Kash Patel flips script on Dem senator after being grilled on J6 pardons: ‘Brutal reality check’
Kash Patel, President Trump’s nominee to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation, pushed back in his confirmation hearing after he was grilled on the president’s pardoning of January 6 rioters. “So do you think that America is safer because the 1600 people have been given an opportunity to come out of serving their sentences and live in our communities again?” Dem. Sen. Dick Durbin asked Patel in Thursday’s hearing, pressing him on January 6 rioters who assaulted police officers having their sentences commuted earlier this month. Patel responded with a reference to Biden’s decision in the final hours of his presidency to free Leonard Peltier, a far-left activist convicted in the 1975 murders of two FBI special agents, Ronald Williams and Jack Coler, who were gunned down in a shootout in South Dakota. “Senator, I have not looked at all 1600 individual cases,” Patel said. DOZENS OF FORMER FBI AGENTS RALLY AROUND KASH PATEL’S CONFIRMATION: ‘LIVES HAVE BEEN SHATTERED’ “I have always advocated for imprisoning those that cause harm to our law enforcement and civilian communities. I also believe America is not safer because President Biden’s commutation of a man who murdered two FBI agents. Agent Coler and Williams family deserve better than to have the man that point blank range fired a shotgun into their heads and murdered them, released from prison. So it goes both ways.” Durbin responded by downplaying the comparison between Peltier and January 6 rioters. MAJOR FBI CHANGES KASH PATEL COULD MAKE ON DAY 1 IF CONFIRMED AS DIRECTOR “Leonard Peltier was in prison for 45 years,” Durbin responded. “He’s 80 years old, and he was sentenced to home confinement. So he’s not free. As you might have just suggested. He killed two FBI agents. That he did, and he went to prison for it and should have. My question to you, though, is, do you think America’s safer because President Trump issued these pardons to 1600 of these criminal defendants, many of whom violently assaulted our police in capital?” Patel responded, “Senator, America will be safe when we don’t have 200,000 drug overdoses in two years, America will be safe when we don’t have 50 homicides a day.” Conservatives and supporters of Patel on social media praised Patel for his response. “Brutal reality check,” political commentator and Confirm 47 executive director Camryn Kinsey posted on X. In his opening remarks, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said, “Public trust in the FBI is low.” “Only 41% of the American public thinks the FBI is doing a good job. This is the lowest rating in a century,” he continued. Grassley touted Patel’s experience as a public defender and at the Justice Department, as well as his involvement in the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in 2017 to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia probe. Patel has “managed large intelligence and defense bureaucracies, identified and countered national security threats, prosecuted and defended criminals,” Grassley said. “He has done this while fighting for transparency and accountability in the government,” giving him “precisely the qualifications we need at this time” to head up the bureau. Patel’s nomination has sparked early criticism from some Democrats ahead of his confirmation hearing, who have cited his previous vows to prosecute journalists and career officials at the Justice Department and FBI that he sees as being part of the “deep state.” Fox News Digital’s Breanne Deppisch contributed to this report
‘Lies and smears’: Tulsi Gabbard rails against Dem narrative she’s Trump’s and Putin’s ‘puppet’
Director of National Intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard slammed the Democratic narrative that she is a puppet for U.S. and world leaders, saying she is loyal to only God, the Constitution and her own conscience in her opening remarks before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday. “Before I close, I want to warn the American people who are watching at home. You may hear lies and smears in this hearing that will challenge my loyalty to and my love for our country,” Gabbard said. “Those who oppose my nomination imply that I am loyal to something or someone other than God, my own conscience and the Constitution of the United States. Accusing me of being Trump’s puppet, Putin’s puppet, Assad’s puppet, a guru’s puppet, Modi’s puppet, not recognizing the absurdity of simultaneously being the puppet of five different puppet masters,” she continued. Gabbard appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday as part of her confirmation process to serve as director of national intelligence during President Donald Trump’s second term. TENSION BUILDS AROUND TULSI GABBARD’S CONFIRMATION WITH KEY GOP SENATORS UNDECIDED “The same tactic was used against President Trump and failed,” she continued of the accusations against her. “The American people elected President Trump with a decisive victory and mandate for change. The fact is, what truly unsettles my political opponents, is I refuse to be their puppet. I have no love for Assad or Gadhafi or any dictator. I just hate al Qaeda. I hate that we have leaders who cozy up to Islamist extremists, minimizing them to so-called rebels.” TRUMP APPOINTS TULSI GABBARD AS DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: ‘FEARLESS SPIRIT’ Gabbard was elected to the U.S. House representing Hawaii during the 2012 election cycle, serving as a Democrat until 2021. She did not seek re-election to that office after throwing her hat in the 2020 White House race. Gabbard left the Democratic Party in 2022, registering as an independent, before becoming a member of the GOP this year and offering her full endorsement of Trump amid his presidential campaign before Trump named her his DNI pick. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ SPARKS BACKLASH FOR CLAIMING TULSI GABBARD IS A RUSSIAN ASSET “If confirmed as director of national intelligence, I will continue to live by the oath that I have sworn at least eight times in my life, both in uniform, as and as a member of Congress. I will support and defend our God-given freedoms enshrined in the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same,” she said.
Graham grills FBI nominee Patel over ‘disgusting’ and ‘corrupt’ Crossfire Hurricane probe
President Donald Trump’s FBI director nominee Kash Patel was grilled Thursday over the FBI’s investigation into alleged Trump-Russia connections in the aftermath of the 2016 election, known colloquially by its nickname “Crossfire Hurricane,” and which has emerged as something of a partisan lightning rod in the years since the investigation was closed. Sen. Lindsey Graham, for his part, used most of his allotted time Thursday to grill Patel over his views on the investigation, which he has railed against as politically motivated and a “disgusting” use of FBI resources. Patel was tapped in 2017 by then-House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes to join the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia probe— an investigation that was widely praised by Republicans as helping discredit the FBI’s inquest. “Is it fair to say that the people in charge of investigating Crossfire Hurricane hated Trump’s guts?” Graham asked Patel on Thursday during his confirmation hearing. “Yes, sir,” Patel responded. TRUMP AG PICK PAM BONDI CLEARS JUDICIARY COMMITTEE, WILL GET CONFIRMATION VOTE IN SENATE Graham added, “Do you believe that Crossfire Hurricane was one of the most disgusting episodes in FBI history of a corrupt investigation led by corrupt people who wanted to take Donald Trump down?” After Patel responded affirmatively, Graham continued to excoriate what he sees as the politicization of the FBI, which he claimed is “ignoring evidence, making up evidence, and lying to get Donald Trump.” WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY DEFENDS TRUMP’S FIRING OF INSPECTORS GENERAL “FBI agents were telling anybody and everybody would listen that [the investigation] is not reliable, this is not trustworthy. But they plowed on,” Graham added. “That’s why you’re in this chair today to fix that,” said Graham. “Without Crossfire Hurricane, this guy wouldn’t be here.” Patel is a close ally of President Trump and served in the first Trump administration both as a deputy assistant and as the senior director for counterterrorism. His nomination has sparked early criticism from some Democrats ahead of his confirmation hearing, who have cited his previous vows to prosecute journalists and career officials at the Justice Department and FBI that he sees as being part of the “deep state.” He has since attempted to clarify some of those remarks.
Army sec nominee questions whether military pilots should do flight training near Washington airport
Army secretary nominee Daniel Driscoll questioned whether Army helicopters should be flying training missions in one of the nation’s most congested flight paths after Wednesday’s tragic Washington, D.C.-area collision. “It’s an accident that seems to be preventable,” Driscoll, an Army veteran, said during a Thursday confirmation hearing at the Senate Armed Services Committee. “There are appropriate times to take risk and inappropriate times to take risk,” he said. “I think we need to look at where is an appropriate time to take training risk, and it may not be at an airport like Reagan.” Sixty-four people were aboard the American Airlines flight inbound from Wichita, Kan., which collided with an Army Sikorsky H-60 Black Hawk helicopter just before it was set to touch down at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia. Authorities do not believe anyone survived. BLACK HAWK CHOPPER UNIT WAS ON ANNUAL PROFICIENCY TRAINING FLIGHT, HEGSETH SAYS Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth revealed the three soldiers who were aboard the chopper were a “fairly experienced crew” doing a “required annual night evaluation.” “We anticipate that the investigation will quickly be able to determine whether the aircraft was in the quarter at the right altitude at the time of the incident,” he said. In a blunt Truth Social post, President Donald Trump called the crash “a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented.” AMERICAN FIGURE SKATER SAYS HE WAS BARRED FROM FLIGHT THAT COLLIDED WITH ARMY HELICOPTER “The airplane was on a perfect and routine line of approach to the airport. The helicopter was going straight at the airplane for an extended period of time,” Trump wrote. “It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing, why didn’t the helicopter go up or down, or turn. Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane.” Ronald Reagan Washington National, an airport owned by the federal government, has been the subject of debate for years. It has one of the shortest runways in the industry, yet Congress approved additional flight slots in 2024 as part of its Federal Aviation Administration bill. The flight from Wichita, Kan., had just been added in 2024. The airport faces complicated aviation logistics near hyperprotected airspace near the Pentagon, White House and Capitol, but lawmakers have pushed to keep it open due to the convenience of its proximity to D.C. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP “We’re gonna have to work together to make sure that never happens again,” Driscoll said in his Thursday confirmation hearing, promising to take a hard look at what training was needed, particularly amid the Army’s increased use of its vertical lift aircraft. Less than 30 seconds before the crash, an air traffic controller asked a helicopter if it had the arriving plane in sight, according to air traffic control audio. The controller made another radio call to the helicopter moments later, saying “PAT 25 pass behind the CRJ” — apparently telling the chopper to wait for the Bombardier CRJ-701 twin-engine jet to pass. There was no reply, according to the audio. Seconds after that, the aircraft collided. Military helicopters regularly cross over the D.C.-area airport’s flight paths to ferry senior government officials over the Potomac River into D.C. No senior officials were on board the downed Black Hawk, according to the Army. Fox News’ Chad Pergram and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Top Senate Intelligence Dem grills Gabbard if Edward Snowden is ‘brave’: ‘Very troubling’
Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, grilled President Donald Trump’s DNI nominee Tulsi Gabbard over her previous remarks praising whistleblower Edward Snowden. “Until you are nominated by the president to be the DNI, you consistently praised the actions of Edward Snowden, someone, I believe, jeopardized the security of our nation and then, to flaunt that, fled to Russia,” Warner asked of Gabbard on Thursday morning. “You even called Edward Snowden and I quote here, ‘a brave whistleblower.’ Every member of this committee supports the rights of legal whistleblowers. But Edward Snowden isn’t a whistleblower, and in this case, I’m a lot closer to the chairman’s words where he said Snowden is, quote, ‘an egotistical serial liar and traitor’ who, quote, ‘deserves to rot in jail for the rest of his life.’ Ms. Gabbard is simple, yes or no question. Do you still think Edward Snowden is brave?” ‘WARRIOR WHOSE VOTE CANNOT BE BOUGHT’: HUNDREDS OF VETS POUR OUT IN SUPPORT OF TULSI GABBARD FOR DNI Gabbard pushed back that Snowden “broke the law” and does not agree with his leak of intelligence. TRUMP APPOINTS TULSI GABBARD AS DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: ‘FEARLESS SPIRIT’ “Mr. Vice Chairman, Edward Snowden broke the law. I do not agree with or support with all of the information and intelligence that he released, nor the way in which he did it. There would have been opportunities for him to come to you on this committee, or seek out the IG to release that information. The fact is, he also, even as he broke the law, released information that exposed egregious, illegal and unconstitutional programs that are happening within our government,” Gabbard responded. In 2013, Snowden was working as an IT contractor for the National Security Agency when he traveled to Hong Kong to meet with three journalists and transferred to them thousands of pages of classified documents about the U.S. government’s surveillance of its citizens. “I’m making myself very clear. Edward Snowden broke the law. He released information about the United States government,” Gabbard continued as she defended her position. “If I may just finish my thoughts, Senator,” Gabbard continued, as Warner spoke over her. “In this role that I’ve been nominated for, if confirmed as director of national intelligence, I will be responsible for protecting our nation’s secrets. And I have four immediate steps that I would take to prevent another Snowden-like leak.” Gabbard has previously lauded Snowden, including during an appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast in 2019. DEMOCRATS TRASH TULSI GABBARD AFTER TRUMP TAPS HER FOR DNI POST “If it wasn’t for Snowden, the American people would never have learned the NSA was collecting phone records and spying on Americans,” she said on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast at the time. Gabbard appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday morning as part of her confirmation process to serve as the second Trump administration’s director of national intelligence. Fox News Digital’s Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.
Senate set for confirmation vote on Doug Burgum, Trump’s pick to lead the Interior
The Senate is set for a Thursday confirmation vote for President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Interior Department, former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. The upper chamber voted to advance Burgum’s nomination to a confirmation vote on Wednesday by a 78–20 margin. Burgum appeared before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in mid-January, where he told lawmakers that national security issues and the economy were his top two priorities for leading the agency. BURGUM GRILLED ON ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES TARGETED BY TRUMP DURING CONFIRMATION HEARING: ‘DRILL, BABY, DRILL’ “When energy production is restricted in America, it doesn’t reduce demand,” Burgum said in his opening statement Jan. 16. “It just shifts production to countries like Russia and Iran, whose autocratic leaders not only don’t care at all about the environment, but they use their revenues from energy sales to fund wars against us and our allies.” Lawmakers, including Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, questioned Burgum on whether he would seek to drill for oil in national parks if Trump asked him to. “As part of my sworn duty, I’ll follow the law and follow the Constitution. And so you can count on that,” Burgum said. “And I have not heard of anything about President Trump wanting to do anything other than advancing energy production for the benefit of the American people.” ZELDIN GRILLED BY DEMOCRATS ON CLIMATE CHANGE, TRUMP’S STANCE ON CARBON EMISSIONS DURING EPA HEARING Burgum served as governor of North Dakota from 2016 to 2024. He also launched a presidential bid for the 2024 election in June 2023, where energy and natural resources served as key issues during his campaign. Burgum appeared during the first two Republican presidential debates, but didn’t qualify for the third and ended his campaign in December 2023. He then endorsed Trump for the GOP nomination a month later ahead of the Iowa caucuses. Aubrie Spady, Sarah Rumpf-Whitten, and Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.
Anti-Trump FBI agent responsible for opening Jack Smith elector case against president: whistleblower
EXCLUSIVE: WASHINGTON—A previously identified anti-Trump FBI agent allegedly broke protocol and played a critical role in opening and advancing the bureau’s original investigation related to the 2020 election, tying President Donald Trump to the probe without sufficient predication, whistleblower disclosures obtained by Sen. Chuck Grassley revealed. That investigation into Trump was formally opened at the FBI on April 13, 2022, and was known inside the bureau as “Arctic Frost,” Fox News Digital has learned. EX-FBI OFFICIAL WHO SHUT DOWN HUNTER BIDEN LINES OF INVESTIGATION VIOLATED HATCH ACT WITH ANTI-TRUMP POSTS Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Chairman Ron Johnson shared internal FBI emails and predicating documents — legally protected whistleblower disclosures — exclusively with Fox News Digital. The senators say the documents prove the genesis of the federal election interference case brought against Trump began at the hands of FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Timothy Thibault. Fox News Digital exclusively reported in 2024 that Thibault had been fired from the FBI after he violated the Hatch Act in his political posts on social media. Previous whistleblowers claimed that Thibault had shown a “pattern of active public partisanship,” which likely affected investigations involving Trump and Hunter Biden. Grassley first publicly revealed the existence of the whistleblower disclosures during the Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearing for Trump’s nominee to serve as FBI director, Kash Patel, on Thursday. One email, obtained and reviewed by Fox News Digital, revealed Thibault communicating with a subordinate agent on Feb. 14, 2022. Thibault said: “Here is draft opening language we discussed,” and attached material that would later become part of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s elector case. Another email, sent by Thibault on Feb. 24, 2022, to a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, John Crabb, states: “I had a discussion with the case team and we believe there to be predication to include former President of the United States Donald J. Trump as a predicated subject.” Sources told Fox News Digital, though, that Thibault took the action to open the investigation and involve Trump, despite being unauthorized to open criminal investigations in his role — only special agents have the authority to open criminal investigations. Another email, sent on the same day, notes that he would seek approval from Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray to open the case. Next, an email on Feb. 25, 2022, sent by a subordinate agent, Michelle Ball, to Thibault states that they added Trump and others as a criminal subject to the case. Thibault responded: “Perfect.” The fifth email, reviewed by Fox News Digital, reveals Thibault emailing a version of an investigative opening for approval. However, this email did not include Trump as a criminal subject. The sixth email, from April 11, 2022, shows Thibault approving the opening of Arctic Frost, and the next email, on April 13, 2022, was from an FBI agent to Thibault stating that the FBI deputy director approved its opening. Another email reviewed by Fox News Digital shows Thibault emailing DOJ official John Crabb notifying him that the elector case was approved. Crabb responded, “Thanks a lot. Let’s talk next week.” “Between March 22 and April 13, other versions of the document opening the investigation existed, because a ninth email shows that the FBI General Counsel’s office made edits on March 25,” Grassley said during Patel’s confirmation hearing Thursday. “Was Trump still removed as an investigative subject? If so, which Justice Department and FBI officials – other than Jack Smith – later added him for prosecution?” The email records appear to show that an official in the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, Richard Pilger, reviewed and approved the FBI’s Arctic Frost investigation, authorizing DOJ to move forward with a full field criminal and grand jury investigation that ultimately transformed into Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Trump-elector case. Grassley, in 2021, published a report which raised concerns regarding Pilger’s record at DOJ. Fox News Digital first reported in July 2022 that Grassley warned Attorney General Merrick Garland that Thibault and Pilger were “deeply involved in the decisions to open and pursue election-related investigations against President Trump.” GRASSLEY PRESSES DOJ, FBI FOR TRANSPARENCY ON ‘PARTISAN’ POLITICIZATION OF AGENCIES, HUNTER BIDEN PROBE At the time, whistleblowers told Grassley that the Thibault-Pilger investigation’s predicating document was based on information from “liberal nonprofit American Oversight.” In the investigation’s opening memo sent to the upper levels of the DOJ for approval, however, whistleblowers claimed Thibault and Pilger “removed or watered-down material connected to the aforementioned left-wing entities that existed in previous versions and recommended that a full investigation — not a preliminary investigation — be approved.” Based on Smith’s scope memo, Grassley and Johnson, in 2022, wrote that the Thibault-Pilger investigation was included in the special counsel’s jurisdiction. They also pointed out that Smith had a prior relationship with Pilger. Smith was in charge of the DOJ’s Public Integrity Unit while Pilger was in charge of the Election Crimes Branch. Grassley and Johnson, in 2022, began sounding the alarm that Special Counsel Jack Smith was “overseeing an investigation that was allegedly defective in its initial steps and an investigation which his former subordinate [Pilger] was involved in opening.” Former Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith, a former Justice Department official, as special counsel in November 2022. Smith, a former assistant U.S. attorney and chief to the DOJ’s public integrity section, led the investigation into Trump’s retention of classified documents after leaving the White House and whether the former president obstructed the federal government’s investigation into the matter. HOUSE WEAPONIZATION PANEL RELEASES 17,000-PAGE REPORT EXPOSING ‘TWO-TIERED SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT’ Smith also was tasked with overseeing the investigation into whether Trump or other officials and entities interfered with the peaceful transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election, including the certification of the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6, 2021. Smith charged Trump in both cases, but Trump pleaded not guilty. The classified records case was dismissed in July 2024 by U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida Judge Aileen
‘Taking it back’: Internal House GOP memo outlines case for Trump to buy Panama Canal
EXCLUSIVE: House Republican leadership is encouraging lawmakers to back up President Donald Trump‘s desire to return the Panama Canal to U.S. ownership, a new memo suggests. The House GOP Policy Committee, led by Chairman Kevin Hern, R-Okla., the No. 5 House Republican leader, sent the document to legislative directors across the conference on Wednesday. The two-page memo, simply titled “Panama Canal,” begins by highlighting Trump’s past comments about China’s influence over the Panama Canal and his goal of “taking it back.” It also noted that Secretary of State Marco Rubio will be visiting Panama on his first trip as Trump’s top diplomat. MARCO RUBIO HEADING TO PANAMA ON FIRST TRIP AS SECRETARY OF STATE The memo starts with details of the history of the U.S. and the Panama Canal. “The Panama Canal was built by the U.S. between 1904 and 1914. The canal was leased to the U.S. for nearly 75 years under the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty of 1903 which established the Panama Canal Zone and the subsequent construction of the Panama Canal.” It also points out that it was under the late former President Jimmy Carter that Panama was given control of the canal, via treaties later criticized by Trump. The treaties with Carter “gave the U.S. the permanent explicit right to intervene to keep the canal open in the event of any threat that may interfere with the canal’s continued neutral service to ships from all nations,” the memo said before laying out arguments for why Republicans believe Panama has since violated its end of the deal. “About 5% of global maritime traffic passes through the Panama Canal, saving 6,835 miles off a journey that would otherwise require a long and dangerous trip skirting the southern tip of South America,” the memo states. “The United States is Panama’s largest provider of foreign direct investment—$3.8 billion annually.” RUSSIA SOUNDS OFF ON TRUMP’S THREAT TO RETAKE THE PANAMA CANAL Meanwhile, “Chinese companies now operate ports at both ends of the canal. Chinese construction companies in 2018 funded a $1.4 billion bridge project spanning the canal,” it reads. “The treaties require that transit fees be ‘just, reasonable, equitable, and consistent with international law,”’ and that Panama maintain the canal’s permanent neutrality,” the memo said. “The high fees charged by Panama as well as Panama’s openness to investment by the Chinese Communist Party in the canal zone are likely both in breach of the terms of the treaties.” Congress has already granted the president wide authority over international commerce in the event of an emergency, but GOP lawmakers have signaled they want to ease those guardrails further. Main Street Caucus Chairman Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., introduced a bill earlier this month to let Trump re-purchase the Panama Canal for the U.S. A short while later, freshman Rep. Riley Moore, R-W.Va., unveiled legislation to widen Trump’s non-emergency tariff power. Additionally, Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., has a bill to authorize Trump to enter into negotiations to buy Greenland. The memo from Hern’s policy committee is notable, however, as an apparent subtle marching order to the House GOP conference to continue down that path. It could also likely embolden Republican lawmakers to find legislative avenues to further back up Trump’s push to purchase the canal, particularly given the Panamanian government’s opposition to the U.S. president’s plan.
AAP rebel Swati Maliwal detained after dumping garbage outside Kejriwal’s residence in Delhi
AAP Rajya Sabha MP Swati Maliwal was detained by police on Thursday after she strewed garbage outside former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s house in protest.
Revised tax slabs, lower GST rates? Here’s what to expect from budget 2025
As the central government gears up to tout the Union Budget 2025 on February 1, all eyes are on what Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has to bring to the table for the middle class, salaried employees, and entrepreneurs.