Congressional Progressive Caucus releases extensive 2025 policy agenda — here’s what’s on it
The Congressional Progressive Caucus released an extensive 2025 policy agenda on Thursday, with its chair revealing that “we are not seeing the momentum that we would like to see” for President Biden’s re-election bid. The seven-point agenda, first obtained by NBC News, calls for a $17 minimum wage, free public higher education and comprehensive policing reform. It sticks to domestic issues and makes no mention of the war in Gaza, which has once again been thrust into the national spotlight in recent days with anti-Israel protesters blocking roads and staging demonstrations around the country. The Congressional Progressive Caucus did not immediately respond Thursday to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. ANTI-ISRAEL AGITATORS OCCUPY COLUMBIA CAMPUS AS UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT FACES GRILLING FROM CONGRESS “If the progressive base is not excited and enthusiastic – and if they don’t feel like we are trying to earn their votes and that they are important – then I think the horrific idea of a second Donald Trump presidency could become reality,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., who is the chair of the caucus, told NBC News. “We cannot afford to let that happen. And we won’t.” In an area of the agenda titled “lowering health care costs,” it calls for the creation of an Office of Drug Manufacturing within the Department of Health & Human Services that would be “tasked with manufacturing select generic drugs, including insulin, and offering them to consumers at a fair price that guarantees affordable patient access.” It pushes to “close the U.S. racial wealth and homeownership gaps by providing $100 billion in direct assistance to help first-time, working-class homebuyers purchase their first home.” SHOCK POLL: TRUMP EDGES PAST BIDEN IN KEY STATE, POTENTIAL SIGN OF CRACKS IN DEMOCRATS’ BLUE WALL The agenda also calls for an expansion of Social Security – which is already running into funding issues – and a minimum wage of $17 an hour by 2028. In a section titled “advance justice,” the Congressional Progressive Caucus says it wants to “codify the rights to abortion, contraception, and in vitro fertilization,” pass a comprehensive policing reform bill, legalize marijuana, establish a committee to “study and develop proposals for reparations for Black Americans,” and create a “fair and humane immigration system.” Other parts of the agenda call to give Washington, D.C., statehood, ban Congressional stock trading and ownership, raise wages for teachers and to provide “free tuition” for public higher education. “We have to excite our base. We have to show them what the path forward is – not just say, ‘This is the most important election of your life, and we expect you to vote.’ I don’t think that’s going to turn people out. And so I think this agenda, really, speaks to the needs of poor people, working people, progressives across the country who want us to make that case to them,” Jayapal told NBC News. “We are not seeing the momentum that we would like to see. We’re going to have a tough election. . . . We know we’re going to have to put together that progressive coalition. And I think this is the thing that allows us to say, ‘Look, here’s what we’re fighting for.’”
Half of US states revolt against EPA crackdown on gas cars with major legal challenge
FIRST ON FOX: A coalition of 25 state attorneys general filed a legal challenge Thursday against the Biden administration over recent environmental regulations targeting gas-powered car emissions and pushing electric vehicles (EVs). Led by Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman and West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, the coalition filed a challenge against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, asking the court to declare the new rules unlawful. According to the filing, the EPA regulations impose “unworkable emissions standards” on passenger cars and medium-duty vehicles. “Conservative attorneys general are slamming the brakes on President Biden’s radical green agenda that is using the weight of the federal government to force expensive EVs on families, workers and farmers,” Coleman said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “Even if Americans wanted to buy an electric car, we can’t afford them amid historic inflation,” he continued. “We’re taking President Biden’s EPA to court to block this latest big-government mandate and protect the free market.” FEWER AMERICANS WANT TO BUY AN EV — EVEN AS BIDEN PUSHES FOR STRONGEST-EVER CLIMATE CHANGE RULES In a joint announcement with the White House last month, the EPA issued the regulations, which are the most aggressive multipollutant emission standards ever finalized. Those standards were officially published Thursday, opening the door to legal challenges and congressional resolutions. While the regulations target gas-powered vehicles, they are explicitly designed to push a wider, nationwide adoption of EVs and, to a lesser extent, hybrid cars. President Biden said after the rules were finalized, they would help ensure the U.S. meets his goal of EVs accounting for 50% of all new car sales in 2030. MAINE REJECTS SWEEPING ELECTRIC VEHICLE MANDATE IN BLOW TO GOVERNOR’S CLIMATE AGENDA Under the standards, automakers will be forced to rapidly curb the emissions of greenhouse gases, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter from new passenger cars, light trucks, and larger pickups and vans beginning in two years with model year 2027 vehicles. The EPA said the rules will help “tackle the climate crisis” by reducing the transportation sector’s carbon dioxide emissions. When the tailpipe emissions rules kick in, automakers will be compelled to increase production and sales of EVs, plug-in hybrids, traditional hybrids and fuel cell vehicles. Under one so-called “low cost” model, the EPA said automakers would be forced to ensure 56% of light-duty car sales are battery electric and another 13% are hybrid by 2032. “Kentucky is an agriculture state, and EVs aren’t tough enough to keep up with our farmers,” said Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner Jonathan Shell. “We put a lot of miles on the Kentucky Department of Agriculture’s vehicles to serve rural communities, and we can’t stop on the side of the road to plug in. The Biden administration has it out for rural America, and I’m proud Kentucky is leading the fight to stop them.” 17 RETIRED MILITARY OFFICIALS RAISE ALARM ON BIDEN’S ELECTRIC VEHICLE PUSH Joining Kentucky and West Virginia in the legal challenge filed Thursday are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming. The EPA’s regulations have been heavily criticized by state officials, Republican and Democratic lawmakers, agriculture industry groups like the National Corn Growers Association and energy associations, such as the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute. In 2023, 9.5% of new, light-duty vehicle sales were EVs, up from 7% in 2022 and 4.3% in 2021, according to data from the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, an industry group that represents major automakers. At the same time, EVs remain more expensive than traditional, gas-powered cars. Additionaly, the share of Americans who said they are considering an EV purchase has declined from 55% to 44% year-over-year, according to a Gallup poll conducted in March. Calls placed to the EPA seeking comment were not immediately returned.
‘Constitutional authority’ of Senate Dems quashing Mayorkas impeachment trial questioned by experts
Constitutional law experts are examining the implications of the precedent set by Senate Democrats on Wednesday, when they killed the impeachment trial of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, effectively dismissing it. After the Senate deemed both articles of impeachment unconstitutional, the upper chamber adjourned, quashing all hope for a trial on Mayorkas’ alleged crimes. This was historically significant, as an impeachment trial had never been dismissed, tabled or otherwise discarded without the accused official having first exited their role in one way or another. “The Senate has no constitutional authority to rule that the articles approved by the House do not state impeachable offenses,” explained Andrew McCarthy, a former chief assistant United States attorney in the Southern District of New York and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute. SENATE STRIKES DOWN BOTH IMPEACHMENT ARTICLES AGAINST BIDEN BORDER CHIEF The sole power to determine impeachable offenses lies with the House, McCarthy noted. This means neither the Senate nor a court of law would be within their rights to undermine the House’s ability to make such determinations. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., proposed two points of order during the court of impeachment deeming both articles of impeachment unconstitutional, which were passed by the Democratic majority. “This essentially nullifies the House’s important role in the impeachment process,” McCarthy said. Alternatively, the Senate would have been well within its rights to “hold a trial and ultimately acquit Mayorkas of the charges,” he added. REPUBLICANS PREDICT DEMS TO PAY ‘HEAVY PRICE’ IN ELECTION AFTER MAYORKAS IMPEACHMENT BID FAILS The brief impeachment trial proceedings revealed “yet another of our constitutional norms is being undermined,” said Randy Barnett, a renowned legal scholar and professor of constitutional law at the Georgetown University Law Center. However, Alan Dershowitz, a prominent constitutional scholar and emeritus professor of law at Harvard Law School, claimed, “There are no constitutional impeachment criteria charged.” He explained further that “dismissal is proper.” SENATE DEMS REVEAL MASSIVE $79M AD SPEND TO PROTECT MAJORITY AHEAD OF KEY MATCHUPS McCarthy warned that “Democrats will come to regret it.” He explained that in the case that Democrats take over the House’s majority and Republicans the Senate, “Democrats will be undermined by the precedent they have set — especially if Donald Trump is elected president again.” Democrats would likely seek to once again impeach former President Trump if he is elected in November, McCarthy said, and “they have now handed Republicans a precedent authorizing the Senate to ignore the House.” Barnett claimed that impeachment is “ultimately a political power” and thus, political use of it is expected. However, he suggested that “the political nature of impeachment” is exactly what “necessitates the House having the opportunity to present its case both to the Senate and to the electorate in a public trial.” This was prevented from taking place in the Senate. WHITE HOUSE DEEMS HOUSE IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY ‘OVER,’ PRESIDENT BIDEN FORMALLY DECLINES TO TESTIFY “The only reason Republicans impeached Mayorkas was to get a high-profile hearing that would rivet the public’s attention to Biden’s border crisis,” added McCarthy, who noted that the House understood they would never see a conviction or removal. “The Senate Democrats’ move does deny that public hearing,” he said. For this, Democrats will “take a political hit,” he continued. However, McCarthy described that Senate Democrats made a political calculation, ultimately determining that “it would be better to be criticized for not conducting a trial than to hold a trial,” placing President Biden’s border policies at the forefront and Democratic senators on record acquitting Mayorkas. This, he said, would look like the Democrats “endorsing Biden’s non-enforcement policies.”
Dearborn activists’ push to bail on Biden spreads to other key battleground states
DEARBORN, Mich. — The movement to deny President Biden a second term that gained traction in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn has plans to continue a national campaign to target swing states in the general election. “We’ve mobilized our infrastructure that we’ve been able to build as a grassroots movement in Michigan to support other key states,” Lexis Zeidan, one of the lead organizers and the spokesperson for Listen to Michigan, told Fox News Digital. Some of those states, according to Zeidan, are key battlegrounds such as Wisconsin and Minnesota, which, along with Michigan figure to play a critical role in this year’s election. DEARBORN ‘UNCOMMITTEDS’ PLAN TO MAKE ‘EXAMPLE’ OF BIDEN, TURN PARTY AGAINST JEWISH STATE The anti-Biden movement stems from the president’s support of Israel during its war in Gaza, a monthslong campaign in response to the Oct. 7 attack on the Jewish State by Iran-backed Hamas. But critics in Dearborn, which has the highest per capita Muslim population in the U.S., have accused Biden of supporting what they call a “genocide” in Gaza, leading to a campaign to punish the president at the polls in 2024. That campaign gained traction and national attention in Michigan, where during the state’s Democratic primary, groups such as Listen to Michigan led over 100,000 voters to mark “uncommitted” on their ballots as a protest against Biden’s re-election bid. “We went into the primaries expecting or aiming to get 10,000 uncommitted votes, which was Trump’s margin of victory in 2016,” Zeidan said. “And we ended up with over 101,000 uncommitted votes, where we also landed two delegates in District 12, in District 6, who will be headed to the national convention.” ‘DEATH TO AMERICA,’ ‘DEATH TO ISRAEL’ CHANTS POUR OUT OF MUSLIM PROTESTERS IN MICHIGAN ON LAST DAY OF RAMADAN That success carried over into Wisconsin, Zeidan argued, where more than 48,000 voters marked “Uninstructed” in the Democratic primary instead of supporting the incumbent presumptive nominee. Samraa Luqman, who worked as the Abandon Biden co-chair in Michigan, told Fox News Digital that their organization has always had designs on a national campaign targeting “all swing states.” While the Abandon Biden movement garnered the most attention in Dearborn ahead of Michigan’s primary, Luqman explained that the organization was actually formed in Minnesota. From there, organizers set their sights on targeting a “swing state strategy for the general election to ensure Biden’s loss.” Ronald Stockton, a professor emeritus at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, told Fox News Digital that the movement gaining traction out of Michigan has the potential to be a major problem for Biden’s re-election bid, arguing that the president has a “real chance” to lose states such as Michigan. BIDEN CAMPAIGN: WE DON’T WANT THE VOTES OF ‘DEATH TO AMERICA’ PROTESTERS IN MICHIGAN Stockton noted that while much attention has been given to the concerns of Muslim voters in Dearborn, the movement has the potential to spread “nationally,” thanks to the support campaigns such as Abandon Biden and Listen to Michigan enjoy among younger voters across the demographic spectrum. “Those people below 30 are abandoning Biden, they’re so heavily against this war,” Stockton said. “It’s a generational thing, and I am talking nationally now, that’s a national pattern.” That trend could even extend to states outside of what are traditionally thought of as swing states, Zeidman said, pointing out that the Listen to Michigan campaign has also spread to blue havens such as Washington. Meanwhile, a Listen to Maryland spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the campaign there is now mobilizing voters to select “uncommitted” in that state’s Democratic primary. Both Luqman and Zeidan argued that their respective movements should also be seen as a message to Democrats across the country, warning them to change their stance on support of Israel’s war or face the consequences at the ballot box. “The grassroots movement we’ve built in the way that people have felt inspired and re-engaged in being politically active, we felt it was incumbent upon us as an organization to keep that growing,” Zeidan said. “And so now you’ve seen is we have exceeded goals across the state … and our next stage of the game is to get all our delegates together to continue to take our anti-war, pro peace, pro-Palestinian narrative to the convention in August.” “The President is working tirelessly to end the violence and bring about a just, lasting peace in the Middle East,” a Biden campaign spokesperson responded to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on the Abandon Biden and Vote Uncommitted campaigns. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
‘Conspiracy to kill Delhi CM by…’: AAP leader Atishi slams ED for lying about Arvind Kejriwal’s diet
Addressing a press conference, Atishi accused the ED of lying about the chief minister’s diet.
Watch: Dubai’s sky turns green amid heavy rainfall and storm, video goes viral
After heavy rainfall lashed the UAE on Tuesday, leading to severe floods in parts of the country, a video of Dubai’s sky turning green suddenly has gone viral on social media platforms.
Former Wisconsin Democratic Rep. Peter Barca launches congressional comeback bid
A Democrat who represented southeast Wisconsin in Congress in the 1990s before going on to become a leader in the Assembly and state revenue secretary announced Thursday that he’s running for Congress again. Peter Barca announced his bid against Republican U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, who is seeking a fourth term. Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District, previously represented by former House Speaker Paul Ryan, leans Republican but was made more competitive under new boundary lines adopted in 2022. The seat is a target for Democrats nationally as they attempt to regain majority control of the House. It is one of only two congressional districts in Wisconsin that are viewed as competitive. The other is western Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District held by Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden. WISCONSIN SUPREME COURT JUSTICES QUESTION HOW MUCH POWER LEGISLATURE SHOULD HAVE Republicans hold six of Wisconsin’s eight congressional seats. Barca, 68, previously held the 1st Congressional District seat from 1993 to 1995. He had previously considered running again for the seat after Ryan stepped down in 2018. Barca is the first well-known Democrat to get into the race. National Democrats are expected to back Barca’s campaign. The primary is Aug. 13. Barca, in a statement announcing his campaign, said his long record of public service showed that he was a fighter for working families and contrasted himself with a “do-nothing, dysfunctional Congress.” “We need someone to step up and start going to bat for our families again,” he said. The Steil campaign said in a statement that Barca has “put his political career ahead of Wisconsin families” over the past 40 years. The campaign also faulted Barca for opposing a 2016 bill that would have banned sanctuary cities and for voting in 1993 for a budget bill in Congress that raised the gas tax. National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Mike Marinella branded Barca as a “sacrificial lamb” who has “put his out of touch policies ahead of Wisconsinites.” Steil was elected in 2018 by 12 percentage points, and won reelection by 19 points in 2020 and 9 points in 2022. Barca was elected to serve in the state Assembly from 1985 until 1993 when he resigned after winning a special election to Congress. After he lost in 1995, former President Bill Clinton appointed him to serve as Midwest regional administrator to the U.S. Small Business Administration. He was elected again to the Assembly in 2008 and served as Democratic minority leader from 2011 to 2017. Barca was leader of Democrats in 2011 during the fight over collective bargaining rights. While his Democratic colleagues in the Senate fled to Illinois in an attempt to block passage of a bill that effectively ended collective bargaining for public workers, Barca helped organize a filibuster in the Assembly that lasted more than 60 hours. Barca stepped down as minority leader, in part over grumbling from fellow Democrats over his support for a $3 billion incentive package for Foxconn, the Taiwanese manufacturing company that had planned to locate a massive facility in his district. Barca left the Assembly in 2019 when Gov. Tony Evers tapped him to be secretary of the state Department of Revenue. He resigned last month.
Rand Paul says email exchange between top Fauci aide and EcoHealth ‘looks like a cover-up’
Newly released emails between a top colleague of Dr. Anthony Fauci and the president of a non-governmental organization being funded to conduct coronavirus research in Wuhan, China, said the group had over 700 identified but un-sequenced coronaviruses in its lab when its government grant was first pulled in 2020. On Tuesday, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., highlighted a series of email exchanges between Fauci’s top adviser, Dr. David Morens, and EcoHealth Alliance President Dr. Peter Daszak that showed Daszak feared permanently losing government funding. An April 2020 email from Morens alleged that Fauci was “fully aware” and “involved in some sort of damage control,” possibly to help keep EcoHealth from losing its federal grant. Paul said in an interview with Fox News Digital that the emails show “they all realize that if Fauci’s been funding Daszak for years through EcoHealth, and if it looks like they’re implicated in the pandemic, this wouldn’t be good for Fauci or EcoHealth.” HIGH-RANKING FAUCI ADVISER USED PERSONAL EMAIL TO AVOID FOIA REQUESTS, DISCUSS COVID ORIGIN It is unclear exactly what “damage control” Morens was referring to. In April 2020, the Trump administration and the National Institute of Health (NIH) ended EcoHealth’s grant, but that decision was reversed, and they still get funding to this day. The email from Daszak also claimed the organization was in possession of more than 15,000 samples at the lab in Wuhan. Fauci continued to publicly push to discredit theories of a potential lab leak that could have initiated COVID-19 as this information was relayed from EcoHealth. Paul said the new email revelations are “important” because they add more color and context between Fauci and EcoHealth’s public message “shaping” about its gain-of-function research and their private “concerns.” “One of the main arguments that Fauci and others make is that there is no published virus that could have been COVID or manipulated to become COVID,” Paul explained. FAUCI ADMITS SOCIAL DISTANCING NOT BASED ON SCIENCE, ‘SORT OF JUST APPEARED’ “That may or may not be true. But the thing is, is that if there were 6 or 700 of these that are in the library or waiting to be sequenced, there’s a possibility COVID-19 was one of those, or something similar to COVID-19 was one of the viruses and was manipulated in the lab,” Paul said, referring to the “700 unknown viruses” Daszak referenced in the emails. “It’s important that as this information comes out, we find out all of the things that was known at that time,” Paul said, adding that in private, Fauci was “very concerned” about gain-of-function research in Wuhan. Howerver, he said, “the concern privately is much different than publicly where they tried to shape the message,” referencing Fauci’s public comments that the virus had to have originated in nature and not a lab. “To a lot of us looking at it, it looks like a cover-up,” Paul said. RAND PAUL CLAIMS ‘SMOKING GUN’ TIES FAUCI, NIH TO RESEARCH WITH ‘DESIRE’ TO CREATE COVID-TYPE VIRUS It is unclear whether Morens is still employed with NIH. Paul said his office has made several attempts to learn his employment status, but NIH has not given him a response. In an April 12 press release, EcoHealth responded to news reports on emails apparently obtained via a whistleblower and released by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, claiming that any allegations that communications between EcoHealth and NIH were “inappropriate” or “part of a cover-up” are “false.” Included in those tranches of emails were the ones Paul pointed to on Tuesday. “[T]hey show clearly that EcoHealth Alliance was appropriately communicating with senior staff at the NIH, or who formerly worked at NIH, to try to identify ways to reinstate a grant that had been terminated unexpectedly and arbitrarily, then suspended with onerous conditions,” EcoHealth said in a statement. “The grant was subsequently reinstated by NIH, and EcoHealth Alliance is currently working under this grant to conduct critical scientific research to prevent future pandemics,” it said. On April 16, the Select Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio., subpoenaed Morens for additional correspondence related to COVID-19 from Morens’ personal Gmail account, alleging he used the private account to evade FOIA laws. “Dr. David Morens purposefully evaded FOIA laws to give his ‘best-friend’ EcoHealth Alliance President Dr. Peter Daszak non-public, internal information that had the potential to undermine the operations of the United States government. This is not only highly concerning, but it is also likely illegal,” Wenstrup said in a press release. “The subpoena for Dr. Morens’s personal email communication will ensure that the truth about this federal records violation is brought to light,” he said. CLICK TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Morens has agreed to testify in front of the select subcommittee at a public hearing later this year, the press release said. The NIH, EcoHealth, Fauci, Daszak and Morens did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.
Meet man, who lost 19 elections, now files nomination for 20th time in Lok Sabha polls 2024
The 63-year-old real estate businessman filed his nomination as an independent candidate, expressing confidence that someday he will emerge victorious and that poll losses do not bog him down. Polling will be held in the Indore constituency in the fourth phase on May 13.
GOP rebels derail Johnson’s border security pitch over fury at $95B foreign aid plan
A meeting to advance Speaker Mike Johnson’s latest border security bill abruptly ended on Wednesday night without a vote on whether the measure will hit the House floor. “Sorry, not sorry, for opposing a cr—y rule that is a show vote / cover vote for funding Ukraine instead of border security,” Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, wrote on X after the meeting imploded. He’s one of three Republican foreign aid hawks on the House Rules Committee, which is the final barrier before a piece of legislation hits the House floor. It comes as conservative rebels in the House GOP conference criticize the speaker’s decision not to link border security measures to his $95 billion foreign aid plan. ‘DEFINITION OF INSANITY’: FRUSTRATED HOUSE REPUBLICANS BLAST GOP REBELS’ THREAT TO OUST JOHNSON Johnson told lawmakers on Wednesday that the House would consider separate foreign aid bills on Ukraine, Israel, the Indo-Pacific and a fourth bill including various foreign policy provisions. If passed, they would be sent to the Senate in a combined package. To appease Republicans concerned about not using it as an opportunity to crack down on the border crisis, he also unveiled a separate bill similar to H.R.2, the comprehensive immigration and border enforcement bill House Republicans passed last year but which the Democrat-controlled Senate refused to take up. He said that bill would go through procedural hurdles parallel to the foreign aid bills, rather than alongside them. JOHNSON LIKELY FORCED TO GET DEM HELP ON FOREIGN AID PLAN AS REPUBLICANS DECRY LACK OF BORDER MEASURES In a remarkable moment toward the end of the meeting, Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., the top Democrat on the committee, acknowledged that the bill has no support from Democrats and likely no future in Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s Senate. He also pointed out that the three conservative rebels on the panel would likely vote against the bill as well – meaning it would not even survive their committee. “We’ve been here. We’ve done this already. We know what the Senate is going to do. And my three colleagues, who I know have been expressing some discontent about what’s going on here, I mean, maybe we can end this hearing. I mean, I think if the three of you vote ‘no’ on this rule, we’re done,” McGovern said. He pointed out that Roy called it a “watered-down, dangerous cover vote” and asked him, along with Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ralph Norman, R-S.C., if they planned to vote in favor of advancing the bill. Massie and Roy would not say, with Roy adding, “I think I’m pretty well publicly not in favor of what’s going here.” Norman said he would oppose the bill. The hearing soon recessed without a conclusion. Foreign aid and aid to Ukraine, specifically, have proven to be politically fraught topics for Johnson as he navigates a historically slim House majority and new threats from fellow Republicans to trigger a vote on his ouster. MASSIE THREATENS TO OUST SPEAKER JOHNSON IF HE DOESN’T STEP DOWN OVER FOREIGN AID PLAN Johnson has argued that tying U.S. border measures to foreign aid, especially Ukraine, would kill its chances of passing .”We want the border to be part of every single thing we do here,” he told reporters on Thursday morning, adding, “We don’t have the votes. If you put Ukraine in any package, you can’t also do the border because I lose Republican votes on that rule. My friends don’t get it.” He was initially aiming for a Saturday vote on the foreign aid bills as well as the measure on border security. It’s not clear how the Wednesday evening chaos will affect that schedule. Fox News’ Chad Pergram contributed to this report