President Donald Trump secured two more Cabinet confirmations on Thursday, including his pick to lead the Department of Agriculture (USDA), Brooke Rollins. 

Rollins was easily confirmed by the Senate shortly after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed as Trump’s Health secretary.

Most recently, Rollins has served as president and CEO of the America First Policy Institute think tank, which she co-founded after Trump’s first term. In Trump’s first administration, she was his director of the Office of American Innovation and acting director of the Domestic Policy Council.

The newly elected president announced his selection of Rollins for USDA chief in November, recalling she did ‘an incredible job’ during his first term. 

‘Brooke’s commitment to support the American Farmer, defense of American Food Self-Sufficiency, and the restoration of Agriculture-dependent American Small Towns is second to none,’ he said. 

‘As our next Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke will spearhead the effort to protect American Farmers, who are truly the backbone of our Country. Congratulations Brooke!’

The USDA nominee had a hearing before the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee last month, before advancing past the key hurdle. 

The committee decision to move her nomination forward was unanimous, giving her bipartisan backing going into her confirmation vote. 

Rollins is now the 16th Cabinet official confirmed to serve in Trump’s new administration. With the help of the Republican-led Senate, Trump has managed to confirm his picks at a pace far ahead of either his first administration or former President Joe Biden’s. 

At the same point in his first term, Trump only had 11 confirmations and Biden had seven. Neither had 16 confirmed until March during their respective administrations. 

The Senate on Thursday confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary in President Donald Trump’s cabinet.

The Republican-controlled Senate voted 52-48 nearly entirely along party lines to confirm Kennedy. The final showdown over his controversial nomination was set in motion hours earlier, after another party line vote on Wednesday afternoon which started the clock ticking toward the confirmation roll call.

Kennedy, the well-known vaccine skeptic and environmental crusader who ran for the White House in 2024 before ending his bid and endorsing Trump, needed a simple majority to be confirmed by the Senate.

Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was the only Republican to vote against Kennedy’s nomination. McConnell, the former longtime GOP Senate leader, suffered from polio as a child and is a major proponent of vaccines.

‘I’m a survivor of childhood polio. In my lifetime, I’ve watched vaccines save millions of lives from devastating diseases across America and around the world. I will not condone the re-litigation of proven cures, and neither will millions of Americans who credit their survival and quality of life to scientific miracles,’ McConnell said after the Kennedy vote.

The president’s political team, in a social media statement after the Senate vote, wrote, ‘Congratulations @RobertKennedyJr !’

Kennedy survived back-to-back combustible Senate confirmation hearings late last month, when Trump’s nominee to lead 18 powerful federal agencies that oversee the nation’s food and health faced plenty of verbal fireworks over past controversial comments, including his repeated claims in recent years linking vaccines to autism, which have been debunked by scientific research.

During the hearings, Democrats also spotlighted Kennedy’s service for years as chair or chief legal counsel for Children’s Health Defense, the nonprofit organization he founded that has advocated against vaccines and sued the federal government numerous times, including a challenge over the authorization of the COVID-19 vaccine for children.

With Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee voting not to advance Kennedy, the spotlight was on Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., a physician and chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP).

Cassidy issued a last minute endorsement before the committee level vote, giving Kennedy a party-line 14-13 victory to advance his confirmation to the full Senate.

Cassidy had emphasized during Kennedy’s confirmation hearings that ‘your past of undermining confidence in vaccines with unfounded or misleading arguments concerns me,’ which left doubt about his support.

However, after speaking again with the nominee, Cassidy rattled off a long list of commitments Kennedy made to him, including quarterly hearings before the HELP Committee; meetings multiple times per month; that HELP Committee can choose representatives on boards or commissions reviewing vaccine safety; and a 30-day notice to the committee, plus a hearing, for any changes in vaccine safety reviews.

‘These commitments, and my expectation that we can have a great working relationship to make America healthy again, is the basis of my support,’ the senator said.

Earlier this week, another Republican senator who had reservations regarding Kennedy’s confirmation announced support for the nominee.

‘After extensive public and private questioning and a thorough examination of his nomination, I will support Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,’ GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine announced on Tuesday.

Another Republican who was on the fence, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, also voted to advance Kennedy’s nomination.

Murkowski noted that she continues ‘to have concerns about Mr. Kennedy’s views on vaccines and his selective interpretation of scientific studies,’ but that the nominee ‘has made numerous commitments to me and my colleagues, promising to work with Congress to ensure public access to information and to base vaccine recommendations on data-driven, evidence-based, and medically sound research.’

Former longtime Senate GOP leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, a major proponent of vaccines, also voted to advance Kennedy’s nomination.

Kennedy, whose outspoken views on Big Pharma and the food industry have also sparked controversy, has said he aims to shift the focus of the agencies he would oversee toward promotion of a healthy lifestyle, including overhauling dietary guidelines, taking aim at ultra-processed foods and getting to the root causes of chronic diseases.

The push is part of his ‘Make America Healthy Again’ campaign.

‘Our country is not going to be destroyed because we get the marginal tax rate wrong. It is going to be destroyed if we get this issue wrong,’ Kennedy said as he pointed to chronic diseases. ‘And I am in a unique position to be able to stop this epidemic.’

The 71-year-old scion of the nation’s most storied political dynasty, launched a long-shot campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination against then-President Joe Biden in April 2023. However, six months later, he switched to an independent run for the White House.

Trump regularly pilloried Kennedy during his independent presidential bid, accusing him of being a ‘Radical Left Liberal’ and a ‘Democrat Plant.’

Kennedy fired back, claiming in a social media post that Trump’s jabs against him were ‘a barely coherent barrage of wild and inaccurate claims.’

However, Kennedy made major headlines again last August when he dropped his presidential bid and endorsed Trump. 

While Kennedy had long identified as a Democrat and repeatedly invoked his late father, former Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, and his late uncle, former President John F. Kennedy – who were both assassinated in the 1960s – Kennedy in recent years built relationships with far-right leaders due in part to his high-profile vaccine skepticism.

After months of criticizing him, Trump called Kennedy ‘a man who has been an incredible champion for so many of these values that we all share.’

Trump announced soon after the November election that he would nominate Kennedy to his Cabinet to run HHS.

Minutes after Thursday’s confirmation, the Democratic National Committee criticized the Senate vote in an email headlined ‘Republicans Confirm Unqualified Conspiracy Theorist RFK Jr. To Lead HHS.’ 

DNC chair Ken Martin charged that ‘RFK Jr. doesn’t care about keeping Americans healthy – in fact, he has a track record of spreading medical misinformation that can cost lives. Trump’s only idea for health care is to steal money going to kids and seniors to give tax cuts to billionaires.’

The final vote on Kennedy’s nomination came one day after another controversial pick, director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, was confirmed by the Senate in a 52-48 vote.

Fox News’ Chad Pergram contributed to this report

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to advance Kash Patel’s nomination for FBI director to the Senate floor after a fiery confirmation hearing last month and fierce opposition from Democrats. 

Committee members voted 12-to-10 Thursday to advance Patel to the full floor vote, which could come before the chamber as early as next week. 

The vote comes after Democrats had successfully delayed Patel’s committee vote by seven days last week, in an effort to force the Trump nominee to testify a second time. 

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa., said attempts by Judiciary ranking member Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and others to force Patel to testify again were ‘baseless’ as he already sat before the committee for more than five hours and disclosed ‘thousands of pages’ of records to the panel, as well as nearly 150 pages of responses to lawmakers’ written questions.

‘Now we all know that Mr. Patel, and other nominees, undergo rigorous vetting’ before their Senate confirmation hearings, Grassley said Thursday before the committee vote. 

The Senate Judiciary Committee ‘has examined every detail of [Patel’s] life,’ Grassley said Thursday, ‘and he has been subjected to relentless attacks on his character during this whole period of time.’

The vote comes after Durbin alleged earlier this week on the Senate floor that Patel had been behind mass firings at the FBI, citing what he described as ‘highly credible’ whistleblower reports indicating Patel had been ‘personally directing the ongoing purge of FBI employees prior to his Senate confirmation for the role.’

An aide to Patel denied Durbin’s claim, telling Fox News Digital the nominee flew home to Las Vegas after his confirmation hearing and has ‘been sitting there waiting for the process to play out.’

Patel, a vociferous opponent to the investigations into President Donald Trump and who was at the forefront of his 2020 election fraud claims, vowed during his confirmation hearing that he would not engage in political retribution.

However, the conservative firebrand was likely chosen for his desire to upend the agency. 

In his 2023 book, ‘Government Gangsters,’ he described the FBI as ‘a tool of surveillance and suppression of American citizens’ and ‘one of the most cunning and powerful arms of the Deep State.’ 

Patel has said intelligence officials are ‘intent’ on undermining the president, but he promised he would not go after agents who worked on the classified documents case against Trump. 

‘There will be no politicization at the FBI,’ Patel said. ‘There will be no retributive action.’

Additionally, in another message meant to assuage senators’ concerns, Patel said he did not find it feasible to require a warrant for intelligence agencies to surveil U.S. citizens suspected to be involved in national security matters, referring to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

‘Having a warrant requirement to go through that information in real time is just not comported with the requirement to protect American citizens,’ Patel said. ‘It’s almost impossible to make that function and serve the national, no-fail mission.’

‘Get a warrant’ had become a rallying cry of right-wing conservatives worried about the privacy of U.S. citizens and almost derailed the reauthorization of the surveillance program entirely. Patel said the program has been misused, but he does not support making investigators go to court and plead their case before being able to wiretap any U.S. citizen. 

Patel also seemed to break with Trump during the hearing on the pardons granted to 1,600 persons who had been prosecuted for their involvement in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, particularly around those who engaged in violence and had their sentences commuted. 

‘I have always rejected any violence against law enforcement,’ Patel said. ‘I do not agree with the commutation of any sentence of any individual that committed violence against law enforcement.’

Patel held a number of national security roles during Trump’s first administration – chief of staff to acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, senior advisor to the acting director of national intelligence, and National Security Council official. 

He worked as a senior aide on counterterrorism for former House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, where he fought to declassify records he alleged would show the FBI’s application for a surveillance warrant for 2016 Trump campaign aide Carter Page was illegitimate, and served as a national security prosecutor in the Justice Department. 

Patel’s public comments suggest he would refocus the FBI on law enforcement and away from involvement in any prosecutorial decisions. 

In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, he suggested his top two priorities were ‘let good cops be cops’ and ‘transparency is essential.’

‘If confirmed, I will focus on streamlining operations at headquarters while bolstering the presence of field agents across the nation. Collaboration with local law enforcement is crucial to fulfilling the FBI’s mission,’ he said. 

Patel went on, saying, ‘Members of Congress have hundreds of unanswered requests to the FBI. If confirmed, I will be a strong advocate for congressional oversight, ensuring that the FBI operates with the openness necessary to rebuild trust by simply replying to lawmakers.’

Obama officials and Trump critics are up in arms after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said a return to the Eastern European country’s pre-war borders with Russia is ‘unrealistic.’ 

Hegseth, speaking to the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Belgium on Wednesday, said ‘returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective.’ He also called for Europe to offer Ukraine security guarantees after the war – not the U.S. 

Trump administration critics accused the secretary of giving up leverage before the start of peace negotiations with Russia. 

‘Putin is gonna pocket this and ask for more,’ Brett Bruen, director of Global Engagement under the Obama White House, told Fox News Digital. 

Hegseth said Wednesday that ‘durable peace’ for Ukraine must ‘ensure that the war will not begin again.’

‘The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement. Instead, any security guarantee must be backed by capable European and non-European troops,’ he said. 

‘If these troops are deployed as peacekeepers to Ukraine at any point, they should be deployed as part of a non-NATO mission and not covered under Article 5. There also must be robust international oversight of the line of contact. To be clear, as part of any security guarantee, there will not be U.S. troops deployed to Ukraine.’

While it is little surprise the Trump administration does not currently support Ukraine’s NATO membership, or believe Ukraine can take back all of its territory including Crimea, critics argue that Hegseth vocalizing these beliefs just as President Donald Trump fired the opening salvo in peace negotiations took them off the table as leverage. 

‘Why would you unilaterally surrender on some of those key strategic issues? Even if Trump ultimately wants to give ground, at least get something in return,’ Bruen said. 

‘Anyone with any diplomatic experience would have said it is critical that we use this as part of our negotiation, as President Trump wants to have with Moscow. But the idea that we’re simply going to announce all of the things that we are not going to do goes against 70 years of our diplomacy and our military strategy.’ 

Michael McFaul, ambassador to Russia under the Obama administration, asked why the Trump administration appeared to be giving Russian President Vladimir Putin wins for free. 

‘Why is the Trump administration giving Putin gifts – Ukrainian land and no NATO membership for Ukraine – before negotiations even begin?’ he asked on X. ‘I’ve negotiated with the Russians. You never give up anything to them for free.’

Alexander Vindman, a Trump impeachment witness and former Europe director at the National Security Council – who continues to be a fierce Trump critic – characterized Hegseth’s comments as ‘complete capitulation to Putin’ that justifies Russia’s wars of aggression going back to Georgia in 2008.

‘This will embolden Putin and undermine the interests of peace in Ukraine and Europe. A major blow to U.S. national security,’ Vindman asserted.

Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., chimed in that Hegseth’s comments show, ‘Trump’s foreign policy has always been Russia First. Never America and its allies first.’ 

The defense secretary also called on Europe to ‘take ownership of conventional security on the continent.’

‘European allies must lead from the front,’ Hegseth said. ‘Together, we can establish a division of labor that maximize our comparative advantages in Europe and Pacific, respectively.’

His comments came just before Trump called both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent traveled to Kyiv. 

On Friday, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet with Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. 

The Putin conversation came one day after the release of American Marc Fogel, who had been detained by the Kremlin, which Trump said he saw as a sign of ‘good faith’ by the Russians. 

Trump, meanwhile, has begun pressuring Ukrainians to turn over access to rare Earth minerals in exchange for security aid. Bessent presented Ukraine with a draft deal exchanging aid for minerals on Wednesday in Kyiv, according to Zelenskyy. 

‘We agreed to work together, very closely, including visiting each other’s Nations,’ Trump posted to Truth Social on Wednesday of his call with Putin. ‘We have also agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately.’ 

He announced that he would asked Rubio, Director of the CIA John Ratcliffe, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to lead negotiations. 

Trump also said his call with Zelenskyy went ‘very well.’ 

‘​​It is time to stop this ridiculous War, where there has been massive, and totally unnecessary, DEATH and DESTRUCTION. God bless the people of Russia and Ukraine!’

A group led by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute (RRPFI) has issued a series of takeaways following its recent visit to Taiwan. The takeaways can be seen as a roadmap of ideas for the Trump administration.

The eight-member delegation consisting of U.S. national security and business leaders concluded their strategic visit to Taiwan last month amid the presidential transition in Washington, D.C., a new administration in Taipei and ongoing Chinese coercion and aggression in East Asia.

The series of meetings was designed to strengthen ties between the United States and Taiwan across Taiwan’s political leaders and business elite. Members of the RRPFI delegation identified several key takeaways from the trip that could compliment the Trump administration’s policies toward strengthening the U.S.-Taiwan partnership.

The delegation said that while a number of President Donald Trump’s selections for top administration roles have expressed previously held views about policy involving Taiwan, there is a general mix of optimism and uncertainty over the direction the administration will take on security and economic matters relating to Taiwan.

Increasing defense spending, particularly with NATO allies, was a centerpiece of Trump’s first term. The delegation stressed national unity on defense and said elected officials from all parties need to live up to the intent to increase defense spending. The delegation emphasized to Taiwanese partners that the American public expects U.S. allies and partners to shoulder the primary burden of their own defense, a notion that will certainly appeal to the Trump administration.

The delegation asserted that Russia’s war in Ukraine and how the West handled it since Russia’s full-scale invasion are on the minds of Taiwanese leaders. The Biden administration used the Presidential Drawdown Authority on at least 55 occasions since August 2021 to provide Ukraine with military assistance from Department of Defense stockpiles, according to the State Department. The RRPFI delegation argue that the Presidential Drawdown Authority along with Foreign Military Sales are valuable tools for enhancing Taiwan’s capabilities and ensuring peace and stability in the region.

At last month’s meeting, David Trulio, president and CEO of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, told Taiwanese leaders that, ‘especially with President Trump’s mandate in returning to office, Taiwan, the PRC, and the world are watching how the United States addresses China’s ongoing aggression in the South China Sea and malign online influence.’

He said that the security situation across the Taiwan Strait demands a continued commitment to peace through strength, including through robust partnership with Taiwan and sustained U.S. deterrence.

‘Taiwan has made, and is making, serious investments in its security,’ Trulio told the audience.

‘That said, given President Trump’s and the American public’s expectation that U.S. allies and partners shoulder the primary burden of their own defense, it is critical that Taiwan’s leaders deliver on their stated intent to increase defense spending and enhance their operational capabilities,’ Trulio added. 

Taiwan currently spends 2.45% of its GDP on defense, and Taiwanese leaders have expressed their intention to continue to increase their defense budget. Defense spending has increased by 80% since 2016, and their defense budget accounted for 15% of its total budget in 2024, according to Taiwan’s government.

The U.S. has been arming Taiwan for seven decades and Taiwan has consistently been one of the largest purchasers of U.S. weapons through the Foreign Military Sales process.

The delegation warned that not receiving weapons diminishes Taiwan’s security and enables the PRC to claim that the United States is an unreliable partner.

China takes these arm sales very seriously. China warned the U.S. that it was making ‘dangerous moves’ by providing Taiwan with an additional $571 million in defense materials, which was authorized by then-President Joe Biden in December just prior to leaving office.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry released a statement at the time urging the U.S. to stop arming Taiwan and to cease what it referred to as ‘dangerous moves that undermine peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.’

The House GOP’s proposal for a massive conservative policy overhaul has already gotten a rocky reception from Republican lawmakers, and with their current majority, Republicans will need to vote in near lock-step to pass anything without Democratic support.

‘I think it’s probably going to have to be modified in some way before it comes to the floor,’ House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md., told Fox News Digital.

Other members of the GOP hardliner group also balked at the bill. Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., called it a ‘pathetic’ attempt at cutting spending.

‘We’ll still be accelerating towards a debt spiral,’ Burlison said.

House and Senate Republicans are working to use their majorities to advance President Donald Trump’s agenda via the budget reconciliation process. By reducing the threshold for passage in the Senate from two-thirds to a simple majority, which the House is already at, it allows the party in power to pass budgetary and fiscal legislation without help from the opposition.

The first step in the process is to advance a framework through the House and Senate budget committees, which then gives directions to other committees on how much funding they get to implement their relevant policy agendas.

The Senate Budget Committee approved its own plan on Wednesday night, while the House counterpart is poised to meet on their proposal Thursday morning.

It is not immediately clear if that bill will pass, however. Four conservatives on the House Budget Committee – Reps. Chip Roy, R-Texas, Ralph Norman, R-S.C., Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., and Josh Brecheen – did not commit to voting for the 45-page proposal backed by GOP leaders that was released on Wednesday morning.

Roy said he was ‘not sure’ if the legislation could advance on Thursday morning when asked by Fox News Digital.

‘We’ll see,’ Norman said when asked if the bill would pass out of committee.

Clyde and Brecheen similarly would not say how they felt about the proposal when leaving the speaker’s office on Wednesday afternoon.

If all four voted against the legislation, it would be enough to block the resolution from advancing to the House floor.

Other conservatives also expressed reservations. Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., told Fox News Digital, ‘I’m not super happy with it.’

‘It just doesn’t do enough to address fiscal cuts,’ Crane said.

The House’s 45-page bill would mandate at least a $1.5 trillion reduction in federal spending over the next 10 years, coupled with $300 billion in new spending for border security and national defense over the same period.

It would also raise the debt ceiling by $4 trillion – something Trump had demanded Republicans deal with before the U.S. runs out of cash to pay its debts, projected to happen by the spring if Congress does not act.

Additionally, while hardline conservatives wanted deeper spending cuts written into the bill, Republicans on the House Ways & Means Committee are uneasy about the $4.5 trillion allocated toward extending Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 – which expires at the end of 2025.

‘Let me just say that a 10-year extension of President Trump’s expiring provisions is over $4.7 trillion according to CBO. Anything less would be saying that President Trump is wrong on tax policy,’ Ways & Means Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., told The Hill earlier this week.

A member of the committee, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., told Fox News Digital, ‘I have some concerns regarding Ways & Means not being provided with the largest amount to cover President Trump’s tax cuts — especially [State and Local Tax deduction (SALT)] relief and a tax reduction for senior citizens, which are both also priorities of mine.’

Rep. Max Miller, R-Ohio, said he had not read the legislative text but that Smith believed the $4.5 trillion figure was ‘about a trillion off from where we need to be in order to make it work.’

The resolution’s first big test comes at 10 a.m. ET on Thursday.

Republicans are aiming to use reconciliation to pass a broad swath of Trump’s priorities, from more funding for law enforcement and detention beds at the U.S.-Mexico border to eliminating taxes on tipped and overtime wages. 

The Senate’s plan would advance border, energy and defense priorities first while leaving taxes for a second bill.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., called that plan a ‘nonstarter’ this week, however. House leaders are concerned that leaving tax cut extensions for a second bill could allow those measures to expire before lawmakers reach an agreement.