Dem rep opens House hearing by telling Noem to resign in fiery statement
Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., called on Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to resign Thursday during opening remarks at a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on “Worldwide Threats to the Homeland.” “You have systematically dismantled the Department of Homeland Security, put your own interests above the department, and violated the law. You are making America less safe,” said Thompson. “So rather than sitting here and wasting your time and ours with more corruption, lies and lawlessness, I call on you to resign. Do a real service to the country and just resign. That is, if President Trump doesn’t fire you first.” As Noem was giving her opening statement, several protesters against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) interrupted, yelling, “Get ICE off our streets,” and, “Stop terrorizing our community.” The protesters were escorted out by Capitol police and detained outside the hearing room. NOEM SAYS ZOHRAN MAMDANI COULD BE ‘VIOLATING THE CONSTITUTION’ WITH ADVICE ON EVADING ICE AGENTS Noem, who was joined at the hearing by National Counterterrorism Center director Joe Kent and Michael Glasheen, the operations director of the National Security Branch of the FBI, said one of her grandchildren who was in the audience was crying a little during Thompson’s remarks. “I don’t think she agreed with him,” Noem said jokingly. She touted the work DHS has done to secure the southern border and protect the U.S. “DHS is eradicating transnational organized crime and the stopping of deadly drugs from continuing to be funneled into our communities,” she told lawmakers. “We’re ending illegal immigration, returning sanity back to our immigration system, and we’re defending against cyberattacks against our critical infrastructure.” NOEM CALLS FOR ‘FULL TRAVEL BAN’ ON COUNTRIES ‘FLOODING’ US WITH IMMIGRANTS AFTER DC ATTACK The former South Dakota governor, speaking about the global threats facing the country — including those posed by domestic extremists and radical Islamic terrorism — said the U.S. should brace for heightened risks as it prepares to host major events in 2026 such as the World Cup and the nation’s 250th birthday. “These large-scale events will be potential targets for a range of bad actors, and they come with an increased level of risk. DHS is using every tool and authority we have to ensure the safety of U.S. citizens, and our visitors can enjoy next year’s events,” Noem added. Rumors had swirled in recent days that President Donald Trump was considering replacing her as head of DHS. Trump pushed back on those rumors on Wednesday, telling reporters that Noem has been “fantastic.” Noem also addressed the rumors, speaking to Fox News prior to Thursday’s hearing. “Oh, that’s absolutely not true,” she said. “President Trump and I are doing wonderfully. I’m so proud to work for him, and I’m going to continue to serve at his pleasure.” Fox News’ Bill Melugin contributed to this report.
Republican rift puts spotlight on high-stakes showdown over Trump-driven red state redistricting
President Donald Trump and allied groups are turning up the heat on Indiana Republican state senators who are resisting the president’s push for the red state to pass congressional redistricting. The Indiana Senate reconvenes Thursday afternoon to vote on a new map championed by Trump that would create two more right-leaning congressional districts in the solidly red Midwestern state, where the GOP currently controls seven of Indiana’s nine U.S. House seats. The districts of Democratic Reps. Frank Mrvan and Andre Carson would be eliminated. The showdown in Indiana comes a week after the Supreme Court cleared the way for Republican-dominated Texas to use its newly redrawn map, which creates five more right-leaning House seats. Indiana is the latest battleground in Trump’s aggressive national campaign to reshape congressional districts ahead of the 2026 midterms, when Republicans, as the party in power, will likely face traditional political headwinds as they defend their razor-thin House majority. BIG WIN FOR TRUMP AS SUPREME COURT GREENLIGHTS TEXAS’ NEW CONGRESSIONAL MAP And for Trump, who recently emphasized “we must keep the majority at all costs,” the vote is viewed as a key test of his immense clout over the GOP. The redistricting bill passed the Indiana House 57-41, with a dozen GOP lawmakers voting against the measure. But the stakes are much higher this week in the state Senate, where the GOP also holds a super majority. That’s because Republican leaders in the chamber have resisted Trump’s efforts to draw new congressional maps. Indiana Senate Republican leader Rodric Bray had repeatedly said there wasn’t enough support in the chamber to move forward with redistricting. The state Senate split 19-19 last month in a proxy vote. RED STATE MOVES FORWARD ON TRUMP CHAMPIONED CONGRESSIONAL MAPS Trump repeatedly blasted Bray, warning in a recent social media post, “A RINO State Senator, Rodric Bray, who doesn’t care about keeping the Majority in the House in D.C., is the primary problem. Soon, he will have a Primary Problem, as will any other politician who supports him in this stupidity.” Changing course, Bray announced last week that the state Senate would reconvene to vote on redistricting, adding “the issue of redrawing Indiana’s congressional maps mid-cycle has received a lot of attention and is causing strife here in our state.” Trump has kept up the pressure on Bray and others on the fence, highlighting in a social media post this past weekend the nine state Senate Republicans who have yet to announce their position on the new map, saying they “need encouragement to make the right decision.” And on the eve of the vote in the state Senate, the president, in a lengthy post, once again blasted Bray as “either a bad guy, or a very stupid one!” He also vowed to “do everything within my power” to oust Bray and others who vote against the redistricting bill in GOP primaries next year. TRUMP TARGETS RED STATE REPUBLICAN LAWMAKERS IN PUSH FOR CONGRESSIONAL REDISTRICTING The latest attacks are part of a months-long effort by Trump to twist elbows in his attempt to make Indiana the latest Republican-controlled state to change their congressional maps. The president has called state lawmakers, and Vice President JD Vance visited the state twice earlier this autumn to discuss redistricting. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a top Trump ally, has also called Indiana lawmakers as part of the full-court press. Meanwhile, the Trump-aligned conservative outside political organization the Club for Growth Action and other groups have dished out big bucks to run ads in Indiana supporting redistricting, and along with Turning Point Action, will target Republican state lawmakers opposed to the new map. Club for Growth President David McIntosh last week sent out a “FINAL WARNING” to Bray, warning that “failure to get this done means you and any other opposition will be defeated and removed from office in your next election.” And Turning Point Action, the political wing of the influential political group founded by the late Charlie Kirk, last week held a rally at the state Capitol. “This is a super high priority, and we’re going to be working with the local, grassroots to make sure their voices heard, and their priorities are not steamrolled by an out-of-touch elected class,” Turning Point Spokesman Andrew Kolvet told Fox News Digital. HOUSE GOP CAMPAIGN CHAIR WANTS TRUMP ‘OUT THERE ON THE TRAIL’ IN MIDTERM BATTLE FOR MAJORITY Trump, by championing rare but not unheard of mid-decade redistricting, is aiming to prevent what happened during his first term in the White House when Democrats reclaimed the House majority in the 2018 midterm elections. Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio have drawn new maps as part of the president’s push. State lawmakers in GOP-dominated Florida recently took the first steps towards passing a redistricting measure, and right-leaning Kansas is also mulling redrawing its map. Two federal judges in Texas last month delivered a blow to Trump and Republicans, by ruling that the state couldn’t use the newly drawn map in next year’s elections. But the Supreme Court last week gave a big thumbs up to the Lone Star State’s new congressional map. Democrats are fighting back. California voters a month ago overwhelmingly passed Proposition 50, a ballot initiative that will temporarily sidetrack the left-leaning state’s nonpartisan redistricting commission and return the power to draw the congressional maps to the Democrat-dominated legislature. That is expected to result in five more Democratic-leaning congressional districts in California, which would counter the passage earlier this year in Texas of a new map that aims to create up to five right-leaning House seats. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is considered a likely 2028 Democratic presidential contender, steered his state’s push for redistricting. Illinois and Maryland, two blue states, and Virginia, where Democrats control the legislature, are also taking steps or seriously considering redistricting. Meanwhile, opponents of redistricting in Missouri submitted thousands of petition signatures calling for a statewide referendum vote on the new maps. And in another blow to Republicans, a Utah district judge last month rejected
Chaos erupts at Noem hearing as anti-ICE protesters interrupt testimony: ‘The power of Christ compels you!’
No sooner had DHS Secretary Kristi Noem started briefing lawmakers on the greatest threats facing the U.S. on Thursday, two protesters launched into a disturbance that briefly held up the committee’s discussions. “End deportations!” yelled the protester, who was dressed like a priest and carrying a crucifix. “The power of Christ compels you!” The protester was briefly reminded that interruption of congressional business is a criminal offense, but the protester continued. KRISTI NOEM FACES FIRST MAJOR HOMELAND SECURITY GRILLING AS LAWMAKERS PRESS HER ON TERROR THREATS Security soon escorted the disrupter from the room, but before they had left the room, a second protester began shouting. “Get ICE off our streets! Stop terrorizing your community!” the second disrupter said, standing and waving a sign. Security also escorted him out of the room. Noem brushed off the moment before continuing with her opening statement. “Under President Trump’s leadership, DHS is securing our borders. We’re restoring the rule of law and we’re protecting the homeland. DHS is eradicating transnational organized crime and the stopping of deadly drugs from continuing to be funneled into our communities. We’re ending illegal immigration [and] returning sanity back to our immigration system,” Noem said. WALZ URGES NOEM TO ‘REASSESS’ IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT STRATEGY IN MINNESOTA AFTER ALLEGED CITIZEN ARRESTS The House of Representatives’ hearing on Thursday, titled, “Worldwide Threats to the Homeland,” provided lawmakers the opportunity to ask Noem and other administration officials about the country’s greatest security threats. Noem, who has spearheaded the country’s efforts to secure the border, has said that one untracked illegal immigrants who entered the country under the Biden administration pose a major threat. Other officials reinforced that belief on Thursday. “The No. 1 threat that we have right now, in my view, is the fact that we don’t know who came into our country in the last four years of Biden’s open borders,” National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent told the committee. NOEM SAYS ZOHRAN MAMDANI COULD BE ‘VIOLATING THE CONSTITUTION’ WITH ADVICE ON EVADING ICE AGENTS Under the Trump administration, the U.S. has deported over two million illegal immigrants, according to DHS tracking.
Minnesota’s fraud scandal was ‘shockingly easy’ to pull off, is likely worse than reported: ex prosecutor
Minneapolis has been at the center of national headlines in recent weeks over a massive fraud scandal that experts say will cost taxpayers over a billion dollars. Fox News Digital spoke to a former prosecutor who worked on one of the central cases in the controversy. Former federal prosecutor Joe Teirab, who served nearly four years in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minneapolis and briefly worked on the Feeding Our Future case, says the public still doesn’t grasp the scale, speed and simplicity of the fraud that unfolded, or how deeply government failures contributed to it. “I think you generally have a sense that your government is gonna be fighting for you and spending your money just generally OK, and that was absolutely not the case,” Teirab told Fox News Digital. “The amount of fraud was rampant, it was staggering, and happened really, really quickly. Just over the course of a couple years, the amount of fraud that happened in Minnesota is maybe in excess or probably in excess of a billion dollars, and one of the main prosecutors in a lot of the fraud, the former acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson, said the number was likely over $2 billion. So that is what we’re dealing with. It’s a travesty that our hard-earned taxpayer dollars are being wasted away.” MN FRAUDSTERS BLEW TAXPAYER CASH ON LUXURIES OUT OF REACH FOR MOST AMERICANS, FEDS SAY The scheme that has garnered most of the national attention involved the nonprofit Feeding Our Future, which misappropriated $250 million in COVID-19 funds. But the fraud within various government agencies in Minnesota goes far deeper, Teirab explained. He asserted that the system was set up in a way that made it possible, and relatively simple, for various nonprofits to scam the government out of over $2 billion when it’s all said and done. “When I was on the Feeding Our Future case, the big thing that jumped out to me was, honestly, how easy this fraud was to do,” Teirab told Fox News Digital. “I mean, these fraudsters were just saying that they were spending all this money on feeding kids, and they were just making up these PDFs, putting false names into Excel sheets. I could do that in five minutes on a computer if I had absolutely no conscience.” Ultimately, Teirab explained, the social services system in Minnesota was set up in a way where it was designed to fail. “So the bottom line of this scandal was this: that there were supposed to be these different organizations, like Feeding Our Future, they were supposed to be a sponsor of different food sites that would give out food to kids who purportedly need it,” Teirab said. “And so this Feeding Our Future was supposed to be the watchdog of these food sites. But they were not doing that at all. They were basically getting kickbacks from these sites that were supposed to be giving up food. That was totally false. And they were ginning up the numbers and saying that they fed 3,000 kids a day when they actually maybe fed zero or maybe three kids.” ‘HE HAD YEARS TO STOP THIS’: GOP LAWMAKERS BLAST WALZ OVER MASSIVE MINNESOTA FRAUD SCHEME The fraudsters, largely but not exclusively consisting of the city’s Somali population, coordinated casually as they discovered how effortless government reimbursement could be, Teirab explained. “These people were chatting with each other, and figured out, ‘Hey, I can get this free money,’” Teirab said, while explaining that the fraudsters and over 70 people facing indictment were the main perpetrators but that government officials also deserve blame. “Tim Walz was responsible for putting into place the commissioners of the different departments who are allowing all this money to go out, and then you had Keith Ellison, who not only should have done something about stopping the fraud once he had a sense that things were happening, he should have started to investigate it. He now tries to say that he was working hand in hand with the federal government… absolutely false, lying about what he did, what he knew and when he knew it,” Teirab said. Walz’s office, in a statement to Fox News Digital this week, said the governor “views addressing fraud as a top priority” and touted his work over the last three years making “systematic changes to state government” to stop it, including hiring investigators, auditors and law enforcement. HOW A SINGLE DISCRIMINATION CLAIM HELPED MINNESOTA’S LARGEST FOOD-AID FRAUD SLIP PAST STATE WATCHDOGS “The Governor has brought in an outside firm to audit payments to high-risk programs at the Department of Human Services (DHS) and created a specialized fraud fighting law enforcement unit at the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension,” Walz’s office said. “He has installed new leadership at DHS with a single-minded focus on stopping fraudulent payments. Many of the changes have not been flashy or headline-grabbing, but rather just the hard work of building stronger safeguards throughout state government.” Teirab, who ran for Congress in 2024, told Fox News Digital he takes issue with elected officials who have presided over the fraud situation, which has been developing and reported on since at least 2020, telling the public they are on top of it. “On the Democrat side, they’re trying to deflect and say it’s not a big deal, or we were actually working with you the whole time, and we’re taking this very, very seriously,” Teirab said. “And it’s absolute hogwash.” “Tim Walz didn’t do enough, Keith Ellison didn’t do enough, and Ilhan Omar didn’t do enough either, because she for sure knew what was going on. She was actually in one of the government’s exhibits, I believe, in one of the trials,” Teirab continued. “She had one of her political victory parties at one of the main restaurants at the heart of the Feeding Our Future scandal in 2018. It’s just ridiculous, and hopefully we should all come together and say this kind of fraud shouldn’t happen.”
Federal judge orders Kilmar Abrego Garcia released from ICE custody
A federal judge in Greenbelt, Maryland, on Thursday ordered Salvadoran migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia released from ICE custody, capping — for now – an extraordinary, 10-month legal fight that has spanned two continents, multiple federal courts, and prompted dozens of hearings in the aftermath of his removal. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered Abrego Garcia released from the ICE Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Philipsburg, Pa., ruling that the Trump administration had not obtained the final notice of removal order needed to remove him to a third country. “Since Abrego Garcia’s return from wrongful detention in El Salvador, he has been re-detained, again without lawful authority,” Xinis said in an order Thursday. “For this reason, the Court will GRANT Abrego Garcia’s Petition for immediate release from ICE custody.” US JUDGE VOWS TO RULE ‘SOON’ ON ABREGO GARCIA’S FATE AFTER MARATHON HEARING The order comes after Xinis last month used an evidentiary hearing to press the government on whether it had the final order needed to deport Abrego Garcia from the U.S. to a third country, including the list of African nations previously identified by Trump officials. Justice Department lawyer Drew Ensign previously suggested that the immigration judge who ruled in 2019 that Abrego Garcia could not be removed back to his home country of El Salvador had “meant,” or implied a final order of removal — a notion Xinis dismissed in her ruling Thursday. “No such order of removal exists for Abrego Garcia,” she said. The Justice Department is almost certain to appeal her order to a higher court, as Ensign indicated to her in previous hearings. Xinis had said last month that without final notice of removal, Abrego Garcia would be “at a minimum” entitled to certain relief under Supreme Court precedent in Zadvydas v. Davis, which bars the government from indefinitely detaining migrants after removal issues have been ordered. ABREGO GARCIA REMAINS IN US FOR NOW AS JUDGE TAKES CASE UNDER ADVISEMENT Xinis had also pressed Trump officials on why they could not deport Abrego Garcia to the third county of Costa Rica, whose government had granted the necessary assurances that they would not detain him or refoul him back to his home country of El Salvador. Trump officials previously told her in court that Costa Rica was “off the table,” though they did not provide evidence. Subsequent court filings appear to show that Costa Rica had not reneged on its agreement to accept Abrego Garcia into their country, casting renewed doubt on that claim. The order from Xinis comes after lawyers for the Trump administration repeatedly asked Xinis to dissolve an emergency order she handed down in August, which required Abrego Garcia to remain in U.S. immigration custody, and within 200 miles of her court. Xinis’s order also ostensibly allows Abrego Garcia to remain in the U.S. with his brother, pending trial in a separate criminal case in Nashville, Tennessee. It also would allow him to participate in a two-day evidentiary hearing ordered by the judge overseeing that case, aimed at weighing whether the government’s case against Abrego Garcia’s should be dismissed on the grounds of “vindictive” and selective prosecution. That hearing was postponed earlier this week until mid-January. The Trump administration previously tried and failed to remove Abrego Garcia to the African countries of Liberia, Eswatini, Uganda and briefly, Ghana. Xinis noted last month that the government cannot take any of those steps without the final notice of removal order. “You’ve raised all these arguments, and they all depend on me having a withholding of removal order,” Xinis said last month. “You can’t ‘fake it ’til you make it.’” This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
Trump admin drops hammer on ‘ghost students,’ claws back $1B from alleged loan scammers
FIRST ON FOX: The Department of Education thwarted more than $1 billion in student aid fraud under President Donald Trump’s first year in office, including stopping suspected bots and “ghost students” from obtaining taxpayer-funded loans, Fox News Digital learned. Officials say the savings come from new “enhanced fraud controls” the department implemented in June to combat fraudsters from working to obtain financial assistance loans from colleges. College officials and cybersecurity experts in recent years have pointed to a new scam trend of “ghost students,” which are fabricated or stolen identities created solely to enroll, trigger financial aid disbursements and then disappear. Ghost students are believed to be powered by AI bots or run by criminal networks using real Americans’ personal information. Other scams have included the use of deceased individuals’ identities in order to fraudulently obtain loans. FAKE YALE STUDENT SCANDAL RAISES ALARMS OVER ACADEMIC FRAUD, FOREIGN INFLUENCE RISKS To crackdown on fraud, the Department of Education heightened its identification verification process for first-time applicants attempting to receive Federal Student Aid. The department said in June that the Biden administration “removed verification safeguards and diverted resources from fraud prevention toward its illegal loan forgiveness efforts” amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which compounded fraud schemes. “American citizens have to present an ID to purchase a ticket to travel or to rent a car — it’s only right that they should present an ID to access tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars to fund their education,” U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon told Fox Digital Thursday. “From day one, the Trump Administration has been committed to rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse across the federal government,” she added. “As a result, $1 billion in taxpayer funds will now support students pursuing the American dream, rather than falling into the hands of criminals. Merry Christmas, taxpayers!” The new verification process requires first-time applicants to “present, either in person or on a live video conference, an unexpired, valid, government-issued photo identification to an institutionally authorized individual and the institution must preserve a copy of this documentation.” The verification measure has thwarted more than $1 billion from flowing to suspected fraudsters, which the Department of Education said includes “coordinated international fraud rings and AI bots pretending to be students.” The increased verification process followed the Trump administration uncovering nearly $90 million that was disbursed to suspected scammers in 2024, including $30 million in loans to dead people and more than $40 million disbursed to companies using bots disguised as fake students. SCHOOLS TURN TO HANDWRITTEN EXAMS AS AI CHEATING SURGES Recent data from the California Community College System, for example, indicated that 34% of community college applications in 2024, resulting in millions of dollars in federal and state aid being misdirected. Local media reported in the spring of this year that Democrats and Republicans alike were working to address loan fraud in the state and heighten security measures, including a Democratic assembly member calling for a state audit to identify fraud patterns. The Foothill–De Anza Community College District received roughly 26,000 applications, according to media reports in 2024, with 10,000 placed on hold for possible fraud before the beginning of the term. In Nevada, the College of Southern Nevada wrote off $7.4 million in the fall 2024 semester due to a “ghost student” scheme, media reports show. Another “ghost students” scheme in Minnesota has left Riverland Community College averaging more than 100 potentially fraudulent applications per year. TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TO ROLL OUT EARLIEST AND MOST STREAMLINED FAFSA FORM IN HISTORY Within the first week of the new verification process in June, officials say they flagged almost 150,000 suspect identities in current Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) filings and “immediately alerted” colleges and universities to the suspicious activity. “Colleges and universities across the country reported being under siege by highly sophisticated fraud rings and requested the Trump Administration for help,” the Department of Education said in a press release on Thursday. In addition to rolling out its heightened security measures, the department has also published materials online warning families against “fake college websites to trick students with AI-generated content and false promises designed to seem real” and is in the midst of hiring a “new fraud detection team within FSA that will be responsible for combatting fraud and abuse.”
Trump torches Biden’s press record — opens floodgates of media access in first year back
EXCLUSIVE: President Donald Trump’s return to the White House has brought a surge in media access following the Biden administration, with hundreds of direct exchanges between a press corps he frequently blasts as “fake news” and a president who rarely ducks a question, according to exclusive data on his first year back in office. Trump has participated in at least 433 open press events that stretched from official remarks to impromptu gaggles outside of Air Force One to press conferences where the president interacted with the media, as of Monday. The data, compiled by the White House Stenographer’s Office and provided to Fox News Digital, does not include quick exchanges, such as Trump answering a shouted question while greeting a foreign leader at the White House. “President Trump is the most transparent and accessible president in American history,” White House spokeswoman Elizabeth Huston told Fox News Digital. “President Trump takes unrestricted questions from the legacy media and posts directly from his Truth Social account on the most important issues facing our nation every single day. The American people have never had a more direct and authentic relationship with a president of the United States than they have with President Trump.” DEMS, MEDIA CREDIBILITY IN SHAMBLES AS PRESS FIXATES ON TRUMP MRI AFTER YEARS DOWNPLAYING BIDEN HEALTH ISSUES By contrast, former President Joe Biden’s first year in office was mired in frustration that the media was shut out, including when he delayed holding his first press conference as president for more than two months into his term. In fact, Biden’s two-month stretch of avoiding a news conference was the longest in a century, since President Calvin Coolidge, known as “Silent Cal,” according to The Washington Post. The White House Stenographer’s Office found that it transcribed 2.4 million words from open press events with Trump as of Monday, which is the equivalent to 4.1 “War and Peace” books, 31.1 “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” books, or 22.2 “The Art of the Deal” books, the White House said. Specifically, Trump participated in 156 press sprays, 13 general gaggles, 13 press conferences, 32 Marine One gaggles, 30 gaggles outside Air Force One, 41 gaggles while on the presidential plane and three formal press briefings, according to the data. Those press sprays — informal media availabilities where the president fields a handful of questions during bilateral meetings, executive order signings and roundtables — accounted for 128 of the 292 questions Trump answered in open press settings. A handful of Trump’s open press events have been marathons that lasted well over an hour, including an October roundtable on Antifa that ran 95 minutes and a series of lengthy Cabinet meetings. BIDEN’S ‘BIG BOY’ NATO NEWS CONFERENCE CARRIES HIGH STAKES AS FIRST PRESSER SINCE DISASTROUS DEBATE Those meetings with Trump’s Cabinet chiefs included a 105-minute session in April, a 124-minute meeting in July, a 138-minute meeting in December and, in August, the longest televised Cabinet meeting in U.S. history at 197 minutes. Trump is known for not holding back when interacting with the media, frequently calling out reporters he believes print “fake news” and biased content before rolling to the next question during his numerous events. His fiery exchanges with reporters have frequently gone viral, including when he told one reporter “quiet, piggy” or another exchange in November where he called a reporter a “stupid person” when asked about the suspected murderer of U.S. National Guard member Spc. Sarah Beckstrom. KAROLINE LEAVITT SCOLDS NEW YORK TIMES REPORTER FOR ‘UNEQUIVOCALLY FALSE’ STORY ON TRUMP’S ENERGY LEVELS Trump’s love of public speaking and back-and-forth with reporters set White House stenographers on edge shortly after his inauguration in January, as they floated hiring additional staff to keep up with a pace far faster than under the quieter Biden administration. Four years ago, as 2021 came to a close, The Associated Press reported that Biden held fewer news conferences than any of his five immediate predecessors, as well as fewer media interviews than any recent president. Fox News found that Biden participated in 53 press gaggles, 10 press conferences — including with foreign leaders — and 345 public events featuring his official remarks, such as executive order signings and speeches to federal agencies, though those frequently did not include interactions with the media. Biden’s lack of access came to a head in March 2021 as reporters pressed the White House on why the president did not hold a press conference for weeks since his inauguration. “The president takes questions several times a week,” then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki told the media when pressed about the lack of press access to the president in March 2021. “He took questions actually twice yesterday, which is an opportunity for the people covering the White House to ask him about whatever news is happening on any given day.” Many of Biden’s appearances in 2021, as the pandemic continued, were video messages or public events that did not include taking questions from the press. “Come on, press, you gotta go,” Biden staffers were heard telling the media when the 46th president would wrap up public remarks. BIDEN STILL HASN’T HELD A NEWS CONFERENCE, 64 DAYS AND COUNTING Looking at his full term, Biden held 37 press conferences, 679 informal question-and-answer sessions and 151 interviews, according to the White House Transition Project, which tracks presidential transitions and media access. The White House Transition Project also tallies how often presidents engage with the press on a daily basis. By that measure, Trump averaged 1.9 media exchanges per workday in his first 100 days of his second administration, compared to Biden’s 1.3, former President Barack Obama’s 1.1 and former President George W. Bush’s 1.1 interactions per workday. During Trump’s first term, his first 100 days in office averaged 1.3 media interactions per workday. “With an Average of 1.9 Press Sessions a Day, President Trump in 2025 Leads the Recent Presidential Pack Answering Reporters’ Queries. Not only did President Trump have more press interchanges than his predecessors
Minnesota lawmakers vow new crackdown after $1B fraud meltdown they say Walz let spiral
As investigations continue into widespread fraud across multiple government programs, Minnesota lawmakers and a former prosecutor on the case spoke to Fox News Digital about how to fix the roots of the crisis that lie in years of unchecked incompetence, political resistance to oversight, and a culture inside state government that discouraged whistleblowers from speaking out. “Republicans have proposed a number of common sense guardrails,” Republican state Sen. Julia Coleman told Fox News Digital. “I have a bill that mandates state employees to report fraud if they know of it to law enforcement, but Democrats have blocked us every step of the way.” Republican state Sen. Michael Kreun told Fox News Digital that Republicans will put forward measures to crack down on fraud during the next legislative session early next year. “There’s going to be a number of bills coming up here in the next legislative session to address fraud,” Kreun said. “The one that I’ve been working on this past year was a bill to establish a statewide office of inspector general, which would be an independent office not that wouldn’t direct directly answer to the governor, whose sole mission would be to root out fraud, investigate fraud, with all providers and recipients across all state agencies and to be overlooking the agencies themselves.” ‘HE HAD YEARS TO STOP THIS’: GOP LAWMAKERS BLAST WALZ OVER MASSIVE MINNESOTA FRAUD SCHEME Kreun blamed Walz for his legislation stalling in the Democrat-controlled House earlier this year, a sentiment echoed by state Rep. Patti Anderson, who wrote on X, “Speaker Demuth tried to get the OIG bill passed in the House but the House Dems killed it due to pressure from Governor Walz. We all know that’s true. Let’s hope House Dems finally see the light and we get it done next year.” Walz’s office directed Fox News Digital to a clip of Demuth saying in a press conference last week that Walz previously stated “he would sign it” if the bill got to his desk. “So that’s one measure that we can take next year,” Kreun said. “There’s gonna be a whole host of other measures to put up those guardrails to make sure that it becomes a lot harder to commit fraud here in Minnesota.” Minneapolis has been at the center of controversy in recent weeks over a massive fraud scheme dating back to at least 2020 that permeated several departments and several nonprofits, ranging from childcare services, to COVID-19 relief, to autism care. It is believed by many to eventually eclipse $1 billion in wasted state and federal taxpayer funds. The most prominent scandal, related to the nonprofit Feeding Our Future and representing the nation’s largest COVID-19 fraud case, involves a scheme that prosecutors say exploited a federally funded children’s nutrition program administered by the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) during the COVID-19 pandemic, siphoning money meant to provide meals to low-income kids. ELON MUSK ACCUSES ILHAN OMAR OF TREASON OVER SOMALIA COMMENTS IN VIRAL SOCIAL MEDIA POST “For this amount of fraud to take place in the state of Minnesota, a billion or more dollars of fraud to happen has to be apathy and incompetence,” GOP state Sen. Julia Coleman told Fox News Digital. “Years ago, before this ever hit the national media stage, I sat on an education committee trying to get to the bottom of how the Feeding Our Future fraud scandal happened. Now, this was years ago. There have been no additional guardrails in place, and in fact, fraud has been allowed to be more rampant than ever. It’s a mix of apathy and incompetence. Republicans have proposed a number of common sense guardrails. I have a bill that mandates state employees to report fraud if they know of it to law enforcement, but Democrats have blocked us every step of the way.” GOP state Sen. Mark Koran told Fox News Digital that while legislation will help, ultimately, the oversight in Minnesota is done by the executive branch. “It’s not gonna change with this governor,” Koran said. Fox News Digital also spoke to former federal prosecutor Joe Teirab, who worked on the Feeding Our Future case, and asked him what changes need to be made to ensure this large-scale fraud doesn’t happen again. “I think you need to look at all these big government programs where tons of money is going out, and especially the ones in which nonprofits or other organizations are just entrusted to be watchdogs themselves,” Teirab explained. “That’s just not a system that’s set up well. Those things need we need to have way more checks and balances, way more structure to make sure that that money’s going out to the right people and it’s actually being used in the way that it should be used, and then we need to give more teeth and more ability for auditors and inspector generals to actually say, hey, look, if someone is potentially committing fraud, that person, the money should be cut off from them in other aspects of other agencies.” Minnesota’s Legislature is on a razor’s edge. Democrats currently hold a one-seat majority in the state Senate, 34–33, but after the most recent elections the Minnesota House is now split 67–67, with a power-sharing agreement in place between the two parties. That means even a small handful of defections or cross-party votes could decide whether tougher anti-fraud measures advance or stall. “Ultimately, we need to figure out the depth of this problem, get it taken care of once and for all, get the right people in place,” Kreun told Fox News Digital. “A change in the administration would go a long way towards helping that, and then rebuilding that trust with proper safeguards and people that are looking out for the taxpayer and make sure that they’re not getting ripped off.”
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Thursday’s big Senate votes on healthcare
Today is the pivotal day for the Senate on healthcare. The Senate takes test votes on competing Democratic and Republican proposals to address astronomical healthcare premium spikes at the end of the year. But it’s about the math. Both need 60 yeas. Neither will pass. Everything starts around 11:30 a.m. ET. The Senate votes first on a GOP plan. It does not renew the expiring Obamacare subsidies. It simply allows people to use health savings accounts (HSAs) to shop for coverage. Republicans believe this will dramatically bring down healthcare costs. MODERATE REPUBLICANS STAGE OBAMACARE REBELLION AS HEALTH COST FRUSTRATIONS ERUPT IN HOUSE The Senate then pivots to the Democratic plan. It renews the expiring Obamacare subsidies for three years without reforms. Today’s votes are part of a demand by a coalition of Democratic senators who helped end the government shutdown. They requested a vote (not necessarily a fix) on healthcare before the end of the year. It’s possible there could be other votes related to healthcare as well today. COLLINS, MORENO UNVEIL OBAMACARE PLAN AS REPUBLICANS SEARCH FOR SOLUTION TO EXPIRING SUBSIDIES So what happens if both votes fail? It’s possible that could spark the Senate to get serious about addressing the spiking subsidies. They’ve done their posturing and have two weeks until Christmas. Lawmakers often accomplish the most legislatively when they face a deadline — especially before the holidays. It’s also possible Congress does nothing and the premiums go up on Jan. 1. This is a deep impasse and a hard one to resolve quickly. That said, many lawmakers — especially Republicans — are leery of leaving town for the holidays without addressing this issue. Republicans know they face a particular vulnerability here before the midterms. Especially since “affordability” is the buzzword of the day. That could make lawmakers buckle down over the next two weeks — especially after today’s plans fail.
Trump’s Ukraine deadline sparks rift on Capitol Hill amid stalled peace talks
Lawmakers gave mixed reactions to the timeline that President Donald Trump laid out for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to accept a peace plan. The new timeline, first reported by the Financial Times, gives Ukraine just “days” to consider the 20-point design floated by the administration after months of stalemate. According to the Times, the administration wants to have an answer by Christmas. ZELENSKYY APPEARS TO CHANGE HIS MIND ON HOLDING ELECTIONS AFTER TRUMP’S CRITICISM Where some lawmakers believe a sense of urgency is essential to drawing the parties to the table, others criticized the timeline as a tool that they believe is putting a disproportionate amount of pressure on Ukraine. “I don’t think people should be given a deadline when it comes to defending their freedom and sovereignty,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said Wednesday. Whether Ukraine will have to surrender some of its land has become the main sticking point amid broader conversations on the 20-point peace plan brokered by the United States. Zelenskyy has repeatedly said conceding territory is a line he won’t cross. On Wednesday, in a post to X, he said he would work with Ukraine’s allies to find an acceptable resolution to the conflict. “We continue to communicate with all our partners on a daily basis, virtually 24/7, to identify doable and realistic steps to bring the war to an end. Everything must be reliable and dignified for Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said. “We are finalizing work on the 20 points of a fundamental document that could define the parameters for ending the war, and we expect to deliver this document to the United States in the near future following our joint work with President Trump’s team and partners in Europe.” TRUMP PRESSURES ZELENSKYY FOR NEW ELECTIONS, WARNS UKRAINE OF ‘A POINT WHERE IT’S NOT A DEMOCRACY ANYMORE’ Like Van Hollen, Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said he believes the timeline doesn’t help reach a resolution. But he also questioned how firm the timeline request would be. Coons, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, noted Trump has made similar efforts to put pressure on peace talks in the past. “Over and over and over and over, President Trump’s attitude towards Russia and Ukraine has changed off again, on again, off again over the last 11 months,” Coons said. “It is long past time for President Trump to acknowledge that Russia is the aggressor, that Ukraine is a democracy, and that our vital national interest rests with defending Ukraine. He should not be giving timeline ultimatums,” Coons said. But not all lawmakers see the timeline as counterproductive. Republicans said it introduces a needed degree of pressure. “I don’t criticize the timelines, because I think that forces people to the table and to try to work it out,” said Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., who is a longtime supporter of sending U.S. aid to Ukraine. “But I do think that we have to make sure that we’re clear on who the aggressor is and who the victim is and proceed accordingly,” Fitzpatrick added. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, declined to praise or condemn the timeline. But in a pragmatic sense, he believes it helps Ukraine come to grips with the ugly reality of war and what he sees as an unsustainable drain to the country’s military power. ZELENSKYY READY TO PRESENT NEW PEACE PROPOSALS TO US AND RUSSIA AFTER WORKING WITH EUROPEAN TALKS “I’m not trying to take any sides on this, other than the longer this goes on, the more devastating it is to Ukraine post-war,” Issa said. “If you look at this, like you look at a chessboard where you have 20 pawns and I have 10, and we’re trading them one for one. Time is not on the side of the one that has 10.” “Time is [Zelenskyy’s] enemy, because every day that goes by that we’re at a standstill, he doesn’t become militarily weaker, but from a human asset [view], he’s becoming weaker. And you know, this is not a sustainable war because he can’t produce another generation of fighters to replace the ones that are being killed or maimed every day,” Issa said. It’s unclear what the Trump administration would do if the conflict were to stretch past that window. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.