EXCLUSIVE: Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said he’s still awaiting a response from the White House about a meeting he requested between President Biden and Afghanistan Gold Star families, who will be in Washington, D.C., this month.

Issa sent a letter one week ago to Biden, asking to coordinate a meeting with the families of the fallen U.S. service members from the Kabul airport terrorist attack on Aug. 26, 2021, which occurred during the president’s chaotic military withdrawal.

The families were in Washington last week when Issa, a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, held a congressional forum, and the families reported feeling misled and betrayed by their own government.

‘After spending many meaningful days with them, I write to facilitate an opportunity for you to speak with them in person so you can finally take the time to listen and hear what they have to say,’ Issa wrote in an Aug. 10 letter to Biden, which was provided to Fox News Digital on Wednesday. ‘To date, that simply has yet to happen.’

‘By any objective measure, these families have been ignored by your administration as it has sought to ‘turn the page’ on the events surrounding the withdrawal and evacuation,’ Issa continued. ‘From questions surrounding personal effects of the fallen to details of the attack and the apparent lack of accountability, I have heard from the family members how they have felt ignored, lied to, and betrayed since their loved ones made the ultimate sacrifice.’

‘I believe you would greatly benefit from hearing the families’ experiences and their testimonials to their loved ones. With this in mind, I would be happy to coordinate a meeting between you and them,’ Issa concluded his letter. ‘Please do not hesitate to have your staff contact me.’

Issa said he’s yet to hear a response from Biden.

‘For two years, Joe Biden ignored and insulted these Gold Star parents as he turned the page on his disastrous decisions that cost our 13 service members their lives,’ Issa said in a statement to Fox News Digital. ‘He has yet to in any way make this right with the families. Does he have the courage to face them? Not yet.’

Fox News Digital asked the White House whether the president had a response to the request or whether the president had any plans to meet with the families, but it declined to comment.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul announced Tuesday that the full committee will hold a roundtable discussion on ‘Examining the Abbey Gate Terrorist Attack,’ which will include some of the Gold Star family members on Aug. 29.

During the committee’s hearing with the families last week, several called out Biden and his top Cabinet officials by name, calling on them to resign.

Kelly Barnett, the mother of Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover who spoke out last week and who will be a panelist during the roundtable this month, accused Biden officials of lying to her about her son’s death – and said she was told that he died immediately only for eyewitnesses to tell her he ‘lived for a little while.’

‘We were told lies, given incomplete reports, incorrect reports, total disrespect,’ Barnett said. ‘I was told to my face he died on impact. That’s not true. The only reason that I know this is because witnesses told me the truth. I was lied to and basically told to shut up.’

Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui’s father, Steve Nikoui, accused Biden during the hearing of using his Marine son ‘as a pawn so we can meet his Sept. 11th deadline and get the optics he wanted.’

‘My life and that of my family’s has been on pause since the early morning of Aug. 26, 2021,’ the emotional father said. ‘The difference between the minutes of my life before that and the minutes that passed after that day are contrasted drastically.’

Christy Shamblin, the mother-in-law of Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee, held back tears during the hearing when she described her reaction to Biden officials lauding the evacuation as a success.

‘When our leaders, including the secretary of defense and our commander in chief, called this evacuation a success, as if there should be celebration, it is like a knife in the heart for our families and for the people [who] came back,’ Shamblin said. ‘I live [every] single day knowing that these deaths were preventable. My daughter could be with us today.’

‘I can’t even begin to piece together the words that would convey to you the devastation that her murder has brought to our family,’ she said.

Nikoui, Shamblin and seven other family members are also listed as panelists for the Aug. 29 discussion.

When reached for comment last week about the families’ criticism, a White House official told Fox News Digital that the president and first lady ‘will always honor the sacrifices of the 13 servicemembers who were killed in that attack.’

‘We mourn with them, we remember their loved ones, and we will continue to support these Gold Star families,’ the official said. ‘We are enormously proud of the men and women of our military, our diplomats and the intel community who conducted that withdrawal – they performed bravely and helped evacuate more than 120,000 people in one of the largest airlifts in history.’

‘But more broadly, the President made the tough decision to end the 20-year war in Afghanistan because he was not going to send another generation of troops to fight and die in a conflict that had no end in sight,’ the official added.

Biden previously received criticism for his treatment of the Gold Star families immediately after the 2021 attack in Kabul.

Following the attack, Biden met in Dover, Delaware, with the family members of the 13 killed, but several of them later spoke out, accusing the president of repeatedly bringing up his late son, Beau, and saying he routinely checked his watch during the dignified transfer of the soldiers’ remains.

Cheyenne McCollum, one of the sisters of Marine Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum, said she met with Biden alongside McCollum’s pregnant widow and that the president would not look family members in the eye and spent the three-minute conversation talking about Beau, who served in Iraq with the Army and died in 2015 from brain cancer.

‘I was able to stand about 15 seconds of his fake, scripted apology and I had to walk away,’ Cheyenne told ‘Fox & Friends’ at the time.

Mark Schmitz, the father of Marine Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz, said Biden bristled and bluntly responded to his request that he learn the individual stories of the 13 fallen.

‘Initially, I wasn’t going to meet with him,’ Schmitz said at the time. ‘But then I felt I owed it to my son to at least have some words with him about how I felt, and it didn’t go well.’

The controversy had also resurfaced Biden’s reported past treatment of Gold Star families that predated the Afghanistan withdrawal.

For instance, Mike Iubelt, the father of the fallen Army Pfc. Tyler Iubelt, told the Washington Examiner in October 2019 that he had a ‘horrible experience’ meeting the now-president in 2016 after his son’s death in Afghanistan a few days earlier. Iubelt said he left their conversation ‘feeling worse’ than before.

‘He told my daughter-in-law … that she was too pretty for this to happen to her,’ Iubelt recalled. ‘It’s probably a good thing that he was surrounded by Secret Service, probably for both of us, because I’d probably be locked up in jail right now.’

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

A proposal to legalize recreational adult use of marijuana in Ohio was cleared Wednesday to appear on statewide ballots this fall after the Republican-led state Legislature failed to act on it.

The measure would allow adults 21 and over to buy and possess up to 2.5 ounces of cannabis and to grow plants at home. A 10% tax would be imposed on purchases, to be spent on administrative costs, addiction treatment programs, municipalities with dispensaries and social equity and jobs programs.

Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose determined that the Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol had submitted 127,772 valid signatures, more than the 124,046 needed to put the question before voters on Nov. 7.

In July, organizers had originally submitted fewer signatures than required, but were given 10 days to try again. During that grace period, they collected an additional 4,405 valid signatures.

If the issue passes, Ohio would become the 24th state to legalize cannabis for adult use.

‘This isn’t groundbreaking,’ Tom Haren, a coalition spokesperson, said in a statement when the signatures were submitted. ‘We’re just trying to get Ohio in line with neighbors like Michigan and Illinois.’

The proposal had a long journey to the ballot.

LaRose first submitted petitions to the Ohio General Assembly on behalf of the coalition on Jan. 28, 2022, triggering a four-month countdown for lawmakers to act. Republican legislative leaders indicated they did not intend to vote the proposal into law. Legislators also asserted that the coalition’s petition signatures weren’t turned in in time to make the 2022 ballot.

The coalition sued and, in a settlement, ultimately agreed to wait until 2023.

Marijuana has been legal for medical use in the state since 2016.

<!–>

–>

EXCLUSIVE: Democratic strategists are dismissing the criticism leveled at President Biden after he told reporters ‘no comment’ when asked on Sunday about the increased death toll from the wildfire that swept through the Hawaiian town of Lahaina last week.

Fox News Digital spoke with multiple strategists who said Biden’s response was out of character for someone known for empathy in tragic situations, and argued that he either didn’t fully hear the question or didn’t feel like he had all the knowledge necessary for a proper response at that moment.

‘What I suspect is he’s not been sufficiently briefed on it and would have been a little afraid to say something that turned out not to be correct,’ James Carville said, who added that Fox Digital’s request for comment was the first he had heard of Biden’s response. ‘You know, it’s better sometimes to say nothing than to say something wrong.’

Carville said that presidents and other politicians generally like to comment on natural disasters because it isn’t their fault, and they can help, but repeated that Biden was possibly not ‘factually comfortable enough’ to talk about it at the time.

‘I’m sure some creative right wing talk show person has figured out a way to make it Hunter’s fault. I’m sure Hunter Biden was behind it,’ he later quipped.

Fox News contributor Leslie Marshall said that she, and anybody else who knows Biden, knows that ‘he is a nice person’ who suffered his own loss when he lost a wife and daughter in a car accident and a son to cancer, and wouldn’t react coldly like his critics were portraying.

‘He’s lived — everybody wants to point out and say he’s lived a long time — through numerous disasters. Not just his own, but as a representative of his state and vice president and now as president,’ Marshall said. ‘I know that Joe Biden is not a cold person. I would also say that words don’t matter. And I know people think they do, but they don’t.’

Marshall recalled how people often want to say, ‘I’m sorry,’ when someone they know experiences a loss because they don’t know what else to say, but that it’s just ‘giving lip service to disaster.’

‘Maybe he didn’t hear what the reporter asked,’ she added while also echoing what Carville said in that Biden might not have wanted ‘to speak out improperly’ because of the situation’s fluidity.

Marshall went on to predict the situation wouldn’t ultimately be bad for his chances of winning re-election, and that people wouldn’t base their vote on this instance, especially in a deep-blue state like Hawaii.

As of Wednesday morning, the death toll from the devastating Maui fire reached 106.

Biden said Tuesday that he and First Lady Jill Biden plan to visit Hawaii as soon as possible, but he does not want his arrival to get in the way of recovery efforts.

Fox News’ Lawrence Richard contributed to this report.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission declined to vote Wednesday on whether the state’s top elections official should appear before a state Senate hearing on her reappointment as a fight continues over who will lead elections in the critical battleground state ahead of the 2024 presidential race.

Without clear instructions from commissioners, it is up to Meagan Wolfe, the commission’s administrator, to decide whether she will testify before Republicans who control the state Senate and wish to force a vote on firing her.

‘It is a really difficult spot,’ Wolfe said. ‘I feel like I am being put in an absolutely impossible, untenable position either way.’

Wolfe has been a target of conspiracy theorists who falsely claim she was part of a plan to rig the 2020 vote in Wisconsin, and some Republican leaders have vowed to oust her.

The bipartisan elections commission on June 27 deadlocked 3-3 along party lines on a vote to reappoint Wolfe, with Democrats abstaining in order to cause the nomination to fail. Without a nomination from at least four commissioners, a recent state Supreme Court ruling appears to allow Wolfe to continue indefinitely as head of the elections commission, even past the end of her term.

Senate Republicans tried to proceed with the reappointment process anyway, deciding in a surprise vote the following day to move ahead with a committee hearing and ultimately hold a vote on whether to fire her.

Commissioners said Wednesday they would not vote on a motion to either authorize or prohibit Wolfe from appearing at a hearing of the Senate elections committee, as it is not standard for the commission to decide those matters.

‘Meagan Wolfe is the chief elections officer for the state of Wisconsin. I have no interest in babysitting who she speaks to,’ said Democratic Commissioner Ann Jacobs.

The commission’s decision came despite partisan disagreements about the legitimacy of the Senate’s actions.

‘They do not have a nomination before them. I don’t care what they said in that resolution,’ Jacobs said. ‘I don’t have any interest in indulging the Legislature’s circus, which is based on a false reading of the law.’

But Don Millis, the Republican chair of the commission, argued that if Wolfe fails to appear, it could worsen the already tense situation.

‘They’re probably going to hold a hearing anyway,’ he said. ‘We’ve already seen what’s happened when we didn’t approve her nomination with four votes. I think that turned out very badly.’

The Senate has not yet set a date for the committee hearing on Wolfe’s reappointment, and Wolfe did not say at Wednesday’s meeting whether she will appear once a date has been set.

<!–>

–>

Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, demanded that beer giant Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB) cooperate with the committee’s probe ‘regarding marketing alcohol to children.’

Cruz sent a letter late Tuesday night to AB InBev CEO Michel Doukeris with regard to what he called the company’s ‘failure to comply’ with the committee’s investigation into the Bud Light-Dylan Mulvaney controversy and called on him to direct AB ‘to cooperate with the investigation.’

‘On May 17, I wrote to Anheuser-Busch [North America] CEO Brendan Whitworth requesting documents and information regarding alarming allegations that Anheuser-Busch was marketing beer to [minors] through its partnership with social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney,’ Cruz wrote.

‘In response to my letter and at my request, the Code Compliance Review Board (‘CCRB’ or ‘the Board’) of the Beer Institute, an industry-funded lobbyist group representing U.S. brewers, also initiated a review of Anheuser-Busch’s compliance with the beer industry’s self-imposed Advertising and Marketing Code,’ Cruz continued.

The Texas Republican wrote that a ‘dissenting opinion in the CCRB review by retired Judge Paul Summers, the only attorney on the Board, corroborated’ his concerns and said Summers explained ‘Mulvaney appeals to persons below the legal drinking age with a ’special attractiveness.”

Cruz also said Summers wrote in his dissenting opinion that AB ‘knew all this, or the company’s ‘leadership should have known,’ and found that Anheuser-Busch ‘violated the Code as to advertising and marketing to people below the legal drinking age.’’

‘Meanwhile, nearly three months have passed since I requested documents from Mr. Whitworth in my capacity as Ranking Member of the Commerce Committee, and Anheuser-Busch has yet to provide the Committee with a single document,’ Cruz wrote.

‘Anheuser-Busch’s failure to cooperate and blatant disregard for U.S. congressional oversight is unacceptable. Given your broader responsibility for the Anheuser-Busch InBev portfolio of more than 500 brands, I trust you share my sincere concern with the possibility that Anheuser-Busch is marketing alcohol to children and will direct Anheuser-Busch to cooperate immediately with the Commerce Committee’s investigation.’

Cruz wrote that the ‘level of cooperation the Committee receives will bear significantly’ on the senator’s ‘assessment of whether this is part of a broader problem’ across AB’s brands ‘and whether changes to federal law are necessary to prohibit Anheuser-Busch InBev from marketing beer to children.’

The senator said his ‘May 17th requests were designed to obtain pertinent information about how Bud Light selects marketing partners and applies beer industry guidelines in the context of social media.’

‘There are currently no federal laws against advertising alcohol to minors, in part because of the beer industry’s professed commitment to self-regulation. As Ranking Member on the Commerce Committee, it is my duty to ensure that the Beer Institute’s private regulatory regime is working; if it is not, then our Committee may be forced to consider legislating to protect consumers, including impressionable children,’ he said.

‘Congress cannot effectively weigh the costs and benefits of legislation unless it understands how brewers are adapting to the digital sphere. Anheuser-Busch’s response to my request is thus key to the Committee’s consideration of such potential legislation,’ Cruz wrote.

The Texas Republican said his ‘May 17th letter was initially met with a roughly page-long unsigned response from Anheuser-Busch failing to provide any documents’ and that ‘counsel to Anheuser-Busch refused to provide any documents, citing the then-ongoing CCRB review’ in ‘subsequent communications with the Committee.’

‘This is nonsensical. A review conducted by an industry trade association is not a substitute for congressional oversight. The CCRB’s review was limited in scope — the CCRB does not ‘investigate marketing partnerships’ and did not demand supporting evidence from Anheuser-Busch,’ said Cruz.

‘As CCRB Member Judge Summers observed, Anheuser-Busch ‘failed to provide the reasonable documentation’ requested in my letter and complaint, even though I had issued ‘reasonable requests’ and responses from Anheuser-Busch would have been ‘elucidating,’’ he added.

Cruz wrote that AB ‘persists in refusing to provide the requested documents, revealing plainly that the ongoing CCRB review was never the real reason for Anheuser-Busch’s refusal to cooperate’ and that the company ‘is now suggesting that CCRB review was sufficient, and that it need not cooperate with congressional document requests.’

‘This position is untenable; Anheuser-Busch does not decide whether and when a congressional investigation is concluded,’ Cruz wrote.

‘These dilatory tactics by your subsidiary must end. Otherwise, Anheuser-Busch InBev will leave Congress no choice but to infer this obstructionism is intended to shield inculpatory information from the Committee’s investigation,’ he also wrote.

A spokesperson for AB told Fox News Digital, ‘We are pleased that the Code Compliance Review Board (CCRB), an independent body, ruled that Anheuser-Busch was in compliance with the Beer Institute’s Advertising and Marketing Code.’

‘Anheuser-Busch takes its role in promoting responsible drinking very seriously, and our marketing is directed to adults of legal drinking age,’ the spokesperson said. ‘Since 1985, AB and its wholesaler partners have invested more than $1 billion in responsible drinking initiatives and community-based programs to prevent illegal underage drinking, impaired driving, and other harmful drinking behaviors.’

‘Anheuser-Busch, its 18,000 employees, and our 387 independent wholesaler partners take pride in our tradition of promoting responsible alcohol consumption,’ the spokesperson added.

The Beer Institute published a report on the Mulvaney controversy that included Cruz’s initial letter with Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., as well as AB’s response to the senators.

‘We complied with all provisions of the Beer Institute Advertising and Marketing Code,’ AB wrote. ‘This is true even under the general principles and guidelines that govern traditional advertising placements.’

‘At the time of the engagement, available data indicated that Mulvaney’s Instagram audience complied with the Beer Institute’s standards,’ the company continued. ‘In fact, Instagram as a platform predominantly consists of adults, with data indicating that almost 80% of users are over the age of 21.

‘Anheuser-Busch does not market its products to people below the legal drinking age. The Ad Code dates back almost 90 years and contains detailed procedures for the placement of advertising. We have long adhered to these rigorous requirements, and in each case, our marketing is directed to our consumers — adults of legal drinking age.’

The company wrote it is ‘proud’ of its ‘record of industry leadership and ongoing efforts to promote responsible drinking behaviors.

‘Together with our wholesaler partners, we employ more than 8,200 people across Texas and Tennessee, and the beer industry in total contributes more than $33 billion to your states’ economies,’ it added.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has proposed a commencement trial date of March 4, 2024, in the Georgia election case of former President Donald Trump and 18 other defendants, according to court filings obtained by Fox News. 

Willis is also proposing that arraignments for the defendants happen the week of Sept. 5. The dates are only a proposal for now and do not become official until signed by a judge. 

The proposed trial date is one day before elections on Super Tuesday, when the largest number of delegates are up for grabs of any single day in the primary cycle. For presidential candidates, it’s a day that can make or break a campaign. Roughly 14 primaries are set to be held across the country, from California and Texas to Massachusetts and Maine. 

Trump and 18 others were indicted Monday by a Fulton County grand jury. They are accused of committing various crimes as part of a scheme to keep Trump in power after his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

Trump is already scheduled to stand trial in March in the separate New York case involving dozens of state charges of falsifying business records in connection with an alleged hush money payment to a porn actor. He’s also scheduled to stand trial in May in the federal case brought by special counsel Jack Smith alleging he illegally hoarded classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate and thwarted government efforts to return them.

And Smith’s team is seeking a Jan. 2 trial date in the federal case over Trump’s efforts to overturn the election.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

A former fundraiser for Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., is facing wire fraud and identity theft for allegedly impersonating a high-ranking congressional aide, Fox News has learned. 

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn say Miele impersonated the former Chief of Staff of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy while soliciting contributions for Santos’ campaign. 

Miele was charged with four counts of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in an alleged scheme to defraud donors and obtain money for Santos under false pretenses. He was arraigned Wednesday morning and released on $150,000 bail. 

Prosecutors said Miele used a fake name and email address to trick at least a dozen prospective donors. Santos was not charged in the case. The indictment did not name the person who was impersonated by name. 

Miele pleaded not guilty to the charges in Brooklyn federal court and was released on a $150,000 bond. 

Miele’s attorney, Kevin Marino, said his client ‘is not guilty of these charges.’ 

‘He looks forward to complete vindication at trial as soon as possible,’ Marino said. 

Santos’ office referred all questions to his campaign.  

Federal prosecutors said Miele admitted to ‘faking my identity to a big donor’ in a letter sent to Santos last Sept. 26, a few months before Santos was elected. Miele said he was ‘high risk, high reward in everything I do,’ according to the indictment. 

Miele earned a commission of 15% for each contribution he raised, prosecutors said.

The indictment comes three months after Santos was arrested on charges of wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and making false statements to Congress. He has pleaded not guilty and insisted he has no plans to resign from Congress. 

The case against Santos involves separate allegations that he embezzled money from his campaign for personal use, lied to Congress about his finances and cheated his way into undeserved unemployment checks.

During his run for office, Santos fabricated swaths of his life story, falsely portraying himself as a wealthy Wall Street dealmaker when he had actually been struggling to pay his rent and had worked for a company accused of running a Ponzi scheme.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

EXCLUSIVE: Georgia’s Republican lieutenant governor, Burt Jones, is hitting back at the targeting of him and his role in connection with former President Donald Trump’s alleged effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state, as well as the indictments brought against Trump and others on Monday.

Speaking with Fox News Digital by phone just days after Trump and 18 of his allies were indicted by a grand jury in Fulton County, Jones, who was excluded from District Attorney Fani Willis’ investigation due to a conflict of interest, blasted the indictments and investigation as ‘sickening,’ and ‘partisan driven,’ but said he welcomed ‘the opportunity to speak to someone who is not a partisan actor’ so he could tell his side of the story once a special prosecutor is appointed.

‘I haven’t done anything wrong, and the people who are being indicted in Fulton County, I don’t think they’ve done anything wrong, either,’ Jones said. ‘They were expressing their opinions in a lot of cases, and for them to be charged and booked and fingerprinted, as if they’re common criminals is something that I just — it’s a little disturbing, to be honest with you.’

Jones, seen as a likely front-runner in the race to replace current Gov. Brian Kemp in the 2026 election, was one of the 16 so-called ‘fake’ electors who claimed Trump won Georgia and attempted to conduct a secret meeting at the State Capitol on Dec. 14, 2020, in an alleged effort to overturn President Biden’s victory in the state. Three of the 16 were indicted alongside Trump on allegations of forgery, false statements and impersonating a public officer, among other crimes.

‘Those were the most high-profile folks on there, and that’s who it looks like ended up getting indicted, was people who had either titles or name recognition. And it goes back to what I’ve said before, it is seemingly a self-serving political act by a district attorney here in Fulton County,’ Jones told Fox.

Jones’ exclusion from the investigation that led to the indictments came after Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ordered Willis to drop him in July 2022 because she hosted a fundraiser for Democrat Charlie Bailey, who was running against Jones for lieutenant governor in the general election that November.

As a result of that order, Georgia Prosecuting Attorneys Council Executive Director Pete Skandalakis decided to wait until an indictment was handed down before choosing whether to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Jones.

‘You read the news outlets — for them to portray that this is something new — it’s not,’ Jones told Fox, saying he knew a special prosecutor would ultimately be appointed following any indictments in the investigation.

When asked what he thought could happen to Trump as the trial progresses alongside the 2024 race for the White House, including potential jail time for the former president, Jones expressed hope that ‘truth will ultimately prevail.’

‘I don’t have a lot of faith in the process that I’ve witnessed so far in Fulton County. I do have faith in the justice system, and I do still believe we have the best justice system in the world,’ he said. ‘I think it’ll be a long, drawn out process, but I believe that the truth will ultimately come forward, and they will have a favorable ruling.’

Jones went on to blast Willis and the millions in taxpayer money he said had been spent on her investigation, along with the manpower involved — all while crime was on the rise across Atlanta.

Jones then ripped what some questioned as the suspicious timeline between the indictments against Trump coming almost immediately after revelations surrounding alleged corruption committed by the Biden family.

‘It’s not much different than Hillary Clinton and the mysterious whitewashing of the hard drive on computer that seemed to get zero attention,’ he said. ‘And now you fast-forward to Joe Biden and Hunter Biden.’ 

‘Joe Biden has been a career politician. He has been in public service for his entire adult life. But somehow he’s managed to amass a multimillion dollar estate on a $170,000 annual government salary. You tell me how that happens. I think he learned how to game the system, and I think his son —  the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree. I think he’s learned how to do it himself,’ he added.

Fox News’ Landon Mion and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Arizona Rep. Ruben Gallego, who is running for Senate as a Democrat, says that owning a gun has become as much a part of Republican culture as ‘little cow nuts’ on lifted pickup trucks.

Fox News Digital exclusively obtained the video footage of Gallego making the claim during a Thursday campaign event at Chalice Christian Church in Gilbert, Arizona.

Gallego was responding to an audience question on addressing gun violence, in particular school shootings.

The Arizona Democrat said ‘school shooting-level casualties happen every day in the streets of America’ and that ‘we don’t focus on trying to stop everyday gun violence because a lot of politicians are afraid of the NRA and the gun lobby.’

‘And also, even beyond the gun lobby, there is now weapons — and I don’t really call them guns. As a Marine, I call them weapons,’ Gallego continued. ‘Weapons have now become more of a cultural thing.’

‘It’s like, if you’re a Republican, you have to have a bunch of guns, a jacked-up truck with some of those little cow nuts hanging in the back,’ he said.

‘That’s your cultural identity now,’ he added.

Gallego said it’s ‘harder to pass’ gun restrictions because guns have ‘become part of an identity of a portion of America.’

‘But when you really put this out there, most Americans are for universal background checks. Bad people should not have weapons,’ Gallego said. ‘If you have been convicted of domestic violence, you should not have weapons; if you’re under a protective order, you should not have weapons.’

Gallego told Fox News Digital that his time defending America as a Marine during the Iraq War made him believe ‘weapons of war’ do not belong in children’s classrooms.

‘Carrying and using my M16 to defend myself and my fellow Marines in Iraq taught me that weapons of war have no place in our kids’ classrooms,’ Gallego said. ‘The glorification of weapons that are used to massacre kids is sickening.’

‘As a gun owner, I’m all for responsible gun ownership, but it needs to be just that – responsible,’ he continued. ‘The vast majority of Arizonans agree we need commonsense gun reform to keep our communities safe, and I’m committed to getting it done.’

Gallego is running to try and take independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s seat in Congress’ upper chamber.

The toss-up race will be a complex one with Sinema’s status as a former Democrat. Gallego is the leading candidate for the Democrat nomination.

The two left candidates will have to compete to take as much of the blue vote as they can, which will likely split between them if both are on the ballot.

Additionally, the splitting of the Democrat vote may propel the eventual Republican nominee into the Senate.

Currently, the leading declared GOP candidate is Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb.

Gallego has also fielded some controversy since launching his Senate campaign.

Gallego twice voted to protect a Biden administration rule that allows pension fund managers to use so-called environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors when choosing investments for workers’ retirement plans, which some lawmakers have likened to ‘woke’ banking practices focusing on left-wing agendas.

Gallego’s move, in turn, also guarded a close friend and donor’s company in which he’s invested. In 2019, the Democrat reported attaining up to $50,000 in non-public stock in Aspiration Fund Adviser LLC, a financial technology company that partners with FDIC-member banks. 

Gallego, however, had failed to divulge the purchase in his financial disclosure report until 2022 despite congressional members having to declare assets valued at more than $1,000.

Aspiration was founded in 2013 as a ‘digital bank for environmentally conscious consumers’ but has since concentrated on selling carbon credits, according to Forbes. It’s also one of only a few financial technology companies ‘fully embracing the booming movement around environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing,’ the publication wrote in 2021.

Aspiration disclosed that nearly 70% of its revenue comes from ESG services in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing from that same year.

The company was co-founded and is co-owned by Joe Sanberg, Gallego’s longtime friend and donor. The pair attended Harvard together, and Gallego took part in Sanberg’s 2021 wedding in Puerto Rico, social media posts show. Sanberg has provided more than $20,000 to Gallego’s campaigns and leadership PAC since 2014, according to a search of federal filings. 

Fox News Digital’s Joe Schoffstall and Aubrie Spady contributed reporting.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, on Wednesday, erupted during an interview and called for Congress to reject further funding for ‘that smirking son of a b—-‘ Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Roy, a border and deficit hawk, told KSEV radio host Chris Salcedo that Republicans in the House must withhold funding from the Department of Homeland Security until the crisis at the southern border is resolved. His heated remarks come after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy floated a short-term continuing resolution to extend Congress’ Sept. 30 deadline to fund the government.

McCarthy’s proposal is largely considered a ‘nonstarter’ for Roy and other conservative House Freedom Caucus members, who want Congress to cut back spending to pre-coronavirus pandemic levels. 

‘I will use every tool at my disposal to stop a continuing resolution structured that way,’ Roy vowed. He said Republicans must confront the Biden administration and force policy changes at the border by leveraging the power of the purse. 

‘We as a people, as a country, should stop it. And we as a Republican Congress should put our entire careers and our entire ownership of the House of Representatives on the line to stop funding that smirking son of a b—- Alejandro Mayorkas, who is the secretary of Homeland Security and shouldn’t be,’ said Roy. 

‘Not only should he be impeached, the entire organization should have funding withheld until we stop what’s happening at the border,’ he added. ‘Until these gutless losers in Washington recognize we’re supposed to use the power of the purse to stop it, nothing is going to change.’ 

The U.S. has seen record migrant numbers at the border since 2021, and while those numbers dipped in June, they have started accelerating again in July — with much of the traffic of humans and drugs across the border controlled by the cartels.

The Biden administration has taken several steps — including a collaborative law enforcement anti-smuggling campaign last year that led to thousands of arrests — to crack down on cartel smuggling. It has also made over 170 sanction designations of cartel leaders and members, often working with Mexico to do so. Last week, officials announced the sanctioning of three cartel members, including one nicknamed ‘The Anthrax Monkey.’

Republicans have called for more action, including military action against cartels in Mexico itself — which in turn brought a rebuke from Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. 2024 presidential candidate Will Hurd announced a plan on Saturday to treat cartels and smugglers like terrorists.

López Obrador has also targeted Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in recent weeks for Texas’ move to establish a floating border barrier along with the Rio Grande to prevent migrants from making the dangerous journey across the river. That barrier is also facing a lawsuit from the Department of Justice.

Fox News’ Bill Melugin and Adam Shaw contributed to this report.