The White House News

You can put lipstick on a pig, but…

If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck…

What’s in a name? That which we would call a rose…

Don’t spit on cupcakes and call it frosting…

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., faces his first true test this week. The newly elected House speaker is offering something he’s characterized in recent weeks as a “laddered CR.” Yeah, not a lot of people in Washington knew what that was either.

Johnson engineered a plan to fund the entire government on a temporary basis through Jan. 19, which is when Congress is expected to pass one batch of spending bills to avert a shutdown. The remainders would have until Feb. 2.

The “laddered” concept stems from dealing with one “rung” of bills by one date and the next “rung” of bills later on. Laddered. Get it?

WHEN IT COMES TO THE NEXT SHUTDOWN FIGHT IN CONGRESS, SILENCE IS GOLDEN

Call it what you will, but what Johnson proposed is a “CR” – short for “Continuing Resolution.” An interim spending bill which simply renews all funding at current levels to avoid a government shutdown early Saturday morning.

Ironically, this is exactly the same legislative idea that got former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., canned earlier this fall. So, what gives?

It’s rebranding. Companies change their names all the time. Firms wrap their products up in shinier, newer packages. It doesn’t affect the stuff inside. The term “CR” became toxified inside some quarters of the House Republican Conference. So, you have to alter the marketing. Moreover, Johnson reiterates that he is committed to advancing the 12 annual appropriations bills which fund the government one by one as Republicans promised.

Except for a couple of things. A CR is still a CR. There was never enough time from when Johnson clasped the gavel to advance all the spending bills through the House and merge them with the Senate to avoid a shutdown, so this was the only way out of this cul-de-sac for Johnson.

But moreover, Johnson is running into the same problems which dogged his predecessor. Republicans insist on passing their own partisan spending bills individually, but they can’t.

Republicans had to yank a Transportation/Housing spending bill off the floor last week and did the same with a Treasury/White House spending bill on Thursday.

And for the record, the latter bill met its demise after the House rejected an amendment to reduce the pay of White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre to $1 a year. That’s right. $1.

What is this? The Price is Right?

Jean-Pierre’s annual take-home pay is $188,000. Point being, Republicans burned crucial time making amendments like those pertaining to Jean-Pierre in order for debate and a vote when they couldn’t even get the overall legislation to pass.

These appropriations bills are not exactly ready for the Showcase Showdown.

THE SPEAKER’S LOBBY: THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO A POSSIBLE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

It’s far from clear whether the House can even pass Johnson’s proposal. And, because of GOP skepticism, Johnson may need to rely on Democrats to avert a government shutdown. Sound familiar?

If Republicans give Johnson a pass and approve his “laddered” CR – especially with Democratic assistance – we will have confirmed something significant about the Speaker’s debacle which consumed most of October and prompted McCarthy’s ouster: the motion to vacate the chair was never about spending bills or legislation. It was a personal vendetta against McCarthy.

But back to the task at hand: government funding expires at 11:59 p.m. ET Friday. There is not much turning radius to move a bill of any sort through the House and through the Senate. Either way, it doesn’t appear that Johnson faces some of the same opprobrium which was leveled at his predecessor, but Johnson doesn’t appear to have a Midas Touch yet, either.

Lawmakers from both sides long suggested that Johnson would enjoy a “honeymoon” after finally securing the gavel following a brutal three weeks incinerating one speaker and three speaker nominees.

“There’s a honeymoon period here. I’m not sure how long that lasts. Maybe 30 days,” opined Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., late last Thursday.

HOUSE ENDS WEEK BEHIND SCHEDULE WITH DAYS UNTIL POSSIBLE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

But minutes later, House Republican leaders pulled the Treasury/White House bill from the floor because it lacked the votes to pass.

“With what’s going on over on the floor today, I think that indicates that the honeymoon might be shorter than we thought. And every time the CR expires, the speaker’s putting his head in the lion’s mouth,” said Massie.

Johnson may not be able to control the CR and he also can’t control privileged resolutions offered by Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who filed a special resolution late last week to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. 

Since the resolution is “privileged,” it goes to the front of the legislative line. The House will likely consider Greene’s gambit on Tuesday.

It’s possible that the GOP-led House could impeach Mayorkas with no hearings, no depositions and no markup of a resolution. This would be after Republicans brayed for months about “the regular order.” Greene said it was too late for all of that.

“No more strongly worded letters. No more committee hearings. No more clips on the press. We have to do something about it,” she said.

HOUSE MAY VOTE ON IMPEACHING MAYORKAS WITHOUT A MOTION TO TABLE: SOURCE

To be frank, many Republicans would rather talk about impeaching Mayorkas instead of actually impeaching Mayorkas, especially with no committee hearings or markups. 

The House just voted to table (or kill) a resolution to expel Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., because the Ethics Committee hadn’t completed a report on his conduct. Moreover, Johnson said on Fox he was concerned about “due process,” but that’s cast to the wind with Greene’s measure to impeach Mayorkas.

A senior House leadership source told Fox to expect a straight up or down vote on the Mayorkas resolution. In other words, no motion to table. Of course, Democrats could move to table, but it’s unclear if they would do that. Democrats don’t want Mayorkas impeached, but they may feel it’s a victory either way.

One of two things will happen: The House votes to impeach Mayorkas. If so, he becomes only the second cabinet officer ever impeached. The last was Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876, but Democrats know that the Senate would never hold a full trial on Mayorkas. It must start the process. But the Senate can vote to dispense with the articles.

Democrats will view impeachment as a victory because Republicans wasted their time – impeaching Mayorkas – as the government runs out of money. They’ll also point to who authored the articles of impeachment: Greene.

The other scenario is if the House fails to impeach Mayorkas. It’s far from clear that the House has the votes to do so. Democrats will then point to Republicans chattering ad nauseam about impeaching Mayorkas and then stumbling. 

All talk and no action, and some Republicans have had it.

“I’m not going to be thinking a lot about every privileged resolution that Majorie (Taylor) Greene files because we’ve got real work to do,” said freshman Rep. John Duarte, R-Calif., who represents a battleground district and won by 564 votes in 2022. “I’m not interested in these peripheral impeachments.”

Regardless, Democrats will point to election results last week in Kentucky, Virginia and Ohio and suggest that Republicans are again focused on the wrong things.

Not everyone in the nation knows who Mike Johnson is yet, but if the government shuts down on Saturday, you can bet everyone will learn who he is.

So, you can dress things up by applying lipstick, mascara and anything else on a CR… but it’s still a CR. That’s something Republicans abhor, but Johnson has no choice when his side still can’t even pass their own spending bills.

There is one school of thought on Capitol Hill that maybe a shutdown is inevitable. Congress narrowly averted a shutdown once McCarthy put a straight, six-week CR on the floor at the last minute, so maybe McCarthy simply delayed a shutdown. McCarthy paid the price for preventing that earlier in the fall.

Johnson won’t pay an immediate price regardless of how things go. He might not get a laddered CR, but this is the challenge Johnson faces for climbing the leadership ladder.

Pro-life groups involved in the unsuccessful opposition to an Ohio ballot measure that enshrined abortion access into the state’s constitution on Tuesday are offering up “postmortem” insight into what went wrong and pushing back on the popular media narrative that abortion is an issue that Republicans can’t win on.

After Ohioans voted “Yes” on Issue 1 by a 13 point margin on Tuesday, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser released a memo explaining how opponents of Issue 1 were outspent by a “2:1 margin” in a media blitz that SBA Vice President of State Affairs Stephen Billy said consisted of ads that were “lying to the voters of Ohio” because the abortion industry knows its positions are “too extreme” for most Americans.

“The abortion industry’s game plan is we’re going to spend tens of millions of dollars and lie to the American people and run ads that say that pro-life states don’t have protections for life of the mother situations. We’re going to run ads that say women can’t get care for a miscarriage because of the laws of pro-life states and those are the lies that are getting picked up by the national media as well,” Billy said.

One of the ways to do that, Billy said, is on the issue of messaging, which many pundits and media sources have said is something that Republicans routinely fail to do. Billy rejected that narrative and pointed out several areas where Republicans have won on abortion post the reversal of Roe v. Wade.

OHIO CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT ON ABORTION GOES ‘WAY, WAY TOO FAR,’ EVEN FARTHER THAN ROE: GOV. DEWINE

Just a few months after the reversal of Roe v. Wade in June 2022 that sparked protests across the country, several staunch pro-life governors across the country won overwhelming re-election efforts, including in Florida, Ohio, Iowa and Georgia, and those governors had also previously signed abortion restrictions into law.

“Georgia is one of my favorite examples because you had the darling of the left, Stacey Abrams, at the front of the line trying to tell people that babies don’t have heartbeats and that the sound that the ultrasound machine makes is somehow some kind of creation to manipulate and Gov. Kemp strongly stood up for life and signed a heartbeat law and won that election.”

BIDEN FALSELY SAYS ABORTION RULING MAKES US ‘OUTLIER AMONG DEVELOPED NATIONS’

“We’re able to win when we’re able to directly expose the extremism of the other side and contrast that with the compassion and the love of the pro-life movement,” Billy explained. “It’s not a political liability to be pro-life. 

“It’s not a losing issue. The voters and the American people are with us in rejecting the extremism of the abortion industry and their desire for us to be like China and North Korea, to have abortions without limits. We just have to find a way to to translate the success our politicians have had into these ballot initiative fights.”

Ashley Hayek, political strategist and executive director of America First Works, told Fox News Digital that “conservatives are always going to be outspent” by massive pro-abortion networks and the key is, “We have to be a lot more strategic in how we spend money, how we target voters, how we message, and we need to be more unified.”

“It took 50 years to undo Roe v. Wade, so pro-lifers are used to temporary setbacks on the long road to ending abortion,” Rev. Dean Nelson, executive director of Human Coalition Action, said following the Ohio vote. “We will not rest in our work to save as many lives as possible and shield women from the horrors of the abortion industry.”

Mehek Cooke, who served as a spokesperson for Protect Women Ohio but spoke to Fox News Digital in her capacity as a Republican consultant and attorney, said conservatives “can and will win to protect the life of the unborn by finding consensus.”

US DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE CHALLENGES ALABAMA’S ATTEMPT TO PROSECUTE ABORTION ASSISTANCE

In order to win going forward, Cooke explained that abortion opponents must “frame the pro-life movement to fight against full-term abortions across America and for parental consent if our child is confronted with life-altering decisions like abortion.”

“The Democrats went from safe, legal and rare to infanticide for all,” Cooke said. “This is the battle we are faced with today. Whether you are pro-choice, pro-life or somewhere in between, there is a path for common sense to prevail where we protect the life of an unborn child at viability with exceptions such as protecting the life of the mother, rape or incest. Now is not the time to demonize one another but enact stronger policies and ensure consistent funding to assist pregnant mothers, pregnancy centers, and adoption services.”

Protect Women Ohio released a statement following the Ohio Issue 1 vote that said, “Our hearts are broken tonight not because we lost an election, but because Ohio families, women and children will bear the brunt of this vote.”

“When Michigan voters passed a similar amendment last year, they were sold the lie that parental rights would be unaffected, that late-term abortion would remain illegal, and that women’s health and safety standards would not be touched. But just last week, the Michigan legislature voted to repeal penalties for partial-birth abortions, to eliminate health and safety protections at abortion facilities, and they called parental consent laws ‘unconstitutional.’”

“They even vowed to come for informed consent laws and 24-hour waiting periods next. We know the same barbaric attacks on parents and children are now coming home to Ohio.”

Billy told Fox News Digital that he anticipates pro-abortion groups like Planned Parenthood and the ACLU using the same playbook from Ohio in future abortion battlegrounds like Arizona, Nebraska, Missouri and South Dakota. 

“It’s just been incredible to see how aggressive the legacy media has been in their willingness to parrot and amplify the misinformation from the abortion industry,” Billy said. “We know we’re going to be outspent and we know we’re going to have to fight legacy media bias. We just have to figure out a way to account for that and change the direction that these battles have been going.”

President Biden is set to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week in California— a meeting that officials hope will ease tensions in the bilateral relationship between the United States and the People’s Republic of China, and one that comes at a time in need of “intense diplomacy.”

The meeting is set to take place in San Francisco’s Bay Area on Wednesday Nov. 15. Senior administration officials said the specifics of the location will not be shared “for operational security reasons.”

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.”

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.

WH OFFICIALS CONFIRM DATE, LOCATION FOR BIDEN’S US MEETING WITH CHINESE PRESIDENT XI

“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 the “seventh interaction,” the official said.

CHINA ADOPTED ‘MORE DANGEROUS’ TACTICS IN 2022 AS ‘ONLY COMPETITOR’ TO US, PENTAGON WARNS IN NEW REPORT

Biden and Xi last met in Nov. 2022 on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia, where they agreed more direct communication between U.S. and Chinese leadership was desirable. 

“Both leaders have a long-standing 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 period, 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.

“At the start of this administration, the PRC was convinced that the United States was in terminal decline,” the official said. “Around the world, there were doubts about our staying power, our economic vitality, our commitment to our allies, and the health of our democracy.” 

The official added: “Much of that has changed under President Biden’s leadership.”

CHINA DEPLOYS OVER 40 PLANES TO TAIWAN STRAIT, IS MASSING FORCES AT COASTAL MILITARY BASES, TAIWAN WARNS

“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 continued.

But the meeting between Biden and Xi Wednesday comes at a critical time— a time that Biden administration officials say is ripe for “high-level diplomacy.”

“First, we are going into this meeting with game-changing investments in American strength at home through the bipartisan infrastructure law, the Chips and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act,” the official explained. ” Second, we’re going into this meeting having deepened our alliances and partnerships abroad in ways that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.”

The official added: “After investing at home and strengthening ties with allies and partners abroad, now is precisely the time 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 stressing 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.”

FLASHBACK: US INTEL ASSESSES CHINESE SPY BALLOONS TRANSITED US SEVERAL TIMES, WENT ‘UNDETECTED’: SENIOR ADMIN OFFICIAL

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 regarding 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.

EXCLUSIVE: House China Select Committee Chairman Mike Gallagher is requesting information from the United States Army on its efforts to protect an “essential” U.S. territory that remains “highly vulnerable” amid heightened Chinese military aggression, Fox News Digital has learned.

Gallagher, R-Wis., penned a letter to Army Secretary Christine Wormuth, exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital, requesting information on protecting Guam, the westernmost point of the United States.

Guam hosts Naval Base Guam, the Navy’s only submarine base in the western Pacific, as well as Anderson Air Force Base—a large air base that is able to host U.S. strategic bombers and fighters.

WH OFFICIALS CONFIRM DATE, LOCATION FOR BIDEN’S US MEETING WITH CHINESE PRESIDENT XI

“With over 20,000 U.S. troops stationed on the island, Guam will play an essential role in the defense of American allies and interests in the region,” Gallagher wrote to Wormuth. “But despite its strategic importance, Guam remains highly vulnerable to an increasingly sophisticated network of missiles from the People’s Republic of China, especially its cruise missiles.” 

Guam is significantly closer to China than Hawaii, Gallagher said, and warned that China has spent “decades developing both short and intermediate-range ballistic missiles that can target Guam and U.S. airfields in Japan, as well as U.S. aircraft carriers and warships operating in the western Pacific.”

REPUBLICANS DEMAND ANSWERS AFTER TOP BIDEN OFFICIAL INVITED CCP LEADERS TO SENSITIVE NATIONAL SECURITY SITE

Gallagher warned that China also has developed “a formidable inventory of highly capable cruise missiles that can be launched from multiple platforms, including from ships, submarines and bombers.”

“While the United States has developed sea and land-based ballistic missile defense capabilities and sufficient sea-based cruise missile defense capabilities, it has significant gaps in capabilities to defend against PRC cruise missiles attacking land-based targets such as Guam,” Gallagher said.

Gallagher warned that those “deficiencies put at grave risk our ability to use Guam as a vital submarine port and base to support operations in any contingency with the PRC.” 

At this point, the U.S. Army’s ground-based missile defense system is designed to defend against cruise missiles, but Gallagher said the system has been “encountering significant delays.” 

Back in 2021, Gallagher said the Army selected a launcher prototype, which, due to supply chain issues, was unable to be delivered. By May of 2023, the Army said that the launcher prototypes were planned to be delivered in September, but noted that the operational assessment of that prototype would be delayed to late 2024.

“This delay could potentially push the date by which soldiers are scheduled to field the air defense system,” Gallagher said, asking to understand “alternative options that could fill the defense gap created by delivery delays.” 

“The United States has sent to Ukraine multiple National Advanced Surface to Air Missile Systems, which, according to the Pentagon ‘have been extremely successful,’” Gallagher wrote, though “unfortunately, the Army has not provided a similarly effective system to Guam” and said that the first delivery of launcher prototypes “faces an unclear future.”

Gallagher is requesting that the Army provide information on the delays, and also on how it plans to strengthen land-based cruise missile defense capabilities in Guam. He also asked if the Army would support integration of capabilities with allies Japan and Australia.

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

EXCLUSIVE: Conservative firebrand and Republican Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake is offering a solution to her own party following its multiple election losses last week, telling Fox News Digital that success at the polls would come to the GOP in 2024 because its voters would “show up” to vote for one major name on the ballot.

“When we get President Trump on the ticket, we get some great people who are going to put the citizens of their states and the country first,” Lake said, just days removed from an election night that saw Republicans lose a gubernatorial race in deep-red Kentucky and Democrats winning total control of the Virginia state legislature.

“I have faith that in 2024, people are going to show up in such massive droves because things have gotten so bad. And when President Trump’s on the ticket, they’re going to show up. He brings people out, he brings enthusiasm,” she said.

KARI LAKE BUILDS MOMENTUM WITH MORE BIG-NAME BACKING IN RACE TO FLIP ARIZONA SENATE SEAT

Lake admitted more campaigning could have been done to boost the candidate’s in Tuesday’s election, but said Kentucky was always going to be a tough race for Republicans to flip considering only two GOP governors had been elected in the state over the past few decades. 

She also argued driving up voter enthusiasm in an off-election year was more difficult.

A number of Republicans attempted to blame former President Donald Trump for the losses, including his presidential primary opponent, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

SEN. JOE MANCHIN ANNOUNCES HE WILL NOT SEEK SENATE RE-ELECTION

“Trump endorsed candidate Daniel Cameron loses the Governor’s race in DEEP RED Kentucky. Another loss for Trump. The losing will only end for Republicans if we rid ourselves of Donald Trump. Trump—loser in ‘18, ‘20, ‘21, ‘22 and now ‘23,” Christie wrote on X.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, another Trump opponent, joined in during Wednesday’s Republican presidential debate, saying during his opening remarks, “[Trump] said Republicans were gonna get tired of winning — what we saw last night, I’m sick of Republicans losing.”

When asked about that blame being placed on Trump, Lake pointed to the re-election victory of GOP Gov. Tate Reeves in Mississippi, as well as that of Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, who flipped his state’s gubernatorial seat from Democrats in an election last month.

“He got very involved in those races, and so his endorsement means a lot,” she said.

ARKANSAS GOV SARAH SANDERS MAKES MAJOR ENDORSEMENT IN 2024 REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL RACE

Lake, in turn, placed some blame for the Kentucky loss on the Republican Governors Association (RGA), who she said “could have done a lot more” to win. She also ripped Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, who chairs the organization, for being distracted with her support for DeSantis’s presidential campaign.

“I think that was a misstep, frankly,” she said. 

Lake also responded to criticism that Republican abortion policy also contributed to the losses, including in Ohio where a ballot initiative asking voters if the “right” to an abortion should be enshrined in the state constitution was overwhelmingly approved.

“I’m a big believer that no matter what the abortion laws are, how many weeks, whatever it is, what we need to do as Republicans and, frankly, just as citizens, is figure out why women are choosing to have abortions,” she said.

VP HARRIS SAYS SHE AND BIDEN ‘OBVIOUSLY HAVE A LOT OF WORK TO DO’ TO WIN RE-ELECTION IN 2024

“Oftentimes it’s because they don’t feel they can afford their baby. And it’s tough in this economy. You know, people can’t even afford life on their own. And then you add a baby to the mix. And it’s a very scary prospect for women,” she added.

Lake argued that Republicans should focus instead on how to help women and families in those situations, and that it could be done through tax breaks and “baby bonuses.”

“I want to make sure that we’re helping women and really, truly give them choices so that they don’t make the tragic choice,” she said.

Lake went on to cite Hungary’s significant abortion rate drop, which fell 23% from 2010-2015, and continued falling thereafter, according to government statistics. The drop reportedly happened without any introduction of new abortion restrictions, and instead came alongside the introduction of “pro-family” government policies, that included defining life as beginning at conception and encouraging adoption. 

“They cut abortions in half by empowering families, empowering women to be the parents that they could be. And I think that’s where we should be focused right now. We could cut abortions in half, and that would be absolutely wonderful to see all those beautiful babies and see all those wonderful parents who are happy that they made the choice to keep their children,” she said.

The race for Arizona Senate is expected to be one of the most closely watched in the 2024 election cycle. Lake’s only major opponent in the Republican primary is Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

Fox News’ Aubrie Spady contributed to this report.

EXCLUSIVE: Before a Chinese electric vehicle battery manufacturer moved forward with its controversial projects in Michigan and Illinois, the firm approached a small town in Alabama that rejected the plan over national security concerns, Fox News Digital has learned.

The California-based firm Gotion Inc., whose parent company Gotion High-Tech is based in Hefei, China, and has demonstrable ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) apparatus, approached the Shoals Economic Development Authority last year to gauge interest in the project, according to people familiar with the negotiations. The proposal to develop a factory in Alabama has been unreported.

However, local officials involved in reviewing the proposal – which Gotion proposed to develop on the site of the shuttered FreightCar America factory in Muscle Shoals, Alabama – ultimately turned down the project after learning more about Gotion, the sources told Fox News Digital. Gotion eventually took the plan elsewhere and received commitments from Michigan to develop a battery component facility and Illinois for a battery cell factory.

Kevin Jackson, the president of the Shoals Economic Development Authority, declined to comment on the Muscle Shoals proposal in an email to Fox News Digital, saying the organization entered into a nondisclosure agreement with Gotion to discuss the potential facility. According to Jackson, the agreement lasts for three years after the termination of the project.

HOUSE CCP PANEL PROBES BIDEN ADMIN OVER CHINESE GREEN ENERGY PROJECT ON US SOIL

“Unlike other states, why do the governors of Michigan and Illinois spend their taxpayers’ money bringing in companies deeply tied to the Chinese Communist Party into their states? Don’t they understand the clear and present danger this totalitarian regime presents? It’s a bipartisan issue,” former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Cella, the co-founder of the Michigan-China Economic and Security Review Group, told Fox News Digital.

Cella has spearheaded opposition to Gotion’s development in Big Rapids, Michigan, and repeatedly warned the project has moved too quickly and with too much secrecy. In addition to him, locals, national security experts and Republican lawmakers have sounded the alarm on the project over Gotion High-Tech ties to the CCP.

BLUE STATE GOVERNOR DEFENDS DEAL WITH CCP-TIED COMPANY, LABELS CRITICISM ‘XENOPHOBIA’

Gotion High-Tech’s corporate bylaws say the company is required to “carry out Party activities in accordance with the Constitution of the Communist Party of China.” The company’s 2022 ESG report also states Gotion High-Tech “carried out thematic education activities such as the study of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, red theme education, and love for students.” 

And earlier this year, a Michigan law firm quietly registered Gotion Inc. as a Chinese foreign principal, according to FARA filings reviewed by Fox News Digital. The EV battery maker has also acknowledged it plans to hire dozens of “expert consultants” from overseas to work at the Michigan plant.

“The Chinese Communist Party is our country’s greatest national security and geopolitical threat, and we must remember everything they do is as our adversary,” Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., who has fought to protect her state from Chinese economic aggression, said in a statement to Fox News Digital. 

“There is no doubt that the CCP wants to plant their flag in the American heartland, including right here in Alabama,” she continued. “As Communist China continues to attempt to buy up critical industries, supply chains, and land across the United States, it’s imperative that we remain vigilant and exercise all due caution to protect our interests and safeguard America’s future.”

LOBBYISTS FOR CCP-TIED EV COMPANY FUNNELED CASH TO DEMOCRATS AFTER FILING AS FOREIGN AGENTS

But Gotion has vigorously defended its development plans in the U.S., saying its parent company is publicly owned, and that the CCP has no influence in its operations. The company declined to comment on specific prior proposals like the one in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, that preceded its projects in Michigan and Illinois.

“We have investigated over 56 locations over the last two years, and after that thorough investigation, we landed on the materials site in Michigan and the finished goods site in Illinois,” Chuck Thelen, Gotion’s vice president of North American operations, told Fox News Digital in a brief phone interview.

It remains unclear whether the Alabama proposal was the anonymous project Thelen referenced in April as evidence that Gotion doesn’t pose a national security risk. At the time, Thelen boasted that Gotion’s “proposed plant in the southern United States” had been cleared by the federal Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), but refrained from identifying any specifics of the project. 

Amid heightened scrutiny about the company’s ties to the CCP, Thelen also used the “southern U.S.” plant’s CFIUS review as evidence Gotion was free of CCP influence in comments filed with local Michigan officials.

After Gotion’s nationwide search for a location to build its EV battery factory, in October 2022, the company announced its $2.4 billion investment to build the component factory in Big Rapids Michigan. Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer applauded the announcement and said it would “shore up our status as the global hub of mobility and electrification.”

Then, in September, Gotion announced a separate $2 billion battery cell facility set for Manteno, Illinois, alongside Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker, whose administration is providing $536 million in taxpayer-funded incentives for the project. Gotion High-Tech Chairman and President Li Zhen delivered remarks at a ceremony announcing the project, thanking the “supportive state government.”