President Biden has been traveling across the country to meet with state leaders in an effort to ramp up semiconductor production across the United States.

‘America is coming back. We’re determined to lead the world in the manufacturing of semiconductors,’ President Biden said Tuesday.

In 1990, the U.S. produced around 37% of chips used around the world. That percentage has plummeted over time to just 12%. Constructing and operating a fabrication facility, or ‘fab,’ in the U.S. became more expensive. Costs soared 25% to 50% higher than abroad. 

‘We sort of had this blasé attitude that if we had the MIT graduates here, we won the Nobel Prizes here, we did the design here. Manufacturing didn’t matter,’ Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said. ‘Both parties just watched as industry after industry went offshore. Whether that was steel, whether it was aluminum, and unfortunately, all of the semiconductor production.’

Nearly three years ago, the coronavirus pandemic exposed the first signs of U.S. vulnerability when it came to semiconductor manufacturing.

‘The reality is we had a whole world clambering for electronics to work at home and to study at home, and those electronics are chock full of chips. So, no surprise, demand for chips just went off the charts,’ Semiconductor Industry Association President John Neuffer said. 

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said shortages of masks and gloves revealed other vulnerabilities in U.S. manufacturing, since many items needed during the pandemic were made in China. He worked alongside Democratic colleagues including Virginia Sen. Mark Warner and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly to look into other products made almost exclusively overseas.

‘The advanced semiconductors that operate everything from your cell phone to the F-35 to Javelin and Stinger missiles, virtually all of that was made in Asia and not here in America anymore,’ Cornyn said.

Neuffer said most U.S. fabs were operating at full capacity but they couldn’t keep up with the demand needed.

Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act into law last year following a bipartisan push from lawmakers. It’s incentivized companies to build and manufacture on U.S. soil.

‘We eventually were able to catch up. That’s the short term. The CHIPS Act is really for the long term,’ Neuffer said. ‘There’s been an overconcentration of certain aspects of our supply chain and what we’re trying to do right now is diversify. Right now, 75% of manufacturing has happened in Asia. That’s been in East Asia. That’s probably too much.’

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo spoke about the CHIPS for America Program on ‘Special Report’ this past February. Semiconductor companies have been able to apply for those incentives through the initiative.

‘Congress has sent $52 billion to us here at the Commerce Department and it’s our job to invest that, working with companies to make chips in America,’ Raimondo said. ‘Every governor out there thinks the next chip factory will be in their state. They will compete. I’m sure they’ll put incentives on the table and that’s what they should do.’

Many companies began breaking ground on new facilities and expansions before the CHIPS Act was officially signed, including New York-based GlobalFoundries.

‘We need the right economics to continue to add capacity in the U.S.,’ GlobalFoundries CEO Thomas Caulfield said. ‘We have a facility that needs to grow to full scale in upstate New York in what we call Fab 8. The chips will be an integral part of the economics to close the funding gap, to create that capacity that can compete globally against all the players in manufacturing.’

Since the end of 2022, at least 23 new chip fabs have been announced and nine will increase production, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association. Companies including Intel and TSMC have announced plans to build new fabs in Arizona.

‘Nationwide, we have suppliers that all over the country that’ll be providing the tooling and the materials needed to build the best semiconductor chips in the world,’ Kelly said. ‘These are also jobs that you don’t need a four-year degree to get and you can actually get a salary you can raise a family on.’

Private investments topping $210 billion in all are expected to help create around 44,000 jobs in the industry. Over $60 billion is being invested in Texas manufacturing. Companies including Samsung and Texas Instruments are planning new facilities in that state.

‘It takes a while to change, to open up diverse sources, so it’s probably going to be 2024 until you see manufacturing,’ Cornyn said. ‘But Texas Instruments is expanding their current footprint. Samsung in Texas, Intel in Ohio, Micron in New York, so all this takes a little while, but we’ve got not a minute to waste.’

U.S. domestic production is expected to increase in the near future, but competing abroad with Taiwan could take some time.

‘I would say it’s going to take us years. The CHIPS funding gives us the tools we need to start manufacturing these semiconductor chips here,’ Kelly said. ‘What it means for our country: that we don’t have to go across the Pacific Ocean to get something so critical that’s in everything that has an on/off switch.’

Caulfield pointed out it took around three decades to create the imbalance in semiconductor production around the world.

‘This didn’t happen overnight for our industry,’ Caulfield said. ‘It’s going to take decades to correct that issue. So this is a good start and the sooner we get going on this as an industry, the better we’ll be.’

The shortage has also eased, but technology is enhancing, and the demand for chips is expected to grow.

‘If you’ve ever sat in an electric car or you have a big display panel, that all requires a lot of chips,’ Neuffer said. ‘Where we have 5G now, we’re going to be moving to 6G. These are all products that require a ton of chips. The combination of existing and emerging markets for chip technology suggests demands for semiconductors are going to be very, very high for the years and decades ahead.’

Lawmakers and experts have agreed it’s not just semiconductor manufacturing that needs to step up. 

‘Our products, our cars, our dishwashers, our dryers, our refrigerators are still not produced in the United States,’ Khanna said. ‘I don’t want a situation where the advanced chips are made in America, but everything consumers buy is made in China, so we need to do a lot more.’

Caulfield agreed and said U.S. manufacturing for products requiring chips needed to keep up with U.S. semiconductor production. 

‘Probably the biggest issue we still need to contend with is to make sure the demand for all this capacity we want in the U.S. materializes,’ Caulfield said. ‘The last thing we want to do is in industry, create capacity in the U.S. and have it go underutilized.’

A plurality of Democrats say they want President Biden to step aside and not seek a second term in the White House next year, according to a new national survey

Forty-four percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters questioned in a Monmouth University Poll released on Monday said the president should step aside and allow someone else to run as the Democratic Party’s standard-bearer in 2024. A quarter of respondents said Biden should seek re-election next year, with 30% saying they had no preference.

The poll’s release comes as the president gears up to run for re-election. Biden has repeatedly said he intends to seek a second term in the White House, but he has yet to make any formal announcements. However, the president hinted toward a re-election campaign during a speech early last month to party leaders and activists at the DNC’s winter meeting, which was held this year in Philadelphia.

‘We’re just getting started,’ Biden told a boisterous crowd. ‘I intend to get… more done.’ 

‘Let me ask you a simple question – are you with me?’ the president asked the crowd. The question instantly elicited cheers and loud chants of ‘four more years.’

While no major Democrats are expected to primary challenge the president, best-selling author and spiritual adviser Marianne Williamson earlier this month launched her second straight long-shot bid for the party’s presidential nomination.

But if the president surprises the political word and decides not to seek another term, the Monmouth poll indicates that Democrats have no clear idea on whom they’d like to see as their party’s 2024 nominee.

Just over half of those questioned (51%) couldn’t offer a name when asked who they would like to see as the Democrats’ standard-bearer next year if the president declined to run again.

Vice President Kamala Harris grabbed the backing of 13%, with Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont – the runner-up in the 2016 and 2020 Democratic nomination races – and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg – who ran in 2020 – both at 6% support. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts – another 2020 Democratic presidential contender – was at 4%, with California Gov. Gavin Newsom at 3%. No one else topped 1% in the survey.

While only a quarter of those questioned said they wanted Biden to run for re-election, the president enjoyed a favorable rating of 74% in the poll.

‘Democrats appear to be saying they like the job Biden has done, but maybe it’s time for him to move on when his term is up. However, no top tier of candidates emerges when these voters are asked to name a preferred alternative. Part of that could simply be the holding pattern that Democrats are in because Biden has signaled that he will, in fact, run,’ Monmouth University Polling Institute director Patrick Murray said.

The Monmouth University poll was conducted March 16-20, with 542 Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters nationwide. The survey’s sampling error for results in the release was plus or minus 6.3 percentage points.

Gov. Tony Evers has directed that flags to be flown at half-staff in the state Tuesday to honor a Wisconsin soldier who died in World War II and whose remains were recently identified.

Evers’ order directs that U.S. flags and Wisconsin state flags be lowered to half-staff from sunrise to sunset Tuesday to honor U.S. Army Private First Class William LaVerne ‘Sonny’ Simon.

Simon’s remains will be buried Tuesday with full military honors in his hometown of Middleton, Wisconsin, nearly 80 years after he died in Germany.

‘A decorated military veteran, Private Simon served our state and country well, giving his life in defense of the values and freedoms we hold most dear,’ Evers said Monday in a statement.

Simon was a member of Company G, 2nd Battalion, 109th Infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division, when he was reported unaccounted for on Nov. 5, 1944, during the Battle of the Hürtgen Forest in Germany.

Simon’s remains were later discovered and interred as unidentified in 1950 at the Ardennes American Cemetery. Those remains were sent in April 2019 to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency laboratory for analysis and identification.

Evers said the remains were positively identified as Simon’s due to the ‘efforts of his surviving sister and brother’ and work by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.

The Manhattan grand jury wrapped its proceedings Monday afternoon with no vote in former President Trump’s case, two sources told Fox News.

The secret grand jury reconvened Monday in New York City after its proceedings related to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation into Trump were canceled twice last week.

Two sources told Fox News on Monday afternoon that the grand jury heard from one witness, David Pecker. Pecker, who has previously testified before the grand jury as part of this case, served as president of National Enquirer’s parent company, American Media Inc.

Bragg has been investigating the $130,000 hush-money payment that then-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford. That payment was made in the weeks leading up to the 2016 presidential election in exchange for her silence about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump in 2006.

Cohen has said Trump directed the payments. Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 through his own company and was later reimbursed by Trump’s company, which logged the payments as ‘legal expenses.’

Trump has repeatedly denied wrongdoing with regard to the payments made to Daniels, and he has repeatedly said the payments were ‘not a campaign violation’ but rather a ‘simple private transaction.’

The Trump Organization ‘grossed up’ Cohen’s reimbursement for Daniels’ payment for ‘tax purposes,’ according to federal prosecutors who filed the 2018 criminal charges against Cohen for the payments.

Federal prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York opted out of charging Trump related to the Daniels payment in 2019, even as Cohen implicated him as part of his plea deal. The Federal Election Commission also tossed its investigation into the matter in 2021.

The grand jury is set to reconvene Wednesday, but it is unclear if they will meet related to the Trump investigation.

Over the weekend, Trump suggested the case had already been dropped against him.

‘I think they’ve already dropped the case,’ Trump told reporters aboard his plane after appearing at his first 2024 campaign rally in Waco, Texas.

‘It’s a fake case,’ he said. ‘Some fake cases, they have absolutely nothing.’

When asked for comment about Trump’s claim the case has been dropped, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told Fox News Digital: ‘This has been dropped because everyone knows this was a partisan witch-hunt by a radical, leftist DA that sought to politically weaponize the Justice system to influence an election.’

Meanwhile, Bragg has slammed House Republicans who have called for him to testify on Capitol Hill about the investigation.

‘We evaluate cases in our jurisdiction based on the facts, the law, and the evidence. It is not appropriate for Congress to interfere with pending local investigations,’ the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said in a statement.

The office told Fox News Digital that Bragg stands by his previous pledge to publicly state the conclusion of the investigation, ‘whether we conclude our work without bringing charges, or move forward with an indictment.’

When Bragg took over as district attorney in January 2022, he stopped pursuing charges against Trump and suspended the investigation ‘indefinitely,’ according to one of the top prosecutors who resigned from the office in protest.

Prosecutors Mark Pomerantz and Carey Dunne, who had been leading the investigation under former DA Cyrus Vance, submitted their resignations after Bragg began raising doubts about pursuing a case against Trump.

The Manhattan DA’s investigation into Trump began in 2019 by then-District Attorney Cyrus Vance. The probe was focused on possible bank, insurance and tax fraud. The case initially involved financial dealings of Trump’s Manhattan properties, including his flagship Fifth Avenue building, Trump Tower, and the valuation of his 213-acre estate Seven Springs in Westchester.

The investigation last year led to tax fraud charges against the Trump Organization and its finance chief, Allen Weisselberg.

Grand jury deliberations and votes are secret proceedings, and an indictment typically remains under seal until an arraignment.

Fox News’ Jessica Chasmar contributed to this report.

The Senate is expected to vote this week on an amendment from Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., to establish a Senate-approved watchdog over the billions of dollars the U.S. has sent to Ukraine, as senators work their way toward the expected repeal of the 1991 and 2002 Iraq war authorizations.

Hawley told Fox News Digital on Monday evening that the right person for the job would be ‘tough, tenacious,’ and said the ideal candidate would be similar to John Sopko, the current special inspector general for Afghanistan.

‘He’s done a terrific job – maybe he’d like to do this job. I mean, he already knows how to do it. And that’s winding down,’ Hawley said in reference to Sopko’s work on Afghanistan. ‘Maybe he’d like to shift over to Ukraine. I think that would probably be my first choice, but somebody like him, who’s been tough, tenacious, and independent.’

RUSSIA’S LATEST NUCLEAR THREAT SLAMMED BY NATO 

Hawley’s amendment is getting a vote as part of the Senate’s bid to repeal two Authorizations for the Use of Military Force (AUMFs), which are joint resolutions by Congress to allowing the president to direct military assets under certain conditions. The 1991 AUMF was passed after Iraq invaded Kuwait, and the second authorized the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2002.

The amendment needs at least 60 votes to pass, meaning Hawley would need several Democrats to cross the aisle and vote in favor of it.

Asked about what his argument to his left-wing colleagues would be, Hawley said, ‘We spent $113 billion on Ukraine. It is now the largest recipient of United States overseas aid, we need to have one watchdog that is fully accounting for everything we spent and how it’s being used. It’s very simple.’

UKRAINE CALLS FOR EMERGENCY UN MEETING OVER PUTIN’S ‘NUCLEAR BLACKMAIL’ IN BELARUS 

‘Don’t spread this out over numerous agencies, no clear reporting requirements. Let’s give the public an accounting of how their taxpayer money is being spent,’ Hawley said.

Senate Republicans are divided over its support for continuing Ukraine aid in the face of Russia’s invasion, and Hawley himself is vehemently against it. But he said even colleagues who don’t share his view have shown support for his proposal.

‘I have talked to all members about this. I’ve brought this up at our regular caucus meetings. We have discussed what this amendment would do, and made a strong case for it,’ Hawley said. ‘No one has said ‘Oh, no, I’m against this.’ Multiple people who are strong proponents of aid to Ukraine have said ‘Yeah, I think that makes sense.’’

If passed, the amendment would require the president to appoint and the Senate to confirm an inspector general to oversee the money going to help Ukraine fight off Russia. It would also mandate that watchdog to submit quarterly reports to Congress on dollars and military equipment sent overseas, as well as Kyiv’s adherence to anti-corruption standards.

‘It’s very hard to argue that there should not be robust oversight, which is what this amendment does, so I would hope this would not be controversial,’ Hawley said.