Who is Ron DeSantis?

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis recently told Fox News Digital he’s ‘ready to do what we need to’ in the first GOP debate to differentiate himself from the rest of the field.

DeSantis will try to establish himself as the top challenger to former President Donald Trump and change the narrative after a series of setbacks the past two months, which triggered weeks of negative stories spotlighting his campaign’s overspending, staff layoffs, change of leadership and other setbacks.

‘I know from the military, when you’re over the target, that’s when you’re taking flak. And if you look really in the last six to nine months, I’ve been more attacked than anybody else. Biden, Harris, the media, the left, other Republican candidates,’ DeSantis said. ‘And there’s a reason for that, because people know that I’m the biggest threat. So we view it as positive feedback. We’ll be ready to do what we need to do to deliver our message, but we absolutely expect that, and we’ll be ready for it.’

Asked whether his debate strategy includes punching back at rivals on the stage, DeSantis told Fox News, ‘Yes, that means defending ourselves but more importantly showing why we are the leader to get this country turned around.’

Who is Nikki Haley?

Former South Carolina governor and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley announced in February that she would be running for president, seeking the Republican nomination for the 2024 election.
Born in Bamberg, South Carolina, Haley has long been viewed by political pundits as a potential GOP presidential contender.

Haley has crisscrossed the country the past two years through her political group Stand for America, helping fellow Republicans running in the 2022 elections. Her travels brought her numerous times to Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada, which hold the first, second and fourth contests in the Republican presidential nominating calendar. Haley’s home state of South Carolina votes third in the GOP primary schedule.

‘America is not past our prime, it’s just that our politicians are past theirs,’ Haley said in her first campaign speech, as the crowd chanted ‘USA’ and ‘Nikki.’

Haley has called for years for the U.S. to be more aggressive in combating the threat from Beijing and in June called for a fundamental change in the U.S. outlook to the threat from the East.
In late July, Haley unveiled an extended plan to deal with the Chinese Communist Party. The plan includes a pledge to roll back Biden-era green energy mandates, which she says are a giveaway to Beijing.

While polls indicate Haley is an underdog compared to other candidates like former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Haley has a history of winning tough elections.
In 2004, she defeated the state’s longest-serving state House member in the GOP primary on her way to winning a state legislative seat. And six years later, she topped a congressman, the state’s lieutenant governor, and the attorney general in the Republican gubernatorial primary, ahead of her general election victory.

Haley is the daughter of immigrants from India who grew up to become South Carolina’s first female governor and the nation’s first female governor of Asian American heritage.

Following her tenure as governor of the Palmetto State, Haley served in Trump’s administration as the U.S. Ambassador to the UN, leaving at the end of 2018 on good terms with the then-president.

Who is Vivek Ramaswamy?

Vivek Ramaswamy, a health care and tech sector entrepreneur, conservative commentator and author who has become a crusader in the culture wars, declared his candidacy in the Republican presidential primary in February.

Born in Cincinnati, Ramaswamy quickly made a name for himself on the campaign trail. Ramaswamy, who was dubbed ‘the CEO of Anti-Woke Inc.’ in a New Yorker magazine profile last year, said earlier this year that his campaign is ‘about the unapologetic pursuit of excellence in our country. It means you believe in merit; that you get ahead in this country not on the color of your skin but on the content of your character and your contributions.’

In an interview with Fox News Digital earlier this month, Ramaswamy said that he wants to answer ‘the question of what it means to be American in the year 2023.’

‘I’m 37 years old. When you ask people my age and younger what it means to be American today, you get a blank stare,’ he said.

Ramaswamy has called for a ‘total decoupling’ from Communist China, which he argues is a greater threat to America today than the Soviet Union was during the Cold War because China makes the ‘shoes on our feet and the phones in our pockets.’

As the son of Indian migrants who legally came through America’s ‘front door,’ Ramaswamy is a strong supporter of merit-based immigration and would not grant leniency for those who broke the law when entering the country.

Other top priorities of his include ‘restoring free speech,’ which would involve making political expression a civil right and banning Big Tech censorship executed at the behest of the government, and ‘dismantling’ affirmative action and the ‘new climate religion,’ which he calls a ‘cancer on the American soul.’

Who is Tim Scott?

South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott announced in May that he would seek the GOP nomination for president.

Known for his fundraising prowess, Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate, entered the White House race with his campaign coffers well stocked. Scott reported nearly $22 million cash on hand at the end of last year — funds left over from the senator’s convincing 25-point re-election victory in November in reliably red South Carolina.

A pair of Scott-aligned super PACs started 2023 with roughly $16 million in the bank, thanks to contributors from numerous Republican mega-donors including Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison.

‘Here’s a kid that grew up in North Charleston, South Carolina, mired in poverty, in a single parent household. To think about one day being the President of the United States just tells me that the evolution of the American soul continues to move toward that more perfect union,’ Scott told Fox News in May.

Prior to his campaign announcement, Scott, who has served in the Senate since 2013 and was born in North Charleston, South Carolina, had been viewed by political pundits as a potential 2024 Republican presidential contender.

While the senator had repeatedly demurred when asked about a White House bid, he hinted last November at a possible future run during his re-election victory celebration by telling the story of how he took his grandfather to the polls in 2012, and that his grandfather proudly voted for him as well as for Democrat Barack Obama, the nation’s first Black president.

‘I wish he had lived long enough to see perhaps another man of color elected President of the United States,’ Scott said, before adding ‘but this time let it be a Republican.’

Who is Chris Christie?

Former two-term New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie officially launched his second White House bid in June, joining a crowded field of presidential hopefuls vying for the 2024 Republican nomination.
Declaring his candidacy during a town hall event at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire — the state with the first GOP presidential primary — Christie said: ‘I can’t guarantee you success in what I’m about to do. But I guarantee you that at the end of it, you will have no doubt in your mind who I am and what I stand for and whether I deserve it.’

In his speech, Christie railed against the division that he said has driven Americans into smaller groups, brought about by the likes of former Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump. He also touted America’s role throughout its history in ‘fighting evil’ across the world.

Christie focused a portion of his campaign announcement speech on taking jabs at former President Donald Trump, describing him as a ‘leader who won’t admit any of his shortcomings’ and referring to him as ‘Voldemort,’ the infamous villain in the ‘Harry Potter’ novels.

Born in Newark, New Jersey, Christie, held the highest office in the state from 2010 to 2018 and was the deep-blue state’s last Republican governor, first ran for president in the 2016 cycle.

At the time, Christie placed all his chips in New Hampshire, but his campaign crashed and burned after a disappointing and distant sixth-place finish in New Hampshire, far behind Trump, who crushed the competition in the primary en route to the nomination and eventually the White House.

Christie became the first among the other GOP 2016 contenders to endorse Trump, and for years he was a top outside adviser to the then-president and chaired Trump’s high-profile commission on opioids. However, the two had a falling out after Trump’s unsuccessful attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss to now-President Joe Biden. Over the past two years, Christie has become one of the most vocal Trump critics in the GOP.

A recent Fox News Poll found that Christie was the most favored Republican candidate among self-identified Democrat voters.

Who is Mike Pence?

Former Vice President Mike Pence filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to launch his campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination in early June.

Pence was serving as the governor of Indiana when then-presidential candidate Donald Trump named him his running mate in 2016. For four years, Pence served as the loyal vice president to Trump.

However, everything changed on Jan. 6, 2021, as demonstrators — including some chanting ‘hang Mike Pence’ — stormed the U.S. Capitol aiming to upend congressional certification of President Biden’s Electoral College victory that was overseen by Pence.

In the more than two years since the end of the Trump administration, the former president and vice president have drifted further apart. Pence has repeatedly rebuked his former boss, calling him out by name while discussing Trump’s claim that Pence could have overturned the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Pence has described the 2021 protest at the Capitol as ‘tragic,’ insisting that ‘it dishonored the millions of people who had supported our cause around the country.’ He has emphasized that he did ‘the right thing’ and performed his ‘duty under the Constitution.’ He has also noted a number of times that he and Trump may never ‘see eye to eye on that day.’

Trump loyalists will likely never forgive Pence, whom they view as a traitor for refusing to reject the 2020 election results.

In announcing his campaign, Pence became the first running mate in eight decades to run against his former boss, since Vice President John Nance Garner unsuccessfully challenged President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1940 election.

Born in Columbus, Indiana, Pence has touted the Trump-Pence administration’s policy successes in stump speeches but contrasts himself with the controversial former president in terms of tone and tenor.

‘People around the country want us to see us restore a threshold of civility in our political debate,’ Pence emphasized. ‘You can disagree without being disagreeable. People that know me know I take very strong stands. I’m conservative, but I’m not in a bad mood about it.’

He has stressed that ‘should we enter the fray in this campaign in the days ahead, we’re going to bring those principles, but we’re going to bring a commitment to civility that I think the American long to see.’

Pundits had long viewed Pence as a likely 2024 contender, as he spent the past two years crisscrossing the country to campaign and help raise money for Republicans running in the 2022 elections. Those travels took Pence multiple times to Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada — the first four states to vote in the Republican presidential nominating calendar — as he strengthened relationships in the early voting presidential primary and caucus states that usually precede the launch of a White House campaign.

Who is Doug Burgum?

Before becoming the 33rd governor of North Dakota, Doug Burgum established himself as a successful businessman in the software industry. 

Burgum, 67, steered his one-time small business, Great Plains Software, into a $1 billion software company. His business — and its North Dakota-based workers — were eventually acquired by Microsoft, and Burgum stayed on board as a senior vice president.

In 2016, the then first-time candidate and long shot convincingly topped a favored GOP establishment contender to secure the Republican nomination in North Dakota before going on to a landslide victory in the gubernatorial general election in the solidly red state. Burgum was overwhelmingly re-elected in 2020 to a second term as governor.

‘Governor Burgum is looking forward to sharing his focus on the economy, energy and national security at the August debate,’ Burgum campaign spokesman Lance Trover said last month. ‘In less than 7 weeks, Governor Burgum has exceeded all the requirements for the debate. As a Governor and business leader Doug knows how to fix the economy, unleash American energy and win the Cold War with China.’  

Who is Asa Hutchinson?

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson officially launched his campaign for president in April, becoming one of the first candidates to join the race for the 2024 Republican nomination.

Before serving two terms as Arkansas’ governor, Hutchinson served as a former federal attorney and member of Congress for two terms. He also served as Drug Enforcement Administration administrator and Department of Homeland Security undersecretary during former President George W. Bush’s administration.

Hutchinson, who steered the National Governors Association last year, had been mulling a 2024 White House run for months. He told Fox News Digital interview last summer that he wanted a role in helping to shape the future of the GOP and ‘that might lead to a presidential campaign down the road.’

A vocal critic of former President Donald Trump, Hutchinson has argued the latter ‘disqualified himself’ to serve as president again, pointing to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters aiming to upend congressional certification of President Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory.

Hutchinson was one of the last candidates to qualify for tonight’s debate and is looked at as an ‘outsider’ candidate according to Fox News’ Power Rankings.

Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser, Adam Shaw, Andrew Miller, Brandon Gillespie and Kyle Morris contributed reporting.

FIRST ON FOX: Hunter Biden traveled to at least 13 countries with his then-vice president father when he was leading his now-defunct firm Rosemont Seneca Partners, a Fox News Digital review found. 

Video footage, which first aired on ‘Jesse Watters Primetime,’ along with Secret Service records and messages previously reported from Hunter’s abandoned laptop, show that Hunter, who co-founded Rosemont Seneca in 2009 with Devon Archer and Christopher Heinz, accompanied then-Vice President Joe Biden during official trips to Europe, Central America, Africa and Asia.

In April 2010, Hunter proposed meeting state officials in Serbia with his business associate Mark Doyle, who was a registered foreign agent for Serbia at the time, saying he could ‘catch a ride’ with his father — ‘JRB’ — during an official trip to Belgium and Spain.

‘How about we go over around May 10th,’ Hunter wrote in an email to Doyle. ‘JRB will be in Madrid and I can catch a ride with him and fly over to Serbia and back with you.’

Doyle, who formerly served as a senior adviser to then-Sen. Joe Biden and the national finance director of Biden’s unsuccessful presidential run in 2008, later responded that ‘the Ambassador,’ referring to Serbian Ambassador to the United States Vladimir Petrovic, wanted to ‘start putting together a full day for you with Tadic and potential investors,’ referring to Serbian President Boris Tadic.

Eric Schwerin, then-president of Rosemont Seneca, replied to Hunter and Doyle explaining that ‘Hunter would like to try and get to Serbia right after going to Madrid with his Dad,’ and that while he didn’t have a ‘specific investment opportunity to pitch,’ he was hoping to talk ‘in general about Rosemont Seneca and the investment opportunities,’ according to a previous Fox News Digital report.

The meeting apparently fell through, however, after Hunter told Petrovic in an email on April 29, 2010, that there had been a ‘change in the schedule of my other travel in Europe.’ 

A few days later, Schwerin suggested in an email to Hunter that he speak with a potential client in Spain during his time there with his father, though it’s not clear if that discussion ended up taking place.

Hunter requested Secret Service protection in Belgium during the time Biden was visiting from May 5 to May 7, 2010, according to records first published in a September 2020 report from Senate Republicans.

Years later, Biden ended up traveling to Serbia, and Hunter was scheduled to ride in the vice president’s limo upon their arrival in the Serbian capital of Belgrade on Aug. 16, 2016, according to emails.

Two days earlier, on Aug. 14, Hunter informed his associate, Serbian diplomat Vuk Jeremic, in an email that he would be in Belgrade and even invited him in the vice president’s motorcade.

‘I will be there and expect if you are able that we can spend time together while I am at the Hyatt,’ Hunter wrote. ‘Please call or email if you have an issue entering the hotel- I’ll make sure we can spend time together and maybe you could come with me in motorcade to airport if you have time.’

Jeremic, who served as the president of the United Nations General Assembly from 2012 to 2013, was unsuccessfully running for U.N. Secretary General at the time of the emails and had apparently used his connections as president of the Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development, a Belgrade-based think tank, to introduce Rosemont Seneca to potential partners in Mexico and China, according to multiple emails from 2014 and 2015.

For instance, Archer informed Hunter in a September 2014 email that Jeremic could connect them with the Mexican state-owned oil company Pemex and ‘will be helpful in securing exploration allocation in the privatization. He is up for Secretary General in 2016.’

And in December 2015, Jeremic offered to connect Hunter and Schwerin with Ye Jianming, the then-chairman of the now-defunct China-backed company CEFC China Energy, during a private dinner in D.C., although Rosemont Seneca was already exploring going into business with CEFC by then.

In early June 2010, Hunter accompanied his father to Egypt, Kenya and South Africa at the World Cup in Johannesburg, South Africa, according to an itinerary of the trip. During a June 8, 2010, email exchange between Hunter and Chris Buccini, a longtime Biden friend and business associate, Hunter said, ‘We head to Africa on the 5th. Arrive Egypt the 6th depart the 8th for Kenya and arrive Rustenberg SA on the 10th I believe’ and asked whether their schedule will ‘overlap’ during trip.

Due to logistics of the trip, Hunter was not able to take up Buccini on his invite to meet up at his friend’s place, saying, ‘I would love to buddy, but I think it will be impossible for us to travel outside of Dads package/ delegation.’

‘We arrive Jo’burg go directly to opening ceremony and JRB has bi-lats with govt officials and then next day we go to US- UK game and depart for home right after,’ Hunter said. ‘Please let your friends know how much we appreciate the offer and that we (the Hunter Biden family) would love to stop by and say hello when we return in August.’

In February 2013, Hunter traveled with his dad to Germany for the Munich Security Conference, video shows. Biden mentioned his son during his speech at the conference, saying he and his family supported ‘healthy competition’ with China.

‘My son, who is with me today, a 40-year-old man, will not, when he is my age, be looking at China as a sworn enemy,’ the vice president said. ‘I believe there is healthy competition from a growing, emerging China, which I would argue is in the interest of all of us.’

Later that year, Hunter introduced his dad to his Chinese business partner, Jonathan Li, after he and his father flew to Beijing on Air Force Two, Hunter first admitted to The New Yorker in 2019.

Biden traveled to Beijing on Dec. 3, 2013, due to a scheduled meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. During the trip, Hunter arranged for a brief handshake between Li and his father in the lobby of the hotel where the U.S. delegation was staying, and then Hunter met up with Li privately, The New Yorker reported at the time.

A transcribed interview with longtime Hunter Biden business partner Devon Archer was released earlier this month, revealing that Biden did more than a handshake with Li. According to Archer, they also had coffee together.

At the time, Hunter’s Rosemont Seneca firm and James Bulger’s firm Thornton Group LLC were securing their partnership with Li’s firm Bohai Capital in order to later launch Bohai Harvest RST (BHR), which is controlled by Bank of China Limited.

BHR was registered less than two weeks after Biden and Hunter’s trip to China.

Hunter also traveled with Biden to Japan on Dec. 2 and South Korea on Dec. 5 during the same Asia trip, although he didn’t travel back home with his father. Instead, he went to the Philippines with the World Food Program, where he served as chairman.

‘And as I speak, my son has just boarded — my grown son has just boarded a plane, an aircraft — he’s heading to the Philippines,’ Biden said during a speech in Seoul on Dec. 6, 2013. ‘His name is Hunter Biden. He’s chairman of the World Food Program U.S.A, and he’s going there out in the field, like so many of you did.’

Secret Service records show that Hunter requested protection during the Asia trip, including in the Philippines, from Dec. 6 to Dec. 9, 2013.

Hunter also requested Secret Service protection during his April 3, 2014, trip to Lake Como, Italy, when he met with Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky, shortly before his appointment to Burisma’s board, according to findings by the Committee on Oversight and Accountability.

Two years later, Hunter and his family accompanied Biden on his Thanksgiving trip to Croatia and Italy. Hunter appeared in several family photos with his father in Rome during the vice president’s official trip in late November 2015, according to Marco Polo. The Washington Free Beacon reported at the time that the trip abroad cost taxpayers over $300,000, not including the Air Force Two flights.

Three months after the Italy trip, on Feb. 24, 2016, Hunter emailed his Mexican business partner while apparently en route to Mexico aboard Air Force Two.

‘We are arriving late tonight on Air Force 2 to MX City. We will be there for Thursday – I’m attending meeting w/ President N w/ Dad,’ Hunter wrote to Miguel Magnani, Fox News Digital reported last year.

Hunter invited Magnani to greet the vice president upon landing, but in the same email, Hunter expressed indignation with Magnani, accusing him of going silent on their business partnership despite Hunter giving him access to his father, according to emails Fox News Digital previously reported on.

‘I have brought every single person you have ever asked me to bring to the F’ing White House and the Vice President’s house and the inauguration and then you go completely silent,’ Hunter wrote in the email.

‘I don’t know what it is that I did but I’d like to know why I’ve delivered on every single thing you’ve ever asked – and you make me feel like I’ve done something to offend you.’ he continued.

Hunter had previously introduced Magnani to his father during a White House tour on Feb. 26, 2014. White House visitor logs show that Magnani and Magnani’s father, Miguel Aleman Velasco, visited the West Wing on Feb. 26, 2014, and Biden was later photographed with Hunter giving Velasco and Magnani a tour of the White House Brady Press Briefing room.

Two months after Hunter’s Mexico trip, on April 29, 2016, he was recorded meeting with Italy’s then-prime minister, Matteo Renzi, during another trip to the country with his father.

In addition to flights during the Obama administration, Hunter received scrutiny earlier this year for accompanying his dad and aunt, Valerie Biden Owens, to Ireland due to the Biden family’s foreign business dealings and dual investigations.

Hunter has also attended several White House state dinners recognizing foreign leaders in Washington, D.C. In June, Hunter attended a dinner for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and in December 2022 he was at the dinner welcoming French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte.

During the Obama administration, Hunter also attended several state dinners. According to an archived version of the Obama website and emails from Hunter’s abandoned laptop, he attended dinners for state leaders from the U.K., India, France, Italy, Africa, Mexico, Germany and China, among others.

Fox News host Jesse Watters aired footage Monday of Hunter in Germany, Japan, China, South Korea and Italy during his father’s visits abroad.

Watters reported that Hunter wouldn’t use the same Air Force Two staircase as his father and was often recorded already sitting in his dad’s motorcade by the time the vice president got off the plane.

‘Taxpayers funded Hunter’s business travel so the Biden family could sneak around the world and get rich,’ Watters said. 

The Fox News host said the Biden White House has refused to hand over the flight manifests from his vice presidency.

The 2020 report by Senate Republicans revealed that Hunter dropped his Secret Service protection soon after joining the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings, despite his father still having years left in his term as vice president.

‘The Committees found that Hunter Biden scheduled travel as a protectee after joining Burisma’s board in May 2014,’ the report said. ‘The Committees also determined that Hunter Biden declined USSS protection after a scheduled July 8, 2014, trip to Michigan City, Ind. At this time, the Committees have not determined why Hunter Biden declined USSS protection after July 8, 2014.’

Watters suggested that Hunter dropped the protection because ‘the Bidens knew what they were doing was wrong.’

The White House and Hunter’s lawyer Abbe Lowell did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.

A mugshot of Rudy Giuliani was released Wednesday after the former New York City mayor turned himself in at an Atlanta jail on charges connected to alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. 

Giuliani, 79, was indicted last week along with former President Donald Trump and 17 others. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said they participated in a wide-ranging conspiracy to subvert the will of the voters after the Republican president lost to Democrat Joe Biden in November 2020.

Giuliani is accused of spearheading Trump’s efforts to compel state lawmakers in Georgia and other closely contested states to illegally appoint electoral college electors favorable to Trump.

Bond for Giuliani, who was released after booking like the other defendants, was set at $150,000, second only to Trump’s $200,000.

Other high-profile defendants also surrendered Wednesday, including Jenna Ellis, an attorney who prosecutors say was involved in efforts to convince state lawmakers to unlawfully appoint presidential electors, and lawyer Sidney Powell, who is accused of making false statements about the election in Georgia and helping to organize a breach of voting equipment in rural Coffee County.

Georgia was one of several key states Trump lost by slim margins. He and his allies claimed the election was rigged in favor of his Democratic rival Biden.

Giuliani is charged with making false statements and soliciting false testimony, conspiring to create phony paperwork and asking state lawmakers to violate their oath of office to appoint an alternate slate of pro-Trump electors.

Trump, the early front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, has said he plans to turn himself in at the Fulton County Jail on Thursday. He and his allies have characterized the investigation as politically motivated and have heavily criticized District Attorney Willis, a Democrat.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

FIRST ON FOX: House Republicans, led by Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., are calling for the chamber to include a measure in the upcoming National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would provide additional overtime pay for Border Patrol agents as they continue to tackle an ongoing migrant crisis at the southern border.

In a letter to Armed Services Committee Chair Mike Rogers, the seven lawmakers call for the House version to include language in the Senate version of the FY 2024 NDAA which would grant special overtime payments to Border Patrol agents to the tune of an extra 50% of the hourly rate of their basic pay.

They argue that such an inclusion is justified due to the ongoing crisis at the southern border, which Republicans have blamed on the policies of the Biden administration.

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‘Because of the historic crisis fueled by this administration’s directives to welcome migrants and maximize ‘lawful’ pathways, Border Patrol agents are working long hours beyond the call of duty. Section 11133 is essential to ensure that our brave Border Patrol agents will be fairly compensated for every hour worked, including overtime. Furthermore, this language brings Border Patrol overtime levels into alignment with similar agencies, like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE),’ they wrote.

Lawmakers on the letter alongside Biggs include Reps. W. Gregory Steube, R-Fla.; Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Ore.; Eli Crane, R-Ariz.; Nick Langworthy, R-N.Y.; Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J.; and Andy Ogles, R-Tenn.

The Biden administration has called for more money primarily for processing migrants from Congress, including a $4 billion supplemental budget request announced this month. This week it announced an extra $77 million for NGOs and communities dealing with the migrant surge. It has also urged Congress to pass immigration reform legislation that includes a pathway to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants already in the U.S.

Republicans in the House have introduced and passed their own legislation that would enshrine the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), change laws related to unaccompanied children and restrict the use of parole.

It would also restart border wall construction, increase the number of Border Patrol agents and offer retention bonuses for agents to tackle low morale among overwhelmed staff.

‘Too many brave Border Patrol agents are placed in dangerous situations due to this administration’s border crisis,’ the lawmakers said Wednesday in their letter. ‘Congress has the opportunity to demonstrate to these brave agents and to the American people our commitment to a secure border and to our law enforcement agents answering the call of duty.’

‘Open border policies have consequences, and the bravest among us should be rewarded for their diligence and dedication. Other agencies have this overtime benefit, and it is well past due to restore full overtime pay to Border Patrol agents,’ they said.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday called for an investigation into the Biden administration’s handling of the devastating fires in Maui. 

‘We saw the devastation that happened in Maui…I’m very concerned about the response,’ McCarthy said at a press conference in the district of Rep. Brandon Williams, R-N.Y.

‘We still have hundreds of individuals that are missing. I think there’s going to have to be a congressional investigation into the response on Maui. How could you lose that many Americans?’

He also criticized President Biden for refusing to comment on the wildfires earlier this month while leaving a Delaware beach. 

‘The president’s response — had no comment. That’s unacceptable,’ McCarthy said. ‘So I am going to work with committees to look at investigating what went on so that never happens again.’

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Biden visited Maui on Monday along with first lady Jill Biden, where he toured the devastation that’s seen more than 110 people dead and hundreds still missing. It is the deadliest wildfire in modern U.S. history.

Biden’s visit came after his administration was initially criticized for a lagging response to the disaster. There are now more than 1,000 federal personnel on the ground in Maui, FEMA said Monday, after the fires first burned on Aug. 8.

During his trip, however, the president was also chided by critics for appearing to compare the wildfires to what a 2004 Associated Press report called a ‘small fire that was contained to the kitchen’ at his home in Delaware. 

‘I don’t want to compare difficulties, but we have a little sense, Jill and I, of what it was like to lose a home,’ Biden said in Maui. ‘Years ago now, 15 years, I was in Washington doing ‘Meet the Press’…lightning struck at home on a little lake outside the home, not a lake, a big pond. It hit the wire and came up underneath our home.’

He added, ‘To make a long story short, I almost lost my wife, my ’67 Corvette and my cat.’

Fox News’ Kelly Phares contributed to this report.

The Biden-Harris campaign co-chair declared President Biden the ‘Democratic nominee’ for president before a single vote has been cast.

Former Biden aide Cedric Richmond on Wednesday said that Biden is not debating for his spot on top of the blue presidential ticket and is already the ‘Democratic nominee.’

‘President Biden is the Democratic nominee, along with Vice President Harris,’ Richmond said. ‘And if you look at both parties, when they have an incumbent president, that incoming president participates in no debates and there’s no primary on our side when there’s a primary.’

‘But the key to it is the fact that we’ve already endorsed President Biden,’ the Democratic National Committee (DNC) senior adviser said.

Richmond said that no ‘party has done it’ going ‘back to [Presidents] Reagan and Ford,’ adding, ‘It’s just something that has been well settled.’

‘And it’s just another issue that people want to use as a distraction from us focusing on still delivering for the American people and making sure that we address the issues and the challenges they face,’ Richmond said.

Typically, the party in control of the White House will not hold presidential debates and will throw their hat behind the current president.

It is not unheard of for incumbent presidents to see challenges from their own party — Biden is currently seeing two in the forms of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Marianne Williamson — but parties will typically try to avoid an intra-party fight.

Still, many in both parties have called for primary elections against sitting presidents, noting the exchange of ideas when a president is up for re-election.

Richmond’s announcement comes on the day of the first Republican presidential debate.

Eight candidates are set to take the stage and duke it out for the GOP presidential nomination to battle Biden for the West Wing.

Wednesday almost saw only seven GOP candidates in Milwaukee after North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum tore his ACL playing basketball on Tuesday.

Burgum plans to take the stage amid the injury and will be competing against leading candidates including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

The debate will be televised live on Fox News and FoxNews.com starting at 9 p.m. ET.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R.-Tx., is the latest politician to praise Virginia farmer and musician Oliver Anthony’s newest song, ‘I Want To Go Home’ which premiered on the viral singer’s YouTube channel Tuesday. 

Anthony’s music video, which shows him singing in the wilderness, already has over a million views and claimed the number one spot for trending songs on YouTube. The song, which was originally uploaded to Spotify in April, also has over a million streams.

‘Singing the truth is powerful,’ Cruz posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, Wednesday. ‘Congrats to @AintGottaDollar for coming out with another song for our time.’ 

Cruz joins a wave of conservative voices who praised Anthony—who first went viral after his song ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’ earlier this month—including Republican Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, Daily Wire commentator Matt Walsh and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R.-GA. 

‘This is the anthem of the forgotten Americans who truly support this nation and unfortunately the world with their hard earned tax dollars and incredibly hard work,’ Greene said on X of Anthony’s ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’ hit. ‘This song represents my district and the people of America I know and love.’

Oliver begins his latest country tune with: ‘If it won’t for my old dogs and the good Lord/ They’d have me strung up in the psych ward/ ‘Cause every day livin’ in this new world/ Is one too many days to me.’

‘Son, we’re on the brink of the next world war/ And I don’t think nobody’s prayin’ no more/ And I ain’t sayin I know it for sure/ I’m just down on my knees,’ he sings in the second verse.

The singer sprung to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart making him the first artist with no previous chart history to do so. 

‘People deal with depression and anxiety and misery and hopelessness no matter where they are at,’ Anthony told Fox News correspondent Griff Jenkins.

‘They don’t have to be blue-collar Americans. I mean I’ve gotten messages from people in countries that I don’t know how to pronounce. This is something that has touched people globally and there’s a reason for that,’ he said.

The emerging singer-songwriter took the stage in front of around 4,000 attendees who gathered at Moyock, North Carolina’s Eagle Creek Golf Club & Grill on Aug. 19, treating them to a free performance.

Anthony is reportedly raking in $40,000 a day from streams and sales of his music, according to the trade journal Hits. 

Anthony has not confirmed that claim, but according to a Facebook post on Aug. 17, he’s turning down million-dollar deals. 

‘People in the music industry give me blank stares when I brush off $8 million dollar offers,’ Anthony stated. ‘I don’t want 6 tour buses, 15 tractor trailers and a jet. I don’t want to play stadium shows, I don’t want to be in the spotlight. I wrote the music I wrote because I was suffering with mental health and depression.’

Fox News’ Nikolas Lanum contributed to this report.