A conservative Republican said he’s opposed to his moderate colleague’s proposal for a modest tax hike on high-income earners, as GOP lawmakers continue to navigate divisions over President Donald Trump’s ‘one big, beautiful bill.’

‘Well, think about that — higher taxes to pay for something that is pretty much self-inflicted by all the states that don’t have their financials in order,’ Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, told Fox News Digital on Sunday.

It comes as various House Republican factions are locked in high-stakes debates on taxes, Medicaid, and green energy subsidies while crafting Trump’s wide-ranging bill.

Rep. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y., suggested over the weekend that increasing the top tax bracket to a 39.6% income tax rate rather than 37% could help pay for higher deduction caps for state and local taxes (SALT).

The 39.6% rate refers to the top income tax bracket before it was lowered by Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA).

SALT deduction caps primarily benefit people living in high-cost-of-living areas like New York City, Los Angeles, and their surrounding suburbs.

Republicans representing those areas, including LaLota, have argued that raising the SALT deduction cap is an existential issue — and that a failure to address it could cost the GOP the House majority in the 2026 midterms.

Several of the Republicans vying for higher SALT deduction caps have pointed out that their victories are critical to the party retaining control of the House in 2024.

SALT deduction caps did not exist before TCJA, which notably instilled a $10,000 ceiling for married and single tax filers.

‘The One Big Beautiful Bill has stalled—and it needs wind in its sails. Allowing the top tax rate to expire—returning from 37% to 39.6% for individuals earning over $609,350 and married couples earning over $731,200—breathes $300 billion of new life into the effort,’ LaLota wrote on X.

‘It’s a fiscally responsible move that reflects the priorities of the new Republican Party: protect working families, address the deficit, fix the unfair SALT cap, and safeguard programs like Medicaid and SNAP—without raising taxes on the middle class.’

But Republicans in lower-tax states are largely wary of significant increases to those caps, believing them to incentivize blue states’ high-tax policies.

‘People with money invest, and to tax them more — history has been, when you tax the other upper 1% more, you know, the economy does worse,’ Norman argued. ‘More taxes don’t make sense to me.’

The current legislation would increase the SALT deduction cap from $10,000 to $30,000, but a majority of Republicans in the House SALT Caucus rejected the deal.

LaLota and others have contended it’s not enough for middle-class families in their districts.

‘My party’s $30K cap proposal only makes 4 in 5 households whole. That’s not enough. On [Long Island], $250K isn’t rich—it barely covers the basics. Too many families pay over $15K in property taxes & get left out. I’m fighting for a higher cap. Wish me luck,’ he said on X.

But while tax hike proposals targeting wealthy Americans were part of Republicans’ negotiations at an earlier point, any such effort appears to have been all but definitively stamped out. 

House GOP leadership aides signaled to reporters on Monday morning that such a tax hike would not be in the final bill, pointing to Speaker Mike Johnson’s comments on the matter.

Johnson, R-La., said on The Will Cain Show late last month that he was ‘not in favor of raising the tax rates, because our party is the group that stands against that, traditionally.’

But nevertheless, the differing viewpoints underscore the divisions that Republicans still have to navigate ahead of their planned House-wide vote on Trump’s bill later this week.

Republicans are using the budget reconciliation process to advance Trump’s priorities on taxes, immigration, energy, defense and the national debt via one massive bill.

Budget reconciliation lowers the Senate’s threshold for passage from 60 votes to 51, thereby allowing the party in power to skirt the minority — in this case, Democrats — to pass sweeping pieces of legislation, provided they deal with the federal budget, taxation or the national debt.

Republican leaders want to have a final bill on the president’s desk by Fourth of July.

Fox News Digital reached out to LaLota’s office for comment on Norman’s remarks but did not immediately hear back.

President Donald Trump is considering Justice Department official Emil Bove, his former defense attorney, for a U.S. appeals court vacancy — a controversial nomination that would come as he continues to attack so-called ‘activist’ judges for blocking his agenda.

Bove, 44, is among those Trump is considering for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which covers Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.

There are currently two vacancies on the court — increasing the odds that Bove’s name could be floated by Trump. If confirmed, he would serve a lifetime appointment on the federal bench.

Bove’s name is not the only one being considered, familiar sources say, and conversations are believed to be in the early stages.

Prior to his installation at the Justice Department, Bove spent nearly 10 years as a U.S. prosecutor for the Southern District of New York.

He also defended Trump in two of his criminal trials following his first term in the White House.

In each of these roles and at DOJ, Bove’s hard-charging tactics have solidified his reputation as a fierce, loyal and, at times, aggressive leader. 

At the Justice Department, Bove has emerged as the man behind some of the administration’s most contentious actions — prompting some officials to resign rather than carry out his marching orders.

Shortly after taking office, he sent a memo threatening state and city officials with criminal charges or civil penalties if they failed to comply with the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration or slow-walked their orders on enforcement. 

‘Federal law prohibits state and local actors from resisting, obstructing and otherwise failing to comply with lawful immigration-related commands,’ Bove said in the memo.

It was Bove who ordered federal prosecutors for the Southern District of New York to file a motion to dismiss charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. 

That order prompted a string of resignations from personnel, including acting U.S attorney for the section Danielle Sassoon to leave DOJ rather than drop the case.

Bove, along with Edward Sullivan from the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, eventually signed on to the motion themselves. 

Fox News also reported earlier this year that Bove was behind an exhaustive questionnaire sent to FBI agents detailing their roles in the Jan. 6 investigations. 

Questions ranged from agents’ participation in any grand jury subpoenas to whether the agents worked or responded to leads from another FBI field office or if they worked as a case agent for investigations.

Former Justice Department officials have cited concerns that the probe or any retaliatory measures carried out as a result could have a chilling effect on the work of the FBI, including its more than 52 separate field offices.

The group cited in particular the order from acting then-Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove to terminate the entire FBI senior leadership team and the assistant director in charge of the Washington Field Office. 

Bove would face a highly uncertain path to confirmation if nominated. The news comes at a time when Democrats have sharply excoriated what they argue are Trump’s attempts to install loyalists to head up the DOJ and FBI. 

The White House and Justice Department did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Michael A. Ledeen, a major American historian and intellectual, died after suffering a series of small strokes on Sunday at his residence in Maryland. He was 83 years old. Ledeen was a vigorous participant in contributing to the demise of the communist Soviet Union and its Iron Curtain allies in Eastern Europe.

Ledeen served as a special advisor on terrorism to President Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state, Alexander Haig, and later worked as a consultant for the National Security Council. Writing for the Asia Times, author and journalist David P. Goldman argued that Ledeen’s ‘personal contribution to America’s victory in the Cold War is far greater than the public record shows.’ 

Goldman noted that the Reagan administration, in 1983, sent Ledeen, a scholar of Italian history and fascism, to meet Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi to convince the Italian leader to allow the U.S. to deploy Pershing missiles to counter rising Soviet jingoism. Goldman added, ‘The incident reflects the high trust that Ledeen commanded in the Reagan administration and the strategic role that he played.’ 

After Italy accepted the Pershings, the then-Social Democratic German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who was reluctant for his nation to be first to house Pershing missiles, agreed to Reagan’s demand. 

Leeden was a fan of former anti-communist American philosopher Sidney Hook, who declared during the Cold War that ‘Freedom is a fighting word.’

Ledeen would take his hard-charging world view against a new set of U.S. enemies after the ground zero of communism was defeated: radical Islamism in Iran, North Korea’s totalitarian regime, and Arab and Latin American despots bent on the eradication of the U.S.

In 2003, while working as the resident scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute, Ledeen wrote about former President George W. Bush’s Axis of Evil (Iran, North Korea and Iraq), ‘Most commentators ridiculed the very idea of the Axis of Evil, just as they laughed at Reagan’s description of the Soviet Union as an Evil Empire. The deep thinkers laughed at Reagan, and then somberly warned that such language was not only misguided but provocative, as if the Kremlin would be more aggressive as a result of the president’s speech.’

Ledeen stressed the importance of American leadership breeding inspiration among dissidents trapped in totalitarian systems: ‘The greatest of the Soviet freedom fighters, from [Vladimir] Bukovsky to [Natan] Sharansky, have since written about the surge of hope they felt when they saw that the American president understood why they were fighting.’ 

He would bring his same intellectual freedom toolkit to his principal worry in this century: the Islamic Republic of Iran. Ledeen garnered enormous respect and praise from Iranian dissidents seeking to dissolve the theocratic regime in Tehran, the world’s worst state-sponsor of terrorism, according to the U.S. State Department.

His wife, Barbara, told Fox News Digital about her late husband, ‘My only regret is that he didn’t outlive the regime.’

Leeden did not advocate military intervention in Iran. He was in the business of replicating Reagan’s anti-Soviet playbook for Iran’s clerical regime. 

He told Fox News Brit Hume in 2005 that ‘the Western world, and in particular the United States’ needs to support political prisoners in Iran and demonstrations against the regime. 

He told Hume, ‘We should be giving money to the various … Farsi-language broadcasters, some here, some in England, some in Sweden and so forth, some in Germany, to go on the air and share with the Iranian people the now-demonstrated techniques for a successful, nonviolent revolution.’

He coined the phrase ‘Faster, please!’ for his widely read blog at PJ Media to denote the great urgency to dismantle America’s enemies and stop Islamist-animated terrorism.

Ledeen was born in Los Angeles in 1941 and authored numerous books on national security, including ‘Perilous Statecraft: An Insider’s Account of the Iran-Contra Affair.’ He earned a Ph.D. in history and philosophy from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His academic advisor at Wisconsin was the prominent historian George Mosse, who fled Nazi Germany because of antisemitism. 

Ledeen cultivated a new generation of academics, journalists, think tank scholars and authors at his Chevy Chase home. His residence became a kind of informal salon for intellectuals and foreign policy types who had freshly arrived in Washington, D.C.

He was also a top-level bridge player and won a national championship, the Truscott/U.S.P.C. Senior Teams. He is survived by his wife, a daughter, Simone, who served as a deputy assistant secretary of defense during the first Trump administration, and his two sons, former Marine Corps officers Gabriel and Daniel.

President Donald Trump said the cooperation he witnessed to get the Take It Down Act into law was one of the greatest moments of bipartisanship he has seen. 

The president signed the bill, which punishes internet abuse involving nonconsensual, explicit imagery, during an outdoors ceremony in the White House Rose Garden Monday afternoon, joined by first lady Melania Trump, who has been championing the issue since her husband’s inauguration.

‘This legislation is a powerful step forward in our efforts to ensure that every American, especially young people, can feel better protected from their image or identity being abused through non-consensual, or intimate imagery of NCII,’ the first lady said from the rose garden Monday afternoon. ‘Artificial intelligence and social media at a digital candy for the next generation,’ she added. ‘Sweet, addictive and engineered to have an impact on the cognitive development of our children. But unlike sugar, these new technologies can be weaponized to shape beliefs, and sadly affect emotions and even be deadly.’

Trump reiterated the importance of the new legislation during the signing ceremony Monday afternoon from the White House. He also touted ‘a level of bipartisanship’ he’s never seen before to get the legislation across the finish line, citing the work of the first lady as a big catalyst. 

‘We’ve shown that bipartisanship is possible,’ Trump said shortly before he signed the new act. ‘I mean, it’s the first time I’ve seen such a level of bipartisanship, but it’s a beautiful thing to do. I’m not even sure you realize, honey, you know, a lot of the Democrats and Republicans don’t get along so well. You’ve made them get along, and she didn’t even know about that. She didn’t know we had a problem. She didn’t know we had a problem. She got it.  

The Take It Down Act is a bill introduced in the Senate by Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., that would make it a federal crime to publish, or threaten to publish, nonconsensual intimate imagery, including ‘digital forgeries’ crafted by artificial intelligence. The bill unanimously passed the Senate in February, and passed in the House of Representatives in April with a vote of 409–2. 

The law would require penalties of up to three years in prison for sharing nonconsensual intimate images — authentic or AI-generated — involving minors and two years in prison for those images involving adults. It also would require penalties of up to two and a half years in prison for threat offenses involving minors, and one and a half years in prison for threats involving adults. 

The bill requires social media companies, like Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram and similar platforms, to put procedures in place to remove such content within 48 hours of notice from the victim. 

AI-generated images known as ‘deepfakes’ often involve editing videos or photos of people to make them look like someone else by using artificial intelligence. Deepfakes hit the public’s radar in 2017 after a Reddit user posted realistic-looking pornography of celebrities to the platform, opening the floodgates to users employing AI to make images look more convincing and widely shared in the following years. 

Right now, nearly every U.S. state has a law protecting people from nonconsensual intimate image violations, but the laws vary in classification of crime and penalty. 

In March, the first lady spoke on Capitol Hill for the first time since returning to the White House to participate in a roundtable with lawmakers and victims of revenge porn and AI-generated deepfakes. 

The first lady invited 15-year-old Elliston Berry, whose high school peers used AI to create nonconsensual imagery of her and spread them across social media. 

‘It’s heartbreaking to witness young teens, especially girls, grappling with the overwhelming challenges posed by malicious online content, like deepfakes,’ Trump said. ‘This toxic environment can be severely damaging. We must prioritize their well-being by equipping them with the support and tools necessary to navigate this hostile digital landscape. Every young person deserves a safe online space to express themselves freely, without the looming threat of exploitation or harm.’ 

Berry, a Texas native, told the roundtable she was just 14 years old when she realized in 2023 that ‘a past Instagram photo with a nude body and my face attached made from AI,’ was circulating on social media. 

‘Fear, shock and disgust were just some of the many emotions I felt,’ Berry said. ‘I felt responsible and began to blame myself and was ashamed to tell my parents. Despite doing nothing wrong. As I attended school, I was scared of the reactions of someone or someone could recreate these photos.’  

‘We need to hold big tech accountable to take action,’ the young woman continued. ‘I came here today to not only promote this bill, but to fight for the freedom of so many survivors, millions of people, male, female, teenage children, kids all are affected by the rise of this image-based sexual abuse. This is unacceptable. The Take It Down act will give a voice to the victims and provide justice.’ 

Another young girl, Francesca Mani of New Jersey, recounted that she also was just 14 when she and other peers found deepfake images on themselves online. 

‘Teenagers might not know all the laws, but they do know when something is wrong,’ Mani said. ‘Schools need to take immediate, serious action to ensure that AI exploitation, harassment and deepfake abuse are met with real consequences.’ 

The first lady invited the young women as her special guests for Trump’s first address to a joint session of Congress in March.  

Sharing nonconsensual and AI-generated explicit images on social media and the internet has not just affected young girls, as young boys and adults also face similar crimes. A woman named Breeze Liu told the roundtable that she worked tirelessly to remove AI-generated images of herself that landed on a pornography site in 2020 when she was 24 years old. 

And Republican South Carolina state Rep. Brandon Guffey also joined the group of lawmakers and the first lady in March, recounting how his 17-year-old son committed suicide in 2022 after he was caught up in a sextortion scam. 

‘I lost my oldest son, Gavin Guffey, to suicide,’ he shared. ‘We quickly found out that he was being extorted online. That someone pretending to be a young female at another college requested images to be shared back and forth. And as soon as he shared those images, he took his life. It was an hour and 40 minutes from the time that he was contacted until the time that he took his life.’ 

Meanwhile, during the first Trump administration, Melania Trump hosted virtual roundtables on foster care as part of her ‘Be Best’ initiative and focused on strengthening the child welfare system. The ‘Be Best’ initiative also focused on online safety. 

‘As first lady, my commitment to the ‘Be Best’ initiative underscores the importance of online safety,’ she said. ‘In an era where digital interactions are integral to daily life, it is imperative that we safeguard children from mean-spirited and hurtful online behavior.’ 

The first lady, in March, said the bill ‘represents a powerful step toward justice, healing and unity.’

President Donald Trump spoke candidly about former President Joe Biden’s recent prostate cancer diagnosis on Monday, expressing sympathy while also suggesting that the situation should be investigated.

Biden’s team announced the diagnosis on Sunday afternoon, saying that the former statesman ‘was seen for a new finding of a prostate nodule after experiencing increasing urinary symptoms.’

‘On Friday, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone,’ the statement added.

‘While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management,’ Biden’s team concluded. ‘The President and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians.’

Speaking to reporters on Monday afternoon, Trump called the news ‘very sad, actually.’ 

‘I’m surprised that…you know, the public wasn’t notified a long time ago because to get to stage nine [sic], that’s a long time,’ Trump said. ‘I just had my physical… We had the doctors at the White House and over at Walter Reed, which is a fantastic hospital. I did a very complete physical, including cognitive tests.’

Trump also referenced Biden’s cognitive decline during his presidency, stating that ‘anybody running for president should take a cognitive test.’

‘They say it’s unconstitutional. But I would say in that particular case, having a cognitive test wouldn’t be so bad,’ the Republican said.

Trump also posited that the general public ‘wasn’t informed’ about Biden’s medical situation, and suggested that the situation should be investigated.

‘I think somebody is going to have to speak to his doctor if it’s the same, or even if it’s two separate doctors,’ Trump said. ‘Why wasn’t the cognitive ability, why wasn’t that discussed? And I think the doctor said he’s just fine. And it’s turned out that’s not so. It’s very dangerous.’

The president concluded by saying that the cancer diagnosis is ‘a very, very sad situation and I feel very badly about it.’

‘I think people should try and find out what happened, because I’ll tell you….I don’t know if it had anything to do with the hospital,’ Trump added. ‘Walter Reed is really good. There’s some of the best doctors I’ve ever seen.’

‘Somebody is not telling the facts,’ he concluded. ‘It’s a big problem.’

News of Biden’s aggressive cancer diagnosis shocked the country over the weekend. After receiving bipartisan messages of sympathy, the 82-year-old thanked his supporters on social media on Monday.

‘Cancer touches us all,’ Biden wrote on X. ‘Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places. Thank you for lifting us up with love and support.’