The second Republican presidential primary debate of the 2024 election cycle is nearly two weeks away, and six candidates, as of now, have secured a spot on the stage.

The debate, which will be hosted by Fox Business and Univision, is slated to take place on Sept. 27 from 9 to 11 p.m. ET in Simi Valley, California.

Unlike the requirements outlined by the Republican National Committee (RNC) to participate in last month’s debate, there are stronger thresholds in place that Republican candidates are required to meet before they can earn a spot on the stage in California.

To participate in the second debate, each candidate must have a minimum of 50,000 unique donors to their campaign or exploratory committee, including 200 donors in 20 or more states. The candidates must also reach 3% support in two national polls or reach 3% in one national poll and 3% in two polls conducted in different early nominating states like Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada or South Carolina.

Additionally, candidates are also required to sign a pledge in which they agree to support the eventual Republican presidential nominee; agree not to participate in any non-RNC-sanctioned debates for the rest of the 2024 election cycle; and agree to data-sharing with the national party committee. The deadline to meet qualifications is 48 hours before the debate begins.

The candidates who have met all the requirements (fundraising, polling and pledge), with polling and fundraising thresholds verified by the RNC, include:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantisEntrepreneur Vivek RamaswamyFormer South Carolina Gov. Nikki HaleyFormer Vice President Mike PenceSouth Carolina Sen. Tim ScottFormer New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie

The candidates who have met the fundraising threshold and have signed the pledge include:

North Dakota Gov. Doug BurgumMichigan businessman Perry Johnson

The candidates who have signed the pledge but have yet to meet other requirements include:

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa HutchinsonRadio host Larry Elder

The only candidate to meet the RNC’s polling and fundraising requirements and not sign the pledge is former President Donald Trump, who skipped out on the Aug. 23 debate in Milwaukee.

It is unclear whether Trump, the commanding front-runner in the GOP race for president, will sign the pledge and attend the second debate in California or any RNC-sanctioned debate in the future for that matter.

FOX News Media’s Stuart Varney and Dana Perino will co-moderate the second debate alongside Univision’s Ilia Calderón from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute.

FOX News Media was tapped to host the first two debates of the 2024 election cycle. Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum co-moderated FOX News Media’s ‘Democracy 24: FOX News Republican Primary Debate’ last month. The debate drew a staggering 12.8 million total viewers, making it the most-watched non-sporting event cable telecast of the year so far.

California lawmakers passed a bill last week prohibiting books from being banned in public school districts because of content related to gender or racial diversity, and now, the governor is expected to sign it into law.

Last Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom showed his support of the bill, suggesting he plans to make it law.

‘California is the true freedom state: a place where families — not political fanatics — have the freedom to decide what’s right for them,’ he said. ‘With the passage of this legislation that bans book bans and ensures all students have textbooks, our state’s Family Agenda is now even stronger. All students deserve the freedom to read and learn about the truth, the world, and themselves.’

The state Senate passed the bill mostly along party lines last week; in May, it had no problem passing in the Assembly.

Under the bill, school districts would be fined for banning books.

The bill, which was introduced and authored by Assembly member Corey Jackson of Riverside, does not prohibit book banning, though it would impose a fine if books are banned because they contain ‘inclusive and diverse perspectives.’

The bill also directly targets local school board control of curriculum and books that will be allowed in schools.

Around the same time the Assembly passed the bill in May, the Temecula Valley Unified School District (TVSD) voted to reject an elementary school curriculum for mentioning Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in California.

In July, Newsom released a video blasting the school district for ‘censoring’ social studies materials simply because it mentioned Milk, adding that the state was ‘stepping in.’

‘We’re going to purchase the book for these students — the same one that hundreds of thousands of kids are already using. If these extremist school board members won’t do their job, we will — and fine them for their incompetence,’ Newsom said.

Newsom also claimed the book was censored by the school board and he and others were worried about access to information.

Dr. Joseph Komrosky, the president of the TVSD Board of Education, said in a statement to Fox News Digital that the board did not ‘ban’ the textbook, rather, they chose not to adopt a new curriculum and the supplemental textbook material that included Milk. But that was just one of several objections, Komrosky said.

‘But what the Governor has conveniently ignored is that members of the Board of Education expressed other significant concerns about the District’s process, including whether it had adequately engaged the community regarding the adoption of curriculum, as well as whether the proposed curriculum adequately addressed the needs of English learners and special education students,’ Komrosky said at the time.

Still, Newsom threatened to fine TVSD $1.5 million, and the board eventually adopted the curriculum.

Jackson’s bill threatens financial penalties against school boards that restrict access to classroom and library materials because they feature LGBTQ people or were written by LGBTQ authors, the bill reads, ‘discriminates against LGBTQ people and constitutes censorship in violation of California law and policy.’

The bill goes on to say, ‘efforts to categorically exclude topics related to race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or other protected characteristics, or of present or historical discrimination based on protected characteristics, from school library collections, curricula, or classroom discussions constitute censorship that violates California law and policy.’

This comes after a newly released report revealed that nearly 1,500 books were banned in the first half of the 2022-2023 school year. According to PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans lists, there were 1,477 instances of individual books banned during the first half of the 2022-23 school year. 

PEN America recorded more book bans during the fall 2022 semester than in each of the prior two semesters.

PEN America also reports that 30% of the ‘unique titles’ banned are books about race, racism, or feature characters of color. They also note that 26% of unique titles banned have LGBTQ+ characters or themes.

PEN America claimed that they have tracked book-banning efforts for the past two years by documenting the growth of groups advocating for book bans, the widespread challenges to books across the nation, efforts on the local level such as school district policies and procedures, and the state-level policies.

The book ban issue has been prevalent in red states such as Texas, Florida, Missouri, Utah, and South Carolina, where it was addressed by local school boards.

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

We may know more about COVID-19 and the state of the pandemic when the House of Representatives returns to session Tuesday.

COVID-19 cases are on the rise around the nation as Americans returned from summer vacation and kids went back to school.

So, COVID cases are increasing.

And, frankly, Congress is a lot like the rest of America. As it is said, we have representative government.

Summer vacation is over and ‘school’ is back in session.

Granted, the Senate returned last week after nearly six weeks of recess. But the Senate is a body of only 100 people. The House has 435. And when the House is in session, the Capitol hums with a flurry of activity. Not only are there more lawmakers, but scores of additional aides, interns, visitors, lobbyists and reporters.

Here’s an observation. During the darkest days of the pandemic, COVID cases among lawmakers always seemed to shoot up right after a recess. You can draw your own hypothesis. Lawmakers visiting with lots of people at town halls and functions in their districts, then boarding planes and returning to Washington.

As former Senator and Health Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., characterized it in the spring of 2020, Congress has the potential to become ‘an efficient, virus-spreading machine.’

So, with cases climbing nationally and Congress returning, see where we stand in a week or so on Capitol Hill. It’s an unofficial measuring stick.

The rise in COVID cases and concern over masks spurred action by two Republican senators in recent days.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., tried to get the Senate to approve, on the spot, a measure that would exempt teenage, high school Senate pages from mask or vaccine requirements. Paul asked the Senate to approve his measure via unanimous consent, which means the Senate adopts the plan so long as none of the 100 senators object. All it takes is one. And Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., objected, blocking Paul’s gambit.

‘We should get away from any kind of mandates, not only with masks but with mandatory vaccines for kids,’ Paul said on FOX Business. ‘They don’t work. They didn’t control transmission. They didn’t lower the transmission among people.’

Paul’s maneuver came as an elementary school in suburban Montgomery Country, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C., imposed a mask mandate after a COVID outbreak there. 

Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, seized on recent, private reintroductions of mask mandates. In a Senate floor speech, Vance noted that Lionsgate now required masks on its film sets. Kaiser Permanente and Morris Brown College in Atlanta also have mask mandates.

Like Paul, Vance expressed concern about young people.

‘(Masks) can actively cause harm,’ said Vance. ‘We know that a generation of school children have suffered significant speech and developmental disabilities because this country panicked.’

Vance went on to say that the ‘seasonal uptick of COVID’ isn’t ‘something to worry about. I don’t like this fact, but COVID is here to stay. Seasonal upticks in a respiratory virus are exactly to be expected.’

It may be unclear at what levels COVID could return. But Vance believes mask requirements are just over the horizon. 

‘This is coming back unless we stop it from happening,’ said Vance.

Not the pandemic. But masks.

So Vance crafted a bill to bar masks in airports and on flights and in schools.

‘It says that, for the next 15 months, the government can’t force you to wear a mask on planes, on public transit or in public schools. Taxpayer dollars cannot be used to force and enforce a mandate against our people,’ Vance said on the Senate floor.

Vance titled his bill ‘The Freedom to Breathe Act.’ He then asked unanimous consent on the floor for the Senate to call up the bill and pass it on the spot.

Again, all it takes is one objection. And Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., blocked Vance.

‘COVID is coming back. It’s on the rise again. This provision would violate a long-held belief in the Republican Party that states and localities should not be told what to do by a federal government removed from the realities that they are seeing on the grounds in their neighborhoods,’ Markey responded.

‘What I would like is for the freedom of a schoolchild to not be thrown out of a classroom because he doesn’t want to wear a mask,’ countered Vance.

Vance noted he’s the father of three children under the age of 7.

‘They need us to not be Chicken Little about every single respiratory pandemic and problem that confronts this country. We are going to have people who get sick from viruses,’ said Vance.

Right now, there’s no federal mask mandate on the table.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., told colleague Aishah Hasnie a mask requirement should hinge ‘on the lethality of COVID.’

Whitehouse said that ‘if hundreds of thousands of people are dying, the government response is a little bit different than if it’s more or less an unpleasant day or two of flu symptoms.’

Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., said he opposed mask mandates.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., was unsure.

‘We’ve got to look at the circumstances on the ground and see what’s happening with any renewal of a pandemic and how it’s affecting people,’ said Shaheen.

Shaheen was also unsure on the efficacy of masks.

‘They work sometimes. Sometimes they don’t,’ she said.

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra noted that, despite the increase in cases, ‘we’re nowhere near where we were before.’

However, Becerra said, ‘We will make sure that if you need a mask, that the supply of PPE will be there for you.’ 

Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, is a doctor and chairs the special House COVID panel investigating the origins of the pandemic. During an appearance on Fox, Wenstrup said Americans grew tired of ‘politicians telling you what you have to do.’ 

Wenstrup added that there’s ‘confusion’ among people, and people are ‘fed up’ with health and safety requirements.

‘Americans love freedom, and they love self-determination,’ said Wenstrup.

While cases may be up, they’re not stressing the American health care system like they were a few years ago. And most health officials aren’t seriously considering mask mandates. The last mask mandates hit as the omicron wave swelled nationwide nearly two years ago. 

So Congress reconvening may give us some insight into the state of the pandemic. 

The percentage of people voluntarily wearing masks around the Capitol is higher now than it was a few months ago. And one thing is for certain. There are no plans to impose any sort of mask mandate for those who work at the Capitol.

New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez told Democrat Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham he won’t defend her executive order suspending open and concealed carry across Albuquerque and the surrounding Bernalillo County for at least 30 days, saying he believes it’s unconstitutional.

Grisham announced on Sept. 7 that she needed to respond to recent gun-related deaths, which include an 11-year-old boy who was shot and killed while outside a minor league baseball stadium on Wednesday night.

The suspension of open and concealed carry in the defined area is being classified as an emergency public health order.

Torrez, a Democrat himself, wrote the letter to Grisham on Tuesday, stating he won’t defend her administration in two lawsuits concerning the executive order.

‘I am writing to inform you that my office will not defend your administration in the above referenced cases challenging the Public Health Emergency Order Imposing Temporary Firearm Restrictions, Drug Monitoring and Other Public Safety Measures (the Emergency Order) issued by the Secretary of Health on September 8, 2023,’ Torrez wrote. ‘Though I recognize my statutory obligation as New Mexico’s chief legal officer to defend state officials when they are sued in their official capacity, my duty to uphold and defend the constitutional rights of every citizen takes precedence. Simply put, I do not believe that the Emergency Order will have any meaningful impact on public safety but, more importantly, I do not believe it passes constitutional muster.’

Click here to read the letter:

While the attorney general says that he grieves with victims of gun violence, Torrez wrote that Grisham shouldn’t be making executive orders such as the one she signed last week.

‘However, I encourage you to engage in a more thoughtful and deliberative process with members of the New Mexico Legislature rather than taking unilateral action that infringes on the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens while having little if any discernible impact on the underlying dynamics driving gun violence in our community,’ he wrote. 

In the four-page letter, Torrez also told Grisham it’s ‘unwise to stretch the definition of a ‘public health emergency’ to encompass something that is fundamentally a public safety issue.’

Torrez said that the executive order is ‘near certain’ to violate the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment.

Responding to criticism, Grisham’s press secretary Caroline Sweeney told Fox News Digital on Tuesday that her office received the letter, but said the governor didn’t ask Torrez to defend the order in court.

‘The governor’s office received the letter from the Attorney General Torrez and let me be clear – Gov. Lujan Grisham did not ask the attorney general to represent the state,’ Sweeney said. ‘The governor is looking for state leaders to step up and take bold steps to make New Mexicans safer from the scourge of gun violence. We invite the Attorney General to turn his attention to that effort.’

Sweeney said on Sunday that the order ‘does not suspend the Constitution but instead state laws over which the governor has jurisdiction.’

‘The governor is looking for proactive partners who will bring solutions to the table – not naysayers who have no real answers to the gun violence epidemic we are faced with,’ Sweeney said. ‘She was elected to serve the people of New Mexico, and not a day goes by that she doesn’t hear from a constituent asking for more to be done to curb this horrific violence. If Ted Lieu is so interested in addressing this issue, we invite him to join our next police academy class in January.’

Republican state Reps. Stefani Lord and John Block announced on Sept. 9 that they are calling for the governor to be impeached.

‘I am calling on counsel to begin the impeachment process against Governor Grisham,’ Lord said. ‘This is an abhorrent attempt at imposing a radical, progressive agenda on an unwilling populous. Rather than addressing crime at its core, Governor Grisham is restricting the rights of law-abiding gun owners. Even Grisham believes this emergency order won’t prohibit criminals from carrying or using weapons; a basic admission that this will only put New Mexicans in danger as they won’t be able to defend themselves from violent crime.’ 

Speaking with Fox News Digital, Lord said that Grisham is a ‘rogue governor.’

The National Association for Gun Rights and Foster Haines, a resident of Albuquerque, announced on Saturday they filed a lawsuit against Grisham and New Mexico Secretary of Health Patrick Allen, arguing the emergency order is unconstitutional. They are asking for a temporary restraining order against the measure to be issued.

Fox News Digital reached out to Grisham’s office for comment.

Fox News’ Houston Knee contributed to this report.

EXCLUSIVE: The effort to ban mask mandates on public transportation is gaining steam as the Association of Air Marshals has thrown its support behind calling on Congress to enact such a ban, something it says would ‘send a clear message’ that airline crews and transportation workers should not be compelled to enforce masking policies on behalf of the U.S. government.

Fox News Digital obtained a letter sent to Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, by the group’s president, John Casaretti, applauding the ‘Freedom to Breathe Act,’ which the senator introduced last Tuesday before it was ultimately blocked by Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., on Thursday.

‘We offer our emphatic support for this common-sense legislation,’ Casaretti wrote, before mentioning his 2021 testimony before Congress about how masking requirements had contributed to an increase in violence on airplanes, and that crew members had ‘suffered direct physical attacks’ while trying to enforce those requirements.

‘The Air Marshal Association believes masking should be a choice, not a requirement. Air crews and transportation workers should never be compelled to enforce arbitrary policies on behalf of the government,’ he wrote. ‘We support a permanent ban on masking requirements in public transportation, but believe that prohibiting masking requirements through December 31, 2024 will send a clear message.’

‘The Air Marshal Association stands ready to assist your office in the passage of this important legislation. We look forward to working with your staff, and you can count on our enthusiastic support,’ he added.

While shooting down Vance’s effort to pass the bill by a unanimous voice vote, a largely symbolic move, Markey argued that health officials needed the ‘freedom to make those decisions.’

‘We must protect the freedom for communities to have every public health tool available, if it’s needed in the opinion of the public health officials in that community, in that state. They should be the ones making the decision at the local level, looking at the dangers to their population,’ Markey said.

Had the bill been passed and signed into law, it would prevent President Biden and federal agencies from implementing face mask requirements for public transit passengers or students in schools until Dec. 31, 2024. It would also have prevented federal spending from being used to propose face mask requirements or force Americans to wear face coverings.

When reached for comment, a Vance spokesperson vowed the senator would continue pushing to pass the legislation by other means, and noted that a House version of the bill had been introduced by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.

‘Now that Senate Democrats have showed their hand and defended mask mandates, Senator Vance will continue to pursue every opportunity to ban them at the federal level,’ the spokesperson said.

Fox News’ Kyle Morris and Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.

The Biden administration published a long-awaited final report outlining steps and policy recommendations it said would help modernize mining regulations, but critics say they would create more burdensome red tape.

The federal Interagency Working Group on Mining Laws, Regulations, and Permitting (IWG) published the report listing 65 recommendations Tuesday, saying it will inform efforts to update the General Mining Act of 1872. 

Environmentalists have long called on the federal government to update laws to ensure more stringent protections for wildlife, plants and the environment surrounding mining projects.

‘The biggest takeaway from the report is that our 150-year-old law, literally the 1872 mining law signed by President Graham for accessing minerals on public lands, needs to be reformed and brought into the 21st century,’ IWG Chair and Deputy Interior Secretary Tommy Beaudreau told reporters during a press call.

‘We need to employ the same tools that have been so successful in standing up thousands of megawatts of renewable energy on public lands and offshore,’ he continued. ‘This includes a leasing program that targets resources while reducing conflicts with local communities, wildlife habitat and essential water resources.’

In addition to recommending a leasing program for critical mineral deposits, Beaudreau added that the report recommends that companies pay royalties on land they are approved to mine for resource development. He explained that the current structure with no royalties is why there is little funding for addressing abandoned mines he said create ‘safety hazards and pollution for land and water across our country.’

In addition, the report recommends a controversial 7-cent per ton fee on material displaced by hard rock mining, a proposal that would also increase prices for the mining industry, dubbing the fee a ‘dirt tax.’

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced the creation of the IWG in February 2022, months after the White House ordered a review of the domestic supply chain and recommended solutions to expand ‘sustainable, responsible critical minerals production and processing.’ 

Haaland said the task force’s work was important to ‘meet the needs of the clean energy economy.’

‘Unfortunately, if the Biden-Harris administration’s stated objective is to secure our nation’s domestic mineral supply chains while supporting responsible mining, the recommendations contained in this report don’t do anything to advance the ball,’ Rich Nolan, the president and CEO of the National Mining Association, said in a statement shared with Fox News Digital.

‘In fact, some of the recommendations — including the consideration of a leasing system, imposition of a punitive dirt tax or application of the higher end of suggested proposed royalties — will throw additional obstacles in the way of responsible domestic projects and would-be investment, forcing the U.S. to double-down on our already outsized import reliance from countries with questionable labor, safety and environmental practices.’

Nolan added that, while his organization is still reviewing the report, the U.S. remains ‘critically outmatched’ on mining for critical minerals needed for key technologies.

Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., the ranking member on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, also blasted the IWG report Tuesday.

‘President Biden is taking a sledgehammer to affordable, reliable energy,’ Barrasso said. ‘Today’s proposed mining reforms will force us to buy more critical minerals from mines using forced and child labor instead of harnessing our abundant resources here at home.

‘Permitting mines in the U.S. can take over a decade,’ the Wyoming Republican added. ‘These proposals will slow the process even further. If the Biden administration’s reforms are enacted, Americans will be even more dependent on imports from our adversaries, including China.’

However, the report was lauded by Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., the House Natural Resources Committee ranking member who has led efforts in recent years to create a new regulatory regime governing mining nationwide. Grijalva said Tuesday he would work to implement the ‘long-overdue reforms’ outlined in the IWG report via legislation such as Grijalva and Democratic New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich’s Energy Minerals Reform Act.

Critical minerals are a vital component of the burgeoning green energy industry. Green energy technologies like electric vehicle batteries, battery storage facilities, solar panels and wind turbines require a massive expansion of cobalt, copper, lithium, nickel, graphite, zinc and other mineral production, according to the International Energy Agency. 

For example, an electric vehicle requires 500% more mineral resources than a traditional gas-powered car while a single onshore wind turbine plant requires 800% more minerals than a typical fossil fuel plant. 

China and other hostile nations dominate the global mineral supply chain even as the U.S. and Western nations rapidly push a transition to green energy technologies. In 2022, the U.S. mined just 3.8% of global copper supplies, 5.9% of global zinc supplies, 0.55% of global nickel supplies, 0.42% of global cobalt supplies and 0% of global graphite supplies, federal data showed.

At the same time, the Biden administration has taken steps to slow mineral production. The Department of the Interior has moved ahead with 20-year mining bans in areas rich with key minerals in Minnesota and South Dakota, while President Biden has established national monuments in Nevada and Arizona, effectively blocking mining in those areas.

The chairman of the House Freedom Caucus (HFC) said Tuesday that the impeachment inquiry into President Biden, which House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced earlier that day, was ‘long overdue,’ though it should not be done for political reasons.

Representative Scott Perry, R-Pa., HFC chairman, took questions after a press event, in which members of the caucus blasted the Biden administration’s spending, border security, and negotiating deals when the U.S. is on the verge of running out of money, like the end of this month.

But when it came to the impeachment inquiry, Perry said he thinks the caucus agrees with McCarthy that it should not be for political reasons.

‘If the facts take us to that location, then that’s where they should take it,’ Perry said. ‘But it has nothing to do with the debt, the deficit, the outrageous spending, the inflation that’s crushing American families. Those are two separate issues, and they should be dealt with separately.’

He explained that Americans should not have to suffer under the current economy, where interest rates are high, and credit card payments are ‘through the roof.’

‘I think the impeachment inquiry is long overdue,’ the chairman said, adding he thinks any citizen that had what the president has stacked against him would be in court by now.

McCarthy announced late Tuesday morning that House Republicans ‘uncovered serious and credible allegations into President Biden’s conduct’ that will serve as the basis of an impeachment inquiry.

The Speaker announced in a statement at the Capitol that the ‘logical next step’ gives the committees the full power to get the facts and answers for the American public.

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., is taking the lead on the inquiry.

McCarthy spoke of allegations against Biden by several GOP-led committees, which included ‘abuse of power, obstruction and corruption.’

‘Through our investigations, we have found that President Biden did lie to the American people about his own knowledge of his family’s foreign business dealings,’ McCarthy said. ‘Eyewitnesses have testified that the president joined on multiple phone calls and had multiple interactions, dinners resulted in cars and millions of dollars into his sons and his son’s business partners.

The speaker concluded by accusing the president’s family of getting special treatment by the Biden administration, which would not have been offered if they were not related to the president.

‘These are allegations of abuse of power, obstruction and corruption…,’ he said.

Fox News Digital’s Chris Pandolfo and Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.

The office of Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., hit back at the Pentagon Tuesday after Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said troops’ abortions were not being subsidized by U.S. taxpayers. 

Ryder’s comments came in response to a reporter who asked which was more important for Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin: that military personnel be confirmed, or abortions be subsidized for U.S. troops. 

The comments refer to Tuberville’s efforts to try and change the Pentagon’s abortion policy by holding up hundreds of military nominations and promotions – a move that has irked both Democrats and fellow Republicans. Tuberville says he will not relent in his position until there is a vote on the matter. 

Gen. Ryder said the Pentagon was not subsidizing abortions, but ‘providing equitable reproductive health care for all of our service members.’ 

‘The Department does not pay for abortions,’ Ryder said. ‘What this is doing is facilitating access which a service member would have had previously.’  

He added: ‘[I]f you are now assigned to a state where those types of services are not available, we’re not going to pay for those services. But what we will do is we will – just like we would if you were stationed overseas – get you to a place where you can then pay for those services.’  

Ryder said the Pentagon did not want a force comprising ‘haves and have-nots where some people are going to have access and some people are not, by virtue of where the military assigns them, period.’ 

Tuberville spokesman Steven Stafford called Ryder’s comments: ‘too cute by half.’

‘[The Pentagon] can use whatever euphemisms they want, but it doesn’t change the facts,’ Stafford said. ‘The Pentagon is using our tax dollars to pay for travel and additional time off for servicemembers and their dependents to get abortions. There are no restrictions on the policy either, which means that this could include late-term abortions.’  

‘Congress never voted to authorize or appropriate the money. There is nothing in law to allow this—in fact, there is a law against it. Federal law prohibits military funding of abortion except in cases of rape, incest, and a threat to the health of the mother,’ Stafford said. ‘The majority of the American people find it offensive that the Pentagon is illegally using their tax dollars to facilitate abortion.’ 

Approving military nominations and promotions has historically been a bipartisan duty of the U.S. Senate. But Sen. Tuberville shattered the norm with his blanket hold. The Pentagon has estimated that the move has already stalled more than 260 nominations of senior officers. And that figure could potentially balloon to 650 by the end of the year. 

Defense officials have accused Tuberville of jeopardizing American national security. Senators in both parties, including Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, also have criticized Tuberville.

Tuberville has said he will not drop the holds unless Democrats allow a vote on the policy. Democrats argue that a vote for every nominee could tie up the Senate floor for months, and they do not want to give in to Tuberville’s demands and encourage similar blockades of nominees in the future.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

FIRST ON FOX: A new Senate Republican-led bill aims to make sure Americans are well aware of what is real online and how to spot content generated by artificial intelligence (AI).

Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., is introducing legislation on Tuesday to direct relevant federal agencies to coordinate on the creation of a watermark for AI-made content, including enforcement rules. That watermark would then be required on any publicly distributed AI images, videos and other materials.

‘With Americans consuming more media than ever before, the threat of weaponized disinformation confusing and dividing Americans is real,’ Ricketts told Fox News Digital.

‘Deepfakes generated by artificial intelligence can ruin lives, impact markets and even influence elections. We must take these threats seriously.’

Ricketts said his bill ‘would give Americans a tool to understand what is real and what is made-up.’

Officials in the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission would be tasked with laying out the guidelines.

Earlier this month, search giant Google unveiled a new policy that would see technology known as SynthID used to permanently embed a watermark on an AI-generated image.

It comes amid concern over the pitfalls of AI’s rapid advancement as increasingly sophisticated technology becomes more accessible.

Financial markets had been shaken this year and briefly dipped when an image of what appeared to be an explosion at the Pentagon circulated on the internet in May. It turned out to be AI-generated.

There is also growing concern that hostile actors could wreak havoc on the 2024 U.S. elections by using fake AI content.

It’s part of what has prompted a flurry of AI hearings and legislation in Congress as lawmakers scramble to get ahead of the rapidly advancing technology.

But at least one expert told senators at an Energy Committee hearing last week that watermarks, while helpful to an extent, will likely not be enough to stop malign foreign actors from injecting fake AI content into American information channels.

‘There will be many open [AI] models produced outside the United States and produced elsewhere that, of course, wouldn’t be bound by U.S. regulation,’ said professor Rick Stevens of the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois.

‘We can have a law that says ‘watermark AI-generated content,’ but a rogue player outside the [country] operating in Russia or China or somewhere wouldn’t be bound by that and could produce a ton of material that wouldn’t actually have those watermarks. And so it could pass a test, perhaps.’

House lawmakers return to Capitol Hill for the first time in six weeks on Tuesday, but some factions have already begun to draw battle lines for Congress’ coming fight over how to fund the government for the next fiscal year.

The chamber is expected to vote on military funding this week, its second of 12 appropriations bills. Leaders in the House and Senate have both acknowledged that a deal must be struck on a stopgap funding bill, called a continuing resolution, to give both sides more time to reach an agreement.

If no deal is reached by Sept. 30, lawmakers risk sending the government into a partial shutdown.

As Speaker Kevin McCarthy works to build consensus within his House GOP majority, here are five major demands conservatives have made that could force a standoff between McCarthy’s conference and Democrats in charge of the Senate and White House.

DOJ weaponization

Allies of former President Donald Trump in Congress have called for an end to the ‘weaponization’ of the Justice Department in exchange for their support on any spending deal, particularly in the wake of the four indictments launched against the ex-president.

It was also a key part of the House Freedom Caucus’s formal position on agreeing to government funding.

The group called for measures aimed at the DOJ and FBI ‘to focus them on prosecuting real criminals instead of conducting political witch hunts and targeting law-abiding citizens.’

‘Woke’ Pentagon policies

Conservative Republicans are expected to put an emphasis on repealing the Biden administration’s progressive military policies on LGBTQ issues and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts as lawmakers debate the defense spending bill this week.

In an internal memo to lawmakers sent late last month, the 175-member Republican Study Committee (RSC) pointed out that a host of conservative, anti-‘woke’ policy items were passed in the House’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act in July. It said the bill secured ‘funding for the Department of Defense (DOD) while countering Biden’s woke attacks on military personnel.’

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, suggested to reporters on Monday that the defense appropriations bill might not even survive a floor vote if key demands in that area are not met.

‘If we want to try to get it across the finish line this week, I’m certainly open to having those conversations, but only if we get the policy changes that need to occur,’ Roy said. ‘Why would I fund transgender surgeries? Why would I fund the continued diversity, equity, inclusion officers that are dividing the Pentagon?’

Lower spending levels

McCarthy committed to Republicans to having the House pass appropriations bills at fiscal year 2022 spending levels, despite previously agreeing to roughly freeze spending at fiscal 2023 levels during negotiations with President Biden over raising the debt limit.

It’s already set the House on a collision course with the Senate, which is cobbling together its appropriations bills with toplines outlined by the McCarthy-Biden deal – about $120 billion dollars higher than the House GOP’s.

The demand for lower spending levels appears to be the most widely shared among House conservatives, though lawmakers have not settled on where to make those cuts.

Border security

Several hardliners in the GOP conference have called for any government spending deal to attach the party’s border security package, another wish-list item that’s virtually guaranteed to hit a wall of Democrat opposition.

Both the RSC memo and the Freedom Caucus’s official position have called for attaching the Secure the Border Act to an eventual continuing resolution, which lawmakers will likely need to pass to extend the current government funding priorities past Sept. 30 and avoid a shutdown.

Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., said last week that he believes there’s a number of Republicans ready to vote against a continuing resolution that does not tackle border issues.

‘We’re basically done with this. It’s time to do the right thing. Secure the southern border,’ Donalds said.

Impeaching Biden

While a significant number of House Republicans still appear wary of launching impeachment proceedings against President Biden, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., among the most vocal conservatives in the chamber, has made it a requirement of her support for a spending deal.

‘I’ve already decided: I will not vote to fund the government unless we have passed an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden,’ Greene told constituents at a town hall.

However, not all members of McCarthy’s right flank agree. Roy told reporters on Monday that impeachment and government spending are, and should be, two separate processes.