Senate confirms Scott Turner to lead housing agency : NPR

February 5, 2025

Scott Turner delivers his opening remarks during a Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs hearing for his pending confirmation on Jan. 16.

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Scott Turner, who was tapped to promote investment in distressed neighborhoods during President Trump’s first term, has been confirmed as secretary of Housing and Urban Development. The Senate vote Wednesday was 55-44.

Turner spent nine years as a professional football player before being elected twice as a Texas State Representative. He’s also been chief visionary officer at the multifamily housing developer JPI.

During his confirmation hearing, Turner said HUD is “failing at its most basic mission,” noting record-high homelessness and a shortage of affordable housing that leaves people struggling every day. He did not offer specifics for fixing that, but said he would review every HUD program to assess which ones are working.

Turner also resisted the suggestion from Senate Democrats that more federal dollars could help. “There’s record funding from HUD,” he said, “and we’re still not meeting the need.”

He declined to say whether he would oppose major spending cuts to the agency, something the first Trump administration repeatedly proposed, but which did not pass Congress.

As a lawmaker in Texas, Turner opposed expanding affordable rental housing and supported a bill to let landlords refuse to rent to someone on federal housing assistance, according to ProPublica.

He told senators that HUD needs to streamline programs, specifically citing the Section 8 housing voucher program, which many landlords find cumbersome. He also said burdensome regulations slow down construction and add to the cost of housing, and that he would work with states to ease their own rules.

At the hearing last month, he noted that the high cost of building materials is another problem but declined to weigh in on Trump’s plan to increase tariffs on Canadian lumber. Last week, the National Association of Homebuilders asked Trump to exempt building materials from any tariffs on Canada and Mexico “because of their harmful effect on housing affordability.”

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The National Apartment Association and the National Multifamily Housing Council issued a joint statement congratulating Turner. “Secretary Turner’s expansive background in rental housing, community development and economic revitalization makes him the right leader for HUD at the right time,” they said.

“I’m looking forward to working alongside Sec. Turner to confront the very concerns he mentioned in his hearing — from rising homelessness to increased rental costs,” former HUD secretary Shaun Donovan said in a statement. Donovan now leads the housing nonprofit Enterprise Community Partners.

The nonprofit National Association of Housing and Redevelopment said in a statement that it stands ready to work with Turner on a “shared vision of thriving communities with affordable homes for all.”

But NAHRO also seemed to reflect concerns following the Trump administration’s recent move to pause federal payments for grants and other programs, adding that the group would help ensure that “housing and community development agencies nationwide receive their federally appropriated funds without disruption.”

Trump signs ‘No Men in Women’s Sports’ executive order

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February 5, 2025

President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed the “No Men in Women’s Sports” executive order, fulfilling one of his major campaign promises of keeping biological men out of girls and women’s sports.

Trump signed the executive order on National Girls and Women in Sports Day, which celebrates female athletes in women’s sports and those who are committed to providing equal access to sports for all females.

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President Donald Trump speaks before signing an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Feb. 3, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

“This doesn’t have to be long. It’s all about common sense,” Trump said before signing the order, adding that “women’s sports will be only for women.”

Trump declared, “the war on women’s sports is over.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a briefing before Trump signed the executive order that it “upholds the promise of Title IX.”

“President Trump pledged to restore common sense to our country and he’s continuing to deliver on that with an executive order that he will sign later today,” she added. “The president will be signing an executive order, keeping men out of women’s sports to defend the safety of athletes, protect competitive integrity and uphold the promise of Title IX.

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Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt signs SB2, the Save Women in Sports Act, in the Blue Room at the Capitol Wednesday, March 30, 2022. (IMAGN)

“This common-sense action from President Trump ends the disgusting betrayal of women and girls by the previous administration, who for years catered to radical activists who wanted biological males to be treated as women in workplace, showers, competitive sports, prisons and even rape shelters. Gender ideology insanity is over.”

Leavitt also called on Senate lawmakers to pass the Protection of Women and Girls Sports Act, which the House passed last month. The bill would ban biological males from participating on girls’ school sports teams. The bill would amend federal law to specify that student athletes must participate in school sports teams that coincide with their gender at birth.

Mar 17, 2022; Atlanta, Georgia, USA; Save Women’s Sports advisor Beth Stelzer holds a press conference outside of the NCAA Women’s Swimming & Diving Championship at Georgia Tech. (Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports)

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“It’s incredibly important Congress immediately acts on this priority,” Leavitt added. “I think the president is really setting the tone making this a very immediate priority for this administration just as he promised to do on the campaign trail.”

This is a breaking news story. Check back for updates.

Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.

Ryan Gaydos is a senior editor for Fox News Digital.

French Government Survives No-Confidence Vote

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February 5, 2025

France’s government lived to see another day on Wednesday, after it survived a no-confidence vote in Parliament and gave the recently appointed prime minister a temporary reprieve from months of political turmoil and the country a promise of stability, at least in the short term.

The no-confidence motion was supported by only 128 lawmakers in the 577-seat National Assembly, France’s lower house, short of the absolute majority required. Had it passed, the motion would have forced the centrist prime minister, François Bayrou, and his cabinet to resign.

The motion’s failure ensures safe passage of a 2025 budget bill that France needs badly — it has been operating with temporary stopgap funding since the start of the year — and that the government hopes will rein in the country’s surging debt and deficit, with a goal of generating 50 billion euros in savings through tax increases and spending cuts.

The budget bill now goes to the Senate for final approval on Thursday. On Wednesday, Mr. Bayou passed through a second no-confidence motion, triggered by another budget bill on health care and other social security expenses.

Mr. Bayrou’s bigger problem of running a government in hostile territory has not been solved. The lower house is deeply divided, with a centrist-conservative bloc that supports him and two main opposition wings — a tenuous alliance of left-wing parties called the New Popular Front and the anti-immigrant far-right National Rally party — that do not.

But the vote and the new budget will for now give one of Europe’s leading economies a semblance of stability. Mr. Bayrou, a centrist ally of President Emmanuel Macron, was appointed just over a month ago — the fourth prime minister in a year, unusual for France.

“He is living day to day, taking one step after another,” said Rémi Lefebvre, a professor of political science at the University of Lille. “But there are other tests coming,” he added. “I don’t believe in the longevity of the Bayrou government, but for now, he’s buying time.”

Mr. Bayrou, listing challenges including the war in Ukraine and President Trump’s aggressive, no-holds-barred foreign policy, told lawmakers on Wednesday that France could not afford to confront “advancing tsunamis” by “worsening our weaknesses and our divisions.”

France, he said, “must recover its strength, its solidarity and its pride.”

To see the budget through, Mr. Bayrou used a constitutional provision that pushes a bill through the National Assembly without a final vote but exposes him to a no-confidence motion. French governments often use that tool when they do not have a majority to back a bill, although critics say that it is an unfair tactic to strong-arm lawmakers and that governments under Mr. Macron have used it profusely.

Michel Barnier, Mr. Bayrou’s predecessor, used the same provision in December but was ousted.

The no-confidence motion on Wednesday was put forward by the hard-left France Unbowed party. This time, Mr. Bayrou avoided the same fate as Mr. Barnier’s by actively courting and negotiating with the Socialist Party, which decided to abstain from supporting the no-confidence motion despite cries of treason from its allies in the New Popular Front.

He has also benefited from the temporary benevolence of National Rally, which also announced this week that it would not vote for the no-confidence motion.

Both parties denounced the budget as bad. But both also argued that a bad budget was better than no budget at all and that prolonging political instability was irresponsible.

The Socialist Party chose to wrest whatever concessions it could in the budget — for instance, by ensuring that 4,000 teaching positions would not be cut.

“We are clearheaded; these advances don’t make this budget a fair one,” Emmanuel Grégoire, a Socialist lawmaker, told the lower house on Wednesday as he defended his party’s position. But without a budget, he added, France is “weakened and without resources.”

“Even a bad budget is used to fund public services, support the economy, make investments and finance our national defense,” Mr. Grégoire said. Still, he added, the Socialist Party had “neither indulgence nor complacency” for Mr. Bayrou’s government and remained firmly in the opposition.

To make that point, the Socialists will put forward a separate no-confidence motion in the coming weeks over criticism that the government was fostering a “Trumpification of public debate” — most notably after Mr. Bayrou said last week that immigration in France had created a “feeling of submersion” in the country. The comments sparked criticism from the left that he was echoing far-right talking points.

The Socialist Party’s decision to negotiate with the government and to let it survive has slightly changed the dynamic in Parliament, releasing Mr. Bayrou from the grip that the far-right held on his predecessor and helping the Socialists stand out in the New Popular Front.

“They are back in the political game,” said Mr. Lefebvre, the analyst.

But the Socialists’ calculus was met with derision among other members of the left-wing alliance, which has the most seat numbers in the lower house but has been increasingly torn by internal divisions.

“There is only one way of expressing your opposition to the budget, only one way of expressing your opposition to the government, and that’s voting a no-confidence motion,” Aurélie Trouvé, a France Unbowed lawmaker, told the lower house on Wednesday.

The Socialist Party’s future no-confidence motion is expected to fail as well because it is unlikely to receive support on the right and the far right. But it underscores the fact that the success of Mr. Bayrou’s government on Wednesday was fragile.

It must still navigate a fractured political landscape where both the left-wing alliance and the National Rally can pull the trigger on a no-confidence motion when it suits them.

Some have compared Mr. Bayrou to a condominium board trustee — with the power to keep the building running and resolve small squabbles, but nothing more.

“His dilemma is that he can’t give off the sense he’s inactive and doing nothing,” said Benjamin Morel, a lecturer in public law at Panthéon-Assas University in Paris. “But he doesn’t have the means of getting that agenda adopted, because today any bill that is fundamentally controversial risks bringing down the government.”

That conundrum comes at a particularly delicate time for France, which is currently one of the most financially troubled countries in Europe. Its ballooning debt and deficit have unsettled financial markets.

The government aims to rein in the public deficit to 5.4 percent of gross domestic product in 2025, down from 6.1 percent in 2024, through a mix of government spending cuts and tax increases, including a temporary one-year tax on France’s wealthiest households and most profitable companies.

The new budget also includes increased taxes on plane tickets, a special one-year tax on maritime shipping companies and cuts to several government budgets — including the environment, culture and labor ministries.

The High Council of Public Finance, an official body given the task of assessing the government’s economic and budgetary forecasts, said in a report last week that the new budget would “kick-start the much-needed deficit reduction trajectory” but offered “little leeway,” with an “reachable but slightly optimistic” government goal of reaching 0.9 percent growth in 2025.

DOJ says will not fire FBI agents who acted in ‘ethical’ way over Jan. 6 cases : NPR

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February 5, 2025

A seal reading “Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Investigation” is displayed on the J. Edgar Hoover FBI building in Washington, D.C. in 2022.

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A top Justice Department official said FBI agents who “simply followed orders and carried out their duties in an ethical manner” when conducting investigations into the Jan. 6 Capitol riot do not face the risk of being fired.

That message to the FBI workforce on Wednesday from acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove is the latest in a back-and-forth between the Justice Department and the bureau as the Trump administration looks to remake the department, implement its agenda and push out those it deems disloyal.

“Let me be clear: No FBI employee who simply followed orders and carried out their duties in an ethical manner with respect to January 6 investigations is at risk of termination or other penalties,” Bove writes in the message, a copy of which was obtained by NPR.

FBI and ATF law enforcement push out supporters of President Trump as they protested inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C.

The FBI is part of the Justice Department, which declined to comment.

The message to the workforce comes as Pam Bondi was sworn in as the new attorney general on Wednesday.

The only individuals who should be concerned, the memo says, “are those who acted with corrupt or partisan intent, who blatantly defied orders from Department leadership, or who exercised discretion in weaponizing the FBI.”

The FBI has been in turmoil since last week when Bove issued a memo, with the subject line “Terminations,” that ordered the firing of eight senior FBI officials, and demanded the bureau identify all current and former FBI personnel who worked on Jan. 6 cases or the recent prosecution of Hamas leaders.

The Department of Justice stands in the early morning hours in 2019 in Washington, D.C.

That set off panic across the FBI and fears of a mass purge of agents who worked on those investigations.

On Tuesday, the FBI provided the Justice Department with a list of bureau employees who worked on Jan. 6 cases, but that list did not contain names. Instead, the bureau provided employee ID numbers and other information, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Allies and foes reject Trump’s ‘Riviera’ plans for Gaza: ‘new suffering and new hatred’

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February 5, 2025

The world reacted in unified shock on Wednesday after President Donald Trump announced his intention that the U.S. develop the Gaza Strip to create a “Riviera of the Middle East,” and that millions of Palestinians living there would be relocated.

The bombshell proposal was made during a press conference on Tuesday when Trump, standing next to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, refused to rule out U.S. military intervention and said Washington “will take over the Gaza Strip.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt looked to ease concerns on Wednesday and said the president has not “committed to putting boots on the ground” or to paying for the reconstruction plans.

But her assurances came after the president’s proposal was met with swift resistance from leaders across the Middle East, Europe, Asia, South America and Oceania.

RAND PAUL RECOILS AT TRUMP’S GAZA TAKEOVER PLANS: ‘I THOUGHT WE VOTED FOR AMERICA FIRST’

President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu answer questions during a joint press conference in the East Room at the White House, Feb. 4, 2025. (Reuters/Leah Millis)

MIDDLE EAST

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia, which Trump has pushed to “normalize ties” with Israel, flatly rejected Trump’s proposal and in a statement issued by the foreign ministry said there could be no diplomatic relations with the Jewish state without a two-state solution for the Palestinians.

“Saudi Arabia rejects any attempts to displace the Palestinians from their land. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has affirmed the kingdom’s position in ‘a clear and explicit manner’ that does not allow for any interpretation under any circumstances.”

United Arab Emirates

The UAE, which did sign on to the Abraham Accords during the first Trump administration, responded to his remarks in a statement from the foreign ministry and issued a “categorical rejection of violating the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and attempting to displace them, and called for the need to stop settlement activities that threaten regional stability and undermine opportunities for peace and coexistence.”

The ministry “stressed the importance of avoiding everything that could lead to the expansion of the conflict in the region, and explained that the priority now after the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip must focus on ending extremism, tension and violence, protecting the lives of all civilians, and delivering urgent, safe and sustainable humanitarian aid.”

Hamas

A senior official with the terror group Hamas, Sami Abu Zuhri, said, “Our people in the Gaza Strip will not allow these plans to pass. What is required is to end the [Israeli] occupation and aggression against our people, not to expel them from their land.”

Destruction from Israeli airstrikes is seen in Gaza City on Oct. 11. (AP/Adel Hana)

SAUDI ARABIA CONTRADICTS TRUMP, VOWS NO TIES WITH ISRAEL WITHOUT CREATION OF PALESTINIAN STATE

Palestinian leadership

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas echoed the shared sentiment and said, “The Palestinians will not relinquish their land, rights and sacred sites, and that the Gaza Strip is an integral part of the land of the State of Palestine, along with the West Bank and East Jerusalem.”

Iran

A senior Iranian official told Reuters, “Iran does not agree with any displacement of Palestinians and has communicated this through various channels.”

EUROPE

United Kingdom

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has been toeing the line when it comes to relations with the U.S. amid the second Trump administration, for the first time on Wednesday broke with Trump and said Palestinians “must be allowed home.”

“They must be allowed to rebuild, and we should be with them in that rebuild on the way to a two-state solution,” he added, speaking from the House of Commons, Politico EU reported.

Germany

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock took a more direct approach and, in a statement, said, in accordance with international law, “It is clear that Gaza – just like the West Bank and East Jerusalem – belongs to the Palestinians. It forms the basis for a future state of Palestine.

“A displacement of the Palestinian civilian population from Gaza would not only be unacceptable and in breach of international law. It would also lead to new suffering and new hatred,” she added.

An aerial view of the Gaza Pier, where a large crowd of Palestinians have gathered

Palestinians gather in the hope of obtaining aid delivered into Gaza through a U.S.-built pier, May 19, 2024. (Reuters/Ramadan Abed/File Photo)

‘LEVEL IT’: TRUMP SAYS US WILL ‘TAKE OVER’ GAZA STRIP, REBUILD IT TO STABILIZE MIDDLE EAST

Russia

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov reaffirmed Russia’s support for a two-state solution and said, “This is the thesis that is enshrined in the relevant U.N. Security Council resolution, this is the thesis that is shared by the overwhelming majority of countries involved in this problem. We proceed from it, we support it and believe that this is the only possible option.”

France

French foreign ministry spokesperson Christophe Lemoine also released a statement warning that anything but a two-state solution would have destabilizing consequences for the entire region. “France reiterates its opposition to any forced displacement of Gaza’s Palestinian population, which would constitute a serious violation of international law,” he said.

“Gaza’s future must lie not in the prospect of control by a third State but in the framework of a future Palestinian State, under the aegis of the Palestinian Authority.”

China

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said, “China has all along believed that ‘the Palestinians governing Palestine’ is the fundamental principle of post-conflict governance of Gaza.

“We oppose the forced displacement of the people in Gaza, and hope that relevant parties will take the opportunity of the ceasefire and post-conflict governance in Gaza to bring the Palestinian question back to the right track of a political settlement based on the two-state solution, so as to realize lasting peace in the Middle East,” he added, during a Wednesday press conference.

Palestinians carry belongings as they leave al-Ahli hospital, which they were using as a shelter, in Gaza City, Oct. 18, 2023. (AP Photo/Abed Khaled)

Turkey

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told local news outlets that Trump’s proposal was “unacceptable” and argued that plans to leave Palestinians “out of the equation” would lead to more conflict.

Turkish President Recep Erdoğan does not appear to have publicly commented yet, though his strong stance against Israel’s deadly operations in Gaza could signal the two leaders may geopolitically butt heads over how to handle the post-war era in the Gaza Strip.

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OCEANIA

Australia

Australia, which has become a chief ally of the U.S. in countering China – a push Trump has named one of his top priorities – made its position on Trump’s comments clear after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said, “Australia’s position is the same as it was this morning, as it was last year. The Australian government supports on a bipartisan basis a two-state solution.”

SOUTH AMERICA

Brazil

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called Trump’s comments “bravado” and said in an interview with local radio stations, “No country, no matter how important, can fight the entire world all the time.”

“It makes no sense,” he argued while defending a two-state solution. “Where would Palestinians live? This is something incomprehensible to any human being.

“Palestinians are the ones who need to take care of Gaza,” he added.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Caitlin McFall is a Reporter at Fox News Digital covering Politics, U.S. and World news.

The Search for the Original Silly Goose in the Fossil Record

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February 5, 2025

It’s taken decades, but scientists may have finally found Earth’s first fowl.

It started in 1993 on Vega Island, a frigid, windswept rock off the Antarctic Peninsula. A mostly headless skeleton of a loon-size diving bird emerged from rocks that, at 68 million years old, predated the dinosaur extinction. The species, which scientists named Vegavis iaai, presented a puzzle: What bird was it a feather of?

Nearly 20 years later, a 2011 Antarctic expedition turned up a bird skull that more recently was matched with Vegavis iaai. In an analysis published Wednesday in the journal Nature, researchers are sticking their necks out to suggest that the mysterious Antarctic avian is an ancient relative of today’s geese and ducks, and the oldest known modern bird.

“It’s exactly the kind of thing we need to help fill in an evolutionary gap,” said Christopher Torres, a paleontologist at Ohio University and an author on the paper. But he conceded, “that’s also what makes it so incredibly controversial.”

In the past few decades, Dr. Torres said, researchers looking at bird genomics suggested that some modern bird families — particularly waterfowl and game fowl — probably appeared before the asteroid impact that wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs. But before the discovery of Vegavis in the 1990s, no characteristic fossils had been identified, leaving a gap between molecular data and rocky physical evidence.

The mixture of archaic and modern skeletal traits in the original Vegavis specimen also made it difficult to place, said Chase Brownstein, a paleontologist at Yale University who was not involved in the research. Some researchers suggested that Vegavis might have been one of several families of extinct Mesozoic birds — some with toothed bills and clawed wing-fingers — that didn’t survive the Cretaceous period extinction. Others believed it was a modern bird, closer to loons, grebes or geese.

The skull found in 2011 helped breach this prehistoric logjam.

The researchers of the new paper generated a near-complete three-dimensional reconstruction of the bird’s head. They found that Vegavis had the toothless beak and brain shape characteristic of modern birds, Dr. Torres said, as well as specific skull traits that they argue suggest the bird is closely related to modern waterfowl. But — and here’s the silly part — the skull is quite different from those of living ducks or geese. Its beak was long and pointed. It had large glands to remove salt from the body, and powerful jaw muscles that allowed the bird to snap its jaws quickly underwater.

The entire skeleton points toward a bird that dove underwater after fish and propelled itself with powerful kicking legs, Dr. Torres said. That is unlike any modern water fowl, “and much more similar to what we see in modern loons and grebes.”

Despite the bird’s loony body plan and head, the fine details of its skull — including its jaw and beak — show specific traits that suggest waterfowl, Dr. Torres said.

While Mr. Brownstein called the discovery of the Vegavis skull “exciting,” he isn’t convinced that it’s enough to settle the debate over the animal’s identity — or to clarify when bird lineages like waterfowl appeared. But even the most conservative interpretation of the skull indicates that modern birds and their closest toothless relatives were extremely anatomically diverse at the end of the Cretaceous period, he said.

Others are more enthusiastic.

The fact that a bird with such modern features was around by the end of the dinosaurs’ reign suggests that other major lineages of living birds were likely present as well, said Gerardo Álvarez Herrera, a paleontologist with the Bernardino Rivadavia Natural Sciences Argentine Museum who was not involved in the study. It’s possible that further exploration will uncover “the ancestors of ostriches, fowls, neoaves and ducks that may have roamed alongside non-avian dinosaurs.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson pledges to support Trump on Gaza : NPR

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February 5, 2025

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters on Wednesday that President Trump’s comments about Gaza were “bold” and pledged to stand with Trump.

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Top House Republican leadership is sharing early support for President Trump’s proposal that the United States “take over the Gaza strip” and relocate some 1.8 million Palestinians.

Trump’s comments came during a press conference Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and didn’t include specifics.

“We’ll own it,” Trump said of the Gaza Strip. “We have an opportunity to do something that could be phenomenal … the Riviera of the Middle East.”

President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speak during a news conference in the East Room of the White House on Tuesday.

At a House GOP leadership press conference Wednesday morning, House Speaker Mike Johnson called Trump’s proposal “a bold move – certainly far bolder than what’s been done before” and said “we’ll stand with the president on his initiative.”

“I think you have to do something to eradicate the threat to Israel. Here’s the problem. If you leave Gaza in its current form, there’s always a risk of another October seventh. There’s always a risk of proxies of Iran—all these terrorist organizations whose openly stated goal is to eliminate Israel as a state,” he said. “So it just makes sense to make the neighborhood there safer. I think that’s logical.”

Johnson added that details of the plan itself are forthcoming.

“Let’s withhold judgment on all of it. You’ll see more developments as they come,” he told reporters.

It’s a view shared by many Republicans, including South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman.

“What Trump is doing is exactly right,” Norman said after Republicans’ weekly party meeting.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., answers questions at the U.S. Capitol following a weekly Republican policy luncheon on Tuesday.

Norman also noted the difference between an opening salvo from Trump and the eventual outcome. He compared the Gaza comments to Trump’s recent decision to put tariffs against Mexico and Canada on hold.

“Look at the tariffs – he throws a number out and then he brings them to the table. It’s this thing called leverage,” he said. “Everything is a negotiation.”

Others said they are still waiting on the specifics.

“I would have to learn a lot more,” said Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole of the topic of Gaza. “Certainly, we want to be helpful where we can, but the responsibility for rebuilding is going to lie mostly within the region, not with the American taxpayer. I’m always interested in what the president has to say but count me as reluctant to send a single American into Gaza.”

Strong public opposition to Trump’s Gaza comments among Republicans is scarce.

“I thought we voted for America First,” Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky posted on X. “We have no business contemplating yet another occupation to doom our treasure and spill our soldiers blood.”

New York Dem vying to replace Stefanik trashed Border Patrol, corrections

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February 5, 2025

The Democratic candidate who will run to replace outgoing Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik in upstate New York can be heard in a resurfaced interview condemning U.S. Border Patrol for apprehending illegal immigrants and disparaging off-duty corrections officers and local American laborers he hired to work on his dairy farm.

Blake Gendebien, the owner and president of Twin Mill Farms in Lisbon, New York, since 2002, was tapped Tuesday to run in an eventual special election in New York’s 21st Congressional District.

The U.S. House seat will be vacated by Stefanik, President Donald Trump’s nominee to become U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, but the powerful House Republican still awaits a Senate confirmation vote. With the special election timeline hanging in the balance, the 15 Democratic chairmen of NY-21 announced their unanimous support for Gendebien, championing him as “an authentic voice that will fight for sensible solutions.”

The Democrats categorized Gendebien, who also serves as vice chairman of the Agri-Mark Dairy Cooperative covering New York and New England, as a husband, father, small business owner and former school board member who “will fight to lower costs and secure our borders.” Celebrating him as “an outsider to the political arena,” they said Gendebien “embodies the voice and grit that distinguishes this district.”

NY DEMS WORKING TO KEEP STEFANIK’S HOUSE SEAT VACANT FOR MONTHS IN LATEST SCHEME AGAINST TRUMP: ASSEMBLYMAN

Blake Gendebien is an upstate New York dairy farmer running for Congress. (Blake Gendebien For Congress)

Republican state leadership, however, quickly condemned Gendebien as a “far-left Democrat,” arguing that the candidate “not only supported Joe Biden’s open border policies, but also bailed out illegals from ICE.”

New York GOP Chair Ed Cox referenced the dairy farmer’s past comments made in a more than hour-long interview with a local newspaper reporter on March 13, 2014.

According to the recorded audio reviewed by Fox News Digital, Gendebien voiced frustrations about the labor market in upstate New York. Among his comments, he claimed local correction officers “don’t have much self-worth,” and described North County workers as not having “practical independence and ability to think,” in contrast to his foreign farm laborers.

“Far Left Democrat Blake Gendebien even castigated hardworking North Country workers as ‘awful‘ people who ‘drank too much,'” Cox said in a statement. “This radical Far Left Democrat is a longtime major donor and groupie of leftist, gun-grabbing, Taxin’ Tedra Cobb, a supporter of Kathy Hochul, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and a public supporter of Biden’s inflation policies, which devastated NY21 families. Democrats didn’t do their homework when they selected Blake Gendebien and his catastrophic statements. Republicans will easily hold this seat in the upcoming special election, because the North Country is unquestionably Trump Country.”

In the 2014 interview, Gendebien is heard explaining why he much preferred “Hispanic labor,” generalizing local residents as having drinking problems and being involved in child custody disputes.

“If it weren’t for the Hispanic labor, I wouldn’t be doing this,” Gendebien said while describing the process for milking cows. “So there’s three Hispanic employees. They would need to be replaced by probably six local people. And it’s hard to find one person that does not have domestic abuse problems, alcohol problems, wage garnishments.”

“So when you hire these local guys, all of a sudden you’re bombarded with social program stuff like what do you call it? I don’t even – I’m not in that world, so I don’t know,” he went on. “So the court will call you. Is Brian showing up to work? What is Brian making? He has a child with this girl. He has a child with this girl. He has a court date. He needs to appear on this day. So you’ve got all of these plans and these guys have to leave for court all the time because they’re in custody battles and, what’s it called, child support battles. And they want you to lie and tell that you don’t make this money. And it’s just awful. And they show up late. They show up. They drink too much. There is just no labor force out there.”

Regarding other farm help, Gendebien said he hired a corrections officer.

Rep. Elise Stefanik listens to Sen. Tom Cotton introduce her as she is set to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on her nomination to be ambassador to the United Nations on Jan. 21, 2025. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

STEFANIK LOOKS BACK TO FIERY EXCHANGES WITH COLLEGE LEADERS IN SENATE CONFIRMATION HEARING: ‘WATERSHED MOMENT

“You probably know that they don’t have much self-worth in their jobs as corrections officers, so they’ll work extra time and get maybe three, four weeks’ vacation. And in that vacation they will do things, plumbing or electrician work or something, just so that they feel some self-worth,” Gendebien told the reporter. “So we gave him all hunting rights. You can hunt all 800 acres and he does the work for basically materials. But he also gets some self-worth. He gets the hunting rights, and we get a guy that we trust to do a lot of work and a good deal. He did my house, he did the barn. He did a lot of things.”

At one point, Gendebien complained that a Border Patrol agent took one of his workers, an illegal immigrant, into custody.

“So Border Patrol is up and down this road,” Gendebien relayed to the reporter, according to the audio archived by the Library of Congress. “As far as I know, these guys are illegal. I have all their paperwork, and I’m not obligated to check. Not obligated to E-Verify. So I get the same paperwork from them as I get from anyone else. And we move along. But Border Patrol will profile by skin color, crossing the road and they’ll stop. And then they will interrogate and scream at the person.”

After Border Patrol confronted one farmworker and took him into custody, Gendebien said he called up the high school’s soccer coach, a 30-year Border Patrol agent, who told him that new Border Patrol agents sent to upstate New York from places like Arizona want to make more apprehensions, causing some friction within leadership at their command.

House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik attends the inauguration of Donald Trump in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on Jan. 20, 2025. (Kevin Lamarque – Pool/Getty Images)

Gendebien said the man told him, “I don’t pick up farmworkers, but we get young men and women from Arizona that are gung-ho, and all they want to do is pick people up. And he said when they bring someone in, we have to support them. We can’t say no because then they’ll want our jobs. They want our senior jobs. So they’ll quickly say, ‘You are, you know, you’re not supporting me with this illegal person.'”

One Christmas Eve, Gendebien said, he bailed out an illegal immigrant for $10,000 so that he had help on the farm over the holiday.

While talking about how his family came to live in North County, Gendebien said his father-in-law was a first-generation Cuban immigrant who was a superintendent of an apartment building in New York City, while his own parents worked in the Peace Corps in South America and got kicked out of Bolivia with other Americans “when it turned communist.” His parents bought a farm in upstate in New York, where Gendebien said they felt like outsiders at the time.

Because his family speaks Spanish, Gendebien said they have an advantage compared to other farmers who do not while training foreign workers.

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“But here I speak Spanish, Carmen speaks Spanish, mom speaks Spanish, dad speaks Spanish,” Gendebien said. “So we can explain things to do. And they’re very capable. Incredibly capable of incredibly practical knowledge and capable. A thing that the local kids around here don’t have. They don’t have a practical independence and ability to think and knowledge like these guys do. Which is too bad these other farms aren’t getting that out of them, mainly because of the language barrier.”

Fox News Digital reached out to Gendebien’s campaign, but they did not immediately respond.

Danielle Wallace is a breaking news and politics reporter at Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to [email protected] and on X: @danimwallace.

Trump’s Proposal on Gaza Is a Risk for Egypt and Jordan

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February 5, 2025

For decades, the question of whether and how Palestinians might build a state in their homeland has been at the center of Middle East politics — not only for the Palestinians, but for Arabs around the region, many of whom regard the Palestinian cause almost as their own.

Forcing Palestinians out of their remaining territory, Arabs say, would doom Palestinian statehood and destabilize the entire region in the process.

So it was a nightmare for the Palestinians’ closest Arab neighbors, Egypt and Jordan — and a dream for Israel’s far-right-dominated government — when President Trump proposed moving everyone out of the Gaza Strip and onto their soil, an idea he repeated in a White House news conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Tuesday.

To the two Arab governments, it is not a matter of real estate or refugee camps. Accepting displacement would mean compromising their own long-held principles, angering their people, risking their own security and stability and perhaps paving the way for West Bank Palestinians to meet the same fate. They have responded with categorical “nos.”

That refusal has been backed up by political independents and opposition figures in Egypt, along with mouthpieces for the country’s authoritarian government, underscoring how the Palestinian issue can unify even the bitterest political opponents there.

Khaled el-Balshy, the editor of one of the few remaining Egyptian media outlets that is not pro-government and the head of the national journalists’ union, issued a statement on Wednesday calling Mr. Trump’s proposal “a clear violation of human rights and international laws.”

Moustafa Bakry, a loudly pro-government member of Parliament, suggested, without giving specifics, that Egypt could repel the displacement with force. “Egypt can move forward with other measures, because the Egyptian military can never allow this,” he said in an interview on Wednesday.

But Mr. Trump has shown little regard for the two countries’ concerns, their sovereignty or the idea of Palestinian statehood.

“They say they’re not going to accept,” Mr. Trump said of Egypt and Jordan during an earlier meeting with Mr. Netanyahu in the Oval Office. “I say they will.”

Trump offers deferred resignation to CIA, ODNI, NSA workers : NPR

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February 5, 2025

The agency seal on the floor of the lobby at the CIA, in Mclean, VA.

Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images

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Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Employees at the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence were sent deferred resignation offer letters this week, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

This photo taken in Washington, D.C., shows the Theodore Roosevelt Federal Building on June 5, 2015.

These are the first examples of the national security and intelligence workforce being included in broader efforts to downsize the federal government by the Trump administration. The move is causing panic within the broader national security community that years of experience, talent and secrets could soon be heading out the door from the CIA and ODNI headquarters in McLean, Va., and the NSA’s in Fort Meade, Md.

The offer was extended to “any employee” at the agencies, as part of an effort to align the intelligence community with President Trump’s agenda, though sources suggested there might be exceptions for especially sensitive or high priority positions.

The Internal Revenue Service headquarters building is seen on August 21, 2024 in Washington, D.C.

“Director Ratcliffe is moving swiftly to ensure the CIA workforce is responsive to the administration’s national security priorities,” said a CIA spokesperson who spoke to NPR on the condition of anonymity. “These moves are part of a holistic strategy to infuse the agency with renewed energy, provide opportunities for rising leaders to emerge, and better position the CIA to deliver on its mission.”

An ODNI spokesperson who spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity confirmed that ODNI staff also received the deferred resignation offer.

The NSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Pentagon declined to speak on behalf of the NSA.

President Trump looks on as SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks at a MAGA victory rally at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C.

Few details were available about the specific terms of the offer letters.

The CIA and ODNI declined to confirm whether the offer was structured the same way as the one made across federal civilian agencies in which employees would be paid for eight months work after resigning.

That offer was originally sent to federal employees with the email subject line “Fork in the Road,” mirroring language provided to employees of the social media company X, then Twitter, after it was acquired by SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Now, Musk and the government team called DOGE, or the Department of Government Efficiency, have been visiting and reviewing the systems at federal agencies over recent weeks with the blessing of Trump. Their access to sensitive data and servers have already led to widespread protests and legal challenges.

According to one source familiar with the matter, some government employees were told that the “Fork in the Road” emails included code that would track where the message was sent after being delivered, in order to catch potential leakers.

The news of the offer letters at NSA comes just days after the agency had ordered its museum, the National Cryptologic Museum, to cover up plaques honoring female and minority alumni with distinguished records of service in the field. After NSA alumni visited the museum to protest, drawing attention on social media to the brown paper coverings, the NSA reversed course and allowed the coverings to be removed.

The headquarters of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is seen on Feb. 3, 2025 in Washington, D.C.

The CIA, NSA, and ODNI would not be the only agencies losing employees whose mission includes contributing to global security.

At the United States Agency for International Development, which distributes billions in foreign aid, all direct hire employees will be put on administrative leave by Friday. While Trump has accused the agency of fraud and abuse of resources, he failed to cite concrete evidence of malfeasance.

Meanwhile, USAID employees around the world contribute to diplomatic and aid missions that allow for U.S. influence in regions that are vulnerable to adversaries like Russia and China, an argument previously made by Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

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