Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., will introduce the States Choose Life Act of 2023 on Tuesday to protect Tennessee and other pro-life states from the Biden administration and ‘retribution’ from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Fox News has learned.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Green said his legislation would prevent the HHS from stripping Title X funding from states that do not allow abortions and do not refer residents to abortion-allowing states, as it is doing to Tennessee.

‘HHS cannot be allowed to continue forcing states to participate in abortions or risk losing Title X healthcare funding,’ Rep. Green said in an exclusive statement. ‘Tennesseans and Americans from coast to coast rely on Title X for access to care.’

Green, who is also an ER physician, added: ‘If states are unable to backfill the void of revoked Title X funding, many Americans could be left without access to cancer screenings and pregnancy services. We must protect the rights of states to pass pro-life laws, without the federal government seeking retribution.’

Title X is a family planning program that was established under the Public Health Service Act in 1970. It offers access to contraceptive care and other services, particularly to low-income Americans, and serves approximately 4 million people annually, according to the HHS.

The Trump administration initially passed a rule that widely prohibited funding from being used for abortion services, but the Biden administration reversed this rule.

Rep. Green is taking action to prevent the HHS from weaponizing Title X to remove funding against states that choose to protect the right to life, saying his bill ‘will protect Tennessee from being bullied by the federal government into propping up the abortion industry.’

‘Specifically, my legislation amends Title X of the Public Health Service Act to prohibit HHS from revoking funding for states that don’t make referrals for abortion,’ he said.

The bill also comes after the HHS wrote a letter to the State of Tennessee saying it would no longer be providing Title X funding, which the state has utilized to support low-income families for decades.

Green wrote a letter earlier this month to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra expressing ‘great concern’ over the revocation.

‘This funding has supported Tennessee families for decades, and your decision to revoke this funding to score political points is unacceptable,’ the Tennessee Republican said. ‘While your department may struggle to comprehend statutory law and your solemn oaths to uphold said laws, the State of Tennessee is operating well within its constitutional and legal bounds.’

He added in the letter: ‘This administration has made it clear that it will exploit every opportunity to skirt the laws and push its radical agenda on American citizens. I am extremely disappointed that you [have] chosen this divisive path.’

The legislation also comes nearly a year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which recognized a constitutional right to abortion, in its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The ruling was decided on June 24, 2022.

Green said the anniversary marks the ‘beginning’ of the fight to protect unborn life.

‘As we celebrate the one-year anniversary of the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, it’s important to remember that the fight for life is just beginning,’ Green cautioned. ‘Though the tyranny of Roe is over, it is now up to states to protect unborn babies. And states should be allowed to do so without suffering repercussions, financial or otherwise, from the federal government.’

He added: ‘No medical professional should be forced against his or her conscience to refer patients for abortions. As it stands today, Secretary Becerra is using Title X funding as a cudgel to force states to participate in abortions or risk losing funding. This is abhorrent.’

Tennessee was awarded more than $7.1 million in Title X funding last year, according to the HHS. The Biden administration awarded $256.6 million for Title X family services nationwide.

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CONCORD, N.H. – EXCLUSIVE –One-time clandestine agent and former Republican congressman turned GOP presidential candidate Will Hurd is heading to the nation’s northern border with Canada on Tuesday, Fox News has learned.

And Hurd, who represented a congressional district in Texas that stretched for hundreds of miles along the southern border with Mexico, took aim at President Biden and former President Donald Trump in a Fox Digital interview on the eve of his Tuesday border tour in the northern tip of New Hampshire.

‘Joe Biden is and will be the worst border security president in our history,’ Hurd charged. ‘The crisis that we’ve seen and the fact that they don’t want to call it a crisis is shocking to me.’

Hurd argued that the Biden administration’s ‘policies have actually encouraged illegal immigration… They’re treating everybody who’s coming into the country as an asylum seeker….That is what is causing the volume of people coming from over 180 different states.’

But Hurd – who’s a vocal Republican critic of Trump, the current commanding front-runner in the GOP nomination race – argued that ‘treating everybody as an asylum seeker started under Donald Trump and something that Joe Biden continued. And Joe Biden just added fuel to that fire. So doing that is something we would stop on day one.’

Hurd pledged if elected to the White House that he would resume construction of the border wall begun under Trump and halted by Biden in ‘some places where a physical barrier makes sense.’ But he added that in addition, ‘you need to be deploying technology along the border as well.’

The former CIA spy on Tuesday will head to the northern reaches of New Hampshire to join local authorities for a tour of the U.S. border with Canada. Hurd said he hopes get a better ‘understanding of the interplay between border patrol and local law enforcement.’

‘The amount of miles that we have on the northern border and the so few people patrolling it. How easy it is to get back and forth across the northern border. I think in the last six months there’s been over 400 people that have been on the known and suspected terrorist watch list that have been apprehended coming through the northern border. That’s just the people that we know are coming in,’ Hurd emphasized.

And he also spotlighted that ‘when you look at the amount of fentanyl that is coming into the country, that’s coming from China, a lot of it is going to Canada. We always talk about Mexico – but much of it is going to Canada and coming through our northern border as well.’

Hurd, who launched his long shot bid for the GOP nomination last Thursday, reiterated in his Fox Digital interview that he won’t sign the pledge to support the eventual GOP 2024 nominee which the Republican National Committee is mandating that all candidates sign in order to make the stage at the first debate in August, which Fox News is hosting.

While Hurd’s decision – due to his opposition to Trump – could jeopardize his ability to make the debate stage, he stressed ‘I just can’t lie to the American people in order to earn a microphone. It would be for me to say ‘yeah, I’ll do it,’ and then not support at the end. But I just can’t lie to people about that.’

‘I’ve taken one oath in my life, and that’s to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States. I’ve taken one vow and that’s to my amazing, beautiful wife. And I take one pledge, and that’s when I put my hand on my heart and pledge allegiance to the United States of America,’ Hurd said. ‘So I won’t be singing the pledge but guess what – I’m going to be accessible. I’m going to talk about ideas. I’m going to talk about the future – not just complain about the past. I’m not going to be petty. So I will get my message out other ways.’

Hurd – who was the only Black Republican in the House during his final two years in Congress – has plenty of company on Tuesday in New Hampshire, the state that holds the first primary and second overall contest in the Republican presidential nominating calendar following Iowa. 

Trump and Florida Gov.Ron DeSantis, who trails the former president by double digits but leads the rest of the field of GOP contenders in the latest primary polls, will capture the spotlight as they hold what’s being billed as competing events. And former ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and entrepreneur, author, and conservative commentator Vivek Ramaswamy are also campaigning in the Granite State.

Hurd said he’ll spend plenty of time in the state.

‘New Hampshire appreciates a dark horse candidate like me. New Hampshire appreciates people who have ideas and so this is a place that is going to very important in for me to build the operation and the momentum to go further into this process,’ he said. ‘So you’ll be seeing a lot of me in New Hampshire.’

EXCLUSIVE: Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg met privately last year with the head of Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), a non-profit dedicated to electrifying the U.S. economy from transportation to home appliances like stovetops.

According to his internal agency calendar obtained via information request by government watchdog group Americans for Public Trust (APT), Buttigieg met with RMI CEO Jon Creyts on Nov. 30, 2022. Creyts, who assumed the leadership position earlier that same month, is described by RMI as an ‘internationally recognized leader on global energy issues and climate change.’

‘Secretary Buttigieg’s misguided motto that ‘every transportation decision is a climate decision’ explains why he’s meeting with the group working overtime to ban gas stoves instead of ensuring U.S. travel is safe and efficient,’ APT executive director Caitlin Sutherland told Fox News Digital. 

‘Buttigieg’s regular consultations with radical climate activists — whose chief goal is to eliminate all fossil fuels — while flying around the country on taxpayer-funded private jets is the height of elitist hypocrisy that has become a hallmark of the Biden administration,’ she continued. ‘It’s no wonder Americans across the country are fuming about his out-of-touch priorities.’

Buttigieg’s calendar showed the meeting was in-person and listed Creyts as the sole participant, but failed to include an agenda for the meeting. RMI, though, explained that the meeting focused on the group’s work electrifying the transportation sector.

‘This meeting focused on RMI’s work to electrify the transportation sector, including electric vehicles, vehicle charging infrastructure, and other clean mobility solutions,’ RMI spokesperson Rachel Sarah told Fox News Digital.

The Department of Transportation didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Ensuring zero-carbon transportation is listed as one of RMI’s top priorities on its websites. The group calls for zero-emissions freight, electric passenger fleets and for an electric vehicle charging network to be rapidly constructed nationwide. The group further states that it is ‘ending tailpipe emissions to create cleaner air, save millions of lives, and align the transportation sector with a 1.5ºC target.’ 

As part of it transportation initiative, RMI has advocated in favor of states adopting California’s recent regulations banning gas-powered vehicle sales beginning in 2035.

‘As states consider whether to adopt [California’s regulations] in whole or in part, it is valuable to consider not just the many economic, consumer, and health benefits of EV deployment but also the effect this regulation can have on tipping the market toward more rapid EV adoption,’ an RMI blog from April states.

‘Business-as-usual cannot be an option if the U.S. and the world are to meet our climate goals,’ it continues. ‘The path forward is clear, and there is no time to waste.’

Since taking office, meanwhile, Buttigieg has repeatedly pushed for greater electric vehicle proliferation and manufacturing.  

And the group recently made headlines after it funded a study that highlighted public health dangers posed by gas stove usage. The study, authored by RMI researchers Talor Gruenwald and Brady Seals, was cited in a Bloomberg article in January that included comments from a Consumer Product Safety Commission member who told the outlet a gas stove ban was ‘on the table.’

The group’s position is to ensure the U.S. only builds zero-carbon buildings with electric appliances in the future, while continually retrofitting existing construction. 

‘Burning fossil fuels (mainly gas) in U.S. homes and businesses accounts for roughly one-tenth of the country’s carbon emissions,’ another RMI blog post, from February, states. ‘Cutting this climate pollution is essential for the United States to meet its climate targets and to prevent the worst consequences of climate change.’

In addition, RMI has collaborated with the Chinese government to study transitioning away from traditional fossil fuels. 

The group’s only office outside the U.S. is located in Beijing, China’s capital city. Creyts, who Buttigieg met with in his November meeting, helped found RMI’s China Program and establish the group’s Beijing office.

In 2013, RMI worked with the National Development and Reform Commission, a Chinese government entity, to create a roadmap for ‘China’s revolution in energy consumption and production to 2050.’ The report largely showed how China’s economy could adopt new clean energy technologies to replace oil and gas infrastructure.

On its website, RMI lists 30 reports it has helped assemble on China. For example, a March report on the Chinese power sector lists Xue Han, of the government-run Development Research Center of the State Council, as a contributor.

RMI is also a member of the China Clean Transportation Partnership, a green group with significant ties to the Chinese government.

Additionally, RMI board member Wei Ding was previously the chairman of the China International Capital Corporation, a bank partially owned by the Chinese government.

‘RMI has worked for four decades alongside governments to accelerate the adoption of market-based solutions that cost-effectively bring about a clean energy transition,’ Sarah, RMI’s spokesperson, told Fox News Digital. ‘We aim to work with any entity accelerating the transition to a zero-carbon future and securing its benefits for all.’ 

‘We share our research and analysis routinely with governments, policymakers of both parties, fellow non-profit organizations, and corporations — including those in the fossil fuel business. RMI works in China because reducing emissions in China is critical to preventing the worst consequences of climate change.’

FBI Director Christopher Wray will testify before the House Judiciary Committee next month, Fox News has confirmed. The hearing will put Wray face-to-face with several Republican lawmakers who have accused him of politically weaponizing the FBI against churches, parents, and political opponents of the Biden administration.

The hearing, scheduled for July 12, comes as House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, subpoenaed Wray for information from him and his agency concerning various investigations and as Republicans call for the FBI to investigate President Biden and the Biden family.

Wray also faces allegations of mishandling a probe into President Biden’s son after the FBI revealed Hunter Biden will plead guilty to two tax violations and one gun felony following a five-year investigation. Republican lawmakers blasted the ‘sweetheart’ plea deal.

Details about what will be discussed at the July hearing were not immediately available.

Wray has faced increased attention from Capitol Hill after Republicans recaptured the House majority in Nov. 2022.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., nearly held Wray in contempt of Congress for withholding a classified document that alleges Biden was involved in a bribery scheme. A vote was canceled after Wray agreed to show the full committee of nearly 50 lawmakers to review the document and some related files.

Fox News Digital reached out to the FBI for comment, but a response was not immediately received.

Some Senate Republicans have urged Wray to resign over how he has led the bureau and his alleged weaponization of the FBI.

‘He should’ve resigned a long time ago,’ Sen. Josh Hawley told Fox News.

Republican Ohio Sen. JD Vance agreed, telling Fox News, ‘Christopher Wray should absolutely resign. What has happened in the last four or five years is the American people have seen that the leadership of the FBI is engaged in political hackery.’

The Republican criticism of Wray has also dipped into the 2024 Republican presidential primary race, as several candidates have said they would fire Wray.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis vowed last month to dismiss Wray, saying the FBI and the Justice Department have ‘lost their way’ and allowed themselves to be ‘weaponized’ against Americans.

‘No, I would not keep Chris Wray as director of the FBI. There’ll be a new one on day one,’ DeSantis told Fox News host Trey Gowdy during an appearance on ‘Fox News Tonight.’

He added, ‘And I think the DOJ and FBI have lost their way. I think that they’ve been weaponized against Americans who think like me and you. And I think that they become very partisan.’

‘As president, you have a responsibility to be involved in holding those agencies accountable, clearing out people who are not doing the job, and making sure that they’re doing the people’s business, and they’re not abusing their authority,’ DeSantis also said.

Former Vice President Mike Pence also said he would fire the FBI director.

‘The American people have lost confidence in the Department of Justice,’ Pence told the New York Post. ‘And if I’m President of the United States, on day one, we’re going to clean house on the top floor of the Department of Justice and bring in a whole new group of people.’

During a town hall hosted by ‘Hannity’ in South Carolina on Tuesday, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C. called the Justice Department ‘weaponized’ and vowed to ‘fire’ President Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Wray if he is elected president.

‘With your help,’ Scott told Hannity, ‘we are going to fire Joe Biden, and then we are going to fire Merrick Garland and fire Christopher Wray.’

Scott continued, ‘And we are going to restore confidence, integrity in our Department of Justice. We can’t have them going after the pro-life activists with a SWAT team. You cannot call parents who show up at a school board meeting domestic terrorists. And you cannot, it is unacceptable and un-American to weaponize the Department of Justice against your political opponents. It is just wrong.’

Criticism of Wray and the FBI surged again after special counsel John Durham released a report concluding his four-year investigation into former President Trump, his 2016 campaign and alleged ties to Russia.

Durham concluded that authorities within the DOJ did not have sufficient evidence to initiate the investigation.

Fox News’ Jon Michael Raasch and Charles Creitz contributed to this report.

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One nearly became Buffalo’s first female mayor. The other was thrust into prominence after her son survived a racist mass shooting.

Democrats India Walton and Zeneta Everhart consider themselves political allies but they are pitted against each other in a race for a seat on Buffalo’s Common Council, one of many local government offices at stake in primary elections being held across New York on Tuesday.

The two Black women are vying to represent a part of the Rust Belt city still healing from a white supremacist’s attack that killed 10 people at a neighborhood supermarket just over a year ago. That mass shooting was followed by a punishing December blizzard that killed 47 people in the city and its suburbs, with a disproportionate number of the victims coming from Buffalo’s Black neighborhoods.

Walton, 41, is trying to make a comeback after a rollercoaster defeat in the city’s mayoral race in 2021. In that contest, she stunned the political establishment by scoring an upset win over the longtime incumbent, Byron Brown, in a primary where she ran far to his left as a democratic socialist.

With no Republican on the ballot, Walton briefly looked like a sure winner in the general election, too, but Brown came back as a write-in candidate and won with the support of centrist Democrats, Buffalo’s business community and Republicans who said Walton, a former nurse and labor organizer, was too liberal.

While Walton remains a political outsider in Buffalo, Everhart, a former television producer, had been quietly building a more conventional career in politics as an aide to a state senator when tragedy thrust her into the spotlight.

Her son, Zaire Goodman, was one of 13 people shot at the Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo on May 14, 2022. Goodman, who worked part-time at the supermarket, was hit in the neck but survived.

Weeks later, Everhart testified before Congress, telling members that some shrapnel will be left in her son’s body for the rest of his life. She’s continued to speak publicly in the months since about racism and gun violence in the U.S.

Everhart, 42, said Monday that she probably would have run for the seat, representing Buffalo’s Masten district, even if the attack never happened, but that it influenced her decision.

‘Part of me wanting to run for Masten is about paying it forward because of the love that was shown to my son,’ Everhart said during a phone interview. ‘People are still dropping off gifts, leaving things on my doorstep for Zaire. And that, to me, means that I have to give back to my community.’

The supermarket targeted by an 18-year-old white supremacist now lies just outside the district the two women are running to represent.

Walton could not be reached for an interview Monday. In interviews and on the campaign trail, the two candidates have highlighted their different approaches to governing, with Walton stressing that she’s willing to fight a political establishment she says hasn’t done enough, and Everhart citing her abilities as a coalition-builder.

Everhart has been endorsed by the county Democratic Party while Walton has been endorsed by the left-leaning Working Families Party.

The two women have known each other for years and have expressed respect for each other.

‘We’re not adversaries, in my book,’ Everhart said.

Primaries held across the state Tuesday will select party nominees for a variety of local offices, including some county legislators, town supervisors, district attorneys, mayors and members of the New York City Council.

There are no statewide offices on the ballot in 2023.

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The Biden administration on Monday said it doesn’t know Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s whereabouts, including which country he is in, following his short-lived rebellion against Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

State Department spokesman Matt Miller confirmed as much during a news briefing, adding that it was a ‘new thing to see President Putin’s leadership directly challenged’ amid Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Prigozhin shocked the world this weekend when he turned his private military group against Russian forces, while taking control of Russian military bases. He relented on Saturday after Belarus held negotiations between the two sides.

The Kremlin said it made a deal in which the mercenary chief will move to Belarus and he and his soldiers will receive amnesty. 

‘I don’t have any assessment about his location,’ Miller said of Prigozhin. ‘This certainly was a new moment.’

On Monday, Prigozhin posted an 11-minute voice recording on social media outlining his reasons for going against Putin as his forces headed toward Moscow before an abrupt halt. 

The march toward Moscow was intended to be a protest against the prosecution of the war in Ukraine and not aimed at regime change in Russia, he said, according to a Reuters translation. 

‘We started our march due to injustice. We showed no aggression, but we were hit by missiles and helicopters. This was the trigger,’ the warlord said in the recording.

Prior to his revolt, Prigozhin had criticized Russian military leaders, including Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, for failing to provide his troops with enough ammunition during the bloody battle of Bakhmut. 

Miller said the conflict between Putin and his former ally is an internal Russian affair ‘in which the United States is not involved and will not the involved.’ He added that the U.S. does not take a position as to who leads Russia.

‘We want a Russia that is not invading its neighbors and not trying to violate the territorial sovereignty of its neighbors,’ Miller said. 

He noted that Wagner forces have committed numerous human rights violations and generally bring destruction and chaos in any country the group operates in. 

Fox News’ Anders Hagstrom contributed to his report. 

A Republican senator challenged a union boss to a cage fight after the latter’s ‘anyplace, anytime’ dare on social media.

Oklahoma GOP Sen. Markwayne Mullin threw down the gauntlet against International Brotherhood of Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien after the Teamsters boss went after him on social media.

Mullin told Fox News Digital that he accepted O’Brien’s challenge and that it’s ‘simple: he said ‘anyplace, anytime,’ so we accepted September 30th in Tulsa, Oklahoma.’

‘Too often, these big bully union bosses try to intimidate individuals and never get called out on it,’ Mullin said. ‘I refuse to tolerate loudmouth bullies like O’Brien who got suspended over threats to his own union members, thinks unions ought to be ‘militant organizations’ and vilifies right-to-work states like Oklahoma – all while calling for fights on social media.’

The comments came after O’Brien took shots at Mullin on social media.

‘Greedy CEO who pretends like he’s self made. In reality, just a clown [and] fraud,’ O’Brien wrote on Twitter. ‘Quit the tough guy act in these senate (sic) hearings.’

‘You know where to find me,’ he continued. ‘Anyplace, Anytime cowboy.’

Mullin responded on Twitter on Monday, challenging O’Brien to a charitable mixed martial arts (MMA) fight at the end of September in Oklahoma.

‘An attention-seeking union Teamster boss is trying to be punchy after our Senate hearing,’ the former MMA fighter wrote. ‘Okay, I accept your challenge. MMA fight for charity of our choice. Sept 30th in Tulsa, Oklahoma.’

‘I’ll give you 3 days to accept,’ Mullin added.

O’Brien did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Mullin and O’Brien have traded barbs both online and offline, with the two previously getting into it over the Teamsters president’s salary compared to those of his union members during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing in March.

The minutes-long confrontation began with Mullin, who owns and operates a plumbing business, declaring he was ‘not against unions’ but also pointing to the intimidation he said he and his employees received from unions when they started being awarded jobs that typically went to union workers.

‘They would show up at my house. They’d be leaning up against my trucks. I’m not afraid of a physical confrontation, in fact sometimes I look forward to it. That’s not my problem. But when you’re doing that to my employees?’ Mullin said.

‘For what? Because we were paying higher wages? Because we had better benefits, and [weren’t] requiring them to pay your guys’ exorbitant salaries?’ he added before asking O’Brien what he made as a salary.

O’Brien began to answer, but Mullin continued, saying O’Brien made $193,000 in 2019 while the average driver makes $35,000 a year. ‘And what do you bring to the table?’ he asked O’Brien.

‘That’s inaccurate. State facts. That’s inaccurate,’ O’Brien responded as the two began to talk over each other.

Mullin repeated his statistic on salaries and said, ‘If you don’t know your facts, then maybe you shouldn’t be in your position.’ He then restated his earlier question to O’Brien, asking what he brought to the table for his large salary.

‘What job have you created – one job – other than sucking the paycheck out of somebody else?’ he asked.

‘You’re out of line, man,’ O’Brien responded as committee Chair Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., attempted to stop the back-and-forth and provide space for O’Brien to respond to Mullin.

The two ignored Sanders and continued talking over each other, appearing to grow increasingly frustrated, before Mullin said, ‘Sir, you need to shut your mouth because you don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘You’re going to tell me to shut my mouth?’ O’Brien responded before mocking Mullin’s opening statement in which he said he wasn’t ‘afraid’ of a physical altercation.

Sanders eventually quieted the two and made Mullin provide O’Brien time to speak.

Fox News Digital’s Brandon Gillespie contributed reporting.