The House Republican majority just got reduced to a perilously slim one-vote margin thanks to a Democrat’s victory in Texas over the weekend.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., swore in newly minted Rep. Christian Menefee, D-Texas, on Monday evening, bringing the overall House of Representatives margin to 218 Republicans and 214 Democrats.

That means if a bill gets no Democratic support and the House is in full attendance, losing more than one GOP vote will result in a 216-216 tie — meaning it would fail to pass.

Johnson is no stranger to dealing with slim margins and has eked out significant GOP victories while dealing with majorities between two and three seats. 

But this is a particularly difficult week for House GOP leaders who are scrambling to end an ongoing partial government shutdown.

The House is expected to vote on a funding compromise hashed out between Senate Democrats and the White House sometime on Tuesday, and Republicans will need nearly everyone in lockstep for the legislation to survive a chamber-wide ‘rule vote.’

Rule votes are procedural hurdles that traditionally fall along partisan lines.

Menefee, a former attorney for Houston’s Harris County, won a special congressional election in a left-leaning district in Texas that has been vacant for nearly a year.

He’s replacing the late Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Texas, who died while in office in March 2025.

The Associated Press reported that Menefee defeated former Houston City Council member Amanda Edwards, a fellow Democrat, in Saturday’s runoff election to fill the seat left vacant when Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner died last March.

Sylvester, a former longtime state lawmaker, served two terms as Houston mayor before winning election to Congress in 2024 to fill the seat of the late longtime Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee.

While Texas has redrawn its congressional maps for the 2026 midterms, as part of the high-stakes redistricting battle between President Donald Trump and Republicans versus Democrats, the special election used the state’s current district lines.

The addition of another lawmaker into the House Democrats’ ranks will give Republican leadership in the chamber further headaches.

And House GOP leaders are painfully aware of the politically difficult situation they’re in.

‘They’d better be here,’ Johnson said of his Republican members last month. ‘I told everybody, and not in jest, I said, no adventure sports, no risk-taking, take your vitamins. Stay healthy and be here.’

Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have agreed to testify in the House Oversight Committee’s Jeffrey Epstein investigation after lawmakers moved toward holding them in criminal contempt of Congress.

The committee said in a post on X that the Clintons were ‘trying to dodge contempt by requesting special treatment,’ adding that ‘The Clintons are not above the law.’

Angel Ureña, deputy chief of staff to Bill Clinton, confirmed in a post on X that both Clintons will appear before the panel.

‘They negotiated in good faith. You did not,’ Ureña wrote. ‘But the former president and former Secretary of State will be there and look forward to setting a precedent that applies to everyone.’

The committee is examining what the Clintons may have known about Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, including scrutiny of Hillary Clinton’s role overseeing U.S. efforts to combat international sex trafficking while serving as Secretary of State.

A source familiar sent Fox News Digital text of the email the Clintons’ attorneys sent to the House Oversight Committee confirming they would testify on terms set by Chairman James Comer, R-Ky.

‘Please be advised, and please advise the Chairman, that my clients accept the terms of your letter and will appear for depositions on mutually agreeable dates,’ the text read. ‘As has been the Committee’s practice, please confirm the House will not move forward with contempt proceedings, as the Chairman stated in his letter this morning.’

Ranking member Robert Garcia said the message amounted to full compliance with the committee’s demands.

‘I mean, they sent us and the Republicans affirmation that they’ve accepted every single term that James Comer has asked for, and that they’re willing to come in and testify,’ Garcia said.

Comer, however, disputed that characterization, telling Fox News Digital the agreement lacked specificity.

‘The Clintons’ counsel has said they agree to terms, but those terms lack clarity yet again, and they have provided no dates for their depositions,’ Comer said. ‘The only reason they have said they agree to terms is because the House has moved forward with contempt. I will clarify the terms they are agreeing to and then discuss next steps with my committee members.’

Democrats on the committee have pointed out that Comer has not pushed to hold others who did not appear in contempt, nor has he made any threats against the DOJ for failing to produce all of its documents on Epstein by a deadline agreed to by Congress late last year. The department has produced a fraction of the documents expected so far.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard detailed her ongoing election security assessment in a letter to congressional lawmakers Monday, saying President Trump ‘specifically directed’ her to be present for the execution of a search warrant in Fulton County, Georgia last week as part of the probe.

Gabbard sent a letter, exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital, addressed to Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chair Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn. The letter was also sent to House and Senate leadership, as well as GOP leadership on both committees.

The letter is in response to one sent last week by Warner and Himes, in which they request Gabbard brief them on why she was present at the FBI search of an election office in Fulton County, Ga. last month.

Gabbard announced in April 2025 that ODNI was investigating electronic voting systems in order to protect election integrity.

In the letter, obtained by Fox News Digital, Gabbard said President Trump ‘specifically directed’ her to be at the FBI’s execution of a search warrant on the Office of the Clerk of the Court of Fulton County, Georgia last month—on Jan. 28, 2026.

‘For a brief period of time, I accompanied FBI Deputy Director Bailey and Atlanta Acting Special Agent in Charge Pete Ellis in observing FBI personnel executing that search warrant, issued by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia pursuant to a probable cause finding,’ she writes.

Gabbard said her ‘presence was requested by the President and executed under my broad statutory authority to coordinate, integrate, and analyze intelligence related to election security, including counterintelligence (CI), foreign and other malign influence and cybersecurity.’

‘The FBI’s Intelligence/Counterintelligence divisions are one of the 18 elements that I oversee,’ she said.

Gabbard said that in twelve FBI field offices across the country, including the Atlanta Field Office, the senior FBI official (assistant director in charge or special agent in charge) is ‘dual-hatted as my Domestic DNI-Representative.’

‘The Domestic DNI-Rep program was established in 2011 through a Memorandum of Understanding between the ODNI and FBI,’ Gabbard explained. ‘Domestic DNI-Reps are distributed by region and focus on specific domestic issues of concern or interest, including threats to critical infrastructure.’

Gabbard said that she has visited ‘several’ of her Domestic DNI-Reps across the country.

‘While visiting the FBI Field Office in Atlanta, I thanked the FBI agents for their professionalism and great work, and facilitated a brief phone call for the President to thank the agents personally for their work,’ Gabbard said. ‘He did not ask any questions, nor did he or I issue any directives.’

Gabbard stressed that the ODNI’s Office of General Counsel ‘has found my actions to be consistent and well within my statutory authority as the Director of National Intelligence.’

Last week, FBI agents were seen carrying out a search at an election hub in Fulton County, Georgia, a location that became ground zero for concerns and complaints about voter fraud beginning in 2020. 

The search warrant authorized the seizure of election records, voting rolls and other data tied to the 2020 election, according to a copy of the warrant reviewed by Fox News.

Gabbard went on to address specific questions initially posed by Warner and Himes, first, detailing how election security ‘is a national security issue.’

‘Interference in U.S. elections is a threat to our republic and a national security threat,’ she writes. ‘The President and his Administration are committed to safeguarding the integrity of U.S. elections to ensure that neither foreign nor domestic powers undermine the American people’s right to determine who our elected leaders are.’

Gabbard said that President Trump ‘tasked ODNI with taking all appropriate actions’ under her statutory authorities towards ‘ensuring the integrity of our elections and specifically directed by observance of the execution of the Fulton County search warrant.’

Gabbard again noted that ODNI has been ‘actively reviewing intelligence reporting and assessments on election integrity’ since she took office.

‘As part of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center’s responsibility to lead, manage, and coordinate counterintelligence matters related to election security, NCSC personnel traveled with me to Fulton County to support this effort,’ Gabbard wrote. ‘They were not present during the execution of the warrant.’ 

Gabbard goes on to stress that the DNI has ‘broad authority to coordinate, integrate, and analyze intelligence related to election security.’ Gabbard also added that ODNI is ‘the lead intelligence agency in the Joint Cyber Planning Office,’ which coordinates and oversees the nation’s strategy to secure critical cyber infrastructure, ‘including cyber infrastructure used for elections.’

Gabbard also told lawmakers that ODNI ‘will not irresponsibly share incomplete intelligence assessments concerning foreign or other malign interference in U.S. elections.’ 

‘As I publicly stated on 10 April 2025, there is information and intelligence reporting suggesting that electronic voting systems being used in the United States have long been vulnerable to exploitation that could result in enabling determined actors to manipulate the results of the votes being cast with the intent of changing the outcome of an election,’ she wrote.

‘ODNI and the IC continue to collect and assess all available intelligence concerning this threat to ensure the security and integrity of our elections,’ she said.

In April 2025, Gabbard said ODNI is investigating election integrity. She said, at the time, that ODNI had ‘evidence of how electronic voting systems have been vulnerable to hackers for a very long time and vulnerable to exploitation, to manipulate the results of the votes being cast.’ Gabbard made the comments during a Cabinet meeting, stressing to the president that the information ‘further drives forward your m mandate to bring about paper ballots across the country so that voters can have faith in the integrity of our elections.’ 

Meanwhile, in the letter, Gabbard explained that the process of assessing the intelligence ‘ensures that the IC’s finished intelligence products are objective, independent of political considerations, and based on all available sources.’

‘I will share our intelligence assessments with Congress once they are complete,’ she said.

Gabbard said that the National Security Act of 1947 specifically highlights that the law does ‘not require that the president obtain approval from the congressional intelligence committees before initiating a significant intelligence activity.’

‘Moreover, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia issued the search warrant on the Office of the Clerk of The Court of Fulton County under seal,’ she writes. ‘As such, I have not seen the warrant or the evidence of probable cause that the DOJ submitted to Court for approval.’

She added: ‘Therefore, the ODNI had no ability, authority, or responsibility to inform the committees about the search warrant ahead of its execution.’

President Trump last week touted Gabbard on her work to protect elections in the U.S. 

‘She’s working very hard on trying to keep the election safe. And she’s done a very good job,’ Trump said. ‘And they, as you know, they got into the votes, you got a signed judge’s order in Georgia…And you’re going to see some interesting things happening. They’ve been trying to get there for a long time.’

Meanwhile, the Justice Department sued Fulton County in December seeking access to ballots related to the 2020 lawsuit, though the FBI’s search appears unrelated. 

Fulton County is fighting the lawsuit and says the Justice Department has not made a valid argument for accessing the records.

Fox News’ Breanna Deppisch contributed to this report. 

President Donald Trump is trying to quell a growing rebellion against the funding deal he negotiated with Senate Democrats as a growing number of House conservatives threaten to sink the legislation if a key demand is not met.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is walking a tightrope with House Republicans demanding the inclusion of election integrity legislation to the Trump-backed deal, which he negotiated with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., last week. 

The government is in its third day of a partial shutdown. Adding the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, to the package would send the legislation back to the Senate, where Schumer has already vowed to block it. 

That would likely extend what was intended to be a temporary closure.

Trump took to Truth Social to lower the temperature among House Republicans, and noted that he was ‘working hard with Speaker Johnson to get the current funding deal, which passed in the Senate last week, through the House and to my desk, where I will sign it into Law, IMMEDIATELY!’

‘We need to get the Government open, and I hope all Republicans and Democrats will join me in supporting this Bill, and send it to my desk WITHOUT DELAY,’ Trump said. ‘There can be NO CHANGES at this time.’ 

‘We will work together in good faith to address the issues that have been raised, but we cannot have another long, pointless, and destructive Shutdown that will hurt our Country so badly — One that will not benefit Republicans or Democrats,’ he continued. ‘I hope everyone will vote, YES!’

A cohort of House Republicans, led by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., wants to see the SAVE Act attached to the five-bill funding package plus short-term extension for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

It would require states to obtain proof of citizenship in-person when people register to vote and remove non-citizens from voter rolls.

Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., told Fox News Digital on Monday that he was leaning against voting to advance the funding deal if the SAVE Act was not attached. Reps. William Timmons, R-S.C., and Eric Burlison, R-Mo., have foreshadowed similar threats.

It’s legislation that has long been shelved since advancing from the House last year. Its passage in the upper chamber is even more unlikely because of the 60-vote filibuster threshold and Senate Democrats’ reticence to even consider supporting it. 

Their demands come as the House Rules Committee, the final gatekeeper for most legislation to get a chamber-wide vote, is set to meet Monday evening to consider the funding deal. Johnson met with Rules Committee members on Monday afternoon ahead of their scheduled meeting.  

Tacking on the SAVE Act would likely kill any chance of the spending deal earning support from House Democrats, who are already resistant to the deal. 

And if it were to make it to the Senate, Democrats in the upper chamber are primed to block it.

Without it, however, the group of House conservatives could kill the spending deal during a procedural hurdle called a ‘rule vote.’ The House Rules Committee advancing the bill sets up a chamber-wide rule vote, which if successful would unlock debate and set up a final vote on passage. 

Rule votes generally fall along partisan lines. And with a one-vote majority after the swearing-in of a new House Democrat who won a special election in Texas over the weekend, Johnson can afford little dissent.

Schumer laid out an edict on Monday against the idea, where he accused Republicans of pushing legislation ‘reminiscent of Jim Crow-era laws,’ that he argued would act as a means to suppress voters rather than encourage more secure elections. 

‘It is a poison pill that will kill any legislation that it is attached to,’ Schumer said in a statement. ‘If House Republicans add the SAVE Act to the bipartisan appropriations package it will lead to another prolonged Trump government shutdown.’

Nearly half of state attorneys general will demand the House Judiciary Committee expand its probe into climate policy-related influence on federal judges to include a gold-standard guide judges use to examine subjects they are not typically versed in.

The development comes after a Fox News Digital report highlighted criticisms of the latest edition of the Federal Judicial Center’s (FJC) 1,600-page ‘Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence.’ Critics said the traditionally apolitical reference guide is now rife with climate change–related ideological bias, citing extensive footnotes drawn from left-leaning and climate-alarmist sources.

The Federal Judicial Center itself is the research and education agency of the federal judiciary, and its governing board is chaired by Chief Justice John Roberts.

Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers is leading the effort, writing to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, subcommittee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, urging them to expand their improper-influence probe to include what they call an ‘inappropriate attempt to rig case outcomes in favor of one side.’

The latest edition was published December 31 and includes a foreword by Justice Elena Kagan before delving into subject matter footnoted to environmental law expert Jessica Wentz, climatologist Michael Mann, and a slew of others involved in climate change research and advocacy.

‘Those same improper influence concerns apply to the Federal Judicial Center and its new ‘Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence’,’ the attorney generals wrote in part.

They noted that Kagan’s foreword said previous editions of the manual helped ‘bring about better and fairer legal decisions,’ but argued her words would not echo the same in the latest edition.

‘Like [the] Climate Judiciary Project that the Committee is investigating, the new chapter presents a highly biased, agenda-driven view favoring radical interests pursuing lawsuits against producers and users of traditional forms of fossil fuel energy,’ the attorneys general argued, citing the inclusion of findings from Jessica Wentz, a climate change advocate at Columbia University, among other names.

They cited a court brief crafted by Wentz in opposition to the Willow drilling project in Alaska, where she was quoted as saying ‘the world needs to phase out fossil fuels as rapidly as possible in order to avert potentially catastrophic levels of global warming and climate change.’

The prosecutors also pointed to the inclusion of work from an attorney who represented the city of Honolulu in cases against traditional energy firms.

‘Not surprisingly, given the strong biases of its authors, reviewers, and sources, the climate change chapter presents as settled the very methodologies that plaintiffs rely on to impose liability on fossil-fuel defendants,’ the letter reads.

‘The chapter presents this science as authoritative without acknowledging contrary views or disclosing the many conflicts of the authors, reviewers, and sources. Ethics experts have noted that these issues raise serious ethics concerns.’

In comments to Fox News Digital, Hilgers said the FJC’s new science manual should present complex evidence impartially, but instead ‘appears to embed the views of climate activists and diversity, equity, and inclusion ideologues into what is presented as neutral guidance.’

‘When the same advocates and experts who are actively litigating climate cases help write and review a chapter that will be used by federal judges behind the scenes, it raises obvious and serious concerns about the impartiality of the judicial system,’ Hilgers said.

‘Nebraskans, and all Americans, deserve courts that are neutral and fair.’

The letter was also signed by Alaska Attorney General Stephen Cox, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman and their fellow state prosecutors in Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and Wyoming.

‘We’ve seen ridiculous legal warfare grow across the country — politically motivated groups, using our courts and liberal justices to push their climate agenda. That’s bad enough,’ McCuskey told Fox News Digital, saying it is time to prevent the influence of ‘junk science.”

‘We… must protect our judicial system and its impartiality,’ he said.

McCuskey also fired off a missive to the FJC itself, co-signed by Marshall, Uthmeier, Cox and others.

He told the center’s director — Obama-appointed federal judge Robin Rosenberg of Florida — that the manual’s ubiquity must remain trusted.

‘At least up to this point, [FJC] has been careful to stress that the Manual merely ‘describes basic principles of major scientific fields… Instead, the Fourth Edition places the judiciary firmly on one side of some of the most hotly disputed questions in current litigation: climate-related science and ‘attribution’.’

‘Such work undermines the judiciary’s impartiality and places a thumb on one side of the scale,’ McCuskey said.

American Energy Institute CEO Jason Isaac added that the FJC wrongly used taxpayer funds to publish a reference manual that ’embeds disputed, plaintiff-driven climate alarmist theories into materials judges consult.’

‘That is not education, it is outcome-shaping, and it directly undermines judicial impartiality,’ Isaac said.

O.H. Skinner of Alliance for Consumers called the development ‘the woke lawfare playbook in action’ and said climate change activists see the courtroom as their best chance to bring permanence to their ideology.

When reached for comment on the matter of her footnotes coming under scrutiny, Wentz replied, ‘no comment.’

Fox News Digital reached out to Jordan and Grassley for comment, as well as the FJC.