White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Biden still has no plans to pardon his son, Hunter Biden, who pleaded guilty to federal tax charges in September.

Hunter’s plea spared him from a public trial over his failure to pay taxes while he spent lavishly on drugs, escorts, luxury hotel stays, clothing and other personal items.

The plea also came after he was convicted of three felony gun charges in June. The first son, prosecutors said, lied on a mandatory gun purchase form by saying he was not illegally using or addicted to drugs.

After Hunter was convicted of the crimes, President Biden indicated he did not plan to pardon his son.

On Thursday, Jean-Pierre was asked again if President Biden had any intentions of pardoning Hunter, who is scheduled to be sentenced on the gun charges on Dec. 12 and the tax fraud charges on Dec. 16.

‘We’ve been asked that question multiple times. Our answer stands, which is no,’ the press secretary said.

Fox News senior White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich followed up on the question, asking if a commutation, or a lesser sentence, was off the table for Hunter.

Heinrich reminded Jean-Pierre that she had previously said Biden would not consider a commutation of Hunter’s sentence.

‘Yes, that stands,’ Jean-Pierre said.

‘You’re saying that still stands?’ Heinrich asked for clarification.

‘Yeah,’ Jean-Pierre responded.

The president’s son was indicted on three felonies and six misdemeanor counts alleging he evaded paying at least $1.4 million in taxes while simultaneously spending money on ‘drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature, in short, everything but his taxes,’ according to the December 2023 indictment.

Prosecutors also allege the tax returns Hunter ultimately did file falsely claimed that things like prostitutes, strip club visits, porn website subscriptions and other personal expenses were actually deductible business expenses.

The aim, according to the indictment, was to ‘evade assessment of taxes to reduce the substantial tax liabilities’ that Hunter faced.

Fox News’ Alec Schemmel contributed to this report.

President-elect Trump won a majority Hispanic county in Texas for the first time in over 100 years on Tuesday night in a massive swing since losing that same county eight years ago.

Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in Starr County on Tuesday night by a margin of 57.7% to 41.8%, becoming the first Republican to carry the county, which sits along the U.S.-Mexico border, since 1898, Fox 4 Dallas reported.

In 2016, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defeated Trump there by 60 points, a 76-point swing. 

Census data from 2020 shows that over 90% of residents in Starr County identify as Hispanic or Latino. 

Trump’s historic performance in Starr County comes in an election where he continued to make inroads with Hispanic voters nationwide.

Trump gained 6 points of support from Hispanics over 2020, leaving Democrats single-digit favorites among the bloc, according to data compiled by the Financial Times and other outlets.

Trump flipped Miami-Dade County in Florida, one of the largest Latino communities in the nation, winning it by about 2% more than President Biden did in 2020.

‘Hispanics are people of faith, family, hard work, searching for the American dream, and I think those are the values of the Republican Party’ Rep. Carlos Gimenez, a Republican who represents the southern half of Miami plus the Keys, told Fox News Digital.

‘The Democrat Party has gone way left to the extreme left, almost to the point of socialism. And many of us fled our countries fleeing socialism. And so that doesn’t attract us,’ said Gimenez, who is the only Cuban-born congressman.

A Fox News Voter Analysis showed Trump’s crossover appeal to Democratic constituencies was foundational to his success. He improved on his 2020 numbers among Hispanics (41%, +6 points), Black voters (15%, +7 points) and young voters (46%, +10 points).

These rightward shifts were particularly notable among Hispanic men (+8 points), Black men (+12 points) and men under 30 (+14 points) from 2020.

Fox News Digital’s Charles Creitz and Chris Pandolfo contributed to this report.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Biden believed he made the right decision to drop out of the presidential race in July, acknowledging there are many election experts analyzing the failed efforts by the Democratic Party with their own opinions on the race dominated by Republican President-elect Trump.

Jean-Pierre spoke to reporters during a press briefing Thursday afternoon, saying Biden had called Trump to congratulate him on his victory, assuring Trump he would direct his administration to work with Trump’s team to ensure a peaceful and orderly transition of power.

Additionally, Jean-Pierre said Biden had spoken with Vice President Kamala Harris to congratulate her on a ‘history-inspiring campaign.’

‘For some people, this election is a time of victory, and for others, it’s a time of loss,’ she said. ‘To state the obvious, Tuesday night’s results were not our team’s desired outcome. There’s going to be a lot of postmortem analysis of what happened in the coming days, in the coming weeks, even in the coming months.’

One reporter asked Jean-Pierre to address the criticism directed at Biden for the loss.

‘What I can say, and this is something the president says all the time: ‘You get knocked down, you get back up,’’ Jean-Pierre said, noting the president made that exact statement moments earlier. ‘The president believes he made the right decision on behalf of the American people, on behalf of this country, to step aside.’

After the 2022 midterms, Biden decided to seek re-election despite polls in 2023 showing that about 80% of the American public believed the octogenarian was too old to serve another term.

‘What he believed is that 14 million voters decided in the primary to make him and the vice president, obviously she was on the ticket, the nominee,’ Jean-Pierre said when asked again if Biden made the right decision to run for president. ‘Fourteen million Americans decided that. So, they made their decision on who they wanted.

‘Now, as we know, in July the president made a decision to step aside and he immediately … endorsed the vice president,’ she added.

Jean-Pierre was also pressed on whether it was wrong for the president’s team in 2023 to firmly encourage rising stars in the Democratic Party and others who participated in the 2020 cycle to rally behind Biden and not consider running for president.

She refused to get into a specific conversation but said it was not unusual for party members to rally behind their leader, which, in this case, was Biden.

‘What I can say is what the president decided to do, what the president believed and what the president is going to continue to do, [which] is put the American people first,’ Jean-Pierre said.

She was also pressed about whether Biden still stands by his description of Trump being an existential threat to democracy.

Jean-Pierre said Biden believes what he said at the time and believes he had an obligation to be honest with Americans.

She backed her statement up by pointing to comments made by former chief of staff John Kelly, who referred to Trump as a ‘fascist.’

During a series of interviews conducted with the media and published in October, Kelly recounted multiple occasions when the former president allegedly praised Adolf Hitler. Kelly also insisted Trump met the ‘general definition of a fascist’ and would govern like a dictator if allowed.

Jean-Pierre said Kelly was clear in his statements, while also pointing to statements made by Trump about the enemy within, going after people who disagree with him.

‘Look, we’re being very clear here,’ Jean-Pierre said. ‘The outcome was not what we wanted, and the Americans have made a decision that we want to respect. We want to respect the decision that the American people have made, and we are going to make sure that the American people get what they deserve, which is a peaceful transfer of power.’

Susie Wiles, a longtime GOP operative, will serve as President-elect Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff. 

Largely avoiding the spotlight, Wiles has been widely credited for running what was Trump’s most disciplined and well-executed campaign. 

During his victory celebration in West Palm Beach, Florida, Trump gave a special thanks to Wiles for her prominent role in the campaign. 

‘Let me also express my tremendous appreciation for Susie [Wiles] and Chris [LaCivita], on the job you did. Susie, come, Susie,’ Trump said. ‘Susie likes to stay sort of in the back, let me tell you. The ice baby. We call her the ice baby. Susie likes to stay in the background. She’s not in the background.’ 

Trump described Wiles as ‘tough, smart, innovative’ and said she is ‘universally admired and respected.’ 

He noted her place as the first female chief of staff in U.S. history, saying: ‘I have no doubt that she will make our country proud.’

A longtime Florida-based Republican strategist who ran Trump’s campaign in the state in 2016 and 2020, Wiles’ decades-long political career stretches back to working as former President Reagan’s campaign scheduler for his 1980 presidential bid. 

Wiles also ran Rick Scott’s 2010 campaign for Florida governor and briefly served as the manager of former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman’s 2012 presidential campaign. 

Wiles currently serves as a senior adviser to Trump and is campaign co-chair alongside Chris LaCivita.

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was previously floated as a possible contender for chief of staff, but recently told ‘The Guy Benson Show’ that he would not take the position if it was offered. 

‘People always ask if I’m going to be chief of staff — no, I’m not going to be… that’s a no,’ he said. 

Fox News Digital’s Aubrie Spady and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

The top three House Republican leaders are all running for their roles in the new Congress, a show of confidence that the GOP will prevail in winning full control of the federal government.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., sent letters to fellow House GOP lawmakers on Wednesday night asking for support to remain in those positions.

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., made a similar entreaty on Thursday morning.

The current House leadership lineup is not expected to face significant challenges if Republicans prove successful in keeping the chamber.

Each promised to work in support of conservative policies alongside President-elect Trump in separate letters obtained by Fox News Digital.

‘We can secure our borders, prioritize the needs of Americans above foreigners, promote investment and opportunity through the tax code, return to American energy dominance, dramatically reduce regulations, expand school choice, end the woke agenda, and restore fiscal sanity to Washington – among other pressing items,’ Johnson wrote in his letter.

‘I’m ready to take the field with all of you, and I am humbly asking for your support to continue leading this Conference as your Speaker.’

Scalise’s letter was a four-page memo detailing how congressional Republicans would pass significant conservative reforms using a legislative process called ‘reconciliation.’

Reconciliation is a way to fast-track legislation on issues like taxes, the debt limit, and federal spending by bypassing the Senate’s 60-vote threshold for passage, instead lowering it to a simple 51-vote majority.

But Scalise signaled Republicans would test those boundaries next year.

‘Though there are Senate rules limiting what we can fit in budget reconciliation, I want us to be bold and creative so we can include as many reforms in this package as possible,’ he said.

‘Democrats expanded what is traditionally allowed in reconciliation, and we intend to do the same. Now is the time to go big to advance conservative policies that will make our country prosperous and secure again.’

Emmer in his letter emphasized his role as whip in convincing Republicans to come together on legislation, even conceding that it was a difficult mission at times during the exceptionally disorderly 118th Congress.

‘We will always have disagreements over policy and strategy. That’s a good thing. Governing is messy and imperfect. But I have always believed that there is more that unites us than divides us,’ he wrote. ‘I’ve witnessed this as your Whip, bringing together members from across our conference to hash out these disagreements and find a path to 218 votes.’

‘I will always be direct, honest, and transparent. I will never make false promises or try to buy your votes.’

Meanwhile, Rep. Kevin Hern, R-Okla., who is term-limited as chair of the Republican Study Committee, the House GOP’s de facto conservative think tank, has announced a bid for House Republican Policy Committee chair.

The role, currently held by Rep. Gary Palmer, R-Ala., is the No. 5 position in the House GOP leadership lineup.

In his appeal to Republicans, Hern emphasized his good relationship with Vice President-elect JD Vance from his brief time in the U.S. Senate.

The No. 4 House Republican leader, House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., is also running for her current position again, though Fox News Digital is also told that she is angling for a Trump administration role as ambassador to the United Nations. Her spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment.

House Republicans are slated to hold their leadership elections on Wednesday next week, their first full day back in Washington since September.

The balance of power in the House has not yet been decided – something House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., has pointed out in multiple public statements – but the speedy consolidation of power is a sign Republicans are feeling good about their chances.

The Fox News Decision Desk put odds slightly in favor of the GOP in a Wednesday afternoon update. 

Speculation is surging that Susie Wiles, a veteran political operative who worked closely with President-elect Trump during his campaign, could take a top position in his new administration.

Sources within Trump’s transition team and others close to the former president’s campaign confirmed to Fox News that Wiles is reportedly the frontrunner for White House chief of staff – the person who oversees the Executive Office of the President.

Trump, during his victory celebration in West Palm Beach late Tuesday night, gave special thanks to Wiles for her prominent role throughout the campaign. 

‘Let me also express my tremendous appreciation for Susie [Wiles] and Chris [LaCivita], the job you did. Susie, come, Susie,’ Trump said, inviting her up to the microphone, but Wiles refrained from making comments.

‘Susie likes to stay sort of in the back, let me tell you. The ice baby. We call her the ice baby. Susie likes to stay in the background. She’s not in the background,’ Trump added. ‘Thank you, Susie.’

NBC News also reported that Wiles is seen as the frontrunner to become Trump’s chief of staff. Two sources in Trump’s political orbit didn’t wave Fox News off the reporting.

Wiles’ decades-long political career stretches back to working as former President Ronald Reagan’s campaign scheduler for his 1980 presidential bid.

Wiles managed several campaigns throughout her political career, including former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.’s presidential campaign and Florida Sen. Rick Scott’s Senate bid.

The Florida-based consultant successfully managed the operations for Trump’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns in the Sunshine State, contributing to his victories in Florida during both elections. In between presidential cycles, Wiles helped Ron DeSantis with his 2018 bid for governor.

Wiles currently serves as a senior adviser to Trump and is campaign co-chair alongside Chris LaCivita.

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was previously floated as a possible contender for chief of staff, but recently told ‘The Guy Benson Show’ that he would not take the position if it was offered. 

‘People always ask if I’m going to be chief of staff, no I’m not going to be… that’s a no,’ he said.