Biden conspicuously absent from campaign trail as Obama, Harris step up for midterm push
Former President Joe Biden has been largely absent from the campaign trail as Democrats fight to win back House and Senate majorities in November, even as former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Kamala Harris step up efforts to boost the party’s candidates. Biden, 83, has kept a limited public schedule while battling advanced, metastatic prostate cancer. He has endorsed candidates and is helping Democrats raise money, according to a source in Biden’s political circle. But the former president has made few political appearances this year. The contrast is increasingly visible with four weeks to go until Election Day. Obama is cutting ads for Senate and gubernatorial candidates, helping the party fundraise and preparing to hit the trail during the closing stretch of the midterm campaign. Harris, the Democrats’ 2024 presidential nominee, is also campaigning across key battleground states, including a recent stop in Michigan with Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed. MIDTERM MATH: THE THREE FORCES THAT COULD STOP A DEMOCRATIC BLUE WAVE Biden has appeared at just a handful of political events this year. He spoke in February at a reception honoring his 2020 South Carolina primary victory, which propelled him toward the Democratic nomination and eventually the presidency. In June, he addressed a Maryland Democratic Party event. Longtime Democratic strategist Michael Ceraso told Fox News Digital that some in the party’s elite and fundraising class are concerned that “if Biden were to be pushed out there in any sort of way for virtual or in-person opportunities, he could be a liability.” Veteran Democratic strategist Maria Cardona had a different take, telling Fox News Digital, “There are still a ton of Americans who love Joe Biden.” Biden did weigh in on a handful of Democratic primary showdowns this cycle. The former president endorsed former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms for governor. Bottoms, who served as a senior advisor in the Biden administration, won the Georgia Democratic gubernatorial nomination. The former president also backed Dan Koh, another Biden administration veteran, who captured the Democratic nomination in Massachusetts’ 6th Congressional District. HEAD HERE FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS REPORTING ON FORMER PRESIDENT BIDEN Biden is also advocating on behalf of efforts to secure democracy. “American democracy begins and ends at the ballot box. There is no more important civic duty nor fundamental right to be defended,” the former president wrote on social media last month, as he cast his ballot in his home state of Delaware’s primary. “Voting defines our freedom and makes everything possible.” But mostly, Biden has served as a foil for President Donald Trump, who Biden ousted from the White House in the 2020 election. Four years later, Biden ended his re-election bid after a disastrous debate performance against Trump in their 2024 rematch. Trump and fellow Republicans are repeatedly blaming Biden for high prices at the gas and diesel pumps, even though public opinion polls indicate most Americans now point fingers at Trump and his administration. Biden left the presidency with poor approval ratings, as he faced high inflation, foreign policy divides, and lingering questions about his ability to serve in office. He stood at 42% approval and 57% disapproval in January 2025, in the final Fox News poll during his White House tenure. Post-presidency, Biden held a 71% favorable rating among Democrats in a CNN poll conducted in May. But Biden’s favorable rating among Democrats was 25 points lower than Obama’s. DEMOCRACY ’26: STAY UP TO DATE WITH THE FOX NEWS ELECTION HUB Meanwhile, some Democrats still blame him for Trump’s 2024 re-election, arguing that Biden did not get out of the race in time to allow Harris to mount a successful campaign. Ceraso, a veteran of two presidential campaigns, pointed to the 2024 election and told Fox News Digital that Biden left a “bad taste with some Democrats, especially within the party’s elite and fundraising class.” He added, “I do not think Biden has the same level of charisma as Vice President Harris and former President Obama, and if I’m organizing an event to get thousands of people to come out, I would not do that around Biden.” Cardona, a Democratic National Committee member, said Biden’s health is stifling requests for campaign trail appearances. “I guarantee you no one would try to bother him to come campaign for them while, at 83 years old, he is battling cancer and in the toughest fight of his life,” Cardona emphasized. Fox News Digital reached out to a Biden spokesman for comment, but did not receive a response at the time this story was published.
Biden-era FBI’s ‘Nixonian’ Trump family surveillance draws scrutiny from unlikely corner
Revelations that the Biden-era FBI tracked Trump family travel and top aide Susie Wiles’ phone records received a blistering rebuke from a former top Democratic official who compared the behavior to Nixon-era abuses of federal power that surfaced amid the Watergate scandal. The FBI investigation codenamed “Plasmic Echo,” later taken over by special counsel Jack Smith, examined Trump’s alleged improper retention of classified and national-defense material and possible obstruction. Records show agents tracked first lady Melania Trump’s and Barron Trump’s travel while planning the 2022 Mar-a-Lago search and later logged metadata from now-Chief of Staff Susie Wiles’ calls with attorneys, journalists and others.” Julian Epstein, the former chief counsel for the House Judiciary Committee’s Democratic bench, compared the situation to the scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon. JACK SMITH’S PROBE SWEPT UP FOX NEWS, OTHER MEDIA COMMUNICATIONS WITH GOVERNMENT SOURCES “It’s hard to think of good justifications for this. To me, it feels a little Nixonian,” said Epstein, who also served as staff director to Democrats on a second powerful panel, the House Oversight Committee. “If this report is true, then it’s pretty bad. If true, then those in charge at the time better have some darn good explanations for surveillance of family members and advisors talking privately to lawyers or exercising their free-speech rights with the news media,” he said. Nixon, a California Republican, maintained an “Enemies List” developed by White House aides around top adviser Charles Colson and later formalized by White House counsel John Dean. Dean – now a vocal critic of Republicans like Trump – once described it in a 1971 memo as intended to “use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.” Epstein questioned what legal justification investigators had for monitoring the contacts, particularly those involving lawyers and journalists. VETERAN DEM BREAKS PARTY LINE AS JACK SMITH SPYING SCANDAL GRIPS CAPITOL HILL “[That] seems like a stretch,” he said. Epstein appeared to be among the few prominent Democrats publicly criticizing the newly disclosed investigative tactics Tuesday, including the tracking of Melania and Barron Trump’s travel and the collection of Wiles’ call metadata. SECRET PHONE-RECORD SEIZURE SPARKS PERSONAL LAWSUIT FROM GOP SENATOR Fox News Digital reached out to Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat who just months ago similarly broke party-silence to object to prior revelations from Smith’s probe. Blumenthal told Fox News Digital in July that Republicans were right to be upset that some of their communications were subpoenaed without their notice. “I think we need to have more facts. Look into it. Republicans are rightly concerned about the possible breach of norms and improper access to email,” Blumenthal said at the time. In a separate disclosure on July 14, the GOP-led Senate Judiciary Committee released records showing that Smith’s 2020-election investigation obtained and reviewed text messages exchanged between Trump White House officials and 44 current and former members of Congress, including Republicans and Democrats. Theo Wold, a former acting assistant U.S. attorney general under Trump who later served as Idaho’s solicitor general, said the new disclosures involving Melania, Barron and Wiles vindicate Republicans who have long warned of a so-called “Deep State.” “But now we know that DOJ, the FBI, and the wider intelligence community have targeted Catholics, homeschool families, pro-life prayer warriors, and even the then-leading Republican Presidential candidate and his family,” Wold said. “The Deep State is real. They have abused their authority for political gain. They have wielded government power against innocent Americans to coordinate their attack on opposition political figures and dissident movements.” The White House also condemned the newly disclosed tracking of Trump family travel and collection of Wiles’ call metadata. “Jack Smith’s surveillance operation was a disgraceful abuse of government power. Spying on political opponents is weaponization of law enforcement, plain and simple,” White House spokesperson Lauren Bis told Fox News Digital. “Those responsible must be held accountable.” On one day in March 2023, documents showed investigators logged metadata for 39 calls made or received by Wiles. Calls to and from multiple campaign contacts, a lawyer and an extension associated with Melania Trump were among those logged in Wiles’ phone metadata. SIGN UP TO GET THE POLITICS NEWSLETTER Former RNC official Elizabeth Pipko highlighted Wiles as someone that critics should be emulating, not celebrating the surveillance of. “She managed a historic and victorious presidential campaign and became the first woman to serve as White House chief of staff. Her story should inspire young women. Instead, hatred from President Trump’s opponents teaches young people that if you work for the ‘wrong’ candidate, you and those around you can become targets,” Pipko told Fox News Digital. The revelations come after Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, told Fox News Digital exclusively that Smith’s probe had also captured communications with dozens of journalists, including some from Fox News. Fox News Digital reached out to counsel for Smith for comment.
Republicans sound alarm over hidden midterm stakes that could reshape Supreme Court for decades
Republicans are quietly warning that the true consequence of losing the Senate could be one that shapes the makeup of courts and the law for years to come. While Republican candidates and surrogates on the campaign trail are warning of a rise in socialism and a return to Biden-era policy should Democrats flip Congress this cycle, some are pushing a different message: if Democrats win the Senate, they’ll block future Supreme Court nominees. “I think the key over the next 34 days is bringing home Republicans. And I think it’s important to remind some of these Republicans who are not energized yet that the Supreme Court’s on the ballot,” Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., told Fox News Digital. BATTLE OVER DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME ERUPTS AS PUSH TO STOP CHANGING CLOCKS HITS SENATE WALL Daines, who chaired the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) in 2024, played a key role in flipping the Senate two years ago. That election was dominated by pocketbook issues, much like this midterm cycle, and Democrats have pounced upon that message. But the Supreme Court and the implications of the balance of power in the Senate are a message Daines contended the GOP wasn’t pushing enough. “I mentioned that to the White House. And it’s — that’s not a silver bullet, it’s a silver buckshot,” of several issues Republicans should be talking about, Daines said. If Trump doesn’t have a GOP majority in the upper chamber, he said, “if we have a vacancy, Sotomayor, Clarence Thomas, who knows — we could not, President Trump could not move through a Supreme Court justice.” DEMS HAND GOP FRESH MIDTERM WEAPON BY OPPOSING WIDELY USED VOTER ID The high court is aging, with conservative stalwarts on the bench, Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas, 78, and Samuel Alito, 76, nearing octogenarian status. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, 72, and Chief Justice John Roberts, 71, aren’t that far behind. “The Supreme Court as we know it would cease to exist under Troy Jackson, Abdul El-Sayed and James Talarico, who are hell-bent on replacing it with a bloated, lawless body designed to advance Democrats’ socialist agenda,” NRSC spokeswoman Bernadette Breslin told Fox News Digital. Speculation has swirled over Alito after NPR earlier this year published a report declaring his retirement before swiftly retracting it. Alito added some fuel to that fire, however, during an interview with CBS earlier this month. When asked if he was considering retirement, he admitted to considering it earlier this year, and noted that “it’s something I think that somebody at my age has to think about every term.” DEMOCRATS THINK A BLUE WAVE IS BUILDING. HERE ARE 3 FORCES THAT COULD STOP IT Democrats haven’t been keen to support several of Trump’s nominees for a variety of positions throughout the government over the last two years. Notably, Republicans went nuclear last year to change the Senate’s rules to move through bundles of nominees that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Democrats were blocking. And Schumer suggested that a Supreme Court pick, should there be a vacancy, and other positions in the judiciary may suffer the same fate. “The bottom line is one of the reasons that we want to make sure we do everything we can to take back the Senate is not let Trump put such horrible justices, MAGA justices on the Supreme Court and the lower courts,” Schumer said. Daines noted that sometimes voters look for a shortcut to head to the polls, and that the Supreme Court being a quiet issue on the ballot could very well be that path to energizing a Republican base to getting out and voting as the midterm cycle winds down. “Without a Republican majority, President Trump will not be able to move his Supreme Court nominee through, and that’s a nominee that’ll be on the bench for 25 years,” Daines said. “We need Republicans to connect those dots. Disgruntled Republicans in Texas, come home and vote for Ken Paxton, because the Supreme Court’s on the ballot.”
A surprising industry is fueling a new rush for gold — and it’s not slowing down
Investors have long prized gold as a hedge against inflation and economic uncertainty, but one of the world’s fastest-growing industries is now fueling a new source of demand for the precious metal. The buildout of artificial intelligence (AI) is driving investment in advanced semiconductors, servers and the sprawling data centers needed to power the technology. That expansion also requires a range of materials used in high-performance electronics, including gold. And the AI boom is creating a growing need at a time when gold is already historically expensive. Despite those high prices, tech companies aren’t necessarily switching to cheaper materials — suggesting demand for golf could continue to grow alongside AI. A QUIET RUSH FOR GOLD IS SWEEPING THE GLOBE — HERE’S WHY COUNTRIES ARE STOCKPILING IT Gold is valued in electronics for its conductivity, reliability and resistance to corrosion — and its role in some technology applications is proving resilient despite trading at roughly $4,153 an ounce on Oct. 5, up nearly 6%, or about $225, from a year earlier. Joseph Cavatoni, a gold market expert and senior market strategist for North America at the World Gold Council, said companies would typically consider cheaper alternatives after developing technology that relies on gold. But that isn’t necessarily happening. “They might pioneer a technology with gold involved and then say, ‘Let’s find something cheaper like tungsten to replace it,’” Cavatoni told Fox News Digital. “But what we’re finding in this case is they’re not.” ONE OF THE WORLD’S HOTTEST INDUSTRIES IS SPARKING A BLUE-COLLAR JOBS BOOM Technology demand is already showing signs of growth. Gold demand from the sector rose 2% from a year earlier to 80.4 metric tons in the second quarter, according to the World Gold Council. Electronics demand climbed 4% to 68.3 tons, fueled by AI infrastructure, high-end semiconductors and advanced components. Cavatoni said gold can offer advantages over substitutes in applications such as chip production and heat conduction. The AI sector may also be less sensitive to elevated gold prices because relatively small amounts of the metal are needed. “This is a rapidly growing space that’s less sensitive to price,” Cavatoni said. “It’s going to likely continue to grow as the AI space grows.” Still, technology remains a small part of the overall gold market compared with investment, central-bank buying and jewelry. Cavatoni said it is “less likely to be a driver of the price of gold.” For now, Cavatoni described technology as an increasingly important contributor to gold demand that “doesn’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon.”
Trump turns to emerging tech giant in multi-billion bid to ramp up US submarine production
The Trump administration is turning to a defense technology giant in a $6.6 billion effort to speed production of submarines as the U.S. struggles to keep pace with China’s vast shipbuilding capacity. The ramp-up in production brings a Silicon Valley-style manufacturer into one of the Pentagon’s most troubled industrial bases as they fall behind expected pace of two Virginia-class attack submarines per year. Anduril will build a more than 2-million-square-foot shipyard at Sparrows Point shipyard just outside of Baltimore to manufacture critical submarine components, eventually scaling up to large sections of the vessels. A senior administration official said the facility could add roughly 9 million labor hours a year, equivalent to about a 15% increase in submarine production capacity. President Donald Trump will visit the shipyard on Tuesday afternoon to formally announce the new initiative in Baltimore alongside Anduril leadership. NAVY SECRETARY WARNS SHIPYARDS MUST ‘ACT LIKE WE’RE AT WAR’ AS CHINA’S AI-POWERED FLEET RACES AHEAD The investment takes aim at a problem the Navy has struggled for years to solve: shipyards are delivering roughly 1.3 Virginia-class submarines a year, well short of the Navy’s goal of two, even as demand for the nuclear-powered attack boats grows. The Navy currently projects reaching the two-per-year rate around 2032. It currently has 26 Virginia-class submarines and expects to add two more in the spring, according to a senior administration official.and For the submarine project, Anduril plans to invest $3.7 billion of its own capital to build the facility, workforce and manufacturing capacity. The Navy could spend up to another $2.9 billion purchasing the resulting production. The deal represents an unusual bet on a commercial model for fixing one of the Pentagon’s most stubborn industrial problems: Anduril will risk billions of dollars of its own capital building new submarine production capacity, while the Navy pays for what the company can successfully produce. “I wouldn’t say that the government’s paying us back. We feel the government [is] buying the results of what we’re able to produce,” an industry official told reporters of the deal. EMERGING TECH HAS NEW ARMY LEADERS WARNING TROOPS CAN’T ‘AI’ THEIR WAY TO VICTORY ON THE BATTLEFIELD The deal also deepens Anduril’s growing relationship with the Pentagon just days after War Secretary Pete Hegseth tapped company founder Palmer Luckey, along with Elon Musk and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, to launch Project Meridian — a 120-day study of how future wars will be fought and what weapons and technologies the U.S. military will need. The arrangement puts Luckey in a position to help shape recommendations about the Pentagon’s future technology needs as the company he founded expands its own business selling weapons and other systems to the department. Project Meridian does not have procurement authority, and the Pentagon has said “appropriate” safeguards will be used to address potential conflicts of interest. Anduril will work under General Dynamics Electric Boat and alongside HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding, initially producing components that have become bottlenecks in the construction of new Virginia-class boats. Among the first will be torpedo tubes , which a senior administration official described as a current “gating component” holding up production. The official said getting those tubes earlier could allow the Navy to move. Anduril has already begun work on torpedo tubes at a facility in California and plans to shift that production to Baltimore as the new shipyard, dubbed Arsenal-2, comes online. The company eventually hopes to move from individual components to complex modules and large sections of submarines. “We just need new production capacity,” an industry official said. “We need to grow the maritime industrial base, the submarine industrial base, so that we can produce more submarines.” The company plans to build Arsenal-2 around software, automation and digital manufacturing to break historically complex shipbuilding work into simpler tasks that can be done without years of shipyard experience. The push comes as the Navy faces growing pressure to expand the attack-submarine fleet while also preparing to transfer Virginia-class submarines to Australia under the AUKUS security pact. Meeting those commitments will require the industrial base not only to reach the Navy’s longstanding two-per-year goal, but eventually move beyond it. Arsenal-2 is expected to create 3,100 direct jobs and another 11,000 indirect jobs nationwide. Anduril expects the Baltimore facility to begin operations around 2030, though the company said production of some submarine components is beginning now in California. The approach will still have to clear the certification and safety requirements that govern nuclear submarine construction. Anduril acknowledged that it will have to prove it can meet those standards before graduating from individual components to increasingly complex sections of the boats.
Blue city emerges as ‘suspected hotspot’ of visa fraud as swing state lawmaker demands answers
FIRST ON FOX: A blue city in one of the country’s hottest battleground states is accused of being a potential hotbed of foreign worker visa fraud, according to the House lawmaker who represents the area. Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., is writing to the Trump administration on Tuesday asking for an investigation into alleged abuse of the H-1B work visa program in his own district. He warned in the letter that his district is a “suspected hotspot of this fraud” and offered himself as “an interlocutor to help enable cooperation with state-level agencies and law enforcement.” Georgia’s 7th Congressional District, which McCormick represents, encompasses part of the Atlanta metro area including the city’s northern suburbs. That includes part of Fulton County, whose top prosecutor, Fani Willis, has been under heavy scrutiny by Republicans in recent years. FEDERAL JUDGE STRIKES DOWN TRUMP’S $100K H-1B VISA FEE, RULING IT AN UNCONSTITUTIONAL TAX “Established by the Immigration Act of 1990, the purpose of the H-1B program is to allow American businesses to temporarily bring in foreign citizens to fill key, high-skill employment positions when the domestic workforce demonstrably cannot provide the necessary labor,” McCormick wrote. “Unfortunately, the H-1B program has become the subject of rampant fraud and abuse for the nefarious purposes of obtaining labor that bad actors can exploit below-market-rate wages and abusive work conditions given H-1B holders’ dependence on retaining their employment in order to avoid removal back to their country of origin.” FURY ERUPTS AS US BRAND FIRES 1,600 EMPLOYEES AFTER SECURING THOUSANDS OF FOREIGN WORKER VISAS He said the alleged fraud is sowing uncertainty in the U.S. labor market by undercutting wages and unfairly increasing competition for American workers, particularly those fresh out of college. “Bad actors have developed illicit methods for meeting the requirements for obtaining H-1B visas and the necessary work authorizations, and they employ these methods at scale to enrich themselves through fraud and exploitation via the most threadbare compliance with the letter of the law,” McCormick wrote. VICE PRESIDENT VANCE SAYS MIGRANT COMMUNITIES SHOW ‘CLEAR PATTERN’ IN FEDERAL FRAUD AS INVESTIGATIONS WIDEN The Georgia Republican said his suspicions were raised by “stakeholder engagement, reports from my constituents, and recent federal investigation and enforcement activity targeting entities in and around GA-07.” And while he did not name specific businesses or people he believes are associated with such fraud, McCormick argued, “Metro Atlanta’s recent economic growth and international airport unfortunately make it a logical area of concentration for these bad actors.” EXCLUSIVE: ‘PHANTOM EMPLOYEES’ SCANDAL SPURS GOP CRACKDOWN ON $36B INCENTIVE FOR COMPANIES TO BYPASS AMERICANS The Trump administration launched an investigation into suspected H-1B visa fraud in July. H-1B visas have become the subject of fierce debate on the right, with prominent critics like Vice President JD Vance calling it a “broken” system while calling to eliminate it altogether. Supporters of H-1B visas, like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, have argued it’s critical for attracting global talent in fields like technology and engineering that are key to keeping the U.S. at the forefront of global innovation.
Trump responds to concerns over suspected plague case in Russia, saying US ‘willing to help’
Amid a global health scare sparked by the death of a 28-year-old woman who worked at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East, President Donald Trump indicated that the U.S. would be willing to provide assistance to Russia. Russian public health entity Rospotrebnadzor said Sunday that the deceased individual had been diagnosed with “pneumonia of unknown etiology,” or origin, but that testing revealed “no microorganisms associated with the patient’s professional activities.” Rospotrebnadzor indicated it didn’t discover any incidents at the facility “involving pathogenic microorganisms.” MYSTERY DEATH AT RUSSIAN PLAGUE LAB TRIGGERS SWEEPING PRECAUTIONS AS US WATCHES CLOSELY During remarks on Monday, Trump said, “The germs have really become relatively stronger than they were, and things that used to work on pneumonia don’t work as well anymore. “Anybody that has that kind of a problem, we’re always willing to help,” he said. RUSSIAN BIO-LEAK SECRECY FOLLOWS CHERNOBYL PLAYBOOK, EX-CIA OFFICER WARNS “While the circumstances of this reported case remain unconfirmed, plague is a serious bacterial disease that is treatable with antibiotics, particularly when recognized and treated early,” a Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson noted in a statement, according to NBC News. “At this time, there is no indication from available reporting of a broader threat to the United States,” the statement said. US MONITORING SUSPECTED FATAL PNEUMONIC PLAGUE CASE IN RUSSIA, STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL SAYS Fox News Digital reached out to HHS on Tuesday. The Associated Press contributed to this report
NYT columnist thrashed online for suggesting Trump is to blame for alleged Cornell gang rape
The New York Times is under fire after one of its columnists suggested that President Donald Trump is responsible for creating the culture that led to an alleged sexual assault against a woman at Cornell University by seven men. “What this is, is it’s a fundamental disrespect for women,” columnist Michelle Cottle said on ABC News on Sunday. “You can’t send those messages no matter how drunk you are as a frat boy without having some kind of misunderstanding about what women are there for and whether this is a real person you’re dealing with.” “And that, I think, starts, you know — we can go to the president for this one,” Cottle went on. “I mean, we are in a moment in this culture where the glorification of being thuggish and swaggering and mistreating women is kind of making you a cool kid.” CORNELL PRESIDENT SAYS UNIVERSITY ‘MUST DO BETTER’ ON HANDLING OF SEXUAL ASSAULT ALLEGATIONS A woman identified as Jane Doe in court records has filed a civil lawsuit against seven men she alleges gang-raped her during a ketamine- and alcohol-induced incident at Cornell University in 2024. Former President Joe Biden occupied the White House at that time. The men have denied wrongdoing, with some saying the sex was consensual, and others saying they didn’t participate. No charges have been filed. AOC’S DRAMATIC RETELLING OF CORNELL RAPE ALLEGATIONS COLLIDES WITH COMPLAINT DETAILS The backlash to Cottle’s comments was fierce, especially among those pointing out that the incident happened when Biden was president, including Fox News contributor Joe Concha. “This happened in 2024 when Biden was President. Did she not know that?” another X user asked. “Latest edition of ‘Trump turned me into a newt!’ brought to you by a very very smart person,” said CNN contributor Scott Jennings. “Media and pundits fall all over themselves trying to make everything and anything about Donald Trump. It’s embarrassing and so incredibly lazy,” said Tricia McLaughlin, former assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security. “This take is SO far beyond delusional that you can’t even see sanity from here…” said conservative commentator John Ziegler. “Of course, it’s Trump’s fault,” said the Media Research Center, which first posted the clip. ATTORNEY FOR ACCUSED CORNELL STUDENT CALLS ON LETITIA JAMES TO STEP ASIDE OVER PRIOR COMMENTS Trump has commented on the case, which is now being investigated by longtime foe New York Attorney General Letitia James, who in 2022 filed a civil fraud lawsuit against him. Trump in 2024 was found liable for fraud and ordered to pay more than $350 million, but the penalty was overturned on appeal. Asked about James being appointed to investigate the alleged gang rape, Trump launched into an attack on the state attorney general. “Well, Letitia James is a corrupt person,” Trump said. “She’s totally corrupt, and I can’t imagine it — I feel badly for whoever she’s looking at because they won’t get a fair shake. Letitia James is a corrupt person.” Fox News Digital reached out to The New York Times and the White House for comment.
Millions saved by blocking dead people payouts as Trump Treasury drops hammer on federal fraud
FIRST ON FOX: The Treasury Department blocked $175 million in federal payments tied to deceased recipients in fiscal year 2026, up sharply from the $99 million identified just months earlier as the Trump administration expanded government-wide screening for improper payments. “I applaud Secretary [Scott] Bessent for slamming the door on these fraudsters before they can pick taxpayers’ pockets,” Republican Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy told Fox News Digital. “Unless you were playing Frisbee in the quad during Econ 101, you know the federal government shouldn’t be sending taxpayer money to dead people,” Kennedy went on. “I fought for years to pass my common-sense bill to stop fraudsters from gaming the system, and now it’s the law.” Kennedy has for years pushed to give Treasury greater access to Social Security death records, helping pass a 2020 law that temporarily authorized the Social Security Administration to share its full Death Master File with the department. That three-year data-sharing program began in December 2023. Trump then signed Kennedy’s Ending Improper Payments to Deceased People Act into law in February 2026, making access permanent. TRUMP’S WAR ON FRAUD EXPANDS AS TREASURY LAUNCHES NEW SITE WITH WHISTLEBLOWER INCENTIVES Trump has tasked his administration with rooting out fraud, waste and abuse across the federal government and tightening safeguards around taxpayer dollars — the latest effort to stop federal benefit payments to dead people is just another initiative within that broader effort. “President Trump continues to deliver for Americans where previous administrations have fallen short. This Administration is setting new standards in record time to prevent fraud and improper payments before hard-earned taxpayer dollars leave the Treasury. Under President Trump’s leadership, there is no tolerance for waste, fraud, and abuse,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers told Fox News Digital. Treasury screened more than 1.1 billion federal payments totaling roughly $3.7 trillion in FY2026, identifying and returning about 13,500 payments worth $175 million that otherwise would have been distributed to individuals no longer eligible for payments due to death. “Treasury continues to transform how the federal government protects taxpayer dollars by using better data, stronger controls, and advanced technology to stop fraud and improper payments before money goes out the door,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a press release shared with Fox News Digital. “In the past year alone, Treasury built and deployed new safeguards that verified more than $3.7 trillion in federal payments and increased Do Not Pay access from 4 percent of programs to 99 percent, ensuring agencies have access to the data they need,” Bessent added. “We are moving beyond ‘pay and chase’ and making prevention the federal government’s first line of defense.” WHITE HOUSE PUSHES ‘WATERSHED’ FRAUD-FIGHTING REFORM IN CONGRESS AS VANCE CONVENES TASK FORCE More than 99% of federal programs now have access to the “Do Not Pay” tool, up from roughly 4% at the end of FY2025. The expansion fulfills key requirements of a March 2025 executive order from Trump directing his administration to strengthen safeguards against fraud, waste and abuse involving federal payments. Treasury also screened more than 2.3 billion records against Do Not Pay data sources in FY2026, nearly four times the 641 million records screened the previous fiscal year. The jump comes as the program has expanded across the federal government, alongside new payment verification efforts and additional screenings for states. VANCE TO HOST CONGRESS AT WHITE HOUSE TO DISCUSS LEGISLATIVE ACTION ON FRAUD Treasury also tested new safeguards aimed at verifying that bank accounts belong to the intended recipients and checking Taxpayer Identification Numbers tied to federal payments. The checks became fully operational Sept. 30 and allow Treasury to flag and return payments that fail verification before the money is sent. The latest figures build on Treasury’s July announcement that it had screened more than 885 million payments worth roughly $2.77 trillion and flagged more than 4,900 payments worth about $99 million tied to deceased recipients.
Fox News Power Rankings: The biggest surprises come after October
Four weeks out from the election, and for most Americans, it’s time for football, foliage and flannel. For politics watchers, all eyes are on an October surprise. They’ve been game-changers before. In 2008, the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which ushered in the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, was a turning point in John McCain’s presidential campaign. He was even with Barack Obama when the news broke, then trailed in every survey after. He lost the popular vote by seven points. Surprises have come from home and abroad. In 1980, it was President Jimmy Carter’s inability to resolve the Iranian hostage crisis. Eight years earlier, it was President Richard Nixon’s announcement that “peace was at hand” in Vietnam. Some have more impact than others. It’s not clear that news about George W. Bush’s DUI changed much about the 2000 election, nor that James Comey’s letter to Congress about Hillary Clinton’s email server was the decider in President Trump’s 2016 win. Still, these surprises all have one thing in common: they happened in presidential years. EXPLOSIVE SLEEPER ISSUE COULD FUEL MIDTERM SHAKEUPS, TOP REPUBLICAN PREDICTS: ‘YOU’RE GONNA SEE SURPRISES’ It’s not as though we don’t get breaking news during the last month of a midterm cycle. Take 2018, when the GOP warned about a migrant caravan, Brett Kavanaugh sought a seat on the Supreme Court, and a gunman opened fire at a Pittsburgh synagogue. But that was the exception, not the rule. For the most part, midterm October surprises affect individual races, not the overall trajectory of a party. In the last midterm, for example, Herschel Walker faced damaging allegations about paying for former girlfriends’ abortions, while in Florida, the destruction caused by Hurricane Ian gave Gov. Ron DeSantis the opportunity to show Floridians that he could be trusted to handle a crisis. FOX NEWS POWER RANKINGS: FOR THE DEMOCRATS, WHERE COULD IT POSSIBLY GO WRONG? Voters haven’t changed their minds about Trump or the party they’d prefer to elect to the House for several months now, so local stories like these are the ones to watch in the final weeks of the campaign. Besides, the biggest surprises come after October. For what still looks like a good – maybe great – year for the Democrats, the party is playing defense in some unexpected places. DAVID MARCUS: IN DEEP BLUE MINNESOTA A RED DAWN MAY BE RISING AHEAD OF THE MIDTERMS That starts with Minnesota, where Republicans have a star candidate in Michele Tafoya. The former NFL sideline reporter has been up and down the state with a message to “stop the fraud” if elected to the Senate. That’s been a hot issue in the state, and it’s allowed her to target the Democrat, Peggy Flanagan, who currently serves as lieutenant governor. Then there’s New Hampshire, another state where Democrats are in the driver’s seat thanks to this political environment, but where the GOP has a favorable match up. Former U.S. Senator John E. Sununu is back on the ballot this year against Chris Pappas, who seems to have had trouble animating his voters. Even Oregon’s gubernatorial race is competitive this year. Meanwhile, Republicans are spending money in surprising places. REPUBLICANS FACE BRUTAL MIDTERM HEADWINDS. SIX FORCES COULD HELP THEM DEFY HISTORY. In Arkansas, Sen. Tom Cotton has thrown $13.6 million at his reelection bid, outspending his Democratic opponent Hallie Schoffner 65 to 1. Cotton may have ambitions beyond his current role in the Senate, but in 2020, his spending fell short of $1 million. Idahoans got a letter in the mail from Vice President Vance last month warning them that Democrats could “pour millions of dollars” into independent challenger Todd Achilles; Vance called it an “urgent national race.” Mississippi Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith has been running ads attacking her Democratic challenger Scott Colom in recent weeks, calling him a “failed prosecutor” with a “chilling” record on crime; that state has seen $5 million in ad spending so far this year. FOX NEWS POLL: IT’S A LONE STAR SENATE SHOWDOWN BETWEEN TALARICO AND PAXTON And Florida is full of election surprises. In 2018, Rick Scott won his Senate race by 0.1 percentage points while DeSantis won his by 0.4 points. Two years later, the presidential race was decided by just 3.4 points. Nebraska and South Dakota could be closer-than-expected for Republicans as well. In this week’s Power Rankings, one Carolina gets more competitive while another drifts away from the GOP, and Democrats get nervous about a governor’s race in Oregon. The math is the same in the Senate. Each party has 47 seats to their name, leaving six toss-up races to determine control. Those are Alaska, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, and Texas, which all look close in the flurry of surveys released by pollsters last week. Two other races are highly competitive: New Hampshire (Lean D) and Kansas (Lean R). On the polling alone, these look more like toss-up states: surveys released last week have the Democrat ahead by only five points in New Hampshire, and the Kansas race dead even. It’s the partisan makeup of these states that keeps them at “lean.” North Carolina is less competitive than it was two weeks ago. Fox News confirmed on Friday that the Senate Leadership Fund, a powerful Super PAC aligned with Republican leadership, was pulling resources from the state. Earlier, Sen. Tim Scott left it off a list of states where Republicans were focusing spending. GOP nominee Michael Whatley is running as strong a race as he can there, and the margin will probably be tighter than polls currently have it. But the Democrat, Roy Cooper, is also a strong candidate, and he has had double-digit leads in multiple surveys. North Carolina moves from Lean D to Likely D. Nearby South Carolina is getting more competitive. Darline Graham, appointed to the Senate after the death of her brother, Lindsey, is reportedly getting more help on the campaign trail from President Trump. There are lingering questions about Graham’s ability to turn out