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Once a Super Bowl sideline star, Tafoya now at the center of GOP’s bold play for Minnesota Senate seat

Once a Super Bowl sideline star, Tafoya now at the center of GOP’s bold play for Minnesota Senate seat

The chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) is eyeing blue-leaning Minnesota as he aims to not only defend but expand the GOP’s current 53-47 Senate majority in next year’s midterms — and the party is gearing up for a bold play with help from a former sports broadcaster. “We’re excited about expanding our map and Minnesota is one of the target states that we’re looking at,” NRSC chair Sen. Tim Scott highlighted in a Fox News Digital interview this week. Scott’s comments come as former professional football sideline reporter turned political activist and commentator Michele Tafoya inches closer to launching a 2026 Republican Senate campaign. DEMOCRATIC SEN. TINA SMITH ANNOUNCES SHE WON’T SEEK RE-ELECTION IN 2026 It’s been nearly a quarter-century since Republicans last won a Senate election in Minnesota. You’ve got to go back to then-GOP Sen. Norm Coleman’s 2002 re-election. But President Donald Trump narrowed the margins in the state last year, losing Minnesota by less than four-and-a-half points in his White House re-election. THE GOP’S TAKE ON HIGH-PROFILE SENATE DEMOCRATIC PRIMARIES: ‘THEY’RE IN SHAMBLES’ “We see real reasons to be optimistic. President Trump was very close in Minnesota. It’s a four-point race. We know with the right candidate, we will be successful,” Scott emphasized. Tafoya might be that candidate. She met last week with the NRSC, which has been recruiting her to jump into the race, sources confirmed to Fox News Digital. And as first reported by OutKick, Tafoya is expected to make a final decision early next year on whether to launch a Senate campaign. Apparently pointing to Tafoya, Scott suggested Republicans are likely to land “a strong candidate in the race,” and teased “wait and see” for “better news.” Tafoya, a longtime NFL sideline reporter and announcer, gave up her career at NBC Sports in 2022 as she became more politically active, saying at the time that she wanted to pursue other opportunities. She served as co-chair of 2022 Republican gubernatorial nominee Kendall Qualls’ unsuccessful campaign against Democratic Gov. Tim Walz. Since then, Tafoya has become a vocal critic of Walz and far-left Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar and has slammed both of them over Minnesota’s ongoing fraud scandal. “Dear @Tim_Walz — please deal with the horrendous fraud you allowed in Minnesota before anything else. Please. Our money was stolen,” Tafoya wrote last week in a social media post. If she announces her candidacy, Tafoya would join a crowded GOP Senate primary field that already includes 2024 Senate nominee Royce White, a former NBA basketball player; retired U.S. Navy officer Tom Weiler, a 2022 GOP congressional nominee; and former Navy SEAL Adam Schwarze. Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flannagan, a progressive, is facing off against more moderate Democratic Rep. Angie Craig, who appears to have the backing of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and the party’s establishment, in the race for the Democrats’ nomination. Three top nonpartisan political handicappers, the Cook Political Report, Inside Elections, and Sabato’s Crystal Ball, currently each rate the race in Minnesota as “Likely” Democrat. Fox News Digital reached out to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee for a response to Scott’s comments, but didn’t receive a reply at the time this story was posted.

House Republicans demand Trump reverse course after ‘strongly considering’ marijuana executive order

House Republicans demand Trump reverse course after ‘strongly considering’ marijuana executive order

FIRST ON FOX: A group of House Republicans is urging President Donald Trump against an expected move to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug. Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, and House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md., are leading 24 other GOP lawmakers in a letter to Trump, urging him to keep marijuana a Schedule I drug under Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) regulations. “We write to urge you to oppose rescheduling marijuana, a harmful drug that is worsening our nation’s addiction crisis,” the letter said. “Reclassifying marijuana as a Schedule III drug will send the wrong message to America’s children, enable drug cartels, and make our roads more dangerous.” The letter has support from a wide cross-section of the House GOP that includes moderates, House Freedom Caucus members and mainstream Republican lawmakers. TRUMP ADMIN DEBUTS ‘FENTANYL FREE AMERICA’ PLAN AS DEA TOUTS IMPACT OF CARIBBEAN BOAT STRIKES Marijuana is currently considered a Schedule I drug, the same classification level as heroin, ecstasy and LSD. Schedule I drugs are considered to have “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse,” according to the DEA website. The president said as recently as Monday that he is weighing downgrading marijuana to Schedule III, alongside Tylenol and anabolic steroids, which are considered “drugs with a moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence.” “We are considering that. A lot of people want to see it, the reclassification, because it leads to tremendous amounts of research that can’t be done unless you reclassify,” Trump said in the Oval Office this week. “So we are looking at that very strongly.” Similar plans under the Biden administration, based on a recommendation from former President Joe Biden’s Health and Human Services Department (HHS), were paused in January. MARIJUANA IS NOT HARMLESS. THE OPPOSITE IS TRUE AND THE EVIDENCE KEEPS GROWING “The Biden administration rescheduling decision was wrong. Rather than following the science, the Biden White House tried to expand the use of an addictive drug for partisan gain,” the House Republicans said. “Contrary to the marijuana industry’s assertion that rescheduling will result in more research, the U.S. has already conducted research for decades on this drug. Congress even passed a bipartisan law to expand marijuana research while keeping the drug in Schedule I.” The lawmakers argued marijuana is “addictive” and has “no medical value.” MIKE TYSON, KEVIN DURANT, OTHER SPORTS STARS URGE TRUMP TO ENACT CANNABIS REFORM IN WHITE HOUSE LETTER “According to a recently published fifteen-year review of medical research, marijuana has no real medical value, and 30% of medical marijuana users have an addiction to the drug,” they wrote. “Rescheduling tells our youth that marijuana use is acceptable and safe, a dangerous falsehood that will sink us deeper into our country’s drug crisis.” The most common use for medical marijuana in the U.S. is pain control, according to a 2020 report by Harvard Health, while being less addictive than opioid drugs used for the same reasons. It’s also used to manage nausea, while some veterans groups like the American Legion have pushed for more research into its effects on PTSD. Rescheduling marijuana does not automatically legalize it, but it would open more lanes for research and certain business operations involving the drug. But the House Republicans argued that it would also provide a boon to Chinese government-linked cartels “that operate thousands of marijuana farms nationwide” and will “make our roads more dangerous.” “Under Schedule III, pilots, truck drivers, and other safety-sensitive professions will not be tested for marijuana. Marijuana is already imperiling safety: over 40% of fatal car crashes today involve THC. Rescheduling will exponentially worsen this crisis,” they wrote. “Rescheduling marijuana will not make America great. You have always been a role model for America’s youth, telling young people for years that they should never do drugs. We hope that you consider the harms of marijuana rescheduling and continue sending that strong message of hope to the next generation.”

HHS unleashes sweeping crackdown on child ‘sex-rejecting procedures,’ threatens hospital, Medicaid funding

HHS unleashes sweeping crackdown on child ‘sex-rejecting procedures,’ threatens hospital, Medicaid funding

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a sweeping package of proposed regulatory actions Thursday to end “sex-rejecting procedures” on minors as part of President Donald Trump‘s January executive order calling on the department to protect children from “chemical and surgical mutilation.” “Today, we are taking six decisive actions guided by gold standard science and the week one executive order from President Trump to protect children from chemical and surgical mutilation,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said during a press conference Thursday afternoon announcing the proposed actions. HHS is rolling out a series of policy updates and regulatory actions that effectively would defund hospitals that provide gender transition procedures, according to an HHS official.  The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services rolled out policy proposals that would bar hospitals from carrying out performing puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and certain surgeries on patients under 18 as a “condition of participation in Medicare and Medicaid programs.” The majority of U.S. hospitals participate in Medicare and Medicaid, according to HHS.  MAJOR CALIFORNIA HEALTH SYSTEM ENDING TRANSGENDER PROCEDURES FOR MINORS ACROSS ITS NETWORK Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released another proposed rule that would block federal Medicaid funding for procedures aimed at altering the sex of a child under the age of 18, which HHS said also will apply to federal funding to the Children’s Health Insurance Program for the same procedures on individuals under the age of 19.  Collectively, according to the HHS official, the actions would ensure no federal funds directly support gender transition procedures on children. “On my watch, HHS will stand for radical transparency and informed consent. We follow the evidence. We employ gold standard science. We honor the moral obligation to do no harm. There is divine worth in every person. It shines most brightly in our children that was commanded us to protect them,” said Kennedy.  The announcement comes after HHS released peer-reviewed report in November that found medical procedures to alter a child’s biological sex pose serious long-term dangers to children. The report was released through the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health and found that operations working to reject a child’s biological sex — including the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgical operations — “are significant, long term, and too often ignored or inadequately tracked.” The November report was an update to HHS’ May report that reviewed the evidence and best practices for children with gender dysphoria, which was criticized by a handful of medical groups for not identifying the study’s authors and allegedly misrepresenting a medical consensus on the matter.  TRUMP HHS CHANGES TRANSGENDER BIDEN OFFICIAL’S NAMEPLATE BACK TO BIRTH NAME DURING SHUTDOWN In another Thursday crackdown, Kennedy signed a declaration that such procedures on children do not meet professional medical standards, based on the study, which warns “practitioners who perform sex-rejecting procedures on minors would be deemed out of compliance with those standards.” “They betrayed their Hippocratic Oath to do no harm, Kennedy said Thursday. “So-called gender-affirming care has inflicted lasting physical and psychological damage on vulnerable young people. This is not medicine. It is malpractice. We’re done with junk science driven by ideological pursuits, not the well-being of children.”  The Food and Drug Administration additionally announced Thursday, as part of the crackdown on trans medical issues for minors, that it sent warning letters to 12 manufacturers and retailers behind the “illegal marketing of breast binders to children.”  At the civil rights level, HHS is moving to undo a Biden-era effort to treat gender dysphoria as a disability under federal law. A newly proposed revision to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 would clarify that the definitions of “disability” and “individual with a disability” exclude “gender dysphoria” that is not the result of a physical impairment.  “The Biden-era amendment is designated gender dysphoria as a disability, serve the commercial interests of a predatory, multibillion dollar industry that betrayed the original intention of those laws engendered widespread public resentment against those laws among the American people, and discredit the statutes in the public mind,” Kennedy said during the press conference Thursday.  HHS GOLD STANDARD STUDY FLIPS ‘GENDER AFFIRMING CARE’ ON ITS HEAD AS DEMS KEEP PUSHING TRANS ISSUES AT SCOTUS The announcement is expected to be met with pushback from left-wing Democrats, who have continued championing “gender-affirming care” for kids.  Transgender issues became a political football toward the end of Trump’s first administration and into the Biden administration, which repeatedly declared support for the trans community and trans youth. In November, 130 Members of Congress, for example, filed an amicus brief at the Supreme Court in November for a pair of cases focused on transgender students playing on a school sports team opposite their biological sex.   Supporters of medical procedures aimed at altering a child’s sex argue preventing such medical care can lead to depression and anxiety, and even suicide and must be protected.  President Donald Trump repeatedly has railed against trans procedures for children as an “act of abuse” since before his reelection in 2024.  The president and the Make America Healthy Commission he established earlier in 2025 have doubled down that there are only two biological sexes, including Trump signing an executive order declaring the U.S. only recognizes male and female sexes while also ending “radical and wasteful” diversity, equity and inclusion program within the government.