New York City socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani cruised to victory on Tuesday night, defying the laundry list of critics who railed against him over several high-profile controversial stances and statements.

Communist label

Mamdani dismissed the ‘communist’ label throughout the campaign, maintaining that he is a democratic socialist.

His past comments promoting the abolition of private property, seizing the means of production, claiming billionaires shouldn’t exist, and calling for free government programs earned him the communist label from some, including President Donald Trump. 

Mike Gonzalez, the Angeles T. Arredondo E Pluribus Unum Senior Fellow at The Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital earlier this year that Mamdani is ‘absolutely a communist’ who ‘repeats lines out of the ‘Communist Manifesto’ and other writings by Karl Marx.’

‘When Marxists today say they are socialists, they usually want to convey the impression that they believe in elections and not just in shooting your way into power,’ Gonzalez added. ‘Of course, that election often ends up being the last free and fair one. Witness Venezuela.’

Anti-Israel positions

Days before the election, an antisemitism research institute released a comprehensive report that summarized its concerns about Mamdani’s stances on Israel and concluded he shouldn’t become the next mayor of New York City.

Mamdani faced heated criticism on the campaign trail, including hundreds of rabbis signing a letter opposing him for positions dating back to his time in college co-founding his school’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter all the way up to this year when he was hesitant to definitively condemn the term ‘globalize the intifada.’

Mamdani sparked a political firestorm last month, drawing outrage from the law enforcement community after posting a smiling photo with Imam Siraj Wahhaj, a Brooklyn cleric who served as a character witness for the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and has been a longtime defender of convicted terrorists, raising funds for their legal defenses.

Mamdani, a 34-year-old New York state assembly member, has been an outspoken critic of Israel and has even vowed to have Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrested if he visits New York City. 

‘I call Zohran Mamdani a jihadist because he is. Zohran Mamdani is a raging anti-Semite,’ New York GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik said in August. 

‘Mamdani is the definition of a jihadist as he supports Hamas terrorists which he did as recently as yesterday, when he refused to call for Hamas terrorists to put down their arms — the same Hamas terrorist group that slaughtered civilians including New Yorkers on October 7, 2023.’

In July, a Jewish advocacy group blasted Mamdani for sharing a video mocking Hanukkah Jewish traditions on social media.

Mamdani also faced criticism over the anti-Israel positions of his Columbia University professor father, Mahmood, who previously compared Abraham Lincoln to Adolf Hitler and appeared sympathetic to suicide bombers in a book he authored.

‘I think critiques of the state of Israel are critiques of a government, as opposed to critiques of a people and of a faith,’ Mamdani told MSNBC this week. ‘And my job is to represent every single New Yorker, and I will do so no matter their thoughts and opinions on Israel and Palestine, of which millions of New Yorkers have very strong views — and I’m one of them.’ 

Defunding the police

Public safety was one of the most talked about issues on the campaign trail, resulting in a constant debate about Mamdani’s calls in 2020 to ‘defund the police.’

Before his mayoral campaign, Mamdani called the New York Police Department ‘racist’ and said in 2023, ‘We have to make clear that when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF.’

‘I think what scares a lot of New Yorkers about the policy positions taken by Zohran Mamdani over the years is that he has exhibited not just a lack of appreciation for the men and women that stand on that [police] line, but a visceral disdain for them, which has led him to push for things like defunding and dismantling the police,’ Rafael A. Mangual, senior fellow and head of research for policing and public safety at the Manhattan Institute, told Fox News Digital in August, shortly after a gunman killed four people in midtown Manhattan, including a NYPD police officer. 

‘It’s not so much as just that he said, well, I wanna allocate some of this money to other places. He has gone so far as to say that we should dismantle the entire department.’

Mamdani attempted to distance himself from his previous positions on the campaign trail and apologized to them in a Fox News interview in October.

‘Will you do that right now?’ Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum asked. 

‘Absolutely,’ Mamdani said, turning to face the camera directly. ‘I’ll apologize to police officers right here because this is the apology that I’ve been sharing with many rank-and-file officers. And I apologize because of the fact that I’m looking to work with these officers, and I know that these officers, these men and women who serve in the NYPD, they put their lives on the line every single day. And I will be a mayor.’

Columbus Day incident

In July, Mamdani sparked a social media firestorm after a post resurfaced of him giving the middle finger to a statue of Christopher Columbus.

‘Take it down,’ Mamdani posted in June 2020, along with a photo showing what is presumably his gloved hand raising the middle finger toward a statue of the famed Italian explorer in Astoria, New York.

In a post around the same time, Mamdani asked his followers in a poll who should be honored instead of Columbus with options that included, ‘Tony Bennett (Astoria native, music icon) Walter Audisio (Communist partisan, killed Mussolini) Sacco & Vanzetti (Executed due to anti-Italian sentiment).’

The winners of the poll were Sacco and Vanzetti, two anarcho-communists executed in 1927.

Some in the Italian community took offense to the post, according to a New York Post report, including Columbus Heritage Coalition President Angelo Vivolo.

‘We will defend Columbus Day and Columbus statues,’ Vivolo said. 

‘He is being disrespectful to the Italian American community.’ Vivolo added. ‘If you offend one community, you offend all communities.’

Despite the criticisms and opposition from high-profile lawmakers across the country, Mamdani’s campaign focused on affordability, pushing back against Trump, and taxing the rich guided him to a commanding victory on Tuesday night.

Mamdani’s victory is expected to be a rallying cry for Republicans as they look to paint him and his socialist agenda as the face of the Democratic Party heading into next year’s midterms. 

‘The Democrat Party has surrendered to radical socialist Zohran Mamdani and the far-left mob who are now running the show,’ National Republican Committee Spokesman Mike Marinella told Fox News Digital on Tuesday night. 

‘They’ve proudly embraced defunding the police, abolishing ICE, taxing hard-working Americans to death, and replacing common sense with chaos. Every House Democrat is foolishly complicit in their party’s collapse, and voters will make them pay in 2026.’ 

Fox News Digital’s Deirdre Heavey contributed to this report.

Senate Democrats are trying to figure out their exit strategy from the ongoing government shutdown as lawmakers on both sides remain cautiously optimistic that the end is near.

At hand are offers Senate Republicans have made since nearly the beginning of the shutdown, which crept into record-breaking territory Tuesday night.

Among the options Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and his caucus mulled were a vote on expiring Obamacare subsidies, attaching a host of spending bills to the government funding extension and likely extending the House-passed continuing resolution (CR) until December or January.

Following a nearly three-hour, closed-door lunch, Schumer gave little indication as to what Democrats’ move would be. He noted that the longer-than-usual caucus lunch went well, and that Senate Democrats were ‘exploring all the options.’

If enough Senate Democrats join Republicans to reopen the government and take up the GOP’s offer, they’d effectively be caving after spending 36 days entrenched in their position that they needed an ironclad deal on the expiring Obamacare premium subsidies.

Like Schumer, many Democratic lawmakers were tight-lipped about their discussions.

‘It’s still a work in progress,’ Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., said.

One part of the equation is tacking on a trio of spending bills, known as a minibus, that would fund military construction and the Department of Veterans Affairs, the legislative branch, and agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration.

Senate appropriators, who have been the main protagonists of increased bipartisan talks, believe that jump-starting the government funding process could be the key to ending the shutdown.

‘The reason we’re in this position is that we have not passed appropriations bills,’ Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., said. ‘So beginning to break the logjam through doing that, we think would be incredibly effective.’

The other part of the equation is a guarantee from Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., that Senate Democrats would get a vote on a bill that dealt with the expiring Obamacare subsidies.

But that attempt is almost certain to fail, given that Senate Republicans want to see major reforms made to the program.

‘It’s a universe that I think is pretty well-defined and established,’ Thune said. ‘I’ve said this before, but the question is whether or not we’ll take ‘yes’ for an answer.’

That’s where the deep-seated lack of trust that Senate Democrats have for their counterparts across the aisle and of President Donald Trump comes in that has underscored much of the shutdown. One of their demands is to have the healthcare bill voted on by a simple, 50-vote majority, which Thune and Republicans scoffed at.

Still, Senate Democrats are eyeing more of a solution to the healthcare issue rather than the promise of a process, which Thune has given.

‘I’m interested in negotiation, but a negotiation that ends up — that ends in a piece of legislation being passed,’ Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said. ‘An agreement to take a vote that Republicans are guaranteeing will fail doesn’t sound like an outcome that helps regular Americans.’

Others, particularly progressives in the Senate Democratic caucus, don’t want to see Schumer or their colleagues back down, even as federal workers and air traffic controllers go unpaid, and as the administration has wavered on funding federal food benefits despite a court order to do so.

‘If the Democrats cave on this, I think it will be a betrayal to millions and millions of working families who want them to stand up and protect their healthcare benefits,’ Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said.

Despite promises of a vote, Republicans argue they can’t predetermine the future outcome nor guarantee that a Democratic proposal would pass.

‘[Thune] has said from Day 1 that he would provide them with a vote,’ Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said. ‘What he can’t do is provide them with an outcome.’

Rounds is one of a handful of Senate Republicans who has engaged in bipartisan talks throughout the shutdown and was hopeful that over a dozen Democrats would cross the aisle to reopen the government.

‘I think they’re tired of this,’ Rounds said.

The most consequential moments of the Trump–Xi summit last week did not occur at South Korea’s Gimhae International Airport. Statements about ‘stabilizing relations’ and ‘reducing tensions’ were predictable, almost perfunctory. 

The real story unfolded in the weeks leading up to the summit – in the choreography, the pageantry and the unmistakable assertion of American power across the Indo-Pacific. By the time Xi Jinping sat across from Donald Trump, he was meeting a U.S. president who had already recommitted to America’s military preeminence in the region, reaffirmed its alliances, and reminded Beijing that the United States remains the indispensable Pacific power.

In the days before the summit, Trump delivered a series of moves that together amounted to a strategic message. When reporters aboard Air Force One asked about Taiwan, he replied simply, ‘There’s not that much to ask about it. Taiwan is Taiwan.’ 

The remark – off-the-cuff but unmistakable in meaning – pushed back against speculation that his administration might soften on the issue in pursuit of a grand bargain with Beijing. Trump’s statement told Xi that the United States would not barter away the foundation of East Asian stability for a better trade deal. Since 1979, American policy toward Taiwan has relied on strategic ambiguity – but Trump’s phrasing underscored deterrence, not doubt. 

Then came a tangible demonstration of alliance power. The Trump administration announced a new partnership with a leading South Korean shipbuilder to co-produce nuclear-powered submarines and expand U.S. shipyard capacity – a deal expected to bring billions of dollars in investment and jobs to American facilities, including in Philadelphia and along the Gulf Coast. 

For all the rhetoric about ‘America First,’ this was alliance diplomacy in practice: fusing allied industrial bases to strengthen deterrence. At a time when China is out-building the U.S. Navy at a breathtaking pace, the U.S.–ROK shipbuilding initiative signals that Washington is no longer content to outsource maritime capacity to its competitors.

Equally deliberate was Trump’s decision to post on Truth Social about nuclear-weapons testing – announcing that the United States would resume limited tests to ensure readiness. The statement came in direct response to China’s accelerated nuclear expansion. 

The Pentagon’s 2024 China Military Power Report estimated that Beijing had surpassed 600 operational nuclear warheads and was rapidly expanding its missile forces and fissile-material production capacity. In recent years, satellite imagery and open-source reporting have also suggested that China may be preparing renewed activity at its Lop Nur nuclear test site, reinforcing concerns that Beijing is edging toward a more aggressive testing posture.

In that context, Trump’s post was less provocation than deterrent signaling – a reminder that the U.S. will not allow the balance of nuclear credibility to tilt unchallenged. The move ignited controversy but achieved its purpose: it reassured allies and warned adversaries that American nuclear deterrence is not theoretical.

Perhaps the clearest articulation of this posture came aboard the USS George Washington two days before the summit. Standing on the carrier’s deck alongside Japan’s prime minister, President Trump declared that ‘the U.S. military will win – every time.’ The audience was not voters in the United States. The message was directed at Xi Jinping, the People’s Liberation Army, and America’s allies watching across the Indo-Pacific. 

With the Japanese prime minister by his side – who described the carrier as a ‘symbol of protecting freedom and peace in this region’ – the moment projected allied unity and deterrent resolve. It was as much a visual message as a verbal one: the United States and its partners were back in the business of winning, and Beijing would have to recalibrate its assumptions accordingly.

Taken together – the Taiwan statement, the South Korea shipbuilding accord, the nuclear-testing post, and the carrier speech – the president’s actions framed the summit before it even began. 

These were not the actions of a president declaring detente with Beijing. They told Xi that the United States would not arrive as a supplicant seeking stability at any price, nor should America First to be interpreted as ‘America Alone,’ retreating to the Western Hemisphere.

Instead, President Trump positioned himself at the helm of an American-led order in the Indo-Pacific in which its two most important allies–Japan and South Korea– play leading roles. His message was not isolation but orchestration: America’s strength is amplified through partnership.

This approach marks an evolution from President Trump’s first term, when ‘burden-sharing’ often meant brow-beating allies. Now his focus is on empowerment — accelerating allied shipbuilding, missile defense and joint exercises. 

The summit’s scripted pleasantries – calls for dialogue and vows to ‘manage competition responsibly’ – mattered less than the backdrop: a U.S. president reinforcing alliances, expanding shipbuilding and projecting confidence from ‘100,000 tons of diplomacy’–the deck of an aircraft carrier.

President Trump will return to Beijing in April for a follow-up summit with Xi – a test of whether his current posture endures. As any student of ‘The Art of the Deal’ knows, Trump’s instinct is to maximize leverage before negotiation. 

The handshake between Trump and Xi captured that dynamic: a confident Trump leaning into Xi knowing weeks of U.S. maneuvers had strengthened America’s hand in its competition with China. Whether that grip represents a lasting commitment to Indo-Pacific leadership or merely a pause before the next deal remains to be seen.

: The House GOP’s campaign arm is wasting no time in linking New York City’s democratic socialist mayor-elect to congressional Democrats facing challenging re-elections in next year’s midterm elections.

Hours after Zohran Mamdani’s election victory in New York City’s mayoral election, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) on Wednesday launched a digital ad spotlighting him, which is running in nearly 50 competitive House districts.

‘A radical left earthquake just hit America. The epicenter: New York,’ says the narrator in the NRCC spot, which was shared first with Fox News Digital.

The narrator argues that ‘the new socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani built his movement on defunding the police and abolishing ICE. Now the socialists are celebrating. They call it progress. We call it chaos. Bureaucrats instead of doctors. Social workers instead of cops.’

‘This is the future House Democrats want, and your city could be next. Stop socialism. Stop Democrats,’ concludes the narrator, under pictures of Mamdani and House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York.

Jeffries, the top Democrat in the chamber, endorsed Mamdani last week, nearly four months after Mamdani sent political shockwaves across the nation with his convincing win over former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and nine other candidates to capture the Democratic Party’s mayoral nomination.

Since Mamdani’s primary victory, Republicans have repeatedly aimed to make the now-34-year-old Ugandan-born state lawmaker from New York City the new face of the Democratic Party, as they work to characterize Democrats as far-left socialists.

Mamdani defeated Cuomo and two-time Republican mayoral nominee Curtis Sliwa in Tuesday’s election, making history as the first Muslim and first millennial mayor of the nation’s most populous city.

He was heavily criticized by Republicans and some Democrats for his far-left proposals to eliminate fares to ride New York City’s vast bus system, make CUNY (City University of New York) ‘tuition-free,’ freeze rents on municipal housing, offer ‘free childcare’ for children up to age 5 and set up government-run grocery stores.

Mamdani also took incoming political fire over his verbal attacks on Israel, his past critical comments about the New York City Police Department (NYPD), and his proposal to shift certain responsibilities away from the NYPD and focus on social services and community-based programs.

The digital spot, which is backed by a modest ad buy, will run in 29 Democrat-controlled House districts being targeted by the NRCC.

The lawmakers in the districts are Josh Harder (CA-09), Adam Gray (CA-13), George Whitesides (CA-27), Derek Tran (CA-45), Dave Min (CA-47), Darren Soto (FL-09), Jared Moskowitz (FL-23), Frank Mrvan (IN-01), Jared Golden (ME-02), Kristen McDonald Rivet (MI-08), Don Davis (NC-01), OPEN (NH-01), Nellie Pou (NJ-09), Gabe Vasquez (NM-02), Dina Titus (NV-01), Susie Lee (NV-03), Steven Horsford (NV-04), Tom Suozzi (NY-03), Laura Gillen (NY-04), Josh Riley (NY-19), Marcy Kaptur (OH-09), Emilia Sykes (OH-13), OPEN (TX-09), Henry Cuellar (TX-28), Julie Johnson (TX-32), Vicente Gonzalez (TX-34), OPEN (TX-35), Eugene Vindman (VA-07), and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (WA-03).

The ads will also run digitally in 20 Republican-controlled House districts the NRCC expects to be in play in the midterms.

The lawmakers in those districts are Reps. Nick Begich (AK-AL), OPEN (AZ-01), Juan Ciscomani (AZ-06), David Valadao (CA-22), Young Kim (CA-40), Ken Calvert (CA-41), Gabe Evans (CO-08), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-01), Zach Nunn (IA-03), Tom Barrett (MI-07), OPEN (MI-10), OPEN (NE-02), Tom Kean, Jr. (NJ-07), Mike Lawler (NY-07), Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-01), Ryan Mackenzie (PA-07), Rob Bresnahan (PA-08), Scott Perry (PA-10), Scott Perry, (PA-10), Jen Kiggans (VA-02), and Derrick Van Orden (WI-03).

At full strength, the Republicans hold a 220-215 majority in the House. Democrats need to pick up just three seats to win back the majority.

President Donald Trump indicated that he did not direct the Justice Department to target former FBI Director James Comey, former National Security Advisor John Bolton and New York State Attorney General Letitia James.

During ’60 Minutes’ interview, CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell noted the three figures have been indicted and asked Trump whether those are cases of ‘political retribution.’

‘You know who got indicted? The man you’re looking at. I got indicted. And I was innocent,’ Trump fired back.

O’Donnell pressed Trump on the matter, asking whether he directed the Department of Justice to target those people.

‘No. You don’t have to instruct ’em because they were so dirty, they were so crooked, they were so corrupt, that the honest people we have — Pam Bondi’s doing a very good job, Kash Patel’s doing a very good job — the honest people that we have go after ’em automatically,’ he said.

The president called out Comey, James and Senate Democrat Adam Schiff in a September Truth Social post highlighted by ’60 Minutes.’

‘Pam: I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, ‘same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done,” the president declared in part of the post.

‘We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!’ he asserted in another portion of the post.

The Senate returns to Washington, D.C., this week as the government shutdown nears a record-shattering milestone and as lawmakers remain entrenched in their positions.

Come late Tuesday night, the government shutdown will officially become the longest on record, at 36 days, smashing through the previous record etched into the history books in early 2019. And while that record approaches, and payday deadlines are missed and federal benefits dry up, the Senate is still largely in a holding pattern.

Still, there was newfound optimism among some lawmakers as bipartisan talks increased last week, and many hope that same momentum carries into this week.

But for now, neither side is budging from the positions they’ve maintained since Oct. 1, when the shutdown officially began.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and his Democratic caucus want a deal on expiring Obamacare premium subsidies before they agree to reopen the government. Saturday was when open enrollment officially began nationwide.

They’ve long warned that unless a deal was made before open enrollment, Americans that rely on the subsidies would see their premiums spike, despite the subsidies not expiring until the end of this year.

‘People are going to see drastic, drastic increases in their healthcare costs,’ Schumer said last week. ‘People are going to sit at the dinner table Friday night with a pit, with a hole in the pit of their stomach, and say, ‘How are we going to do this?’’

Senate Republicans largely agree that there needs to be an extension of some kind to the subsidies, but they also want a host of reforms made to the program that was enhanced under former President Joe Biden.

And Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has offered Senate Democrats a vote on the Obamacare subsidies, but they say that’s not enough and demand that President Donald Trump get involved.

Trump officially returned to the country after a near weeklong trip to Asia but still appears to be keeping the shutdown at an arm’s length.

While Schumer and his Democratic caucus’ demands have remained laser-focused on expiring Obamacare subsidies, they have also blamed Trump for not funding federal food benefits as he did in 2019, and Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., have called for a meeting with the president.

But Trump won’t meet with the top congressional Democrats until the shutdown ends — a point he and Republicans have made time and time again.

And he won’t budge on healthcare negotiations until the government reopens, either.

‘I’m not going to do it by being extorted by the Democrats who have lost their way,’ Trump said on CBS’ ’60 Minutes.’ ‘There’s something wrong with these people.’

Meanwhile, Trump has urged Senate Republicans to get rid of the 60-vote filibuster threshold in the upper chamber. Doing so is a proverbial third rail for Senate Republicans and a longstanding priority for Senate Democrats.

He renewed that call over the weekend in posts on Saturday and Sunday to his social media platform Truth Social.

‘Republicans, you will rue the day that you didn’t TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER!!! BE TOUGH, BE SMART, AND WIN,’ he said.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright revealed the U.S. will not be testing nuclear explosions, putting to rest questions over whether the Trump administration would reverse a decades-old taboo.

Testing will instead involve ‘the other parts of a nuclear weapon,’ Wright told Fox News’ ‘The Sunday Briefing.’

‘I think the tests we’re talking about right now are systems tests,’ he explained. ‘These are not nuclear explosions. These are what we call noncritical explosions.’

His comments came after President Donald Trump announced the U.S. would reignite ‘nuclear testing’ because other nations were doing so. The president made the announcement on the way to a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

He didn’t specify whether he meant explosives, which haven’t been tested by the U.S. since 1992, or the weapons that carry them.

The only nation to conduct a detonation test in the last 25 years is North Korea in September 2017.

The president said he’d directed the Pentagon — which is responsible for testing nuclear-capable vehicles — to resume testing. The Energy Department would have jurisdiction over testing explosives.

‘We’ve halted it years — many years — ago,’ Trump said last week. ‘But with others doing testing, I think it is appropriate that we do also.’

Asked on Friday to clarify whether the U.S. would begin ‘detonating nuclear weapons for testing,’ the president responded, ‘I’m saying that we’re going to test nuclear weapons like other countries do.’

Trump claimed in a CBS ’60 Minutes’ interview over the weekend that U.S. adversaries were secretly testing nuclear weapons.

‘Russia’s testing nuclear weapons, and China’s testing them, too,’ he said. ‘You just don’t know about it.’

China is rapidly expanding its nuclear silo and is expected to have nearly 1,000 warheads by 2030, according to Pentagon assessments. But Beijing has not conducted a nuclear weapons test since 1996. Russia has not been confirmed to have tested a weapon since 1990, but last week did claim to test two delivery vehicles: an undersea torpedo known as Poseidon and a nuclear-powered cruise missile.

In 1996, the United Nations adopted a nuclear test ban treaty. The U.S. signed the treaty, but the Senate rejected its ratification. Most other nuclear-armed states also did not ratify the document.

Still, it created a global norm against nuclear weapons testing.

The U.S. regularly tests unarmed nuclear-capable weapons.

Additionally, non-explosive or ‘subcritical’ tests, which involve fissile materials but stop short of producing a chain reaction, have been conducted at the Nevada National Security Site for years. Officials say these experiments help validate computer models that simulate how aging warheads behave, allowing scientists to verify performance without explosive testing.

The U.S. has conducted more than two dozen such tests since the late 1990s.

‘And again, these will be nonnuclear explosions,’ Mr. Wright said. ‘These are just developing sophisticated systems so that our replacement nuclear weapons are even better than the ones they were before.’

Washington is currently undergoing a three-decade, $1.7 trillion transformation effort to replace aging warheads with updated versions.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and Senate Republicans are considering pushing back the House-passed government funding extension in a bid to give lawmakers more time to pass spending bills.

The House’s continuing resolution (CR) would reopen the government until Nov. 21. That bill has been blocked by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Democrats 13 times so far and has pushed the shutdown into record-breaking territory.

Given that the original seven-week plan has now shrunk to just three weeks as the shutdown drags on, Thune and the Senate GOP realize that more time will be needed to pass appropriations bills.

‘The House-passed CR is, you know, the idea that we could get any appropriations bills done, you know, by November the 21st now, that date’s lost,’ Thune said.

The objective now is to produce a CR that extends the funding deadline, possibly into January. Thune said that he was ‘certainly open’ to extending the deadline into next year. Senate Republicans tried to get a package of three bills on the floor, along with possibly more, late last month. But that move was blocked by Senate Democrats.

‘As you look at the calendar, if you want to do normal appropriations work, you look at how long it takes to get bills across the floor in the Senate and through the House,’ he said. ‘It’s, you know, the longer sort of runway there is better.’

To do so would either require a fresh CR, or the House-passed bill could be amended. Still, anything that Republicans hash out will need to break through the 60-vote threshold in the Senate and require support from Democrats.

Any changes to the House’s bill, or a new bill, would also need to be sent back to the House, which House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has kept out of session now for over six weeks.

Johnson, when asked about time running out on the House-passed CR, didn’t say whether lawmakers would need to craft a new one or extend the Nov. 21 deadline. He blamed Senate Democrats, however, for running out the clock. 

‘We’re very mindful of the clock,’ Johnson told Fox News’ Will Cain on ‘The Will Cain Show.’ ‘And the great irony here is the Democrats are the ones that are taking the time off that clock. We needed it.’

But lawmakers in the lower chamber already expected that more time would be needed given the blockade in the upper chamber.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., told Fox News Digital in an interview late last month that he believed a new CR would be needed, ‘having wasted this much time.’

Asked about what timing he believed would be realistic, Cole said he could see a short-term measure ‘probably into early January’ in a bid to avoid a colossal, year-end funding bill known as an omnibus where all 12 appropriations bills and numerous spending and policy riders are crammed into one bill.

‘In both chambers, both parties, there’s a dread of what’s called the Christmas omnibus, where we put you right up to the edge of Christmas, and they don’t let you go home to your family until you pass a God awful omnibus bill. We don’t want to do that to our members,’ he said.

But there’s another faction within the GOP calling for a longer-term bill. A source familiar with the House Freedom Caucus told Fox News Digital last month that its chairman, Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., would advocate for a bill extending into December 2026 — provided he agreed with the details in the measure itself.

Meanwhile, Thune said that he was optimistic that the shutdown could end this week. The Senate is nearing yet another scheduled recess, this time for Veterans’ Day next week, that could see lawmakers leave Washington, D.C., with the government still closed.

He wasn’t ready to outright cancel the recess, but noted that ‘if we don’t start seeing some progress or some evidence of that by at least the middle of this week, it’s hard to see how we would finish anything by the end of the week.’

‘I think we’re getting close to an off-ramp here, but, you know, this is unlike any other government shutdown,’ he said.

President Donald Trump is ordering the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford to head to the Caribbean as he ramps up his crusade against drugs — marking the first time a carrier has conducted an operational deployment in the region in more than 30 years.

Trump has built up naval assets in the region as attacks against alleged drug boats have increased since September, but sending an aircraft carrier is an unprecedented move. A warship like the Ford hasn’t participated in military operations in the region since 1994, when two carriers were dispatched to respond to political unrest in Haiti for Operation Uphold Democracy, according to U.S. Southern Command’s (SOUTHCOM) records shared with Fox News Digital. 

The Ford’s deployment comes as Trump has signaled that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro may not be in office much longer. The Trump administration has conducted 15 strikes in the Caribbean, while U.S. lawmakers have raised concerns about their legality and a broader conflict in the region.

During Operation Uphold Democracy, aircraft carriers USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and USS America headed to the region as part of a multinational intervention, after Haitian Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras led a military coup in 1991 that ousted the island’s first freely elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

In July 1994, the United Nations passed a resolution authorizing the use of military force to restore democracy in Haiti, paving the way for Operation Uphold Democracy to launch in September 1994 as a military buildup designed to pressure Cedras’ regime to step down, according to the State Department’s Office of the Historian.

At the time, President Bill Clinton justified the intervention, which involved nearly 25,000 U.S. troops, as necessary to remove the Cedras regime after employing ‘every diplomatic avenue possible.’

Clinton said in a radio address Sept. 17, 1994, that the Cedras regime had two options: either leave peacefully or be ousted forcefully.

‘The remaining question is not whether they will leave but how they will leave,’ Clinton said in a radio address Sept. 17, 1994. ‘They can go peacefully and increase the chances for a peaceful future and a more stable future for Haiti in the near term, not only for all those whose democracy they stole but for themselves as well. They can do that, or they will be removed by force.’

In addition to military forces, Clinton also announced that former president Jimmy Carter, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Colin Powell and Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., had departed for Haiti in a final attempt to secure a peaceful transfer of power.

U.S. forces started to arrive in Haiti Sept. 19, 2024, while diplomatic negotiations between the U.S. delegation and Cedras’ regime were underway, ultimately prompting Cedras’ regime to surrender and allowing Aristide to return to power.

Since Operation Uphold Democracy, carriers have sailed through SOUTHCOM’s waters for several exercises and supported humanitarian efforts. For example, the USS George Washington completed exercises in the region as part of the Southern Seas 2024 deployment aimed at facilitating maritime partnerships with allies as part of a homeport change from Norfolk, Virginia, to Yokosuka, Japan.

The carrier participated in these exercises in 2008 and 2015 during homeport changes between the East Coast and Japan. Altogether, there have been a total of 10 Southern Seas missions since 2007, according to SOUTHCOM.

Additionally, the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson also assisted with humanitarian relief efforts in 2010 after Haiti suffered a massive earthquake as part of Operation Unified Response, according to Naval History and Heritage Command.

Meanwhile, Trump is ramping up strikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean — totaling 15 strikes since the beginning of September — stoking concerns from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle about whether they are legal. For example, Sens. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., introduced a war powers resolution prohibiting U.S. armed forces from engaging in ‘hostilities’ against Venezuela.

‘The Trump administration has made it clear they may launch military action inside Venezuela’s borders and won’t stop at boat strikes in the Caribbean,’ Schiff said in a statement Oct. 17.

However, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Oct. 26 that the Trump administration has the authority it needs to conduct these strikes, and that Trump has decided its ‘time’ for Maduro to go.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. 

The Trump administration repeatedly has stated it does not recognize Maduro as a legitimate head of state, and claims he is instead a leader of a drug cartel. Likewise, the Trump administration increased the reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest to $50 million in August, claiming he is ‘one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world.’

After the Trump administration announced the Ford would head to SOUTHCOM’s area of operations, Maduro accused Trump of ‘fabricating a new eternal war.’

‘They promised they would never again get involved in a war, and they are fabricating a war,’ Maduro said in a national broadcast on Oct. 24.

Meanwhile, Trump said Sunday in an interview with CBS’ ’60 Minutes’ that although he doesn’t expect a war with Venezuela, he believes Maduro’s days are limited when asked about ordering the carrier to the region.

The Ford may be the Navy’s newest carrier, but it’s already been quick to respond to several significant conflicts since its first full-length deployment in 2023. For example, the Pentagon sent the Ford to the Eastern Mediterranean in October 2023 after Hamas’ initial attack on Israel.

While in the Caribbean, the Ford is expected to conduct strike operations on land, and provide close air support for special operations troops, according to experts.

‘I estimate the FORD will be doing strike operations against narcotics trafficking and manufacturing sites ashore as well as providing close air support to special operations troops,’ Bryan Clark, director of the Hudson Institute think tank’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology, said in a Monday email to Fox News Digital.

Brent Sadler, a senior fellow for naval warfare and advanced technology at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, said that the carrier’s deployment seeks to put additional pressure on Venezuela, so Caracas doesn’t retaliate following the U.S. military strikes in the region. 

‘The Ford’s arrival in SOUTHCOM area is not unprecedented but given the ongoing attacks on Cartel boats significant. I see this move as intended to deter Venezuela from escalating the crisis and providing the President extra options should he want to increase the attacks on the Cartels,’ Sadler said in an email to Fox News Digital on Monday. ‘That said, I would anticipate the Ford’s air wing being very active in air surveillance and defense.’