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The federal office in charge of ensuring cybersecurity at all levels of the government cited the use of encrypted messaging app Signal as a ‘best practice’ for ‘highly targeted’ government officials, the Biden-era document shows. 

Fox News Digital found that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) outlined in a guide for federal employees late last year that encrypted messaging platforms such as Signal better protected officials against foreign enemy hackers amid a Chinese-linked cyber breach. CISA is an office under the Department of Homeland Security’s umbrella that is charged with ensuring cybersecurity across all levels of government. 

Under the Biden administration in 2024, CISA released a ‘Mobile Communications Best Practice Guidance’ for ‘highly targeted individuals,’ who were defined as high-ranking government officials or politicians who are ‘likely to possess information of interest to these threat actors.’ The document specifically addressed high-targeted politicos and officials, though it noted the guide was ‘applicable to all audiences.’ 

‘CISA strongly urges highly targeted individuals to immediately review and apply the best practices below to protect mobile communications. Highly targeted individuals should assume that all communications between mobile devices – including government and personal devices – and internet services are at risk of interception or manipulation. While no single solution eliminates all risks, implementing these best practices significantly enhances protection of sensitive communications against government-affiliated and other malicious cyber actors,’ the guide reads. 

The document, published in December, details that highly-targeted government officials should use ‘end-to-end encrypted communications’ as part of its ‘best practices’ advice. End-to-end encryption is understood as a secure method of communication, where a sender’s message is encrypted and can only be decrypted by the recipient of the message. 

The CISA guidance specifically cited that government officials should download ‘end-to-end encrypted communications’ platforms to their cellphones and computers, specifically citing Signal as an app to download to comply with the best practices. 

‘Adopt a free messaging application for secure communications that guarantees end-to-end encryption, such as Signal or similar apps,’ the guidance states. ‘CISA recommends an end-to-end encrypted messaging app that is compatible with both iPhone and Android operating systems, allowing for text message interoperability across platforms. Such apps may also offer clients for MacOS, Windows, and Linux, and sometimes the web. These apps typically support one-on-one text chats, group chats with up to 1,000 participants, and encrypted voice and video calls. Additionally, they may include features like disappearing messages and images, which can enhance privacy.’ 

Signal is an encrypted messaging app that operates similarly to texting or making phone calls, but with additional security measures that help ensure communications are kept private to those included in the correspondence. 

Signal’s popularity grew in the last few months, after it was discovered that Chinese-linked hackers were targeting cellphone data in the U.S., including data belonging to President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance during the campaign, Politico reported this week. 

‘CISA is releasing this best practice guidance to promote protections for mobile communications from exploitation by PRC-affiliated and other malicious cyber threat actors,’ the CISA guidance states, referring to the Chinese cyber breach in 2024. 

Fox News Digital reached out to CISA for additional comment or information on the use of Signal among government employees, but did not immediately receive a reply. 

The guidance was released months before the Trump administration came under fire from Democrats and other critics after it was revealed top national security officials discussed a planned strike in Yemen against terrorist forces in a Signal group chat that also included the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic. 

The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg published a first-hand account on Monday of what he read in the Signal group chat, called ‘Houthi PC Small Group,’ after he was added to the chain on March 13 alongside high-ranking federal officials stretching from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to national security advisor Mike Waltz and Trump chief of staff Susie Wiles. 

The Atlantic’s report set off condemnation among Democratic lawmakers, who have slammed the Trump administration for risking national security by using an app to communicate about a planned attack on Iran-backed Houthi terrorists in Yemen. 

‘This is one of the most stunning breaches of military intelligence I have read about in a very, very long time,’ Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a floor speech on Monday. 

CIA Director John Ratcliffe appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday morning for an annual hearing on the global threats facing the U.S., and was also grilled about the Signal group chat. 

The CIA chief confirmed he was in the group chat that included the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, adding that Signal was already downloaded on his computer when he was sworn in as director in January, and that the app has a long history as a communication platform for government employees that stretched to the Biden administration. 

‘One of the first things that happened when I was confirmed as CIA director was Signal was loaded onto my computer at, the CIA, as it is for most CIA officers, one of the things that I was briefed on very early, Senator, was by the CIA records management folks about the use of Signal as a permissible work use,’ he said. 

‘It is, that is a practice that preceded the current administration to the Biden administration,’ he continued. 

A former Biden national security official confirmed to the Associated Press that the previous administration used Signal if a staffer was granted permission to download the app on their White House-administered phones. The staffers, however, were told to use it sparingly, according to the report. 

‘It is my understanding that the Biden administration authorized Signal as a means of communication that was consistent with presidential recordkeeping requirements for its administration, and that continued into the Trump administration,’ Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said during an appearance on ‘Fox & Friends’ on Tuesday morning. 

A Department of Defense memo from 2023 under the Biden administration detailed that while Signal was approved for some use by government officials, they could not use the platform to ‘access, transmit, process non-public DoD information.’ CISA’s guidance related to Signal was released after the Department of Defense guidance. 

The Trump administration has defended the group chat, saying it did not include sensitive information, and that the Atlantic’s story ‘is nothing more than a section of the NatSec establishment community running the same, tired gameplay from years past.’

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt posted to X on Tuesday that ‘no classified material was sent to the thread’ and that ‘no ‘war plans’ were discussed.’

White House communications director Steven Cheung slammed the Atlantic’s coverage in an X post on Tuesday afternoon as an example of ‘anti-Trump forces’ trying to ‘peddle misinformation.’ 

‘From the ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ hoax of the first term to the fake documents case of the last four years… at every turn anti-Trump forces have tried to weaponize innocuous actions and turn them into faux outrage that Fake News outlets can use to peddle misinformation,’ Cheung posted to X. 

Trump told NBC News on Tuesday that a staffer in Waltz’s office included the journalist in the high-profile group chat, but did not reveal the staffer’s identity or if the individual would face disciplinary action. 

‘It was one of Michael’s people on the phone.A staffer had his number on there,’ Trump told NBC News in a phone interview when asked how Goldberg was added to the high-profile chat.

Trump defended Waltz in comment to Fox News earlier on Tuesday, as well as during his NBC interview. 

‘He’s not getting fired,’ Trump told Fox News of Waltz. The president said the incident was a ‘mistake,’ though there was ‘nothing important’ in the Signal text thread. 

‘Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man,’ Trump said in the NBC interview. 

The president added that Goldberg’s inclusion in the group chat had ‘no impact at all’ on the strike in Yemen. 

The Signal group text leak comes roughly 10 years after news broke that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used a private email server for official government correspondence. 

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for additional comment on the Signal chat leak, but did not immediately receive a reply. 

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The Senate Committee on Finance voted along party lines Tuesday afternoon to advance Dr. Mehmet Oz, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, to a full confirmation vote. 

The party-line vote, which saw 14 GOP senators vote in favor of Oz’s nomination and 13 Democrats vote against it, follows two hearings by the Senate Finance Committee that probed Oz over his plans for the federal healthcare programs, his views on abortion, potential conflicts of interest in the healthcare industry and more.

‘Dr. Oz has years of experience as an acclaimed physician and public health advocate. His background makes him uniquely qualified for this role, and there is no doubt that he will work tirelessly to deliver much-needed change at CMS,’ Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, the chairman of the committee, said Tuesday. 

Oz graduated from Harvard University and received medical and business degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. He is a former heart surgeon who saw his fame rise through his appearances on daytime TV and 13 seasons of ‘The Dr Oz Show.’

Oz later transitioned into politics, launching an unsuccessful bid for Pennsylvania’s open Senate seat in 2022. He ultimately lost to John Fetterman, then the state’s lieutenant governor. 

If confirmed by the full Senate, Oz would be in charge of nearly $1.5 trillion in federal healthcare spending. Medicare, a federal healthcare program for seniors aged 65 and up, currently provides coverage for about 65 million Americans, according to the Center for Medicare Advocacy. Medicaid, which assists people with low incomes, covers roughly 72 million Americans, according to Medicaid.gov.

Oz’s leadership would direct decisions related to how the government covers procedures, hospital stays and medication within the federal healthcare programs, as well as the reimbursement rates at which healthcare providers get paid for their services.

Earlier this month, Trump’s pick to lead the NIH and FDA, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and Dr. Marty Makary, respectively, were also approved in committee and are awaiting full confirmation votes in the Senate scheduled for later Tuesday. It is unclear when Oz’s full Senate vote will take place.

Around the same time that Bhattacharya and Makary won committee approval, Trump withdrew his nomination of former Florida Rep. David Weldon to run the CDC, over fears he did not have the GOP support to clear full confirmation. On Monday, the Trump administration named Susan Monarez, acting director of the CDC, as its new nominee.

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President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday directing the FBI to immediately declassify files concerning the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, the agency probe launched in 2016 that sought information on whether Trump campaign members colluded with Russia during the presidential race. 

After signing the order, Trump said that now the media can review previously withheld files pertaining to the investigation — although he cast doubt on whether many journalists would do so. 

‘You probably won’t bother because you’re not going to like what you see,’ Trump said. ‘But this was total weaponization. It’s a disgrace. It should have never happened in this country. But now you’ll be able to see for yourselves. All declassified.’

The FBI on July 31, 2016, opened a counterintelligence investigation into whether Trump, then a presidential candidate, or members of his campaign were colluding or coordinating with Russia to influence the 2016 election. That investigation was referred to inside the bureau as ‘Crossfire Hurricane.’

The opening of the investigation came just days after a July 28 meeting during which then-CIA Director John Brennan briefed then-President Barack Obama on a purported proposal from one of Hillary Clinton’s campaign foreign policy advisors ‘to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service.’ Clinton was the Democrat nominee for president that year.

By January 2017, then-FBI Director James Comey had notified Trump of a dossier, known as the Steele dossier, that contained salacious and unverified allegations about Trump’s purported coordination with the Russian government, a key document prompting the opening of the probe. 

The dossier was authored by Christopher Steele, an ex-British intelligence officer, and commissioned by Fusion GPS. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign hired Fusion GPS during the 2016 election cycle.

It was eventually determined that the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee funded the dossier through the law firm Perkins Coie.

Trump fired Comey in May 2017. Days later, Robert Mueller was appointed as special counsel to take over the ‘Crossfire Hurricane’ probe and investigate whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election cycle.

While Mueller investigated, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence opened its own investigation into alleged Trump-Russia collusion. 

By February 2018, Kash Patel — then chief investigator for House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes and now the FBI Director — had uncovered widespread government surveillance abuses, including the improper surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

Patel was an integral part of the creation of a memo released by Nunes in February 2018, which detailed the DOJ’s and FBI’s surveillance of Page under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Nunes and Patel revealed that the infamous anti-Trump dossier funded by Democrats ‘formed an essential part’ of the application to spy on Page.

The memo referred to closed-door testimony from former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who said that ‘no surveillance warrant would have been sought’ from the FISA court ‘without the Steele dossier information.’

But when applying for the FISA warrant, the FBI omitted the origins of the dossier, specifically its funding from Hillary Clinton, then Trump’s 2016 presidential opponent.

The memo also said Steele, who worked as an FBI informant, was eventually cut off from the bureau for what the FBI described as the most serious of violations, ‘an unauthorized disclosure to the media of his relationship with the FBI.’

The memo noted that the FBI and DOJ obtained ‘one initial FISA warrant’ targeting Page and three FISA renewals from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The statute required that every 90 days a FISA order on a U.S. citizen ‘must be reviewed.’

The memo revealed that Comey signed three FISA applications for Page, while McCabe, former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and former Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente signed at least one.

The memo was widely criticized by Democrats but was ultimately correct.

The Justice Department inspector general, Michael Horowitz, reviewed the memo and confirmed the dossier served as the basis for the controversial FISA warrants obtained against Page.

Meanwhile, Special Counsel Robert Mueller completed his investigation into a possible Trump-Russia connection in April 2019. The extensive probe yielded no evidence of criminal conspiracy or coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia.

After Mueller’s report was made public, then-Attorney General Bill Barr tapped John Durham, a U.S. attorney for Connecticut, to serve as special counsel to investigate the origins of ‘Crossfire Hurricane’ itself. 

Durham, in his final report released in May 2023, said he found, after years of investigating, that the FBI did not have any actual evidence to support the start of that investigation. He also found that the Department of Justice and FBI ‘failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity to the law’ when it launched the Trump-Russia investigation

Durham also found that the FBI ‘failed to act’ on a ‘clear warning sign’ that the bureau was the ‘target’ of a Clinton-led effort to ‘manipulate or influence the law enforcement process for political purposes’ ahead of the 2016 presidential election. 

Durham was referring to intelligence suggesting that the Clinton campaign had a plan to link Trump to Russia, potentially as a distraction from the ongoing investigation into her use of a private email server and alleged handling of classified information.

Durham found that Brennan ‘realized the significance’ of the intelligence that Clinton was stirring up a plan to tie Trump to Russia — so much so, that he ‘expeditiously’ briefed Obama, then-Vice President Joe Biden, and other top national security officials.

But nothing came of that briefing or of his subsequent referral of the information to the FBI, according to Durham’s final report.

‘The aforementioned facts reflect a rather startling and inexplicable failure to adequately consider and incorporate the Clinton Plan intelligence into the FBI’s investigative decision-making in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation,’ Durham’s report states.

‘Indeed, had the FBI opened the Crossfire Hurricane investigation as an assessment and, in turn, gathered and analyzed data in concert with the information from the Clinton Plan intelligence, it is likely that the information received would have been examined, at a minimum, with a more critical eye,’ the report continued.

This is a breaking story. 

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President Donald Trump’s choice to lead the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Johns Hopkins School of Medicine professor Dr. Marty Makary, cleared a key vote in the Senate on Tuesday, the last such test before his final confirmation vote. 

The Senate voted 56-44 to invoke cloture on the nomination. 

A final vote to confirm the FDA nominee is slated for after 8 p.m. Tuesday. 

Makary, a former Fox News medical contributor, went before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) earlier this month and answered various questions on vaccines, chronic illness, food safety and abortion. 

During his hearing, the nominee faced scrutiny over an FDA vaccine meeting that was reportedly postponed at the last minute. 

‘So if you are confirmed, will you commit to immediately reschedule that FDA Vaccine Advisory Committee meeting to get the expert views?’ Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., asked Makary at the time. 

He responded that he ‘would reevaluate which topics deserve a convening of the advisory committee members on [Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee] and which may not require a convening.’ 

When this response wasn’t good enough for Murray, Makary flipped the question, telling her to confront the Biden administration. ‘Well, you can ask the Biden administration that chose not to convene the committee meeting for the COVID vaccine booster,’ he said. 

He was referring to the Biden administration in 2021 pushing through FDA approval for a COVID-19 booster for everyone over the age of 18. 

‘The FDA did not hold a meeting of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee on these actions,’ read a press release at the time, ‘as the agency previously convened the committee for extensive discussions regarding the use of booster doses of COVID-19 vaccines and, after review of both Pfizer’s and Moderna’s EUA requests, the FDA concluded that the requests do not raise questions that would benefit from additional discussion by committee members.’

Committee member Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, criticized the administration’s move, saying, ‘We’re being asked to approve this as a three-dose vaccine for people 16 years of age and older, without any clear evidence if the third dose for a younger person when compared to an elderly person is of value.’

Makary has long been a critic of the administration he is poised to lead. He wrote an opinion piece in 2021, calling for ‘fresh leadership at the FDA to change the culture at the agency and promote scientific advancement, not hinder it.’

‘We now have a generational opportunity in American healthcare,’ he said at his hearing. ‘President Trump and Secretary Kennedy’s focus on healthy foods has galvanized a grassroots movement in America. Childhood obesity is not a willpower problem, and the rise of early-onset Alzheimer’s is not a genetic cause. We should be, and we will, be addressing food as it impacts our health.’

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The full Senate voted Tuesday evening to confirm President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.

The party-line vote followed approval from the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which also voted along party lines to advance Bhattacharya, leading to today’s full Senate vote.  

A physician, Stanford professor of medicine and senior fellow at the university’s Institute for Economic Policy Research, Bhattacharya was a leading voice during the COVID-19 pandemic against lockdown measures and vaccine mandates. 

He was one of the co-authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, a document published in October 2020 by a group of scientists advocating against widespread COVID lockdowns and promoting the efficacy of natural immunity for low-risk individuals as opposed to vaccination.

Bhattacharya was probed by the Senate HELP Committee earlier this month over various issues related to his potential role as NIH director. However, for much of the hearing, he was forced to defend the president’s decision to cut certain research funds at NIH, including a 15% cap on indirect research costs, also known as facilities and administrative costs, dispersed by the NIH.

Bhattacharya would not explicitly say he disagreed with the cuts, or that, if confirmed, he would step in to stop them. Rather, he said he would ‘follow the law,’ while also investigating the effect of the cuts and ensuring every NIH researcher doing work that advances the health outcomes of Americans has the resources necessary.

‘I think transparency regarding indirect costs is absolutely worthwhile. It’s something that universities can fix by working together to make sure that where that money goes is made clear,’ Bhattacharya said of the indirect costs going to universities, hospitals and research clinics from the NIH. 

In addition to addressing questions about the Trump cuts, Bhattacharya also laid out what he called a new, decentralized vision for future research at NIH that he said will be aimed at embracing dissenting ideas and transparency, while focusing on research topics that have the best chance at directly benefiting health outcomes of Americans. Bhattacharya added that he wants to rid the agency’s research portfolio of other ‘frivolous’ efforts that he says do little to directly benefit health outcomes.

‘I think fundamentally what matters is do scientists have an idea that advances the scientific field they’re in?’ Bhattacharya said last week during his confirmation testimony. ‘Do they have an idea that ends up addressing the health needs of Americans?’

Prior to his confirmation, Bhattacharya, alongside several other scientists, including Trump’s pick to head the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Marty Makary, launched a new research journal focused on spurring scientific discourse and combating ‘gatekeeping’ in the medical research community. The journal, the Journal of the Academy of Public Health (JAPH), aims to spur scientific discourse by publishing peer reviews of prominent studies from other journals that do not make their peer reviews publicly available.

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President Donald Trump’s choice to lead the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Johns Hopkins School of Medicine professor Dr. Marty Makary, was confirmed in the Senate on Tuesday.

His confirmation was cemented just hours after he cleared one last procedural test vote earlier in the evening. 

The Senate voted 56-44 to invoke cloture on the nomination prior to his final confirmation.

Makary, a former Fox News medical contributor, went before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) earlier this month and answered various questions on vaccines, chronic illness, food safety and abortion. 

During his hearing, the nominee faced scrutiny over an FDA vaccine meeting that was reportedly postponed at the last minute. 

‘So if you are confirmed, will you commit to immediately reschedule that FDA Vaccine Advisory Committee meeting to get the expert views?’ Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., asked Makary at the time. 

He responded that he ‘would reevaluate which topics deserve a convening of the advisory committee members on [Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee] and which may not require a convening.’ 

When this response wasn’t good enough for Murray, Makary flipped the question, telling her to confront the Biden administration. ‘Well, you can ask the Biden administration that chose not to convene the committee meeting for the COVID vaccine booster,’ he said. 

He was referring to the Biden administration in 2021 pushing through FDA approval for a COVID-19 booster for everyone over the age of 18. 

‘The FDA did not hold a meeting of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee on these actions,’ read a press release at the time, ‘as the agency previously convened the committee for extensive discussions regarding the use of booster doses of COVID-19 vaccines and, after review of both Pfizer’s and Moderna’s EUA requests, the FDA concluded that the requests do not raise questions that would benefit from additional discussion by committee members.’

Committee member Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, criticized the administration’s move, saying, ‘We’re being asked to approve this as a three-dose vaccine for people 16 years of age and older, without any clear evidence if the third dose for a younger person when compared to an elderly person is of value.’

Makary has long been a critic of the administration he will now lead. He wrote an opinion piece in 2021, calling for ‘fresh leadership at the FDA to change the culture at the agency and promote scientific advancement, not hinder it.’

‘We now have a generational opportunity in American healthcare,’ he said at his hearing. ‘President Trump and Secretary Kennedy’s focus on healthy foods has galvanized a grassroots movement in America. Childhood obesity is not a willpower problem, and the rise of early-onset Alzheimer’s is not a genetic cause. We should be, and we will, be addressing food as it impacts our health.’

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Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., has lingering questions about President Donald Trump’s Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) nominee, Dr. Mehmet Oz, and his past stances on transgender treatments for minors and abortion, and he says the nominee hasn’t answered his inquiries. 

The Missouri Republican told Fox News Digital in an interview that he remains concerned by Oz’s past of ‘promoting transgender surgeries for minors, promoting transgender hormone treatments and puberty blockers for minors.’

He submitted a number of questions to Oz on the subjects earlier in the month, but Hawley said Oz never answered. ‘He hasn’t. Which I think is strange,’ he said. 

‘I’m hoping that he’s changed his views,’ Hawley added. ‘I’d like to hear from him that he is in total alignment with President Trump, who has been tremendously strong on this.’

In a statement to Fox News Digital, White House spokesman Kush Desai said, ‘Every member of the Trump administration is working from the same playbook, President Trump’s playbook, to restore commonsense policies and put an end to left-wing ideological nonsense afflicting our government.’

‘We look forward to the Senate’s swift confirmation of Dr. Oz so he can join the rest of our all-star team at HHS working to Make America Healthy Again by restoring common sense, transparency, and confidence in our healthcare apparatus.’

As Hawley noted, Oz has used his television show to platform people who supported and promoted transgender treatments, particularly for minors. 

Oz hosted two transgender children on his show in 2010 in a segment titled, ‘Transgender Kids: Too Young to Decide?’ 

Josie, 8, and the child’s mother, Vanessia, claimed that Josie’s life improved once the male-born child began embracing a feminine lifestyle. Isaac, who was 15, and the minor’s parents, Arturo and Monica, revealed that they decided to let their female-born teenager begin taking puberty blockers and have the teenager’s breasts removed in a double mastectomy. 

The segment was touted as ‘groundbreaking’ by LGBTQ activist group GLAAD, which told supporters to thank Oz. 

The television doctor has also had a history of supporting abortion. 

In a 2019 interview on popular radio show ‘The Breakfast Club,’ Oz said he was concerned by state laws aimed at restricting or limiting abortion, saying it’s ‘a hard issue for everybody.’

And while on ‘a personal level,’ he didn’t like abortion, he also believed he should not ‘interfere with everyone else’s stuff.’ 

‘Because it’s hard enough to get into life as it is,’ he added. 

When Oz ran for Senate in Pennsylvania as a Republican in 2022, he still opposed government jurisdiction on the subject of abortion. 

‘I don’t want the federal government involved with that at all,’ he said during a debate with now-Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa. ‘I want women, doctors, local political leaders, letting the democracy that’s always allowed our nation to thrive, to put the best ideas forward, so states can decide for themselves.’

Asked whether he would vote to confirm Oz even without answers to his questions, Hawley wouldn’t say. ‘I just have to believe that he will respond here.’

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Investors have closely watched Nvidia’s week-long GPU Technology Conference (GTC) for news and updates from the dominant maker of chips that power artificial intelligence applications.

The event comes at a pivotal time for Nvidia shares. After two years of monster gains, the stock is down 15% over the past month and 22% below the January all-time high.

As part of the event, CEO Jensen Huang took questions from analysts on topics ranging from demand for its advanced Blackwell chips to the impact of Trump administration tariffs. Here’s a breakdown of how Huang responded — and what analysts homed in on — during some of the most important questions:

Huang said he “underrepresented” demand in a slide that showed 3.6 million in estimated Blackwell shipments to the top four cloud service providers this year. While Huang acknowledged speculation regarding shrinking demand, he said the amount of computation needed for AI has “exploded” and that the four biggest cloud service clients remain “fully invested.”

Morgan Stanley analyst Joseph Moore noted that Huang’s commentary on Blackwell demand in data centers was the first-ever such disclosure.

“It was clear that the reason the company made the decision to give that data was to refocus the narrative on the strength of the demand profile, as they continue to field questions related to Open AI related spending shifting from 1 of the 4 to another of the 4, or the pressure of ASICs, which come from these 4 customers,” Moore wrote to clients, referring to application-specific integrated circuits.

Piper Sandler analyst Harsh Kumar said the slide was “only scratching the surface” on demand. Beyond the four largest customers, he said others are also likely “all in line looking to get their hands on as much compute as their budgets allow.”

Another takeaway for Moore was the growth in physical AI, which refers to the use of the technology to power machines’ actions in the real world as opposed to within software.

At previous GTCs, Moore said physical AI “felt a little bit like speculative fiction.” But this year, “we are now hearing developers wrestling with tangible problems in the physical realm.”

Truist analyst William Stein, meanwhile, described physical AI as something that’s “starting to materialize.” The next wave for physical AI centers around robotics, he said, and presents a potential $50 trillion market for Nvidia.

Stein highliughted Jensen’s demonstration of Isaac GR00T N1, a customizable foundation model for humanoid robots.

Several analysts highlighted Huang’s explanation of what tariffs mean for Nvidia’s business.

“Management noted they have been preparing for such scenarios and are beginning to manufacture more onshore,” D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria said. “It was mentioned that Nvidia is already utilizing [Taiwan Semiconductor’s’] Arizona fab where it is manufacturing production silicon.”

Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon said Huang’s answer made it seem like Nvidia’s push to relocate some manufacturing to the U.S. would limit the effect of higher tariffs.

Rasgon also noted that Huang brushed off concerns of a recession hurting customer spending. Huang argued that companies would first cut spending in the areas of their business that aren’t growing, Rasgon said.

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DoorDash and Klarna are joining forces to let users pay for meal deliveries with installment loans, calling it “essential to meeting our customers’ needs.” Not everyone sees it that way.

The announcement has drawn a flurry of criticism on social media, less directed at the companies themselves than questioning what the need to use a “buy now, pay later” service for food orders says about the increasingly debt-ridden economy.

“Eat now, pay later? A credit apocalypse is coming,” an X user wrote Thursday when the partnership was announced.

Another X poster used a photo of a forlorn-looking Dave Ramsey, the personal finance pundit, with the caption, “what do you mean you have $11k in ‘doordash debt’.”

Others whipped up “Sopranos” memes, quipping about “DoorDash debt collection outside your door because you missed a Chipotle payment.”

The economic commentator Kyla Scanlon said in a social media video that the deal was another example of the “gambling economy.”

“We have memecoins, sports betting — we love a good vice in the United States, and we can do it completely frictionless,” she said. “We don’t even have to put on pants. Just app it to you and worry about everything else later.” She added that “there are real winners and losers” in business models that monetize not just convenience but “impulsivity.”

Klarna, which is preparing for an initial public offering, is among the BNPL providers that have surged into virtually all corners of the consumer economy since the pandemic, such as Afterpay, Affirm and Sezzle.

The lightly regulated financial services give users a variety of ways to pay for purchases; among the most popular are short-term loans that can typically be repaid in several interest-free installments. The companies make money by charging users for late or missed payments and merchants for the ability to offer BNPL loans at checkouts.

DoorDash said customers will be able to use Klarna for many types of purchases on its platform, not just small-dollar food deliveries. They can pay in full up front, in four installments or else later on, “such as a date that aligns with their paycheck schedules.”

A Klarna spokesperson acknowledged the online pushback but said any form of borrowing for food purchases is potentially concerning, depending on the circumstances.

“If people are in a situation where they feel like they have to put their food on credit, that’s a bad indicator for society,” the spokesperson said.

Still, many people make “a rational decision” to use BNPL services to help manage their money, the spokesperson said, adding that the new features would be available only for DoorDash purchases of at least $35 — a few dollars more than the platform’s average order as of last March. “Wherever high-cost credit cards are accepted, consumers should be able to choose a zero-interest credit product, instead.”

Indeed, industrywide data shows the short-term loans have become a routine feature of many consumers’ wallets, particularly among young adults coping with inflation and with average credit card interest rates still near 20%.

The BNPL explosion coincides with record debt levels and mounting consumer pessimism. Total household debt exceeded $18 trillion at the end of last year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, with credit card balances comprising a record $1.2 trillion of that sum. Consumer sentiment fell this month to its lowest level since 2022, and borrowers’ expectations for missing debt payments in the next three months hit their highest level since 2020, the New York Fed found.

A spokesperson for DoorDash didn’t comment on the criticism of its partnership with Klarna, saying their collaboration “provides even more flexibility, control and options.” The delivery service noted that its users can already pay with Venmo and CashApp, as well as government aid, including SNAP benefits. Klarna is already available on the grocery delivery platform Instacart, and it recently replaced rival Affirm as Walmart’s exclusive BNPL partner.

Much of the concern over BNPL has focused on the potential effects on borrowers’ credit histories, which largely still don’t reflect use of the services despite years of discussions with credit-reporting bureaus to change that. Yet a study released last month by Affirm and the credit-scoring firm FICO showed most consumers with five or more Affirm loans saw no real downside to their credit scores, some of which actually increased. And consumers consistently rate BNPL products favorably in surveys. Last year, 89% of borrowers told TransUnion they were either satisfied or very satisfied with the services.

But personal finance experts and consumer advocates say the qualms kicked up by the DoorDash-Klarna deal reflect real financial risks.

“Making four payments to cover three tacos on Tuesday sounds complicated because it is,” said Adam Rust, director of financial services at the Consumer Federation of America, an advocacy group. “I wouldn’t characterize this as a solution. It is a fintech innovation that creates problems.”

Not only might users face Klarna’s own late fees, he said, but “once customers consent to repay with automatic debits, they risk additional overdraft fees” from their banks.

Rust also highlighted recent work by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that remains in jeopardy or has been stopped altogether as the Trump administration defangs the agency.

The CFPB recently granted BNPL customers more ability to dispute charges and get refunds, but with staffers ordered to stop all enforcement activity last month, former employees and consumer advocates believe the rule has been rendered moot. A trade group representing fintech businesses, including some BNPL lenders but not Klarna, asked the Trump administration this month for an exemption from a law scheduled to take effect next week requiring certain lenders to verify borrowers’ ability to repay loans before they front them money.

Financial planners have long cautioned clients against budgetary strains from BNPL overuse. Even some borrowers themselves who’ve spent heavily with the services have begun warning others of their risks, saying they make it easy for cash-strapped users to rack up debts that are tough to pay off.

“Eat now, pay later is an awful trap,” Douglas Boneparth, president of Bone Fide Wealth, an advisory firm focused on millennials, wrote on X last week. “If you need to borrow to have a burrito delivered to you, you are the product. Nothing more.”

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Moya O’Sullivan looked in her cabinets, and saw a problem: her cream cheese, toothpaste, mouthwash, whiskey and soft drinks were all American. They had to go.

O’Sullivan, 29, teaches history and English to pupils in Kilkenny, southern Ireland. But by changing her shopping list, she’s hoping to school the 77 million Americans who voted to elect President Donald Trump to a second term.

“It’s very disappointing to me to see that half of America would choose (Trump),” she says.

Slipping into a voice more commonly heard in a classroom, she adds: “The Americans didn’t learn their lesson the first time. There unfortunately do need to be consequences.”

As the Trump administration’s trade war with the European Union intensifies, a ripple of reciprocal, economic nationalism is percolating across Europe; and O’Sullivan is part of a small but dedicated group hoping to hurt the United States with their wallets.

Trump has said that as of April 2, a slew of new tariffs will be announced on goods coming to the US from all over the globe as part of his package of reciprocal tariffs. The EU is primed to unleash countermeasures of its own, including higher tariffs on American whiskey, motorcycles, beer, poultry, beef, and produce such as soybeans, tomatoes and raspberries.

But protesting the Trump administration is a tougher sell in Europe than it was eight years ago. Europe’s leaders have taken great pains to build bridges with Trump, eager to avoid the brunt of his tariffs regime, or guide him towards acceptable outcomes in Ukraine and Gaza. And there’s fatigue in the air. “Many people are just a bit exhausted this time around,” O’Sullivan concedes.

Do boycotts work?

James Blackledge, a 33-year-old postman in Bristol, England, has made sacrifices too. Like O’Sullivan, he’s turned to a locally-made – if more expensive – alternative to Philadelphia. “I’m a bit of a mayo monster,” he admits, but he’s stopped buying Hellmann’s and started making his own: “I’ve got a little blender, it’s quite easy to make.”

“I used to get a coffee from McDonald’s every now and then, which I don’t do,” he adds. Sierra Nevada beers are down the drain too. And he’s not alone. “A lot of my friends, who I’ve mentioned this to, say they’ve been doing it already for a while,” he says. “They’d already stopped (buying US products) when Trump was elected.”

O’Sullivan and Blackledge aren’t screaming into a void; their anger is shared by many on message boards and forums, and both have exchanged ideas online about how to make their points.

And the hunger to fight back against American corporations is evident. Denmark’s largest retailer , the Salling Group, introduced black, star-shaped stickers to supermarket labels earlier this month that indicate whether a product was made in Europe. Trump’s threats to annex Greenland, which is an autonomous territory of Denmark, have particularly angered Danes.

“We have recently received a number of inquiries from customers who want to buy groceries from European brands,” Salling Group chief executive Anders Hagh wrote on LinkedIn. “Our stores will continue to have brands on the shelves from all over the world, and it will always be up to customers to choose.”

A Swedish Facebook group calling for people to boycott American goods has 81,000 members; a Danish equivalent has 90,000. Every hour, people ask whether their dog food, soda, cheese or chocolate is connected to the US and look for alternatives.

It is too early in Trump’s administration to tell whether these efforts will impact the exports of American-made staples to Europe. The early economic protests across Europe are ad-hoc and haven’t taken hold among a significant segment of the population, but the looming threat of new tariffs has hardened the resolve of some groups and organizations to buy EU-produced items over American versions .

Previous, more widespread economic boycotts in Europe, like recent campaigns to avoid companies with ties to Russia and Israel in the wake of their offensives in Ukraine and Gaza, have recruited willing disciples and claim success in prompting some companies to cut their ties with those countries, but deciphering their economic impact is difficult.

“International conflicts often provoke boycott calls targeted at a foreign adversary, but whether consumers actually participate has been an enduring puzzle,” researchers at the University of Virginia wrote in a 2016 study. Their work did indeed find that in the US, consumers “reduced their purchases of French-sounding supermarket brands” in the wake of a dispute between Washington and Paris over the war in Iraq.

Another study, which analyzed boycott movements in the US between 1990 and 2005, found that these efforts can impact companies’ reputation even if they don’t hurt their bottom line.

But whether or not it takes hold, O’Sullivan is undeterred when it comes to Trump. “We vote with our money … Even if it makes no difference, I just don’t want my money going to support his economy.”

Targeting Tesla

Trump remains broadly unpopular in Europe, and polling suggests his election win has hurt the continent’s sentiment towards America. But the huge demonstrations that greeted the president on his travels to the continent in his first term have been replaced by piecemeal protests more visible in kitchen cabinets than on city sidewalks.

In London, a gigantic demonstration gripped the city on the eve of the president’s visit in 2018; around 250,000 people showed up, according to organizers, while an orange-hued, 20-foot tall “Trump Baby” balloon, depicting the president clutching a mobile phone and sporting a giant diaper, sailed in the skies overhead.

“I don’t know whether the same numbers would come out of one event this time,” admits Gardner, of the Stop Trump Coalition, which organized that protest and has re-formed since Trump’s re-election to shepherd British opposition to the administration.

Instead, demonstrators are trying to get creative. Protests have been organized outside Tesla showrooms in the UK, to oppose owner Elon Musk’s involvement in the administration. But fewer than 20 people showed up to one event on Saturday in Leeds, northern England, according to photos published by organizers, illustrating the struggle to mobilize Brits so far in Trump’s second term.

Sales of Tesla have declined in Europe since Trump took charge – Tesla registered just 9,913 new units in January across the continent, down from 18,121 last January, according to automotive analysis firm JATO – though the group noted that the upcoming release of its updated Model Y would likely help sales rebound.

Trump is set to visit the UK on a second state visit soon; this time, the invitation from King Charles III was gleefully unfurled by Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, in the White House, and was met with tacit acceptance back home.

But outbursts in Washington are awakening anger in Europe. “That meeting (with Volodymyr Zelensky) in the Oval Office was a real flashpoint of disgust, and people felt like they needed to do something,” notes Gardner, who says Trump’s furious tirade against the Ukrainian president prompted a surge in emails and calls to the anti-Trump group.

The next day, the right-leaning Daily Mail tabloid led its front page on calls to “Stop the state visit for ‘bully’ Trump” – a surprising rallying cry for a paper that is more sympathetic to his brand of politics than most British outlets.

Gardner has supported economic boycotts on US goods, and says she no longer shops on Amazon, though she acknowledged that she organizes protests with fellow anti-Trump activists on WhatsApp, the messaging app owned by US tech giant Meta. “There are contradictions in this, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a worthwhile thing to do,” she says.

And there is one more tool always available to Trump’s critics on the continent: provocation. “Give us back the Statue of Liberty,” Raphael Glucksmann, a French member of the European Parliament who represents the small left-wing party Place Publique, said during a rally at the weekend. “It was our gift to you. But apparently you despise her.”

“No one, of course, will come and steal the Statue of Liberty. The statue is yours. But what it embodies belongs to everyone,” he said later on X. “And if the free world no longer interests your government, then we will take up the torch, here in Europe.”

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