Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who criss-crossed the country last year on a ‘Fight Oligarchy’ tour with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., spent over $550,000 in 2025 on private jet travel for himself using campaign funds, a Fox News Digital review of Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings found.

The majority of the spending came in the first two quarters, which cover up until July. That is also when Sanders and AOC had the majority of their tour stops across the country. 

In April, between stops on the tour, Fox News Digital exclusively obtained a photo of Sanders boarding a luxury Bombardier Challenger private jet at the Meadows Field Airport in Bakersfield, California. The source also indicated that they had spotted the New York congresswoman boarding the private jet as well. 

The pair were subsequently also seen in footage obtained by Fox News Digital exiting the plane in Sacramento later that evening, near where the self-identified Democratic socialists hosted a second rally in one day.  

The Bombardier Challenger private jet the pair flew on was operated by Ventura Air Services, which touts ‘one of the widest cabins of any business jet available today’ and provides ‘superior cabin comfort for its passengers.’ According to their website, the private jet can cost up to $15,000 an hour.

In 2025, according to Sanders’ FEC filings, he spent at least $354,000 in campaign funds to pay for private jet services through Ventura Jets. The other private jet companies Sanders spent campaign funds on included N-Jet and Cirrus Aviation Services. 

According to N-Jet’s website, the company pieds itself on their ‘personal touch,’ adding that customers will ‘arrive in style with your luxury, comfort, and safety always top of mind.’

Sanders, who has been a vocal supporter of the Green New Deal, the aggressive climate change policy targeting carbon emissions and fossil fuel production, and has called climate change an ‘existential threat’ to the world, was pressed about his private jet use last year, prompting him to tell Fox News’ ‘Special Report’ host Bret Baier that ‘that’s the only way to get around.’

‘You run a campaign, and you do three or four or five rallies in a week. [It is] the only way you can get around to talk to 30,000 people. You think I’m gonna be sitting on a waiting line at United…while 30, 000 people are waiting?’ Sanders said.

‘That’s the only way to get around. No apologies for that. That’s what campaign travel is about. We’ve done it in the past. We’re gonna do it in future.’

Sanders has a long history of using private jets on the campaign trail. During his failed 2020 presidential campaign, the Sanders campaign spent over $1.9 million on private jets, including Apollo Jets and the Advanced Aviation Team, a Virginia-based private jet company.

Private jets have faced the ire of Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez’s fellow climate activists. According to the 2021 Transport and Environment report, private jets are up to 14 times more polluting than commercial planes.

‘For real, how many private jets do these CEOs need? It is insatiable. It is unacceptable,’ Ocasio-Cortez said in 2023, in one example of the New York congresswoman herself railing against private jets. 

Fox News Digital reached out to Sanders’ office and his campaign for comment on the spending but did not receive a response in time for publication.

‘You don’t expect a socialist to fly commercial do you?’ quipped conservative political communications consultant Matt Gorman. ‘There’s no bigger hypocrite than the liberal who chastises us for eating meat and using gas stoves, yet flies in private jets.’ 

In addition to Sanders’ hefty private jet spending that came during his tour with AOC, the New York Democratic socialist also spent big sums of campaign dollars at luxury and ’boutique’ hotels in states where the pair held their ‘Fight Oligarchy’ Tour. 

For example, AOC’s campaign paidThe Leo Kent Hotel, a boutique high-rise in Tucson, $3,165.76, around the time of a ‘Fight Oligarchy’ rally that was held there, according to an FEC filing from April 25. In 2025, AOC also spent thousands at luxury hotels like the Asher Adams Hotel in Salt Lake City, the Hotel Vermont in Burlington, The Langham-Huntington hotel in Pasadena, Calif., Hotel El Convento in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the Lansdowne Resort & Spa in rural Virginia, and more. 

Fox News Digital asked representatives for AOC if the congresswoman felt like she needed to explain her more than $53,000 in campaign spending on upscale hotels across the country in 2025, but did not receive a response.

Fox News Digital’s Cameron Cawthorne, Andrew Mark Miller and Deirdre Heavey (formerly) contributed to this report.

Congressional Republicans, President Donald Trump and their shared base of support want to see voter ID legislation become law, but the last barrier is the Senate, where political reality has turned the notion into a pipe dream. 

The GOP’s legislative push to codify more requirements and restrictions surrounding voter registration nearly derailed Congress’ attempt to end the latest partial government shutdown on Tuesday. 

In an unlikely turn of events, like Senate Democrats’ push to save expiring Obamacare subsidies’ during the last funding battle and House Republicans’ desire to attach election integrity legislation, dubbed the SAVE America Act, to the Trump-backed package this week brought the issue back into focus. 

Trump, who encouraged House Republicans to stand down from their do-or-die demands, renewed his call to pass voter ID legislation while signing the funding package into law Tuesday.

‘We should have voter ID, by the way,’ Trump said. ‘We should have a lot of the things that I think everybody wants to see. Who would not want voter ID? Only somebody that wants to cheat.’ 

While several Senate Republicans support what the bill could accomplish, they acknowledge the legislation would die on the floor without a handful of Senate Democrats, who nearly unanimously despise the move.  

‘Democrats want to make it easy to cheat,’ Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told Fox News Digital. ‘They don’t want to do anything to secure elections.’

The issue at hand, as has often been the case during Trump’s second term, is the 60-vote filibuster. The president has called on Senate Republicans to eviscerate it several times throughout the last year as the precarious threshold has time and again impeded his agenda. 

Some Senate Republicans, including Johnson, are mulling turning to the precursor to the modern filibuster — the talking, or standing, filibuster.

The modern filibuster is less strenuous, literally, than the standing filibuster. While today’s standard requires that senators hit at least 60 votes, the standing filibuster demanded that lawmakers debate on the floor, consuming one of the Senate’s most valuable commodities — time.

‘The only way that’s going to get passed is if we do a talking filibuster or we end the filibuster,’ Johnson said.

There’s little appetite among Senate Republicans to nuke the filibuster given that it could play right into the desires of Senate Democrats, who tried and failed to modify the procedure when they controlled the upper chamber under former President Joe Biden. 

And many acknowledge that the votes simply aren’t there to do so. 

One Senate Republican told Fox News Digital that the ‘filibuster is not on the table’ as pressure mounts to move on the SAVE America Act, but that the legislation would likely get a shot in the upper chamber and earn 51 Republican votes. But, the lawmaker contended, the question was what happened next in the likely event the bill fails.

The notion of turning to the standing filibuster, the physical and original version of the filibuster, was also swiftly sidelined by Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., who said while there was interest among Republicans to discuss the option, ‘there weren’t any commitments made.’

Forcing the standing filibuster would come with its own ramifications in the Senate, given that the most valuable commodity in the upper chamber is floor time.

That’s because of rules that guarantee any senator gets up to two speeches on a bill. That, coupled with the clock being reset by amendments to the bill, means that the Senate could effectively be paralyzed for months as Republicans chip away at Democratic opposition.

‘There’s always an opportunity cost,’ Thune said.

‘At any time there’s an amendment offered, and that amendment is tabled, it resets the clock,’ he continued. ‘The two-speech rule kicks in again. So let’s say, you know, every Democrat senator talks for two hours. That’s 940 hours on the floor.’

Still, some Republicans hope that the bill gets its moment in the Senate.

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., who was an original co-sponsor of the bill, told Fox News Digital he hoped it got a chance on the floor and contended that it was a ‘very important thing to do.’

‘I don’t know,’ Schmitt said. ‘I mean, we’ll never know unless it happens.’

A historic nuclear arms reduction treaty is set to expire Thursday, which will thrust the world into a nuclear situation it has not faced in more than five decades, one in which there are no longer any binding limits on the size of Russia’s or America’s nuclear arsenals and no inspection regime to verify what Moscow does next.

Matt Korda, associate director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, said the expiration of the New START treaty forces both countries to rethink assumptions that have guided nuclear planning for more than a decade. 

‘Up until now, both countries have planned their respective nuclear modernization programs based on the assumption that the other country is not going to exceed those central limits,’ Korda said. ‘Without those central limits … both countries are going to be reassessing their programs to accommodate a more uncertain nuclear future.’

Russia had already suspended its participation in New START in 2023, freezing inspections and data exchanges, but the treaty’s expiration eliminates the last legal framework governing the size of the two countries’ nuclear arsenals.

With no follow-up agreement in place, the administration has insisted it cannot agree to arms control without the cooperation of China. 

‘The president has been clear in the past that in order to have true arms control in the 21st century, it’s impossible to do something that doesn’t include China because of their vast and rapidly growing stockpile,’ Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday.

A White House official told Fox News President Donald Trump will decide the path forward on arms control ‘on his own timeline.’ ‘President Trump has spoken repeatedly of addressing the threat nuclear weapons pose to the world and indicated that he would like to keep limits on nuclear weapons and involve China in arms control talks.’

Experts are skeptical that China would ever agree to limit its nuclear stockpile until it’s reached parity with the U.S., and Russia has said it would not pressure China to come to the table. 

China aims to have 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030, but even that figure pales in comparison to the aging giants of the Cold War. As of early 2026, the global nuclear hierarchy remains top-heavy, with the U.S. and Russia holding roughly 86% of the world’s total inventory. Both the U.S. and Russia hold around 4,000 total warheads, with close to 1,700 deployed by each. Global nuclear stockpiles declined to about 12,000 in 2025, down from more than 70,000 in 1986.

In February 2023, Russia announced it was suspending its participation in the New START treaty, halting inspections and data-sharing under the pact while saying it would continue to respect the numerical limits. But, more recently, it floated the idea of extending the treaty by another year.

Korda said that proposal reflected shared constraints rather than a sudden change in Russian intentions. 

‘It’s not in Russia’s interest to dramatically accelerate an arms race while its current modernization programs are going so poorly and while its industrial capacity is tied up in Ukraine,’ he said.

Korda said that without inspections and data exchanges, countries are forced to rely on their own intelligence, increasing uncertainty and encouraging worst-case planning. 

‘Without those onsite inspections, without data exchanges, without anything like that, all countries are really left with national technical means of being able to monitor each other’s nuclear forces,’ Korda said.

With New START’s limits gone, experts said the immediate concern is not the construction of new nuclear weapons but how quickly existing warheads could be deployed. Ankit Panda, a Stanton senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Russia could move faster than the United States in the near term by ‘uploading’ additional warheads onto missiles already in service. 

‘Uploading would be a process of adding additional warheads to our ICBMs and submarine-launched missiles,’ Panda said. ‘The Russians could be much faster than the United States.’

Korda said a large-scale upload would not happen overnight but could still alter force levels within a relatively short window. 

‘We’re looking at maybe a timeline of about two years and pretty significant sums of money for each country to execute a complete upload across the entire force,’ he said, adding that, in a worst-case scenario, it could ‘roughly result in doubling the sizes of their deployed nuclear arsenals.’

That advantage, however, is constrained by longer-term industrial realities. Panda noted that the U.S. nuclear weapons complex lacks the production capacity it once had, limiting how quickly Washington could sustain a larger arsenal over time. 

‘The United States is currently unable to produce what is going to be a target for 30 plutonium pits,’ a fraction of Cold War output, he said.

Nicole Grajewski, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Russia’s ability to produce nuclear weapons may be faster than the U.S. in some, but not all, parts of the development chain. 

‘Russia is very good at warhead production,’ she told Fox News Digital. ‘What Russia is really fundamentally constrained on is the delivery vehicle side of it.’

Grajewski added that this is particularly true as the war in Ukraine continues. Russia’s production of missiles and other delivery systems relies on facilities that also support conventional weapons used in the war, limiting how quickly Moscow could expand the intercontinental missiles, submarine-launched weapons and bombers that made up the core of New START.

As a result, Grajewski said she is less concerned about a rapid buildup of those treaty-covered forces than about Moscow’s continued investment in nuclear systems that fall outside traditional arms control frameworks. 

‘What is more concerning is Russia’s advances in asymmetric domains,’ she said, pointing to systems such as the Poseidon nuclear-powered torpedo and nuclear-powered cruise missiles, which are not covered by existing treaties.

President Donald Trump has previously said he wants to pursue arms control with both Russia and China before suggesting the U.S. should resume nuclear testing.

‘If there’s ever a time when we need nuclear weapons like the kind of weapons that we’re building and that Russia has — and that China has, to a lesser extent, but will have — that’s going to be a very sad day,’ Trump said in February 2025. ‘That’s going to be probably oblivion.’

But, in October, he declared, ‘Because of other countries’ testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately.’

Alleged fraud schemes plaguing Minnesota’s social services systems have elevated scrutiny surrounding childcare centers. 

But fraud can be challenging to identify for states – especially when agencies are using outdated systems that make it difficult to spot trends and red flags that could point to potential fraud, according to Chris Bennett, the CEO and founder of a Wonderschool, a platform that provides technology support to child care providers and states. 

‘When you have all this data living in different place, it’s really difficult for a state to identify where there is risk and where there is fraud,’ Bennett recently told Fox News Digital during an interview. ‘Additionally, a lot of states are using pen and paper still to collect information. So it makes it really difficult for an administrator and the administrator’s team to go through all of that and make sure that they’re keeping up with things on a regular basis.’

Streamlining systems is key to identifying any atypical trends in billing behavior and attendance data that could point to fraud, Bennett said.

‘The best practice is moving to a modern system, moving to a system where all of the data is in one place and it’s all connected,’ Bennett said. ‘So you can use that to identify risk, flag unusual patterns early, and then have humans go and investigate. Oversight should support child care providers, not punish them.’ 

To help do this, Bennett spearheaded Wonderschool Oversight in January – building upon Wonderschool’s existing partnerships with states including Florida, Michigan and Illinois – that aims to centralize state agencies’ program data to evaluate enrollment, attendance, billing and licensing information in the same place. 

Having this information in one spot allows for Wonderschool Oversight to flag unusual patterns that could require human review, Bennett said.

‘For example, we can analyze daily attendance data to flag cases where billed attendance exceeds recorded attendance,’ Bennett said. ‘We review billing behavior for anomalies — such as sudden spikes in billing corrections — which can indicate potential issues. Or, in another example, we compare reported attendance against licensed capacity, age-band limits, and required staffing ratios to surface possible regulatory or safety violations.’ 

Childcare fraud has come under a microscope after right-wing influencer Nick Shirley shared a video in December detailing alleged fraud involving Minnesota childcare and learning centers. 

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced in January that it would put a hold on access to some federal childcare and family assistance funding for five states – including Minnesota – due to ‘serious concerns about widespread fraud and misuse of taxpayer dollars in state-administered programs.’ 

Days later, a federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from halting the funding freeze for at least two weeks. Fox News Digital reached out to HHS for comment. 

That’s not the only alleged fraud scheme the state is facing. Lawmakers have spearheaded investigations into Minnesota’s alleged ‘Feeding Our Future’ $250 million fraud scheme that allegedly targeted a children’s nutrition program the Department of Agriculture funded and that Minnesota oversaw during the COVID-19 pandemic.

At least 77 people have been charged in that scheme, which took advantage of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s decision to waive certain Federal Child Nutrition Program requirements.

Likewise, another alleged fraud scheme in the state stems from the Housing Stability Services Program, which allegedly offered Medicaid coverage for housing stabilization services in an attempt to help those with disabilities, mental illnesses and substance-use disorders receive housing.

The top congressional Democrats appear to have mended their rift over the controversial Homeland Security spending bill and presented a revamped list of demands to earn the party’s support to fund the agency.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., presented a unified front on Wednesday to unveil a retooled wish list of reforms for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after the top House Democrat bucked his colleague’s deal with President Donald Trump.

‘We’re united as House and Senate Democrats,’ Schumer said. ‘We’re going to have tough, strong legislation. We hope to have it within the next 24 hours that we will submit together. And then we want our Republican colleagues to finally get serious about this.’

Schumer laid out congressional Democrats’ requirements for their support of a full-year DHS funding bill, which varied little from the same list of demands he unveiled last week. The only difference now is that he had a buy-in from House Democrats.

Among the demands are an end to roving patrols, oversight by state and local governments where ICE and DHS are operating, along with the right to sue. Lastly, Schumer demanded that there be ‘no secret police.’

‘I find it amazing that the Speaker of the House, [is] saying… they should be allowed to have masks,’ Schumer said. ‘This group, which needs to be identified more than any other group, should have a standard much more lenient and hidden than other police forces?’

‘I would bet when Speaker Johnson goes down to Louisiana, the sheriffs and the police deputies are well identified as they are in almost every city,’ he continued.

Jeffries spurned Schumer and Senate Democrats just a day earlier when he and the vast majority of House Democrats rejected the funding deal that the top Senate Democrat struck with Trump that allowed Congress more time to negotiate over the DHS funding bill.

That divide, for now, appears to have been bridged.

The negotiations over the funding bill are expected to largely take place in the Senate, and Republicans are skeptical that Democrats will negotiate in good faith, given that they abandoned an already bipartisan bill and Jeffries’ defection from Schumer over the Trump-backed spending deal.

But Democrats argue that their demands aren’t too burdensome, and should be accomplished with legislation, not through executive action at the White House.

‘These are just some of the commonsense proposals that the American people clearly would like to see in terms of the dramatic changes that are needed at the Department of Homeland Security before there is a full-year appropriations bill,’ Jeffries said.

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent clashed on Wednesday over President Donald Trump’s economic agenda, with the irate congresswoman asking at one point if someone could ‘shut him up.’

The fiery exchange occurred during Bessent’s testimony before the House Financial Services Committee. Waters, the committee ranking member, posed a series of questions about the inflationary impact of Trump’s tariffs on American consumers — and demanded a yes-or-no answer.

So I ask you, Secretary Bessent, will you be the voice of reason in this administration and urge President Trump to stop waging a war on American consumers, harming housing affordability, and putting the economy at risk? Yes or no. You don’t have to explain.

Representative—

Will you be the voice of reason? Will you be the voice of reason?

A study from Wharton University has shown—

Reclaiming my time. Reclaiming my time. Mr. Chair, will you let him know when I ask to reclaim my time—

The time does belong to the gentlewoman from California.

Ten to twenty million immigrants—

Can you shut him up?

What about the housing stock for working Americans? And can you maintain some level of dignity?

The gentlewoman’s time has expired.

No, my time has not expired.

Your time has expired. The gentleman—

The gentleman took up my time. I think you should recognize that, Mr. Chair.

The gentlewoman’s time has expired.

Bessent’s testimony comes as the Trump administration awaits a Supreme Court ruling on whether some of the trade duties imposed in 2025 exceeded presidential authority, a decision that could have broad implications for current tariff actions. 

Tariffs are taxes levied on imported goods. Although they are paid by companies at the border, the costs are often passed along through higher prices, leaving consumers to bear much of the burden.

House conservatives are quietly grumbling about the deal President Donald Trump entered into with Senate Democrats to keep the government open and running — particularly regarding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Some Republican lawmakers are concerned that the plan will leave them forced to swallow concessions on immigration enforcement policies that they would not normally entertain while the GOP holds all the levers of power in Washington, albeit with slim majorities.

‘I don’t think we have any more leverage,’ one House Republican granted anonymity to speak candidly told Fox News Digital. ‘We just shot ourselves in the foot, and nine days later we’ll do it again.’

The compromise between Democrats and the White House funds 97% of the federal government through Sept. 30, but only keeps DHS running until Feb. 13.

That’s because House and Senate Democrats walked away from an initial compromise that would similarly fund DHS through the end of fiscal year (FY) 2026, in exchange for added guardrails on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) like a new body-worn camera mandate and required training on de-escalation and public engagement.

The earlier plan passed the House, mostly with only GOP support, but was rejected by Senate Democrats in the wake of unrest in Minneapolis over Trump’s immigration crackdown. Federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens there during anti-ICE demonstrations, with tensions escalating thanks to those fatal encounters and angry rhetoric by progressive local officials.

Trump’s new deal for DHS with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is aimed at giving time for more bipartisan negotiations on a longer-term funding plan.

But the move frustrated some House Republicans all the way up to Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who told his conference on a lawmaker-only call Friday that he was ‘frustrated’ by the compromise but that congressional Republicans needed to stick by Trump’s decisions as the leader of their party.

He also told reporters during a Tuesday morning press conference, ‘This is not my preferred route. I wanted to keep all six bills together.’

‘But listen, the president agreed with Schumer that they would separate Homeland, and we’ll do that, and we’ll handle it,’ Johnson continued. ‘The Republicans are going to do the responsible thing.’

Frustrations about Trump negotiating away their leverage were brought up again by House conservatives during a GOP lawmaker-only meeting on Tuesday morning, two sources told Fox News Digital.

One senior House Republican said they’d heard such complaints but commended Trump for acting responsibly in a difficult situation.

‘I think there were no good options. We obviously don’t want a shutdown, Democrats are very capable of that, they’ve demonstrated they’re willing to do that,’ the senior House Republican said.

‘They backed out on their end of the deal, and politically, they made a calculus, so the president had to be the bigger person. So, yeah, of course there was leverage that was given away. But leaders are the ones who can de-escalate. He seems to be de-escalating.’

Others who spoke on the record said they trusted Trump but were pessimistic about getting to Feb. 13 with a plan that Republicans could all support.

‘Homeland Security is doing a tremendous job. It’s unfortunate that two people got shot, but it’s unfortunate that 20 million illegals came to America, too,’ Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., said Monday.

‘Trump, I trust his judgment. I’m just saying my gut instinct is…they’ll use the two weeks to demagogue [DHS Secretary] Kristi Noem, they’ll use the two weeks to say how bad everything is with ICE. I think they’ll take the two weeks to make unreasonable demands on dismantling ICE. That’s not going to happen.’

Rep. Mark Harris, R-N.C., told Fox News Digital, ‘I am concerned, but I’m hopeful that the president in the negotiations will hold firm, and hold strong.’

But two more House Republicans who spoke with Fox News Digital privately signaled they did not see a path to GOP success on DHS after Trump’s talks with Senate Democrats.

‘Whatever will come of that will be something that I probably won’t be able to support,’ one of them said.

‘How are we in a better negotiating position in two weeks? The only difference will be time,’ the second GOP lawmaker said. ‘At the end of the day, I’m worried that we’re going to make a lot of concessions that we wouldn’t normally make.’

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told Fox News Digital that Trump would hold firm on implementing his immigration law.

‘President Trump and his entire Administration have been clear: we will not waver when implementing the President’s electoral mandate to enforce federal immigration law. Democrats should not hold funding hostage for disaster relief as many Americans continue to recover from winter storms,’ Jackson said.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., doesn’t have confidence that top congressional Democrats want to fix Homeland Security funding as Congress gears up for tense negotiations in the coming days. 

With the partial four-day government shutdown now over, Democrats and Republicans are readying to relitigate the controversial Department of Homeland Security (DHS) bill, which threatened to completely derail a previous bipartisan funding deal. 

And with nine days on the clock to figure out a way forward, Thune doesn’t believe that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., or Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., are prepared to actually reach a bipartisan deal on the bill. 

When asked if he viewed Jeffries, who rebelled against Schumer’s funding deal with President Donald Trump, as a good-faith partner in the coming back-and-forth, Thune said, ‘He’s just not.’

‘He and, for that matter, Leader Schumer, both are afraid of their shadows, and they’re getting a lot of rollback and pressure from their left,’ Thune said. ‘So, I don’t think they want to — particularly in [Jeffries’] case, I don’t think he wants to make a deal at all.’

Schumer on Tuesday said that Democrats would have a proposal ready for Republicans to review that same day, but Thune noted that no such list had been handed over to his side of the aisle. 

There may still be lingering discourse between the top Democratic leaders, too, after Jeffries turned his back on the Trump-Schumer funding deal. However, both met on Tuesday night, and Schumer affirmed that they were on the same page.

Meanwhile, DHS is currently operating under a two-week continuing resolution (CR) that maintains previous funding levels until Congress can pass legislation to fully fund it. But Thune and other Republicans believe that the truncated time period just isn’t long enough to actually hash out a deal. 

And it’s an open question whether Congress will again need to temporarily extend the funding patch, or allow the agency to shut down.

Compounding frustrations among Republicans is that the original DHS bill was the product of bipartisan negotiations and included several guardrails and reporting requirements targeting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that would limit or block funding if they weren’t met. 

‘I think they want to litigate, have the issue as a political issue,’ Thune said. ‘Whether or not there’s a solution remains to be seen, but at least what they’re saying publicly suggests that that’s not their objective.’ 

President Donald Trump said he spoke to Chinese President Xi Jinping Wednesday to discuss a range of issues, including the war between Ukraine and Russia, while stressing that their relationship ‘is an extremely good one’ that will bring ‘many positive results’ in the coming years.

The president and Xi also discussed Trump’s upcoming trip to Beijing in April, which he said he ‘very much’ looks forward to.

‘I have just completed an excellent telephone conversation with President Xi, of China. It was a long and thorough call, where many important subjects were discussed, including Trade, Military, the April trip that I will be making to China (which I very much look forward to!), Taiwan, the War between Russia/Ukraine, the current situation with Iran, the purchase of Oil and Gas by China from the United States, the consideration by China of the purchase of additional Agricultural products including lifting the Soybean count to 20 Million Tons for the current season (They have committed to 25 Million Tons for next season!), Airplane engine deliveries, and numerous other subjects, all very positive!’ Trump posted to his Truth Social.

‘The relationship with China, and my personal relationship with President Xi, is an extremely good one, and we both realize how important it is to keep it that way,’ he continued. ‘I believe that there will be many positive results achieved over the next three years of my Presidency having to do with President Xi, and the People’s Republic of China.’

The president’s call with Xi comes on the same day the Chinese president announced that he had a separate conversation Wednesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates. 

For weeks, President Donald Trump has promised the Iranian people that ‘help is on the way’ while positioning a massive U.S. naval armada within striking distance of Iran’s coast. But as the White House pivots toward a diplomatic summit in Istanbul Friday, analysts warn the president may face a growing credibility test if threats are not followed by action.

By threatening ‘speed and fury’ against a regime accused of killing thousands of protesters, Trump has drawn a red line — one that analysts say echoes President Barack Obama’s 2013 warning over Syria’s use of chemical weapons. Obama ultimately chose diplomacy over military strikes, a decision critics said weakened U.S. credibility and emboldened adversaries, while supporters argued it avoided a broader war and succeeded in removing large portions of Syria’s chemical arsenal. Trump now faces a similar debate as he weighs whether to enforce his own warnings against Iran.

Trump’s envoys are set to meet Friday in Istanbul with Iranian officials to press for an end to Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, curbs on ballistic missiles and a halt to support for proxy groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah — terms Tehran has shown little public sign of accepting. Trump has also demanded an end to the regime’s violent crackdown on protesters.

But signs of strain are already emerging around the talks. 

Iran is now seeking a change in venue to Friday’s meeting — wanting it to be held in Oman, according to a source familiar with the request — raising questions about whether the summit will proceed as scheduled or produce substantive progress.

Tensions on the ground have continued to rise even as diplomacy is pursued. This week, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said American forces shot down an Iranian drone after it aggressively approached the USS Abraham Lincoln while the aircraft carrier was operating in international waters in the Arabian Sea. CENTCOM said the drone ignored de-escalatory measures before an F-35C fighter jet downed it in self-defense. 

No U.S. personnel were injured.

Hours later, Iranian naval forces harassed a U.S.-flagged, U.S.-crewed commercial tanker transiting the Strait of Hormuz, according to CENTCOM. Iranian gunboats and a surveillance drone repeatedly threatened to board the vessel before the guided-missile destroyer USS McFaul intervened and escorted the tanker to safety. 

CENTCOM warned that continued Iranian harassment in international waters increases the risk of miscalculation and regional destabilization.

Despite weeks of delay, foreign policy analysts say the pause does not mean military action has been taken off the table.

‘If you just look at force movements and the president’s past statements of policy, you would have to bet on the likelihood that military action remains something that is coming,’ Rich Goldberg, a former Trump National Security Council official now at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital.

‘I don’t think the window is closed,’ said Michael Makovsky, president of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. ‘If the president doesn’t do something militarily, it would damage his credibility.’

The standoff is reviving comparisons to Obama’s 2013 decision not to carry out military strikes in Syria after warning that the use of chemical weapons would cross a U.S. ‘red line.’ The moment became a touchstone in debates over American deterrence. 

The Syria episode remains a touchstone in Washington’s red-line debates. Critics argued Obama’s decision not to strike emboldened adversaries, while supporters said diplomacy prevented war — a divide resurfacing as Trump weighs his next move.

‘They have challenged the president now to try to turn him into Obama in 2013 in Syria, rather than Donald Trump in 2025 in Iran,’ Goldberg said.

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

Trump has publicly encouraged Iranian protesters to continue their demonstrations, telling them in early January to ‘KEEP PROTESTING’ and promising that ‘HELP IS ON ITS WAY.’

U.S. officials, however, have previously said the pause reflects caution rather than retreat, pointing to concerns about retaliation against American forces and uncertainty over who would lead Iran if the regime were significantly weakened. Trump himself raised those questions in January, publicly casting doubt on whether any opposition figure could realistically govern after decades in exile.

‘As for the president, he remains committed to always pursuing diplomacy first,’ White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday. ‘But in order for diplomacy to work, of course, it takes two to tango, you need a willing partner to engage.’

‘The president has always a range of options on the table, and that includes the use of military force,’ she added. 

Some analysts reject the premise that the administration has meaningfully slowed its military posture.

‘I don’t think they’ve paused action,’ said Gregg Roman, executive director of the Middle East Forum. ‘The more assets that the president deploys to the theater gives the U.S. more maneuvering room, rather than less.’

Roman pointed to continued U.S. force movements into the region, arguing the buildup signals preparation rather than restraint.

‘That’s not the behavior of a country backing away from military options,’ he said.

Fox News’ Aishah Hashnie contributed to this report.