Do you believe the government is hiding something?

What about if we asked if you think the government is hiding something about UFOs?

‘I believe there is something else out there,’ said Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., at a recent press conference. ‘Dadgumit, whatever the truth may be, we’re done with the cover-up.’

Burchett leads the House’s second big hearing on UFOs in 15 months Wednesday.

Burchett certainly falls into the category of believing the government is hiding something. He says his constituents do, too.

‘I’m stopped every weekend back in Knoxville,’ said Burchett. ‘People will stop me and tell me about their experiences (with UFOs). Decorated veterans. Why would they risk their reputations and careers over something that they’re lying about?’

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., is an Air Force veteran who aligns with Burchett when it comes to UFOs.

‘If we continue to get stonewalled, if we smell that they’re giving us a bunch of BS, we are going to do the field hearings directly at those locations,’ said Luna of the military. ‘Full transparency really is what we need in this situation.’

Toss Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., into the camp of those who are skeptical about what the government is saying about UFOs – or UAPs as they’re sometimes called. That’s short for unidentified aerial phenomena.

‘It is really about getting to greater government transparency,’ said Moskowitz. ‘If the answers are, ‘No, there are no unidentified aerial phenomena,’ then say that. But that’s not what the answers are. The answer are, ‘We can’t tell you.’ And so that leads to speculation.’

Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., characterized himself as a UFO skeptic. But he joined with Burchett, Luna and Moskowitz about getting to the truth on UAPs – and shutting off noise and conjecture.

‘I don’t give into conspiracies,’ said Burlison. ‘But too often the federal government works outside of the public eye and in conspiracies. Rumors tend to flourish in places where the federal government is silent or not transparent.’

The House Intelligence Committee held the first open hearing in five decades on UFOs last spring. It took some cajoling, but Burchett managed to schedule a House Oversight subcommittee to conduct its hearing on UFOs Wednesday.

Among the witnesses:

Ryan Graves, executive director of Americans for Safe Aerospace. Graves was a Navy pilot who flew F/A-18F Super Hornets. He reported multiple sightings during training flights. Graves grew concerned that UAPs posed safety risks to American pilots.

Cmdr. David Fravor is a former Navy aviator. He spotted a UAP during a 2004 training mission. He shot what is known in UFO circles as the ‘Tic Tac’ video. The UAP looked like a flying Tic Tac hard candy.

Then, there is a whistleblower.

David Grusch is a former intelligence officer who saw action in Afghanistan. He led the UAP task force for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Grusch told lawmakers the government may have in its possession pieces of a non-human spacecraft and potentially, the remains of an extra-terrestrial pilot.

‘We’re going to have witnesses who can speak frankly to the public about their experiences. We’ve had a heck of a lot of pushback about this hearing. We’ve had members of Congress who fought us. We’ve had members of the intelligence community and also the Pentagon. Even NASA backed out on us,’ said Burchett. ‘There are a lot of people who don’t want this to come to light.’

This comes back to the old Latin maxim, ‘falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.’

Lie once, perhaps you’re lying all the time.

If the government is covering up UFOs, what else might it hide?

‘If they can do it here, what else are they doing?’ asked Moskowitz. ‘That’s a scary thought that they don’t trust us.’

Bipartisan lawmakers accused the Pentagon of blocking attempts to talk to pilots and see UAP photos when they traveled to Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.

‘We actually got into an argument with the general of that base,’ said Luna. 

Burchett doubts the purported technology belongs to American adversaries like China or Russia.

‘If Russia owned it, they wouldn’t be battling in Ukraine. It’d be over,’ said Burchett.

Many military personnel and civilians have described various UFOs as maneuvering and gyrating in ways that don’t comport with contemporary science. They also accelerate and dash away at insane speeds – believed in one instance to be as fast as 13,000 mph.

‘When you see the Tic Tac videos and listen to the pilots, it defies all of our laws of physics,’ said Burchett. ‘The human body would not be able to withstand the pressure from this thing.’

After last year’s hearing, Congress tucked a provision into the annual defense policy bill to require the military document and review claims of UAPs. Lawmakers say the Pentagon sometimes ignored reports of UAPs – and viewed those who say they saw the unexplained as kooks.

Many lawmakers are pleased with the new reporting and documentation system. But Burchett is far from satisfied. Senior administration officials are coy when pressed about UAPs and the new reporting regime.

‘We’re not saying what they are,’ said National Security Council spokesman John Kirby when asked about UAPs. ‘We’re saying it has had an effect on some of our training operations.’

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wants to add a provision to this year’s defense bill to create a special agency dedicated to studying UFOs and de-classifying certain information.

LAWMAKERS CLAIM UFO ‘COVER-UPS’ FROM PENTAGON, MILITARY AS WITNESSES HEAD TO CONGRESS

‘It’ll be very helpful for the American people to see exactly what’s there,’ said Schumer. ‘Otherwise, there are all sorts of rumors flying around.’

To say nothing of UAPs.

However, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., is unconvinced about the existence of UFOs.

‘If we had found a UFO, I think the Department of Defense would tell us because they probably want to request more money,’ said McCarthy.

And if the spacecraft are evidence of aliens from another galaxy, cruising through the Milky Way, could humans accept the premise that we are not alone?

Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind., is a member of the House Intelligence Committee. He convened last year’s hearing on UAPs.

‘We saw what happened with the (Orson Welles radio broadcast) ‘War Of the Worlds.’ We saw what happened in 1947 (in Roswell, New Mexico). We saw what happened with radio programs in the ‘30s and folks were jumping out of buildings,’ said Carson.

Perhaps the best quotation about these circumstances doesn’t come from movies like ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ or ‘E.T. the Extraterrestrial.’ It may emanate from ‘A Few Good Men.’

Can the public ‘handle the truth?’

‘Are we OK with the federal government keeping information from the American people because they’re trying to prevent us from having anxiety on all sorts of issues?’ asked Moskowitz. ‘What else are we going to give them authority to not tell the American people because they’re interested in controlling and keeping us in a bubble?’

Yours truly asked Carson if he could deal with learning that the alleged aircraft are otherworldly.

Carson chuckled. 

‘I’m a Muslim. I’m a Black man. I’m from Indiana,’ said Carson. ‘I can deal with a lot.’ 

But is everyone else ready for this? 

Burchett gently chided the press corps.

‘Every time you play this (news conference), you play the theme from the X-Files. I get it,’ said Burchett. ‘You better be careful about a government that doesn’t trust its people because there’s no telling what they’ll pull on you.’

Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams offered a bizarre response after a woman appeared to curse him out over his treatment of homeless people on Monday.

After a woman, who appeared to be protesting, screamed obscenities at Adams, the New York City mayor responded that ‘one should be happy’ if another person wants to ‘make love to them.’ The eyebrow-raising exchange came during a press conference Adams hosted to unveil his efforts to remove scaffolding from city streets and kickstart a recovery of the city’s business district.

‘F— you, a–hole!’ the protester appeared to say during the press conference Monday.

‘She said I’m messing with homeless people,’ Adams responded, chuckling. ‘One should be happy if someone wants to make love to them. You know?’

Adams didn’t explain what he meant, instead taking a question from a reporter on an unrelated topic. His office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

New York City continues to experience rising homelessness that is at its highest level since the Great Depression of the 1930s, according to the Coalition for the Homeless. As of December 2022, there were 68,884 homeless people, including 21,805 children, housed in New York City’s main shelter system.

The press conference Monday comes less than a month after Adams was criticized over his similarly-bizarre response to a woman concerned about high rent prices. That woman interrupted Adams during a town hall event in June to accuse the mayor of raising New York City rent and supporting increases

‘If you are going to ask a question, don’t point at me and don’t be disrespectful to me,’ Adams told the woman. ‘I’m the mayor of the city. Treat me with the respect I deserve to be treated. I’m speaking to you as an adult. Don’t stand in front like you treating someone that’s on the plantation that you own. Give me the respect I deserve and engage in the conversation up here in Washington Heights.’ 

‘Treat me with the same level of respect I treat you,’ Adams continued. ‘So, don’t be pointing at me, don’t be disrespectful to me. Speak with me as an adult because I’m a grown man. I walked into this room as a grown man, and I’ll walk out of this room as a grown man. I answered your question.’

On June 21, the New York City Rent Guidelines Board announced recommendations paving the way for landlords to increase rents by 3% this year. Adams endorsed the board’s decision, saying it found the ‘right balance.’

It was later revealed the woman Adams compared to a plantation owner was housing activist Jeanie Dubnau whose family fled to New York City from Nazi Germany in the mid-1900s.

Lawmakers should take action to address a judge’s ruling that Pennsylvania’s system of funding public schools violates the constitutional rights of students in poorer school districts now that the decision won’t be appealed, lawyers for the districts and groups that sued said Monday.

The deadline to appeal the February decision came and went over the weekend, the lawyers said.

The lawsuit, filed in 2014, argued that Pennsylvania’s system of paying for public schools is failing the poorest districts and lawyers for the plaintiffs contend that billions more dollars are necessary to meet the state’s constitutional obligation.

While the judge agreed, she also did not direct the Legislature on how much state aid to distribute, or how. Lawyers for the plaintiffs — including six school districts, the NAACP and the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools — want lawmakers to comply with the judge’s ruling.

‘The decision is now final and there is no excuse for state lawmakers to delay action any further,’ the plaintiffs’ lawyers — from the Public Interest Law Center, the Education Law Center and the law firm of O’Melveny — said in a statement.

Leaders of the House and Senate Republicans in Pennsylvania had opposed the lawsuit. They hadn’t previously said whether they would appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court and did not immediately comment Monday.

Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, had supported the plaintiffs.

The plaintiffs are seeking more money for poor districts. They presented evidence during last year’s trial that schools are underfunded by $4.6 billion, an estimate that they said doesn’t account for gaps in spending on special education, school buildings and other facilities.

Litigation in the case may not necessarily end.

Neither Shapiro nor lawmakers have assembled a plan to address the court’s findings and the experience in other states suggests there’s no guarantee of swift, significant or longstanding change for the poorer school districts that sued.

The judge wrote that students in areas with low property values and incomes ‘are deprived of the same opportunities and resources’ as those in more affluent areas.

That disparity is unjustified, violating both the state’s obligations to educate students and the equal protection rights of students, the judge wrote.

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The Department of Justice is offering U.S. Attorney David Weiss, who led its investigation into Hunter Biden, for testimony before the House of Representatives after House Republicans demanded he, and more than a dozen other officials, appear for interviews.

In a Monday letter obtained by Fox, Assistant Attorney General Carlos Felipe Uriarte wrote to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, that the DOJ has accepted the offer for Weiss to testify ‘at a public hearing before the committee.’

‘The Department is ready to offer U.S. Attorney Weiss to testify shortly after Congress returns from the August district work period,’ the letter reads.

‘The Department believes it is strongly in the public interest for the American people and for Congress to hear directly from U.S. Attorney Weiss on these assertions and questions about his authority at a public hearing,’ it adds.

In June, House Republicans demanded Weiss and more than a dozen federal officials appear before multiple congressional committees for transcribed interviews regarding allegations of politicization and misconduct at their agencies throughout the years-long probe into the president’s son.

The House Oversight Committee, House Judiciary Committee, and House Ways and Means Committee are conducting a joint- investigation into the federal probe into Hunter Biden, and whether prosecutorial decisions were influenced by politics.

The other DOJ officials House Republicans requested testimony from include Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf, who allegedly blocked lines of questioning in the investigation related to President Biden; U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves, who allegedly blocked Weiss from charging Hunter Biden in his district; Jack Morgan and Mark Daly of the DOJ’s Tax Division; U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California E. Martin Estrada; Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Tax Division Stuart Goldberg; Assistant U.S. Attorney Shannon Hanson in Delaware; and Assistant U.S. attorney Shawn Weede.

From the FBI, the committees called for Tom Sobocinski, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Baltimore Field Office; and FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Ryeshia Holley to appear for transcribed interviews.

From the IRS, the committees called for Michael Batdorf, a director within the IRS’ Criminal Investigation division; and Special Agent in Charge of the Washington D.C. Field Office Darrell J. Waldon of the IRS Criminal Investigation Division to appear before the panels for transcribed interviews.

From the U.S. Secret Service, the committees called on any Secret Service employees who received the alleged Dec. 7, 2020 ‘tip-off’ from the FBI. 

An IRS whistleblower alleged that on Dec. 7, 2020, FBI headquarters notified the Secret Service and the Biden transition team about the IRS’ criminal investigative team’s plan to interview Hunter Biden. The whistleblower said that ‘tipped off’ a group of people ‘close to Hunter Biden’ and gave those individuals the ‘opportunity to obstruct’ their approach to the witness.

Jordan and the House Judiciary Committee have taken the lead on the DOJ and FBI portion of the investigation; with Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., and the House Oversight Committee taking lead on the Secret Service and Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., at the House Ways and Means Committee taking the lead on the IRS.

The joint-investigation began after IRS whistleblowers came forward with allegations that the entire investigation into Hunter Biden, which began in 2018 as an ‘offshoot’ of an existing IRS probe into a foreign pornography platform, was ‘influenced by politics.’

The White House has doubled down on the widely scrutinized ‘lie’ that Florida’s new history curriculum is attempting to re-write the history of slavery in the U.S. and how it’s taught to students despite pushback from one of its Black creators.

During Monday’s daily White House press briefing, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre went off on the new curriculum, echoing Vice President Kamala Harris’ heavily panned comments during a speech in Jacksonville, Florida last week claiming it was going to be used to teach students ‘that enslaved people benefited from slavery.’

‘Let’s not forget what we have seen these past several months as we witness extreme officials in Florida and across the country lie about American history. The most recent example, shamefully, shamefully promoting a lie that enslaved people actually benefited from slavery,’ Jean-Pierre said during her opening remarks. 

‘It’s inaccurate, insulting, it’s hurtful, and prevents an honest account, an honest account of our nation’s history,’ she added. ‘The Biden-Harris administration will continue to speak out against hateful attempts to rewrite our history and strongly oppose any actions that threaten to divide us and take our country backwards.’

The new curriculum, which was partially developed by Black scholar Dr. William B. Allen, actually states, ‘Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit. This lead to countless critics accusing Harris of ‘brazenly lying,’ and ‘misleading’ the American people following her speech.

‘This is a brazen lie. It’s an astonishing lie. It’s an evil lie. It is so untrue — so deliberately and cynically misleading — that, in a sensible political culture, Harris would be obligated to issue an apology,’ one critic said.

Allen slammed Harris’ criticism as ‘categorically false,’ telling ABC News in an interview that ‘it was never said [in the curriculum] that slavery was beneficial to Africans.’

‘The only criticism I’ve encountered so far [on the new curriculum] is a single one that was articulated by the vice president, and which was an error,’ he said.

Other critics of Harris called her claims ‘a brazen lie.’

Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ripped Harris ahead of her Friday speech, accusing her of being ‘obsessed’ with Florida, and described the Biden administration of trying to indoctrinate students.

‘Florida stands in their way, and we will continue to expose their agenda and their lies,’ DeSantis said in a statement on social media.

A paddleboarder who drowned near former President Barack Obama’s Martha’s Vineyard estate has been identified as Tafari Campbell, the Obamas’ personal chef. 

Campbell, 45, of Dumfries, Virginia, was recovered Monday morning a day after disappearing in the waters of Edgartown Great Pond on Martha’s Vineyard. 

Massachusetts State Police said Campbell was employed by the former president and was visiting Martha’s Vineyard at the time of his passing. Barack and Michelle Obama were not present at the home at the time of the accident, MSP said. 

‘Tafari was a beloved part of our family. When we first met him, he was a talented sous chef at the White House – creative and passionate about food, and its ability to bring people together. In the years that followed, we got to know him as a warm, fun, extraordinarily kind person who made all of our lives a little brighter,’ the Obamas said in a joint statement. 

‘That’s why, when we were getting ready to leave the White House, we asked Tafari to stay with us, and he generously agreed. He’s been part of our lives ever since, and our hearts are broken that he’s gone. Today we join everyone who knew and loved Tafari – especially his wife Sherise and their twin boys, Xavier and Savin – in grieving the loss of a truly wonderful man.’

Campabell’s body was found just before 10 a.m. Monday at a depth of about eight feet and 100 feet from the shore of Edgartown Great Pond. MSP divers recovered the body after Massachusetts Environmental Police officers used side-scan sonar from a boat to locate it, the agency said.

Authorities initially responded at 7:46 p.m. Sunday after receiving a call about a male paddleboarder who had struggled to stay above the water and then went under near Turkeyland Cove. Officials said the man did not resurface.

Another paddleboarder was on the pond with him at the time and witnessed him go under the water, according to authorities.

Fox News’ Stephen Sorace contributed to this report. 

FIRST ON FOX: Republicans are mounting their own effort at an expanded child tax credit that includes applying the credit to fetuses in the womb.

Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, is leading a package of bills in the House called the Providing For Life Act, an ambitious attempt at overhauling the federal government’s family care system.

Hinson told Fox News Digital her legislation ‘charts the policy course for a culture of life in America.’

‘By expanding the child tax credit to include the unborn and providing additional support to working families, empowering women to care for their babies regardless of socioeconomic status or zip code and improving access to community resources, we can make a meaningful difference for those in need,’ Hinson said.

‘These provisions, and others championed by the pro-life community, will ensure we protect the most vulnerable and make critical investments in the long-term well-being of our families.’

The marquee item would see the refundable child tax credit expand to a $3,500 cap for children 5 and under, and $4,500 for ages 6-17. Parents would have to be employed to get the credit under the GOP bill.

It would also retroactively expand the tax credit to unborn children. When a dependent is born, parents would become eligible to claim the tax credit in the prior year during the pregnancy, in addition to gaining access to the regular child tax credit in the current year.

The expanded child tax credit without work requirements was a popular measure during the COVID-19 pandemic, but Democrat-led efforts to make it permanent failed. As of the most recent tax cycle, the credit is worth up to $2,000 per dependent.

Other measures in the package include an option allowing parents to draw from their Social Security to finance up to three months of paid parental leave and enhancing certain benefits for new mothers. It also includes incentives for states to set guidelines on fathers paying for part of a woman’s pregnancy costs and would force cooperation with any child support requirements to receive SNAP food benefits.

The bill comes as the issue of abortion access continues to be a political lightning rod since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.

In addition to more economic benefits for young families, Hinson’s legislation seeks to provide expecting parents with support programs on college campuses and at pregnancy resource centers and aims to establish ‘a federal clearinghouse of resources’ and bolster support for social service programs at places of worship.

For parents in low-income or other vulnerable communities, it ‘funds local demonstration programs providing volunteer mentoring and peer support services.’

The package’s Senate counterpart was recently introduced by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who said it meant ‘real assistance’ for children and families.

‘Supporting pregnant mothers and their unborn children is essential, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because America’s continued strength depends on the next generation,’ Rubio told Fox News Digital. ‘This comprehensive legislation will provide real assistance for American parents and children in need. We need policies like these to show America that conservatives are pro-life across the board.’

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott took to Twitter on Sunday to taunt the Biden administration in a pair of tweets as he faces a lawsuit from the Department of Justice over the state’s effort to secure its international border with Mexico.

In one tweet, Abbott praised his border security for seizing more than 422 million deadly doses of fentanyl, which he claimed were able to cross the U.S.-Mexico border because of the president’s poor performance.

‘Texas Has Seized More Than 422 Million Lethal Doses of Fentanyl Since 2021. More than enough to kill all Americans,’ the Texas governor wrote. ‘We have also made 394,200 illegal-immigrant apprehensions and 31,300 criminal arrests. All because Biden is not doing his job.’

In another tweet, Abbott said Biden would ‘face the consequences’ should the Department of Justice take the state of Texas to court. The DOJ previously said in a letter to Abbott that it intends to sue him over the use of a floating buoy border barrier to stop illegal immigration into the state.

Abbott, along with the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas National Guard, released a statement on Friday highlighting the efforts of Operation Lone Star, a coordinated effort by border personnel to ‘secure the border; stop the smuggling of drugs, weapons, and people into Texas; and prevent, detect, and interdict transnational criminal behavior between ports of entry.’

‘Since the launch of Operation Lone Star, the multi-agency effort has led to over 394,200 illegal immigrant apprehensions and more than 31,300 criminal arrests, with more than 29,100 felony charges reported. In the fight against fentanyl, Texas law enforcement has seized over 422 million lethal doses of fentanyl during this border mission,’ the joint statement read.

The statement also highlighted the state’s efforts to send migrants who crossed the southern border to Democratic cities across the country, including Washington, D.C., New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Denver, and Los Angeles.

In total, over 27,000 migrants have been sent to those cities.

‘Operation Lone Star continues to fill the dangerous gaps created by the Biden Administration’s refusal to secure the border. Every individual who is apprehended or arrested and every ounce of drugs seized would have otherwise made their way into communities across Texas and the nation due to President Joe Biden’s open border policies,’ the statement added.

Texas is also staring down a legal bout with the Biden administration over its use of barriers erected at the border, which administration officials claim have created a dangerous path for potential migrants. Some border officials have recalled migrants suffering from cuts and lacerations as they crawled through barbed fencing.

A spokesperson for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division confirmed that the DOJ ‘sent a letter to the Texas Governor and Attorney General providing notice of our intent to pursue legal action related to unlawful construction of a floating barrier in the Rio Grande River, pursuant to section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act, 33 U.S.C. § 403.’

The letter sets a July 24 deadline for a response from Abbott.

Abbott initially responded to the letter in a series of tweets on Friday, when he again blamed President Biden’s handling of the border crisis and unashamedly said Texas was ‘stepping up to address this crisis.’

‘Texas has the sovereign authority to defend our border, under the U.S. Constitution and the Texas Constitution,’ he wrote. ‘We have sent the Biden Administration numerous letters detailing our authority, including the one I hand-delivered to President Biden earlier this year.’

‘Texas is stepping up to address this crisis,’ Gov. Abbott continued. ‘We will continue to deploy every strategy to protect Texans and Americans — and the migrants risking their lives. We will see you in court, Mr. President.’

On Sunday, Abbott doubled down, adding, ‘Under Biden’s policies the UN declared the U.S.-Mexico border the deadliest border crossing in [the] world. Biden must now face the consequences.’

The White House responded Friday, saying that Abbott is endangering the lives of migrants and agents with his actions, and accused him of undermining President Biden’s border plan.

‘President Biden’s plan to manage the border through deterrence, enforcement, and diplomacy after the Title 42 public health order lifted is working,’ assistant press secretary Abdullah Hasan said in a statement.

Hasan also pointed to a drop in border encounters in June to levels not seen since February 2021.

‘Unlawful border crossings are down to the lowest levels in over two years,’ he said. ‘Governor Abbott’s dangerous and unlawful actions are undermining our effective border enforcement plan and making it hard for CBP to do their jobs of securing the border. The governor’s actions are cruel and putting both migrants and border agents in danger.’

‘The Department of Justice made clear that it is prepared to take the governor to court if he doesn’t immediately remove the unlawful structures in the Rio Grande,’ he said.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has also criticized Abbott over the new security measures.

Fox News’ Adam Shaw contributed to this report.

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President Biden is taking Black voters for granted and losing their support by remaining silent on – and not backing – reparations for Black Americans as a way to make amends for slavery and racism, according to pro-reparations activists who spoke to Fox News Digital.

‘I believe the Biden administration’s stance is emblematic of the Democratic Party’s benign neglect of Black voters – ADOS [American descendants of slavery] voters more specifically,’ said Yvette Carnell, president of the ADOS Advocacy Foundation. ‘Black voters are whipped into a frenzy around election time, and Republicans are made into boogeymen who, as Biden himself said back in 2012, want to ‘put y’all back in chains.’ It’s fear-mongering, rather than offering a reparations framework or a transformative Black agenda that we can actually get excited about.’

Biden is facing increased pressure to use his authority to either support legislation or unilaterally enact proposals that would advance efforts to give out reparations, especially as the campaign for cities and states to pay reparations at a more local level gains major momentum across the country.

At the federal level, meanwhile, lawmakers have introduced their own measures. Most recently, Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., introduced a proposal in May to pay $14 trillion to compensate for what she believes are racist government policies that created a wealth gap between White and Black people. While critics have dismissed the proposal as absurd and unrealistic, supporters argue it sends an important message.

‘Congresswoman Bush’s legislation challenges the notion that reparations for Black people have to wait for the right political moment and aren’t feasible,’ said Dreisen Heath, an activist and reparations expert who for years worked as a researcher at Human Rights Watch. ‘The American public should read through the entire proposal to identify the long range of government sanctioned harms on Black America and how that has affected the healthiness of the country at large. Congresswoman Bush’s proposal details the impacts of chattel slavery and living legacies such as environmental racism, lower life expectancy rates, maternal and infant mortality, over-policing, over-incarceration, and predatory lending.’

Heath noted the $14 trillion figure didn’t come from Bush, but was previously calculated by pro-reparations economists.

Less ambitiously, several Democrats in Congress have backed a bill establishing a commission to study and develop reparations proposals for lawmakers to consider implementing. However, Biden has largely been silent about such initiatives, and the White House didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment this week to clarify the president’s position on reparations and seek his response to critics claiming he needs to do more.

However, the White House has previously indicated Biden supports studying potential reparations for Black Americans but stopped short of saying he’d back a bill introduced in Congress that would create such a commission.

Last month, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre repeatedly dodged a question concerning whether Biden would support financial reparations being paid to the descendants of Black slaves in the U.S.

In March, Jean-Pierre similarly failed to answer a question about whether Biden supports slavery reparations at a national level.

Throughout this time, racial justice groups and some Democrats have been pushing Biden to establish a national reparations commission by executive order – so far to no avail. The lack of both words and action has led to frustration among those who support reparations.

‘We are the base of the Democratic Party, and Biden told us very early on not to expect much movement on reparations,’ said Carnell. ‘That tells me he doesn’t take the Black vote seriously. He takes it for granted… It’s obvious to anyone watching that President Biden views the Black vote as a captured vote to which he doesn’t owe any exchange.’

Heath called on Biden to create a reparations commission by executive order, saying his lack of action is losing him support among Black voters. 

‘The Biden administration can issue an executive order today setting up a federal reparations commission,’ she said. ‘Black voters continue to identify unkept promises from Biden and are less enthusiastic about his leadership because of what he has not delivered on, including reparations. The majority of Black Americans support reparations. Leaders have to be held accountable for unkept promises; they can’t coerce support and then not deliver. It’s that simple.’

Heath explained that Biden ran on a campaign promise to address ‘systemic racism’ and the ‘continuing impacts of slavery’ by ‘supporting a study of reparations,’ noting multiple press secretaries have gone on record during the Biden administration to say the president supports a study of reparations.

‘Given it’s dead on arrival in Congress, Biden needs to act,’ she added. ‘The political gatekeeping of this issue is detrimental to the well-being of the Black community and the country at large.’

While many voices are demanding executive action by Biden, others argue he should instead focus on throwing his weight behind legislation.

‘Executive orders are presidential directives and thus, typically too weak and limited to handle redress for slavery and its accumulated disadvantage,’ said Carnell. ‘I view calls for an executive order as just another dodge by reparations activists who refuse to push Congress to pass a reparations bill for Biden to sign.’

Either way, reparations at the federal level appear stalled amid widespread Republican opposition, only partial support among Democrat lawmakers, and an unclear level of support from the president.

Still, pressure on Biden and the White House to act will likely mount as a growing number of localities add their names to the list of those actively pursuing reparations.

The latest example is Ann Arbor, home of the sprawling University of Michigan. Local outlet MLive.com obtained emails from city council members revealing they’ve been considering reparations for several months.

‘As I previously shared with you, one of my main priorities on council has been to start a task force to help the city identify how we can pay reparations to our Black community,’ one council member wrote in a Jan. 23 email to a University of Michigan social work professor.

In Georgia, the Fulton County Board of Commissioners voted last week in favor of $210,000 in funding toward a reparations study to discern if reparations are necessary for some Fulton County residents who are descended from slaves.

And in New York City, the Department of Health is reportedly pushing reparations as an answer to racial and wealth inequities among New Yorkers.

Across the country, several other towns, counties and cities have in recent months been considering or taken concrete steps to implement reparations. However, the Chicago suburb of Evanston recently took the unprecedented step of becoming the first city to actually start paying.

City staff have met with 48 recipients who are each eligible for the reparations, and 16 of them received payments this week, according to the Evanston RoundTable. The city expects to dole out the reparations to 140 mostly elderly residents by the end of this year out of about 75,000 total, officials told the Wall Street Journal.

Evanston had committed in 2019 to spend $10 million over 10 years on local reparations. Two years later, it became the first U.S. city of any size to fund reparations, specifically $25,000 for qualifying Black residents for home repairs, property down payments and interest or late penalties due on city property.

At the state level, meanwhile, the legislature in New York passed a bill last month that would create a commission to study the effects of slavery and racial discrimination in the Empire State and make recommendations for potential reparations, such as restitution payments from the government. The commission’s recommendations would be non-binding, meaning the legislature would decide whether to take them up for a vote.

If Gov. Kathy Hochul signs the bill, New York would be the second state to establish a reparations commission, following California’s lead.

Late last month, California’s reparations task force released its final recommendations for the state legislature to consider and potentially send to the governor’s desk to be signed into law.

In its approximately 1,000-page report, the task force proposed dozens of statewide policies and ways to calculate monetary reparations designed to redress slavery and historical injustices against Black Americans. The panel estimated the minimum dollar amount in harm that California has caused or could have prevented totals at least $1 million per eligible Black Californian.

Beyond cash payments, the task force recommended a variety of other reparations proposals, such as ending the prosecution of low-level crimes and mandating ‘anti-bias training’ as a graduate requirement for medical school, among other measures.

Despite such momentum nationwide, critics argue reparations proposals tend to be fiscally unmanageable and would undermine the effort to create a colorblind society. Some have also said it doesn’t make sense to have people who never owned slaves pay money to people who never were slaves as a way to atone for slavery. However, many activists and politicians argue the lingering effects of anti-Black discrimination remain.

‘What an absolute shame that the federal government continues to hide behind its own crimes against humanity against Black people, instead of having the courage to repair the conditions it created,’ said Heath.

FIRST ON FOX: The campaign for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis released a six-minute video showing liberal media personalities repeatedly labeling the Republican presidential candidate as ‘more dangerous’ than former President Donald Trump.

The DeSantis War Room on Sunday posted the video, ‘6 MINUTES Of The Left Admitting They Fear DeSantis More Than Trump,’ which features commentary from an array of left-wing commentators including Van Jones, David Pakman and Olayemi Olurin.

‘This guy is worse than Trump,’ Jones says in the video.

 ‘I honestly believe DeSantis was forged in Hell. There’s no doubt in my mind,’ Olurin says in the video. 

‘If you thought Donald Trump was bad, you got another thing coming,’ says Maxwell Frost.

The commentators in the clip make their point by arguing DeSantis is more ‘savvy,’ ‘disciplined’ and ‘competent’ than Trump and would be more capable of executing the Republican agenda.

‘The Trump agenda would be far more likely to be carried on by people less cartoonishly problematic, and Ron Desantis is a perfect example of such an individual,’ Pakman argues in the video.

‘He’s honestly more sinister, you know why? Because there’s less buffoonery to it,’ Olurin says.

‘Based on what he’s done in five years in Florida, what would he do with all the levers of power in the White House?’ former Rep. David Jolly, D-Fla., says in the video.

The Trump campaign issued a statement to Fox News Digital on Sunday saying the liberal talking points are irrelevant.

‘President Trump has been dominating in poll after poll – both nationally and statewide,’ the campaign said. ‘It’s not what commentators or pundits think, it’s about what the voters think, and they are clearly behind President Trump in a big way.’

‘The fact is that President Trump will be the nominee and will beat Crooked Joe Biden because he’s the only person who can supercharge the economy, secure our border, safeguard communities, and put an end to unnecessary wars,’ the statement added. ‘Americans want to return to a prosperous nation and there’s only one person who can do that – President Trump.’

On the campaign trail, DeSantis repeatedly points to his overwhelming gubernatorial re-election last November in the once-purple Sunshine State.

‘What we did was not just a big victory. It was really a fundamental realignment of Florida from being a swing state to being a red state,’ DeSantis recently touted on the campaign trail.

According to a University of New Hampshire Survey Center poll released last week, Trump’s lead over DeSantis is shrinking. 

Trump leads DeSantis by 37% to 23% in the poll, which is five percentage points down from the previous UNH survey in April.

Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.