House lawmakers return to Capitol Hill for the first time in six weeks on Tuesday, but some factions have already begun to draw battle lines for Congress’ coming fight over how to fund the government for the next fiscal year.

The chamber is expected to vote on military funding this week, its second of 12 appropriations bills. Leaders in the House and Senate have both acknowledged that a deal must be struck on a stopgap funding bill, called a continuing resolution, to give both sides more time to reach an agreement.

If no deal is reached by Sept. 30, lawmakers risk sending the government into a partial shutdown.

As Speaker Kevin McCarthy works to build consensus within his House GOP majority, here are five major demands conservatives have made that could force a standoff between McCarthy’s conference and Democrats in charge of the Senate and White House.

DOJ weaponization

Allies of former President Donald Trump in Congress have called for an end to the ‘weaponization’ of the Justice Department in exchange for their support on any spending deal, particularly in the wake of the four indictments launched against the ex-president.

It was also a key part of the House Freedom Caucus’s formal position on agreeing to government funding.

The group called for measures aimed at the DOJ and FBI ‘to focus them on prosecuting real criminals instead of conducting political witch hunts and targeting law-abiding citizens.’

‘Woke’ Pentagon policies

Conservative Republicans are expected to put an emphasis on repealing the Biden administration’s progressive military policies on LGBTQ issues and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts as lawmakers debate the defense spending bill this week.

In an internal memo to lawmakers sent late last month, the 175-member Republican Study Committee (RSC) pointed out that a host of conservative, anti-‘woke’ policy items were passed in the House’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act in July. It said the bill secured ‘funding for the Department of Defense (DOD) while countering Biden’s woke attacks on military personnel.’

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, suggested to reporters on Monday that the defense appropriations bill might not even survive a floor vote if key demands in that area are not met.

‘If we want to try to get it across the finish line this week, I’m certainly open to having those conversations, but only if we get the policy changes that need to occur,’ Roy said. ‘Why would I fund transgender surgeries? Why would I fund the continued diversity, equity, inclusion officers that are dividing the Pentagon?’

Lower spending levels

McCarthy committed to Republicans to having the House pass appropriations bills at fiscal year 2022 spending levels, despite previously agreeing to roughly freeze spending at fiscal 2023 levels during negotiations with President Biden over raising the debt limit.

It’s already set the House on a collision course with the Senate, which is cobbling together its appropriations bills with toplines outlined by the McCarthy-Biden deal – about $120 billion dollars higher than the House GOP’s.

The demand for lower spending levels appears to be the most widely shared among House conservatives, though lawmakers have not settled on where to make those cuts.

Border security

Several hardliners in the GOP conference have called for any government spending deal to attach the party’s border security package, another wish-list item that’s virtually guaranteed to hit a wall of Democrat opposition.

Both the RSC memo and the Freedom Caucus’s official position have called for attaching the Secure the Border Act to an eventual continuing resolution, which lawmakers will likely need to pass to extend the current government funding priorities past Sept. 30 and avoid a shutdown.

Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., said last week that he believes there’s a number of Republicans ready to vote against a continuing resolution that does not tackle border issues.

‘We’re basically done with this. It’s time to do the right thing. Secure the southern border,’ Donalds said.

Impeaching Biden

While a significant number of House Republicans still appear wary of launching impeachment proceedings against President Biden, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., among the most vocal conservatives in the chamber, has made it a requirement of her support for a spending deal.

‘I’ve already decided: I will not vote to fund the government unless we have passed an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden,’ Greene told constituents at a town hall.

However, not all members of McCarthy’s right flank agree. Roy told reporters on Monday that impeachment and government spending are, and should be, two separate processes.

FIRST ON FOX: A new Senate Republican-led bill aims to make sure Americans are well aware of what is real online and how to spot content generated by artificial intelligence (AI).

Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., is introducing legislation on Tuesday to direct relevant federal agencies to coordinate on the creation of a watermark for AI-made content, including enforcement rules. That watermark would then be required on any publicly distributed AI images, videos and other materials.

‘With Americans consuming more media than ever before, the threat of weaponized disinformation confusing and dividing Americans is real,’ Ricketts told Fox News Digital.

‘Deepfakes generated by artificial intelligence can ruin lives, impact markets and even influence elections. We must take these threats seriously.’

Ricketts said his bill ‘would give Americans a tool to understand what is real and what is made-up.’

Officials in the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission would be tasked with laying out the guidelines.

Earlier this month, search giant Google unveiled a new policy that would see technology known as SynthID used to permanently embed a watermark on an AI-generated image.

It comes amid concern over the pitfalls of AI’s rapid advancement as increasingly sophisticated technology becomes more accessible.

Financial markets had been shaken this year and briefly dipped when an image of what appeared to be an explosion at the Pentagon circulated on the internet in May. It turned out to be AI-generated.

There is also growing concern that hostile actors could wreak havoc on the 2024 U.S. elections by using fake AI content.

It’s part of what has prompted a flurry of AI hearings and legislation in Congress as lawmakers scramble to get ahead of the rapidly advancing technology.

But at least one expert told senators at an Energy Committee hearing last week that watermarks, while helpful to an extent, will likely not be enough to stop malign foreign actors from injecting fake AI content into American information channels.

‘There will be many open [AI] models produced outside the United States and produced elsewhere that, of course, wouldn’t be bound by U.S. regulation,’ said professor Rick Stevens of the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois.

‘We can have a law that says ‘watermark AI-generated content,’ but a rogue player outside the [country] operating in Russia or China or somewhere wouldn’t be bound by that and could produce a ton of material that wouldn’t actually have those watermarks. And so it could pass a test, perhaps.’

EXCLUSIVE: Internal government communications obtained by Fox News Digital show administration officials scrambled to respond to information requests pertaining to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s use of government jets.

According to the communications, officials within the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) independent office that handles Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests actively consulted with a spokesperson for Buttigieg and a senior FAA official appointed by President Biden when processing the requests. In addition, they discussed how to sort data, enabling them to avoid sharing taxpayer costs of Buttigieg’s flights.

‘It’s become increasingly clear that the Biden administration is engaging in purposeful political meddling to protect Secretary Buttigieg and hide the true cost of his taxpayer-funded private jet travel,’ Caitlin Sutherland, the executive director of government watchdog group Americans for Public Trust, told Fox News Digital. 

‘They continue to willfully ignore public disclosure laws, confirming the unofficial motto of this administration: Rules for thee, but not for me.’

In December, Fox News Digital reported that, based on flight tracking data, Buttigieg had taken 18 trips on an FAA-managed fleet of executive aircraft, reserved for government officials for occasions when flying commercial isn’t feasible. The flight records aligned with Buttigieg’s internal calendar obtained at the time by Americans for Public Trust.

Following that report, Fox News Digital filed an FOIA request for detailed information and costs of all flights logged by FAA planes since early 2021. For months, the DOT FOIA office repeatedly delayed providing the requested information. 

Then, on Feb. 27, the FAA finally shared the flight log for its private jets almost immediately after the Transportation Department’s inspector general announced an investigation into Buttigieg’s use of the planes. The FOIA office, though, opted to leave costs associated with all the flights carrying Buttigieg and his advisers blank and ignored multiple attempts for clarification.

One day later, Fox News Digital filed a second FOIA request, asking for all internal communications related to the first request from December. Those communications were turned over this month.

‘One thing I did discuss with Randa: where we provide the ‘…cost the FAA charged for the flight…’, to use a header for that column that is something like ‘OMB Circ A-126 Cost,’’ Wil Riggins, the vice president of the FAA Flight Program Operations office, said in a Jan. 20 email to other officials discussing the Fox News Digital request from December.

Randa appears to be a reference to Alexandra Randazzo, a senior FAA attorney.

The email from Riggins — who remains the most senior official in the Flight Program Operations office which maintains the government jets — came in response to an email thread from a month prior in which a senior adviser said they would hold on any action related to the request until ‘preliminary discussion’ was conducted. 

Further, by altering how costs for the flights requested by Fox News Digital were defined, the FAA appeared to have found a loophole to avoid sharing such cost information.

On Jan. 30, six days after his email, Riggins then abruptly contacted Transportation Department spokesperson Benjamin Halle and FAA Assistant Administrator for Communications Matthew Lehner, who Biden appointed to the position in 2021, to arrange a conference call discussing the FOIA request. The call took place less than an hour later.

‘Wil, is it possible to send over the spreadsheet when you get a sec? I know it’ (sic.) not final, I just want to check it against our record to make sure what we have is all accurate,’ Halle emailed after the call.

Riggins responded shortly after with the entire flight log of Buttigieg’s flights on government jets. In addition, on Jan. 30, FOIA manager Dean Torgerson informed other officials that the responsive records were compiled, meaning the entirety of the records Fox News Digital requested were produced about a month before the FAA finally shared them on Feb. 27.

The communications additionally show Riggins repeatedly delayed giving his final signature on the FOIA production for reasons unknown to lower-level FOIA managers. 

At one point, on Feb. 14, a senior adviser to Riggins arranged a phone call with Torgerson who inquired about the delay. A week later, on Feb. 27, when Torgerson was asked by others whether the FOIA records had been given a final signature, he said he ‘advised that their Deputy VP can sign on behalf of the VP.’

After additional back-and-forth, Torgerson was informed on Feb. 27 at 1:10 p.m. that Riggins had finally signed off on the records, allowing them to be shared with Fox News Digital. Four minutes later, The Washington Post, citing information given to it by the Department of Transportation, scooped that agency’s inspector general had opened its probe into Buttigieg.

After the FOIA was shared, Fox News Digital emailed the FOIA office multiple times, asking for clarification on why the taxpayer costs of Buttigieg’s flights were omitted. While the agency never responded, the emails show officials discussed the issue offline.

‘The FAA follows FOIA requirements and regulations which include ensuring a complete response,’ the FAA said in a statement to Fox News Digital. ‘We routinely provide internal notifications about FOIA updates and responses.’

Riggins did not respond to a request for comment.

And in a separate email to Fox News Digital, Lehner said it is standard FAA practice that the FOIA office advises ‘when a media FOIA is released.’ However, the emails showed Lehner communicated with Riggins several weeks before the FOIA was released.

Protesters stormed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s Congressional office on Tuesday, demanding that he and other House Republicans re-up funding for an AIDs relief program.

Protesters with Housing Works pressed their way into McCarthy’s office and refused to move until Capitol Hill Police arrived and arrested them. The group was demanding a 5-year reauthorization of the PEPFAR global AIDs relief program, which they say has saved ’25 million lives.’

Images of the incident show protesters sitting on the floor of McCarthy’s office and linking arms as bemused staffers remain at their posts.

‘We’re proud to use nonviolent civil disobedience, among other tactics, to demand that our government take action to end AIDS,’ the group wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

McCarthy’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the incident, but Capitol Police confirmed to Fox News Digital that they arrested seven individuals.

‘This morning, multiple individuals were demonstrating inside a House Office Building. After the demonstrators refused to cease demonstrating, USCP then arrested the 4 males and 3 females for Unlawful Entry,’ Capitol Police said in a statement.

Congress has until September 30 to re-up the law guaranteeing funding for the PEPFAR program, but agreement on the issue appears unlikely. The law had previously been renewed on a five-year rolling basis.

The program will still continue if Congress does not renew the law, but its funding will become subject to the annual budget battle.

McCarthy is already facing an impending battle over the annual budget as House lawmakers return to the Capitol for the first time in six weeks on Tuesday. Leaders in the House and Senate have both acknowledged that a deal must be struck on a stopgap funding bill, called a continuing resolution, to give both sides more time to reach an agreement.

If no deal is reached by Sept. 30, lawmakers risk sending the government into a partial shutdown.

Fox News Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.

Former 2020 Democratic White House hopeful Andrew Yang reportedly said he’s had ‘conversations’ with No Labels regarding the organization putting forward a third-party presidential run in 2024. 

In his discussion at Politico’s headquarters in Virginia while in town promoting his new novel, ‘The Last Election,’ Yang reportedly side-stepped when questioned if No Labels specifically approached him as possible candidate. 

‘I’ve had conversations with various folks who are associated with No Labels,’ Yang, who broke with the Democratic Party two years ago, told Politico. ‘We have a lot of friends and people in common.’ 

Yang, also a former New York City mayoral hopeful, remains listed as the co-chair for the Forward Party, a nonpartisan group promoting rank-choice voting and nixing partisan primaries, which he told Politico is focusing on local elections to impact national politics from the bottom up. 

By contrast, No Labels is pursuing access to the ballot in enough states to potentially put forward a third-party, centrist unity ticket to win the White House next year. Potential third-party candidates reportedly being considered include Republican New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, former U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, former Republican Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.

During his interview with Politico, Yang categorized himself as an ‘anyone-but-Trump guy.’ 

‘I would not run for president, if I thought that my running would be counterproductive, or if it would increase the chances of someone like Donald Trump becoming president again,’ he said. 

He also surmised a potential rematch between former President Donald Trump and President Biden in 2024 would be ‘terribly unrepresentative and borderline ridiculous,’ noting both candidates’ ages. 

‘I mean, you’re talking about two guys whose combined age is 160,’ Yang told Politico. ‘In a country of 330 million people, you would choose these two gentlemen at this stage? I mean, it makes zero sense.’

Especially cynical of Biden’s chances, Yang laid out scenarios where a third-party candidates would hurt the current president’s likelihood of a second term. 

Yang predicted Cornel West, who is running on a Green Party ticket, to draw two to three percent of voters in 2024, representing a large share of the vote Jill Stein received in 2016. Yang also said he expected current Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to change to a Libertarian Party, saying Kennedy could draw a similar number of voters as West. Yang stressed presidential elections are decided by a few hundred thousand votes across key swing states but declined to say which candidate he’d personally vote for if he lived in those states. 

‘I mean, the field’s still coming together,’ Yang said.