A foreign minister who served under former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro called on the Biden administration to condemn his country’s ban on social media platform X, saying the U.S. has a ‘responsibility’ to speak up.

 Ernesto Araújo, who served as foreign minister under Bolsonaro from 2019 to 2021, said the U.S. has a ‘responsibility to be the reference point for democracy, for rule of law, for freedom in the hemisphere.’ But the White House has been silent for too long, he said, and it’s hesitation to advocate for free speech predates the ban on X, he said.

‘The Biden administration is not living up to that – have not lived up to that for a long time – and about what is happening in Brazil, because the banning of X is not something out of the blue,’ Araújo told Fox News Digital. ‘It’s one more step, after many steps, of curtailing basic rights and destroying the rule of law, destroying democracy in Brazil, something perpetrated by the Supreme Court, by a good portion of the political class, and the administration never did anything.’

Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes last week banned X after the company failed to appoint a legal representative in the country, leading to the ‘immediate, complete and total suspension of X’s operations’ in Brazil. 

The ban will remain in place ‘until all court orders . . . are complied with, fines are duly paid and a new legal representative for the company is appointed in the country,’ according to The Guardian. 

X, under outspoken owner Elon Musk, has refused to comply following Moraes’s order to ban several accounts related to individuals involved in an alleged attempted coup last year. The powerful judge alleged that these accounts have spread misinformation and represent a threat. 

Musk accused the judge, an ally of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, of attacking free speech and said the order violates the Brazilian constitution. He further alleged in a post on X that the judge had targeted his platform ‘for political reasons.’ 

The White House has remained silent on the issue, and it declined a Fox News Digital request for comment. The U.S. State Department has also not issued any comments regarding the decision. 

‘I think the U.S. has this kind of international responsibility in the world – in the hemisphere, for sure,’ Araújo said. ‘It should be an ally of those who are trying to protect freedom and not those who are destroying freedom.’

‘So I see a lot of sympathy from the Biden administration, from the Democratic Party, for the wrong people in Latin America,’ he added. ‘It’s not a question of right or left, it’s a question of those who just claim to be for democracy.’ 

The order has not gone over well in Brazil, with the country heavily divided over the resulting ban. Many users have jumped ship to other platforms – mainly rivals Bluesky and Threads. 

The Brazilian user base for X is one-fifth and one-sixth that of Instagram and TikTok, respectively, but the platform has served as a major nexus for news agencies and political and thought leaders, giving it an outsized influence. 

Izabela Patriota, the director of development of the Ladies of Liberty Alliance and head of its Brazil section, told FOX Business that protests would materialize on Saturday, which coincides with Brazil’s Independence Day celebrations. 

While many Brazilians have found alternative social media outlets, former officials and allies of Bolsonaro argue that the ban sets the stage for further bans. Patriota fears that the courts could eventually take similar actions against the other platforms and services should the justices determine they also posed a threat. Musk also owns Starlink, a satellite internet service which has been targeted by de Moraes.

‘Where X is just another platform, and so many Brazilians are already migrating to different platforms, Starlink is providing access to many, many, many communities in the Amazon areas that they wouldn’t have without Starlink,’ Patriota said. 

Araújo also worried about the international trajectory for his country, noting that Brazil has continued to build ties with ‘the territorial block of China, Russia, Iran.’ 

‘It’s basically, playing a game,’ Araújo said. ‘Lula wants to play this game . . . he’s really, for everything that matters, is allying Brazil with the enemies of freedom, with the enemies of the United States.’

‘I think it’s in the hands of some people in the State Department or Democratic Party who think that Lula is their friend who also – I don’t know if it’s for specific interest or they’re just not smart enough to know what’s happening – who think that Lula is the good guy, and the Right is the bad guys in Brazil.’ 

The White House did not respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment by time of publication. 

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris has flipped on another policy — banning plastic straws.

Harris’ campaign has abandoned the vice president’s previous position from the 2020 Democratic primary in which she stated unequivocally that plastic straws should be banned due to environmental considerations.

‘She doesn’t support banning plastic straws,’ a campaign official told Axios on Wednesday.

Harris was asked whether she would support a ban on ‘single use plastics’ during a CNN town hall marathon in 2019, and specifically whether she would ban plastic straws.

‘I think we should, yes,’ Harris responded. 

‘Look, I’m going to be honest… It’s really difficult to drink out of a paper straw,’ she joked. ‘So we kinda have to perfect that a little bit more.’

The campaign emphasized that the policy change does not lower the priority of environmental reforms for the vice president.

‘She cast the tie-breaking vote on the most consequential legislation to combat climate change and create clean energy jobs in history, and as President, she is going to be focused on expanding on that progress,’ the campaign told Axios.

It’s the latest in a long series of position flips the Harris campaign has undertaken as the vice president seeks to succeed President Biden in the November election.

Harris has been accused by voters, political pundits and the Trump campaign of flip-flopping on key policies since emerging as the Democratic Party’s nominee after President Biden dropped out of the race last month. 

On fracking, for example, Harris’ campaign announced last month that the vice president did not support a ban on the oil extraction technique that enjoys broad support in battleground states like Pennsylvania.

That position, however, is the opposite of her remarks as a primary candidate during a 2019 CNN town hall event, when Harris said there is ‘no question I’m in favor of banning fracking.’

Harris has also distanced herself from ‘Medicare for All’ and semiautomatic rifle buyback programs, after publicly touting both programs during her failed primary campaign during the 2020 cycle. 

Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton contributed to this report.

Former President Donald Trump claims that the upcoming presidential debate will not allow for adjustments to the nominees’ height behind the podium.

Trump made the comment in a Saturday post on his proprietary social media platform Truth Social.

‘No boxes or artificial lifts will be allowed to stand on [sic] during my upcoming debate with Comrade Kamala Harris,’ Trump wrote. ‘We had this out previously with former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg when he was in a debate, and he was not allowed a ‘lift.’

‘It would be a form of cheating, and the Democrats cheat enough,’ the former president added. ”You are who you are,’ it was determined!’

It is not immediately clear if Trump was relaying the outcome of discussions with ABC ahead of the debate or was speculating.

The post references Trump’s past feud with the former New York City mayor, who the former president taunted as ‘Mini Mike Bloomberg’ during his 2020 Democratic nomination bid.

Trump repeatedly claimed Bloomberg requested to stand on a box behind his podium during his Democratic primary debate — but this claim was never substantiated that the former mayor ever made such a request.

‘The president is lying,’ a spokesperson for Bloomberg’s 2020 campaign fired back at the time. ‘He is a pathological liar who lies about everything: his fake hair, his obesity, and his spray-on tan.’

Harris clarified her own height during an interview with ‘Today’ host Katie Couric earlier this year, correcting the interviewer when she claimed the vice president is 5’2′.

‘I am 5’4′ and a quarter — sometimes 5’4′ and a half,’ Harris told Couric. ‘And with heels — which I always wear — I’m 5’7’ and a half, thank you very much.’

Trump’ own height has been variously reported as 6’2′ and 6’3′.

The American University historian who has correctly predicted the outcomes of nine of the last ten presidential elections tells Fox News Digital that the Democrats ‘finally got smart’ by rallying around Kamala Harris as their candidate – and that is one of the reasons why he thinks she will be November’s winner. 

The formula Allan Lichtman has used to correctly predict nearly every presidential race since 1984, his ‘Keys to the White House,’ was developed in 1981 with mathematician Vladimir Keilis-Borok and is based on their analysis of presidential elections dating back to 1860. The ‘keys’ consist of 13 true or false questions, parameters that, if true, favor stability. 

‘The way it works is real simple. If six or more keys — any six — go against the White House party, they are predicted losers. Otherwise, they’re predicted winners,’ Lichtman told Fox News Digital this week. ‘And by the way, this also led to a prediction of Donald Trump’s win, which made me virtually alone in making that prediction in 2016.’ 

Lichtman says the Democrats represented by Harris could lose five keys ‘at most’ and that is why he is predicting that ‘we are going to have a precedent-breaking election and Kamala Harris will become the first woman President of the United States.’ 

‘We’ve had an unprecedented situation of a sitting president dropping out on the eve of the convention, and it has affected my keys,’ Lichtman continued. ‘Now, with Biden dropping out, the Democrats lost one key — the incumbency key. I thought perhaps the way things were looking, if Biden dropped out, the [Democrats] would have a big party brawl and that would cost them a second key, which could lose them the election. But the Democrats finally got smart and united behind Harris and that preserved the contest key. That means the shift only cost them one key.’ 

Lichtman describes the contest key as having ‘no serious contest for the incumbent-party nomination.’ The other keys are as follows: party mandate, incumbency, third party, short-term economy, long-term economy, policy change, social unrest, scandal, foreign/military failure, foreign/military success, incumbent charisma and challenger charisma. 

‘I think having Harris front and center rather than Joe Biden, the policymaker, has dampened enthusiasm for protests which helped salvage a second key, the social unrest key,’ Lichtman also said. ‘The keys show that Kamala Harris is a predicted winner.’ 

Fox News’ Chris Pandolfo contributed to this report. 

Which of these things is not like the others? The economy. The border. Abortion. Foreign policy. 

The first three are issues many voters consistently tell pollsters are the subjects most important to them in 2024. Foreign policy? Dwarfed by the others. In fact, recent Fox polling shows that foreign policy decisions were the most important subjects to only 3% of registered voters surveyed in Nevada, North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona. Foreign policy only climbs to 4% when Fox asked the question nationally.

So why care about foreign policy in a race like the one between Vice President Harris and former President Trump? The importance of foreign policy as a determining factor in the race for the presidency rises and falls. Vietnam wore on the public consciousness in the late 1960s. It drove former President Lyndon Johnson away from seeking re-election in 1968. The Iranian hostage crisis certainly didn’t help former President Carter as he stumbled in 1980. It’s believed that former President Reagan scored a boost from improving America’s image on the global stage. Staring down the Soviets certainly enabled Reagan to cruise to victory in 1984.

Former President George H.W. Bush seemingly received no benefit for the 1991 Gulf War nor the fall of the Eastern Bloc in the late ‘80s and early ’90s. This was ironic. The president earned a staggering 91% approval rating just after the Gulf War. Yet he lost to former President Clinton less than two years later. The events of 9/11 lifted the fate of former President George W. Bush in 2001. Bush won re-election in 2004. But casualties from the war in Iraq cost him support that fall. 

So, should we focus on foreign policy as a crucial issue in 2024? Hard to say. But in a tight race, anything might be decisive. Especially in battleground states where the race is a statistical dead heat.

‘Pocketbook issues are always the most important issues for most people,’ said Rep. Larry Bucshon, R-Ind. But Bucshon offered a caveat.

‘(Foreign policy) could be in the national security space part of the election narrative because the vice president was obviously part of this decision-making progress,’ the Indiana Republican said.

That is precisely what Republicans hope to highlight as Congress returns to session. Biden is out the door. Harris is now the Democratic nominee. And Republicans hope to tell the story of the vice president and foreign policy.

War in the Middle East. Executions of Israeli hostages. Even the controversy involving Trump honoring service members killed in Afghanistan three years ago. Curiously, the incident and questions surrounding how Trump and his team conducted themselves at Arlington National Cemetery may have actually retrained focus on why they were there in the first place: the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan under the watch of the president and vice president.

A mother of one of the 13 U.S. service members killed in the Abbey Gate attack at the Kabul airport railed against the administration.

‘We’ve been disrespected so much in the last three years,’ Kelly Barnett told Fox. She’s a Gold Star mother who lost her son, Taylor Hoover, in the terrorist attack. ‘No response from them. No ‘I’m sorry.’’

Republicans see this as connective tissue to Harris.

‘I think it’s open to criticism because the vice president was intimately involved in that discussion (to withdraw from Afghanistan),’ said Bucshon.

Harris even said as much during an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash in 2021 after the withdrawal.

‘(President Biden) just made a really big decision. Afghanistan,’ said Bash. ‘Were you the last person in the room?’

‘Yes,’ replied Harris.

‘And you feel comfortable?’ countered Bash.

‘I do,’ answered Harris.

On NBC, Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., noted that former President Trump ‘was never able’ to get out of Afghanistan despite wanting to do so.

‘I give President Biden and Vice President Harris credit for finally ending a war after 20 years,’ said Khanna.

The California Democrat conceded the administration bungled the withdrawal. But Khanna believes Harris and the president ‘deserve credit’ for actually extracting the U.S. from the protracted conflict. In addition, some Republicans point to the Israel/Hamas war as a flashpoint for the administration.

‘Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have tried to hamstring Israel every step of the way here,’ Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., said on Fox.

On Fox Business, Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas, argued that the only ‘two-state solution’ Harris and vice presidential nominee and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz care about is winning ‘Pennsylvania and Michigan.’

But when it comes to the Middle East, the administration contends it’s clear who is to blame — despite the Mideast crisis unfolding on its watch.

‘Hamas is responsible for their deaths. And as the president said, most leaders pay for their crimes,’ said White House national security spokesman John Kirby.

The campaign trail now moves from battleground states like Nevada and North Carolina to Capitol Hill as Congress returns to session. Expect congressional Republicans to curate a narrative about the Biden administration’s foreign policy — and latch that to Harris.

The House is slated to vote on a number of measures in the coming days pertaining to China. There may even be legislation tied to Israel and the Mideast War. The House Foreign Affairs Committee is releasing an exhaustive report about the Afghanistan withdrawal imminently. The committee also issued a subpoena to Secretary of State Antony Blinken to testify about the withdrawal Sept. 19.

The State Department contends Blinken isn’t available then. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller called the subpoena ‘unnecessary,’ arguing Blinken worked with the committee in good faith. But Foreign Affairs Committee spokeswoman Leslie Shedd said Blinken knew the committee wanted his testimony since late May.

‘The chairman offered the secretary any session day in the month of September to come in, and he refused. Instead, he vaguely suggested November or December — when it is far too late for Congress to take legislative action to fix the problems at the State Department that led to the withdrawal,’ Shedd said.

Regardless, the coming days will present lots of fodder about what went wrong in Afghanistan three years ago. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., will present the families of the 13 service members killed in Afghanistan with the Congressional Gold Medal in a ceremony Tuesday.

So, do the foreign policy arguments stick to Harris? Unclear. However, you’ll notice that Republicans recently began to invoke the ‘Biden-Harris administration.’ That’s a concerted effort to pivot from Biden and Velcro issues to the vice president — once she became the nominee.

But will foreign policy make a difference? It can. But we won’t know until the vote is in. As observed earlier, George W. Bush won re-election over former Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., in 2004. But there were ‘micro’ costs to Bush’s campaign over the Iraq war in particular regions and precincts.

And in a close election, that’s why foreign policy might matter in 2024.

Political headwinds have recently shifted in eight close House races around the country. With less than two months until Election Day, Democrats continue to ride a wave of enthusiasm for their new presidential nominee.

Six races have shifted in Democrats’ favor, while just two are looking better for Republicans, according to a nonpartisan analysis by the Cook Political Report.

Meanwhile, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has spent the summer crisscrossing the country to campaign for fellow GOP lawmakers as he seeks to hold onto his razor-thin, four-seat majority in the House.

Two of the races that inched toward the left are in districts President Biden won in 2020 but are held by GOP representatives Don Bacon, R-Neb., and Michelle Steele, R-Calif. Both their ratings switched from ‘lean Republican’ to ‘toss up.’

Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, who flipped her seat from red to blue in 2020, saw her race move from ‘likely’ victory for Republicans to only leaning in their favor.

Three Democratic seats — those held by representatives Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, and Henry Cuellar, D-Texas — have also become safer for the left.

Moskowitz and Cuellar’s race predictions shifted to solidly and ‘likely’ blue, respectively, while Kaptur’s seat is now leaning Democratic after being classified a ‘toss-up.’

Democrats could be on track to lose a seat in the House, however, with the race for Rep. Mary Peltola’s seat becoming a ‘toss-up’ in Alaska, a state former President Trump won in 2020.

Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, which Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., is vacating to run in the nearby 4th Congressional District, is now ‘likely’ to be held by Republicans after her departure.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the House Democrats’ campaign arm, took a victory lap over Cook’s latest updates Friday. 

‘House Democrats continue to build momentum and grassroots enthusiasm across the country, while House GOP incumbents and candidates continue to fall flat on their faces,’ DCCC spokesperson Viet Shelton said in a statement to the press touting the update.

Republicans appeared to be on track to possibly win both the White House and Congress before Biden’s shocking decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race in late July.

Democrats have since been riding a wave of enthusiasm for their new candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, despite a lack of expansive policy platforms and few unscripted media appearances.

At least one House Republican who spoke with Fox News Digital this week was bullish about the GOP’s chances of victory, however.

‘If these predictive sites are to be believed, maybe Donald Trump’s got a 42% chance to be president. We’ve got a, you know, 60-some percent chance to take the Senate and a 55% chance to keep the House. So, that’s a better hand of cards than we’re holding today,’ the GOP lawmaker said. 

‘I would say this. If Donald Trump gets elected, he will likely usher in a Republican House and Senate along with him.’

Last month, House GOP leaders were expressing concerns about being out-raised by Democrats.

Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., head of the House GOP campaign arm, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), confirmed he sounded alarm bells in comments to Fox Business in August.

‘That’s true, and we’ve seen the fundraising on the Democrat side just go through the roof. And so I’ve warned my candidates and my colleagues in the Congress that we’ve got to step up and continue doing the things we need to do to win,’ Hudson said at the time.

He said the response from House Republicans has been ‘great,’ adding, ‘Everyone stepped up. We had a number of people pledge more money to the committee. … I think folks are ready for the fight.’

Fox Business’ Grady Trimble and Fox News’ Tyler Olson contributed to this report

After six weeks of recess, the House is set to fast-track approval of a slew of China-related bills that aim to counter the U.S.’s growing foe beginning on Monday. 

With only three weeks of work on Capitol Hill before the November election, the Republican-led lower chamber is dedicating precious floor time to bills that would root out Chinese spyware within the country and set up the next president to take tougher action against Beijing. 

‘We wanted to combine them all into one week so that you had a real sharp focus on the fact that we need to be aggressive in confronting the threat that China poses,’ Majority Leader Steve Scalise told Fox News Digital about the planned ‘China Week.’

‘I think we can get real bipartisan support for a number of these,’ the Louisiana Republican said. ‘They’re all bills that should be very bipartisan, because there are things that China is doing right now that are direct threats to our country’s national security, and if we get strong bipartisan votes, you have a higher chance of getting through the Senate.’

Scalise said that four bills will come up under a rule, meaning that they will be debated by the House and that members can offer amendments. Still more will come up under suspension of the rules, meaning that the House is aiming to pass them quickly and without debate. 

Scalise highlighted one bill that would undo the Biden administration’s guidance allowing Chinese-made electric vehicles to qualify for a $7,500 tax credit. The move enraged even West Virginia’s Democrat-turned-Independent Sen. Joe Manchin, who helped author the Inflation Reduction Act that allowed for the credit. 

The End Chinese Dominance of Electric Vehicles Act, introduced by Rep. Carol Miller, R-W.Va., would tighten the Foreign Entity of Concern (FEOC) definition of a 30D EV that qualifies for the credit to exclude those vehicles with significant parts that are made in China. 

Another bill would broadly ban China from purchasing U.S. farmland. Chinese entities owned about 380,000 acres of agricultural land in the U.S. as of 2023, or less than 1%. 

Another bill, the No WHO Pandemic Preparedness Treaty Without Senate Approval Act, would prevent the U.S. from agreeing to any pandemic preparedness agreement negotiated by the World Health Organization (WHO) without the approval of two-thirds of the Senate. 

‘We’re giving an extra buffer so that the administration can’t just go partner up with WHO and come up with an agreement that would result in really bad policy for America,’ Scalise said. 

Another bill, the Biosecure Act, would ban federal agencies that run research labs from using any biotech equipment from any company that could be at risk of harnessing data to send back to the CCP.

Another, the DHS Restrictions on Confucius Institutes and Chinese Entities of Concern Act, would prevent any federal money from going to universities involved with CCP-run Confucius Institutes. 

‘You’re seeing China get more involved in our higher ed institutions,’ said Scalise. 

During former President Donald Trump’s administration in 2018, Congress ‘restricted federal funding to schools with institutes; nearly all of the institutes have since closed,’ according to Congress’s Government Accountability Office (GAO).

Another piece of legislation would re-establish a task force formed under Trump within the Department of Justice specifically focused on Chinese espionage. 

FBI Director Christopher Wray estimated last year his agency has more than 2,000 active investigations related to Chinese spying. 

The FBI estimates that Chinese counterfeit goods, pirated software and theft of trade secrets have cost the U.S. economy between $225 billion and $600 billion.