House Republicans took a victory lap Thursday morning after passing President Donald Trump’s ‘one big, beautiful bill.’ 

‘It’s finally morning in America again,’ House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters. 

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed 215 to 214. All Democrats and two Republicans, Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, voted against the bill. House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris, R-Md., voted ‘present.’

‘Today, the House has passed generational, truly nation-shaping legislation to reduce spending and permanently lower taxes for families and job creators, secure the border, unleash American energy dominance, restore peace through strength and make government work more efficiently and effectively for all Americans,’ Johnson added. 

The bill is a victory for Trump and House Republicans, who overcame policy disagreements to deliver on Trump’s key campaign promises, including an extension of his 2017 tax cuts and no tax on tips, overtime and Social Security. 

‘We look forward to the Senate’s timely consideration of this once-in-a-generation legislation. We stand ready to continue our work together to deliver on the one big, beautiful bill, as President Trump named it himself. We’re going to send that to his desk. We’re going to get there by Independence Day, on July 4th, and we are going to celebrate a new golden age in America,’ Johnson said. 

House leaders took turns Thursday thanking Republicans for rallying together to pass the bill. 

‘Democrats made it very clear they didn’t want to have any part in helping get America back on track again, but we were never fettered when this bill could have failed 10 times over. We said we were going to get this done, and failure is not an option. And we meant it,’ said House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La.

Trump celebrated his victory on Thursday in a Truth Social post. 

‘Great job by Speaker Mike Johnson, and the House Leadership, and thank you to every Republican who voted YES on this Historic Bill! Now, it’s time for our friends in the United States Senate to get to work, and send this Bill to my desk AS SOON AS POSSIBLE! There is no time to waste,’ Trump wrote. 

The multi-trillion-dollar bill includes provisions to advance Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda by lowering taxes, securing the border, increasing national defense, reforming Medicaid and slashing Biden-era energy policies. 

The bill aims to make a dent in the federal government’s spending trajectory by cutting roughly $1.5 trillion in government spending elsewhere. The U.S. government is still more than $36 trillion in debt and has spent $1.05 trillion more than it has collected in the 2025 fiscal year, according to the Treasury Department.

‘Take this as a lesson. Don’t bet against the House Republicans. We’ve shown, time and time again, that we deliver for the American people, especially when it matters most. By taking hold of this historic opportunity, I truly believe we’ve unlocked the opportunities for generations to come,’ House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., said. 

Republicans on Thursday slammed their House Democratic colleagues for delaying the bill’s passage – down to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ 30-minute ‘magic minute’ before House votes. 

‘Democrats voted to put Americans last, and it’s a shame. But thank God for House Republicans, and thank God for our president, Donald J. Trump,’ said GOP Conference Chair Lisa McClain, R-Mich.

But the ‘big, beautiful bill’ still has a big hurdle ahead. The Senate is tasked with passing its own version of the bill, and Republican leaders are hoping to send the bill to Trump’s desk by the Fourth of July. 

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

A significant number of senators have voiced concern over the extent of Medicaid and SNAP cuts proposed by the House. Meanwhile, raising the SALT deduction cap could face resistance in the Senate, where no Republicans represent blue states—unlike in the House, where districts in New York and California are key to the GOP majority.

And Senate Democrats are already piling on the criticism of Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill.’

‘This is not one big, beautiful bill. It’s ugly. There’s nothing beautiful about stripping away people’s healthcare, forcing kids to go hungry, denying communities the resources they need, and increasing poverty,’ Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement Thursday. 

Republicans are targeting China’s efforts to sidestep U.S. tariffs through foreign production, with new legislation introduced Thursday by House Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas.

The Axing Nonmarket Tariff Evasion (ANTE) Act aims to stop subsidized and state-owned entities from setting up production in other countries to avoid tariffs.

‘For far too long, adversaries like China have engaged in unfair trade practices, cheated the American economy, and cost the U.S. millions of jobs,’ Arrington said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

On April 2, which the White House dubbed ‘Liberation Day,’ President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs with the intention of ending trade imbalances. Some of the harshest of the tariffs were imposed on China, which was initially hit with a 145% tariff that was later lowered to 30%. 

While tariffs seem to be discouraging Chinese manufacturers from exporting to the U.S., as evidenced by a recent Commerce Department report showing import levels at their lowest since the COVID-19 pandemic, imports have not stopped entirely.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has found ways to evade the tariffs, such as setting up production in third-party countries or by shipping goods to another country and re-labeling them before sending them to the U.S. By labeling the goods as originating from another country, manufacturers dodge the high tariffs on China and instead get hit with much lower tariffs that are imposed on other nations. This is something that Arrington hopes to stop with his legislation.

‘The ANTE Act will stop highly-subsidized, state-owned businesses from using third countries as backdoors to evade President Trump’s tariffs and help ensure a level playing field for American producers and manufacturers,’ Arrington told Fox News Digital.

Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., who is introducing companion legislation in the Senate, is also confident the bill will stop the CCP from falsifying the origins of imports.

‘Communist China shouldn’t be able to dodge U.S. tariffs by slapping a ‘Made in Mexico’ label on their products,’ Banks said in a statement to Fox News Digital. ‘My bill closes loopholes and stops the CCP from cheating American workers and manufacturers.’ 

The phenomenon of ‘place-of-origin washing’ is not limited to large businesses. Chinese social media platforms are filled with ads offering services to help sellers avoid tariffs, the Financial Times reported. The outlet also noted that South Korea’s customs agency has seen an uptick in cases involving sellers using their country to avoid U.S. tariffs.

Under U.S. law, goods must undergo ‘substantial transformation’ in a country to qualify as originating from there. The transformation must significantly add to the value of the good, according to the International Trade Administration’s (ITA) website. 

As an example, the ITA writes that if ingredients are taken from several countries and turned into baked goods, the country of origin can be listed as where the items were baked, as this constitutes a ‘substantial transformation.’ However, if produce from multiple countries is frozen and mixed in another nation, then the origin of each ingredient must be listed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has not had the opportunity for more than 590 days to visit hostages in Gaza and provide them with medical care. However, Communications Coordinator for the International Committee of the Red Cross Jacob Kurtzer tells Fox News Digital that the organization has been ready to provide hostages with medical assistance ‘from day one’ — despite not being granted access to them.

‘It’s no secret that the ICRC has not been able to visit hostages to carry out the work that’s mandated — to carry out our humanitarian work, to visit, to bring medicine,’ Kurtzer told Fox News Digital. ‘I can assure you it’s not for lack of trying, and I can assure you that every single day, our colleagues here, our colleagues at headquarters, and our colleagues at other delegations are working to try to find a way to get access.’

Since its establishment over 160 years ago, the ICRC has prided itself on serving as a neutral body focused on delivering aid and medical care. However, since the war in Gaza began, the ICRC has faced criticism from some for not pushing to visit the hostages and for its volunteers taking part in Hamas-led hostage release ceremonies.

When asked by Fox News Digital about the ceremonies, Kurtzer said that ICRC workers in Gaza have ‘very little ability to dictate the terms and the protocols of the release operations.’ However, he added that the organization believes these hostage release operations ‘must be done in dignity and should be done privately.’

‘So, certainly there were things that we saw that we didn’t like. We conveyed our views about those directly through what we call our bilateral and confidential dialogue,’ Kurtzer said. 

Despite facing mounting pressure and obstacles, the ICRC seems to be sticking to its mission. Kurtzer said that the organization is ready to ‘jump at’ any opportunity to reach the hostages and provide them with assistance. However, Hamas has still not given them that opportunity.

Kurtzer also addressed the ICRC’s position on access to Palestinian detainees held by Israel.

When discussing the lack of opportunities to visit the hostages who have been held in Gaza since Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 massacre, Kurtzer also mentioned that the ICRC would like to have the opportunity to visit Palestinians being held by Israel. Fox News Digital then pressed Kurtzer on whether the ICRC saw the situation of hostages in Gaza and Palestinians being held in Israel as equivalent. Kurtzer later clarified the comments in a statement to Fox News Digital.

‘The ICRC recognizes the distinction between hostages and detainees enshrined in international humanitarian law (IHL). Hostages are captured or held with the threat of being harmed or killed to pressure another party into doing something, as a condition for the hostage’s release or safety. Hostage-taking is a violation of IHL,’ he said. ‘We provide assistance and work to alleviate suffering on all sides of a conflict. Under IHL, the ICRC must be notified of and granted access to Palestinians in Israeli custody, and we continue to seek this access.’

Beyond the hostages, ICRC is tasked with providing humanitarian assistance in Gaza, something Kurtzer said is urgently needed. He called the situation in the Strip ‘catastrophic.’

Kurtzer recalled the relief that the recent ceasefire provided those on the ground in Gaza. 

‘It provided hope. It provided hope for families on all sides. It provided hope to families of the hostages. It provided hope for people living inside Gaza,’ Kurtzer said. However, the resumption of military action has ‘contributed to a sense of despair,’ he said.

Since Kurtzer spoke with Fox News Digital, Israel has altered its position on humanitarian access, now allowing some aid trucks into Gaza. However, critics argue that the scale of assistance remains insufficient.

U.K. Foreign Minister David Lammy announced on Tuesday that his country was suspending trade talks with Israel over the handling of the war in Gaza. French President Emmanuel Macron also condemned Israel in a post on X. Additionally, U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher said the aid being allowed in was a ‘drop in the ocean.’

‘We really believe that the path forward is one where humanitarian assistance is allowed in and we urgently and we appeal over and over again for the parties themselves to find a better path forward because what we’re seeing now is just really very, very devastating,’ Kurtzer told Fox News Digital.

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

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

The bill is a sweeping multi-trillion-dollar piece of legislation that advances Trump’s agenda on taxes, immigration, energy, defense and the national debt. It’s sought to make a dent in the federal government’s spending trajectory by cutting roughly $1.5 trillion in government spending elsewhere. The U.S. government is over $36 trillion in debt and has spent $1.05 trillion more than it’s collected in the 2025 fiscal year, according to the Treasury Department.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ could be headed for a House-wide vote as soon as Wednesday night after its approval by a key committee in an 8-4 vote.

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

The panel adjourned shortly before 11 p.m. Wednesday after all four Democrats voted against the measure and all present Republicans voted for it. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, was the lone lawmaker to miss the vote.

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

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

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

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

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

A long-awaited amendment to the legislation aimed at fixing those issues debuted around 9 p.m. on Wednesday evening.

The amendment would speed up the implementation of Medicaid work requirements for certain able-bodied recipients from 2029 to December 2026, and award states that did not follow Obamacare-era expansion plans with more federal dollars.

It would also end a host of green energy tax subsidies by 2028 if they did not demonstrate relatively quick return on investment.

Democrats, meanwhile, accused Republicans of hastily trying to change the legislation without proper notice.

Johnson told Fox News Digital during his Wednesday 1 a.m. that he was ‘very close’ to a deal with divided House GOP factions.

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

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

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

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

Several of those fiscal hawks were more optimistic after a meeting at the White House with Trump and Johnson, however.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Republicans outperformed Democrats on voter registration in four key battleground states between the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections, according to research by the American Association of Political Consultants (AAPC). 

The bipartisan political consultant non-profit teamed up with analysts from Data Trust, a conservative organization, and Target Smart, which has aligned with Democrats in past election cycles. Compiling data from the 2020 and 2024 elections in Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada and Pennsylvania, the research suggests a national shift in voter registration toward the Republican Party.

‘We wanted a bipartisan analysis because there are so many conventional wisdoms this election challenged,’ Larry Huynh of Trilogy Interactive andDemocrat AAPC Board President said. ‘The data was pretty clear that the Democrats were caught off guard with voter registration and turnout efforts and failed to mount a sufficiently compelling counter-effort to compete. We should all learn from this and take a deeper dive into our voter registration and turnout operations.’

AAPC unveiled the research this week during the 2025 Pollie Awards, a political communications awards program, in Colorado Springs, Colo. 

‘The Trump campaign and the Republican Party deserve considerable recognition for their voter registration success and turnout efforts and the party should try to build on these successes,’ Kyle Roberts of AdImpact and the incoming Republican AAPC Board President told Fox News Digital. 

From 2020 to 2024, the bipartisan political analysis found the share of registered Democrat voters dropped in all four battleground states. Meanwhile, the share of registered unaffiliated and Republican voters increased in Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada and Pennsylvania, according to the data compiled by Data Trust and Target Smart. 

In three out of four of the states analyzed, unaffiliated voters accounted for the largest electoral increase. Democrats saw the largest electoral drop between 2020 and 2024 across the four battleground states, following the same trend as voter registration. 

Voter turnout across party lines dropped in three out of the four battleground states analyzed, the data revealed. And while Democrat turnout dropped more than Republican turnout in those three states, the difference was less than a percentage point in every state but Arizona. 

Data Trust and Target Smart also analyzed trends across demographic groups, including Black, Hispanic and rural voters. The overall increase in Republican registration, turnout and electoral growth was consistent across the demographic groups analyzed. 

President Donald Trump won all seven battleground states in 2024 – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Republicans maintained control of the House of Representatives and won back the Senate. 

70% of voters believed the country was on the wrong track and wanted change in the 2024 presidential election, according to Fox News Voter Analysis. The economy and immigration were top issues as Trump tied inflation to President Joe Biden’s administration and vowed to secure the border on his first day in office. 

As AAPC seeks to analyze Republicans’ inroads with swing state voters in 2024, Democrats are facing their own reckoning this week as a new book reveals the alleged ‘cover-up’ of Biden’s cognitive decline. 

CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios political correspondent Alex Thompson’s book, ‘Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,’ released on Tuesday, paints an unflattering picture of Democrats’ losses in 2024. 

While political commentators focus on what Democrats did wrong in 2024, AAPC’s new data reveals what Republicans did right on voter registration and turnout. 

The Republican National Committee (RNC) opened ‘Black Americans for Trump’ and ‘Latino Americans for Trump’ offices across the battleground states in 2024, seeking to expand their reach among traditionally Democrat voting blocs. 

Over 160,000 volunteers joined the RNC’s ‘Protect the Vote’ efforts on election integrity in 2024, which included more than 100 lawsuits and recruiting poll watchers across the country. Seizing on Republicans’ election distrust following Trump’s loss in 2020, the RNC built a coalition of supporters across the country that propelled voters to the polls and landed Trump a win in 2024.