As the House searches for a new speaker and the Senate works to get Ukraine assistance back into a spending bill come November 17 when the current deal expires, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., says there is a ‘growing movement’ within the Republican party to cut additional funding altogether.

‘We have problems funding Social Security, we have problems funding, Medicare, Medicaid, all the things that have already been promised to our people we have trouble funding, and we just don’t have extra money just to be sending to another country,’ Paul told Fox News Digital in an interview this week. 

The U.S. has sent more than an estimated $100 billion of taxpayer dollars to Ukraine since the war began, according to the White House. 

Republicans who are opposed to additional funding the war-torn nation scored a victory last weekend when then-House Speaker McCarthy passed a spending patch without the additional multi-billion dollar Ukraine assistance as requested by President Joe Biden, ultimately averting a government shutdown. The temporary funding patch expires Nov. 17, bringing Congress to another potential showdown in a few weeks. 

Paul — prior to Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s ouster — said that all eyes will be on what the House speaker does in the next go-around of spending discussions, citing a caveat that may ‘dampen’ efforts to continue sending funds to Ukraine, which has been gripped by a Russian invasion since last year.

‘The Republican Conference in the house has a rule, that if a majority of the Republican Conference is for something or against something, the speaker can’t bring it up by rule,’ he said. 

That unwritten practice is known as the Hastert Rule, which sets the precedent that the speaker will not bring a bill to the floor unless ‘the majority of the majority’ is in favor of it. 

‘I think it’s a good question for some of the opponents on the House side,’ Paul said. ‘Will the conference rule hold that will prevent [the speaker] from bringing it up? Because if it does, that ends up being perhaps a deal killer on this as it moves forward.’

Other GOP lawmakers in the upper chamber opposed to more assistance, at least without additional oversight, include Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, John Kennedy, R-La., Jim Risch, R- Idaho and Roger Wicker, R-Miss.

Aside from being trillions in debt, Paul said the secondary reason is that Ukraine ‘is not really a shining example of democracy, they canceled the elections.’ 

‘So, a country that doesn’t have elections is hard-pressed to be describing themselves as a paragon of democracy,’ he said.

And Republicans aren’t the only ones concerned about Ukraine’s purported ethical failures. A recent U.S. State Department strategy memo detailing the top priorities for Ukraine — ravaged by war against Russia since last year — shows even the Biden administration has concerns over purported corruption in the Eastern European country but still supports continued aid to the region.

According to the 22-page document, called the Integrated Country Strategy, the ‘biggest challenge is winning the war,’ but ‘Ukraine has a unique opportunity in the current moment to commit to the anti-corruption and judicial reforms needed to realize the aspirations of the Ukrainian people.’

‘I think it’s obscene to do it [send more aid] without an inspector general in place,’ Paul said. ‘There’s still a healthy amount of corruption in Ukraine.’

Meanwhile, Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Wednesday following the GOP’s weekly luncheon that adding more aid is ‘still a major priority.’

‘I think a majority of the members of both parties still support it,’ McConnell said of assistance to Ukraine. ‘We need some direction from the [Biden] administration as to how they intend to go forward.’

Former President Donald Trump appears to be further cementing his commanding front-runner status in the race for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, thanks to another large quarterly fundraising haul.

Trump’s presidential campaign announced on Wednesday evening that it raked in a whopping $45.5 million during the July-September third quarter of 2023 fundraising.

The former president’s political team also reported over $37.5 million in their campaign coffers as of the end of last month.

Trump’s fundraising the past three months is up from the roughly $35 million he brought in during the April-June second quarter of fundraising, which nearly doubled his haul from the first quarter of the year.

‘The Q3 numbers are even more impressive considering the Summer months are usually when most campaigns experience lagging fundraising support. President Trump and his campaign have completely shattered that notion,’ the campaign touted in an email release.

With three and a half months to go until the Iowa caucuses kick off the 2024 GOP presidential nominating calendar, Trump is leagues ahead of his large field of challengers in the latest national polling and crucial early state surveys.

Trump’s lead expanded over the spring and summer as he made history as the first former or current president in American history to be indicted for a crime. Trump’s four indictments — including in federal court in Washington D.C. and in Fulton County court in Georgia on charges he tried to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss — have only fueled his support among Republican voters in both polling and fundraising.

Earlier on Wednesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign reported a $15 million fundraising haul the past three months. But DeSantis figures were down from the $20 million he brought in during the second quarter of fundraising.

Trump’s campaign, in their release, took aim at DeSantis for what they described as an ‘exponential drop’ in the governor’s fundraising. 

Fundraising, along with polling, is a key metric in determining a candidate’s strength and grassroots appeal. Fundraising dollars can be used to build up candidate’s campaign structure, grassroots outreach, and get out the vote efforts, and to pay for travel and ads.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

A federal court ordered an injunction on a top agency within the Department of Homeland Security after finding that it likely violated the First Amendment by coordinating with social media companies to effectively censor ‘election-related speech.’

On Tuesday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals extended the scope of an injunction in place that limits the Biden administration’s communication with big tech companies to include the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) within the Department of Homeland Security.

According to GOP Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who is leading the litigation against the Biden administration, CISA is the ‘nerve center’ of the White House’s ‘vast censorship enterprise’ and ‘the very entity that worked with the FBI to silence the Hunter Biden laptop story.’

‘CISA was created to protect Americans from foreign attack, and now it has begun targeting its own citizens,’ Bailey told Fox News Digital.

A three-judge panel determined in the court order that CISA was the ‘primary facilitator’ of the FBI’s interactions with the social-media platforms and worked in close coordination with the FBI to push the platforms to change their moderation policies to cover ‘hack-and-leak’ content.

The opinion describes CISA’s ‘switchboarding’ operations as ‘merely relaying flagged social-media posts from state and local election officials to the platforms.’ But the judge said that ‘in reality, the practice is ended up being ‘[s]omething more,” the order reads.

‘CISA used its frequent interactions with social-media platforms to push them to adopt more restrictive policies on censoring election-related speech. And CISA officials affirmatively told the platforms whether the content they had ‘switchboarded’ was true or false,’ it continues.

‘Thus, when the platforms acted to censor CISA-switchboarded content, they did not do so independently. Rather, the platforms’ censorship decisions were made under policies that CISA has pressured them into adopting and based on CISA’s determination of the veracity of the flagged information. Thus, CISA likely significantly encouraged the platforms’ content-moderation decisions and thereby violated the First Amendment,’ the judges said. 

The injunction stems from a lawsuit brought by Missouri and Louisiana attorneys general against the Biden administration that accused high-ranking government officials of working with giant social media companies ‘under the guise of combating misinformation’ that ultimately led to censoring speech on topics, including Hunter Biden’s laptop, COVID-19 origins and the efficacy of face masks.

The attorneys general deposed several officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Special Agent Elvis Chan. On July 4, federal Judge Terry A. Doughty of the Fifth Circuit ordered the first injunction, which prevents White House officials and federal agencies from meeting with tech companies about social media censorship, arguing that such actions likely violated the First Amendment.

The scathing Independence Day injunction said the government’s actions during the pandemic were akin to ‘an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.”

‘If the allegations made by Plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history,’ the injunction continues. ‘In their attempts to suppress alleged disinformation, the Federal Government, and particularly the Defendants named here, are alleged to have blatantly ignored the First Amendment’s right to free speech.’

The Justice Department has appealed the court order to the Supreme Court, arguing that the government faced ‘irreparable harm’ because Doughty’s order may prevent the federal government from ‘working with social media companies on initiatives to prevent grave harm to the American people and our democratic processes.’

The House impeachment inquiry against President Biden will continue ‘full steam ahead,’ with ‘further action’ expected in the coming days, despite the uncertainty surrounding who will take the helm as speaker of the House of Representatives following the ouster of Rep. Kevin McCarthy, Fox News Digital has learned.

McCarthy, R-Calif., who served as speaker of the House from late January through October and is the first in United States history to have been voted to be removed from the post supported the launch of an impeachment inquiry against the president last month, after months of GOP-led investigations into his family’s business dealings and whether he was involved.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., and House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., were tasked by McCarthy with leading the impeachment inquiry.

But even with McCarthy ousted, their investigations are expected to continue.

‘Full steam ahead,’ a senior Judiciary Committee aide told Fox News Digital.

Jordan announced his bid for speaker of the House on Wednesday morning, just hours after McCarthy’s ouster.

And an Oversight Committee spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the committee’s work ‘continues.’

‘The committee is continuing to review documents, records, and communications and will take further action in the coming days,’ the Oversight spokesperson said.

A spokesperson for the Ways & Means Committee concurred. 

‘The Ways and Means Committee remains committed to holding the following the facts where the evidence leads,’ the spokesperson told Fox News Digital. 

Despite the speaker vacancy, subpoenas that have already been issued by committees as part of the impeachment inquiry—like subpoenas for Hunter Biden and James Biden’s personal and business bank records—as well as those issued as part of general Biden administration oversight, remain valid.

The next steps in the investigation come after the committees hold their first joint-panel impeachment inquiry hearing last week.

The GOP lawmakers say the financial records that the Oversight Committee has obtained to date ‘reveal a pattern where the Bidens sold access to Joe Biden around the world to enrich the Biden family.’

Fox News Digital first reported that the House Oversight Committee has learned that the Biden family and their business associates brought in more than $24 million between 2014 and 2019 by ‘selling Joe Biden as ‘the brand’ around the world.’

The scope of the impeachment inquiry covers the span the time of Biden’s vice presidency to the present, including his time out of office.

But beyond investigating Biden’s ties to his family’s business dealings, House Republicans are also probing the alleged obstruction of the Justice Department’s years-long federal investigation into Hunter Biden. The allegations stem from IRS whistleblowers who allege politics influenced prosecutorial steps throughout the probe.

The White House maintains that President Biden was never in business with his son and never discussed business with his son or his family. White House officials have blasted the impeachment inquiry against the president as an ‘evidence-free’ political stunt. 

He has been the most prolific fundraiser in House Republican history.

The unprecedented ouster this week of Speaker Kevin McCarthy raises plenty of question marks for the House GOP as it aims to hold its fragile majority in the chamber in the 2024 elections.

‘It will 100% be a setback,’ predicted a Republican in McCarthy’s political orbit, who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely.

A GOP strategist involved in congressional races, who asked for anonymity, warned that ‘House Republicans are going to need to pick up the pieces quickly of what was the most impressive fundraising organization we have seen in politics if they want to be successful in 2024.’

The speaker’s removal has already caused a ripple in the GOP’s fundraising efforts. The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), the main fundraising arm for the House GOP, will postpone a fall gala that was scheduled for next week that McCarthy was slated to headline, Fox News confirmed Wednesday. Organizers said Republicans needed to focus on electing a new speaker instead.

McCarthy, a former state lawmaker from California who was first elected to the House 17 years ago and who’s been in GOP leadership in the chamber since 2009, long had a reputation as a top Republican fundraiser, even before he became speaker.

As minority leader, McCarthy helped party defy expectations in the 2020 elections by taking a big bite out of Democrats’ House majority — despite Democrats winning the White House. He personally hauled in $150 million in the last election cycle to help Republicans win back the House majority. 

But after Republicans gained the House majority in last November’s midterms, McCarthy still had to secure his party’s backing as he clawed his way through an historic 15-ballot speakership election over five days at the beginning of the year. 

That fight set back fundraising efforts, but McCarthy quickly made up for lost time as he hauled in an eye-popping $12.3 million at his first major fundraiser, which was held in early February at a downtown D.C. hotel.

As speaker, he hauled in a whopping $62.5 million during the first six months of the year through the McCarthy Victory Fund. 

‘It is a huge question mark,’ said another Republican operative who works on House races. ‘He’s a very prolific fundraiser. He was our best asset in that arena.’

The operative, who also asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely, noted that ‘it’s really hard to know that the practical impact will be. We don’t know who the next leader is going to be and what their fundraising capacity is like.’

While the GOP captured the House majority last year, hopes of a red wave never materialized and the party is holding onto a fragile 222-213 majority (currently 221-212 with seats in a red district and a blue district currently vacant. That means Democrats need a net gain of just five seats to win back control of the chamber next year.

‘I intend to make sure that we gain and keep the majority in the next cycle,’ McCarthy vowed at a news conference on Tuesday after he was booted from the speakership.

Veteran Republican strategist and former National Republican Congressional Committee national press secretary Jesse Hunt noted that when it comes to fundraising going forward, ‘there seems to be a pretty good existing apparatus there, and I’m sure McCarthy and members of the current leadership will try to help make the transition as seamless as possible.’

While Republicans focused on the 2024 House elections acknowledge the ousting of McCarthy’s a distraction, they counter that they still enjoy an ‘amazing’ political environment, with leading issues such as the economy, border security, and crime that polling suggests favors the GOP.

‘We have a message that works and Joe Biden’s unpopular. We have a lot going for us,’ the Republican operative said.

They also point to their 2024 recruitment class ‘that’s on the field already,’ which McCarthy had a hand in shaping.

‘We’ve got good pieces on the chess board and we’ve got a good message to talk about,’ the operative added.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.