The White House News

EXCLUSIVE: Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., suggested he has gotten more support than publicly known from fellow House Democrats after speaking out about how the party handles dissent within its ranks.

Moulton sparked a progressive firestorm after he made comments to The New York Times expressing concern about transgender student athletes playing alongside biological females. He said most Democrats were afraid to come forward with similar views for fear of retribution.

Progressives at the local, state and federal level condemned the remarks — including House Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., who called them “offensive” on CNN.

“Look, I understand people have different opinions and different perspectives, and that’s my whole point. The comments were not meant to be offensive, but we…ought to be willing to have a debate. And that’s exactly what I’m willing to do,” Moulton told Fox News Digital on Thursday.

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“While a few, a handful, maybe just a couple members of Congress have spoken out against the comments, I’ve got an awful lot more who will go up to me privately and say thank you.”

His initial comments, which he has since doubled-down on multiple times, prompted the Democratic Party in his hometown of Salem, Massachusetts, to threaten to recruit a challenger against him in 2026.

“It’s a democracy. If you want to run against me, go for it,” Moulton told Fox News Digital of the threat, though he added it was “not going to be very helpful for winning elections.”

“What we need to do is defeat Republicans, not fellow Democrats,” he said.

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The party has been busy soul-searching in the days since the Democrats’ devastating performances in the presidential, Senate and House elections.

Moderates like Moulton and Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., have accused the Democratic Party of overly catering to its furthest-left base at the expense of trying to relate to a broader swath of everyday Americans and their issues.

Moulton argued Democratic policies were better for those Americans than Republican policies but suggested the left had a messaging problem because of “too much preaching and not enough listening.”

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“People think that this is exactly the kind of debate that we need to have. And it’s not just on trans issues, it’s on the economy. Why are we out of touch with Americans on the economy when Trump’s plan is going to dramatically raise grocery prices…How is it that we’re so out of touch on immigration when we’re the ones who proposed a bipartisan immigration deal?” Moulton said.

“It seems like Democrats do have a lot of good solutions for working Americans, and yet we’re really out of touch. So we’ve got to ask ourselves that question. Why have we lost touch with so many people across America?” 

Shortly after Republican Sen.-elect David McCormick’s team held a call with reporters attesting that Democratic Sen. Bob Casey Jr. has no mathematical path to victory, Pennsylvania’s other senator defended the commonwealth’s automatic recount.

“That’s the law,” Sen. John Fetterman, D–Pa., told Fox News Digital, as the state stipulates a race within 0.5% triggers a recount.

When asked whether Casey should have conceded after the race was called in McCormick’s favor, Fetterman said it’s hard to believe it could be controversial to “count every vote.”

“Then, when the [recount] law is triggered by the conditions, and they follow the law, that’s what happened. Otherwise, arguing the hard right [view].”

Fetterman said Republicans are making the opposite case in Wisconsin.

Eric Hovde, the GOP candidate in Wisconsin, originally floated seeking a recount against Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat, according to CBS News, but later told a radio program he would concede.

“What about that special Kari Lake? Do you think she’s all, you know . . . .” Fetterman asked. “Let’s talk about where we are at in Pennsylvania. Count every vote, and now there’s a recount because that’s the law – that’s not an opinion, that’s a fact.”

Asked whether Hovde and Lake should concede, Fetterman quipped, “I promise you, Kari Lake doesn’t care what I think, but she has to find a new job.”

In a call earlier this week with reporters, lawyers for the McCormick campaign said the maximum ballot universe left is around 80,000 according to state officials, but that they personally estimated the number to be closer to 30,000.

Applying a 77% average ballot validity in 66 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties – not including Philadelphia – there is no path for Casey, they said.

Philadelphia County had zero non-adjudicated ballots left as of Wednesday, and the more blue-collar counties of the city – plus Allegheny in the west, where Pittsburgh is located – are almost finished tabulating.

“There is zero mathematical or statistical reason that they have a path to victory here,” a campaign official said on the call.

The campaign, along with the greater Republican Party apparatus, is now vociferously objecting to the actions of several county boards of elections that have either expressed an intention or have already voted to tally undated mail-in ballots.

Such a move would flout a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision ruling that the process should never happen.

The McCormick representatives mentioned Philadelphia, Bucks, Montgomery and Centre counties – which are all blue and suburban, except the latter, which trends Democratic due to Penn State University – in their tabulation of jurisdictions where there have been mumbles of counting such ballots.

A representative also remarked that there does not seem to be an interest in counting undated ballots in Washington County or Cambria County, both of which are heavily Republican.

On Thursday, the PAGOP and RNC sued all 67 county boards of election to head off any counting of undated ballots and separately petitioned the 5-2 Democratic-majority Supreme Court to step in.

“While Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dave McCormick currently holds an insurmountable lead of nearly 30,000 votes over his Democrat opponent Bob Casey, numerous County Boards of Elections including Philadelphia, Bucks, Centre and potentially others took an impromptu vote to count undated or improperly dated mail-in ballots, in bold defiance of Pennsylvania law, and two State Supreme Court orders,” PAGOP chairman Lawrence Tabas said in a statement.

With 99% of precincts reporting Thursday, McCormick leads Casey by 3.384 million to 3.367 million votes, or a difference of about 0.4%.

Business tycoon Elon Musk excoriated former National Security Adviser John Bolton after Bolton blasted President-elect Donald Trump’s decision to tap Matt Gaetz as attorney general.

During an appearance on “Meet the Press NOW,” Bolton said the pick “must be the worst nomination for a Cabinet position in American history.” 

Musk pushed back in a post on X, calling Bolton “a staggeringly dumb warmonger,” saying that Bolton’s opposition to someone is “a great sign!”

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“Gaetz will be great,” Musk added.

“Just do the opposite of whatever Bolton recommends,” Musk wrote in another post, capping his comment off with the face with tears of joy emoji.

Bolton also called Gaetz “totally incompetent” for the position and described him as “a person of moral turpitude.”

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“The Senate’s new leadership should tell the President-elect that he is endangering Republican Senators by forcing a vote in favor of Gaetz’s nomination. The leadership should insist that this nomination be withdrawn,” Bolton declared in a post.

During an appearance on CNN, Bolton indicated that he thinks the Senate should unanimously vote against confirming Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard, who Trump tapped to serve as director of national intelligence. 

Gaetz “issued his resignation letter effective immediately,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Wednesday. 

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Gaetz had just been re-elected last week. He served in the House of Representatives since 2017.

Bolton also shared his scathing criticism of Gaetz on X, but the former lawmaker responded with a joke, writing, “We’ll mark John down as a ‘maybe.'”

President-elect Donald Trump sent shock waves through the national security establishment when he nominated Pete Hegseth for Defense secretary.

The plain-speaking former Army National Guard officer would set himself apart from other Defense secretaries with his prolific record of criticism of the institution he has been tapped to run. A culture warrior, on-air commentator and author, the paper trail of his publicly shared views will be on full display in his confirmation hearing.  

“I’ve been a recovering neocon for six years now,” Hegseth, a former Fox News host, told the “Shawn Ryan Show” podcast. 

He said he was a huge proponent of the Iraq War “at the time,” but “in retrospect, absolutely not.”

“The hubris of the Pentagon is they want to now tell other countries how to do counterinsurgency based on what we did in Iraq and Afghanistan. The trust that our political leaders and our generals would have our best interests in mind is totally broken,” he explained. “At the same time. I’m fearful of what happens when the institution gets abandoned.”

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In a past life, Hegseth ran Vets for Freedom, a pro-Iraq War advocacy group. He then pivoted and became CEO of Concerned Veterans for America, a restraint-minded advocacy group that was heavily focused on reforming the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. 

He has not served any senior-level leadership roles at the Defense Department – leaving some hawks skeptical that he has the experience to lead the U.S.’s largest government agency and a fighting force of more than 1.3 million active duty troops. 

“He is the least well-prepared secretary to be nominated,” said Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and a senior adviser to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank. 

“He has superb military credentials as a junior officer, excellent academic credentials in Harvard, but he has no eye-level national security experience. He has no experience running a large organization, no experience working with Congress, and I mean, a good but very short relationship with the president.”

Prior to his current role, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was head of U.S. Central Command, vice chief of staff of the Army and commander of the U.S. forces in Iraq. After retiring from the armed services, he joined the board of Raytheon. 

Hegseth, a 44-year-old infantry officer in the Minnesota National Guard, served as the platoon leader at Guantanamo Bay. He also led a platoon in Baghdad and later served as a civil-military operations officer in Samarra. 

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“Something that a lot of people will point to as a weakness is he’s young,” said Steve Bucci, former deputy assistant secretary of Defense during the George W. Bush administration. “He did serve very effectively as a junior officer and a combat leader, but you know, he hasn’t been part of the institutionalized process going up to be general officer and all the staff positions in between.” 

“That will free him to think outside the box,” Bucci mused. “Austin, a four-star, frankly, was not known for new ideas.” 

“It’ll drive a lot of people crazy.” 

Hegseth has made it clear he will work to fight “woke” programs in the Pentagon that promote diversity, equity and inclusion. He has also spoken out against women in combat roles. 

“I’m straight up just saying that we should not have women in combat roles,” Hegseth said on the “Shawn Ryan Show” podcast. “It hasn’t made us more effective, hasn’t made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated.”

Additionally, in 2019, he successfully lobbied Trump to pardon three service members convicted or accused of war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

Trump may have looked ahead to sparing himself the headache this role caused him during his first administration – only Jim Mattis and Mark Esper lasted more than a year, three others served in an acting capacity. 

Hegseth has also called for the firing of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. C.Q. Brown. Brown has become a target of conservatives who claim he advances a “woke” agenda, and Hegseth has suggested Brown, who is Black, is a DEI hire. 

“That would be a huge problem,” Cancian predicted. “He’s got a very strong military record and, you know, it would put [Hegseth] at war with the military.”

Democrats are expected to hammer him for lack of experience and his background as a co-host of “Fox and Friends.”

“Hegseth is not remotely qualified to be Secretary of Defense,” Rep. Jason Crow, a national-security-minded Colorado Democrat wrote on X. “The SecDef makes life-and-death decisions daily that impact our 2 million troops around the globe. This is not an entry-level job for a TV commentator.”

They also may bring up resurfaced sexual assault allegations he faced in 2017. Monterey, California, officials released a public statement Thursday about a 2017 police investigation into whether Hegseth acted inappropriately. Trump’s incoming chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and Trump’s lawyers brought the accusation up during the vetting process, according to Vanity Fair.

Hegseth would likely be the first-ever Defense secretary nominee previously barred from a presidential inauguration. Hegseth told Ryan he volunteered in his National Guard capacity to work at President Biden’s inauguration in 2020. However, he said he was one of a number of National Guard members told to “stand down.” 

“I was deemed an extremist because of a tattoo by my National Guard unit in Washington D.C. and my orders were revoked to guard the Biden inauguration.”

“My commander called me a day before, tepidly, and was like, Major, you can just stand down. We don’t need you, we’re good. I’m like, what do you mean? Everybody’s there. He said like, no, no ,no…he couldn’t tell me.”

Hegseth said the tattoo is a Jerusalem cross rather than an extremist symbol. It was a popular symbol used during the Crusades. 

“Twenty years in the military I loved, I fought for, I revered … spit me out,” Hegseth wrote in his book of the incident. 

FIRST ON FOX – Will the second time be the charm for one-time Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent and former Rep. Mike Rogers?

Rogers, the 2024 Republican Senate nominee in Michigan who lost his election last week by a razor-thin margin, met Thursday with President-elect Trump’s transition team regarding potentially serving as FBI director in the former and future president’s second administration, sources familiar tell Fox News.

The meeting took place at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.

Rogers worked as a special agent with the FBI in its Chicago office and who served as chair of the House Intelligence Committee during the final four years of his decade-long tenure in Congress, was interviewed in 2017 during Trump’s first administration to serve as FBI director after James Comey was dismissed.

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But Trump at the time decided to appoint Christopher Wray to the traditional ten-year term steering the federal law enforcement agency.

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Trump, throughout his 2024 White House bid, campaigned in part on cleaning house at the FBI and has repeatedly claimed – without providing proof -that the bureau is chocked full of politically motivated and corrupt executives. And while not as much as others, Wray at times has been a target of Trump’s criticism.

“Mike Rogers would make a ton of sense as FBI Director for President Trump. Mike’s years of service for the bureau as well as his time as House Intelligence Chairman make him highly qualified for the position, one that I’m sure he would be honored to serve in under this administration and help bring integrity back to the DOJ [Department of Justice],” a source familiar told Fox News.

Rogers, a well known face on the cable news networks, in 2022 and 2024 mulled a run for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and made multiple stops in crucial early nominating states, like New Hampshire and Iowa, before deciding against a White House run.

He launched his 2024 Senate run in battleground Michigan in September of last year and early this year landed Trump’s endorsement. He was narrowly defeated last week by Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin in the race to succeed retiring longtime Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow.

Another name that has been floated in media reports to potentially serve as FBI director in the second Trump administration is Kash Patel, the controversial aide and adviser who served roles at the National Security Council and Defense Department during the final two years of Trump’s first administration.