The Georgia Republican filed her “motion to vacate” a month ago and said she intends to bring it to the House floor on Monday.

“It’s a horrible idea,” Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., told The Hill. “Moses could not do a better job than what Mike Johnson is doing right now.”

Virginia Republican Bob Good agrees. “She’s not acting in the best interests of President Trump,” he told The Hill on Sunday. “I don’t think this is a good move six months before an election. She’s always been about herself primarily.”

Johnson, himself, has dismissed Greene’s effort, saying he does not consider her a serious lawmaker.

“I don't think she is proving to be. No. I don't spend a lot of time thinking about her. I gotta do my job. We do the right thing and we let the chips fall where they may,” Johnson said.

Adding to Greene’s challenge: only two fellow House Republicans have said they’ll back her move. And the Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, said he’ll help kill the motion.

“The time has come to turn the page on this chapter of Pro-Putin Republican obstruction," Jeffries said earlier this month. “House Democrats have aggressively pushed back against MAGA extremism. We will continue to do just that,” he added.

Greene has blasted Johnson’s cooperation with Democrats to pass a spending bill and the trio of supplemental foreign aid bills benefiting Israel, Taiwan and Ukraine. She also opposed the reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Greene's move is allowed thanks to a rule change that lets a single member raise a “privileged motion.” Before that, a House member had to have the backing of their party or caucus to file a motion to vacate. Then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy agreed to the change to win the votes needed to become Speaker.

"The stigma is real. It's very real," said Fadal, who has an upcoming documentary titled "The M Factor" about menopause. "By the year 2025, if you just take a look at the numbers, 1 billion women across the world will be in menopause. That's ... a little bit more than half the population."

Yet, Fadal notes, most women don't even know what they're dealing with when they experience symptoms like hot flashes, brain fog and anxiety.

"The problem is, and most of them don't even know what they're dealing with. So they're well into their symptoms. They don't know what's happening. And then they're left to wonder what is going on? They face a lack of treatment, a lack of education, and a lack of options about menopause," she said in a Sunday interview on “NewsNation Prime."

Fadal's own menopause journey involved visiting five different doctors before understanding what was occurring, highlighting gaps in medical training about the condition.

Under a proposal by Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington and Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, $125 million would be set aside for clinical trials, public health and medical research on menopause. The remaining money would help support menopause detection and diagnosis, train doctors on treating menopause and raise public awareness around it.

"I love to see a bipartisan bill like this. I love to see everybody coming together on Capitol Hill," Fadal said. "We've still got work to do. But I think we're going to do it."

The bill is backed by 17 senators — three Republicans, 13 Democrats, one independent and all of them women. Several senators said Thursday they hope the bill will also encourage doctors, women and men to speak more openly about the health milestone all women experience.

While the legislation has cleared what is typically one of Congress’ biggest hurdles — getting bipartisan support — its prospects are uncertain. It’s difficult getting bills through Congress at any time and the challenges are compounded now by the divisiveness on the Hill and the dwindling number of days on the legislative calendar before the November election.

The group of women will need to get buy-in from their male colleagues to make the money for menopause research a reality. Congress is overwhelmingly represented by men.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

In a Sunday interview on “NewsNation Prime," Stein said the U.S. must respect U.N. resolutions and the International Court of Justice's ruling that the situation in Gaza is a "plausible genocide." She accused American political elites of "normalizing the murder and torture of children on an industrial scale."

From coast to coast, U.S. campus protesters put up tents to protest Israel’s military action in Gaza and demand the schools divest from companies they claim “profit from Israeli apartheid.”

Stein, arrested last week at a protest, said she is "healing" but sees the situation "digging in" despite some colleges agreeing to divest from companies linked to the conflicts.

The presidential candidate also touted her long-shot 2024 election bid, saying her campaign is "on track" to appear on ballots nationwide as the "pro-worker, anti-war, anti-genocide, climate emergency choice" that Americans want.

Stein rejected the idea that her candidacy could function as a spoiler, taking votes from Biden. "I think the concept that votes are taken away or that anybody owns your vote is anti-democratic at its face," she said.

In recent weeks, regulatory agencies have been racing against the clock to finalize some of their most consequential policies, such as abortion data privacy, antidiscrimination protections for transgender patients and nursing home minimum staffing. 

At issue is the Congressional Review Act (CRA), a fast-track legislative tool that allows lawmakers to nullify rules even after the executive branch has completed them. The CRA also bars agencies from pursuing “substantially similar” rules going forward, unless Congress orders it. 

Rules can be protected if they are finished before the “look-back” window opens in the last 60 legislative days of the 2024 session. But because of the quirks of the congressional calendar, nobody will likely know when that is until after Congress adjourns for the year. 

According to a review from the George Washington University, that window has often fallen between May and August, most regularly occurring in July.

Most of the major rules that supporters of the administration were concerned about were published in April. Advocacy groups praised the White House for finalizing regulations they said will protect vulnerable populations.

“The administration is advancing important work with respect to health care, affordability, and access,” said Ben Anderson, deputy senior director of health policy at the left-leaning consumer advocacy group Families USA. “If rules aren’t finalized soon enough in the calendar, then everything's sort of at risk of being undone by a future Congress.”

Resolutions of disapproval are not subject to filibuster rules and need only a simple majority of the House and Senate to agree in order to pass. If the president signs the resolution, regulations can be undone in days, rather than the months or years it would take going through the normal notice-and-comment period. 

If former President Trump wins again and ushers in GOP control of Congress in 2025, the CRA could be a powerful tool to undo the agenda of the Biden White House.

"We don't know what's going to happen in November. So I'm not sure that we'd necessarily think about legacy at this point. But what we're seeing are really important advances to protecting access and affordability for health care," Anderson said.

The CRA was passed in 1996, a part of then-Speaker Newt Gingrich’s (R-Ga.) “Contract with America.” Republicans have used it more than Democrats, though prior to 2017, Congress had only used it once to repeal a final rule. 

“[CRA] wasn't on people's radar the way it is now. We were aware of it, but we weren't thinking about the deadline the way they are now,” said Susan Dudley, former administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under former President George W. Bush.

But during the Trump administration, Congress used the CRA to overturn 16 rules issued toward the end of former President Obama’s term, including one involving family planning grants.

That history has likely led to a scramble among agencies.

Dudley, who is the founder of the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center, said there were more major rules issued in April than in any other month since 1981.

“I think what we're seeing that's different this year is there's so much more awareness, especially because we know who the nominee is by now, and we know he's used CRA before. And so I think there's just much more acute awareness of this deadline,” Dudley said. 

Among the rules health care advocates had been pushing hard for were ones that would expand protections under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, privacy regulation for people seeking abortions, as well as another to protect LGBTQ patients from discrimination. Both were released last week and could be likely targets of a future Trump administration.

Liz McCaman Taylor, a senior attorney at the National Health Law Program, said she had been most anticipating the abortion privacy rule, which blocks health providers and insurers from disclosing protected health information to state officials to aid in the investigation, prosecution or suing of someone who sought or provided an abortion.

“It really responds to the moment we're in post-Dobbs, where people are traveling for care, but also, technology is such that ... my health care data travels with me,” McCaman Taylor said. “Your data can follow you, but that could also haunt you in a situation where providers are truly very fearful of the consequences.”

The antidiscrimination rule itself reinstated and expanded protections that had been gutted under a rule from the Trump administration. So even if a rule can’t be overturned with the CRA, there are still other pathways. Lawsuits filed in conservative courts can also nullify the rules, especially if a new administration takes over and decides not to defend a policy it disagrees with.

Dania Douglas, a senior attorney at the National Health Law Program, said she had been concerned that the administration wouldn’t be able to finish key rules before the CRA “look-back period,” especially because of the uncertainty about when it would fall. 

But that hasn’t been the case.  

"The Biden administration has been doing a lot of work around health care equity ... in the last two weeks, so many of the rules that provide these really critical protections have been issued,” Douglas said. 

She specifically referenced a rule bolstering antidiscrimination protections in health care for people with disabilities, something that hadn’t been updated in nearly 50 years. 

“I think the Biden-Harris administration was very aware of this CRA deadline and worked very hard to try to get these rules out in April ... at a time when they think it will hopefully be safe from the CRA look-back period,” Douglas said.

A new poll from Decision Desk HQ/News Nation found 46 percent of voters think Trump is the better pick to deal with the border. Roughly a quarter, or 26 percent, think President Biden is the candidate to trust, and another 13 percent weren’t sure. 

Split up by party, support is higher for the Republicans’ candidate on immigration – with 85 percent of GOP voters picking Trump and 61 percent of Democrat voters picking Biden.

Immigration is a key issue in the 2024 race as Biden and Trump both campaign for another four years in the White House. It just topped Gallup’s list of most important problems for Americans for the third straight month, surging above government, inflation and the economy in general. Notably, though, immigration came in behind inflation in the DDHQ poll. 

Republicans have seized on issues at the border as they seek to expand their House majority and flip the senate in November, bashing the Biden administration for its management. 

Trump has leaned into incendiary rhetoric about immigration along the campaign trail, warning about “migrant crime” and suggesting immigrants were “poisoning the blood” of the country.  

Meanwhile, Biden’s campaign has warned that “we cannot go back” to the Trump administration’s handling of the issue. 

“Here’s what I will not do: I will not demonize immigrants, saying they ‘poison the blood of our country,’ as he said in his own words,” Biden said at the State of the Union this year, with a jab at Trump.

Six in 10 voters in the new DDHQ poll say immigration has had a negative impact on the country. Notably, though, just 47 percent say the matter has had a negative impact on their own community. 

Sixty-three percent of all voters say they’re very or somewhat concerned about immigrants voting illegally, with nearly nine in 10 Republicans expressing that worry. 

Research shows noncitizen voting is extremely rare, despite recent debunked rumors suggesting migrants are registering to vote in swing states. 

Recent analysis from the Bipartisan Policy Center found that “any instance of illegally cast ballots by noncitizens has been investigated by the appropriate authorities, and there is no evidence that these votes—or any other instances of voter fraud—have been significant enough to impact any election’s outcome.” 

Decision Desk HQ, at the direction of NewsNation, polled 1,000 registered voters between April 16-17. The margins of error vary across questions due to item non-response and the base rate, but a comparable probability survey would have the margins of error reported as plus or minus 3 percentage points. 

Rafael Bernal contributed. 

That was the consensus among senior Trump campaign aides on Oct. 7, 2016, after stepping out of a Trump Tower conference room, where the then-presidential candidate’s debate prep session was underway. There was to be a huddle about a more pressing matter. 

A Washington Post reporter had notified the campaign that, in two hours, the paper planned to publish what became known as the “Access Hollywood” tape, a scandal that nearly ended Trump’s first bid for president one month out from Election Day.

Hope Hicks, who received the reporter’s email, took the stand in former President Trump’s New York hush money trial on Friday to detail her efforts to tamp down the chaos that followed, coupled with the revelations of hush money payments made to keep two women quiet about alleged affairs with the business mogul.

A fixture in Trump’s inner orbit who served as his press secretary at the time, Hicks’s role shaping media narratives placed her at the center of it all — making her testimony in the trial critical to the Manhattan district attorney’s case. 

Hicks was one of the first staffers to work on Trump's 2016 campaign and quickly became one of his most trusted advisers. She served in the Trump White House over two separate stints, departing in early 2018 and eventually joining Fox's corporate team before returning to the White House in early 2020 as a senior adviser. 

She previously appeared before a Washington grand jury as special counsel Jack Smith probed whether Trump knew he lost the 2020 election. Trump has since been charged in Washington, D.C., over his attempts to remain in power after the 2020 election. 

Hicks has not been part of Trump's political circle since the end of his first term and does not have a role in his 2024 campaign, though people familiar with the matter said there is no tension between the two. 

Hicks appeared nervous to be on the stand, at times running her hand through her hair and fidgeting with her earrings. Moments after indicating she doubted an explanation for the hush money payment Trump told her years ago, Hicks broke down in tears.

But before prosecutors questioned Hicks about the hush money, much of her testimony concerned the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape, which marked a watershed moment in Trump’s 2016 campaign and ignited rampant speculation that the business mogul’s political ambitions had run their course. 

On the tape, Trump is heard boasting about grabbing women inappropriately and seemingly without their consent, off-the-cuff remarks captured while on set of a soap opera more than 10 years earlier. 

“I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait,” he says in the tape. “And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything ... Grab ’em by the p----. You can do anything.” 

“I was concerned,” Hicks testified Friday about when she learned of the tape. “I was very concerned.” 

Now, the former president is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with reimbursements his then-fixer received after paying porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 to stay quiet about her alleged affair with Trump. Trump, who denies the affair, pleaded not guilty. 

While the tape is not at the center of the case, the district attorney’s office is attempting to connect the fallout from Trump's remarks on it to the Daniels payment as part of efforts to portray Trump’s charges as a criminal conspiracy to corruptly influence the 2016 election. 

Hicks detailed learning of the hush money payments made to Daniels and ex-Playboy model Karen McDougal.

When discussing the McDougal payment, Hicks testified that Trump expressed concern about how his wife, Melania, would react, bolstering one of Trump's defenses in the case: that the motivation behind the hush money was to save embarrassment for Trump's family, rather than to preserve his political fortune before the election. 

But at other moments, Hicks gave testimony key to the prosecution's case of an election conspiracy. She testified about a conversation she had with Trump where he indicated ex-fixer Michael Cohen had made the payment to Daniels out of the goodness of his heart, a characterization she questioned.

Hicks added that Trump told her it was a good thing the Daniels payment story had made waves after he had already won the 2016 election, right before she broke down on the stand.

Prosecutors say the fallout from the “Access Hollywood” tape upped the ante for letting Daniels’s salacious allegations surface publicly just before Election Day, attempting to convince jurors that the hush money deal was part of a broader criminal conspiracy.

Hicks had been brought up earlier in the trial during the testimony of former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, who said she was in the room when Pecker met Trump to initially establish an agreement to “catch and kill” salacious stories about the then-candidate in order for them to never surface in the news.

But some of Hicks’s most compelling testimony was recounting the damage control she managed during the two hours between when the campaign was notified of the “Access Hollywood” tape by the Post and the story publishing.

Hicks said two strategies emerged as she forwarded the Post’s comment request to four senior campaign aides, including Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon. 

“Need to hear the tape to be sure” it’s accurate, or “deny, deny, deny.” 

“Strategy number two was going to be a little more difficult,” Hicks said once she realized the reporter had provided a transcript of the tape. 

Hicks then headed upstairs to a Trump Tower conference room, she said, where Trump was conducting a debate preparation session for his then-rival, Hillary Clinton.

Hicks said she motioned for a few aides to join her outside so as not to disturb the preparations, and they huddled about what to do. 

“Everyone was just absorbing the shock of it,” Hicks testified. 

Trump, who could see them through the conference room windows, eventually caught on that there was a problem and demanded his aides come back inside and explain the situation, Hicks said. 

When confronted with the comment request, Trump told Hicks that it “didn’t sound like something he would say,” she testified. But the first time he saw the tape, he was upset, she said. He later told her the remarks were “pretty standard stuff for two guys chatting.” 

After a weekend filled with Republicans scrambling to figure out what to do, including what would happen if Trump ended his bid that late into the election cycle, the former reality television host managed to reengineer media attention toward his efforts to seat sexual abuse accusers of Clinton’s husband, former President Clinton, in a VIP box at the very debate he was prepping for at the time the “Access Hollywood” tape leaked.

Trump went on to beat Clinton in the general election a month later.

Brett Samuels contributed. 

Roughly 42% of all respondents said they have a favorable view of Kennedy, but among voters between the ages of 18 to 34, that share jumps to 57%. Nearly half of Republicans surveyed (48%) said the same, compared to 43% of independents and 35% of Democrats.

"He can have an outsized impact on the race even if he can't win," said Scott Tranter, director of data science for Decision Desk HQ.

All that would have to happen is for Kennedy to pull one or two percent from either of his competitors in a swing state like Pennsylvania or Michigan to change the outcome for the White House, Tranter explained.

Political pundits continue to debate whether Kennedy's longshot presidential bid poses a greater threat to President Joe Biden or former President Donald Trump.

Younger voters tend to lean Democrat, which suggests Kennedy's popularity with that group is worse for Biden. On the other hand, Republicans' favorable view may be a bad sign for Trump.

Trump has gone after Kennedy recently, calling him a "wasted protest vote" and a "Radical Left Liberal who’s been put in place in order to help Crooked Joe Biden."

In response, Kennedy called on Trump to debate, writing on X, “When frightened men take to social media they risk descending into vitriol, which makes them sound unhinged.”

As far as actual voting intentions, the NewsNation/Decision Desk HQ poll found Democrats (26%) are more likely than Republicans (23%) to back a third-party candidate now that Biden and Trump are the presumptive nominees.

When asked to describe Kennedy's political views, a plurality of those surveyed (30%) described him as a moderate. However, Democrats (31%) were more likely than others to view him as a conservative.

"The Biden campaign is going to try and paint him as a Republican, and then the Republican campaign is going to try and pay him as a Democrat," said Tranter. "We'll see where it comes out."

The Hill/Decision Desk HQ’s polling average index currently shows Trump (42.3%) with a slight lead over Biden (41%) when Kennedy is factored in. Other surveys, like a recent NBC News poll, suggest Kennedy could hurt Trump more than Biden.

Kennedy, a longtime environmental lawyer, was running for the Democratic nomination before launching a third-party bid in October. Since then, he's been fighting to get on the ballot in states nationwide, recently qualifying in California.

In March, Kennedy announced Nicole Shannan, a tech lawyer and philanthropist, as his running mate.

Trump has yet to announce his VP pick, but several people are said to be in the running, including Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, New York Rep. Elise Stefanik and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, to name a few.

It was officially an event for about 400 mega-donors, but the VP hopefuls got their chances to pitch themselves. One big name not there: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Among the notables believed to be on Trump’s shortlist is South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, whose chances have dimmed since her revelation that she killed a young dog decades ago when living on the family farm.

“It freaks a lot of people out,” said Princeton University politics lecturer Dr. Lauren Wright. “Killing a puppy is not one of those decisions that people see … as part of working farm life,” Wright told “NewsNation Prime.”

“The fact that she wrote it and she thought it would be a positive with the base, I think, was a giant misread.”

Wright also discounts Noem’s chances because she wouldn’t add any notable voting bloc to the ticket. “I don’t think she was a serious contender because I don’t think she brings anyone extra. Anyone who likes Kristi Noem was already going to vote for Trump.”

Noem’s book contains one other notable error: her statement that she had met North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un. Her spokesperson has said the editor is updating the book's reference to that. “No Going Back,” is scheduled to be released on Tuesday.

As for who may become Trump’s running mate: “I just hope that if someone’s going to be supporting of the president … of the agenda … have his back, help us win,” said Florida Rep. Byron Donalds.

Who would help Trump? Former Trump attorney May Mailman likes South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott. She believes Scott would be seen by voters as presidential, but not someone who would upstage Trump.

“He ran for president. It wasn’t a successful run, but he didn’t fall on his face," Mail man said.

Trump is not expected to name a running mate anytime soon, which is no problem for Mailman. “Maye the person is not on this list. We’ve still got a while before the RNC … and as long as he’s got the pick in before then, that’s really all that matters.”

The Republican National Convention is scheduled to begin July 15 in Milwaukee.

“In one strike, Russia could render America dark and stop our ability to prevent a strike that could take Washington, D.C., and most other cities off the map,” writes Gen. John Hyten and Maj Gen. Roger Teague in The Hill.

Teague explained the threat on NewsNation’s “Reality Check.”

They say Russia has gone so far as to test a weapon on one of its own defunct satellites in 2021. That blast polluted the area with debris that will last for decades. “It is a stark reminder that U.S. space capabilities are in Russian crosshairs,” they write.

To counter the Russian and Chinese moves, U.S. space leaders have long called for an upgrade of what’s known as the Satellite Control Network. They say, that if we don’t do that soon, the U.S. faces a very real threat of being unable to defend itself in the event of an international confrontation.

The U.S. intelligence community has been alive with hints that Russia is secretly developing what is feared to be a nuclear-powered anti-satellite weapon. Russia denied it and accused the U.S. of doing the very same thing.  

The U.S. did explode a massive nuclear weapon in space in the early 1960s, and the blast knocked out electricity and communications systems 1,000 miles away in Hawaii.

In 1967, the U.S., the Soviet Union and more than 100 other countries signed The Outer Space Treaty, which forbids countries from deploying nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction into space. The recent actions by Russia led to fears that it was ready to break that treaty.

The cost to counter our adversaries will be high, but the cost of inaction would be beyond enormous. Everything we do online relies on satellite technology, and experts say we must make sure those systems are protected.

It’s not yet clear if Kennedy, who has seen scattered polling throughout his candidacy, will even be able to qualify for a televised forum, as the independent candidate has also yet to collect enough signatures for most state ballots.

But discontent with the two parties’ standard-bearers has opened up a potential third choice, especially one with access to considerable money, making a square-off among the three polarizing figures a possibility.

“If Bobby can consistently poll at 15 percent and better from now [until] fall, coupled with increasing ballot access, he has a legit shot at making the debate stage,” a Kennedy ally familiar with the campaign’s messaging strategy told The Hill. 

The first presidential debate on the commission’s calendar is slated for Sept. 16 in Texas, followed by a vice presidential showing on Sept. 25 in Pennsylvania. Two more productions are slated for October in Virginia and Utah. 

Kennedy has made it known that he wants to get in on the debate action. He’s angling to go head-to-head with Biden and Trump, and has called for an open exchange of ideas and critique of existing policy in front of the American public. He wants voters to envision a November election that looks beyond a dismal two-party rematch.

“I should have a spot in those debates,” Kennedy said in an appearance on Fox News this week. “There’s all these really existential issues and neither of them can really deal with them.”

“We are in a more toxic polarization and division than any time since the American Civil War,” he said.

As the drama builds, Biden and Trump have not been enthusiastic about the idea of getting into it with Kennedy, whom they both view as a menace, regardless of the host or timeline of the debate. 

For one, it could simply elevate the third-party contender as Trump and Biden poll neck-and-neck. Kennedy has family name recognition but is not as widely known as the current or former president, who enjoy the benefits of each having held the White House. 

At this point in the race, it’s also unclear whose campaign he could rattle more drastically. Biden and Trump are each vying for support among covered voters who feel frustrated with Washington politics. That includes independents, who famously swing either way and with whom Kennedy has sought to identify this cycle. 

Aaron Kall, who serves as director of debate at the University of Michigan, said Kennedy could also throw another “wild card” onto the stage as Biden and Trump each want to grab the spotlight and avoid miscues amid questions about their age and mental fitness.

For now, Democrats and Republicans still see Kennedy as an unlikely candidate, though they’re each paying closer attention to his campaign than in the past. His media circuit has mostly consisted of podcasts and alternative shows with select cable news appearances. Showing up in front of a national audience as a contrast to his two competitors could showcase him in front of a much wider audience.

Still, there’s a fundamental question of whether Biden and Trump will even debate each other. Though Trump has said he’d debate Biden “anytime, anywhere, any place,” the former president skipped out on all of the Republican primary debates held this cycle, a move decried by many of his ex-competitors and by the Biden campaign. There’s no guarantee he won’t do that again.

Team Biden, meanwhile, has said he’s “happy” to debate Trump, going perhaps further than some of his more hesitant comments on the prospect in recent months. 

Trump, while in New York this week for his hush money trial, claimed he doesn’t “know anything” about Kennedy, the candidate he called in a recent Truth Social post “a Radical Left Liberal who’s been put in place in order to help Crooked Joe Biden.” 

“Look, RFK is polling very low. He’s not a serious candidate,” Trump said in Manhattan, when asked whether or not he’d debate the independent.

“They say he hurts Biden – I don’t know who he hurts, he might hurt me, I don’t know. But he has very low numbers, certainly not numbers that he can debate with. And he’s gotta get his numbers up a lot higher before he’s credible,” Trump added. 

Some strategists believe Biden has the edge over his two rivals, given Trump’s ongoing legal strife and questions about Kennedy’s viability.

“I do think that President Biden will come out a clear winner if all three of them get up on that stage,” said Democratic strategist Kristen Hawn, as new polling suggests Kennedy’s bid could do more harm to Trump. 

Hawn also noted that the timeline of Trump’s criminal trials is still up in the air, and legal obligations could complicate plans for a debate – or simply draw more attention to them. 

Some of Kennedy's allies have said that regardless of his troubles with the law, Trump could still want to engage on stage if given the chance. “He’s open to mixing things up,” said the source familiar with Kennedy’s campaign. “He’s more than willing to debate Bobby.” 

Biden’s boosters, including within the Democratic National Committee, however, may be much less willing to advise the incumbent president to debate Kennedy. Democrats have made it clear that they see him as someone who spouts conspiracy theories about vaccines and whose aligned super PAC takes money from Trump donors. 

“The DNC will do everything they can to deny Bobby a podium,” the pro-Kennedy source speculated. 

Kennedy and the Democratic Party apparatus have been at odds much of this year, with Kennedy picking them apart for being biased toward Biden and committee officials criticizing his bid as a way to elevate Trump and building a narrative that he’s a “spoiler.”

“The DNC orchestrated a notably skewed democratic primary, resulting in Biden emerging as their nominee. Now, their stuck with Biden, who can't beat Trump,” Kennedy wrote on X on Friday. “Can someone make this make sense?”

Kennedy convened a press conference on Wednesday in New York City attempting to flip the script on Biden, claiming that the president cannot beat Trump in a three-way contest and that he is, in his own estimation, the true “spoiler” – a point he would likely address in a debate setting.

Democrats were quick to call out Kennedy’s briefing as merely a gimmick to divert the focus away from his own long-shot effort. 

“Nothing but a media stunt meant to distract from the fact that he has no path to getting the 270 electoral college votes needed to win,” said Doug Gordon, a Democratic strategist.

“Since he can't win, his candidacy will only serve to take votes away from other candidates. And no stunt will change that,” Gordon said. “Staying in a race you have no path to winning is the definition of a spoiler.”

Kall, the presidential debate scholar, expressed skepticism about Kennedy qualifying through the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), the body that’s sponsored all general election presidential debates for decades. One of the CPD requirements, along with a 15 percent threshold in qualified polls, is that a given candidate's name must appear on enough state ballots to have “at least a mathematical chance of securing an Electoral College majority” in 2024. Critics say that could be tough for Kennedy.

The Trump campaign has its own concerns with the process. Frustrated with the CPD’s September start date, it called this week for other networks to go around the system and host debates outside of that schedule. 

“If we go back to the really old setup where it’s just different networks [hosting debates] and they would have the ability to have their own criteria,” Kall said, then Kennedy’s participation might be more likely — though Trump and Biden may have to negotiate. 

Whether or not Kennedy qualifies for the stage, the current and former president have “a lot more to gain from debating” than not, said Tammy Vigil, a Boston University professor of media science with a focus on political campaigns. 

“He’d have to really make a surge in support,” Vigil said of Kennedy. “I don’t think it’s very likely, although it would be really interesting to see that debate.”

“I’m so proud of the courageous young men at @UNC that protected our flag and stood up for America against the pro-Hamas protesters on their campus,” Graham said in a post on the social platform X Saturday.

“The actions of these young men make me hopeful for the next generation’s love for our country,” Graham’s post continued. “Fellas, as a thank you for protecting Old Glory, @ChickfilA is on the way this morning, compliments of Team Graham!”

Members of the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity stopped an American flag from touching the ground at a Tuesday protest on campus at UNC. The members could be seen in viral videos holding up the flag as activists threw things at them, resulting in a GoFundMe for the fraternity brothers called “UNC Frat Bros Defended their Flag. Throw ‘em a Rager,” which now has raised more than $500,000. 

Country music artist John Rich said Thursday he is willing to play at the “rager” for the fraternity members.

“I reached out and I said, ‘Boys, I sure am proud of you. When you have that big rager you guys are talking about on GoFundMe, I’d like to show up and play you a free concert,’” Rich said on NewsNation’s “On Balance” with host Leland Vittert. “And they hit back, and I think we’re gonna try to make that happen.”

Billionaire investor Bill Ackman, who has expressed his distaste for recent pro-Palestinian protests, donated $10,000 to the GoFundMe.

In recent weeks, protests have broken out on college campuses across the nation focused on Palestinian human rights and the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza amid the Israel-Hamas war.

The protests have also faced accusations of antisemitism, which protesters have pushed back against. 

“We are frustrated by media distractions focusing on inflammatory individuals who do not represent us,” Columbia University protest leaders said in a statement last month. “Our members have been misidentified by a politically motivated mob.” 

“We firmly reject any form of hate or bigotry and stand vigilant against non-students attempting to disrupt the solidarity being forged among students,” they continued. “Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, Jewish, Black and pro-Palestinian classmates and colleagues who represent the full diversity of our country.”

NewsNation is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which also owns The Hill.

"How many of you had Mark Hamill will lead the press briefing on your bingo cards?" Hamill, sporting a pair of sunglasses, told reporters at the top of the White House's press briefing. 

"I just got to meet the president and he gave me these aviator glasses," added Hamill, known for his role as Luke Skywalker, said.

Asked about his Oval Office visit with Biden, Hamill said, "I called him 'Mr. President.' He said, 'You can call me Joe.'"

Then Hamill quipped, "I said, 'Can I call you Joe-B-Wan Kenobi?" offering a Biden-inspired play on the name of the famed Jedi master character in the intergalactic franchise. 

Touting Biden's legislative accomplishments, Hamill exclaimed, "I want to say, once again, how grateful I am, and that just shows you that one person can be so influential and so positive in our lives."

It's not the first White House visit for the 72-year-old performer, a frequent critic of former President Trump.

"It was really amazing to me because I was invited to the Carter White House and I came. And then I came to the Obama White House, but I never was invited into the Oval Office, and it was a large gathering."

"So this one was really extra special," Hamill said. 

Greene filed her motion to vacate a month ago to protest the Speaker’s handling of Ukraine aid, government spending and reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and Republicans have been dreading the moment when she forces a vote on the resolution. The Georgia Republican announced Wednesday she would move next week to bring it to the floor.

Only two House Republicans have publicly backed her effort, and she’s not finding any more support among the ranks of Senate conservatives, many of whom believe Johnson is the right person to steer the conference and that a leadership change today would be political malpractice.

“It’s a horrible idea,” Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) told The Hill. “Moses could not do a better job than what Mike Johnson is doing right now.”

“I think he’s doing the very best possible [job] in the situation with a slim majority where the Democrats control the Senate and the White House,” he continued. “There’s not a more conservative person over there that can be elected Speaker than Mike Johnson is.”

Johnson has been largely dismissive of Greene’s effort to remove him from the Speakership using the same mechanism a different group of conservatives used to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in October.

He recently said in an interview that he does not consider Greene a serious lawmaker. 

“We do the right thing and we let the chips fall where they may,” Johnson told NewsNation, which is owned by the same parent company as The Hill. 

Greene’s push is widely expected to fail. Johnson’s conservative critics in the House have previously indicated they have little appetite for a repeat of the three weeks of chaos that ensued after McCarthy was removed.

And Democratic leadership, along with rank-and-file members of the party, have pledged to help save Johnson’s gavel after he put Ukraine aid on the floor, where it easily passed.

Still, leading conservatives in the Senate wish the effort would go by the wayside. 

“I think it is utterly ridiculous and counterproductive,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said. 

Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.), who is running for the Indiana governorship this year, noted the effort could harm the Republican agenda for the remainder of the year and said conservatives don’t support it because there is no real fallback option.

It took three weeks and multiple failed candidacies for the House GOP conference to elect Johnson.

“Who’s raised their hand that would want to be [Speaker]?” Braun asked.

Greene’s effort has also been stymied by former President Trump’s support for Johnson in recent weeks.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) also threw his full support behind the embattled Speaker earlier this week.

“I’m relieved as I think all of America is that the chaos in the House will be discontinued,” McConnell told reporters Wednesday. “I think it’s a benefit to our country, a benefit to the House, a benefit to the reputation of Congress.”

While Johnson’s recent series of bipartisan deals to keep the government open and to move on aid for Ukraine have angered a number of conservatives, many of them have been hoping to avoid a motion to vacate vote on the floor despite Greene’s insistence of putting members on the record. 

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a leading House Freedom Caucus member, said recently that the ability to oust a Speaker “exist for reasons, but they should be deployed sparingly” — a sentiment shared by some of his Senate colleagues on the right ahead of the November election.

Most members would much prefer to focus on putting Trump back in the White House and winning control of Congress instead of what they see as a one-sided, petty fight.

“I think we’ll be in a better position going into the fall if we stick together as Republicans,” said Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), a former House Freedom Caucus member herself. 

“Don’t do it, don’t do it. That would be my suggestion,” she added.

Even those most dissatisfied with Johnson in the Senate GOP ranks won’t go so far as to throw their lot in with Greene this time around. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said multiple times in a brief interview that Johnson has “done a terrible job” since taking over the gavel, but declined to say whether he is supportive of the Georgia Republican’s actions.

“They have to decide that. That’s not for me to say,” Paul said.

Biden said the recipients of the nation's highest civilian honor are “incredible people whose relentless curiosity, inventiveness, ingenuity and hope have kept faith in a better tomorrow.”

One of them, Clarence B. Jones, said in an interview that he thought a prankster was on the phone when he answered and heard the caller say they were from the White House.

“I said, ‘Is this a joke or is this serious?’" Jones recalled. The caller swore they were serious and was calling with the news that Biden wanted to recognize Jones with the medal.

Jones, 93, was honored for his activism during the Civil Rights Movement. He's a lawyer who provided legal counsel to Martin Luther King Jr. and helped write the opening paragraphs of the “I Have a Dream” speech that King delivered at the Lincoln Memorial at the 1963 March on Washington.

The White House said the recipients are “exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors.”

The 10 men and nine women hail from the worlds of politics, sports, entertainment, civil rights and LGBTQ+ advocacy, science and religion. Three medals were awarded posthumously.

Seven politicians were among the recipients: former New York mayor and philanthropist Michael Bloomberg, former Sen. Elizabeth Dole, climate activist and former Vice President Al Gore, Biden's former climate envoy John Kerry, former Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., who died in 2013, Clyburn, the Democratic congressman from South Carolina, and Pelosi, the Democratic congresswoman from California.

Biden in his remarks acknowledged that Clyburn's endorsement in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary helped him score a thundering win in South Carolina, powering him to his party's nomination and ultimately the White House. Bloomberg mounted a short-lived bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

“I can say this without fear of contradiction,” Biden said. “I would not be standing here as president making these awards were it not for Jim. I mean that sincerely.”

In addition to representing North Carolina in the Senate, Dole, a Republican and the widow of former Sen. Bob Dole, also served as transportation secretary and labor secretary and was president of the American Red Cross. She currently leads a foundation supporting military caregivers.

Pelosi is the first and only woman ever elected to the speaker's post, putting her second in the line of succession to the presidency. Biden referenced her legislative achievements, noted her actions during the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, and said "history will remember you, Nancy, as the greatest speaker of the House of Representatives.”

Evers received posthumous recognition for his work more than six decades ago fighting segregation in Mississippi in the 1960s as the NAACP's first field officer in the state. He was 37 when he was fatally shot in the driveway of his home in June 1963. His daughter, Reena, who was 8 years old when her father was killed, accepted his medal.

Yeoh made history last year by becoming the first Asian woman to win an Academy Award for best actress for her performance in “ Everything, Everywhere All at Once.”

Jim Thorpe, who died in 1953, was the first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal for the United States.

Judy Shepard co-founded the Matthew Shepard Foundation, named after her son, a gay 21-year-old University of Wyoming student who died in 1998 after he was beaten and tied to a fence.

Jones said he felt “very touched” after he digested what the caller had said.

“I'm 93 years old with some health challenges, but I woke up this morning thanks to the grace of God,” he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Thursday. “I'm looking forward to whatever the White House would like for me to do.”

The other medal recipients are:

— Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit Catholic priest who founded and runs Homeboy Industries, a gang-intervention and rehabilitation program.

— Phil Donahue, a journalist and former daytime TV talk-show host.

— Katie Ledecky, the most decorated female swimmer in history.

— Opal Lee, an activist who is best known for pushing to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. Biden did so in 2021.

— Ellen Ochoa, the first Hispanic woman in space and the second female director of NASA's Johnson Space Center.

— Jane Rigby, an astronomer who is chief scientist of the world's most powerful telescope. She grew up in Delaware, Biden's home state.

— Teresa Romero, president of the United Farm Workers and the first Hispanic woman to lead a national union in the U.S. The union has endorsed Biden's reelection bid and backed him in 2020.

In 2022, Biden presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 17 people, including gymnast Simone Biles, the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and gun-control advocate Gabby Giffords.

Biden knows how it feels to receive the medal. As president, Barack Obama presented Biden, his vice president, with the medal a week before their administration ended in 2017.

The "Freedom to Learn" collective opposes “the attacks being waged on educational curricula,”  “intersectionality, critical race theory, Black feminism, queer theory, and other frameworks that address structural inequality,” according to the Freedom to Learn website.

Friday marked the group’s second National Day of Action, which included banned book reviews, teach-ins, rallies and discussions.  

“Since the summer of 2020, an emboldened and well-resourced faction in the United States, and increasingly around the globe, has declared war on hard-fought advances in civil and human rights, social justice, and democratic participation,” the group’s open letter against “'Anti-woke' censorship” states.

Advocates aligned with Freedom to Learn say politicians are attempting to censor concepts “that sprang to life out of decades of struggle against racism, sexism, ableism, colonialism, and related forms of domination.”

Attempts to ban or restrict access to books have ramped up in recent years. PEN America recorded 3,362 instances of book bans in U.S. public school classrooms and libraries during the 2022–23 school year. Those bans targeted 1,557 unique book titles, many of which were written by women, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals.

Indiana’s 3^rd Congressional District race is a crowded one, with eight Republicans vying for Rep. Jim Banks’s seat. With just days to go before the Indiana Primaries, one of those candidates said an attack ad against them launched this week used not only misleading tactics, but illegal ones.

This week, the Wendy Davis for Congress campaign sent a cease and desist to the conservative Super PAC Club for Growth Action over an ad the campaign said is misleading.

A statement from the Davis Campaign released on Wednesday reads as follows:

"Today, the Wendy Davis for Congress campaign issued a Cease and Desist for the Club for Growth ad released yesterday that falsely claimed Judge Davis instituted “woke race based hiring practices.” The dishonest ad dubs together words and unrelated statements from throughout an hour and 14 minute panel to form a sentence that fits their absurd claims.

Judge Davis participated in the panel advocating for religious freedom in her capacity as a Judge in 2020. Club for Growth PAC supports Davis’s opponent, failed career politician Marlin Stutzman.

It’s laughable to call me a “Liberal Judge” – I forfeited my position on the bench to run for office because I was too conservative to maintain the neutrality the job requires. I am disappointed that Club for Growth spliced my words together to fit their fake narrative in support of a failed, career politician who took campaign funds for a personal vacation, but I know the people of Northeast Indiana can recognize a dubbed statement when they hear it and know that I am an unabashed conservative who will work with Donald Trump and fight to bring back a strong America in Congress.”

A spokesperson for Club for Growth Action acknowledged the ad contained spliced bits of audio from a religious freedom panel that Judge Davis was a part of in 2020. However, the group argues the spirit of her comments remained the same. An audio clip that has not been spliced contained the following quote from Davis:

"When I look even in our government today, we don’t have enough inclusion that I believe the Constitution requires me, I work in the government, to do," Davis said.

Another clip of Davis from that panel that was not spliced showed her saying the Constitution is a "breathing and living document."

“Wendy Davis has expressed her strong opinion on diversity and that she believes the Constitution is a ‘breathing and living document,’ but now she’s trying to rewrite history to cover up her past leftist woke statements," David McIntosh, Club for Growth Action President, said.

This comes just weeks after Indiana passed a law requiring campaign ads to show a disclaimer if they use digitally altered media that “conveys a materially inaccurate depiction of the individual's speech…as recorded in the unaltered recording."

AI/digital media expert Doug Kouns (the CEO of Veracity IIR) said he anticipates claims under this law will increase over time, but that the law as is could be extremely difficult to enforce given ever-evolving technology.

”Usually, the burden of proof is that you did something, not that you didn’t do it, but it’s kinda backward in this," Kouns said.

A statement from Davis's campaign manager reads as follows:

"Splicing someone's words together without their consent to fit your agenda is wrong, but it's also illegal in the state of Indiana. We are pursuing any and all legal measures to have this false ad removed from the airwaves."

His pick may be at Mar-a-Lago sometime within the next 48 hours.

The presumptive GOP presidential nominee is hosting a fundraising event this weekend and nearly every person rumored to be on his short-list for vice president is attending.

NewsNation has confirmed that although the event is scheduled at the Four Seasons, nearly all guests will privately meet with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago home.

Names on the guest list include:

• South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem
• Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance
• New York Rep. Elise Stefanik
• Florida Sen. Marco Rubio
• Florida Rep. Byron Donalds
• South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott

Each has their advantages and disadvantages.

Other big names who aren’t necessarily in the running for the vice presidential slot plan to attend Trump's weekend fundraiser.

NewsNation confirmed that RNC Chairman Michael Whatley and Co-Chair Lara Trump are expected to attend this weekend. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is also on the guest list, along with a handful of lawmakers in Congress, governors and Senate candidates.

It’s unclear when Trump may announce a running mate, but he’s been teasing it for quite some time.

He was in court standing trial in New York Friday afternoon but is expected to fly back for the fundraiser.

Brian Hughes, senior advisor to the Trump Campaign has provided this statement heading into this weekend's retreat:

“It is certainly an opportunity for a collection of the most dynamic leaders of our common sense movement to demonstrate the winning messages we have to end Biden’s weak and dangerously dishonest presidency. Those who financially support President Trump and the America First agenda will see that they are helping save our nation with victory in November.”

While they have soured on Biden on a range of issues from cost of living to climate issues, the rash of protests at college campuses around the country has been the latest point of contention with the president.

“He will lose the election if he decides to roll the dice and assumes that Gaza isn't at the top of minds right now,” said Elise Joshi, the executive director of Gen-Z for Change —which was once run under the name TikTok for Biden.

Joshi added that the last six months have seen “an increasing pace of concern” about the president.

The crisis in Gaza has been a tipping point for many young voters, and some polls have shown support dissolving for Biden.

Last month, a Harvard Youth Poll showed Biden's support from voters ages 18-29 had slipped from about 60 percent in 2020 down to 45 percent.

A CNN poll last weekend also revealed that Biden was 11 percentage points behind Trump in a head-to-head match-up among young voters.

Some say Biden isn’t addressing some of the issues that matter most to young voters. 

“I don’t think the president is currently meeting young voters enough,” said Kidus Girma, campaign director at the Sunrise Movement, a political action organization that advocates for action on climate change. “We’re paying attention.” 

Girma said it’s “in the interest of the president to run on a progressive mandate” to speak to those voters. 

On the issue of Gaza, he said, it will come down to Biden’s approach in the coming months. 

“It’s critical that President Biden recognize the voices of young people calling for peace in Gaza,” Girma said. “The Americans are calling for the end of unconditional military aid and a permanent cease-fire. The quickest way to end the unrest on college campuses is to listen to the majority of Americans and young students fighting for what is right.” 

Biden was critical of the recent protests on college campuses Thursday, condemning vandalism and trespassing, adding that protesters at Columbia University and other campuses had the right to demonstrate peacefully.

“In moments like this, there are always those who rush in to score political points,” the president said in a speech at the White House. “But this isn’t a moment for politics. It’s a moment for clarity. So let me be clear … violent protest is not protected. Peaceful protest is.” 

“Destroying property is not a peaceful protest; it’s against the law,” Biden added. “Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduation, none of this is a peaceful protest. Threatening people, intimidating people. 

“Dissent is essential to democracy, but dissent must never lead to disorder,” he added. 

Joshi blasted Biden’s comments, calling them “shameful.”

“To paint us as violent when police are the ones tear-gassing, shooting, and beating students, especially knowing he was elected in large part due to Black Lives Matter, is utterly shameful,” Joshi said.

An aide who worked on Biden's 2020 campaign said the president's remarks reflect the public's overwhelming view on the protests.

Biden campaign aides say they have a “robust” operation to engage young voters and lure them to their column. Campaign aides say they have launched a youth outreach effort earlier than in previous cycles.

Since launching the campaign, they have also run digital ads targeting younger voters, including a current $30 million ad campaign.

The campaign has also leaned on surrogates including social media influencers to continue to highlight the administration’s policy wins, and separately in March it launched “Students for Biden-Harris,” a national organizing program that will help reach students across campuses.

Santiago Mayer, the executive director of Voters of Tomorrow, said the Biden administration actively engaged with the demographic.

“This is the first administration that has not only invited young people to the White House but has actively listened to us,” said Mayer, who has met with administration officials a number of times to discuss issues including gun violence prevention and climate issues. “They’re looking at young people as governing partners.”

Speaking of the protests at colleges, he said they’re directed not so much at the administration but at the leadership of their universities.

Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy, who also served as a foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), said the Biden administration has been “the most progressive administration of my lifetime,” bolstering issues that are important to young voters including student debt relief.

Still, he said of the administration’s handling of the crisis in Gaza, “I don’t want to say it cancels it out, but it resonates in a serious way that does tend to overshadow in some young people’s minds — and some older people’s minds — all the good things he’s done.”

Given the choice between Biden and former President Trump, Duss predicted that many of the young voters who are protesting the administration’s inaction in Gaza will come home to Biden during the election.

But he cautioned that Biden's handling of the situation in Gaza "is going to be a drag” on the reelection bid.

“It’s impossible to say how big of a drag, but it’s going to be a close election that even something that hurts him at the margins could make a difference,” Duss said.

Under the rule, active recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) will be eligible to enroll in a qualified health plan or a basic health plan under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and some forms of financial assistance.

“This final rule reflects the president's key commitment to protecting 'Dreamers' and DACA recipients. He is focused on providing them with the support they need to thrive and reach their fullest potential,” Neera Tanden, director of the Domestic Policy Council, told reporters Thursday.

“This final rule also reflects the president's belief that health care is a right — not a privilege — for all Americans, that it should extend to DACA recipients just like the rest of us.”

The new rule comes after months of speculation over executive actions the Biden administration might take on immigration issues, from potentially cracking down on asylum at the border to making work permits available to certain immigrants living in the country illegally.

Most of those potential actions are controversial to one side of the political spectrum or the other, but Dreamers, undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as minors, have generally garnered broader public support than other undocumented groups.

Still, DACA is mired in lawsuits. Though the Supreme Court nixed the Trump administration’s efforts to end it, a Texas federal judge declared the initial memo that created it illegal, and that same judge in September ruled against the Biden administration’s efforts to recodify the program as a federal regulation.

The program’s final fate is likely to be decided by the Supreme Court, but for the time being, the federal government is barred from adding new beneficiaries to DACA.

As of September, there were 544,690 enrollees, though the Migration Policy Institute estimates 1,161,000 people would be eligible for DACA as of 2022.

DACA recipients had previously been excluded from ObamaCare benefits, though other foreign nationals in deferred action programs were not.

Under previous Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) rules, DACA recipients were not “lawfully present” in terms of the health care law. That’s led a number of DACA recipients, particularly those without employer-provided insurance or the means to self-finance health insurance, to fall out of coverage.

CMS estimates the new rule will lead to 100,000 newly eligible DACA recipients enrolling in either a marketplace plan or a basic health program.

“Dreamers as DACA recipients are currently three times more likely to be uninsured than the general U.S. population, and individuals without health insurance — I think we all know this — are less likely to receive preventative or routine health screenings,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said.

“They delay necessary medical care, and they incur higher costs and deaths when they do finally seek care. So making Dreamers eligible to enroll in coverage will improve their health and well-being and strengthen the health and well-being of our nation and our economy.”

The rule will take effect Nov. 1, when a 60-day special enrollment period will open for eligible DACA beneficiaries. Officials planned that period to coincide with open enrollment for other ACA users to simplify the process.

The new rule does not make DACA recipients eligible for Medicaid or parts of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, but they will be eligible for financial aid programs that are already available to noncitizens whose immigration status makes them ineligible for Medicaid but would otherwise qualify.

“The Biden-Harris Administration believes health care is a right, not a privilege, and that extends to DACA recipients who have built their lives in the United States,” CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure said in a statement.

“Today’s rule reduces barriers for DACA recipients to obtain health care coverage and is a vital step toward making certain that it is available and accessible to all Americans.”

The White House announced the recipients for the medal, which is the nation's highest civilian honor given to those who have made "exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors."

Biden will formally bestow the Presidential Medal of Freedom on the honorees during a White House event later Friday. Other recipients include actor Michelle Yeoh, Olympic swimmer Katie Ledecky and activist Opal Lee.

Here's the full list of those being honored Friday:

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (D), known for his time in politics and for his extensive background as an entrepreneur. Bloomberg ran a brief, unsuccessful presidential campaign in the 2020 Democratic primary.

Gregory J. Boyle, a Jesuit Catholic priest who founded Homeboy Industries, a gang-intervention and rehabilitation program based in Los Angeles

Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), a close Biden ally who has served for decades in the House, including for two terms as House majority whip.

Elizabeth Dole, who represented North Carolina in the Senate from 2003-09. She also previously served as secretary of Transportation, secretary of Labor and head of the American Red Cross.

Phil Donahue, a media personality whose eponymous daytime talk show was the first to feature audience participation.

Medgar Wiley Evers, an activist who was murdered in 1963 at age 37 in one of the defining moments of the Civil Rights Movement. Evers will be honored posthumously.

Former Vice President Al Gore, who was the Democratic nominee for president in 2000 and narrowly lost the Electoral College vote. Gore has since won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to fight climate change.

Clarence B. Jones, a civil rights activist and lawyer who helped draft Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.

John Kerry, the former senator and former secretary of State. Kerry, who was the Democratic nominee for president in 2004, most recently served as Biden's special envoy for climate issues.

Frank R. Lautenberg, who served five terms as a senator from New Jersey and led the way on environmental issues and on consumer safety. Lautenberg will be honored posthumously.

Katie Ledecky, the Olympic swimmer and Maryland native. Ledecky, 27, has won seven Olympic gold medals, 21 world championship gold medals and holds multiple world records.

Opal Lee, an activist and educator who is best known for leading efforts to make Juneteenth a federally recognized holiday. She attended a White House event in 2021 when Biden signed legislation to make Juneteenth a national holiday.

Ellen Ochoa, an astronaut who was the first Hispanic woman in space when she was aboard the space shuttle Discovery in 1993. Ochoa has flown in space four times, and she is the second woman to serve as director of NASA's Johnson Space Center.

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), a hugely consequential figure in Democratic politics. Pelosi has served in the House for nearly 40 years, including as the first woman to ever serve as Speaker. She held the gavel during the first half of Biden's first term, helping guide major pieces of legislation through the chamber.

Jane Rigby, an astronomer and Delaware native. She is the senior project scientist of the James Webb Telescope, which is the most powerful telescope in the world. Biden in 2022 revealed the first full-color image from the telescope, which offered the deepest view of the universe ever captured.

Teresa Romero, president of the United Farm Workers and the first Latina woman to lead a national union in the United States. Biden has often boasted that he is the most pro-union president in history.

Judy Shepard, the mother of Matthew Shepard, who was attacked and later died of his injuries in one of the most notorious anti-gay hate crimes in U.S. history. Judy Shepard co-founded a foundation in her son's name dedicated to protecting LGBTQ people and preventing hate crimes.

Jim Thorpe, a multi-sport athlete who played professional football, baseball and basketball and was the first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal. Thorpe will be honored posthumously.

Michelle Yeoh, an Academy Award winning actress who in 2023 became the first Asian to win the Oscar for best actress for her work in "Everything Everywhere All at Once."

The indictment claims Cuellar and his wife accepted bribes from a company owned by Azerbaijan and a foreign bank located in Mexico in exchange for advancing their interests in the U.S. That, investigators say, included affecting foreign policy regarding Azerbaijan, particularly regarding the country's decadeslong conflict with Armenia.

In a statement, Cuellar said he and his wife are innocent of all allegations and accused prosecutors of being unwilling to hear their side of things. Cuellar did not address any specific pending charges in the statement but suggested he sought out legal advice on what would appear to be the subject of the allegations and also referenced his wife’s professional background.

"Furthermore, we requested a meeting with the Washington DC prosecutors to explain the facts
and they refused to discuss the case with us or to hear our side," he said.

Cuellar also said all actions he has taken while in Congress have been for the benefit of the people of Texas.

In a statement, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said Cuellar is entitled to his day in court and presumption of innocence and announced that per House rules, Cuellar would take leave from his position as ranking member of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee while the indictment is ongoing.

Cuellar's home was raided in 2022 as part of the investigation, and he maintained his innocence at the time. At one point a co-chair of the Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus, he promoted educational trips to the country.

Previously part of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan is a majority Muslim country that gained independence in 1991. The oil-rich country has a reputation for corruption and inequality, with some saying it is run by an authoritarian government.

Cuellar, a centrist Democrat, is running for reelection in November after defeating a progressive challenger in the primary.

NewsNation has reached out to the Justice Department for comment.

Read the full indictment:

The Hill contributed to this report.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.

“It was a dog that was extremely dangerous,” Noem said Wednesday on Fox News’ “Hannity.” “It had come to us from a family who had found her way too aggressive."

"We were her second chance. And she was — the day she was put down was a day that she massacred livestock that were part of our neighbors," she continued. "She attacked me. And it was a hard decision."

Noem added that she had to choose between "keeping my small children and other people safe, or a dangerous animal, and I chose the safety of my children.”

Her latest remarks come as she's faced heavy scrutiny over the anecdote in her upcoming book, which was uncovered by The Guardian after the outlet received an advanced copy. In light of the reporting, Democratic governors took to social media to mock Noem, posting pictures with their dogs alongside the caption: “Post a picture with your dog that doesn’t involve shooting them and throwing them in a gravel pit."

According to the book excerpt, the governor of the Mount Rushmore State took the dog — a 14-month-old wire-haired pointer named Cricket — to a gravel pit on her property and shot it, writing that it was “not a pleasant job” but “had to be done.

Noem, once seen as a top contender for former President Trump's running mate in November, has likely doomed her chances of securing the vice-presidential spot. The anecdote, paired with other controversies, has left many Republicans scratching their heads and doubting her chances.

Her anecdote even drew parallels from some to a decade-old story about Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah. During his 2012 presidential campaign, Romney faced blowback over a story about him tying his dog to the roof of his car on a family road trip.

The senator pushed back on the comparison earlier this week, saying “I didn’t eat my dog. I didn’t shoot my dog. I loved my dog, and my dog loved me.”

Noem too has doubled down on her decision in recent days.

“I can understand why some people are upset about a 20 year old story of Cricket, one of the working dogs at our ranch, in my upcoming book — No Going Back,” she wrote Sunday on the social platform X. “The book is filled with many honest stories of my life, good and bad days, challenges, painful decisions, and lessons learned.”

Hobbs says the move is just the beginning of a fight to protect reproductive health care in Arizona. The repeal of the 1864 law that the state Supreme Court recently reinstated won't take effect until 90 days after the legislative session ends, which typically happens in June or July.

Abortion rights advocates say they're hopeful a court will step in to prevent what could be a confusing landscape of access for girls and women across Arizona as laws are introduced and then reversed.

The effort to repeal the long-dormant law, which bans all abortions except those done to save a patient’s life, won final legislative approval Wednesday in a 16-14 vote of the Senate, as two GOP lawmakers joined with Democrats.

Hobbs denounced “a ban that was passed by 27 men before Arizona was even a state, at a time when America was at war over the right to own slaves, a time before women could even vote."

“This ban needs to be repealed, I said it in 2022 when Roe was overturned, and I said it again and again as governor,” Hobbs said during the bill signing.

In early April, Arizona's Supreme Court voted to restore the 1864 law that provided no exceptions for rape or incest and allows abortions only if the mother's life is in jeopardy. The majority opinion suggested doctors could be prosecuted and sentenced to up to five years in prison if convicted.

Democrats, who are the minority in the Legislature, struck back with the help of a handful of Republicans in the House and Senate to advance a repeal in a matter of weeks to Hobbs' desk.

A crowd of lawmakers — mostly women — joined in the signing ceremony with celebratory airs, including taking selfies and exchanging congratulations among Democrats.

The scene stood in sharp contrast to Wednesday's vote in the Senate that extended for hours as Republicans described their motivations in personal, emotional and even biblical terms — including graphic descriptions of abortion procedures and amplified audio recordings of a fetal heartbeat.

Meanwhile, across the country, an abortion rights initiative in South Dakota submitted far more signatures than required to make the ballot this fall. In Florida, a ban took effect against most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, before many people even know they are pregnant.

In Arizona, once the repeal takes effect in the fall, a 2002 statute banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy will become the state's prevailing abortion law.

Whether the 1864 law will be enforced in the coming months depends on who is asked. The anti-abortion group defending the ban, Alliance Defending Freedom, maintains county prosecutors can begin enforcing it once the Supreme Court's decision becomes final, which hasn't yet occurred.

Planned Parenthood Arizona filed a motion Wednesday asking the court to prevent a pause in abortion services until the repeal takes effect. Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes has joined in that action.

The Supreme Court set deadlines next week for briefings on the motion.

On Thursday, former Democratic state Rep. Athena Salman celebrated approval of the repeal she initially proposed in 2019 — three years before Roe v. Wade was overturned.

Until then, Arizona's near-total abortion ban had been blocked because the U.S. Supreme Court decision guaranteed the constitutional right to an abortion nationwide. Then-Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, swiftly made a case for enforcing the 1864 ban.

Still, the law hasn't been carried out because it was stuck in legal limbo until the Arizona Supreme Court weighed in.

Salman, who resigned in January to lead an abortion rights group, said she can’t stop thinking about what the repeal means for her daughters.

"Future generations will not have to live under the restrictions and the interference that we have had to experience,” she said.

Arizona Rep. Stephanie Stahl Hamilton, a Democrat who was key in repealing the ban, said she spent her early years on the Navajo Nation where her parents were schoolteachers and saw firsthand people being denied reproductive rights. The main health care option on the reservation is the Indian Health Service, which operates under the Hyde Amendment that bars the use of federal funding for abortions except in cases of rape, incest or threats to the patient's life.

She said she also watched her sister-in-law struggle with two difficult pregnancies, one that resulted in a stillbirth and a nonviable one in which “they had to make the heartbreaking decision to terminate that pregnancy, because there was no brain development.”

President Joe Biden’s campaign team believes voters' anger over the fall of Roe v. Wade gave him the political advantage in battleground states like Arizona, where he beat former President Donald Trump by about 10,000 votes.

The issue has divided Republican leaders.

People in the gallery of the Arizona Senate on Wednesday jeered and interrupted Republican Lawmaker Shawnna Bolick as she explained her vote in favor of the repeal.

Republican lawmakers more broadly are considering putting one or more abortion proposals on the November ballot. Such efforts could compete with Democratic-backed efforts to enshrine abortion access in the state constitution — up until a fetus could survive outside the womb, typically around 24 weeks, with some exceptions — to save the patient's life, or to protect her physical or mental health.

Dr. Ronald Yunis, a Phoenix-based obstetrician-gynecologist who also provides abortions, called the repeal a positive development for patients who might otherwise leave Arizona for medical care.

“This is good for ensuring that women won’t have to travel to other states just to get the health care they need,” Yunis said. “I was not too concerned because I have a lot of confidence in our governor and attorney general. I’m certain they will continue finding ways to protect women.”

___

This story has been updated to correct how the second of the two difficult pregnancies Arizona Rep. Stephanie Stahl Hamilton's sister-in-law experienced ended. The second pregnancy was terminated as it was nonviable; it did not result in a stillbirth.

Lawmakers pushed the proposal through the House and Senate in the final days of their four-month session after negotiations between the chambers broke down Monday on an earlier proposal. Republicans said they received a flurry of messages urging them to bring the bill back to life.

“This probably, to a lot of our constituents and to a lot of people in this chamber, is probably the most important bill that we brought up,” said Senate President Pro Tempore Dean Kirby, a Republican.

The legislation would require all public education institutions to equip their buildings with single-sex restrooms, changing areas and dormitories.

People would only be allowed to enter spaces that correspond to their sex assigned at birth, regardless of their appearance or any procedures they've had to affirm their gender identity. Those who violate the policy could be sued, but schools, colleges and universities would be protected from liability.

Democrats said the bill would put transgender people at risk. They also criticized Republicans for spending time on the issue as other legislative priorities remained unfinished.

"It just baffles me that we have things we can do to improve the state of Mississippi for all people, for all people, but we get so pumped on something that's national politics," said Rep. Jeffrey Hulum III, a Democrat. “It is not my job to criticize how people live their lives.”

Republicans said they were standing up for female family members on college campuses and pointed to several Republican women, wearing red, as they looked on from the Senate gallery.

One of those women was Anja Baker, a member of the Mississippi Federation of Republican Women from the Jackson suburb of Rankin County. Baker said she works with social service providers and was concerned women would be crowded out of spaces they rely on.

“They only have so many resources, and they need to have their locations and resources protected for the women that need them instead of getting caught in a game of identity politics,” Baker said.

Advocacy groups emailed her and other Republican women late Wednesday urging them to show up Thursday at the Capitol. That came after an initial measure mandating single-sex spaces stalled, causing an embittered back-and-forth between top legislators.

Just before a Monday night deadline, the House offered a plan that would let people file lawsuits seeking monetary damages if someone uses a bathroom not assigned to their gender, said Senate Judiciary A Committee Chairman Brice Wiggins, a Republican. Wiggins said that made it an unacceptable “trial lawyer bill."

House Judiciary A Committee Chairman Joey Hood, also a Republican, said the Senate forced the House into accepting a weaker proposal. The bill would let people sue, but they would be unable to claim compensatory damages from any lawsuit. As a result, Hood and other House members said the bill they ultimately approved would likely fail to deter people from entering spaces that don't align with their sex assigned at birth.

Hood said he hopes the Legislature would introduce legislation in 2025 with stronger penalties.

Another proposal failed this year that would have denied the legal recognition of transgender people by writing into law that “there are only two sexes, and every individual is either male or female.”

In 2021, Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed legislation to ban transgender athletes from competing on girls’ or women’s sports teams. Last year, he signed a bill to ban gender-affirming hormones or surgery for anyone younger than 18.

The Mississippi proposals were among several bills being considered in state legislatures around the country as Republicans try to restrict transgender people’s access to gender-affirming care, bathrooms and sports, among other things.

—-

Michael Goldberg is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow him at @mikergoldberg.

Sanders, the onetime press secretary to former President Trump, is the latest in a growing coalition of Republican governors to explicitly reject the Biden administration’s update to the federal civil rights law prohibiting sex discrimination in schools and education programs that receive federal funding.

Sanders in an executive order signed Thursday said Title IX rules finalized last month by the Education Department that expand the meaning of sex discrimination to include sexual orientation and gender identity are “plainly ridiculous” and “will lead to males unfairly competing in women’s sports; receiving access to women’s and girls’ locker rooms, bathrooms, and private spaces; and competing for women’s scholarships.”

The order instructs schools to continue enforcing state laws that prevent transgender students from using restrooms and locker rooms and competing on sports teams that match their gender identity. Schools should also continue to comply with a 2023 Arkansas law that prevents public school and state employees from addressing minors by a name or pronoun that does not align with their sex assigned at birth without permission from their parents.

“If Biden gets his way, female college students will shower and change next to male college students, referring to someone using biologically correct pronouns will get you all in front of a disciplinary board for harassment and scholarships previously reserved for women will now be open to anyone claiming to be a woman,” Sanders said Thursday at the Arkansas Capitol in Little Rock.

“My message to Joe Biden and the federal government is that we will not comply,” she said.

More than a dozen Republican-led states have sued the Education Department over the new Title IX regulations, arguing that the expanded definition of sex discrimination to include gender identity is unlawful. It is not clear how Sanders will enforce the executive order, which is the first to challenge the federal government’s rule.

State education officials in GOP-controlled states have also instructed schools to ignore the new Title IX rule.

The Education Department did not immediately return a request for comment, though a department spokesperson previously told The Hill that schools “are obligated to comply with these final regulations” as a condition of receiving federal education funding.

Sanders’s executive order pledges to take legal action against the administration “for any financial loss, including loss of funding, incurred by the state due to the passage of the Biden administration’s unscientific agendas.”

“Only one of these is a law,” Sanders said Thursday. “We are not the group that has tried to circumvent the system, like the Biden administration is doing through the new guidance that they are issuing on Title IX. We are enforcing and upholding state law and we're asking that our institutions follow Arkansas law.”

The Biden administration has yet to finalize a separate rule governing athletics eligibility.

The proposal unveiled by the Education Department last April would prohibit schools from adopting policies that categorically exclude transgender student-athletes, though high schools and colleges would still be able to limit how and when trans students are able to compete in accordance with their gender identity.

The 27-8 vote in favor included all Republicans present and one Democrat voting for the ban. That came after the remaining Democrats tried to walk out so there wouldn't be enough senators to stay in session, but the vote was called too fast.

The bill bars health professionals from performing gender-transition surgeries, prescribing puberty blockers and overseeing hormone treatments for patients under 18.

School principals or vice principals would have to notify parents or guardians if a child wanted to use a name other than their legal one, or a nickname or pronouns that did not match their sex assigned at birth.

The House passed the bill in January, but the Senate made changes, so either the House can vote to adopt the Senate version or it will go to a conference committee of three members from each chamber to resolve the differences.

“There are some things in the nature of creation — male and female is one of them — that gets beyond what you believe and I believe," Republican Sen. Richard Cash said on the Senate floor before debate began Thursday. "It’s rooted in creation; it’s rooted in the creator and those who opposed that are opposing in some sense the nature of creation itself.”

The bill also would prevent people from using Medicaid to cover the costs of gender-affirming care.

There were a few amendments passed. One allows mental health counselors to talk about banned treatments — and even suggest a place they are legal. A second lets doctors prescribe puberty blockers for some conditions for which they are prescribed like when a child begins what is called precocious puberty when they are as young as 4.

Opponents failed to get an amendment that would only ban treatments considered irreversible after supporters of the bill balked at who would get to decide what treatments fit under that provision.

The changes made a bad bill only a little less worse, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto said.

“Children are born who they want to be. Parents deal with the children that come to them. Doctors have been trained to deal with children who are having issues like this. Government really has no role in this,” Hutto said. “Let the children be who they are.”

Doctors and parents testified before committees in both the House and Senate that people younger than 18 do not receive gender-transition surgeries in South Carolina and hormone treatments begin only after extensive consultation with health professionals.

They said the treatments can be lifesaving, allowing young transgender people to live more fulfilling lives. Research has shown that transgender youth and adults are prone to stress, depression and suicidal behavior when forced to live as the sex they were assigned at birth.

Supporters of the bill have cited their own unpublished evidence that puberty blockers increase self-harm and can be irreversible.

The invocation of religion by supporters annoyed Democratic Sen. Tameika Isaac Devine. She said senators weren't showing a Christian-like caring for all in the bill.

“I’m not going to sit back and judge families going through scenarios I don’t know about,” Devine said. "I am gong to be compassionate. I am going to be empathetic and I’m going to try to understand. That’s what my God tells me.”

If the bill gets to the governor's desk and is signed, South Carolina would become the 25th state to restrict or ban such care for minors.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey said when the session started in January his chamber likely wouldn't take up many social issues this year. But on Thursday he said the bill was always on the radar.

Republican Sen. Danny Verdin said polls show voters in South Carolina back the ban. With all senators up for reelection this year, that idea could get tested at the ballot box.

“If you put it alongside taxes, if you put it alongside infrastructure, if you put it alongside paying our school teachers or paying our law enforcement officers, this is up there. It's above them all,” Verdin said.

Six Republicans joined all Democrats in supporting a Democratic-led motion to recommit for the Mining Regulatory Clarity Act, bringing the final vote count to a successful 210-204. Reps. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Dan Bishop (R-N.C.), Eli Crane (R-Ariz.), Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Bob Good (R-Va.) and Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) all voted “yes.”

A motion to recommit essentially sends a piece of legislation back to a House committee, blocking it from a vote on the floor. It is the minority party's final chance to stop or amend a bill before the final vote.

Such votes are usually routine, mundane and predictable, with the minority party voting “yes” and the majority party voting “no.” A successful motion to recommit is exceedingly rare.

The legislation blocked Wednesday would make it easier for mining companies to conduct projects on public lands. The motion to recommit offered by Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M.) called for adding an amendment to the legislation that would bar any mining companies from operating on public lands if the Interior secretary finds that the organization’s parent company is “incorporated in, located in, or controlled by an adversarial nation.”

After the motion to recommit was agreed to, the House did not move forward with a final passage vote on the legislation.

The vote marked a defeat for GOP leadership, which put the bill on the schedule this week. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise's (R-La.) office described it as a measure that was “supporting critical mining projects.”

It remains unclear why the hard-liners voted with Democrats to support the motion to recommit. The Hill reached out to the six Republicans for comment.

Wednesday’s vote was the latest procedural defeat GOP leadership has suffered this Congress. Members of the right flank have voted against rules — which set parameters for debate on legislation — a number of times this session, maneuvers that have blocked bills from hitting the floor for debate and final passage votes.

The successful motion to recommit comes as Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) faces increased scrutiny from hard-line conservatives after he cut deals with Democrats to fund the government, reauthorize the country’s warrantless surveillance powers and send aid to embattled U.S. allies overseas — including Ukraine.

Johnson’s support for the government funding bill in March prompted Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to file a motion to vacate to oust him from the top job. And this week, after votes on the U.S.’s spying powers and sending assistance to Kyiv, she announced that she will move to force a vote on her removal resolution next week — which is poised to fail amid mounting opposition.

Only two other Republicans — Reps. Thomas Massie (Ky.) and Paul Gosar (Ariz.) — have publicly come out in support of the ouster effort. Additionally, the top three Democratic leaders announced this week that they will vote to table the resolution if Greene forces a vote on it.

Johnson told The Hill this week that he sent Schumer a draft invitation around a month ago, but the Senate leader has been sitting on it since.

“I sent a letter draft, because it’s a bicameral invitation letter, it’s been sitting on Chuck Schumer’s desk. As far as I know he has not cosigned it yet,” Johnson said, adding that it was sent “probably a month ago.”.

But now, Schumer is ready to sign on, according to his office.

“He intends to join the invitation, the timing is being worked out,” the Senate leader’s spokesperson told The Hill.

The Hill was first to report on Johnson’s draft invitation and Schumer’s plan to sign it.

Netanyahu’s visit — if it does materialize — is sure to spark outrage among liberals, who have strongly criticized the prime minister’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war and the growing number of civilian deaths in the Gaza Strip.

It will also come amid a tense moment in the relationship between Schumer — the highest-ranking Jewish official in U.S. history — and Netanyahu, after the Senate leader called for new elections in Israel to replace the longtime conservative leader.

Schumer in a speech on the Senate floor said Netanyahu had “lost his way,” comments that the Israeli prime minister called “totally inappropriate.”

Johnson first floated the idea of inviting Netanyahu to the Capitol in March, after it was brought up during a closed-door House GOP conference meeting. The next day, however, he said he would “certainly” extend an invitation.

“I would love to have him come and address a joint session of Congress,” Johnson told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” in an interview. “We’ll certainly extend that invitation.”

Schumer at the time said “I will always welcome the opportunity for the Prime Minister of Israel to speak to Congress in a bipartisan way.”

“Israel has no stronger ally than the United States and our relationship transcends any one president or any one Prime Minister,” he added in a statement.

Invitations for foreign leaders to address Congress are typically extended on behalf of Congressional leaders. There are not, however, formal procedures for inviting foreign leaders to address Congress, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Netanyahu last addressed Congress in 2015, a speech that put a spotlight on the long-running tensions between liberals Democrats and conservative Netanyahu. A number of Democrats skipped the event in protest of the Israeli leader, who utilized his time in the Capitol to criticize then-President Obama over the Iran nuclear deal.

Updated at 7:32 p.m. EST.

The new proposal won't legalize recreational weed nationwide, but it would reclassify marijuana so it's no longer considered a Schedule I drug alongside heroin, LSD and ecstasy.

Instead, marijuana would move to the less tightly regulated Schedule III tier next to drugs like ketamine and anabolic steroids, which have accepted medical uses. The change would open the door for new research and ease the tax burden on cannabis businesses.

"It's a necessary step because it opens up people's minds and understanding that this plant does have medical utility," said Saphira Galoob, executive director of the National Cannabis Roundtable.

But rescheduling marijuana, which Galoob called an "incremental step," won't address all of the challenges facing the legal cannabis industry, particularly when it comes to accessing loans at major banks.

Here's what the proposal could mean for companies and consumers.

What's the biggest change for businesses?

Rescheduling will lead to lower tax bills for marijuana companies that haven't been able to take the same deductions as other businesses.

Under the federal tax code, businesses associated with "trafficking" Schedule I or Schedule II substances can't deduct expenses like rent and payroll, which other companies can write off. Cannabis industry groups say their businesses often end up paying tax rates that are 70% or more.

For some, the current tax burden has added up to as much as $80 million a year in extra costs, a Chicago-based CEO told the Chicago-Sun Times.

If marijuana is reclassified as a Schedule III substance, the federal deduction rule would no longer apply, cutting cannabis companies' taxes significantly.

Aaron Smith, CEO of the National Cannabis Industry Association, told NewsNation the tax implications would have a "significant positive impact" on legal cannabis businesses that have been subjected to the "unfair" provision of the tax code.

Galoob called the existing tax rules "unacceptable" and said the barriers have held back small businesses in the sector.

Will weed cost less at the dispensary?

The good news for consumers is that lower tax bills for businesses could lead to better prices at the dispensary.

"I would expect some of that savings to be passed along to consumers," Smith said.

More broadly, the tax savings will make it easier for businesses to reinvest and grow their companies. In turn, that will create more jobs and put more money into the economy, Smith pointed out.

Galoob thinks those positive spillover effects will lead to a more efficient cannabis market, ultimately reducing price pressures. That shift would also help restrain the illegal market, which continues to thrive.

"As a regulated market becomes more efficient, the illicit market goes away and goes down," she said.

Today, the price of weed varies significantly from state to state and any future price reductions are sure to reflect local supply and demand.

In Illinois, where the cannabis market is dominated by a few major brands, the average item price was almost 90% higher than the rest of the U.S. in 2023, according to Headset — a cannabis market research company. By comparison, Washington state has over 1,000 distinct brands and prices are among the lowest in the country.

Other states, like Oregon, have already seen retail prices plummet in recent years due to a weed surplus that's resulted, in part, from restrictions on interstate sales.

Will it be easier for marijuana businesses to get loans?

Major banks have long been reluctant to do business with cannabis companies due to the drug's legal status and experts say rescheduling is unlikely to change that.

"Cannabis would still be illegal under federal law, and that is a line many banks in this country will not cross," Blair Bernstein, a spokesperson for the American Bankers Association, told the Associated Press.

For that reason, marijuana businesses may still have trouble securing loans and setting up accounts — a longstanding challenge for the industry.

Today, only about 10% of U.S. Banks and roughly 5% of all credit unions provide cannabis-related businesses with accounts, Reuters reported.

The difficulty accessing capital has led operators to rely entirely on cash, making them targets for robberies. That credit crunch has also limited the opportunity for small businesses to grow.

Advocates say the persistent financial barriers underscore the importance of the bipartisan SAFER Banking Act. The bill — which is currently being considered by federal lawmakers — would provide protections for federally regulated financial institutions serving legitimate marijuana businesses.

"Businesses that are operating in this space deserve to be able to pull every lever and access every aspect of growing, building, and developing a thriving, highly regulated business like everyone else does," Galoob said.

Smith echoed the need for federal legislation and called on Congress to pass the bill "without further delay."

More than half of white Christians said Trump was a “great” or “good” president who, in their opinion, did not break the law to try to overturn the 2020 election, the study suggests.

The former president particularly draws support from white evangelical Protestant voters (81%), white Catholics (61%) and white Protestants who are not evangelical (57%).

Alternatively, Black Protestants or people who identify as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” tend to favor Biden. Many of those same voters also say Trump was a “terrible” president who did break the law during the 2020 election.

Biden’s support includes 87% of atheist voters, 82% of agnostics and 57% of with no religious particular religious beliefs.

Those preferences are in line with broader partisan leanings of religious groups in the United States, according to Pew.

White Christians tend to support Republicans, while Black Protestants and religious “nones” tend to support Democrats.

The survey didn’t include enough respondents from other religious backgrounds to break them out separately.

Per the Brookings Institute, Russian state-affiliated accounts have accelerated their use of TikTok since the start of 2024, coinciding with U.S. efforts to ban the immensely popular video app.

While engagement on other platforms like Telegram and X (formerly known as Twitter) remains higher, TikTok Russian state-affiliated accounts are gaining steam.

“Thus far, messaging about U.S. politics has focused on questions about President Joe Biden’s age, protests over Biden’s Israel policies, and political commentator Tucker Carlson’s reflections on Russia and U.S. policy toward Russia, among other topics,” according to the Brookings research.

Legislation forcing TikTok's parent company to sell the video sharing platform or face a ban in the U.S. received U.S. President Joe Biden's official signoff in late April.

Critics of the sell-or-be-banned ultimatum argue it violates TikTok users' First Amendment rights. The app's China-based owner, ByteDance, has already promised to sue, calling the measure unconstitutional.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The FBI has already warned the Israel-Hamas war could inspire terrorist attacks for years to come. That's in addition to threats already posed by homegrown extremists from countries like Iran, China and Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin sees domestic and international developments trending in his favor and likely will press on with aggressive tactics in Ukraine, but the war is unlikely to end soon, the top U.S. intelligence official said on Thursday.

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Russia intensified strikes on Ukraine's infrastructure to hamper Kyiv's ability to move arms and troops, slow defense production and force it to consider negotiations.

"Putin's increasingly aggressive tactics against Ukraine, such as strikes on Ukraine's electricity infrastructure, are intended to impress Ukraine that continuing to fight will only increase the damage to Ukraine and offer no plausible path to victory," she said.

Haines went on to say artificial intelligence is being used by Russia to try to influence the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

Haines was asked whether the protests on college campuses were inspired in part by disinformation from China, Russia or Iran. She said that there's no evidence of that at this time.

Reuters contributed to this story.

(NewsNation) — While South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem never really had a shot at being Donald Trump’s 2024 vice presidential pick, Senator Tim Scott did.

But alas (for Scott), with another week comes another favorite.

At the beginning of April when Scott was the flavor of the month, my source said: “(With Scott as the VP) the Republican party will be able to play the ‘Biden in Chains’ clip over and over and over and further weaken Biden’s popularity with the African American community.”

In 2012, while he was vice president and campaigning for President Barack Obama in Virginia, Biden told a diverse crowd of 800 that the Republican challenger Mitt Romney wanted to repeal financial regulations and added: “He’s going to let the big banks once again write their own rules — unchain Wall Street! They’re going to put you all back in chains!” While Biden was referring to Republican economic policies, our insider said, “It’s not a good look for him right now. Telling African Americans they will be back in chains, with the slavery reference… and especially since the community feels forgotten by the Biden administration as the migrant crisis gets worse.”

But Scott has since faded into the background as another candidate with even better qualifications has come forth.

This week, Virginia Lieutenant Governor, Winsome Earle-Sears is the one to watch.

“Republicans want someone in law enforcement,” my source said. “With all this (redacted) going on on college campuses right now, the Republicans want to double down and show they are all about the law. Right now, the Democrats are showing they can not and will not govern. (Sears) is a former Marine and is tough on crime. It doesn’t hurt that she’s an African American woman either.”

Sears served as an electrician in the Marines from 1983 to 1986 and did not re-enlist.

A hurdle (or not) is that she was born in Jamaica and thus, could never serve as the President of the United States — something my source says Trump sees as a benefit as she would never seek to oust him. But, it is unclear if she would be able to perform the duties of the President should Trump become ill, hospitalized, or die in office due to the country of her birth.

Another person who fits the law enforcement, African American mold is Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson, who switched sides in September 2023 from a Democrat to a Republican.

While other major cities saw crime spikes in the last year, Dallas bucked the trend — earning Johnson national recognition when the Washington Post wrote a blazing op-ed on June 14, 2023, titled: “America’s cities have seen a crime surge. Not Dallas — thanks to it’s mayor.” Three months later, Johnson dumped the Democrats and announced he was siding with the Republicans.

With either Sears or Johnson, the “chains” tactic will likely still be used — but bolstered by the law-and-order theme some Republicans are banking on.

The president addressed the nation from the White House on Thursday morning, denouncing antisemitism and racism. The protests haven't swayed his positions on the region, he said.

"Dissent is essential to Democracy, but dissent must never lead to disorder," Biden said.

Pro-Palestinian protesters on campuses including Columbia University, Yale and the University of California, Los Angeles have been calling for the schools to divest from Israel.

Earlier this week, police arrested 292 people — 173 at The City College of New York and 119 at Columbia — NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell said during a news conference Wednesday.

"There’s the right to protest but not the right to cause chaos," Biden said. "Let’s be clear about this as well: There should be no place on any campus and no place in America for antisemitism and threats of violence ... it’s simply wrong. There’s no place for racism in America."

Political figures including former President Donald Trump have been critical of Biden for not speaking on the matter sooner.

"This isn’t a moment for politics," Biden said. "It’s a moment for clarity."

Attorney Keith Davidson represented Daniels, as well as a model who also said she had an affair with Trump, Karen McDougal. He helped the women sell the rights to their stories, and also negotiated deals to purchase their silence.

“What have we done?” Davidson said in texts to David Pecker, then the editor of the National Enquirer, after making the deal to stop McDougal from coming forward. The National Enquirer had buried stories of extra-marital sexual encounters Trump allegedly had to prevent them from surfacing in the final days of the 2016 presidential race.

Davidson said in court that there was an understanding their efforts may have "assisted the presidential campaign of Donald Trump."

A recording of Trump discussing the plan to purchase McDougal's silence with his then-lawyer and personal fixer, Michael Cohen, was played for the court.

Cohen, in the recording, told Trump he spoke to the Trump Organization's Chief Financial Officer at the time about how to "set the whole thing up with funding."

"What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?” Trump can be heard saying in the recording. He suggested making cash payments, but Cohen said no to this.

On Thursday, the jury was shown a $130,000 agreement between Daniels requiring her not to reveal her own story. Once Cohen paid Daniels, he was reimbursed by Trump's company, which logged payments to the attorney as "legal expenses."

When pressed by Trump's lawyers, Davidson acknowledged he had never interacted directly with the former president, just Cohen.

Before Davidson began testifying Thursday in the New York City courtroom, there was a hearing over whether Trump would face more sanctions for allegedly violating a gag order connected to the trial.

Judge Juan M. Merchan already ruled Tuesday that Trump disregarded the order — which prohibits him from making public statements about witnesses and jurors, among others — nine separate times. Trump was fined $9,000 for these violations and given a Friday deadline to pay the fine.

On Thursday, prosecutors sought additional $1,000 fines for four other comments made by the former president. Prosecutors don't plan to seek jail time for Trump, though, as they don't want to interrupt court proceedings.

The gag order, prosecutors said, was put in place because of what they called Trump’s “persistent and escalating rhetoric,” adding that he “thinks the rules should be different for him.”

One example of this the prosecution pointed to were remarks Trump made outside the courtroom, where he branded Cohen a “liar.”

Todd Blanche, Trump’s defense attorney, argued that witnesses like Cohen shouldn’t even be included in the gag order. Cohen, Blanche said, uses TikTok and other social media accounts “repeatedly” to criticize and mock Trump as well as the order itself.

Other comments Trump made to cable network Real America’s Voice about the jury were permissible, Blanche said, because Trump believes the trial is a “political persecution."

“Did he violate the gag order?” Merchan asked.

“Absolutely, positively not,” Blanche responded.

In addition, Blanche argued Trump should have the right to be able to respond to a recent comment President Joe Biden made at the White House correspondents' dinner, where he forecasted “stormy weather” for his rival.

“President Trump can’t respond to that in the way he wants to because of this gag order,” Blanche said.

Merchan said Trump was not barred from responding to Biden, but “is not allowed to refer to foreseeable witnesses.”

The judge did not make an immediate ruling on the gag order violations.

Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records and arranging hush money payments to Daniels.

For his part, Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president in the 2024 election, has been campaigning in his off-hours but is required to be in court for the four days a week it is in session. He has denied any wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty to charges against him.

Before court resumed Thursday, Trump talked about rallies he had in Michigan and Wisconsin, saying it was nice to campaign for one day without being at what he called a "ridiculous" show trial.

After making comments about inflation, interest rates and the price of gasoline, Trump said the case should have been brought eight years ago and not during election season.

"They wait until I announce, and then they start their action," Trump said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This story is developing. Refresh for updates.

“This election is about freedom, America and democracy. That's why I badly need you. You know, one of the reasons why our economy is growing is because of you and many others. Why? Because we welcome immigrants,” the president said.

“The reason — look, think about it. Why is China stalling so badly economically? Why is Japan having trouble? Why is Russia? Why is India? Because they're xenophobic. They don't want immigrants. Immigrants are what makes us strong. Not a joke; that's not hyperbole. Because we have an influx of workers who want to be here and want to contribute,” he added, according to a pool report.

When asked if the president would want to apologize to Japan for the comment, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden was trying to make a broader point.

“The broader case that he was trying to make, which I think most leaders and allies across the globe understands, he was saying that… we are a nation of immigrants, that is in our DNA,” she said.

She added, “as it relates to our relationship with our allies, that continues. Obviously we have a strong relationship with India, with Japan.”

Biden has been hit relentlessly by Republicans over immigration, which is among a host of issues key to the 2024 election.

Biden has previously hit China for its lack of immigration as a reason for its economic troubles but hasn’t criticized Japan, which is a key ally in Asia. He's also had choice words for Russia, particularly during its war with Ukraine.

In including India and Japan alongside with China and Russia, Biden lumped in two counties considered key allies, particularly when it comes to combating China.

Biden has hosted leaders of both countries at the White House in the last year. He hosted Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in June 2023 and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida last month. Both were also treated to state dinners.

Updated 1:12 p.m.

Multiple universities this week have sent in law enforcement to arrest hundreds of protesters as administrators declare their demonstrations illegal, while at least two schools have been able to reach deals with activists to peacefully close down their encampments.  

But even as college administrators likely hope the protests will dwindle naturally once classes are over for the summer, advocates on both sides say the work is not over. 

Rabbi David Markowitz, executive vice president at Olami, a group leading a "#ZeroTolerance" antisemitism campaign on campuses, told The Hill that "in the most likely scenario, what's going to happen in the next week to two weeks is that things are going to quiet down, and there's a huge risk that people see that quieting down as the problem going away." 

“You don't solve the problem by having the semester end conveniently,” Markowitz said.  

Police had already been called into multiple campuses to deal with the protesters against Israel's war in Gaza, but their presence escalated significantly in the last two days.

At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 30 people were charged with trespassing on Tuesday.

An encampment at the University of Utah was deconstructed on Tuesday, and 17 people were arrested.

On Wednesday, police removed the encampment at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with the college reporting 34 people were arrested. CNN reported that as police left the area, however, more tents were promptly put back up.

And on Monday, riot police again arrested several students at the University of Texas at Austin.  

But the schools that have caught the most attention are Columbia University and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

On Tuesday night, Columbia called in the New York Police Department to take back Hamilton Hall, which protesters had taken over earlier in the day. More than 300 people were arrested, and protesters were cleared from the building and a nearby encampment.

At UCLA, the Los Angeles Police Department came in early Wednesday morning to quell violence at the demonstration after pro-Israel counterprotesters attacked the pro-Palestinian activists, attempting to remove their encampment and reportedly throwing fireworks into the crowd.

“We are appalled at the violence that took place on the campus of UCLA last night. The
abhorrent actions of a few counter protestors last night do not represent the Jewish community or our values. We believe in peaceful, civic discourse,” the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles said in a statement.

The encampment has been declared unlawful by UCLA, but it has yet to be cleared by the police. The school canceled classes Wednesday due to the violence.

Activists at other universities say they are not discouraged.

“I would say that I see the resolve of the student movement just getting stronger and stronger in the face of this repression,” said Batya Kline, a student organizer at Wesleyan University.

“We are in a situation where we're in the midst of a seven-month genocide. And so seeing our friends get arrested and seeing them getting beat up by the cops is not deterring us, because we are so enraged and in so much grief because of what's happening. It's just kind of making our student movement stronger, more tightknit and more widespread.” 

At least two colleges have managed to get their encampments removed without police force by striking a deal with protesters.  

At Brown University, the school agreed to allow five students to present arguments to its board about why they should divest from companies connected to Israel, and the board will vote in the fall on potential divestment. Brown also said it will look favorably on students during disciplinary hearings for willingly taking down the encampment.  

And at Northwestern University, students are now allowed to protest through June 1 with only one tent on the premises and must keep the demonstrations in line with university policy. In exchange, the school will provide more transparency in its investments, reestablish an advisory committee to consider "investment responsibility" in the fall and provide full tuition to five Palestinian students and funding for two visiting Palestinian faculty members.

“I think that just demonstrates the power of our student movement, that we're mobilizing basically the entire student population at each of these schools so that the administrations, which have been deaf to us for so long, not listening to our demands, are now accepting them at face value and making deals that the organizers, the Palestinian organizers themselves, deem appropriate and are accepting these deals,” Kline said. 

Others, however, are appalled by the deals Northwestern and Brown made.

“I think that any university that agreed to make any concessions on their university-wide policy to these protesters have demonstrated an ultimate failure of leadership,” said Ron Halber, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington.   

“There are some among the protesters who have good intentions, who want to see an end of the war, but these protests across the country have been infected with the most vile, Nazi-era type antisemitic language, and there should be no compromise with them on anything. There should just be total condemnation across the board and no offers to meet with any of their demands,” Halber added. 

He argued these protests would not have lasted as long if they were “attacking another group other than Israelis and Jews” and that this requires “immediate federal action.” 

House Republicans have in recent months made combating antisemitism, particularly on college campuses, a pivotal part of their messaging.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) announced Tuesday a House-wide investigation into the matter, and Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), chair of the Education and the Workforce Committee, said she will be conducting another college antisemitism hearing, calling on the heads of Yale University, UCLA and the University of Michigan to attend.

But some advocates have said there has been a lot of talk with very little action on the issue.

“The government needs to hold the schools accountable. There's been a bunch of stuff from Congress where they've made statements that are going to hold the schools accountable. I don't know that we've seen any real holding schools accountable. I think we've heard talk about it,” Markowitz said. 

He argues there needs to be clear rules around where protesting is allowed to happen and the consequences for breaking the regulations.  

“Here are the rules around which you can do that, and if you don't follow those rules, then you're going to have your group status removed. The student would be expelled, the nonmembers of the school [...] will be removed and arrested by the police,” Markowitz said.

“Everything follows from there, but create policy as a school around what is allowed and what's not allowed, or what are the guidelines into which it can be done, and this way everybody has clarity about what they can do [and] what they can't do.” 

—Updated at 5:33 p.m.

But leading progressives are defending students’ rights to protest and pushing back against calls for the federal government to intervene on campuses across the country.

“It’s 100 percent unacceptable for Jewish students or any students to be harmed on campus. You’re seeing this at campus after campus that now there’s physical violence,” said Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), who faces a tough reelection race this fall.

“This is pure, blatant antisemitism and it needs to be stopped. It should not be tolerated,” she added.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), one of the Senate’s most vulnerable incumbents, said, “We all speak strongly that the antisemitism and hate and violence are not acceptable.”

“The law should be enforced,” he said when asked about protesters who smashed windows and unfurled an “intifada” banner while taking over Hamilton Hall in the middle of Columbia University’s New York City campus.

One Democratic senator who requested anonymity said Biden and Democrats need to step up their condemnations of displays of antisemitism on college campuses.

“We all need to do more. This is something that rears its ugly head,” said the senator, who acknowledged it’s a “huge challenge” to address given the First Amendment’s protections for political speech.

“It’s not easy for anybody. I’m sure it’s not easy for [Biden]. We do need to push back on it,” they continued.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) condemned what he called the “lawlessness” on Columbia’s campus Tuesday.

“Campuses cannot be places of learning and argument and discussion when protests veer into criminality,” he warned.

“It is also unpredictable when Jewish students are targeted for being Jewish — when protests exhibit verbal abuse, systematic intimidation, or glorification of the murderous and hateful Hamas or the violence of Oct. 7,” he said.

Some Republicans are criticizing Biden for not being more outspoken about the campus protests.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) called on the Justice Department to investigate potential violations of Jewish students’ civil rights.

“If moral clarity does not prevail in the ivory tower and the Biden administration, this could go down as a particularly shameful episode,” he said on the Senate floor.

Senate Republican Conference Chair John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) called on Biden to restore order.

“Joe Biden would rather waffle than act. Why does he bow down to these pro-Hamas protesters. It’s because the election is coming up and he knows he needs their votes,” he said. “What the president ought to be doing is applying the law, returning order to campuses and getting students back into the classroom.”

Democratic strategists acknowledge that Biden needs to turn out young voters to the polls in November to win, and that polls show that a majority of them feel more sympathetic to Palestinians than Israelis amidst the mounting death toll in Gaza.

A New York Times/Siena College poll of 1,059 registered voters nationwide from April 7-11 found that 45 percent of voters under 30 sympathize more with Palestinians than Israelis in the conflict. Only 15 percent of the same group said they felt more sympathy for Israel.

Clashes between protesters and police or between protesters and counterprotesters have brought back memories of the Black Lives Matter demonstrations that roiled cities ahead of the 2020 election, when Republican candidates ran against the “Defund the Police” movement.

The growing turmoil on campuses has Democrats feeling anxious about their upcoming presidential nominating convention in Chicago this August.

Some Democratic senators fear a reprise of the clashes between police and anti-Vietnam War protesters that rocked the Democratic convention in 1968, which split their party heading into that year’s presidential election, when Richard Nixon defeated Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

But Democrats are divided over whether Congress needs to put more pressure on college and university presidents to crack down on campus unrest.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), an outspoken critic of the pro-Palestinian protests who calls the campus demonstrations “pup tents for Hamas,” said he’s open to putting “conditions” on federal aid to colleges and universities that have let protests spin out of control.

“I think there has to be consequences,” he said. “It’s rampant hate speech in all of this, and I just don’t understand how this is allowed.”

Asked about cutting federal funding, Fetterman noted “there are parts of my party that love conditions on” military aid for Israel.

“Then we should have conditions on a lot of these universities,” he said.

Fetterman said Wednesday he supports the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which passed the House on Wednesday with strong bipartisan support.

The bill would direct the Department of Education to adopt a definition of antisemitism sponsored by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance to enforce antidiscrimination laws.

The bill divided House Democrats, with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) voting for it and Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) leading the Democratic opposition to it.

Nadler warned the bill threatened to “chill” constitutionally protected speech.

“Speech that is critical of Israel alone does not constitute unlawful discrimination. By encompassing purely political speech about Title VI’s ambit, the bill sweeps too broadly,” he argued before the vote.

The bill passed the House by a vote of 320-91 and now presents Schumer with a tough decision about whether to bring it to the floor.

A total of 133 House Democrats voted for it while 70 Democrats, including prominent liberals such as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Katie Porter (D-Calif.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), voted no.

Asked about it before the House vote, Schumer declined to say how he would handle the bill if it came over to the Senate.

“We haven’t seen what the House is sending us yet,” he said.

Asked whether Biden needs to get “more vocal” in condemning violence and antisemitism on college campuses, Schumer said: “I have made my views clear. … There’s no place for violence or antisemitism on the campuses.”

The debate over the campus protests is already dividing Senate Democrats.

Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), who faces a difficult reelection race in a presidential battleground state, earlier this month introduced with Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), a potential GOP vice-presidential candidate, the Senate’s version of the Antisemitism Awareness Act.

“On the campuses, they’ve got to enforce the law. If people are engaged in violence or property destruction, you’ve got to enforce the rules of the campus. By that I mean expulsion or some action. And then there’s a law enforcement element as well,” Casey said.

“When there’s antisemitic actions taken on a campus, there has to be a consequence to that,” he said.

“Secondly, we’ve got to provide appropriations funding so that the Office of Civil Rights within the Department of Education can start these investigations, complete them in a timely manner and provide a sanction or a penalty when … there’s a finding that there’s a hostile environment,” he said.

But Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) took to the Senate floor late Wednesday to defend the rights of students to protest at Columbia, noting that anti-Vietnam War protesters occupied the same building, Hamilton Hall, in 1968.

“I did want to take a moment to remind some of my colleagues about a document called the U.S. Constitution and specifically the First Amendment of that Constitution,” he said on the Senate floor.

Sanders condemned protesters who threw a brick through a window at Columbia and also counterprotesters on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles who attacked what he called the “peaceful encampment of antiwar demonstrators.”

He argued that politicians and pundits are accusing today’s antiwar demonstrators of antisemitism to deflect scrutiny from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s use of overwhelming force in Gaza.

“It is outrageous and it is disgraceful to use the charge of antisemitism to distract from the immoral and illegal war policies that Netanyahu’s extremist and racist government is pursuing,” he declared.

"The Biden asylum rule impermissibly limits the right to seek asylum for many people and compels them to wait in foreseeably dangerous and inhumane conditions in Mexico," according to the report, "'We Couldn't Wait': Digital Metering at the US-Mexico Border."

To reduce irregular immigration at the U.S. border, the Biden administration began requiring the use of the app to schedule appointments in May 2023 when Title 42 was lifted.

"The fundamental right of all people to seek asylum in another country, and to be granted refugee protection after proving fear of persecution on specific grounds, is provided for in U.S. law and in international law binding on the United States," the report released Wednesday says.

The 68-page report accuses the U.S. and Mexican governments of "digital metering."

Metering was a term coined during the Trump administration when limits were placed on the number of asylum-seekers processed daily at U.S. ports of entry, and there were increases in the number of migrants turned back to Mexico to wait.

“The Biden and López Obrador administrations are knowingly exposing migrants to persecution at the hands of cartels that systematically target migrants for kidnapping, extortion, and sexual assault,” said Ari Sawyer, U.S. border researcher at Human Rights Watch. “U.S. and Mexican governments should stop forcing migrants to wait in Mexico and should stop collaborating on rights-abusive immigration policies.”

Wednesday's report follows a report released last week by National Immigration Forum, in coordination with several other groups, that also recommended changes to the CBP One app system.

The Human Rights Watch report is based on interviews with 128 asylum-seekers, shelter workers and migrant service providers in August and September 2023. Interviews were conducted throughout Mexico and the border region, including Tamaulipas and Eagle Pass, Texas.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials offer 1,450 appointments daily via the CBP One app at these ports of entry:

• Arizona: Nogales
• Texas: Brownsville, Eagle Pass, Hidalgo, Laredo, and El Paso
• California: Calexico and San Ysidro

"Use of the CBP One app to schedule appointments at land ports of entry has increased CBP’s capacity to process migrants more efficiently and orderly while cutting out unscrupulous smugglers who endanger and profit from vulnerable migrants," according to the agency's website.

The report says the app "creates additional barriers to access for those seeking asylum, particularly for certain groups." It cites a lack of cellphones by many asylum-seekers due to high costs, as well as a lack of Wi-Fi access in much of Mexico.

The report also cites that use of the app has spurred cartel violence toward asylum-seekers.

It says Mexican cartel operatives charge upwards of $500 per migrant who has received an appointment via the CBP One app in order for them to get "permission" to cross the Rio Grande from Nuevo Laredo to Laredo, Texas, for their appointment.

The cartel even wanted shelter workers in Nuevo Laredo "to carry out the extortion." But instead, many shelters closed, leaving thousands of migrants living on the streets, according to the report.

Taxis and other transportation providers are also extorted by cartels and forced to report asylum-seekers, according to the report.

"The cartel also kidnaps migrants directly from the bus terminal in Nuevo Laredo. Taxi and
rideshare drivers in Nuevo Laredo are reportedly forced to participate in a WhatsApp group
they share with cartel operatives where they must notify the cartel when they have migrant
passengers and turn migrants over to the cartel when asked," the report found.

“An app-based appointment system suggests the illusion of order and impartiality, but in reality CBP One puts people in danger and means more profit and power for criminal cartels,” Sawyer said. “The United States and Mexico can, and should, do better.”

The report recommends DHS increase the number of border personnel to assist asylum-seekers and process all new arrivals. Human Rights Watch suggests keeping the app for those who wish to schedule appointments with it, but not limit that as the only way for everyone seeking asylum at the border.

Sandra Sanchez can be reached at SSanchez@Borderreport.com.

Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman and Sen. Cory Booker gathered outside the Capitol with fellow lawmakers, as well as Adjoa B. Asamoah, co-founder of the CROWN Coalition, in announcing the Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair Act, or CROWN Act. 

Watson Coleman said the lawmakers were reintroducing the bill for “the simple reason that nobody — no worker, no student, no person — should ever face discrimination because of how their hair grows out of their heads.” 

“We can't control the texture of our hair any way that we can control the color of our skin,” Watson Coleman said. “And yet, Black Americans routinely face discrimination simply because of the way their hair is.”

A 2020 study from Michigan State and Duke universities found that Black women with natural hair are often perceived as less professional and less competent than Black women with straightened hair or white women with straight or curly hair. They are also less likely to be referred for job interviews.

More than 20% of Black women have been sent home from work because of their hair. One-third of Black women under 34 believe they have been denied a job interview because of their hair.

“Our hair plays a significant role in our overall well-being, self-esteem, cultural identity, and personal expression,” said Watson Coleman. “Discrimination against Black hair is discrimination against Black people. And we’re going to put a stop to it.”

The CROWN Act would prohibit discrimination based on an individual’s texture of hair or hairstyle that is coiled or tightly-curled, locs, cornrows, twists, braids, Bantu knots, Afros and any other style of hair commonly associated with a race or national origin in the definition of racial discrimination. 

“Nobody should face harassment or discrimination based on their natural hair, and the CROWN Act is an effort to heal a systemic bias that tells Black people that who they inherently are is wrong,” Booker said.

“Prejudice against Black hair demeans an important foundation of our identity and cultural heritage,” he continued. “It’s time that the long and storied history of implicit and explicit biases against natural hair comes to an end. Black hair is beautiful in all of its forms and styles, and we must ensure individuals are free to express their cultural identities without fear of prejudice or bias.”

Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, said the legislation is backed by the entire caucus. 

“Whether it's students like Darryl George, the student in Texas who has been barred from the classroom because of what is on his head instead of what's in his head, or Black women all over our country that are being forced to change their hair in order to be accepted — whether that's in the workplace or in any other environment — that is wrong, and it must end,” Horsford said. “It's a direct form of racist discrimination. And it has to end, and that is what the CROWN Act is all about.”

Those gathered Wednesday were adamant that discrimination based on hair is racist.

Asamoah, co-founder of the CROWN Coalition, said that hair discrimination is based on Eurocentric beauty standards and as such is anti-Black. 

“We know in many ways anti-Blackness is pervasive,” she said. “While race, the way we typically discuss, is a social construct, racism is very real and it requires a thoughtful and intentional approach to dismantle the rules and practices that reinforce it and, in this case, to mitigate the physical, psychological and economic harm caused by race-based hair discrimination.”

This is not the first time Democrats have tried to pass the legislation. 

In March 2022, the House advanced a national CROWN Act legislation that later stalled in the Senate.

While no federal legislation has passed, more than 20 states have enacted a CROWN Act law. 

But each state has different levels of protection, and in recent months, these disparities have made headlines. 

Most notably, George, the Texas high school student, has remained on in-school suspension for his locs since August. School authorities said his locs fell below his eyebrows and ear lobes and therefore violated the district’s dress code, though George’s family disputes this. They are now suing the school district.

While Black students are disciplined at a rate four times higher than any other racial or ethnic group, research has found that 70% of all suspension disciplines are discretionary, with many stemming from dress code violations, including “unapproved” hair styles. 

“Our babies need to be in school climates that are nurturing and conducive to them thriving,” said Asamoah. 

On Wednesday, Watson Coleman said the disciplinary action against George is not really because of a dress code violation but because “he’s a young Black man in an overwhelmingly white school district.”

The federal CROWN Act would provide research, statistics and precedent to support that there is a need to define and prohibit hair discrimination in the workplace and schools in order to enforce the protection of civil rights. 

It would also provide clear definitions that describe enforcement mechanisms of the bill.

Rep. Ayanna Pressley emphasized that the CROWN Act is also a public health act due to the health issues Black women face from chemicals applied to their hair in order to assimilate. 

But, she added, it’s also about sending a message to Black Americans everywhere that they belong. 

“Whether you are a student in the classroom, an employee in the workplace or the next Supreme Court justice, you belong everywhere, exactly as you are.”

The Brennan Center for Justice survey of 928 elections workers also found that 62% of them worry about their elected bosses trying to interfere with how election workers do their jobs.

And, while it’s a small percentage, it’s the biggest fear in the elections business: 13% say they’re concerned about pressure to certify an election in favor of a specific candidate or party.

The solution for most appears to be upgrading security.

“They are investing in security trainings, increasing physical and cybersecurity measures," said Lawrence Norden, senior director of elections and government at the Brennan Center. That includes strengthening ties with emergency management services.

Among the survey’s key takeaways:

• 92% have increased security for voters, election workers and the “election infrastructure”
• 38% report experiencing threats, harassment or abuse
• 28% say they worry about threats to their families
• 76% have shared election details with law enforcement
• 83% say their departments’ budgets must grow to meet security needs

Security issues in local election departments come at time when turnover is also a big concern. A recent study by the Bipartisan Policy Center found that at least 36% of local election offices have changed leadership since 2020, and 39% of jurisdictions had new leadership from four years earlier. Both numbers are the highest four-year turnover rates in 20 years.

Two Republicans joined with Democrats in the Senate on the 16-14 vote in favor of repealing a Civil War-era ban on abortions that the state’s highest court recently allowed to take effect. The ban on all abortions — which provides no exceptions for survivors of rape or incest, and only allows for procedures done to save a patient’s life — would still be active until the fall.

Hobbs said in a statement that she looks forward to quickly signing the repeal, with a ceremony scheduled for Thursday.

“Arizona women should not have to live in a state where politicians make decisions that should be between a woman and her doctor,” Hobbs said. "While this repeal is essential for protecting women’s lives, it is just the beginning of our fight to protect reproductive healthcare.”

The revival of the 19th century law has put Republicans on the defensive in Arizona, one of a handful of battleground states that will decide the next president.

“Across the country, women are living in a state of chaos and cruelty caused by Donald Trump,” Vice President Kamala Harris said in a statement on Wednesday. “While Arizona Democrats have worked to clean up the devastating mess created by Trump and his extremist allies, the state’s existing ban, with no exception for rape or incest, remains in effect.”

If the repeal bill is signed, a 2022 statute banning the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy would become Arizona’s prevailing abortion law. Still, there would likely be a period when nearly all abortions would be outlawed, because the repeal won’t take effect until 90 days after the end of the legislative session, likely in June or July.

Within hours after the vote, efforts were already under way to prevent the older abortion ban from taking effect before the repeal becomes a reality.

“Without an emergency clause that would allow the repeal to take effect immediately, the people of Arizona may still be subjected to the near-total abortion ban for a period of time this year,” Arizona state Attorney General Kris Mayes said. “Rest assured, my office is exploring every option available to prevent this outrageous 160-year-old law from ever taking effect.”

Planned Parenthood Arizona announced it filed a motion Wednesday afternoon asking the state Supreme Court to prevent a pause in abortion services until the Legislature’s repeal takes effect.

The near-total ban on abortions predates Arizona’s statehood. In a ruling last month, the Arizona Supreme Court suggested doctors could be prosecuted under the 1864 law, which says that anyone who assists in an abortion can be sentenced to two to five years in prison. Then, last week, the repeal bill narrowly cleared the Arizona House.

Voting on the bill stretched more than an hour on Wednesday, amid impassioned speeches.

“This is about the Civil War-era ban that criminalizes doctors and makes virtually all abortions illegal,” said Democratic state Sen. Eva Burch. "We’re here to repeal a bad law. I don’t want us honoring laws about women written during a time when women were forbidden from voting because their voices were considered inferior to men.”

Burch made public on the Senate floor in March that she had a non-viable pregnancy and was going to have an abortion. She warned supporters of reproductive rights on Wednesday that they could not yet rest easy, even after the repeal is signed.

“They are going to use every tool in the toolbox to try to do whatever it is they can to interfere with the repeal of this ban," she said.

There were numerous disruptions from people in Senate gallery, as Republican state Sen. Shawnna Bolick explained her vote in favor of repeal, joining with Democrats.

Bolick appeared to argue that a repeal would guard against extreme ballot initiatives from abortion rights advocates. She is married to state Supreme Court Justice Clint Bolick, who voted to allow a 1864 law on abortion to be enforced again.

“I want to protect our state constitution from unlimited abortions,” the senator said. “I am here to protect more babies. I vote aye.”

Advocates on both sides of the abortion issue flocked to the Arizona Senate to vocalize their views.

A school-age girl kneeled in prayer in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary, while a man with a megaphone shouted at passersby to repent.

Former President Donald Trump, who has warned that the issue could lead to Republican losses, has avoided endorsing a national abortion ban but said he’s proud to have appointed the Supreme Court justices who allowed states to outlaw it.

The Arizona law had been blocked since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision guaranteed the constitutional right to an abortion nationwide.

When Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022 though, then-Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, persuaded a state judge that the 1864 ban could again be enforced. Still, the law hasn’t actually been enforced while the case was making its way through the courts. Mayes, who succeeded Brnovich, urged the state’s high court against reviving the law.

Planned Parenthood officials have said they will reinforce networks that help patients travel out of state to access abortion in places like New Mexico and California.

Advocates are collecting signatures for a ballot measure allowing abortions until a fetus could survive outside the womb, typically around 24 weeks, with exceptions — to save the parent’s life, or to protect her physical or mental health.

Republican lawmakers, in turn, are considering putting one or more competing abortion proposals on the November ballot.

The chamber approved the bipartisan legislation — titled the Antisemitism Awareness Act and introduced by Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) — in a 320-91 vote, sending it to the Senate for consideration. Twenty-one Republicans and 70 Democrats opposed the measure.

The bill would require the Department of Education to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism when enforcing antidiscrimination laws.

The group defines antisemitism as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews” and says “Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

The organization provides a number of examples for what qualifies as antisemitism, including calling for the harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion, and accusing Jewish individuals as inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.

The vote took place as a wave of pro-Palestinian protests on dozens of college campuses nationwide have escalated in recent days, with some demonstrators' rhetoric veering into antisemitism. Demonstrators took over a building at Columbia University, prompting a police response.

More than 1,500 people have been arrested on college campuses since April 18, according to CNN.

The protesters have used chants and slogans such as “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and have demanded their institutions divest from companies with connections to Israel.

Lawmakers have waded into the fray, with some defending the protesters but many condemning them.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) led a group of GOP lawmakers to Columbia last week, where the members slammed the protesters and called on them to go back to class. A group of Jewish House Democrats did the same days earlier.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), meanwhile, met with the protesters at Columbia in the same week, and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) — one of three Muslim lawmakers in Congress — spoke with pro-Palestinian demonstrators at the University of Minnesota.

On Wednesday, hours before the antisemitism vote, a group of House Republicans who sit on the Oversight and Accountability Committee visited George Washington University, the site of another pro-Palestinian protest.

The protests have triggered debates over free speech on campuses and what is considered antisemitic speech.

That debate made its way up to Capitol Hill on Wednesday as the House prepared to vote on the Antisemitism Awareness Act.

A handful of progressive Democrats and conservative Republicans opposed the legislation over concerns that it would chill free speech.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) called the legislation a “ridiculous hate speech bill.”

“Antisemitism is wrong, but this legislation is written without regard for the Constitution, common sense, or even the common understanding of the meaning of words,” he wrote on social platform X.

“The rise of antisemitism in America and especially on college campuses is abhorrent and disgusting, but I will not violate my constitutional principles to vote for a bill that tramples on the First Amendment and won’t make a positive impact on this issue,” Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) echoed in a post on X.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said despite having “devoted much of my life to combatting antisemitism,” he was against the “misguided bill” and “threatens to chill constitutionally protected speech.”

“Speech that is critical of Israel—alone—does not constitute unlawful discrimination.  By encompassing purely political speech about Israel into Title VI’s ambit, the bill sweeps too broadly,” he added in a statement on the House floor.

Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) in a statement raised concerns about conflating antisemitism with criticisms of the Israeli state.

“While we must unequivocally stand against islamophobia and antisemitism in all their forms, it is dangerous to conflate antisemitism with the criticism of the Israeli state or the extreme and xenophobic nationalist policies they have supported. Nationalist movements deny our shared humanity and interconnectedness. Criminalizing young people who are using their voices to call for peace endangers both the well-being of the students and the health of our multiracial, multicultural democracy,” she said.

The Department of Education has numerous ongoing investigations into antisemitism on college campuses. 

In a hearing on Tuesday, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona decried the action of protesters at Columbia University and did not rule out pulling federal funds if an investigation found a violation of Title IV.  

"I think what's happening on our campuses is abhorrent," Cardona said. "Hate has no place on our campuses. And I'm very concerned with the reports of antisemitism. I've spoken to Jewish students who have feared going to class as a result of some of the harassment that they're facing on campuses. It's unacceptable, and we're committed as a Department of Education to adhering to Title VI enforcement."

Original co-sponsors of the legislation included Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), Max Miller (R-Ohio), Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.), Thomas Kean Jr. (R-N.J.), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), David Kustoff (R-Tenn.), Donald Norcross (D-N.J.) and Shontel Brown (D-Ohio).

This story was updated at 8:19 p.m. EST

The start of the new ban also brought Vice President Kamala Harris to Jacksonville, where she said the abortion ban is a direct result of former President Donald Trump appointing three of the six U.S. Supreme Court justices who voted nearly two years ago to overturn the longstanding precedent that protected abortion access.

“And now, in states across our nation, extremists have proposed and passed laws that criminalize doctors, punish women,” Harris said. “Laws that threaten doctors and nurses with prison time, even for life, simply for providing reproductive care. Laws that make no exception for rape or incest, even reviving laws from the 1800s.”

Dr. Leah Roberts, a reproductive endocrinologist and fertility specialist with Boca Fertility in Boca Raton, said the anti-abortion laws being enacted by Florida and other red states are being vaguely written by people who don't understand medical science. The rules are affecting not just women who want therapeutic abortions, meaning procedures to terminate viable pregnancies because of personal choice, but also nonviable pregnancies for women who want to have babies.

“We’re coming in between them and their doctors and preventing them from getting care until it’s literally saving their lives, sometimes at the expense of their fertility,” Roberts said.

The new ban has an exception for saving a woman's life, as well as in cases involving rape and incest. But Roberts said health care workers are still prevented from performing an abortion on a nonviable pregnancy that they know may become deadly — such as when the fetus is missing organs or implanted outside the uterus — until it actually becomes deadly.

“We’re being told that we have to wait until the mother is septic to be able to intervene,” Roberts said.

Besides the physical danger, there is also the psychological trauma of having to carry a fetus that the mother knows will never be a healthy baby, Roberts said.

“They’re feeling the kicks for months after they’re being told that they’re never going to have a live birth," Roberts said. “And it’s just horrifying when you could take care of it at 20 weeks, and they could move on, and they could get pregnant with their next pregnancy and be able to hold their babies that much sooner.”

The Biden campaign quickly placed blame for the “extreme” six-week ban on former President Donald Trump.

“Trump is worried the voters will hold him accountable for the cruelty and chaos he created. He’s right. Trump ripped away the rights and freedom of women in America. This November, voters are going to teach him a valuable lesson: Don’t mess with the women of America," President Joe Biden said in a statement about the new abortion ban.

During her Jacksonville speech, Harris said November's election is about the fundamental freedom to make decisions about one’s own body and not have their government tell women what they are supposed to do.

“Because of Donald Trump, more than 20 states have abortion bans,” Harris said. "And today, this very day, at the stroke of midnight, another Trump abortion ban went into effect here in Florida. As of this morning, 4 million women in this state woke up with fewer reproductive freedoms than they had last night."

Roberts said a huge issue with the ban is that the doctors who perform emergency abortions have to learn the procedures by performing therapeutic abortions. So if most abortions are banned, the next generation of doctors won't be able to develop the skills needed to perform an emergency abortion.

Roberts said she is concerned the restrictions will also prompt veteran doctors to leave Florida, as they have in other states that have enacted abortion bans.

“We’re going to have less access to care for our general population, even if it’s just basic maternity care and normal OB-GYN care, because people are leaving,” Roberts said.

In addition, women are going to have to travel far from home to get abortions. Florida Access Network executive director Stephanie Pineiro said the organization, which helps provide funding for abortions, expects costs to increase dramatically. She estimates it will cost around $3,000 for a woman to travel to another state for an abortion. The closest place after 12 weeks would be Virginia or Illinois, but before 12 weeks would be North Carolina.

“It’s very emotionally draining and challenging to deal with these types of barriers and have to leave your home,” Pineiro said.

The Florida Supreme Court, with five of its seven members appointed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, ruled 6-1 last month to uphold the state's ban on most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, which cleared the way for the six-week ban. The 15-week ban, signed by DeSantis in 2022, had been enforced while it was challenged in court. The six-week ban, passed by the Legislature a year later, was written so that it would not take effect until a month after the 2022 law was upheld.

Republican state Sen. Erin Grall, who sponsored the six-week ban, previously said bodily autonomy should not include abortions.

“We live in a time where the consequences of our actions are an afterthought and convenience has been substitution for responsibility," Grall said, “and this is unacceptable when it comes to the protection of the most vulnerable.”

Voters may be able to enshrine abortion rights in Florida's constitution after a separate state Supreme Court ruling allowed a proposed constitutional amendment to be on the November ballot. The proposal says, “no law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.” It provides for one exception that is already in the state constitution: Parents must be notified before their minor children can get an abortion.

Florida Democrats hope young voters would vote to enshrine abortion rights, as a way to combat the 900,000 voter registration edge Republicans have over Democrats in the state. They hope moderate views of the ballot initiative will turn out younger voters to vote Democrat when faced with the binary choice between a six-week abortion ban or protecting abortion until viability.

Jayden D'Onofrio, chairman of the Florida Future Leaders political action committee, said young Florida voters have a “real opportunity to shape the electoral landscape." Being that abortion rights have prevailed in elections nationwide, he thinks that Florida can engage young voters to register and vote for Democrats.

Nathan Mitchell, president of Florida Atlantic University College Republicans, said he would support a total abortion ban, and he hopes the amendment doesn't pass. Mitchell said he's seen most people want restrictions on abortion, usually for bans within 10 to 15 weeks of gestation.

Most Republican-controlled states have adopted bans or restrictions on abortions since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022. A survey of abortion providers conducted for the Society of Family Planning, which advocates for abortion access, found that Florida had the second-largest increase in the total number of abortions provided since the decision. The state’s data shows that more than 7,700 women from other states received abortions in Florida in 2023.

Florida Democratic leaders are encouraging women to seek help from abortion funds and resources. On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Lauren Book encouraged women to access abortion travel funds and urged them to avoid “taking matters into your own hands.”

___

Matat reported from West Palm Beach, Florida. Nancy Benac contributed to this report from Washington.

Johnson made the comments in an exclusive interview with NewsNation’s Blake Burman on “The Hill,” where he discussed the escalating campus protests, border issues and his future in leadership.

Burman asked Johnson what he makes of President Joe Biden’s response to the pro-Palestinian protests occurring on college campuses. Johnson said it has become a political problem for the Democrats, who he believes are fearful of losing Michigan and Nevada voters ahead of the November election.

“The silence is deafening. The president needs to speak with moral clarity in this fateful moment of our country,” he said. “We're doing that. I'm doing that as the House speaker. My colleagues in the House are doing that. But Chuck Schumer has been pretty silent on this and President Biden noticeably."

“But this is no time for politics. There’s no time for equivocation. This is not a gray area. This is right and wrong, and the president of the United States should speak to that and say that clearly,” Johnson said.

When asked what Congress could do if universities do not, in his view, get their acts together, Johnson suggested pulling federal funding for university grants.

"There's a lot of federal funding that makes its way into these institutions. And if they cannot respect the most basic constitutional rights, the civil rights of their students and protect them, their safety, then they don't deserve to be funded by the taxpayer," he said.

Johnson said there is a lot of discussion about whether universities should be taxed, saying they also get very generous tax benefits.

"We have to do what we must to stamp this out," he said. "This antisemitism movement is dangerous. This is not protected, constitutionally protected free speech."

Johnson says the protests are now far over the line.

"This is inciting violence. They are physically threatening fellow students, closing campuses down, occupying buildings and destroying property," he said. "These are common criminals, and they need to be treated as such."

The White House has condemned the move by student protesters to take over a building on Columbia University’s campus, calling it the "wrong approach."

“The president believes that forcibly taking over a building on campus is absolutely the wrong approach; that is not an example of peaceful protests,” White House national security communications adviser John Kirby told reporters.

Johnson suggested the FBI step in and investigate.

"I think the FBI needs to be all over this," he said. "I think they need to look at the root causes and find out if some of this was funded by, I don't know, George Soros or overseas entities."

Johnson said there seems to be a common theme and common strategy that seems to be pursued on many of these campuses.

"I noticed myself and many of us did while we were on-site at Columbia University. The tents at their little encampment there, many of them match. They were the same color, make and model," he said. "Did somebody purchase that and send it in? It looks pretty orchestrated to me."

Johnson on Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene

In the interview, Johnson also commented on his future in leadership.

Johnson has faced ouster threats from one of his Republican colleagues, with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia saying Wednesday she would call a vote for his removal again next week.

Burman asked Johnson about his future in office and whether he thinks Greene is a serious lawmaker.

Johnson responded by saying Greene isn’t proving to be a serious lawmaker.

“Bless her heart,” he said. “I don’t think she’s proving to be.”

The proposal, which passed 320-91 with some bipartisan support, would codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a federal anti-discrimination law that bars discrimination based on shared ancestry, ethnic characteristics or national origin. It now goes to the Senate where its fate is uncertain.

Action on the bill was just the latest reverberation in Congress from the protest movement that has swept university campuses. Republicans in Congress have denounced the protests and demanded action to stop them, thrusting university officials into the center of the charged political debate over Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza. More than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war was launched in October, after Hamas staged a deadly terrorist attack against Israeli civilians.

If passed by the Senate and signed into law, the bill would broaden the legal definition of antisemitism to include the “targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity." Critics say the move would have a chilling effect on free speech throughout college campuses.

“Speech that is critical of Israel alone does not constitute unlawful discrimination,” Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said during a hearing Tuesday. "By encompassing purely political speech about Israel into Title VI’s ambit, the bill sweeps too broadly.”

Advocates of the proposal say it would provide a much-needed, consistent framework for the Department of Education to police and investigate the rising cases of discrimination and harassment targeted toward Jewish students.

“It is long past time that Congress act to protect Jewish Americans from the scourge of antisemitism on campuses around the country,” Rep. Russell Fry, R-S.C., said Tuesday.

The expanded definition of antisemitism was first adopted in 2016 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, an intergovernmental group that includes the United States and European Union states, and has been embraced by the State Department under the past three presidential administrations, including Joe Biden's

Previous bipartisan efforts to codify it into law have failed. But the Oct. 7 terrorist attack by Hamas militants in Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza have reignited efforts to target incidents of antisemitism on college campuses.

Separately, Speaker Mike Johnson announced Tuesday that several House committees will be tasked with a wide probe that ultimately threatens to withhold federal research grants and other government support for universities, placing another pressure point on campus administrators who are struggling to manage pro-Palestinian encampments, allegations of discrimination against Jewish students and questions of how they are integrating free speech and campus safety.

The House investigation follows several high-profile hearings that helped precipitate the resignations of presidents at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. And House Republicans promised more scrutiny, saying they were calling on the administrators of Yale, UCLA and the University of Michigan to testify next month.

The House Oversight Committee took it one step further Wednesday, sending a small delegation of Republican members to an encampment at nearby George Washington University in the District of Columbia. GOP lawmakers spent the short visit criticizing the protests and Mayor Muriel Bowser’s refusal to send in the Metropolitan Police Department to disperse the demonstrators.

Bowser on Monday confirmed that the city and the district’s police department had declined the university’s request to intervene. “We did not have any violence to interrupt on the GW campus,” Bowser said, adding that police chief Pamela Smith made the ultimate decision. “This is Washington, D.C., and we are, by design, a place where people come to address the government and their grievances with the government.”

It all comes at a time when college campuses and the federal government are struggling to define exactly where political speech crosses into antisemitism. Dozens of U.S. universities and schools face civil rights investigations by the Education Department over allegations of antisemitism and Islamophobia.

Among the questions campus leaders have struggled to answer is whether phrases like “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” should be considered under the definition of antisemitism.

The proposed definition faced strong opposition from several Democratic lawmakers, Jewish organizations as well as free speech advocates.

In a letter sent to lawmakers Friday, the American Civil Liberties Union urged members to vote against the legislation, saying federal law already prohibits antisemitic discrimination and harassment.

“H.R. 6090 is therefore not needed to protect against antisemitic discrimination; instead, it would likely chill free speech of students on college campuses by incorrectly equating criticism of the Israeli government with antisemitism,” the letter stated.

Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the centrist pro-Israel group J Street, said his organization opposes the bipartisan proposal because he sees it as an “unserious” effort led by Republicans “to continually force votes that divide the Democratic caucus on an issue that shouldn’t be turned into a political football.”

___

Associated Press writers Ashraf Khalil, Collin Binkley and Stephen Groves contributed to this report.

Senators voted 89 to 10 to overcome the first procedural hurdle and move toward consideration of the package ahead of the May 10 deadline.

“Both parties have an incentive to work together to get FAA done as quickly and as smoothly as we can, to keep our skies safe and our federal employees well taken care of,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the floor earlier in the day. 

"Getting FAA reauthorization done will provide for more air traffic controllers, for more safety inspectors at manufacturing plants, and better customer service standards, all of which are so badly needed,” he continued. “I hope the Senate can get this important piece of legislation done with as much bipartisan goodwill as possible."

But lawmakers acknowledge it could be a bumpy ride.

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters that Republicans have called for upwards of 20 amendment votes, both related and unrelated to the bill at hand. 

Headlining the unrelated category is an amendment from Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who said he will not agree to speed up passage without an amendment vote to extend federal benefits for victims of nuclear radiation. A stand-alone bill to do so passed the Senate in early March but has not been taken up by the House.

“Obviously, we have people on both sides that want amendment votes,” Thune said, noting that the bill went through regular order and already includes a large number of amendments offered by those on and off the Senate Commerce Committee. 

Outside of Hawley’s push, only a few other bills unrelated to the FAA may receive consideration. 

“At the end of the day, I don’t think we’re going to have a lot of amendments,” one Senate Republican said. 

The bill is considered the last must-pass piece of legislation that lawmakers will consider until September, meaning it could be their last chance to get a priority into law for many months. 

One way to advance those priorities could be a manager’s package that would attach items that have wide support across the chamber. 

Among those is the Kids Online Safety Act, a bill backed by Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), which Schumer also supports. 

The bill would create new guidelines for tech giants to help protect children from being harmed by content that could be damaging and put in place new parental controls on social media apps. The bill has more than 60 co-sponsors, putting it in a prime spot for potential inclusion.  

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the top Senate GOP member on the Commerce Committee, said Wednesday that a manager’s amendment is very much in consideration. 

Cruz added that the process looks “unclear,” though he is pushing for a “robust” amendment discourse. 

One hot-button amendment likely to receive a vote would strip out language in the bill adding five slots, or 10 flights, at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA).

The effort to remove the provision is being led by senators from the greater District of Columbia area — Sens. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) — who have argued the airport can't handle any more traffic. 

“We understand the desire of senators to shorten their commutes home, but this proposal would benefit few while impacting many, first and foremost in safety but also in delays and in reducing the economic competitiveness of smaller destinations within the perimeter,” they wrote to their Senate colleagues recently.

“The senators representing the region and the people who most use this airport stand uniform against a provision negotiated without us that will guarantee more unacceptable delay and compromise passenger safety.” 

DCA is designed to largely handle short-haul flights, with Dulles International Airport (IAD) and Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport handling the vast majority of longer flights. However, lawmakers from outside the 1,250 mile perimeter of flights in and out of DCA have clamored for more flights into the airport closest to Capitol Hill. 

Delta Air Lines has been a top supporter of the addition of flights, while United Airlines has lobbied heavily against it. IAD is a United hub. 

(NewsNation) — South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem not only blew up her (slim) shot at being Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick when she bragged about shooting a rambunctious puppy in her soon-to-be-released book, “No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward.” She also blew up any chance she had of being picked to serve on Trump’s cabinet or in another prestigious post, my insiders say.

“She’s done. Out,” a major Republican donor told me. “Trump doesn’t exactly like dogs, but he knows people love them and isn’t going to be associated with this. This is a dumber move than Mitt Romney’s dog story.”

In 2012, while running for President, Romney’s infamous story about a dog he tied to a car roof in a carrier while driving to Canada for 13 hours, came back to bite him.

(According to Business Insider: “Back in 1983, Mitt Romney traveled 12 hours to Canada with his Irish Setter, Seamus, strapped to the roof of the car in a kennel… Romney’s son noticed a brown liquid dripping down the back window. Romney hosed the dog off and stuffed the hound back into the crate. The dog allegedly ran away when the Romney family finally reached its vacation destination.”)

An advance copy of Noem’s book was obtained by The Guardian, and in it, Noem — in an attempt to show she was a woman who could make “difficult, messy and ugly” decisions if they needed to be done — wrote: “Cricket was a wirehair pointer, about 14 months old.” Noem claimed the dog was “aggressive” and had to be trained for pheasant hunting — but instead attacked chickens.

According the Guardian: “I hated that dog,” Noem writes, adding that Cricket had proved herself “untrainable,” “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with” and “less than worthless … as a hunting dog.”

Noem shot the dog in a gravel pit — and then later shot a “nasty, mean” (and smelly!) goat in the same pit.

Noem’s admissions, which have caused a national uproar, also showed a lack of judgment.

“I’m not sure which thing she did was stupider: The fact that she murdered the dog, or the fact that she was stupid enough to publish it in a book,” Joan Payton, of the German Wirehaired Pointer Club of America told the Associated Press. The club itself described the breed as “high-energy,” and said Noem was too impatient and her use of a shock collar for training was botched.

TikTok and Instagram influencer TheTruthfulG, who has over 227,000 followers on TikTok, railed on Noem, saying: “As someone with two wonderful German Wirehaired pointers just like poor Cricket I hope that breeder sues the shit out of her… Anyone who would shoot a puppy because it hasn't figured out hunting yet shouldn't be allowed to own a dog ever again, and certainly should never hold public office.” The influencer also pointed out that most reputable breeders have a clause in their contract where if, for any reason, the dog doesn’t work out, they would be returned to the breeder. Not shot.

Either way, Noem is out of a job come 2026 — when her term ends and, due to term limits, she can’t run again in her home state.