President Biden had an awkward moment with Democratic Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz Monday while on a trip to the state still reeling from the devastating wildfires that killed at least 114 people and left hundreds more missing earlier this month.

At the conclusion of a press conference after surveying the damage from the wildfire in Lahaina on Maui, Schatz was picked up by the podium microphone offering a sip of water to Biden who didn’t respond before awkwardly walking away.

It appeared as if Biden heard Schatz, but it’s unclear why he didn’t respond.

Fox News Digital reached out to Schatz’s office and the White House for comment.

Biden’s visit came amid criticism from both sides of the aisle that he has been publicly quiet toward Hawaii and its residents following the tragic fire.

The criticism started after Biden — who was vacationing on a Delaware beach — was asked about Hawaii’s rising death toll and said he had ‘no comment.’ The remark was widely condemned as dismissive of the struggle Hawaiians were enduring.

Maui County and the Maui Police Department confirmed the number of dead on Sunday, but that number could increase as investigators continue to search the area.

Fox News’ Lawrence Richard contributed to this report.

President Biden, while visiting the fire-ravaged remains of Maui, said he knows what it is like to lose a home, recalling that 15 years ago lightning started a fire in his residence 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. ‘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, into the…air condition ducts.

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

This is not the first time Biden has recalled the story.

In November 2021, he said his house burned down with his wife Jill Biden inside, before trying to correct himself.

At the time, he was speaking in New Hampshire about the bipartisan infrastructure plan when he said, ‘Without this bridge, as I said earlier, it’s a 10-mile detour just to get to the other side. And I know, having had a house burn down with my wife in it – she got out safely, God willing – that having a significant portion of it burn, I can tell: 10 minutes make a hell of a difference.’

He also mentioned the story in 2013, claiming a fire ‘destroyed a significant portion’ of his New Hampshire home.

A 2004 report from the Associated Press, archived by LexisNexis, said lightning struck the Bidens’ home and started a ‘small fire that was contained to the kitchen.’ The report said firefighters got the blaze under control in 20 minutes and that they were able to keep the flames from spreading beyond the kitchen.

LONDONDERRY, N.H. – Republican Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire has some advice for the GOP candidates on stage at Wednesday’s first presidential nomination debate.

‘You’ve got to explain where you are with your policy. Where you are with your background,’ Sununu emphasized in a Fox News Digital interview. ‘But you’ve got to go beyond that. It’s not just issue and policy based. And it’s not just in attack mode either. They’ve got to show that charm, that charisma, that likability. Likability is so important in a race like this.’

The popular GOP governor, who seriously mulled a presidential run of his own before deciding against it in June, also stressed that the candidates need to exude ‘charisma, charm, inspiration. Something exciting. Something fun. Something that people say ‘wow. That’s something I can get behind.’’

Sununu called the debate – a Fox News-hosted showdown in Milwaukee, Wisconsin – ‘an awesome opportunity for all these candidates to stand up – not just to show that they deserve to be on the stage – but to show that they deserve to be the leader of the free world. That’s really the differentiator. People want someone that inspires them. Some charisma.’

Sununu’s a debate veteran, debating over a dozen times as he won election and re-election to four two-year terms as New Hampshire governor since 2016. 

The governor, a vocal GOP critic of Donald Trump, has repeatedly argued the former president – the current commanding front-runner for the Republican nomination – can’t win next year’s general election. Sununu’s been teaming up with many of Trump’s rivals as they campaign in New Hampshire, which holds the first primary and second overall contest in the GOP nominating calendar. Sununu has repeatedly said he’ll endorse a presidential candidate ahead of his state’s primary.

‘My endorsement. It will move things a little bit but not really,’ the governor said. ‘Endorsements are way overrated. Way, way overblown. Especially in a place like New Hampshire. These candidates have to earn it on their own.’

In a New York Times op-ed on Monday, Sununu reiterated his message that as the ‘governor of the first-in-the-nation primary state’ he will ‘do everything [he] can to help narrow the field.’

The governor spotlighted that multiple GOP candidates have ‘compelling stories’ and that Americans need to see that the ‘Republican Party is able to refocus the conversation where it needs to be, on a nominee dedicated to saving America.’

Sununu joined former ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in late June at a New Hampshire GOP summer cookout and fundraiser, where he praised her as he introduced the Republican presidential contender.

‘He’s a great friend. He’s a great governor, and he’s going to be an important person in this primary. And I think that he’s got a lot of knowledge about the people of New Hampshire, and I think he’s got a lot of knowledge of what it takes to win here, so I think he’s going to be incredibly important,’ Haley told Fox News at the event.

Besides Haley,  former Vice President Mike Pence, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, ex-CIA spy and former Rep. Will Hurd of Texas and environmental lawyer and high-profile vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who’s primary-challenging President Biden for the Democratic nomination — have all met with Sununu over the last few months. And three other candidates — Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and former Governors Chris Christie of New Jersey and Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas — huddled in-person with Sununu earlier this year.

Conservative Republican Rep. Matt Rosendale tells Fox News he won’t vote for any continuing resolution to fund the government past Sept. 30 as Congress readies for what could be a messy showdown over government spending levels and legislative priorities.

Rosendale, R-Mont., cited his distaste for current spending levels and promises from House leadership to change how Congress operates in an interview with Fox News.

‘In January, we were assured that we were going to restore regular order to Congress,’ Rosendale said. ‘And to now wait until this time in the 118th Congress, when we knew the appropriation bills were necessary in order for us to properly fund government, and to say, ‘No, we’re just going to go back to the old way of doing business,’ I find that unacceptable and I find it offensive.’

‘If we’re going to use continuing resolutions and omnibus bills to fund government, then you explain to me the difference between Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Speaker Kevin McCarthy because I don’t see a difference,’ the congressman added.

Rosendale’s stance comes the day after the conservative House Freedom Caucus (HFC) released its position statement on a continuing resolution, and it is a slight break from the group. The HFC said it would only vote for a stopgap government funding bill that simultaneously passes House Republicans’ border bill and addresses alleged weaponization of the Justice Department and ‘woke’ polices in the Defense Department.

Rosendale said he doesn’t believe those asks are realistic.

‘Why put out a statement that says you won’t support a continuing resolution unless it contains the following items when you in your heart don’t believe that those items will be in there anyway?’ he said.

Congress will almost certainly need to pass a continuing resolution to temporarily fund the government in the coming weeks. Lawmakers are nowhere near passing all 12 of the yearly appropriations bills, and they only have until the end of September before government funding runs out. The Senate is out until Sept. 5 and the House is out until Sept. 12, leaving little time to push through all of that legislation before a possible shutdown.

Rosendale, however, said he’s not concerned about a government shutdown.

‘When people talk about a government shutdown, it’s a little bit ridiculous because you’re only talking about shutting down about 15% of it. And again, the people across Montana, unfortunately, they think most of what we’re doing in Congress is bad anyway,’ he said.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said on a phone call with Republican members last week that he’d like to pass a continuing resolution that would fund the government until early December to allow time to pass the 12 appropriations bills without creating a deadline around the holidays.

But Rosendale’s stance is just one more piece of the complicated equation for McCarthy to reach 218 votes to keep the government open. He could work with the HFC on its demands – likely alienating possible Democrat yes votes in the process – and still not get all of his own members to vote yes.

The alternative could be that McCarthy searches for Democrat votes to help get the bill across the finish line. A move like that, however, could anger conservatives like Rosendale who are still upset that more Democrats than Republicans voted for the debt ceiling deal this year. 

Rosendale’s stance also comes as he’s considering a run for U.S. Senate in Montana. Many Republicans – including National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Steve Daines, R-Mont. – have coalesced around former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy for the seat. But nearly 40 Montana state lawmakers signed a letter last week to support Rosendale as ‘someone unafraid to defy the Mitch McConnell establishment,’ KULR reported.

‘I am honored and humbled to receive this statement of support and encouragement from leaders across our state. It is evident that Montanans will not have their next senator chosen by Mitch McConnell and the DC Cartel,’ Rosendale tweeted in response to that statement.

Fox News’ Kelly Phares contributed to this report.

Deeply divided Tennessee lawmakers returned to the state Capitol Monday, kicking off a special session that many hoped would address the state’s relaxed gun laws but instead quickly devolved into bitter fighting over procedural rules and limits on public access into the building.

Months prior, Republican Gov. Bill Lee called the session in the wake of a shooter opening fire at a Nashville elementary school and killing six people, including three children.

Yet after hundreds of community organizers, families, protesters and many more spent months asking lawmakers to consider passing gun control measures in response to the shooting, the GOP-dominated Statehouse is unexpected to do so.

Early into the floor session, a Republican senator made a pass at ending the special session immediately before any bills were officially taken up — a move typically unheard of during regular sessions. Sen. Janice Bowling was told she needed to file her request in a resolution and try again.

Over in the House, an already split chamber appeared to further fracture. The Republican supermajority attempted to jam through new rules that would place strict penalties on lawmakers deemed out of order that included banning a member from speaking on the House floor for the rest of the year if they go off-topic during debate or if they impugn the reputation of another member.

‘We did not come up here for this special session to limit speech of the members of this body,’ said Democratic Rep. Jason Powell. ‘We came up here to tackle a problem -– or at least some of thought we were — but here we are, starting off to limit the rules of our democracy.’

Democratic lawmakers also raised concerns about public access, saying fewer people were allowed into areas outside the chambers and in House and Senate galleries.

While protesters flocked to the Capitol, the building was noticeably more blocked off by state troopers who limited people from milling about in the public areas of the building ahead of Monday’s floor sessions. Yet when lawmakers began trickling in, many protesters began screaming and chanting — urging lawmakers to pass gun control and to hear their voices.

Republican leaders have focused on advancing proposals that would toughen penalties for violent criminals, arguing that placing limitations on weapons would do very little to deter those who want to cause harm. Other GOP members have introduced proposals to boost mental health resources and school security measures.

On March 27, a 27-year-old shooter opened fire at a Nashville Christian elementary school and killed six people, including three young students. The shooting contributed to a record pace for mass killings in the U.S. this year and renewed scrutiny over Tennessee’s relaxed gun laws.

Gov. Lee initially pushed lawmakers to pass legislation that would temporarily remove guns from people showing signs of potentially violent behavior. But despite holding hundreds of meetings with lawmakers and policy experts over the summer, Lee has since conceded that he didn’t have the necessary sponsors to introduce the proposal for the special session.

Bowling, a Tullahoma Republican, quickly moved to adjourn the session Monday, arguing it wasn’t addressing a ‘danger to public safety,’ but ‘may lessen or abridge the rights of every Tennessean.’

‘People in my district have spoken loudly on this issue, and the overwhelming consensus is that we face no emergency or immediate danger,’ Bowling said. ‘And I must be honest with this chamber, I echo their sentiments.’

Bowling was told she would need to formally file a resolution.

Earlier Monday, at a news conference with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, actor Melissa Joan Hart detailed how she helped a class of kindergartners fleeing The Covenant School shooting across a highway.

Hart said that she had moved to Nashville from Connecticut and that her children had attended a school near Sandy Hook Elementary when 26 children were shot and killed there in 2012. She has said her children attend a school next to the private Christian Covenant School.

‘I’m standing here before you today, 11 years later, almost a thousand miles away from Fairfield County (in Connecticut). And yet we’re having the same conversation that we did on December 14, 2012, and every day since. Our cries aren’t being heard, and our kids are bearing the burden,’ Hart said.

Some opposing changes to gun laws also were holding demonstrations Monday.

Britt Winston was among the speakers at a news conference held by the DC Project-Women for Gun Rights along with her husband, Taylor Winston, a survivor of the 2017 Las Vegas concert shooting that killed 58 people. He has been praised for helping transport victims to the hospital.

‘Momma bears out there listening: I urge you, don’t fall for it. Don’t fall for it. Don’t do it,’ said Britt Winston. ‘Don’t let them take your very valid feelings of fear – those emotions are real — don’t let them twist them into legislation that does more harm than good in protecting our children.’

There also was a brief appearance of members of the Proud Boys, the neo-fascist group of self-described ‘Western chauvinists.’ The group unfurled their flag while pro-gun control supporters held a prayer outside the Tennessee Capitol before leaving.

State troopers had a heavy presence through the Capitol complex. On Monday afternoon, officials with the Tennessee Highway Patrol and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation told Senate Republicans that they were not aware of any threats to public safety.

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Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy was already a millionaire by the time he accepted the Soros scholarship he previously said he needed in order to pay for law school.

Ramaswamy defended himself last month for accepting a $90,000 award from the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, which was founded by Daisy and Paul Soros, the late older brother of liberal billionaire financier George Soros. 

Ramaswamy said that after graduating from Harvard, he ‘didn’t have the money’ to afford Yale Law School.

‘There was a separate scholarship that I won at the age of 24-25, when I was going to law school in my mid-20s, in my early 20s, when I didn’t have the money and it was a merit scholarship that hundreds of kids win, that was partially funded, not by George Soros, but by Paul Soros a relative, his brother,’ Ramaswamy said.

‘And to be perfectly honest with you, I would have had to be a fool to turn down that scholarship at the age of 24,’ he added.

When Ramaswamy accepted the award in 2011, he was a first-year law student at Yale and had been working for several years as an investment analyst at the hedge fund QVT Financial.

In 2011, the same year he accepted the award, Ramaswamy reported $2,252,209 in total income, according to his tax returns, which he released in June. He reported a total of $1,173,690 in income in the three years prior.

‘Vivek won a generic scholarship that hundreds of students win to attend graduate school,’ his campaign’s spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, told Fox News Digital. ‘It was funded by a relative of George Soros who is long dead.’

‘Vivek would have been a fool to turn down that scholarship – Anyone who would have shouldn’t get anywhere near the White House doing trade deals,’ she continued. ‘In fact, there’s only one candidate that will be on stage Wednesday night whom George Soros has said he wants to win this primary – and it’s not Vivek.’

McLaughlin was likely referring to comments Soros made at the Munich Security Conference in February.

Soros said he wanted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to win the Republican primary in the hope that former President Donald Trump would then mount a third-party campaign for president that would split the GOP vote and lead to a ‘Democratic landslide.’  

The first Republican presidential primary debate will feature 8 candidates on the stage, the Republican National Committee announced Tuesday.

The debate, which Fox News will host on Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, will feature  North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, former Vice President Mike Pence, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, and Vivek Ramaswamy, the RNC has confirmed.

To make the stage, candidates were required to reach 1% in three national polls, or 1% in two national polls and two state-specific polls from the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.

Additionally, to reach the debate stage, candidates were required to have 40,000 unique donors to their campaign committee (or exploratory committee), with ‘at least 200 unique donors per state or territory in 20+ states and/or territories,’ according to the RNC criteria.

The candidates were also required to sign a pledge agreeing to support the eventual Republican presidential nominee; agreeing not to participate in any non-RNC-sanctioned debates for the rest of the 2024 election cycle; and agreeing to data-sharing with the national party committee, the RNC noted last month.

debate

Former President Donald Trump has refused to sign such a pledge, despite meeting the rest of the debate criteria.

The first presidential debate of the 2024 election cycle will air on Fox News, and Rumble is the online live-streaming partner. Young America’s Foundation is also a partner in the first debate.

Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser and Brandon Gillespie contributed to this report.

Federal agents arrested a Chicago-area woman Monday on a complaint accusing her of sending emails threatening to shoot former President Donald Trump and his son Barron, according to federal prosecutors and a criminal complaint.

Tracy Marie Fiorenza, 41, was arrested Monday morning on a charge of transmitting threats to kill or injure, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago. The case was filed earlier this month in U.S. District Court in southern Florida.

‘I will state that I will shoot Donald Trump Sr. AND Barron Trump straight in the face at any opportunity I get!,’ Fiorenza said in a May 21 email to the head of an educational institution in the Palm Beach, Florida, area, according to an affidavit accompanying the complaint.

Donald Trump’s primary residence is in Palm Beach.

Fiorenza allegedly wrote a similar email on June 5, saying she would ‘slam a bullet’ into Barron Trump ‘with his father IN SELF DEFENSE!,’ according to the affidavit submitted by a U.S. Secret Service agent.

Neither the headmaster nor the school where the emails were allegedly sent was named in the charging documents.

It wasn’t immediately clear if Fiorenza had an attorney who could speak on her behalf. No attorney is listed for her on the federal docket.

CBS News Chicago reported that Fiorenza made an initial appearance Monday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Chicago, and a judge said she must go to the district court in Florida to answer the charges. The judge will decide at a Wednesday hearing how she will be transferred.

Agents interviewed Fiorenza at the agency’s Chicago field on June 14 — during which she was shown copies of the emails, according to the affidavit.

The affidavit says Fiorenza lives in Plainfield, Illinois, a southwest Chicago suburb.

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Tennessee state Rep. Gloria Johnson, the lone Democratic member of the ‘ Tennessee Three ‘ who narrowly survived a Republican-led expulsion effort, has launched an exploratory committee as she considers running for the seat held by U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn in 2024.

Johnson, 61, filed the exploratory paperwork — a step that usually comes just before officially launching a campaign — late last week. Doing so allows her to start raising money to support efforts like traveling and polling without officially becoming a candidate. It’s not required to run for political office but it can help boost a candidate’s profile.

‘Tennessee has a Senator that stands with bullies, I have a reputation for standing up to bullies,’ Johnson said in a statement. ‘I’m taking a serious look at this race and having great conversations with folks who are hungry for better leadership in Washington.’

In ruby red Tennessee, Johnson is expected to face an uphill battle if she advances to face Blackburn. The state hasn’t elected a Democrat to a statewide office since 2006.

Johnson has long been a vocal critic of Blackburn and other top Tennessee Republican leaders during her time in office. However, it wasn’t until this spring that her political career received a national boost after she participated in a pro-gun control protest inside the Tennessee Capitol that attracted thousands of protesters demanding lawmakers address the state’s lax gun laws.

The demonstration came just days after a shooter opened fire at a private Christian school in Nashville, killing three children and three adults. With tensions running high, Johnson joined fellow Democratic Reps. Justin Pearson and Justin Jones as they approached the front of the House floor without permission with a bullhorn, joining the chants and cries for action by protesters in the public galleries and outside of the chamber.

Republican lawmakers quickly called for their expulsion because they broke protocol and disrupted House proceedings. Pearson and Jones, who are both Black, were expelled, while Johnson, who is white, was spared by one vote, though Republicans denied that race was a factor. Pearson and Johnson were reinstated on an interim basis and were reelected to their positions last week.

All three will join their legislative colleagues later this month for a special session to address possible changes to the state’s gun control laws. Republican lawmakers initially declined to do so before adjourning their regular session in April. Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who has pushed for changes to keep guns away from people deemed to pose a threat to harm themselves or others, is calling them back into session.

Blackburn’s first Senate race took place in 2018, when she defeated Democratic former Gov. Phil Bredesen by almost 11 percentage points.

Blackburn’s win, where she also became Tennessee’s first female U.S. senator, marked a stark rightward shift in the state’s Republican Party leaders. While former GOP senators from the Volunteer State were known for taking more centrist positions, Blackburn launched her senate campaign by touting that she was a ‘hardcore, card-carrying Tennessee conservative’ and aligned herself closely to former President Donald Trump.

In 2021, she vowed to oppose the electoral college results that affirmed President Joe Biden’s win, but later backed down after watching the Jan. 6 insurrection unfold from inside the U.S. Capitol.

‘At the urging of Washington liberals, Gloria Johnson has taken another critical step towards joining liberal Democrat Marquita Bradshaw in the Tennessee Senate Democratic Primary,’ said Blackburn’s campaign spokesperson, Abigail Sigler. ‘Both of them are radical socialists who are aligned with Joe Biden’s failed policies that are making Tennesseans’ lives tougher every day.’

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