President Donald Trump’s nominee to be Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Tulsi Gabbard, cleared her last procedural hurdle on Monday evening, paving the way for a final confirmation vote later this week. 

The motion passed by a vote of 52-46, along party lines. 

At one time considered perhaps the most vulnerable of Trump’s picks, the former Democratic congresswoman got past another key vote, defeating the legislative filibuster’s threshold on nominations.

The Monday vote’s outcome was much more certain than that of her Senate Select Committee on Intelligence vote last week, which depended on a handful of senators who had potentially lingering concerns. 

But Republicans signaled confidence in her confirmation in the full Senate, evidenced by their slating it while Vice President JD Vance is in Europe representing the U.S. at events and meetings, and is not around to break a tie in the upper chamber. Vance notably had to break a tie to confirm Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. 

The vote teed up a final confirmation vote on Wednesday, as Democrats are expected to use all 30 hours of post-cloture time to debate, rather than reaching a time agreement with Republicans to expedite it. 

Gabbard advanced out of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence last week, snagging the support of crucial GOP Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Todd Young, R-Ind.

In a final vote, Gabbard can only lose 3 Republican votes, assuming she does not get any Democratic support, as was the case in the committee vote. 

Gabbard already has an advantage over Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, as Collins supports her. The senator was notably one of three votes against Hegseth. 

Judges across the country have taken action to block President Donald Trump’s agenda since he took office in January. Vice President JD Vance triggered a social media frenzy on Sunday by affirming his support for Trump’s executive authority. 

‘If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal,’ Vance posted on X. ‘If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal. Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.’

Vance’s comments followed a ruling that blocked the Department of Government Efficiency from accessing personal data. Judges in New Hampshire, Seattle and Maryland have blocked Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship. New York Attorney General Leitita James advised hospitals to ignore Trump’s executive order ending sex change procedures for minors. 

Democrats were quick to lash out at Vance on social media on Sunday, equating his comments to ‘tyranny’ and ‘lawlessness.’ Illinois Gov. JV Pritzker, a potential 2028 presidential contender, said Vance’s comments mean ‘the Trump administration intends to break the law.’

‘JD Vance is saying the quiet part out loud: the Trump administration intends to break the law. America is a nation of laws. The courts make sure we follow the laws. The VP doesn’t control the courts, and the President cannot ignore the Constitution. No one is above the law,’ Pritzker said.

Pete Buttigieg, former Transportation secretary and a 2020 presidential candidate, said the vice president does not decide what is legal. 

‘In America, decisions about what is legal and illegal are made by courts of law. Not by the Vice President,’ Buttigieg said. 

Liz Cheney, the former Republican congresswoman who led the Jan. 6 Select Committee and campaigned for former Vice President Kamala Harris, accused Vance of tyranny. 

David Hogg, the first Gen Z vice chair of the Democratic Party, said Vance’s comments are a power grab by the executive branch.

‘He’s saying this to normalize a power grab by the executive to consolidate the power of the president and make him a king,’ Hogg said. ‘If liberals ever said this, conservatives would (rightfully) lose their godd— minds.’

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy called Vance’s comments the ‘meat’ of the current ‘constitutional crisis.’

‘For those of us who believe we are in the middle of a constitutional crisis, this is the meat of it,’ Murphy said on X. ‘Trump and Vance are laying the groundwork to ignore the courts – democracy’s last line of defense against unchecked executive power.’

Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the first-term senator whom Trump nicknamed ‘Schifty Schiff’ on the campaign trail, said Vance’s comment ‘puts us on a dangerous path to lawlessness.’

‘JD, we both went to law school. But we don’t have to be lawyers to know that ignoring court decisions we don’t like puts us on a dangerous path to lawlessness. We just have to swear an oath to the constitution. And mean it,’ Sen. Adam Schiff, D-CA, responded. 

Some conservatives fired back at the onslaught of comments. Columnist Kurt Schlichter jumped into the conversation, implying Schiff is a bad lawyer. 

Jed Rubenfeld, a Yale Law School professor, lawyer and constitutional scholar, said he agreed with Vance that judges cannot ‘constitutionally interfere.’

‘JD is correct about this, and his examples are exactly right,’ Rubenfeld said. ‘Where the Executive has sole and plenary power under the Constitution – as in commanding military operations or exercising prosecutorial discretion – judges cannot constitutionally interfere.’

More X users, who joined the debate, said Vance and his supporters’ comments are ironic. AJ Delgado, a self-described ‘MAGA original but now proudly anti-Trump,’ said those attacking Vance lacked principle. 

‘Weren’t you all cheering when a federal judge halted Biden’s student loan forgiveness? You have ZERO principles,’ she wrote on X. 

When the Supreme Court ruled against President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, he did not waver in his commitment to relieving student debt, vowing ‘to keep going’ despite the court’s order. 

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., during a February 2024 episode of ‘Pod Save America,’ gave credit to Biden for finding alternative ways to alleviate student loan debt.

‘Whatever tools he’s got, he’s sharpening and building some new tools through his Department of Education. We are now at about just a little shy of 4 million people who have had their student loan debt canceled. Joe Biden is just staying after it,’ Warren said.

Democratic lawmakers are fuming over the ‘DOGE boys’ and their recent crackdown on federal spending, holding a rally outside the newly formed cost-cutting department’s potential next target: the Social Security Administration (SSA).

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, has been working with federal agencies to identify and cut wasteful spending. Most recently, the group began probing the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for potential fraud — a move that wasn’t welcomed by Democratic lawmakers who warned that the SSA could be the next agency on the target list.

On Monday, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, Rep. Kweisi Mfume, D-Ma., Rep. Johnny Olszewski, D-Ma., and Rep. Sarah Elfreth, D-Ma., gathered for a rally outside the SSA headquarters in Baltimore to criticize DOGE’s efforts.

‘Every time you hear DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, you just remember it is the department of government evil,’ said Mfume, a Maryland-based Democrat.

Fox News Digital previously reported that according to Just Facts, a nonprofit research institute, SSA disbursed roughly $2 billion in fraudulent or improper payments in 2022, which it calculated was enough ‘to pay 89,947 retired workers the average annual old-age benefit of $21,924 for 2023.’

Democrats, however, have claimed that Americans’ Social Security benefits could be targeted. 

‘We have one simple message, which is: Elon Musk, keep your hands off our Social Security,’ Van Hollen told the crowd. 

‘Over the last 21 days, we have seen Elon Musk conducting illegal raids on federal agencies with his DOGE crew,’ the senator said. ‘This is a recipe for corruption by the DOGE boys.’

Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, D-Ma., speaking during the rally, claimed that ‘the intention of this administration is to make us feel demoralized, to make many of us feel frightened, to incite fear, to silence people.’

Many of DOGE’s targets have ranged from canceling a number of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives at federal agencies to consolidating duplicative agencies and programs.

DOGE, as of the end of January, said that it was saving the federal government $1 billion a day, mostly by ‘stopping the hiring of people into unnecessary positions, deletion of DEI and stopping improper payments to foreign organizations, all consistent with the President’s Executive Orders.’

The efforts have been widely rejected by Democratic lawmakers, who have been gathering outside government agency headquarters in protest of the DOGE agenda.

Fox News Digital’s Andrew Mark Miller and Eric Revell contributed to this report.

Former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard will face another test Monday night in the Senate as she hopes to be confirmed to one of the most important national security posts in the U.S. government. 

President Donald Trump’s nominee to be Director of National Intelligence (DNI) will get a cloture vote at 5:30 p.m., when she will need to get more than 50 votes in order to advance to a final confirmation vote. 

If the cloture motion passes, there will be 30 hours of debate on the Senate floor. Frequently, the debate between the cloture motion and the final vote is minimized in what’s referred to as a ‘time agreement’ between Republicans and Democrats. But with the controversial nature of Gabbard’s nomination and ongoing frustrations with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and its government audit, no such agreements are expected. 

This will set Gabbard up for a final confirmation vote on Wednesday at the earliest, when the 30 hours of debate expire. 

The nominee advanced out of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence last week, snagging the support of crucial GOP Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Todd Young, R-Ind.

Her success on the cloture motion and with final confirmation are much more favorable than her initial odds in the Intel committee were. 

In order to get the support of all the committee’s Republicans, Chair Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Vice President JD Vance worked around the clock. Their conversations with committee members and tireless efforts were credited with getting her past the key hurdle. 

In a final vote, Gabbard can only lose 3 Republican votes, assuming she does not get any Democratic support, as was the case in the committee vote. 

She already has an advantage over Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, as Collins supports her. The senator was one of three votes against Hegseth. 

Despite the limited votes Gabbard can afford to lose, Republicans appear to be confident about her odds. This was signaled through the White House dispatching Vance to Europe for events and meetings during the time of Gabbard’s cloture and confirmation votes. If Republicans expected to need Vance to break a tie in the upper chamber, they likely would not have slated her vote for this week. 

President Donald Trump is getting what he wants.

Specifically, who he wants to serve in his administration. 

The nomination of former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., for attorney general last November? 

That was a lifetime ago. Pushed out. Withdrawn. Unconfirmable. Whatever you want to call it.

The Senate has already confirmed at least one nominee whom political experts deemed as potentially unconfirmable a few weeks ago: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Hegseth skated through to confirmation with three GOP nays. But Vice President JD Vance broke a tie. It was only the second time in U.S. history that the Senate confirmed a Cabinet secretary on a tiebreaking vote by the vice president. 

And by the end of the week, the Senate will likely confirm two other controversial nominees who at one point seemed to be a stretch. The Senate votes Monday night to break a filibuster on the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to serve as Director of National Intelligence. Her confirmation vote likely comes Wednesday. After that, the Senate likely crushes a filibuster on the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to serve as Health and Human Services Secretary. The Senate could confirm Kennedy by late Thursday. 

It was unthinkable in November that Trump may be able to muscle through certain nominees. But this is a confirmation juggernaut. Yes, challenges await former Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Ore., who’s up for Labor Secretary. Some Republicans believe Chavez-DeRemer is too pro-labor. And the Department of Education may not be around long enough for the Senate to ever confirm Education Secretary nominee Linda McMahon. But so far, Republicans are sticking together. 

Many Senate Republicans aren’t willing to buck the president. They believe the GOP owes its majority in the House and Senate to him. So they’re willing to defer to Mr. Trump. Moreover, some Republicans worry about the president hammering them on Truth Social or engineering a primary challenge against them. Or, perhaps just pressuring them.

Groups aligned with the president went after Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, late last year after her initial meeting with Hegseth. Ernst served in the military and is a sexual assault survivor. In an interview on Fox, Ernst suggested she wasn’t on board with Hegseth yet and wanted ‘a thorough vetting.’ But weeks later, Ernst came around and gave Hegseth the green light following a second meeting. 

Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., dodged reporters’ questions in the hallways for several days about his stance on Gabbard.

‘We’re not taking any questions!’ an aide hollered brusquely as the senator tried to evade the Capitol Hill press corps in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. 

The same thing happened the next day.

‘Sorry, we’re not taking questions today. Sorry guys, we’re not taking questions today. Thank you though. Appreciate it,’ said an aide as Young maneuvered through the halls.

Young didn’t tip his hand on Gabbard until the Intelligence Committee prepared to vote on the nomination and send it to the floor. Young released a letter from Gabbard where the nominee apparently allayed the senator’s concerns. 

‘There was certain language I wanted her to embrace,’ said Young.

In particular, he wanted Gabbard to state she wouldn’t push for a pardon for spy Edward Snowden. 

Gabbard once advocated that a pardon was in order for Snowden – even though he made off with perhaps the biggest heist of U.S. intelligence secrets of all time – and fled to Moscow. 

The committee then voted 9-8 to send Gabbard’s nomination to the floor with a positive recommendation toward confirmation. 

What made the difference to Young?

He spoke with President Trump. He spoke with Vance. He even spoke with Elon Musk. 

‘Was there any implication that there would be recriminations if you voted a different way?’ asked yours truly.

‘Never an intimation,’ said Young. ‘I think something the American people don’t understand is that this process sometimes takes a while.’

He argued that obtaining reassurances followed the process that ‘our Founding Fathers wanted people like myself to’ do.

The road to a prospective confirmation for RFK Jr. isn’t all that different. 

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., is a a physician and chairs the Senate Health Committee. After Kennedy’s hearing with that panel, Cassidy signaled he wasn’t prepared to support the nominee yet and wanted to talk with him over the weekend. Cassidy was perplexed by RFK Jr.’s stance on vaccines. But Cassidy was in RFK Jr.’s camp when it came time for the Senate Finance Committee to vote on the nomination a few days later.

‘Mr. Kennedy and the administration committed that he and I would have an unprecedentedly close, collaborative working relationship if he is confirmed,’ said Cassidy. ‘We will meet or speak multiple times a month. This collaboration will allow us to work well together and therefore to be more effective.’

Cassidy’s support dislodged RFK Jr.’s nomination from committee and sent it to the floor. That’s why, like Gabbard, he’s on cruise control for a confirmation vote later this week.

What made the difference in salvaging these nominations which once teetered on the edge?

Multiple Senate Republicans point to their former colleague, Vance.

Vance has worked quietly in the shadows, leaning on his relationship with senators, to convince skeptical Republicans into a comfort zone with controversial nominees. The Trump Administration saw how quickly the nomination of Matt Gaetz evaporated last fall. There was worry that robust GOP pushback could jeopardize an entire slate of nominees. 

So has Vance deployed soft power with senators? Or has he dispelled concerns through brute force? Judge for yourself. 

Consider what the vice president said about the role of senators during an interview on Fox last month:  

‘You don’t have to agree with everything Bobby Kennedy has ever said. You don’t have to agree with everything that Tulsi Gabbard has ever said,’ said Vance of Republican senators. ‘You are meant to ask, ‘Do they have the qualifications and the character to do this job?’ The person who decides whether they should be nominated in the first place, he was the guy elected by the American people. That’s President Trump.’

The Senate has confirmed 13 of Trump’s nominees so far. Eleven obtained bipartisan support. Secretary of State Marco Rubio marshaled the votes of all 47 senators who caucus with the Democrats. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum secured 27 Democratic yeas. Attorney General Pam Bondi scored one Democratic yes. That was Sen. John Fetterman, D-Penn.

But Budget Director Russ Vought and Hegseth failed to win over any Democrats. That’s probably the same case with the upcoming confirmation votes for Gabbard and Kennedy. Not only do Democrats object to these nominees, but their base is compelling major pushback after the administration shuttered USAID and DOGE is mining for cuts – without congressional assistance.

Some Democrats, like Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., believe that presidents deserve to have a cabinet of people they choose – unless they are egregious nominees or unqualified. But now Democrats are flexing their muscles. That’s why the Senate was in all night leading up to the confirmation vote of Vought. Democrats will likely require the Senate to burn all available time on Gabbard and Kennedy.

But Trump is getting what he wants when it comes to confirmations. Most Senate Republicans are unwilling to push back. And Democrats can make the Senate run the clock and speak out against nominees. But, proper or not, there is now a confirmation juggernaut for the president in the Senate. 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., unveiled on Monday the Democrats’ counter-offensive plan against the broad government audit being conducted by President Donald Trump’s temporary agency, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). 

‘Senate Democrats have a responsibility to fight back on behalf of American families as Republicans look the other way in obedience to Donald Trump. And we are,’ he wrote to members of the Senate Democratic Caucus in a letter. 

Notably, with Democrats out of control in each legislative chamber, as well as the White House, they have very few levers of authority over items of which they disapprove. 

The Democratic leader explained that the plan to fight DOGE, headed by Trump-aligned billionaire and special government employee Elon Musk, is four-pronged. Schumer said that Democrats will take on the audit through Oversight, Litigation, Legislation and Communication & Mobilization. 

According to Schumer, Democrats have begun conducting oversight by sending ‘hundreds’ of inquiries. 

He and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Ranking Member Gary Peters, D-Mich., sent a letter to federal employees announcing a new portal for whistleblowers ‘to report corruption, abuses of power, and threats to public safety.’

As for litigation, Schumer noted that court challenges ‘are already bearing fruit.’ He cited federal court injunctions against a since-rescinded Office of Management and Budget temporary funding freeze, judges’ actions to prevent buyouts and administrative leave for federal employees as ordered by the administration, and a judge’s ruling to prevent DOGE’s team from accessing certain government systems. 

‘Our committees and my office are in regular communication with litigants across the country, including plaintiffs, and are actively exploring opportunities for the Democratic Caucus to file amici curiae that support their lawsuits,’ Schumer wrote. 

He further pointed to opportunities to take on Trump and Musk through legislation, with the specific example of the upcoming government spending deadline next month. The Democratic leader noted that there will be 60 votes needed in the Senate to pass a deal — meaning Republicans will need some Democratic support. 

With this in mind, Democrats will use this leverage to get certain priorities into a spending deal as both parties look to avoid a partial government shutdown.

‘It is incumbent on responsible Republicans to get serious and work in a bipartisan fashion to avoid a Trump shutdown,’ Schumer said. 

Lastly, the minority leader said Democrats in the Senate are working to keep the caucus informed and united to amplify their concerns to the public. 

‘And the public is responding,’ he wrote. ‘Grassroots energy is surging. From town halls to protests, Americans are pushing back. The stakes couldn’t be higher, and Senate Democrats are standing with the people to fight back, expose the truth, and stop the Trump agenda.’

More than 100 congressional lawmakers have lined up behind the goal of cutting government waste, as Republicans and Democrats wage an aggressive ideological battle over the merits of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

The Congressional DOGE Caucus was founded shortly after President Donald Trump tapped Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead an advisory panel on where the federal bureaucracy could be trimmed.

That effort is now being led by Musk alone, and it’s attracted fierce criticism from Democratic lawmakers who call him an unelected bureaucrat with too much control over the federal government despite no prior experience inside of it.

But in the House, enthusiasm for the mission is still strong. Fox News Digital was told more than 100 members are part of the DOGE Caucus – which is more than one in five House lawmakers.

The group’s members are currently working on legislative items aimed at reducing government spending and forwarding specific items on Trump’s agenda, Fox News Digital was told.

The caucus, led by Reps. Aaron Bean, R-Fla., Pete Sessions, R-Texas, and House GOP Conference Vice Chair Blake Moore, R-Utah, has had two meetings so far. 

During the second session, lawmakers were asked which of eight different working groups they wanted to be a part of, after which those groups would focus on finding areas to trim government waste in their designated areas.

Documents obtained by Fox News Digital after the second meeting showed the working groups are: ‘Retirement,’ ‘safety net and family support,’ ’emergency supplementals,’ ‘natural resources and permitting,’ ‘homeland and legal,’ ‘defense and [veterans affairs],’ ‘workforce and infrastructure,’ and ‘finance and government operations.’

Fox News Digital was told those member selections have been made, and the groups are ‘in full swing.’

The caucus has seen significant interest from outside the Washington, D.C., Beltway as well, according to numbers shared with Fox News Digital. 

More than 40,000 people have reached out to the DOGE Caucus’ email tip line, and Fox News Digital was told that some ideas ‘for how to cut waste, fraud, and abuse’ were shared with Musk’s DOGE team.

A source in the room during the group’s previous meeting told Fox News Digital that Bean also challenged lawmakers to introduce at least one bill each aimed at cutting government waste.