House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., sharpened his criticism of Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., on Tuesday as the debate over how to handle transparency in the Jeffrey Epstein case rages on Capitol Hill.

‘I would describe virtually everything Thomas Massie says, as related to this issue, as meaningless,’ Johnson told reporters, delivering his harshest remarks yet against the Kentucky Republican.

The jab came minutes before Massie introduced a measure designed to bypass Johnson and force a vote on legislation compelling the release of a wide range of Department of Justice (DOJ) records tied to Epstein. Johnson, meanwhile, is backing a separate resolution authorizing the House Oversight Committee’s inquiry into the case.

Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., are spearheading a discharge petition — a rare procedural move that allows lawmakers to circumvent leadership if a majority of House members sign on. 

Massie told Fox News Digital he expected enough signatures to hit that threshold by the end of this week.

‘I think there’s a real good chance of that,’ he said.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the petition had two signatures: Massie and Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass.

Asked about Johnson’s comments, Massie blasted House leaders’ measure as a ‘placebo resolution.’

‘He copied three pages out of my resolution. I mean, we wrote this from scratch. So if he thinks it’s meaningless, why is he copying it and taking the teeth out of it?’ Massie said. ‘He is afraid of President Donald Trump. Mike Johnson’s speakership just hangs on that thread.’

The DOJ has already begun turning over thousands of files to the Oversight Committee under a bipartisan subpoena, though at least some redactions are expected. 

Johnson argued his approach balances transparency with privacy concerns for Epstein’s victims.

He told reporters Tuesday, ‘I would not put much stock into what Thomas Massie says.’

‘The House Republicans have been very consistent about maximum disclosure and maximum transparency with the Epstein files, but we had to do it in a way that would protect the innocent victims of these horrific crimes,’ Johnson said. ‘We have achieved that. Now we have a resolution that will accomplish that desired end. And what people want to do with this for political purpose is, to me, this is really just shameful.’

Massie and Khanna plan to hold a press conference Wednesday with several of Epstein’s victims to promote their resolution. Those victims also met Tuesday with Johnson and members of the Oversight Committee.

The showdown underscores intensifying GOP divisions over how to handle the DOJ’s handling of Epstein’s case, which was reignited after an internal memo effectively declared the matter closed earlier this year.

President Donald Trump sought to dispel swirling social media rumors about his health Tuesday, saying he was ‘very active’ over the Labor Day weekend.

‘I didn’t do anything for two days, and they said ‘there must be something wrong with him,’’ Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, describing the speculation about his death as ‘fake news.’

Trump’s comments followed a wave of unfounded speculation that began Friday night and stretched into Saturday morning, fueled by an empty public schedule and recycled photos showing bruising on his hand. 

The online chatter subsided after Trump was seen leaving the White House with his grandchildren for his golf club in Virginia on Saturday. He was seen wearing a white polo shirt and red MAGA hat.

‘I was very active over the weekend. I went out to visit some people at the club that I own pretty nearby on the Potomac River. No, I’ve been very active, actually,’ Trump said, drawing a sharp comparison to his predecessor, President Joe Biden.

‘You wouldn’t see him (Biden) and nobody ever said there was ever anything wrong with him,’ Trump said. ‘And we know he wasn’t in the greatest of shape.’ 

In July, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump was experiencing bruising on his hands that was attributable to ‘frequent handshaking and the use of aspirin.’ 

She added that he also had mild swelling in his legs that stemmed from a ‘benign and common condition’ in individuals older than age 70.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated. 

A federal district court wrongfully blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from temporarily withholding billions of dollars in climate grants, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The District Court for Washington, D.C. granted an injunction blocking the Trump administration from withholding $16 billion in climate grants. Tuesday’s ruling from the D.C. Circuit Court finds that the lower court overstepped its authority in doing so, and that Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was acting in accordance with its role to provide ‘proper oversight’ of how funds are distributed.

‘We conclude the district court abused its discretion in issuing the injunction. The grantees are not likely to succeed on the merits because their claims are essentially contractual, and therefore jurisdiction lies exclusively in the Court of Federal Claims,’ Judge Neomi Rao wrote in the court’s opinion.

‘And while the district court had jurisdiction over the grantees’ constitutional claim, that claim is meritless. Moreover, the equities strongly favor the government, which on behalf of the public must ensure the proper oversight and management of this multi-billion-dollar fund,’ the opinion continued.

The case relates to EPA grants worth $16 billion awarded under the previous administration to five nonprofits to promote the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The nonprofits included the Climate United Fund, Coalition for Green Capital, Power Forward Communities, Inc., Inclusiv, Inc., and Justice Climate Fund, Inc.

When Trump took office, the new EPA conducted a review of the program and sought to cut the flow of funds. The five nonprofits then sued, and the district court granted them an injunction.

Judge Rao wrote that records show that one month before Trump took office, the EPA modified the grant agreements ‘to make it more difficult for the government to terminate the grants.’

The opinion also points to statements from an EPA employee who said that after Trump’s election victory, the EPA under President Joe Biden was ‘just trying to get the money out as fast as possible.’

‘The employee compared the situation to ‘throwing gold bars off the Titanic,” Rao wrote.

It was after that point that Trump’s EPA reviewed the grant program and sought to kill it.

‘It’s fantastic to see reason prevail in the court system,’ an EPA spokesperson told Fox News Digital on Tuesday. ‘EPA has a duty to be an exceptional steward of taxpayer dollars. Administrator Zeldin canceled these grants due to well-documented concerns about self-dealing and conflicts of interest, unqualified recipients, and intentionally reduced agency oversight. The gold bar recipients were wrong about jurisdiction all along and wrong to act so entitled to these precious public funds that belong to hardworking American taxpayers.’

The Climate United Fund responded to the ruling shortly after it was handed down, with CEO Beth Bafford condemning the outcome.

‘While we are disappointed by the panel’s decision, we stand firm on the merits of our case: EPA unlawfully froze and terminated funds that were legallyobligated and disbursed. This is another hurdle in our fight to lower energy costs for those who need it most while creating jobs for hardworking Americans, but we will continue to press on for communities across the country that stand to benefit from clean, abundant, and affordable energy. This is not the end of our road,’ Bafford wrote.

Tuesday’s ruling allows for the nonprofits to appeal the decision. The other four organizations did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The cuts were only a small part of Trump’s wider effort to rein in government spending across the executive branch. In July, the EPA announced plans to cut its workforce by 23% and close its research and development office.

‘Under President Trump’s leadership, EPA has taken a close look at our operations to ensure the agency is better equipped than ever to deliver on our core mission of protecting human health and the environment while Powering the Great American Comeback,’ EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a July statement.

Read the full opinion from the D.C. Circuit below (App users click here)

House and Senate lawmakers are returning to Washington from their home turfs to face a litany of critical battles in the coming weeks.

Tuesday marked the end of Congress’ annual August recess, and legislators are being met with several deadlines, ranging from averting a partial government shutdown to possibly extending President Donald Trump’s grip on D.C.’s police force.

Government funding

The House and Senate will overlap for just 14 days between Tuesday and the Sept. 30 government funding deadline, and no agreement has been reached yet on fiscal year (FY) 2026 spending priorities.

It’s likely that a stopgap extension of FY 2025 funding levels – called a continuing resolution (CR) – will be needed to avert a shutdown, which could have politically damaging consequences for Republicans while they control both Congress and the White House.

Democrats, unhappy with Republican efforts to rescind prior appropriated funds via the rescissions process, have signaled they’re ready to play hardball.

Any funding bill will need to pass through the Senate’s filibuster threshold, meaning Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., can only lose a handful of votes. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is still calling for a bipartisan process, but trust across the aisle is wearing thin.

A White House official told reporters on Friday they believe a clean CR, meaning without any changes or riders attached, would put Democrats in a difficult position and that rejecting one would pin the blame for a shutdown on the left.

Republicans themselves will have precious little room for error, however. Two special elections in safe blue seats between now and Sept. 30 are poised to shrink the House GOP majority from three seats to two.

Epstein files

A bipartisan effort to force a House-wide vote on releasing the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) records on Jeffrey Epstein is expected to move full-throttle this week, even as the DOJ has already agreed to hand a tranche of files over to the House Oversight Committee.

Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., are leading what’s known as a discharge petition, a mechanism for forcing a vote on legislation over the wishes of House leaders. That’s if the petition gets a majority of House lawmakers’ signatures.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., publicly condemned the effort in July, dismissing discharge petitions as a tool of the minority party and asserting that all Republicans were in favor of transparency in Epstein’s case.

Khanna told NBC News’ ‘Meet The Press’ over the weekend that the petition would go live on Sept. 2, and that he and Massie have more than enough commitments to force a vote.

DC police order

This week will also see the end of Trump’s 30-day hold over Washington, D.C.’s, police force, barring congressional action to extend it.

Trump federalized the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) last month as part of a wider effort to crack down on crime in the capital city. Under D.C.’s Home Rule Act, his authority over the local police can last 30 days unless Congress passes a joint resolution to extend it.

The president suggested in August, however, that he could bypass Congress on the issue if he declared a national emergency — a move that some Republicans are already on board with. Additionally, Trump’s deployment of federal troops into the District does not have a statutory end date.

It’s not clear yet which route will be taken, but a leadership aide told Fox News Digital last month that House leaders were working with the White House on a package of legislation addressing D.C. crime.

Trump’s nominees

Senate Republicans were unable to get a deal in place to advance dozens of low-level nominations before leaving Washington last month.

Currently, Trump has 145 nominees scheduled on the executive calendar with more expected to make their way through committee as lawmakers continue their workflow.

And Republicans are willing to go nuclear on Senate Democrats to get their nominees through. That would mean unilaterally changing the rules in the upper chamber without Democrats weighing in.

The Senate GOP is set to meet this week to discuss the proposed rule changes, which could include shortening the debate time for certain nominees, bundling nominees together into a package or skipping the cloture vote on some nominees altogether. 

Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso is ready to go nuclear on Senate Democrats and their blockade of President Donald Trump’s nominees.

Before leaving Washington, D.C., for their respective home states, Senate Republicans were on the verge of a deal with their colleagues across the aisle to hammer out a deal to ram through dozens of Trump’s picks for non-controversial positions.

But those talks fell apart when Trump nuked any further negotiations over funding demands from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. Currently, there are 145 pending nominations on the Senate’s executive calendar, with that number expected to balloon when the upper chamber reopens for business.

Lawmakers are set to return on Tuesday, and Barrasso, R-Wyo., wants to immediately tackle the nomination quandary. He’s engaged in a public pressure campaign, writing an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal directly calling out Schumer.

Meanwhile, he’s facilitated talks among Senate Republicans on the best path forward, and told Fox News Digital in an interview that, at this point, he’s willing to do anything necessary to see the president’s picks confirmed.

‘We need to either get a lot of cooperation from the Democrats, or we’re going to have to roll over them with changes of the rules that we’re going to be able to do in a unilateral way, as well as President Trump making recess appointments,’ he said.

Senate Democrats, under Schumer’s direction, are unlikely to play ball, however.

Schumer, in response to Barrasso’s public jab against him and Senate Democrats, contended in a statement that ‘historically bad nominees deserve a historic level of scrutiny by Senate Democrats.’

‘Anybody nominated by President Trump is, in Schumer’s words, ‘historically bad.’ Why? Because they were nominated by President Trump,’ Barrasso shot back. ‘That is his sole criteria for which these people are being gone after and filibustered, each and every one of them, even those that are coming out of committee, many, many of whom are with bipartisan support.’

Unilaterally changing the rules, or the nuclear option, would allow Republicans to make tweaks to the confirmation process without help from Democrats, but it could also kneecap further negotiations on key items that would require their support to advance beyond the Senate filibuster.

Barrasso was not worried about taking that route, however, and noted that the nominees that he and other Republicans were specifically considering would be ‘sub-Cabinet level positions’ and ambassadors.

Up for discussion are changes to the debate time, what kind of nominee could qualify for a speedier process and whether to give the president runway to make recess appointments, which would require the Senate to go into recess and allow Trump to make appointments on a temporary basis.

‘When you take a look at this right now, it takes a 30-minute roll-call vote to get on cloture, and then two hours of debate time, and then another 30-minute roll-call vote,’ Barrasso said. ‘Well, that’s three hours, and it’s time when you can’t do legislation, you can’t do any of the other things.’

But there is a menu of key items that Congress will have to deal with when they return, particularly the deadline to fund the government by Sept. 30.

Barrasso acknowledged that reality, and noted that it was because of the hefty schedule that he wanted a rules change to be put front and center.

‘There’s not going to be any time to — or there’s going to be limited time, I should say, to actually get people through the nominations process, which is just going to drag on further, and you’ll have more people having hearings and coming out of committees,’ he said.  

‘This backlog is going to worsen this traffic jam at the Schumer toll booth. So, we are going to do something, because this cannot stand.’

. – Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont says if Robert F. Kennedy Jr. doesn’t step down as Health and Human Services secretary in President Donald Trump’s administration, Americans will need to speak out.

‘We’ve got to rally the American people. This is a huge issue,’ Sanders told Fox News Digital on Monday.

Sanders, the ranking member of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said ‘I’m not a scientist, I’m not a doctor, but I do talk to scientists, and I do talk to doctors, and the evidence is overwhelming. It’s not contestable. Vaccines work. They save millions and millions of lives.’

And the progressive champion and 2016 and 2020 Democratic presidential nomination runner-up warned that ‘if Kennedy and his friends are able to make people think that vaccines are not safe, it will be a real public health crisis for America.’

Sanders is among a growing list of politicians and officials who warn that Kennedy, the longtime environmental activist and vaccine skeptic who Trump picked late last year as his health secretary in his second administration, is jeopardizing the health of Americans with his controversial moves.

‘Mr Kennedy and the rest of the Trump administration tell us, over and over, that they want to Make America Healthy Again. That’s a great slogan. I agree with it. The problem is that since coming into office, President Trump and Mr Kennedy have done exactly the opposite,’ Sanders wrote this past weekend in an opinion piece in the New York Times.

And Sanders said that ‘despite the overwhelming opposition of the medical community, Secretary Kennedy has continued his longstanding crusade against vaccines and his advocacy of conspiracy theories that have been rejected repeatedly by scientific experts.’

Sanders’ call for Kennedy to resign came after last week’s firing of Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director Susan Monarez, less than a month after she was confirmed. The firing of Monarez came after she refused Kennedy’s directives to adopt new limitations on the availability of some vaccines, including approvals for COVID-19 vaccines.

Four other top CDC officials resigned in protest hours later, accusing the Trump administration and Kennedy of weaponizing public health.

Sanders, who was interviewed Monday after headlining the New Hampshire AFL-CIO’s annual Labor Day breakfast, charged in his statement over the weekend that Kennedy ‘has absurdly claimed that ‘there’s no vaccine that is safe and effective’.’

‘Who supports Secretary Kennedy’s views?’ Sanders asked. ‘Not credible scientists and doctors. One of his leading ‘experts’ that he cites to back up his bogus claims on autism and vaccines had his medical license revoked and his study retracted from the medical journal that published it.’

The incident received rare bipartisan pushback by some members of Congress.

But the White House defended the firing of Monarez, with White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt telling reporters on Thursday that the president has the ‘authority to fire those who are not aligned with his mission.’ 

‘The president and Secretary Kennedy are committed to restoring trust and transparency and credibility to the CDC by ensuring their leadership and their decisions are more public-facing, more accountable, strengthening our public health system and restoring it to its core mission of protecting Americans from communicable diseases, investing in innovation to prevent, detect and respond to future threats,’ Leavitt argued.

Fox News Bonny Chu and Landon Mion contributed to this story

Former FBI Director Robert Mueller was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, his family revealed to the New York Times.

Mueller is the former special counsel who led the Russia investigation into President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Mueller, 81, was diagnosed in 2021 and retired from public life the following year after briefly teaching law, according to a family statement provided to The Times.

‘Bob was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in the summer of 2021. He retired from the practice of law at the end of that year. He taught at his law school alma mater during the fall of both 2021 and 2022, and he retired at the end of 2022,’ the statement said.

President Donald Trump says he plans to sign an executive order aimed at requiring voter ID in elections across the country.

Trump made the statement on social media late Saturday night, saying he is also seeking other reforms to how U.S. elections take place.  

‘Voter I.D. Must Be Part of Every Single Vote. NO EXCEPTIONS! I Will Be Doing An Executive Order To That End!!! Also, No Mail-In Voting, Except For Those That Are Very Ill, And The Far Away Military. USE PAPER BALLOTS ONLY!’ Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Trump previously attempted to impose voter ID via an executive order earlier this year in a wider election integrity action.

In April, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia struck down the portions of that order that related to voter identification requirements.

Kollar-Kotelly maintained that Trump did not have the authority to issue such an order, as the Constitution delegates control of election regulations to Congress and states.

‘Consistent with that allocation of power, Congress is currently debating legislation that would affect many of the changes the President purports to order,’ Kollar-Kotelly, a Clinton appointee, wrote in her order. ‘No statutory delegation of authority to the Executive Branch permits the President to short-circuit Congress’s deliberative process by executive order.’

Nevertheless, requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship remains widely popular among Americans, according to a poll from Gallup taken just before the 2024 elections.

The poll found that 84% of U.S. adults were in favor of requiring voters to show identification and 83% supported requiring proof of citizenship when registering for the first time. 

When broken down by party, 67% of Democrats, 84% of Independents and 98% of Republicans were in favor of mandating voter ID. The party breakdown over proof of citizenship was similar, with 66% of Democrats, 84% of Independents and 96% of Republicans supporting the idea.

Fox News’ Rachel Wolf contributed to this report

President Donald Trump has attacked the Senate for blocking his preferred nominees from being confirmed to key positions, but lawmakers and people familiar with the process say the Senate is not necessarily to blame.

Trump has faulted the Senate’s ‘blue slip’ tradition, an unwritten rule requiring nominees for judge, U.S. attorney and U.S. marshal to obtain home state senators’ approval prior to being confirmed.

He said blue state senators will only greenlight ‘Democrats or maybe weak Republicans.’ The president called on Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to abolish the practice, and he threatened to sue over it.

But Grassley and other Republicans are unbudging in their position that blue slips are an indispensable part of the confirmation process. Blue slips have been used for more than a century. Past presidents have gotten many nominees confirmed under the system, suggesting other factors are contributing to Trump’s struggle to secure blue slips from Democrats.

Trump threatens to sue over ‘gentlemen’s agreement’

Trump and his allies escalated attacks on the blue slip process this week, accusing Grassley of blocking nominees by maintaining it.

‘This is because of an old and outdated ‘custom’ known as a BLUE SLIP, that Senator Chuck Grassley, of the Great State of Iowa, refuses to overturn,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social.

The president threatened to sue over what he said was a ‘gentlemen’s agreement,’ though it is unclear whom the government would sue and on what grounds.

‘It’s not based on law, and I think it’s unconstitutional, and I’ll probably be filing a suit on that pretty soon,’ Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

Asked about the possible lawsuit and why Trump’s nominees in blue states are struggling with confirmation, the White House told Fox News Digital in a statement the holdup must be addressed.

‘Senate Democrats have led a campaign of historic obstruction against President Trump and his nominees,’ White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said. ‘The left’s partisan, obstructionist agenda is only hurting the American people and it must end.’

‘Troubling’ pattern of circumventing Senate

Trump appointed his former personal defense lawyer Alina Habba as ‘interim’ U.S. attorney, which carries a 120-day term limit that federal judges have the ability to extend under federal vacancy laws if no one has been confirmed by the Senate to the position by then.

Judges have opted to extend Trump’s nominees, like in Jay Clayton’s case in the Southern District of New York. But in an unusual move, the federal judges of New Jersey rejected Habba.

The judges selected someone else, whom Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi promptly fired. Trump and Bondi then used a series of legal maneuvers to reinstall Habba to another temporary term, but a federal judge ruled the moves unconstitutional. The Trump administration is appealing that decision in a case that could now make its way to the Supreme Court and force the justices to weigh in on what has become a pattern of Trump end-running around the Senate.

John Sarcone in the Northern District of New York faced a situation similar to Habba’s, and he is now serving as ‘acting’ U.S. attorney. Bill Essayli in the Central District of California, who has taken on a vocal pro-Trump stance amid high-profile deportation cases in his district, has also transitioned from ‘interim’ to ‘acting’ U.S. attorney. Acting U.S. attorneys also carry a temporary term of 210 days. It is unclear how Trump will proceed once those terms expire.

Carl Tobias, University of Richmond law professor, said the workarounds defy the spirit of the Constitution, which says nominees must be confirmed ‘with the advice and consent’ of the Senate.

‘It’s good to have that scrutiny from the Judiciary Committee and then on the floor, and so hopefully they could return to something like that, but I’m not sure that’s going to happen, and so I think it is troubling,’ Tobias told Fox News Digital.

How to get a blue slip from the other party

The administration must engage with the Senate during the nomination process, including by consulting early on with home state senators about possible nominees.

Former President Joe Biden secured blue slips from opposing parties for 49 nominees, including 27 U.S. attorneys, while Trump’s first administration was able to secure confirmations for nearly all the U.S. attorneys the president nominated.

The blue slip, to senators, is a crucial negotiating tool, one that Article III Project founder Mike Davis said is not going away, despite Trump’s intensifying objections to it. Davis, a staunch Trump supporter, served as counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee and oversaw nominations under Grassley in the prior Trump administration.

‘It’s not going away. Why would it? Why would senators give up their power? They’re not going to do it,’ Davis told Fox News Digital, adding that blue slips to the Senate are ‘the sacred china that’s never going to get broken.’

The vetting process

Nominees must also provide the Senate Judiciary Committee with a questionnaire, an FBI background check and financial disclosures. A source familiar with the process told Fox News Digital the committee did not receive Habba’s paperwork to begin vetting her. 

Habba has said she could not begin the process because Democratic Sens. Cory Booker and Andy Kim of New Jersey, would not give blue slip approval. It is unclear if and when the Trump administration approached the pair of senators about Habba. 

Habba, like Trump, blamed Grassley.

‘The blue slip TRADITION prevents a nominee from getting to the point of making that case to the committee and Senate floor. You know who can get rid of it? YOU @ChuckGrassley,’ Habba wrote on X.

She told Grassley ‘this is a time for leadership, not deflection’ and that the chairman should not be ‘doing the dirty work of Thom Tillis, Corey Booker and Andy Kim.’

Booker’s and Kim’s offices did not respond to a request for comment.

Grassley defends bipartisanship

Grassley went on a tear on social media this week, defending his decision to maintain blue slips, which the committee chair has discretion over.

‘U.S. Atty/district judge nominee without a blue slip does not hv the votes to get confirmed on the Senate floor & they don’t hv the votes to get out of cmte,’ the 91-year-old senator wrote. ‘As chairman I set Pres Trump noms up for SUCCESS NOT FAILURE.’

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who is among several Republicans who will not vote for a nominee who has not been approved by home state senators, pointed to a statement on social media when asked for comment by Fox News Digital.

‘Chairman Grassley is a principled conservative who wants to keep radical liberals off the bench. Getting rid of the blue slip is a terrible, short-sighted ploy that paves the path for Democrats to ram through extremist liberal judges in red states over the long-term,’ Tillis wrote on X.

Are Democrats to blame?

Trump has thus far secured opposing party blue slips for four nominees. Davis said Trump is facing a unique level of obstruction from Democrats.

‘Every White House does what it can to engage the opposition party, but Democrats have made it clear they’re not interested in working with President Trump, so it’s understandable that his focus has been elsewhere for now,’ Davis said.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., for instance, has refused to give a blue slip to Clayton, the former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman. But Clayton’s ability to win the vote of the federal judges in the Southern District of New York has allowed him to serve as U.S. attorney without confirmation.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member, has further complicated the confirmation process by putting a hold on U.S. attorney nominees, which drastically slows, but does not fully block, the process.

Vice President JD Vance, then a senator, did the same for Biden’s nominees toward the end of the last administration.

Trump’s fight with the upper chamber is likely to evolve, especially as higher courts weigh in on Habba’s nomination, which is currently invalid, according to the district court judge’s decision this month. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has set a briefing schedule in the case that stretches through October, but eventually the Supreme Court could also chime in on whether Trump’s manner of sidestepping the Senate is constitutional. 

Dr. Sohan Dasgupta, appointed earlier this year as the political head of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), told Fox News Digital he is stepping down after a four-month sprint, declaring his mission to preserve and reposition the U.S. agency as a strategic foreign policy tool as ‘accomplished.’

Created by Congress in 2004, MCC delivers five-year infrastructure and energy compacts to developing nations that meet strict governance standards. Unlike traditional aid, its investments are structured to drive long-term economic growth and open markets for U.S. companies.

Since its creation under President George W. Bush, MCC has often been grouped with other U.S. aid programs. 

Career staff have long emphasized development goals like poverty reduction, education, and infrastructure, but unlike USAID, MCC was established as a corporate body with a fiduciary duty to ensure effectiveness.

A White House official, speaking on background to Fox News Digital, argued the agency too often presented itself as aid rather than investment before President Donald Trump took office.

Dasgupta pushed staff to adopt a different lens, pressing them to evaluate projects based on the return on investment for the United States, the degree of strategic alignment with partner countries, and whether MCC compacts could be used to strengthen U.S. leverage in negotiations.

A Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) report this spring argued that MCC is not a traditional aid agency but an ‘investment’ tool uniquely suited for an ‘America First’ agenda. 

The authors warned shuttering it would hand China ‘diplomatic and economic wins’ while leaving half-built projects abroad, and noted Trump-era partner selections, from Nepal to Côte d’Ivoire to the Pacific Islands, were strategically chosen to counter Chinese influence. 

‘The United States and the world are safer, stronger, and more prosperous with the MCC model than without it,’ the report concluded.

MCC’s current portfolio under Trump includes some of its largest-ever compacts: a $500 million deal in Nepal funding nearly 200 miles of transmission lines, a $480 million compact in Sierra Leone expanding electricity access and a $202 million program in Kosovo focused on grid-scale battery storage. Other investments include $536 million in Côte d’Ivoire, $537 million in Mozambique and a water compact in Mongolia.

Dasgupta told Fox News Digital that his role was to press MCC staff to think in terms of U.S. national security and economic benefits. ‘Reforming MCC into a vital national security and foreign policy asset’ was how he described his ‘mission accomplished’ moment.

A May 9 email from the White House Liaison to MCC staff, obtained by Fox News Digital, shows Dasgupta was appointed as a Schedule C Senior Advisor ‘assuming political leadership for the agency.’

MCC’s Fiscal Year 2026 Candidate Country Report, released this month, lists Kosovo, Nepal, Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire, Mozambique, Mongolia, Solomon Islands, Fiji and Tonga among its eligible partner nations.

‘Service has many forms. My goal was to carry out particular projects and missions, then make way for others,’ Dasgupta said.

On China, he added: ‘Critical minerals and rare earth elements are a vital part of American strength … MCC has really understood that.’

Kosovo’s ambassador to the U.S., Ilir Dugolli, praised Dasgupta’s responsiveness. ‘We worked closely soon after he arrived at MCC … I respect him enormously for the way he handled his portfolio and how professional he was,’ Dugolli told Fox News Digital.

On energy security, Dugolli said: ‘Kosovo fully aligns with U.S. foreign policy … Batteries are extremely important, especially after last year’s terrorist attack on the Iber-Lepenc canal. The compact is the single most critical investment for our country’s energy security and economic resilience.’

Dasgupta’s departure also comes as the Trump administration pursues cuts to traditional U.S. foreign aid programs and seeks to reframe America’s global engagement under its ‘America First’ policy. 

While agencies such as USAID have faced reductions and restructuring, Dasgupta argues the MCC has been preserved as a leaner, investment-driven tool aligned with the administration’s emphasis on strategic deals and competition with China.

Analysts estimate China controls about 70% of global rare earth mining and nearly 90% of processing capacity, according to the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. 

Between 2023 and 2025, China imposed export restrictions on strategic minerals, according to CSIS. Dasgupta argues MCC’s work in allied nations can help diversify supply chains and strengthen resilience, though MCC has not publicly described critical minerals as a formal focus of its work.

‘Quick wins’ like Kosovo’s battery project and Nepal’s power lines, Dasgupta said, show how American aid can advance prosperity abroad while reinforcing security at home.

With his departure, MCC continues compacts in dozens of countries worldwide. 

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