Over a decade ago, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, predicted that healthcare premiums would skyrocket, even in the face of subsidies put into effect under Obamacare that were meant to bring them down. 

Today, the ballooning of those premiums and their accompanying subsidies are at the center of the 22-day shutdown that looks poised to get longer still.

‘Despite Obamacare subsidies, many Americans will still be paying higher premiums in 2014 as a result of Obamacare,’ Cruz said in 2013, referring to the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

In his 2013 floor speech, Cruz pointed to research from Avik Roy, a healthcare researcher who, at the time, was a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Roy’s research made the case that subsidies passed by the Obama administration would do little to stop government-backed healthcare plans from growing more expensive over time or competing effectively with non-government-backed plans. 

But even those forecasts have paled in comparison to the costs of the government’s emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The subsidies under Obamacare have vastly expanded in recent years. An emergency provision included in President Joe Biden’s 2021 American Rescue Plan widened the range of eligible applicants as a response to the global pandemic. 

Now that those COVID-era provisions are set to sunset at the end of 2025, an expiration date set by Democrats themselves, Democrats are voicing alarm that Obamacare policyholders will have to shoulder the costs of health insurance without the enhanced supplemental aid. 

According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan think tank that focuses on fiscal policy, continuing the expanded credits could cost upwards of $30 billion annually. Findings by KFF, a healthcare policy group, say that over 90% of the 24 million Obamacare enrollees make use of the enhanced credits.

KFF analysis indicates that the enhanced premium tax credits saved subsidized enrollees an average of $705 last year. 

Democrats in Congress, led by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have demanded some sort of extension to the already expanded COVID-era subsidies as a condition for passing spending legislation to end the current government shutdown, which is now the longest full shutdown in history.

Republicans, who maintain that the subsidies are completely unrelated to government funding considerations, have said lawmakers will address the subsidies when the government is open again.

The most conservative members in Congress have said cutting back on the subsidies is key to returning the government to pre-COVID levels of funding.

Lawmakers in the Senate have voted 11 times on a short-term spending extension meant to keep the government open through Nov. 21 but have so far failed to move past the gridlock over the enhanced premium tax credits.

Cruz did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Front-runners for New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo, wasted little time attacking each other on alleged personal scandals they have been involved in during a Wednesday night debate between the pair and GOP candidate Curtis Sliwa.  

Mamdani and Sliwa took the opportunity during Wednesday’s debate to drill down on past sexual harassment allegations against Cuomo, the former governor of New York, ahead of an impeachment inquiry that preceded Cuomo’s 2021 resignation. Cuomo was also hit by Mamdani over accusations he has – while in public office – failed to meet with Muslim constituents and only began doing so amid pressure from his mayoral campaign, and over his alleged poor handling of the COVID-19 virus in New York after Cuomo was party to issuing guidance forcing nursing homes and long-term care facilities to admit COVID-19 positive patients.

Meanwhile, Cuomo did not hold back on targeting Mamdani over alleged controversies that have embattled his campaign. Cuomo blasted the self-proclaimed socialist over his lack of experience, ties to radical politics, and past radical comments about law enforcement, Israel and the situation in Gaza.

‘My main opponent has no new ideas. He has no new plan. … He’s never run anything, managed anything. He’s never had a real job,’ Cuomo said of Mamdani during the debate. Cuomo also branded Mamdani as someone who has proven to be ‘a divisive force in New York,’ pointing to past incidents that have garnered Mamdani heat from critics. 

One of those incidents included a picture he took with a hard-lined Ugandan lawmaker who has pushed policies of imprisoning people for being gay, which Mamdani took while taking a break from the campaign trail to visit his home country of Uganda for a wedding. Cuomo also hit the controversy over whether Mamdani supports Jewish New Yorkers, as his critics have claimed he is anti-Israel pointing to statements he has made, like ‘globalize the intifada.’ 

Cuomo also accused Mamdani of disrespecting Italian-Americans after a video of him surfaced giving the middle finger to a statue of Christopher Columbus, while also pointing to criticism the self-proclaimed socialist candidate has garnered from 9/11 first-responders after posting a photo with a Muslim cleric who served as a character witness for the mastermind behind the September 11, 2001 attacks. 

‘You have been a divisive force in New York, and I believe that’s toxic energy for New York. It’s with the Jewish community. It’s with the Italian-American community – when you give the Columbus statue the finger. It’s with the Sunni Muslims when you say decriminalize prostitution, which is Haram. It’s the Hindus,’ Cuomo continued. ‘Then, you take a picture with Rebecca Kadaga, deputy Prime Minister of Uganda. … She’s known as Rebecca ‘Gay Killer.’ … You’re a citizen of Uganda. You took the picture. You said you didn’t know who she was. It turns out you did. How do you not renounce your citizenship or demand BDS against Uganda for imprisoning people who are gay just by their sexual orientation? Isn’t that a basic violation of human rights?’

Mamdani shot back that his politics have remained ‘consistent’ and that they are built on a belief in human rights for all people, including LGBTQ+ folks. Had he known Kadga’s role in drafting legislation to imprison gay folks, Mamdani said, he never would have taken the picture. 

‘This constant attempt to smear and slander me is an attempt to also distract from the fact that, unlike myself, you do not actually have a platform or a set of policies,’ Mamdani shot back at Cuomo before introducing his own claims about the former governor regarding past accusations of sexual harassment.

‘Mr. Cuomo. In 2021, 13 different women who worked in your administration credibly accused you of sexual harassment. Since then, you have spent more than $20 million in taxpayer funds to defend yourself, all while describing these allegations as entirely political,’ Mamdani said while attacking Cuomo Wednesday night. 

‘You have even gone so far as to legally go after these women. One of those women, Charlotte Bennett, is here in the audience this evening. You sought to access her private gynecological records. She cannot speak up for herself because you lodged a defamation case against her. I, however, can speak. What do you say to the 13 women that you sexually harassed?’ 

Cuomo, in 2021, was accused of multiple incidents of sexual harassment that preceded his resignation as governor that year. A subsequent report from New York Attorney General Letitia James confirmed Cuomo ‘sexually harassed multiple women from 2013 through 2020,’ while in January 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it had reached a nearly $500,000 settlement with Cuomo’s executive office over one of the claims. However, no criminal charges were ever filed against Cuomo, with some district attorneys citing insufficient evidence.

Cuomo defended himself against Mamdani’s accusations, noting the cases were eventually dropped, before returning to questions about Mamdani’s alleged past. 

Meanwhile, Sliwa didn’t skip an opportunity to slam Cuomo over the sexual assault allegations either, saying early in the debate during a discussion about homelessness that Cuomo ‘fled’ the governor’s office amid an impeachment inquiry that was investigating him.

‘Andrew, you didn’t ‘leave.’ You fled from being impeached by the Democrats in the state legislature,’ Sliwa began before getting into the homelessness issue, earning him a round-of-applause from the audience. 

”Leave?’ You fled!’ Sliwa continued to applause. ‘But let’s get back on topic.’ 

In today’s political environment, it is hard to envision important issues where Republicans and Democrats can find common ground. Protecting the safety and security of citizens from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is hopefully still that issue. 

In recent years, we have seen growing agreement among lawmakers that the CCP is actively working against the security of the U.S. Whether through coercive trade practices, espionage, military aggression or technology theft, the CCP is intent on undermining American strength. 

President Donald Trump has rightly identified our nation’s increased dependence on Chinese companies as a clear threat to national security. In response, he has taken action to rebuild our domestic industrial manufacturing bases. This is especially true in critical security industries like defense, nuclear development, pharmaceutical manufacturing and data center infrastructure. 

The Trump administration should now look at medical devices. This lesser-known threat to American privacy and security lurks within our hospitals, health care facilities and even in the homes of everyday Americans. Used to treat patients, monitor patient health and inform medical decisions made by health care professionals, medical devices are critical tools used in the everyday care of our most vulnerable members of society. 

It is no wonder, then, that medical devices made by Chinese companies not only have the potential to take advantage of that intimate access, but have already been shown to exploit those vulnerabilities to gain access to the personal, private data of American patients.

Just this month, it was reported that medical hardware from Shanghai-based United Imaging has been installed in some of the country’s top research labs. In some instances, these labs were even funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Not only has United Imaging worked alongside the Chinese military and the state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences, according to the FBI, the company has also bribed employees working at an NIH-funded lab to backchannel non-public information about their research to United Imaging and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. 

Earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning about a patient monitor made by Chinese-based company Contec, specifically calling attention to a software backdoor on the device that once connected to the internet ‘begins gathering patient data, including personally identifiable information (PII) and protected health information (PHI), and exfiltrating (withdrawing) the data outside of the health care delivery environment.’ 

The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) followed up with its own report, saying that the backdoor enabled remote actors to engage in ‘remote code execution and device modification with the ability to alter its configuration.’

Far from being an idle threat, CISA explained that this vulnerability in a machine that monitors and displays critical information like electrocardiograms and blood pressure could result in life-or-death consequences: ‘This introduces risk to patient safety as a malfunctioning monitor could lead to improper responses to vital signs displayed by the device.’

Medical devices made by Chinese companies have quietly made their way into many hospitals and clinics in the United States, bringing with them hidden risks that are waiting to be abused by the CCP. 

First, patient privacy is compromised when unknown actors can access and siphon the most sensitive and confidential data from every patient in America, undermining the very foundation of trust in our health care system. 

Compounded with the fact that Chinese law compels Chinese companies to cooperate and share information with the CCP and that China prizes big data and is gathering information on individuals around the world, we can be assured that whatever private information is gathered on American patients is not in our national interest.

Second, we cannot trust that information siphoning will not escalate to more serious tactics that put patient lives at risk. Remote access to medical devices could result in real-world harm to patients if those devices were reconfigured to display false information that then led to unnecessary and harmful medical interventions. 

Third, the U.S. healthcare system is becoming too dependent on Chinese companies to run our hospitals. It does not take much of a leap to think about what would happen if the CCP decided to cut off the supply of medical devices. Just like critical minerals, energy or military equipment, depending on Chinese companies for medical devices is a clear threat to American security.

What these threats amount to is that the U.S. can no longer blindly outsource medical devices – some of our most vital and sensitive equipment – to companies that operate at the behest of foreign adversarial governments like the CCP. It is critical that America has a domestic supply chain of medical devices. 

Now is the time that lawmakers, both at the federal and state level, take this threat seriously and take meaningful steps to reduce the risks posed by these medical devices. 

Protecting Americans from threats to their health and security should be an easy, bipartisan win.

The Democrats, or Socialists, or whatever they are these days, are hopping mad over President Donald Trump’s construction of a ballroom in the East Wing of the White House, and while it may be their silliest freakout of the entire Trump era, it is also quite telling.

The ladies on ABC’s ‘The View’ were apoplectic when they saw images of demolition, a fairly ordinary way to begin renovations, at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. They echoed one-time resident Hillary Clinton’s complaint that Trump doesn’t own the White House, even taking to song about it.

What makes this argument so absurd, is that Trump is not building this ballroom for his personal use or glory. It’s not a vanity project. It is a long-considered addition to an executive home that lacked the capacity to hold large indoor events.

Trump, as has always been his wont, is looking to create grandeur, and that seems to be something to which leftists reflexively object.

Trump is obviously not the first president to renovate the White House. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt put in a swimming pool. His successor, President Harry Truman, practically gutted the place to add a balcony. President Nixon covered the swimming pool but added a bowling alley. Finally, President Obama transformed the tennis court into a basketball court.

Note that these are all changes that were made to serve the respective president’s personal taste or enjoyment, like a Roman emperor adding a water feature to his personal dining area.

What Trump is doing is completely different. The ballroom he is constructing will likely survive as a symbol of American power long after we are all gone. It will be, in a sense, our generation’s contribution to the people’s home.

Trump wants this venue, this symbol of America, to be grand and classically inspired, a timeless marble monument to a United States that emerged from the 20th century as the world’s only super power.

And in a way, this is part of what the left objects to, not just in regard to the White House project, but to Trump’s proposed new arch in Washington, D.C., and great statuaries of American heroes, not to mention the recent massive military parade.

In the post-Cold War era, part of America’s international style and sensibility was to be understated. Like the star quarterback who is also a model and a chess prodigy, we learned not to rub it in.

In that time, very little public art or architecture was done on a grand and classic scale, and in more recent times, our society has been so hellbent on taking statues and monuments down, that we gave little thought to putting them up.

Trump instinctively understands that in 2025, America may still be the world’s only superpower, but not by so hegemonic a distance as in the recent past. China, among others have been catching up, and the ‘aw, shucks’ attitude of the past needs some adjusting.

World leaders as well those on public White House tours should have their breath taken away when they walk into the presidential ballroom. Such displays are as old as nations themselves, from the pyramids to the Coliseum, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.

Though this expansion of the White House would be well worth taxpayer money, Trump has found a way to build it with private donations, as well as his own funds. Still the left is throwing a fit. Why?

Recent polling showed that only 36% of Democrats are very, or even just somewhat, proud of America. This being the case, it’s easy to understand why they object to building testaments to its power and glory.

What Democrats and socialists are really objecting to here is not that Trump’s ballroom celebrates himself, it’s that his ballroom unabashedly celebrates America.

Fifty years from now, when King George VII of Great Britain dines at the White House, people will little remember that it was built by Trump, even if all the gold leaf remains. By then, it will simply be a great piece of American architecture we can all be proud of.

Americans want and deserve a big, beautiful ballroom for their nation’s executive mansion, and there has never been a president more capable of delivering it than our real estate mogul-in-chief.

Liberals can stamp their feet in anger all they want. But the ballroom is going to be built, and eventually, most of them will come to appreciate it.

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., told reporters on the 21st day of the government shutdown Tuesday that Democrats ‘ran on killing the filibuster, and now we love it.’

The Pennsylvania Democrat made the remark on Capitol Hill after being asked for his reaction to Republican senators proposing nuking the filibuster to force the government to reopen.

‘We ran on that. We ran on killing the filibuster, and now we love it,’ Fetterman said of Democrats.

‘I don’t want to hear any Democrat clutching their pearls about the filibuster. We all ran on it. I ran on that in my so, like, that’s, yeah,’ he added.

Fetterman also said it’s important to open the government so that Americans can get Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, known as SNAP, assistance, adding that, ‘America’s losing’ during the shutdown and that it’s time to ‘open it back up.’

House Republicans voted to pass the GOP’s government funding bill on Sept. 19, mostly along partisan lines.

It was a seven-week extension of fiscal year (FY) 2025 federal funding levels called a continuing resolution (CR), aimed at giving congressional negotiators more time to strike a longer-term deal on FY2026 spending.

But in the Senate, where at least several Democrats are needed to reach the 60-vote threshold to break a filibuster, progress has stalled.

Senate Democrats have tanked the bill in the upper chamber 11 times since the House passed it.

Three members of the Senate Democratic caucus have been voting with Republicans, but under the current tally, at least five more are needed to hold a final vote on the bill.

Fox News’ Elizabeth Elkind and Daniel Scully contributed to this report.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said first lady Melania Trump could play a critical role in winning the White House’s support for congressional sanctions on Russia.

‘I think the first lady is our secret weapon,’ Blumenthal said Tuesday.

The remark comes as lawmakers weigh whether to advance a Russia sanctions bill that has been in the works for months. The measure enjoys wide bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress, but its future remains uncertain as President Donald Trump recently signaled hesitations about putting his weight behind it.

The Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025 has 84 cosponsors in the Senate and 113 in the House of Representatives.

If passed, the sanctions package would grant the President of the United States enhanced powers to block energy sales, block visas, halt investment listings, impose tariffs of up to 500%, and more. Those measures are conditioned on the president’s determination that Russia isn’t engaging in good-faith efforts to end the war.

Blumenthal, a coauthor of the legislation alongside Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., believes the moment is ripe to advance the package — even as Trump last week told reporters that ‘it might not be perfect timing’ for new sanctions.

Blumenthal believes the first lady could change the president’s outlook.

‘She is obviously deeply disturbed about the kidnapping of children, which is emblematic of war criminality. I see the need to move our bill as a signal to prove that you can’t slow-walk us and mock us indefinitely,’ Blumenthal said.

Melania Trump announced earlier this month that she had engaged in direct communications with Russian President Vladimir Putin over efforts to reunite Ukrainian children that had been abducted amid the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. Through those efforts, she helped secure the return of eight Ukrainian children. 

‘Putin understands only strength and force, military and economic. I’m very hopeful [Trump] will see the urgency of now,’ Blumenthal said.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told audiences last week that he may bring the bill to a vote in the next 30 days but hinted that parts of the bill may need revision before its consideration. 

He did not lay out what areas of the bill need to be addressed.

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

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently made it known she is no fan of President Donald Trump’s project to construct a ballroom at the White House in an appeal to voters, telling them that 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. is their ‘house.’

‘It’s not his house,’ Clinton wrote on X Tuesday morning. ‘It’s your house. And he’s destroying it.’ 

The social media post included a screenshot of The Washington Post’s report, ‘White House begins demolishing East Wing Facade to build Trump’s ballroom,’ accompanied by a photo of a demolition crew. 

‘President Trump is working 24/7 to Make America Great Again, including his historic beautification of the White House, at no taxpayer expense,’ White House spokesman Davis Ingle told Fox News Digital when asked about Clinton’s post and other Democrats criticizing the ballroom construction. ‘These long-needed upgrades will benefit generations of future presidents and American visitors to the People’s House.’ 

Trump announced Monday that construction had begun on the ballroom, following months of the president floating the planned project to modernize the White House. The project does not cost taxpayers and is privately funded, the White House reported. 

‘I am pleased to announce that ground has been broken on the White House grounds to build the new, big, beautiful White House Ballroom,’ Trump said on Truth Social. ‘Completely separate from the White House itself, the East Wing is being fully modernized as part of this process, and will be more beautiful than ever when it is complete!’ 

‘For more than 150 years, every President has dreamt about having a Ballroom at the White House to accommodate people for grand parties, State Visits, etc. I am honored to be the first President to finally get this much-needed project underway — with zero cost to the American Taxpayer!’ he continued. ‘The White House Ballroom is being privately funded by many generous Patriots, Great American Companies, and, yours truly. This Ballroom will be happily used for Generations to come!’

The privately funded project will cost an estimated $200 million, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the media in July. The 90,000-square-foot ballroom will accommodate approximately 650 seated guests, according to the White House. 

‘The White House is currently unable to host major functions honoring world leaders in other countries without having to install a large and unsightly tent approximately 100 yards away from the main building’s entrance,’ Leavitt said back in July, adding the new ballroom will be ‘a much needed and exquisite addition.’

Other Democrats also have slammed the construction project, including New Jersey Sen. Andy Kim calling it ‘disgusting.’

‘I wanted to share this photo of my family standing by a historic part of the White House that was just torn down today by Trump,’ Kim posted to X on Monday. ‘We didn’t need a billionaire-funded ballroom to celebrate America. Disgusting what Trump is doing.’

‘Oh you’re trying to say the cost of living is skyrocketing? Donald Trump can’t hear you over the sound of bulldozers demolishing a wing of the White House to build a new grand ballroom,’ Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren posted to X on Monday. 

‘Republican math. Can afford: Trump ballroom, $40 Billion Argentina bailout, massive tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires Can’t afford: health care for Americans, SNAP for struggling Americans, tax relief for middle class families,’ Pennsylvania state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta posted to X. 

The ballroom construction follows Trump installing two massive 88-foot-tall American flags on either side of the White House this summer in a patriotic endeavor that did not cost U.S. taxpayers a cent, as well as an overhaul to the White House Rose Garden. 

Fox News Digital’s Greg Wehner contributed to this article. 

The top congressional Democrats want a meeting with President Donald Trump as the government shutdown stretches on.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said that both he and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., reached out to Trump on Tuesday to set up a confab with the president.

The top Senate Democrat said the duo ‘urged’ Trump to meet with them, and that they were open to setting up ‘an appointment with him any time, any place.’

‘Hakeem and I reached out to the president today and urged him to sit down and negotiate with us to resolve the healthcare crisis, address it and end the Trump shutdown,’ Schumer said. ‘He should sit — the things get worse every day for the American people. He should sit down with us, negotiate in a serious way before he goes away.’

Congressional Democrats, particularly Schumer and his Democratic caucus, have remained steadfast in their demands for an extension to expiring Obamacare subsidies. Though Senate Republicans have been open to holding a vote on the matter after the government reopens, Democrats want an ironclad guarantee that the subsidies will be extended well before their expiration at the end of this year.

Should Trump relent to their request, it would mark the first meeting among the trio since Schumer, Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., met in the Oval Office a day before the shutdown began.

Lawmakers left that meeting with no agreement to avert the shutdown, which has now dragged on for 21 days.

Senate Democrats have also blocked Thune and Republicans’ attempts to reopen the government 11 times. Another vote on the House-passed continuing resolution, which would reopen the government until Nov. 21, is expected on Wednesday.

And like the many attempts before, that latest effort is expected to fail.

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans met with Trump for lunch at the White House Tuesday afternoon.

Speaking to reporters afterward, Thune reiterated that Senate Republicans were united in their war of attrition strategy to continue putting the same bill on the floor again and again. He noted that Trump would likely agree to meet with Schumer and Jeffries, but only after Senate Democrats unlocked the votes needed to reopen the government.

‘We have negotiated. I don’t know what there is to negotiate. This is about opening up the government,’ Thune said. ‘We have offered them several off-ramps. Now, the Democrats want something that’s totally untenable. I mean, they want $1.5 trillion in new spending. They want free healthcare for people who are noncitizens in this country. That is just a flat nonstarter. It doesn’t pass the Senate. It won’t pass the House. It won’t be signed into law by the president.’

Fox News Digital reached out to Jeffries’ and the White House for comment but did not immediately hear back. 

In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi Tuesday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, referred former CIA Director John Brennan to the Justice Department for allegedly making false statements to Congress.

Jordan accused Brennan of lying in his 2023 Judiciary Committee testimony by denying that the CIA used the Steele dossier in prepping the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) on Russian election interference, and falsely claiming the CIA opposed including the dossier.

The Steele dossier was a series of reports detailing President Donald Trump’s alleged ties to Russia. It was compiled and delivered to the FBI in 2016 by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele.

In Jordan’s letter, he alleged subsequent investigations ‘confirmed that the Clinton campaign and the DNC paid Steele via the law firm Perkins Coie and opposition research firm Fusion GPS to provide derogatory information about Trump’s purported ties to Russia, which resulted in the discredited dossier.’

In July 2025, the Trump administration declassified documents which appear to show Brennan approved the decision to include the dossier, despite objections from senior CIA officials.

During a transcribed interview on May 11, 2023, Brennan stated that ‘the CIA was not involved at all with the [Steele] dossier.’

Yet, according to the declassified documents, the decision to incorporate information from the dossier in the ICA ‘was jointly made by the Directors of CIA and FBI.’

‘Brennan’s assertion that the CIA was not ‘involved at all’ with the Steele dossier cannot be reconciled with the facts,’ Jordan wrote in the letter. ‘As the newly declassified documents show, a CIA officer drafted the annex containing a summary of the dossier; Brennan made the ultimate decision, along with then-FBI Director James Comey, to include information from the dossier in the ICA; and, as discussed further below, Brennan overruled senior CIA officers who objected to the inclusion of the dossier material.’

While past the five-year statute of limitations on criminal prosecution, Jordan also accused Brennan of providing false testimony during a House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) hearing in 2017 — a move Jordan said ‘indicates a pattern of Brennan’s willingness to lie to Congress about the Steele dossier.’

‘The HPSCI report and the CIA memorandum confirm not only that the Steele dossier was used as a basis for the ICA, but that Brennan insisted on its inclusion,’ Jordan wrote. ‘This stands in stark contrast with Brennan’s testimony to HPSCI that the dossier was not used in drafting the ICA. … Brennan’s testimony before the Committee on May 11, 2023, was a brazen attempt to knowingly and willfully testify falsely and fictitiously to material facts.’

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates

Former first son Hunter Biden is claiming that his father only pardoned him because Donald Trump reclaimed the presidency in November 2024 — and ‘would not have’ done so under ‘normal circumstances’ while the appeals process played out.

‘Donald Trump went and changed everything,’ Hunter said in an interview released Monday on journalist Tommy Christopher’s Substack platform.

‘And I don’t think that I need to make much of an argument about why it changed everything.’

The 55-year-old — who pleaded guilty last year to evading $1.4 million in back taxes to the IRS and was convicted on felony gun charges — declined to mention that he had apparently been present for discussions on pardons during Joe Biden’s final months in the White House.

‘I’ve said this before,’ Hunter went on.

‘My dad would not have pardoned me if President Trump had not won, and the reason that he would not have pardoned me is because I was certain that in a normal circumstance of the appeals [I would have won].’

The Biden scion added that Trump was planning a ‘revenge tour’ against his father, which would have made himself the ‘easiest target to just to intimidate and to not just impact me, but impact my entire family into, into silence in a way that at least he is not — it’s not as easy for him to do [with] me being pardoned.’

‘I realize how privileged I am,’ Hunter went on.

‘I realize how lucky I am; I realize that I got something that almost no one would have gotten.

‘But I’m incredibly grateful for it and I have to say that I don’t think that it requires me to make much of a detailed argument for why it was the right thing to do, at least from my dad, from his perspective.’

Ex-White House chief of staff Jeff Zients spilled last month that Hunter ‘was involved’ in clemency talks and even ‘attended a few meetings,’ a source with knowledge of the Biden official’s testimony to the House Oversight Committee told The Post.