Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, announced Thursday evening he will not seek re-election amid a House Ethics investigation into an affair he admitted to having with a former staffer.

Gonzales, a married father of 6, admitted to the affair for the first time on Wednesday – a day after advancing to the GOP primary runoff for his congressional district.

‘At 18, I swore an oath to defend our nation against all enemies, foreign and domestic. During my 20 years in the military and three terms in Congress, I have fought for that cause with absolute dedication to the country that I love,’ Gonzales said in a statement.

‘From overcoming the border crisis to taking a stand with my communities after the worst school shooting in Texas’ history, my philosophy has never changed: do as much as you can, and always fight for the greater good,’ he continued.

‘After deep reflection and with the support of my loving family, I have decided not to seek re-election while serving out the rest of this Congress with the same commitment I’ve always had to my district,’ he added. ‘Through the rest of my term, I will continue fighting for my constituents, for whom I am eternally grateful.

Gonzales confessed to the affair during an appearance on a conservative talk radio show one day after advancing to a runoff election in his congressional district’s GOP primary.

The House Ethics Committee also launched an investigation into Gonzales on Wednesday to determine if he engaged in sexual misconduct with a female member of his staff and whether he doled out special favors or privileges as a result.

The partial government shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security could impact how the federal government is able to address potential terror threats in the U.S., a public safety expert said, warning that the escalating conflict with Iran could encourage those wishing to harm Americans.

Jeffrey Halstead, a retired police chief in Fort Worth, Texas, and a former commander for Homeland Security for Phoenix police, told Fox News Digital that U.S. military actions could ‘escalate the mindset of some of these outlying or outlier terrorist entities’ wanting to take action. 

‘We’ve seen historically that any time there is a conflict, especially in the Middle East with escalating tensions, military action and now a declaration of war, there is a significant impact on the ability for us to work collectively to share intelligence and gather information in a timely manner from our federal partners,’ Halstead said. ‘With the current Department of Homeland Security shutdown, if something were to occur here in the United States, there could be some significant delays because FEMA and other very, very critical divisions of the federal government are basically shut down.’

He specifically pointed out the terrorist attack in Austin, Texas, over the weekend, which left 2 people dead and 14 injured. The suspect, Ndiaga Diagne, a 53-year-old naturalized citizen born in Senegal, was also killed.

Authorities said they are investigating the shooting, which took place at a bar at about 2 a.m. on Sunday, as a ‘potential nexus to terrorism’ as Diagne appeared to wear a ‘Property of Allah’ sweatshirt and an undershirt depicting the Iranian flag. A Quran was also later recovered from his vehicle, and an Iranian flag and images of regime leaders were found at his home.

That attack comes after U.S.-Israeli joint military strikes, which began against Iran on Saturday morning, killed the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other leaders, triggering a wider conflict in the Middle East.

Halstead, who is also the director of strategic accounts at Genasys, a communications hardware and software provider that helps communities during emergencies, warned that events in the U.S. later this year, such as World Cup soccer matches and America’s 250th anniversary, could make the U.S. an ‘escalated target’ if the conflict in the Middle East remains active.

He also said anytime there is a government shutdown, there seems to be a ‘pretty significant distraction, both politically and administratively, in every facet of our federal government and the manner in which the government operates.’

‘Sometimes there is reduced staffing in some of these critical agencies, and some of the agencies aren’t being funded at all,’ he said. ‘This will delay and possibly impede some of that critical intelligence, which could be terroristic threat level intelligence, that needs to be in the hands of local police, so that the beat officers, the patrol officers, as well as all the supervisors, understand the latest and greatest threats, including high-profile targets that could be on the radar of some of these active cells in the United States.’

He added that the government shutdown has an impact on the ability to ‘get that intelligence as fast as possible into the hands of those that need it’ and that delays could be ‘very, very catastrophic’ if the information is ignored or not sent.

Halstead noted that he has not seen any evidence that the shooting in Austin is directly tied to the government shutdown.

‘However, when there are military actions overseas, especially in a lot of these high-profile terrorist organizations or terrorist hosting countries, it elevates the mindset for other people to take actions against American citizens and institutions in America,’ he explained. ‘That could be schools and religious sites, and it could be the way that we live our lives with freedom.’

‘When these incidents overseas happen that are terror-related, it does instill in the mindset of some of these lone wolf-style actors to take action,’ he continued. ‘And if you look at [the case in Austin], that is exactly what the FBI has profiled to date, that this was a lone wolf probably acting upon the military action that was taken against Iran, and then wearing a shirt, ‘Property of Allah,’ that speaks to his either religious belief and/or possibility of some terroristic ties.’

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said: ‘I am in direct coordination with our federal intelligence and law enforcement partners as we continue to closely monitor and thwart any potential threats to the homeland.’

DHS, President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill continue to place blame on Democrats for the shutdown. After the conflict with Iran began over the weekend, Democratic lawmakers remain unmoved, including those who voted to end the government shutdown in November.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., argued that DHS still has plenty of money left from Trump’s spending bill signed last year and that Democrats are not going to suddenly abandon their demands for reform. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, told The Hill that he sees no correlation between the funding negotiations and the ongoing war in Iran.

‘I don’t think there’s any relationship between FEMA and Iran — or the Coast Guard, for that matter,’ King said.

Republicans contend that the conflict makes DHS funding even more necessary, with House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., writing on X: ‘Following the successful strikes on Iran and the FBI’s warning of elevated threats here at home, it is dangerous for Democrats in Washington to keep the Department of Homeland Security shut down.’

Halstead said the funding fight ‘looks like all the other shutdowns that we’ve seen,’ adding that it ‘becomes one side against the other, and then they will make some strong allegations and statements and then publicly the other side will make retaliation.’

‘This is probably some of the worst infighting I think I’ve seen in almost 40 years,’ he said.

Iran’s tyrannical and ruthless regime is disintegrating. After yet again massacring thousands of its own citizens for voicing their dreams for liberty and better governance, the Iranian regime meantime resumed pursuing nuclear capability and its aggressive ICBM program. The regime’s overconfidence in U.S. inaction cost it its leader and its core military capabilities are going up in smoke. Against this backdrop, the conflict has spread to the Gulf, threatening the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for roughly one-fifth of the world’s petroleum, and forcing the rest of the world to rethink how it prices energy risk and political alignment.

This is not another regional flare-up. This is a rupture of an old equilibrium in which sanctioned oil, shadow fleets and calibrated escalation kept markets stable enough to function. That equilibrium is now breaking. A rapid political-military shift in the Middle East is unfolding alongside a restructuring of the global energy order.

When I was in Afghanistan during the surge, Tehran’s active support for the insurgency fighting the United States and Afghan forces fomented instability and amplified violence for which civilians paid the biggest price, a dynamic that so many across several nations have tragically encountered for decades. But Iran was never a contained regional problem.

While its terrorism was widely perceived as a Middle East issue, its cyber and intelligence operations spanned continents, with assassination plots that included the American president. As to global effects, Iran’s energy has always made its regime globally significant.

At this stage of the conflict, the most economically significant and immediate geography is the Strait of Hormuz which Iran is working to choke off. Roughly one-fifth of global petroleum and a substantial portion of liquefied natural gas move through that narrow corridor. As strikes intensified, vessels paused transit, insurers reassessed exposure and operators rerouted cargoes. Markets adjusted immediately. Energy security and geopolitical stability are now inseparable; maritime risk has become the pressure valve through which regional conflict spills into global consequence. 

This realignment did not begin in the Gulf this weekend. It started with U.S. actions in Venezuela. Caracas holds the world’s largest proven crude reserves — about 303 billion barrels — and even marginal normalization under a more U.S.-cooperative government alters the supply calculus for Washington and its allies.

The new U.S.–Venezuela arrangement has already generated roughly $2 billion in transactions in just weeks, pulling Venezuelan barrels back into wider circulation and altering the discount ecosystem Moscow had grown accustomed to. Stack that with a post-crisis Iran re-entering markets on different terms, and the shadow ecosystem of discounted, sanctioned crude — Russia, Iran, Venezuela — begins to fracture and reprice simultaneously.

But the most consequential energy recalibration runs through Beijing. China is essentially Iran’s oil export market. In 2025, China bought more than 80% of Iran’s shipped oil, averaging ~1.38 million barrels per day, about 13.4% of China’s seaborne crude imports—meaning Beijing is simultaneously Tehran’s economic lifeline and its strategic choke chain.

By turning a sanctioned producer into a quasi-captive supply relationship — sustained through gray-market routing, reflagging and intermediary hubs — Beijing secured discounted barrels in normal times and leverage in crisis. Any sustained disruption of Iranian flows forces China into replacement buying that tightens global markets and exposes China’s own energy security; Iran exports about 1.6 million bpd mainly to China and such disruptions pushes Beijing to pivot to alternatives.

The relationship is therefore best understood as a dependency loop: Iran needs China for revenue and sanctions relief-by-proxy; China uses Iran as a discount supplier and as a pressure valve in the sanctioned crude system — one that can be tightened or loosened depending on Beijing’s broader negotiation posture with Washington and its appetite for risk in the Gulf. That Iran-China dependency is no longer stable.  With Iranian oil flows disrupted, China faces a choice between turning to alternative suppliers at higher cost or even tapping strategic reserves. Tightening global crude markets resulting from U.S. actions in Venezuela and now Iran give Washington leverage in energy pricing.

Beyond the tanker decks, this shift underscores the larger theme of reconfiguration: resources once bundled to manage sanctions are now subject to heightened geopolitical risk, forcing China to rethink dependencies while the U.S. and its partners are positioning to shape the post-conflict energy order. Energy supply patterns will restructure global power relations. And where China is recalibrating exposure, Russia is recalculating opportunity.

The same forces reshaping China’s calculations are altering Moscow’s. As India trims Russian purchases, Moscow has been pushing more barrels into China, and Reuters reports China’s Russian crude imports hitting new records in February while Russian sellers widened discounts to keep demand — Urals trading roughly $9–$11 below Brent for China deliveries, and other Russian grades also cutting hard as sellers chase Chinese refiners.

The new U.S.–Venezuela arrangement has already generated roughly $2 billion in transactions in just weeks, pulling Venezuelan barrels back into wider circulation and altering the discount ecosystem Moscow had grown accustomed to. 

This matters because China is also the anchor buyer for sanctioned Iranian crude; the ‘discount market’ is not infinite, so Russia and Iran are now competing for the same limited pool of Chinese buyers, driving deeper concessions and leaving cargoes idling — exactly the kind of sanctions-economy dynamic.

Add the West’s tightening focus on Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’ and the risk of seizures or insurance denial, and you get an energy chessboard where coercion moves from rhetoric to logistics: who can ship, insure and clear payments reliably becomes as strategic as who can produce.

In that context, Russia’s loud warnings about Hormuz disruption are not just diplomacy, they are a reminder that Moscow profits from volatility, but also needs a functioning gray-market channel to China, and Iran’s crisis threatens to scramble the very discount ecosystem Russia has used to finance its war in Ukraine. Structural realignment threatens the very gray-market architecture on which Moscow has relied.

Energy is only one layer of a global shift. Strategic minerals remain critical. The Trump administration has increased economic and maritime pressure on Cuba, tightening an effective oil blockade that choked off fuel imports. President Donald Trump has authorized tariffs targeting countries supplying oil to Havana.

This is not simply punitive policy. It reflects a broader strategic doctrine: deny adversarial regimes energy lifelines while repositioning the Western Hemisphere’s resource base toward U.S. leverage. Oil is only one domain. Rare earth elements are a strategic asset. Cuba’s nickel and cobalt output, combined with China’s tightening grip through rare-earth export controls indicates that leverage is not just oil fields but also supply chains. America achieving rare earth elements sovereignty will remain a strategic goal and such a global realignment on this front is much needed.

By the close of the first weekend, Iran appeared intent on accelerating its own collapse by compounding strategic error with strategic error. Iran felt it wise to respond to U.S. and Israeli strikes by pushing a half dozen other nations against it. On Saturday afternoon, Feb. 28, Iran launched attacks on seven sovereign nations – Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and Israel. It added Oman shortly after.

These nations now have a legal and political basis to deepen security ties with the U.S. and Israel that they could never have justified domestically before today. Iran has arguably done more to consolidate the anti-Iran regional architecture in one afternoon than a decade of American diplomacy. Watch for accelerated Abraham Accords-adjacent normalization with Saudi Arabia in the coming weeks.

Any sustained disruption of Iranian flows forces China into replacement buying that tightens global markets and exposes China’s own energy security…

After massacring thousands of its own citizens for demanding better governance, the regime’s long-standing presumption of U.S. inaction cost the 1979 Revolution its dream of ruling over Iranians perpetually. After 47 years, its leader is gone, and its core military capabilities are being dismantled.

The lesson is not simply that the Iranian regime is falling. It is that when it falls amid energy chokepoints and great-power competition, supply chains, alliances and leverage structures shift simultaneously. Iran’s collapse is not the end of the story; it is the catalyst for a broader redistribution of power across energy, alliances, and great-power leverage. America should exploit these shifting dynamics fully. 

The views expressed here are his and do not reflect the policy or positions of the Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Advisory Council, U.S. Army or Department of Defense. 

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison faced a barrage of tough questions from Republicans during a Wednesday House hearing on the massive fraud scandal in the state, with most of the questions focused on one key theme: What did they know, and when did they know it?

Walz and Ellison were asked multiple times for specifics regarding when they were first made aware of the fraud problems and faced sharp rebukes from Republican members, including Rep. Virginia Foxx.

‘You did not do your job, you did not do your job,’ Foxx told Walz. ‘You did not protect taxpayer dollars. You allowed massive fraud. You and Mr. Ellison allowed massive fraud to go on in the state of Minnesota. It is unfortunate, as somebody said, that you can’t be held personally responsible at this stage in the game.’

An exchange between GOP Rep. Jim Jordan and Walz sparked immediate pushback from conservatives on social media. 

‘Why didn’t you tell the truth about why you restarted the payments?’ Jordan asked during a House Oversight Committee hearing on Minnesota fraud on Wednesday.

The exchange centered on Walz’s past public statements that a judge ordered the Minnesota Department of Education to continue reimbursements in April 2021 after the agency had halted payments over fraud concerns.

Jordan pointed to a 2022 court-authorized news release from then-Ramsey County District Court Judge John H. Guthmann that disputed the governor’s characterization of the events.

‘So either you’re lying or the court’s lying. And I’m just asking you which one is it?’ Jordan said.

One of the most contentious exchanges came during questioning from GOP Rep. Nancy Mace when she pressed Walz for specific numbers on how many children are in his state, the massive increase in autism care spending and why that occurred without getting specific numbers back from Walz.

‘Ok, so your excuse before — that you didn’t know what the 2017 autism numbers were — because you were not governor, and today you can’t answer the numbers about 2024 as governor, and you still said you prepared for this hearing today. It’s unbelievable.’

Walz shot back that he wouldn’t be a ‘prop’ for Mace, and she eventually said, ‘I expect you to know this information. Thank God you’re not vice president of the United States.’

GOP Rep. Clay Higgins confronted Ellison in another heated moment asking him to say he was ‘leading’ the fight against rooting out corruption without getting the specific answer he was looking for, prompting him to call for Ellison’s resignation. 

‘I’m not talking about Medicaid fraud, don’t hide behind that,’ Higgins said, interrupting Ellison. ‘You have the authority to prosecute anything criminally that the governor asks you to, and this thing is big. I’m giving you an opportunity sir, are you leading the criminal investigative effort into this massive fraud across the board…or not?’ Higgins pressed.

‘We are following the law,’ Ellison said before Higgins cut him off again.

‘You are not leading, I’m going to say, Mr. Chairman, that the attorney general of the state of Minnesota should resign,’ Higgins said.

At the close of the hearing, things became tense again when GOP Rep. Nick Langworthy suggested that Walz, who is still serving as governor despite dropping out of his re-election bid due to the fraud scandal, should be impeached for ‘malfeasance,’ citing Minnesota’s own state Constitution. 

Fox News Digital’s Ashley Carnahan contributed to this report.

– James Talarico, a Democratic state lawmaker from Texas with a surging national profile, defeated Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a nationally known politician, progressive firebrand, and vocal critic and foil of President Donald Trump, to win the Democratic Senate primary in Texas, according to the Associated Press.

Talarico, 36, will now try to become the first Democrat in nearly four decades to win a Senate election in Texas, as he faces off against the winner of a bruising Republican primary runoff between longtime incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

This year’s Senate showdown in Texas is one of a handful across the country that could determine if Republicans hold their majority in the chamber in the midterm elections. The GOP currently controls the chamber 53-47.

In the final weeks leading up to Tuesday’s Democratic primary, race became a key factor in the showdown between Talarico, a former middle school teacher and Presbyterian seminarian who is considered a rising star among Democrats, and Crockett, a civil rights attorney first elected to Congress in 2022.

Talarico, who is White, was accused a month ago by an influencer of calling former Rep. Colin Allred, a former rival for the 2026 Senate nomination, a ‘mediocre Black man.’ 

Allred, the 2024 Democratic Senate nominee, was making a second straight run after losing two years ago to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz by eight points.

He ended his Senate campaign late last year, just before Crockett announced her candidacy. Allred, a former college football star who played professionally in the NFL and later became a civil rights attorney, is now running for his old House seat.

Morgan Thompson, the influencer who goes by the username @morga_tt on TikTok, in a social media post claimed Talarico told her in a private conversation that he had ‘signed up to run against a mediocre Black man, not a formidable, intelligent, Black woman.’

Pushing back against Thompson’s characterization of their conversation, Talarico said in a statement, ‘In my praise of Congresswoman Crockett, I described Congressman Allred’s method of campaigning as mediocre — but his life and service are not. I would never attack him on the basis of race.’

Allred, responding in a social media video on Monday, said: ‘James, if you want to compliment Black women, just do it. Just do it. Don’t do it while also tearing down a Black man.’

The 44-year-old Crockett, who is Black, said in a statement that Allred ‘drew a line in the sand.’

‘He made it clear that he did not take allegations of an attack on him as simply another day in the neighborhood, but more importantly, his post wasn’t about himself,’ Crockett, who was endorsed by Allred, said. ‘It was a moment that he decided to stand for all people who have been targeted and talked about in a demeaning way as our country continues to be divided.’

A couple of weeks later, Crockett claimed that a Talarico-aligned super PAC had darkened her skin tone in an ad and said it was ‘straight up racist.’

She also argued late last month that talk that she wasn’t electable statewide was a ‘dog whistle’ that was ‘tearing down a Black woman,’ and that she was the ‘most qualified’ candidate.

Talarico, who was first elected to the Texas House in 2018 by flipping a red district in northeast Austin and surrounding suburbs, highlighted his ability to win over Republican voters. And he questioned whether Crockett could run a competitive general election campaign.

While dramatically outraising and outspending Crockett the past two months, Talarico cast himself as the underdog in the primary battle against the better-known congresswoman.

Talarico, who speaks openly about his faith and how it shapes his progressive policy agenda, last year started garnering national attention through a slew of social media appearances that went viral. Also boosting his profile were his TikTok videos, which have grabbed millions of views, and his appearance last July on Joe Rogan’s top-rated podcast.

Rogan suggested during the interview that Talarico should run for president.

A month later, Talarico was a regular on the cable news networks, conducting dozens of national media interviews, as he and dozens of his fellow Democrats in the Texas House fled the state for weeks, to delay the eventual Trump-led redistricting push in Texas to create up to five more right-leaning congressional seats

Talarico launched his Senate campaign a month later, in September.

Last month, Talarcio grabbed even more national attention when his appearance on ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’ was bumped off broadcast TV and instead appeared on YouTube. Colbert accused his network, CBS, of blocking the interview by citing guidelines from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The controversy appeared to boost Talarico, with his campaign saying they hauled in $2.5 million in fundraising in the 24 hours ‘following his censored’ interview.

Iran is waging a mass drone campaign across the Middle East, unleashing waves of low-cost, one-way attack drones also known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), against Western-linked targets to impose ‘exponential cost on the U.S.,’ a defense expert has warned.

As Tehran reportedly launched thousands of Shahed drones across the region and Iranian state media shared footage of underground stockpiles, Cameron Chell, CEO of drone maker and tech company Draganfly, said Iran’s strategy is designed to force high-end defenses to counter cheap aerial threats.

‘Even a hundred of these drones in the hands of a decentralized unit can cause terror in a neighboring state like never before imagined,’ Chell told Fox News Digital. ‘The Iranians cannot win the war with these drones, but like the [communist] Viet Cong [during the Vietnam War], they have an asymmetric capability that can prolong this war and create political pressure.’

‘Iran can drive terror in unimaginable ways and drive exponential costs on the U.S. side, having to target these small, very hard-to-detect drone units,’ he added.

Chell’s warning comes as tensions spiraled following Saturday’s joint U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran targeting nuclear sites, missile facilities and leadership that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several commanders.

The Iranian drones have proved deadly, having killed six U.S. service members in an attack on a tactical center in Kuwait earlier this week.

A CIA station in the U.S. Embassy in the Saudi capital of Riyadh was struck in an Iranian drone attack Tuesday, causing a limited fire but no reported injuries.

In Bahrain, drones reportedly identified as Iranian Shahed models smashed into the upper floors of the Era View Tower in Manama, about one mile from a U.S. Navy base.

An Iranian drone also struck a parking lot outside the U.S. Consulate in Dubai, while the United Arab Emirates said it intercepted Iranian missiles and drone attacks targeting the country.

‘Based on the engine sound, the apparent attack angle and the implied speed, to the best of my knowledge, this was a Shahed-class one-way attack drone,’ Chell said of the Dubai consulate attack video before suggesting the drone footage showed ‘a Shahed 191.’

Fars News Agency also released footage purporting to show scores of attack drones stockpiled in vast underground tunnels in Iran.

The video appeared to show rows of triangular-shaped drones on rocket launchers, missiles lined up, four to a launcher vehicle and walls adorned with Iranian flags and photographs of Khamenei. Outlets noted that the video’s timing and location remain unverified.

‘It is hard to confirm that Iran has the capability now to produce these drones in these volumes during wartime,’ Chell said of the stockpiling footage.

‘To the extent they were producing these in those numbers, a more-than-significant portion would have been for delivery to Russia — which does not seem impossible. That said, the drones in the underground propaganda video are Shahed 191 drones.’

A new report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace also underscored Chell’s comments on expense and range.

‘Right now, Iran is using a mixture of ballistic missiles and attack drones,’ said senior fellow Dara Massicot. ‘The methods are effective, but targeting drones in this way is resource-intensive and expensive, and it will drain certain types of interceptors quickly.’

‘Ground-based air defense interceptor missiles are not infinite, and the United States and its partners and allies have had stockpile challenges in this area for years,’ she added.

Another senior fellow, Steve Feldstein, added, ‘An important point is that the world is entering a new age of drone war as unmanned aircraft are proliferating on the battlefield in major conflicts and smaller ones.’

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem heads into a second straight day of high-stakes Capitol Hill combat Wednesday, this time facing House Democrats eager to press her on ICE arrests, warrantless operations and the Trump administration’s mass deportation push — all as a partial shutdown clouds her agency.

After sparring with Senate Democrats over DACA arrests and Election Day enforcement, Noem now enters a House Judiciary hearing stacked with vocal critics, from Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md. to Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas., setting up another marathon session over immigration enforcement and executive power.

Noem caught heat from both sides during a Senate hearing Tuesday, when most Republicans praised her work correcting what they view as former President Joe Biden’s failed border policies. But Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and the entirety of the Democratic side of the dais emphatically confronted her during their questioning time.

In Wednesday’s hearing, Noem is expected to go up against House Judiciary Committee ranking member Raskin early, as the Maryland Democrat has previously pressed for more oversight of Noem and DHS, including rescission of policies allowing warrantless operations.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., who is likely the committee’s top progressive, has previously called for stricter oversight of DHS and has criticized Noem’s management of ICE as it carries out immigration enforcement operations in cities including Minneapolis and New Orleans.

Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Pa., will also have a turn to question Noem. Her district in Delaware County was once a reliable Republican stronghold that elected a former Pennsylvania House speaker and leaned toward Trump in 2016. But it has since shifted and sided consistently with Democrats in recent elections.

Scanlon’s district has also featured numerous anti-ICE protests in visible areas such as the major intersection of Baltimore Pike and PA-320 last year, where throngs amassed to wave signs in the county’s commercial hub.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, who is fighting a tough Senate primary Tuesday night, will question Noem near the end of Wednesday’s session.

Noem will also take questions from Rep. Henry ‘Hank’ Johnson, D-Ga., and Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., both of whom clashed with Attorney General Pam Bondi just days ago.

Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., and Rep. Jesus Garcia, D-Ill., have both been critical of ICE’s activities, as Garcia previously slammed Noem for her agency’s conduct during enforcement operations in his heavily Hispanic district in Chicago.

Noem is expected to have a less confrontational time answering questions from Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and his caucus, which includes border-state Reps. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., Kevin Kiley, Tom McClintock and Darrell Issa, R-Calif.

The wild card in committee hearings is typically Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who has been criticized by the ‘MAGA’ right for being insufficiently supportive of some of the administration’s policies.

Other members of note on the 44-member panel include Rep. Ben Cline, R-Va., Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J., Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., Rep. Brad Knott, R-N.C., and Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Wis.

On Tuesday, Noem clashed with ranking member Richard Durbin, D-Ill., over arrests of DACA recipients and questioned why Sens. Chris Coons, D-Del., and Alex Padilla, D-Calif., were concerned about ICE being dispatched near polling places on Election Day.

Noem appeared to ask both men whether their concern had anything to do with the idea of illegal immigrants voting in federal elections, which is illegal.

Vice President JD Vance confirmed Monday that negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program collapsed after U.S. officials concluded Tehran’s claims did not ‘pass the smell test,’ prompting President Donald Trump to authorize Operation Epic Fury.

Speaking on ‘Jesse Watters Primetime,’ Vance said U.S. envoys — including Steve Witkoff, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Jared Kushner — had conducted rounds of ‘deliberate’ talks in Geneva with the Iranian delegation.

The discussions were aimed at curbing Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief and averting a broader conflict, he said, but ultimately broke down.

‘But the Iranians would come back to us, and they’d say, ‘Well, you know, having enrichment for civilian purposes, for energy purposes, is a matter of national pride,’’ Vance said.

‘And so we would say, ‘OK, that’s interesting, but why are you building your enrichment facilities 70 feet underground? And why are you enriching to a level that’s way beyond civilian enrichment and is only useful if your goal is to build a nuclear bomb?’’ he said.

‘Nobody objects to the Iranians being able to build medical isotopes; the objection is these enrichment facilities that are only useful for building a nuclear weapon,’ Vance clarified.

‘It just doesn’t pass the smell test for you to say that you want enrichment for medical isotopes, while at the same time trying to build a facility 70 to 80 feet underground,’ he explained.

Vance spoke as Operation Epic Fury ended its third day. Launched on Feb. 28, U.S. and Israeli forces carried out coordinated precision strikes deep inside Iran aimed at crippling Tehran’s missile arsenal and nuclear infrastructure.

A key issue had been Iran enriching uranium to high levels, including material around 60% purity — a fraction of weapons-grade but far above limits set under the 2015 nuclear deal — keeping international alarm high over proliferation risks.

‘We destroyed Iran’s ability to build a nuclear weapon during President Trump’s term,’ Vance told Watters. ‘We set them back substantially. But I think the President was looking for the long haul,’ he said.

‘Trump was looking for Iran to make a significant long-term commitment that they would never build a nuclear weapon, that they would not pursue the ability to be on the brink of a nuclear weapon.’

‘He wanted to make sure that Iran could never have a nuclear weapon, and that would require fundamentally a change in mindset from the Iranian regime.’

‘The president is not going to rest until he accomplishes that all-important objective of ensuring that Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon, not just for the next few years, not just because we obliterated Fordow or some other enrichment facility.’

‘There’s just no way that Donald Trump is going to allow this country to get into a multiyear conflict with no clear end in sight and no clear objective,’ Vance added while describing that the administration would prefer to see ‘a friendly regime in Iran, a stable country, a country that’s willing to work with the United States.’

Leftists in the U.S. are seriously confused. While Iranians around the world celebrate the death of the thuggish Ayatollah Khamanei, who ruled their country with an iron fist, liberals in the U.S. are condemning President Donald Trump’s war to liberate the Persian nation.  

Opposition to the U.S.-Israel joint attack on Iran was broad and swift, powered in part by Trump Derangement Syndrome — if he’s behind it, they’re reliably against it — and also tinged with antisemitism.  

The smoke had not yet cleared from the bombings in Iran before Democrats started shrieking their objections, with Connecticut Democrat Sen. Chris Murphy, for instance, calling it ‘dangerously illegal and a mistake of staggering scale,’ and denouncing the president as a ‘would-be dictator.’ Murphy has also called Israel’s policy in Gaza and in the West Bank ‘immoral’, and recently announced that he would not support additional military aid to Israel.

Anti-Israel Democrats in the House were especially strident, with ‘Squad’ member Rashida Tlaib from Michigan posting, ‘It’s clear that the genocidal govt of Israel doesn’t care about children + human life including our own loved ones in the military.’ She also posted, ‘The government of Israel is addicted to bombing hospitals, schools, refugee camps which are all war crimes.’ 

Democrats have been pulling away from their traditional backing of Israel for some time, and especially since the far left took hold of their party. Axios reported in December that the DNC’s still-secret ‘autopsy’ of why Vice President Kamala Harris was defeated by Trump in 2024 concluded that the former VP ‘lost significant support because of the Biden administration’s approach to the war in Gaza…’ 

Iran has brought nothing but bloodshed and destruction to Israel, the United States and the Middle East for decades.

That is, in sifting the ashes of the 2024 election for clues as to why an inarticulate candidate who admitted she couldn’t think of a thing she’d do differently from the wildly unpopular Joe Biden went down in flames, Democrat officials determined…it was Israel’s fault! Democrats are quick learners — their support of the Jewish state is dwindling fast.

It isn’t just Democrats piling on. Criticism also came from far-right conspiracy theorists, too.

We also heard criticism from the utterly worthless and anti-Israel U.N., with Secretary-General António Guterres condemning the U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Iran and demanding immediate negotiations ‘to pull the region, and our world, back from the brink.’ 

Guterres has overseen a U.N. with ‘a glaring anti-Israel bias, advancing biased and one-sided efforts to isolate and delegitimize the Jewish state’, reports the pro-Jewish group AIPAC. A bias AIPAC can document and which, astonishingly, has ‘escalated dramatically since Hamas’ October 7 attack.’

Spineless European leaders stood on the sidelines, initially distancing themselves from the U.S.-Israeli initiative. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer at first declined to give the U.S. permission to use its air bases, thus forcing American jets to undertake a 20-plus hour flight to carry out their mission. He then relented, earning ridicule from all sides.   

Of course, witless students also weighed in, with Columbia University’s most renowned anti-Israel group, responsible for last year’s ‘encampment’ built to protest the Gaza conflict, posting    ‘death to America’ in Persian after the U.S. and Israel killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. That prompted Sen. Tex Cruz, R-Texas, to demand that foreign students sending out such anti-American messages be ‘deported immediately.’ He’s right.

One student protester told an interviewer that the U.S. ‘should align with Iranian regime instead of Israel because Iran ‘is not fascist.”

Zohran Mamdani, the newly installed Muslim mayor of New York, harshly condemned President Trump’s war with Iran, saying, ‘Today’s military strikes on Iran — carried out by the United States and Israel — mark a catastrophic escalation in an illegal war of aggression.’ He also said, ‘Additionally, I want to speak directly to Iranian New Yorkers: you are part of the fabric of this city — you are our neighbors, small business owners, students, artists, workers, and community leaders.’ The mayor assured them, ‘You will be safe here.’ 

Mamdani misread the room, assuming that Iranians living in the U.S. would react as he had to the attack on the mullahs. Instead, joyful Iranians gathered in Times Square to celebrate the end of one of the most hated and savage regimes in history.

They apparently felt perfectly safe, as indeed they were.

There are certainly valid reasons to fear a military confrontation with Iran. The country hosts a huge arsenal of ballistic missiles, it has a well-trained and now vengeful military, and it can disrupt the world’s oil supply by mining the Straits of Hormuz. Also, it is a large country of 90 million people; Iran’s citizens may hate the mullahs but they have no weapons with which to bring down the theocracy.

But Iran has brought nothing but bloodshed and destruction to Israel, the United States and the Middle East for decades. There could be no peace or progress in the region while Iran continues to fund its terror proxies and doggedly pursues long-range missiles and a nuclear bomb. 

Democrats who mourn the scrapping of President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, protesting that the JCPOA was preventing the regime from acquiring a nuke, surely know better. The deal was seriously flawed, it was unverifiable and from day one the mullahs prevented U.N. inspectors from carrying out agreed-upon certification of the pact.

President Trump has ended the mullahs’ reign of terror and united the region in a manner no one could have imagined.

This is a righteous endeavor. Let us hope that on the other side, a free Iran will become a trusted ally.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem heads to Capitol Hill Tuesday to face lawmakers demanding she resign, be fired or impeached.

Her appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee comes as members of both parties criticize her handling of the Trump administration’s immigration operations throughout the country. Some Democrats have called for her to face impeachment.

Her testimony has been in the works for months. Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, had been seeking her appearance to conduct routine oversight of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

But it wasn’t until after the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good during immigration operations in Minneapolis that Noem agreed to testify.

Last month, President Donald Trump dismissed the idea of firing Noem.

‘Why would I do that?’ Trump said. ‘We have the strongest border in the history of our country. We have the best crime numbers we’ve ever had, going back to the year 1900 — that’s 125 years.’

Still, she is expected to face tough questioning from Senate Democrats.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the top Democrat on the committee, said at the time the hearing was announced that Noem previously ‘refused to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee last year and now tells us that she will be available in five weeks — should she still be DHS Secretary at that time.’

‘With all of the violence and deaths involving DHS, the Secretary is apparently in no hurry to account for her mismanagement of this national crisis,’ Durbin said in a statement. ‘And she expects us to rubber stamp her record-breaking budget in the meantime.’

And there’s at least one Senate Republican on the panel, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who has emerged as one of her top critics.

In January, Tillis said he would place holds on DHS nominees coming through the committee until Noem agreed to testify — a move that would block Trump’s picks for the agency.

‘I’m not going to get into impeachment,’ Tillis said at the time. ‘I think it should be a management decision. She needs to go.’

Her testimony also comes as a partial government shutdown affecting only DHS enters its third week.

Some Republicans have expressed concern that the shutdown could hamper the agency’s ability to respond proactively to potential threats in the U.S., particularly following Trump’s weekend strikes in Iran, along with other security challenges that could arise during a prolonged closure.

The White House and Senate Democrats, led by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have been negotiating for weeks, but neither side has reached a breakthrough.

The White House sent its latest offer to Democrats, which a White House official described as ‘serious’ in a statement to Fox News Digital. Still, no agreement has been reached, and the agency remains shuttered.

‘Democrats need to make a move to end the shutdown before more Americans are harmed by a lack of funding for critical services like disaster relief,’ the official said.