House Republicans walked out of a nearly three-hour conference meeting on Monday night united over a sense of urgency in needing to pick a new speaker — and little else.

One of the most prominent debates to surface, less than 72 hours before the Republicans are set to gather behind closed doors for their speaker election, is whether to raise the threshold needed to put a candidate on the House floor.

‘I don’t think we ought to be changing rules in the middle of an election. I just don’t think that’s wise. I also think there is some wisdom of having members have their surnames called out, and have to…declare it to everybody,’ said Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., who is backing Majority Leader Steve Scalise for Speaker. ‘Secret ballot accomplishes very little, you know, other than gives you an opportunity to freely express yourself without being made known.’

But Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., leader of the pragmatic Main Street Caucus, said he was leaning in favor of the change but had not made up his mind. ‘If it’s going to take us four days to get to 218, I think everybody should agree that burning that time on the floor is suboptimal.’ Johnson has not publicly said who he will support yet.

House Republicans are set to gather on Wednesday morning to elect their candidate for speaker via secret ballot. Fox News Digital was told that House GOP leaders are weighing an amendment to the current House rules that would temporarily raise the threshold needed to win from a simple majority to 217 or 218 votes. 

Ex-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., was elected in a full House vote after 15 public rounds across three days after being selected behind closed-doors via simple majority of the House GOP. He was removed last week by eight members of his own party and House Democrats.

Multiple lawmakers indicated to Fox News Digital after their closed-door Monday meeting that the vote on raising that threshold was expected before the closed-door election. 

Republican Study Committee Chair Kevin Hern suggested he was learning in favor of the rule. Hern argued that the unfolding crisis in the Middle East was all the more reason for Congress to appear united in moving forward.

‘The American people are pretty weary right now on chaos, if you will. I don’t know that it’s healthy for the American morale to see chaos in the Middle East, chaos in Israel, and then chaos here,’ he said. 

McCarthy ally Rep. John James, R-Mich., said he signed onto a GOP letter requesting the rule change to ‘very quickly get back to things that most Americans are concerned with.’

‘We need to secure our border, we need to address our debt, we need to address our spending – and in order to do that, we have to make sure that before we go to the floor, we have enough votes to have a Republican Speaker,’ he said.

But Rules Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., who also supported McCarthy as speaker, said lawmakers shouldn’t need to change conference rules to put on a united public front. 

‘We did not always go in conference with person who won the election, but I never dreamed of not voting for that person on the floor. No matter how strongly I disagreed with them, the conference made the decision and they deserve my support to be speaker. We should get back to that,’ he said.

His fellow freshman Rep. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y., did not rule out the idea but suggested putting a seven-day limit on the closed-door vote before forcing it onto the floor.

‘It’ll probably lend itself to some unity in the conference, but I think it’s also prudent to have some sort of escape hatch if that strategy doesn’t result in a bonafide speaker,’ LaLota said.

Meanwhile Rep. Max Miller, R-Ohio, who is backing Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, for speaker, also threw into the mix a suggestion to give lawmakers an extra week before voting for speaker.

‘I don’t think we’re gonna get a speaker this week at all,’ Miller said. 

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., is taking a firm stance on supporting Israel in its defense against Hamas militant terrorist attacks and called for the U.S. to send weapons to the nation in a recent letter sent to President Biden.

The Republican senator slammed the administration’s Office of Palestinian Affairs for initially calling for ‘all sides to refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks’ in a now-deleted post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

‘So far, the administration’s response has been far weaker than Israel — a shining beacon of democracy and our most important ally in the Middle East — deserves,’ Blackburn wrote.

Blackburn urged the federal government to ‘provide all weapons and munitions necessary.’ 

FAMILIES OF ISRAELIS FEARED KIDNAPPED BY HAMAS TERRORISTS SPEAK OUT 

‘The failures of this administration on the world stage have no doubt emboldened those who would wish America and our allies harm,’ she wrote.  

After the attacks on Saturday, Biden said to reporters, ‘The United States stands with Israel’ and that the government would support them in any way in their defense.

With the upper chamber on official recess until next week and the House slated to vote in a new speaker in the coming weeks, Blackburn said in the meantime the Senate needs to keep pressure on the administration.

‘During this week while not in D.C., what we should do is support this letter that will encourage the administration to rescind this deal of $6 billion,’ Blackburn told Fox News Digital in an interview. ‘You cannot participate in this kind of attack and then be rewarded for those actions.’

LIVE UPDATES: HAMAS ATTACKS ON ISRAEL 

‘There are some things that we should be doing to bolster the admin to be more definitive in their support of Israel,’ Blackburn said. ‘And for [Secretary of State] Antony Blinken to try to say the release of the $6 billion had nothing to do with this — what we do know is that when you take these actions that seem to be appeasing actions, it leads to the perception of weakness, and when you have that perception of weakness, it emboldens your enemies.’

The $6 billion deal in exchange for American prisoners captive in Iran, which was reached last month, allowed the transfer of Iran’s frozen assets held in a South Korean bank to accounts in Qatar. Blinken said the money can only be used for humanitarian purposes and the U.S. will have oversight as to how and when the funds are used. 

However, Hamas spokesperson Ghazi Hamad told the BBC that they had Iran’s support for the attacks, which began Saturday. A bombshell Wall Street Journal report Sunday said Hamas and Hezbollah helped Iran plan the attack.

In an instant, the conversation in the race for the White House was altered as Hamas militants, supported by Iran, on Saturday launched the deadliest attack on Israel in decades. 

And the surprise assault on Israel during the early morning hours of a major Jewish holiday immediately elevated foreign policy – which was one of many leading issues in the presidential race – to the center of the campaign spotlight.

Longtime Republican strategist and communicator Ryan Williams, a veteran of multiple GOP presidential campaigns, emphasized that ‘the tragic events in Israel have shifted the political discussion in the United States to foreign policy.’

Former President Donald Trump, in a campaign appearance Monday in New Hampshire, took aim at his successor in the White House, arguing that ‘today we have an all-out war in Israel, and it’s going to spread very quickly. What a difference a president makes.’

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who served as ambassador to the United Nations during the Trump administration and is challenging the former president for the 2024 presidential nomination, told Fox News in an interview in Iowa that ‘our message to Hamas is, your days are numbered. Your days are numbered because we are not going to allow you to terrorize Israelis, Americans or anyone anymore. This terror is coming to an end.’

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in a statement, emphasized that ‘we must not only stand with Israel, but we must support them as they hunt down and eradicate these barbarians.’

The presidential campaign for Sen. Tim Scott said that the South Carolina lawmaker will head to a well-known conservative think tank in the nation’s capital Tuesday to deliver a speech ‘about standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel, wiping Hamas off the map.’

On Wednesday, GOP White House contender and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum will visit the same think tank – the Hudson Institute – to lay out what his advisers say is a ‘comprehensive foreign policy vision that will make America safer’ in the wake of the attack on Israel.

President Biden, pointing to what he called an ‘appalling terrorist assault against Israel’ that left over 900 Israelis dead and more than 2,000 injured, said in a statement Monday that ‘in this moment of heartbreak, the American people stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Israelis.’

The assault by Hamas, in which at least 11 Americans in Israel were also killed, ignited a massive counterattack, which has left around 700 Palestinians dead and nearly 3,000 injured in the Gaza Strip.

Biden reiterated that ‘the United States and the State of Israel are inseparable partners’ and that Washington ‘will continue to make sure Israel has what it needs to defend itself and its people.’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who’s had his differences in the past with Biden, emphasized on Monday that ‘I want to thank President Biden for his unequivocal support,’ but his praise for Biden hasn’t stopped the Republican presidential candidates from blaming the president for the Hamas attack.

The criticism of the president comes from a recent $6 billion transfer to Iran, a complex prisoner swap deal announced by the Biden administration in September. Roughly $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets that were being held in South Korea were transferred to an account in Doha, Qatar, as part of the deal to free five Americans being held hostage in Iran.

The Biden administration has pushed back on GOP criticism by insisting that none of the funds transferred have been spent to date, but Republicans claim that the deal – and the funds – helped fuel the Hamas assault on Israel.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has emphasized that Tehran would spend the money ‘wherever we need it,’ to which the Biden administration responded it could freeze the assets again if necessary.

DeSantis claimed that Hamas was ’empowered by Joe Biden’s appeasement of Iran’ while Scott alleged the attack was ‘the Biden $6 billion ransom payment at work.’

Former Vice President Mike Pence blamed Biden, arguing that the current administration ‘projects weakness on the world stage.’ 

And Trump, who’s the commanding frontrunner for the GOP nomination as he runs for the White House a third straight time, charged Monday in New Hampshire that ‘Joe Biden betrayed Israel.’

The Biden 2024 re-election campaign fired back at Trump.

‘With each and every lie, Donald Trump further proves he is too dangerous to lead the United States on the world stage. The generals and other military leaders who served under Trump—those in a position to know—have repeatedly said he made our country less safe, not more,’ Biden-Harris 2024 Campaign National Co-Chair and military veteran Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois said in a statement. 

Williams, the Republican strategist, said that the elevation of foreign policy ‘works well for Trump’ in the GOP nomination race. 

Pointing to Trump’s four years in the White House, Williams said ‘he’s the only Republican candidate that’s had that level of foreign policy experience, and he has a record to point to, where he can say that the way he was doing it in office was better than Biden.’

Pence and Haley are also spotlighting their chops on the world stage.

Besides criticizing Biden, Pence took aim at his rivals this past weekend in stating that ‘voices of appeasement like Donald Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis that I believe have run contrary to the tradition in our party that America is the leader of the free world.’

Williams emphasized that ‘if you have foreign policy experience, this issue helps you.’

But he also said, ‘I don’t think it necessarily sets Haley and Pence apart from Trump, because they were all in the same administration, but Trump gets to take credit for what he did in his administration.’

EXCLUSIVE — Iraq’s top judge, Faiq Zidan, who seeks the arrest of former President Donald Trump, confirmed through his spokesperson to Fox News Digital that he has indeed been invited to Washington, D.C. Fox News Digital first broke the story that Zidan had been invited to Washington.

There had been confusion about the controversial judge’s visit to Washington, D.C., when it was revealed that he was to meet with officials at the Department of Justice. A State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital last week, ‘The Supreme Judicial Council President Faiq Zidan is going to be hosted by the Department of Justice, so we defer to the DOJ to discuss their meetings. We engage with a wide range of counterparts in Iraq, and we value engaging the Iraqi judiciary. The DOJ meets regularly with foreign judicial leaders.’

Yet conflicting with the State Department spokesperson’s statement, a source familiar with the situation told Fox News Digital last Thursday that ‘Zidan will not be meeting with any DOJ officials.’

On Monday, Zidan’s spokesperson texted Fox News Digital on the WhatsApp messaging service, writing, ‘His visit to Washington was postponed due to the current war conditions. When he visits Washington, he will hold a meeting with you to clarify many matters that are not clear to American public opinion.’

Fox News Digital called Zidan’s spokesperson before publication of its first article on his planned visit. She declined to comment on the telephone or via WhatsApp. After Fox News Digital sent the Iraqi spokesperson its published story, she issued the statement that the war in Israel was preventing Zidan from traveling to Washington.

According to a source familiar with Zidan’s invitation to the DOJ, the judge told many U.S. officials that the DOJ invited him to Washington, D.C.

In January, Zidan said that Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council had filed an arrest warrant for Trump with regard to the U.S. targeted killing of Iranian Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force, who reportedly oversaw the murders of more than 600 American military personnel in the Mideast.

According to an article on the website of U.S.-sanctioned Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the Iraqi judge said during a meeting earlier this year with the Raisi, ‘One of the most important examples of judicial cooperation between the two neighboring and brotherly countries is the trial of all those who participated in the terrorist crime of martyring the commanders of fighting against terrorism.’

Zidan’s reported statement was said in a discussion on pursuing ‘justice for the martyrs Soleimani, al-Muhandis.’

Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis was the head of the pro-Iran Kata’ib Hezbollah militia in 2020. The U.S. military killed Soleimani and al-Muhandis with a lethal drone strike  near Baghdad International Airport.

Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser for the Washington, D.C.-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital, ‘The Justice Department should be focused on protecting Americans targeted by IRGC assassinations and kidnapping plots, not hosting the IRGC’s man in Baghdad who wants to prosecute Americans for killing terrorists. Zidan should not be allowed in America.’

Michael Knights, a fellow of the Washington Institute who has written about Zidan, told Fox News Digital that ‘Zidan issued one order after another that has disadvantaged opponents of Iranian militias.’

Knights said that after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Soleimani and al-Muhandis ‘were the architects of moving Zidan up through the judicial system. He was running counterterrorism courts so that none of Iran’s friends got prosecuted under Iraqi law.’

The lack of modern judicial norms in Iraq was noted by Knights, who said Zidan ‘is a supreme court judge who can hire and fire other judges. Iraq has one supreme court judge. He is as powerful as the prime minister of Iraq. He is unelected, installed by Iran and has no term limit.’

Israel’s counteroffensive into Gaza extended through the night, including airstrikes in Gaza City, home to Hamas’ centers of government.

Israeli warplanes pounded downtown Gaza City with relentless bombardments into early Tuesday, after Israel’s prime minister vowed retaliation against the Islamic militant group that would ‘reverberate for generations.’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a nationally televised address, where he said: ‘We have only started striking Hamas.’

He added: ‘What we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations.’

Israel has, so far, issued warnings to civilians in areas of Gaza City and others where they intend to strike. The warnings have given civilians moments to evacuate so as to reduce the number of civilian deaths.

Hamas has threatened to start executing captured Israelis if strikes targeted civilians without warning. Israel said that Hamas is holding more than 150 soldiers and civilians hostage in Gaza.

The war is only expected to escalate as Israel could launch a ground invasion to eradicate Hamas from Gaza.

On Tuesday morning, Israel’s military said it regained effective control over areas near the Gaza Strip border with Israel, which was breached over the weekend in Saturday’s surprise attack.

The Israeli military also said it recovered the bodies of roughly 1,500 Hamas militants on Israeli territory.

The four-day-old war has already claimed at least 1,600 lives, after Hamas terrorists invaded the Gaza-Israel border and attacked towns and villages. 

Israel saw gun battles in the streets of its own towns for the first time in decades.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Few people have done more to destroy the American middle class than Janet Yellen. Both in her former capacity as Federal Reserve chair and now as secretary of the Treasury, she has been woefully disconnected from everyday Americans and their current financial plight.

This arrogant detachment allowed her to recently declare that she sees no sign of a recession. Meanwhile, half of Americans feel like we’re already in one. That’s because their family finances have been devastated by the policies Yellen has helped to implement over the last 20 years, while she and her fellow elites have done quite well, being immune from the ramifications of their own actions.

The proof is in the numbers: While the top 20% of households still have about $500 billion of pandemic-era excess savings, everyone else has run out of money. The bottom 20% of households have not only depleted their excess savings, but also their savings that existed before the pandemic. Now, many American homes are falling into debt.

Credit card debt in particular has exploded over the last three years, hitting $1 trillion for the first time as over 60% of families live paycheck to paycheck and accumulate debt to make ends meet. Worre still, this is happening as credit card interest rates hit record highs – burying families under financing charges that are growing faster than many can afford to pay.

All this is a consequence of 40-year-high inflation, brought on by the government’s spending, borrowing and printing too much money. Yellen played a key role in all three steps, both through advocacy and actual implementation.

During the Obama administration, Yellen had no problem participating in this downward spiral of federal finance. As president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Fransisco, vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and then chair of the Federal Reserve, she advocated for artificially low interest rates and excessive government spending.

And despite speaking up during the Trump administration about the unsustainability of government spending, the first second she was Treasury secretary in the Biden administration and had a public platform, she changed her tune and again advocated for unprecedentedly large federal budgets.

While inflation was destroying American’s livelihoods, Yellen assured the public throughout 2021 that it was only ‘transitory,’ which of course wasn’t true. But that didn’t stop inflation from robbing people of their earnings and savings.

Many hardworking Americans who were hoping to retire, for instance, have been forced to delay their retirement for years while they struggle to save enough to cover the higher cost of living under Bidenomics.

The children of those would-be retirees are also struggling. With inflation-adjusted weekly earnings dropping almost 5% under the Biden administration and interest rates rising at the fastest pace in decades, young families have seen borrowing costs increase dramatically. 

For example, the monthly mortgage payment on a median price home is now more than twice what it was when President Biden took office. That means effectively paying an extra $13,000 per year for the same house than you would have just a few years ago.

And that means families are increasingly having to rent. While Yellen and her husband enjoy their $4.3 million real estate portfolio, most folks can no longer afford the American dream of homeownership. Unfortunately, this increased demand has driven rents to new record highs.

Yet, even as the middle class are clearly being crushed, Yellen continues advocating for more taxes and spending, burdensome financial regulations, and the constant printing of money to pay for it all. She promotes, in other words, the burgeoning federal budget at the expense of the family budget, and still has the gall to say that ‘everything is fine.’

Perhaps that’s because she and the rest of the ruling class are doing just fine themselves. But ‘let them eat cake’ is no answer for a hungry people. And no amount of decadence and ignorance will change the fact that the engine of the American economy is the middle class. When it stalls out, Yellen’s condescending world view will be exposed for the sham it is.

E. J. Antoni is a public finance economist at The Heritage Foundation.

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is currently leading Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., in public endorsements in what’s still a tight race for the next House speaker.

Jordan and Scalise are the only two formally declared candidates in the race. House Republicans are huddling behind closed doors on Monday evening before holding a speakership candidate forum on Tuesday and an intraparty election on Wednesday morning. 

Only about a third of House GOP lawmakers have made public endorsements so far. Jordan has the support of at least 47 Republicans while at least 23 backed Scalise. The vast majority have remained silent.

It’s by no means a done deal – Jordan still has an uphill battle to lock up the support of moderates, some of whom are put off by his association with the hardline-right House Freedom Caucus and his ‘bomb-thrower’ reputation.

Despite that, however, his support is not all tied to the right flank. Problem Solvers Caucus member Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., endorsed Jordan for speaker, as well as Rep. Kelly Armstrong, R-N.D., a member of the pragmatic Main Street Caucus.

But one House GOP source pointed out that there are members who also do not want to publicly speak out against Jordan’s candidacy for fear of reprisal in the 2024 primaries from the Freedom Caucus-linked House Freedom Fund PAC.

Scalise, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s longtime No. 2, is backed by his fellow member of House GOP leadership, Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn. He’s also being backed by both establishment Republicans and conservatives, but it’s not clear yet if he can win over Republican lawmakers tired of the status quo. McCarthy was ousted from the job last week.

Sources close to Scalise told Fox News Digital they feel good about where they are in the race. 

Scalise is also a more prolific fundraiser than Jordan – his re-election campaign ranking second behind McCarthy in the 2022 cycle with more than $18 million in donations. 

His 2022 re-election campaign also gave more than $14 million to the House GOP’s campaign arm, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC).

But the Judiciary chairman is not far behind – his campaign was the fourth most effective fundraiser in the 2022 cycle, bringing in just over $14 million. During that time he also gave nearly $2 million to the NRCC and Republican allies.

German citizen Shani Louk was one of the thousands of attendees at the Tribe of Nova music festival in Israel that was taken over by Hamas terrorists who killed hundreds and took others captive. Many videos of the horrifying attacks and kidnappings have circulated across social media platforms.

The graphic footage of 30-year-old Louk, unconscious, stripped down to her underwear in a pickup truck, has made its way around social media. In the video, the woman is seen face down and her legs are bent abnormally.

Though her face is unseen, she has been identified by her family, who recognized her tattoos and dreadlocks.

Louk was paraded through the streets of Gaza by Hamas terrorists on Saturday, with people surrounding shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ – which translates to God Is great – and passersby spitting on her motionless body.

After seeing the footage, Louk’s mother, Ricarda Louk, took to social media to share her message of hope for her daughter’s safety, and asked for information on her capturing.

‘This morning my daughter, Shani Nicole Louk, a German citizen, was kidnapped with a group of tourists in southern Israel by Palestinian Hamas,’ Louk’s mother said in a video shared to social media.

‘We were sent a video in which I could clearly see our daughter unconscious in the car with the Palestinians and them driving around the Gaza Strip. I ask you to send us any help or any news. Thank you very much.’

Her cousin, Tom Weintraub Louk, also shared that he is holding onto hope during this extremely difficult time.

‘We have some kind of hope,’ he told the Washington Post. ‘Hamas is responsible for her and the others.’

As of Monday, Louk’s condition and location are unknown.

Hamas warned on Monday that it would begin killing Israeli civilians held captive for every new Israeli bombing of civilian homes without warning.

The message came from Iran-backed Hamas’ armed wing spokesperson Abu Ubaida, who said Hamas has been complying and acting within Islamic instructions, keeping Israeli captives safe and sound. Hamas launched brutal attacks on Israel on Saturday, killing more than 250 at a music festival. 

Ubaida also blamed the threat on Israel’s increased bombing and killing of civilians who are in their homes by way of air strikes, without warning.

A spokesman for the Al-Qassam Brigades told Al-Jazeera in an interview that it would begin killing a single hostage for each Israeli airstrike that lands in Gaza without warning.

The spokesman also said executions would be recorded and broadcast to the public.

Israel has carried out over a thousand airstrikes in Gaza since the Hamas attack on Saturday.

Reuters contributed to this report.