As a Homeland Security shutdown drags on, the top Senate Republican says Democrats are getting “zero” of the reforms they demanded.

Congressional Democrats have taken victory laps, viewing the outcome as a key win in their push for reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). They have also accused congressional Republicans of caving to their demands.

While the Senate’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) deal includes funding for ICE and much of CBP, it does not include the structural reforms Democrats spent the last 48 days pushing.

SENATE PASSES BILL TO FUND MOST OF DHS AFTER HOUSE GOP CAVES

When asked whether Republicans gave in, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom,” “No, we didn’t cave.”

“I mean, ultimately, what the Democrats did, you could say… this was all about ‘reforms,’ restrictions on ICE and CBP agents and what they could or couldn’t do,” Thune said. “They got none of that. They got zero of the reforms they were advocating for.”

Thune was responding to accusations from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who argued that “House Republicans caved” after backing down from their push for a 60-day funding extension for the agency.

HOUSE CONSERVATIVES RAGE AGAINST SENATE DHS SHUTDOWN DEAL

Schumer argued that divisions in the GOP “derailed a bipartisan agreement” and said Democrats were clear in their objectives to “fund critical security, protect Americans, and provide no blank check for reckless ICE and Border Patrol enforcement.”

“We were united, held the line, and refused to let Republican chaos win,” Schumer said.

Thune countered, “In the end, this was all about their left-wing base demanding that no funding be provided.”

HOUSE GOP RAMS THROUGH NEW DHS FUNDING PLAN WITH SHUTDOWN FAR FROM OVER

“The good news for us is we saw this coming, and we pre-funded this last summer, so ICE and CBP are funded through the end of the fiscal year. Then we’ll add to those accounts and make sure they’re funded in future years,” Thune said.

Republicans, now with the backing of President Donald Trump, are eyeing the budget reconciliation process to fund immigration enforcement operations for the foreseeable future. It’s a tricky maneuver that would require full buy-in from Senate Republicans.

Trump lauded Republicans, including Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who originally torpedoed the Senate deal, for coming together to reopen most of DHS. He also noted that he would soon sign an executive order to pay, “ALL of the incredible employees at the Department of Homeland Security,” which comes as the funding plan currently wouldn’t pay immigration enforcement support staff.

“Republicans are UNIFIED, and moving forward on a plan that will reload funding for our FANTASTIC Border Patrol and Immigration Enforcement Officers,” Trump said on Truth Social. 

In the meantime, the shutdown is still ongoing. The Senate’s redo of its funding plan Thursday morning sets up another vote in the House, where there is still significant resistance among some hardline Republicans, and the House is not expected to return to Washington, D.C., until April 13.

FIRST ON FOX: A conservative legal group is calling on the federal government to overhaul how crime data is reported on college campuses, arguing that parents and students are being left in the dark about safety risks.

America First Legal (AFL) filed a supplemental petition on Thursday with the U.S. Department of Education, urging officials to create a centralized, publicly accessible database of campus crime logs nationwide.

The reason, AFL argues, is gaps in the Clery Act where schools are already required to maintain daily crime logs documenting reported incidents, but that information is scattered, inconsistent and often hard to access.

“AFL’s petition today brings a new level of accountability to college campuses,” Emily Percival, senior counsel at America First Legal, said in a press release. 

SIGN UP TO GET THE CAMPUS RADICALS NEWSLETTER

“Parents, students, and policymakers deserve the truth in real-time about the safety of college and university campuses. Today’s action is another step toward shining the light on the dangers that have festered at our academic institutions.”

The petition also calls for a new “Political and Religious Violence Transparency Report,” which would document incidents involving threats, assaults and harassment tied to political or religious beliefs, as well as the university’s response.

AFL is also pushing for penalties for schools that fail to comply, including fines of up to $71,545 per violation. 

The proposal comes as colleges nationwide have faced a surge in high-profile incidents involving protests turning violent, clashes between rival groups and reports of intimidation targeting students over political and religious views.

LA UNITED SCHOOL DISTRICT SCANDAL LEADS TO CHARGES AS $22M SCHEME ALLEGEDLY DRAINED FUNDS MEANT FOR STUDENTS

From disruptive demonstrations that have led to arrests and property damage, to allegations of targeted harassment, campus shootings and assaults tied to ideological disputes, campus tensions have increasingly spilled into violence, prompting lawmakers and watchdog groups to question whether universities are fully disclosing the scope of the problem.

AFL argues current reporting rules under the Clery Act allow schools to obscure the true scope of campus disorder, particularly when it comes to protest-related violence.

The AFL has previously cited some examples of egregious behavior on college campuses, including the protest that broke out at the University of California at Berkeley during a Turning Point USA event, which led to multiple arrests as demonstrators attempted to breach police barricades. 

The unrest that unfolded at UC Berkeley prompted the U.S. Department of Justice to launch an investigation.

Major schools like the University of Michigan and Columbia University dealt with hostile environments during protests that addressed the war in Gaza. Because of protests causing safety and discrimination concerns for Jewish students, the Trump administration put a freeze on federal funding at some of these schools.

Fox News Digital’s Joshua Q. Nelson contributed to this report.

A year ago today, President Donald Trump announced a sweeping new round of global tariffs, escalating trade tensions with key allies and adversaries alike, raising fresh concerns about the outlook for the U.S. and global economy.

The “Liberation Day” tariffs were introduced as a broad set of import taxes that Trump said would correct long-standing trade imbalances and reduce U.S. reliance on foreign goods.

In the months that followed, markets experienced bouts of volatility as businesses and investors adjusted to the shifting trade landscape. Policymakers and economists, meanwhile, debated the longer-term impact on growth, inflation and global trade flows.

Many economists warned of potential consequences, including higher prices, slower growth and rising uncertainty for businesses and investors. 

TRUMP SAYS US WOULD BE ‘DESTROYED’ WITHOUT TARIFF REVENUE

But not everyone agreed.

“Trump proved 12 Nobel Prize economists wrong,” economist Stephen Moore told Fox News Digital.

“Inflation didn’t rise. Why? Because the tax cuts, deregulation and ‘drill, baby, drill’ policies lowered prices and offset the tariffs,” added Moore, a former Trump adviser and co-founder of the free-market advocacy group Unleash Prosperity.

But Moore’s view was not widely shared. Here’s a look back at what other economists said at the time.

Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers called the ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs “masochistic,” saying they were the worst levy the U.S. had imposed in decades.

“Never before has an hour of Presidential rhetoric cost so many people so much,” Summers wrote on X. “The best estimate of the loss from tariff policy is now closer to $30 trillion or $300,000 per family of four.”

Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize–winning economist, said Trump had “gone full-on crazy” in the hours after the “Liberation Day” tariffs were announced.

“If you had any hopes that Trump would step back from the brink, this announcement, between the very high tariff rates and the complete falsehoods about what other countries do, should kill them,” Krugman, a former MIT and Princeton University professor, wrote in his Substack newsletter.

Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, warned that the tariffs would be “negative the world over,” in an interview with Ireland’s Newstalk.

She said Trump’s trade policy would weigh on global growth and carry broad consequences.

“It will not be good for the global economy, and it will not be good for those who impose the tariffs or those who retaliate,” Lagarde said.

Economist Joseph Stiglitz said Trump’s tariff threats have made the U.S. “a scary place to invest” and could unleash stagflation. Stagflation refers to a combination of slow economic growth and rising prices. Stiglitz, a Columbia University professor and former World Bank economist, warned in an interview with The Guardian that he does not see a strong economic outlook ahead.

“I cannot see a really robust economy,” said Joseph Stiglitz, former chair of President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers. “I see the global economy suffering greatly from the uncertainty that Trump poses.”

He also said the inflation triggered by the tariffs is moving in the wrong direction and that the only thing the Trump administration will succeed in doing is “to crater the economy.”

Jared Bernstein, the former White House chief economist under President Joe Biden, said the U.S. is a “large, dominant economy” that is relatively closed, meaning it relies less on trade than most countries.

“That means, as Trump has argued, we can hurt other countries more than they can hurt us,” Bernstein said. “But he hasn’t offered a clear rationale for why we should start a trade war with traditionally reliable partners like Canada, Mexico, Japan, and Europe.”

Bernstein said Trump may reverse course if mounting economic pressures—such as higher inflation, slower growth, falling stock prices and rising recession risks—intensify from the tariffs.

“So far, that may have been the approach in Trump’s first term; it doesn’t appear to be the approach this time around,” he said.

Allianz chief economic adviser Mohamed El-Erian called for clarity from the White House. “If we get clarity on this, this is an economy that can adjust,” he told FOX Business.

El-Erian, the former CEO of bond giant PIMCO, wrote on X that “the price action in global financial markets in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. tariff announcement points to major worries about global economic growth.”

Bill Gross, the co-founder of Pacific Investment Management Co., known as Pimco, said the latest round of tariffs is “similar to going off the gold standard in 1971″—an “epic” shift that markets won’t quickly recover from.

“It’s not something where you can time a market bottom quickly,” Gross told CNBC. “It’s something we’re going to have to live with as long as President Trump maintains this stance.”

Gross, dubbed the “Bond King,” added that he does not expect Trump to reverse course. “To be very blunt, President Trump is a macho male, and this macho male is not going to back down tomorrow simply because the Nasdaq is down 5%,” he said.

President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants appears to be in jeopardy following Supreme Court oral arguments on Wednesday. 

Supreme Court justices pursued what Amy Swearer, a senior legal fellow at Advancing American Freedom, described as a “disappointing” line of questioning. Liberal and conservative Supreme Court justices appeared skeptical of Trump’s order, which the president has argued is necessary to end a “magnet” for illegal immigration and “birth tourism,” in which foreign nationals travel to the U.S. to give birth so their children gain citizenship.

Lawyers for the Trump administration argued that the 14th Amendment’s stipulation that individuals must be subject to U.S. jurisdiction to be American citizens means children of illegal immigrants are excluded from automatic citizenship. The administration pointed to “striking” numbers of illegal immigrants abusing current law through a type of birth tourism. Meanwhile, opposing lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union argued that Supreme Court precedent, particularly the Wong Kim Ark case, supports a broader interpretation that all those born on U.S. soil are automatic citizens.

In an interview with Fox News Digital, Swearer said that while the oral arguments went “a little bit better than anticipated” for the administration in some regards, the day was a mixed bag for the government.

SAUER CITES ‘STRIKING’ FIGURES ON SECRETIVE BIRTH TOURISM IN HIGH-STAKES SCOTUS CASE

“Most people understood coming into this, and I suspect even the government understood coming into this, that this was probably going to be a bit of an uphill battle,” Swearer said.

She said conservative and liberal justices seemed hesitant about how the government would apply Trump’s order.

Swearer said, “We did see a lot of those types of questions,” adding, “I’m not sure they are actually that important to the overall doctrinal questions of, ‘What does the 14th Amendment citizenship clause actually mean?’”

Meanwhile, she said it was “a bit disappointing” not to see more pushback from the justices on the ACLU’s broad interpretation of the 14th Amendment.

While there was much discussion of the Wong Kim Ark case, which revolved around the citizenship of a child of legal Chinese immigrants, Swearer said she “was disappointed” not to see discussion of other legal precedent she believes is crucial.

ALITO INVOKES SCALIA ANALOGY IN BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP FIGHT OVER ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

“The ACLU’s argument is essentially no one up until Donald Trump ever thought that this was a viable way of framing birthright citizenship. And the reality is when you look at decisions by other presidents during the 19th century, you actually did have executive branch decisions saying, ‘No, we’re not going to issue passports to this person, even though they were born in the United States because they weren’t born subject to our jurisdiction, because their parents weren’t lawfully or permanently present in the United States.’ And I think that’s important,” she said.

“I think that was one of the missed opportunities to really push back on the ACLU’s position, and it just didn’t come up in the same way that Wong Kim Ark did,” she added.

What does this mean for the future of Trump’s order? Swearer said that while the three liberal justices’ stances are obvious, she admitted, “It’s hard to know what to make of” the six other justices’ lack of questioning on what she believes are the more “foundational questions about the history and tradition” of the citizenship issue.

Despite this, Swearer said, “I do think there’s a path forward” for a Trump victory, though it would likely be narrow and partial.

INSIDE SUPREME COURT: HOW TRUMP HEARD BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP ARGUMENTS

“I would not quantify it, but I wouldn’t be shocked to see some sort of plurality of opinions splitting the baby somewhere,” she said.

Swearer speculated that possible routes the court could take include differentiating between illegal immigrants and temporary visa holders, delivering a partial victory for the administration, or deciding the question based on existing statute rather than attempting to interpret the language of the 14th Amendment, which would cut against Trump’s order.

“Maybe they split the baby that way,” she said, adding, “I think at the end of the day, there are just so many options for what this could look like.” 

Former National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent — who quit his government role last month over his opposition to the Iran war — suggested in a Wednesday night post on X that President Donald Trump will only be able to declare victory in Iran if he “restrains” Israel.

“The purpose of POTUS’s speech this evening was to show that we can declare victory when we choose. This is only possible if POTUS restrains the Israelis 1st. Israel needs us committed indefinitely, we are seeking a quick end to the war. We have drastically different goals than Israel & must act accordingly,” Kent asserted in the post.

Kent made the comments after Trump — who launched the controversial U.S. war against Iran last month in conjunction with Israel — delivered an address to the nation about the ongoing conflict on Wednesday night.

TRUMP SAYS IRAN ‘NO LONGER A THREAT’ AFTER 32 DAYS — OUTLINES NEXT PHASE OF US WAR

“Thanks to the progress we’ve made, I can say tonight that we are on track to complete all of America’s military objectives shortly, very shortly. We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We are going to bring them back to the stone ages where they belong. In the meantime, discussions are ongoing,” he said.

“Because of the actions we have taken, we are on the cusp of ending Iran’s sinister threat to America and the world. And I’ll tell you, the world is watching. And when we do… the United States will be safer, stronger, more prosperous and greater than it has ever been before,” Trump said during his remarks. 

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: 5 KEY TAKEAWAYS FRM TRUMP’S IRAN ADDRESS

Kent indicated that the U.S. should exit the war immediately.

“We do not honor our fallen by getting more of our best men & women killed in the Middle East. We honor our fallen by learning from our past & only shedding American blood in defense of our nation. The best time to get out of a war of choice is now, before we lose more lives,” he wrote in a post on X.

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment on Thursday.

FORMER REP MTG VENTS THAT SHE’S ‘SO BEYOND DONE,’ CHARACTERIZING TRUMP’S ADDRESS AS ‘WAR WAR WAR’

In a Thursday morning post on X, Kent wrote, “The purpose of a system is what it does: Israel is targeting the negotiators to ensure we can’t end the war & to ensure that the Iranian leaders who come next will be more extreme, thereby ensuring that the war goes on. The 1st step to end the war must be restraining Israel.”

The 48-day Department of Homeland Security shutdown is one step closer to ending after the Senate moved to fund most of the department Thursday morning.

The Senate agreed via voice vote to send a bipartisan deal funding the whole department except for President Donald Trump‘s immigration enforcement and border security efforts to the House for consideration.

The chamber is not expected to vote on the legislation until House lawmakers return to Washington on April 13. 

The Senate vote follows GOP leaders endorsing a two-track approach to funding DHS on Wednesday, with President Trump giving lawmakers a hard deadline to end the record-breaking funding lapse. 

HOUSE CONSERVATIVES RAGE AGAINST SENATE DHS SHUTDOWN DEAL

The Senate bill accomplishes the first phase of the plan by working with Democrats to fund as much of DHS as possible on a bipartisan basis. However, it would zero out funding for ICE and much of the Border Patrol, save for $11 billion in customs funding going to the agency. Additionally, $10 billion teed up for ICE won’t be funded under the measure.

As for ICE and the Border Patrol, Republicans have said they will seek three full years of funding for both of these agencies in a party-line budget reconciliation package that will bypass Democrats’ opposition. Trump says he wants the forthcoming bill on his desk by June 1.

“We are going to work as fast, and as focused, as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE Agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won’t be able to stop us,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday. 

The Senate bill’s passage on Thursday was a déjà vu moment for Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., who helped steer the same measure through the upper chamber last week.

But House GOP leadership sharply rejected it, calling the measure’s exclusion of ICE and CBP money a “crap sandwich” and warning about the risks of funding those entities using the budget reconciliation process. The chamber then put forward a rival proposal that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., made clear was “dead on arrival” in the Senate. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., appeared to relent Wednesday after Trump issued a statement outlining an end to the shutdown that appeared to side with Thune’s two-part approach to funding the department. 

GOP INFIGHTING, DEMOCRATS’ UNMET DEMANDS AND A CLEAR WINDFALL: WHO’S WINNING AND LOSING THE DHS SHUTDOWN

As the DHS shutdown drags on, Trump and congressional Republicans are gambling that budget reconciliation will be the way to fund immigration enforcement for several years to come. Some Republicans have floated funding ICE not just through Trump’s term, but for up to a decade.

The GOP used the same process to fund ICE last year, teeing up $75 billion for enforcement operations for the next four fiscal years.

But the party-line process comes with a host of challenges that could test Republican unity in an election year.

GOP lawmakers will have to identify spending cuts to pay for it. When Republicans used the process to pass Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act in July 2025, lawmakers nearly stumbled at the finish line over disagreements on cuts to federal Medicaid spending and food assistance programs.

Without a looming deadline like the expiration of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts that Republicans extended in July 2025 through the “big, beautiful bill,” some GOP lawmakers have voiced concern that the party will stay unified.

Republicans have proposed adding other issues into the reconciliation mix, including supplemental funding for the Iran war, affordability measures, the president’s tariff regime and pieces of the election integrity-focused SAVE America Act.

The budget reconciliation process allows a party with control of the White House and both chambers of Congress to pass tax and spending priorities with a simple majority threshold, though the process is governed by stringent requirements for what is eligible to be included.

Punting ICE and CBP money to a future spending bill could also negatively affect support staff employed by both agencies who have not been paid during the seven-week shutdown.

Democrats have repeatedly blocked funding for ICE and the Border Patrol in the Senate since the beginning of the shutdown in mid-February. Though none of their proposals to reform immigration enforcement have been adopted, Democratic leaders claimed victory on Wednesday. 

“Throughout this fight, Senate Democrats never wavered,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Wednesday. “We were clear from the start: fund critical security, protect Americans, and no blank check for reckless ICE and Border Patrol enforcement. 

“We were united, held the line, and refused to let Republican chaos win.”

The Senate deal funding most of DHS could still face roadblocks in the House. A handful of conservatives have already said they will vote “no” while using the same messaging employed by House GOP leadership to oppose the bill last week.

“Let’s make this simple: caving to Democrats and not paying CBP and ICE is agreeing to defund Law Enforcement and leaving our borders wide open again,” Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., wrote on social media Wednesday. “If that’s the vote, I’m a NO.”

Democratic Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is facing pushback from conservatives on social media and the Republican he’s running against over an appearance where he was accused of equating the “radicalism” of Iran with the “MAGA movement.”

“There are many people who see the downfall of the regime as a good thing, but the question of whether or not it was pursued legally, that’s a different question,” the progressive candidate told “America’s Newsroom” on Wednesday. El-Sayed was responding to controversy over a Washington Free Beacon report on leaked audio of him explaining why he shouldn’t take a public position on the death of former Iran Supreme Leader Khamenei because of people in Dearborn, Michigan, who are “sad.”

“Whether or not its worth $31 billion of our taxes and counting a billion dollars a day, that’s another thing. Whether or not we should be paying higher rates at the pump every single time we try to just get where we’re going and pump gas… that [is] a big question, and I’ll tell you what, there are a lot of people who are really sad about the fact that they thought that the era of foreign wars, of never-ending regime change wars were over, and here we are.”

During another point in the interview, El-Sayed was asked, “Would we all not be better off if the radicals in Iran did not make decisions for the people?”

DEMOCRATS TEAM UP WITH FAR-LEFT STREAMER WHO ONCE SAID ‘AMERICA DESERVED 9/11’

El-Sayed responded, “Radicalism of any sort is bad, which is why this MAGA movement taking us into yet another war in my lifetime, and I’m only 41, is so ridiculous.”

El-Sayed quickly faced pushback from Republicans who accused him of not sufficiently explaining his comments in the leaked audio and equating the ayatollah’s regime with the Trump administration. 

“Democrats in 2026,” GOP communicator Matt Whitlock posted on X. “Abdul Al Sayed is asked point blank if the world is better off without the world’s largest state sponsor of terror. And gives a word salad about how the Ayatollah’s radicalism and Trump’s MAGA support are the same.”

“Democrat Abdul El-Sayed compares the Trump administration to the Ayatollah,” the Republican National Committee account posted on X. 

“What?!” Mark Levin Show producer Rich Sementa posted on X. 

MICHIGAN SENATE CANDIDATE RESPONDS TO BACKLASH OVER KHAMENEI COMMENTS, CALLS IRAN CONFLICT ‘WAR WE DON’T NEED

“You would think sympathizing with a terrorist regime would be disqualifying, but apparently, for Democrats, it’s a fast pass to the front of the primary,” Alyssa Brouillet, Mike Rogers’ campaign communications director, told Fox News Digital. “No amount of Abdul’s attempts to distract or deflect will be enough to hide how dangerous he and the Democrat party really are for Michigan.”

El-Sayed also faced some push back online over his answer to a question about his upcoming event with progressive commentator Hasan Piker, who has been accused of making antisemitic remarks and downplaying the October 7 massacre by Hamas.

“To me, it’s about speaking to a broader audience,” El-Sayed explained. “I’m wanting to speak with Hasan’s audience too.”

Fox News Digital reached out to El-Sayed’s campaign for comment. 

The Senate race in battleground Michigan is one of a handful in this year’s midterm elections that will determine if the Republicans hold their 53-47 majority in the chamber. Michigan, where Democratic Sen. Gary Peters is retiring, is one of the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s (NRSC) top targets as they try to not only hold onto their seats, but also possibly expand their majority.

Rogers, a former FBI special agent who later served as chair of the House Intelligence Committee during his tenure in Congress, launched his campaign last April. Rogers is making his second straight run for the Senate, after narrowly losing the 2024 election to now-Sen. Elissa Slotkin in the race to succeed Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow, who retired. Slotkin, who vastly outspent Rogers, only edged him by roughly 19,000 votes, or a third of a percentage point.

Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary will be held on Aug 4 as El-Sayed squares off against Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow and Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens to earn the chance to replace Peters in November.

President Donald Trump called on the world’s countries to “build up some delayed courage” and “just take” the Strait of Hormuz while addressing the nation in a primetime speech on Iran Wednesday night. 

Movement in the strait, which is a narrow but crucial global oil trade passageway, has been greatly hampered by Iran, which the teetering country has held out as one of its bargaining chips. Iranian interference in the strait has significantly impaired the movement of oil tankers through the strait, causing global oil prices to rise.

Trump said that while the U.S. “imports almost no oil through the Hormuz Strait and won’t be taking any in the future,” the “countries of the world that do receive oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage.”

He promised the U.S. “will be helpful,” but stressed that other countries “should take the lead in protecting the oil that they so desperately depend on.”

POLL POSITION: WHERE TRUMP STANDS AMONG AMERICANS AS HE FACES THE NATION IN PRIMETIME

The president shared two suggestions for countries that depend on oil passing through Hormuz.

“To those countries that can’t get fuel, many of which refuse to get involved in the decapitation of Iran … I have a suggestion. No. 1, buy oil from the United States of America. We have plenty. We have so much. And No. 2, build up some delayed courage — should have done it before. Should have done it with us as we asked — go to the strait and just take it. Protect it. Use it for yourselves.”

He emphasized that other countries “must cherish it. They must grab it and cherish it.”

Though signaling that the U.S. will not be moving to seize the strait itself, he said America’s heavy bombardment of the Iranian military, navy, infrastructure and national leadership has made it “easy” for other countries to do so.

TRUMP SAYS IRAN ‘NO LONGER A THREAT’ AFTER 32 DAYS — OUTLINES NEXT PHASE OF US WAR

After 32 days of joint U.S.-Israeli bombardment, Trump said “Iran has been essentially decimated.”

“The hard part is done, so it should be easy.”

Either way, the president asserted that “when this conflict is over, the strait will open up naturally.”

“It’ll just open up naturally,” he repeated, asserting that the surviving Iranian government is “going to want to be able to sell oil because that’s all they have to try and rebuild.”

PRESIDENT TRUMP VOWS US IS ‘VERY CLOSE’ TO FINISHING THE JOB ON IRAN: WE HOLD ‘ALL THE CARDS’

“It will resume the flowing and the gas prices will rapidly come back down. Stock prices will rapidly go back up,” he predicted.

Trump addressed the nation 32 days into the Iranian conflict, codenamed “Operation Epic Fury,” which he initially projected would take four to five weeks to complete. The president said the conflict is “very close” to being finished and that the U.S. is “on track” to complete all of its objectives.

“We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks,” he said, adding, “We’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages where they belong.”

Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote on X that all she heard from President Donald Trump’s address to the nation on Wednesday night “was WAR WAR WAR.”

“I wanted so much for President Trump to put America First. That’s what I believed he would do. All I heard from his speech tonight was WAR WAR WAR,” Greene wrote.

“Nothing to lower the cost of living for Americans. Nothing to reduce our near $40 trillion in debt. Nothing to save Social Security, which goes bankrupt in just a few years. Nothing to lower the cost of insurance. Nothing to address jobs for Americans. Nothing about education for our children. Nothing about our children’s future. Nothing for America’s future,” she continued.

“I’m so beyond done. I pray for our military and their families. I pray for innocent people all over the world. I pray for peace and prosperity for all,” she concluded.

MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE SAYS TRUMP, GOP ‘GOVERNED AMERICA LAST,’ PREDICTS MIDTERM LOSSES

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment on Thursday morning but did not immediately receive a response.

President Trump delivered the speech on Wednesday night, more than four weeks after launching U.S. military action against Iran alongside Israel.

“Because of the actions we have taken, we are on the cusp of ending Iran’s sinister threat to America and the world. And I’ll tell you, the world is watching. And when we do … the United States will be safer, stronger, more prosperous and greater than it has ever been before,” Trump said during his remarks. 

TRUMP SAYS IRAN REQUESTED CEASEFIRE

“Thanks to the progress we’ve made, I can say tonight that we are on track to complete all of America’s military objectives shortly, very shortly. We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We are going to bring them back to the stone ages where they belong. In the meantime, discussions are ongoing,” he said.

Americans have been facing surging fuel prices amid the war – the AAA national average for regular gas has soared to $4.081 as of April 2. 

The president said that when the conflict ends, the Strait of Hormuz “will open up naturally” and “gas prices will rapidly come back down.”

TRUMP SAYS IRAN ‘NO LONGER A THREAT’ AFTER 32 DAYS — OUTLINES NEXT PHASE OF US WAR

“Our economy is strong and improving by the day, and it will soon be roaring back like never before,” he said.

As the debate on voter ID and the SAVE America Act rages on in the Senate, a former Democratic senator from Ohio, Sherrod Brown, is facing heat from his political opponents as he runs to return to the Senate over his votes and positions on the election integrity issue.

“You know, it’s inconsistent to denounce White supremacy but not repudiate voter ID laws, to not repudiate the Muslim ban, to not repudiate ‘the wall,’” Natasha Merle, then nominee for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, said during a 2017 podcast, Fox News Digital reported during her confirmation process in 2022.

“These are all things that support and are grounded in White supremacy. The voter ID bills disproportionately impact Black and Brown voters. They disproportionately prevent Black and Latino voters from voting. So you cannot say you are not for White supremacy and at the same time be for disenfranchising Black and Latino voters.”

Additionally, Merle appeared to compare today’s voter ID laws to “dogs and whips” being used to control minority populations in a 2020 speech to college students on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

SHERROD BROWN PITCHES HIMSELF AS BLUE-COLLAR POPULIST WHILE RAKING IN CASH FROM HOLLYWOOD CELEBRITIES

“We cannot lose sight of states such as Alabama, Texas, Florida that have created new barriers to make voting harder, including by eliminating early voting, passing restrictive voter ID laws, and purging legal voters from their rolls — all of this happening with the implicit and sometimes explicit support of the Justice Department,” Merle said. 

Despite these comments, Merle was confirmed as a federal judge in 2023 by a 1-vote margin with the support of then-Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, who is currently running a campaign to return to the Senate after losing his seat in 2024, and no Republican support.

“That’s a shocking, radical point of view,” Ohio GOP incumbent Sen. Jon Husted, who Brown is trying to unseat, told Fox News Digital about Merle’s comments. “I didn’t really know much about that particular judge, but I’m shocked to learn those facts. I’ll just say this, when you look at the polling data, 60 to 70% of African-American and Hispanic voters support the idea of voter ID.”

Democrat opposition to voter ID was brought to the forefront of the news cycle earlier this month when Husted, during the debate about the SAVE America Act, attempted to pass a standalone voter ID bill through unanimous consent in a move to test Democratic claims they don’t oppose voter ID but rather take issue with other measures of the bill.

The measure would have enacted a nationwide voter ID requirement, though 36 states already have similar rules on the books. The Ohio Republican said citizens could use a state-issued driver’s license, a U.S. passport or valid military or tribal ID to meet the requirement.

Democrats blocked the measure on the Senate floor. 

SCHUMER, DEMOCRATS SAY THEY SUPPORT VOTER ID, THEN BLOCK GOP AMENDMENT TO REQUIRE IT

“I gave them a simple, clean, straightforward proposal, and then they blocked it, and then when we took it to a roll call vote, every single Democrat voted against it, thus proving that they were unwilling to put their words into action when given the choice,” Husted said, adding that Democrats are “controlled” by the “radical left” wing of the party. 

Shortly after the showdown, Brown called voter ID, which is utilized in Ohio, one of the “unnecessary barriers that threaten the ability of hardworking Ohioans to vote early, mail in their ballots, or vote on Election Day.”

Husted told Fox News Digital that Brown “consistently voted in lockstep with the radical left of his party, which are out of touch with how people in Ohio live their lives on a daily basis.”

“During the Biden years, Sherrod Brown and Democrats let over 10 million people into this country, many of them not properly vetted, many of them not here legally, many of those who have the ability to get on voter rules in states where they don’t properly maintain voter rules,” Husted said. “Because understand, in places like California, you can vote simply with a signature. All you have to do is come up with a signature that looks close to the person who’s properly registered and you can cast a ballot. That’s the kind of stuff we’re trying to solve.”

A Fox News poll released in September 2025 found that 84% of registered voters said photo ID should be required to prove citizenship before voting.

Ohio’s current Secretary of State, Republican Frank LaRose, also called out Brown’s “unnecessary barrier comment” in a post on X saying, “Americans support photo ID, and Ohio proves it works.”

Husted, who previously served as Ohio’s secretary of state, told Fox News Digital that Democrat claims of racial “disenfranchisement” haven’t occurred in his state with voter ID.

“In the last election, we had the second-highest turnout in a presidential election of the last four presidential elections,” Husted said. “It clearly doesn’t suppress voters and I’m highly confident that Hispanic and African American voters are just as capable of using a photo ID as anyone else.”

Fox News Digital reached out to Brown’s campaign for comment.

Fox News Digital’s Alex Miller and Adam Pack contributed to this report.