The chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee is accusing Democrats of lying about President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill.’

Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., told Fox News Digital on Monday he believed Democrats had been waging a ‘fear campaign to scare Americans’ ever since Republicans began discussions about the budget reconciliation process.

‘Now, Democrats are pedaling incorrect reports that include policies that aren’t even in the bill,’ Guthrie said. 

‘This bill refocuses Medicaid on mothers, children, people with disabilities, and the elderly – not illegal immigrants and capable adults who choose not to work.’

The Kentucky Republican was specifically referring to his panel’s portion of Trump’s bill, the text of which was released late on Sunday night.

The Energy and Commerce Committee, which has broad jurisdiction, including over federal health programs, telecommunications and energy, was tasked with finding at least $880 billion in spending cuts to pay for other priorities in the bill.

It’s the largest share of any of the 11 committees involved in the reconciliation process – some of which have been given additional funding to enact Trump’s priorities on tax cuts, defense, immigration and the border.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), however, said on Monday the legislation would likely achieve even more savings than its $880 billion benchmark.

Guthrie himself told Republicans on a lawmaker-only call on Sunday night that the committee found ‘north of $900 billion’ in savings, a source told Fox News Digital.

Democrats immediately seized on the legislation as what they saw as a smoking gun of Republican plans to cut Medicaid.

But the details released on Sunday night appear to show House GOP leaders veered away from the much more severe cuts to the low-income healthcare program that some conservative lawmakers were pushing.

The legislation would put a new 80-hour-per-month work requirement on certain able-bodied adults receiving Medicaid, aged 19 through 64.

It would also put guardrails on states spending funds on their expanded Medicaid populations. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) allowed states to expand Medicaid coverage to adults who make up to 138% of the poverty level.

More specifically, states that provide Medicaid coverage to illegal immigrants could see their federal Medicaid reimbursement dollars diminished, putting more of that cost on the state itself.

The bill would also require states with expanded Medicaid populations to perform eligibility checks every six months to ensure the system is not being abused.

State Medicaid plans would be affected by a moratorium on any new state provider taxes, while freezing current rates where they are. State provider taxes are state-imposed fees on healthcare providers that help those states get more federal funding for Medicaid.

New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone, the top Democrat on the committee, released a CBO projection requested by his own party that said at least 13.7 million people would lose health insurance based on a draft of Republicans’ Medicaid proposals.

‘Let’s be clear, Republican leadership released this bill under cover of night because they don’t want people to know their true intentions,’ Pallone said.

‘This is not trimming fat from around the edges, it’s cutting to the bone. The overwhelming majority of the savings in this bill will come from taking healthcare away from millions of Americans. Nowhere in the bill are they cutting ‘waste, fraud, and abuse’ – they’re cutting people’s healthcare and using that money to give tax breaks to billionaires.’

Guthrie dismissed the calculations in the Democrats’ press release.

‘It is reckless that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle claimed an artificially high number in alleged coverage loss just so they can fearmonger and score political points,’ he told Fox News Digital.

‘This reconciliation is a win for Americans in every part of the country, and it’s a shame Democrats are intentionally reflexively opposing commonsense policies to strengthen the program.’

Republicans are expected to advance the Energy and Commerce portion of the bill on Tuesday afternoon. If it passes through committee, it will be added to the final bill, which Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., hopes to pass the House by Memorial Day.

The identity of a Trump administration official who was allegedly targeted by the Biden administration’s State Department in a ‘disinformation’ dossier remains a mystery nearly two weeks after Secretary of State Marco Rubio revealed details on the file.

Rubio revealed at the most recent Trump administration Cabinet meeting April 30 that an unidentified Trump administration official who was present had been the subject of a State Department dossier detailing alleged promotion of social media ‘disinformation.’ 

Rubio, the State Department and the White House have not yet identified which official the Biden administration targeted. Fox News Digital has reached out repeatedly to the White House regarding the identity of the official, including on Monday, but did not receive replies. 

When asked for an update on the identity of the Trump official, the State Department directed Fox News Digital to Rubio’s April 30 remark, detailing that, ‘We are going to be turning over these dossiers to the individuals, and they’ll decide whether they want to disclose it or not.’

Rubio said during the April 30 Cabinet meeting that a little-known, now-defunct office within the State Department called the Global Engagement Center (GEC) had compiled disinformation dossiers on Americans across the country as part of an effort to ‘censor’ free speech, including an individual who has since joined the Trump administration. 

‘We had an office in the Department of State whose job it was to censor Americans,’ Rubio said during the meeting. ‘And, by the way, I’m not going to say who it is. I’ll leave it up to them. There’s at least one person at this table today who had a dossier in that building of social media posts to identify them as purveyors of disinformation. We have these dossiers. We are going to be turning those over to these individuals.’ 

Vice President JD Vance interjected, asking, ‘Was it me or Elon (Musk)? We can follow up when the media is gone,’ which drew laughter from the Cabinet. 

‘But just think about that. The Department of State of the United States had set up an office to monitor the social media posts and commentary of American citizens, to identify them as vectors of disinformation,’ Rubio continued. ‘When we know that the best way to combat disinformation is freedom of speech and transparency.’

Though Rubio did not identify which Trump official the Biden administration kept a dossier on, Elon Musk has previously railed against the Global Engagement Center. 

‘The worst offender in US government censorship & media manipulation is an obscure agency called GEC,’ Musk posted to X in January 2023. That was more than a year before Musk endorsed Trump in the 2024 presidential race and became a fixture of the administration in his temporary role with the Department of Government Efficiency. 

‘They are a threat to our democracy,’ Musk added.

Former President Barack Obama established the Global Engagement Center in 2016 through an executive order aimed at coordinating counterterrorism messaging to foreign nations before it expanded its scope to also include countering foreign propaganda and disinformation, State Department documents show.

Conservatives have slammed the office as a political weapon to silence free speech, including Rubio in an April op-ed when he cited a 2020 GEC report claiming that a ‘Russian disinformation apparatus’ was behind public speculation that the coronavirus was an ‘engineered bioweapon’ or was created by ‘research conducted at the Wuhan institute.’ 

In the years following the pandemic, the Department of Energy under the Biden administration and former FBI Director Christopher Wray said evidence indicated that COVID-19 was the result of a lab leak, while the Trump administration’s CIA reported earlier in 2025 that a lab leak was the likely origin of the virus.

In 2024, lawmakers did not approve new funding for the office in the National Defense Authorization Act, and it was scheduled to terminate on Dec. 23, 2024. The Biden administration, however, shuffled staffers and rebranded the office. 

It became the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference Hub just days before Trump’s inauguration, the New York Post reported in January. 

Rubio announced in April that the office would officially shutter. 

‘I am announcing the closure of the State Department’s Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R/FIMI), formerly known as the Global Engagement Center (GEC),’ Rubio said in an April 16 statement announcing the office’s closure. 

‘Under the previous administration, this office, which cost taxpayers more than $50 million per year, spent millions of dollars to actively silence and censor the voices of Americans they were supposed to be serving,’ he wrote. ‘This is antithetical to the very principles we should be upholding and inconceivable it was taking place in America. That ends today.’ 

Rubio has railed against the office in previous interviews and op-eds, including authoring an opinion piece for the Federalist in April touting that he was dismantling the ‘censorship-industrial complex’ that had gripped agencies such as the State Department. 

‘Over the past half-decade, bodies like GEC, crafted by our own governing ruling class, nearly destroyed America’s long free speech history,’ he wrote in the op-ed. ‘The enemies of speech had new lingo to justify their authoritarian impulse. It was ‘disinformation,’ allegedly pushed by nefarious foreign governments, that was the No. 1 threat to ‘our democracy.’ To protect ‘our democracy,’ this ‘disinformation’ had to be identified and stamped out.’ 

House Republicans have seemingly dropped plans for a new millionaire’s tax hike to pay for other priorities in President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill.’

The Ways & Means Committee, the House’s tax-writing panel, released nearly 400 pages of legislation on Monday, setting the stage for permanently extending Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), as well as a host of other new Trump tax priorities.

That includes no taxes on tipped and overtime wages, both of which are accomplished via new tax deductions.

For Trump’s promise to cut taxes on seniors’ Social Security, the legislation temporarily increases the standard tax deduction that seniors are allowed to take, affecting the end of last year through the beginning of 2029.

It would also raise the debt limit by $4 trillion – something Trump specifically asked Republican lawmakers to deal with before the U.S. runs out of cash to pay its debts sometime this summer, risking a national credit default.

Notably absent from the sweeping piece of legislation is a proposal floated last week that would have established a new tax bracket for people making $2.5 million per year or more, taxing them at 39.6% – which was the top tax rate before TCJA lowered it to 37%. 

Conservative groups like Americans for Prosperity and the Heritage Foundation fiercely fought any notion of a tax increase on the wealthy.

It was also publicly opposed by a number of leading Republican figures like former Speaker Newt Gingrich and ex-Vice President Mike Pence, along with Pence’s interest group, Advancing American Freedom.

Several House GOP lawmakers told Fox News Digital last week they could not support a millionaire’s tax hike. 

Two people familiar with discussions told Fox News Digital on Monday that they did not expect it to be included before the bill advanced through committee on Tuesday.

But Republicans find other cost-savings in the legislation, including stripping tax-exempt status from ‘terrorist-supporting organizations’ and using artificial intelligence (AI) software to identify and root out improper Medicare payments.

The bill would also dramatically reduce tax breaks for professional sports team owners, a measure known as amortization, which allows those owners to write off a portion of their purchase price.

Republicans also target large private colleges and universities, including Ivy Leagues, with higher excise taxes, which are federal duties paid on net earnings of the schools’ investments.

That rate is currently 1.4%. But the legislation would bring it to as high as 21% for the largest schools, like Harvard University and Yale University – as Trump continues to battle Ivy League over their funding.

The Ways & Means Committee is expected to advance its portion of the legislation on Tuesday afternoon.

It’s just one portion of Trump’s so-called ‘one big, beautiful bill,’ which Republicans are working to pass via the budget reconciliation process.

By lowering the Senate’s threshold for passage from 60 votes to 51, it allows the party controlling Congress and the White House to entirely skirt the minority and pass sweeping pieces of legislation – provided they deal with the national debt, tax, or spending.

Trump wants Republicans to use it to pass his agenda on taxes, the border, immigration, energy, and defense.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is currently more than $36 trillion dollars in debt.

House Republicans have pledged to find between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion in cost savings in other areas to offset the cost of Trump’s new priorities and put the U.S. on a better fiscal path.

The tax legislation also increases the maximum allowed child tax credit (CTC) from $2,000 to $2,500, and includes added tax relief for small business owners who file their company under individual income tax brackets.

It also includes a modest victory for blue state Republicans in increasing the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap from $10,000 to $30,000 for both single filers and married couples. Married taxpayers filing separately get a cap of $15,000.

That maximum amount gets phased out if a person’s income exceeds $400,000, back down to $10,000 once a person’s income hits $500,000.

SALT deductions are primarily aimed at helping people in high-cost-of-living areas, particularly people in the suburbs of Democratic strongholds like New York and Los Angeles.

Republicans representing those areas have said increasing the $10,000 SALT deduction cap is critical to them remaining in office – and therefore to the GOP keeping the House majority.

Several SALT Caucus Republicans balked at a $30,000 cap last week, blasting it as insufficient. It’s not clear if they will hold up the final bill over it, however, with at least one member of their group, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., told Fox News Digital she could agree to the new threshold.

The Monday release comes after Republicans unveiled a portion of their tax plan over the weekend. Other details like SALT deduction caps and potential new tax brackets were still being worked out, however.

Conservative author, media figure and former Treasury official Monica Crowley was confirmed late Monday to become assistant secretary of state and chief of protocol with the rank of ambassador.

Crowley, who was a longtime former Fox News contributor and foreign affairs analyst, previously served in the first Trump administration and received the Alexander Hamilton Award from the Treasury Department during that time.

‘Monica will be the administration representative for major U.S. hosted events, including America’s 250th birthday in 2026, the FIFA World Cup in 2026, and the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 2028,’ President Donald Trump said in a December statement announcing her nomination.

Crowley holds a doctorate in international relations from Columbia University.

The Arizona native grew up in New Jersey and began her career in former President Richard Nixon’s post-presidency, when she worked as a research assistant.

Her book, ‘Nixon Off the Record,’ was published in the wake of that role.

She joined Fox News Channel in 1996 – the same year it hit the airwaves – and often appeared with host Sean Hannity on ‘Hannity’ and its predecessor ‘Hannity & Colmes,’ with the late Alan Colmes.

She also starred in one episode of ‘House of Cards,’ where she played herself – and also hosted the syndicated ‘Monica Crowley Show.’

She has received several other awards, including Woman of the Year in 2010 from the Clare Boothe Luce Center for Conservative Women.

During Trump’s first term, she backed out of a National Security Council role when allegations of plagiarism in her doctoral dissertation surfaced. Crowley rejected the claims as a ‘hit job.’

The U.S. Travel Association lauded her nomination, saying that she will serve a ‘pivotal role’ in the Trump administration.

‘The speed with which this decision was made gives us great confidence that … Trump will seek to maximize the opportunities of the decade of sports and events that lies ahead,’ said CEO Geoff Freeman.

‘Landmark moments [she will be involved in planning] will attract millions of travelers to America and showcase the best of our great nation while creating a lasting benefit to our economy.’ 

Hell hath now frozen over. 

President Donald Trump’s decision to accept a $400-million plane from Qatar, as a gift, has prompted stinging criticism from Laura Loomer.

She’s the hard-right activist who specializes in getting the president to fire top officials and withdraw nominees, or at least claims credit for doing so.

If you’ve lost Loomer, you’re losing the argument.

Not according to Donald Trump. He told reporters yesterday that this was a ‘great gesture’ by Qatar, done because ‘we keep them safe,’ referring to Qatar and the UAE, which he’ll be visiting after Saudi Arabia.

He said the maintenance costs on the 40-year-old Air Force One planes are astronomical, and noted that the Reagan Library has such a plane. The decommissioned Qatar aircraft will go to a future Trump Library.

But the Gipper’s plane didn’t come from Qatar.

‘How are we supposed to ever see the US under the Trump admin designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization,’ Loomer wrote, ‘if the US is now going to accept a $400 million jet from Qatar to fly the US President and his staff around on?’

Calling the episode a ‘stain’ on his tenure, she added: ‘I love President Trump. I would take a bullet for him. But, I have to call a spade a spade. We cannot accept a $400 million ‘gift’ from jihadists in suits. The Qataris fund the same Iranian proxies in Hamas and Hezbollah who have murdered US Service Members. The same proxies that have worked with the Mexican cartels to get jihadists across our border.’

The media are in an uproar as well, and the story has only grown bigger since it was first reported by ABC News.

Of course, the luxury 747 will have to be upgraded with secure communications and military equipment. That would take at least till the end of the year. 

But one Pentagon official told the New York Times ‘we’re talking years, not months.’

Trump consulted Elon Musk, the DOGE leader and head of SpaceX, who told him that the plane could be delivered in a year.

Two loyalists – Attorney General Pam Bondi and White House Counsel David Warrington – approved the arrangement, according to the Times. Trump toured the 747 in February when it was parked at the Palm Beach airport.

There was a Plan B that got derailed. The Qataris offered to donate the plane immediately to the future Trump Library.

But administration lawyers said that would violate the Constitution’s emoluments clause – which as Beltway insiders know, bars any federal official from accepting personal gifts from a foreign nation without the approval of Congress. 

The president’s ‘flood the zone’ approach has ensured that this isn’t the only story out there.

He announced that after two days of talks, the U.S. and China reached a 90-day agreement that would reduce tariffs on Beijing from 145% to 30%, and Chinese tariffs would be cut to 10%.

It’s clear that Trump blinked. Having tanked the markets (which soared yesterday), he was under enormous pressure to undo the damage. So now we’re back to square one, roughly where we might have been without igniting a global crisis.

But perhaps Xi Jinping blinked as well. His government was feeling the impact of the sky-high tariffs as well. The Chinese, with considerably less enthusiasm, said the ‘mistake’ would only lead to further negotiations.

Trump also was able to announce a cease-fire in the escalating war between India and Pakistan, thanks to some weekend diplomacy by Marco Rubio and JD Vance.

Trump also was able to announce that Hamas was freeing the last living American hostage being held by the terrorist group.

Trump also sided with Vladimir Putin, who wants to meet for peace talks with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who first wants a 30-day cease-fire, so that Moscow doesn’t continue the killing and gain more territory while stalling on any pause in the fighting.

Trump also was able to unveil a plan that he says will lower the cost of prescription drugs by 30 to 80%.

But circling back to the 747, the president chided ABC’s Rachel Scott when she tried to question him about the plane:

‘You’re ABC fake news, right? Only ABC — well, a few of you would… Let me tell you, you should be embarrassed asking that question. They’re giving us a free jet. I could say, ‘No, no no, don’t give us. I want to pay you a billion, or 400 million, or whatever it is’ Or I could say, ‘thank you very much.”

Scott tried again: ‘Respectfully, sir, as a businessman, some people may look at this and say, have you ever been given a gift worth millions of dollars and then not —’

‘It’s not a gift to me, it’s a gift to the Department of Defense,’ Trump said. ‘And you should know better, because you’ve been embarrassed enough, and so has your network. Your network is a disaster. ABC is a disaster.’

Whether the president is right or wrong, it seems like these are legitimate questions. And the media are always a great foil for him. So I don’t see him backing down.