Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is furious at Twitter after a parody account of the congresswoman began to go viral, claiming CEO Elon Musk is behind its recent traffic.

‘FYI there’s a fake account on here impersonating me and going viral,’ AOC wrote in a post Tuesday.

‘The Twitter CEO has engaged it, boosting visibility,’ she said, suggesting Musk is helping push the account across the platform. ‘It is releasing false policy statements and gaining spread. I am assessing with my team how to move forward. In the meantime, be careful of what you see.’

While the fake account uses the same profile photo as the congresswoman, it makes clear that it is not actually AOC, posting under the name ‘Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Press Release (parody).’

‘I can’t believe people would think these parody tweets are from our office when they are clearly fake. Come on y’all you know I would never say something as stupid as that,’ the parody account joked in response to AOC’s criticism.

The account hit back at AOC in a series of tweets Tuesday, joking that the congresswoman was going to make parody ‘illegal.’

‘After brainstorming with my staff – I’m going to push Congress to make it illegal to joke, laugh, or make fun of me. Parody should be illegal,’ the parody account wrote.

‘I can’t believe someone would do that to us,’ the account wrote in another response to the congresswoman.

Ocasio-Cortez has been a prominent critic of Musk and his new Twitter verification policy that allows more accounts to obtain blue checkmarks. 

While the parody does have the once-coveted blue checkmark, the congresswoman’s remains gray to make a clear distinction between her government account and other verified pages.

According to Twitter’s help center, by using the word ‘parody’ in the username and biography, the account does not violate the platform’s user guidelines.

As the debt deal reached between President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy heads to Congress this week to face votes in the House and Senate, the spotlight has shifted to which lawmakers plan to support it and whether there is enough of that support to get it across the finish line.

Already, members of the House Freedom Caucus, the most right-leaning Republican faction in the House, have expressed their desire to see the bill fail, while others, such as Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., have expressed their disapproval over specific aspects of the deal, like defense spending.

Most members from both parties have kept their views on the bill quiet, but one group is being seen as pivotal to whether it ultimately ends up back on Biden’s desk, or if the nation defaults on its debt for the first time in history: moderates.

Those down the middle votes from Democrats and Republicans not necessarily known for toeing their respective party lines could be the only chance for the bill to reach the necessary simple-majority for it to pass.

‘This deal is good for the country in that it prevents a default and subsequent financial meltdown, while also limiting spending,’ Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said in a statement posted on social media Monday. ‘While I would have preferred to see an agreement that also addressed entitlements, this represents a good-faith bipartisan compromise.’

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who helped broker the agreement, all but guaranteed his support for the legislation by touting its inclusion of a provision fast-tracking the approval of a natural gas pipeline in his home state, the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP).

‘I am pleased Speaker McCarthy and his leadership team see the tremendous value in completing the MVP to increase domestic energy production and drive down costs across America and especially in West Virginia. I am proud to have fought for this critical project and to have secured the bipartisan support necessary to get it across the finish line,’ he said in a Monday statement.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., hasn’t publicly shared her thoughts on the bill since the agreement was reached on Sunday, but was also involved in the negotiation process, according to multiple reports. 

Fox News reached out to Sinema’s office to get her view on the final agreement but did not receive a response. The offices of Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, two other well-known moderates, were also mum on the subject.

Over on the House side, members of the moderate bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus are expected to play an outsized role in the bill’s potential passage. Its leaders, Reps. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., and Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., didn’t respond to Fox’s request for comment on the deal, but other members of the group have started speaking out.

‘I am glad that the President and the Speaker were able to come to an agreement that puts our country first,’ Rep. Dave Joyce, R-Ohio, said in a statement over the weekend before the full details of the bill were released. 

‘Speaker McCarthy championed responsible policy, incorporating key economic and permitting reforms while limiting spending,and rescinding COVID funds. The Speaker keeps making government work better for every American,’ he added.

Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, another member of the caucus, told local outlet KGNS that he was in favor of the agreement, even though it was something not supported by members further to the left and the right. He specifically praised the adjustments of entitlement benefits included in the bill.

‘They are able physically and mentally able to go work, again — some of those say it’s only the age of 49, we are going to move it for 54-55. Again with all due respect, just like my father said, if you are able to work, and you might not be willing, but if you are able to work then I think you should not stay home and receive a check. You should be out there working, I support that, I know some people don’t,’ he said.

However, not all members of the group who have shared their views on the bill are in lock step. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., said in a Tuesday statement she was ‘voting NO on the debt ceiling debacle because playing the DC game isn’t worth selling out our kids and grandkids.’

Mace argued the bipartisan debt ceiling package ‘normalizes record high spending started during the pandemic’ and ‘sets these historically high spending levels as the baseline for all future spending’ while growing the government annually at around one percent.

Fox reached out to a number of other members of Congress about their views on the bill, but did not receive responses.

The bill was taken up by the House Rules Committee on Tuesday and is expected to advance for a full House vote on Wednesday. Should it pass the House, the bill will then head to the Senate, where Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has said he will move it through as quickly as possible.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has estimated the federal government would default on its debt if a deal is not approved by June 5. 

Fox News’ Houston Keene and Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.

Former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will make competing visits to Iowa this week as the 2024 GOP presidential primary heats up.

DeSantis returns to Iowa for the first time as a declared presidential candidate. The popular two-term conservative governor of Florida on Tuesday evening will kick off two days of campaigning in the Hawkeye State with a stop at the Eternity Church in Clive. The stop at the mega church in suburban Des Moines illustrates the outsized role evangelical Christians play in Iowa’s Republican presidential caucuses. 

Fox News Digital will livestream the address by DeSantis, at 8pm ET.

On Wednesday, DeSantis will crisscross the state from west to east, holding events in Sioux City, Council Bluffs, Pella, and Cedar Rapids, before campaigning Thursday in New Hampshire and Friday in South Carolina, which hold the second and third contests in the Republican primary and caucus schedule.

Trump, who remains the commanding front-runner in the race for the GOP presidential nomination as he makes his third straight bid for the White House, returns to Iowa on Wednesday afternoon, with his trip overlapping with DeSantis.

The former president will make an in studio appearance with popular radio host Simon Conway. On Thursday Trump will address Republican activists on Thursday at the Westside Conservative Club in Urbandale, in suburban Des Moines, before sitting down with Fox News’ Sean Hannity for a town hall in nearby Clive, which will air on the Fox News Channel at 9pm ET.

Iowa GOP chair Jeff Kaufmann, pointing to the former president’s ‘near universal name recognition and universal knowledge of his policies,’ told Fox News recently that that Trump ‘obviously has an inside track.’

‘Do I believe that Donald Trump is ahead in the polls in Iowa? Absolutely. Do I believe that the Iowa caucuses is a done deal? Absolutely not,’ Kaufmann said. ‘It’s not in our nature to do that. And I think a lot of Iowans would be reticent about calling a caucus before January when we actually have it.’

Earlier this month Trump and DeSantis scheduled rival events in Iowa — with the Florida governor headlining events in both the western and eastern parts of the state to fundraise for fellow Republicans, while Trump planned to hold what was billed as a large rally in Des Moines. 

After Trump’s event was canceled at the last minute due to severe weather warnings, DeSantis made an unscheduled stop in Iowa’s capital city on Saturday night and spoke with supporters at a barbeque joint just a couple of blocks from where the Trump rally would have been.

‘Iowa is very important,’ DeSantis said on Monday in an interview on Fox News’ ‘Fox and Friends.’

Showcasing his commitment to campaigning in Iowa, DeSantis added that ‘we obviously have a lot in common with Iowa in terms of what Florida has done and what they’ve done under Gov. Kim Reynolds. And I think the groundswell of support has been really, really strong. We’re going to press the case.’

Never Back Down, the deep-pocketed super PAC supporting DeSantis, has hired political operatives in Iowa as they’ve built up a field operation, sent out mailers, organized events, and showcased a slew of endorsements by state lawmakers.

Among those heading up the super PAC are veterans of the Republican presidential campaign of Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who narrowly edged Trump to win the 2016 Iowa caucuses thanks in part to strong support from social conservative voters. 

The Trump campaign is cognizant of the DeSantis efforts in Iowa.

‘I understand everything they’re doing to try to make it into a competitive race, and we will fight as it as a competitive race to the end, but the challenges they face to bring the race into a competitive stature are much greater,’ senior Trump campaign adviser Chris LaCivita argued in a statement. ‘Anyone underestimating President Trump’s willingness to campaign is making a huge mistake. People will see plenty of Donald Trump.’

The Trump campaign says they’ve upped their game since 2016, when their organizational skills in Iowa were criticized.

‘Where we are now compared to 2016 is just not comparable,’ LaCivita told Fox News.

Iowa’ has seen plenty of campaign traffic so far this year, with numerous visits from former ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who launched her campaign in February, and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina — who declared his candidacy last week — as well as three other declared presidential candidates: former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson; multimillionaire entrepreneur, best-selling author and conservative commentator Vivek Ramaswamy; and businessman Perry Johnson. And former Vice President Mike Pence, who’s expected to launch a 2024 campaign in the coming days, has also heavily traveled through Iowa.

Kaufmann spotlighted that ‘there is more than one ticket out of Iowa,’ as he pointed to Trump’s second-place finish in 2016 caucuses, narrowly behind Cruz, the eventual nomination runner-up for the nomination.

He emphasized that candidates who over-perform in the caucuses ‘can leave Iowa with some momentum for the long game. And that’s what Iowa’s all about. It’s the beginning of the long game.’

The Texas House of Representatives on Monday delivered articles of impeachment against Attorney General Ken Paxton to the state Senate. 

The delivery came after the GOP-led House named the board of managers – comprising five Democrats and seven Republicans – who will oversee the impeachment proceedings. Rep. Andrew Murr, R-Junction, is leading the board, The Dallas Morning News reported.  

The House approved 20 articles of impeachment on sweeping allegations of wrongdoing against Paxton that have trailed the state’s top lawyer for years, including abuse of office and bribery. The vote immediately suspended Paxton from office.

Among those who opposed the impeachment was State Rep. Brian Harrison. He argued that House leadership ‘made no attempt to adequately document [Paxton’s] guilt nor to demonstrate that this is anything other than a sham railroading of a political enemy.’ 

The House needed just a simple majority of its 149 members to impeach Paxton, and the final 121-23 vote was a landslide. But the threshold for conviction in the Senate trial is higher, requiring a two-thirds majority of its 31 members.

If that happens, Paxton would be permanently barred from holding office in Texas. Anything less means Paxton is acquitted and can resume his third term as attorney general.

Later Monday, the Senate unanimously adopted a measure that called for the trial to begin no later than Aug. 28. 

Paxton bitterly criticized the chamber’s investigation as ‘corrupt,’ secret and conducted so quickly that he and his lawyers were not allowed to mount a defense. He also called Republican House Speaker Dade a ‘liberal.’

The AG’s office tweeted Saturday that the impeachment was based on ‘totally false claims.’ 

‘After an internal investigation, the OAG retained an outside law firm to further investigate, which culminated in a report. The OAG offered it to the House, but they refused,’ the AG’s office said. 

The impeachment charges include bribery related to one of Paxton’s donors, Austin real estate developer Nate Paul, allegedly employing the woman with whom he had an extra-matrial affair in exchange for legal help.

Another Republican senator with a potential conflict is Sen. Bryan Hughes. The House impeachment articles accuse Paxton of using Hughes as a ‘straw requestor’ for a legal opinion used to protect Paul from foreclosure on several properties.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is expected to set a trial date in the Senate and name committee members to establish rules that will govern the impeachment proceedings. The Senate will ultimately decide whether Paxton stays in office. Patrick, who is president of the Senate, will preside as judge.  

‘Today, the Texas Senate received Articles of Impeachment for Attorney General Ken Paxton,’ Patrick tweeted. ‘The Senate will follow its constitutional duty and I appointed a committee to develop proposed rules and procedures for the matter.’ 

Fox News Digital has contacted Phelan, Murr, and Paxton for further comment. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Now comes the hard part. 

If you thought it was hard for President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., to marshal a debt ceiling deal, wait to see if it’s even more challenging to advance the bill through Congress.

Both the president and speaker will test their powers of persuasion to line up the votes for the deal.

It’s pretty clear the wings of both parties – the far right and far left – are incensed about this pact.

No one truly knows how many yeas and nays there are for this plan until the House whip operations begin to hum as lawmakers roll back into Washington after an abbreviated Memorial Day recess. 

There have been multiple press calls, a few news conferences by the speaker outside his office, conference calls with lawmakers and remarks from Mr. Biden. But until everyone really huddles at the Capitol, the vote count is unclear. Especially after a whirlwind weekend of behind the scenes political intrigue and negotiations.

On its face, the bill should be able to pass. It earned the endorsement of the president, the speaker, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and other prominent lawmakers. There is a wide, bipartisan swath of members in the middle who could vote to pass this plan – even if no one is truly excited about the measure. In fact, Fox was told that there could be a scenario where 240-270 members could vote yes – and maybe more.

But it is a delicate balance to find the right vote mixture for this parliamentary cocktail. There is a lot of potential for things to go wrong or for there to be a dramatic miscalculation on either side when relying on those across the aisle to provide the necessary votes. 

Telephone calls over a holiday weekend are one thing. But leaders want to look fellow lawmakers in the eye to understand where they really stand on the issue and if they can count on their vote.

Here’s the lead question for the GOP: Will conservative interest groups and outraged constituents begin to light up the phones at the Capitol, tearing into middle of the road Republicans for supporting the plan? There could be attrition on the right if those lawmakers take too much heat and walk away. 

Here’s the lead question for Democrats: In fact there are two: What exactly did they get out of this deal? And why should they be called upon to bail out Republicans who are in the majority?

This is why the stakes for miscalculation are high. Both sides will expect the other side to provide a certain number of votes.

McCarthy has significantly added to his political capital and bolstered his bona fides with Republican House members since the rocky vote for Speaker in January. So, this conversation may be a little different if the vote were coming say, back in late January or February. Therefore, McCarthy should be able to deliver a sizable chunk of votes from his conference. It’s unclear how many votes House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., can deliver. But in fairness, this is not really about Jeffries. This is about President Biden. He is the President. He is the leader of the party. It’s a problem if Mr. Biden can’t deliver the requisite votes to lug this across the finish line.

But like McCarthy, President Biden has political barnacles, too. His standing is weak in the polls. In fact, one of the most compelling arguments Mr. Biden could make to reluctant Democrats is ‘don’t tank my presidency and the economy’ by voting no.

And we probably would not even be discussing the political wattage of President Biden and McCarthy to cajole members to vote yes were it not for two factors. Democrats are blasé about Mr. Biden. McCarthy endured the longest race to become Speaker since 1859. 

This takes us back to the infamous vote on TARP (the Troubled Assets Relief Program) in late September 2008. President George W. Bush and Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress reluctantly decided to spend more than $700 billion to salvage the American economy and stave off a nationwide fiscal meltdown. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., had a sizable chunk of Democrats who were willing to vote yes. But Mr. Bush could not deliver House Republicans. The GOP had fatigued of President Bush. The party abandoned their president. No one truly knew how many votes Republicans had. But they didn’t deliver their end of the bargain.

Could Democrats abandon President Biden here?

The original version of TARP was failing on the House floor. And the market cratered in synchronicity with the House vote. The Dow finally lost what was then a single-day record, down 777 points. 

Trust between the sides plummeted, too.

Yours truly asked McCarthy if he would withhold putting the debt limit bill on the floor until the market closed.

‘You spend a lot of time thinking of crazy stuff,’ responded McCarthy.

The other issue is just moving the bill from the House Rules Committee and onto the floor.

Nearly every piece of legislation which hits the House floor must first get a ‘rule’ from the Rules panel. The Rules Committee establishes how the House will handle a given piece of legislation. That includes time and if any amendments are in order. If the committee doesn’t adopt a rule – and if the House itself doesn’t approve the rule, then there’s no bill.

Most speakers have run the Rules Committee with an iron fist. But as part of his concessions to conservatives, McCarthy awarded three seats on the panel to firebrand conservatives whose views sometimes deviate from those of the Speaker: Reps. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., Chip Roy, R-Tex., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky. 

McCarthy namechecked Massie Sunday as he touted a provision to hold the line on appropriations bills pushed by Massie as an item in the legislation. In other words, if Massie scored his idea in the legislation, how could he oppose it?

But Norman and Roy seethed about the legislation.

Norman called the bill ‘idiotic.’ Roy characterized the legislation with less than salivating language. 

One senior House GOP source told Fox before McCarthy touted the Massie language that they believed that ‘Massie is the most likely to vote for the rule in committee and on the floor.’ But if all three balk, Republicans will need a Democrat on the Rules Committee to vote in favor of jettisoning the measure to the floor.

No rule, no bill. 

The Rules Committee has not failed to approve a rule in its panel in recent memory. Once in a blue moon, a member of the majority has a problem with the bill at hand or the rule itself. So rather than vote nay, those members simply ‘take a walk’ or are mysteriously absent from the committee meeting.

Late House Speaker Tip O’Neill, D-Mass., sat on the Rules Committee in the 1960s. In his biography ‘Man Of the House,’ O’Neill recounts how he and future Rules Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Delaney, D-N.Y., broke ranks with their party and voted no on an education bill in the early 1960s. Such a move is rare.

No one Fox asked could track down any recent instance of any minority member ever voting to support a rule in order to help the majority put a bill on the floor. 

This all makes for a very interesting Rules Committee meeting Tuesday afternoon. 

So, will they have the votes?

This is reminiscent of the legendary Life cereal commercials in the 1970s and 1980s.

Three brothers are sitting at the breakfast table, pushing a bowl of Life cereal around, refusing to eat it. 

‘I’m not going to try it. You try it!,’ says one boy.

Finally, they push the bowl in front of the most finicky bother of all. Mikey. 

‘Let’s get Mikey,’ says one brother. ‘He hates everything.’

Suddenly, Mikey begins to devour the cereal.

‘He likes it!’ exclaims one brother. 

The taste test, complete, they all dig in.

This bill is kind of like the Life cereal commercial. Some members are reluctant to vote for the bill until they see someone else vote for it first.

The only difference is that Mikey actually liked the cereal he was eating. This legislation isn’t nearly as pleasing to the political palette.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott revealed agenda items for the state legislature’s first special session late Monday evening – a list that includes cutting property taxes and providing funds to secure the U.S.-Mexico border wall.

On Twitter, Abbott said he would be ‘signing laws that advance our state and the future of all Texans.’

The agenda items included formally ending COVID restrictions and mandates; providing more than $5.1 billion for border security and the Texas National Guard; protecting female collegiate athletes and women’s participation in sports; and, barring children from having life-altering gender mutilation.

Abbott also plans to label Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and allow fentanyl deaths to be prosecuted as murder, he said.

The Republican governor said his first priority would be ‘cutting property taxes and cracking down on illegal human smuggling.’

‘We must cut property taxes,’ Abbott said. ‘During the regular session, we added $17.6 billion to cut property taxes. However, the legislature could not agree on how to allocate funds to accomplish this goal.’

He continued: ‘Texans want and need a path towards eliminating property taxes. The best way to do that is to direct property tax reduction dollars to cut school property tax rates.’

Abbott also commended the work of the Texas legislature but said additional special sessions would be held to further his agenda.

‘Despite these major achievements, more must be done for the people of Texas. Many critical items remain that must be passed,’ the governor wrote. ‘Several special sessions will be required. To ensure that each priority receives the time and attention it deserves to pass into law, only a few will be added each session.’

Earlier Monday, the Texas governor spent Memorial Day paying tribute to those who gave the ultimate sacrifice during an event at the Georgetown-Williamson County Veterans Memorial Plaza.

‘Today, we remember their sacrifice and honor their families,’ he wrote on Twitter, sharing photos of the event. ‘Texas will never forget the price they paid so that we can be free.’

In a separate tweet, he added: ‘Memorial Day reminds us that freedom is not free.’

And, ‘Today, we remember the brave men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of the liberties we enjoy every day in America. May God bless them and their families.’

–>

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will join several other declared Republican presidential candidates at Sen. Joni Ernst’s Roast & Ride fundraiser in Des Moines on Saturday, an aide to Ernst told Fox News.

In addition to DeSantis, Ernst’s event will include former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., conservative radio host Larry Elder, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, and businessman Perry Johnson.

‘I’m thrilled to welcome Ron DeSantis as a special guest to Roast & Ride this year!’ Ernst said. ‘Despite Democrats ditching Iowa, Republicans are fired up for 2024 as we host the FIRST in the nation caucus. This year’s Roast & Ride will be my biggest yet – with eight exciting special guests – making it the can’t miss event of 2023!’  

DeSantis is kicking off his presidential campaign in Iowa on Tuesday by hosting a campaign event in Des Moines – his first since announcing his candidacy last week.

The Iowa Republican hosts the Roast & Ride event each year and donates its proceeds to a veteran’s charity. This year’s charity of choice is the Freedom Foundation of Cedar Rapids.

DeSantis said he is ‘delighted’ to be attending the event, which will cap a week of touring throughout the state.

‘I’m delighted to be joining Senator Ernst in Des Moines. As military veterans, Joni and I both understand the importance of supporting those who have served our nation — and I’m excited to get the chance to do just that at the annual Roast & Ride,’ DeSantis said. 

He added: ‘Over the past few months, Casey and I have had the pleasure of getting to know hard-working patriots across the great state of Iowa. Florida and Iowa have led the way in the fight for our way of life — and I’m running for president to take that fight to the White House. Our mission is simple: We are building a movement to restore America.’

DeSantis’ visit to Iowa will be followed by stops in early primary states New Hampshire and South Carolina later this week. His campaign said the overall trip will take him to 12 cities in the three states.

Former Vice President Mike Pence is also scheduled to attend the Des Moines event on Saturday. He has not yet revealed if he is seeking the Republican nomination.