Mamdani’s estate tax plan could drive wealth out of state, critics warn
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is under fire for backing a plan that would slash New York’s estate tax exemption by nearly 90%, a move opponents say could drag middle-class families into a tax burden long aimed at the rich. New York is one of the states that imposes its own estate tax in addition to the federal levy, and the proposed changes would dramatically expand its reach—potentially sweeping in not just the wealthy, but families whose primary asset is a home they hoped to pass on to their children. MAMDANI’S RENT FREEZE, TAX HIKES A ‘ONE-TWO WEALTH DESTRUCTION PUNCH,’ ECONOMISTS WARN The plan would sharply reduce how much of an estate can be passed on tax-free, cutting the threshold from $7.35 million to just $750,000, among the lowest in the country, meaning far more estates would be subject to taxation. In addition, Mamdani is proposing to more than triple the state’s top estate tax rate, raising it from 16% to 50%, a combination that could generate billions in new revenue for New York. Edward Pinto, a senior fellow and co-director of the AEI Housing Center at the American Enterprise Institute, told Fox News Digital the proposal could push residents and their wealth out of New York. “This proposal would destroy NYC’s wealth in a different manner,” Pinto said. “This estate tax proposal will mistreat capital and result in the voluntary exodus of NYC residents and their wealth to places like Florida and Tennessee,” he added. FROM FREE BUSES TO CITY-OWNED GROCERY STORES, HERE ARE MAMDANI’S KEY ECONOMIC PROMISES Others echoed similar concerns, pointing to the potential impact on families and long-term financial planning. Joshua Rowley, a research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, said estate taxes can force families to liquidate assets and increasingly reach beyond the wealthy. “Estate taxes force citizens to liquidate assets to pay taxes on previously taxed assets—putting homes, retirement accounts, and businesses in the crosshairs,” Rowley said. “It would also discourage responsible retirement planning and punish parents for the sole crime of wanting to leave their children better off.” He added that proposals aimed at taxing the wealthy often expand over time. “But the Mamdani proposal also pulls back the curtain on all tax-the-rich solutions. What starts off as an exclusive tax on the rich invariably gets expanded to lower income groups to satisfy the government’s spending addiction,” Rowley said. The estate tax proposal is just one piece of Mamdani’s wider policy push. His housing plan, a campaign promise aimed at addressing affordability, includes an immediate freeze on roughly 2 million rent-stabilized apartments. Separately, his broader $127 billion budget agenda calls for higher taxes on wealthy residents and corporations, as well as a potential 9.5% property tax increase if state lawmakers decline to act. In the nation’s largest city and a global financial center, the outcome of Mamdani’s proposals could shape not only the future of New York’s housing market, but also broader debates over regulation, taxation and urban policy. Mamdani’s office did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Newsom’s claim Texas and Florida are the ‘real high tax states’ picked apart by expert: ‘Fatally flawed’
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s repeated claims in recent weeks promoting his state as more tax-friendly than Florida and Texas don’t add up, according to an expert who ran the numbers. “Texas and Florida are the REAL high-tax states,” Newsom recently posted on X, explaining onstage at SXSW in Austin, Texas that California has the most “progressive tax rates in America” while taking shots at the tax burden in Florida and Texas. “Your middle class pays more taxes in Texas than our middle class in California,” Newsom said in Texas. “It’s a great mythology, it’s just ‘the richest of the rich come here because they can avoid paying a damn penny.’” The comments drew pushback from conservatives on social media, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and from Just Facts President James Agresti, who says he looked into a “number of different angles” to determine the “validity” of Newsom’s claims. FROM ‘JUMP ON A BUS’ TO TAX CRACKDOWNS: BLUE STATES CHASE WEALTHY RESIDENTS FLEEING TO RED HAVENS “I looked at how much is each state taxing each of its citizens on average? So if you look at California, they collect about $10,000 a year in taxes for every person in the state, whereas the figures for Texas and Florida are only about $5,000, or about half as much,” Agresti told Fox News Digital. “However, California is a higher-income state, so I also looked at it as a percentage of the states’ economies and what I found is that California taxes about 14% of its economy, as opposed to 9% for Texas and Florida.” Just Facts broke those taxes down in a recent study and found that California imposes some of the highest taxes in the nation, with a top personal income tax rate of 13.3%, while both Texas and Florida have no state income tax. Property taxes in California account for about 2.8% of personal income, slightly lower than Texas at 3.6% and close to Florida’s 2.6%, though measured as a share of home values, California’s rates are generally lower than both states, but in other tax areas, California is largely more burdensome. The state’s unemployment insurance tax rate matches Texas at 6.2%, but is higher than Florida’s 5.4%. California also has a higher statewide sales tax at 7.2%, compared to 6.2% in Texas and 6.0% in Florida. Drivers in California face significantly higher gas taxes as well, paying 70.9 cents per gallon, more than triple Texas’ 20 cents and well above Florida’s 40.3 cents. PROPOSED CALIFORNIA WEALTH TAX DRIVES BILLIONAIRE EXODUS TO FLORIDA REAL ESTATE, LOCALS CONFIRM A Wallethub 2025 analysis ranking U.S. states by overall tax burden showed California coming in at 4th overall, behind Vermont, New York and Hawaii. On a per-capita basis, California also collects significantly more in state and local taxes than either state, according to data from the Tax Foundation. At the heart of the issue is the data, Agresti says, making the case that Newsom is likely pulling from the Institute On Taxation & Economic Policy (ITEP) which Agresti said is widely used by mainstream news outlets and experts but is “fatally flawed” because “it does not account for all forms of income or all taxes.” Agresti has been speaking out against ITEP’s methodology for over a decade, explaining in a 2015 post that the group “uses a partial measure of income in virtually all of its studies” and is “based on calculations that exclude certain taxes.” CALIFORNIA BILLIONAIRES FLEE STATE’S WEALTH TAX IN THE MOST-PREDICTABLE RESULT EVER ITEP’s analysis focuses on how tax burdens are distributed across income groups rather than overall tax levels. The group argues that states such as Texas and Florida look “low tax” largely because they do not levy a broad-based personal income tax, a structure that disproportionately benefits high earners. To make up the difference, those states rely more heavily on sales, excise and property taxes, which tend to take a larger share of income from lower-income households. California, by contrast, uses a highly progressive income tax system that places more of the burden on top earners and helps offset regressive taxes lower down the income ladder. Critics, however, say that framing captures only part of the picture because it focuses on tax burden by income group rather than overall tax climate, where California remains far more burdensome for top earners, investors and many businesses. “It’s information from this group and others like it, by the way, that have misled people to believe that middle-income folks in the United States pay a higher federal tax rate than upper-income folks,” Agresti said. “In fact, a survey done by Just Facts found that about 80% of America’s voters believe this fiction, even though the Congressional Budget Office, the U.S. Treasury, and the center-left Tax Policy Center all say that middle-income Americans pay an average effective federal tax rate of about 15% while upper income, or the top 1%, pay a rate of about 30%. And by the way, that includes all taxes and all income, all tax loopholes, it’s basically all taxes paid divided by all income earned or received.” Fox News Digital reached out to ITEP for comment. Agresti said Newsom is a “master of twisting statistics to paint a picture that is the exact inverse of reality” and pointed to the governor’s claim that the exodus of residents due to high taxes is a “myth.” “Here’s the facts: According to his own Secretary of State, every year of Newsom’s governorship, more people have moved out of California into other states than have moved from other states into California,” Agresti, who has posted the data on his website, said. “In fact, over the time of his governorship, about 1.5 more million people have left California than moved in.” “So how does Newsom get his claim, his evidence? Well, he looks at total population growth, which is dominated by immigrants moving in from other countries. The issue is not whether people would rather live in California than Mexico, but whether they would rather live in California than other
Mullin’s confirmation survives key test vote as DHS remains shut down
Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., survived a key test vote on Sunday on his way to becoming the next Homeland Security chief. Mullin, who was tapped by President Donald Trump to be the next Department of Homeland Security secretary, still has one more vote to go, and likely won’t be confirmed until Monday evening. Should he survive the final confirmation vote on Monday, he will replace DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who Trump fired following explosive hearings on the Hill and after the deaths of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti during immigration operations in Minnesota. SCHUMER GAMBIT FAILS AS DHS SHUTDOWN HITS 36 DAYS AND AIRPORT LINES GROW Sunday’s 54 to 37 test vote, which was largely party-line save for Sens. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., and John Fetterman, D-Pa., who was the key vote to move his colleague out of committee earlier in the week, comes after his explosive confirmation hearing earlier in the week. Mullin was grilled by both Democrats and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who Mullin once called a “snake” and charged that his 2017 assault was “justified.” During the hearing, Mullin didn’t back down from his prior remarks. “I’m not perfect. I don’t claim to be perfect,” Mullin said. “I make mistakes just like anybody else. But mistakes, if you own them, you can learn from them and you can move ahead. And I’ll make that commitment to you.” GOP SENATOR’S GAMBIT EXPOSES FALSE DEM CLAIMS ABOUT SUPPORTING VOTER ID If successful on Monday, Mullin will take the reins of an agency that is currently shut down. Senate Democrats, led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have blocked DHS funding five times in their quest to get stringent reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Mullin appeared amicable to making changes at the agency during his hearing. Congressional Democrats have demanded, among other things, that ICE agents get judicial warrants to enter a home or business in the field rather than administrative warrants. And when asked by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., whether he would commit to requiring judicial warrants for ICE agents to search homes and businesses, Mullin appeared to give ground to the demand. “Judicial warrants will be used to go into houses, into place of businesses, unless we’re pursuing someone that enters in that place,” Mullin said. “I have not mixed words with that, and I haven’t changed my opinion about that.” Meanwhile, what was a shutdown stalemate thawed over earlier this week, when Senate Democrats made a counter offer of DHS demands to the White House after over two weeks of radio silence. MULLIN FACES DEMOCRAT GRILLING IN FIRST HURDLE TO LEAD DHS AMID SHUTDOWN FIGHT That spurred back-to-back meetings on the Hill, with Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Katie Britt, R-Ala., along with border czar Tom Homan, sitting down with a cohort of Senate Democrats. A third meeting was slated for Saturday, but was canceled at the last minute. The shutdown is currently on its way to becoming the longest in history, unless either side can lock in a deal to fund the agency. Mullin’s nomination to lead DHS has so far not swayed Senate Democrats, either, despite their demands the Noem be booted. Whether both sides meet again over the weekend remains in the air. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., accused Senate Democrats of believing that the shutdown “politically good for them.” “It’s not politically good for anybody to have literally tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of people out of work and important functions of our government not being carried out on a daily basis and functions that are important to our homeland security and our national security,” Thune said.
Trump mocks ‘discombobulated’ Schumer over Democrats’ near gaffe on funding ICE
President Donald Trump mocked Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., for a near gaffe Saturday on the Senate floor. “Schumer got ‘discombobulated’ in the Senate yesterday, and said, ‘WE MUST FUND ICE,’ prior to correcting himself,” Trump wrote Sunday morning on Truth Social. “Thank you Chuck, I agree!” Schumer and Senate Democrats are filibustering the SAVE America Act — an election integrity bill — but the minority leader was arguing the Republicans are responsible for the government shutdown that has left American airline passengers frustrated with long TSA wait times at airports across the country. SENATE MAJORITY LEADER WARNS DEMS ARE PUTTING CYBER OPERATIONS AT RISK AS IRAN THREAT LOOMS Schumer did quickly correct himself by saying, “We must fund TSA now,” but the irony was not lost on Trump, who has long reminded Americans that the government shutdown of Department of Homeland Security funding does not impact Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in real time, because ICE was fully funded in last summer’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Schumer’s call to “fund TSA now” was related to the Senate Democrats’ failed effort to isolate a funding package solely for TSA, but Republicans blocked that effort, noting the rest of DHS funding that is on hold due to the shutdown is vital to American national security amid strikes on Iran, too. Republicans negotiating on DHS, including Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Homeland Security Subcommittee Chair Katie Britt, R-Ala., are meeting Sunday. “There are lots of ideas swirling right now, some of which you know my colleagues are talking about, but obviously what my sense is at least the good news, and all that is people realizing this has to get fixed,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters on his walk off the Senate floor Sunday morning. “It has to get solved, but the best way again, to solve it is to get Democrats to support funding the entire Department of Homeland Security, you know, not picking and choosing certain aspects of it,” he said. “So we’ll see where the discussions go today.” THUNE REVEALS REASON DEMOCRATS ARE ‘SCARED’ TO REOPEN DHS Democrats in Congress in February agreed to fund most of the government in exchange for withholding funds from DHS following the fatal shootings of two anti-ICE agitators in Minnesota by immigration authorities. The Senate failed to get the 60-vote supermajority needed to advance a Republican proposal to fund the entire DHS earlier in March, after Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, objected to an earlier Democratic proposal to separately fund the TSA earlier. Moreno separately proposed a two-week DHS funding extension, but Democrats blocked that. Absences by TSA airport officers have already disrupted travel at some major airports over the last week, raising alarm among airlines as the busy spring break travel season peaks. DHS funding lapsed Feb. 13. Airlines are expecting a record-breaking spring travel period, with 171 million passengers expected to fly, up 4% over the same two-month period last year. Reuters contributed to this report.
Far-left activists stay in 5-star Cuban hotel as island suffers total blackout
Far-left activist groups and personalities flocked to Havana, Cuba, this week in an effort to protest the economic sanctions imposed on the country by President Donald Trump‘s administration. The far-left group CodePink sponsored flights to the communist-led island, and the group was joined by Isra Hirsi, the daughter of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and left-wing Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, an ally of democratic socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The group has faced heavy backlash for staying in expensive hotels to meet with government officials even as Cuban residents go without electricity. Trump imposed an oil blockade on Cuba earlier this year after the U.S. captured former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Some delegates in the “Nuestra America Convoy,” including Piker, were staying at the 5-star Gran Hotel Bristol Meliá Collection and similar resorts. Piker defended the move on social media, saying U.S. law required that they stay at the ritzy hotels. CUBAN EXILES IN MIAMI SAY ‘THIS IS THE END’ FOR COMMUNISM AS ISLAND TEETERS ON COLLAPSE “The American government makes it illegal for Americans to stay wherever they want when they’re in Cuba,” Piker told his followers. “They have to stay in what they’ve declared as 5-star hotels.” The claim received swift pushback on social media, with an X Community Note saying that U.S. law only prevents Americans from staying at venues owned by the Cuban government or its officials. CodePink says it delivered thousands of pounds of aid to Cuba as part of the trip, which was organized by Cuban politician Mariela Castro and a nonprofit called Progressive International, according to the New York Post. TRUMP TOUTS US HAS ‘TREMENDOUS’ AMOUNT OF VENEZUELAN OIL, VOWS TO ‘TAKE CARE’ OF CUBA AFTER IRAN FOCUS The group’s arrival to Cuba, and subsequent flood of social media videos, came the same weekend that The Cuban Electric Union announced a total blackout across the island on Saturday. On Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, made comments about the island, saying “they have to get new people in charge” in Havana. Meanwhile, Pentagon officials told lawmakers there are no plans to invade Cuba, even as they described it as a long-standing security concern. Cuban officials have continued to blame U.S. sanctions for the country’s economic hardships, while analysts say the government is facing mounting pressure from ongoing blackouts, shortages of basic goods and growing public frustration. Fox News’ Amy Galo contributed to this report.
California sheriff seizes 650,000 ballots in defiance of state officials over election count dispute
A California sheriff and top Republican candidate for governor seized over 650,000 votes from the state’s November elections this weekend. Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco launched an investigation into the state’s November 2025 special election on Proposition 50 after a third-party organization, the Riverside Election Integrity Team, claimed it found roughly 45,000 excess votes. California elections officials have dismissed the team’s findings, but Bianco says his office will conduct another count. “This investigation is simple: Physically count the ballots and compare that result with the total votes recorded,” Bianco told reporters at a Friday press conference. Proposition 50 was a key proposal seeking to reform California’s congressional districts. It was designed to favor Democrats in response to a similar effort by Republicans in Texas. BIANCO SAYS ‘DEMOCRAT POLICY IS INDEFENSIBLE’ AS GOP CANDIDATES TOP CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR POLLING Secretary of State Shirley Weber has argued Bianco has no authority to carry out a recount. “The Riverside County Sheriff’s Office has taken actions based on allegations that lack credible evidence and risk undermining public confidence in our elections,” Weber told City News Service. “The sheriff’s assertion that his deputies know how to count is admirable. The fact remains that he and his deputies are not elections officials, and they do not have expertise in election administration.” Riverside elections official Art Tinoco rejected the Riverside Election Integrity Team’s findings earlier this month, saying the group had misinterpreted how votes are counted on Election Day. GOP SHERIFF LEADING CALIFORNIA POLL RIPS NEWSOM’S ‘LOVE AFFAIR’ WITH CRIMINALS Tinoco told county supervisors earlier this year that the initial intake logs by polling workers are meant to be estimates rather than exact tallies of how many votes were cast. Even so, he said the final tally was within 0.16%, or 103 votes, of the original estimate. The Elections Integrity Team maintains their math is correct, however, and it was this disagreement that led Bianco to open an investigation of his own. Bianco accused California Attorney General Bob Bonta, a Democrat, of intervening in the investigation. Bonta, however, says his office only sought to learn the basis of the probe. “We have attempted to work cooperatively with the Sheriff’s Office in order to better understand the basis for their investigation, including by reviewing the warrants themselves and by requesting the Sheriff’s complete investigative file,” Bonta’s office told Fox News Digital on Sunday. “We made these requests pursuant to the Attorney General’s supervisory authority over county sheriffs.” “During this time, the Sheriff has delayed, stonewalled, and otherwise refused to work with us in good faith. To date, the Sheriff has failed to provide most of the requested documentation. But, what we have been able to learn raises serious questions about the merits of this investigation. We are especially concerned with legal deficiencies in the affidavits underlying the warrants, including the omission of material facts,” his office added. Bianco has also clashed on social media with Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., who is running for California governor as well. Bianco said Friday that his office had received multiple letters from Bonta ordering him to cease the investigation, according to the Desert Sun. “The outrage that an investigation was happening was extremely concerning to me, especially coming from someone who claims to be a law enforcement officer that is, I’ve said this a minimum of a thousand times, he’s an embarrassment to law enforcement,” Bianco said. Bonta and Weber did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
Trump says ICE will deploy to airports Monday to assist TSA amid funding standoff
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents will begin assisting TSA agents at airports across the country on Monday, President Donald Trump says. The move comes as Trump and Republicans battle with Democrats over funding for the Department of Homeland Security. TSA agents across the country have gone more than a month without a paycheck as Democrats hold up funding in hopes of securing immigration reforms. “On Monday, ICE will be going to airports to help our wonderful TSA Agents who have stayed on the job despite the fact that the Radical Left Democrats, who are only focused on protecting hard line criminals who have entered our Country illegally, are endangering the USA by holding back the money that was long ago agreed to with signed and sealed contracts, and all,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “But watch, no matter how great a job ICE does, the Lunatics leading the incompetent Dems will be highly critical of their work. THEY WILL DO A FANTASTIC JOB. The great Tom Homan is in charge!” he added. AIR TRAVELERS ARE HACKING TSA LINES DURING HOURS-LONG MAJOR AIRPORT WAITS Trump first threatened to deploy ICE to airports on Saturday, demanding that Democrats “immediately sign an agreement” to fund DHS. TSA WARNS OF SECURITY ‘THREAT’ AS AIRPORT CHECKPOINT CLOSURES TRIGGER MORE TRAVEL DELAYS TSA officers are considered essential employees and are required to report to work even during a shutdown, though pay can be delayed. Airports across the country have reported huge numbers of employees calling out sick or not showing up for work. More than 400 TSA employees have quit their jobs. Earlier Saturday, Elon Musk offered to cover the salaries of TSA personnel during the ongoing government funding standoff. VIDEO CAPTURES CRAZY AIRPORT CROWDS AS PASSENGERS POUR INTO TERMINAL AFTER SECURITY CHECKPOINTS CLOSE “I would like to offer to pay the salaries of TSA personnel during this funding impasse that is negatively affecting the lives of so many Americans at airports throughout the country,” Musk wrote on X. Major U.S. airports have experienced severe delays, with security wait times exceeding three hours in some cases, due to high TSA officer absenteeism. Hardest-hit airports include Houston (HOU, IAH), Atlanta (ATL), New Orleans (MSY), and Philadelphia (PHL). Footage from Philadelphia, shot early Thursday morning, showed hundreds of passengers waiting on elevators and escalators to clear a security checkpoint. Fox News’ Michael Dorgan contributed to this report.
Pence: Trump upended ‘some aspects’ of GOP agenda but ‘hasn’t really changed the Republican Party’
EXCLUSIVE – Former Vice President Mike Pence says his fight to keep the Republican Party from drifting too far from its conservative roots and principles, amid a rise of populism in the GOP and big government creep in President Donald Trump‘s second administration, is “the calling of my life right now.” And Pence takes issue with the conventional wisdom that Trump, since he first won the White House a decade ago, has upended and completely transformed the Republican Party. “I’m convinced that while President Trump has changed some aspects of the agenda of the Republican Party, he hasn’t really changed the Republican Party,” Pence argued in an exclusive interview this past week with Fox News Digital, a couple of months ahead of the release of a new book promoting the conservative agenda. Sitting in his Washington, D.C., office at Advancing American Freedom, his policy and advocacy organization that has been expanding in recent months, the former vice president emphasized, “We intend to be a voice for what conservatives believe and have always believed, and that’s fiscal responsibility, traditional values, strong defense and American leadership.” ONLY ON FOX NEWS: PENCE SAYS TRUMP ‘TURNED A DEAF EAR’ TO ISOLATIONISTS IN GOP Pence is a former congressman and Indiana governor who served as vice president during Trump’s first term in office before breaking with his boss amid the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol as he oversaw congressional certification of the 2020 election results. The former vice president gave a thumbs up to some of what Trump’s accomplished in his second term. “I’ve been very proud of the fact of what this administration accomplished in securing our border. I was pleased that the administration turned aside from those that were talking about raising taxes on top marginal earners. They extended all the Trump-Pence tax cuts,” he highlighted. PENCE URGES SENATE TO ‘RESTORE PUBLIC CONFIDENCE’ WITH NATIONWIDE VOTER ID LAW But Pence took issue with the second Trump administration for “embracing more big government programs and solutions, price controls on pharmaceuticals and credit companies, taking a position in private companies, the nationalization trend that has emerged, as well as marginalizing the right to life in so many ways and ignoring the scourge of mail order abortion pills around the country.” “I am hopeful those advising the president are reminding him that it… was the conservative agenda that we governed on in our four years…that led to great prosperity for American families, for our economy and for strength in the world,” Pence said. But the former vice president warned that “the Republican Party today is experiencing a scourge of some ‘-isms.’ We’ve seen protectionism show itself in unilateral tariffs that the Supreme Court of the United States recently turned back. We’ve seen some voices of isolationism that question our support for Israel, that would leave allies like Ukraine to fend for themselves.” And Pence added, “I think that on the fringe and on the margins, voices of antisemitism in the party all need to be confronted, because none of those things represent what conservatives believe.” But many Republicans would take issue with the former vice president’s argument that Trump hasn’t transformed the GOP. “Donald Trump has tremendously altered the makeup of the Republican Party and the issues that it focuses on,” veteran GOP strategist and communicator Ryan Williams told Fox News Digital. Williams emphasized that Trump “has altered the voter base of the Republican Party” and taken “the values and trajectory of this party in a different direction… It’s never going back to the way it was before.” FOX NEWS EXCLUSIVE: PENCE CHARGES DEMOCRATS’ HOLDUP OF DHS FUNDING ‘UNCONSCIONABLE’ While not aiming to return the party to its pre-Trump image, Pence said his mission is to remind people that Republicans believe in a strong national defense of American leadership in the world. We believe in free market economics and limited fiscally responsible government. We believe in the right to life and traditional values.” “It’s been those principles that have guided our party for more than a half a century and have been to the betterment of the American people,” he added. Pence said his hope is that “we’ll see not only this administration hew back to our roots of conservatism, but that we’ll see candidates for the House and Senate and statehouse around the country come back to those core conservative principles.” Republicans are battling stiff political headwinds as the party in power in the nation’s capital traditionally loses seats in the midterm elections, and a rough political climate fueled by economic concerns amid persistent inflation and Trump’s underwater approval ratings. But Pence said pushing a conservative platform is “not only a pathway toward American prosperity and the vitality of freedom, but it’s also a winning agenda.” Likely boosting the former vice president’s push will be his new book, “What Conservatives Believe: Rediscovering the Conservative Conscience,” which is expected to release in June. Pence ran on a traditional conservative platform, framing the future of the Republican Party against what he called the rise of “populism” in the party, as he bid for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, as part of a large field that unsuccessfully challenged Trump. While Pence, who became the first running mate in over 80 years to run against their former boss, regularly campaigned in the crucial early-voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, his White House bid never took off. Struggling in the polls and with fundraising, he suspended his campaign just four and a half months after launching it. “It was clear to me that there’s a portion of the Republican Party today that’s being drawn aside by the siren song of populism unmoored to conservative principles. I spoke out against that as a candidate. Our foundation, Advancing American Freedom, has been championing that conservative agenda and will continue to,” Pence noted. Asked if there’s another White House run in his future, Pence didn’t rule anything out. “I will tell you, I’m not a long-term
Trump gives Iran 48-hour ultimatum to reopen Strait of Hormuz or face strikes on power plants
President Donald Trump issued a 48-hour ultimatum to Iran on Saturday, warning the U.S. would strike its power plants if the Strait of Hormuz is not reopened. “If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST!” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. The president’s threat represents a notable escalation in rhetoric as tensions surge over the strategically vital waterway. Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a global choke point for oil and gas transport that supplies roughly one-fifth of the world’s crude oil, has been largely limited since early March, shortly after the war with Iran began. US SIGNALS READINESS TO ESCORT TANKERS THROUGH HORMUZ AS TRAFFIC THINS BUT NO MISSION LAUNCHED Trump’s post comes after he told reporters Friday that reopening the strait was a “simple military maneuver.” “It’s relatively safe, but you need a lot of help in the sense of you need ships, you need volume,” he said. The president added that NATO hasn’t had the “courage” to assist the U.S. with reopening the waterway. TRUMP SAYS US ‘OBLITERATED’ TARGETS IN STRIKE ON KEY IRANIAN OIL HUB “NATO could help us, but they so far haven’t had the courage to do so, and others could help us,” Trump said. “But, you know, we don’t use it. You know, at a certain point, it’ll reopen itself.” Earlier Friday, Trump ripped NATO on Truth Social as “cowards,” saying they “complain about the high oil prices they are forced to pay, but don’t want to help open the Strait of Hormuz.” A growing group of countries has signed onto a joint statement signaling their “readiness to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage” through the strait. The joint statement said, “We express our readiness to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait,” and, “We welcome the commitment of nations who are engaging in preparatory planning.” The statement was attributed to leaders from more than 20 countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada and the United Arab Emirates. “We condemn in the strongest terms recent attacks by Iran on unarmed commercial vessels in the Gulf, attacks on civilian infrastructure including oil and gas installations, and the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iranian forces,” the statement reads. NATO HEAVYWEIGHTS BALK AT HORMUZ MISSION AS TRUMP WARNS ALLIANCE AT RISK “We express our deep concern about the escalating conflict. We call on Iran to cease immediately its threats, laying of mines, drone and missile attacks and other attempts to block the Strait to commercial shipping, and to comply with UN Security Council Resolution 2817,” the statement continued. Earlier this week, U.S. forces struck Iran’s anti-ship missile sites near the Strait of Hormuz with 5,000-pound bunker-buster bombs, according to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). Fox News Digital’s Greg Norman-Diamond contributed to this report.
Trump administration urges judge to dissolve injunction blocking Abrego Garcia’s deportation to Liberia
The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Friday urged a judge to dissolve the injunction that prevents the Trump administration from detaining Kilmar Abrego Garcia again so he can quickly be deported to Liberia. “Dissolution is also warranted because the Court’s Memorandum Order failed to acknowledge that the Court’s own prior injunction against removal is the sole impediment to Petitioner’s prompt removal,” the DOJ wrote in a court filing obtained by Fox News Digital. “The Court cannot both impose the impediment that delays removal and consequently prolongs detention and, at the same time, hold that the resulting detention is impermissibly prolonged. “Any attempt by this Court to permanently enjoin the government from exercising its authority to remove the Petitioner from this country is in direct contradiction to established judicial norms, and a clear error of law.” US JUDGE VOWS TO RULE ‘SOON’ ON ABREGO GARCIA’S FATE AFTER MARATHON HEARING The administration deported Abrego Garcia, who it claims is a member of MS-13, a year ago to a prison in his native El Salvador, but he was returned to the U.S. in June to face human smuggling charges in Tennessee related to a 2022 traffic stop despite at first saying the administration had no power to bring him back. His lawyers deny he is a member of MS-13. He was released from detention in December on the grounds the Trump administration had not obtained the final notice of removal order that is needed to deport him to a third country. Abrego Garcia, 31, has become a flash point in the national immigration debate since March 2025, when he was deported to El Salvador in violation of a 2019 court order in what Trump administration officials acknowledged was an “administrative error.” The Supreme Court later ruled that the administration had to work to bring him back to the U.S. JUDGE ORDERS MIGRANT DEPORTED IN ‘ERROR’ FREE FROM ICE CUSTODY WITH CRIMINAL CASE LOOMING He has pleaded not guilty on the human smuggling charges and is seeking dismissal of the charges on the grounds of vindictive and selective prosecution. The 2019 court order prevents Abrego Garcia from being deported to El Salvador after an immigration judge determined he faced danger from a gang that had threatened his family. He immigrated to the U.S. illegally as a teenager and has been under the supervision of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Last month, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis agreed to convert her previous emergency order blocking ICE from immediately detaining Abrego Garcia again into a longer-term form of injunctive relief sought by his lawyers. She said the Trump administration failed to provide the court with any “good reason to believe” that it plans to remove Abrego Garcia to a third country in the “reasonably foreseeable future.” Instead, she said, it “made one empty threat after another to remove him to countries in Africa with no real chance of success.” Abrego Garcia has said he’s willing to be sent to Costa Rica, but acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons said he will instead be removed to Liberia. Abrego Garcia’s attorney said in December his client was willing to leave for Costa Rica immediately and that the country had given him asylum status months ago. The government’s “persistent refusal to acknowledge Costa Rica as a viable removal option, their threats to send Abrego Garcia to African countries that never agreed to take him, and their misrepresentation to the Court that Liberia is now the only country available to Abrego Garcia, all reflect that whatever purpose was behind his detention, it was not for the ‘basic purpose’ of timely third-country removal,” Xinis said in December. The administration asked the judge to rule on its request to have the injunction dissolved by April 17. Fox News Michael Sinkewicz, Louis Casiano, Breanne Deppisch and Jake Gibson contributed to this report.