The House of Representatives is expected to take one step closer to ending a brutal, months-long fight over government funding on Wednesday with a vote on a nearly $460 billion spending package.

The 1,050-page bipartisan legislation is a package of six bills dealing with departments and agencies whose funding expires on Friday – Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA); the Justice and Commerce Departments; Energy and Water Development; the Department of Interior; and Transportation and Housing.

Funding tied to Congress’ six remaining bills, which include the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon, expires on March 22.

If passed, the House will have made major strides toward ending a divisive chapter fueled by disagreements over how federal funds are spent. 

Much of the division has been led by GOP hardliners who have wielded outsize influence as a result of House Republicans’ razor-thin majority. House Freedom Caucus members and their allies have called for their leaders to leverage a government shutdown to force significant spending cuts and conservative policy measures. But many have dismissed these as dead on arrival by Democrats who control the Senate and White House.

It’s led to friction within the House GOP, with those hardliners lodging protest votes on procedural measures that have temporarily paralyzed the House floor. A small group of right-wing lawmakers joined all House Democrats last October to boot House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R– Calif., from power, the first time in history a speaker was ousted, The move was precipitated by him working across the aisle to avoid a shutdown.

Those disagreements are the same reason House GOP leaders are bypassing traditional mechanisms to rush the bill to the floor under suspension of the rules – meaning the threshold for passage rises from a simple majority to two-thirds.

Because Republicans are operating under their slimmest House majority in modern history – just two seats – the decision guarantees that Democratic support will be necessary for passage.

Traditionally, any bill being considered for a House-wide vote would have to first go through the House Rules Committee, which sets parameters for amendments and debate. The full House then votes on the rules for debate – usually along partisan lines – before the final vote.

Before 2023, a rule vote had not failed in two decades. But GOP hardliners’ weaponization of them has led to House leaders skirting them altogether on must-pass bills. 

It’s left members of every faction of the House GOP frustrated, though they disagree about the blame.

‘The House Freedom Caucus is actively undermining the work of Congress. By [forcing] a bipartisan minibus package to be passed under suspension of the rules instead of a simple majority, these people have demonstrated that they have no real solutions… they just crave the spotlight,’ a senior House GOP aide told Fox News Digital.

Meanwhile, Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., said the lack of an amendment process that comes with suspending rules tells voters ‘their concerns don’t matter.’

‘Funding a runaway border and endangering our country is the ‘bipartisanship’ claim by those who continue voting to bankrupt our nation,’ Perry told Fox News Digital.

In comments made to reporters last week, House Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good, R-Va., suggested GOP leaders were working against their own interests by passing bills under suspension. He called the move ‘a terrible decision.’

‘There’s really no ability to block bills that are passed under suspension that the Democrats want passed,’ Good said. ‘I actually had a Democrat member tell me this morning, ‘We like it when you’re in charge because nothing changes, but you guys get all the blame.’’

If passed, the bill will have to go through the Senate and get President Biden’s signature to avoid a partial shutdown by the end of this week.

Speaking in Brazil recently, Secretary of State Antony Blinken unceremoniously announced that the Biden administration considered Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria as illegal under international law. 

After more than three years of appeasing and enriching the Islamic Republic of Iran, alienating vital allies like Saudi Arabia and Israel, and allowing American tax dollars to flow once more to Palestinian terrorists, Team Biden has taken yet another counterproductive step by embracing the same failed anti-Israeli Washington orthodoxies that plagued the Obama administration and have delivered decades of disappointment. 

During my time as secretary of state, under the leadership of President Trump, we decided to approach the Middle East differently. We deterred Iran instead of making deals with it, and we built a coalition of nations to help maintain that deterrence. 

We established the Abraham Accords, which saw many Muslim nations finally recognize Israel’s right to exist. We supported our friend and ally Israel by stopping the flow of American taxpayer dollars that propped up Palestinian terror, as well as by recognizing Israel’s sovereignty in places like the Golan Heights. 

Crucially, we also took direct aim at the underlying lie that Israel was an illegitimate ‘occupier’ in the regions of Judea and Samaria – which encompass much of the West Bank – by enacting a strictly factual and legal policy that has since become known as ‘The Pompeo Doctrine.’ 

This policy made clear that Israel exists within its present territory with legal title and sovereign legitimacy as a matter of international law. We did so only after careful study of history and precedent both in the international community and within the State Department’s own record; our decision was consistent with policies going back to President Reagan, and even to Undersecretary of State Eugene Rostow, who negotiated the 1967 U.N. resolution that set out peace terms between Israel and her Arab neighbors following the Six-Day War. 

More importantly, our decision was also based on historical and biblical truth: Judea and Samaria are rightful parts of Israel’s historical homeland. These regions are full of historic sites that reflect their immense religious and cultural importance to the Jewish people, including Hebron – the burial place of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; Shiloh, the resting place of the tabernacle; and Shechem, the site of Joseph’s tomb. 

Having personally traveled through Judea and Samaria, I have seen many of these incredible places along Route 60 – the ‘Biblical Highway.’ Their existence confirms the truth: The Jewish people have a right to live there, and the Jewish nation state has a right to build communities there. It is Israel’s land.

President Biden has now decided to ignore this truth, obtusely viewing it as an obstacle to peace and making the same mistake favored by his predecessor in the Obama administration. 

Undermining Israel’s right to exist in the Jewish people’s homeland deepens and prolongs the conflict.  It is not Israeli settlements that are an obstacle to peace – it is the unwillingness of the Palestinians to come to the table honestly and acknowledge Israel’s right to exist, the gross atrocities committed by Hamas on Oct. 7, and Hamas’ continued existence. Those are the true obstacles to peace. 

Disturbingly, Team Biden’s reversal of the ‘Pompeo Doctrine’ has just as much to do with satisfying its far-left progressive base as it does with implementing a flawed vision for peace. 

At an event in Dearborn, Michigan a few weeks ago, Jon Finer, one of President Biden’s deputy national security advisers, told an irate crowd that his administration’s lukewarm statements of support for Israel were ‘missteps’ that he regretted had left a ‘very damaging impression,’ while Biden himself recently characterized Israel’s efforts to destroy Hamas as ‘over the top.’

And with an election cycle fast approaching, the president has directed his administration to develop an Israel-Palestinian ‘peace plan’ that includes ‘the establishment of a Palestinian state,’ and reports have surfaced that the administration has been conducting investigations into possible Israeli war crimes in Gaza.  

Amid a war and only a handful of months after it suffered the worst antisemitic attacks seen since the Holocaust, Biden is now pressuring Israel to surrender its safety and security – all to win an election later this year. 

Biden is trading true peace for votes; counter to what is in Israel’s best interest. It is gross and indecent. 

In an effort to appease the apparently pro-Hamas left in this country, Biden has bought into the same Washington lie that will only lead to more conflict and reward the wicked acts of terror perpetrated by Hamas on Oct. 7. America, Israel and the world deserve better. 

Lasting peace will only come when Iran’s influence is diminished and deterred and terrorist groups in the region are rendered impotent. In November, I hope the American people reject these failed policies and elect leaders who will clean up Biden’s mess. 

JERUSALEM — President Biden was noncommittal Tuesday when asked about his relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying it’s ‘like it’s always been.’ Yet many, including former President Trump, claim Biden is deserting Israel.

Asked earlier in the day by ‘Fox and Friends’ anchor Brian Kilmeade if he believes Biden is ‘in the process of abandoning Israel,’ Trump said, I ‘do believe that.’ 

Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have seemingly ramped up pressure on Israel over the last few weeks to accept an immediate six-week cease-fire with Hamas in exchange for the release of the over 130 hostages held in Gaza. 

‘Biden has been advancing a policy that prevents Israel from winning — and so guarantees Israel is defeated — almost since the outset of the war,’ Caroline Glick, an Israeli-American expert on the Middle East told Fox News Digital.

The, ‘Two steps he took at the very early stages placed enormous obstacles before Israel. First, he blocked Israel from taking the most effective action, laying siege to Gaza. Had Israel blocked all food, water, fuel and medicines from entering Gaza, the people of Gaza would have turned on Hamas within a few short weeks.’

Hamas terrorists invaded Israel Oct. 7 and slaughtered 1,200 people, including over 30 Americans. The jihadi terrorist movement kidnapped more than 240 people and transported them to the Gaza Strip.

Many Israeli military experts see a six-week cease-fire as dangerous because it could be part of a slippery slope toward a permanent stoppage of Israel’s war campaign and leave Hamas in power. Netanyahu has told the Israeli public his aim is ‘total victory’ over Hamas.

‘The hostage deal is in the hands of Hamas right now because there’s been an offer, a rational offer,’ Biden said Tuesday of a cease-fire. ‘The Israelis have agreed to it.’ He added that the Israelis are cooperating, and he is pushing to ‘get more aid in Gaza.’ Biden’s goal is reportedly to secure a cease-fire before Ramadan begins next week.

When asked about Harris’ strongly worded speech Sunday calling for an immediate cease-fire, Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told Fox News Digital, ‘The vice president’s comments were only marginally different than what the president himself has been saying about the urgency of reaching a hostage-for-prisoners ‘temporary cease-fire.’ 

‘More importantly, I don’t see the administration turning anti-Israel, even as the chorus of concern about the close U.S. support for Israeli war operations continues to get louder in American politics.’

Satloff noted that the campaign in Michigan to win over Muslim Arabs to vote undecided in the primary was hyped beyond the reality of the numbers who voted ‘uncommitted’ to send Biden a message about his support for Israel. 

‘A dispassionate look at Michigan shows that the ‘uncommitted’ campaign was not nearly as successful as its advocates wanted and that was for an easy primary vote, not a November election vote that will have real significance for the future of the country.’

‘Could the administration adopt a tougher approach on Israel, especially as regards the prospect of a Rafah campaign, as spring comes and summer approaches? It’s certainly possible, but my view is that the five months of stalwart support — far longer than Ronald Reagan gave Menachem Begin in 1982 or George W. Bush gave Ehud Olmert in 2006 — earns him the benefit of the doubt,’ Satloff said.

The reported clash between Biden and Netanyahu over Israel’s desire to defeat Hamas is heating up but it is unclear if there will be a similar showdown between Biden and Netanyahu along the lines of former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who chastised the then U.S. senator for threatening to stop aid to Israel in 1982. 

The quote attributed to Begin states, in part, ‘Don’t threaten us with cutting off your aid. It will not work. I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history.’

Glick continued her criticism of the Biden administration, noting that it refused to ‘oppose Egypt’s policy of preventing Gazans from fleeing Gaza through the border with Egypt. Had the Gazans been allowed to flee, there would have been no humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and the war would have ended months ago with a total Israeli victory.’

Egypt said Tuesday the cease-fire talks have largely collapsed. Hamas has refused to provide a list of the hostages and rejected the proposed cease-fire package.

‘Biden has been advancing these policies, which are effectively pro-Hamas and hostile to Israel, primarily because his administration’s policies are crafted by officials who hate Israel and have a history of support for Hamas,’ Glick claimed.

Adding to the friction between Biden and Netanyahu, Israel’s main opposition leader and war cabinet member, Benny Gantz, met with Secretary of State Blinken on Tuesday in Washington, where according to a State Department readout, the two discussed the hostages, humanitarian aid and the implementation of a humanitarian plan by Israel before any IDF operation into Rafah should occur. Israeli media reported that Netanyahu had not approved Gantz’s trip to Washington and was said to be infuriated by it. 

During Tuesday’s State Department briefing, spokesman Matthew Miller reiterated the administration’s support for ‘Israel’s objective of defeating Hamas militarily.’ He also underlined the Biden administration’s support for a two-state solution, noting that, ‘We believe the ultimate way to resolve the longstanding conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people is the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with real security guarantees for Israel, and that’s what we’re working to try to achieve.’

David Wurmser, a former senior adviser for nonproliferation and Middle East strategy for former Vice President Dick Cheney, told Fox News Digital that ‘deep down, Biden still has some residual liberal views of Israel that are generally favorable.’

Wurmser, a keen observer of the personnel factor within the Biden administration’s Mideast policy, said, ‘Biden is swayed by people around him’ and that he is a ‘pliable’ person.  

‘The real issue is everybody else,’ he warned. ‘Staffers who are not pro-Israel and would sell out Israel.’ 

Wurmser noted that progressive control of the Democratic Party’s structure ‘is convincing the political leadership of the Democratic Party to abandon Israel or at least distance itself from Israel. The administration is moving toward throwing Israel under the bus.’

The State Department did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital questions by publication time.

The polls are now closed in all 16 states across America that held presidential nominating contests on Super Tuesday.

In the race for the Republican presidential nomination, the Fox News Decision projected that former President Donald Trump would win the North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, Oklahoma, Maine, Massachusetts, Arkansas, Texas, Colorado, Minnesota, and California primaries. 

‘They call it Super Tuesday for a reason. This is a big one,’ Trump said in a primary night victory speech in front of a large group of supporters at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. ‘There’s never been anything so conclusive.’

And in an exclusive interview with Fox News’ Brooke Singman minutes earlier, Trump called it a ‘great evening.’ 

While Trump won’t clinch the 2024 Republican nomination on Tuesday, the former president was on course to capture the vast majority of the 854 Republican delegates up for grabs, moving him significantly closer to locking up his party’s presidential nomination over his last remaining rival – former U.N. ambassador and former two-term South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

Haley did come away with one victory on Super Tuesday, as she was projected the winner in Vermont, where she narrowly edged Trump. 

Trump made no mention of Haley in his 20-minute-long speech Tuesday night.

Haley, who had said she would remain in the race at least through Super Tuesday, has remained mum on any plans going forward.

Her campaign said that Haley watched primary night returns with staff as they huddled in Charleston, South Carolina. She didn’t deliver any speech or release a statement.

But her campaign, in a statement, said ‘we’re honored to have received the support of millions of Americans across the country today, including in Vermont where Nikki became the first Republican woman to win two presidential primary contests.’

And pointing a bunch of Super Tuesday states where Haley captured anywhere from a quarter to a third of the vote in the GOP contests, the campaign argued that ‘today, in state after state, there remains a large block of Republican primary voters who are expressing deep concerns about Donald Trump. That is not the unity our party needs for success. Addressing those voters’ concerns will make the Republican Party and America better.’

Heading into Super Tuesday, Trump had swept all but one of the first ten contests on the GOP nominating calendar.

And the strong showing by the former president in Tuesday’s slew of primaries and caucuses boosted him in his mission to completely pivot from a primary battle with Haley to a general election rematch with President Biden, who defeated Trump four years ago to win the White House.

Biden was running the table in the Super Tuesday Democratic nominating contests, although he did suffer his first defeat – with a loss in American Samoa.

‘If every single conservative, Republican and Trump supporter in these states shows up on Super Tuesday, we will be very close to finished with this primary contest,’ Trump said in a video to supporters this past weekend. ‘Republicans will then be able to focus all of our energy, time and resources on defeating crooked Joe Biden.’

Some of the states – including California with 169 delegates at stake – have winner-take-all rules to varying degrees, which should boost Trump’s delegate haul.

With more large states like Georgia, Florida, Illinois and Ohio among the eight holding primaries on March 12 and 19, Trump is expected to reach the 1,215 delegates needed to clinch the nomination by the middle of this month.

Trump’s campaign predicted in a memo last month that even under the most favorable modeling for Haley, the former president would clinch the nomination by March 19.

Trump for nearly a year has dominated the GOP nomination race, which last summer peaked with more than a dozen challengers taking on the former president. Helping to boost Trump among the Republican base were his history-making indictments last year in four different criminal cases – including charges in two cases that he tried to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss. 

The former president kicked off the nominating calendar with double-digit wins in the Iowa caucuses and in the New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Michigan primaries. He also grabbed landslide victories in the Nevada and U.S. Virgin Islands GOP caucuses.

Trump rolled into Super Tuesday with plenty of momentum after securing the 39 delegates up for grabs Saturday at the Michigan GOP’s party convention.

A few hours later, the former president was victorious in the Missouri caucuses, and he closed out Saturday evening by scoring a win in the Idaho caucuses.

‘We’ve been launching like a rocket to the Republican nomination,’ Trump touted Saturday night at a rally in Richmond, Virginia, as he pointed to his ballot box victories in Michigan, Missouri and Idaho.

Heading into Super Tuesday, Trump was 230 delegates ahead of Haley, following his North Dakota victory on Monday night.

‘Republican voters have delivered resounding wins for President Trump in every single primary contest and this race is over,’ Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a recent statement. ‘Our focus is now on Joe Biden and the general election.’

The former president also won a major court victory on Monday as the Supreme Court unanimously sided with Trump in his legal challenge to the state of Colorado’s attempt to kick him off its 2024 primary ballot. 

But Haley, who remains in the GOP nomination race at least through Super Tuesday despite the extremely long odds she faces, on Sunday enjoyed victory for the first time in the 2024 race.

Haley topped Trump by roughly 30 points in Washington, D.C.’s, Republican primary. She captured 19 delegates and made history as the first woman to win a GOP presidential primary or caucus.

‘Republicans closest to Washington’s dysfunction know that Donald Trump has brought nothing but chaos and division for the past 8 years. It’s time to start winning again and move our nation forward!’ Haley wrote on social media Sunday night.

In the past few days, Haley landed the endorsements of two GOP senators from Super Tuesday states: Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

Haley, who has garnered strong support in the GOP primaries from independents and whose fundraising has remained formidable, has stayed in the race as an option for voters dissatisfied with a likely Biden-Trump rematch. 

‘As much as everybody wants to go and push me out, I’m not ready to get out yet. I’m still sitting there fighting for the people that want a voice,’ Haley said Tuesday morning in an interview on ‘Fox and Friends.’

Haley reiterated in an interview on Saturday with Fox News’ Bill Melugin that ‘we’re going to go as long as we’re competitive,’ but she did not specifically define what competitive means.

Except for Alaska, all the states that were holding GOP primaries or caucuses on Tuesday also conducted Democrat ones as well. The Iowa Democrats announced the results of a vote-by-mail caucus they’ve been holding since mid-January.

One U.S. territory – American Samoa – also hold a Democratic nominating contests on Tuesday.

The president, who faces nominal challenges from Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota and best-selling author and spiritual adviser Marianne Williamson, easily romped in the Democrat contests.

The Fox News Decision Desk projected Biden the winner of the Vermont, Virginia, and North Carolina primaries soon after the poll closings in those three states. The following hour the president was projected the winner in Alabama, Tennessee, Maine, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.

In the 9pm ET, the Fox News Decision Desk projected Biden to be victorious in Texas and Minnesota. 

Biden was on course to win nearly all the 1,420 Democratic delegates up for grabs on Tuesday and move much closer to the 1,968 needed to lock up renomination.

But Biden did suffer a setback, as the Fox News Decision Desk projected he would lose the Democratic caucus in American Samoa to longshot candidate and entrepreneur Jason Palmer. 

Palmer was expected to win 4 delegates, to the president’s two on the Pacific Ocean island territory. It was Biden’s first defeat in the 2024 Democratic nominating calendar.

The president, in a statement on Super Tuesday’s results, said that ‘oday, millions of voters across the country made their voices heard — showing that they are ready to fight back against Donald Trump’s extreme plan to take us backwards.’ 

‘My message to the country is this: Every generation of Americans will face a moment when it has to defend democracy. Stand up for our personal freedom. Stand up for the right to vote and our civil rights. To every Democrat, Republican, and independent who believes in a free and fair America: This is our moment. This is our fight. Together, we will win,’ Biden emphasized.

Fox News’ Remy Numa contributed to this report.

Hezbollah militants and Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) exchanged rockets Tuesday after a White House senior adviser visited Beirut in a diplomatic effort to quell ongoing clashes. 

The IDF said rockets were fired from Lebanon toward Israel in the areas of Manara and Kiryat Shmona. In retaliation, IDF fighter jets struck Taybeh, a town in southern Lebanon, which – according to the IDF – was being used as a Hezbollah launch pad to carry out strikes on the Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona. 

The IDF also said it struck a Hezbollah anti-tank missile launch post in the village of Aarab El Louaizeh from which launches were carried out on Kiryat Shmona.

And earlier in the day, IDF fighter jets struck a Hezbollah military compound in the area of Dibbine as well as terrorist infrastructure in Ayta ash Shab, another village in southern Lebanon. 

Lebanon’s Civil Defense and Hezbollah’s Islamic Health unit said first responders pulled the bodies of Hassan Hussein, his wife Rwaida Mostafa, and their 25-year-old son from the rubble of a house that was targeted in the airstrikes. 

Civil Defense responders were searching for more bodies.

The strikes took place a day after White House senior adviser Amos Hochstein visited Lebanese political and military officials in Beirut in an effort to de-escalate ongoing clashes along the border. 

Clashes with Lebanon have escalated in recent weeks, amid Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas. Hezbollah has been exchanging fire with Israeli troops along the border since the Israel-Hamas war broke out on Oct. 7. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.