The two largest pharmaceutical chains in the U.S. will begin selling the abortion pill mifepristone this month, just weeks before the Supreme Court will hear arguments on the drug’s approval, which the Biden administration defends. 

CVS and Walgreens completed the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) certification process to dispense mifepristone, the companies separately confirmed to Fox News Digital. The pill will not be sent through the mail, and the companies will follow the FDA’s guidelines issued last year — the same guidelines that will be challenged in the high court on March 26. 

Walgreens on Friday told Fox News Digital that it ‘expects to begin dispensing within a week’ across select pharmacies in New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, California and Illinois. 

CVS told Fox News Digital that it will begin filling prescriptions for the pill in Massachusetts and Rhode Island ‘in the weeks ahead’ and will expand to more states ‘where allowed by law, on a rolling basis.’

Pro-life organization Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America (SBA) called the rollout ‘shameful’ in a statement to Fox News Digital.

‘As two of the world’s largest, most trusted ‘health’ brands, the decision by CVS and Walgreens to sell dangerous abortion drugs is shameful, and the harm to unborn babies and their mothers incalculable,’ SBA state policy director Katie Daniel said

Even when used under the strongest safeguards, abortion drugs send roughly one in 25 women to the emergency room, according to the FDA’s own label,’ Daniel said. ‘Yet under Democrat presidents, the FDA has illegally rolled back basic safety standards, like in-person doctor visits, even allowing these deadly drugs to be sent through the mail.’

In a few weeks, Daniel said, the Supreme Court will hear a case ‘brought by doctors who routinely witness the fallout for women and girls who turn up in ERs with severe pain, heavy bleeding, infections and other serious complications.’

President Biden called the announcement an ‘important milestone’ on Friday.

‘With major retail pharmacy chains newly certified to dispense medication abortion, many women will soon have the option to pick up their prescription at a local, certified pharmacy — just as they would for any other medication. I encourage all pharmacies that want to pursue this option to seek certification,’ Biden said in the statement to the media.

In overturning Roe v. Wade in June 2022, the Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee the right to an abortion and that the matter should be decided by the states. In the aftermath, 14 states have banned abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with some exceptions, and two others have banned abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which is around six weeks of gestation. 

The Biden administration and the maker of the drug mifepristone are asking the high court to reverse an appellate ruling that would cut off access to the drug through the mail and impose other restrictions, even in states where abortion remains legal. The restrictions include shortening from the current 10 weeks to seven weeks the time during which mifepristone can be used in pregnancy. The nine justices rejected a separate appeal from abortion opponents who challenged the FDA’s initial approval of mifepristone as safe and effective in 2000.

Mifepristone, made by New York-based Danco Laboratories, is one of two drugs used in medication abortions, which account for more than half of all abortions in the U.S. More than 5 million people have used it since 2000, according to The Associated Press. The second is misoprostol, which some health care providers say is less effective in ending pregnancies. 

Fox News’ Danielle Wallace contributed to this report. 

I asked a learned lawmaker a few years ago about what they thought would happen to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. Former President Trump was in office and starting to take digs at the Kentucky Republican. McConnell was then the Majority Leader. Trump began lobbing verbal brickbats at McConnell, imploring him to shred the legislative filibuster in the Senate.

The lawmaker knew McConnell well. But doubted that Trump could lay a hand on McConnell.

‘Mitch craves power,’ said the lawmaker. ‘He’ll never leave. They’ll have to take him out of here in a pine box.’

Addison Mitchell McConnell isn’t leaving the Senate. Yet. The prophesy from the political soothsayer may yet come true. McConnell plans to remain in the Senate through at least January, 2027 — the end of his term.

Anyone who aspires to a senior Congressional leadership position certainly craves power to some degree.

But political power is mutable. Protean. It fluctuates. And those who have power today are certainly not guaranteed to wield it tomorrow.

Especially on Capitol Hill.

It’s not known where McConnell stands on the congressional scale measuring the quest for power in Washington. McConnell procured power as the longest-serving Senate leader of either party, besting stalwarts like late Senate Majority Leaders Mike Mansfield, D-Mont., Joseph Robinson, D-Ark., Robert Byrd, D-W.V., and Alben Barkley, D-Ky.

But like the others, McConnell had only power — not superpowers.

And everyone lacks power over maintaining power.

‘I turned 82 last week. The end of my contributions are closer than I’d prefer,’ said McConnell. ‘Father Time remains undefeated.’

It wasn’t so much that time caught up to McConnell. It’s just that so much time passed. That made it more challenging to preserve that power. Factors began multiplying. All working against McConnell.

Time and age began toiling against McConnell. There was his health. A bad fall last year kept McConnell out of the Senate for six weeks. McConnell then suffered several episodes where he froze in public – seemingly unable to speak.

Whispers began around the Senate corridors that McConnell’s time as Republican Leader was nearly up — even though McConnell secretly decided he would step aside from his post at the end of this Congress.

Former President Trump resumed his verbal assaults on McConnell, pushing for a new GOP Leader — especially if the former President returns to the White House.

But the rhetorical cartridge shells from the former president weren’t what drove McConnell out. They were a symptom. The Republican Party shifted over time. As the grains of sand slipped through the hourglass, so did the granules of McConnell’s power. Slowly. Methodically. But, surely.

McConnell said he arrived on Capitol Hill at the beginning of President Ronald Reagan’s second term. Unfamiliar with the new senator from the Bluegrass State, McConnell said the Gipper called him Mitch ‘O’Donnell.’ Now McConnell departs with former President Trump calling him an ‘Old Crow.’

McConnell embraced the avian moniker. Like McConnell, Henry Clay is one of Kentucky’s other great statesmen, formerly a House speaker and senator. And as McConnell likes to tell it, Old Crow was Clay’s favorite bourbon. So McConnell said he was honored that Trump would liken him to Clay.

But a new ‘MAGA’ breed of senator arrived on Capitol Hill in recent years. Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, Rand Paul, R-Ky., Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., Rick Scott, R-Fla., JD Vance, R-Ohio and Eric Schmitt, R-Mo. They’re not aligned with McConnell. In fact, a senior Senate Republican leadership source told Fox that some GOP senators are tired of what’s called the ‘MAGA show’ at the weekly party conference lunches each Tuesday.

And therein lies the problem for McConnell as his power eroded.

Like all things on Capitol Hill, it’s about the math.

There was no better metric in recent years to measure McConnell’s dwindling power than the exercise over the international aid package, which then became the international aid package with a border security plan. And then reverted back to an international aid bill.

McConnell wanted to advance the foreign money program — especially for Ukraine. But McConnell calculated that a robust border security package would sweeten the plan and satisfy members of his conference. That turned out to be a misjudgment. Support for a border plan diluted. And the bill went back to just international security.

McConnell hoped to get a majority of Republican senators to support the final product. That would be 25 out of 49 Republican senators. McConnell scored 22.

That’s not because McConnell stumbled. It’s because the Republican Party moved from where it would have been a few years ago. The political tectonic plates shifted. And the vote on the international aid bill served as a barometer reading of McConnell’s power.

McConnell grasped the political transference. His power may be dissipating. McConnel’s greatest power was his understanding of power. That never left him.

‘Believe me, I know the politics within my party at this particular moment in time,’ said McConnell on the Senate floor. ‘I have many faults, misunderstanding  politics is not one of them.’

Who will succeed McConnell?

It is almost too early to divine where another power center will emerge to dictate who might succeed McConnell as the Senate’s top Republican. That political universe doesn’t even exist yet. Yes, for now, look at the three Johns: Senate Minority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., former Whip John Cornyn, R-Tex., and Senate Republican Conference Chairman John Barrasso, R-Wyo. Even someone like Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., could be in play. A source tells Fox that Cotton is interested in a race.

But we don’t understand much else.

We must first know who wins the presidential election. And if 2024 is anything like 2020, that might take a while. A delay in figuring out the winner could postpone the internal secret leadership election which Senate Republicans will take in mid to late November. But the winner of the presidential election will define who the GOP wants – especially if former President Trump prevails and has something to say about it.

Another factor: which party has control of the Senate — and by how many seats. Keep in mind we didn’t know which party would control the Senate after the 2020 election until January of 2021.

This is why other figures may emerge. Especially dark horses.

As I have written before, leadership elections in Congress are not ‘partisan politics’ They are ‘particle politics.’ Factors which determine who is propelled into leadership are decided at the subatomic political level. Thus, it is hard to see who might prevail. Consider how former House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, won in an upset to become House Majority Leader in 2006. Or how former House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., got his job — despite saying he wasn’t interested. And who could have predicted what was in store for House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., say back in September?

A dark horse could emerge.

Imagine Republicans prevail with a substantial majority in November. In that case, Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., may be a possibility. Daines leads the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), the GOP’s campaign arm. Daines has made many of the right moves so far in pending political contests. If Republicans win the Senate by a good margin, some members (especially the new ones), might give Daines a look.

It will be someone’s time this fall. We just don’t know who.

It has been McConnell’s time for more than 17 years on Capitol Hill.

And now it’s not.

Father Time is undefeated.

And power is elusive. Always deteriorating.

Political leaders are powerful. But powerless over their power.

The House Oversight Committee released the transcript of President Biden’s brother James Biden’s testimony on Friday, as the panel enters its ‘next phase’ of the impeachment inquiry. 

Fox News Digital obtained the transcript on Friday. James Biden testified before the committee last week that his brother, the president, was never involved in his family’s business dealings. 

But committee investigators said there are inconsistencies in James Biden’s testimony, when compared to the testimonies of Hunter Biden, Tony Bobulinski, and other ex-Biden family business associates.

‘James Biden’s testimony conflicts with Hunter Biden and Tony Bobulinski’s sworn testimony,’ a House Oversight Committee aide told Fox News Digital. ‘Both Hunter Biden and Tony Bobulinski testified that Joe Biden met with Tony Bobulinski, Hunter Biden, and James Biden at a hotel in California.’ 

The aide added: ‘James Biden said this never happened.’

In his deposition, James Biden was asked about the apparent May 2017 meeting on the sidelines of the Milken Conference in Los Angeles, California at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. 

‘Do you recall a meeting in Los Angeles at the Beverly Hotel with you, Hunter Biden, and Tony Bobulinski?’ he was asked.

‘I remember that my brother had a speaking engagement at the hotel. I don’t know what it was. And that we were in Los Angeles, and I met — I was outside of the hotel. I never went into the hotel with my brother,’ James Biden testified. ‘And it’s my recollection that — that my brother never came out and had any discussions. May have came out to say hi. That’s all.’ 

‘Said hi to who?’ an investigator asked. 

‘Me,’ he replied. 

When pressed if he recalled having a meeting with Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, and Bobulinski at the hotel, James Biden testified: ‘Absolutely not.’ 

‘It’s your testimony here today that meeting never took place?’ he was asked. 

‘Yes, sir,’ he replied, with his lawyer interjecting and adding ‘that he was present for.’ 

‘That I was present for,’ he said. 

Biden was further pressed on whether he met with his nephew and Bobulinski at the hotel bar. 

‘That I know did not happen,’ he said. 

‘Who were you at the bar with?’ he was asked. 

‘I could have been there just with Tony Bobulinski. I could have been there with Hunter as well,’ he said. ‘But my brother was never there.’ 

The questions about his testimony comes after Hunter Biden testified Wednesday that a meeting did, in fact, take place with his father and Bobulinski. 

‘He met him in the lobby of the hotel of the — I believe it was the — the… Beverly Hilton,’ Hunter Biden testified. ‘My dad’s flight arrived I think at 11 a.m…Excuse me, 11 p.m. We were in the lobby bar with Mr. Bobulinski having coffee.’ 

Hunter Biden said it was ‘My uncle and myself.’ 

‘I think my uncle was also staying at that hotel. And so yeah. I know that, if you go further, it says — but I think that the reality is that he didn’t — anyway, my dad went and shook hands with Tony,’ Hunter Biden testified. ‘They talked about — I believe at that time, I don’t know whether it was Tony’s father was suffering from cancer, and his sister was suffering from cancer, and he invited him to the speech at the Milken Conference.’ 

Bobulinski also testified that the meeting took place at the hotel bar with Hunter Biden and James Biden, before Joe Biden eventually arrived. 

Bobulinski testified that Hunter Biden went to greet his father, then returned back into the bar area. 

‘So then they came into the bar. I stood up. Obviously, you know, we shook some hands. And I think Hunter made a comment of something like, you know, ‘Dad, this is Tony who I’ve told you about,’ and the stuff we’re working on with the Chinese. I don’t — it was years ago. I don’t remember the exact term, but he sort of set the stage for the meeting,’ Bobulinski testified, adding that they shook hands and sat down. ‘And I think the meeting was, you know, 45 minutes to an hour. I remember going through my background in detail.’ 

Bobulinski said that ‘Jim and Hunter didn’t do a lot of talking, as you can imagine.’ 

‘And then we sort of called it a — called it a night. It was late. It was, you know, 11:30 or something like that. And we called it a night because in that meeting and previously they had already asked me to, you know, come the next morning to be a guest of Joe Biden’s at his Moonshot speech where he was addressing the entire Milken Conference,’ Bobulinski testified. 

Meanwhile, comparing testimonies of James Biden and others who have answered questions as part of the impeachment inquiry, there appears to be a contradiction related to whether Joe Biden met with the chairman of Chinese energy firm CEFC. 

Rob Walker, a former business associate of the Biden family, testified that Joe Biden met with Chairman Ye Jianming of CEFC at the Four Seasons in Washington D.C. in 2017. 

Walker, during his closed-door transcribed interview, told congressional investigators that Joe Biden attended a meeting where he, Hunter Biden, their other business partners and CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming were having lunch.

‘I don’t remember the exact time, but I remember being in Washington, D.C., and the former vice president stopped by. We were having lunch,’ Walker testified, according to a transcript of his interview reviewed by Fox News Digital.

‘The former vice president was not there the entire time. He was there maybe 10 minutes,’ Walker said. ‘He spoke nice, you know, normal pleasantries. I think he probably did most of the talking and then left.’ 

Walker testified that Biden addressed the entire group—which consisted of approximately 10 CEFC-linked individuals— during his visit.

During Hunter Biden’s testimony on Wednesday, he was asked about the meeting, and said he did not recall, but said: ‘I do not contest or would question if Rob has a memory. I do not have a memory of the date of that.’ 

James Biden, during his testimony, said he had ‘no knowledge’ of a meeting happening between Joe Biden and Ye. 

‘Absolutely 100 percent. That’s my knowledge. I have no knowledge of that ever happening,’ he testified. 

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., on Wednesday, after hearing testimony from Hunter Biden, James Biden, and their ex-business associates, said the impeachment inquiry against President Biden would move into its ‘next phase,’ and hopes to hold public hearings. 

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates. 

Democrats are rubbing salt in the wound when it comes to their massive fundraising advantage over Republicans as the GOP attempts to use its money troubles to fire up would-be donors.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) has started running digital ads admitting that it ‘can’t afford’ to go toe-to-toe with the Democratic National Committee (DNC) as both parties move deeper into a crucial election year.

‘Here’s the honest truth: things aren’t looking too good for Republicans. The Democrats are outraising us. They will be able to buy ads in markets we can’t afford, and they will OUTSPEND US. We are gearing up for the election of our lifetime,’ the ad running on X says.

The ad has drawn the attention of the DNC, which told Fox News Digital on Friday it was evidence of how ‘desperate’ the RNC is.

‘In response to RNC’s dire financial situation, the RNC released the following statement on behalf of the DNC:Here’s the honest truth: things aren’t looking too good for Republicans. The Democrats are outraising us. They will be able to buy ads in markets we can’t afford, and they will OUTSPEND US.’ We agree,’ a DNC spokesperson quipped, using the RNC’s own words.

President Biden’s re-election campaign also reacted to the ad, telling Fox News Digital the RNC was spot on.

‘The RNC is right, things aren’t looking good for Republicans and Donald Trump heading into the general election. The Biden campaign and Democrats are raising the resources needed to reach the voters who will decide this election. We aren’t sure what they are doing over at the RNC, but it sure isn’t working,’ campaign spokesperson James Singer said.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the RNC for comment.

Last month, Fox News Digital was the first to report on Democrats’ vast fundraising advantage over their Republican counterparts, who began the election year facing a shortage of cash and party disarray in crucial swing states.

According to year-end reports filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), the Democratic National Committee (DNC) began the year with nearly three times the cash on hand reported by the Republican National Committee (RNC), and brought in nearly three times as much fundraising in the final month of 2023.

The RNC reported its worst fundraising year since 2013, raising just $87.2 million in 2023, and starting 2024 with just over $8 million in cash on hand. If adjusted for inflation, the RNC’s fundraising was last this low in 1993 — before the 2002 McCain Feingold Act restricted political committee fundraising from corporations and capped donations from individuals.

The DNC reported $120 million raised in 2023, and a record $21 million in cash on hand, marking a massive $13 million gap between the two committees. It also reported raising $14.7 million in December to the RNC’s $5.3 million.

Although the RNC brought in more direct contributions than the DNC throughout the year, the latter enjoys a joint fundraising agreement with incumbent President Biden’s re-election campaign, as well as its other joint fundraising committees. The DNC overall outraised the RNC — which does not have a joint fundraising agreement with a sitting president — for much of the period. National committees of either party often see a decline in fundraising during election cycles against an incumbent president of the opposite party.

RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel is expected to formally resign her position after the March 5 Super Tuesday primaries, weeks after former President Trump asked her to step down.

Trump endorsed his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, to be co-chair alongside North Carolina GOP chair Michael Whatley as chairman.