Israel’s military strikes in Syria this week — launched in response to atrocities against the Druze minority — represent a strategic turning point in a deeper power struggle that now entangles Iran, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the U.S., according to regional analysts.

Just days ago, speculation swirled about a potential normalization agreement between Israel and Syria — a breakthrough quietly brokered by U.S. officials, but that fragile prospect has been swiftly overtaken by violence, as Israeli airstrikes this week struck near Damascus.

A ceasefire agreement between Druze factions and the Syrian government, announced July 16, was meant to calm days of deadly clashes, but it remains tenuous and largely unenforced, with sporadic fighting continuing and tensions running high.

‘For the Druze in Israel, what’s happening in southern Syria feels like October 7 all over again,’ said Avner Golov, vice president of the Israeli think tank Mind Israel. ‘Israel can no longer treat Syria as just a neighboring crisis. It’s now a domestic one.’

In a rare scene, Israeli Druze citizens crossed the border into Syria to support their embattled relatives — prompting a stern warning from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

‘My Druze brothers, citizens of Israel… Do not cross the border,’ Netanyahu said. ‘You are putting your lives at risk — you could be killed, you could be kidnapped — and you are harming the IDF’s efforts. Let the IDF do its job.’

In his first televised address since the Israeli strikes, Syrian transitional President Ahmed al-Sharaa framed the Israeli intervention as a destabilizing act.

‘Government forces deployed to Suweida succeeded in restoring stability and expelling outlawed factions despite the Israeli interventions,’ he said, warning that the strikes led to ‘a significant complication of the situation’ and ‘a large-scale escalation.’ He insisted that protecting the country’s Druze minority was a top priority and declared that Syrians ‘are not afraid of war.’

Within Israel, the collapse of order in Syria has triggered sharp debate. Some policymakers argue for supporting Sharaa as an anti-Iranian strongman, while others advocate broader military action to create a buffer zone in southern Syria. Golov supports a middle course: conditional strikes paired with demands for Druze autonomy and accountability for war crimes.

‘If Sharaa shows he’s willing to punish those responsible for the massacre and agree to Druze autonomy, then Israel can gradually work with him,’ Golov told Fox News Digital.

He also called for a regional diplomatic effort to stabilize Syria. ‘We need a regional summit — the U.S., Saudi Arabia, even Turkey, and Israel’ he said. ‘Bring positive forces into Syria and use Israeli military power not just tactically, but to gain diplomatic leverage.’

‘There’s a temptation to miss the victory lap,’ said Behnam Taleblu, senior director of the Iran Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). ‘Rather than see Syria through the prism of competition with Turkey, Israel should first see it through the prism of diminished competition with Iran. That in itself is a huge achievement.’

Turkey: Alarmed, but invested

While Iran’s position has weakened, Turkey has quietly expanded its footprint in Syria by backing the al-Sharaa government. 

Turkey’s strategic interest in Syria, Sinan Ciddi, a senior fellow at FDD and director of the Turkey program, explained, is to fill the vacuum left by Iran with its own political and economic influence — using al-Sharaa regime as a conduit. ‘Turkey has a lot riding on al-Sharaa success,’ he said. ‘They’d like to see increased trade, the reconstruction of Syria through al-Sharaa. They want to use him as a means to influence the region politically.’

However, Israel’s military response has triggered alarm in Ankara.

‘Turkey is not in a position to militarily challenge Israel — it would be a disaster,’ said Ciddi. ‘They’re talking tough, but they’re deeply concerned.’

Ciddi emphasized that Turkey’s aging military hardware and lack of air defense leave it highly exposed. Yet, Turkey is deeply invested in al-Sharaa political survival, hoping to leverage him for influence and economic ties in post-war Syria.

A direct clash between Turkey and Israel, Ciddi warned, would ‘result in a diplomatic fiasco… and require the United States and European countries to step in as mediator.’

Iran: Watching, waiting, and ready to return

Even as Israel dismantled key parts of Iran’s military infrastructure in Syria, Tehran remains a long-term threat. Taleblu said Iran is now lying in wait — ready to exploit missteps by others.

‘This is a regime that capitalizes on the mistakes of others,’ he said. ‘They don’t need to win outright — they just need everyone else to lose.’

Tehran is betting that the region’s rival powers — Turkey, Israel, the U.S. and the Gulf — will overplay their hands, allowing Iran to reenter through proxies, sectarian militias, or diplomatic manipulation.

The United States: Pulled back in

Though President Trump recently said Syria’s internal affairs are ‘not our war,’ his administration’s tone has shifted. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called for de-escalation, and regional partners are urging a clearer U.S. role.

‘Real success will come from creating contingencies,’ Taleblu said. ‘What are the costs if Syria collapses? What if Turkey overreaches, or Israel overextends? What if Iran comes back? The states that prepare for these questions.’

Former Biden administration staffer Annie Tomasini is expected to appear before congressional investigators on Friday after being subpoenaed by House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky.

Tomasini, former Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for ex-President Joe Biden, was previously scheduled to appear for a voluntary transcribed interview on Friday.

A committee aide told Fox News Digital earlier this week that Tomasini’s counsel requested the subpoena, but did not say why. 

When she arrives for the 10 a.m. closed-door deposition on Friday, she will be the third ex-Biden administration aide to come under subpoena in Comer’s probe in recent weeks.

Comer is investigating allegations that Former President Joe Biden’s former top White House aides covered up signs of his mental and physical decline while in office, and whether any executive actions were commissioned via autopen without the president’s full knowledge. Biden allies have pushed back against those claims.

In an interview with The New York Times on Thursday, Biden affirmed he ‘made every decision’ on his own.

Just before Tomasini, House investigators heard from Anthony Bernal, a longtime aide to ex-first lady Jill Biden. 

Bernal pleaded the Fifth Amendment on all questions about Biden and was out of the committee room less than an hour after going in.

Lawmakers are largely not expected to attend the closed-door deposition, which is traditionally staff-led.

Comer has been to several so far, and progressive firebrand Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, has made surprise appearances as well.

CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios political correspondent Alex Thompson revealed in their book, ‘Original Sin,’ that Tomasini and Bernal ‘loaded a written Q&A into a prompter ahead of a local interview – a document that the campaign had used in prep with Biden.’

Tomasini and Bernal brought out the teleprompter as his aides were trying to soften his blunders as Biden struggled to stay on message, according to the book. But the teleprompter fiasco became an easy attack line throughout Biden’s re-election campaign, as President Donald Trump ‘weaved’ through his myriad unscripted moments.

The book described how Tomasini and Bernal grew closer to Biden during the pandemic, eventually becoming Joe and Jill Biden’s most trusted aides. 

Tapper and Thompson describe the ‘intensely loyal’ duo – Tomasini and Bernal – as taking on an ‘older-brother-and-little-sister vibe’ among Biden’s inner circle.  

Bernal and Tomasini later took on some of the residence staffers’ roles in the White House. Tapper and Thompson said the aides ‘had all-time access to the living quarters, with their White House badges reading ‘Res’ – uncommon for such aides.’

‘The significance of Bernal and Tomasini is the degree to which their rise in the Biden White House signaled the success of people whose allegiance was to the Biden family – not to the presidency, not to the American people, not to the country, but to the Biden theology,’ the authors wrote. 

A source familiar with the Biden team’s thinking called House Republicans’ probe ‘dangerous’ and ‘an attempt to smear and embarrass.’

‘And their hope is for just one tiny inconsistency between witnesses to appear so that Trump’s DOJ prosecute his political opponents and continue his campaign of revenge,’ the source said.

Congress is officially sending a package detailing $9 billion in spending cuts to President Donald Trump’s desk, minutes after midnight on Friday.

The bill, called a ‘rescissions package,’ was approved by the House of Representatives in a late-night 216 to 213 vote after intense debate between Republicans and Democrats. Just two Republicans, Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., and Mike Turner, R-Ohio, voted in opposition.

Friday was also the deadline for passing the legislation, otherwise the White House would be forced to re-obligate those funds as planned.

It’s a victory for House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., but a mostly symbolic one – the spending cuts bill was largely seen by Trump allies as a test run of a fiscal claw-back process not used in more than two decades.

‘This bill tonight is part of continuing that trend of getting spending under control. Does it answer all the problems? No. $9 billion, I would say is a good start,’ House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said during debate on the bill.

When signed by Trump, it will block $8 billion in funding to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and $1 billion to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for the remainder of the fiscal year. The dollars had been allocated by Congress for the duration of fiscal year 2025.

Republicans celebrated it as a victory for cutting off the flow of U.S. taxpayer dollars to what they called ‘woke’ initiatives abroad, while Democrats accused the right of gutting critical foreign aid.

Rescissions packages are a way for the president to have input in Congress’ yearly appropriations process. The White House sends a proposal to block some congressionally obligated funds, which lawmakers have 45 days to get through the House and Senate.

Republicans have also been able to sideline Democrats so far, with the rescissions process lowering the Senate’s threshold for passage from 60 votes to 51.

The last time a rescissions package was signed into law was 1999.

Consideration of the bill began with a House Rules Committee hearing at 6 p.m. on Thursday evening.

Democrats attempted multiple times throughout the process to weaponize the ongoing inter-GOP fallout over the Jeffrey Epstein case, both in the House Rules Committee and on the chamber floor during debate on the bill. 

Multiple calls were made for votes to force the release of the so-called Epstein ‘files.’

‘If every Republican votes to block our attempt to release the records, they are telling Epstein’s victims, you don’t matter as much as our political convenience. And that should disgust every single one of us,’ said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass.

Far-right GOP figures are demanding accountability, while Trump has called on his base to move on after the Department of Justice (DOJ) signaled the case was closed.

Initial plans to begin advancing the bill earlier in the day were quickly scuttled, with Republicans on the committee being concerned about being put into a difficult position with potential Epstein votes.

In the end, a compromise led to the House Rules Committee advancing a separate nonbinding measure dealing with Epstein transparency, on a parallel track to the rescissions bill.

‘All the credible evidence should come out. I’ve been very clear with members of the House Rules Committee. Republicans have been taking the incoming criticism because they voted to stop the Democrats’ politicization of this, and they’re trying to stick to their job and move their procedural rules to the floor so we can do our work and get the rescissions done for the American people,’ Johnson told reporters during negotiations earlier in the day.

Democrats nevertheless pressed on, mentioning Epstein multiple times on the House floor. McGovern even briefly led a chant of ‘release the files’ when closing debate on the bill.

Republicans, in turn, accused Democrats of hypocrisy.

‘Interesting how they talk about Jeffrey Epstein, because for four years, Mr. Speaker, President Joe Biden had those files, and not a single Democrat that you’re hearing tonight tried to get those files released,’ House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said at one point during the House floor debate.

The House initially voted to advance a $9.4 billion rescissions package, but it was trimmed somewhat in the Senate after some senators had concerns about cutting funding for HIV/AIDS prevention research in Africa.

Trump is expected to sign the bill on Friday.

What can you get for $9.4 billion?

3G Capital recently purchased footwear giant Skechers for $9.4 billion. 

$9.4 billion could cover your rent for a pretty nice apartment in New York City for more than 40,000 years. 

Yes, it will just be you and the cockroaches by then. 

Or, you could pay the cost of every major disaster in the past four decades – ranging from Chernobyl to Fukushima to Hurricane Sandy. 

But $9.4 billion isn’t a lot when cast against nearly $7 trillion in annual spending by the federal government. 

And it’s really not much money when you consider that the U.S. is about slip into the red to the tune of $37 trillion. 

Which brings us to the Congressional plan to cancel spending. That is, a measure from Republicans and the Trump Administration to rescind spending lawmakers already appropriated in March. The House and Senate are now clawing back money lawmakers shoved out the door for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and foreign aid programs under USAID. The original proposal cut $9.4 billion. But that figure dwindled to $9 billion – after the Senate restored money for ‘PEPFAR,’ a President George W. Bush era program to combat AIDS worldwide. 

In other words, you may have a couple thousand years lopped off from your rent-controlled apartment in New York City. Of course that hinges on what Democratic mayoral nominee Zorhan Mamdani decides to do, should he win election this fall. 

Anyway, back to Congressional spending. Or ‘un-spending.’ 

The House passed the original version of the bill in June, 216-214. Flip one vote and the bill would have failed on a 215-215 tie. Then it was on to the Senate. Republicans had to summon Vice President Vance to Capitol Hill to break a logjam on two procedural votes to send the spending cancellation bill to the floor and actually launch debate. Republicans have a 53-47 advantage in the Senate. But former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., along with Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska and Susan Collins, R-Maine, voted nay – producing a 50-50 tie.

Fox is told some Senate Republicans are tiring of McConnell opposing the GOP – and President Trump – on various issues. That includes the nay votes to start debate on the spending cancellation bill as well as his vote against the confirmation of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in January.

‘He used to be the Leader. He was always telling us we need to stick together,’ said one GOP senator who requested anonymity. ‘Now he’s off voting however he wants? How time flies.’

Note that McConnell led Senate Republicans as recently as early January.

But McConnell ultimately voted for the legislation when the Senate approved it 51-48 at 2:28 am ET Thursday morning. 

Murkowski and Collins were the only noes. The services of Vice President Vance weren’t needed due to McConnell’s aye vote and the absence of Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn. She fell ill and was admitted to George Washington Hospital for exhaustion. 

As for the senior senator from Alaska, one GOP senator characterized it as ‘Murkowski fatigue.’

‘She always asking. She’s always wanting more,’ groused a Senate Republican.

Murkowski secured an agreement on rural hospitals in exchange for her vote in favor of the Big, Beautiful Bill earlier this month. However, Murkowski did not secure more specificity on the DOGE cuts or help with rural, public radio stations in Alaska on the spending cut plan.

‘My vote is guided by the imperative of coming from Alaskans. I have a vote that I am free to cast, with or without the support of the President. My obligation is to my constituents and to the Constitution,’ said Murkowski. ‘I don’t disagree that NPR over the years has tilted more partisan. That can be addressed. But you don’t need to gut the entire Corporation for Public Broadcasting.’ 

In a statement, Collins blasted the Trump administration for a lack of specificity about the precision of the rescissions request. Collins, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee in charge of the federal purse strings, also criticized the administration a few months ago for a paucity of detail in the President’s budget. 

‘The rescissions package has a big problem – nobody really knows what program reductions are in it.  That isn’t because we haven’t had time to review the bill,’ said Collins in a statement. ‘Instead, the problem is that OMB (the Office of Management and Budget) has never provided the details that would normally be part of this process.’

Collins wasn’t the only Republican senator who worried about how the administration presented the spending cut package to Congress. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss.,  fretted about Congress ceding the power of the purse to the administration. But unlike Collins, Wicker supported the package.

‘If we do this again, please give us specific information about where the cuts will come. Let’s not make a habit of this,’ said Wicker. ‘If you come back to us again from the executive branch, give us the specific amounts in the specific programs that will be cut.’

DOGE recommended the cuts. In fact, most of the spending reductions targeted by DOGE don’t go into effect unless Congress acts. But even the $9.4 billion proved challenging to cut. 

‘We should be able to do that in our sleep. But there is looking like there’s enough opposition,’ said Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., on Fox Business.

So to court votes, GOP leaders salvaged $400 million for PEPFAR.

‘There was a lot of interest among our members in doing something on the PEPFAR issue,’ said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. ‘You’re still talking about a $9 billion rescissions package – even with that small modification.’

The aim to silence public broadcasting buoyed some Republicans.

‘North Dakota Public Radio – about 26% of their budget is federal funding. To me, that’s more of an indictment than it is a need,’ said Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D. 

But back to the $9 billion. It’s a fraction of one-tenth of one percent of all federal funding. And DOGE recommended more than a trillion dollars in cuts.

‘What does this say for the party if it can’t even pass this bill, this piddling amount of money?’ yours truly asked Sen. John Kennedy, R-La.

‘I think we’re going to lose a lot of credibility. And we should,’ replied Kennedy.

But the House needed to sync up with the Senate since it changed the bill – stripping the cut for AIDS funding. House conservatives weren’t pleased that the Senate was jamming them again – just two weeks after major renovations to the House version of the Big, Beautiful Bill. But they accepted their fate.

‘It’s disappointing that we’re $37 trillion in debt. This to me was low-hanging fruit,’ said Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo. ‘At the end of the day, I’ll take a base hit, right? It’s better than nothing.’

White House Budget Director Russ Vought is expected to send other spending cancellation requests to Congress in the coming months. The aim is to target deeper spending reductions recommended by DOGE. 

But it doesn’t auger well for future rescissions bills if it’s this much of a battle to trim $9 trillion.

What can you get for that much money? For Republicans, it’s not much. 

Republicans were swinging for the fences with spending cuts.

But in the political box score, this is recorded as just a base hit.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is applauding a letter sent Thursday by Republican lawmakers to National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, urging the agency to stop using taxpayer dollars for experiments on animals conducted in foreign laboratories. 

The letter, signed by Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, and Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., highlights concerns about the lack of oversight and inadequate standards in certain foreign facilities. 

The bipartisan Cease Animal Research Grants Overseas (CARGO) Act—led by the Republicans along with Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., and Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.—seeks to end NIH funding for animal experiments outside the U.S. and ensure taxpayer dollars are not misused for the unnecessary suffering of animals.

Between 2011 and 2021, the NIH issued more than $2.2 billion in grants for controversial research in 45 countries.

According to the letter, the ‘research’ included genetically altering cats to be born with deformed legs, infecting bats with diseases that were transmissible and fatal to humans, and force-feeding mice human feces.

Nehls and Scott noted there are little to no inspections at the facilities where research is conducted or where the animals are housed, and there is inadequate auditing of foreign NIH-funded animal studies, resulting in significant gaps in oversight and accountability of how taxpayer dollars are being used. 

‘It is deeply concerning that American taxpayer dollars have been used to fund harmful and abusive animal experiments overseas that lack the same oversight and accountability as labs here in the United States,’ Nehls and Scott wrote in the letter. ‘…It is a waste of resources that should be allocated to more ethical and effective research practices that do not involve animals.’

PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo said the organization is grateful to Nehls, Scott, Titus and Booker for serving as the lead sponsors of the CARGO Act.

‘This effort represents a significant step in halting cruel and wasteful animal experimentation abroad, and it aligns with the Trump Administration’s broader shift toward more relevant, non-animal research methods,’ Guillermo wrote in a statement to Fox News Digital. ‘We are excited to continue working alongside these dedicated lawmakers to pass the CARGO Act and ensure that taxpayer money is no longer used to support pointless and unethical research.’

The CARGO Act was introduced following a PETA investigation into Caucaseco Scientific Research Center, a discredited Colombian laboratory with a history of violating animal care standards. 

Caucaseco Scientific Research Center received more than $17 million in U.S. funding, and the Biden administration’s NIH encouraged additional funding, even after it was caught confining monkeys in filthy conditions, leaving them to die from infected wounds, and starving mice to the point of cannibalism, according to PETA.

The PETA investigation reportedly led to multiple investigations by local authorities, the rescues of 108 monkeys and 180 mice, and the retraction of a research publication.

‘The letter’s request for NIH to immediately cease funding animal experiments in foreign labs is a crucial step toward protecting animals and ensuring taxpayer dollars are used responsibly,’ Guillermo wrote. ‘PETA remains committed to advocating for legislative and policy changes that prioritize ethical, practical, and non-animal research.’

State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said the United States does not support recent Israeli airstrikes on Syria and called for ‘dialogue’ between the two Middle East powers.

‘The United States unequivocally condemns the violence. All parties must step back and engage in meaningful dialogue that leads to a lasting ceasefire,’ Bruce announced at a State Department press briefing Thursday afternoon. 

On Wednesday, Israeli airstrikes in the Syrian capital of Damascus struck the country’s Defense Ministry headquarters and an area near the presidential palace, killing three and injuring dozens of others, according to reports. 

The Israeli military said it was intervening to defend the minority Druze population in southern Syria, a community that shares a border with Israel, amid armed skirmishes between local Bedouin Sunni tribes and the recently installed Syrian government.

‘We are acting decisively to prevent the entrenchment of hostile elements beyond the border, protect Israeli citizens and prevent harm to Druze civilians,’ Eyal Zamir, chief of the Israeli Defense Forces’ general staff, said during a situational assessment at the Syrian border.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Wednesday afternoon that an agreement had been reached between Israel and Syria to end the ‘troubling and horrifying situation.’

‘This will require all parties to deliver on the commitments they have made, and this is what we fully expect them to do,’ he added.

‘Thankful to all sides for their break from chaos and confusion as we attempt to navigate all parties to a more durable and peaceful solution in Syria,’ U.S. Special Envoy to Syria Tom Barrack added.

When asked Thursday what prompted the Israeli strikes and whether the U.S. suspected any foreign fighters, like ISIS, of being involved in the conflict in Syria between the Bedouins and the Druze, Bruce said there will need to be continued investigation to figure out exactly why this Israeli airstrike occurred.

Rubio said Wednesday he believed Israel’s strike on the Syrian capital of Damascus was ‘likely’ due to ‘a misunderstanding.’

Bruce on Thursday responded to reporters’ questions about what U.S. officials meant when they said ‘confusion’ and ‘misunderstanding’ from Israel were what led to their involvement. 

‘This is an ancient rivalry between the Druze and the Bedouins and violence ensued, the Syrians moving to that area to quell and stop that violence. And the Israelis, who see that occurring to the Druze community and their concerns, then entered what they assessed was something larger than what, or even not what it was at all,’ Bruce said at Thursday’s briefing. 

‘The good news is, the story is, it stopped, as within the management of that larger conflict. Again, there’s still skirmishes and other issues. … The Syrian government is going to have to lead — obviously, there will be other involvement — but lead in to this de-escalation and to the stability.’

Fox News Digital’s Caitlin McFall contributed to this report.

Senators are not thrilled with a top White House official’s comments that the government funding process should become more partisan, and fear that doing so could erode Congress’ power of the purse.

Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought told reporters during a Christian Science Monitor Breakfast Thursday morning that he believed ‘the appropriations process has to be less bipartisan.’

His sentiment came on the heels of Senate Republicans advancing President Donald Trump’s $9 billion clawback package, which would cancel congressionally approved funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting, just a few hours before.

Unlike the hyper-partisan bills that have dominated the Senate’s recent agenda, including the rescissions package and the president’s ‘big, beautiful bill,’ the appropriations process is typically a bipartisan affair in the upper chamber.

That is because, normally, most bills brought to the floor have to pass the Senate’s 60-vote threshold, and with the GOP’s narrow majority, Senate Democrats will need to pass any spending bills or government funding extensions to ward off a partial government shutdown.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who alluded to issues down the line with the appropriations process if Republicans advanced Trump’s resicssions package, took a harsh stance against Vought. 

‘Donald Trump should fire Russell Vought immediately, before he destroys our democracy and runs the country into the ground,’ Schumer said. 

Members of the Senate Appropriations Committee also did not take kindly to Vought’s comments.

‘I think he disrespects it,’ Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said. ‘I think he thinks that we are irrelevant, and I wish I had actually heard the speech, because, you know, again, everything in context.’

‘But you have to admit that when you look at the quotes that are highlighted in the story this morning, it is pretty dismissive of the appropriations process, pretty dismissive,’ she continued.

Vought has no intention of slowing the rescissions train coming from the White House, and said that there would be more rescissions packages on the way.

He noted another would ‘come soon,’ as lawmakers in the House close in on a vote to send the first clawback package to the president’s desk.

‘There is no voter in the country that went to the polls and said, ‘I’m voting for a bipartisan appropriations process,’’ Vought said. ‘That may be the view of something that appropriators want to maintain.’

Both Murkowski and Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, voted against the rescissions package, and warned of the cuts to public broadcasting, lack of transparency from the OMB and the possible effect it could have on legislating in the upper chamber.

‘I disagree with both those statements,’ Collins said of Vought’s push for a more partisan appropriations process. ‘Just as with the budget that the President submitted, we had to repeatedly ask him and the agencies to provide us with the detailed account information, which amounts to 1000s of pages that our appropriators and their staff meticulously review.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the OMB for comment. 

Vought’s comments came at roughly the same time as appropriators were holding a mark-up hearing of the military construction and veterans’ affairs and Commerce, Justice and Science spending bills.

Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said during the hearing that Senate Republicans coalescing behind the rescissions package would only make hammering out spending bills more difficult, and argued that ‘trust’ was at the core of the process.

‘That’s part of why bipartisan bills are so important,’ she said. ‘But everyone has to understand getting to the finish line always depends on our ability to work together in a bipartisan way, and it also depends on trust.’

Other Republicans on the panel emphasized a similar point, that, without some kind of cooperation, advancing spending bills would become even more challenging.

Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., said that finding ‘critical mass’ to move spending bills was important, and warned that people have to ‘quit saying it’s gotta just be my way or the highway,’ following threats Schumer’s threats last week that the appropriations process could suffer should the rescissions package pass. 

‘People better start recognizing that we’re all gonna have to work together and hopefully get these [appropriations] bills to the floor and see what we can move,’ he said. ‘But if somebody just sits up and says, ‘Oh, because there’s a rescission bill, then I’m not going to work on Appropriations,’ you can always find an excuse not to do something. Let’s figure out how we can work forward.’

Sen. Ron Johnson is demanding the National Archives turn over all records related to former President Joe Biden’s ‘mental and physical health and cognitive decline,’ Fox News Digital has learned.

Fox News Digital exclusively obtained a letter Johnson, R-Wis., sent to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is serving as the acting archivist of the United States.

Johnson, who leads the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said he is now conducting an investigation into ‘the cover-up of former President Biden’s health and cognitive decline.’

‘My office has been reviewing the allegations that former President Biden, cabinet members, and his staff covered up his declining mental and physical health over the course of his presidency,’ Johnson wrote to Rubio, adding that the allegations ‘raise serious questions about who was making key presidential decisions if the former president was incapable of doing so.

‘One of these key decisions may have involved the presidential power to grant clemency or pardons — a matter that the White House Counsel’s Office, among other entities, are currently investigating,’ Johnson wrote.

Fox News Digital exclusively reported Tuesday that the White House Counsel’s Office, in conjunction with the Justice Department, is investigating Biden’s use of an autopen and already is reviewing more than 27,000 documents turned over by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

‘The reporting further suggests that these records represent only a portion of the information in NARA’s possession that may be related to the coverup of former President Biden’s alleged mental and physical decline,’ Johnson wrote to Rubio, referring to the Fox News Digital exclusive report.

Johnson is now demanding that NARA turn over all records provided to the White House Counsel’s Office referring to or relating to Biden’s mental or physical health or the alleged cover-up, including all communications.

Johnson also is demanding communications between or among any former White House officials, members of Biden’s Cabinet or their staff or other staff relating to Biden’s mental or physical health.

Specifically, Johnson is demanding records belonging to former White House chief of staff Ron Klain, former White House chief of staff Jeff Zients, former advisor Mike Donilon, former counselor to the president Steve Ricchetti, Biden personal attorney Bob Bauer, Biden senior advisor Anita Dunn, former White House Physician Kevin O’Connor and others.

Johnson gave Rubio until July 30 to turn over the records.

Trump sent a memo in June to the Department of Justice directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate the autopen use and to determine whether it was related to a decline in Biden’s mental state.

The White House Counsel’s Office is investigating Biden’s use of an autopen, a machine that physically holds a pen and features programming to imitate a person’s signature. Unlike a stamp or a digitized print of a signature, the autopen has the capability to hold various types of pens, from a ballpoint to a permanent marker, according to descriptions of autopen machines available for purchase. 

Biden used an autopen to sign a slew of documents while in office. He also used an autopen to sign final pardons, including preemptive pardons for members of his family, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Gen. Mark Milley and members and staff of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots. He only signed one pardon by hand, for his son Hunter, after vowing to the American people for months he would not pardon Hunter.

In his final weeks in office, Biden granted clemency and pardoned more than 1,500 individuals in what the White House described at the time as the largest single-day act of clemency by a U.S. president.

Biden, in a recent interview with The New York Times, defended his use of an autopen, saying he ‘made every decision’ on his own.

‘We’re talking about (granting clemency to) a whole lot of people,’ Biden said. 

However, the Times reported that Biden ‘did not individually approve each name for the categorical pardons that applied to large numbers of people,’ according to the former president and his aides.

Congressional committees, like the House Oversight Committee, are also investigating the autopen use and Biden’s health while in office. 

A senior administration official recognized the simultaneous efforts but stressed that the White House Counsel’s investigation is separate from any congressional probes. 

Officials told Fox News Digital the investigation is a ‘massive effort,’ and one that they hope to finish ‘as soon as possible.’ 

As for Trump, officials told Fox News Digital he does not use an autopen for anything that could be considered official business.

The only time Trump may use the autopen is for unofficial business, including correspondence, letters for birthdays or commissioned records for widely shared documents, his office said.  

An environmental advocacy group accused of trying to manipulate judges organized a years-long, nationwide online forum with jurists to promote favorable info and litigation updates regarding climate issues – until the email-styled group chat was abruptly made private, Fox News Digital found.

The Climate Judiciary Project (CJP) was founded in 2018 by a left-wing environmental nonprofit, the Environmental Law Institute (ELI), and pitches itself as a ‘first-of-its-kind effort’ that ‘provides judges with authoritative, objective, and trusted education on climate science, the impacts of climate change, and the ways climate science is arising in the law.’

But critics, such as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, say CJP is funded by China and left-wing activists for one purpose.

‘They fund CJP to train judges,’ Cruz said during a June hearing. ‘So, quote, unquote, train in climate science and make them agreeable to creative climate litigation tactics. Then, these left-wing bankrollers turn around and fund the climate litigators who will bring these bogus cases before those same judges that they’ve just indoctrinated.

‘This is like paying the players to play and paying the umpire to call the shots the way you want.’

The group, however, says it provides ‘neutral, objective information to the judiciary about the science of climate change as it is understood by the expert scientific community and relevant to current and future litigation.’

One of the efforts CJP launched included rolling out an email-styled listserv by which leaders from the Climate Judiciary Project could message directly with judges, documents obtained by Fox News Digital show. The listserv was launched in September 2022 and maintained until May 2024, according to the documents. A portal website page for the forum was previously publicly available, with an archived link saved in July 2024 showing there were 29 members in the group. 

‘Judicial Leaders in Climate Science,’ the archived website link reviewed by Fox Digital reads, accompanied by a short description that the group was a ‘Forum for Judicial Leaders in Climate Science to share resources.’

A link to the forum now leads to an error warning, stating, ‘Sorry, but that group does not exist.’ 

Fox News Digital obtained the archived chat history of the forum, which detailed numerous messages between at least five judges and CJP employees trading links on climate studies, congratulating one another on hosting recent environmental events, sharing updates on recent climate cases that were remanded to state courts, and encouraging each other to participate in other CJP meet-ups. 

One message posted by Delaware Judge Travis Laster, vice chancellor of the Delaware Court of Chancery, features a YouTube video of a 2022 climate presentation delivered by a Delaware official and a Columbia University professor that focused on the onslaught of climate lawsuits since the mid-2000s. It also included claims that such lawsuits could one day bankrupt the fuel industry. 

Laster shared the video in the group with a disclaimer to others: ‘Please do not forward or use without checking with me’ as the video is ‘unlisted’ on YouTube and not publicly available. 

A handful of other judges responded to Laster’s video and message, praising it as ‘great work.’

‘This is great work/great stuff, Travis; congrats on a job well-done, & thank you so much for sharing this!,’ Indiana Court of Appeals Judge Stephen Scheele responded, according to documents obtained by Fox News Digital. 

Another judge in a Nebraska county court added that he had not watched the video yet but said the state court administrator’s office was interested in a similar program focused on ‘litigation and climate change.’ The Nebraska judge said he ‘may need to lean on all of you for guidance and direction.’

The judges’ correspondence on the forum included their typical email signatures, showcasing their job titles as ‘judge’ as well as which court they preside over. 

The climate activists also posted messages directed to the judges on the listserv, Fox News Digital found, including a science and policy analyst at the Environmental Law Institute posting a lengthy message on Nov. 15, 2023. The message encouraged judges and climate activists alike to review the government’s publication of the Fifth National Climate Assessment that year, which the environmental crusader said contained ‘good news and bad news.’

‘The bad news is that the impacts of climate change are being felt throughout all regions of the United States, and these impacts are expected to worsen with every fraction of a degree of additional warming. The report finds that climate change will continue to affect our nation’s health, food security, water supply, and economy,’ the message read. 

‘The good news is that the report also notes that it isn’t too late for us to act,’ the message continued, before encouraging the 28 other members of the group to go over CJP’s climate curricula, such as ‘Climate Science 101’ and ‘Climate Litigation 101,’ and send over any feedback. 

‘As you know, our Climate Judiciary Project exists to be as beneficial to judges as possible, so any insights you might have for us would be very helpful!’ the message added when asking members to review the curricula. 

In another message, CJP’s manager, Jared Mummert, sent a message to the group in May 2024 praising the judges for their mentorship of a second group of ‘Judicial Leaders in Climate Science’ – which included 14 judges from 12 states and Puerto Rico – as part of a partnership between CJP and the National Judicial College. The National Judicial College provides judicial training for judges across the country from its Reno, Nevada, campus. 

‘We want to give a special ‘thank you’ to those who are serving as mentors to this second cohort!’ the message read. It added that CJP was ramping up its number of ‘engagement opportunities’ to ‘every six months for both cohorts of judges to come together to share updates and connect with one another.’

Fox News Digital reached out to five of the judges on the listserv for comment, four of whom did not respond. 

Scheele’s office told Fox News Digital on Thursday that he first joined the 2022 National Judicial Conference on Climate Science, more than two years before he was appointed to the Court of Appeals of Indiana, after another delegate was unable to attend. 

‘At the last minute, when another appointed delegate was unexpectedly unable to attend, Judge Scheele was asked by Indiana’s state court administration to fill in as Indiana’s representative, and he accepted the invitation. As is normal in conferences attended by our judges, this conference addressed emerging, hot button issues that might come before the courts,’ Scheele’s office said. 

It added: ‘Judge Scheele does not recall any substantive communication on the ‘listserv’ mentioned. He, like all of our Court of Appeals of Indiana judges, is dedicated to the unbiased, apolitical administration of justice in the State. He, like all of our judges, educates himself on emergent topics in the law and applies his legal training to evaluate the legal issues before him.’

CJP, for its part, said the now-defunct email list was created in September 2022 to help members of its Judicial Leaders in Climate Science program communicate and network with one another for the duration of the program.

The one-year program, established by CJP in coordination with the National Judicial College, ‘trains state court judges on judicial leadership skills integrated with consensus climate science and how it is arising in the law,’ the group told Fox News Digital.

Judges quietly working behind the scenes with climate and environmental activists have drawn criticism from conservative lawmakers in recent years as climate-focused suits increased, including those who have accused CJP of manipulating the justice system.

Cruz, for example, has been at the forefront of condemning CJP for joining forces with the National Judicial College. Cruz argued in a 2024 opinion piece that he is ‘concerned that this collaboration means court staff are helping far-left climate activists lobby and direct judges behind closed doors.’ 

Cruz again railed against CJP during a Senate subcommittee hearing in June, called ‘Enter the Dragon – China and the Left’s Lawfare Against American Energy Dominance,’ where the Texas Republican argued there is a ‘systematic campaign’ launched by the Chinese Communist Party and American left-wing activists to weaponize the court systems to ‘undermine American energy dominance.’ CJP, Cruz said, is a pivotal player in the ‘lawfare’ as it works to secure ‘judicial capture.’ 

Cruz said CJP’s claims of neutrality are bluster, and the group instead allegedly promotes ‘ex parte indoctrination, pressuring judges to set aside the rule of law, and rule instead according to a predetermined political narrative.’

Judges have previously landed in hot water over climate-related issues in group forums, including in 2019, when a federal judge hit ‘reply all’ to an email chain with 45 other judges and court staff regarding an invitation to a climate seminar for judges hosted by the Environmental Law Institute. The judge was subsequently chastised by colleagues for sharing ‘this nonsense’ and suggested it was an ethics violation, while others defended that flagging the event to others was not unethical. 

Fox News Digital spoke with Heritage Foundation senior legal fellow Zack Smith, who explained there has been an overarching increase in courts promoting trainings for judges on issues they would eventually be asked to preside over impartially, pointing to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts’ DEI trainings for judges during the Biden era. The office works as the administrative agency for the U.S. court system, handling issues from finances to tech support. 

‘There’s a problem right now with many courts putting forward, seeming to take sides on issues they will be asked to address through the trainings that they’re putting forward. And this was a particular problem with the DEI trainings that different federal district courts were putting on, that the Administrative Office of U.S. courts were sponsoring. It appeared that the judiciary itself was encouraging violations of the Constitution, violations of federal law, and most problematically was taking sides in issues they would eventually be asked to sit and preside over impartially,’ he said. 

Justice Department officials did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment on the CJP program in question, or other efforts to educate judges more directly on climate issues. 

Still, news of the program’s outreach comes as the U.S. has seen a sharp uptick in climate-related lawsuits in recent years, including cases targeting oil majors Shell, BP and ExxonMobil for allegedly engaging in ‘deceptive’ marketing practices and downplaying the risks of climate change, as well as lawsuits bought against state governments and U.S. agencies, including the Interior Department, for failing to adequately address risks from pollution or adequately protect against the harm caused by climate change, according to plaintiffs who filed the suits.

CJP’s educational events are done ‘in partnership with leading national judicial education institutions and state judicial authorities, in accordance with their accepted standards,’ a spokesperson for the group said in an emailed statement. ‘Its curriculum is fact-based and science-first, grounded in consensus reports and developed with a robust peer review process that meets the highest scholarly standards.’

‘CJP’s work is no different than the work of other continuing judicial education organizations that address important complex topics, including medicine, tech and neuroscience,’ this person added.

The number of climate-related lawsuits in the U.S. has increased significantly in recent years, including during the last two years of the Biden administration. To some extent, the educational efforts led by CJP appear to have been enacted in earnest to address real questions or concerns judges might have in presiding over these cases for the first time – many of which seek tens of millions of dollars in damages.

The Supreme Court agreed earlier this month to grant a request from ExxonMobil and Chevron to consider whether to transfer two Louisiana lawsuits from state to federal court. 

While the move itself is not immediately significant, it will be closely watched by oil and gas majors, as they look to navigate the complex landscape of environmental lawsuits, including lawsuits filed by state and local governments. Oil majors typically prefer to have their cases heard by federal courts, which are seen as more sympathetic to their interests. 

Since Trump’s re-election in 2024, the cases appeared to have died down, at least to an extent. U.S. appeals courts have declined to take up many challenges filed on behalf of plaintiffs in several states who have sued claiming government inaction and failure to act to protect against known harms from fossil fuel extraction and production in the U.S.

CJP’s program is run by ELI in partnership with the Federal Judicial Center, the latter of which bills itself as the ‘research and education center’ for judges across the country.

Their work includes partnerships with myriad outside groups beyond the CJP aimed at informing and educating judges on a range of issues, including neuroscience and bioscience, constitutional law, and bankruptcy, among other things. 

According to their website, the effort is important to help judges understand relevant case law and ethics, sentencing guidelines, and other types of issue-specific programs they might be encountering for the first time. 

Fox News Digital has previously reported on CJP’s cozy relationship with judges, including when the group’s president, Jordan Diamond, detailed in a Wall Street Journal letter to the editor in September that the group ‘doesn’t participate in litigation, support or coordinate with any parties in litigation, or advise judges on how they should rule in any case.’

A subsequent Fox News Digital review published in December found that several CJP expert lawyers and judges continued to have close ties to the curriculum and are deeply involved in climate litigation, including tapping insight from university professors who have also filed several climate-related amicus briefs. 

‘CJP doesn’t participate in litigation, support or coordinate with any parties in litigation, or advise judges on how they should rule in any case,’ an ELI spokesperson defended in a comment to Fox News Digital in December. ‘Our courses provide judges with access to evidence-based information about climate science and trends in the law.’

Fox News Digital’s Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this piece. 

The White House dismissed comments that the Trump administration’s efforts to yank already approved federal funds for foreign aid and public broadcasting pose a public safety threat. 

The rescissions package the Senate approved early Thursday pulls more than $1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) that provides federal funding for NPR and PBS.

‘These are not honest news organizations,’ Leavitt told reporters Thursday. ‘These are partisan, left-wing outlets that are funded by the taxpayers. And this administration does not believe it’s a good use of the taxpayers’ time and money.’

PBS and NPR could not be immediately reached for comment by Fox News Digital. 

Additionally, the rescissions package revokes nearly $8 billion in already approved funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which the Trump administration dismantled amid concerns the formerly independent organization did not advance U.S. interests. The organization is not part of the State Department. 

The Senate narrowly approved the rescission measure, 51-48, which would revoke funding the Congress previously approved. Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted alongside Democrats to oppose the package. 

‘Look, $9 billion worth of crap that was in our federal funding is now being rescinded,’ Leavitt said. ‘This is a good thing for the American people and the American taxpayer.’ 

Republican lawmakers like Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., have touted the measure as a step toward ‘fiscal sanity’ as the Trump administration seeks to weed out waste, fraud and abuse. 

‘I appreciate all the work the administration has done in identifying wasteful spending,’ Thune said in a speech ahead of the vote. ‘And now it’s time for the Senate to do its part to cut some of that waste out of the budget. It’s a small but important step toward fiscal sanity that we all should be able to agree is long overdue.’

But Democrats claim that the cuts to foreign aid benefit Russia and China, and that the rescission package jeopardizes national security. Likewise, Democrats are concerned that further rescissions could spread to areas beyond foreign aid and public broadcasting. 

‘If Republicans slash more American aid, it will create a dangerous vacuum that the Chinese Communist Party will continue to eagerly fill,’ Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Tuesday on the Senate floor.

‘They’re letting Donald Trump decide for himself which programs to defund, and that puts everything at risk – healthcare, education, food assistance, public health,’ Schumer said. ‘Everything – everything – becomes at risk. That is what happens if a package like this is allowed to become law.’ 

Fox News’ Alex Miller contributed to this report.