Author: NOVA Corp

A progressive Democrat vying for a hotly contested New York swing seat in November’s midterm elections is defending her association with controversial far-left streamer Hasan Piker.

Effie Phillips-Staley is facing backlash from her own party as she seeks the nomination to take on Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., after she went on Piker’s livestream in late March and called Israel an “apartheid state” and accused the Jewish nation of genocide in Gaza.

Democratic county chairs within the suburban New York district Phillips-Staley is running to represent put out a joint statement denouncing Phillips-Staley for participating in the “normalization of antisemitic, racist and misogynist rhetoric.”

Despite the intraparty criticism, the candidate doubled down. She told Fox News Digital Piker, 34, provides a vehicle for Democrats to reach young voters.

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“While I don’t align with every word Hasan Piker has ever said, we recognize the massive value of a platform that engages millions of young people in the Democratic process,” Phillips-Staley said.

“As Democrats, our job is to build bridges, not burn them,” she added in a statement to Fox News Digital. “We should be inviting young people into the process by building a coalition rooted in collective humanity. I will always fight for universal human rights and Palestinian self-determination while standing firmly against antisemitism.”

Piker once said “America deserved 9/11.” He has since characterized that remark as “inappropriate.”

The streamer has been sharply criticized for calling some Orthodox Jews “inbred” and once described a listener who voiced disapproval of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israel as a “bloodthirsty violent pig dog.” He has denied charges of antisemitism despite continuing to argue that Hamas is “a thousand times better” than Israel.

Phillips-Staley, who is endorsed by the left-wing Working Families Party and former progressive Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., has largely defended Piker’s controversial comments. She has argued that critics have taken some of his remarks out of context and that he is “on the right side of history” on issues related to Israel and the Palestinian people during an appearance on “The Left Hook” podcast.

A campaign spokesman for Rep. Lawler slammed Phillips-Staley’s defense of Piker.

“Embracing an antisemite who praised the 9/11 attacks and sympathizes with terrorists is no longer disqualifying in the modern Democratic Party, and Effie Phillips-Staley is proving that in real time,” Ciro Riccardi told Fox News Digital. “Even worse, her Democratic opponents refusing to call Effie out for such offensive behavior shows you just how radical you need to be to win a Democratic primary today.

“Middle-of-the-road voters should take notice and ask themselves whether this is who they really want in control of the House.”

National Republican Congressional Committee spokeswoman Maureen O’Toole was also critical of Phillips-Staley’s primary opponents — former Biden administration national security official Cait Conley and Rockland County legislator Beth Davidson — for not condemning Phillips-Staley’s appearance on Piker’s livestream.

Conley and Davidson have expressed support for Israel, and the former is backed by the pro-Israel Democratic Majority for Israel PAC.

Spokespersons for Davidson and Conley did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Phillips-Staley is among a growing number of progressive Democrats embracing Piker ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.; Ro Khanna, D-Calif.; and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani have been interviewed by Piker on his show.

Piker headlined a campaign event earlier in April for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ preferred Michigan Senate candidate, Abdul El-Sayed.

But not all Democrats think the party’s embrace of Piker is a good idea.

A swath of Democratic lawmakers, including Sens. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., have distanced themselves from the far-left influencer’s platform, citing concern about his past statements.

Phillips-Staley maintains that her hardening anti-Israel stance is the pathway to victory in the battleground district this November.

“Advancing someone who is so close on this issue to Mike Lawler would be a genuine mistake when this is something that the overwhelming majorities of the Democratic party’s base are demanding a separation from,” Phillips-Staley told Piker, referring to Israel.

Just 13% of Democrats hold a positive view of Israel compared to 57% who view the country negatively, according to a March NBC News survey. Among independents, just over 20% see Israel in a positive light.

It’s unclear if Phillips-Staley’s approach will work in the southern Hudson Valley, which is one of the most heavily Jewish districts in the country.

“I’ve taken a very … what I hope that people perceive to be an authentic and progressive human rights-focused platform, and we’re going to test it here too,” Phillips-Staley told the “Breaking Points” podcast.

Lawler successfully fended off a challenge from Rep. Mondaire Jones, D-N.Y., in 2024. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates his re-election contest a “toss-up.”

Divisions over Israel are not the only topic on which Lawler and Phillips-Staley have clashed.

Lawler’s campaign filed a lawsuit Tuesday alleging the Phillips-Staley campaign forged voter signatures on petitions to be eligible for the Empire State’s June primary. The campaign submitted dozens of sworn affidavits from voters in the district who alleged they never put their names on petitions submitted by the Phillips-Staley campaign.

Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., appeared to compare federal authorities enforcing immigration law to British forces that terrorized the 13 colonies. 

Her remarks Wednesday came during a debate on a budget resolution as both sides of the political aisle seek to end the partial Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown on their own terms.

Slotkin, a former CIA analyst, spoke as Democrats launched a new effort to reopen DHS, which has been partially shut down for 67 days. During her remarks, she noted the deaths of American citizens killed during interactions with federal agents during violent clashes in Minneapolis earlier this year.

“The behavior of our federal forces in our streets strikes at the heart of who we are as Americans,” she said. “I’m not going to go and list through everything ICE is doing, but I want you to think about what would happen if these things happened to you.”

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“Imagine someone in a mask breaking your car window and pulling you and your 2-year-old daughter out of that car,” she added, citing examples in which ICE agents allegedly used force to detain undocumented immigrants or agitators impeding law enforcement operations. 

“Imagine being shot with rubber bullets at a protest in America. Masked men detaining your 5-year-old coming home from preschool; being pepper-sprayed while praying aloud.”

Slotkin and many Democrats have criticized ICE for pursuing illegal immigrants with criminal records and for the use of force employed by agents during arrests. Some have, at times, labeled the agency a “terrorist organization” or accused it of “terrorizing” communities in response to enforcement actions and family separations.

Slotkin said many Americans understand that ICE’s actions run contrary to the founding of the U.S.

“The rebellion that our American forefathers launched not too far north of here was because of an oppressive government, because of an oppressive regime that was using brutal tactics in the streets and in people’s homes,” she said of the Revolutionary War. 

“So, that’s why we’re here today: to have very commonsense reforms on federal law enforcement because of what we all saw with our own eyes.”

Federal agents should be required to be unmasked, identify themselves and present a judicial warrant when seeking to enter someone’s home, she said.

“We are here today because the other side of the aisle is refusing to have even a basic conversation on those reforms and wants to fully fund ICE with no changes,” she said.

While Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., has been denying accusations she’s racked up a multimillion-dollar net worth since getting elected to Congress, her daughter has continued her hard-left political activism and support for communist causes that began when she was just 12.

Isra Hirsi, who was just 16 when her mother and charter member of “The Squad” was elected to Congress in 2019, has described herself as “an angry Black girl” and played the role of a strident political activist. 

While her views would seem to jibe with her famous mother’s, they don’t easily square with reports, which Omar denies, that Omar is worth as much as $30 million.

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In a February letter to Omar’s husband, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., raised concerns about financial disclosures showing the value of two companies, eStCru LLC and Rose Lake Capital, surged from tens of thousands of dollars in 2023 to as much as $30 million in 2024.

Later, an amended filing reviewed by The Wall Street Journal showed Omar and her husband’s assets were worth between $18,004 and $95,000. The quick revision prompted skepticism from Omar’s critics, including Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

“Ilhan Omar says her congressional financial reports have massive accounting error,” Fitton wrote on X. “She and her husband only worth 18k-86k, NOT $6 million-$30 million! Previously unreported ‘liabilities’ erase wealth!”

The New York Post reported in 2024 that Hirsi participated in demonstrations as early as age 12, when she joined Omar and their family at a Black Lives Matter event that forced the Mall of America to shut down. The demonstration was later stopped by 50 riot control cops and more than 200 police officers. 

At about age 15, Hirsi co-founded and served as co-executive director of the U.S. Youth Climate Strike, a branch of activist Greta Thunberg’s organization, Fridays for Future, according to a biography on the Brower Youth Awards website. 

Hirsi received the award, which is given to young people who are active in climate sustainability advocacy, in 2019.

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Omar posted on X in 2024 that Hirsi organized “a statewide school walk out on the 20th anniversary of Columbine at the age of 15” and led “the biggest youth climate rally at our nation’s Capitol at 16.”

Hirsi’s involvement with the anti-Israel groups and her participation in the encampments that plagued the Columbia University campus prompted her suspension from Barnard College in 2024.

She later continued her education at the private, liberal arts college for women in New York City while Omar was in Congress. 

The estimated cost of attending Barnard is just shy of $100,000 for resident students, including tuition, fees, housing and food.

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Omar’s daughter then became an organizer with CU Apartheid Divest and Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine, an organization that is not formally recognized by the Ivy League school.

Fox News Digital reached out to Hirsi and Omar but didn’t receive a response. 

In April 2024, Hirsi was arrested by the New York City Police Department along with more than 100 people who were issued summons for trespassing as a result of the encampments on the Ivy League campus, an arrest for which Omar praised her daughter.

“I am enormously proud of my daughter @israhirsi,” Omar posted on X. “She has always led with courage and compassion, from organizing a statewide school walk out on the 20th anniversary of Columbine at the age of 15, to leading the biggest youth climate rally at our nation’s Capitol at 16, and now pushing her school to stand against genocide.

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“Stepping up to change what you can’t tolerate is why we as a country have the right to speech, assembly, and petition enshrined in our constitution.”

Just 15 months after her arrest, the New York Post reported that Hirsi posted an Instagram story, revealing she was unemployed and selling used clothes to make money, while still posting anti-Israel content on various social media platforms. 

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Last month, she traveled to Cuba on a trip sponsored by CodePink, an organization co-founded by Jodie Evans, the wife of a Shanghai-based American tech tycoon Neville Roy Singham, who supports the policies of the Chinese Communist Party.

Hirsi and other far-left activists went to Cuba to protest the economic sanctions imposed on the country by President Donald Trump’s administration. And many of the activists stayed in a five-star hotel while many residents of the communist country were coping with an electricity blackout.

“People are here from across the globe to express solidarity with the Cuban people,” Hirsi wrote in an X post. “People who are standing against the oppressive blockade exacerbated by the [T]rump administration. i am honored to be here. I am honored to make history and Eid Mubarak to all.”

In an Instagram post touting the trip to communist Cuba, Hirsi credited the People’s Forum, an organization that has received a documented $22.44 million from Singham, according to a Fox News Digital investigation. In the post, she noted that the U.S. “has long bullied Cuba with its sanctions and now this oil blockade is killing people.”

According to Fox News Digital reporting, Singham has funneled $278 million into a network of agitator groups across the country, with the People’s Forum and CodePink at the center of many heated demonstrations.

Omar’s non-congressional X account, which boasts 2.8 million followers, has interacted with her daughter’s account on the platform, mainly praising her political activism in posts that are then reposted by Hirsi. Hirsi’s social media presence has been less active on X, though she frequently reposted far-left accounts during her time at Barnard.

“I am incredibly proud of Isra and everyone who made the trip to Cuba,” Omar said in an X post that Hirsi then reposted. “They took tons of aid to make sure the people of Cuba knew that there are so many people across the world who stand in solidarity with them.”

What began as a routine inspection of a four-door Lexus crossing the U.S. border into Mexico escalated quickly Sunday when officers discovered a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launcher and dozens of additional weapons hidden in the vehicle.

Tucked in a cavity under the seats, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials found the RPG tube, four rifles, an Avtomat Kalashnikova (AK-style) pistol, 16 AK rifles, 24 rifle magazines, 16 rifle stocks, 20 pistol grips and other weapon parts in a vehicle attempting to cross the border at the Area Port of Nogales, near Tucson, Arizona.

CBP confiscated the arsenal, which authorities said demonstrates the scale of weapons smuggling across the U.S. border and the volume that can be transported in a single vehicle. Officials said the seizure highlights ongoing concerns about cartel firepower and the flow of U.S.-sourced weapons into Mexico.

“Under the powerful leadership of President Donald J. Trump and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, our frontline CBP officers utilized an effective combination of inspection experience and technology to find these weapons and prevent them from falling into the hands of the cartels,” CBP’s Acting Deputy Commissioner Ron Vitiello said.

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“CBP prevented these dangerous weapons from wreaking havoc on the good people of Mexico,” he added.

CBP did not say whether the car’s contents have been tied to any particular cartel.

The driver, a woman, is being charged with smuggling goods from the United States, a crime that could carry a penalty of up to 10 years behind bars.

She was accompanied by three minors who were released to the custody of a family member, according to CBP.

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CBP’s Acting Director of Field Operations, Carlos Gonzalez, praised the work of the officers at the border who detected the weapons.

“Every day, CBP officers serve on the front lines, actively dismantling the transnational criminal organizations that destabilize the region. U.S. Customs and Border Protection remains steadfast in its mission to secure our borders and prevent these illicit networks from threatening the safety of our nation,” Gonzalez said.

Law enforcement officials said the cache reflects the level of firepower available to drug cartels, aligning with the administration’s terrorist designations.

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“President Trump designated criminal drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations for good reason, and this case is one of many that shows their violent intent to hang on to power,” Timothy Courchaine, U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona, said.

“The United States Attorney’s Office is proud to work alongside the Department of Homeland Security to make sure we choke off the flow of weapons to violent actors in Mexico and bring their accomplices in the United States to justice.”

Senate Republicans are worried that Democrats will force a government shutdown in the fall, and are eyeing ways to prevent government funding from being weaponized ever again.

Republicans are in the early stages of funding federal immigration enforcement through the party-line budget reconciliation process — a maneuver that would cut Democrats out of the process altogether.

The push comes as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) remains closed after Democrats more than 60 days ago refused to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) unless Republicans agreed to stringent reforms, including warrant requirements and agents unmasking.

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Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said “it was a great idea,” and claims conversations were ongoing about how to include a measure in the reconciliation package that could survive the strict Senate rules dictating what can and can’t be done through the partisan process.

He told reporters on Capitol Hill Tuesday afternoon that Republicans tried and failed during the government shutdown last year to pass legislation that would prevent future shutdowns.

“If we could figure out a way to execute on that — anything that we can do that would ensure that the Democrats don’t decide once again to play partisan political games with the function of our government would be a good outcome,” Thune said.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who has pushed legislation to prevent shutdowns, was skeptical about whether Republicans could actually get that kind of measure into the broader package.

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“I would support that,” Hawley told Fox News Digital. “Will that happen? It seems to me to be pretty unlikely. But I think this package is baked, the text is out, it is what it is.”

He warned that Congress likely “would be facing this again” when the current fiscal year ends in September because “the Democrats are in a hostage taking sort of mood.”

“And sadly, the hostages they’re taking are for working people of this country,” Hawley went on. “And if they shut down the government again in September, which they very well may, well, that would just be disastrous, I think.”

Democrats, however, view the GOP’s reconciliation push as a prime opportunity to go on the offensive.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said his party will unload several amendments that target affordability issues in the country.

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When asked if Democrats had overplayed their hand on immigration enforcement reforms now that Republicans plan to fund ICE and Border Patrol for three and a half years, Schumer countered that Americans wanted changes and that Republicans were “tied in a knot.”

“They’re twisting themselves in a pretzel,” the senior senator from New York said. “They’re giving us an opportunity to emphasize the number one issue facing the American people in terms of reconciliation. So we Democrats are staunch and united in what we did.”

If Republicans can’t stop shutdowns, another option could be ensuring that federal workers are at least paid.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told Fox News Digital that he’s been pushing the House — which has so far not voted on the Senate’s carve-out DHS funding bill — to include his Shutdown Fairness Act, which would pay federal employees during closures and possibly act as a sweetener to conservatives frustrated by the Senate’s bill.

“I mean, they’re pretty upset about, I guess, not really being informed in terms of what the Senate was gonna do here,” Johnson said. “We were just doing what we could do to fund the agencies so we don’t deplete the flexible funding we had in reconciliation, but the box ticking on that.”

“So, the sooner we pass the partial DHS funding bill — I just think if Democrats would allow that bill to be passed by unanimous consent, I think they [wouldn’t] have a hard time voting for that exact same bill if all we’re adding is something their unions are lobbying hard to get,” he continued.

U.S. Rep. David Scott, D-Ga., has died, Fox News learned Wednesday. He was aged 80.

Multiple sources confirmed Scott’s death to Fox News. The cause of death was not disclosed.

Scott, a longtime lawmaker, has represented Georgia’s 13th district in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2003. He previously served as a state senator for Georgia’s 36th district from 1983 to 2003 and as a state representative for the 37th district from 1975 to 1983.

Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., presided over the House on Wednesday afternoon and formally announced Scott’s death to the chamber.

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“The House will be in order,” Foxx said. “The chair announces to the House that, in light of the passing of the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. David Scott, the whole number of the house is 430.”

Scott had been, until the beginning of this Congress, the leading Democrat on the Agriculture Committee, acting as a prominent voice for his party on issues related to farm aid policy and food aid for consumers. He was also a prominent Black member of the party’s moderate Blue Dog caucus.

House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Angie Craig, D-Minn., shared a statement following Scott’s death.

“He was a strong voice for Georgia’s farmers, hungry veterans and young people – who he helped shape into the next generation of agricultural leaders through his fierce advocacy for the 1980’s Scholarship Program at historically Black colleges and universities,” Craig said. “The House Agriculture Committee will remember him for his strong faith, kindness and dedication to our nation’s farmers and working people. May his memory be a blessing.”

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House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters on Capitol Hill that the “news of Congressman Scott’s passing is deeply sad.”

“David Scott was a trailblazer who served district that he represented admirably, rose up from humble beginnings to become the first African American ever to chair the House Ag Committee,” Jeffries said. “He cared about the people that he represented. He was fiercely committed to getting things done for the people of the great state of Georgia, and he’ll be deeply missed.”

Scott is the 8th member of the House to die in less than two years, and the second this year alone. Seven of the eight legislators were Democrats, with three of the four Democrats having been ranking Democrats on their committees. 

Scott was seeking his 13th term in Congress despite challenges from within his party. He faced criticism and concerns in recent years because of declining health, enduring a primary challenge in 2024 and facing another one at the time of his death.

Scott’s death slightly widens Republicans’ narrow House majority going into the thick of this midterm election year.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Graham Platner, the frontrunner for the Maine Senate Democratic primary, said he would push to subpoena a wide swath of White House officials and to impeach Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito during a recent interview with NBC News.

“I want to shut the White House down,” he told NBC in an interview released Wednesday. “I want us to, for the next two years, be dragging every single person in the White House, every single person in all these agencies that have been conducting themselves in illegal and unconstitutional ways. They need to be dragged by subpoena in front of Senate committees over and over and over again.”

Among those he claimed were committing crimes or acting unconstitutionally were officials involved in deploying U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to U.S. cities and those involved in bombing campaigns in the Caribbean against alleged narcoterrorists, operations he referred to as “murder.”

He also said there is a “compelling case” to impeach both Thomas and Alito.

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“The relationship between Clarence Thomas and Harlan Crow is not hard to see as clearly corrupt, and Justice Thomas doesn’t even recuse himself from cases that impact Crow’s businesses,” he said. “These are absolutely reasons for removal.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House, the Supreme Court and the Department of Homeland Security, which houses ICE, for comment.

In 2024, Justice Thomas amended his 2019 financial disclosure after a ProPublica report revealed that he had received gifts in the form of travel and lodging from GOP mega-donor Harlan Crow. The report revealed that Crow had paid for lodging and transit on his private plane for trips to Bali, Indonesia and Sonoma County, California.

Thomas claimed he originally omitted the meals and rides from reports because he believed they fell under the personal hospitality exemption. The exemption stems from Judicial Conference guidance which states that “personal hospitality” from a friend does not need to be reported if the friend did not have business before the court.

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“Harlan and Kathy Crow are among our dearest friends, and we have been friends for over twenty-five years,” Thomas said in a statement at the time.

“As friends do, we have joined them on a number of family trips during the more than quarter century we have known them. Early in my tenure at the Court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable,” he wrote.

The report also revealed that Thomas sold a trio of Savannah, Georgia, homes to Crow for $133,000 in 2014. Thomas said he did not list the sales because, after spending over $50,000 on renovations to one of the homes, the sale amounted to a financial loss.

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Platner did not specify in the interview what he believed Alito should be impeached for.

In 2023, Alito defended himself from criticisms over a 2009 trip he took on a private jet paid for by billionaire Paul Singer. Alito did not disclose the trip or recuse himself from future business Singer had in front of the Supreme Court. Alito argued that the trip “would not cause a reasonable and unbiased person to doubt my ability to decide the matters in question impartially.”

Thomas is not the only Supreme Court Justice to amend his financial disclosures.

In 2021, Justice Sonia Sotomayor updated her 2016 disclosure to include six trips to public universities paid for by the schools that she’d previously omitted. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson also updated a decade’s worth of disclosures during her nomination process. Omissions included her husband’s consulting income, her teacher’s salary and a gift she incurred from giving a speech.

Fox News Digital asked Platner’s campaign if he would support impeaching other justices, including Sotomayor and Jackson, but did not immediately receive a response.

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Platner also echoed an increasingly popular view on the left that the Democrats should support an expansion of the Supreme Court, telling NBC that he’s “definitely open to doing more, including to adding seats.”

While stating he supported the judicial impeachments, Platner added that the Democrats should not waste their time on impeaching President Donald Trump.

“If we don’t have the votes in the Senate to convict, I don’t think we should waste our time with it,” he told the outlet.

He also said that he does not want to see Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., repeat his term as the Democrats’ leader in the Senate. Schumer has publicly backed Maine Gov. Janet Mills, Platner’s primary opponent.

Platner floated four names to replace Schumer: Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.; Mark Kelly, D-Ariz.; Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii; and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.

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Platner, a self-described progressive, is backed by Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. He’s a combat veteran who did three tours in Iraq as a Marine and a tour in Afghanistan with the Maine National Guard.

He’s currently leading in the polls against both his Democratic primary opponent Mills and the incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins. But his campaign has not been entirely smooth sailing.

He’s had to confront numerous controversies in recent months, most notably perhaps the revelation that he once sported a large chest tattoo that resembled Nazi iconography.

In October, Platner covered up a skull-and-crossbones tattoo on his chest that strongly resembled the Totenkopf symbol used by Hitler’s SS forces. Platner claimed he got the tattoo as a veteran while drunk in Croatia and didn’t know it was akin to the Nazi symbol until media reports in 2024. He says he plans to remove it.

Platner also fessed up to running an edgy Reddit account that reportedly disparaged Black people and police and praised a raid executed by Hamas terrorists.

EXCLUSIVE: A conservative legal group urged the U.S. Postal Service this week to carry out President Donald Trump’s executive order on mail-in ballots, saying the USPS has an obligation to block possible “fraudulent ballots” ahead of this year’s midterms.

America First Legal laid out in a petition filed with the USPS and obtained by Fox News Digital that the postal service has the independent authority to impose restrictions on mail-in ballots, including by requiring barcode tracking on ballot envelopes and cross-checking ballot recipients against federally-approved voter registration lists.

The petition comes as part of a broader push by the Trump administration to tighten election security rules over concerns about ineligible voters casting ballots. It aims to ramp up pressure on the postal service to use its regulatory authority to unilaterally advance those efforts as the president’s executive order faces multiple lawsuits brought by blue states and voting rights groups.

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“Federal law gives every interested individual the right to file a petition for rulemaking with federal agencies,” America First Legal senior counsel James Rogers said in a statement. “Our petition gives the Postal Service the authority to implement these common-sense reforms, even in the face of this frivolous litigation against President Trump.”

AFL’s petition came after Trump issued an executive order last month directing the USPS to work with states on mail-ballot procedures tied to state-submitted voter eligibility lists, while separately calling on DHS and the Social Security Administration to help states verify citizenship data.

The executive order, titled “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections,” also required the Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration to coordinate with states to create a master list of registered voters. The order has become the subject of intense litigation.

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Voting rights groups immediately sued, calling it “an extraordinary and abusive assertion of executive power over the administration of federal elections” and arguing that the Constitution gives states, not the president, authority over federal election administration.

While the White House has framed the executive order as an effort to bolster election integrity, other lawsuits, brought by a coalition of blue states led by California, Democratic lawmakers and national Democratic campaign committees, accused Trump of attempting to reduce mail-in voting. Voting by mail has become more prevalent since the COVID-19 pandemic, when states expanded voters’ ability to cast ballots by mail because of what they said was a public health emergency. Trump called the policy changes an effort to “rig” the 2020 election, which he lost to former President Joe Biden.

“President Trump has tried again and again to rewrite election rules for his own perceived partisan advantage. If only he could ban mail voting—a favorite scapegoat for his 2020 electoral defeat—and impose other voting restrictions, he has proclaimed, Republicans will ‘never lose a race—for 50 years,’” one of the lawsuits, led by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, read.

Trump and Republicans have zeroed in on noncitizen voting, which is illegal, and have long argued it is a widespread problem. In addition to his executive order, Trump has been urging Congress to pass the SAVE Act before the 2026 midterms to impose a physical identification requirement on people registering to vote, though the bill lacks the needed support from Democratic senators to advance.

Fox News Digital reached out to the USPS press office for comment on AFL’s petition.

The DOJ’s fraud indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center is prompting swift reaction from groups named on its “hate map,” many casting the charges as vindication after years of being labeled extremist.

After a grand jury in the Middle District of Alabama returned an 11-count indictment charging the SPLC with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of bank fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, attention turned to groups the allegedly hate-group-linked organization itself has labeled as hate groups.

One of the more prominent names on SPLC’s “hate map” is the Family Research Council, which was the target of a 2012 attack by an armed man who allegedly found the group’s information on the SPLC’s website.

FRC President Tony Perkins said at the time that Floyd Lee Corkins II of Fairfax County — since sentenced to 25 years in prison — was responsible for wounding his building manager but believes “he was given a license by a group such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, who… labeled us a hate group because we defend the family and we stand for traditional, orthodox Christianity.”

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Corkins’ signed statement of offense acknowledged he targeted FRC because of its views, including advocacy against gay marriage, and intended to kill “as many employees” as he could.

The SPLC denied the connection at the time and did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on the blowback from groups featured on its hate map.

On Tuesday, Perkins called the indictment of the SPLC a “welcome development” that marks the beginning of a “long pattern of misrepresentation and harm.”

“For years, the SPLC has used its platform to label and target organizations with whom it disagrees, often blurring the line between legitimate concern and ideological attack,” he said, before noting Corkins’ attack.

“With over $750 million in their endowment which includes offshore accounts, the SPLC should be held responsible not only for what was done, but for the damage left behind,” Perkins said.

Shannon Adcock, leader of the Midwestern parental rights group Awake Illinois, responded to SPLC’s indictment by noting it had posted “incredibly inflammatory rhetoric against us as parents simply for standing up for our parental rights and for our liberty.”

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“Many of my friends across the country have been labeled by the Southern Poverty Law Center as well, while meanwhile there are legitimate terrorists that are running around this country and they are silent on those efforts while targeting law-abiding people such as Illinois and our friends Moms for Liberty, Parents of Indian Education, Courage is a Habit and many others,” Adcock said. “So we celebrate this news. This is a good move by the FBI.”

Adcock said she would purchase a bottle of Veuve Clicquot to celebrate.

Awake Illinois’ website used the indictment to solicit donations, suggesting new donors choose “Suck it, Southern Poverty Law Center, your hate can’t cancel us” as a reason on its dropdown menu.

PragerU, the education media nonprofit founded by conservative commentator Dennis Prager, was also featured on SPLC’s “hate map.”

Marissa Streit, the group’s CEO, told Fox News Digital on Wednesday that the DOJ’s indictment appears to confirm everything that people knew about the SPLC.

“The alleged shell game fraud reveals the Center as what it really is: a leftist political outfit and an actual hate group masquerading as one fighting for civil rights,” Streit said, as PragerU also highlighted its own recent video analysis of the SPLC: “The Anti-Hate Group That Is A Hate Group.”

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“Anyone paying any attention knows its ‘hate map’ is just a list of ideas the [SPLC] wants to destroy,” Streit added.

ACT for America, a group focused on combating the spread of radical Islamic ideology and threats from radical Islam, also responded via its founder Brigitte Gabriel.

“The SPLC labeled me and my organization, ACT for America a hate group year ago,” Gabriel said in a statement.

Gabriel founded the group after coming to America following years of living under threat of terrorism during the Lebanese Civil War, including attacks from Muslim militants who destroyed her house.

“[SPLC] considered us America’s largest hate group. A title we were proud to hold. It’s a wonderful thing to see the SPLC finally being held accountable for their lies.”

Moms for Liberty cofounder Tina Descovich said the organization’s affiliates make up more than half of the SPLC’s “hate map.”

“[That’s] simply because we’re empowering parents to get involved in their school board meetings and because we recognize the difference between boys and girls,” she told Fox News Digital.

“The SPLC’s hate map has been weaponized against us countless times, including by law enforcement where training manuals labeled us as an extremist group by citing the SPLC. We urge all who give to this dangerous organization to stop doing so immediately, and we call on all organizations who have used them in the past to condemn their actions.” 

Fox News Digital also reached out to the Center for Immigration Studies and its president, Mark Krikorian, for comment.

CIS pointed Fox News Digital to a column Krikorian wrote about being listed on the hate map in 2023, where he said the SPLC has been “lying low for some time, since the eruption of multiple humiliating scandals involving racism and sexual harassment that led to the firing of most of the group’s leadership, including founder Morris Dees.”

“The appearance of its annual ‘hate map’ was months late, raising suspicions that there were changes afoot. No such luck — the latest anathema was just pronounced. Google it yourself, if you want to see it,” he wrote.

“The Center for Immigration Studies is still there, of course; after operating for three decades, we graduated to ‘hate group’ status right after Trump’s election in 2016 — coincidentally.”

Fox News’ Kevin Ward, Alec Schemmel and David Spunt contributed to this report.

EXCLUSIVE: A coalition of pro-life groups, including Lila Rose’s Live Action, Students for Life, CatholicVote and others, is urging the Senate to take urgent action to enact a decade-long ban on federal funding for Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers before a July 4 deadline.

Senate Republicans hope to nail down the first step of their party-line funding package for immigration operations this week. 

The current prohibition on federal tax dollar funding for abortion businesses, which President Donald Trump signed as part of last year’s budget bill, is set to expire this Independence Day. With the deadline fast approaching and congressional majorities subject to change this November, the groups stressed in a letter to Senate Majority Leader John Thune that the lives of unborn children — and hundreds of millions in annual tax dollars — are at stake.

In their letter to Thune, the pro-life leaders wrote that extending the prohibition is a matter of urgent fiscal responsibility, saying the “financial stakes are significant” and that a 10-year extension “would represent one of the most meaningful pro-taxpayer reforms Congress can enact.”

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Before the big, beautiful bill’s provision took effect, Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion business in America, received nearly $800 million annually in taxpayer funding, primarily through federal health programs.

The letter asserts that “at a time of historic federal debt and growing budgetary pressure, continuing to subsidize the abortion industry is neither fiscally responsible nor defensible.”

Though federal law bans taxpayer money from covering most abortions, many Republicans have long argued that abortion businesses such as Planned Parenthood use Medicaid money for other health services to subsidize abortion. Under the tax provision in Trump’s 2025 spending bill, Medicaid payments are barred from going to abortion businesses, including Planned Parenthood.

The letter states that this prohibition “reflected longstanding concerns that many of the nation’s largest abortion businesses engage in activities that extend beyond traditional healthcare services.” 

These services, the letter says, include “providing and promoting abortion as a core organizational activity,” offering or referring for gender transition interventions, including for minors, and delivering sex education programs that “promote inappropriate content to minors while denying parents meaningful transparency.”

The letter states that the budget reconciliation process “remains the appropriate and proven legislative vehicle to achieve this objective” and that “defunding provisions fall squarely within reconciliation’s fiscal and policy scope.”

“As the nation approaches the 250th anniversary of American independence,” the pro-life leaders argue that “Congress has an obligation to ensure that federal spending reflects fiscal discipline, accountability, and respect for life.”

PRO-LIFE ORGANIZATION CALLS ON HHS AND FDA TO SUSPEND ABORTION PILL APPROVAL, TIGHTEN SAFETY RULES

They further framed a ten-year extension as consistent with longstanding bipartisan precedent separating abortion from federal spending. Such an extension, the letter says, would also “provide long-term policy stability, protect taxpayers, and prevent future administrations from restoring funding through executive action alone.”

In response, a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood shared a statement in which the organization slammed Republicans for including a provision to make the prohibition permanent in a 2026 reconciliation package framework released by the Republican Study Committee.

Planned Parenthood has said that 23 of its health clinics have been forced to close due to Trump’s spending bill. More than 50 clinics closed in 18 states last year, with most located in the Midwest.

The organization called the 2025 budget bill’s bar on federal dollars for abortion businesses “unconstitutional,” adding that the closure of its locations has left “thousands of patients with fewer options, higher costs, and less freedom to make their own decisions about their lives, bodies, and futures.”

Alexis McGill Johnson, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said that “any member of Congress who supports this proposal is choosing to sacrifice our health care system and Planned Parenthood health center patients who already struggle to get care, just so they can score points for their anti-abortion agenda,” adding that “people’s ability to get the health care they need is on the line.”

“President Trump and his backers in Congress have already caused irreparable harm when they passed a law ‘defunding’ Planned Parenthood,” said Johnson, concluding that “Planned Parenthood Action Fund will never stop fighting to protect everyone’s access to sexual and reproductive healthcare.”

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Meanwhile, Rose emphasized in a statement to Fox News Digital that “if Congress does not act, the abortion industry will once again have access to hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.”

“This letter makes clear why that cannot be allowed to happen,” wrote Rose, adding, “Planned Parenthood’s core business is abortion. It exists to kill preborn children for profit. It has also become a major promoter of gender ideology, including puberty blockers and cross sex hormones for minors.”

“The Senate should use reconciliation again and enact the strongest defunding measure possible under the law,” she added. “American taxpayers should never be forced to subsidize an industry that distributes cross sex hormones to vulnerable kids and kills millions of preborn American babies through abortion every year.”

In addition to Rose, the letter was signed by Students for Life President Kristan Hawkins, Catholic Vote President Kelsey Reinhardt, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser and 34 other pro-life leaders from across the country.