House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Thursday blamed President Biden for the lack of progress so far in a deal that would allow the government to borrow more money once it hits the debt ceiling in early June.

Biden, McCarthy and other congressional leaders were scheduled to meet on Friday to talk about a possible deal to increase the borrowing limit and meet the GOP demand of reducing federal spending. But that meeting was pushed until next week, and McCarthy said the delay is because the White House isn’t budging.

‘I have not seen from there a seriousness of the White House that they want a deal,’ McCarthy told reporters Thursday. ‘It seems like they want a default more than they want a deal.’

McCarthy’s message is a sign that the two sides still have a ways to go before anything close to a deal can be reached. Democrats have insisted on a ‘clean’ debt ceiling increase so the government can pay its bills after June 1, while Republicans are seeking a spending cut of about $150 billion before they can agree to more debt.

The stalemate has the potential to roil financial markets as the deadline gets closer, although both sides have insisted that a default on the U.S. debt will not happen.

McCarthy said staff members have met over the last two days, but said there was not enough progress to warrant holding the Friday meeting with leaders.

‘We think it’s productive for the staff to meet again,’ McCarthy said, adding that both parties agreed to the delay.

‘The White House didn’t cancel the meeting,’ McCarthy said. ‘All of the leaders decided it’s probably the best of our interest to let the staff meet again before we get back together.’

Just two days ago, Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and other leaders agreed to hold staff level talks on how to raise the debt ceiling before the government is unable to pay its current obligations by early June. But even then, the White House made it clear it wanted to keep talks about the debt ceiling separate from talks about spending cuts.

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., told Fox News Digital on Wednesday afternoon that talks from earlier in the week didn’t get very far, and said he didn’t have a readout of how Wednesday and Thursday talks had gone.

‘Yesterday and then today, whether they’re making progress, I don’t know,’ Emmer said. ‘But they’re still meeting and there’s a plan for a second meeting, at least of the speaker and the president.’

‘I assume based on what I’ve heard, that they were trying to say that they don’t like some things in the Republican plan without offering solutions,’ Emmer added.

‘I would say everybody is on their own. But right now the only deal that is out there is the deal that Kevin McCarthy and House Republicans passed,’ he told Fox News Digital. ‘If Chuck Schumer could pass a debt ceiling proposal in the Senate, great, then you just have our conference — and Let’s hammer it out. But he can’t because they don’t have the votes to do that.’

Two high-profile Iowa Republicans – state Senate President Amy Sinclair and state House Majority Leader Matt Windschitl – are endorsing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ expected presidential bid, Fox News has confirmed.

Word of the endorsements come two days ahead of DeSantis’ Saturday return to Iowa – the state whose caucuses lead off the GOP presidential nominating calendar.

The Florida governor will be in the heavily red northwestern part of the state in the late morning to headline Republican Rep. Randy Feenstra’s third annual Feenstra Family Picnic fundraiser in Sioux Center. Later in the day, he’ll head east to Cedar Rapids to headline an Iowa GOP fundraising event. 

Sources in DeSantis’ political orbit tell Fox News that Sinclair and Windschitl are expected to attend the governor’s events in Iowa on Saturday.

DeSantis will be in Iowa the same day as former President Donald Trump, who’s the current overwhelming front-runner in the Republican nomination race as he runs a third straight time for the White House. Trump is scheduled to hold an evening rally in Des Moines.

The two high-profile endorsements for DeSantis in Iowa – which were first reported by the Des Moines Register – come a week after he landed the support of a top state GOP lawmaker in New Hampshire, which holds the first primary and second overall contest in the Republican nominating schedule. That endorsement came from state House Majority Leader Jason Osborne.

Trump released a dozen endorsements from Iowa Republican leaders ahead of a March stop in Davenport. 

And at a campaign event in New Hampshire two weeks ago, the former president unveiled a list of roughly 50 endorsements from Granite State Republicans.

While DeSantis remains on the 2024 sidelines, he’s expected to launch a presidential campaign in the coming weeks.

The governor said last week that he’ll decide ‘relatively soon’ whether he will launch a 2024 GOP presidential campaign.

DeSantis, who won an overwhelming 19-point gubernatorial re-election victory last November, said at a news conference last Friday marking the end of Florida’s legislative session, ‘I felt very confident going into November ’22 we were gonna do very well, but you really had to put up or shut up on that.’

Asked about his 2024 plans, the governor said, ‘What happens in the future? We’ll get on that relatively soon. You either gotta put or shut up on that as well. So we’ll see.’

But behind the scenes, he’s already made plenty of moves toward launching a campaign, including beefing up staff in Tallahassee. And the past couple of months, he’s made campaign-style stops in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, the first three states to vote in the GOP presidential nominating calendar. 

EXCLUSIVE: Former President Trump said CNN ‘did the right thing’ by hosting him for a town hall Wednesday night, saying he ‘got the word out to millions of people that would generally not hear’ his point of view on a number of campaign issues.

Trump, the frontrunner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, participated in a CNN town hall Wednesday night, hosted by Kaitlan Collins. The network has been facing criticism for giving the former president a platform.

‘I was happy to do it,’ Trump told Fox News Digital. ‘I got the word out to millions of people that would generally not hear this point of view concerning things such as the border, inflation, the economy, energy independence, the Afghanistan catastrophe and more.’

‘CNN is taking a lot of heat,’ Trump said.

‘I think CNN did the right thing by putting me on—all you have to do is look at their fantastic ratings,’ Trump said.

He added: ‘It was an honor to do it.’ 

Fox News Digital reported Thursday that CNN was facing a ‘a fury of criticism’ from its own employees for airing the town hall. 

‘It’s hard to see how America was served by the spectacle of lies that aired on CNN,’ media reporter Oliver Darcy wrote in the network’s ‘Reliable Sources’ newsletter. ‘It felt like 2016 all over again.’ 

Not all of the network’s staffers were upset by the event. 

‘We live in a democratic republic and Trump is the frontrunner for the GOP nomination,’ a staffer told Fox News Digital. ‘It’s not the media’s job to silence a politician they don’t like. The format was messy, but voters need to hear from both of the frontrunners, Trump and Biden. And by the way, Trump did what his base wanted but his performance last night was radioactive to moderates and undecideds.’

CNN has defended the decision to air the town hall. 

‘Kaitlan Collins exemplified what it means to be a world-class journalist. She asked tough, fair and revealing questions,’ a network spokesperson said. 

‘She followed up and fact-checked President Trump in real time to arm voters with crucial information about his positions as he enters the 2024 election as the Republican frontrunner,’ the spokesperson continued. ‘That is CNN’s role and responsibility: to get answers and hold the powerful to account.’ 

CNN CEO Chris Licht also defended the decision on Thursday morning in a call with staffers, according to former CNN media reporter Brian Stelter. 

Stelter, who founded the ‘Reliable Sources’ newsletter and was fired by Licht last year, tweeted tidbits from the call. 

‘You do not have to like the former president’s answers, but you can’t say that we didn’t get them,’ Licht said, according to Stelter. ‘While we all may have been uncomfortable hearing people clapping, that was also an important part of the story… America was served very well by what we did last night.’

Fox News’ Brian Flood, David Rutz and Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report. 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation to prohibit vaccine and mask mandates on Thursday.

DeSantis’ announced his four new ‘Prescribe Freedom’ bills during an event in Destin. Senate Bill 252 prohibits workplaces, government agencies and schools from requiring COVID-19 vaccination or masks.

The governor began his speech by referencing the intense criticism that Florida faced during the COVID-19 pandemic.

‘Everything we were doing in Florida, we were getting attacked. We were getting attacked by bureaucrats like Fauci. We were being attacked by the political left. We were being attacked by corporate media. And we were even attacked by some Republicans,’ DeSantis said.

‘I mean, that’s just kind of the way it goes. But we stuck to our guns because we believe that we are doing the right thing for the state,’ he added.

The legislation also formally denounces World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations in Florida. It also protects alternative COVID-19 treatments. 

‘You should have the right to try these [alternative COVID-19 treatments] under the supervision of your physician, and that is protected in the state of Florida,’ DeSantis said.

Another component of the legislation is Senate Bill 1387, which bans gain-of-function research. DeSantis said gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China, was likely to blame for the pandemic.

‘What we know is there was gain-of-function research being conducted at Wuhan, and that very likely led to the emergence of COVID-19. And yet there really isn’t effective regulation,’ the governor said.

Senate Bill 1580 also ensures freedom of speech and whistleblower protections for physicians. 

‘We want our physicians practicing evidence based medicine. We don’t want it to just defer to authority or to just follow the herd,’ DeSantis explained. ‘So that is now law in the state of Florida.’

DeSantis’ remarks come nearly a week after the WHO announced that the COVID-19 pandemic was no longer a global emergency.

But despite the announcement, WHO officials still warn that the pandemic is technically not over. Countries in Southeast Asia and the Middle East have reported some spikes in COVID-19 cases.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday slammed Rockland County Executive Ed Day as ‘racist’ and ‘antisemitic’ after the official issued a restraining order blocking the Democratic mayor from sending busloads of asylum seekers. 

Adams tried to distance himself from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, telling reporters that New York City was footing the bill and only taking volunteers. He stressed that his office has been in communication with Rockland and Orange county officials — an assertion the counties have challenged.  

‘When you look at the County Exec [Ed] Day, I mean this guy has a record of being antisemitic, you know, his racist comments,’ Adams said, without providing examples. ‘You know, his thoughts and how he responded to this, it shows a lack of leadership.’

Adams’ office pointed Fox News Digital to past reports which portrayed Day’s remarks as pitting voters against a bloc of Hasidic and Ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities.

Day shot back at Adams, telling Fox News Digital, ‘the mayor can call me every name in the book to deflect the reality of this clear disregard for our laws. And maybe he can explain his own documented ‘racist comments.’ 

Day was referring to comments Adams, a former police officer, made before he became mayor, in which called White cops ‘crackers.’ Adams later apologized for those remarks. 

Adams’ Thursday comments came as his plan to move several hundred asylum seekers to hotels in New York’s Orange and Rockland counties moved forward.  

Leaders in Orange and Rockland counties have pushed back against Adams’ plan to send over 300 migrants to Rockland County’s Armoni Inn & Suites hotel in Orangeburg, and Orange County’s The Crossroads Hotel in Newburgh, the latter of which saw migrants arrive on Thursday.

Rockland County successfully obtained a temporary restraining order from a state Supreme Court judge on Tuesday, after arguing that the move violated local zoning regulations.

Adams said Thursday the city would not be deterred by legal challenges. 

‘You can’t use the court to deny people to move around the State of New York,’ Adams said. ‘We’re going to challenge all of the legal obstacles that are attempting to be placed in our way because it would set a bad precedent if someone was saying in the State of New York that you are not allowed to come here.’ 

Fox News’ Michael Lee contributed to this report. 

The Biden administration touted conservation programs funded by bipartisan legislation passed in 2020, but it failed to mention that they are largely fueled by federal fossil fuel drilling revenues.

In a joint announcement Thursday, the Department of the Interior and Agriculture Department praised the Legacy Restoration Fund (LRF) and Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), both of which were earmarked in the Great American Outdoors Act. The agencies said the programs would enable them to spend $2.8 billion on various conservation initiatives in fiscal year 2024.

‘The Great American Outdoors Act allows us to increase outdoor recreation opportunities, improve infrastructure on our public lands, invest in the U.S. economy, and honor our commitment to Tribal communities,’ Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement.

‘Funding made possible through the Great American Outdoors Act’s Legacy Restoration Fund allows us to enhance equitable access for recreators, create job opportunities, advance community well-being and improve rural and urban economies,’ Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack added.

The Great American Outdoors Act — which former President Donald Trump signed in August 2020 after it passed with veto-proof majorities in the Senate and House — earmarks $1.9 billion per year to the LRF for deferred public lands maintenance and another $900 million per year to the LWCF for various conservation and recreation programs.

Both programs, and others included in the law, are funded by various forms of energy development on federal lands and waters. And the vast majority of that funding is specifically derived from fossil fuels, mainly oil, natural gas and coal development.

According to Office of Natural Resources Revenue data, for example, about 90% of the $9.6 billion in federal energy revenue that has been generated during the current fiscal year has derived from fossil fuel royalties. The remainder has come from other commodities, such as geothermal, mineral resources and wind development, which have accounted for 0.05% of federal energy revenue.

‘All of the funding for the Great American Outdoors Act comes from energy development on federal lands and offshore waters,’ Hannah Downey, policy director at the Property and Environment Research Center, testified during a congressional hearing last year. ‘Indeed, federal energy revenues have long provided significant funding for conservation and recreation on public lands.’

However, the Biden administration’s announcement Thursday didn’t mention the source of the conservation programs it touted. And the administration, led by the Department of the Interior, has repeatedly attempted to decrease the amount of land and waters leased for fossil fuel production, potentially curbing the government’s future energy revenue.

The Department of the Interior has only held a handful of onshore fossil fuel lease sales since President Biden took office, and it only held those auctions after a federal judge issued an injunction that blocked the president’s moratorium on new drilling. The agency has also failed to hold any offshore lease sales that weren’t otherwise legally mandated, and it proposed a plan to block all such leasing through 2028.

LWCF funding could alone decline by up to $420 million a year if the Department of the Interior restricts future offshore oil and gas leasing, according to a 2022 report from the National Ocean Industries Association (NOIA) and the American Petroleum Institute.

‘America’s conservation and outdoor recreation legacy is one that is reinforced by a healthy offshore oil and gas industry, a predominant source of funding for conservation programs across all 50 states,’ NOIA President Erik Milito said after the Great American Outdoors Act was passed in 2020. 

‘The funding for the GAOA is earmarked from energy activities on federal lands, and it is now even more important to protect Gulf of Mexico energy production, as without it, billions of dollars of funding for beloved conservation and recreation programs, such as the Land and Water Conservation Fund, will disappear,’ he continued.

A spokesperson for the Department of the Interior said Thursday that the agency would continue to implement the law.

‘The department will continue to obey the law, including implementation of the Great American Outdoors Act and Inflation Reduction Act,’ Interior spokesperson Melissa Schwartz told Fox News Digital.

The New Hampshire Senate rejected a marijuana legalization bill Thursday, leaving it the only state in New England that makes smoking pot recreationally a crime.

Republicans, who control the Senate, led the effort to dismiss the bill on a 14-10 vote.

Though several bipartisan bills in support of legalization have cleared the House in recent years, the Senate has blocked them. Republican Gov. Chris Sununu said earlier this year that he didn’t expect new legislation to reach his desk with teen drug use and overdoses on the rise.

Republican Senate President Jeb Bradley said the time isn’t right to legalize marijuana, as the state combats a drug addiction and overdose crisis.

‘Recreationalizing marijuana at this critical juncture would send a confusing message, potentially exacerbating the already perilous drug landscape and placing more lives at risk,’ he said in a written statement.

House Democratic Leader Matt Wilhelm said the push to legalize marijuana has strong support in New Hampshire. He said regulating the drug could also help protect public health.

‘Every day that New Hampshire remains an island of prohibition, more voluntary tax revenue from our residents flows to surrounding states to fund programs and services benefitting their residents,’ Wilhelm said in a press release.

The bill, which had been approved by the House, would have put the state’s Liquor Commission in charge of regulating marijuana, with a 12.5% tax levied at the cultivation level.

Most of the tax revenue would have gone toward reducing the state’s pension liability and the state’s education trust fund, with some set aside for substance abuse prevention programs and police training.

Opponents have focused on the impact of the drug crisis on families, individuals and communities, and noted strong opposition from the law enforcement community.

Frank Knaack, policy director at the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire, faulted those senators who opposed the initiative.

‘These lawmakers are willing to ignore the will of their own constituents and are okay with continuing to needlessly ensnare over a thousand people — disproportionately Black people — in New Hampshire’s criminal justice system every year,’ he said.

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 3-2 along partisan lines on Tuesday to recommend that the full Senate reject the bill. The committee also made similar recommendations on bills that would allow homegrown cannabis for therapeutic purposes and would lower penalties on some drug violations.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers signed a pair of bipartisan bills Friday that would increase penalties for carjacking and reckless driving.

The bills come as part of a Republican-backed push to crack down on dangerous driving across the state but particularly in Milwaukee, where Mayor Cavalier Johnson has called rising rates of reckless driving a crisis. Evers signed the legislation at a Milwaukee church.

The first bill designates carjacking as a formal crime. Until now, someone who uses force or threatens to use force to steal a vehicle can be charged with operating a vehicle without the owner’s consent.

The bill raises the maximum sentence from 40 years in prison to 60 years. Anyone who steals a car by force without using a weapon will still face up to 15 years in prison.

The other bill doubles the fines and forfeitures for reckless driving. The range will increase to a maximum of $400 for a first offense to $1,000 for a subsequent offense. The maximum fine for reckless driving that causes bodily harm will increase to $4,000. Reckless drivers who cause great bodily harm will face up to six years in prison, up from the current maximum of three-and-a-half years.

Evers signed another bill in April that allows local governments to impound unsafe drivers’ vehicles.

California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein returned to the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday after being absent from the chamber for almost three months following a shingles diagnosis earlier this year.

Feinstein — the oldest-serving senator at age 89 and the longest-serving female senator — was photographed Wednesday exiting from a vehicle and getting into a wheelchair outside the Capitol, where she was greeted by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

With the help of her staff, Feinstein was then rolled into the Capitol as Schumer walked alongside of her wheelchair. Her return to work restores the Democrats’ 51-49 majority in the Senate.

Schumer confirmed the longtime senator’s return to D.C. in a statement on Tuesday, saying he was pleased that his ‘friend Dianne is back in the Senate and ready to roll up her sleeves and get to work.’

On March 2, Feinstein revealed she was hospitalized with shingles in San Francisco adding that she hoped to return to the Senate later that month.

‘I was diagnosed over the February recess with a case of shingles. I have been hospitalized and am receiving treatment in San Francisco,’ Feinstein’s office shared with Fox News Digital at the time. ‘I hope to return to the Senate later this month.’

Her nearly three month-long absence prompted calls from politicians on both sides of the aisle for the veteran senator to retire.

‘It’s time for [Feinstein] to resign. We need to put the country ahead of personal loyalty,’ Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., wrote on Twitter. ‘While she has had a lifetime of public service, it is obvious she can no longer fulfill her duties. Not speaking out undermines our credibility as elected representatives of the people.’

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., also called for the senator’s resignation as several judicial nominations are pending in the Senate. 

‘Her refusal to either retire or show up is causing great harm to the judiciary — precisely where [reproductive] rights are getting stripped,’ Ocasio-Cortez said during an interview. ‘That failure means now in this precious window Dems can only pass GOP-approved nominees.’

Feinstein, who took office in 1992 and is the longest-serving senator in California history, announced in February she would not seek re-election in 2024.

‘I am announcing today I will not run for re-election in 2024 but intend to accomplish as much for California as I can through the end of next year when my term ends,’ the senator wrote on Twitter. ‘Even with a divided Congress, we can still pass bills that will improve lives.’

Prior to representing California in the U.S. Senate, Feinstein served as San Francisco’s first female mayor.

Fox News’ Brandon Gillespie and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams is no longer a national surrogate for President Biden’s re-election campaign amid his criticism of the administration’s handling of the migrant crisis along the southern border.

The news that Adams had been dropped from Biden’s National Advisory Board, which was first reported by Politico, comes after Adams initially joined the campaign’s efforts in March.

‘Adams is among several lawmakers who were initially named to the president’s National Advisory Board in March but no longer appear on a roster of 50 prominent Democrats released by the campaign Wednesday,’ the outlet reported.

The board – which comprises 50 Democrats at varying levels of government to support Biden and Vice President Harris’ re-election chances in 2024 – was announced Wednesday and includes several prominent Democrat politicians, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.

Adams’ noticeable absence from the board comes after several rounds of criticism against the Biden administration for its handling of the migrant crisis at the southern border.

‘It is not about the asylum-seekers and migrants, all of us came from somewhere to pursue the American Dream,’ Adams said last week. ‘It is the irresponsibility of the Republican Party in Washington for refusing to do real immigration reform, and it’s the irresponsibility of the White House for not addressing this problem.’

Adams has also been tasked over the last year with dealing with large influxes of migrants sent to the Big Apple by bus from Republican-led states like Florida and Texas who have become overwhelmed.

Adams has previously claimed that New York City ‘is being destroyed by the migrant crisis’ and said the Biden administration ‘failed’ the city on immigration.

Adams said in April that the ‘national government has turned its back on New York City,’ adding that ‘every service in this city is going to be impacted by the asylum seeker crisis.’

Upon being named to the advisory board, Adams told the New York Post that he would not be deterred from speaking out against Biden’s border policies and the migrant crisis.

‘I think to the contrary,’ Adams, the mayor of the nation’s most populous city, insisted at the time. ‘Those who cover me and know me, know that I’m going to speak on behalf of the people of this city, no matter what panel I’m on.’

‘And you know, being a president comes with a menu of items. It doesn’t mean there’s not going to be an item on that menu that I dislike. I dislike what we’re doing around the asylum seekers,’ he added.

Other members of Biden’s national advisory board include: California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Delaware Gov. John Carney, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, Marlyand Gov. Wes Moore, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, and more than a dozen Democratic House members.

In a memo from the New York City Office of Management, reported by the New York Post, the city will spend an estimated $4.2 billion on costs related to migrants and asylum seekers that would be spent through June 30, 2023, and the end of fiscal year 2024.

According to the internal city memo, Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s plan would reimburse the city for up to $1 billion in migrant aid, which only covers 29% of expected shelter costs.

New York City officials have applied for a FEMA grant worth $654 million, with a decision expected May 31.