Trump calls for investigation into Ilhan Omar’s wealth, says it should start ‘NOW’
President Donald Trump on Thursday called for an investigation into Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., alleging in a social media post that the lawmaker is worth “over $30 Million Dollars” and questioning how such wealth could have been accumulated while serving in public office. “Congresswoman Ilhan Omar is worth over $30 Million Dollars,” Trump wrote. “There is no way such wealth could have been accumulated, legally, while being paid the salary of a politician.” Trump said Omar “should be investigated for Financial and Political Crimes, and that investigation should start, NOW!” TRUMP RIPS ‘CROOKED’ ILHAN OMAR AS HOUSE RAMPS UP INVESTIGATION INTO EXPLODING NET WORTH The comments were posted to Truth Social Thursday, and the post quickly drew thousands of reactions on the platform. Omar, a Somalia-born Democrat who represents Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, is the subject of a House Oversight Committee investigation into her and husband Tim Mynett’s finances, though no formal charges have been filed against her. ILHAN OMAR VOWS ‘NOT TO GIVE ICE A SINGLE CENT’ IN HEATED CONGRESSIONAL FUNDING FIGHT Her net worth allegedly skyrocketed nearly $30 million in just one year, according to financial disclosures released last week. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., has previously said his panel is seeking answers on Omar and Mynett through congressional oversight. Omar is expected to attend an “ICE Out of Minnesota” protest Friday in Minneapolis. Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House and Rep. Ilhan Omar’s office for comment. Fox News Digital’s Alec Schemmel contributed to this reporting.
White House baby boom in full bloom as Usha Vance, top Trump aides announce pregnancies
The White House is experiencing a baby boom. At least three women with close ties to the White House are pregnant, including second lady Usha Vance, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and Katie Miller, who is married to White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller. The Vances announced Tuesday that they are expecting their fourth child in July. The couple share three children together: Ewan, Vivek and Mirabel. “Usha and the baby are doing well, and we are all looking forward to welcoming him in late July,” the Vances wrote in a statement shared on social media. VICE PRESIDENT JD VANCE DECLARES MARRIAGE TO WIFE USHA ‘IS AS STRONG AS IT’S EVER BEEN’ “During this exciting and hectic time, we are particularly grateful for the military doctors who take excellent care of our family and for the staff members who do so much to ensure that we can serve the country while enjoying a wonderful life with our children,” they said. The Vances have been married since 2014, and met while they were students at Yale Law School. Leavitt announced Dec. 26, 2025, that she and her husband Nick were expecting their second child, who is due in May. Leavitt and her husband welcomed their first child, Niko, in July 2024. VANCE UNLEASHES PROFANITY-LACED TWO-WORD MESSAGE FOR CRITICS OF HIS WIFE USHA “My husband and I are thrilled to grow our family and can’t wait to watch our son become a big brother,” Leavitt told Fox News Digital. “My heart is overflowing with gratitude to God for the blessing of motherhood, which I truly believe is the closest thing to Heaven on Earth.” Leavitt told Fox News Digital in December 2025 that she is “extremely grateful to President Trump and our amazing Chief of Staff Susie Wiles for their support, and for fostering a pro-family environment in the White House.” “Nearly all of my West Wing colleagues have babies and young children, so we all really support one another as we tackle raising our families while working for the greatest president ever,” Leavitt said. FORMER DOGE ADVISER KATIE MILLER LAUNCHES NEW PODCAST AIMED AT BUSY MOMS Leavitt is the first press secretary to be pregnant, and is remaining press secretary, according to a senior White House official. Likewise, Katie Miller, a conservative podcast host, and Stephen Miller shared a joint Instagram post Dec. 31, 2025, celebrating the new year and depicting Katie Miller holding her baby bump. The couple shares three children: Mackenzie, Jackson and Hudson. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. Fox News’ Brooke Singman and Alexandra Koch contributed to this report.
Republicans narrowly reject efforts to handcuff Trump’s war powers in Venezuela
A majority of House Republicans banded together on Thursday to defeat a bipartisan war powers resolution that could have restricted President Donald Trump from taking future military action in Venezuela. The House GOP managed to defeat the measure with its razor-thin majority in a victory for Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and the White House. The resolution failed in a 215-215 vote, falling short of securing a majority needed to succeed. Only two Republicans, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., voted in favor of the package. RAND PAUL BREAKS WITH TRUMP ON VENEZUELA, CALLS ACTION ‘WAR’ AS SENATE PREPARES CONSTITUTIONAL SHOWDOWN Speaker Johnson held the vote for over 20 minutes, buying Republicans time to vote against the resolution. Eventually one Republican latecomer, Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Tx., arrived at the chamber, breaking the stalemate and dooming the measure. “Close the vote!” Rep. Pat Ryan, D-N.Y., yelled as Republicans struggled to solidify their opposition. “This is serious s—!” The bill was sponsored by Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., and Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky. The resolution directs Trump to remove troops deployed to Venezuela and mirrors a similar effort in the Senate aimed at restricting the administration from taking future military action in the country. Administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, say there are currently no U.S. armed forces in Venezuela, although Trump has ordered a naval blockade off the country’s coast. The White House sharply rebuked the legislation when asked by Fox News Digital on Thursday. “It’s a shame that these members of Congress want to usurp the authority of the commander in chief to take vital actions to strengthen our national security and stop drugs and criminals from entering our homeland,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said. Ahead of Thursday’s vote, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said he expected Republicans would stick together to defeat the resolution. LOOMING WAR POWERS SENATE VOTE RAMPS UP PRESSURE ON HAWLEY AFTER MAGA BACKLASH “I don’t think we will have any breaks on that,” Johnson told Fox News Digital that morning. “We are the last great superpower, and we have to allow the president the authority to use what is his under the Constitution,” Johnson said, referring to Trump’s role as commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces. “I don’t think we need to get in the way of that.” The McGovern-Massie resolution comes after Trump ordered the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro earlier this month in what the administration has framed as a narrowly tailored law enforcement operation. The White House contends that the U.S. has simply detained an alleged criminal. Maduro and his wife were indicted in a New York court for allegedly facilitating drug trafficking in the U.S. “The entire Trump administration coordinated to execute the arrest of Nicolás Maduro, who headed a major narco-trafficking foreign terrorist organization and was a fugitive of American justice,” Kelly said. Democrats like McGovern have pushed back on the GOP’s portrayal, raising concerns that the U.S. may carry out more military operations in Venezuela. But the bipartisan House duo’s resolution was slightly different from a similar piece of legislation by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., also dealing with Trump’s power in Venezuela. The House version would require the Trump administration to remove any U.S. forces in the region, despite officials telling lawmakers that there were no boots on the ground in the country following the surprise strikes and capture of Maduro. The likelihood that Massie and McGovern’s resolution would survive in the Senate is made more difficult given that lawmakers in the upper chamber already killed Kaine’s push to require congressional authorization for any future military activities in the region. REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK: REPUBLICANS SEEK EXIT FROM VENEZUELA WAR POWERS DEBATE AFTER RECENTLY VOTING FOR IT Sens. Todd Young, R-Ind., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., flipped their votes to kill the resolution after assurances and guarantees from administration officials, most notably Rubio, that there were no boots on the ground in the country. Still, Rubio is set to appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee next week to lay out the administration’s plan in the region. His appearance also comes amid uncertainty about Trump’s plans with Greenland. Rubio already teased that plan after one of several classified briefings with lawmakers on Capitol Hill. For now, the administration is considering a three-pronged plan in the region focused on stabilization, recovery and transition.
Patel reveals bizarre ‘self-awarded’ trophy former FBI officials made to celebrate Trump probe
FBI Director Kash Patel shared a picture of what he said was a “self-awarded” trophy made by former FBI officials to celebrate Operation Arctic Frost, an investigation launched after the 2020 election targeting President Donald Trump and his allies. The bizarre metallic-colored, 3D-printed award featured “AF” with a lightening bolt and dollar sign printed along its body and a raised map of the U.S. on its base, which also included miniature buildings and infrastructure. “CR-15” was printed along the base. CR-15 is a now-disbanded FBI unit that served as a public corruption squad. “People ask why I said the old FBI was a diseased temple,” Patel wrote on X. “This is what corruption looks like when it thinks no one is watching. “I disbanded CR-15 and removed the corrupt actors involved,” he continued. “So when legacy media cries that President Trump’s FBI fired people and made sweeping changes, I have one response: You’re damn right we did.” FBI FIRES AGENTS, DISMANTLES CORRUPTION SQUAD AFTER PROBE UNVEILS MONITORING OF GOP SENATORS, PATEL SAYS Patel made his comments as Republican lawmakers continue to raise alarms about the FBI’s Arctic Frost probe, which later fed into former special counsel Jack Smith’s work. JACK SMITH MEETING WITH THEN-FBI DIRECTOR WRAY RECORDED AS ‘SIGNIFICANT CASE NOTIFICATION’ IN J6 PROBE In October, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., unveiled 197 subpoenas they said the Biden-era FBI used to seek testimony and documents from hundreds of Republicans and GOP entities. Johnson called the subpoena list “nothing short of a Biden administration enemies list,” arguing Arctic Frost was used to improperly investigate the Republican political apparatus. BIDEN DOJ SUBPOENAED JIM JORDAN’S PHONE RECORDS COVERING MORE THAN TWO YEARS Smith, whose team used Arctic Frost in mounting charges tied to the 2020 election that were later dismissed after Trump’s victory in 2024, has defended his work and appeared on Capitol Hill to face questions from the House Judiciary Committee. Republicans have criticized Smith for seeking gag orders against Trump during his presidential campaign; fast-tracking court proceedings; subpoenaing records and phone data of Trump-aligned individuals and entities, including members of Congress; and approving $20,000 in payments to an FBI confidential human source to gather intelligence on Trump, a source told Fox News Digital. Fox News Digital’s Ashley Oliver contributed to this report.
7 House Democrats break with Jeffries to pass DHS funding despite ICE backlash
Seven Democrats voted with Republicans on Thursday to pass a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spending bill, despite opposition from their own leadership over unmet demands for additional guardrails on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations. The DHS bill will be bundled alongside three other spending bills, totaling a combined $1.2 trillion in federal spending. The entire package’s passing is a significant step toward averting a government shutdown come Jan. 30. Lawmakers in the House of Representatives voted on two separate packages on Thursday afternoon. One groups together three spending bills to fund the departments of War, Education, Labor, Transportation and Health and Human Services. The second is a standalone bill funding DHS, which includes ICE. ILHAN OMAR VOWS ‘NOT TO GIVE ICE A SINGLE CENT’ IN HEATED CONGRESSIONAL FUNDING FIGHT The DHS bill passed by a 220-207 vote with the help of seven Democrats. Only one Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., voted in opposition. The larger package passed with much broader bipartisan support in a 341-88 vote, with 149 Democrats joining Republicans to pass it. Most Democrats bucked the DHS funding legislation after House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and other top Democrats said they were opposed to the bill due to insufficient restrictions against President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. With the legislation in the rearview mirror, the House advanced the last pieces of the puzzle needed to avoid a government shutdown by the end of the month. It’s also the first time in nearly 30 years that Congress has avoided funding the government through one massive spending bill known as an “omnibus” or through short-term incremental funding extensions called “continuing resolutions” (CRs). CONGRESS UNVEILS $1.2T SPENDING BILL AS PROGRESSIVE REVOLT BREWS OVER ICE FUNDING With the passage of Thursday’s package, lawmakers will have advanced four small bundles of two to three of their 12 annual appropriations bills. While some conservatives still called for the 12 bills to be passed as individual pieces of legislation, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., framed the GOP effort as a step toward returning Congress to the way the process is supposed to work on paper. “This is a big thing,” Johnson told Fox News Digital. “We will be making history this week, having moved 12 [appropriations] bills through the process. A lot of people thought it would be impossible. But we stuck to it, stuck together — it’s a big thing.” House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., echoed Johnson’s framing. REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK: PROGRESSIVES EYE SHUTDOWN LEVERAGE TO REIN IN ICE, VENEZUELA OPERATIONS “We aren’t here for just another stopgap temporary fix,” Cole said on the House floor. “We are here to finish the job by providing full-year funding. This measure is a product of sustained engagement and serious legislation.” If passed by the Senate, the bills will eliminate the possibility of a government shutdown for the remainder of FY 2026. Despite eventually drawing support from Democrats, the final DHS bill faced fierce opposition from most of the party. In their view, the bill failed to shore up safeguards against ICE abuses in the wake of a fatal confrontation between an ICE agent and a woman named Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. Good was shot and killed in her car and was accused by Republicans of impeding ICE operations just before her killing. “Kristi Noem and ICE are out of control. Taxpayer dollars are being misused to brutalize U.S. citizens, including the tragic killing of Renee Nicole Good. This extremism must end,” Jeffries said in a statement ahead of the vote. While the final bill does include some new safeguards — such as requiring ICE agents to adopt body cameras and to undergo additional training on how to interact with the public — Democrats said those measures fell woefully short. HOUSE PASSES NEARLY $180B FUNDING PACKAGE AFTER CONSERVATIVE REBELLION OVER MINNESOTA FRAUD FEARS “All the guardrails in the world don’t make sense if the administration isn’t going to follow the law and the language that we pass. Members have to take that into account,” Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., the No. 3 Democrat in the House, said. “Ultimately, members are going to vote [for] what’s in the best interest of their districts.” The Senate will move on the package next week, with the deadline to avert a partial government shutdown fast approaching at the end of this month. Senate Republicans and Democrats have reached a tenuous truce in the upper chamber after having just exited the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, with neither side inclined to once again shut the lights off in Washington, D.C. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and the bulk of his caucus, contend that the best way to rein in some of the administration’s actions, particularly with Trump’s usage of ICE, was through the government funding process. But despite the four-bill package being constructed with a bipartisan touch, its passage in the upper chamber isn’t guaranteed. That’s because there is a cohort of Senate Democrats frustrated with the restrictions in the DHS funding bill who contend, like their colleagues in the House, that they do not go far enough. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Committee, signaled that he would not support the package once it comes to the Senate despite being a part of negotiations on the final product. He argued in a lengthy statement that the bill lacked “meaningful constraints on the growing lawlessness of ICE, and increases funding for detention over the last appropriations bill passed in 2024.” “Democrats have no obligation to support a bill that not only funds the dystopian scenes we are seeing in Minneapolis but will allow DHS to replicate that playbook of brutality in cities all over this country,” Murphy said.
US formally exits World Health Organization, locking in Trump’s break from global health body
The United States has formally completed its withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO), the Department of Health and Human Services announced Thursday. Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office in 2025 announcing the intention of the U.S. to withdraw from the WHO due to its mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic and a host of other issues the president took issue with, such as “onerous payments” that didn’t match contributions from other member states. A year later, nearly to the day, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Department of State announced that the withdrawal from the health organization is complete. The U.S. has been a member of the WHO since its establishment in 1948. The WHO is a specialized agency within the United Nations responsible for coordinating global public health efforts, including disease surveillance and outbreak response. FORMER BRITISH PM URGES TRUMP TO DISMANTLE UN, CITING INTERNATIONAL BODY’S ‘BAD DECISIONS’ At the heart of the withdrawal is the Trump administration’s dissatisfaction with the agency for its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and its ties to China. “The WHO delayed declaring a global public health emergency and a pandemic during the early stages of COVID-19, costing the world critical weeks as the virus spread,” HHS said in a press release on the official withdrawal. “During that period, WHO leadership echoed and praised China’s response despite evidence of early underreporting, suppression of information and delays in confirming human-to-human transmission.” TRUMP FLOATS ‘BOARD OF PEACE’ TO REPLACE UN, SIGNALS MAJOR GLOBAL POWER SHIFT A senior HHS official stressed to the media during a call Thursday previewing the withdrawal that the U.S. will remain a global leader on public health following the change. The senior HHS official said that despite the U.S. funding up to 25% of the WHO’s operations, there has never been a U.S. director of the organization, while citing other nations that have provided far less funding to the organization. The U.S. is “walking away” from organizations that “fail the United States,” the official said, and is not walking away from “being a global health leader,” pointing to the Department of State inking multiyear bilateral agreements on Global Health Cooperation with dozens of countries in December 2025. The official said more updates on the agreements are forthcoming. Health and Human Services chief Robert F. Kennedy Jr. delivered a fiery prerecorded speech for the World Health Assembly in May 2025, slamming the WHO for becoming “mired in bureaucratic bloat, entrenched paradigms, conflicts of interest and international power politics.” UN CHIEF ACCUSES US OF DITCHING INTERNATIONAL LAW AS TRUMP BLASTS GLOBAL BODIES “While the United States has provided the lion’s share of the organization’s funding historically, other countries such as China have exerted undue influence over its operations in ways that serve their own interests and not particularly the interests of the global public,” he said. “Not only has the WHO capitulated to political pressure from China, it’s also failed to maintain an organization characterized by transparency and fair governance,” he continued. “The WHO often acts like it has forgotten that its members must remain accountable to their own citizens and not to transnational or corporate interests.” Trump formally initiated a WHO withdrawal under his first administration in 2020, sparking sharp criticisms from Democrats who argue leaving the organization weakens global disease surveillance and leaves the United States less prepared to respond to future pandemics. Then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi described the withdrawal as “true senselessness” in 2020, arguing “millions of lives” were at risk. The withdrawal from the WHO comes as President Donald Trump is in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum, which has been underscored by Trump’s pressure on Europe to strike a deal for the U.S. to control Greenland.
AOC accuses Trump of engaging in ‘increasingly erratic’ behavior
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., claimed that President Donald Trump has been exhibiting “increasingly erratic” behavior. She made the comment in response to a question from Migrant Insider editor Pablo Manríquez, who asked, “How big of a factor is Donald Trump’s cognitive decline, given what we’re seeing at Davos?” “I think that the president has been acting in increasingly erratic ways,” Ocasio-Cortez replied, according to the video shared on X. AOC ACCUSES VANCE OF BELIEVING ‘AMERICAN PEOPLE SHOULD BE ASSASSINATED IN THE STREET’ “I think it is really damning when we think about the degree to which mass media outlets reported on Joe Biden,” she said, pointing to how the Democratic Party ultimately nominated Kamala Harris in the 2024 race. “Yet, we are seeing behavior from Donald Trump that is increasingly erratic and alarming,” she said, asserting that “everyone’s pretending that this is normal.” The congresswoman said America’s “global partners” are seeing “the entire government apparatus and a party that is willing to watch someone decompensate in front of the world and do nothing about it.” Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment. “While deranged Democrats like Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez push these blatant lies, President Trump is dominating on the world stage and brokering historic deals to advance the interests of the American people,” White House spokesperson Liz Huston said in a statement. “Don’t forget that after Joe Biden’s brain unraveled on the 2024 presidential debate stage and nearly the entire Democrat party subsequently panicked and demanded Biden drop out of the race, Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez was one of the few delusional holdouts backing and pleading for Joe Biden to remain as their presidential nominee as late as July 8, 2024,” she added. TRUMP CLAIMS WHITE HOUSE DOCTORS REPORT HIM IN ‘PERFECT HEALTH,’ SAYS HE ‘ACED’ THIRD STRAIGHT COGNITIVE EXAM “Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez’s peanut-sized brain either forgot this happened or she thinks the American people are too stupid to remember,” Huston said. In July 2024 — after President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance against Trump, but before Biden dropped out of the presidential race later in July — Ocasio-Cortez expressed her support for the incumbent. “Joe Biden is our nominee. He is not leaving this race. He is in this race, and I support him,” she said at the time. Earlier this year, Trump declared in a Truth Social post, “The White House Doctors have just reported that I am in ‘PERFECT HEALTH,’ and that I ‘ACED’ (Meaning, was correct on 100% of the questions asked!), for the third straight time, my Cognitive Examination, something which no other President, or previous Vice President, was willing to take.” “P.S., I strongly believe that anyone running for President, or Vice President, should be mandatorily forced to take a strong, meaningful, and proven Cognitive Examination. Our great Country cannot be run by ‘STUPID’ or INCOMPETENT PEOPLE!” he added. TRUMP PITCHES COGNITIVE TESTS FOR LEADERS, QUESTIONS IF HARRIS, WALZ, NEWSOM COULD PASS In a Truth Social post last year, Trump referred to Ocasio-Cortez as “one of the ‘dumbest’ people in Congress.”
Vance tells Minneapolis to ‘stop fighting’ ICE as White House doubles down on crackdown
Vice President JD Vance stops in Minnesota Thursday, which is ground zero in the heated battle over President Donald Trump’s aggressive illegal immigration crackdown. A White House official told Fox News that Vance will use his trip to “highlight the Administration’s commitment to restoring law and order in Minneapolis.” The official said that Vance will meet with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents during his stop, “to reinforce the White House’s unwavering support for federal immigration officials.” He also plans to hold a roundtable discussion with community leaders and hold a news conference. Apparently not on Vance’s itinerary: any olive branches to top Democratic officials and protesters who are fiercely opposed to the aggressive efforts by the massive deployment to Minnesota of masked ICE agents, who have raided homes as they search people for proof of citizenship. FBI DIRECTOR PATEL WARNS ELECTED OFFICIALS ‘NO ONE’ IS EXEMPT FROM FEDERAL SCRUTINY AMID MINNESOTA INVESTIGATION “I’m headed from here to Minneapolis, where we’re going to talk with some of our ICE agents, talk with local officials about how we can turn down the chaos. And my simple piece of advice to them is going to be, look, if you want to turn down the chaos in Minneapolis, stop fighting immigration enforcement and accept that we have to have a border in this country. It’s not that hard,” Vance said a couple of hours ahead of his arrival in Minnesota. But he added, “Certainly one of my goals is to calm the tensions, to talk to people, to try to understand what we can do better.” The vice president’s trip to Minneapolis comes two weeks after the fatal shooting by an ICE agent of Renee Good, a Minnesota woman and mother of three, went viral, sparking protests and a national debate over the agency’s efforts to carry out Trump’s push for the mass deportation of millions of undocumented migrants. And Richard Carlbom, chair of the Minnesota Democrats, argued that “JD Vance isn’t serious about accountability. He’s here to do Trump’s dirty work: defending disgusting ICE actions like the tragic killing of Renee Good and using Minnesota as a political backdrop.” MINNESOTA DEMOCRATS CRITICIZE DOJ SUBPOENAS, CLAIM WEAPONIZATION OF JUSTICE SYSTEM The White House says Vance “will point out how Minneapolis’s sanctuary city policies have degraded public safety and endangered ICE officers. He will also celebrate the essential work ICE agents have done to take dangerous, criminal illegal aliens off of America’s streets.” Good’s death and the continued ICE raids have fueled demonstrations, with protesters facing off against federal immigration officers. Hours ahead of Vance’s arrival, Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino said at a news conference in Minneapolis that “our agents are being violently assaulted by agitators and anarchists.” Hundreds of military police troops are on alert for deployment to Minneapolis after Trump last week warned that if Minnesota’s political leaders don’t stop what he argued were “professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT.” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and other prominent Democrats, including state Attorney General Keith Ellison and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, were served Tuesday with subpoenas from the U.S. Department of Justice over an alleged conspiracy to obstruct or impede federal law enforcement during ongoing ICE operations. DHS SAYS ICE AGENTS RAMMED BY VEHICLES AMID MINNEAPOLIS ENFORCEMENT SURGE: ‘AGGRESSIVELY ASSAULTED’ “Minnesota will not be intimidated into silence and neither will I,” Walz fired back in a statement. And he charged, “Families are scared. Kids are afraid to go to school. Small businesses are hurting. A mother is dead, and the people responsible have yet to be held accountable. That’s where the energy of the federal government should be directed: toward restoring trust, accountability, and real law and order, not political retaliation.” Earlier Thursday, before his arrival in Minnesota, Vance asked, “What is wrong with Minneapolis authorities? They so hate the idea of enforcing immigration laws that they’re telling their people not to get sex offenders out of their community. It’s crazy. And it’s why we see so much chaos in Minneapolis, but not elsewhere.” Vance has been one of the most vocal members of the Trump administration defending ICE and targeting the backlash over the federal crackdown, and his trip to Minnesota is another sign that the White House isn’t backing down on its mass deportation push. After Good’s death, Vance charged that Democrats were “rallying the mob against legitimate law enforcement operations.” VOTERS SHARPLY DIVIDED OVER ICE SHOOTING IN MINNESOTA: POLL At a White House news briefing earlier this month, the vice president claimed that Good had been “brainwashed” and argued that the Minneapolis mother of three had links to a “broader, left-wing network.” Vance’s trip comes amid flagging support for ICE in a slew of recent national polls. The most recent survey, a New York Times/Siena Poll conducted Jan. 12–17 and released on Thursday, showed a slight majority approving of the job Trump is doing on the southern border with Mexico and his administration’s deportation efforts. But the president’s overall approval on the issue of immigration was underwater in the poll, with nearly two-thirds disapproving of how ICE was handling their job and 61% saying ICE’s tactics had gone too far. Vance’s stop in Minnesota also comes amid the sprawling federal fraud investigation that has led to charges against dozens of people in the state’s large Somali-American community. The fraud scandal has put Democratic leaders in the state on the defensive and convinced Walz to end his bid this year for re-election to a third term as governor. The Trump administration is keen to highlight the scandal, and Vance is expected during this stop to spotlight the recent creation of a new assistant attorney general position “to crack down on widescale fraud and abuse of taxpayer-funded programs as seen in Minnesota and several other states.” The vice president was previously in Minnesota in September, in the wake of a mass shooting at a Minneapolis-area Catholic Church. Vance traveled
State Dept moves to expand Mexico City Policy, targeting abortion, DEI and gender ideology in foreign aid
FIRST ON FOX: The State Department is finalizing an expansion of the Mexico City Policy Friday that will bar U.S. foreign assistance from subsidizing abortion and, in a major broadening, from supporting what the administration calls gender and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, Fox News Digital learned Thursday. The Mexico City Policy is a Reagan-era U.S. rule that conditions foreign aid on recipient groups certifying they will not provide or promote abortion as a method of family planning. President Ronald Reagan first rolled the policy out in 1984 at a United Nations population conference to prevent U.S. foreign aid from being used to promote abortion in other nations. The State Department Friday is expected to finalize three rules to expand the Mexico City Policy to protect foreign assistance from subsidizing not only abortion as a method of family planning, but also gender and DEI ideology, Fox News Digital learned. PRO-LIFE LEADERS FIRMLY REJECT TRUMP’S CALL FOR HYDE AMENDMENT ‘FLEXIBILITY’ IN HEALTHCARE TALKS Under previous iterations of the Mexico City Policy, U.S. funding was barred from supporting organizations that provide or promote abortion as a method of family planning. During President Donald Trump’s first term, the policy was expanded to cover roughly $8 billion in global health assistance. The newly finalized rules go further, and cover all nonmilitary foreign assistance to the tune of more than $30 billion. Foreign nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and international organizations receiving U.S. assistance will be required to certify that they do not provide or promote abortion as a method of family planning, promote gender ideology, promote discriminatory equity ideology, or engage in unlawful diversity, equity and inclusion–related discrimination, according to the policy framework. TRUMP URGES GOP TO BE ‘FLEXIBLE’ ON HYDE AMENDMENT, IGNITING BACKLASH FROM PRO-LIFE ALLIES U.S.-based NGOs operating overseas will face similar certification requirements, Fox Digital learned. Democratic presidents typically rescind the rule, as President Joe Biden did days after taking office in 2021. Republican presidents usually reinstate it, as Trump did in January 2025. “These excessive conditions on foreign and development assistance undermine the United States’ efforts to advance gender equality globally by restricting our ability to support women’s health and programs that prevent and respond to gender-based violence,” Biden said in 2021 when defending rescinding the rule after the first Trump administration wrapped up. The Mexico City Policy got its name due to Reagan first unveiling the policy at a U.N. conference that was held in Mexico City in 1984. The rule later became known as the “global gag rule” because it conditioned U.S. aid on groups that agreed not to provide or promote abortion as family planning, which opponents argued effectively “gags” their speech and advocacy overseas. PRO-LIFE GROUPS WARN TRUMP HYDE AMENDMENT IS ‘NON-NEGOTIABLE’ AFTER FLEXIBILITY REMARKS The expected new rules come as the annual March for Life will be held in Washington, D.C., Friday. It attracts thousands of pro-lifers in the cold winter months to march through the streets of the nation’s capital to champion protecting the unborn. Vice President JD Vance is slated to join the pro-lifers and deliver remarks. Trump repeatedly has touted the policy, saying in 2017 that his first administration was working “to protect the unborn” by reinstating the Mexico City Policy. The addition of gender and DEI ideology to the framework follows the Trump administration’s year of work to roll back what it describes as the use of federal policy and funding to advance progressive social ideology. “We’ve ended the tyranny of so-called diversity, equity and inclusion policies all across the entire federal government,” Trump celebrated in March 2025. “Our country will be woke no longer.”
Pro-life organization calls on HHS and FDA to suspend abortion pill approval, tighten safety rules
FIRST ON FOX: Live Action, a pro-life organization, is demanding that the Trump administration take action on the distribution of and reporting on mifepristone, often colloquially called “the abortion pill.” The group is holding a press conference on Capitol Hill on Thursday to discuss concerns surrounding the abortion drug, as well as a new investigative video from Live Action that the group says documents “the dangerous real-world distribution of this drug by Planned Parenthood and affiliated providers.” The group alleges “reckless distribution” practices and argues the adverse effects of the drug are not being documented properly, if at all. In a letter to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary, Live Action said it aims to show “clear evidence of regulatory noncompliance and patient harm” and to issue a call for immediate action from HHS and the FDA. The letter urges HHS and the FDA to suspend the approval of mifepristone, prohibit the distribution of abortion pills through mail-order services and telehealth, reinstate comprehensive adverse-event reporting requirements, and release a full public accounting of the scientific and clinical evidence used to expand access to the drug. PRO-LIFE GROUPS WARN TRUMP HYDE AMENDMENT IS ‘NON-NEGOTIABLE’ AFTER FLEXIBILITY REMARKS “For more than two decades, mifepristone has remained on the market under an approval process that was politically accelerated, shielded from transparency, and repeatedly expanded without regard for patient safety, adverse event reporting, or statutory compliance,” the letter, signed by Lila Rose, Live Action founder and president, reads. The FDA currently allows mifepristone to be prescribed via telehealth appointments and distributed by mail under its risk evaluation and mitigation strategy (REMS) program. The FDA advises against buying mifepristone online outside its REMS program, warning that those who do “would be bypassing important safeguards specifically designed to protect their health.” “As previously stated, HHS is conducting a study of reported adverse events associated with mifepristone to assess whether the FDA’s risk mitigation program continues to provide appropriate protections for women,” HHS press secretary Emily Hilliard told Fox News Digital. “The FDA’s scientific review process is thorough and takes the time necessary to ensure decisions are grounded in gold-standard science. Dr. Makary is upholding that standard as part of the Department’s commitment to rigorous, evidence-based review,” she added. WYOMING SUPREME COURT RULES LAWS RESTRICTING ABORTION VIOLATE STATE CONSTITUTION The letter also references an April 2025 report issued by the Ethics & Public Policy Center (EPPC). The report claims that nearly 11% of women experience adverse side effects within 45 days of taking mifepristone, including sepsis, infection and hemorrhaging. “The real-world rate of serious adverse events following mifepristone abortions is at least 22 times as high as the summary figure of ‘less than 0.5 percent’ in clinical trials reported on the drug label,” the EPPC report summary states. Live Action also put out a video purportedly showing real calls with 27 Planned Parenthood locations across the U.S. In the video, a woman speaks with various Planned Parenthood locations about obtaining the abortion pill. The video appears to feature Planned Parenthood facilities in Alaska, Colorado, Kansas, Oregon, Minnesota, New Mexico and New York, with some states appearing multiple times. The first section shows the woman asking whether the clinics need to see ultrasounds before prescribing the pill in order to assess the gestational age of the fetus. Many of those answering the phones at the Planned Parenthood locations said women could obtain the pill without an ultrasound through a telehealth appointment. In the second section, the woman who called was told that Planned Parenthood would not test for Rhesus (Rh) incompatibility. Rh is a protein that some people carry in their blood, and it can cause issues in future pregnancies. A form from Planned Parenthood of Greater New York dated March 2020 states that, “There is a chance you might make Rh antibodies and have problems with future pregnancies. Research has not proved this.” MORE THAN 20 GOP ATTORNEYS GENERAL CALL ON RFK JR, FDA TO REINSTATE SAFEGUARDS FOR ABORTION DRUGS Live Action’s video also purportedly showed that those who answered the phone at multiple Planned Parenthood locations assured the women that they did not need to give their medical history or attend an in-person follow-up. It was unclear if the individuals who spoke with the woman had medical training. One suggested that the woman speak to a medical professional to get more accurate information on specific questions. Those who answered the phone for clinics in multiple states also said the caller would be able to have the pills sent to another person’s house. When asked whether the pills needed to be taken right away, most said they did not, with many assuring the woman calling that she could change her mind or wait to make a decision. However, the person on the phone at one clinic said that the woman had until 12 weeks to take the pill and advised that it would not be effective after that time. Live Action released its letter and accompanying video ahead of the annual March for Life, which is scheduled for Jan. 23. Vice President JD Vance, who recently announced that he and his wife, Usha, are expecting their fourth child, is slated to speak at the march, as he did in 2025. Other speakers include House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J. In a statement to Fox News Digital, Planned Parenthood said its health centers that offer medication abortion “follow all applicable laws and regulations and always ensure care provided reflects the latest credible research and upholds the highest standard of patient care.” “In accordance with Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s medical standards and guidelines — which are developed and updated with medical experts across the field of sexual and reproductive health care using rigorous scientific evidence — providers at Planned Parenthood health centers explain the associated risks and benefits to patients seeking medication abortion, just as they do with