A conservative watchdog group launched a Freedom of Information Act probe against the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) seeking documents relating to the situation that has left two U.S. astronauts at the International Space Station (ISS) for several more months.

The Oversight Project’s executive director told Fox News Digital on Monday he and his group have legally sought emails between NASA political appointees and the White House, including the office of Vice President Harris, who also holds the title of chair of the National Space Council.

The filing by Mike Howell, head of the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, also demands outgoing emails to Harris’ presidential campaign. Just as Harris was tasked with assuaging the root causes of illegal immigration as the so-called border czar, her role as vice president makes her essentially the lead adviser on space policy in that regard.

‘This looks like to me and other experts that Kamala Harris, the space czar, chose politics over our astronauts,’ Howell said, inferring that there may have been a political calculation against bringing astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams home as planned.

‘It’s very bizarre that the mainstream media seems not to care about this massive scandal. We’re going to continue to investigate this and get Americans the answers they deserve.’

The National Space Council (NSpC) had originally been organized in a slightly different manner under former President George H.W. Bush before it was disbanded and reorganized under former President Trump.

Trump himself unveiled the first new branch of the military in decades, the U.S. Space Force, at a 2018 NSpC meeting.

In its filing, the Oversight Project seeks to compel NASA to share correspondence from agency chief of staff Bale Dalton III, Associate Administrator James Free and five other senior officials. It also seeks communications between NASA and officials in the commercial crew program at Boeing, the company that manufactured the Starliner capsule that took Wilmore and Williams to the ISS this summer.

A source close to the matter pointed to the stipulated responsibilities of the NSpC chair, as outlined by Trump in his 2021 executive order establishing the council.

‘The Chair shall serve as the President’s principal advisor on national space policy and strategy …’ the first stipulation reads.

The chair of the NSpC, therefore, has substantive advisory authority over NASA’s decision-making, the source said.

In an August press briefing, a NASA official said there was a ‘little disagreement in terms of the level of risk’ between the agency and Boeing after the capsule suffered propulsion issues and elemental leaks. Ultimately, the Starliner craft safely returned to Earth unmanned on Sept. 7.

A few weeks prior, Boeing officials said in a statement they remained confident in Starliner’s ability to return safely with crew aboard: ‘We continue to support NASA’s requests for additional testing, data, analysis and reviews to affirm the spacecraft’s safe undocking and landing capabilities. Our confidence is based on this abundance of valuable testing from Boeing and NASA.’

‘The data also supports root cause assessments for the helium and thruster issues and flight rationale for Starliner and its crew’s return to Earth,’ the statement reads.

On X, formerly Twitter, Howell listed the curriculum vitae of a handful of NASA hires made while Harris has led the NSpC, including a veteran of New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, another from the Jacksonville Symphony and an individual whose ‘scientific’ major was ‘political science.’

‘Space is serious business. Kamala Harris obviously has no business running the National Space Council… They’re lost in space right now. Part of the reason they’re lost in space is that our NASA has been turned into another woke-DEI, dismal excuse for a government agency,’ he said.

Howell also shared a copy of a document showing ‘strategic objectives’ of the ‘NASA DEIA Strategic Plan.’ 

‘The fact is that Vice President Kamala Harris’ record as Border Czar is as awful as her record as Space Czar,’ Howell said Monday.

Howell said it is important that the public see any such correspondence of a political nature between NASA, the vice president’s camp and/or Boeing because other nations like China are watching for such ‘sign[s] of weakness.’

‘It seems that Harris signaled a willingness to cede America’s space superiority in the name of an effort to ‘save democracy,’’ he said, suggesting the DEIA priority may jeopardize national security. ‘When is enough, enough?’

The astronauts, however, took their extended trip in stride.

‘I love being in space. This is my happy place,’ Williams said.

Wilmore will miss his daughter’s final year of high school but notably requested his absentee ballot Friday so that he would be able to vote from orbit.

Fox News Digital reached out to Harris’ governmental office and the Harris campaign but did not receive a response. 

In a response to Fox News Digital regarding the FOIA, a NASA spokesperson stated that Harris and NSpC staff ‘received frequent updates on the Starliner Crewed Flight Test.’

‘While the National Space Council works closely with civil, national security, commercial, and international partners to advance the nation’s space priorities, it does not make operational spaceflight safety recommendations or decisions,’ the spokesperson wrote.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the current Republican governor of Arkansas and a former White House press secretary during the Trump administration, is ramping up her presence on the campaign trail for former President Donald Trump and is taking a more prominent role as a ‘top surrogate’ in the coming weeks. 

‘President Trump is a fighter, and nothing – not the political establishment, not political prosecution from the Left, not even two would-be assassins – can keep him from making America great again,’ Sanders told Fox News Digital. ‘The President Trump I know is going full-speed ahead, and I’m excited to join him on the campaign trail this week to speak directly to the American people.’

Sanders, the daughter of former presidential candidate and Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, traveled to Ohio on Monday to campaign with Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno to meet with voters and attend fundraisers across the Buckeye State.

On Tuesday, two days after the former president survived an assassination attempt for the second time in two months, Sanders will be in Flint, Michigan, with Trump for a town hall event. 

Sanders will also be campaigning in Pennsylvania to help GOP Senate candidate Dave McCormick unseat Democrat Sen. Bob Casey in a race that will have major implications on which party controls the Senate in November.

‘Our country is at a tipping point: four more years of Kamala Harris and Joe Biden’s failures, or four years of success with President Trump and a Republican-led Senate,’ Sanders said.

‘Our party is on a mission to return to the America President Trump built, where our prices were low, our border was secure, our enemies feared us, and our allies respected us,’ Sanders said. ‘I’m proud to stand with my friend and old boss, Donald J. Trump, and Senate Republican candidates to make America great once again.’

Sanders told the crowd at the Republican National Convention in July, shortly after the first assassination attempt against Trump’s life, that ‘never have I been more proud than to stand with him right now tonight.’

‘Not even an assassin’s bullet could stop him. God almighty intervened because America is one nation under God, and he is certainly not finished with President Trump. And our country is better for it.’

The United States’ Ambassador to the United Nations is expressing frustration with the Israeli military following strikes that killed multiple UN-aligned personnel in the region.

Amb. Linda Thomas-Greenfield spoke out at the U.N. Security Council meeting on Monday, where she lamented the ‘preventable’ loss of life caused by the conflict.

‘We will continue to raise the need for Israel to facilitate humanitarian operations, and protect humanitarian workers and facilities, such as the UNRWA school targeted by the IDF last week in Nusseirat,’ Thomas-Greenfield said.

UNRWA refers to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. 

She continued, ‘We have also been unequivocal in communicating to Israel that there is no basis – absolutely none – for its forces to be opening fire on clearly marked UN vehicles, as recently occurred on numerous occasions.’

A former school converted into a UNRWA civilian shelter was struck last week by the Israeli Defense Forces, killing 18 people. Six of those killed were UNRWA personnel.

The Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, previously rebuked criticism of the strike on the UNRWA shelter, asserting that the entire agency has become overrun with terrorists and terrorist sympathizers — including personnel at the destroyed shelter.

‘How long will the U.N. continue to bury its head in the sand and ignore the fact that Hamas terrorists have taken over UNRWA?’ Danon asked this week. ‘Those who were killed yesterday (Wednesday) in the IDF strike were nine terrorists with blood on their hands, and some of them participated in the barbaric massacre on October 7.’

Danon provided a list of names ostensibly connecting known Hamas terrorists to the civilian shelter.

When approached by Fox News Digital, Juliette Touma, a UNRWA spokesperson, claimed that ‘Israeli authorities have not requested UNRWA officially to provide them with the list of staff killed in yesterday’s attack on the UNRWA school.’ She added, ‘The names that appear on today’s statement from the Israeli Army have not been flagged to us before by the Israeli authorities in previous occasions prior to today.’

The U.S. ambassador did note on Monday the ongoing threat of Hamas embedding its members within civilian agencies.

‘At the same time, we continue to see Hamas hiding in, and taking over, and otherwise using civilian sites to conduct operations and pose an ongoing threat,’ said Thomas-Greenfield. ‘There’s no clearer evidence of Hamas’ total indifference to Palestinian civilians in Gaza. For their sake, and the sake of innocent people on all sides of this conflict – this must stop.’

Nine individuals were fired by UNRWA last month after it was found they likely participated in the Hamas slaughter of 1,200 people, including more than 30 Americans, on Oct. 7 in southern Israel.

‘For nine people, the evidence was sufficient to conclude that they may have been involved in the 7th of October attacks,’ Farhan Haq, spokesperson for the U.N. secretary general said during a press briefing.

Fox News Digital’s Benjamin Weinthal contributed to this report.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) opened an investigation into former Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for allegedly decapitating a dead whale 20 years ago, Fox News Digital confirmed.

The controversy arose in August after Kennedy’s daughter, Kick Kennedy, shared in a resurfaced 2012 Town and Country interview that her father once beheaded a washed up whale with a chainsaw. According to an interview with the outlet, he reportedly attached the whale’s head to his car and drove it to New York. 

However, Kick Kennedy described the event as just an average day for her family.

‘Every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet,’ she told the outlet. ‘We all had plastic bags over our heads with mouth holes cut out, and people on the highway were giving us the finger, but that was just normal day-to-day stuff for us.’

When asked about the incident, the agency told Fox News Digital on Tuesday that it is ‘long-standing NOAA practice not to comment on open investigations.’

Kennedy made the initial assertion that he was under federal investigation for the decades-old incident during a campaign event for former President Donald Trump on Saturday.

The former presidential candidate-turned-Trump ally told rally goers that the investigation was a ‘weaponization of our government against political opponents.’

The Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund called on the NOAA to investigate the events described by Kennedy’s daughter just days after he suspended his presidential bid to join forces with Trump in August.

The group, which endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president in 2024, claimed that Kennedy violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act, as whales remain protected under those laws.

Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, told Fox News Digital Monday that she would ‘be honored to serve’ in a potential Trump administration.

If tapped, Gabbard expressed her desire to work in a position where she can make the greatest impact, particularly in areas related to foreign policy or national security. Gabbard is an active-duty military veteran who completed two tours in the Middle East, and currently serves as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves. 

‘I feel I can make the most impact in these areas of national security and foreign policy, and work to bring about the changes that President Trump talks about,’ Gabbard said Monday evening from a campaign fundraising event in Atlanta, Georgia. Gabbard added that bringing an end ‘to the influence of the military industrial complex,’ working to prevent World War III and bringing the U.S. back ‘from the brink of nuclear war’ would be among her priorities. War should be a ‘last resort,’ Gabbard said. She has also supported former President Trump’s plans to end the war in Ukraine.

Gabbard spent time as the vice chair of the Democratic National Committee between 2013 and 2016, and previously supported candidates like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, and President Biden. However, blaming a shift within her former party that she has not agreed with, Gabbard became increasingly friendly with the GOP before leaving the party and eventually joining Trump’s transition team last month. 

‘There are a lot of people who I meet in a lot of different places every day who are former Democrats, or people who are leaving the Democratic Party,’ Gabbard said Monday. ‘People who recognize the same things that I have and experienced the same things that I have and realize that the Democratic Party of today doesn’t stand for them, doesn’t stand for freedom, it doesn’t stand for civil liberties… doesn’t stand for peace.’  

The former Democratic congresswoman has been outspoken against what a Harris administration could do to peace around the world and, on Monday, she slammed Democrats – including Vice President Kamala Harris – for what she described as their refusal to engage in diplomacy with U.S. adversaries. 

‘President Trump did in his last administration what President Obama refused to do, what President Biden refused to do, what Kamala Harris has made clear she refuses to do – which is to go out and do that tough work that a president and commander in chief has to do in diplomacy,’ Gabbard said. ‘Not just hanging out with your friends, and your allies, and your partners, but actually going out and talking to your adversaries.’

Gabbard argued that peace will remain elusive until the leaders in the White House are willing to do this sort of diplomacy. She also slammed Harris for escalating the war in Ukraine and being ‘flippant’ about the chances of a nuclear disaster.

‘The longer this war goes on and the more that Kamala Harris and Joe Biden and the neocons of Washington continue to escalate this war, the greater risk we are of a potential nuclear war, World War III,’ Gabbard said on Monday. ‘It is unconscionable and unacceptable that Kamala Harris and others who are continuing to escalate [the war in Ukraine] are so flippant about the reality of nuclear war.’

The Biden administration is moving to reinstate a Trump-era rule that lifted endangered species protections on gray wolves in the U.S.

Wolves were delisted from the Endangered Species Act (ESA) under President Trump in 2020, returning management of gray wolf populations to state and tribal wildlife professionals, according to a press release from the Department of Interior.

However, a federal judge reversed Trump’s decision in 2022 after environmental groups sued the Department of the Interior over the delisting, reinstating protection for the species.

Gray wolves are currently protected under the ESA as ‘threatened’ in Minnesota and ‘endangered’ in the remaining states, except for those in the Northern Rocky Mountain region, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services. However, a new filing by the Biden administration suggests that the Trump-era ruling should be reinstated.

Attorneys with the Justice Department filed a motion with the 9th U.S. District Court of Appeals on Friday to reverse the court’s decision on the Trump-era delisting and lift ESA protections on gray wolves.

The filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco claimed that the court was wrong in overturning the Trump-era ruling on the species. 

‘The district court misunderstood the ESA’s clear mandate and compounded that error by imposing its own views of the science,’ court documents read. ‘Its decision invalidating the rule should be reversed.’

The Biden administration claimed in its 87-page filing that gray wolves no longer meet ESA standards of protection in that they are no longer considered ‘endangered’ or ‘threatened.’

Court documents referenced the 2020 ruling from Trump’s Department of Interior Fish and Wildlife Service that delisted the wolf species.

‘After that thorough analysis, the Service concluded that no configuration of gray wolves was threatened or endangered in all or a significant portion of its range. That analysis was well-reasoned and well-supported by the administrative record,’ the brief reads.

The move comes just months after a group of 20 House Republicans sent a letter to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Director Martha Williams, urging the Biden administration to remove protections for the gray wolf, citing sometimes life-threatening conflicts with ranchers and farmers.

In February, FWS rejected requests from conservation groups to restore protection for gray wolves across the Northern Rocky Mountain region. 

Most recently, a bipartisan group of House lawmakers passed legislation in April to end federal protection for gray wolves and remove them from the endangered species list. 

Vice President Harris spoke to the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) in Philadelphia on Tuesday, about a month after former President Trump spoke to the same group and made waves when he questioned Harris’ race.

The event marks Harris’ first solo interview with the national media. It was held at NPR’s Philadelphia station, WHYY, and was moderated by three Black journalists, including Eugene Daniels of Politico Playbook, WHYY’s Tonya Mosely and TheGrio’s Gerren Keith Gaynor. The stop marked Harris’ 13th visit to the Keystone State this year.

During his July interview with the NABJ in Chicago, Trump drummed up a firestorm of criticism when he said, ‘I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know. Is she Indian or Black?’

Harris was not asked to respond to those remarks from Trump on Tuesday, but she did slam the former president for what the moderators described as racially charged rhetoric about Haitian migrants in a small Ohio town eating people’s pets.

‘It’s harmful, and it’s hateful and grounded in some age-old stuff that we should not have the tolerance for,’ Harris said of the rumors being circulated by Trump. ‘We’ve got to say that you cannot be entrusted with standing behind the seal of the president of the United States of America, engaging in that hateful rhetoric that, as usual, is designed to divide us as a country.’

When asked by one of the moderators if this case of ‘irredeemable racism’ deserved some sort of federal response to help the community heal, Harris sidestepped the question.

Meanwhile, Harris also sidestepped whether she would sign or veto a bill establishing a federal committee to study reparations for the Black community. Harris said she ‘thinks’ a federal reparations commission will be taken up by Congress and, therefore, she won’t need to use her power as president to study the matter at the federal level.

Harris also spoke about the Black vote on Tuesday and took a far different approach than President Biden did in 2020. 

‘If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t Black,’ Biden said while campaigning for the presidency in 2020. Harris, however, said Tuesday that she expects to have to ‘earn’ the Black vote, particularly Black men. ‘I think it’s very important to not operate from the assumption that Black men are in anybody’s pocket.’

Beyond race-focused topics, the interview included remarks from Harris about her economic plan, abortion, support for Israel – which she said has the right to defend itself – and gun control.

‘The United Sates of America absolutely has a role’ in aiding Israel’s right to self-determination, Harris said during Tuesday’s interview. 

On gun control, Harris was resolute that she and her running mate, Democrat Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, are both gun owners – something that came as news to voters during last week’s presidential debate. ‘We’re not trying to take anybody’s guns away from them, but we do need an assault weapons ban,’ she said. Previously, as a presidential candidate in 2019, Harris said she thought a mandatory gun buyback program run by the federal government was ‘a good idea.’ However, Harris’ campaign has said she no longer supports such a program.

Harris added that she does support universal background checks for those seeking to legally obtain a firearm. When one of the moderators pointed out that most handguns are purchased illegally, Harris pointed to the need to eradicate ‘gun show loophole[s].’

‘We need to address each entry point in the issue,’ Harris insisted.

Later, the moderators turned to the second assassination attempt made on Trump’s life over the weekend. Harris indicated that she spoke to Trump after the close call to check on him.

‘I am in this election, in this race, for many reasons, including to fight for our democracy. And in a democracy, there is no place for political violence,’ Harris said. ‘We can and should have healthy debates and discussion and disagreements but not resort to violence to resolve those issues.’

Harris was asked a follow-up question about her confidence in the Secret Service to protect her, with Harris responding in the affirmative.

‘Not everybody has Secret Service. And there are far too many people in our country right now who are not feeling safe,’ she said. ‘I mean, I look at Project 2025, and I look at, you know, the Don’t Say Gay laws coming out of Florida. Members of the LGBTQ community don’t feel safe right now, immigrants or people with an immigrant background don’t feel safe right now. Women don’t feel safe right now. And so, yes, I feel safe. I have Secret Service protection, but that doesn’t change my perspective on the importance of fighting for the safety of everybody in our country.’