A U.S. appeals court on Monday rejected the Trump administration’s request to pause a lower court ruling that temporarily blocked its ban on transgender military service members – a near-term blow as the administration signals it may take the case to the Supreme Court.

The three-judge panel on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied the administration’s request for an administrative stay, which would have allowed it to enforce the ban while a lower court weighs the case.

Instead, the appellate court decision leaves in place, for now, a preliminary injunction handed down late last month by U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle. That decision blocked the Trump administration from identifying and removing transgender service members for the near-term while the case proceeds in lower court.

‘The Department of Justice has vigorously defended President Trump’s executive actions, including the Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness Executive Order, and will continue to do so,’ a spokesperson for the Justice Department told Fox News Digital. 

The Trump administration filed its appeal to the 9th Circuit last week, seeking to overturn Judge Settle’s preliminary injunction. 

In court filings, the government argued that the transgender military policy ‘furthers the government’s important interests in military readiness, unit cohesion, good order and discipline, and avoiding disproportionate costs.’

However, the policy has already faced a wave of early legal challenges.

Settle, who is based in Tacoma, Washington, is not the only federal judge to block the Trump administration’s transgender military ban this year. Last month, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes also temporarily blocked Trump’s ban, citing what she described as a lack of evidence to support the administration’s stated rationale for the policy.

Reyes vehemently contested the government’s assertion that being transgender is ‘not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.’ 

Reyes noted in a scathing, 79-page ruling that transgender service members have provided a combined total of ‘over 130 years of military service,’ have been deployed around the globe, including currently in an active combat zone, and together have earned more than 80 commendations and medals for their service. 

The three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit broke with Reyes’s order, however – agreeing to grant the Trump administration an administrative stay.

Still, the judges stressed that the stay ‘should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits’ of the case. The panel also said they reserve the right to reconsider the administrative stay if the military is found to have taken adverse action against passenger service members. 

President Donald Trump ordered the ban in question shortly after taking office in a January executive order. The order states that the ‘adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life’ – which plaintiffs have vigorously contested. 

The case is one of many that will likely be kicked up to the Supreme Court.

Lt. Gen. Daniel ‘Razin’ Caine, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the U.S. top military officer, side-stepped questions from Senate Democrats about his view on the recent Signal leak controversy roiling the Trump administration, but he did say the ‘element of surprise’ should be safeguarded as a result of the incident. 

Democrats, including Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, repeatedly asked Caine about how he would respond to hypothetical scenarios regarding the leak, during a Thursday confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Caine, careful with his responses, repeatedly stressed the importance of ‘preserv[ing] the element of surprise,’ adding that he has ‘always’ communicated sensitive information using the proper channels. 

Blumenthal charged that the ‘element of surprise was very likely lost’ as a result of the leak. 

While the Trump administration and its supporters have denied that anything discussed in the Signal chat amounted to war plans, critics have disagreed, citing the fact the chats included a detailed timeline about a U.S. attack on Houthi rebels in Yemen.

‘Because of your extraordinary service, general, I can’t imagine anyone better qualified to answer this question,’ Blumenthal said to Caine. ‘Knowing what you do, about the substance of that conversation, how would you feel?’

‘Well, Senator, I stand by what I said before. I think we all can agree that we need to always protect the element of surprise,’ Caine said.

‘And that element of surprise was very likely lost, if there had been any intercept by one of our enemies or adversaries that could be conveyed to the Houthis. Correct?’ Blumenthal asked. 

‘That’s a little bit of a hypothetical question, but, I am thankful, as always, that we we protect our servicemen and women who are going into combat operation,’ Caine replied.

Hirono questioned Caine with a similar hypothetical but went a step further and asked if he would ‘just let this matter drop,’ as she claimed the Trump administration is doing.

‘It’s really not a hypothetical. It is what is confronting this administration,’ Hirono said.

‘Given the fact that the chairman and ranking member have asked for an investigation, I don’t want to comment on the particulars,’ Caine relented as Hirono hounded for an answer. ‘I do want to stay at the strategic altitude and say that we should always preserve the element of surprise.’

Reed proceeded to ask Ciane if he ‘were on that conversation’ would he have ‘objected to the fact that it was being conducted on Signal?’

‘Well, Senator, you know, I was not in that chat,’ Caine responded.

‘I know that that’s why I asked if you were,’ Reed said.

Caine asserted that he has ‘always communicated proper information in the proper channels.’

Caine was tapped by Trump to replace Biden-appointed Gen. Charles Q. ‘C.Q.’ Brown Jr. after he was fired in February.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) is a group of senior military officials who advise the president, the Secretary of Defense and the National Security Council on military matters. The JCS consists of the highest-ranking officers from the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and National Guard, with the chairman serving as the highest principal military advisor.

The chairman is typically required to have served as a four-star general in charge of a military service branch or as a combatant commander, qualifications Caine does not possess. However, the president has the authority to waive these requirements if deemed necessary for national interests. 

Caine’s extensive Air Force military background includes serving as a decorated F-16 combat pilot and playing critical roles in special intelligence operations. Given the slim Republican majority, his full Senate confirmation would require near-unanimous support from Republican senators.

Mass layoffs reportedly began Tuesday in Health and Human Services agencies as part of the department’s ‘restructuring’ to align with President Donald Trump’s executive order, ‘Implementing the President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ Workforce Optimization Initiative,’ as agencies undergo merges and significant downsizing.

The restructuring is expected to bring down 82,000 federal health employees to 62,000.

The department has been preparing to make major cuts in recent weeks across its health agencies, especially pertaining to administrative costs and DEI-related spending.

According to the HHS, the layoffs ‘will save taxpayers $1.8 billion per year’ and ‘streamline’ functions of the department while ensuring that essential services like Medicare and Medicaid continue without disruption. The announcement of the layoffs came last week.

The HHS oversees several major agencies that will likely see some sort of restructuring: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Administration for Community Living (ACL), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR).

‘We aren’t just reducing bureaucratic sprawl. We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic,’ HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said in a statement. ‘This Department will do more – a lot more – at a lower cost to the taxpayer.’

The new plan will reduce the number of HHS divisions from 28 to 15. One of the key changes includes the creation of the Administration for a Healthy America (AHA), which will combine several agencies, including the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to ‘break down artificial divisions between similar programs.’ In addition, HHS is reorganizing its regional offices, cutting them down from 10 to 5.

Other changes, according to the HHS, include the creation of a new assistant secretary for enforcement to tackle fraud and abuse in federal health programs.

Another major focus of the restructuring is addressing America’s growing ‘epidemic of chronic illness.’ The plan focuses on clean food, water, and air, while working to eliminate environmental toxins that contribute to health problems. The CDC will also gain additional authority by absorbing the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR), which handles national disaster and public health emergencies.

‘Over time, bureaucracies like HHS become wasteful and inefficient even when most of their staff are dedicated and competent civil servants,’ Kennedy said. ‘This overhaul will be a win-win for taxpayers and for those that HHS serves. That’s the entire American public, because our goal is to Make America Healthy Again.’

The Associated Press reported Tuesday morning there were hundreds of federal health employees wrapped around the HHS building in two lines to find out whether they still had a job. 

Former FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf wrote in a LinkedIn Post Tuesday morning that the ‘FDA as we’ve known it is finished,’ adding that ‘most of the leaders with institutional knowledge and a deep understanding of product development and safety no longer employed.’

‘I believe that history will see this a huge mistake. I will be fad if I’m proven wrong, but even then there is no good reason to treat people this way. It will be interesting to hear from the new leadership how they plan to put ‘Humpty Dumpty’ back together again,’ Califf wrote.

Democrats and Republicans repeatedly clashed on Tuesday during a lengthy hearing on what the GOP calls ‘activist judges’ blocking President Donald Trump’s agenda.

The House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittees on the Constitution and on courts held the joint hearing in preparation for a House-wide vote on legislation that would limit district judges’ ability to issue nationwide injunctions. That bill is currently stalled, however, after an unrelated fight on proxy voting paralyzed the House floor.

During the hearing, Democrats repeatedly tried to press Republicans on the issue of judicial impeachments — something pushed by conservatives but that House GOP leaders have shown little appetite for pursuing.

‘Some guy I’ve never heard of, he, might be in Congress, introduced an impeachment resolution, and he’s not here,’ Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., said of an impeachment resolution targeting U.S. district Judge James Boasberg by Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas.

‘He hasn’t been here for at least the last hour, and every witness here is in agreement that we really shouldn’t be impeaching judges. I haven’t heard a single colleague on the other side say we should be impeaching judges.’

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who was co-chairing the hearing alongside Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, asked Swalwell to yield his time — but the California Democrat refused.

‘I don’t think they have anything to talk about with the bills, since they offered a similar bill, and even the solicitor general, as late as October of last year in the Biden administration, wanted exactly what we’re moving out of committee today,’ Issa told Fox News Digital about Democrats’ ploy.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., compared conservatives’ push to impeach judges to House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry efforts into former President Joe Biden — which ultimately did not end in any such proceedings.

‘I guess we’re taking a page out of [House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer’s] playbook, we’re just doing fake impeachments,’ Moskowitz told Fox News Digital.

But Roy, who co-led the hearing with Issa, told Fox News Digital it was about ‘trying to make clear that you’ve got a handful of judges acting, clearly politically, to stop the administration from acting.’

‘It’s pretty clear that my Democratic colleagues prefer to defend the right of an MS-13 gang member, clearly here illegally, from being deported,’ Roy said.

But Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Wis., another member of the committee, said at least one goal was to ‘raise the profile of the issue.’

‘Maybe the more headlines a hearing like this gets, it clearly sets it on the plate of Chief Justice Roberts, right, to take action and try to get control of the courts again,’ he said.

It’s not immediately clear when Issa’s bill will get a vote, after House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., announced House floor activity was canceled for the rest of this week.

The White House is warning President Trump may veto a Democrat-led resolution that would undo his tariffs against Canada if it passes the Senate on Tuesday.

In a statement of administrative policy obtained exclusively by Fox News Digital, the Trump White House said that if the resolution came to his desk, ‘his advisors would recommend that he veto it.’

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., led several other Democrats in introducing the privileged resolution, which would specifically roll back the tariffs that the Trump administration levied on Canada. 

The resolution would reverse the national emergency that Trump declared on Feb. 1 at the northern border. 

A White House official told Fox News Digital in an exclusive statement, ‘President Trump promised to secure our borders and stop the scourge of fentanyl that’s poisoning our communities, and he’s delivering. Democrat Senator Tim Kaine is trying to undermine the President’s Emergency Declaration at our Northern Borders—a measure that prioritizes our national security—for reasons that defy logic.’

‘Under Joe Biden’s failed leadership, criminal networks, fentanyl, and terrorists ran rampant along the northern border. Today’s stunt by Tim Kaine proves once again how woefully out of touch the Democrat Party is with the American people as they use a matter of national security for political gamesmanship. The stakes are too high to reverse course; the declaration must stay in place.’

Kaine responded with his own statement, telling Fox News Digital, ‘The Trump Administration’s own threat assessment report on fentanyl did not mention Canada—not even once. Trump’s order is a blatant abuse of his authority, and it is critical that Congress push back before he inflicts even more damage to our economy and to the relationship with one of our top trading partners and closest allies.’

In a recent op-ed in the Washington Post, Kaine wrote, ‘The emergency powers Trump is invoking — based on provisions of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act — are intended for use in legitimate emergencies related to foreign threats and adversaries.’

The senator claimed that ‘Trump’s rationale for an ‘emergency’ that justifies billions in taxes on American consumers doesn’t make sense in Canada’s case.’

He also accused the president of making ‘spurious claims of a fentanyl crisis at the northern border on par with the drug situation at the southern border, but his numbers don’t add up.’

According to the White House, since the emergency was declared, border crossings from the north have fallen by 65%. 

The White House also pointed to the significant increase in encounters along the northern border under former President Joe Biden, who saw a more than 420% increase in encounters at their peak. 

In 2024, the White House further claimed U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized enough fentanyl to kill nearly 10 million people. 

Trump took to Truth Social himself on Monday to rail against Kaine’s resolution: ‘Senator Tim Kaine, who ran against me with Crooked Hillary in 2016, is trying to halt our critical Tariffs on deadly Fentanyl coming in from Canada. We are making progress to end this terrible Fentanyl Crisis, but Republicans in the Senate MUST vote to keep the National Emergency in place, so we can finish the job, and end the scourge.’

‘By their weakness, the Democrats have allowed Fentanyl to get out of hand. The Republicans and I have reversed that course, strongly and quickly. Major additional progress is being made. Don’t let the Democrats have a Victory. It would be devastating for the Republican Party and, far more importantly, for the United States. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!’ he continued. 

Republican leadership is echoing Trump’s message in the Senate, with Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., set to make similar arguments in a floor speech on Wednesday. 

In prepared remarks obtained by Fox News Digital exclusively, Barrasso will say, ‘For four years, America’s attention has been on the southern border. Meanwhile, the criminal cartels noticed how Joe Biden and the Democrats threw open the northern border.’

He will note that Trump recognized its unique threats and ‘is taking bold, swift action to secure it.’

‘Why would we let up?’ Barrasso will ask, also pointing to the facts that ‘Canada is making changes. Canada agreed to deploy to the border more technology and more law enforcement officers. Canada also created its first ever National Fentanyl Czar.’

The resolution is expected to get a vote on Tuesday. However, it could be moved depending on the length of Sen. Cory Booker’s record-breaking floor speech, which is still ongoing. 

It will only require a simple 51-vote majority to be agreed to. This means there’s a significant chance that it advances, with some Republicans, such as Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., having expressed concerns about the tariffs.  

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., spoke out against President Donald Trump and Elon Musk on the Senate floor throughout the night after beginning his marathon speech at 7 p.m. Monday.

The senator was still speaking on the floor as of Tuesday afternoon, more than 18 hours after he had begun.

Over 24 hours later, at 7:20 p.m. on Tuesday, Booker had broken the record for the longest Senate floor speech.

Booker yielded to Sen. Chuck Schumer so he could ask the New Jersey Senator a question.

‘Do you know you have just broken the record?’ Schumer asked. ‘Do you know how proud this caucus is of you? Do you know how proud America is of you?’

Everyone in the chamber, besides the press, gave Booker a standing ovation, including those in the gallery and senate pages.

Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., was seen wiping a tear from her face, while Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., was also seen standing and applauding.

Booker received some support from other Senate Democrats, whom he allowed to speak at times during his hourslong show of opposition against the Trump administration.

Booker said toward the beginning of his speech that Trump, in 71 days, ‘has inflicted so much harm on Americans’ safety, financial stability, the core foundations of our democracy, and even our aspirations as a people for, from our highest offices, a sense of common decency.’

The senator claimed that the Trump administration and congressional Republicans are targeting Medicaid and Medicare programs to fund tax cuts for billionaires and corporations.

He spent some of his time reading messages from people who wrote about various topics, including concerns about Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

Trump has previously indicated that he will not ‘touch’ Americans’ Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits, but wants to weed out fraud.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who said he planned to join Booker ‘for the entirety of his speech,’ noted that he was ‘returning the favor’ as Booker joined him when he ‘launched a filibuster to demand action on gun violence nine years ago.’

Murphy was among the Democrats who provided Booker with some relief by speaking at times to punctuate the marathon session.

In the social media video, Murphy described his colleague’s effort as ‘extraordinary.’

Booker said in a video before he began his demonstration that he plans to continue speaking as long as he is ‘physically able.’

The National Security Council (NSC) has clarified reporting about National Security Advisor Michael Waltz and his staffers using personal Gmail accounts for government communications.

A report published by the Washington Post on Tuesday claimed that one of Waltz’s senior aides used Gmail ‘for highly technical conversations with colleagues at other government agencies involving sensitive military positions and powerful weapons systems relating to an ongoing conflict,’ according to the piece.

‘While the NSC official used his Gmail account, his interagency colleagues used government-issued accounts, headers from the email correspondence show,’ the Post reported.

The piece comes a week after Waltz took responsibility for one of his staffers accidentally adding The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to a sensitive Signal chat with other officials, including Vice President JD Vance.

NSC spokesperson Brian Hughes told Fox News on Tuesday that the Post report was an attempt ‘to distract the American people from President Trump’s successful national security agenda that’s protecting our nation.’

‘Let me reiterate, NSA Waltz received emails and calendar invites from legacy contacts on his personal email and cc’d government accounts for anything since January 20th to ensure compliance with records retention, and he has never sent classified material over his personal email account or any unsecured platform,’ Hughes said.

Hughes said that he could not verify the Post’s report about the senior NSC official because the journalist ‘refused to share any part of the document reported.’

‘Any correspondence containing classified material must only be sent through secure channels and all NSC staff are informed of this,’ the official said. ‘It is also made clear to NSC personnel that any non-government correspondence must be captured and retained for record compliance.’

Speaking to a room full of reporters last week, President Donald Trump said he believes Waltz is ‘doing his best,’ and did not fault him for the Signal leak.

‘I don’t think he should apologize,’ the president said. ‘I think he’s doing his best. It’s equipment and technology that’s not perfect.’

‘And, probably, he won’t be using it again, at least not in the very near future,’ Trump continued.