Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will be asked to explain some of his beliefs about farming and food production by Republicans who are protective of the agricultural industry in their states. This could stand in the way of a smooth confirmation if he doesn’t manage to address their concerns. 

‘They’ve got to be able to use modern farming techniques, and that involves a lot of things, not only really sophisticated equipment, but also fertilizers and pesticides. So, we have to have that conversation,’ Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., told reporters. 

‘I’m always going to stand up for farmers and ranchers.’

Hoeven told Fox News Digital he would need certain assurances from Kennedy to support him. 

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told reporters he wants Kennedy ‘to understand that when I started farming in 1960, we raised 50 bushels of corn to the acre. Now, we raise on an annual average about 200 in Iowa. A lot more than that.

‘And you can’t feed 9 billion people on the face of the earth [if] we don’t take advantage of genetic engineering.’

Before meeting with Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Tuesday, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., told reporters he planned to ask him about pesticide use. 

Afterward, it seemed Kennedy addressed any concerns, because Tuberville wrote on X, ‘Our meeting reaffirmed what I already knew: RFK Jr. is the right man to make sure our food is safe, bring transparency to vaccines and health care, and Make America Healthy Again.’

While some Republicans are worried about the agricultural implications of Kennedy’s positions, his food safety stances are providing some level of appeal to certain Democrats, whose votes he could potentially need to be confirmed. 

A number of Democratic senators told Fox News Digital their interest was piqued by Kennedy’s thoughts on food regulations, but none said they had meetings scheduled yet. 

‘His approach to food and nutrition is more direct and perhaps might be more successful than continuing the way we’ve been doing it,’ Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., told Fox News Digital.

‘I’m definitely looking forward to him coming in and testifying.’

A representative for Kennedy did not provide comment to Fox News Digital in time for publication.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told Fox News Digital he plans to meet with Senate Democrats, in addition to Republicans, as he looks to shore up support for confirmation as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in President-elect Trump’s incoming administration. 

Asked by Fox News Digital whether he would be meeting with Democrats on the Hill as well, Kennedy, a former Democrat himself, said, ‘Oh yeah.’ 

However, the former independent presidential candidate didn’t say which Senate Democrats he would meet. 

‘I don’t know,’ he said when asked by reporters. 

Kennedy kicked off his Capitol Hill meetings for his HHS bid on Monday, meeting with several Republicans. No Democratic senators were included in a list of dozens of lawmakers that he was set to meet with at the beginning of the week. 

Last month, Trump announced Kennedy as his HHS pick. The two were initially running against each other in the 2024 election before Kennedy dropped out and endorsed Trump. 

Kennedy’s confirmation could face several obstacles, particularly when it comes to vaccines, agriculture and abortion. 

He has been an outspoken skeptic of vaccinations, which some Republican and Democrat senators have pointed to as a concern. 

Kennedy is also pro abortion rights and has supported abortion access throughout his life, which has left some Republicans with questions, as HHS has some authority over regulations that apply to abortion and those who provide them. 

His critiques of the food industry and farming have given him some appeal with Democrats, but at the same time, Republicans representing agricultural states have stressed that they want to protect farmers and ranchers from certain burdensome policies and regulations.  

It’s unclear what exactly the coalition supporting Kennedy will look like in the Senate, whether he will have the support of all Republicans or if some Democrats will be needed to get him over the finish line. 

President Biden’s administration is pressuring the government of Sierra Leone to adopt more permissive abortion policies in exchange for foreign assistance, according to a Monday report. 

The African nation currently bans abortion in most circumstances, but legislation before the country’s parliament would decriminalize the practice. The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a U.S. government-run funding allocator, is reportedly threatening to withhold hundreds of millions in foreign assistance funding if the abortion law does not pass, a former senior U.S. government official who has worked in the region told the Daily Signal.

The MCC CEO Alice Albright signed an agreement with Sierra Leon’s finance minister, Sheku Bangura, in late September. The agreement would see the country receive $480 million in foreign assistance so long as the country meets the MCC’s ‘rigorous standards for good governance, fighting corruption and respecting democratic rights.’ The organization evaluates Sierra Leone’s compliance with the standards on an ongoing basis.

The organization denied any effort to influence Sierra Leone’s abortion policies in a statement to Fox News Digital on Tuesday.

‘The Millennium Challenge Corporation is unaware of any Sierra Leonean abortion legislation and has never made any requests to the Government of Sierra Leone regarding abortion policies. Any such legislation would be an internal matter for Sierra Leone with no U.S. government developments fund made contingent on its passage,’ the organization said in a statement.

The office of Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who chairs the MCC’s board of directors, did not respond to a request for comment.

Footage circulating on social media shows raucous pro-life protesters demonstrating inside Sierra Leone’s parliament as lawmakers debated the legislation Tuesday.

Pro-life activists in the country claim that President Julius Maada Bio fired his attorney general last week because the official refused to push for the abortion law in parliament. Bio appointed Alpha Sesay as the new AG this week. Sesay is a recent former employee of USAID and has advocated for the new abortion law on social media.

Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., condemned reports of the pressure campaign in a Monday statement.

‘It is deeply disturbing, but not terribly surprising, that we are hearing reports that the Biden administration is threatening to withhold foreign assistance to Sierra Leone unless legislators there pass the deceptively named ‘Safe Motherhood Act’ legislation that would legalize abortion in Sierra Leone, a country that currently protects unborn life,’ he told the Signal.

Smith has previously accused the Biden administration of ‘hijacking’ a Bush-era program delivering AIDS relief to Africa to promote its abortion agenda.

PEPFAR, the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, was launched in 2003 under President George W. Bush and has invested over $100 billion fighting AIDS across the world while saving 25 million lives and preventing millions of infections, the State Department says. PEPFAR was up for re-authorization in Congress last year.

‘President Biden has hijacked PEPFAR, the $6 billion a year foreign aid program designed to mitigate HIV/AIDS in many targeted — mostly African — countries in order to promote abortion on demand,’ Smith told colleagues in a 2023 statement.

Smith said two groups, Population Services International (PSI) and Village Reach, have received $96.5 million and $10.1 million, respectively, over the last few years from PEPFAR under Biden, and both groups have a track record of pushing abortion.

‘PSI proudly proclaims it provides abortion and lobbies to eliminate pro-life laws,’ Smith said. ‘PSI provides comprehensive abortion and post-abortion care services in nearly 20 countries throughout the world.’

Fox News’ Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report

Progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., was defeated in her bid to be the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, losing to Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia.

Connolly, 74, bested the 35-year-old Ocasio-Cortez with 131 to 84 votes in what is seen as a blow for progressives who backed Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the progressive ‘Squad.’

‘I thank my colleagues for their support and the confidence they’ve placed in me to lead House Democrats on the Oversight Committee,’ Connolly said in a statement after being elected by the House Democratic Caucus.

Connolly called out ‘the Republican playbook,’ in which he accused Republicans of using ‘debunked conspiracy theories’ and enabling ‘the worst abuses of the Trump Administration.’

‘This will be trench warfare.’ Connolly said. ‘Now is not the time to be timid. I promise the American people that our Committee Democrats will be a beacon of truth and prepared from day one to counter Republican gaslighting.’

When Fox News Senior Congressional Correspondent Chad Pergram asked Connolly if he was up for a potential fight against the Trump administration, Connolly said he was ‘raring to go.’

‘I did it before for four years, and bested them on a number of occasions, and I’m raring to go again,’ he said.

Connolly said that President-elect Trump ‘may feel more emboldened’ after his reelection victory, though ‘that may also make him more reckless.’

‘There is a law in this land, and we’re going to make sure it’s enforced,’ Connolly said.

In his written statement, Connolly said Democrats will be ‘disciplined’ and ‘laser focused on getting results on the kitchen table issues that are affecting the American people the most.’

‘We will stand up for our democracy and for truth,’ the statement said. ‘And we will protect the tremendous and historic progress we have made as House Democrats.’

Fox News’ Chad Pergram and Tyler Olson contributed to this report.

A majority of Americans say they are optimistic about the polices President-elect Trump will pursue in his incoming administration, according to a new poll from Monmouth University.

The poll found that 53% of Americans are either very or somewhat optimistic about Trump’s second term. That is a slight rise from the weeks prior to his first term, when just 50% of Americans said they were optimistic. The only segment of Americans who are less optimistic about Trump’s second term than they were about his first are Democrats, with just 10% saying they look forward to the next four years.

‘It should come as no surprise there is a stark partisan divide on the Trump agenda. The real question is how these policies will affect American families, especially among those who voted for Trump in 2024,’ Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute, said in a statement.

The poll also found that Trump’s least popular policy is his tariff agenda, with 47% of respondents saying they expect tariffs will hurt their family and just 23% saying they expected it to help. One of Trump’s most popular polices is his plan to eliminate income tax for certain wages, with 48% of respondents saying the plan would help their family, compared to just 15% who say it would hurt.

Monmouth conducted the poll from Dec. 5-10, surveying 1,006 U.S. adults via phone interviews and online surveys. The poll advertises a margin of error of 3.9%.

The poll comes as Trump is cruising toward his second inauguration and has begun targeting perceived enemies in the media. Trump on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the Des Moines register and pollster Ann Selzer. The lawsuit claims the plaintiffs committed ‘brazen election interference’ and fraud by publishing a final 2024 presidential poll showing Vice President Kamala Harris leading him in Iowa. Trump ultimately won the state by 13 points.

The lawsuit was filed Monday night in Polk County, Iowa under the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act and related provisions. It says it seeks ‘accountability for brazen election interference committed by’ the Des Moines Register (DMR) and Selzer ‘in favor of now-defeated former Democrat candidate Kamala Harris through use of a leaked and manipulated Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll conducted by Selzer and S&C and published by DMR and Gannett in the Des Moines Register on Nov. 2, 2024.’ The lawsuit is also against the parent company of the Des Moines Register, Gannett, which also owns other publications, including USA Today.

Trump attorneys said Selzer had ‘prided herself on a mainstream reputation for accuracy despite several far less publicized egregious polling misses in favor of Democrats’ and said she ‘would have the public believe it was merely a coincidence that one of the worst polling misses of her career came just days before the most consequential election in memory, was leaked and happened to go against the Republican candidate.’

‘The Harris Poll was no ‘miss’ but rather an attempt to influence the outcome of the 2024 Presidential Election,’ the lawsuit states, adding that ‘defendants and their cohorts in the Democrat Party hoped that the Harris Poll would create a false narrative of inevitability for Harris in the final week of the 2024 Presidential Election.’ 

‘Instead, the November 5 election was a monumental victory for President Trump in both the Electoral College and the Popular Vote, an overwhelming mandate for his America First principles, and the consignment of the radical socialist agenda to the dustbin of history.’ 

The lawsuit notes that Selzer, after more than 35 years in the industry, ‘retired in disgrace from polling less than two weeks after this embarrassing rout.’

Fox News’ Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

House GOP hardliners are furious with how congressional leaders are handling the ongoing government funding talks, with some even suggesting they could withhold support from House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to head their conference again over his handling of the matter.

Negotiators are working on a short-term extension of current government funding levels known as a continuing resolution (CR). A bill must pass the House and Senate by the end of Friday, Dec. 20 to avoid a partial government shutdown just before the holidays.

‘The speaker definitely has some ‘no’ votes and some people considering their options,’ one GOP lawmaker granted anonymity to speak candidly told Fox News Digital on Tuesday.

That lawmaker also accused Johnson of using President-elect Donald Trump’s own support for the Louisiana Republican as cover.

Johnson won unanimous support to be speaker again in House Republicans’ closed-door elections earlier this year, hours after Trump told lawmakers he supported him.

He needs almost the same level of support in early January, when the entire House votes to elect a new speaker. With just a slim majority, Johnson can only afford to lose a few members of the House GOP to still win the gavel.

Former House Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry, R-Pa., was asked by Fox News on Monday night if, depending on Johnson’s handling of the CR, some Republicans could initially vote against him on Jan. 3.

‘I think that’s potentially a possibility,’ Perry said. 

Another Republican said they would consider opposing Johnson’s speakership bid in January if it were not for Trump’s backing.

‘Everything’s got consequences,’ Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., said when asked if Johnson’s handling of the CR would impact the January vote.

Several Republicans who spoke with Fox News Digital said they felt blindsided by what they viewed as last-minute additions to the CR, which they anticipated would be relatively free of unrelated policy riders.

Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., was furious about health care provisions included in discussions in recent days that would lessen the power of Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs). He said Johnson indicated that the CR would be a ‘clean’ funding extension without added policies.

‘We talked with the speaker up until this weekend, the only discussion was ‘How long is this clean CR going to be?’ And suddenly we find out – I heard rumors over the weekend – they’re negotiating with a health care package that included PBM stuff,’ Burlison said. 

‘I think it’s absolutely disgusting to bring forward a several-thousand-page bill that nobody’s read, even today, nobody’s even seen it, and then they expect us to vote on it without any debate.’

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, told reporters, ‘Swamp is going to swamp, right?’

‘Fourteen hundred pages. Still haven’t seen the text. Multiple subject matters. Important health care legislation in the context of extenders piled on the back of a three-month CR with about $110 billion unpaid for,’ Roy said. ‘This is not the way to do business.’

Roy has also spoken out against a rumored provision expanding ethanol sales.

‘E15 should not be in this disastrous CR/Supplemental, among most of the things being discussed – including a PBM bill that Pharma is dancing in the streets over… Call me crazy, but we should reduce the deficit and not pass stupid policies,’ Roy wrote on X.

The legislative text for the CR was originally expected to come out on Sunday, but as of late Tuesday morning, negotiations were close to an end but still ongoing. It is putting lawmakers perilously close to their Friday shutdown deadline.

Johnson dismissed any concerns about his job during his weekly press conference Tuesday.

‘I’m not worried about the speaker vote,’ he said. ‘We’re governing. Everybody knows we have difficult circumstances. We’re doing the very best we can under those circumstances.’

Johnson also maintained he wanted to give lawmakers 72 hours to read the bill before a vote – meaning it would come Friday earliest if released today.

However, even rank-and-file lawmakers who are not threatening Johnson’s job said there are frustrations about the situation.

Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Wis., whose district has a significant agricultural sector, said some lawmakers were concerned that farm policy provisions in the CR would hinder Congress’ negotiation for a new Farm Bill, comprehensive legislation setting food and agricultural policy that is set to expire this year.

The CR is expected to include a one-year extension of the current Farm Bill, plus added subsidies. 

‘I think there are members that just wish we were being a bit more comprehensive and deliberate in passing a Farm Bill,’ Fitzgerald said. ‘There’s been very little back-and-forth with members on specific issues.’

Fox News’ Tyler Olson contributed to this report.

Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s Defense secretary nominee ensnared in sexual assault allegations, plans to release his accuser from the confidentiality agreement he had her sign, according to Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Graham, R-S.C., told NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ that Hegseth ‘told me he would release her from that agreement,’ adding, ‘I’d want to know if anybody nominated for a high-level job in Washington legitimately assaulted somebody.’

Graham has said he will not take allegations from an anonymous source into consideration for Hegseth’s confirmation. 

Allowing Hegseth’s accuser to come forward publicly might lead to a spectacle similar to the confirmation process for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, during which his accuser, Christine Ford, was called to testify in the Senate about her accusations.  

‘The Pete Hegseth I know, this is not a problem I’ve been aware of,’ Graham said.

‘However, if people have an allegation to make, come forward and make it like they did in Kavanaugh,’ he added, referring to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. ‘We’ll decide whether or not it’s credible.’

A woman alleges that in 2017, she was sexually assaulted by Hegseth in a hotel room in Monterey, California.

Hegseth was not charged in the incident and insists the interaction was consensual, and the charge stemmed from a woman who regretted cheating on her husband.

Police recommended the case report be forwarded to the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office for review, but no charges were filed. 

At the time of the alleged assault, Hegseth, 44, was going through a divorce from his second wife, with whom he shares three children. She filed for divorce after he had a child with another woman, according to court records and social media posts.

A payment was made to the woman, according to Hegseth’s attorney, as part of a confidentiality agreement because Hegseth feared the woman was preparing to file a lawsuit that could have cost him his job as a co-host on ‘Fox & Friends.’ 

Earlier this month, Hegseth’s attorney, Tim Parlatore, told CNN they had considered suing the woman for civil extortion before settling with a confidentiality agreement. 

It is not yet clear whether the allegations may stand in the way of Hegseth’s confirmation. Republicans will have a 53-47 majority in the next Senate, and there is only room for Trump nominees to lose a few GOP votes, assuming no Democrats choose to back them. 

Hegseth does not appear to have lost any Republicans in the upper chamber at this point, including more moderate lawmakers such as Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. 

Hegseth met with both of them last week on Capitol Hill. According to Collins, ‘I had a good, substantive discussion that lasted more than an hour.’

‘We covered a wide range of topics ranging from defense procurement reforms to the role of women in the military, sexual assault in the military. Ukraine, NATO, a wide range of issues. I obviously always wait until we have an FBI background check and one is underway in the case of Mr. Hegseth, and I wait to see the committee hearing before reaching a final decision.’

Trump’s Defense secretary choice has also met twice with Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa. After their first meeting earlier this month, Ernst admitted on Fox News that she was not sold on Hegseth yet. However, after their second meeting this week, she released a statement, saying, ‘As I support Pete through this process, I look forward to a fair hearing based on truth, not anonymous sources.’

Fox News’ Julia Johnson and Tyler Olson contributed to this report. 

A Republican lawmaker is declaring that she will forgo many of the traditional day-to-day obligations of the House GOP Conference, suggesting she will dedicate more of her time to aiding the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-Ind., said she plans to reject any House committee assignments she is given and will refuse to attend the House GOP’s weekly conference meetings. 

‘I will stay as a registered Republican but will not sit on committees or participate in the caucus until I see that Republican leadership in Congress is governing,’ Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-Ind., wrote on X on Monday evening.

‘I do not need to be involved in circuses. I would rather spend more of my time helping [DOGE]… to save our Republic, as was mandated by the American people.’

Spartz did not elaborate on how she would focus her efforts on DOGE.

She has bucked House GOP leadership several times during the 118th Congress, chiefly on issues of government spending and the national debt. She is currently a member of the House Judiciary Committee.

DOGE is a nonbinding advisory panel commissioned by President-elect Donald Trump to recommend areas for cutting spending and improving the efficiency of the federal government.

He tapped Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead it, and the push has been met with enthusiasm among House Republicans. 

Spartz’s comments came the day before the Congressional DOGE Caucus readies to have its first lawmaker meeting on Tuesday.

Fox News Digital reached out to the Indiana Republican to ask whether she would consider joining the caucus.

A Republican congressman is disputing Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s insistence that the State Department did not block citizens from leaving Mazar-i-Sharif Airbase in Afghanistan during the frenzied withdrawal. 

Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, wrote a letter, obtained by Fox News Digital, demanding to know how many planes the State Department blocked from leaving the airbase, who made the call on whether to clear flights for takeoff, what the criteria for blocking delaying flights was and whether there had been communication with the Taliban.

Following the withdrawal, reports emerged that 1,000 people, including Americans, were stuck at Mazar-i-Sharif Airport awaiting clearance for their charter flights to leave. 

Many had made the 400-mile trek from Kabul to be able to get out more quickly at the airport in northern Afghanistan. 

One flight organizer told Reuters the State Department had failed to tell the Taliban of its approval for flight departures in Mazar-i-Sharif or validate a landing site. 

Davidson said in the letter that when he was in talks with the State Department, an official asked him ‘which tail number’ he was referring to, insinuating more than one flight had not received authorization to take off and been delayed. 

Col. Francis Hoang, who worked on Afghanistan evacuations with his group Allied Airlift 21, told the Foreign Affairs Committee, ‘We spent three weeks hiding these nearly 400 people from the Taliban, keeping them alive and fed using funds from American donors.’

During a hearing last week, Davidson asked Blinken, ‘Did the State Department block American citizens from departing from the airfield in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan?’ 

‘Absolutely not,’ said Blinken. 

‘You know they were blocked!’ said Davidson. 

‘I’d be happy to look at any information you have on that. I’m not aware of any American citizens who were blocked.’

‘I have the emails. I have the photographs of American, blue passport-holding American citizens who were on the airfield awaiting departure that got clearance for safe third countries to depart to, and the order came down from the United States government. Was it the State Department?’ Davidson asked. 

Blinken’s testimony came three months after the committee voted along party lines to recommend he be held in contempt of Congress, when he refused to appear to testify again about the 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal. 

Republicans released a lengthy report in September highlighting how State Department officials had no plan for getting Americans and allies out while there were still troops there to protect them. 

The report claimed that Ross Wilson, U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan at the time, grew the embassy’s footprint instead of sending personnel home despite warnings from military officials that a Taliban takeover was imminent. 

‘You ignored warnings of collapse from your own personnel,’ Foreign Affairs Chair Michael McCaul told Blinken. 

Blinken defended the Biden administration’s handling of the withdrawal, saying every American who wanted to leave had been given the opportunity to do so and thousands of Afghans have been resettled internationally. 

President-elect Donald Trump has promised to ask for the resignation of every senior official ‘who touched the Afghanistan calamity.’

Democrats, meanwhile, insist the blame for the 20-year war’s acrimonious end lies with a deal Trump negotiated with the Taliban for U.S. withdrawal.