As Americans look ahead to the 2024 presidential election, the Supreme Court is reaching back to past constitutional conflicts, just in time to have major political implications for voters to consider.

This judicial déjà vu will include not only the court’s hot-button caseload, but the nine members’ own conduct and accountability.

‘The Supreme Court is going to be tackling so many of the issues that have divided America on political grounds. They’re not shying away from the controversial cases,’ said Thomas Dupree, a former top Justice Department official who frequently litigates before the high court. ‘And any time the Supreme Court starts wading into these political issues, people react strongly. It’s already shaping up to be a blockbuster term.’

The term kicks off next week — the so-called ‘First Monday in October’— when public courtroom sessions will begin anew.

The argument docket includes: 

Gun rights and whether those under domestic violence restraining orders can possess guns.The administrative state and separate appeals over curbing the power of the executive branch to interpret and enforce federal rules; and whether the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will be effectively dismantled over its funding mechanismElection redistricting and a challenge to congressional seat boundaries in South Carolina, which could be a prelude to more voting fights, some possibly involving Donald TrumpA free speech dispute over state laws that would force social media platforms to host third-party communications and prevent them from blocking or removing users’ posts based on political viewpoints

And another high-profile appeal could soon be accepted for final review, dealing with Food and Drug Administration approval authority over the abortion pill mifepristone.

All of these petitions could be decided by mid-2024.

BENCH PRESSURE

But when it comes to public scrutiny of the court, the docket has become a benchwarmer of sorts to the justices themselves. A summer of revelations over questionable personal travel and growing calls for ethics reform have further divided them and lawmakers over whether anything can be done to police the highest court in the land, besides its nine members.

Some justices think it is time. New ethics rules would ‘go far in persuading other people that we were adhering to the highest standards of conduct,’ Justice Elena Kagan said last week at a Notre Dame Law School event. ‘I hope we can make progress.’

Justice Brett Kavanaugh a few weeks ago suggested his colleagues may take ‘concrete steps soon’ to deal with the rising calls for reform. 

‘We can increase confidence. We’re working on that,’ he added.

In May, Chief Justice John Roberts said it was an ‘issue of concern.’

‘There’s really no reason why members of the Supreme Court should not also have a binding ethical code that applies to other federal judges,’ said Brianne Gorod, chief counsel at the Constitutional Accountability Center. ‘But if they don’t act soon, I think it would be entirely reasonable for Congress to consider whether it’s appropriate for them to take some action to ensure that the court is being held to the highest ethical standards.’

But other members of the court have pushed back recently over calls for greater transparency.

Justice Samuel Alito in a recent interview resisted such suggestions.

‘No provision in the Constitution gives [Congress] the authority to regulate the Supreme Court — period,’ he said.

In a separate court filing this month, Alito also rejected calls for him to recuse himself in an upcoming tax case as ‘unsound’ and that there was ‘no valid reason’ for him not to participate. 

‘Recusal is a personal decision for each justice,’ he added.

David Rivkin, one of the lawyers in the appeal, co-authored recent articles published in The Wall Street Journal’s opinion section, which included exclusive interviews with the 73-year-old justice, including his comments on ethics. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., had urged Alito to step aside, citing the appearance of a conflict of interest.

The Democrats’ effort comes after the nonprofit news organization ProPublica began reporting on the activity of Supreme Court justices, including revelations Alito had taken a luxury vacation in Alaska with a Republican donor who had business interests before the court.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Clarence Thomas have been embroiled over media reports about their book deals, travel and financial dealings.

The Senate Judiciary Committee in July advanced the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency (SCERT) Act to the full Senate.  The bill would require Supreme Court justices to adopt a code of conduct and create a mechanism to investigate any such alleged violations.

‘There’s definitely been a lot of internal debate in recent years among the justices themselves about whether they should adopt a binding ethics code,’ already applicable to other federal judges, says Dupree. ‘If so, what should be in that ethics code? And it wouldn’t surprise me if, in the next year or two, the Supreme Court does voluntarily adopt some sort of code along those lines.’

‘LEGITIMATE’ CONCERNS

Calls for greater openness also extend to the court caseload itself, especially its so-called ‘shadow’ or emergency docket, an abbreviated decision-making process that has accelerated in recent years. These are cases that are presented to the justices on a time-sensitive basis in its earliest stages, lacking the transparency and deliberation of a typical appeal.

While designed to be temporary in nature, they can have an immediate effect by blocking nationwide enforcement of a challenged law or policy on issues like immigration,  pandemic restrictions and abortion access. These legal ‘applications’ typically lack full briefing, oral arguments or written opinion.

Just this week, the high court is being asked to decide whether the Biden administration can continue working with social media companies to block digital disinformation amid claims conservative viewpoints were being suppressed. An enforcement injunction would remain in place until the case is fully litigated, a process that could take years to resolve.

While some justices have criticized the increasing use of the shadow docket on high-profile disputes, Alito has said critics have mistakenly labeled its use as ‘sneaky,’ ‘sinister’ and ‘dangerous.’

‘And this portrayal feeds unprecedented efforts to intimidate the court or damage it as an independent institution,’ added Alito, who joined the court in 2006.

A Fox News poll from late June found just 48% had confidence in the Supreme Court as an institution. It is the first time that number has dropped below 50% since the question was originally asked in 2014. Three years ago, 68% had confidence in the court, 83% in 2017. This erosion crumbles across the political spectrum, down 48 points among Democrats, 21 among Republicans and 37 among independents since 2017.

‘Confidence in major institutions has been diminishing for a decade or more, but the loss of confidence in the Supreme Court is striking,’ says Democratic Pollster Chris Anderson, who conducts the Fox News Poll with Republican Daron Shaw. ‘With less than half of Americans confident in the court, and Democrats half as likely as Republicans to feel so, there is a clear perception the country lacks a non-political arbitrator of the laws of the land.’

Some progressives say that may be because the 6-3 conservative court seems overly eager to wade into controversial issues and overturn its own prior rulings.

The court last term prohibited affirmative action in college admissions; the term before, abortion rights from Roe v. Wade, concealed carry gun restrictions and clean-air standards were all tossed out, upsetting decades of Supreme Court precedent.

‘There have been times recently where there have been ideological divides with one side overturning precedent,’ Kagan said last week. ‘I’m hopeful that it won’t have that year after year, case after case — at least it shouldn’t.’

‘There is a real concern today that the Supreme Court is suffering from a legitimacy crisis because there is this sense that the decisions that the court reaches depend on the composition of the court rather than what the law is and what the law requires,’ said Gorod of the progressive Constitutional Accountability Center. 

‘And with new ethical questions popping up every day, new stories about potential conflicts of interest involving the justices, I think, undermine the court’s credibility in the eyes of the American people. And that’s a really, really troubling thing.’

WHO DECIDES?

The wild cards for the Supreme Court heading into 2024 are possible last-minute challenges to election laws: redistricting, voter registration requirements, provisional ballots, early voting and more.

Some court watchers see the potential of another Bush v. Gore, the 2000 presidential election case in which the Supreme Court effectively settled who would sit in the White House.  

And the wildest of wild cards — what is now just legal debate could soon turn into a monumental judicial debate over a provision in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, disqualifying anyone from the presidency who ‘engaged in insurrection or rebellion.’ 

A lawsuit from Colorado voters seeks to keep Donald Trump off that state’s primary ballot over his role in the 2020 election interference.

For now, the Supreme Court appears content to do its job quietly, free as much as possible from outside interference. It may be wishful thinking. 

‘There’s a storm around us in the political world and the world at large in America,’ Kavanaugh said this month. ‘We, as judges and the legal system, need to try to be a little more, I think, of the calm in the storm.’

With the thresholds to qualify for the next Republican presidential nomination debate rising, and crucial fundraising reports from the campaigns due in the coming days, the still relatively-large field of GOP White House hopefuls may be slashed in the weeks to come.

Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, who flirted with a 2024 run before deciding against it, has been saying for months that the field in the Republican presidential nomination race needs to shrink.

‘If you don’t make the first couple of debates, then you probably have to have a tough conversation and get out of the race,’ Sununu said.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who made the stage at the first two Republican showdowns, told Fox News in August that for his rivals who ‘haven’t made the stage’ at the debates, ‘it’s time to go.’

So far, only one White House hopeful has called it quits.

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez suspended his campaign after failing to make the stage at the first Republican presidential nomination debate, a Fox News-hosted August 23 showdown in Milwaukee Wisconsin.

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, the only one of the eight candidates on the stage at the first debate who failed to qualify for Wednesday’s second debate – a Fox Business co-hosted event held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California – says if he fails to make the stage at the third GOP presidential nomination debate, he’ll consider dropping out.

‘If I don’t make that, we’ll re-evaluate where we are,’ Hutchinson told reporters this week as he referred to the third debate, which will be held Nov. 8 in Miami, Florida.

When asked for clarification if his response meant he would consider dropping out, Hutchinson answered, ‘Sure.’

Michigan businessman and quality control industry expert Perry Johnson, who failed to qualify for the first two debates, is now mulling a pivot to run for the open Senate seat in his home state.

‘Obviously, it’s no secret that I’ve had a lot of calls to run for this seat because they do want to win this seat. But at this point in time, my focus is right on the presidential [race], and, believe me, that’s taking all my time and energy at this point,’ Johnson told Fox News on Thursday.

Former Rep. Will Hurd of Texas, who previously served as an undercover agent in the CIA, also didn’t make the stage at the first two debates.

‘My team and I are constantly evaluating whether we have the resources to chart a path to victory,’ he wrote in a statement Wednesday. ‘I’m headed to New Hampshire to spread my message to the Granite State ahead of the First In the Nation primary. Educating voters on how to solve these existential issues is important, and hopefully other candidates will follow my lead.’

GOP contender Larry Elder, a former nationally syndicated radio host and 2021 California gubernatorial recall election candidate, also failed to qualify for the first two debates.

Former President Donald Trump skipped the first two debates as he pointed to his commanding lead in the GOP presidential nomination race and said this past week that he won’t attend the third debate. 

Sununu, a vocal Trump critic, envisions a smaller field by the end of the year, just ahead of the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary — the first two contests in the Republican nominating calendar.

‘I think by the time you get to the end of December, you’ll have five or six different candidates going into Iowa, maybe three or four coming into New Hampshire,’ Sununu predicted. ‘If that’s the case, a huge opportunity for the Republican Party.’

The July-September third quarter of fundraising came to a close on Saturday, with the campaigns required to post their figures in the next two weeks. 

A lackluster fundraising report could be the death knell for some of the candidates struggling to make the debate stage.

‘I think a lot of these candidates are going to run out of gas as they try to drive to the next debate in Miami,’ longtime Republican consultant Alex Castellanos told Fox News.

Castellanos, a veteran of numerous Republican presidential campaigns, said that some of the candidates will ‘soon have to take their ball and go home.’

‘The time is coming soon for the smaller contenders to drop out so the field can begin to coalesce. Donald Trump can beat everybody, but he may not be able to beat somebody. That’s the test,’ Castellanos emphasized.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

China’s speech at the United Nations has caused friction with critics who allege that countries have grown quiet on Beijing’s hypocritical stances with respect to a number of issues, ranging from human rights to the energy crisis.

‘We saw this with a number of Beijing Olympics sponsors who preach social justice in the U.S. and turn a blind eye towards mass torture, rape and forced labor in China,’ Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on readiness, told Fox News Digital.

‘The appeal of the Chinese market is just too tempting despite their long history of stealing IP, subsidizing competitors and using slave labor,’ he added.

Chinese Vice President Han Zheng focused his speech at the U.N. General Assembly during its annual high-level week on a number of issues related to equity, justice and international peace, saying that ‘diversity is a defining feature of human civilization … civilizations should prosper together by respecting each other, advance together by drawing on each other’s strengths and seek win-win outcomes by pursuing common ground.’

Zheng also said nations should advance human rights through cooperation and oppose double standards; in particular, the use of human rights and democracy as a political tool to interfere in the affairs of other countries.

Many countries at the United Nation’s high-level week found it easy to hit upon Russia and the continued invasion of Ukraine, but few, if any, took China to task for the hypocrisy of espousing the need to advance human rights while committing what a U.N. report called ‘serious human rights violations’ toward its Muslim population, the Uyghur people.

‘People have given up trying to change China. Exhaustion has set in,’ Gordon Chang, senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute and author of ‘The Coming Collapse of China,’ told Fox News Digital.

‘At least in the past, people were hopeful about making money in the China market,’ he explained. ‘They thought – correctly – that criticism of China’s rights record would mean Beijing would block them from business opportunities.’

He suggested that the world has not maintained interest in the Uyghur crisis because ‘they cannot see’ the crimes China commits, making it difficult to hold China accountable even as reports from global bodies find continued evidence of human rights abuses.

Chang lambasted China for the fact that ‘virtually all’ of its policies ‘are hypocritical,’ pointing to ‘Beijing’s pronouncements on world peace.’

‘While saying that China has never attacked any other society, China is fueling the Ukraine war with lethal and other aid to Russia, is supporting insurgencies that look like wars in North Africa, and is threatening in East Asia to break apart neighbors as well as annex Taiwan,’ Chang said.

He added that ‘climate activists are not willing to call out Beijing because they think by doing so Chinese leaders will be offended and will not cooperate on an enhanced climate deal,’ but he said the activists ‘have got it backwards.’

Waltz pointed to China’s stance on energy and its urging of the rest of the world to engage new energy policies while continuing to open ‘more coal-fired plants than the rest of the world combined.’ BloombergNEF released a report at the beginning of 2023 that found China had spent more than $500 billion on low-carbon energy production – accounting for half of the total spent around the world in 2022 – but the country still possesses an almost unquenchable thirst for coal and oil energy consumption, according to energy watchdogs.

The Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air, a nonprofit think tank in Helsinki, published a report this year that detailed how China’s coal power plant permitting, construction and project announcement ‘accelerated dramatically’ in 2022 – the highest level since 2015 and exceeding that previous peak.

The only point on which nations continue to find common ground to try and hold China accountable is the issue of Taiwan, but even then the support is checked by the fact that nations continue to affirm the One China policy – part of what the White House has called ‘strategic ambiguity’ about its defense of the island.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June said that the Biden administration does not support Taiwan independence but remains committed to making sure Taiwan has the ability to defend itself – mainly due to the fact that ‘50% of commercial container traffic goes through the Taiwan Strait every day’ and that ‘70% percent of semiconductors are manufactured in Taiwan.’

Waltz called the Biden administration ‘the softest administration on China since the end of the Cold War,’ alleging that the White House has ‘pursued dialogue with China above all else, even at the expense of action on issues,’ such as Taiwan’s backlogged weapons delivery, illegal Iranian oil sales and the Uyghurs.

‘There is a narrative that engaging with China and refraining from consequences will somehow moderate its policy or its desire to dominate Asia,’ Waltz said. ‘Under President Xi, the opposite has been true.’

‘China must face consequences for its behavior – that is the only way it will learn,’ he added.

The White House did not respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment by time of publication.

Fox News Digital’s Louis Casiano contributed to this report.

Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz threatened again to boot House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., from his post on Saturday amid chaotic spending negotiations and a vote in the House on a short-term spending bill aimed at avoiding a government shutdown.

The House passed a continuing resolution (CR) Saturday that funds the government at current levels until mid-November. Every Democrat voted for the measure but one, and 90 Republicans voted against the stopgap spending measure.

Gaetz, who said before the vote that he was against the resolution, has been threatening to force a House-wide vote on whether to remove McCarthy from the speakership over alleged violations of a deal he struck with critics to win the speaker’s gavel in January.

Under confirmed terms of that compromise, McCarthy agreed to allow any lawmaker to trigger a vote on his removal, known as a motion to vacate.

‘The one thing everyone seems to have in common is no one trusts Kevin McCarthy,’ Gaetz told reporters outside the Capitol on Saturday. ‘I’ve said that whether or not Kevin McCarthy faces a motion to vacate is entirely within his control, because all he had to do was comply with the agreement that he made with us in January. And putting this bill on the floor and passing it with Democrats would be such an obvious, blatant and clear violation of that – we would have to deal with it.’

‘Right now, my focus is not on the motion to vacate. My focus is on averting a shutdown by passing these bills. And if we do have a shutdown, which may be the case, I certainly want it to be as short and painless as possible,’ he added.

Earlier on Saturday, McCarthy was asked whether he was concerned about potentially losing his job over bringing the bill to the House floor for a vote.

‘I never fear of that. But if I lose my job over looking out for the American public, for taking a stand for our troops and our border agents, then I’m not quite sure what people want. Because this allows us the time to get the job done. But why should they be punished because the Senate did nothing? I mean, seriously, think about that question. If somebody wants to remove me from putting Americans first, then so be it.’

The funding patch brought to the floor over the weekend by McCarthy would last for 45 days past the end of the fiscal year, which concludes at midnight Sunday, October 1. The bill would also include $16 billion for U.S. disaster relief aid that President Biden requested over the summer, McCarthy said on Saturday. 

The bill would also be a ‘clean’ extension of the current year’s funding priorities, which were set by the Democrat-held Congress last year.

It comes after House Republicans tried and failed to pass a stopgap funding bill, known as a continuing resolution (CR), filled with conservative policy items like border security and spending cuts.

The bill is being expedited past normal processes, and will need two-thirds of the House for approval — meaning Democrats will have to vote in favor of the plan for it to pass.

Republicans’ previous CR proposals did not get any Democratic support, and it failed after enough GOP hardliners opposed them. Holdouts argued that a CR on principle is an extension of the previous Democrat-held Congress’ priorities, and is the antithesis of the House GOP majority’s promise to pass 12 individual spending bills laying out conservative priorities in the next fiscal year.

Gaetz stopped short of calling for a motion to vacate in remarks on the House floor Tuesday. 

‘[T]he House of Representatives has been poorly led. We own that, and we have to do something about it. My Democrat colleagues will have an opportunity to do something about that, too, and we will see if they bail out our failed speaker,’ he said at the time.

McCarthy responded to the threats to his speakership ahead of the vote on the measure Saturday.

‘If someone wants to remove because I want to be the adult in the room, go ahead and try,’ McCarthy told reporters.

Fox News’ Elizabeth Elkind and Houston Keene contributed to this report.

I’m an actor. For more than 40 years, I’ve been living and working in Hollywood. Everybody knows how much actors love applause, and I’m no exception. Usually, the audience applauds actors at the end of a performance, or sometimes in the middle of the play after a great scene or a monologue. These moments are precious. 

But I once received a standing ovation when I least expected it: When I met a group of active fellow filmmakers to exchange ideas, lay out grievances and talk about all kinds of things that were happening in the world. I was asked to introduce myself, and trying to keep it short, I told them that I was born in the Soviet Union, and that after graduating from one of the prestigious theater colleges in Moscow, I worked as an actor for about five years before immigrating to the U.S. in 1976. A few months after my arrival, I got my first break in Hollywood, and since then I have appeared in more than 100 movies and TV shows. 

One of the attendees asked me what surprised me the most about America. I told him the following: in the Soviet Union, people were forced to praise the government and despise the capitalist West. If, God forbid, you revealed in a conversation that you loved America, this somebody could report you to the authorities and you could get into serious trouble. Yet, in America, I told the group, to my astonishment, I quickly learned that revealing that I love America could also get me in trouble! And that’s when everybody got up and gave me an unexpected and big round of applause. 

When I was offered a role in a picture called ‘Reagan,’ I read the script and knew right away that I had to play this role. You see, the role I was asked to play was that of a Soviet citizen by the name of B.E. Kertchman, who, in the 1920s defected to the United States. 

It was a couple of decades later that several prominent American and Western European writers, such as John Steinbeck, George Bernard Shaw, and H.G. Wells, had been invited by then-Soviet premier Joseph Stalin to visit the Soviet Union. They were treated like royalty during their visits and naturally – loved it. Upon their return home they began to publish articles in major Western newspapers glorifying the Soviet system, telling their readers about the wonderful and happy lives of ordinary citizens in the ‘workers’ paradise.’  

Of course, these naive distinguished westerners had no clue about how ordinary people lived. Stalin had shown them only the artfully staged parts of life in the USSR and had permitted them to interact only with specially trained staff. While in Moscow, they were closely watched and not allowed to deviate even slightly from their pre-planned route. 

If they had witnessed the true conditions under which my compatriots lived, they would have had nightmares. Millions of people were dying of hunger, sent to labor camps or brutally executed for being disloyal to the regime.  

Some people, having believed what they read in deceitful news reports, emigrated from their home countries to the Soviet Union, hoping to find happiness in the so-called Socialist Paradise. Most of them soon realized they had been fooled and tried to come back. Very few managed to leave. And when those who were lucky enough to come back tried to share their horror stories about life in the USSR, very few people at home believed them. After all, who is more believable – a collection of famous writers or some regular Joe? 

My character, Kertchman, managed to escape the USSR and traveled around the U.S. giving speeches, trying to enlighten Americans about the real life in his home country and about the lies they had been fed by the Soviets with the assistance of easily manipulated westerners. Quite often, Kertchman was met with skepticism, but one who was not skeptical was a young preacher in the small town of Dixon, Illinois, named Ben Cleaver who invited him to speak at his church – the home church of a 17-year-old named Ronald Reagan. 

During Stalin’s rule, fear was the primary tool used by the government to keep the Soviet population obedient and under control. But strangely enough, even after Stalin was long gone, very little changed in the Soviet Union. This fear had already been ingrained permanently into peoples’ DNA and would remain there for generations. But by the time I was a teenager, most people no longer believed in the lies and propaganda of the State. 

The government lied about its achievements, professors and journalists – about the supposed decadence and decay in capitalist countries. Government officials knew they were lying, but nevertheless, they continued to lie and pretend that everything was wonderful. Everyone knew it wasn’t. When the foundation of any government is based on lies, it is destined to fail sooner or later. As we all now know, that’s exactly what happened to the Soviet Union. It simply collapsed. 

When I came to America 45 years ago, I thought that I had landed in paradise. People I met were friendly and generous, and the abundance of goods was mind-blowing. In the Soviet Union, I had to spend hours in lines to buy simple things like toilet paper and I could not speak openly about ideas that were not state approved.

In America, I could openly express my opinions on everything without fear of being prosecuted. But the most important thing was that my future life no longer depended on the Government or anybody else. I alone was responsible for my happiness. I was the architect of my own destiny. 

I always assumed that it would stay like that in America forever. Unfortunately, I was wrong. This new country that I cherished deeply began to change. I started to notice Marxist ideology – discredited countless times around the world – slowly creeping in into different aspects of our lives. Traditional moral values were being overturned and using simple common sense was becoming anathema to the intellectual elite. 

Today, just as in the Soviet Union, I have to hide my true feelings and am afraid to express them openly. Those basking in their subjective opinion of what is politically and socially correct just now control what I’m allowed to say and will soon dictate what I am permitted to think.  

My late friend, Yuri Bezmenov, was an ex-KGB officer, who in the early 1970s defected to the West. In the KGB, he worked in the communications department, which handled interactions with the foreign press. He knew firsthand all the methods of psychological coercion and indoctrination his organization used against the free world.  

My character, Kertchman, managed to escape the USSR and traveled around the U.S. giving speeches, trying to enlighten Americans about the real life in his home country and about the lies they had been fed by the Soviets with the assistance of easily manipulated westerners. Quite often, Kertchman was met with skepticism, but one who was not skeptical was a young preacher in the small town of Dixon, Illinois, named Ben Cleaver who invited him to speak at his church – the home church of a 17-year-old named Ronald Reagan. 

Like my character Kertchman, Yuri traveled across the United States giving lectures and trying to educate his audiences about the dangers of communism and how methodically and persistently this ideology penetrates Western society. And like Kertchman in the 1930s, he was met with great skepticism by many of his listeners who wouldn’t heed his warnings.  

Both Bezmenov and Kertchman have been dead for many years, but their warnings live on and are especially relevant today as many young Americans seem enamored with Marxist ideas. 

Reagan often repeated the phrase ‘freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.’ I believe he got that idea from men like Bezmenov and my character Kertchman, one that I too echo; it comes from the hearts of those of us who actually lived in such a system and find it our duty to report back to you so that you will avoid the mistakes our countrymen made.  

And like one other great thinker once said: ‘Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.’ To our fellow Americans we can only warn: ‘freedom is very fragile; take good care of it, or you may lose it.’ 

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The Department of Justice is redoubling its efforts to secure a gag order on former President Donald Trump, citing his comments about the death penalty and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley. 

DOJ prosecutors made a request for a gag order earlier this month, claiming that the former president could affect the legal procedure with his aggressive public statements. 

This request has been amplified by prosecutors after Trump wrote a series of accusations on platform Truth Social, criticizing Milley’s reported phone call to Chinese counterparts following the Jan. 6, 2021 protests.

Trump wrote that Milley ‘turned out to be a Woke train wreck who, if the Fake News reporting is correct, was actually dealing with China to give them a heads-up on the thinking of the President of the United States.’

‘This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!’ the former president added.

Special counsel Jack Smith is pushing harder for the gag order following Trump’s comments about Milley.

‘The defendant should not be permitted to continue to try this case in the court of public opinion rather than in the court of law, and thereby undermine the fairness and integrity of this proceeding,’ prosecutors argued Friday.

The Trump team has vehemently fought requests for a gag order, claiming that it would be a violation of the former president’s civil rights.

The Trump legal team published a 25-page brief to condemn the DOJ’s request, citing freedom of speech and the necessity of transparency.

‘The prosecution would silence President Trump, amid a political campaign where his right to criticize the government is at its zenith, all to avoid a public rebuke of this prosecution. However, ‘above all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content,’’ the brief states.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., falsely accused House Republicans of attempting to ‘provide themselves with a pay raise’ Saturday as she objected to a stopgap spending bill before ultimately voting for the measure.

DeLauro said there were ‘many changes’ between the bill that was offered in the House and the version that was offered in the Senate, with one being a pay increase for those serving in Congress.

‘Here is one that I believe the majority will not mention,’ DeLauro said. ‘They amend the Senate bill to give themselves a pay raise. A pay raise. It’s there. You can look at me, you can smile but what you did was you amended the Senate bill to give yourselves a pay raise.’

DeLauro’s claim was met with immediate pushback from House Republicans, who shouted her down, yelling ‘That’s false.’

Expounding on her claim in a post to social media, DeLauro wrote, ‘The Member Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) automatically takes effect unless it is blocked. The Senate blocked this in their CR. The House GOP CR does not.

‘News flash: a COLA is a pay increase for Members of Congress.’

Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., later took issue with DeLauro’s statement, claiming it was ‘simply not true’ and an ‘excuse’ not to vote in favor of the measure.

Disproving DeLauro’s claim, Scott read aloud the 27th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states: ‘No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.’

‘You need to know who’s telling you the truth and who’s not telling you the truth,’ Scott said. ‘Recently, you heard my colleague from Connecticut tell you that the Republican bill has a pay raise for members in Congress. It’s simply not true, and if it did, it would be unconstitutional. And if the Senate bill changes the compensation for members of Congress, then it, too, is unconstitutional.’

‘They are simply grasping at straws. They have intended to shut down the government from the start,’ Scott added. ‘Disregard totally what you’re hearing from the other side. They are grasping at straws, making excuses and telling flat-out lies about member compensation as an excuse to vote against this piece of legislation.’

The House of Representatives later voted to pass the short-term spending bill, moving to avoid a government shutdown if the Senate adopts the measure. 

The bill now heads to the Senate. If it’s expedited there, Congress could just narrowly avoid seeing thousands of federal employees furloughed and nonessential government programs paused.

House lawmakers on both sides of the aisle broke into applause in a rare moment of bipartisanship after the short-term bill known as a continuing resolution (CR), passed 335 to 91. Every Democrat but one voted for the bill, and 90 Republican members voted against it.

The funding patch will last for 45 days past the end of the fiscal year, which concludes Saturday. The bill also includes $16 billion for U.S. disaster relief aid President Biden requested over the summer, Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said Saturday.

It comes after House Republicans tried and failed to pass a separate stopgap funding bill that contained conservative policy items like border security and spending cuts. The national debt reached $33 trillion for the first time in history in September, amplifying concerns among conservatives that government spending is out of control.

Fox News’ Elizabeth Elkind and Houston Keene contributed to this report.

The House of Representatives voted Saturday to pass a short-term spending bill, moving to avoid a government shutdown if the Senate adopts the measure.

The bill now heads to the Senate. If it’s expedited there, Congress could just narrowly avoid seeing thousands of federal employees furloughed and nonessential government programs paused.

House lawmakers on both sides of the aisle broke out into applause in a rare moment of bipartisanship after the short-term bill known as a continuing resolution (CR), passed 335 to 91.

The funding patch will last for 45 days past the end of the fiscal year, which concludes at midnight Sunday, Oct. 1. The bill also includes $16 billion for U.S. disaster relief aid that President Biden requested over the summer, Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said on Saturday. 

It comes after House Republicans tried and failed to pass a seperate stopgap funding bill that contained conservative policy items like border security and spending cuts. The national debt reached $33 trillion for the first time in history earlier in September, amplifying concerns among conservatives that government spending is out of control.

‘We need more time to get the job done,’ McCarthy told reporters ahead of the vote. McCarthy said he did not want to ‘punish’ military service members or border agents for the House’s failure to pass a budget that ends wasteful spending and addresses border security.

‘The House is going to act so government will not shut down. We will put a clean funding stopgap on the floor to keep government open for 45 days for the House and Senate to get their work done,’ McCarthy also said. ‘We will also, knowing what had transpired through the summer, the disasters in Florida, the horrendous fire in Hawaii, and also disasters in California and Vermont, we will put the supplemental portion that the president asked for in disaster there too.’

Republicans’ previous CR proposals did not get any Democratic support, and failed after enough GOP hardliners opposed them. Holdouts argued that a CR on principle is an extension of the previous Democratically-held Congress’ priorities, and is the antithesis of the House GOP majority’s promise to pass 12 individual spending bills laying out conservative priorities in the next fiscal year.

But the majority of lawmakers on both sides have acknowledged that some kind of stopgap is needed to give them more time to cobble those deals together. The current fiscal year ends at midnight tonight, meaning that if no agreement is passed by the House and Senate, thousands of government employees will be furloughed and ‘nonessential’ federal programs will grind to a halt.

And despite Democrats clamoring for a ‘clean’ CR, it’s not immediately clear if they will support the bill being put forward by the GOP now. 

Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., told Fox News Digital that he believes Democrats will vote against the CR to hold out for the Senate’s proposal, which also includes funding for Ukraine aid – something a large share of House Republicans oppose.

‘I think this may fail because Democrats in the House want a Senate CR,’ Barr said. ‘So what could happen is a pretty low vote number on this…you’ll have Democrats who are voting to shut the government down. And that’s what you’re gonna see. Democrats want to politicize this, and they’re gonna vote to shut the government down.’

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., would not say where he would fall when speaking to reporters before the vote but complained about Republicans having ‘dropped this on us in the 11th hour.’

House Republicans ‘lied every single step of the way,’ Jeffries said.

House Republicans left a closed-door conference meeting on Friday night frustrated and with no clear path forward on averting a government shutdown.

Government funding runs out at the end of the day today, and it’s all but certain that House and Senate lawmakers will not reach an agreement by midnight to stop nonessential government programs from grinding to a halt and thousands of federal workers from being furloughed.

‘The problem is, is the holdouts aren’t offering any other options. The holdouts say, well why don’t we have a shutdown and [work on the appropriations process] as if all of a sudden, the messy democracy that makes appropriations process difficult in the first place is somehow going to resolve itself,’ Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, told reporters when leaving the meeting. ‘It’s a f—ing democracy, it’s hard. And there’s no acknowledgment of that.’

A source in the room told Fox News Digital that the meeting was ‘very’ tense as Republicans traded barbs over whom to blame for the current predicament.

At one point Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., heaped blame on moderate Republicans and rural district conservatives for sinking one of four appropriations bills the House voted on Thursday night, the source said.

One of those conservatives, Rep. Randy Feenstra, R-Iowa, ‘stood up and said that’s bulls— and you know it,’ the source said, adding that Feenstra said it ‘multiple times.’

Another source familiar with the exchange confirmed Feenstra called out Good but did not give specifics on what he said.

Good meanwhile told reporters he felt the meeting went poorly.

‘What we heard was total capitulation’ by Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., Good said. ‘I think the Speaker has basically capitulated to the Senate.’

Twenty-one Republican hardliners voted with Democrats earlier on Friday to sink the House GOP’s stopgap spending patch, known as a continuing resolution (CR). That bill was aimed at cutting funding to fiscal 2022 levels while also implementing measures from the House GOP border security bill.

But the source in the room told Fox News Digital that McCarthy warned members that the failure to coalesce may force the GOP-controlled House to consider a CR being led by Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., which would largely extend this current year’s funding while also providing extra dollars for Ukraine aid and U.S. disaster relief.

Another viable option for the House floated by several members, however, was a CR with the same House GOP priorities but cut down to a 14-day span rather than a month. 

‘It would be it’d be a modification of what we did today, in a sense that we’d look at the calendar, the calendar that’s been put forward now and also look at, can we do it in 14 days…to ensure that everybody’s building confidence that we can work through these bills,’ Republican Study Committee Chair Kevin Hern, R-Okla., told reporters on Friday night. 

Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., a member of the GOP whip team, said on Friday night that the conference was surveying support for the 14-day bill.

‘That’s happening right now,’ Barr said. ‘And if they have the votes on that, if there’s enough of them to change their mind – and some of them are, by the way, you’ve got a number of people who voted no who are changing their minds right now. And they will vote for the same thing that they voted against today, but at a shorter level. The question is, are there enough of them who are changing their mind?’

But it’s not clear that there’s a consensus on one clear path forward yet.

Freshman Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., said he floated the idea of a seven-day CR.

‘I think we can propose a seven day with some cuts, secure the border. And then we keep reauthorizing that on seven-day increments until we get done,’ Ogles said, adding that he raised the possibility in conference.

‘I proposed it in the room, I reached out to leadership this morning, made that suggestion early, and so it’s for discussion.’

House GOP lawmakers are meeting this morning, likely to discuss a path forward.

Lawmakers were told to prepare for votes on Saturday, but no lawmaker who exited the meeting could say definitely what they would be voting for.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., finds himself between a rock and a hard place: Between Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., and the United States Senate.

‘You cannot be the Republican Speaker of the House while you’re using Democratic votes to pass Joe Biden’s spending priorities,’ said Gaetz. ‘Now maybe you can stay the Speaker of the House. But you won’t be the Republican Speaker anymore.’

Gaetz noted that if McCarthy leans on a coalition of Republicans and Democrats to avert a shutdown, ‘he will face a motion to vacate.’

Gaetz added that McCarthy ‘would be a Speaker serving at the pleasure of Democrats.’

That’s unclear. Republicans only have a four seat majority. House Democrats are coy about what they would do if Gaetz called for McCarthy no-confidence vote. If just five Republicans vote in favor of ousting McCarthy and all Democrats join, the House could face the first mid-Congress vote for Speaker since the early 20th Century.

Gaetz could well drop the hammer on McCarthy if he courts Democrats to avert a government shutdown. Fox learned that Gaetz even spoke to some Democrats about trying to secure their support to bounce McCarthy from the Speakership.

That prompted a rebuke from some Republicans.

‘There’s only one person to blame for any potential government shutdown and that’s Matt Gaetz. He’s not a conservative Republican. He’s a charlatan,’ said Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., who holds one of the most endangered GOP seats on the map. ‘When you’re working with Democrats to try to vacate the Speaker, you’re a joke.’

House Republicans conducted a tempestuous meeting Thursday morning where the Speaker and Gaetz traded barbs.

It was long ago said that Congress is like high school. And the egging on by Gaetz appears to have devolved into that.

Gaetz sent around a document he bills as ‘Kevin’s Report Card.’ It lists whether the Speaker complied with certain conservative demands for votes on various legislative initiatives. The ‘report card’ comes complete with what appears to be a high school yearbook picture of McCarthy, and ‘teacher’s notes’ reading ‘While Speaker McCarthy has been irritable and unhinged at times, we remain hopeful in his ability to improve.’

McCarthy began chatting with Democratic senators in an effort to attach a border security package to the Senate’s interim spending bill.

‘I’m talking to Senate Democrats because even this morning, they want to do something on the border. I’ve got Democrats who came up to me on the floor last night saying ‘we want to do something on the border,’’ said McCarthy.

McCarthy also said he had spoken to Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., about a border plan ‘for quite some time.’

So here’s where we stand: the Senate has a bill which funds the government for six weeks and includes money for Ukraine. It doesn’t tackle the border. McCarthy tried unsuccessfully to get the Senate to include a border provision in its stopgap spending bill, known as a ‘continuing resolution’ or ‘CR’ in Congress-ese.

‘It shouldn’t be attached to the CR. The CR is an emergency bill. In a matter of hours, we’re going to shut down the government,’ said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill. ‘To pin the whole future of the federal government on reaching an agreement on a topic that has eluded us for years I don’t think is a fair deal.’

Moreover, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., ‘filled the amendment tree’ on Thursday afternoon. Once the Senate voted to begin debate on its CR, Schumer – as is his right as Leader – blocked all other amendments by ‘filling’ the available slots with his own amendments. Schumer then ‘filed cloture’ to set up a vote to break a filibuster on the CR for Saturday.

So consider this: McCarthy aimed to attach the border language to the House CR. Ukraine money was already in the Senate CR. So how about some horse trading? Yours truly asked the Speaker if he could accept Ukraine aid in his bill if the Senate agreed to border security.

‘I’m not going to play with that in the last hours,’ replied McCarthy, pivoting to a non sequitur and bringing up President Biden’s fundraising.

‘Let’s see what (the Senate) can produce,’ said McCarthy.

McCarthy also continued to point out that the Senate ‘hasn’t passed anything yet.’

And neither has the House. That’s why McCarthy’s interim spending bill imploded on the floor Friday. Twenty-one GOPers voted nay.

While it hasn’t passed yet, the Senate produced a bipartisan stopgap spending package which commanded yea votes from more than three-quarters of all senators on two procedural votes. That bill is on a glidepath to passage – albeit likely sometime Sunday or Monday –  after the shutdown deadline.

McCarthy was unable to get his Members to coalesce around a CR, no matter what he did.

The House constantly updated and amended various spending bills, voting deep into the night on several occasions this week – then coming back with a meeting of the House Rules Committee at 8 am et Friday morning on the CR. One lawmaker characterized this as ‘legislation by concierge.’ Lawmakers sure got lots of votes on a litany of amendments. But in the end, few got what they wanted. Another called it ‘governing by crisis’ – although few embraced the crisis.

Allegedly confused about the path forward, 27 members of the Freedom Caucus sent McCarthy a letter Thursday requesting ‘basic information’ about the path on spending bills.

‘No Member of Congress can or should be expected to consider supporting a stopgap funding measure without answers to these reasonable questions,’ wrote the Freedom Caucus members to the Speaker.

McCarthy found this approach baffling because he had spoken to Freedom Caucus Members ‘all day.’

‘If they send me a letter,’ said the Speaker when chatting with reporters, ‘It’s not for me. It’s for you. Trying to make news.’

Speaking of trying to make news, Gaetz was soon at it again, calling a potential closure of the government a ‘McCarthy shutdown.’

The Speaker flagged that immediately.

‘So if he votes against a continuing resolution, it’s my fault?’ asked McCarthy. ‘That’s interesting.’

This is why McCarthy finds himself between a rock and a hard place. Between Matt Gaetz and the U.S. Senate.

But McCarthy kept grinding.

‘I never give up,’ McCarthy declared on multiple occasions over the past few weeks. But after days of trying, the gambit McCarthy used to romance Republicans on spending bills didn’t last.

Gaetz could bring up his motion to bounce McCarthy imminently. The Senate has the votes on the CR.

There’s now chatter about Republicans supporting a ‘clean’ two-week CR. It’s believed that approach could drop the 21 GOP noes on Friday’s bill to just nine or so.

This is just the latest approach. Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce could have a longer relationship with Taylor Swift than the shelf lives of the various plans McCarthy deployed to court Republicans on the spending bills.

Knowing Swift, she will probably write a song about Kelce if they break up. It’s doubtful McCarthy will ever write a song about House Republicans rejecting his Herculean efforts. And Bonnie Raitt already claimed the tune ‘I Can’t Make You Love Me.’

However, a few lawmakers whispered to Fox that McCarthy should take a page out of the playbook of House Speaker Joe Cannon, R-Ill., in 1910. Cannon faced various revolts from Members who didn’t like how he ran the House. Cannon’s adversaries threatened a maneuver similar to that of Gaetz: a motion to vacate the chair.

Cannon beat them to it. The Speaker put his own vote of no confidence on the floor and prevailed. Cannon called the bluff of his opponents and won. Granted, Cannon was weaker. But he survived a challenge to his Speakership.

Some Republicans have told Fox McCarthy should do the same thing.

It’s an audacious move.

And there’s a reason one of the structures on Capitol Hill is named the ‘Cannon House Office Building.’