’re strengthening Medicaid for future generations by protecting taxpayers and restoring integrity,” Hudson added.

Dating back to last year’s presidential campaign, Trump has vowed not to touch Medicaid. On Tuesday, as he made a rare stop on Capitol Hill to meet behind closed doors with House Republicans in order to shore up support for the bill, Trump’s message to fiscally conservative lawmakers looking to make further cuts to Medicaid was “Don’t f— around with Medicaid.”

While there are divisions between Republicans over Medicaid, and a chasm between the two major parties over the longstanding entitlement program, there is one point of agreement: This issue will continue to simmer on the campaign trail in one form or another long after the legislative battles on Capitol Hill are over.

This tangy chilled soup is basically summer in a bowl. 

​This tangy chilled soup is basically summer in a bowl. 

A new book sheds light on former White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates’ role in defending President Joe Biden‘s mental acuity, which the book alleges was done without the White House staff having the full picture of the president’s actual condition. 

“Some of Bates’s colleagues believed that Biden’s inner circle took advantage of his loyalty and told him to deny things they knew were true,” Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson wrote in their new book “Original Sin,” detailing the inner workings of the Biden White House and attempts to downplay concerns about the president’s mental and physical fitness.

“He, along with most of the press team, rarely met with the president and didn’t have firsthand knowledge of the president’s wherewithal,” the book continued. “They relied on senior staff for answers. Still, risking his own credibility, Bates willingly became the White House’s tip of the spear when it came to fighting off any reporting on Biden’s acuity.”

Outside of White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, Bates was perhaps the most prominent face of the public-facing defense of Biden during his administration, often handling requests for comment from reporters and is mentioned about half a dozen times in the book.

‘THE VIEW’ MELTS DOWN OVER LATEST BIDEN BOOK, SLAMS CNN FOR ‘HAWKING’ IT

The book goes into detail about an alleged “modus operandi” from the Biden campaign and the White House for “attacking any journalist who covered any questions about the president’s age” with the goal to “shame journalists and create a disincentive structure for those curious about the president’s condition.”

“To answer the question on everyone’s minds: No, Joe Biden does not have a doctorate in foreign affairs. He’s just that f—ing good,” Bates posted on X following a Biden press conference two weeks after the debate performance that many believe was the beginning of the end of his campaign. 

The book looked back on that remark and stated that it “reflected the views of the Politburo but among professional Democrats, it became an instant legend for its sycophancy and tone-deafness.”

Bates dismissed the book’s narrative about him, telling Fox News Digital it “is distorted, stretching select facts while excluding others.”

A former Biden White House staffer also came to Bates’ defense, telling Fox News Digital, “This gets important facts wrong.”

FORMER BIDEN MEDICAL ADVISOR SAYS HE ‘PROBABLY’ HAD CANCER AT BEGINNING OF PRESIDENCY

“Bates served as a senior spokesperson who met with and traveled with the President, including in the Oval and on Air Force One, staffing him around the country and on Capitol Hill. That’s public information. He served as a point person in the press office on major legislative and political issues,” the former White House staffer continued. “He was known for being respectful and considerate if a colleague didn’t want to do an interview for a challenging story, whether it was about policy or anything else.”

The book details one specific instance of the White House successfully killing a story when “weeks” before the explosive Wall Street Journal story detailing concern about Biden’s decline came out in June, Steve Ricchetti, former White House deputy chief of staff, strongly denied claims that the president was slipping to another journalist.

“[A] reporter with a different national news outlet had been hearing from White House aides that behind the scenes the president was having serious and disturbing moments, forgetting names and facts, sometimes seeming seriously confused at meetings,” the book read.

“The reporter reached out to members of the White House press office, which not only aggressively—and angrily—disputed her reporting but also took the unusual step of having Steve Ricchetti call her,” the book said. “He talked to her off the record, so she couldn’t use any of what he said or even attribute it to ‘a White House source.’ But he told her that everything the others were saying was false, and that he was at the meetings as a counselor to the president.”

According to Tapper and Thompson, the Biden White House was going all out trying to control the perception of his health.

“The message from the White House was clear, this reporter believed: If she went forward with the story from anonymous aides, the White House would aggressively dispute it, on the record, and portray her as a liar,” the book reads. “The tacit threat worked.”

The book has sparked intense reactions from both sides of the aisle, leading many to slam the media’s coverage of Biden’s mental acuity and blame the media and Biden’s team for covering up the facts of the situation. 

Fox News Digital has written extensively dating back to the 2020 presidential campaign about Biden’s cognitive decline and his inner circle’s role in covering it up.

Others have pushed back against the framing of the book, including Naomi Biden, Joe Biden’s granddaughter, who delivered a scathing rebuke to the new book, calling it “silly” and “political fairy smut.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

CNN, Tapper’s network, has also faced pushback for its promotion of the book, including from “The View” and Daily Show host Jon Stewart, who took issue with the network promoting the book under the backdrop of Biden’s recent cancer diagnosis.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, a Biden spokesperson said, “There is nothing in this book that shows Joe Biden failed to do his job, as the authors have alleged, nor did they prove their allegation that there was a cover up or conspiracy.”

“Nowhere do they show that our national security was threatened or where the President wasn’t otherwise engaged in the important matters of the Presidency. In fact, Joe Biden was an effective President who led our country with empathy and skill.”

Fox News Digital’s Hanna Panreck and Rachel del Guidice contributed to this report

Four months into his second tour of duty in the White House, President Donald Trump’s approval ratings remain slightly underwater.

The president stands at 46% approval and 54% disapproval in a new national survey by Marquette Law School. And Trump is at 42% approval and 52% disapproval in a Reuters/Ipsos poll. 

Most, but not all, of the latest national surveys place the president’s approval rating in negative territory, with a handful indicating Trump is above water.

Trump has aggressively asserted executive authority in his second term, overturning longstanding government policy and aiming to make major cuts to the federal workforce through an avalanche of sweeping and controversial executive orders and actions, with some aimed at addressing grievances he has held since his first term.

TRUMP’S APPROVAL RATINGS ARE UNDERWATER, BUT DEMOCRATS FACE RECORD-LOW POLLING NUMBERS

Trump started his second administration with poll numbers in positive territory, but his poll numbers started to slide soon after his late-January inauguration.

But two issues where the president remains at or above water in some surveys are border security and immigration, which were front and center in Trump’s successful 2024 campaign to win back the White House.

HEAD HERE FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS POLLING

Trump stands at 56% approval on border security and 50% approval on immigration in the Marquette Law School poll, which was conducted May 5-15.

But Trump’s muscular moves on border security and immigration, which have sparked controversy and legal pushback, don’t appear to be helping his overall approval ratings.

“Immigration is declining now as a salient issue,” said Daron Shaw, who serves as a member of the Fox News Decision Team and is the Republican partner on the Fox News poll.

Shaw, a politics professor and chair at the University of Texas, said “immigration and especially border security are beginning to lose steam as one of the top-three issues facing the country. Republicans still rate them fairly highly, but Democrats and independents, who had kind of joined the chorus in 2024, have moved on and in particular moved back to the economy as a focal point.”

Pointing to Trump, Shaw added that “when you have success on an issue, it tends to move to the back burner.”

Contributing to the slide over the past couple of months in Trump’s overall approval ratings was his performance on the economy and, in particular, inflation, which were pressing issues that kept former President Joe Biden’s approval ratings well below water for most of his presidency.

Trump’s blockbuster tariff announcement in early April sparked a trade war with some of the nation’s top trading partners and triggered a massive sell-off in the financial markets and increased concerns about a recession.

But the markets have rebounded, thanks in part to a truce between the U.S. and China in their tariff standoff as Trump tapped the brakes on his controversial tariff implementation.

Trump stood at 37% approval on tariffs and 34% on inflation/cost of living in the Marquette Law School poll. And he stood at 39% on the economy and 33% on cost of living in the Reuters/Ipsos poll, which was conducted May 16-18.

Doug Heye, a longtime GOP strategist and former RNC and Bush administration official, pointed to last year’s election, saying, “The main reason Trump won was to lower prices. Prices haven’t lowered, and polls are reflecting that.”

“With the exception of gas prices, there hasn’t been much of a reduction in prices,” Shaw said.

“Prices haven’t come down, and it’s not clear that people will say the absence of inflation is an economic victory. They still feel that an appreciable portion of their money is going to pay for basic things,” he added. “What Trump is realizing is that prices have to come down for him to be able to declare success.”

A federal judge blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from firing two Democratic members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board on Wednesday.

Trump fired all three Democratic members of the five-person board in February, resulting in two of them filing a lawsuit. U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton found that allowing unilateral firings would prevent the board from carrying out its purpose.

Walton wrote that allowing at-will removals would make the board “beholden to the very authority it is supposed to oversee on behalf of Congress and the American people.”

The oversight board was initially created by Congress to ensure that federal counterterrorism policies were in line with privacy and civil liberties law.

‘ACTIVIST’ JUDGES KEEP TRYING TO CURB TRUMP’S AGENDA – HERE’S HOW HE COULD PUSH BACK

“To hold otherwise would be to bless the President’s obvious attempt to exercise power beyond that granted to him by the Constitution and shield the Executive Branch’s counterterrorism actions from independent oversight, public scrutiny, and bipartisan congressional insight regarding those actions,” Walton wrote.

Trump’s firings left just one Republican on the board. The third Democratic member had just two days left in her term when she was removed, and she did not sue the administration.

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION GUTS INSTITUTE OF PEACE OF ‘ROGUE BUREAUCRATS’ AFTER DOGE STANDOFF IN GOVERNMENT OFFICE

The two plaintiffs, Travis LeBlanc and Edward Felten, argued in their lawsuit that members of the board cannot be fired without cause. Meanwhile, lawyers for Trump’s administration argued that members of other congressionally created boards do have explicit job protections, and it would therefore be wrong for Walton to create such protections where they are absent.

“The Constitution gives President Trump the power to remove personnel who exercise his executive authority,” White House spokesman Harrison Fields told the Associated Press. “The Trump Administration looks forward to ultimate victory on the issue.”

The plaintiffs also argued that their firings left just one member on the board, a Republican, and that falls short of the quorum required for the board to function.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill” passed the House of Representatives early on Thursday morning with few Republican defections.

It is a significant victory for House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who navigated deep inter-party friction within the House GOP Conference to deliver a product that few Republican lawmakers ultimately defected from.

The bill passed 215 to 214 with just two Republicans, Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, voting against it. All Democrats voted against the bill as well, and House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris, R-Md., voted “present.”

The bill is a sweeping multi-trillion-dollar piece of legislation that advances Trump’s agenda on taxes, immigration, energy, defense and the national debt.

TRUMP’S ‘BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’ PASSES KEY HOUSE HURDLE AFTER GOP REBEL MUTINY

Republicans spent more than 48 hours continuously working on the bill from the time it came before the House Rules Committee – the final gatekeeper before a House-wide vote – at 1 a.m. on Wednesday to when it passed the chamber just after 7 a.m. on Thursday.

“It quite literally is morning again in America,” Johnson said. “What we’re achieving today is nothing short of historic.”

All the while, Democratic lawmakers attempted a variety of delay tactics, from introducing amendments targeting key Trump policies to forcing several procedural votes on the House floor ahead of debate on the legislation.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., notably spoke on the House floor for over 30 minutes just before the vote in a last-ditch effort to stretch out the seemingly endless day of debate and votes.

“This bill represents a failed promise. Last year, Donald Trump and House Republicans spent all of their time to lower the high cost of living in the United States of America,” Jeffries said on the House floor. “We’re now more than 120 days past the inauguration. Costs aren’t going down, they’re going up.” 

Tensions flared at multiple points as visibly weary lawmakers continued to fight their ideological battle into the early morning. 

HOUSE GOP TARGETS ANOTHER DEM OFFICIAL ACCUSED OF BLOCKING ICE AMID DELANEY HALL FALLOUT

Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., who was presiding over the House at the time, warned Jeffries multiple times to address the chair in his remarks rather than directly attacking Republicans sitting across the chamber.

“Every time I’m interrupted, that’s going to add another 15 minutes to my remarks,” Jeffries said as Democrats sitting around him sounded off in support.

The bill seeks to permanently extend Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) while also implementing newer Trump campaign promises like eliminating taxes on tips and overtime pay, and giving senior citizens a higher tax deduction for a period of four years.

The legislation also included new funding for the border and defense, including more money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations and $25 billion to kick-start construction of a “Golden Dome” defense system over the U.S.

At the same time, the legislation seeks to make a dent in the federal government’s spending trajectory by cutting roughly $1.5 trillion in government spending elsewhere. The U.S. government is more than $36 trillion in debt.

Cuts include new work requirements for able-bodied Medicaid recipients, as well as putting more of the cost-sharing burden on states that took advantage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA)’s expanded Medicaid enrollment by giving illegal immigrants access to the healthcare program.

The legislation would also roll back a host of green energy tax credits awarded in former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) – which Trump vowed to repeal in its entirety on the campaign trail. 

It also would cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by roughly 20% by introducing some cost-sharing burdens on the states and increasing the amount of able-bodied Americans facing work requirements to be eligible for food stamps.

All House Democrats rejected the bill, accusing Republicans of disproportionately favoring the wealthy at the expense of critical programs for working Americans. Republicans, on the other hand, have contended that they are preserving tax cuts that prevent a 22% tax increase on Americans next year if TCJA was allowed to expire, as well as streamlining programs like Medicaid and SNAP for vulnerable Americans who need it most.

Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, chair of the House’s 189 member-strong Republican Study Committee, told Fox News Digital, “This transformational legislation permanently extends President Trump’s historic tax cuts, provides unprecedented funding for border security, and obliterates the last four years of catastrophic Democratic policies.”

And while most GOP lawmakers united on the final bill, divisions appeared to persist until the final moments. Conservatives had pushed for more aggressive targeting of Medicaid waste and Biden green energy subsidies, while blue state Republicans pushed for tax relief for Americans in high-cost-of-living areas. 

To resolve outstanding differences, House Republican leaders released a list of eleventh-hour changes to President Donald Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill,” hours before their full chamber is expected to consider the legislation.

New provisions in the bill include a ban on federal funding for transgender adults’ medical care, and $12 billion in new funding to reimburse states for money they spent countering the former Biden administration’s border policies. 

MEET THE TRUMP-PICKED LAWMAKERS GIVING SPEAKER JOHNSON A FULL HOUSE GOP CONFERENCE

A key request from fiscal conservatives was also honored, with House GOP leaders apparently agreeing to speed up the implementation of work requirements for certain able-bodied recipients of Medicaid.

The bill initially had Medicaid work requirements going into effect in 2029.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, one of the fiscal hawks leading GOP opposition to the bill, told Fox News Digital just after midnight Thursday that he was not sure if the legislation went far enough – but suggested the White House could persuade him with other avenues for change.

“There are things in the executive space, executive actions that we think could take care of … some of our concerns on the Medicaid expansion,” Roy said.

The legislative update also included a victory for blue state Republicans who have been pushing for a higher state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap – the current $10,000 cap would be quadrupled to roughly $40,000, but only for people making less than $500,000 per year. The $10,000 cap was first instituted in TCJA. 

“This is what real leadership looks like. President Trump and House Republicans made a promise to the American people to secure our border, protect seniors, cut taxes on tips and overtime, and shut off the spigot of benefits for illegal immigrants,” first-term Rep. Mike Haridopolos, R-Fla., told Fox News Digital. 

Rep. Randy Feenstra, R-Iowa, told Fox News Digital, “More than 77 million Americans made clear at the polls that they want President Trump’s America First agenda codified into law, and our ‘One, Big, Beautiful Bill’ delivers on this promise.”

But while House GOP leaders are enjoying their hard-fought victory now, the battle over Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” is not over.

Senate Republicans have already signaled they expect to make changes to the bill when it reaches the upper chamber, despite House GOP leaders publicly urging them to amend as little as possible.

There is a significant number of senators who have expressed wariness at the level of Medicaid and SNAP cuts sought by the House. An increase to the SALT deduction cap could also be met with skepticism in the Senate, where no Republican represents a blue state – unlike the House, where New York and California districts are critical to the majority.

The House and Senate must pass identical bills before sending them to Trump’s desk for a signature. GOP leaders have signaled they hope to do that by the Fourth of July.

EXCLUSIVE: First lady Melania Trump is launching an audiobook of her memoir using artificial intelligence (AI) audio technology in multiple languages, Fox News Digital has learned.

The first lady released her first memoir, “Melania,” last year.

This week, she is breaking new ground by releasing “Melania, the Audiobook,” which has been “created entirely” with AI.

“I am proud to be at the forefront of publishing’s new frontier – the intersection of artificial intelligence technology and audio,” Trump told Fox News Digital.

MELANIA TRUMP TO RELEASE ‘COLLECTOR’S EDITION’ OF MEMOIR FEATURING IMAGES PHOTOGRAPHED BY FORMER FIRST LADY

The first lady said ElevenLabs AI developed “an AI-generated replica of my voice under strict supervision, which will establish an unforgettable connection with my personal story, in multiple languages for listeners worldwide.”

ElevenLabs AI CEO Mati Staniszewski told Fox News Digital that they are “excited that the first lady and her team trusted our technology to power this first-of-its-kind audiobook project.”

“We look forward to helping bring this book to the public in many other languages, in the first lady’s own voice, soon,” Staniszewski said.

MELANIA TRUMP’S MEMOIR SOARS TO TOP SPOT ON SEVERAL AMAZON ‘BEST SELLERS’ LISTS WEEKS BEFORE ITS RELEASE

The English version of the audiobook is expected to be available on MelaniaTrump.com. Later this year, it will be released in multiple languages, including Spanish, Hindi and Portuguese.

Meanwhile, billboards to promote the audiobook will be up in Times Square in New York City as well as in Los Angeles and Miami; the billboards will be up for one month in all three cities. The Times Square billboard will feature the video below. 

Upon the release of the memoir last year, the first lady told Fox News Digital that writing her story was “an amazing journey filled with emotional highs and lows.”

“Each story shaped me into who I am today,” she said. “Although daunting at times, the process has been incredibly rewarding, reminding me of my strength, and the beauty of sharing my truth.” 

“Melania” is the first lady’s first book. She released the original book along with a special collector’s edition that includes photos hand-selected by the first lady, many she photographed herself of her home and of various trips she has taken around the world. 

EXCLUSIVE: Alexis Nungaray, the mother of 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray, whose murder authorities say was at the hands of two illegal immigrants suspected to be Tren de Aragua gang members, told Fox News Digital that renaming a local wildlife refuge in her daughter’s honor would mean “the world” to her family.

Jocelyn Nungaray was sexually assaulted and strangled to death, allegedly by two Venezuelan illegals, Franklin Jose Pena Ramos and Johan Jose Rangel Martinez, who were let through the southern border during the Biden administration. Her body was found tied up in a bayou in Houston.

Since her daughter’s murder, Alexis Nungaray has become a vocal advocate for increased border security and a supporter of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

In an interview with Fox News Digital, Nungaray said the tragic manner of Jocelyn’s death “takes away [from] who she was as a person.” However, she said that the renaming of a 39,000-acre wildlife refuge on the Texas Gulf Coast preserves Jocelyn’s memory for what she loved in life. 

TRUMP HONORS LIVES OF LAKEN RILEY, JOCELYN NUNGARAY WHILE CELEBRATING STRIDES ON SECURING BORDER

Trump issued an executive order on March 5 renaming the former Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge in southeast Houston to the Jocelyn Nungaray National Wildlife Refuge.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Rep. Brian Babin, R-Texas, have since introduced bills to enshrine Trump’s executive order into law, making it more difficult for a future president to change the name of the refuge back. The Senate has already passed the bill, and Babin is working to pass it in the House.

Babin told Fox News Digital that his bill to codify Trump’s renaming of the refuge after Jocelyn is receiving bipartisan support and that he expects it will be passed by the House soon and be immediately signed by the president.

“This is a beautiful place. And if we name it after her, I think we will preserve her legacy,” he said.

“The main thing we need to remember is that this can never be allowed to happen again,” he added. “We get this thing in law, codified, no future president can ever undo this. And so, we will have a memory of what happens when you have bad policies that can create a system that will allow this to happen to innocent people like Jocelyn.”

TEXAS LAWMAKERS SEEK TO GET FEDERAL REIMBURSEMENT FOR BIDEN-ERA BORDER CONTROL EXPENSES

Nungaray said the effort to rename the refuge “touches every part of my heart and my family’s heart.”

“Everyone who knew Jocelyn knew she loved animals so much, knew she loved nature, wildlife,” explained Nungaray. “She truly loved all animals and all creatures, and she wanted every animal to have a place to call home.”

“Knowing that this national wildlife refuge is a place for a bunch of wild animals that travel through the country, and it is somewhere that they can call home, and it is somewhere that they can find a place of safety for them. I just know it would absolutely mean the world to her to know she has something in honor of her in that nature.”

She said that seeing the signs going up around Houston bearing her daughter’s name is “bittersweet.” 

TEXAS GANG MEMBERS SENTENCED FOR HUMAN SMUGGLING AFTER HIGH-SPEED BORDER CHASES

“I went out there to just go see what it was about, what it was like, and the amount of peace I felt just being there, it was just so pure and so peaceful,” said Nungaray. “Immediately I thought Jocelyn would love this. She would love to be out here.” 

CLICK HERE FOR MORE IMMIGRATION COVERAGE

“She wasn’t just a 12-year-old girl who was strangled and left in a bayou of water,” Nungaray went on. “She was a very creative, talented, free-spirited 12-year-old girl.” 

Smiling, Nungaray added that Jocelyn “was very quirky” and “an old soul.” She liked dressing in 1990s-style cargo jeans and Converse and loved listening to music from as far back as the 1940s and 1950s.

“She was very different and unique. She was an amazing friend,” said Nungaray.

TED CRUZ MOCKS ‘CRAZY TOWN’ DEMS AS MARYLAND SENATOR GETS DEFENSIVE ABOUT ADVOCACY FOR ALLEGED MS-13 MEMBER

Nungaray said she is very grateful to Trump for both his support and for “keeping his promises” regarding immigration enforcement.

“I support immigration, but I say there’s just a right way and a wrong way to do it,” she explained. “He’s protecting the people, and he’s taking consideration to the people, us the citizens and making sure we’re safe and our kids are safe, women are safe, that we’re all safe in our communities.”

“We’ve still got a long way to go,” she went on. “But I will always advocate for her and be her voice and stand up for better border control and immigration laws. Because I know one-million percent Jocelyn’s death should have been preventable.”

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Blend frozen mango, blanco tequila, and lime juice into these cooling margaritas. A Tajín rim adds a spicy-salty kick. 

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Marco Rubio told Fox News that far-left Democrats espousing regret over voting to confirm him as secretary of state is likely just “confirmation” that he is doing a good job.

Democrat Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen told Rubio during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing yesterday that he “regret[ted] voting” to confirm him as secretary of state after indicating as much on “Fox News Sunday” in March. Rubio shot back at the hearing that Van Hollen’s regret just proves he is doing a good job, and he subsequently told Fox News that the same goes for other Democrats who are expressing regret over their nod of approval to him earlier this year when he was confirmed by the Senate 99-0.

“In some cases, depending on … whoever you’re talking about and what they stand for, the fact that they don’t like what I’m doing is a confirmation I’m doing a good job,” Rubio said. “That’s how I feel about it.”

ADAM SCHIFF TELLS EPA’S LEE ZELDIN HE’LL CAUSE CANCER AFTER SHOUTFEST: ‘COULD GIVE A RAT’S A–‘

A growing number of Democrats are coming out against Rubio despite voting to confirm him, with the bulk of the criticism describing him as a sell-out to the Trump administration.

“I don’t recognize Secretary Rubio,” Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., added during the Tuesday Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing with Van Hollen, noting that in the past she had viewed him as “a bipartisan” and “pragmatic” person. 

“I’m not even mad anymore about your complicity in this administration’s destruction of U.S. global leadership. I’m simply disappointed,” Rosen said.

DEMS WARN HOUSE REPUBLICANS WILL PAY PRICE AT BALLOT BOX FOR PASSING TRUMP’S ‘BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL’

Last week, Democrat Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz lamented that Rubio has aligned himself “so closely” with President Donald Trump.

“President Trump’s narrow and transactional view of the world is not news to anybody. But what is genuinely surprising to me is that Secretary Rubio is aligning himself so closely with it,” Schatz said during a live event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations last week.

“This is someone who, up until four months ago, was an internationalist. Someone who believed in America flexing its powers in all manners, but especially through foreign assistance,” Schatz continued. “And yet, he is now responsible for the evisceration of the whole enterprise. He’s a colleague. I voted for him. We talk all the time. But what I’m trying to understand is: What happened?”

Schatz noted that he hopes to see Rubio “reemerge, reassert himself and save the enterprise.”

Rubio’s supportive stance on Trump’s foreign aid cuts, his defense of the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia and his alleged lack of action to help get him back to the U.S., his approach to the Russia-Ukraine war, and Rubio’s decision to pull visas from foreign college students in the U.S. for stoking anti-Israel sentiment on university campuses are all issues Democrats have pointed to for why they regret voting to confirm Rubio.

The secretary’s alleged role in bringing white South African refugees to the U.S. was also something for which Rubio was chastised by Democrats during his Tuesday testimony on Capitol Hill.

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“I think a lot of us thought that Marco Rubio was going to stand up to Donald Trump,” Democrat Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy said in March during an interview on CNN. “Marco Rubio has not, and that’s been a great disappointment to many of his former colleagues in the Senate.”

Foreign Affairs

Why Negotiations With Iran Are So Difficult

The U.S. has gotten a reputation for breaking agreements and brutalizing other nations.

American and other Western elites complain ad nauseam, decrying the Iranians’ intransigent, devious, aggressive, and unreliable behavior. They claim Iran will not make or keep an agreement. Never forget, however, that Iran is more than five millennia old with a long history of diplomacy. The Iranians may be difficult, but one of the barriers to an agreement could be the Iranians’ wariness of the United States’ long pattern of broken agreements.

In 1945 the U.S. signed the United Nations charter declaring the importance of protecting the sovereignty of states. Iran was also a signatory of that charter.

But eight years later, in 1953, the CIA and British Intelligence organized Operation Ajax, which overthrew the constitutionally elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and empowered Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the son of the first Pahlavi shah who was deposed in 1941 by the British and Soviets. The CIA’s actions were in complete violation of Article 2 of the UN Charter. U.S. agencies also armed and trained the Iranian secret police, the Savak, to suppress any opposition, often using the tired old excuse that dissenters were Soviet-inspired or -supported.

In 1979 the Iranian people, fed up with the oppression, overthrew the shah in favor of a theocracy. The aftermath was terrible, but it is hard to understand what happened because most of what we know about Iran is filtered through the anti-Iranian American press. Many of the horror stories reported were probably exaggerated or not true.

In 1980, a year after the Shah was ousted, Iraq started the Iran–Iraq War with the support of U.S. intelligence and other agencies. Millions were killed or wounded in a brutal conflict that lasted until 1988. American support for the Iraqis was not even diminished by their deployment of chemical weapons against the Iranians, despite later ostensibly righteous anger over chemical weapon use by Saddam and Assad.

An important note: The U.S. signed the Hague Convention of 1899 prohibiting use of poisonous gas, the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, and the 1925 Geneva Protocol banning the use of poison weapons. The U.S. again signed the 1972 and the 1993 Chemical Weapons Conventions, which prohibited the development, production, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons. U.S. elites unashamedly ignored those inconvenient treaties in their support of the Iran–Iraq War. Nor did Article 2 of the UN Charter matter.

After the overthrow of the Israel-friendly shah in 1979, the U.S. confiscated the foreign assets of the Iranian government, sanctioned their oil exports, sanctioned Western business investment in the country, and engaged in a long string of aggressive and destructive covert actions designed to topple the Iranian government. Again, all in flagrant disregard of the UN Charter. Neoconservatives and other Washington elites believed that for a good cause, such technicalities didn’t matter.

In 2003, the top cleric and supreme leader of Iran declared a fatwa against the building and possession of nuclear weapons. This fatwa is still in effect, but the Iran hawks claim that the regime might in the future renege on the fatwa, so it should be disregarded. This sounds like projection coming from a group that regularly ignores its own treaty and constitutional obligations.

That same year, after the U.S. military invaded Iraq and wrecked that country, the Bush administration made a deal with Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, to abandon many of his weapons with the promise of friendship. Nevertheless, after an appropriate pause, the neocons turned up a slander and defamation campaign against Gaddafi. At the same time, U.S. agencies were involved in the “revolution” that led to the 2011 bombing campaign against the Gaddafi military. This allegedly humanitarian “kinetic military action” led to the collapse of Gaddafi’s government and Gaddafi’s brutal murder in the street. So much for making a friendship deal with the U.S. The lesson to Iran and others is, Never make a deal with the U.S. leadership to disarm. If you do, you will become vulnerable to “kinetic military actions” in the name of peace. The former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton bragged and laughed about Gaddafi’s murder: “We came, we saw, he died.” No wonder so many people around the world don’t like us.

In 2015, the Obama administration entered into a treaty to prohibit Iran from building nuclear weapons called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Iran agreed to open their nuclear sites to intrusive inspections and strict controls, and the U.S. and other Western countries agreed to lift sanctions and return illegally confiscated Iranian assets. The U.S. did not fully live up to the returning of the confiscated assets and reneged on other aspects of the agreement until 2018, when the Trump administration unilaterally withdrew from the agreement because it was insufficiently strict. The sanctions were reimposed on Iran. (As they say in New York, “Such a deal!”)

By contrast, Israel has been developing a nuclear arsenal since the late 1950s, and has refused to join or comply with the Non-Proliferation Treaty that took effect in 1970. The U.S. and Iran, along with 41 other countries, were signatories of the first round of that treaty. The U.S. and Israel have complained for years about suspected Iranian violations, but U.S. intelligence and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IEAE), which participated in extensive inspections as enforcement of the JCPOA, have consistently reported that Iran is not making nuclear weapons. On the other hand, the U.S. has for decades enabled the Israeli nuclear arsenal, which both the U.S. and Israel have consistently refused to acknowledge. From an Iranian point of view, how is this honest or consistent? (It also demonstrates American unwillingness to comply with the Non-Proliferation Treaty—yet another example of the U.S. disregarding a treaty.)

There is another, more sinister aspect to U.S. policy. The Bush II administration tore up his predecessor’s Agreed Framework deal and put other pressure on the North Koreans to withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty so the U.S. could use that withdrawal as a casus belli to attack North Korea. But at the time, the U.S. was bogged down by the Iraq War, and the North Koreans took advantage of the distraction. Flipping the script, they built nukes and rendered the attack scenario unappealing. The interventionists have desperately looked for “violations” to justify an attack on Iran. If they keep up their aggression and threats long enough to avoid brokering an honest agreement, the Iranians might, out of fear, end their long-standing policy against nuclear weapons and flip the script, too. 

The cavalier attitude the U.S. takes toward treaties is of a piece with a broader pattern of blatant disregard for human rights and the rule of law, as illustrated by the American use of “Black Sites” to imprison and torture suspected terrorists outside of the U.S. The most notable were operated in Afghanistan, Poland, and Thailand. American leaders reasoned that torturing and jailing suspects without any due process was not illegal if the acts were performed overseas and by foreigners hired by the U.S. government rather than American citizens. The reasoning was no different than paying a hit man to torture or kill someone and claiming innocence; it doesn’t wash in the U.S. legal system. The rest of the world is aware of this hypocrisy by the chief proponent of the “rules-based order.” The Iranians are personally familiar with American support for torture from decades under the shah’s U.S.- and Israeli-trained and -supported Savak.

The disruptive behavior extends to the treatment of American clients. The U.S. provides apparently unlimited aid to Israel, which has for decades regularly threatened and pursued illegal military and intelligence missions to destabilize and topple governments in the region, Iran especially. Many high-level government officials have been assassinated in more acts that violate the UN Charter. The Iranians and much of the world no doubt see these illegal and hostile actions of the Israeli government as an extension of U.S. foreign policy. Many leading U.S. officials regularly threaten to destroy Iran while claiming solidarity with Israel, also in violation of Article 2 of the UN Charter.

It is important to note that, in the Iranian view, the campaign painting Iran as a cruel and repressive society is being perpetrated by a nation that has wrecked many of Iran’s neighbors and slaughtered their citizens in the Global War on Terror against Sunni terrorists who were supported and financed by the U.S. and their friends. (For an overview of the years of U.S. complicity in supporting jihadis, see Scott Horton’s book Enough Already.) The world watches with horror as the American-backed Israelis, with blatant disregard for international laws, have for decades brutalized the Palestinians by stealing their land, bulldozing their houses and farms, starving, killing, jailing, torturing, and chasing them into concentration camps. Supporting this behavior is strictly forbidden by the Leahy Law, so U.S. government leadership has to go through quite a dance to subvert that law in order to send the Israelis weapons and money.

The Iranian regime may be repressive, undemocratic, and cruel to some of their people; one can nevertheless understand why it might be hesitant about making an agreement to disarm to please American elites with a long history of ignoring their own laws, treaties, and agreements, and of abusing various nations and peoples around the world.

American citizens have been desensitized and propagandized into complacency, and most have no concept of the magnitude of terrible acts done in their name. Much of the rest of the world, especially the Iranians, see it clearly.

The post Why Negotiations With Iran Are So Difficult appeared first on The American Conservative.

Politics

Horrified Democrats Discover the Imperial Presidency

The meltdown over the Alien Enemies Act is undercut by the long history of presidential encroachments on Congressional war powers.

Credit: lazyllama/Shutterstock

President Donald Trump sharply increased claims of presidential power in the arena of national security on March 15, 2025, when he invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to justify new measures targeting the Venezuelan drug-trafficking gang Tren de Aragua (TdA), allegedly an ally of Nicolas Maduro’s government.  According to Trump’s proclamation, TdA “is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization with thousands of members, many of whom have unlawfully infiltrated the United States and are conducting irregular warfare and undertaking hostile actions against the United States.” The organization “has engaged in and continues to engage in mass illegal migration to the United States to further its objectives of harming United States citizens, undermining public safety, and supporting the Maduro regime’s goal of destabilizing democratic nations in the Americas, including the United States.”

Collusion between the Maduro regime and TdA, Trump charged, has produced a “hybrid criminal state” that is “perpetuating an invasion of and predatory incursion into the United States,” posing a substantial danger to the country. The president specifically emphasized the alleged “invasion” as the reason for invoking the Alien Enemies Act.  He then stated that all alien enemies described in section 1 of his proclamation “are subject to immediate apprehension, detention and removal” from the United States.

Opponents of the Trump administration immediately denounced the president’s move as unconstitutional and challenged it in court.  The rulings so far have been mixed, but the U.S. Supreme Court has at least slowed the administration’s use of AEA’s deportation proceedings on due process grounds, much to the anger of the White House.

Trump’s critics accuse him of trying to implement his hardline views on immigration policy under the false guise of a national security imperative.  If Trump’s strategy were allowed to stand, critics contend, undocumented immigrants from Venezuela and other countries could be deported with little or no due process.  They would be treated as members of an invading terrorist army.  Advocates of a liberal immigration policy consider the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act as a mortal threat to their agenda. 

One of their most prominent arguments was that the AEA can be implemented only when the United States is at war.  Since no congressional declaration of war was in effect against either TdA or Venezuela, their rationale was that the president could not lawfully invoke and implement the Alien Enemies Act.  

Two factors weaken their argument.  First, Trump specifically cited an “invasion” as the justification for his action.  It has been long settled law that the president can respond to an invasion without waiting for a declaration of war from Congress.  At the Constitutional Convention, James Madison had the original phrase “to make War” changed, to afford the president the ability to respond to sudden attacks.  Even the constitutional scholars at the liberal Brennan Center implicitly concede that the administration’s insistence that the U.S. is responding to an invasion might complicate criticism of Trump’s actions: 

The president may invoke the Alien Enemies Act in times of “declared war” or when a foreign government threatens or undertakes an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” against U.S. territory. The Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to declare war, so the president must wait for democratic debate and a congressional vote to invoke the Alien Enemies Act based on a declared war. But the president need not wait for Congress to invoke the law based on a threatened or ongoing invasion or predatory incursion. The president has inherent authority to repel these kinds of sudden attacks — an authority that necessarily implies the discretion to decide when an invasion or predatory incursion is underway.

 The position adopted by Trump’s opponents is weakened further because Congress has allowed previous presidents to run amok for decades waging undeclared wars in multiple countries.  Congress issued the last official declaration of war in June 1942, against Nazi Germany’s allies Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria.  Yet Washington has attacked numerous countries and political movements since then, resulting in extensive deaths and destruction.  Indeed, U.S. administrations have waged lengthy, full-scale wars in such places as Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq.  

Although Congress made a feeble attempt to reclaim some of its constitutional powers regarding war and peace with the passage of the War Powers Resolution in 1973, that change had a meager effect.  The authority of Congress to declare war has become little more than an archaic historical curiosity.  It is mighty late for Trump’s opponents to take a stand regarding the limits of the president’s war powers.  Their choice of the Alien Enemies Act as the proper vehicle for a constitutional challenge is also questionable, since the current administration can make at least a plausible case that it is responding to an invasion of U.S. territory.

Trump’s position that the United States is effectively at war with TdA, thereby warranting the use of the Alien Enemies Act, virtually begs for a landmark decision from the U.S. Supreme Court.  His rationale that the United States is being “invaded” by an organized hostile force seems a stretch, but it is decidedly more credible than the arguments that Trump’s predecessors have used to justify their wars and other “emergency actions.”  

One could certainly assert that the terrorist attacks on 9/11 qualified, and a reasonable case could be made that the Libyan government’s role in the bombing of Pan American flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 constituted an attack on the United States.  But any notion that Washington’s warfare against Muslim forces in Lebanon in 1983, bombing the Bosnian Serbs in 1995, bombing Serbia itself in 1999, or invading and occupying Iraq in 2003 (among Washington’s other undeclared wars) were exercises in national self-defense is preposterous on its face.  All of those episodes were wars of choice—indeed, gratuitous wars of aggression. 

The Trump administration’s current case, while probably insufficient, is at least more plausible than the justifications for most of the earlier presidential actions.  Yet, many of the most vocal critics of Trump’s behavior regarding his invocation of the Alien Enemies Act were silent about those earlier manifestations of the imperial presidency—and remain so. This episode provides an ideal opportunity for the judicial branch to weigh in about the nature and extent of the war powers of both Congress and the presidency.  Such a clarification is badly needed. 

The post Horrified Democrats Discover the Imperial Presidency appeared first on The American Conservative.

Foreign Affairs

America Can’t Afford to Protect Europe from Russia

President Donald Trump should act now to end European defense dependence.

Credit: Alexandros Michailidis/Shutterstock

Kaja Kallas, who is what passes as the European Union’s foreign minister, has chutzpah. Unfortunately, her other qualities, such as hypocrisy, are less endearing. 

Kallas has long criticized President Donald Trump’s direct approach to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. After their phone conversation on Monday, days after direct Russia-Ukraine talks in Istanbul, she complained, “We really haven’t seen, you know, the pressure on Russia from these talks.” Back in February, she accused Trump of “appeasement” for calling Putin. She explained: “It is clear that any deal behind our backs will not work. You need the Europeans, you need the Ukrainians.”

That is rich coming from Kallas, who until last year was prime minister of Estonia. Stuck between Germany and Russia/Soviet Union, the Baltic state has suffered greatly throughout history. Unfortunately, as a member of NATO Tallinn offers liabilities rather than assets for America, which Kallas, and most of her countrymen, expect to defend their nation. After all, Estonia spent only $1.4 billion on the military last year, a rounding error for the Pentagon. That was 3.4 percent of GDP, impressive compared to other NATO members, but still shockingly low for a country that claims to fear a Russian invasion. Estonia’s army deploys 3,750 people. The government possesses ten ships, four airplanes, and three helicopters. 

A country completely dependent on the largesse of others shouldn’t cast stones at those it expects to defend it from the nuclear-armed state next door. Especially since its immediate neighbors won’t save it if war comes. Nor will the wealthier, more distant European states. Tallinn would desperately await the American cavalry. 

Kallas is not the only European personage who expects the U.S. to save his or her country. In March, Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni proposed handing out NATO security guarantees like some hotels distribute bedtime chocolates. When several European leaders discussed sending European troops to monitor a Ukrainian ceasefire, Meloni said no, arguing that “we need to think about more durable solutions,” meaning providing the alliance’s famed Article 5 guarantee to nonmembers: “Extending to Ukraine the same protection that NATO countries have would certainly be much more effective, although it would be something different from NATO membership.” She claimed that “this would be a stable, lasting, and effective security guarantee, much better than some of the proposals I have seen.”

It is a stupid, even dishonest idea. The alliance has a membership process because threatening war against a nuclear power is serious business and should be offered only to countries whose defense is vital, or at least incidental to protecting other member states. Ukraine fails both standards, which is why the U.S. and Europeans have spent the last 17 years evading their commitment to bring Kiev into NATO. If countries such as Ukraine don’t meet membership requirements, they shouldn’t be gifted the essential attributes of membership.

Proposing a security guarantee for non-members wasn’t the first attempt in March to make the U.S. foot the bill. A campaign to create a multi-national European peacekeeping force for Ukraine collapsed when Washington refused to provide Article 5 protection for the troops that Europeans proposed to deploy into danger. However, Meloni’s proposal isn’t just bad policy. Her suggested end run around the alliance’s membership standards is also a dishonest national copout. After rejecting the deployment of Italians to Ukraine, she hopes to appear tough without doing anything. Italy has one of the continent’s largest economies but competes with Spain as the worst major European laggard in military effort. With outlays at 1.49 percent of GDP, Italy is number 27 of 32 members. Among those doing better: Croatia, Albania, Montenegro, Portugal, Bulgaria, and Denmark.

In fairness, of course, even the best performers aren’t that impressive, at least if they really believe what they are saying about the likelihood of Putin launching a Blitzkrieg against them. Observed The Economist:

The realization is sinking in. Europe needs to become able to defend itself without America’s help. … The problem is that, so far, neither politician has offered much in the way of ideas on where the money for it is supposed to come from. Currently, the EU’s member states spend some €325bn ($340bn) a year on defense, which comes to about 1.8% of the bloc’s GDP. That is still, three years into war in Ukraine, less than the 2% target that NATO set its members in 2014 after Russia had illegally annexed Crimea and occupied the eastern Donbas region… Europe’s spending to support Ukraine is equally underwhelming. Since January 2022 the EU and its member states have spent €113bn in financial, military and humanitarian help, the equivalent of just above 0.2% of their GDP during each of those three years.

Some European officials have requested “a roadmap” to any American withdrawal to enable them to adjust their defense plans. However, most member governments evidence little urgency in building up their forces, while analysts warn that the allies will need years to prepare for Washington’s exit or even drawdown. Reported Politico Europe: “A report from Germany’s Economic Institute (IW Cologne) warned this week that it could take 10 to 12 years for Europe to replace key U.S. military capabilities.” This has become an argument against the Trump administration forcing Europe to grow up militarily. Even American military officers don’t want any reduction. And Europeans don’t hide their strategy. Politico Europe explained that some “European governments still hope that the U.S. midterm elections in two years, and the next U.S. presidential election in 2028, will hobble Trump’s power and restore the old alliance with the U.S. They also fear that starting to prepare for the worst could turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy and only accelerate a movement they’re still hoping to avoid, the three European officials said.”

This even though Russia, supposedly hobbled by sanctions, has been outspending the Western bloc since it invaded Ukraine. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies: “Over the last year, European defense spending jumped by 11.7% in real terms to reach USD 457 billion, with 2024 marking the tenth consecutive year of growth … Nonetheless, European growth remained outpaced by uplifts in Russia’s total military expenditure, which grew by 41.9% in real terms to reach an estimated RUB 13.1trn (USD 145.9 bn). In light of lower domestic input costs and the dominance of domestic production in Russia, it is useful to examine military spending in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms. In purchasing power parity (PPP), Russian total military expenditure reached $462 bn in 2024, exceeding the total for Europe in USD at market exchange rates (MER).”

Of course, Moscow is using up much of its manpower and materiel to fight a brutal war against Ukraine. However, the Putin government has demonstrated that even a weaker economy under sanction can act quickly to produce significant quantities of weapons. Surely the Europeans could do more—if they believed that doing so was important. Instead, they continue to go easy both on aid to Ukraine and their own defense. While expecting the U.S. to continue to protect them during what promises to be, if they have their way, a very, very long transition to a truly European defense of Europe.

Although it is difficult to imagine an American case against a European defense of Europe, U.S. policymakers, in contrast to Americans more generally, have long benefited from a helplessly dependent Europe that typically lined up behind American initiatives while wielding American-made weapons. Edward Lucas of the Center for European Policy Analysis warned that, in the future, on issues of mutual interest there “will be far more a partnership of equals. On other issues—such as global financial management, conflict in the Middle East, and international law—Europeans will have their own ideas and their own priorities.” Indeed, Kishore Mahbubani, celebrated author with Singapore’s Asia Research Institute, has called on Europe to formally set a new course, indicating its willingness “to quit NATO,” reach a deal with Russia, “with each side accommodating the other’s core interests,” and “work out a new strategic compact with China.”

No doubt, such an approach would horrify Washington policymakers, including many around Trump. For instance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio rejected suggestions that the U.S. might leave the transatlantic alliance: “The United States is as active in NATO as it has ever been.” However, Americans should imagine a better future, one in which Europe, with more than ten times Russia’s GDP and three times Russia’s population, not the U.S., stood up to Moscow while trying to engineer better relations with it. And in which Europe deployed its own forces to protect more distant interests, such as European commerce targeted by Yemen’s Houthis. Most Americans would applaud such a result. Burden shedding, not sharing, should be Washington’s strategy for the future.

This is especially the case since its traditional determination to dominate allies and adversaries alike is bankrupt. The U.S. is running unsustainable deficits, more than $2 trillion annually, nearing the post-World War II record of 106 percent debt to GDP, and drowning in rising interest payments, more than $1 trillion a year. All these at a time without a hot war, pandemic, or financial crisis. Passage of the GOP tax bill will fuel the debt rise, which could become a tsunami if the economy falls into a recession. Over the long term, spending, deficits, interest payments, and debt are headed ever upward, with no limit in sight. With draconian cuts in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid unlikely, the Pentagon will eventually become the prime budget target. Taxes will almost certainly be raised along the way, but which U.S. politician will propose making Americans pay even more so Europeans can pay even less? 

Kallas, Meloni, and many other Europeans still hope to play Uncle Sam for Uncle Sucker. However, the American people elected Donald Trump to say no more. It is time for Washington to treat Europeans as friends, adults, and allies, rather than suffer them as clients, dependents, and deadbeats.

The post America Can’t Afford to Protect Europe from Russia appeared first on The American Conservative.

President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” could be headed for a House-wide vote as soon as Wednesday night after its approval by a key committee.

The House Rules Committee, the gatekeeper for most legislation before it gets to the full chamber, first met at 1 a.m. Wednesday to advance the massive bill in time for Speaker Mike Johnson’s Memorial Day deadline for sending it to the Senate.

Proceedings crept on for hours as Democrats on the committee repeatedly accursed Republicans of trying to move the bill “in the dead of night” and of trying to raise costs for working class families at the expense of the wealthy.

WHITE HOUSE URGES IMMEDIATE VOTE ON GOP’S ‘BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’

Democratic lawmakers also dragged out the process with dozens of amendments that stretched from early Tuesday well into Wednesday.

Republicans, meanwhile, contended the bill is aimed at boosting small businesses, farmers, and low- and middle-income families, while reducing waste, fraud, and abuse in the government safety net.

In a sign of the meeting’s high stakes, Johnson, R-La., himself visited with committee Republicans shortly before 1 a.m. and then again just after sunrise.

HOUSE FREEDOM CAUCUS HEADING TO WHITE HOUSE AFTER DELAY PLAY ON TRUMP’S ‘BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’

But the committee kicked off its meeting to advance the bill with several key outstanding issues – blue state Republicans pushing for a raise in state and local tax (SALT) deduction caps, and conservatives demanding stricter work requirement rules for Medicaid as well as a full repeal of green energy subsidies granted in former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

Johnson told Fox News Digital during his earlier visit that he was “very close” to a deal with divided House GOP factions.

Returning from that meeting, Johnson signaled the House would press ahead with its vote either late Wednesday or early Thursday.

But the legislation’s passage through the House Rules Committee does not necessarily mean it will fare well in a House-wide vote.

A pair of House Rules Committee members, Reps. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., and Chip Roy, R-Texas, were two of the conservative House Freedom Caucus members who had called for the House-wide vote to be delayed on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the White House bore down hard on those rebels, demanding a vote “immediately” in an official statement of policy that backed the House GOP bill.

Republicans are working to pass Trump’s policies on tax, immigration, energy, defense and the national debt all in one massive bill via the budget reconciliation process.

Budget reconciliation lowers the Senate’s threshold for passage from 60 votes to 51, thereby allowing the party in power to skirt the minority — in this case, Democrats — to pass sweeping pieces of legislation, provided they deal with the federal budget, taxation or the national debt.

House Republicans are hoping to advance Trump’s bill through the House and Senate by the Fourth of July.

The Army on Wednesday said it is approaching its second phase of separation with service members experiencing gender dysphoria, an initiative that follows the Trump administration’s directive of prioritizing military excellence and readiness.

A new memo issued by Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll and obtained by Fox News Digital outlines two phases in the separation process, the first of which will be completed at the beginning of June.

The first phase, which ends June 6, allows service members who have been diagnosed with or have a history of gender dysphoria to identify themselves and volunteer to separate from the military branch, an Army spokesperson told Fox Digital.

PENTAGON CEASES GENDER TRANSITION TREATMENTS AS IT MOVES TO BOOT TRANS TROOPS

Once a service member notifies an immediate commander, that commander will then notify a superior, initiating the separation process.

Soldiers who reached a threshold for years of service qualify for voluntary separation pay or double the pay a service member would get by separating from the Army for various reasons, the spokesperson said.

HEGSETH BANS FUTURE TRANS SOLDIERS, MAKES SWEEPING CHANGES FOR CURRENT ONES

However, they will not qualify for separation pay if they have not reached the years of service, if there is pending administrative action against them or if they are facing Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) code infractions. 

In the case of pending administrative action against them, their discharge may also not be honorable.

The Army said those who volunteer for separation, but do not qualify, will still be separated and afforded benefits; they will only forfeit the additional separation pay, according to the spokesperson.

After the June 6 deadline for voluntary separation, the Army will enter the involuntary separation phase. 

In the second phase, “there will be means of identifying those who did not want to self-identify,” the spokesperson said.

HEGSETH ORDERS DEADLINE FOR TRANS SERVICE MEMBERS TO LEAVE MILITARY: ‘OUT AT THE DOD’

The spokesperson said soldiers’ records, prior to the new policy, reflected service members’ sex at birth.

Once they are identified, a separation process will begin.

TRANSGENDER SAILORS, MARINES OFFERED BENEFITS TO VOLUNTARILY LEAVE SERVICE OR FACE BEING KICKED OUT

“Regardless of potential outcome, every service member will be treated with dignity and respect, however this shakes out,” the spokesperson said.

Driscoll’s guidance comes after President Donald Trump issued an executive order Jan. 27, “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth heeded Trump’s executive order with a memo outlining what the Department of Defense needed to do to comply.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Wednesday that the Trump Gold Card, which makes it possible for any foreigner to buy a visa for $5 million, will be available online within weeks.

Lutnick was a guest at Axios’ streamed event, Building the Future, Wednesday, where he was interviewed by company co-founder Mike Allen about several topics, including President Donald Trump’s offering of a Gold Card.

In March, Trump said the Gold Card would go on sale “very, very soon,” explaining it would be like a green card, “but better and more sophisticated.” He said the newest path to citizenship in the U.S. would allow the “most successful job-creating people from all over the world to buy a path to citizenship.”

Allen asked Lutnick when the $5 million Gold Card would be available, and Lutnick said he expected a website called trumpcard.gov to be up and running in about a week.

TRUMP VOWS TO REFUND, DEPORT ANY ‘UNSAVORY’ IMMIGRANTS WHO TRY FOR CITIZENSHIP UNDER POTENTIAL ‘GOLD CARD’

“The details of that will come soon after, but people can start to register. And all that will come over a matter of the next weeks — not month, weeks,” Lutnick said.

He also shared a story about a recent “great dinner” in the Middle East with about 400 people.

During the dinner, Lutnick said, he had his phone out when one of the senior leaders walked by and asked why his phone was out.

“I go, ‘I am selling him cards,’” Lutnick said. “So, basically everyone I meet who’s not an American is going to want to buy the card if they have the fiscal capacity.”

TRUMP CONTINUES TO PUSH ALTERNATIVE TO CONTROVERSIAL VISA AMID CONCERNS ABOUT CHINESE INFLUENCE

He acknowledged that not everyone will be able to afford a Gold Card, but it will be available to those who can afford to help America pay off its debt.

“Why wouldn’t they want a plan B that says God forbid something bad happens, you come to the airport in America and the person in immigration says, ‘Welcome home.’ Right? As opposed to, ‘Where the heck am I going if something bad’s happening in my country,’” Lutnick continued. 

He noted that everyone will be vetted for a card, adding those who come in with $5 million for a visa are going to be “great people who are going to come and bring businesses and opportunity to America. And they’re going to pay $5 million.”

Lutnick offered one more hypothetical scenario, saying if 200,000 people purchase the Gold Card for $5 million, that’s $1 trillion.

TRUMP TOUTS $5 MILLION ‘GOLD CARD’ AS NEW PATH TO CITIZENSHIP

“Remember, we get 280,000 visas per year now for free, not counting the 20 million people who broke into this country for nothing under Biden,” Lutnick said. “And, so, I want you to think about that. We give it away for free and said Donald Trump’s gonna bring in a trillion dollars for what purpose? To make America better. And it makes perfect sense to me.”

TRUMP’S ‘GOLD CARD’ VISA COULD INVITE FRAUD, NATIONAL SECURITY RISKS: EXPERT

Trump has previously touted his plan before to attract the world’s wealthiest to become U.S. citizens, though it comes at a time when he is both clamping down on illegal migration and as universities are increasingly in the spotlight amid soaring school costs and crippling student loans. 

After Trump’s announcement in March, Lora Ries, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center, warned it could invite fraud.

“Any immigration benefit draws fraud. … People are willing to do anything and say just about anything to come to the U.S.,” Ries told Fox News Digital. 

In an interview in February with Fox News’ Chief Political Anchor Bret Baier on “Special Report,” Lutnick said all candidates will be “deeply vetted.”

“These are vetted people,” Lutnick told Baier. “These are going to be great global citizens who are going to bring entrepreneurial spirit, capacity and growth to America. If one of them comes in, think of the jobs they are going to bring with them, the businesses they are going to bring with them, and they are going to pay American taxes as well. So, this is huge money for America.”

Fox News Digital’s Caitlin McFall contributed to this report.

House Republicans believe they are close to passing Trump’s Big, Beautiful Bill.

After the meeting at the White House, with the president and members of the Freedom Caucus, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) suggested that the House could vote in the overnight on the Big, Beautiful Bill. 

But it quickly became apparent that was a physical – and parliamentary – impossibility. 

GOP REBEL MUTINY THREATENS TO DERAIL TRUMP’S ‘BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’ BEFORE KEY COMMITTEE HURDLE

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) later introduced a “manager’s amendment” to make final changes to the bill. Those alterations were designed to coax holdouts to vote yes. 

It’s now likely that the House debates the bill in the early hours of Thursday with a vote in perhaps the late morning. 

But Democratic dilatory tactics could further delay passage of the bill. 

It’s possible Democrats could engineer protest votes to “adjourn” the House. Calls to “adjourn” hold special privileges in the House and require immediate consideration.

A USER’S MANUAL TO WHERE WE STAND WITH THE ‘BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) could also take advantage of a special debate time on the floor to “filibuster” the measure. Top House leaders from both parties are afforded what’s called the “Magic Minute.” That’s where they are allotted a “minute” to speak on an issue. But the House really allows them to speak as long as they wish out of deference to their position. Then-House Minority Leader and future Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) set the record for the longest speech in November, 2021, delaying considering of former President Biden’s “Build Back Better” Act. McCarthy spoke for eight hours and 32 minutes.

TRUMP’S ‘BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’ FACES CRUCIAL HOURS AS JOHNSON COURTS FREEDOM CAUCUS

The House Freedom Caucus seems much more satisfied with the upcoming changes to the bill. Especially after the meeting with the president.

But here is the main reason the House wants to move this as quickly as possible:

Republicans don’t want the bill to fester. Problems develop the longer this sits out there. So when you think you have the votes, you put it on the floor and force the issue. There could also be attendance problems later on Thursday or beyond.

This subject has been jawboned to death for weeks. Johnson said weeks ago he wanted this passed by Memorial Day. So Johnson – and President Trump – want GOPers who are skeptical or holdouts to put up or shut up. You do that by putting the bill on the floor and requiring a vote.

That said, it’s possible the GOP leadership might not have the votes ahead of the actual roll call vote. So calling a vote applies pressure on those holdouts. Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) used to “grow” the vote on the House floor. In other words, they would start the vote – not having all the ducks in order – and then “grow” the vote during the actual roll call and cajoling or twisting arms. The same may happen today.

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Also, if the vote is a little shy of passage, Republican leaders could hold the vote open and then single out those Republicans who have either voted no or have not cast ballots. Then the leadership can really turn up the heat and accuse them of not supporting the president’s agenda. If push comes to shove, they can then have the President weigh in and use his powers to coax those holdouts to vote yes.

Here’s the long-term outlook: If the House passes the bill, this goes to the Senate. This will be a project which will consume most of June. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) wants this done by July 4. But the question is what the Senate actually produces. The House and Senate must be on the same page. If the Senate crafts a different legislative product, then this must return to the House to sync up. Either the House eats what the Senate put together. Or the House and Senate must blend their differing versions together into a single, unified bill. That could take most of July. Remember that this bill includes an increase in the debt ceiling. The Treasury says Congress must lift the debt ceiling by early August.