Even before the conflict over Medicaid subsidies that resulted in a month-and-a-half-long government shutdown, Democrats were already attacking Republicans over their reforms to the federal health insurance program, which has expanded over many years.

Democrats say the GOP’s cuts were put in place to give tax breaks to the wealthy, and serve to raise people’s premiums and kick them off their coverage. But Republicans, free-market health policy experts and a disability advocate argue these are ‘scare tactics’ used to deceive the public about what Republicans are really trying to do to Medicaid.

According to conservative health policy experts who spoke to Fox News Digital, Republican changes have done nothing to harm those whom Medicaid was originally intended for — people not expected to be in the labor market, such as individuals with disabilities, pregnant women, children and seniors. They argue the Medicaid reforms built into Trump’s tax cuts have actually improved the federal healthcare program for those it is supposed to be serving. 

‘The Working Families Tax Cuts increased oversight efforts as part of a larger package of Medicaid program integrity measures to more precisely serve the traditional Medicaid and the Medicaid Expansion populations,’ said Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., who serves as chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health. ‘Progressive Democrats and their Congressional allies are desperate as they try to pan the Working Families Tax Cuts as devastating to the traditional Medicaid population, which is not true! The traditional Medicaid population, which includes expectant mothers, low-income seniors, children and individuals with disabilities, is not affected by our bill!’

Stricter eligibility requirements — which experts who support the GOP’s approach told Fox News would ensure Medicaid dollars go to those they were intended for — are among the Republican reforms that have drawn Democrats’ ire. Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program had more than 82 million enrollees in 2024, compared with 42.1 million in 2005.
 

Democrats are also upset with provisions that impact how states get reimbursed for certain healthcare coverage via the federal government. Republicans have argued that Democratic states, like California, have been using funding loopholes in this framework so that federal dollars can help them pay for the ballooning cost of covering health insurance for non-U.S. citizens. 

The latest fight that triggered the recent government shutdown centered on enhanced Medicaid subsidies enacted under President Joe Biden during the coronavirus pandemic, described by his administration as a way to ease healthcare costs during that economic strain. Since February, Democrats have targeted vulnerable Republicans over the issue through ad buys and messaging campaigns. One group, Protect Our Care, reportedly spent $1 million on billboards and TV ads titled ‘Hands Off Medicaid.’

However, Paragon Health Institute President Brian Blase argues these changes serve to ‘rightfully refocus’ Medicaid, not ruin it. 

‘It requires able-bodied, working-age adults to work, go to school, or volunteer to receive benefits. It cracks down on corporate-welfare schemes that direct billions of dollars to wealthy, politically connected insurers and hospitals,’ Blase said. ‘And it reduces waste, fraud, and abuse that divert resources from those that truly need it.’ 

Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., said point-blank that ‘members of the traditional Medicaid population will not lose coverage due to this law,’ while slamming the ‘left-wing media’ for perpetuating attacks on Republicans.

‘Time and again, Republicans have fought for strengthening, sustaining, and securing the Medicaid program for our most vulnerable Americans — expectant mothers, children, low-income seniors, and individuals living with disabilities,’ Guthrie argued. ‘Republicans are enabling the Medicaid program to serve its intended purpose, and we will continue to fight for solutions that protect the program for generations to come.’

Dean Clancy, Senior Health Policy Fellow at Americans for Prosperity, applauded Republicans for sticking to their guns in the face of ‘Democrats’ hyperbolic claims and histrionic scare tactics aimed at blocking any change to Medicaid.’  

Another angle of attack for Democrats has been claims that the Republican reforms will negatively impact people with disabilities. The fear is that the increased eligibility requirements will be a major barrier to people with disabilities who might struggle with such tasks. They also fear the funding framework change for states could push them to reduce benefits, eligibility or limit services for this population.   

But Rachel Barkley, Director of the National Center’s Able Americans Program, which promotes free-market policy reforms for people with disabilities, said she is confident that Republicans’ reforms to Medicaid will ‘directly improve’ the lives of those living with disabilities.

Among the reforms Barkley praised were the implementation of the Helping Communities with Better Support (HCBS) Act, which she said ‘expands access to Medicaid home- and community-based services for individuals with disabilities and their caregivers,’ while simultaneously increasing transparency and accountability for those waiting for care. 

Barkley also highlighted new tax provisions ushered in by Republicans that she said will serve to promote financial security for those with disabilities. 

But importantly, Barkley added, the GOP reforms — such as new work requirements — serve to ensure that disabled people are given the priority within Medicaid that they deserve.  

Clancy, meanwhile, noted that he and the folks at Americans For Prosperity, a D.C. think-tank that promotes free-market solutions to problems, were big fans of the ‘Personal Option’ that he says Republicans’ Medicaid reforms advanced. 

Clancy has described the ‘Personal Option’ as ‘a set of sensible, principled reforms that make American health care better, more affordable, and more accessible for everyone — without a government takeover.’ He said the approach gives Medicaid enrollees more control over how their services are delivered rather than leaving those decisions to the government.

A group of former federal judges sharply criticized a top Justice Department official this week for characterizing the court fights playing out in President Donald Trump’s second term as a ‘war’ against so-called ‘activist judges,’ remarks they described as unnecessarily inflammatory and amounting to ‘pouring oil’ on an already fast-burning fire.

Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, spoke colorfully last week during a fireside chat hosted by the Federalist Society. Blanche used his time to excoriate federal judges for pausing or blocking some of Trump’s biggest executive orders and actions since January and to urge young lawyers and law students in the audience to fight back. 

‘It is a war,’ Blanche said, ‘and it is something we will not win unless we keep on fighting.’

The judges ‘have a robe on, but they are more political, or as political, as the most liberal governor or DA,’ Blanche added. 

His remarks prompted a rebuke from the New York State Bar Association and from the Article III Coalition, a group of 50 former federal judges appointed by Democratic and Republican presidents. 

This type of rhetoric, ‘especially when voiced by high-ranking officials — not only endangers individual judges and court staff, but also undermines the public’s trust in the judiciary as an impartial and co-equal branch of government,’ the judges said in a letter. 

In a series of interviews this week, several former judges told Fox News Digital they were shocked by Blanche’s remarks, which they described as a departure from longstanding Justice Department norms and a threat to the judiciary both as an institution and to the individual judges who serve on the bench.

One judge said Blanche’s remarks were ‘wildly different from all prior decades and under all prior administrations’ he experienced in his more than 60-year career in D.C.

‘I’ve been in Washington since 1974, continuously, and I’ve never seen anything like it,’ Paul R. Michel, the former chief judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, told Fox News Digital in an interview.

Michel served as a special prosecutor in the Watergate investigation, a role in which he personally interviewed former President Nixon. 

‘It’s just startling for the deputy attorney general to be functioning as a PR ‘hatchet man’ instead of a law enforcement official,’ he said of Blanche’s remarks.

Michel and others in the group of retired judges told Fox News Digital they fear the rhetoric used could further erode public trust in the judiciary, a branch that the framers designed to interpret the law impartially and to serve as a check against excesses of the other branches, regardless of politics or the administration in charge. 

They noted that while parties often disagree with a decision or a near-term temporary order or motion, both the Justice Department and the opposing parties have a readily available mechanism to seek relief via the appeals process. 

Parties looking to challenge a temporary order or other form of injunctive relief can proceed with having the district court evaluate a case on its merits, kick it to the U.S. Court of Appeals, and, in some cases, the Supreme Court, for review, Philip Pro, a former U.S. district judge in Nevada appointed by President Ronald Reagan, told Fox News Digital.

Federal judges have attempted to issue near-term or emergency orders temporarily blocking some of Trump’s top policy priorities, including on immigration enforcement, birthright citizenship and sweeping layoffs across the federal government. The administration has responded to the lower court actions by seeking emergency relief from the higher courts, via emergency stays, which Blanche also touted during his remarks last week. 

Judges are ‘totally reactive’ by design, Pro said. ‘We’re sitting in our districts. The cases are randomly assigned.’

‘There is nothing ‘rogue’ about these decisions,’ Pro added. ‘Those wheels grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly well, and that’s the way you get resolution.’

Josh Blackman, a professor at the South Texas College of Law who attended the fireside remarks, told Fox News Digital in an interview he is sympathetic to the concerns voiced by the judges, but he also understands the broader issue Blanche may have been trying to get at, which is the power the courts have to review the actions of the executive branch. 

This has emerged as a particular pain point not only for Trump but for his predecessors, each of whom has sought to enact some of their policy priorities via executive order in a bid to sidestep a clunky and slow-moving Congress.

Those actions are therefore more vulnerable to emergency intervention from the federal courts, Blackman said, though the degree to which judges can or should act in this space is the subject of ongoing debate.

‘I don’t see Blanche’s comments as calling for violence,’ Blackman said. ‘I think it’s more trying to say that there’s just this struggle between the executive branch and the judiciary that is not normal.’ 

Trump is far from the first president to publicly complain about ‘activist’ judges for hampering his policies. Such criticisms stretch back decades and include former presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Richard Nixon, among others. 

Still, the judges say they are concerned by Blanche’s remarks, which are a stark departure from what they experienced in their own careers, including while serving as federal prosecutors.

‘Calling judges ‘rogue’ because they apply the law in a politically unfavorable way is a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of the judiciary in our constitutional structure,’ Allyson K. Duncan, a former judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, said in a statement. 

Michel, the former special prosecutor for the Watergate investigation, noted he worked for two successive deputy attorneys general in the ‘exact post Blanche now holds,’ but who gave much different marching orders.

‘Their instructions to me were, ‘Politics are outside the boundaries for Justice Department employees,’ and politics are ‘not to have any influence,” he said. ‘We were not to pay any attention to what somebody in the White House might say, or in the media or elsewhere. We were to be a ‘politics-free zone.’

‘That seemed to me to be entirely appropriate,’ Michel said. ‘The power to investigate, the power to indict and the power to prosecute and convict are awesome, awesome powers,’ he added.

The group also cited concerns for their colleagues who remain on the bench at a time when public threats to judges have increased, according to data from U.S. Marshals. This includes online harassment, threats of physical violence and ‘doxxing’ judges at their home addresses by sending them unsolicited pizzas. Some deliveries have been made in the name of a judge’s son who was shot and killed in 2020 after opening the door to a disgruntled individual disguised as a delivery person.

The number of threats made against federal judges in 2025 has outpaced threats from the past 12-month period, according to the U.S. Marshals Service, prompting a push for Congress to take action. 

‘Deputy Attorney General Blanche’s remarks reflect a reality the Department of Justice confronts every day — a growing number of activist judges attempting to set national policy from the bench,’ a spokesperson for the Justice Department told Fox News Digital on Friday in response to a request for comment. 

‘The department will continue to follow the Constitution, defend its lawful authorities and push back when activist rulings threaten public safety or undermine the will of the American people.’ 

In the annals of ‘smoking gun’ documents, the recently revealed handwritten notes by James Comey rank right up there with the infamous tapes that imploded Richard Nixon’s presidency.  

Unfortunately, the ex-FBI potentate is ‘Nixonian’ in a myriad of ways — needy, narcissistic, vindictive and manipulative. They both professed honesty but treated truth with utter contempt. Nixon gave us Watergate while Comey bequeathed the Russia Hoax. Each was forced from office mired in disgrace.  

Alas, there’s one more eerie resemblance. Just as Nixon tried to sabotage his infamous Oval Office recordings, Comey’s combustible notes were consigned to an incinerator.     

Stuffed in one of five ‘burn bags’ that were secretly squirreled away in a locked high security room at the FBI, his self-incriminating scribbles were supposed to go up in smoke. For reasons unknown or undisclosed, they did not.

In one damning note, Comey confirms what some of us have known and argued all along — he knew almost at the outset of the Russia collusion narrative that it was an odious fiction conjured up by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s campaign and personally approved by her on July 26, 2016.  

Clinton’s objective, according to Special Counsel John Durham’s 2023 report, was ‘to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security services,’ thereby tipping the upcoming presidential election in her favor.  

When later questioned by Congress about his knowledge of the epic deceit, Comey claimed an acute case of amnesia. He feigned no recollection whatsoever of Clinton’s opprobrious plot to smear Trump.  

However, Comey’s missive to himself puts a conspicuous lie to that testimony. It reads, ‘HRC plan to tie Trump.’ It is not something that anyone would ever forget. 

While it is difficult to discern, the information appears attributable to ‘JB,’ which is almost certainly then-CIA Director John Brennan. This comports with Brennan’s own declassified handwritten notes that intelligence communications had uncovered Clinton’s political chicanery.

At an urgent White House meeting, Brennan had disclosed the shocking information to President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Comey. Instead of divulging the truth to the American public, they all remained mum and watched idly — perhaps happily — as the hoax gradually morphed into full-blown faux scandal that nearly toppled Trump’s presidency.    

Comey’s notes verify his awareness of the ‘Clinton Plan,’ as it was dubbed. They are written on an FBI notepad marked ‘Director’ and dated Sept. 26, 2016, which coincides in time with a meeting of high-ranking U.S. national security officials that included Brennan and James Clapper, director of National Intelligence (DNI).  

Instead of pursuing Clinton for a criminal scheme to defraud the government in a presidential election, as U.S. intelligence officials strongly recommended to the FBI in a ‘Referral Memo’ on Sept. 7, 2016, the unscrupulous Comey did just the opposite. He appropriated Clinton’s fabrication to target her opponent.  

When later questioned by Congress about his knowledge of the epic deceit, Comey claimed an acute case of amnesia. He feigned no recollection whatsoever of Clinton’s opprobrious plot to smear Trump.  

Simultaneously, Comey concealed the ‘Clinton Plan’ because it was highly exculpatory. If it became known or if Congress was informed, it would unmask Hillary’s treachery and exonerate Trump of any wrongdoing in the collusion fable. 

Comey was not about to let that happen. He had already launched without predicate his dilating investigation of Trump and was deeply invested in protecting Hillary.

You will recall that, on July 5, 2016, Comey stood before television cameras and, absent any authority, inexplicably cleared the presumptive Democratic nominee of the various crimes that she had clearly committed in her notorious email fiasco over the deliberate and reckless mishandling of classified records. But that’s not all.  

Comey also scuttled the bureau’s investigation into suspected criminal activity surrounding the Clinton Foundation and the millions of dollars funneled into it from Russian and other foreign sources. Substantial evidence developed by U.S. attorneys was thereafter buried on his orders. You can read about it in the Durham Report, pages 78-81. 

July 5 was also a pivotal day for another reason, as I explained in my 2018 book, ‘The Russia Hoax.’  

At the very moment that Comey was absolving Clinton, his FBI was furtively meeting with the author of the phony anti-Trump ‘dossier’ funded by Hillary and Democrats. Although the FBI swiftly debunked Christopher Steele’s scurrilous document, Comey was undeterred. He exploited it as a pretext in a malicious attempt to frame Trump for unidentified crimes he never committed. 

Comey’s motivation was obvious. His newly unearthed emails show that he expected Clinton would win the election. He even bragged that he would soon be working for a president-elect Clinton who would be ‘very grateful.’ His gamble fueled corrupt acts.

Comey never imagined that Trump would prevail. So, he politicized his power and weaponized the FBI to meddle in the presidential contest for the benefit of Hillary. When his illicit scheme failed and Trump was elected, Comey doubled down on the collusion hoax in an attempt to destroy Trump and drive him from office.  

This is what abuse of power looks like. Facts were invented or exaggerated. Laws were perverted and ignored. The law enforcers became the lawbreakers. They falsely accused Trump while shielding the real culprit, Clinton.  

Comey’s ‘smoking gun’ notes only came to light because he recently filed several motions to dismiss his federal indictment in Virginia for false statements and obstruction of Congress. Among other things, he ironically asserts vindictive prosecution by Trump and separately contends that interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan’s appointment was improper. The outcome of those matters is pending.  

Prosecutors responded to the first motion by sharing a trove of documents — many of them classified — discovered in the five ‘burn bags.’  

They were destined for a smoky grave just days before Trump assumed office again on Jan. 20, 2025, in what can only be described as a brazen attempt to obstruct justice and commit the crime of willful destruction of documents under 18 U.S.C. 2071. Who was behind it, we don’t yet know.

Comey’s motivation was obvious. His newly unearthed emails show that he expected Clinton would win the election. 

In addition to the notes that Comey penned, other uncovered records cited in the court filing further substantiate the government’s charges that he lied to Congress when he denied authorizing anonymous leaks to the press in violation of FBI guidelines. He was covertly manipulating media reporting through a conduit.  

After one successful leak, Comey sent a message to his collaborator stating, ‘Well done my friend. Who knew this would. E [sic] so uh fun.’ (Who knew this would be so fun.) Deploying a Gmail account, he hid his intrigues under the alias ‘Reinhold Niebuhr,’ a deceased ethicist. There was nothing moral about what Comey was doing. It was sleazy.  

But that’s not all. Among the ‘burn bag’ contents were materials that reveal the appalling breadth of the lawfare campaign waged first by the Obama administration and, later, the Biden administration against Trump and many others. Some of the documents shed vital light on the January 6 breach of the Capitol, the 2020 election dispute and the FBI’s dubious raid on Mar-a-Lago.  

All of that was leveraged by Special Counsel Jack Smith to ignite the double indictments against Trump that were eventually tossed. The evidence is compelling that both prosecutions were politically motivated to stop him from retaking the White House.   

The genesis of those two cases arose from a secret FBI investigation code named ‘Arctic Frost,’ approved by Attorney General Merrick Garland and then-FBI Director Christopher Wray in April 2022. In due time, Smith surreptitiously obtained nearly 200 subpoenas to capture personal telephone communications of more than 400 Republicans. Anyone in Trump’s orbit was targeted, including eight U.S. senators and even media organizations.     

It is no accident that the stunning discovery of the ‘burn bags’ dovetails with a newly impaneled grand jury investigation in South Florida that encompasses the whole gamut of corrupt acts aimed at Trump — from the ‘Crossfire Hurricane’ debacle to the errant ‘Arctic Frost’ probe. The former evolved into the latter that led to the misbegotten Smith prosecutions. Altogether, they impacted three successive presidential elections. More than two dozen subpoenas are reportedly being issued for the grand jury to consider.   

Evidence of an expansive and ongoing conspiracy to torment Trump will likely be examined in the context of two federal anti-corruption statutes that criminalize abuses of power, 18 U.S.C. 241 and 242. These civil rights laws make it a felony to willfully deprive people of their constitutional rights under color of law or pretense of legal authority.  

Additional documents uncovered and declassified by current DNI Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe have contributed to the mounting evidence of manufactured intelligence and criminal wrongdoing that the grand jury will inevitably evaluate.

As Comey works hard to avoid the Virginia trial that he insists he wants, his nefarious machinations that instigated the long-running lawfare campaign will not escape the direct attention of the Florida grand jury. The same is true of other government actors who mangled facts and contorted the law to persecute Trump in an unbridled crusade that ran roughshod over our legal system for nearly a decade. 

During that time, the rule of law came under sustained attack by high government officials like Comey and so many others who abused their positions of power to subvert our framework of justice and undermine the democratic process.

The enemy is within. Trump was their target … and their victim. And so were the American people. They were harmed and forced to endure a divisive national trauma that should never have been. The wounds are still with us. And so, a reckoning awaits.  

Yet, just as Nixon evaded prosecution by courtesy of a pardon, will Comey somehow elude accountability? 

Several weeks into the government shutdown, the notion of reopening seemed impossible. 

Both Senate Republicans and Democrats were deeply entrenched in their positions for 41 days and 40 nights, and neither side wanted to appear to be caving to the other. 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and his caucus wanted a guaranteed deal on expiring Obamacare subsidies, while Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., argued that the government needed to reopen first. 

But an explosion of bipartisan talks, pushed by external pressures of federal workers going unpaid, federal food benefits in jeopardy, and air travel grinding to a standstill, invigorated a working group of senators to build an off-ramp out of the historic closure.

The result was a bipartisan deal that included a trio of spending bills meant to jump-start the government funding process, an extension of the original House-passed continuing resolution (CR) to Jan. 30, 2026, to provide time to fund the government the old-fashioned way, and a renewed guarantee that Senate Democrats would get their vote on expiring Obamacare subsidies. 

In the end, the shutdown dragged on for 43 days, with the climactic vote to end it and send the package to the White House unfolding in the House on Wednesday. 

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., who was part of crafting the final spending deal, said discussions on those three bills had begun ‘long before’ the shutdown. 

‘We certainly had some knotty issues, a hemp issue, disagreements on funding levels and all that. But for the most part, we worked those through. And I would tell you from our side and I would assume from the other, the three big players were the Cardinals themselves,’ Cole said, referring to the three House Republican subcommittee chairs who led discussions on the three individual bills.

‘Our Democratic colleagues that voted against the bills had plenty of input in the bills. The real question will be in the next package — can you guys bring any votes? If you’re not going to bring any votes, our negotiation will be a waste of time, and we’ll be required to construct a coalition that’s all Republican.’ 

Nevertheless, most of the eight Senate Democrats that crossed the aisle viewed the guarantee of a vote on Obamacare as the turning point, though it lacked the guaranteed outcome that Schumer and the majority of the caucus sought. 

‘There was no vote that we were going to get on the Affordable Care Act premium tax credits,’ Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., said on Sunday, referring to Obamacare. ‘We have a guaranteed vote by a guaranteed date on a bill that we will write, not that the Republicans will write.’

For Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., who proved the decisive Democratic vote that sealed the deal on the proposal in the Senate, it was provisions that would rehire and protect workers fired by the Trump administration. 

Kaine recalled that it was just hours before the Senate was set to take a key test vote on the CR that he changed his mind. Up to that point, the White House had not wanted to include language that would have reversed the reductions in force (RIFs) that had been ordered at the start of the shutdown. 

But it was through Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., who was a key negotiator in the Senate, that Kaine got the White House on board. 

‘I said, I’m a no if you don’t do that, I’m a no, and you know that it was 4:45 p.m. in the afternoon on Sunday when they told me they would do that,’ he said.

Kaine noted that with 320,000 federal workers in Virginia and 2 million nationally, he recognized it was a big ask. 

‘And I told her, and when I explained it to her, she said, that’s a reasonable ask, but that the White House didn’t want to do it,’ he said. ‘And she was a little bit of a go-between and helping me.’

In 2020, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer unleashed a threat against the Supreme Court’s conservative justices in the wake of their decision to overturn Roe vs Wade’s national protection for abortion. ‘You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price,’ he bellowed. ‘You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.’

Although Schumer’s bellicose words may have contributed to an attempt on Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s life back then, five years later it is not the men and women in robes suffering a whirlwind, but rather Schumer himself, and it is one of his own making.

This week, Schumer is facing calls to step down from his leadership position from multiple House Democrats including Squad member Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and neo-centrist Rep. Ro Khana, D-Calif., after his shambolic performance during the government shutdown.

It is likely only a matter of time before such calls for Schumer’s ouster echo in the upper chamber as well.

In the end, Christ had an easier 40 days in the desert than Schumer had during this shutdown, where he went from swearing not just that Democrats would never back down, but that they were winning the fight politically, to watching Democrats capitulate with nothing in return.

As former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy pointed out, this was the ‘Seinfeld shutdown,’ a shutdown about nothing, and Schumer was decidedly George.

Tellingly, Chuck himself did not sign on to the deal to open the government, start paying out SNAP benefits and unchoke our airports, which only makes him appear weaker, because he can’t control his caucus.

Schumer is now facing the first true crisis of his five decades in politics, and it doesn’t seem like he knows what hit him.

The scuttlebut in Washington, D.C., and the Empire State is that, by hook or by crook, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will take Schumer’s Senate seat in 2028, just like she took Rep. Joe Crowley’s House seat seven years ago.

AOC is not being particularly shy about it, saying this week, ‘We have several Senate primaries this cycle. I know I’m being asked about New York, [but] that is years from now. I have to remind my own constituents because they think that this election is this year.’

This is a long way from, ‘Chuck is doing a great job and I have no plans to run against him.’

In the recent mayor’s race in New York City, in which AOC was democrat socialist Zohran Mamdani’s most important surrogate, Schumer bravely declined, even on Election Day itself, to disclose whether he had cast a ballot for Zany Zohran.

It was actually quite amazing: Schumer is the highest-ranking elected Democrat in the United States of America and he decided not to weigh in on whether his party should embrace communism.

Schumer couldn’t reject Mamdani because he and his ilk are obviously the future of the party, but he couldn’t embrace him because his pro-capitalism and pro-Israel donors won’t have it.

Schumer wasn’t sitting on the fence in the mayor’s race, he was impaled on it.

Right now, whether fairly or not, Schumer is the avatar for the old establishment Democrat Party that shuffled off the stage with former President Joe Biden. He is the political version of the Washington Generals, being dunked on over and over by the more talented socialist Globetrotters.

In fact, this whirlwind that Schumer has reaped is entirely his own fault. At any point, he could have shown courage, acted like an adult and tried to work in good faith with Republicans and the Trump administration. Instead, he decided to curse on TikTok like the radical kids who want his job.

It was Schumer who helped to oust former Democrat senators Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin for opposing the party’s push to nuke the filibuster in 2021. Where did he think his support was going to come from once he tossed out the moderates?

In the end, Schumer’s career will be a cautionary tale, lacking the courage to rein in the radical elements in his caucus and party. He instead opened the door for them and hastened his own exile from power.

Chuck Schumer has well and truly reaped the whirlwind, and in very short order he will most likely be paying the price.

President Donald Trump said on Friday that he directed the Deoartment of Justice to investigate disgraced late financier Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to several high-profile Democrats and certain banks.

‘Now that the Democrats are using the Epstein Hoax, involving Democrats, not Republicans, to try and deflect from their disastrous SHUTDOWN, and all of their other failures, I will be asking AG Pam Bondi, and the Department of Justice, together with our great patriots at the FBI, to investigate Jeffrey Epstein’s involvement and relationship with Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, JPMorgan, Chase, and many other people and institutions, to determine what was going on with them, and him,’ Trump said on Truth Social.

‘This is another Russia, Russia, Russia scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats,’ he added. ‘Records show that these men, and many others, spent large portions of their life with Epstein, and on his ‘island.’ Stay tuned!!!’

Head of Policy & Advocacy Communications at JPMorgan Chase & Co. Trish Wexler told Fox News Digital that ‘The government had damning information about [Epstein’s] crimes and failed to share it with us and other banks.’

‘We regret any association we had with the man, but did not help him commit his heinous acts,’ she added. ‘We ended our relationship with him years before his arrest on sex trafficking charges.’

In an earlier post on Friday, Trump said that ‘Epstein was a Democrat,’ and therefore is the ‘Democrat’s [sic] problem,’ not the Republicans’ problem. He also accused the Democrats of ‘doing everything in their withering power to push the Epstein Hoax again, despite the DOJ releasing 50,000 pages of documents.’

Trump then said lawmakers should not ‘waste’ time looking into him and instead should focus on the Democrats he later named in the post announcing the probe.

On Wednesday, Oversight Committee Democrats released never-before-seen emails related to the Epstein case. The first email is between Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Epstein writes, ‘I want you to realize that the only dog that hasn’t barked is Trump,’ adding that the now-president ‘spent hours at my house’ with a victim.

In the second email, the disgraced financier told Michael Wolff that Trump ‘knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop.’

Oversight Committee Ranking Member Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., called on the DOJ to release all the Epstein files ‘immediately.’

‘The more Donald Trump tries to cover up the Epstein files, the more we uncover,’ Garcia said in a statement. ‘These latest emails and correspondence raise glaring questions about what else the White House is hiding and the nature of the relationship between Epstein and the president.’

The emails were released the same day that Trump signed a bill ending the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. The timing led Trump to accuse Democrats of using Epstein to distract the public from the shutdown fiasco.

Following the Democrats’ email drop, the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News Digital that the lawmakers ‘selectively leaked emails to the liberal media to create a fake narrative to smear President Trump.’

In response to the release of the emails, Oversight Committee Republicans said Democrats ‘whine about ‘releasing the files,’ but only cherry-pick when they have them to generate clickbait. You deserve the full truth.’ Included in the tweet was a link with what the Republicans said was an additional 20,000 pages of documents from the Epstein estate.

Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., a member of the Oversight Committee, slammed Democrats and accused them of ignoring the stories of Epstein’s victims in order to focus on Trump.

‘How pathetic that Democrats are using Epstein’s victims to bury headlines on their vote against reopening the government,’ Mace wrote on X.

Fox News Digital reached out to representatives for Clinton, Summers and Hoffman for comment.

Fox News Digital’s Leo Briceno contributed to this report.

Homeownership has long been part of the American dream, but that dream has been deferred.

Households in their 30s have an ownership rate of just 42% — more than 20 points lower than the national average.

The median age of all home buyers is a record-breaking 59, and the age of a first-time buyer is 40 — up from 29 in 1981.

As a solution, the Trump administration is floating a 50-year mortgage.

Though I disagree with that specific idea, I am heartened that they are brainstorming ways to tackle the problem.

We need a Marshall Plan for housing, a collection of broad initiatives to make homes more affordable and put the dream back on track.

The federal government can use its bully pulpit to get changes to red tape and regulations that are holding back building, and encourage policies that would increase housing and decrease costs.

To start, the White House and Fannie Mae should instead promote shorter, 20-year mortgages.

As Ed Pinto of the American Enterprise Institute has argued, a 20-year loan can be paid off ‘when the 30-year-term loan leaves most homeowners saddled with another decade or more of mortgage payments, the cash flow freed up from a paid-off shorter-term loan is available to fund a child’s post-secondary-education needs and later turbocharge one’s own retirement.’

The 20-year loan could be incentivized with a first-time buyer tax credit.

The decline in homeownership is a problem that must be addressed federally and locally.

This would be especially important today when the vast majority of taxpayers no longer itemize their tax returns — which means they cannot avail themselves of the deduction for mortgage interest.

That deduction always favored wealthy buyers of high-end homes anyway — so a targeted tax credit would help those who actually need it far more.

It’s time, as well, for the Trump White House to roll back one of the key initiatives of Elizabeth Warren’s pet project, the Consumer Protection Financial Agency.

The CPFC has pressured banks to limit mortgages to ‘plain vanilla’ mortgages, premised on its rules or what consumers can afford.

Adjustable rate loans and other ‘mortgage products’ can be right for some buyers — who should have a choice of how much risk they want to take in exchange for getting into the home market.

Even a low down payment might be hard to come up with, however, for those who can’t take advantage of generous in-laws.

Those without rich parents might turn to a ‘housing saving account’ — akin to the popular health savings accounts initiated by George W. Bush and which hold some $59 billion and are sheltered from taxation.

The new housing accounts should be tailored only for down payments, however — not long-term maintenance and other homeowner needs.

Buyers also are allowed today to take out $10,000 from their 401(k) penalty-free to go to a downpayment on a home.

Perhaps it’s time to raise that ceiling.

Of course, it goes almost without saying that even the most creative financing and incentives will fall short of addressing our housing needs without the most important problem: Supply.

There are many reasons why there aren’t enough starter homes.

Regulation in many cities makes construction difficult.

More retiring Boomers own second homes.

Banks have increasingly bought real estate as an investment and drive up prices.

Low turnover is another reason Gen X buyers have so much trouble breaking into the market.

During COVID, mortgage rates hit record lows and many refinanced.

These owners have a strong incentive not to trade a 3% mortgage for a new home and a much-higher rate.

Another key reason: more and more of us are living in small households or even alone.

The Census Bureau reports that, between 2019 and 2021, the number of households increased by more than 2 million a year.

That means we not only need more housing but more types of housing — many smaller units especially, rather than the two-acre, one house lots common in so many suburbs.

Here is where the limits of Washington’s hard power is reached.

Much of US housing policy is set at the hyper-local level, by planning boards and zoning boards.

That’s why outgoing New York City Mayor Eric Adams deserves so much credit for his ‘City of Yes’ rezoning in New York, which will permit safe basement apartments and ‘accessory dwelling units’ in parts of the city.

Accessory units — or ‘granny flats’ — can also be the means for older couples to sell the homes to younger households and downsize.

As part of a federal push, though, the Marshall Plan for Housing could encourage these same changes nationwide: Changing zoning to allow more housing; or taking undeveloped state land and providing tax incentives to build on them.

It’s the 18,000 municipalities across the country that are often standing in the way of what might be called naturally occurring affordable housing — small homes on small lots, like those of the original Levittown, where houses were just 750 square feet of living space.

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner should urge localities to permit private, unsubsidized, small homes and apartment buildings, or what AEI’s Pinto terms ‘light-touch density.’

It’s far more likely to gain local approval than the subsidized, low-income housing Democrats have long favored, starting with the public housing the socialist Zohran Mamdani wants to revive.

Private building is also less costly; new housing units in California subsidized through the low income housing tax credit can cost upwards of $800,000 per units, a bonanza for developers but not many tenants.

Building costs for any housing, however, will inevitably go up as a result of another Trump policy: his 10% tariff on plentiful Canadian lumber and timber products and a 25% tariff on kitchen cabinets and furniture.

The de facto taxes are causing what the National Association of Home Builders calls ‘headwinds’ holding back new construction.

As a builder himself, he should rethink these tariffs.

Homeownership is a virtuous conspiracy making the nation better.

Owners are more likely to maintain neighborhoods than renters, more likely to improve schools and services by getting involved in local government — the essence of American federalism.

The decline in homeownership is a problem that must be addressed federally and locally.

But the Trump administration can take the lead, with tax breaks and the encouragement of construction.

The president can bring the dream alive again.

For months, headlines warned of an impending famine in Gaza — images of starving children, shattered infrastructure and humanitarian collapse filled the news. On Aug. 22, 2025, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) declared that while full data was lacking, expert inference indicated famine was underway. Governments pledged aid; humanitarian agencies sounded alarms. Yet today, the word ‘famine’ has nearly vanished from headlines. What happened?

This is not to deny the human suffering in Gaza; it is to ask difficult, necessary questions. Was famine averted, exaggerated or politically reframed?

Famine has been described as a tree swaying in the wind — at some point it cannot recover and cannot be returned upright. But Gaza’s ‘famine tree’ never appeared to fully sway. If aid efforts or local resilience truly prevented catastrophe, where is the evidence? On August 22, 2025, famine was declared, and the global press carried that narrative. Then came a shift to the word ‘starvation.’ Now, even that language has faded.

The distinction matters. Famine is a technical classification grounded in data — household food security surveys, acute malnutrition rates and mortality. Starvation, by contrast, is a moral and legal term implying intent; under international law, using starvation as a weapon constitutes a war crime. In Gaza, this rhetorical shift occurred before comprehensive data was gathered — an escalation of accusation without empirical foundation.

Recovery from famine typically takes eight to 12 months, even under ideal conditions with full humanitarian access and functioning medical systems. Historical precedents — Somalia in 2011, South Sudan in 2017 and Sudan in 2023 — show that malnutrition persists long after headlines fade. If Gaza truly met famine standards this summer, the signs would still be unmistakable: rising mortality, overwhelmed clinics and a generation of weakened children. Yet no such surge has been confirmed by independent medical reporting.

Another inconsistency is behavioral. True famine unleashes chaos — hunger overrides social norms and people fight to survive. In August, 84% of Gaza aid convoys were reportedly looted. Yet after the Oct. 10 ceasefire, U.N. 2720 data show interceptions fell to 6%, and by November, below 1%. Where did the desperation go? Where is the looting? Where are the crowds of thousands?

Following the ceasefire, Hamas rapidly reasserted control, executing accused defectors and projecting an image of order. Recent videos show bustling markets and calm streets — a façade of normalcy meant to reinforce legitimacy. Within six weeks, famine conditions seemingly vanished. Can that be real?

If famine had truly taken hold, it would not have dissipated so quickly. Either the crisis was overstated, the data manipulated or public perception deliberately managed.

We cannot shy away from uncomfortable questions. Asking what happened to the famine in Gaza is responsible, not callous. Truth demands transparency, even when it challenges narratives we’ve grown accustomed to believing.

Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) Director Daniel Rogers, during a rare public appearance Thursday, said nearly one in 10 of the agency’s terrorism investigations include at least one person under the age of 18, marking an alarming trend driven by online extremism.

Since 2014, there have been nearly two dozen violent extremist attacks in Canada resulting in 29 deaths, and at least 60 victims injured, according to Rogers.

Worryingly, he said, nearly one in ten terrorism investigations at CSIS, the country’s domestic spy agency, include at least one ‘subject of investigation’ under the age of 18.

In August, a minor was arrested in Montreal for allegedly planning an attack on behalf of Daesh, according to Rogers.

Just a few months prior, a 15-year-old Edmonton area minor was charged with a terrorism-related offense, as Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) investigators feared they would commit serious violence related to COM/764, a transnational violent online network that manipulates children and youth across widely accessible online platforms.

Rogers also noted two 15-year-olds were arrested in Ottawa for allegedly conspiring to conduct a mass casualty attack targeting the Jewish community in Canada’s capital in late 2023 and early 2024.

‘Clearly, radicalized youth can cause the same harms as radicalized adults, but the societal supports for youth may help us catch radicalization early and prevent it,’ Rogers said. ‘These tragic numbers would have been higher if not for disruptive actions taken by CSIS and our law enforcement partners.’

The CSIS joined the RCMP and intelligence partners from the U.S., United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand in releasing a joint public report in December, highlighting the evolving issue of young people and violent extremism. 

The report provides advice to parents, guardians and others with information to help them identify early concerns and address youth radicalization before it’s too late. 

‘Since 2022, CSIS has been involved in the disruption of no fewer than 24 violent extremist actions, each resulting in arrests or terrorism peace bond charges,’ Rogers said. ‘In 2024, CSIS played an integral role in the disruption of two Daesh-inspired plots. In one case, a father and son were allegedly in the advanced stages of planning an attack in the Toronto area. In another, an individual was arrested before allegedly attempting to illegally enter the United States to attack members of the Jewish community in New York. In these examples, and in many others, I can’t discuss publicly, our counter-terrorism teams have partnered with law enforcement and saved lives.’

He attributed the radicalization to ‘eroding social cohesion, increasing polarization, and significant global events,’ which he said ‘provide fertile ground for radicalization.’

‘Many who turn to violence radicalize exclusively online—often without direction from others,’ Rogers said. ‘They use technology to do so secretly and anonymously, seriously challenging the ability of our investigators to keep pace and to identify and prevent acts of violence.’

Rogers also noted the CSIS collects intelligence and defends against transnational repression, previously focusing on transnational repression by the People’s Republic of China, India and others. 

‘In particularly alarming cases over the last year, we’ve had to reprioritize our operations to counter the actions of Iranian intelligence services and their proxies who have targeted individuals they perceive as threats to their regime,’ he said. ‘In more than one case, this involved detecting, investigating, and disrupting potentially lethal threats against individuals in Canada.’

Former Rep. Louie Gohmert blasted ex-Special Counsel Jack Smith for allegedly targeting his personal phone records as part of his investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots, telling Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview that his action ‘destroys the checks and balances that the founders counted on.’

Fox News Digital exclusively reported Thursday morning that Smith targeted then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s personal, private phone records, as well as Gohmert’s. 

Fox News Digital exclusively reviewed the document that FBI Director Kash Patel recently shared with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Sen. Ron Johnson containing the explosive revelations. Grassley and Johnson have been leading a joint investigation into Smith’s ‘Arctic Frost’ probe.

According to the document, Smith, on Jan. 24, 2023, allegedly sought the ‘toll records for the personal cell phones of U.S. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (AT&T) and U.S. Representative Louie Gohmert (Verizon.)’

The information was included as part of a ‘significant case notification’ drafted by the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division May 25, 2023.

‘It is astounding that Jack ‘Frost’ Smith went on this persecution,’ Gohmert told Fox News Digital Thursday. ‘Apparently, this guy has never read the Fourth Amendment because you have to describe with particularity what it is you’re going after — there should be probable cause, and they had no probable cause. They were going on a witch hunt.’

Smith had sought Gohmert’s personal cellphone records from November 2020 through the end of January 2021.

‘They don’t have any regard for the Fourth Amendment,’ he said. ‘It makes Watergate look like school yard folly.’

But Gohmert said it is the ‘principle.’

‘It is the separation of powers that is the problem,’ Gohmert explained. ‘People and whistleblowers contacted me regularly from within the DOJ and the FBI about overreach within the FBI and DOJ. By grabbing my records, they could stifle reporting of potential crimes by people within the agencies.’

‘You can’t just go seize members of Congress’ records even with a warrant because of that separation of powers,’ Gohmert said. ‘There has to be a wall and that’s what troubles me more than anything.’

Gohmert told Fox News Digital that he didn’t remember who he spoke with during the time period Smith sought records, but said that ‘the last thing I want is for someone who trusted me to keep their name private to have some jack-booted thug like Jack ‘Frost’ Smith grab my records and find out who is tattle tailing on him.’ 

He added: ‘It violates and destroys the checks and balances that the founders counted on.’

Gohmert, though, told Fox News Digital that he trusts the current Justice Department and FBI leadership.

‘I trust the DOJ and trust the people running the FBI,’ he said. ‘We’ll see if there were any crimes committed and, if following the Constitution, they can be properly prosecuted.’ 

Meanwhile, McCarthy said he will take legal action against Smith. 

‘Jack Smith’s radical and deranged investigation was never about finding the truth,’ McCarthy told Fox News Digital. ‘It was a blatant weaponizing of the Justice Department to attack political opponents of the Biden administration. Perhaps no action underscores this point more than the illegal attempt to access the phone records of sitting members of the House and Senate — including the Speaker of the House.’ 

‘His illegal targeting demands real accountability,’ McCarthy continued. ‘And I am confident Congress will hold hearings and access documents in its investigation into Jack Smith’s own abuses.’ 

‘At the same time, I will ask my own counsel to pursue all areas of redress so this does not happen to anyone else,’ McCarthy said. 

The revelations come after Fox News Digital exclusively reported in October that Smith and his ‘Arctic Frost’ team investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots were tracking the private communications and phone calls of nearly a dozen Republican senators as part of the probe, including Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama and GOP Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania.

An official told Fox News Digital that those records were collected in 2023 by Smith and his team after subpoenaing major telephone providers. 

Smith has called his decision to subpoena and track Republican lawmakers’ phone records ‘entirely proper’ and consistent with Justice Department policy.

‘As described by various Senators, the toll data collection was narrowly tailored and limited to the four days from January 4, 2021 to January 7, 2021, with a focus on telephonic activity during the period immediately surrounding the January 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol,’ Smith’s lawyers wrote in October to Grassley.

Grassley, R-Iowa, and Johnson, R-Wis., have been investigating the matter. 

An FBI official told Fox News Digital that ‘Arctic Frost’ is a ‘prohibited case,’ and that the review required FBI officials to go ‘above and beyond in order to deliver on this promise of transparency.’ The discovery is part of a broader ongoing review, Fox News Digital has learned.

Smith, after months of investigating, charged President Donald Trump in the U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C., in his 2020 election case, but after Trump was elected president, Smith sought to dismiss the case. Judge Tanya Chutkan granted that request. 

Smith’s case cost taxpayers more than $50 million. 

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