The Secret Service’s counter sniper team is understaffed, jeopardizing the safety of U.S. leaders like the president, according to a new inspector general report. 

The report comes just over one year after the counter sniper team took out the gunman who opened fire on President Donald Trump in July 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania, and as the agency has ushered in a series of reforms in response to the assassination attempt. 

The Department of Homeland Security Inspector General determined that the Secret Service’s counter sniper team is staffed 73% below the level necessary to meet mission requirements and does not have an adequate pipeline to hire more. 

‘Failure to appropriately staff CS could limit the Secret Service’s ability to properly protect our Nation’s most senior leaders, risking injury or assassination, and subsequent national-level harm to the country’s sense of safety and security,’ the report, was released Friday, states.

Meanwhile, demand for snipers is up. Events the sniper team supported increased by 151% from calendar year 2020 to 2024, even though staffing only increased 5% over that span, according to the report. 

As a result, the watchdog recommended that the agency execute a plan to beef up staffing to meet the counter sniper staffing requirements. The Secret Service concurred, per the report. 

Fox News Digital reached out to the Secret Service for comment and has not yet received a reply. 

Meanwhile, the agency has already spearheaded a series of reforms after the assassination attempt against Trump in 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania. 

For example, a bipartisan House task force that investigated the attack found that the attempted assassination was ‘preventable’ and concluded various mistakes were not an isolated incident.

Among the mistakes found, the report concluded that the Secret Service did not secure a ‘high-risk area’ next to the rally, the American Glass Research (AGR) grounds and building complex. 

Failure to secure this area ‘eventually allowed Crooks to evade law enforcement, climb on and traverse the roof of the AGR complex, and open fire.’

Former Secret Service acting director Ronald Rowe told lawmakers in December 2024 that immediate changes to the agency after the Pennsylvania assassination attempt included expanding the use of drones for surveillance purposes and incorporating greater counter-drone technology to mitigate kinetic attacks from other drones. 

The agency also overhauled its radio communications networks and interoperability of those networks with Secret Service personnel and state and local law enforcement officers, Rowe told the lawmakers. 

‘The reforms made over this last year are just the beginning, and the agency will continue to assess its operations, review recommendations and make additional changes as needed,’ the Secret Service said in a news release in July. 

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. accused his former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of lying about vaccine recommendations.

Kennedy appeared before the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday for a hearing focused on President Donald Trump’s healthcare agenda, dubbed Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) on the campaign trail last year.

But the recent turmoil at the CDC caused by the firing of former CDC Director Susan Monarez and the exodus of several senior officials, along with Kennedy’s view on vaccines, became a focal point for both Senate Republicans and Democrats on the panel.

During a fiery exchange at the start of the hearing between Kennedy and Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, Kennedy accused Monarez of lying in a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece.

Monarez was fired less than a month after being confirmed by the Senate and charged in her op-ed that during a meeting with the secretary last month, she was pressured to resign or be fired after being ordered to ‘pre-approve the recommendations of a vaccine advisory panel newly filled with people who have publicly expressed anti-vaccine rhetoric.’

Wyden questioned whether Kennedy did tell Monarez to ‘just go along with vaccine recommendations even if she didn’t think such recommendations aligned with scientific evidence?’

‘Yes or no? You have an opportunity to call her a liar. If you say that you didn’t, do it,’ the Oregon Democrat said. ‘But I’d like to see you respond to this.’

‘No,’ Kennedy said. ‘No, I did not say that to her. And I never had a private meeting with her.’

Kennedy argued earlier in the hearing that the reason he fired Monarez, along with the entirety of the CDC’s vaccine recommendation panel to restore the CDC to the ‘gold standard’ of healthcare.

‘America is home to 4.2% of the world’s population. Yet we had nearly 20% COVID deaths. We literally did worse than any country in the world. And the people at the CDC who oversaw that process, who put masks on our children, who closed our schools, are the people who will be leaving,’ Kennedy said. ‘And that’s why we need bold, competent and creative new leadership at CDC.’

‘People are able and willing to chart a new course,’ he continued. ‘As my father once said, ‘Progress is a nice word, [but] change [is a] motivator. And change has its enemies.’ That’s why we need new blood at CDC.’

The U.S. Labor Department is planning to partner up with allies like South Korea and Japan to train U.S. workers to become shipbuilders under President Donald Trump’s push to revitalize the industry. 

While China is massively outpacing the U.S. when it comes to shipbuilding, the Labor Department will announce an $8 million funding availability Thursday for an international fellowship program that will pair up U.S. institutions with foreign counterparts to remedy this disparity. 

The four-year proposed project will team up U.S. training centers, registered apprenticeship programs and education institutions like community colleges with foreign training centers, and shipyards in Canada, Finland, Italy, Japan, South Korea and other countries to provide U.S. workers with advanced shipbuilding skills, according to the Labor Department. 

The fellowship, led by the Labor Department’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs, will prioritize training for boilermakers, industrial electricians, steelworkers, steamfitters, shipwrights and welders.

Likewise, the funding will also go toward creating a specialized, internationally recognized trade curriculum aimed at fostering more advanced training in the U.S. The initiative seeks to garner knowledge from allies and distribute it more widely among workers within the U.S. to expand shipbuilding trade skills domestically. 

‘Working closely with our allies will advance the Department of Labor’s mission to create effective shipbuilding apprenticeship programs right here in the United States,’ Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer said in a statement to Fox News Digital. ‘President Trump is restoring America’s maritime dominance by preparing our workforce to outcompete China and strengthen our national security.’

The U.S. is severely behind near-peer competitors like China when it comes to shipbuilding — and allies like South Korea and Japan. 

China is responsible for more than 50% of global shipbuilding, while South Korea is responsible for nearly 29% and Japan 13%, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. That’s compared to just 0.1% from the U.S. 

‘The erosion of U.S. and allied shipbuilding capabilities poses an urgent threat to military readiness, reduces economic opportunities, and contributes to China’s global power-projection ambitions,’ the Center for Strategic and International Studies said in a March report. 

But Trump has directed his attention to the industry, and told lawmakers in March that he would ‘resurrect’ both commercial and military shipbuilding. Additionally, Trump signed an executive order in April aimed at reinvigorating the U.S. shipbuilding sector. 

Specifically, the executive order called for assessments regarding how the government could bolster financial support through the Defense Production Act, the Department of Defense Office of Strategic Capital, a new Maritime Security Trust Fund, investment from shipbuilders from allied countries and other grant programs.

It also instructed agencies to develop a maritime action plan and ordered the U.S. trade representative to compile a list of recommendations to address China’s ‘anticompetitive actions within the shipbuilding industry.’ 

The new fellowship program stems from Trump’s executive order, according to the Labor Department. 

Those eligible to apply for the funding opportunity include any commercial, international, educational or nonprofit organization, which includes faith-based, community-based or public international groups.

The application deadline is Sept. 26. 

A pair of congressional Republicans is determined to keep the government open and willing to force their colleagues to stay in Washington, D.C., to get it done.

Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., and Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, plan to introduce legislation that would keep lawmakers in town until a short-term government funding extension, known as a continuing resolution (CR), or spending bills are passed to avert a partial government shutdown.

Congress still does not have a plan in place to ward off a shutdown by the Sept. 30 deadline, and both sides of the aisle have already started the annual blame game as to which party would own the partial closure.

So far, the Senate has advanced a trio of spending bills, while the House has passed only two — although lawmakers in the lower chamber were gearing up to advance the Energy and Water appropriations bill on Thursday.

Lankford said in a statement to Fox News Digital that as the nation’s debt creeps beyond $37 trillion, ‘Congress cannot keep avoiding the hard choices to fix it.’

‘Shutting down the government does not fix the debt problem, it just makes it worse,’ he said. ‘The best way to finish negotiating the hard issue is to keep Congress in Washington until the budget is finished. That puts the pressure on lawmakers, not on families and important services.’

If Congress fails to get a deal in place to keep the government open, the duo’s bill would trigger an automatic CR ‘on rolling 14-day periods’ that would stay in place until lawmakers either pass all 12 appropriations bills or strike a deal on a stopgap bill.

The bill would also force Congress, their staff and members of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to stay in D.C. until the job is done.

It would require that no motions to adjourn or recess could be made for longer than 23 hours, mandatory quorum calls each day to ensure attendance, and no other legislation would be allowed to be considered until a CR or spending bills were passed.

‘In the real world, if you fail to do your job, there are consequences,’ Arrington said in a statement to Fox News Digital. ‘Yet, when Congress fails to pass appropriations on time, the burden falls squarely on hardworking Americans — taxpayers, seniors, and our men and women in uniform.’

Meanwhile, appropriators in the House and Senate are working to find a path forward on a deal.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said he hoped the CR would originate in the House, based off negotiations between House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole, R-Okla., and Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine.

‘My hope would be that whatever that CR looks like, it’s clean, and that it enables us to buy some time to get a regular appropriations process done,’ he said.

But the White House’s move last week to cancel $4.9 billion in foreign aid funding through a ‘pocket rescission’ has some Republicans worried that it could jeopardize the bipartisan nature of the appropriations process in the Senate, where Democrats will be needed to keep the government open.

So far, it appears that Senate Democrats aren’t ready to totally buck their Republican counterparts, but are demanding that they be involved in negotiations to craft a CR.

‘If House Republicans, however, go a different route and try and jam through a partisan CR without any input from Democratic members of Congress, and they suddenly find they don’t have the votes they need from our caucus to fund the government, well, then that is a Republican shutdown,’ said Sen. Patty Murray, of Washington., top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

First lady Melania Trump is hosting an artificial intelligence meeting with top industry leaders, including Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Thursday, as she stresses the importance of managing AI’s growth ‘responsibly.’ 

The White House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence Education will meet for the second time in the East Room of the White House Thursday afternoon. The first lady will host the meeting alongside members of the task force and private sector leaders.

‘I predict AI will represent the single largest growth category in our nation during the Trump Administration — and I won’t be surprised if AI becomes known as the greatest engine of progress in the history of the United States of America,’ the first lady said.

But the first lady warned that ‘as leaders and parents we must manage AI’s growth responsibly.’

‘During this primitive stage, it is our duty to treat AI as we would our own children — empowering, but with watchful guidance,’ the first lady said. ‘We are living in a moment of wonder, and it is our responsibility to prepare America’s children.’

The meeting is expected to feature remarks by the first lady and task force members, along with private sector leaders who have pledged to support AI education across the nation.

Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai, Code.org President Cameron Wilson and CEO and Chairman of IBM Arvind Krishna will attend the Thursday meeting. 

Members of the task force include director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Michael Kratsios; Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins; Education Secretary Linda McMahon; Energy Secretary Chris Wright; Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer; and White House Special Advisor for AI and crypto czar David Sacks.

Hayley Harrison, an assistant to the president and chief of staff to the first lady also will attend, along with assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser Robert Gabriel Jr. and assistant to the president for domestic policy Vince Haley.

The meeting is expected to take place hours before President Donald Trump hosts a dinner in the White House Rose Garden for nearly two-dozen Big Tech leaders, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and OpenAI founder Sam Altman.

Meanwhile, the first lady has been a champion of online protection of children and youth through her ‘Be Best’ initiative launched during the first Trump administration.

In 2025, the first lady garnered support on Capitol Hill for the passage of the Take it Down Act, which was signed into law by the president on May 19. The law punishes internet abuse involving nonconsensual, explicit imagery.

The meeting also comes after the first lady, in August, launched a nationwide Presidential Artificial Intelligence Challenge, which invited every student and educator across the nation to ‘unleash their imagination and showcase the spirit of American innovation’ by visiting AI.gov to sign up.

The first lady also recently launched an audiobook of her memoir, using AI audio technology in multiple languages.

The first lady told Fox News Digital that her partners developed ‘an AI-generated replica of my voice under strict supervision, which will establish an unforgettable connection with my personal story, in multiple languages for listeners worldwide.’

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., got into a heated debate with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Or., during a hearing on Thursday.

The exchange came as Kennedy was testifying before the Senate Finance Committee. Wyden accused Kennedy of putting children into ‘harm’s way’ with his policies and argued Kennedy has shown no regrets about doing so.

‘This is about kids being pushed into harm’s way by reckless and repeated decisions to get scientists and doctors out of the way and allow conspiracy theories to dictate this country’s health policy,’ Wyden said at the end of his questioning. 

‘I don’t see any evidence that you have any regrets about anything you’ve done or plans to change it. And my last comment is, I hope that you will tell the American people how many preventable child deaths are an acceptable sacrifice for enacting an agenda that I think is fundamentally cruel and defies common sense. Thank you, Mr. Chairman,’ Wyden said.

‘Do I get a reply?’ Kennedy said. ‘Senator you’ve sat in that chair how long? 20-25 years while the chronic disease of our children went up to 76%. And you said nothing.’

‘You never asked the question why it’s happening. Why is this happening? Today, for the first time in 20 years, we’ve learned that infant mortality has increased in our country. It’s not because I came in here. It’s because of what happened during the Biden administration that we’re going to end,’ he continued.

Committee Chairman Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, then intervened, granting Wyden another chance to speak briefly, though his microphone remains turned off.

‘We’re going to proceed,’ Crapo says. ‘I gave Senator Wyden as ranking member some leeway there, but we’re gonna stick to the five minutes.’

Kennedy’s testimony came one day after over 1,000 current and former HHS employees signed a letter calling for his resignation on Wednesday. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Ver., also called for his resignation.

Kennedy’s critics point to his firing of former Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Susan Monarez.

‘We believe health policy should be based in strong, evidence-based principles rather than partisan politics. But under Secretary Kennedy’s leadership, HHS policies are placing the health of all Americans at risk, regardless of their politics,’ the Wednesday letter read.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is set to testify on Capitol Hill on Thursday, a week after turmoil engulfed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Lawmakers on the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over the HHS, will hear from Kennedy on President Donald Trump’s healthcare agenda, dubbed by the secretary as the Make America Healthy Again movement.

While the committee does not directly oversee the CDC, the recent firing of former CDC Director Susan Monarez, the wave of high-level officials departing and other moves at the agency taken under Kennedy’s tenure are expected to dominate the line of questioning from both Republicans and Democratic lawmakers on the panel.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who is a member of the panel, told reporters that Kennedy would face ‘hard questions’ from committee members, particularly over frustrations over Monarez, who was confirmed by the Senate less than a month before her ouster.

‘He’s gotta take responsibility… we confirm these people,’ the South Dakota Republican said. ‘We go through a lot of work to get them confirmed. And they’re in office a month?’

Speculation has swirled over the reason behind Monarez’s firing given her differing stance on vaccines compared to Kennedy, who spent much of his presidential campaign and tenure as secretary going after the efficacy and safety of vaccination, particularly those for COVID-19.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who chairs the Senate health committee and was the deciding vote that propelled Kennedy to a role in the Trump administration, is also set to question the secretary.

Last week, he demanded that the federal government’s vaccine advisory panel, which was filled with Kennedy’s handpicked replacements after he recently booted the original panel members, postpone its scheduled meeting in September until ‘significant oversight’ was carried out by his committee, and charged that any recommendations made by the advisory panel should be rejected until then.

Cassidy told Fox News Digital that he was working on just what the oversight measures would look like and expected to announce his plans soon. In the meantime, he noted that he was supportive of Kennedy and Trump’s commitment to ‘radical transparency,’ but noted that his main concerns were about children’s health.  

‘It isn’t about R versus D. It isn’t about, you know, internecine fights within the Republican Party. It is about children and grandchildren, and will they die or be at risk of dying from vaccine-preventable disease,’ Cassidy said. ‘Now we’ve got to get to the truth of this.’

He also argued that members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices are supposed to receive materials to review before making vaccine recommendations and decisions, but questioned where the information would be coming from in the wake of several senior members of the CDC making their exit after Monarez’s firing.

‘We’ve got to have some sort of radical transparency into what scientific justification is being used for that,’ he said. ‘Is it a political appointee? Well, to say a political appointee is making scientific recommendations. Who’s a political appointee? I mean, are they a doctor, a PhD, or are they a political appointee? Our concern is they might just be political appointees, but we’re going to find that out.’

Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., another member of the Senate Finance Committee, told Fox News Digital that his line of questioning would focus on the abortion drug Mifepristone and its safety, but added that it was ‘fair’ for lawmakers to have debate over Kennedy’s leadership of the CDC and HHS.

‘It’s typical for any secretary that comes up, but I’m sure many of these issues that have been raised are related to some concerns. These questions are going to be asked, and I’m grateful that the Secretary will be there to explain what he sees going on and the path forward,’ he said.

Meanwhile, Kennedy defended his moves at the CDC in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece on Tuesday and contended that ‘President Trump has asked me to restore that trust and return the CDC to its core mission.’

He wrote that steps have already been taken to ‘eliminate conflicts of interest and bureaucratic complacency’ at the agency, and that leaders who ‘resisted reform’ had already been replaced.

‘Most CDC rank-and-file staff are honest public servants,’ Kennedy said. ‘Under this renewed mission, they can do their jobs as scientists without bowing to politics. The agency will again become the world authority on infectious-disease policy.’

‘First, the CDC must restore public trust — and that restoration has begun,’ he continued. ‘It won’t stop until America’s public-health institutions again serve the people with transparency, honesty and integrity.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the HHS for comment but did not hear back immediately. 

A group of anonymous federal judges is criticizing the Supreme Court for overturning lower court rulings and siding with President Donald Trump’s administration with little to no explanation, NBC News reported Thursday.

NBC spoke with 12 federal judges, appointed by Democratic and Republican presidents including Trump, who pointed to a trend of lower court decisions being overturned by emergency rulings from the high court. These cases often see prominent members of Trump’s administration lashing out at lower court judges before their cases are overturned.

Ten of the 12 judges argued the Supreme Court should offer more explanation when overturning such decisions, saying emergency rulings in such cases imply poor work on the part of lower court judges.

‘It is inexcusable,’ one judge said of the Supreme Court. ‘They don’t have our backs.’

That judge also said they have received death threats for issuing rulings that counter Trump’s agenda. Trump himself and some of his top officials have spoken out against judges issuing unfavorable rulings.

When Judge James Boasberg sought to block the administration’s deportation flights to El Salvador, Trump argued he should be ‘IMPEACHED’ on social media.

When various judges issued rulings blocking Trump’s tariff agenda in March, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller argued it was a ‘judicial coup.’

The judge who described the Supreme Court’s actions as inexcusable predicted that ‘somebody is going to die’ if criticism from top Trump officials continues, according to NBC.

Another judge said lower courts are being ‘thrown under the bus.’

‘It’s almost like the Supreme Court is saying it is a ‘judicial coup,’’ a third judge told the outlet.

A fourth judge, however, appointed by President Barack Obama, conceded that several judges had been out of line with their rulings against Trump.

‘The whole ‘Trump derangement syndrome’ is a real issue. As a result, judges are mad at what Trump is doing or the manner he is going about things; they are sometimes forgetting to stay in their lane,’ that judge said.

‘Certainly, there is a strong sense in the judiciary among the judges ruling on these cases that the court is leaving them out to dry,’ the judge continued. ‘They are partially right to feel the way they feel.’

The Supreme Court’s public information office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

Ashley Biden, daughter of former President Joe Biden and former first lady Jill Biden, wrote on social media that it was ‘one of the hardest summers of my life.’

The post comes after a summer during which the former first daughter faced two main challenges: her divorce and her father’s cancer diagnosis.

‘August 2025. The summer of 2025 was one of the hardest summers of my life. I have been preparing for the fall (my fav season) and now ready for the RISE,’ she wrote as the caption of a carousel of summer photos. ‘Grateful for the support of friends and family. Grateful that I took the time/space to grieve, process and heal. Grateful for peace of mind, new beginnings, new seasons, and a rediscovered strength and love for myself.’ 

She ended the caption with ‘#SturgeonMoon2025’ – a reference to the August full moon – followed by a string of emojis.

Last month, Ashley Biden shared a photo of her with her ex-husband and another woman, who the former first daughter identified as the doctor’s ‘girlfriend.’

She captioned the Instagram story, ‘my husband and his girlfriend holding hands,’ and posted it with the Notorious B.I.G. song ‘Another,’ featuring Lil’ Kim, the New York Post reported. 

The outlet also noted that the Instagram story was posted just hours before Ashley Biden filed for divorce from her husband of 13 years. 

The story appeared on Aug. 10 and was deleted shortly after it was posted. While it appeared to be aimed at her husband, the people in the image faced away from the camera and were not immediately identifiable.

The Post also reported in August that in a separate Instagram story, which was also deleted, Ashley Biden posted herself walking through a park giving a thumbs-up while ‘Freedom’ by Beyoncé played.

Ashley Biden’s divorce filing states the marriage is ‘irretrievably broken’ and requests spousal support while the divorce is pending, according to filings reviewed by Radar Online.

She married Dr. Howard Krein in 2012 with a ceremony blending her Catholic faith with his Jewish heritage, followed by a reception at the Biden family’s lake house in Wilmington. 

At the time, then–Vice President Joe Biden praised his future son-in-law, telling People magazine: ‘This is the right guy. And he’s getting a helluva woman.’

At the 2024 Democratic National Convention, Ashley Biden recalled her father’s role in her wedding to Krein, saying, ‘At the time, my dad was vice president, but he was also that dad who literally set up the entire reception. He was riding around in his John Deere 4-wheeler, fixing the place settings, arranging the plants, and by the way, he was very emotional.’

In May, Biden’s office confirmed he had been diagnosed with an ‘aggressive form’ of prostate cancer.

‘While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management. The [former p]resident and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians,’ Biden’s team shared in a statement.

Ashley Biden made a similar Instagram reflection post at the end of May, writing: ‘May 2025. Heartbroken yet HOPEFUL. MAY I have the courage to handle all that life throws at me (us). So very grateful for all the love + support.’

‘Life is tough my darling, but so are YOU,’ she added at the time.

On the same day, she also posted a picture of herself with her parents and seemingly pushed back against rumors that her family had covered up her father’s cancer diagnosis while he was in the White House.

Fox News Digital’s Jasmine Baehr contributed to this report.

Senate Republicans are grappling with President Donald Trump’s move to cancel $4.9 billion in foreign aid funding and what the ramifications could be on the looming deadline to fund the government.

Senate Democrats previously warned after the GOP’s first go-round with clawbacks that any further attempt to gut congressionally-approved funding would be a red line, and that it could lead to Democratic lawmakers withholding their support for a short-term government funding extension, known as a continuing resolution (CR).

The Trump administration’s decision last week to go forward with a pocket rescission, which skirts the 45-day window needed for a typical clawback package, rattled Senate Democrats and has alarmed some Republicans about finding a path forward to keep the government open.

‘The last thing in the world we need to do is to give our Democrat colleagues any reason not to try to move forward with the appropriations process,’ Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said.

‘That does concern me, and once again, we need to get the appropriations process back on track,’ he continued. ‘We’re going to do whatever we can to get this thing through this year. We’re committed to it. It’s better if Congress takes back its authority on this. Quit doing continuing resolutions, do the appropriations process.’

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., on the other hand, was all for the move and wasn’t worried about the impact it could have on a shutdown.

‘I’m concerned about more spending from those negotiations,’ he told Fox News Digital. ‘Again, you’re not going to get me concerned about anything that cuts spending or reduces the size and scope across government. I’m all for it, no matter how we do it.’

Still, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., will likely need Democratic support to advance any spending bills, let alone a CR by Sept. 30, through the upper chamber’s filibuster threshold, given that a handful of Republicans never vote for funding extensions.

Rounds and other members of the Senate Appropriations Committee are in favor of barreling forward with passing spending bills and have so far been successful in advancing three with bipartisan support.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who in July warned that Trump’s first $9 billion clawback package would have ‘grave implications’ on the appropriations process, has maintained that congressional Democrats were united in their desire to continue working on spending bills with Republicans.

He warned that Republicans would ‘face their greatest test under the Trump administration,’ to either work across the aisle or face a shutdown.

‘However, as near the funding deadline, Republicans are once again threatening to go at it alone, heading our country towards a shutdown,’ Schumer said.

Thune has also remained committed to seeing lawmakers pass the dozen bills needed to fund the government, but acknowledged ‘inevitably, it looks like [we] need a CR for some time for the foreseeable future.’

And he warned that Democrats may try to use the latest clawback package ‘as an excuse’ to not fund the government.

‘That’s all it’ll be is an excuse, because they know that I’m committed, Sen. [Susan] Collins is committed, our conference is committed to working constructively to try and fund the government through the normal appropriations process,’ he said.

Meanwhile, some Republicans questioned if turning toward clawbacks was the best way to tackle spending cuts and argued that such measures were already baked into the annual appropriations process.

When news of the package surfaced, Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, charged that efforts to claw back ‘appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law.’

Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., told Fox News Digital he wasn’t worried about the legality of the move so much as whether turning to the clawbacks was ‘the most efficient way to get at spending cuts.’

‘I think the appropriations process is a better way, and we’ve had some success, and I’d like to keep that momentum going and try to, you know, avoid a shutdown and get back to regular order,’ he said.