Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., is accusing former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of elbowing him Tuesday morning while talking to NPR reporter Claudia Grisales. Grisales joins Morning Joe to discuss the moment.
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In His First Big Showdown, an Unyielding Conservative Yields
Biden, Xi to meet on sidelines of APEC Conference in Bay Area: ‘Intense diplomacy’
President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to sit for a highly anticipated meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference in the Bay Area on Wednesday — a meeting that officials hope will ease tensions in the midst of wars raging in Israel and Ukraine.
The meeting is to take place in San Francisco and will be a setting for “intense diplomacy,” a senior administration official said.
The White House says Biden and Xi are expected to discuss the relationship between the United States and China, including the importance of maintaining “open lines of communication.”
BIDEN, XI MEETING TO BE FORUM FOR ‘INTENSE DIPLOMACY’ AMID TENSIONS BETWEEN US, CHINA: OFFICIALS
A senior administration official said the two leaders will also discuss “managing competition responsibly” along with a range of regional, global and transnational issues, including Russia’s war in Ukraine, the Israel-Hamas war, and the growing conflicts in the Middle East.
“There will be a conversation on North Korea about some of our concerns with respect to the relationship with Russia in Ukraine,” a senior official said. “I think with respect to the Middle East, I believe that the president will underscore our desire for China to make clear in its burgeoning relationship with Iran that it is essential that Iran not seek to escalate or spread violence in the Middle East, and to warn, quite clearly, that if Iran undertakes provocative actions anywhere, that the United States is prepared to respond and respond promptly.”
The two are also expected to discuss additional “potentially contentious” topics, including election interference, with Biden planning to warn Xi about potential election influence operations.
The meeting this week will be the second in-person meeting between Biden and Xi since the beginning of the Biden administration in January 2021, but it will be the “seventh interaction,” the official said.
Biden and Xi last met in November 2022 on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia, where they agreed that more direct communication between U.S. and Chinese leadership was desirable.
“Both leaders have a longstanding relationship that began when they were both vice presidents,” the official said. “They have known each other for roughly a dozen years.”
Officials said that in the last eight months the Biden administration has been working to “restore diplomatic interaction.” In that time, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with Chinese Director Wang Yi three times; Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo have traveled to Beijing; and China has sent its vice president, foreign minister and other senior officials to the United States for meetings.
WH OFFICIALS CONFIRM DATE, LOCATION FOR BIDEN’S US MEETING WITH CHINESE PRESIDENT XI
“Over the last nearly three years, the administration surveyed the strategic landscape, assessed the challenge and took a series of purposeful strategic steps both at home and abroad in a diplomatic context that we think is sustaining,” the official said.
But the meeting between Biden and Xi on Wednesday comes at a critical time, one that Biden administration officials say is ripe for “high-level diplomacy.”
The Biden administration says its approach is “steady and consistent.”
“We’re not stepping back from our interests and values. We’re moving forward on them,” a senior official said while noting that they are “clear-eyed about this.”
“We also believe that intense competition requires and demands intense diplomacy to manage tensions and to prevent competition from verging into conflict or confrontation,” an official said. “We expect China to be around and to be a major player on the world stage for the rest of our lifetimes.”
Biden administration senior officials say that the meeting keeps in line with the United States’ “decades of experience” in talking to and “working with competitors when our interests call for it.”
“And this meeting with President Xi is in keeping with that tradition in American statecraft,” an official said. “And at this meeting, I think you can expect us to draw on that experience as we both stabilize the relationship and deliver in material, tangible ways for the American people.”
The goal of the meeting, an official said, is not to return with “deliverables” but rather to ensure the administration is “managing the competition, preventing the downside risk of conflict and ensuring channels of communication are open.”
One critical line of discussion, officials said, will be about open lines of communication between U.S. and Chinese military channels — especially in light of the Chinese surveillance balloon that traversed the continental United States in February.
“This is absolutely critical. And when we’re talking about managing risks, about avoiding conflict, this is exactly the sort of communication we need to be having, both at senior levels of our two militaries but also operator to operator,” the official said. “The balloon comes up often in the context of the need for communications between our two sides. And I think the balloon episode underscored the difficulty we had at the time to be able to establish high-level, consequential communications with Beijing.”
“We’ve made that case persistently and consistently,” the official continued. “I think you can expect the president to raise the broad parameters of ‘mil to mil’ engagement with President Xi next week.”
The official said that Biden and administration officials have raised the issue in “every encounter.”
“I think it is fair to say that the Chinese have been reluctant. And so the president is going to press assertively next week,” the official said.
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As Biden scrambles to reassure Black, Latino voters, some ask if the wealth gap can be fixed
The Biden administration is touting economic programs geared toward minority-owned businesses as Black and Hispanic voters show increasing disaffection toward Democrats following a year of higher consumer prices and soaring rents.
Recent polling indicates that Black, Hispanic and voters of other backgrounds may be turning away from President Biden.
A New York Times/Siena Poll released earlier this month found that 22 percent of Black voters in six key battleground states would choose former President Trump in next year’s election over Biden.
While that number still favors Biden in absolute terms, it’s a huge increase for Republicans over the historical baseline.
Trump won only 12 percent of the vote from Black Americans in 2020 and just 8 percent in 2016, according to the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at Cornell University, citing exit polling data from CNN and CBS News.
The Times/Siena poll had 42 percent of Hispanic voters in swing states leaning toward Trump and 50 percent leaning toward Biden. The 2020 breakdown for Hispanic voters, according to the Roper Center, was 65 percent for Biden and 32 percent for Trump.
Fifty-one percent of voters from other nonwhite racial backgrounds now favor Trump, while just 39 percent favor Biden, the poll found.
Speaking at the Congressional Black Caucus legislative forum in Washington in September, former U.S. Senate candidate for Alabama and nonprofit executive Brandaun Dean asked a panel of wealthy business people led by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) whether the very concept of Black capitalism was a myth.
“Do you believe that Black wealth has a sympathetic effect in Black communities, Black networks and in Black spaces? And is Black capitalism as much a myth as it would seem to be to those who have inherited their power?” he said, addressing a crowd of hundreds gathered in the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.
Funding is being pushed by the Biden administration
Now, new moves to fund businesses and entrepreneurs in communities of color are gaining momentum.
Community development lending programs, small business grants, initiatives on minority depository institutions (MDIs), and lines of credit for “inclusive entrepreneurship” are all getting the hard sell from the Treasury Department as support for Democrats among minority voting blocs shows signs of faltering.
Last month, the administration announced a $3 billion commitment from a group of companies and philanthropies for money lending institutions “working to make historic investments in underserved communities.”
“The new private sector commitments announced today will maximize the Biden-Harris Administration’s investments in expanding access to capital in low-income, rural, and other underserved communities, which increase long-term productivity and economic growth,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement.
The Treasury has also been publicizing federal grants worth $75 million for legal, accounting and financial advisory services for small businesses, as well as private credit lines worth $80 million for entrepreneurs of color.
“Entrepreneurs of color represent the fastest growing segment of the small business market, yet they have the least access to capital, are more likely to be denied credit, are more likely to pay high interest rates, and are less likely to apply for loans out of fear of being denied,” reads a write-up of one of the programs from Hyphen, a public-private administrator set up to spend money apportioned by several key pieces of Biden administration legislation focused on refurbishing the economy.
An October report from the Treasury analyzing foreclosure rates on homes and credit delinquency among Black and Hispanic Americans, as well as other economic factors, declared that the recovery from the coronavirus pandemic was “the most equitable in recent history.”
But doubts about an equitable and benevolent role for the government in supporting the private sector within marginalized communities are still firmly held by many entrepreneurs.
“[While] the government can inspire and create policies that make the game more fair, the reality is that the government can’t close the racial wealth gap by itself,” Cedric Nash, an author, real estate investor and founder of the Black Wealth Summit, told The Hill in an interview this month.
Public access to private capital makes a difference for minority business owners
Small business owners from nonwhite backgrounds say the kinds of investment programs being pushed by the Biden Treasury make a difference, because requirements for capital from private lenders can be too demanding.
“Early on, it was really hard,” Trent Griffin-Braaf, founder of the New York state-based transportation company Tech Valley Hospitality Shuttle, told The Hill.
Griffin-Braaf received funding from Pursuit, a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) certified by the U.S. Treasury.
“Going to the banks, I had a business plan, I had decent credit, but I still couldn’t get anywhere, so I just self-funded it. It was at least over a year before I was able to get a line of credit from a bank. A year after that, I was able to get a micro-loan from our chamber [of commerce],” he said, adding that he had a better experience with a CDFI than with banks.
“The Pursuit loan came for about $50,000 just weeks before Covid, and that money really just helped us get through the first months of the pandemic operationally,” he said. “Getting it felt like the world in the moment.”
Entrepreneur Jamahl Grace, who runs a small candle-making company based in Loudoun County, Va., told The Hill that even the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) — a government agency designed to support small businesses and help early-stage entrepreneurs — has some serious barriers to entry when it comes to securing financing.
“We looked into the SBA for a business loan, but we were just too young a business. We didn’t meet the criteria of how established you had to be. That created some barriers for us,” he said in an interview. “They said we needed to be in business for a certain number of years in order to qualify, and that made it very challenging.”
Economy still a hurdle for current administration
Biden’s handling of the economy has also been a weak spot in approval polls for months, as inflation rose last year to a 40-year high before subsiding gradually this year.
The consumer price index (CPI) eased further Tuesday to a 3.2-percent annual increase, with 70 percent of price increases — not counting food and energy — now concentrated in housing costs, according to the Labor Department.
August polling from Gallup found that while 42 percent of Americans approved of the job Biden was doing overall, just 37 percent signed off on his handling of the economy. An AP-NORC poll put that number even lower, at 36 percent, in August.
A report from Arizona State University in September found that value created in the U.S. economy by the Latino workforce totaled $3.2 trillion in 2021, up from $2.8 trillion in 2020, and is growing “two and a half times faster than the non-Latino equivalent.”
Skepticism about government support for the economy
Wariness about how effective the Biden administration can actually be in shoring up economically distressed segments of the population is also a common theme in communities of color.
“Whenever we leave it to the government to fix things, they never seem to really fix it. Because we have a system that’s designed for bipartisanship, I don’t think we’ll ever get a fair chance in that system,” Nash, the Black Wealth Summit founder, told The Hill, endorsing the role that financial assets can play in achieving financial independence and self-sufficiency.
“It’s really about the execution of taking the income that we make and the capital that we have available to us and converting that into assets that appreciate and do the work of generating income for us,” Nash said.
Other voices in the Black community take an even more skeptical view, not only toward the government but toward traditional conceptions of private enterprise within the public sphere, as well.
Atonn Muhammad, entertainment executive and CEO of the Real Hip Hop Network, addressing the panel at the Congressional Black Caucus legislative forum in September, asked whether the idea of Black wealth creation in America wasn’t better situated within the framework of a sovereign wealth fund, akin to those of several Gulf Arab nations.
“Why don’t we all combine forces? You’ve got the Robert Smiths of the world,” he said, referring to the prominent African American billionaire who sat on the panel.
“You’ve got the Jay Z’s and the Beyoncés, and when you look at the model of places like the United Arab Emirates, which have started sovereign wealth funds, in 20 years they’ve gone from a desert to an oasis of capitalism,” he said.
Earlier this year, the IRS confirmed a study out of Stanford University that found that Black taxpayers were three to five times more likely to be audited than other racial groups, likely a consequence of enforcement protocols associated with the earned income tax credit.
Go to Source: Administration News | The Hill
Meet the man leading Biden’s China strategy
President Biden is going into a high-stakes meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping with one man in particular close by his side: Kurt Campbell, the director of Asia strategy at the National Security Council.
Campbell, who has also been nominated to be deputy secretary of State, is described as the architect of the Biden administration’s strategy toward confronting China. Supporters praise his “creative diplomacy” in building coalitions among allies in the Indo-Pacific, and his acute understanding of how military power can be wielded.
Among Republicans, conservatives and Democrats, Campbell elicits respect — a rare distinction in Washington.
“Kurt is as experienced a hand in high policy as we have in either party in our government,” said Patrick Cronin, the Asia-Pacific security chair at the conservative-leaning Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C.
Cronin is longtime friends with Campbell. The two were colleagues at the University of Oxford and both are Navy reservists. He described Campbell as having a deep well of experience in the Indo-Pacific.
“He’s been working specifically on these issues from the very beginning of the Clinton administration, at least. And I worked with him on these issues back then. And he’s worked closely with our allies and partners, so he’s always been poised to have the trust of our allies.”
Campbell will head into the meeting with Biden and Xi as a known quantity on the Chinese side, according to experts interviewed for this article, adding that this familiarity will help Biden’s diplomatic efforts.
He’s also a respected figure among America’s closest regional allies — Japan, South Korea, Australia and India. It’s those relationships that he’s focused on deepening to shape the environment around China, increase pressure on Beijing and limit its choices in the region.
Campbell has been involved with a number of initiatives meant to counter China, including the state visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi; Biden’s summer summit with Japan and South Korea at Camp David and the birth of AUKUS, the trilateral Indo-Pacific security partnership with the United Kingdom and Australia, in September 2021.
A diplomat from an Asian country, who asked for anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the press, said Campbell has made an impression as someone who makes time to connect personally with people from the Indo-Pacific who are working in Washington. The diplomat described Campbell as showing “genuine modesty,” a trait that is not necessarily present in the intense power-play dynamics of Washington.
Richard Fontaine, CEO of the Center for a New American Security, and a friend of Campbell’s for nearly two decades, said that description is “totally true.”
“He definitely makes time and tries to be helpful to people across the board,” he said, while also crediting Campbell for creativity and “boundless energy and initiative.”
An administration official who worked closely with him in the leadup to Wednesday’s Biden-Xi meeting said Campbell led a team that managed “incredibly delicate diplomacy” while “overseeing broad strategic work that has strengthened our alliances in the Indo-Pacific.”
“Kurt’s approach buttresses one of President Biden’s greatest strengths as a leader on the world stage: his knack for leader-to-leader diplomacy,” the official said.
Campbell has served as the National Security Council coordinator for the Indo-Pacific since the start of the president’s term in office. During the Obama administration, he served as assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific affairs.
He’s also one-half of a D.C. power couple. His wife, Lael Brainard, is Biden’s director of the National Economic Council. The two have three daughters, and Campbell is quick to show colleagues and friends photographs and videos.
Biden administration officials talk about a two-pronged approach to competing with China that involves investments in the U.S. to put it in a stronger economic position, while deepening relationships with allies abroad to bolster its global position.
“The administration has put a lot emphasis on renewing the domestic sources of strength so as to be more competitive in taking on the China challenge. And Kurt’s role has been and will be focused on the foreign aspects of that … Lael’s got more of the domestic economic side of that equation,” Fontaine said.
A senior administration official briefing reporters last week said Biden is heading into his meeting with Xi “with game-changing investments in American strength at home” and “having deepened our alliances and partnerships abroad in ways that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.”
But even as the White House projects confidence, they are setting low expectations for breakthrough agreements or consensus with a leader who is viewed as more authoritarian at home and aggressive abroad.
The president is focused on reestablishing military-to-military channels that China severed in the wake of what China viewed as a provocative visit by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to Taiwan in August 2022.
A whole host of topics will be on the table between Biden and Xi, including Israel’s war with Hamas, Russia’s war in Ukraine and North Korea’s nuclear weapon saber-rattling.
“There’s a lot of crises and important equities in other regions of the world. But the administration wants to focus, despite it all, on the Indo-Pacific as its priority theater and China [as] his priority challenge,” Fontaine said. “And I think having Kurt go over to the State Department is one expression of that.”
Biden nominated Campbell for deputy secretary of State on Nov. 1. The process has been bogged down by bureaucratic and political hurdles, but some predicted it would ultimately end with success.
“My sense is at a time when the nomination and confirmation process is not exactly a well-oiled machine, the support for Kurt’s nomination among both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill, seems extraordinarily high, which is notable,” Fontaine said.
Go to Source: Administration News | The Hill
Rashida Tlaib member of secret Facebook group where Hamas terrorists glorified
EXCLUSIVE: Rep. Rashida Tlaib is part of a secret social media group in which its members have glamorized Hamas in its war battle with Israel after the terror group attacked and killed hundreds of innocent Israeli civilians last month, Fox News Digital has found.
The Michigan Democrat is a member of the Palestinian American Congress group on Facebook. The group is hidden from non-members and does not appear on the platform’s search engine, though Fox News Digital was able to gain access to it.
The group’s founder, Maher Abdel-qader, who has extensive ties to Tlaib and has also been linked to other liberal politicians, has come under fire in the past for his antisemitic social media posts, including questioning if the Holocaust ever occurred.
HOUSE VOTES TO CENSURE RASHIDA TLAIB OVER ANTI-ISRAEL COMMENTS
The Palestinian American Congress group, of which Tlaib is a member, has featured pro-Hamas posts in the wake of the deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
On Oct. 12, one group member posted: “We don’t want to throw you in the sea…we want you to ride it back from where you came.” The message was accompanied by a picture of an elderly Israeli woman and a Hamas fighter holding her captive.
On Oct. 19, another group member wrote about the “achievements” of the “resistance in Northern occupied Palestine,” including dozens of dead Israeli soldiers. The post included a picture of a Hamas fighter.
“Since yesterday I have been attached to the TV watching the news,” one group member posted on Oct. 10, addressing the “American Media” and saying, “You, and the people directing you, are the problem, you created it almost 100 years ago, made it official 75 years ago and you have been feeding its flam ever since.”
“You consider Hamas a terrorist organization and I am not going to argue with you at the same time you have been broadcasting that they have been killing women and children, guess that is what terrorists do at the same time no mention to the killing of Palestinian women, children and entire families killed on a daily basses (sic) by the [peace-loving] state of Israel using American gifts of weapons and jet fighters.”
“Yesterday I didn’t see Hamas I saw the grand kids (sic) of the refugees that ethnically cleansed from their homeland attacking the grand kids (sic) of the colonists whom sent them to diaspora,” they later wrote.
Several members have also posted pro-Hamas messages and pictures this year before the attacks.
Tlaib became a member of the group six years ago and posted in it during her 2018 congressional campaign. The following year, she came under fire after a report in the Daily Caller News Foundation revealed her membership and the slew of antisemitic posts in the group.
Tlaib is the only Palestinian American in Congress and has faced scrutiny over her comments after Hamas’ bloody invasion and the ensuing war. In a largely symbolic gesture, the House of Representatives voted to censure her in a 234-188 vote last week as a formal public rebuke of her most recent anti-Israel comments made in the wake of the Jewish nation’s battle against the terror group. Her congressional office did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Tlaib has a long history with Abdel-qader, the founder of the Palestinian American Congress group, who has repeatedly promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories over the years. He previously shared a video that called Jews “satanic” and questioned whether 6 million of them had died in the Holocaust. He later walked back those comments.
OMAR, TLAIB DEMAND CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS CONDEMN ‘ANTI-MUSLIM’ AND ‘ANTI-PALESTINIAN HATE’
Abdel-qader has participated in several fundraising events with Tlaib over the years and has also appeared in several pictures with her posted to social media accounts.
The Palestinian activist has not only been a key fundraiser for Tlaib, including personally donating at least $6,500 to her campaign since 2018, but he was also the chairman of her finance committee during her 2018 congressional campaign.
Tlaib introduced him by the title at a campaign event and presented him with a medal in April 2018 as a sign of gratitude for his help with her inaugural campaign.
On Monday, Abdel-qader posted a flier on his Facebook page, advertising a Chicago fundraiser for Tlaib and Pennsylvania Democrat Rep. Summer Lee, two congresswomen who he says “whole heartedly (sic) support” their community and the “just cause of Palestine.”
Since Israel launched a counterattack against Hamas, Abdel-qader has attended pro-Palestinian protests in the United States and has posted anti-Israel messages on his Facebook page.
For example, on Oct. 19, Abdel-qader posted: “Israeli Nazis air strike (sic) on Ahli Arab Hospital killed more than 500 people stop the massacre now.”
In reality, a failed rocket launch from the Palestinian side was responsible for hitting the hospital. Despite this, Tlaib and others repeated the falsehood that Israelis struck it, even after reports had shown that was not the case.
And in addition to Tlaib, Abdel-qader has also shown support for several other progressive politicians, including fellow “Squad” member Cori Bush of Missouri.
Bush took part in a virtual Zoom fundraiser with Abdel-qader in September 2021, per his since-locked Instagram account. In November of that year, Abdel-qader posted a Bush fundraising flier for a reception hosted by the St. Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee and the Muslim Community of St. Louis, which solicited donations between $100 and $2,500 for Bush’s campaign.
It appears he donated $250 to her campaign for the fundraiser.
The controversial activist has also campaigned with several other Democrats, including New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, among others.
Abdel-qader did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
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Mayorkas impeachment flop marks latest blow to GOP efforts to tackle border crisis
A defeat for House Republicans in their efforts to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas Monday marks the latest blow to Republicans in Congress as they seek to move forward with solutions to the ongoing crisis at the southern border.
Eight Republicans joined with House Democrats in voting to table a motion that would have impeached Secretary Mayorkas, a move that Republicans have been teasing since they took the House in early 2023.
While it does not necessarily mark the end of impeachment efforts against Mayorkas — an investigation is still ongoing into his conduct in the House Homeland Security Committee — it is a significant defeat for Republicans in the House.
DEMOCRATS BLOCK EFFORT TO IMPEACH DHS SECRETARY MAYORKAS WITH REPUBLICAN SUPPORT
The Department of Homeland Security responded by urging Republicans to stop “wasting time and to do its job by funding the government, reforming our broken immigration system, reauthorizing vital tools for DHS and passing the administration’s supplemental request to properly resource the department’s critical work to stop fentanyl and further secure our borders.
“Secretary Mayorkas continues to be laser-focused on the safety and security of our nation. This baseless attack is completely without merit and a harmful distraction from our critical national security priorities,” the statement added.
The defeat comes after Republicans upset conservatives and border hawks earlier this year when they tried and failed to attach H.R. 2 — the House Republicans’ signature border security and asylum overhaul legislation — to a continuing resolution to keep the federal government open.
Instead, the House ended up passing a “clean” continuing resolution, which in turn led to the ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy. On Tuesday evening, the House passed another continuing resolution to avoid a pre-holiday season shutdown. That too did not contain policy riders, including those related to border security.
In the upper chamber, Senate Republicans last week introduced a series of border security proposals to be included as part of negotiations over the White House’s supplemental aid request. That package is expected to contain funding for Israel, Ukraine and the border.
WHITE HOUSE, SENATE DEMS REJECT GOP BORDER SECURITY PROPOSALS: ‘TOTAL NON-STARTER’
However, the initial Republican proposals were immediately rejected by Senate Democrats as a “non-starter,” while the White House also dismissed the proposals. Immigration hawks, meanwhile, were critical that the proposals missed out on some parts of H.R. 2.
“If Republicans want to have a serious conversation about reforms that will improve our immigration system, we are open to a discussion. We disagree with many of the policies contained in the new Senate Republican border proposal,” a White House spokesperson said.
However, negotiations are still ongoing as a bipartisan Senate group discusses potential provisions that could be included in a supplemental aid package with support for Ukraine. But it remains to be seen what such a package will look like. Legislation would need to pass both the GOP-controlled House and prevent a Senate filibuster in the Democrat-controlled chamber.
In the House, some conservative Republicans have been sounding the alarm and criticizing their own caucus’ work so far, including the failure to pass border security legislation.
“We promised the American people we would stand athwart this administration, cut spending, secure the border. We’ve delivered on none of that so far,” Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, told “Cavuto: Coast to Coast” Tuesday.
Roy also warned that, in terms of upcoming negotiations, he would not be receptive if lawmakers “try and sell me something and call it border security if it’s not.”
“Don’t come to me with some nonsense with Ukraine and border security that doesn’t actually secure the border, or we’re going to have to call BS on that,” he said.
Immigration hawks have also told Republicans they should keep the border at the top of their priority list.
“The border crisis is only getting worse, and Republicans’ resolve to fix it cannot fade as budget negotiations continue,” Lora Ries, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center, told Fox News Digital.
“In the matter of just a few days, the House has let Mayorkas skate on impeachment while the Senate works on a proposal to undermine H.R. 2, which is the only serious solution to the crisis we face. A border disaster of this magnitude must not fall to the back burner in favor of politics and wrong priorities.”
The border crisis continues. Numbers published by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Tuesday show there were more than 249,000 migrant encounters in October, down only slightly from the monthly record set in September, when there were more than 269,000 encounters.
Republicans have continued to blame the policies of the Biden administration for the crisis, while the administration has called for more funding and policy changes to fix what it says is a “broken” system.
Fox News’ Brandon Gillespie contributed to this report.
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Biden admin plan to release predator near rural communities faces widespread opposition: ‘A huge threat’
A wide range of livestock and agriculture industry groups, in addition to state and local governments, are opposing a Biden administration plan to release grizzly bears in a Washington forest area located near rural communities.
The groups, which include the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA), Public Lands Council (PLC) and American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), argued in comments filed with the federal government this week that releasing grizzly bears near communities would be detrimental to their members in the region. They also said such a move would threaten public safety and jeopardize future conservation efforts.
“Introducing an apex predator like the grizzly bear to a new area of Washington state is a mistake and poses a huge threat to our rural communities and hardworking farmers and ranchers,” said Mark Eisele, a Wyoming rancher and incoming NCBA president.
“This plan is being pushed by bureaucrats thousands of miles away from the West who do not fully understand the harm this species will cause to producers. The Biden administration should listen to rural residents and rethink this plan.”
LOCAL RESIDENTS EXPLODE AT BIDEN OFFICIALS OVER PLAN TO RELEASE GRIZZLY BEARS NEAR THEIR COMMUNITIES
“Grizzly bears are 20 times more dangerous than black bears and are well known for their aggressive, fatal mauling,” added PLC President Mark Roeber, a Colorado rancher. “Their broad diet means they can harm anyone — corn producers, orchards, cattle ranchers, sheep ranchers. The list goes on and on.”
Roeber argued the decision to airdrop bears into a new environment shouldn’t be taken lightly and said he has faced livestock depredation as a result of gray wolf populations near his ranch. Grizzly bears, he added, are an even larger predator that “will only cause more harm to our fellow livestock producers in Washington state.”
WHITE HOUSE CONFIRMS BIDEN WILL SIGN BIPARTISAN BILL REVERSING HIS OWN ADMIN’S CRACKDOWN ON HUNTING
In late September, the National Park Service and Fish and Wildlife Service proposed a rule and draft environmental impact statement opening the door to releasing grizzly bears in the North Cascades National Park located in northern Washington along the U.S.-Canada border. The proposal was cheered by left-wing eco groups but heavily criticized by local lawmakers and residents.
Under the proposal, the federal government would release up to seven grizzly bears annually into the North Cascades ecosystem (NCE) over the course of the next five to 10 years. The federal government’s overarching goal would be to establish a grizzly bear population of roughly 200 bears in the coming decades.
“In addition to the threat to human safety, the reintroduction of grizzly bears to the NCE will pose a real risk to the economic viability of the ranch and farm families that undergird the rural economy across Washington state,” the NCBA, PLC, AFBF, American Sheep Industry Association and several local affiliates wrote in comments filed Monday.
“There will be numerous significant economic harms to both private and public lands producers, as well as a severe rise in risks to human safety. These consequences are bad enough on their own, but they are even harder for producers to stomach when this reintroduction is not even required for the continued nationwide growth of the grizzly bear population.”
The federal plan released in September includes three options, two that would involve actively restoring populations of the threatened grizzly bear species and one “no action” alternative that would maintain current management practices. The public comment period for the proposal expired Monday.
“We reiterate our opposition to grizzly bear reintroduction given the likely adverse impacts to our local communities and lack of local government engagement by the federal agencies,” the Chelan County Board of Commissioners, the local governing body near the NCE, wrote in its own comment letter.
“At minimum, we hope that you will consider our comments and develop a draft EIS and proposed 10(j) rule that more accurately reflects the current science, management needs and local community impacts of grizzly bear reintroduction.”
Both the Montana and Idaho state governments also weighed in on the proposal, arguing the federal government’s proposal would be harmful.
“Grizzly bears will occupy a diversity of habitats, regardless of landownership or zonal designation. It is naive to think that there will only be bears on public lands, unless the intent is to manage bears to exclude any that wander onto private land,” Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Director Dustin Temple wrote. “If that is the intent, then many more bears will be required to achieve a desired population.”
BIDEN’S WAR ON HUNTING FACES BLOWBACK FROM REPUBLICANS, SPORTSMEN GROUPS
According to the NPS, grizzly bears occupied the North Cascades and served as an “essential part of the ecosystem” for thousands of years. However, in the 20th century, as a result of aggressive hunting practices, the species was driven into near extinction and the last confirmed sighting of a grizzly bear in the NCE was in 1996.
Hugh Morrison, the regional FWS director, said in September that grizzly bears are part of the region’s heritage and restoring them could be done in a way that ensures communities, residents and animals “can all coexist peacefully.”
The plan would release grizzly bears near communities, and, according to the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife, unintentionally or intentionally killing a grizzly bear in the state can result in massive fines and penalties since the species is listed as federally threatened and state-listed as endangered.
Plans to reintroduce grizzly bears to the North Cascades dates to the Obama administration. Then, after significant state opposition led by Congressman Dan Newhouse, the Trump administration concluded grizzly bears would not be restored in the ecosystem.
Former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt noted in July 2020 that grizzly bears are not in danger of extinction and that his agency could manage populations across their existing range.
However, late last year, following extensive litigation from environmental groups, the Biden administration announced it would again review whether to move forward with restoration, a process that led to the proposal in September.
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New Hampshire holds to tradition, thumbs its nose at President Biden
A nearly year-long battle between New Hampshire and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) over the timing of the state’s century-old first-in-the-nation presidential primary is headed to a culmination.
New Hampshire Secretary of State Dave Scanlan is scheduled Wednesday to announce the date of the contest, which for a century has served as the first presidential primary in both the Democratic and Republican Party nominating calendars.
“I’m going to say a few things about why the New Hampshire primary is important to hold the lead-off position, and then I’ll announce the date,” Scanlan told Fox News Digital on the eve of his announcement at the State House in Concord.
Scanlan said “the narrative from the Democratic National Committee” about New Hampshire’s lack of diversity “is not the real reason why this is going on, and there are more important reasons why New Hampshire should go first, and I’ll be discussing those tomorrow.”
NEW HAMPSHIRE DEMOCRATS DEFY BIDEN, DNC OVER PRIMARY DATE
The date that Scanlan announces — which many expect will be Jan. 23 — is certain to put the state out of compliance with the DNC’s 2024 presidential nominating calendar.
The state faces sanctions from the Democrats, which could result in the loss of half of New Hampshire’s delegates to next summer’s national convention.
And the holding of an unsanctioned primary has led President Biden to keep his name off the New Hampshire ballot. However, Granite State Democrats have launched a write-in campaign in an attempt to prevent an electoral embarrassment for the president as he runs for a second term in the White House.
Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, who has been a vocal critic of the president and the DNC over their push to upend the calendar, is likely to attend Scanlan’s announcement and make remarks.
“Joe Biden has completely screwed this up for himself and for the Democrats,” Sununu said in a Fox News interview in September. “We’re going first, no matter what.”
And the governor argued that “it’s just insulting. The president has insulted the Democrats of this state.”
Democrats for years have knocked both Iowa and New Hampshire as unrepresentative of the party as a whole because the state has a largely White population with few major urban areas. Nevada and South Carolina, which in recent cycles have voted third and fourth on the calendar, are much more diverse than either Iowa or New Hampshire. Nevada and South Carolina were added to the Democrat calendar nearly two decades ago to increase the diversity of the early states’ electorate.
While Republicans aren’t making major changes to their schedule, the DNC earlier this year overwhelmingly approved a calendar proposed late last year by Biden to move South Carolina to the lead position on Feb. 3. New Hampshire and Nevada were scheduled to hold primaries three days later, with Iowa entirely losing its early state position. The president and supporters of the new calendar argued that it would empower minority voters, upon whom Democrats have long relied but have at times taken for granted.
But New Hampshire has a nearly half-century-old law that mandates that it hold the first presidential primary, a week ahead of any similar contest.
To comply with the DNC, New Hampshire would have needed to scrap its state law protecting its first-in-the-nation primary status and expand access to early voting. However, with Republicans in control of the governor’s office and both houses of the state legislature, Democrats repeatedly argued that was a non-starter.
Longtime New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley, a former DNC vice chair, has spotlighted his state’s tradition of candidate-to-voter retail style politics.
“For more than 100 years, presidential candidates of both parties have come to the Granite State to start their campaigns because they know how seriously we take our primary. New Hampshire is one of the last places where retail politics reigns. It’s not about TV ads or paid mail, it’s about one-on-one conversations and building an operation that connects with people where they are,” Buckley said earlier this year.
And he highlighted that “successful candidates come out of New Hampshire stronger for having been here and ready for the fight ahead. This is what presidents have experienced for generations, and it is why New Hampshire will retain its first-in-the-nation primary in 2024 and beyond.”
Scanlan in September announced the dates of New Hampshire’s presidential primary filing period, which were in line with a primary that could be held on Jan. 23, eight days after Iowa’s GOP presidential caucus.
“I’m just assuming we’re going to be in noncompliance with the Democratic National Committee,” Scanlan told Fox News at the time. But he also said that being found in noncompliance by the DNC is “not going to affect what we do in New Hampshire at all.”
The DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee — which oversees the party’s presidential nominating calendar — last month ruled that New Hampshire was conditionally noncompliant as the state was expected to announce a primary date outside the DNC’s window.
There are plenty of Democrats in Iowa and New Hampshire who see the upending of their leadoff positions as sour grapes from Biden, who finished a disappointing fourth in the 2020 Iowa caucuses and fifth in the New Hampshire primary — before a second-place finish in Nevada and a landslide victory in South Carolina propelled him toward the nomination and eventually the White House.
Biden faces long-shot primary challenges from two Democrats who will be on the ballot in New Hampshire.
Three-term Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, one of the wealthiest members of Congress, formally announced his presidential bid as he filed at the State House on Oct. 27 to place his name on the state’s ballot. Also on the Granite State ballot is the other challenger, bestselling author and spiritual adviser Marianne Williamson, who is making her second straight White House run.
While the president, who turns 81 next week, is the commanding front-runner for the nomination, polls indicate Biden faces mounting concerns from Democrats over his age. Those surveys also suggest that many Americans, including plenty of Democrats, don’t want the president to seek a second term in the White House.
There are concerns among Granite Staters that the move by the president and the DNC to revamp the nominating calendar, and his absence from the primary ballot, could lead to a ballot box setback for Biden in New Hampshire.
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House Homeland Chair Green to warn US is at ‘one of the most dangerous times’ in history during threat hearing
EXCLUSIVE: House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green is expected to warn that the present is “one of the most dangerous times in the history of the United States” during his panel’s hearing Wednesday focused on worldwide threats.
The hearing Wednesday will begin at 9 a.m. and will feature testimony from Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and National Counterterrorism Center Director Christine Abizaid.
FBI DIRECTOR WRAY WARNS TERROR THREAT TO AMERICANS AT ‘WHOLE OTHER LEVEL’ AMID HAMAS-ISRAEL CONFLICT
Fox News Digital exclusively obtained a copy of Green’s opening statement, in which he warns that security challenges to the United States in the midst of the war between Israel and Hamas are “becoming more dynamic each day.”
“I do not say this lightly; this is one of the most dangerous times in the history of the United States,” Green, R-Tenn., will say, according to his prepared remarks.
During an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital on Tuesday ahead of the hearing, Green said that the United States is at “heightened risk,” and said the “open door policy” at the U.S. Southern Border is largely to blame.
Hamas launched a deadly terrorist attack against Israel on Oct. 7, leading to a military response from the U.S. ally. The conflict has renewed concern in the U.S. that there could be similar terror attacks inspired by Hamas and other terrorist groups, including by domestic and homegrown terrorists.
Green, pointing to homegrown terrorists, warned of “lone wolf” terror attacks in the United States, saying terrorists “have the ability to recruit American citizens” and have radicalized them “to do horrific things.”
Green also said he will use the hearing to warn of the “unprecedented crisis” at the Southern Border — the “worst,” he said, in American history — and shine a light on “malicious activity by nation-state actors.”
But Green is also expected to warn that terrorism “poses a direct threat to the U.S. homeland.”
The number of people arrested in FY 2023 between ports of entry by Border Patrol at the southern border who are on the FBI’s terror watchlist hit a new record this year, with 151 arrests in FY 23, compared to 98 in FY 2022 and 15 in FY 21. At the ports of entry at the northern and southern border, there have been 505 people encountered by Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Field Operations.
The watch list, officially called the Terrorist Screening Dataset (TSDS) is the government’s database that “contains sensitive information on terrorist identities.” The watch list originated to house information on known or suspected terrorists, but “has evolved over the last decade to include additional individuals who represent a potential threat to the United States, including known affiliates of watchlisted individuals,” CBP says.
While the number is relatively small, compared to the millions of migrants encountered at the borders in recent years, Republicans and former border officials have raised concern about the numbers of those on the terror watch list who are getting past Border Patrol agents. There were at least 599,000 illegal immigrants who escaped Border Patrol custody in FY 2022, after more than 390,000 in FY 2021.
“Who are they? Where are they? What are they? That’s what we don’t know,” Green told Fox News Digital.
The chairman also is expected to point to rising threats of antisemitism in the United States after Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
“Foreign terrorist organizations like ISIS have called on its extremist supporters to target Jewish communities in the United States and Europe,” Green will say.
Green is also expected to point to cyber threats facing the United States from adversarial nations like Iran.
IN WAKE OF HAMAS ATTACK, WESTERN PROTESTS, REPUBLICANS INCREASE FOCUS ON LEGAL IMMIGRATION LIMITS
The hearing on Wednesday comes after Mayorkas, Wray and Abizaid testified before the Senate Homeland Security Committee last month about threats to the United States.
Wray, during that hearing, warned that the threat of a terror attack against Americans has been raised to a “whole other level” due to ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
“The reality is that the terrorism threat has been elevated throughout 2023, but the ongoing war in the Middle East has raised the threat of an attack against Americans in the United States to a whole other level,” Wray told lawmakers on the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
“We assess that the actions of Hamas and its allies will serve as an inspiration, the likes of which we haven’t seen since ISIS launched its so-called caliphate several years ago,” Wray said. “In just the past few weeks, multiple foreign terrorist organizations have called for attacks against Americans and the West.”
Wray warned that the most immediate concern is that individuals or small groups will draw inspiration from the events to attack Americans, including homegrown violent extremists who are inspired by foreign terrorist organizations, or by domestic violent extremists who are targeting Muslim or Jewish targets.
The Department of Homeland Security last month said that the U.S. remains in a heightened threat environment.
“As the Israel-Hamas conflict continues, we have seen an increase in reports of threats against Jewish, Muslim, and Arab communities and institutions. Lone offenders, motivated by a range of violent ideologies, pose the most likely threat,” a DHS spokesperson said. “We urge the public to stay vigilant and to promptly report suspicious activity to local law enforcement.”
Meanwhile, Green said he will also raise the threat the Chinese Communist Party poses to the United States.
President Biden is set to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping Wednesday afternoon in the Bay Area of California, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference.
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