Former 2020 Democratic White House hopeful Andrew Yang reportedly said he’s had ‘conversations’ with No Labels regarding the organization putting forward a third-party presidential run in 2024. 

In his discussion at Politico’s headquarters in Virginia while in town promoting his new novel, ‘The Last Election,’ Yang reportedly side-stepped when questioned if No Labels specifically approached him as possible candidate. 

‘I’ve had conversations with various folks who are associated with No Labels,’ Yang, who broke with the Democratic Party two years ago, told Politico. ‘We have a lot of friends and people in common.’ 

Yang, also a former New York City mayoral hopeful, remains listed as the co-chair for the Forward Party, a nonpartisan group promoting rank-choice voting and nixing partisan primaries, which he told Politico is focusing on local elections to impact national politics from the bottom up. 

By contrast, No Labels is pursuing access to the ballot in enough states to potentially put forward a third-party, centrist unity ticket to win the White House next year. Potential third-party candidates reportedly being considered include Republican New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, former U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, former Republican Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.

During his interview with Politico, Yang categorized himself as an ‘anyone-but-Trump guy.’ 

‘I would not run for president, if I thought that my running would be counterproductive, or if it would increase the chances of someone like Donald Trump becoming president again,’ he said. 

He also surmised a potential rematch between former President Donald Trump and President Biden in 2024 would be ‘terribly unrepresentative and borderline ridiculous,’ noting both candidates’ ages. 

‘I mean, you’re talking about two guys whose combined age is 160,’ Yang told Politico. ‘In a country of 330 million people, you would choose these two gentlemen at this stage? I mean, it makes zero sense.’

Especially cynical of Biden’s chances, Yang laid out scenarios where a third-party candidates would hurt the current president’s likelihood of a second term. 

Yang predicted Cornel West, who is running on a Green Party ticket, to draw two to three percent of voters in 2024, representing a large share of the vote Jill Stein received in 2016. Yang also said he expected current Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to change to a Libertarian Party, saying Kennedy could draw a similar number of voters as West. Yang stressed presidential elections are decided by a few hundred thousand votes across key swing states but declined to say which candidate he’d personally vote for if he lived in those states. 

‘I mean, the field’s still coming together,’ Yang said.

Protesters stormed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s Congressional office on Tuesday, demanding that he and other House Republicans re-up funding for an AIDs relief program.

Protesters with Housing Works pressed their way into McCarthy’s office and refused to move until Capitol Hill Police arrived and arrested them. The group was demanding a 5-year reauthorization of the PEPFAR global AIDs relief program, which they say has saved ’25 million lives.’

Images of the incident show protesters sitting on the floor of McCarthy’s office and linking arms as bemused staffers remain at their posts.

‘We’re proud to use nonviolent civil disobedience, among other tactics, to demand that our government take action to end AIDS,’ the group wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

McCarthy’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the incident, but Capitol Police confirmed to Fox News Digital that they arrested seven individuals.

‘This morning, multiple individuals were demonstrating inside a House Office Building. After the demonstrators refused to cease demonstrating, USCP then arrested the 4 males and 3 females for Unlawful Entry,’ Capitol Police said in a statement.

Congress has until September 30 to re-up the law guaranteeing funding for the PEPFAR program, but agreement on the issue appears unlikely. The law had previously been renewed on a five-year rolling basis.

The program will still continue if Congress does not renew the law, but its funding will become subject to the annual budget battle.

McCarthy is already facing an impending battle over the annual budget as House lawmakers return to the Capitol for the first time in six weeks on Tuesday. 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.

Fox News Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.

EXCLUSIVE: Internal government communications obtained by Fox News Digital show administration officials scrambled to respond to information requests pertaining to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s use of government jets.

According to the communications, officials within the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) independent office that handles Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests actively consulted with a spokesperson for Buttigieg and a senior FAA official appointed by President Biden when processing the requests. In addition, they discussed how to sort data, enabling them to avoid sharing taxpayer costs of Buttigieg’s flights.

‘It’s become increasingly clear that the Biden administration is engaging in purposeful political meddling to protect Secretary Buttigieg and hide the true cost of his taxpayer-funded private jet travel,’ Caitlin Sutherland, the executive director of government watchdog group Americans for Public Trust, told Fox News Digital. 

‘They continue to willfully ignore public disclosure laws, confirming the unofficial motto of this administration: Rules for thee, but not for me.’

In December, Fox News Digital reported that, based on flight tracking data, Buttigieg had taken 18 trips on an FAA-managed fleet of executive aircraft, reserved for government officials for occasions when flying commercial isn’t feasible. The flight records aligned with Buttigieg’s internal calendar obtained at the time by Americans for Public Trust.

Following that report, Fox News Digital filed an FOIA request for detailed information and costs of all flights logged by FAA planes since early 2021. For months, the DOT FOIA office repeatedly delayed providing the requested information. 

Then, on Feb. 27, the FAA finally shared the flight log for its private jets almost immediately after the Transportation Department’s inspector general announced an investigation into Buttigieg’s use of the planes. The FOIA office, though, opted to leave costs associated with all the flights carrying Buttigieg and his advisers blank and ignored multiple attempts for clarification.

One day later, Fox News Digital filed a second FOIA request, asking for all internal communications related to the first request from December. Those communications were turned over this month.

‘One thing I did discuss with Randa: where we provide the ‘…cost the FAA charged for the flight…’, to use a header for that column that is something like ‘OMB Circ A-126 Cost,’’ Wil Riggins, the vice president of the FAA Flight Program Operations office, said in a Jan. 20 email to other officials discussing the Fox News Digital request from December.

Randa appears to be a reference to Alexandra Randazzo, a senior FAA attorney.

The email from Riggins — who remains the most senior official in the Flight Program Operations office which maintains the government jets — came in response to an email thread from a month prior in which a senior adviser said they would hold on any action related to the request until ‘preliminary discussion’ was conducted. 

Further, by altering how costs for the flights requested by Fox News Digital were defined, the FAA appeared to have found a loophole to avoid sharing such cost information.

On Jan. 30, six days after his email, Riggins then abruptly contacted Transportation Department spokesperson Benjamin Halle and FAA Assistant Administrator for Communications Matthew Lehner, who Biden appointed to the position in 2021, to arrange a conference call discussing the FOIA request. The call took place less than an hour later.

‘Wil, is it possible to send over the spreadsheet when you get a sec? I know it’ (sic.) not final, I just want to check it against our record to make sure what we have is all accurate,’ Halle emailed after the call.

Riggins responded shortly after with the entire flight log of Buttigieg’s flights on government jets. In addition, on Jan. 30, FOIA manager Dean Torgerson informed other officials that the responsive records were compiled, meaning the entirety of the records Fox News Digital requested were produced about a month before the FAA finally shared them on Feb. 27.

The communications additionally show Riggins repeatedly delayed giving his final signature on the FOIA production for reasons unknown to lower-level FOIA managers. 

At one point, on Feb. 14, a senior adviser to Riggins arranged a phone call with Torgerson who inquired about the delay. A week later, on Feb. 27, when Torgerson was asked by others whether the FOIA records had been given a final signature, he said he ‘advised that their Deputy VP can sign on behalf of the VP.’

After additional back-and-forth, Torgerson was informed on Feb. 27 at 1:10 p.m. that Riggins had finally signed off on the records, allowing them to be shared with Fox News Digital. Four minutes later, The Washington Post, citing information given to it by the Department of Transportation, scooped that agency’s inspector general had opened its probe into Buttigieg.

After the FOIA was shared, Fox News Digital emailed the FOIA office multiple times, asking for clarification on why the taxpayer costs of Buttigieg’s flights were omitted. While the agency never responded, the emails show officials discussed the issue offline.

‘The FAA follows FOIA requirements and regulations which include ensuring a complete response,’ the FAA said in a statement to Fox News Digital. ‘We routinely provide internal notifications about FOIA updates and responses.’

Riggins did not respond to a request for comment.

And in a separate email to Fox News Digital, Lehner said it is standard FAA practice that the FOIA office advises ‘when a media FOIA is released.’ However, the emails showed Lehner communicated with Riggins several weeks before the FOIA was released.

Democratic New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is facing widespread pushback from state law enforcement officials following her attempt to ban concealed and open carry permits.

Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen described Grisham’s 30-day ‘public health order’ as ‘unconstitutional’ during a press conference this week despite standing beside the governor during her rollout of the policy.

‘It’s unconstitutional, so there’s no way we can enforce that order,’ the sheriff said in a Monday news conference. ‘This ban does nothing to curb gun violence.’

‘We must always remember not only are we protecting the Second Amendment, but at the same time, we have a lot of violence within our community. Let me be clear, I hold my standards high, and I do not or never will hedge on what is right.’

Grisham issued an emergency order on Friday suspending the right to carry guns in public across Albuquerque and the surrounding Bernalillo County for at least 30 days following recent instances of gun violence.

The governor said she expects the order to face legal challenges, but she believes she needed to act in response to recent gun-related deaths, such as an 11-year-old boy who was shot and killed outside a minor league baseball stadium earlier this week.

The suspension was classified as an emergency public health order and applies to open and concealed carry in most public places, excluding police and licensed security guards. The restriction is connected to a threshold for violent crime rates met only by the Albuquerque area.

Allen claims he pressured against the public health order, saying ‘[Grisham] knew we as law enforcement did not agree with the order, and as a result, this was solely her decision.’

Grisham fired back at Allen following his press conference, ordering the law enforcement official to ‘stop being squeamish’ about enforcing the order.

‘I don’t need a lecture on constitutionality from Sheriff Allen: what I need is action,’ Grisham said in a statement responding to Allen. ‘What we need is for leaders to stand up for the victims of violent crime. We need law enforcement, district attorneys, public officials, school leaders and state agencies to use every single tool at their disposal to stop this violence. Period.’

She continued, ‘We’ve given you the tools, Sheriff Allen — now stop being squeamish about using them. I will not back down from doing what’s right and I will always put the safety of the people of New Mexico first.’

Violators could face civil penalties and a fine of up to $5,000, according to the governor’s spokeswoman Caroline Sweeney. The governor said state police are responsible for enforcing the order, but she acknowledged not all law enforcement officials – including the district attorney for the Albuquerque area – agree with it.

Lujan Grisham cited several recent shootings in Albuquerque when issuing the order, including the Wednesday shooting outside the Albuquerque Isotopes’ field that left 11-year-old Froyland Villegas dead and a woman critically wounded. The two were inside a vehicle that was sprayed with bullets as people were leaving the game.

On Aug. 13, 5-year-old Galilea Samaniego was shot and killed as she slept when four teens entered a mobile home community in two stolen vehicles and opened fire on the home. The girl was shot in the head and died from her injuries at a hospital.

Another deadly shooting took place in August in Taos County when a 14-year-old boy used his father’s gun to shoot and kill his friend, 13-year-old Amber Archuleta, while they were at the boy’s home.

Fox News Digital’s Landon Mion contributed to this report.

Fox News Digital has confirmed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., will tell House Republicans today that beginning an impeachment inquiry against President Biden is ‘the logical next step.’ 

The House GOP conference plans to hold a meeting on Thursday morning for key committee chairs to lay out their latest findings and the status of the investigations into the Biden family. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., are expected to lead Thursday’s meeting. 

At the meeting, McCarthy is expected to say an impeachment inquiry is the ‘logical next step’ for the Republican majority. An inquiry is the first step of the impeachment process, where evidence is gathered for the articles, or charges, of impeachment against an official. 

This special conference meeting on Thursday is in addition to Wednesday morning’s regularly scheduled weekly GOP meeting where leadership typically lays out priorities for the week. Thursday’s scheduled meeting was first reported by Punchbowl News. 

Sources previously told Fox News Digital that Republicans were planning to launch an impeachment inquiry into Biden this month. Three separate GOP-led committees have investigated allegations that Hunter Biden leveraged his father’s official government positions to secure foreign business deals. The open question for Republican lawmakers is whether President Biden ever personally benefited from his son’s deals or abused the power of his office to influence them in any way. 

McCarthy said last month that an impeachment inquiry would only happen with a formal House vote. 

‘To open an impeachment inquiry is a serious matter, and House Republicans would not take it lightly or use it for political purposes. The American people deserve to be heard on this matter through their elected representatives,’ McCarthy told Breitbart News in a statement. ‘That’s why, if we move forward with an impeachment inquiry, it would occur through a vote on the floor of the People’s House and not through a declaration by one person.’

That means 218 lawmakers will need to support an impeachment inquiry against Biden, and it is not at all certain House Republicans have the votes to do it. Several GOP lawmakers including Reps. Ken Buck, R-Colo., and Don Bacon, R-Neb., have voiced skepticism about impeachment. Even some House conservatives who support impeachment have complained about the timing, with Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C., telling Fox News Digital last week it appeared McCarthy was ‘dangling’ the issue to avoid a confrontation over spending ahead of the next deadline to fund the government. 

The House Freedom Caucus and other conservatives have urged McCarthy to force deeper spending cuts and to attach GOP priorities to any short or long-term deal, though that’s unlikely to get Senate or White House approval. They view the last debt-limit deal as a betrayal because it did not significantly curtail government spending. 

‘Hiding behind impeachment to screw America with status quo massive funding … will not end well,’ Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, warned GOP leaders earlier this month.

With such a narrow House majority, Republicans can only afford to lose five votes from their conference in an impeachment inquiry vote. Were the House to reject impeachment, it would be a major embarrassment for McCarthy and House Republicans, who would have nothing to show voters for their investigations in next year’s general election.

At the same time, impeachment hardliners like Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., have threatened to attempt to remove McCarthy if the House does not follow through with an impeachment vote. 

McCarthy’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

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

Fox News’ Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report. 

Burbank Mayor Konstantine Anthony was spanked by a drag queen at the Santa Clarita Valley Democrats’ Drag Queen Bingo fundraiser on Saturday.

A video depicts Anthony bent over a table people sat at as a drag queen whacked him with a paddle.

The video was posted to Instagram by the Wisenuts Podcast and caught wind online after being reposted by the popular X account Libs of TikTok.

Local press reported that the fundraiser was billed as being for ages 15 and up, but that it was ‘not suitable for children.’

Libs of TikTok wrote that Anthony was spanked by the drag queen in front of children, but the Burbank mayor says there were no children present at the event.

‘No children were in attendance,’ Anthony told Fox News Digital. ‘All attendees were over 21 years of age.’

Anthony also said, ‘It has been confirmed that there were no attendees under the age of 21.’

In an Instagram comment on the original video post, Anthony wrote, ‘Jealous?’

The video of Anthony comes as California parents share their concerns with a new rule that could have their kids become wards of the state.

A California mom concerned about a new state measure requiring judges to consider whether a parent has affirmed their child’s belief that they are transgender during custody battles warned Sunday that the policy could have disastrous implications.

‘This is the steady assault on family and children that we’ve been seeing this legislative session and throughout the past couple of years in California,’ Nicole Pearson, a mom of three and a member of the newly-formed ‘Protect Kids California’ group, told Fox News.

‘If both parents are conservative, and they are not comfortable affirming their child, what does that mean? The way that we read the law is that both will be jeopardizing the child’s health, safety and welfare… does that mean that the state will find that both are endangering or neglecting or even abusing their child and remove custody from both parents? And if no one is available to step up and take custody of the child, that child becomes a ward of the state. 

‘People need to be paying attention to what’s happening here in California,’ she continued.

The California State Assembly passed AB 957 on Friday, dealing a blow to parental rights advocates like Pearson who warned the policy could jeopardize parental custody rights because they disagree with the child’s decision to identify with a gender that does not correspond with their biological sex.

Fox News Digital’s Taylor Penley contributed reporting.

A Virginia Democratic candidate running for the commonwealth’s House of Delegates is being accused of performing sex acts with her husband in front of an online audience and encouraging viewers to send them ‘tip’ money.

Nurse practitioner Susanna Gibson, who is running in a competitive race in suburban Richmond for the House of Delegates in the 57th district, reportedly used a platform called Chaturbate to stream sex acts with her husband.

Gibson, a 40-year-old mother of two, is said to have posted more than a dozen videos that were archived on a site called Recurbate in September 2022, which is after she officially entered the race, and the most recent videos were archived on Sept. 30, 2022, The Washington Post reported Monday. 

The videos were no longer available to be viewed on Recurbate as of this weekend after the Post says it was tipped off by a GOP operative. However, the outlet says it viewed two of the videos that remained live on another non-password protected site. 

Gibson reportedly violated Chaturbate’s terms and conditions by soliciting tips in order to perform specific sex acts and could be seen on video telling viewers that she was raising money for a ‘good cause.’

Gibson is said to have told viewers that she will perform specific sex acts in a ‘private room’ if viewers pay her more ‘tokens.’

‘I need, like, more tokens before I let him do that,’ Gibson told viewers in one video, referring to performing a sex act with her husband.

Gibson’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

Gibson told The Washington Post that the incident represents an ‘an illegal invasion of my privacy designed to humiliate me and my family.’

‘It won’t intimidate me and it won’t silence me,’ Gibson added. ‘My political opponents and their Republican allies have proven they’re willing to commit a sex crime to attack me and my family because there’s no line they won’t cross to silence women when they speak up.’

Gibson’s lawyer, Daniel P. Watkins, told the outlet that spreading the videos could be a violation of the state’s revenge porn law, a Class 1 misdemeanor.

‘We are working closely with state and federal law enforcement,’ Watkins said.

Gibson is set to face her GOP opponent, David Owen, in a Nov. 7 election.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., declared Monday that states ‘should consider’ seceding from the United States over President Biden’s border policies.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, on the 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Greene said Americans are ‘drowning from Biden’s traitorous’ policies on the U.S.-Mexico border.

‘If the Biden admin refuses to stop the invasion of cartel led human and drug trafficking into our country, states should consider seceding from the union,’ she wrote.

‘From Texas to New York City to every town in America, we are drowning from Biden’s traitorous America last border policies,’ she added.

Greene has touted a ‘national divorce’ for years, sparking backlash from her own party. In the latest instance, she suggested a split in the union based on party lines as the nation celebrated Presidents’ Day.

‘We need a national divorce,’ she wrote on Feb. 20. ‘We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government. Everyone I talk to says this. From the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our throats to the Democrat’s traitorous America Last policies, we are done.’

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, previously blasted the proposal as ‘evil.’

‘This rhetoric is destructive and wrong and — honestly — evil,’ Cox wrote. ‘We don’t need a divorce, we need marriage counseling.’

‘And we need elected leaders that don’t profit by tearing us apart,’ Cox continued. ‘We can disagree without hate.’

‘Healthy conflict was critical to our nation’s founding and survival,’ the governor added.

Greene fired back at Cox and doubled down on her comments in February, writing, ‘People agree with me and not the RINO governor of Utah.’

‘People saying national divorce is a bad idea because the left will never stop trying to control us literally make the case for national divorce,’ she later wrote. ‘We don’t want a civil war. We’re not surrendering. We’re tired of complaining with no change and want to protect our way of life.’

Fox News’ Houston Keene contributed to this report.

The Biden administration has struck a deal with Iran to swap prisoners and release $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds. 

Per the deal, Iran will release five American citizens detained in Iran and the U.S. release five Iranian citizens being held in the U.S. 

The deal creates a blanket waiver to transfer $6 billion in frozen Iranian money from South Korea to Qatar without fear of violating U.S. sanctions. The United States classifies Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken signed off on the deal late last week, but Congress was not notified of the decision until Monday, the 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, according to the notification, which was obtained by The Associated Press.

The transfer of the $6 billion was the critical element in the prisoner release deal, which saw four of the five American detainees transferred from Iranian jails into house arrest last month. The fifth detainee had already been under house arrest.

Due to numerous U.S. sanctions on foreign banks that engage in transactions aimed at benefitting Iran, several European countries had balked at participating in the transfer. Blinken’s waiver is aimed at easing their concerns about any risk of U.S. sanctions.

The deal has already begun to garner some criticism. Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who focuses on Iranian security, argued that releasing the funds ‘will only feed Tehran’s appetite to keep taking hostages.’ 

‘And as the case of the recently revealed Swedish diplomat illustrates, dual-nationals and foreign citizens are not the only targets. Tehran even intends to extort foreign government officials!’ he said. 

‘Indeed, the Islamic Republic showcased for the world a willingness to take hostages less than a year since its inception. Worse, freeing-up the $6 billion forgets why it was frozen in the first place. Even the Obama administration, who signed sanctions bills into law creating those escrow accounts, did not trust Iran to stop funding its nuclear or military programs using oil money.’

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, argued that the $6 billion ‘payout’ will go to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its proxies. 

‘This will only greenlight Iran’s illicit actions and encourage further hostage ‘diplomacy,’’ Ernest argued. ‘Biden’s failed strategy of appeasement must end.’ 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

President Biden claimed Monday, without evidence, that he stood at Ground Zero in New York City viewing the damage from the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks just one day later, despite records showing he was in Washington, D.C. that day.

‘Ground Zero in New York — I remember standing there the next day and looking at the building. I felt like I was looking through the gates of Hell, it looked so devastating because the way you could — from where you could stand,’ Biden said during his speech at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska marking the devastating acts of terrorism 22 years ago.

However, according to C-SPAN coverage of U.S. Senate proceedings on September 12, 2001, Biden was in Washington, D.C. and gave a speech on the floor of the Senate. Records show the Senate met in the morning, and a classified briefing was held for all senators that afternoon at 2:00 p.m. ET. 

Records also show Biden participated in a joint resolution vote condemning the terrorist attacks later that afternoon. Biden was the Democratic manager of the resolution.

According to a report by The New York Post, Biden also contradicted his own claim in his autobiography detailing his actions after the attacks. Biden said in the book that he ‘headed back to the Capitol’ on September 12, and made no mention of visiting Ground Zero that day.

The report also noted a Gannett News Wire report from Sept. 12, 2001 stating, ‘Delaware Sen. Joe Biden spent Wednesday exactly where he wanted — in the U.S. Senate.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment, but its response pointed to Biden’s visit to Ground Zero on September 20, 2001, and did not respond to questions pertaining to his claim he was there on September 12, 2001.

Biden’s claim comes as he faces scrutiny from families of 9/11 victims for not visiting any of the sites of the attacks on Monday, and for giving his speech marking the day in Alaska. With the move, he became the first U.S. president in 22 years to neither spend the day at an attack site nor the White House.

Biden stopped in Alaska following a trip overseas to India and Vietnam. Vice President Kamala Harris is among the elected officials attending events at the National September 11 Memorial in New York City. 

Fox News’ Taylor Penley contributed to this report.