Embattled Rep. George Santos, R-NY, denied reports that he once performed as a drag queen named Kitara in Brazil, calling the claims ‘categorically false’ on Thursday.

Claims of Santos time as a drag queen first arose early this week when a Substack by reporter Marisa Kabas unveiled a 2009 photo that appears to Santos in a drag costume. The photo appears to show Santos and another drag queen standing arm-in-arm with a caption naming them ‘Eula Rorard’ and ‘Kitara Ravache.’

The other drag queen in the photo, Eula, was the source of the report.

‘The most recent obsession from the media claiming that I am a drag Queen or ‘performed’ as a drag Queen is categorically false,’ Santos argued on Twitter.

‘The media continues to make outrageous claims about my life while I am working to deliver results. I will not be distracted nor fazed by this,’ he continued.

Santos has been plagued by a slew of scandals since being elected to Congress in November. He has admitted to lying about his work and education history, and numerous people have accused him of going by various aliases.

Most recently, a homeless veteran accused him of stealing $3,000 in fundraised cash that was meant to pay for his dog’s surgery.

Santos denied that report as well. Santos said he has no knowledge of the purported scheme involving a charity he claimed to have founded.

‘Fake. No clue who this is,’ Santos told Semafor.

Santos faced his first major call to resign last week when Nassau County GOP leaders condemned him in a press conference. Nassau County lies in his New York Congressional district.

‘George Santos campaign last year was a campaign of deceit, lies, and fabrication,’ Nassau County GOP Chairman Joe Cairo said in a statement. ‘He has no place on the Nassau County Republican committee, nor should he serve public service, nor as an elected official. He’s not welcome here at GOP HQ.’

Santos is embroiled in multiple local, federal and international investigations regarding allegations of fraud and fabricating his past. During his congressional campaign, Santos falsely claimed he graduated from college with degrees in finance and worked for Goldman Sachs and Citibank. Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly opened an investigation into Santos in late December.

Brazil has also reopened a fraud investigation into Santos relating to a stolen checkbook. Santos has repeatedly ignored requests for comment from Fox News Digital.

Despite his slew of scandals Santos was named to two committees — Small Business and Science, Space, and Technology — by House Republican leadership on Tuesday.

Fox News’ Landon Mion contributed to this report.

House Republicans have officially ended the practice of proxy voting, which was established during the COVID-19 pandemic to permit lawmakers to vote without being present in-person. 

‘No more proxy voting,’ House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., announced Thursday. ‘Effective immediately, Members of Congress have to show up to work if they want their vote to count.’

Proxy voting was established by former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in May 2020 to allow Congress to operate under COVID-19 pandemic protocols. Instead of showing up for votes, a member of Congress could submit a letter to have a colleague announce their position on bills and amendments and even cast votes in their name.  

Republicans have argued this policy enabled abuse and permitted legislators to neglect their responsibilities, though many GOP lawmakers took advantage of proxy voting in the last Congress.

In 2020, 160 Republicans signed on to a lawsuit brought by McCarthy challenging the practice that was rejected by the Supreme Court. But by the end of 2021, roughly 70% of the original Republican plaintiffs had voted by proxy, according to a study by the Brookings Institute. 

While proxy voting was intended as a ‘public health emergency’ policy, lawmakers in both parties have pawned off their votes to attend campaign events and other functions entirely unrelated to their health concerns with voting in-person. 

For example, three Michigan Democrats voted by proxy so they could attend an event with President Biden at the Ford Motors facility in Dearborn, Michigan in May 2021. 

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., and other Republicans have been caught using proxy voting tp speak at CPAC.

McCarthy had vowed to end the practice if Republicans captured the House majority. 

‘The Senate has managed to maintain in-person Floor voting for the entirety of the past two years — with a much older population and a 50-50 makeup, no less,’ he said in December. ‘From the get-go, we warned that proxy voting would be misused as a means of convenience rather than as a precaution for health — and it has been, by members of both parties.’

Eric Schmitt, the former Missouri attorney general who led the first-of-its-kind lawsuit against the Biden administration, alleging collusion with Big Tech to censor speech, vows to bring the same ‘fighting spirit’ as a freshman senator to the 118th Congress.

‘I firmly believe that the First Amendment is a beating heart of the Constitution that protects fundamental human expression,’ Schmitt told Fox News Digital.

‘And in this country, we believe in individual rights, and we believe that people can speak their minds without the government or the regime censoring them or telling them what they can say and can’t say. So I’m going to take that same fighting spirit for the Senate, wherever it leads.’

Schmitt, who served as the Show Me State’s top prosecutor for four years, is stepping into the seat of longtime Republican Sen. Roy Blunt, who retired.

During his tenure as attorney general, Schmitt spearheaded a landmark lawsuit against the Biden administration, alleging top government officials colluded with Big Tech companies to suppress certain speech about COVID-19, efficacy of masks and the Hunter Biden laptop story, among other things.

Schmitt says accountability for that type of alleged ‘vast censorship enterprise’ will remain a focus of his work on Capitol Hill.

‘Whatever committees I’m on, whatever legislation, that is going to be an essential thing to protect those individual rights and freedoms and go after overzealous and overbearing and overreaching federal government,’ he said.

Committee assignments have yet to be set, but the Senate convenes Jan. 23, shortly after which those assignments will be decided by senate leadership.

Schmitt also wants to dismantle what he calls the ‘administrative state,’ federal rules and regulations instituted by agencies without federal oversight.

‘I think we need to fundamentally dismantle the administrative state. The founders never intended a bunch of unelected folks to have this much power and not be accountable to anyone,’ he said.

Tactically, Schmitt says he’d like to impose legislation that says for every new rule, agencies would have to pull back multiple other rules and regulations.

‘It would get off the books some of these rules and regs that just, if they ever had a purpose, have outlived any purpose that they had, and get in the way of innovation, ingenuity and people pursuing their dreams,’ he said.

Schmitt is among some of the Republican politicians who, during the midterm elections, opposed Mitch McConnell’s leadership of the Republican minority in the Senate. Despite a challenge from Rick Scott, R-Fla., McConnell was elected as Senate minority leader once again, making him the longest-serving party leader in the history of the Senate.

Schmitt says that leadership disagreement won’t be in focus during his term.

‘I’m gonna always keep in mind the voters who sent me here and what they wanted. They wanted a fighter. They wanted a champion for the things that they care about in Missouri,’ Schmitt said.

One of those things, Schimtt says, is fighting inflation.

‘High inflation … it’s not some act of God, like a hurricane. There’s a formula for it,’ he said. ‘And it turns out when you spend trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars that you don’t have and cut off domestic energy supply, the prices for everything goes up.

‘And so I’m gonna fight for those working families every day, and I’ll work with anybody that shares those same values and intentions. And I’m going to work to block really bad legislation that makes it harder for people to achieve their dreams.’

Florida Rep. Greg Steube is in ‘good spirits’ and recovering after spending a night in the intensive care unit of his local hospital, his office said Thursday.

Steube was transported to a hospital Wednesday afternoon after he fell off a ladder while trimming trees on his Sarasota, Florida property.

‘The Congressman spent the night in the ICU where several serious injuries are still under assessment but not life threatening at this time,’ an update from Steube’s official social media read. ‘He is making progress and in good spirits.’

Steube’s team went on to thank the medical personnel who treated him after his incident, as well as the neighbor who called 911 after his injury.

‘Congressman Steube and his family would like to express their deepest thanks to the team of doctors, nurses, and medical personnel treating him,’ Steube’s account posted. ‘We are thankful to the individual who witnessed the fall and immediately called 911, as well as Sarasota County’s Emergency Services for their quick response and transportation.’

The 44-year-old Representative serves Florida’s 17th congressional district, which contains the outer suburbs of Sarasota and Fort Myers through the Everglades.

Steube has been a congressman since 2019 and previously served three terms in the Florida House of Representatives, as well as two years in the Florida Senate until 2018.

The expanding use of self-driving cars opens up new ways for terrorists to harm Americans, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned Thursday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Speaking on a panel on national security, Wray said the FBI views autonomous vehicles as both a possible tool to cause physical harm and a potentially valuable source of personal data that could become a target.

‘When you talk about autonomous vehicles, it’s obviously something that we’re excited about, just like everybody,’ Wray said. ‘But there are harms that we have to guard against that are more than just the obvious.’

‘One of them is the danger that there could be ways to confuse or distort the algorithms to cause physical harm,’ he said. ‘I’m thinking about a story I heard not that long ago about the researchers who were able to trick a self-driving car’s algorithm by essentially putting a piece of black tape over a stop sign. It caused the car to accelerate, about 50 miles an hour or something.

‘It’s a simple example, but it shows some of the harms we have to guard against,’ Wray said.

‘A different kind of harm we’re concerned about is the enormous amount of data that autonomous vehicles, for example, aggregate. And any time you aggregate lots and lots of sensitive data, it makes a very tempting target,’ he added.

He said these potential threats are something that is ‘very much on our mind’ in the federal government.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety expects there to be 3.5 million self-driving cars on the road in the U.S. by 2025.

Wray said the expanding use of self-driving cars is an example of a new ‘attack surface’ that terrorists will try to use to their advantage. He said Russia’s war against Ukraine is giving U.S. national security officials new examples of how cyberattacks are evolving and demonstrated how early surveillance activity can be a precursor to a cyberattack.

‘We did see as the conflict erupted an increased effort by the Russian intelligence services, which have been conducting malicious cyber activity against U.S. infrastructure for years,’ he said. ‘We’re increasingly concerned that the surveillance activity – the scanning, the research, all the preparatory activity – could be one thing, could be an indication of something more serious.’

GOP LAWMAKER HAS A MESSAGE FOR CHRISTOPHER WRAY AND THE FBI: ‘ONE DAY WE’RE BRINGING YOU IN’ 

‘The name of the game in terms of cyber defense from our perspective is to try to get – to use a terrorism analogy – further left of boom,’ Wray added.

The U.S. is also worried about China’s growing Artificial Intelligence program.

‘The Chinese government has a bigger hacking program than any other nation in the world, and their AI program is not constrained by the rule of law,’ he said. ‘It’s built on top of the massive troves of intellectual property and sensitive data that they’ve stolen over the years and will be used unless checked to advance that same hacking program.’

‘That’s something we’re deeply concerned about and I think everyone here should be deeply concerned about it,’ Wray said.

Democrat Andrea Campbell was sworn in Wednesday as the first Black woman to serve as Massachusetts attorney general.

Campbell, 40, took her oath of office at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center surrounded by family and supporters.

As she did during her campaign, Campbell did not shy away from her life story, including her father being sent to prison for eight years and her twin brother Andre Campbell dying in police custody. A second brother is in custody facing rape charges.

‘There are some who want us to feel shame in our stories or even try to weaponize them against us,’ she said. She then quoted a Bible passage saying ‘no weapon formed against me shall prosper.’

Campbell, who was also the first Black woman to serve as president of the Boston City Council, ran through a handful of her priorities.

Campbell said she would work to create economic prosperity and stability for families, prioritize the mental health and well-being of young people and make the office more accessible to all people across the state.

The new attorney general also said she would work to tackle wage theft, protect residents from predatory practices, make sure families have the tools needed to buy or stay in their homes, and punish unfair or discriminatory practices that stand in the way of upward mobility.

Campbell said one of her first actions will be to form an Elderly Justice Unit to protect older residents against unequal access to health care, deceptive business practices and fraud.

She said she would also create an Office of Gun Safety Enforcement to defend the state’s gun laws and a Reproductive Justice Unit to protect the right to safe and legal abortion and reproductive care.

Campell said she would also scrutinize the state’s criminal justice system.

‘We can take on corruption, and hold those who misuse positions of trust or taxpayer dollars accountable for their actions, including by tackling the lack of transparency and accountability behind our prison walls and in our criminal and juvenile justice systems,’ she said.

Campbell was among the four remaining statewide officials elected in November to formally take office Wednesday.

Democrat William Galvin, 72, was sworn in for an eighth term as secretary of state, becoming the longest serving person in the office. He was first sworn into the office in 1995.

Also taking her oath of office was Democratic state Treasurer Deborah Goldberg, 68, who was elected to a third term. Goldberg and Galvin are the only two statewide elected officials who sought reelection.

Democrat Diana DiZoglio, 39, a former state senator elected to serve as state auditor, was also set to be sworn Wednesday.

All of the statewide officers serve four year terms.

The 2022 election marked the first time that women were elected to five of Massachusetts’ six statewide constitutional offices.

It also marked the first time that a woman and member of the LGBTQ community — former attorney general and Democrat Maura Healey, 51 — was elected governor. Former Democratic Salem Mayor Kim Discoll, 56, was elected lieutenant governor.

Former Gov. Charlie Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito — both Republicans — opted not to seek reelection to a third term.

Airline flights across the country were grounded and delayed last week due to an outage in the Federal Aviation Administration’s Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system, which relays key information to flight crews, but a new report from the Congressional Research Service details how officials had known the system was in need of fixing.

The CRS report notes that the FAA itself asked for funding in the 2023 budget to update the NOTAM system.

‘In its FY2023 budget estimate, FAA itself described the NOTAM repository as ‘failing vintage hardware’ and requested almost $30 million to accelerate the modernization of the Aeronautical Information Management Program that encompasses the NOTAM system,’ the report says, adding  that ‘the system also has been criticized for being arcane and difficult to use and interpret.’

The report also describes how members of Congress were already aware of – and trying to do something about – NOTAM’s problems years before this.

First, there was the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018, a bill that, among other things, called for updates to the NOTAM system., specifically, creating a searchable database of NOTAMs. While that bill passed and became law, other bills failed.

The Notice to Airmen Improvement Act of 2019 looked to fix the NOTAM system by creating a task force to look into how to improve the presentation of NOTAM information, as well as its accuracy and understandability. The FAA says last week’s outage was the result of a data file being damaged when an employee ‘failed to follow procedures.’

A similar 2021 bill tried to do the same. Both passed in the House but the Senate failed to vote on either one.

The CRS report predicts that the NOTAM system will receive attention in Congress this year, as concerns over it ‘are likely to figure prominently’ when lawmakers debate the reauthorization of FAA programs that are set to expire.

The U.S. government was expected to hit its borrowing limit on Thursday, which puts the new House Republican majority in a position to pump the brakes on federal spending after an explosion of new debt in the COVID era.

The GOP majority means they have a say over how much – or even whether – to increase the $31.381 trillion debt ceiling by the early summer, which is when the Treasury Department says it will need new borrowing authority. Republicans so far appear to be unified around the idea of some level of spending cuts before any agreement can be reached to raise the debt ceiling.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has been saying for weeks that he’ll insist on spending cuts, and behind him stand several Republicans with a range of views on how to proceed. Some, like Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, have specific ideas worked out already, such as capping fiscal year 2024 levels at fiscal year 2022 levels.

On Tuesday, Roy said in a radio interview that this idea is a ‘start’ and that the House needs to have a ‘serious conversation’ about how to get to a balanced budget in 10 years and then ‘attach’ that to the idea of raising the debt ceiling.

In contrast, Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona indicated that he’ll never agree to a debt ceiling hike even if Democrats and the Biden administration somehow agree to steep cuts, saying that the government already has plenty of money.

‘We cannot raise the debt ceiling,’ Biggs tweeted Wednesday. ‘Democrats have carelessly spent our taxpayer money and devalued our currency. They’ve made their bed, so they must lie in it.’

As of this week, there does not appear to be a unified GOP position on the debt ceiling, and congressional aides indicated that Republicans would be meeting next week to flesh out a strategy. Those meetings could end up setting conditions that must be met before key factions of the House GOP majority can agree to a debt ceiling hike.

But the lack of a common position among the GOP may not matter yet. Even as Republicans sharpen their spears in preparation for negotiations over how to shrink the $6.3 trillion federal government, it became clear this week that the first skirmish will likely be whether the Democrats send anyone from their side to negotiate.

The Biden administration has staked out an early position that the debt ceiling must be raised without any conditions. That follows the pattern Democrats have taken for years, which is that any default by the U.S. government would be an economic disaster and that the debt ceiling must be raised without delay or any discussion about new commitments to changing the way the government spends money.

‘Failure to meet the government’s obligations would cause irreparable harm to the U.S. economy, the livelihoods of all Americans and global financial stability,’ Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said last week.

This week, the White House made it clear several times that it doesn’t believe there is anything to negotiate.

‘As President Biden has made clear, Congress must deal with the debt limit and must do so without conditions,’ White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday.

‘We’re not going to work our way around this; we’re not going to negotiate on this,’ she said. ‘We are not going to be negotiating over the debt ceiling.’

Republicans know all too well the danger of dealing with big, important issues at the last minute – last year’s $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill was introduced late, rushed to the floor and passed by House Democrats, a tactic Republicans have vowed to end under their majority. That’s why for now, Republicans are intent on making sure there is some kind of back and forth.

‘I would like to sit down with all the leaders, and especially the president, and start having discussions,’ McCarthy told Fox News over the weekend. ‘I believe we can sit down with anybody who wants to work together.’

‘I want to sit down with him now so there is no problem,’ he added.

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry, R-Pa., sees it the same way, and he believes the best way to make progress is to start talking now before it becomes an emergency.

‘Let’s fight now to end the status quo,’ he said on CNN in January. ‘Let’s get in the room now.’

The broader fight over the debt ceiling is likely to be stuck for several weeks in this skirmish about whether Democrats should negotiate. There won’t be a burning need to do anything until the summer, and the Biden administration is likely to use that time to build the Democrats’ case that the debt ceiling should be raised without conditions.

One factor that could shake up the status quo is whether a consensus builds around the idea of negotiations, and already this week, Republicans appeared to pick up support from Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. He told Fox News in an interview in Davos, Switzerland, that bipartisanship is the only way forward, and he agrees with the GOP that the government has a spending problem.

‘We have to work together,’ he said. ‘I think what we have to do is realize that we have a problem. We have a debt problem. We’re $31, I think $31.4 trillion in public debt right now. And all we’re saying is, should we not make sure that we all recognize how we got there, how we prevent from going further?’

EXCLUSIVE: Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., hypothesized that the classified documents scandal surrounding President Joe Biden is being fueled by Democrats who are ready to give the flailing president the hook.

‘There’s an element to this that feels like the Democrats are taking out Joe Biden,’ Gaetz told Fox News Digital on Wednesday. 

‘I don’t know that that’s the case, but I don’t know that it’s not,’ he said. ‘But just as Joe Biden is hardening the cement around his decision to run for president again, they start looking for what classified documents might have been tucked away eight years ago.’

Three batches of Obama administration-era classified documents were found on Biden’s property in recent months: one batch at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C., and two at his Wilmington, Delaware, property.

The Justice Department began its investigation into Biden after the first batch was discovered by the president’s personal lawyers at the Penn Biden Center in November, just days before the midterm elections. The developments only became public this month after CBS News broke the story and the White House was forced to respond. Attorney General Merrick Garland launched a special counsel investigation after additional classified documents from Biden were found at the president’s Wilmington home.

Gaetz said everything is speculative until it’s revealed what’s actually in the documents that were recovered.

‘I mean, there’s an element of this where it’s Joe Biden’s lawyer who turns this information over, it’s Joe Biden’s own Justice Department that’s appointed a special counsel to investigate him – maybe the Democrats have realized that Joe Biden is not useful to them anymore, and they just assume toss him out and get a younger crop of candidates engaged in the next presidential race,’ he said.

Gaetz said the biggest point of concern is any possible connection between the documents that were recovered at the Penn Biden Center and the reported millions in donations from unnamed Chinese donors to the University of Pennsylvania, which runs the center.

‘We have a lot to learn about the content and substance of those documents, and if they relate to China, and if they were at that Biden Center at UPenn funded by China. That’s going to be a far more grave concern,’ the congressman said.

‘What if the documents relate to our economy?’ he said. ‘What if Joe Biden was hustling information to his CCP (Chinese Communist Party) funders at the Biden Center for UPenn and that gave China economic advantage over Americans? That would create a nexus between those documents and our economic woes at the hands of rising China. I don’t know because I don’t know what the documents pertain to, but documents in and of themselves don’t seem to have an obvious connection to the quality of life of my constituents, in the absence of understanding their content and context.’

Gaetz said Americans are more concerned with the state of economy, and that will continue unless the documents controversy can be shown to impact them personally.

‘I haven’t been frothing at the mouth over the mere existence of some documents in a garage in Delaware,’ he said. ‘You know, I believe Americans are more worried about the weaponization of government against them than they are, you know, what papers Joe Biden stuffed in [the] glove box of his Corvette.’

‘If the documents pertain to China and were at a repository funded by China, one could reasonably assess that the scandal runs deeper and would have a real damaging effect on our country,’ he added. ‘If they are mementos or, you know, documents that have far outlived any sort of functional relevance quite some time ago, then I think that’s different.’

Gaetz made a similar comment on Twitter days earlier, writing that the Biden documents ‘aren’t critical to quality of life for my constituents.’

‘I guess my view would change if the Biden docs related to China, as the CCP was functionally underwriting the Biden Center,’ he added.

The special counsel investigation into Biden was launched just months after a similar one into former President Donald Trump, who kept classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida. In that case, the FBI raided Trump’s property after the agency suspected there were more documents than previously believed based on interviews and failed negotiations to hand them over. Trump has claimed he did no wrong in the matter.

The White House has emphasized that Biden’s case is different because his team cooperated with the DOJ and National Archives while Trump’s team resisted requests to turn over the classified documents. 

Fox News’ Patrick Hauf contributed to this report.

Former President Donald Trump heads to the crucial early presidential nominating state of South Carolina in just over a week, as he holds his first 2024 campaign event since launching his third White House bid. 

Two and a half months after November’s midterm elections, which marked the unofficial start of the 2024 cycle, it remains a field of one in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. 

More than two years after his 2020 election defeat at the hands of President Biden, Trump remains the most influential politician and ferocious fundraiser in the Republican Party, and until recently, he was the clear and overwhelming front-runner in the early 2024 GOP presidential nomination polls. 

But the former president’s taken plenty of incoming fire over his impact on the GOP’s lackluster performance in the midterms, received some unfavorable reviews following his mid-November campaign launch at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, and faced plenty of criticism over controversial comments and actions he’s make and taken the past two months.

While none of his potential rivals appear close to officially launching bids in the coming weeks, behind the scenes there’s been plenty of action, as many of the likely contenders begin the important steps of building campaign teams.

Here’s a look at Trump’s potential rivals for the nomination.

RON DESANTIS

The former president’s biggest likely threat, as of now, is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the popular conservative governor who was overwhelmingly re-elected in November.

DeSantis, a former congressman, narrowly won his first election as governor in 2018 thanks in part to strong support from then-President Trump. But he saw his popularity soar among conservatives across the country the past three years, courtesy of his forceful pushback against coronavirus pandemic restrictions and his aggressive actions as a conservative culture warrior, going after media and corporations. 

The governor, who’s rivaled and even eclipsed Trump in some 2024 polling, has already pushed legislation in the opening days of his second term that is pleasing to conservatives in Florida and nationwide. And as Fox News first reported, he’s got a memoir titled ‘The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival’ publishing next month. Writing a book is a rite of passage for many potential and actual presidential candidates.

In a sign of his political prominence, DeSantis has taken incoming fire recently not only from Trump but also from other potential rivals for the GOP nomination.

The governor became a prolific fundraiser during the 2022 election cycle, hauling in over $200 million as he built a massive war chest with contributions from across the country. And his nearly 20-point victory over former Republican-governor-turned Democratic congressman Charlie Christ, along with a double-digit re-election win by GOP Sen. Marco Rubio, helped transform the one-time blockbuster battleground into a red state.

DeSantis for over a year routinely dismissed talk of a 2024 White House race as he focused on his gubernatorial re-election. But he’s dropped plenty of hints of a possible presidential bid since his re-election victory speech in November.

MIKE PENCE

Former Vice President Mike Pence, Trump’s running mate in 2016 and 2020, has repeatedly said that Republican voters will have ‘better choices’ than the former president in 2024.

Pence is currently crisscrossing the country on a book tour for his new memoir ‘So Help Me God,’ in which he showcases successes of the Trump-Pence administration, but also spotlights criticisms of Trump that have generated plenty of headlines.

The former vice president emphasized in an interview with Fox News Digital last month in the kickoff presidential primary state of New Hampshire that the positive response he’s said he’s receiving from his new autobiography ‘has been very encouraging’ as he weighs a 2024 bid.

And the former congressman turned Indiana governor, who has long been a champion for social conservative voters, appears to be making a play for evangelical voters with meetings this month with some of the right’s most influential pastors.

MIKE POMPEO

Mike Pompeo, who served as CIA director and later as Secretary of State in the Trump administration, has a memoir of his own releasing next week.

‘Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love,’ spotlight’s the former Army officer turned Kansas congressman’s tenure as America’s spy chief and top diplomat.

Similar to Pence, Pompeo’s spent plenty of time since the end of the Trump administration crisscrossing the country on behalf of fellow Republicans who ran in 2022 midterm elections. The Fox News contributor’s travels included numerous stops in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada – the first four states to vote in the GOP presidential nominating calendar.

Pompeo’s political action committee last year went up with ads in the early voting nominating states, another sign he’s seriously mulling a White House bid. Asked in an interview with Fox News Digital in November about his 2024 plans, Pompeo answered that ‘we are doing the things that one would do to be ready to make such an announcement and then to engage with the American people on the ideas that we believe matter.’

NIKKI HALEY

Former two-term South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who served as ambassador to the United Nations during the first half of the Trump presidency, is another Trump administration alum who was very busy during the 2022 campaigning on behalf of fellow Republicans and making numerous stops in the early primary and caucus states.

At a major Republican 2024 cattle call in November, Haley repeatedly teased a potential presidential run, telling the crowd that ‘between us, I’m just getting started.’

‘A lot of people have asked if I’m going to run for president,’ Haley said to cheers. ‘Now that the midterms are over, I’ll look at it in a serious way.’ And she reiterated that ‘I’ve never lost an election and I’m not going to start now.’

TED CRUZ

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, the runner-up to Trump in the combustible 2016 GOP presidential nomination race, has consistently not ruled out making another White House run. 

He’s stopped a handful of times over the past year and a half in the early voting states and has told Fox News and other news organizations that ‘when I ran in ’16, it was the most fun I’ve had in my life.’

Cruz has stated that he’s running for re-election next year and he’s focused on the current battles in the Senate. But he hasn’t closed the door on a White House run, saying ‘they’ll be plenty of time for that’ ahead.

TIM SCOTT

Sen. Tim  Scott is a rising star in the GOP, one of the party’s top fundraisers, and the only Black Republican in the Senate. The lawmaker from South Carolina easily cruised to re-election in November to what he’s said will be his final six-year term in the Senate.

While Scott’s repeatedly demurred when asked about 2024, he raised eyebrows in November at his re-election victory celebration by telling the story of how took his grandfather to the polls in 2012, and that his grandfather proudly voted for him as well as for Democratic President Barack Obama, the nation’s first Black president.

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

RICK SCOTT

Sen. Rick Scott, a former two-term Florida governor who this past cycle chaired the Senate GOP campaign committee, has repeatedly said he’s running for re-election in 2024.

But political pundits still view Scott, a former health care executive who’s the wealthiest member of the Senate, as a possible White House contender.

Fueling more speculation is Scott’s latest ad, where he calls for ‘change’ the Republican Party. The seven-figure ad blitz, which was first reported by Fox News, isn’t running just in Florida, but from coast to coast on national cable TV.

GLENN YOUNGKIN

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin was a politician in demand on the campaign trail last summer and autumn, helping fellow Republicans who were running in the midterms.

Youngkin energized Republicans nationwide 14 months ago, as the first-time candidate who hailed from the party’s business wing edged out former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe to become the first GOP candidate in a dozen years to win a gubernatorial election in the one-time swing state that had trended towards the Democrats over the past decade.

The governor said in a recent Fox News interview that ‘we’ll have to see how things pan out’ as he reiterated that he’s ‘incredibly flattered by this discussion’ and ‘the fact that my name is in the national mix is pretty overwhelming.’

KRISTI NOEM

Gov. Kristi Noem, a conservative congresswoman who spent eight years in the House of Representatives before winning South Dakota’s governorship in 2018, was overwhelming re-elected in November in the reliably red state.

Pundits view Noem as a possible contender for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, or as a potential running mate. 

‘I’m focused on doing my job here in South Dakota,’ Noem answered when asked by Fox News Digital earlier this month if she’s mulling a White House run. 

But she also said that ‘I’m focused here but I’m going to continue telling South Dakota’s stories,’ adding ‘that’s a story that I think can bring hope to the rest of the country.’

LARRY HOGAN

After eight years running the very blue state of Maryland, Wednesday was term-limited Republican Gov. Larry Hogan’s last day in office. And as he left office, Hogan was touting that he remained one of the most popular governors in the nation.

Like many of his potential rivals, Hogan’s made many of the moves a politician makes in advance of launching a White House campaign. 

Hogan, a vocal GOP critic of Trump, touts his conservative credentials but is viewed as a moderate Republican by many on the right.

‘Early next year we’re going to be sitting down and figuring out what the future looks like, but I haven’t ruled anything out,’ Hogan reiterated in an interview with Fox News late last year.

CHRIS SUNUNU

Gov. Chris Sununu was easily re-elected in November to a fourth two-year term steering the key northeastern battleground state of New Hampshire.

Sununu, in an interview earlier this month with Fox News, once again emphasized that the GOP should ‘move on’ from Trump and that ‘there’s lots of other great leaders out there.’

While noting that his state’s current legislative session and next two-year budget are his top priorities, he’s repeatedly said he is not ruling anything out when it comes to a possible White House bid in 2024.

‘A lot of folks are coming to me. A lot of folks want me to run. It’s definitely conversations that we’re having,’ Sununu shared. 

ASA HUTCHINSON

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson acknowledges that his two trips to Iowa last week— the state whose caucuses for a half century have kicked off the GOP presidential nominating calendar — are a sign that he’s seriously considering a White House run.

‘Going to Iowa probably does send some signals that your serious about looking at 2024,’ Hutchinson, who just completed serving eight years as governor, told Fox News.

A former federal attorney turned two-term congressman who served as Drug Enforcement Administration administrator and Department of Homeland Security undersecretary during then-President George W. Bush’s administration, Hutchinson is not that well-known outside of Arkansas. He told Fox News that ‘I’m not setting an artificial timeframe — I’m wanting to make sure that if I did become a candidate, that there would be the kind of financial support that’s needed.’

WILL HURD

Former Republican Rep. Will Hurd of Texas will visit New Hampshire later to month, to speak at a major state GOP meeting.

The trip by Hurd, who served three-terms in Congress before deciding against running for re-election in 2020, will spark speculation that the one-time clandestine officer in the CIA is mulling a bid for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.

LIZ CHENEY

Former Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming has repeatedly vowed to do ‘whatever it takes to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office.’

Cheney, a longtime Trump critic who was stripped of her House GOP leadership position and last summer routed in the Republican primary in her bid for renomination by a Trump backed challenger, was a co-chair of the Democratic dominated Jan. 6 select committee that in its final report recommended barring the former president from ever holding office again.

Cheney, who’s mulled a presidential bid in order to directly take on Trump, has said she hasn’t ‘made a decision yet about what I’m going to do.’