Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s former presidential running mate Nicole Shanahan called out various senators by name, warning that she will fund primary challenges against them if they oppose confirming Kennedy to serve as secretary of Health and Human Services.

‘Dear U.S. Senators, Bobby may play nice; I won’t,’ she wrote in a post on X.

In a video, Shanahan said that in 2020 she ‘cut large checks to Chuck Schumer to help Democrats flip two Senate seats in Georgia from red to blue.’ Peach State Democratic Sens. Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff both initially took office after winning runoff contests in early 2021.

Shanahan bluntly warned the two senators, ‘Please know I will be watching your votes very closely. I will make it my personal mission that you lose your seats in the Senate if you vote against the future health of America’s children.’

She then proceeded to call out Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska; Susan Collins, R-Maine; Bill Cassidy, R-La.; Thom Tillis, R-N.C.; James Lankford, R-Okla.; Cory Booker, D-N.J.; John Fetterman, D-Pa.; Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.; and Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev.

‘While Bobby may be willing to play nice, I won’t. If you vote against him, I will personally fund challengers to primary you in your next election. And I will enlist hundreds of thousands to join me,’ she declared.

Shanahan, who urged people to reach out to their senators to press them to support Kennedy’s nomination, followed up her video with a post tagging each of the 13 senators she had mentioned — the post also included phone numbers.

Kennedy, a Democrat-turned-independent presidential candidate, ultimately dropped out and backed Donald Trump in the 2024 White House contest.

Trump later announced Kennedy as his pick to serve as HHS secretary. 

But the HHS nominee still needs to earn enough support in the Senate to clear the confirmation hurdle.

Shanahan voted for Trump during the 2024 presidential election.

DORAL, Fla. — House Republicans have their work cut out for them in the coming weeks, with three fiscal deadlines looming and President Donald Trump pushing for a very active first 100 days of his administration.

Congressional GOP leaders are working on a massive conservative policy overhaul via the reconciliation process. By lowering the threshold for passage in the Senate from 60 votes to a simple 51-seat majority, it allows the party in power to advance their policy goals into law, provided those policies deal with budgetary and other fiscal matters.

‘We want to deliver on all the things that President Trump talked about during the campaign… including no tax on tips, which was one of those early items that the president talked about, but also ensuring no tax increases happen. We can fully fund our border security needs, making sure we build the wall out, that we give more technology and tools to our Border Patrol agents,’ House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., told Fox News Digital.

‘We can produce more energy in America… try to get rid of some of these crazy rules and regulations that add so much cost for no good reason to families.’

Scalise said it would be ‘much more robust’ than Republicans’ last reconciliation bill passed in 2017 – the last time the GOP controlled Congress and the White House.

His optimism comes as congressional Republicans still appear divided over how best to enact their plans. Senate Republicans and some GOP hardliners in the House have argued that trying to pass a bill with border and energy policies first would give Trump a quick win, while allowing more time for more complex issues like taxes.

But House leaders are concerned that, given Republicans last passed two reconciliation bills in one year in the 1990s with much larger majorities, the two-track strategy could allow Trump’s 2017 provisions to expire and raise taxes on millions of families.

‘You have to start somewhere. We’re starting with one package,’ Scalise said. ‘No disagreement on the details of what we’re going to include.’

Meanwhile, lawmakers are also contending with the debt ceiling being reinstated this month after it was temporarily suspended in a bipartisan deal during the Biden administration. At least one projection suggests Congress will have until mid-June or earlier to deal with it or risk financial turmoil that comes with a downgrade in the U.S.’s national credit rating.

And coming on March 14 is the deadline to avert a partial government shutdown, which Congress has extended twice since the end of the previous fiscal year on Oct. 1.

The No. 2 House Republican floated the possibility of combining those latter two deadlines.

‘The Appropriations Committee, which is not directly involved in budget reconciliation, is simultaneously having a negotiation with the Senate on government funding, you know, working with the White House to make sure it meets President Trump’s priorities,’ Scalise said. 

‘I would imagine the debt ceiling could very well be a part of that conversation in that negotiation.’

Scalise spoke with Fox News Digital at the House GOP’s annual retreat, held this year at Trump’s golf club in Doral, Florida.

Lawmakers huddled behind closed doors for three days to hash out a roadmap for grappling with their multiple deadlines and enacting Trump’s agenda.

They also heard from the president himself, as well as Vice President JD Vance.

Trump has on multiple occasions called on Republicans to act on the debt limit to avoid a U.S. credit default. Vance told Republicans on Tuesday that Trump wanted them to do so without giving leverage to Democrats – a weighty task given some GOP hardliners’ opposition to raising or suspending the limit over the U.S.’s $36 trillion national debt.  

House GOP leaders can currently only afford one defection to still pass a bill along party lines.

They’ve been forced to seek Democratic support on government funding multiple times, including most recently in December. 

With no topline agreement reached and roughly 19 days in session before the March 14 deadline to avert a partial government shutdown, it’s becoming increasingly likely that congressional leaders will have to combine all 12 annual appropriations bills into one massive ‘omnibus,’ a move also generally opposed by GOP hardliners.

‘I think we’re getting closer,’ Scalise said of a topline number for fiscal year 2025 spending. ‘The House and Senate were apart by a pretty sizable amount of money. They’re trying to negotiate that down to get a resolution.’

DORAL, Fla. — Leaders within the House GOP’s largest caucus are drawing a red line in congressional Republicans’ budget talks.

The Republican Study Committee’s (RSC) steering group is calling for any budget reconciliation plan to ultimately lead to reductions in the U.S. deficit, which occurs when the federal government’s spending outpaces its revenues in a given fiscal year.

‘Reconciliation legislation must reduce the federal budget deficit. Our national security depends on our ability to bring about meaningful fiscal reform,’ the official position, first obtained by Fox News Digital, said. 

RSC leaders met behind closed doors at House Republicans’ annual retreat to hash out their stance. GOP lawmakers were at Trump National Doral golf course in Florida for three days of discussions on reconciliation and other fiscal deadlines looming on the horizon.

They have been negotiating for weeks on how to use their razor-thin majorities in the House and Senate to pass massive conservative policy changes through the budget reconciliation process.

By reducing the threshold for Senate passage from 60 votes to a 51-seat simple majority, reconciliation allows a party in control of both congressional chambers to enact sweeping changes, provided they are relevant to budgetary and fiscal policy.

At 178 members, RSC is House Republicans’ largest inter-conference group. It often acts as the House GOP’s de facto ‘think tank’ on policy matters.

The group is being led this year by Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas. Its previous chairman is Rep. Kevin Hern, R-Okla., who was recently elected House Republican Policy Committee chair – an example of RSC’s close ties to GOP leadership.

Republican lawmakers have their work cut out for them this year as they work to unify for congressional leaders’ preferred timeline for the reconciliation process.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Wednesday that he intends to have a House-wide vote on an initial budget resolution in late February.

But once Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., departs for the Trump administration as expected, House Republicans will not be able to afford any defections to pass legislation along party lines. In the Senate, the GOP can lose two lawmakers to still meet the 51-vote threshold.

And President Donald Trump outlined several specific policies he wants Republicans to include in their reconciliation legislation – including no taxes on tips or overtime pay and more funding for the U.S.-Mexico border – which could add to the federal deficit if not paired with significant spending cuts.

Republicans have floated various ways to achieve those cuts, including adding work requirements to federal benefits and rolling back progressive regulations enacted during the Biden administration.

Johnson said he wanted Republicans’ final product to be deficit-neutral or better.

‘Anything we do, is going to be deficit-neutral at least, and hopefully deficit-reducing, because we think we’ve got to change that trajectory,’ he said on Wednesday. ‘So that is part of the healthy discussion we’ve been having. And everyone has lots of opinions about that, of course. And, the opinions are welcomed.’

The U.S. is running a cumulative deficit of $710 billion in fiscal year 2025 so far, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center. It’s $200 billion more than the same period in FY 2024.

Meanwhile federal revenues were $1.1 trillion through December, a decrease of 2% from the same period prior, the group said.

President Donald Trump is kicking off his second tour of duty in the White House in a stronger polling position than during the start of his first administration eight years ago, a new national poll indicates.

Forty-six percent of voters say they approve of the job the Republican president is doing so far, with 43% disapproving, according to a Quinnipiac University survey released on Wednesday.

The poll was conducted Jan. 23-27, during Trump’s first week back in the White House following his Jan. 20th inauguration.

The president’s approval rating is an improvement from Quinnipiac polling in late January 2017 – as Trump began his first term in office – when he stood at 36% approval and 44% disapproval.

The survey indicates a predictable huge partisan divide over the GOP president.

‘Republicans 86-4 percent approve of the job Trump is doing, while Democrats 86-8 percent disapprove,’ the poll’s release highlights. ‘Among independents, 41 percent approve, while 46 percent disapprove and 13 percent did not offer an opinion.’

While Trump’s first approval rating for his second term is a major improvement from his first term, his rating is below the standing of his predecessor, former President Biden, in the first Quinnipiac poll from his single term in office.

Biden stood at 49%-36% approval at the start of February 2021.

His approval rating hovered in the low to mid 50s during his first six months in the White House. But Biden’s numbers sank into negative territory in the late summer and autumn of 2021, in the wake of his much-criticized handling of the turbulent U.S. exit from Afghanistan, and amid soaring inflation and a surge of migrants crossing into the U.S. along the nation’s southern border with Mexico.

Biden’s approval ratings stayed underwater throughout the rest of his presidency.

Trump has kept up a frenetic pace during his first week and a half in office, with an avalanche of executive orders and actions. His moves not only fulfilled some of his major campaign trail promises, but also allowed the returning president to flex his executive muscles, quickly put his stamp on the federal government, and also settle some longstanding grievances.

‘In our first week in office, we set records, taking over 350 executive actions,’ Trump touted on Wednesday. ‘That’s not been done before, and it has reportedly been the single most effective opening week of any presidency in history.’

According to the new poll, six in ten approve of Trump’s order sending U.S. troops to the southern border to enhance security.

‘The huge deployment of boots on the ground is not to a dicey, far away war theater, but to the American border. And a majority of voters are just fine with that,’ Quinnipiac University polling analyst Tim Malloy said.

The poll indicates 44% support deporting all undocumented immigrants, while 39% back deporting only those convicted of violent crimes.

According to the survey, 57% disapprove of Trump’s pardoning or commuting the sentences of more than 1,500 people convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters aiming to upend congressional certification of Biden’s 2020 election victory.

Meanwhile, by a two-to-one margin, those questioned gave a thumbs down to Biden’s issuing of preemptive pardons – in his final hours in office – for five members of his family who haven’t been charged with any crimes. Voters were divided on Biden’s preemptive pardons for politicians and government officials who Trump had targeted for retaliation.

The poll also indicates that 53% disapprove of Elon Musk – the world’s richest person – enjoying a prominent role in the new Trump administration, with 39% approving.

Democrats lost control of the White House and the Senate majority and failed to win back control of the House in November’s elections. And the new poll spells more trouble for them.

Only 31% of respondents had a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party, with 57% seeing the party in an unfavorable light.

‘This is the highest percentage of voters having an unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party since the Quinnipiac University Poll began asking this question,’ the survey’s release noted. 

Meanwhile, the 43% of those questioned had a favorable view of the GOP, with 45% holding an unfavorable opinion, which was the highest favorable opinion for the Republican Party ever in Quinnipiac polling.

Quinnipiac questioned 1019 self-identified registered voters nationwide. The survey’s overall sampling error was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

The Senate voted Wednesday to advance President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Interior Department — former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum — for a final confirmation vote. 

Burgum appeared before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in mid-January, where he told lawmakers that national security issues and the economy were his two top priorities for leading the agency. 

‘When energy production is restricted in America, it doesn’t reduce demand,’ Burgum said in his opening statement Jan. 16. ‘It just shifts production to countries like Russia and Iran, whose autocratic leaders not only don’t care at all about the environment, but they use their revenues from energy sales to fund wars against us and our allies.’ 

Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, questioned Burgum on whether he would seek to drill for oil in national parks if Trump asked him to.

‘As part of my sworn duty, I’ll follow the law and follow the Constitution. And so you can count on that,’ Burgum said. ‘And I have not heard of anything about President Trump wanting to do anything other than advancing energy production for the benefit of the American people.’

Additionally, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., questioned whether Burgum backed repealing credits for electric vehicles that may be in jeopardy under the Trump administration. 

‘I support economics and markets,’ Burgum said.

Burgum served as governor of North Dakota from 2016 to 2024. He also launched a presidential bid for the 2024 election in June 2023, where energy and natural resources served as key issues during his campaign. 

Burgum appeared during the first two Republican presidential debates, but didn’t qualify for the third and ended his campaign in December 2023. He then endorsed Trump for the GOP nomination a month later ahead of the Iowa caucuses. 

Aubrie Spady, Sarah Rumpf-Whitten, and Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report. 

Hamas began a third round of freeing hostages in Gaza Thursday as part of an ongoing ceasefire agreement with Israel. 

Hamas handed female Israeli soldier Agam Berger, 20, to the Red Cross at a ceremony in the heavily destroyed urban refugee camp of Jabaliya in northern Gaza. She was later transferred to the Israel Defense Forces. 

‘The Government of Israel embraces IDF soldier Agam Berger,’ read a post on the official X account of the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office. ‘Her family has been updated by the responsible authorities that she is with our forces. The Government, together with all of the security officials, will accompany her and her family.’ 

‘Thank God we have reached this moment, and our hero Agam has returned to us after 482 days in enemy hands. Our daughter is strong, faithful, and brave,’ Berger’s family said in a statement. ‘We want to thank the security forces and all the people of Israel for their support and prayers. ‘Now Agam and our family can begin the healing process, but the recovery will not be complete until all the hostages return home.’ 

Another ceremony was planned in the southern city of Khan Younis, in front of the destroyed home of slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. Both were attended by hundreds of people, including masked militants and onlookers.

Hamas has agreed to handover three Israelis and five Thai captives on Thursday. In exchange, Israel was expected to release 110 Palestinian prisoners. 

The truce is aimed at winding down the deadliest and most destructive war ever fought between Israel and Hamas, whose Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel sparked the fighting. It has held despite a dispute earlier this week over the sequence in which the hostages were released.

In Israel, people cheered, clapped and whistled at a square in Tel Aviv where supporters of the hostages watched Berger’s handover on big screens next to a large clock that’s counted the days the hostages have been in captivity. Some held signs saying: ‘Agam we’re waiting for you at home.’

Berger was among five young, female soldiers abducted in the Oct. 7 attack. The other four were released on Saturday. The other two Israelis set to be released Thursday are Arbel Yehoud, 29, and Gadi Moses, an 80-year-old man.

There was no official confirmation of the identities of the Thai nationals who will be released.

A number of foreign workers were taken captive along with dozens of Israeli civilians and soldiers during Hamas’ attack. Twenty-three Thais were among more than 100 hostages released during a weeklong ceasefire in November 2023. Israel says eight Thais remain in captivity, two of whom are believed to be dead.

Of the people set to be released from prisons in Israel, 30 are serving life sentences after being convicted of deadly attacks against Israelis. Zakaria Zubeidi, a prominent former militant leader and theater director who took part in a dramatic jailbreak in 2021 before being rearrested days later, is also among those set to be released.

Israel said Yehoud was supposed to have been freed Saturday and delayed the opening of crossings to northern Gaza when she was not.

The United States, Egypt and Qatar, which brokered the ceasefire after a year of tough negotiations, resolved the dispute with an agreement that Yehoud would be released Thursday. Another three hostages, all men, are set to be freed Saturday along with dozens more Palestinian prisoners.

On Monday, Israel began allowing Palestinians to return to northern Gaza, the most heavily destroyed part of the territory, and hundreds of thousands streamed back. Many found only mounds of rubble where their homes had been.

In the first phase of the ceasefire, Hamas is set to release a total of 33 Israeli hostages, including women, children, older adults and sick or wounded men, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. Israel says Hamas has confirmed that eight of the hostages to be released in this phase are dead.

Palestinians have cheered the release of the prisoners, who they widely see as heroes who have sacrificed for the cause of ending Israel’s decades-long occupation of lands they want for a future state.

Israeli forces have meanwhile pulled back from most of Gaza, allowing hundreds of thousands of people to return to what remains of their homes and humanitarian groups to surge assistance.

The deal calls for Israel and Hamas to negotiate a second phase in which Hamas would release the remaining hostages and the ceasefire would continue indefinitely. The war could resume in early March if an agreement is not reached.

Israel says it is still committed to destroying Hamas, even after the militant group reasserted its rule over Gaza within hours of the truce. Hamas says it won’t release the remaining hostages without an end to the war and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

Israel’s ensuing air and ground war after Oct. 7, 2023 has been among the deadliest and most destructive in decades. More than 47,000 Palestinians have been killed, over half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were militants.

The Israeli military says it killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence, and that it went to great lengths to try to spare civilians. It blames civilian deaths on Hamas because its fighters operate in dense residential neighborhoods and put military infrastructure near homes, schools and mosques.

The Israeli offensive has transformed entire neighborhoods into mounds of gray rubble, and it’s unclear how or when anything will be rebuilt. Around 90% of Gaza’s population has been displaced, often multiple times, with hundreds of thousands of people living in squalid tent camps or shuttered schools.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The Senate voted Wednesday by a 78–20 margin to advance President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Interior Department — former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum — for a final confirmation vote. 

Burgum appeared before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in mid-January, where he told lawmakers that national security issues and the economy were his two top priorities for leading the agency. 

‘When energy production is restricted in America, it doesn’t reduce demand,’ Burgum said in his opening statement Jan. 16. ‘It just shifts production to countries like Russia and Iran, whose autocratic leaders not only don’t care at all about the environment, but they use their revenues from energy sales to fund wars against us and our allies.’ 

Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, questioned Burgum on whether he would seek to drill for oil in national parks if Trump asked him to.

‘As part of my sworn duty, I’ll follow the law and follow the Constitution. And so you can count on that,’ Burgum said. ‘And I have not heard of anything about President Trump wanting to do anything other than advancing energy production for the benefit of the American people.’

Additionally, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., questioned whether Burgum backed repealing credits for electric vehicles that may be in jeopardy under the Trump administration. 

‘I support economics and markets,’ Burgum said.

Burgum served as governor of North Dakota from 2016 to 2024. He also launched a presidential bid for the 2024 election in June 2023, where energy and natural resources served as key issues during his campaign. 

Burgum appeared during the first two Republican presidential debates, but didn’t qualify for the third and ended his campaign in December 2023. He then endorsed Trump for the GOP nomination a month later ahead of the Iowa caucuses. 

Aubrie Spady, Sarah Rumpf-Whitten, and Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.