President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order requiring the government to assess foreign weapons sales based on their impact on U.S. production capacity for key systems and to favor allies whose defense investments and strategic importance align with U.S. national security priorities.

Under the order, obtained first by Fox News Digital, the Departments of War, State and Commerce are instructed to ensure that U.S. arms transfers support weapons systems deemed most operationally relevant to the National Security Strategy, reinforce critical supply chains, and prioritize partners that have invested in their own defense and occupy strategically important regions.

The administration argues that past arms transfer policy allowed foreign demand to shape U.S. production decisions, contributing to backlogs, cost overruns and delivery delays that left both the U.S. military and its allies waiting years for critical equipment.

‘The America First Arms Transfer Strategy will now leverage over $300 billion in annual defense sales to strategically reindustrialize the United States and rapidly deliver American-manufactured weapons to help our partners and allies establish deterrence and defend themselves,’ according to a White House fact sheet.

A central goal of the order is to speed up a foreign military sales process that defense officials and industry leaders have long criticized as slow and overly bureaucratic. The order directs federal agencies to identify ways to streamline enhanced end-use monitoring requirements, third-party transfer approvals and the congressional notification process — steps the administration says have contributed to years-long delays in delivering U.S. weapons overseas.

The order also creates a new Promoting American Military Sales Task Force charged with overseeing implementation of the strategy and tracking major defense sales across the government. In a move aimed at increasing accountability, the administration says agencies will be required to publish aggregate quarterly performance metrics showing how quickly defense sales cases are being executed.

 The strategy also signals a shift in how the United States prioritizes its partners. The order directs the government to favor countries that have invested in their own defense and occupy strategically important regions, effectively tying arms sales decisions more closely to U.S. military planning and geographic priorities.

Other partners could face longer timelines or lower priority if their requests do not align with U.S. strategic or industrial objectives. While the order does not name specific countries, it reflects an effort to focus limited U.S. production capacity on allies viewed as most critical to executing the National Security Strategy.

The order also instructs the War, State and Commerce departments to ‘find efficiencies in the Enhanced End Use Monitoring criteria, the Third-Party Transfer process, and the Congressional Notification process.’

Congress will likely be watching how the administration implements the order, especially provisions aimed at speeding both oversight of U.S. weapons once they are sold abroad and the process for notifying lawmakers about major arms deals. Lawmakers have argued those steps help prevent misuse of U.S. weapons, even as they have criticized delays that slow deliveries to allies.

The order follows a series of recent defense-related executive actions taken by Trump. In January 2026, he signed an order directing defense contractors to prioritize production capacity, innovation and on-time delivery over stock buybacks and other corporate distributions.

That built on an April 2025 order aimed at improving speed and accountability in the foreign military sales system, as well as a January 2025 order focused on modernizing defense acquisitions and reducing red tape across the defense industrial base.

Former president Bill Clinton said on X that he has shared what he knows about the crimes of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein in a sworn statement shared with the House Oversight Committee, which both Bill and Hillary Clinton have agreed to testify in front of under subpoena pressure.  

‘I have called for the full release of the Epstein files. I have provided a sworn statement of what I know,’ the former president said on X, formerly Twitter, Friday afternoon. ‘And just this week, I’ve agreed to appear in person before the committee. But it’s still not enough for Republicans on the House Oversight Committee.’

In the wake of news that the Clintons would comply with House Republicans’ subpoenas to testify, after concerns they would not and threats of contempt, Republicans accused the Clintons of ‘requesting special treatment.’

After the Clinton’s attorneys sent the House Oversight Committee a letter indicating they would comply and testify under certain conditions, Democrat Ranking Member of the committee, Robert Garcia, said the letter amounted to full compliance with the committee’s demands.

However, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer disputed the characterization, telling Fox News Digital the agreement lacked specificity.  

‘The Clintons’ counsel has said they agree to terms, but those terms lack clarity yet again, and they have provided no dates for their depositions,’ Comer said. ‘The only reason they have said they agree to terms is because the House has moved forward with contempt. I will clarify the terms they are agreeing to and then discuss next steps with my committee members.’

The Clintons’ change of heart led the House to temporarily pause proceedings on holding them in contempt on Monday night. 

Democrats on the committee have pointed out that Comer has not pushed to hold others who did not appear in contempt, nor has he made any threats against the DOJ for failing to produce all of its documents on Epstein by a deadline agreed to by Congress late last year. The department has produced a fraction of the documents expected so far.

‘Now, Chairman Comer says he wants cameras, but only behind closed doors. Who benefits from this arrangement? It’s not Epstein’s victims, who deserve justice,’ Clinton said in his X post on Friday afternoon. ‘Not the public, who deserve the truth. It serves only partisan interests. This is not fact-finding, it’s pure politics.’

‘Now, Chairman Comer says he wants cameras, but only behind closed doors,’ he continued. ‘Who benefits from this arrangement? It’s not Epstein’s victims, who deserve justice. Not the public, who deserve the truth. It serves only partisan interests. This is not fact-finding, it’s pure politics.’

 

Fox News Digital’s Greg Wehner and Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.

The United States and Russia are entering a new phase of nuclear relations with no treaty limiting their arsenals, as President Donald Trump calls for a sweeping new arms control agreement and Russian officials warn that Washington’s approach would make any deal impossible.

The last agreement that capped U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons, known as New START, expired Thursday, leaving the world’s two largest nuclear powers without legally binding limits on their arsenals or an inspection regime.

Trump called New START a ‘bad deal’ that was being ‘grossly violated,’ and said the United States should instead pursue a ‘new, improved and modernized treaty.’

Russian officials quickly pushed back. Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chair of Russia’s security council, said U.S. criticism of New START ‘means one thing: there’ll never be a treaty under these terms,’ arguing Washington is demanding limits that ignore other nuclear-armed states and new weapons systems.

The United States and Russia have entered a new phase of nuclear relations with no treaty now limiting their arsenals, after the last remaining arms control agreement between the two powers expired this week. As the two powers seek to negotiate a new framework, each is seeking to expand restrictions on each other’s allies, with the U.S. aiming to include China, and Russia countering by saying Britain and France should also be covered.

Speaking Wednesday at the Conference on Disarmament, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Thomas DiNanno said New START’s limits no longer reflect today’s nuclear landscape.

‘As of yesterday, New START and its central limits have expired,’ DiNanno said. ‘Even if we could have legally extended the treaty, it would not have been beneficial for the United States — or the world — to do so.’

‘A bilateral treaty with only one nuclear power is simply inappropriate in 2026 and going forward,’ DiNanno said, pointing to Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons and China’s unconstrained buildup.

In practice, New START’s verification regime had already been largely dormant since 2023, when Russia stopped allowing on-site inspections of its nuclear facilities and halted required data exchanges under the treaty, even as both sides said they continued to observe its numerical limits.

But China remains far behind the United States and Russia in overall nuclear warheads and is unlikely to accept binding limits while it is still expanding its arsenal, arms control experts say.

The United States and Russia each maintain roughly 4,000 total nuclear warheads, with about 1,700 deployed on strategic delivery systems, according to expert estimates. China, by contrast, is projected to reach about 1,000 warheads by 2030.

Arms control experts caution that while New START had clear shortcomings, its expiration still removes an important stabilizing mechanism. Lynn Rusten, a former senior U.S. arms control official now at the Center for European Policy Analysis, said the treaty provided a foundation that is now gone.

‘We did lose something,’ Rusten told Fox News Digital. ‘It would have been good to continue that as a foundation and a stabilizing platform on which to negotiate a better deal.’

The growing uncertainty comes as the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists last month moved its symbolic Doomsday Clock to 85 seconds to midnight — the closest it has ever been to global catastrophe — citing rising nuclear risks, the collapse of arms control frameworks, and intensifying great-power competition.

Rusten said the immediate concern is not a rapid buildup of new missiles or bombers, but how many warheads each side could deploy on systems they already have.

‘Both countries have the capacity to increase deployed warheads on their existing strategic delivery vehicles,’ she said. ‘It would take time, but they could add several hundred if they chose to.’

Russia has also developed a number of nontraditional delivery systems that were not limited by New START.

Those systems include a nuclear-powered cruise missile known as Burevestnik, sometimes referred to as Skyfall, and a nuclear-powered underwater torpedo called Poseidon — weapons Moscow has touted as capable of evading existing missile defenses and striking targets at intercontinental range.

‘Those are systems that really should be included in any future treaty,’ Rusten said. ‘They’re troubling because they’re just adding to the number and type of strategic-range nuclear systems that can kill huge numbers of people.’

Separate from those novel strategic systems, experts say one of the biggest unresolved issues in nuclear arms control involves so-called tactical, or non-strategic, nuclear weapons — shorter-range nuclear arms designed for battlefield use rather than long-range strikes against cities.

Russia is believed to possess far more of these weapons than the United States, and they have never been subject to legally binding arms control limits. While Washington drastically reduced its tactical nuclear stockpile after the Cold War, Moscow retained and later modernized many of its own, viewing them as a key tool to offset NATO’s conventional military strength.

‘Russia has thousands of tactical nuclear weapons, and they’ve never been covered by a treaty,’ Rusten said. ‘That’s been a long-standing concern for the United States and our NATO allies, and it’s one of the hardest issues to negotiate.’

Because they are smaller, more flexible, and potentially usable earlier in a conflict, experts say tactical nuclear weapons pose a unique escalation risk — lowering the threshold for nuclear use and complicating efforts to prevent a crisis from spiraling into a broader nuclear exchange.

House Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., announced Friday that he’s investigating companies linked to Ilhan Omar’s, D-Minn., husband, citing a dramatic increase in value in a short time and raising questions about whether their success could be tied to widespread fraud schemes uncovered in Minnesota. 

In a letter published Friday morning, Comer said the Oversight Committee would conduct a closer look at the ventures of Tim Mynett, who married Omar in March 2020.

‘We want to know: who’s funding this? And who’s buying access?’ Comer said.

In his letter, Comer described how two of Mynett’s companies, eStCru LL. and Rose Lake Capital LL., went from being worth $51,000 in 2023 to up to $30 million in 2024.

‘Given that these companies do not publicly list their investors or where their money comes from, this sudden jump in values raises concerns that unknown individuals may be investing to gain influence with your wife,’ Comer wrote in his letter to Mynett, citing congressional financial disclosures.

The Oversight Committee is asking Mynett to produce communications regarding the companies’ latest audits, communications with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), correspondence with any other federal agencies and travel records to or from the United Arab Emirates, Somalia or Kenya.

Comer did not explain how the committee is approaching the investigation but hinted that lawmakers were on guard for possible connections to the fraud schemes in Minnesota.

‘The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is investigating widespread fraud in Minnesota’s social service programs,’ Comer told Mynett in his letter.

Mynett and Omar have come under public scrutiny in recent months as financial reports revealed that the pair’s wealth has grown exponentially since Omar arrived in Congress in 2019.

Those concerns overlap with ongoing federal, state and congressional probes into as much as $9 billion in state funding that Minnesota may have lost to fraud. Through scores of schemes, fraudsters allegedly siphoned funding from government programs like daycare centers and health clinics while returning no benefits, greatly exaggerating their services and pocketing government funding.

Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., the House whip and No. 2 Republican in the chamber, said he expects the public will soon secure answers through the Oversight Committee’s demands for additional details.

‘As President Trump said last month: Time will tell all. I’m confident that Rep. Comer’s investigation into Ilhan Omar’s suspiciously exploding wealth will reveal the truth. The truth sets some people free, but it may send Ilhan packing.’

The committee has asked to see its requested information no later than Feb. 19.

Rep. Omar’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that indirect nuclear talks with the U.S. in Oman were ‘a good start’ and that there was a ‘consensus’ that the negotiations would continue.

‘After a long period without dialogue, our viewpoints were conveyed, and our concerns were expressed. Our interests, the rights of the Iranian people, and all matters that needed to be stated were presented in a very positive atmosphere, and the other side’s views were also heard,’ Araghchi said.

‘It was a good start, but its continuation depends on consultations in our respective capitals and deciding on how to proceed,’ he added.

Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi met with both Iranian and American officials on Friday, the Foreign Ministry of Oman said on X. The ministry said that al-Busaidi held separate meetings with Araghchi and U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

‘The consultations focused on preparing the appropriate conditions for resuming diplomatic and technical negotiations, while emphasizing their importance, in light of the parties’ determination to ensure their success in achieving sustainable security and stability,’ the Foreign Ministry of Oman said.

Oman reportedly put out a public statement acknowledging the talks after journalists with The Associated Press saw Iranian and American officials separately visit the palace, the outlet reported. The AP said it was not immediately clear if talks were done for the day, but noted that the palace was empty after the convoys left.

The Iranian representatives reportedly met with al-Busaidi first, and only after their convoy left the palace did another set of vehicles arrive, one of which had an American flag, according to the AP. The outlet said the SUV flying the American flag stayed at the palace for an hour and a half.

The talks were initially set to take place in Turkey, but were later moved, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who confirmed the change in venue on Wednesday.

‘We thought we had an established forum that had been agreed to in Turkey. It was put together by a number of partners who wanted to attend and be a part of it,’ Rubio said when taking questions from reporters on Wednesday.

‘I saw conflicting reports yesterday from the Iranian side saying that they had not agreed to that. So, that’s still being worked through. At the end of the day, the United States is prepared to engage in, has always been prepared to engage with Iran.’

Iranian officials also reportedly tried to limit the talks to a bilateral U.S.-Iran format, excluding other Arab and regional countries, according to Axios.

Tensions between Iran and the U.S. have been high since Washington bombed Tehran’s nuclear facilities in the summer of 2025. Things escalated further as the U.S. condemned Iran’s treatment of anti-regime protesters, with President Donald Trump threatening to act if government actors used violence against demonstrators.

Trump recently said in an interview with NBC News that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ‘should be very worried,’ though the president acknowledged that the two countries were ‘negotiating.’

When pressed about why he has not followed through on threats to take action if the regime used violence against protesters, Trump said that the U.S. ‘had their back’ and that the ‘country’s a mess right now because of us,’ referring to the strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Trump also told NBC News that the U.S. had learned that Iran was attempting to build a new nuclear site in a different part of the country.

The president said that he issued a threat that if Iran were to build a new nuclear facility, the U.S. would ‘do very bad things.’

It is not immediately clear whether there will be more discussions over the course of the weekend or if there are any plans for direct discussions between Iranian and American officials.

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

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., swiftly pulled the plug on a meeting with Lebanese Chief of Defense Gen. Rodolphe Haykal after the Lebanese official refused to confirm that the Iranian regime-backed Hezbollah movement is a terrorist organization.

Graham posted to X a blunt message about his frustration with the state of Lebanon in particular and Mideast power politics in general.

 ‘I just had a very brief meeting with the Lebanese Chief of Defense General Rodolphe Haykal. I asked him point blank if he believes Hezbollah is a terrorist organization. He said, ‘No, not in the context of Lebanon.’ With that, I ended the meeting. They are clearly a terrorist organization. Hezbollah has American blood on its hands. Just ask the U.S. Marines,’ 

He continued, ‘They have been designated as a foreign terrorist organization by both Republican and Democrat administrations since 1997 – for good reason. As long as this attitude exists from the Lebanese Armed Forces, I don’t think we have a reliable partner in them. I am tired of the double speak in the Middle East. Too much is at stake.’

Haykal’s refusal to recognize that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization set off security alarm bells among leading experts on the movement.

Matthew Levitt, a leading scholar on Hezbollah from the Washington Institute, told Fox News Digital that, ‘Gen. Haykal’s comment is only going to further concerns that the LAF sees Hezbollah as an actor with which it should deconflict, rather than disarm. The ceasefire agreement is clear that Hezbollah must be disarmed, in both the south and north of the country. In several instances to date, the LAF appears to have shared with Hezbollah targeting intelligence obtained from Israel through the US-led mechanism rather than acting on it.’

He added, ‘At a time when the LAF is seeking international aid, purportedly to disarm Hezbollah, failing to recognize the group as an adversary not only of Israel but of Lebanon as well undermines the case for further funding.’

Fox News Digital sent multiple press queries to Lebanon’s embassy in Washington, D.C.

Sarit Zehavi, a leading Israeli security expert on Hezbollah from the Israel Alma Research and Education Center, told Fox News Digital that, ‘I was not surprised by what Haykal said. This is exactly the problem. Hezbollah is not designated as a terrorist organization in Lebanon. The Lebanese army… is not willing to clash with Hezbollah. Hezbollah is not willing to voluntarily disarm. It will not happen as long as there is no clash.’

Zehavi claimed the Lebanese Armed Forces has ‘helped Hezbollah to conceal is military activity and weapons storages in south Lebanon.’

The U.S. brokered a ceasefire in Nov. 2024 between Hezbollah and Israel. In August, Lebanon’s government accepted an American plan to disarm the group by the end of 2025. That deadline does not seem to have been met.

U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, Thomas Barrack, who also serves as envoy to Syria, said at a recent Milken Institute event that Lebanon is a ‘failed state.’ 

Barrack said, ‘The confessional system does not work. A Maronite president, a Sunni prime minister and a Shia speaker; 128 parliamentary seats split equally between Islam and Christians; everything is a deadlock.’

He said, ‘Hezbollah is a foreign terrorist by U.S. standards,’ and ‘it also happens to be a large political party within Lebanon that has blocking rights… This idea of saying you have to disarm Hezbollah … you’re not actually gonna do it militarily.’

Barrack said, ‘The U.S. is saying Hezbollah needs to be disarmed, Hezbollah is a foreign terrorist organization, it cannot exist. My personal opinion is you kill one terrorist, you create 10. That can’t be the answer.’ He urged the Lebanese political leadership to ‘run to Israel and make a deal…there is no other answer.’

Walid Phares, an American academic expert on Hezbollah and Lebanon who has advised U.S. presidential candidates, told Fox News Digital that ‘The disarming of Hezbollah is not just a U.S. and international request but also and most importantly a request by a majority of Lebanese since at least the Cedars Revolution in 2005, when 1.5 million Lebanese Christians, Druze and Sunnis rallied against the Syrian occupation and the Khomeinist militia.’

He added, ‘While the Assad forces withdrew, Hezbollah remained armed. In May 2008, the radical Shia militia conducted an urban military coup against the pro-Western government and seized full power until the Israel-Iran war, known as the 12-day war of 2025. The latter was provoked by Hezbollah siding with Hamas during the Oct. 7 war.’

Fox News Digital reported in November that the Trump administration ramped up pressure on the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah.

President Donald Trump took down an inflammatory post from Truth Social that depicted the Obamas as monkeys after a wave of backlash from some of the president’s top allies on Capitol Hill. 

The post first appeared on Thursday night and went under the radar until Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., the lone Black member of the Senate GOP, demanded Trump take it down.

The post in question depicted former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as monkeys or apes.

‘Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,’ Scott said. ‘The President should remove it.’

His reaction opened a floodgate of responses from other congressional Republicans, who didn’t buy the White House’s initial explanation for the video. 

‘This is totally unacceptable,’ Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said on X. ‘The president should take it down and apologize.’ 

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote the post off as a ‘meme’ that was part of a video depicting Trump as the king of the jungle from ‘The Lion King.’ 

‘Even if this was a Lion King meme, a reasonable person sees the racist context to this,’ Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., said in a post on X. ‘The White House should do what anyone does when they make a mistake: remove this and apologize.’

Still, it took several hours for the post to be removed. 

A Trump advisor told Fox News Digital that ‘the president did not see the video before it was posted.’

Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., said on X, ‘This content was rightfully removed, should have never been posted to begin with, and is not who we are as a nation.’

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., similarly called on Trump to take the post down. 

‘Racist. Vile. Abhorrent. This is dangerous and degrades our country — where are Senate Republicans? The President must immediately delete the post and apologize to Barack and Michelle Obama, two great Americans who make Donald Trump look like a small, envious man,’ Schumer said on X. 

The post has since been removed, and a Trump advisor told Fox News Digital that ‘the president did not see the video before it was posted.’

Scott and Trump have shared a warm relationship since he ran and ultimately dropped out of the Republican presidential race last year. 

He now chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Senate GOP’s campaign arm tasked with keeping Republicans’ thin majority in the upper chamber and expanding it during the 2026 midterm cycle. 

Scott has rarely bucked Trump, positioning himself as a top ally to the president — he was on the short list of possible vice presidential picks before Trump ultimately tapped then Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio. 

However, he has recently broken with the president on the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

Scott, who also chairs the Senate Banking Committee, said during an interview with Fox Business earlier this week that he didn’t believe Powell had committed a crime during his testimony to the committee last year.

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

Senate Democrats are accusing President Donald Trump of trying to meddle in the upcoming election cycle, and Senate Republicans are calling them out. 

The topic of election integrity was again thrust back into the forefront by House Republicans last week, who demanded that voter ID legislation be included in a deal struck by Trump and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to fund the government. 

While that ultimately never came to fruition, the talking point and legislative push have remained. 

Trump has called on Republicans to nationalize elections throughout the week; the FBI conducted a raid on an election hub in Fulton County, Ga. and a cohort from the Senate GOP are pushing for the SAVE America Act to get a shot in the upper chamber. 

Senate Democrats see the moves as laying the groundwork for election interference during the 2026 midterm election cycle — a point that they railed against Trump and Republicans for years. 

‘I think as Trump gets more desperate, he’s looking at ways that he can rig the election anytime a Republican doesn’t win,’ Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., told Fox News Digital. ‘He thinks it’s unfair, and so he wants to tilt the rules to make sure the Democrats don’t win.’ 

‘So yeah, I think we ultimately have to be really vigilant about this,’ he continued. ‘The Constitution is crystal clear, the federal government can’t run state elections, but that doesn’t mean he won’t try.’

The accusation has made Senate Republicans balk, particularly after congressional Democrats raged against the GOP for questions of election integrity following the 2020 election and after Democrats pushed for their own, sweeping election reform packages under former President Joe Biden. 

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., told Fox News Digital that Democrats’ charge was ‘ridiculous.’ 

‘Sounds like a conspiracy theory,’ Schmitt said. 

‘I think President Trump cares very deeply about the integrity of our elections,’ he continued. ‘If you ask the American people, they support voter ID by overwhelming numbers. So look, they’ve got some outrage of the week every week.’

Trump’s comments to nationalize elections came first during an interview with former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino on his podcast, where the president said, ‘The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over, we should take over the voting in at least many — 15 places.’’ 

Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., shot back that a Democratic politician didn’t need to weigh in on the issue because Trump ‘said it with his own mouth.’

‘You can take the president at his own words and believe what he says,’ Slotkin told Fox News Digital. ‘And he’s had an obsession with this issue, certainly an obsession with Fulton County, since he lost the 2020 election, and he’s now weaponizing the federal government because of his obsession.’

But some Senate Republicans have pushed back on Trump’s desire to implement more federal control over elections. 

They argue that it’s a request that runs headfirst into the Constitution, which dictates that elections are run at the state and local levels with little impact from the federal government. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has also thrown cold water on the notion. 

‘Distributed, decentralized elections held at state-level, in my view, are a protection against hacking and other things, so it’s a lot harder to hack 50 systems than it is one,’ Thune said. ‘So, if that’s the issue, I’m a believer in keeping most of those administered — most issues, at least administered by the state. The issue of citizenship, when it comes to voting, would be an exception to that.’

And while there is a push to pass the SAVE America Act, which would include voter ID, proof of citizenship to register to vote, and other reforms, it’s unlikely to survive in the Senate. 

That’s because of the 60-vote filibuster threshold and Senate Democrats’ near-unanimous disdain of the legislation, which Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has called ‘Jim Crow 2.0.’

Still, Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Rick Scott, R-Fla., the three most vocal supporters of the bill, met with Trump to discuss a path forward on Thursday. 

‘It is Democrats bending over backwards to prevent voter ID and proof of citizenship for American elections,’ Lee told Fox News Digital in a statement. ‘It is Democrats demanding that nobody ask questions about election security and irregularities. The projection is jaw-dropping.’

Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., called out President Donald Trump for a post on Truth Social on Friday, demanding that the president take it down.

The post in question, which Trump put on his Truth Social Thursday night, depicted former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as monkeys or apes.

Scott, the only Black member of the Senate GOP, called on Trump to remove the post.

‘Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,’ Scott said. ‘The President should remove it.’

Scott found an unlikely ally in his request in Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who similarly called on Trump to take the post down. 

‘Racist. Vile. Abhorrent. This is dangerous and degrades our country — where are Senate Republicans? The President must immediately delete the post and apologize to Barack and Michelle Obama, two great Americans who make Donald Trump look like a small, envious man,’ Schumer said on X. 

Scott and Trump have shared a warm relationship since he ran and ultimately dropped out of the Republican presidential race last year. 

He now chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Senate GOP’s campaign arm tasked with keeping Republicans’ thin majority in the upper chamber and expanding it during the 2026 midterm cycle. 

Scott has rarely bucked Trump, positioning himself as a top ally to the president — he was on the short list of possible vice presidential picks before Trump ultimately tapped then Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio. 

However, he has recently broken with the president on the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

Scott, who also chairs the Senate Banking Committee, said during an interview with Fox Business earlier this week that he didn’t believe Powell had committed a crime during his testimony to the committee last year.

‘I found him to be inept at doing his job, but ineptness or being incompetent is not a criminal act,’ Scott said.

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

Senate Democrats are standing firm by their demands to rein in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), but Senate Republicans believe they have an ulterior motive: completely defund immigration operations across the country.

‘I’m really concerned that all the Democrats want to do is defund ICE,’ Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., told Fox News Digital, ‘They want open borders. They don’t want to get rid of criminals.’

Republicans argue the canary in the coal mine came last week when the Senate was advancing a Trump-backed funding deal.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., attempted to pass an amendment that would have stripped the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE of $75 billion, which was summarily defeated on the floor.

‘Every single Senate Democrat voted yes,’ Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said. ‘That’s how radical Democrats have become. The Senate rightly rejected this amendment. The Sanders Amendment exposes Democrats’ open borders goals.’

That money came from President Donald Trump’s marquee ‘big, beautiful bill,’ which shoveled billions to DHS for immigration operations, ensuring the agency is flush with cash for the next three to four fiscal years, regardless of congressional Democrats’ desires to defund it.

Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., told Fox News Digital that the money from the ‘big, beautiful bill,’ wasn’t going anywhere. Britt is leading talks for Senate Republicans over the issue.

‘That’s not up for negotiation,’ Britt said.

‘Once again, just like they did in the last shutdown, they would be putting the American people in jeopardy and at a worse place as a result of trying to win on a political posturing or political issue,’ she continued. ‘So look, I plan on going into this with good-faith intentions, and I certainly hope that they will as well.’

As the week has gone on, some Senate Republicans believed that all their counterparts wanted to do was gut ICE. 

When asked if he believed that Democrats’ end goal was to completely defund immigration enforcement operations, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., told Fox News Digital, ‘100%.’

‘There’s no way we’re going to put handcuffs on ICE to limit what they can do,’ Tuberville said.

Senate Democrats pushed back against the assertion that they wanted to gut the agency, arguing that because of the funding already established by the ‘big, beautiful bill,’ there was little they could actually do to defund immigration operations.

‘I want accountability,’ Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., told Fox News Digital. ‘I want to make sure that there’s oversight. But right now, what I’m seeing is lawlessness and some of the actions and behaviors that should be alarming to all of us, and you know, that’s the underlying factor that we want to address.’

‘It’s not about some game,’ he continued.

Congressional Democrats coalesced around a list of 10 demands, finally unveiling their proposal late Wednesday night. It included several policies Republicans have already spurned, like de-masking ICE agents and requiring judicial warrants.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., balked at the new proposal, and said that ‘there’s just a bunch of stuff in there that’s a nonstarter.’

‘They know that. Now maybe they had to put it in there to satisfy MoveOn.org, or some other special left-wing special interest groups,’ Thune said. ‘But there are a few things that actually there’s probably some room to move on there to negotiate on, but a lot of that stuff, obviously just wasn’t serious.’

Republicans are also mulling turning to another short-term funding patch, given that as of Thursday, their last day in session, they had just eight days left on the clock before the current continuing resolution (CR) for DHS ran out.

But Democrats aren’t keen on supporting another extension — Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., warned that Thune and Republicans ‘shouldn’t count on our votes.’

He also pushed back against grumbling Republicans, arguing that negotiations wouldn’t move along unless Republicans revealed what they wanted in return.

‘They have to get their act together,’ he said. ‘We spent three days diligently, seriously coming up with a comprehensive, commonsense plan that police departments throughout the country use. Where are they?’