The House is preparing to take up its annual defense policy bill this week, with Democrats filing hundreds of amendments — many aimed at rebuking President Donald Trump’s administration and current GOP priorities

Lawmakers submitted roughly 450 proposed amendments to the fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Among them are measures dealing with diversity, Israel funding and Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

The House Rules Committee will review the bill Monday afternoon and set parameters for debate, paving the way for a floor vote later this week.

Most of the progressive amendments are unlikely to survive, underscoring their symbolic nature. Still, Democrats are using the traditionally bipartisan defense package to spotlight opposition to the White House and Republican leadership.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, filed several amendments, including one to strike the NDAA’s prohibition on using defense funds for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts.

Similarly, Reps. Luz Rivas, D-Calif., and Jill Tokuda, D-Hawaii, offered an amendment to block a ban on DEI programs at the Pentagon.

Crockett also introduced language aimed at halting construction of migrant detention facilities on military installations, directly challenging Trump administration policy.

Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., put forward an amendment barring Defense Department funds from supporting migrant processing and detention operations.

The Pentagon announced last month it is building the country’s largest federal migrant detention center in Fort Bliss, Texas.

Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., filed two amendments targeting Trump-era immigration policies. One would prohibit funding for family separation, while another ‘prohibits funds from being used to transfer non-citizens to foreign prisons, except under treaties and extradition laws,’ according to the Rules Committee website. The latter proposal would effectively block deportations to El Salvador.

Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., introduced measures aimed at limiting U.S. support for Israel.

Tlaib’s amendment would ban U.S. arms sales to countries whose governments include officials with outstanding International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants. The ICC issued warrants in late 2024 for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior officials.

Omar’s proposal seeks to repeal Israel’s emergency access to a U.S.-managed weapons stockpile located in the country.

The NDAA is a bill passed every fiscal year that sets national security and defense policy for the U.S. government.

More than 1,000 total amendments have been introduced to this year’s bill.

President Donald Trump just took a pivotal step to make healthcare affordable again.

On Sept. 4, his administration announced that most Americans will now be eligible to buy what are known as ‘copper plans’ on the ObamaCare exchanges. Before this reform, nearly all Americans were legally barred from buying these much more affordable plans. But now working families can get the plans they need at a price they can afford – and many uninsured people will likely get covered as a result.

The president is fixing one of the fundamental problems with ObamaCare. That law forced Americans who get their insurance on the individual market to buy costly plans, and in the 11 years since the law went into effect, they’ve gotten even pricier.  

ObamaCare plans have risen by nearly 200% since 2013. What’s more, prices for all plans are expected to rise another 18% by the start of next year.

ObamaCare’s authors knew their law would make healthcare more expensive. That’s why they quietly created an actually affordable option, which they called ‘copper plans.’ These plans cover pre-existing conditions, essential health benefits and everything else that ObamaCare requires, but they come with slightly higher out-of-pocket costs in exchange for dramatically lower premiums. 

Tens of millions of people could benefit from these options, but the federal government only allowed a minuscule number of Americans to buy them. Basically, you had to be under the age of 30. While anyone else could apply for a ‘hardship exemption’ to become eligible, the federal government rarely, if ever, granted these requests, forcing people to pay much more.

No longer. The Trump administration has effectively said that most Americans are now eligible for a hardship exemption, meaning anyone can buy a copper plan. Research from my organization shows that, on average, copper plans have 22% lower premiums than the typical bronze plan – and they cost up to 60% less than ObamaCare’s gold plans. By choosing these options, families can literally save hundreds or even thousands of dollars per year.

The return of affordability is reason enough to praise the president’s move. But this reform will have the added benefit of empowering uninsured people to finally get coverage they can afford. Nearly 27 million Americans are uninsured, many – if not most – because health insurance costs too much. They’ve needed access to copper plans, but their own government has blocked them. Now they’re free to buy better coverage.

Crucially, the uninsured population has the exact groups of people who can help the ObamaCare exchanges become more sustainable. The second and third-largest groups of the uninsured are between the ages of 26 and 34 and 35 and 44, respectively. These tend to be healthier people who don’t need costly plans because they don’t need much health care. As such, they don’t mind the higher out-of-pocket costs that come with the typical copper plan.

By helping to get more of these people covered, President Trump may very well stop the doom loop that has defined ObamaCare – a doom loop of ever-higher prices driving more and more people out of the markets altogether. And with fewer uninsured Americans and more people on private coverage, hospitals will see their uncompensated care costs drop. So hospitals – especially rural hospitals – will be on stronger footing.

This single reform could help millions – if not tens of millions – get more affordable coverage. It also meshes well with another commonsense policy issued by President Trump. He has reversed the Biden administration’s restrictions on short-term plans, empowering Americans to buy even more affordable coverage options for years at a time. 

This reform will also expand coverage to more uninsured people, while enabling others to get plans that better fit their budgets. We’re talking Americans of all ages who are in between jobs and looking for work, those who’ve retired but aren’t yet eligible for Medicare, and working families desperately looking for affordable coverage.

Americans urgently need this healthcare relief. While Democrats and the media are demanding that Republicans merely expand ObamaCare subsidies to prevent people from losing coverage, that’s not a real or sustainable solution. 

More government subsidies only make health insurance more expensive, not less. President Trump has taken the better road by giving Americans greater access to more affordable plans.

When it comes to helping families out, the president’s short-term reform will make a long-term difference, and his copper plans reform gets a gold star.

In comments to Fox News Digital, the State Department’s position on Sudan’s warring parties has hardened, as a 500-day siege of the Darfur city of El Fasher has trapped hundreds of thousands of civilians. 

Sudan suffers from the world’s largest displacement: Between 13 million and 15 million people have been ripped from their homes, and an estimated 150,000 people have been killed since the rebel Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese government’s Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) started fighting in April 2023. The civil war’s roots lie in tensions following the 2019 ousting of President Omar al-Bashir.

‘The RSF, during the siege of El Fasher and surrounding areas, committed myriad crimes against humanity, including murder, torture, enslavement, rape, sexual slavery, sexual violence, forced displacement and persecution on ethnic, gender and political grounds,’ an Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan reported to the U.N.’s Human Rights Council last Friday. 

The report agreed with other accounts that the RSF is trying to starve El Fasher’s residents to death, stating, ‘The RSF and its allies used starvation as a method of warfare.’

Aid is being blocked from going into El Fasher, the U.N. Secretary-General’s spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, stated Aug. 29  ‘Supplies are pre-positioned nearby but efforts by the United Nations and its partners to move them into El Fasher continue to be hampered.

‘The situation in El Fasher remains dire,’ Mariam Wahba, research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital.  ‘The RSF has effectively encircled the city, cutting off key supply routes and subjecting civilians to indiscriminate shelling. Satellite images indicate a wall is being built to trap civilians inside, consistent with RSF tactics used elsewhere. These ‘kill zones’ leave residents with no means of escape. El-Fasher is the last major SAF-held city in Darfur. If it falls, the RSF would control nearly all of Darfur, consolidating both territory and economic assets, particularly lucrative gold mines.’

President Donald Trump’s Special Advisor for Africa, Massad Boulos, met Sudan’s army chief, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan in Switzerland last month. From the tone of the State Department’s responses to Fox News Digital’s questions on Sudan this week, there appears to be little progress on the path to peace. 

A spokesperson stated, ‘since the April 2023 outbreak of conflict in Sudan, we have witnessed significant backsliding in Sudan’s overall respect for fundamental freedoms, including religious freedom.

‘In order to safeguard U.S. interests, to include the protection of religious freedom in Sudan, U.S. efforts seek to limit negative Islamist influence in Sudan’s government and curtail Iran’s regional activities that have contributed to regional destabilization, conflict, and civilian suffering.’

Wahba is also concerned about the activities of foreign ‘bad actors’ in Sudan. ‘Iran has provided the SAF with drones and technical support. Emerging reports point to Iranian interest in helicopter facilities. Iran sees its involvement in Sudan as a gateway for extending its footprint in Africa.’

Wahba continued, ‘Russia has played both sides of the conflict. It has pursued a naval base on Sudan’s Red Sea coast, which would give Moscow direct access to critical shipping lanes, while also profiting from gold smuggling through RSF-linked networks.’

‘Regional powers are also advancing their own interests. Egypt has publicly backed the SAF, aligning with Sudan’s ruler, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. Saudi Arabia is aligned with Egypt in backing al-Burhan. The United Arab Emirates, on the other hand, has provided significant support to the RSF, viewing its commander, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo – widely known as Hemedti – as the custodian of Sudan’s gold exports and the path to its plans for port development along the Red Sea coast.’

Wahba concluded, ‘Burhan’s willingness to engage with Washington is a potential opening. This does not mean the U.S. should unconditionally back the SAF, but it could form the basis for a more defined U.S. strategy, one that makes U.S. engagement contingent on the SAF reining in, or removing, its Islamist militias and leadership.

America’s so-called allies – Britain, France, Canada, Australia and others – are about to stab President Donald Trump in the back. The goal is to lay waste to the president’s signature foreign policy success – the Abraham Accords.

The Abraham Accords denied violent Palestinian rejectionists a veto over the normalization of relations between Arab states and Israel. Now Palestinians and their band of useful idiots have launched a coup. The scheme opens by overthrowing the fundamental principle of a negotiated settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict. United Arab Emirates officials have speciously started blaming Israel for the Accords’ demise.

The staging ground for this ‘Et tu, Brute?’ moment is the United Nations. French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Sept. 3, 2025, that he, and his Saudi counterpart, have called upon world leaders to assemble at the United Nations in New York City on Sept. 22 and endorse this agenda. Formally, the substance has been committed to paper in what they are outlandishly calling ‘The New York Declaration.’

This means that by the time President Trump addresses the General Assembly on the following day, he will have been reduced to the guy with the broom bringing up the rear. His hopes and plans for peace in the Middle East will have already been rejected by virtually every head of state or government in attendance. 

The New York Declaration first appeared at the conclusion of a confab, chaired by the French and the Saudis, at the U.N. in July of this year. The United States and Israel stayed away. The vast majority of states ignored State Department pleas to do the same. 

The document weighs in at 30 pages of anti-Israel venom and attacks on American foreign affairs. It twists the horrors of Oct. 7, 2023 – when more than 1,400 Jews (and others in Israel) were murdered, raped, tortured and kidnapped – into a political win for Palestinians. 

Here are just some of the Declaration’s extraordinarily dangerous demands:

A ‘State of Palestine’ before ‘mutual recognition’ of the Jewish state. 

A Palestinian ‘right of return’ that would flood Israel with millions of Palestinians from the river to the sea – thus ending the Jewish state.

A fully armed Palestinian state (called a ‘one state, one gun policy’) and an indefensible Jewish state.

An arms embargo on Israel (‘ceasing the provision or transfer of Arms’) cutting off the country’s ability to defend itself.

A global pogrom to arrest and prosecute Israelis in national and international courts the world over.

Abandoning the hostages and rewarding the kidnappers by conditioning their release on Israel freeing convicted Palestinian criminals and fully withdrawing from Gaza. 

And here is what the Declaration does not mention: Jews. Judaism. The Jewish state. Antisemitism – the actual driver of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Even Jerusalem is only discussed in terms of Islamic and Christian rights. Jewish history is nowhere.

The Declaration represents multilateral bullying at its worst. But the United States is not powerless. 

The president has options:

Don’t go. If the event to adopt the Declaration on Sept. 22 isn’t canceled or world leaders don’t decide to pull out, then cancel the president’s appearance on the 23rd. President Trump doesn’t need the U.N. stage to be heard loud and clear. The U.N. needs America.

Send the U.N. packing. Back in 1988, President Ronald Reagan and Secretary of State George Shultz denied Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat a visa to speak at the U.N. The General Assembly reacted by temporarily moving to Geneva. Lesson learned: move the whole lot out of the USA for good.

Stop paying. Bypass the organization and fund directly only what is consistent with American values and interests and is fully accountable to the U.S. taxpayer.

Apply sanctions. Impunity for the Declaration’s signatories is the wrong message to send states that endanger American national security and undermine our vital foreign policy goals. 

On Oct. 7, Palestinian terrorists massacred the nationals of 69 countries and kidnapped people from 22. That’s the Palestinian multilateralism the United Nations is all set to reward. 

Failing to respond is not an option.

President Donald Trump issued his ‘last warning’ to Hamas to either release the remaining hostages or face the consequences.

‘Everyone wants the hostages HOME. Everyone wants this War to end,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social. ‘The Israelis have accepted my Terms. It is time for Hamas to accept as well.’

‘I have warned Hamas about the consequences of not accepting,’ he continued. ‘This is my last warning, there will not be another one! Thank you for your attention to this matter.’

Last month, Trump said the remaining hostages would only be returned when Hamas is ‘confronted and destroyed.’ At the time, Hamas was citing alleged progress in ceasefire talks.

In July, the U.S. and Israel pulled negotiators from Qatar after Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said Hamas showed a ‘lack of desire to reach a ceasefire’ and was likely not negotiating in good faith.

On Aug. 26, Witkoff told Fox News’ Bret Baier on ‘Special Report’ that he and Trump wanted the hostages home that week. 

‘There’s been a deal on the table for the last six or seven weeks that would have released 10 of the hostages out of the 20 who we think are alive,’ he said, noting that he believes Hamas is ‘100%’ to blame for the hold-up.

Witkoff did not elaborate on what is delaying the hostages’ return, nearly two years after they were taken in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

Fifty hostages continue to be held by Hamas, only 20 of whom are assessed to still be alive. 

Trump previously predicted in late August that there would be a ‘conclusive’ end to the war in Gaza within the next ‘two to three weeks,’ though he did not say how this would be accomplished. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that only a comprehensive ceasefire — one that ensures the return of all hostages and ends the war on Israel’s terms — will be considered.

Israel is preparing a new offensive in Gaza targeting Hamas, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said, as it expanded ground operations under Operation Gideon’s Chariots II.

IDF spokesperson Col. Avichay Adraee warned Palestinians in parts of Gaza City to leave ahead of an expected escalation. The warning included a map marking the area and highlighting one building the IDF planned to strike, citing ‘the presence of Hamas terrorist infrastructure inside or nearby.’

Fox News Digital’s Rachel Wolf and Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump issued his ‘last warning’ to Hamas to accept his deal and release the remaining hostages or face the consequences.

‘Everyone wants the hostages HOME. Everyone wants this War to end,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social. ‘The Israelis have accepted my Terms. It is time for Hamas to accept as well.’

‘I have warned Hamas about the consequences of not accepting,’ he continued. ‘This is my last warning, there will not be another one! Thank you for your attention to this matter.’

Last month, Trump said the remaining hostages would only be returned when Hamas is ‘confronted and destroyed.’ At the time, Hamas was citing alleged progress in ceasefire talks.

In July, the U.S. and Israel pulled negotiators from Qatar after Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said Hamas showed a ‘lack of desire to reach a ceasefire’ and was likely not negotiating in good faith.

On Aug. 26, Witkoff told Fox News’ Bret Baier on ‘Special Report’ that he and Trump wanted the hostages home that week. 

‘There’s been a deal on the table for the last six or seven weeks that would have released 10 of the hostages out of the 20 who we think are alive,’ he said, noting that he believes Hamas is ‘100%’ to blame for the hold-up.

Witkoff did not elaborate on what is delaying the hostages’ return, nearly two years after they were taken in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

Fifty hostages continue to be held by Hamas, only 20 of whom are assessed to still be alive. 

Trump previously predicted in late August that there would be a ‘conclusive’ end to the war in Gaza within the next ‘two to three weeks,’ though he did not say how this would be accomplished. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that only a comprehensive ceasefire — one that ensures the return of all hostages and ends the war on Israel’s terms — will be considered.

Israel is preparing a new offensive in Gaza targeting Hamas, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said, as it expanded ground operations under Operation Gideon’s Chariots II.

IDF spokesperson Col. Avichay Adraee warned Palestinians in parts of Gaza City to leave ahead of an expected escalation. The warning included a map marking the area and highlighting one building the IDF planned to strike, citing ‘the presence of Hamas terrorist infrastructure inside or nearby.’

Fox News Digital’s Rachel Wolf and Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky strongly objected after Vice President JD Vance asserted in a Saturday post on X that ‘Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military.’

‘JD ‘I don’t give a s[—]’ Vance says killing people he accuses of a crime is the ‘highest and best use of the military.’ Did he ever read To Kill a Mockingbird? Did he ever wonder what might happen if the accused were immediately executed without trial or representation??’ Senator Paul wrote. ‘What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial.’ 

In a Truth Social post last week, President Donald Trump shared video footage of what he said was ‘a kinetic strike against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists’ who he said ‘were at sea in International waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States.’

Someone responded to Vance by writing that, ‘Killing the citizens of another nation who are civilians without any due process is called a war crime.’ 

But the vice president swiftly fired back.

‘I don’t give a s[—] what you call it,’ Vance declared.

GOP Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio pushed back against Paul.

‘What’s really despicable is defending foreign terrorist drug traffickers who are *directly* responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans in Kentucky and Ohio. JD understands that our first responsibility is to protect the life and liberty of American citizens,’ Moreno wrote on on X.

President Donald Trump has been racing at breakneck speed to keep all his campaign promises. Yet he has only four months left to fulfill his vow to halve electricity prices by the end of his first year. Fighting against the fallout of the Biden administration’s harmful anti-fossil fuel agenda, the president faces stiff headwinds. The only way the president can meet his self-imposed deadline is to change course quickly, reject Biden’s mistakes and unlock the potential of every available electron.  

So far, the trend lines aren’t looking good. In the last year, electricity prices have risen twice as fast as inflation, and the Energy Information Administration estimates that retail electricity prices will continue to outpace inflation through next year, with residential prices surging between 13% to 18% higher than in 2022. 

Though, traditionally, consumers have been much more concerned about gas prices — a number they see projected on highway signs and experience firsthand multiple times a month at the pump — the experience of electricity price spikes instead of the promised price cuts will risk diminishing Trump’s popular support. 

What’s worse, these price hikes will arrive before the midterms, when Trump will be battling to retain his slim congressional majorities. 

The current price hikes aren’t Trump’s fault. Instead, he inherited a market with increasing and unprecedented energy demand coupled with the fallout from the Biden administration’s harmful policies to phase out fossil fuels. 

Technological innovations like cloud and quantum computing, crypto mining, electric vehicle adoption, streaming services and, most of all, AI data centers, all have tremendous energy demands, which drive electricity prices higher. Rand estimates global AI data centers alone will need 327 GW of energy by 2030. To put that into perspective, the entire state of California used 86 GW of energy in 2022. 

In the face of rising demand, the Biden administration embarked on an aggressive program to curtail legacy energy production. The Biden EPA imposed new emissions restrictions that effectively forced the retirement of coal and natural gas power plants and manipulated regulations across agencies to hem in traditional fuel sources. 

If these Biden-era policies didn’t cause the current electricity price spikes, they at least allowed today’s demand-induced price increases to hit consumers unabated. 

Trump now has to deal with a crisis not of his own making. With his firm commitments to win the AI race, advance crypto and reshore energy-intensive manufacturing such as semiconductor production, Trump can only keep electricity prices in check by massively increasing supply to meet rising demand. 

Unfortunately, his administration appears to be repeating the same mistakes as Biden’s, just colored with a different ideology. 

Where the Biden administration cut energy supplies by attacking fossil fuel production, the Trump administration is limiting alternative and renewable energy sources. 

The One Big Beautiful Bill rescinds tax incentives for renewables, while the administration has advanced multiple orders and rules that limit clean energy, from halting offshore wind leases to curbing solar tax credits. 

‘Drill, baby, drill’ is a great energy policy, but it’s not enough by itself. While America produced nearly enough energy from fossil fuels (86.3 quads) to supply our nation’s entire energy consumption (93.59 quads) in 2023, the fact is, we need alternative energy sources just to meet current demands. When the future requires even more energy, the necessity for alternative energy will only increase. 

The cheapest way to put more electrons into the power grid immediately is to erect significantly more solar and energy storage infrastructure, coupled with natural gas peaker plants that can be rapidly turned on during peak hours. 

In the medium term, America needs to increase nuclear energy production, build more energy infrastructure like electric transmission lines and natural gas pipelines, and construct geothermal power plants while deploying grid-enhancing technology, improving demand response and increasing energy efficiency. With the growing adoption of solar and EVs, the United States can even create an aggregated network of residential, virtual power plants that only draw energy in low-use times while feeding energy back into the grid when it’s needed most. 

If these Biden-era policies didn’t cause the current electricity price spikes, they at least allowed today’s demand-induced price increases to hit consumers unabated. 

The point is, every energy source and efficiency measure must be deployed if we have any hope of keeping prices in check. 

President Trump can’t be blamed for the current rise in energy prices. But he could be blamed down the road if his administration continues to limit supply by favoring one source of energy over others. At the end of each month, most consumers don’t care where their energy comes from; they only care that it’s cheap. 

A small group of Republican lawmakers who did not feel their leaders were pushing a conservative enough agenda first began meeting in secret a decade ago, huddling in small rooms both inside and outside the U.S. Capitol, while closely guarding their membership for fear of punishment by top House GOP leaders.

Fast-forward to Thursday morning, and the House Freedom Caucus (HFC) was welcoming its members, top GOP donors, Trump administration officials and even Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to an ornate room inside Washington, D.C.’s Willard Hotel to mark its decade anniversary and its first annual policy summit.

‘It’s a big celebration and an anniversary for them, and I want to be a part of it,’ Johnson told Fox News Digital just before addressing the group. ‘Some of my closest friends are in this room.’

The caucus that former House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, once called ‘legislative terrorists’ are now at the center of key Republican policy fights in Washington. And while they’re still a source of frustration for many GOP lawmakers – who find the group to be disruptive to Republicans’ agenda – HFC is hiding no more and has the ear of some of the most powerful people in D.C.

‘This was never our goal, you know, but we wanted to have an impact,’ Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., a founding member of HFC who left Congress and returned in 2025, told Fox News Digital of the event at the Willard. ‘There’s always a lot of agreement in the conference, like, ‘Oh yeah, we would like to get there,’ but…sometimes you kind of need the difficult people to help move it a little bit further to the right than what you thought you might be able to.’

And rather than being a thorn in the side of Republican leaders, HFC is trying to work hand-in-hand with President Donald Trump to push for conservative policies.

They are not going against the grain any longer, House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris, R-Md., told Fox News Digital.

‘We’re driving the grain,’ he said. ‘We work with the president to advance his agenda in the most conservative way possible, and we’ve been successful.’

Border czar Tom Homan, who also addressed the event along with Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought, told Fox News Digital that HFC was key to advancing Trump’s border agenda.

‘They’re on the right side,’ Homan said. ‘They want to secure the border because they know a secure border, a strong border, gives us strong national security…they want us to enforce the laws.’

In late 2023, a group of HFC members were key to successfully pushing out a House speaker mid-congressional term for the first time in U.S. history.

They’ve also played significant roles in pushing Republican spending bills and the recent One Big, Beautiful Bill Act to the right – at least in the House.

Even in the middle of their two-day event on Thursday, some HFC members threatened to sink a GOP-led spending bill as a warning shot to House leaders to keep on a conservative path.

The approach has been seen as divisive for years, and this year is no different.

‘They act as if they are the only principled conservatives in the conference. It’s almost as if they would rather be in the minority,’ one House Republican, granted anonymity to speak freely, told Fox News Digital. ‘They love the attention they get when they hold out, only to fold in the end. It’s why no one respects them.’

Another GOP lawmaker said, in the context of current talks to avert a government shutdown, ‘The Freedom Caucus is not what it was two years ago or even four years ago. I don’t know what you call them, but Andy Harris speaks for himself.’

‘What is the goal of the Freedom Caucus? Is it to win? Is it to fold?’ they asked. ‘I mean, have they lost their teeth? From an outside perspective, no, I still think they get heard.’

Current HFC members brushed off the criticism.

‘We’re willing to negotiate with Donald Trump and the Senate to beat Democrats with the most conservative bill possible, so please keep assuming that we’re dead, and please keep writing that obituary, because we’re winning,’ HFC Policy Chair Chip Roy, R-Texas, told Fox News Digital.

Harris said of the critics, ‘If winning is folding, then I’ll fold every time.’

Indeed, the group does have the ear of the White House.

Former HFC Chair Scott Perry, R-Pa., who gave opening remarks during a portion of the summit exclusively viewed by Fox News Digital, revealed that White House aides attended the group’s recent meeting with conservative senators.

‘Last night, with representatives from the White House, we were asked, ‘What is the plan?’ I’m not exaggerating, this is your Freedom Caucus, the ‘legislative terrorists’ in the room where it happened,’ Perry told the audience.

But the group is expected to see some high-profile departures in the next congressional term: Roy is running for Texas Attorney General, and Reps. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., and Byron Donalds, R-Fla., are both running for governor, among others.

Roy told Fox News Digital of the turnover, ‘We’ve had a conversation. We have things we want to do to help kind of make sure and ensure the longevity. Right now, we’ve got to make sure the good people are running. We have to make sure we continue to grow the ranks of the Freedom Caucus.’

And newer members have signaled they’re ready to fill the ranks of those left behind.

‘Now that I’ve been here, and it’s my third year, and I get comfortable with this, it gives me a lot more confidence to know what is the right path or what’s the wrong path,’ said Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., whose profile in HFC has risen in his short time in Congress. ‘And I think there’s other members like me that are – as these guys step away, there’s plenty of really talented members to step in their shoes.’