The House Freedom Caucus is demanding the House of Representatives vote on the White House’s impending $9.4 billion federal spending cut proposal the same week it lands on Capitol Hill.

The conservative group, led by Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md., is drawing its line in the sand on Monday with an official position on the coming package, which is expected to call for clawing back government funding for NPR, PBS and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

‘When the White House submits its first rescissions package to enact [Department of Government Efficiency] spending cuts to Congress, the House of Representatives should immediately move this to the floor for swift passage,’ the Freedom Caucus position said.

‘The House Freedom Caucus strongly supports these critical rescissions, and we will support as many more rescissions packages as the White House can send us in the coming weeks and months. These first DOGE cuts target taxpayer-funded public broadcasters notorious for their liberal bias like NPR and PBS, as well as billions in wasteful foreign aid dollars.’

It comes as Elon Musk’s time leading President Donald Trump’s DOGE effort comes to an end, with the tech billionaire shifting his focus back to Tesla and his other private ventures after his billions of dollars in proposed spending cuts drove a partisan wedge through Congress. 

‘Passing this rescissions package will be an important demonstration of Congress’ willingness to deliver on DOGE and the Trump agenda,’ the statement continued.

‘While the Swamp will inevitably attempt to slow and kill these cuts, there is no excuse for a Republican House not to advance the first DOGE rescissions package the same week it is presented to Congress then quickly send it for passage in the Republican Senate, so President Trump can sign it into law.’

The White House is expected to send its $9.4 billion spending cuts package to Congress on Tuesday.

The proposal is called a ‘rescissions package,’ a vehicle for the president to block funds that were already allocated by Congress in its yearly appropriations process. Once transmitted to Capitol Hill, lawmakers have 45 days to take it up before it’s voided.

And GOP officials have made clear that it’s the first of several such proposals that could come from the White House.

National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told Fox News Channel last week that there will ‘100%’ be further rescissions packages coming from the White House.

Bringing the first package to a House-wide vote within a week would require quick political maneuvering.

Under House GOP conference rules, lawmakers must get 72 hours to read a bill before the chamber weighs in – a provision that conservatives also fought for – putting a possible vote on Friday at the earliest and possible into the weekend.

But the House Freedom Caucus is not the only GOP group pushing for a swift vote. Republican Study Committee Chairman August Pfluger, R-Texas, said on Friday, ‘This brings fairness and accountability back to taxpayers who are sick of funding government waste while making progress towards our crushing $36 trillion national debt. Congress must promptly cement these cuts in law through rescissions and the FY26 appropriations bills.’

It comes just over a week after House Republicans pushed through Trump’s multitrillion-dollar tax and immigration bill via the budget reconciliation process.

That bill is now being considered by the Senate, and will have to go back to the House if the upper chamber makes any changes.

Republican leaders are hoping to have that bill on Trump’s desk by Fourth of July.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., noted both deadlines in an appearance on NBC News’ ‘Meet The Press’ on Sunday.

‘We’re going to have a second budget reconciliation bill that follows after this, and we’re beginning next week the appropriations process, which is the spending bills for government. And you’re going to see a lot of the DOGE cuts and a lot of this new fiscal restraint reflected in what Congress does next. So stay tuned, this is not the end-all, be-all,’ he said of the reconciliation bill.

Johnson said on X Friday that ‘Congress is working with the White House to codify DOGE savings to stop government misuse and misspending of our tax dollars.’

Two foreign nationals have been charged for their role in a scheme to smuggle U.S. military equipment and technology — including missiles — into China, according to the U.S. Justice Department. 

The charges come as President Donald Trump and his administration have launched multiple efforts to beef up the vetting process for foreigners seeking visas in the U.S., particularly those from China. 

Cui Guanghai, 43, of China, and John Miller, 63, of the United Kingdom, were charged with interstate stalking and conspiracy to commit interstate stalking, conspiracy, smuggling and violating the Arms Export Control Act, the Justice Department announced Friday. 

Prosecutors believe that Cui was working on behalf of the Chinese government, according to court documents. 

Court documents allegethat Cui, who is based in China, and Miller, who is a permanent resident in the U.S., sought to procure military equipment including missiles, an air defense radar, drones and cryptographic devices starting in November 2023. The two allegedlycoordinated with two other individuals, who, unbeknownst to Cui and Miller, were working on behalf of the FBI, on ways to export the cryptographic device to China.

Cui and Miller allegedly discussed how to hide the cryptographic device in a blender, other small electronics or a motor starter — or ship the device to Hong Kong first — to avoid detection. They paid $10,000 as part of a deposit for the cryptographic device, court documents say. 

Additionally, Cui and Miller allegedlyrecruited two people to help them conduct a scheme that sought to silence an unnamed U.S. citizen from speaking out against Chinese President Xi Jinping’s appearance at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November 2023, court documents say. 

Specifically, both Cui and Miller allegedly orchestrated a plot to surveil the U.S. citizen, install a tracking device on his or her car, slash the car’s tires, and purchase and destroy a pair of statues the U.S. citizen created of Xi and Xi’s wife. 

However, the individuals that Cui and Miller allegedly recruited were actually working in coordination with the FBI,according to court documents.

‘The defendants targeted a U.S. resident for exercising his constitutional right to free speech and conspired to traffic sensitive American military technology to the Chinese regime,’ Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement Friday. ‘This is a blatant assault on both our national security and our democratic values. This Justice Department will not tolerate foreign repression on U.S. soil, nor will we allow hostile nations to infiltrate or exploit our defense systems.’

Cui and Miller were arrested by Serbian law enforcement officials in April at the request of the U.S. government and are currently detained in Serbia. The Justice Department said it is working with the Serbian government regarding their pending extraditions. 

If convicted, Cui and Miller face up to five years in a U.S. prison for conspiracy, up to five years for interstate stalking, up to 10 years for smuggling, and up to 20 years for violating the Arms Export Control Act. 

The Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the U.S. did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. 

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the U.K.’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office told Fox News Digital that it is providing consular assistance to Miller following his arrest and ‘are in touch with the local authorities and his family.’ 

Separately, the State Department has unveiled a series of initiatives aimed at bolstering the screening process for various visa applicants seeking to come to the U.S. For example, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced in May that the agency was planning to ‘revise visa criteria to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications’ for those originating from China and Hong Kong. 

Ohio GOP Sen. Bernie Moreno has sent a letter to the Federal Bureau of Investigation calling for the bureau to get to the bottom of questions surrounding possible terror ties of the man accused of committing a terrorist attack against a pro-Israel group in Colorado. 

‘Jewish Americans are under attack,’ Moreno wrote to FBI Director Kash Patel in a letter obtained by Fox News Digital. ‘We are now seeing the horrifying reality of that phrase played out on American streets. If Jews aren’t being murdered in cold blood in our nation’s capital, they are quite literally being burned alive by an illegal alien.’

Moreno’s letter comes in the wake of an attack on a pro-Israel group in Boulder, Colorado.

Mohamed Sabry Soliman, a 45-year-old Egyptian national in the country illegally, was arrested at the scene after he allegedly set his victims on fire as they peacefully rallied on behalf of Israeli hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza. Soliman was heard yelling ‘Free Palestine’ and other anti-Israel slogans during the attack on victims ranging in age from 52 to 88.

Moreno thanked the FBI, which quickly labeled the violence as a ‘targeted terror attack,’ for its ‘swift action.’

‘As a member of the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs and the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, it is my responsibility to investigate and tell the American people the truth about how this illegal alien entered the country under the Biden-Harris Administration and was permitted to not only stay in the country but also commit acts of terror on Jewish Americans,’ Moreno wrote. 

Moreno’s letter asks the FBI to respond with answers to questions within 60 days about the potential terror ties of the suspect, including who was harboring him in the United States, who paid for his travel overseas, and what, if any, links does the suspect have to ISIS or Hamas. 

Moreno also asked about the vetting process for the suspect when he entered the country during the Biden administration, including how he was allowed to obtain a work authorization and what the basis was for any asylum claim that might have been filed. 

Fox News Digital reached out to the FBI for comment. 

‘The FBI is investigating the attack as a targeted act of terrorism and is working with the Boulder Police Department to process the crime scene, interview witnesses and gather evidence,’ the FBI said in a statement on Sunday.

‘Our strength as a society comes from our shared values, and our commitment to protecting one another. Any attempt to divide us through fear or harm has no place in Boulder – Colorado or anywhere in our nation,’ said FBI Denver Special Agent in Charge Mark Michalek. 

Federal court filings, according to Fox News national correspondent Bill Melugin in a post on X, show that Soliman, who has been charged with a federal hate crime, ‘admitted in an interview that he wants to kill all ‘Zionist’ people and had been planning the attack for a year, and that he would conduct the attack again if he could.’

‘This man was admitted into the country via a tourist visa during the Biden administration. He overstayed, filed an asylum request, and was granted work authorization by the Biden admin, which expired at the end of March of this year.’

The Trump administration on Monday asked the Supreme Court to immediately intervene and allow them to proceed with plans to slash the size of the federal workforce, arguing in an emergency appeal that the district court’s decision had inflicted ‘ongoing and severe harm’ on the executive branch.

In its emergency appeal to the high court, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that the lower court ruling is ‘flawed,’ and hinges on an ‘indefensible premise,’ which is that the executive brach needs Congressional authorization to make personnel decisions, such as the Reductions in Force, or RIFs.

The district court order in question had barred the Trump administration from carrying out its large-scale, planned reductions in force across 21 federal agencies, and prevented the Trump administration from taking other, related actions – such as placing federal employees at those agencies on leave, or proceeding with job cuts that had already been in motion under previous RIFs. 

Sauer argued to the Supreme Court Monday that the lower court ruling ‘interferes with the executive branch’s internal operations and unquestioned legal authority to plan and carry out RIFs, and does so on a government-wide scale.’

‘More concretely, the injunction has brought to a halt numerous in-progress RIFs at more than a dozen federal agencies, sowing confusion about what RIF-related steps agencies may take and compelling the government to retain – at taxpayer expense – thousands of employees whose continuance in federal service the agencies deem not to be in the government and public interest,’ Sauer said. 

The request to the high court comes just days after a split panel for the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco refused on Friday to freeze the lower court order that blocked Trump from fully enforcing its RIFs. 

In their decision, judges for the 9th Circuit wrote that the administration’s moves were ‘unprecedented,’ and noted: ‘The executive order at issue here far exceeds the president’s supervisory powers under the Constitution.’

The emergency appeal marks the 18th such appeal that lawyers for the Trump administration have submitted to the Supreme Court since Trump was sworn in to his second White House term.

It comes as the administration and federal judges have sparred in court over a number of executive orders and actions from the president, teeing up a high-stakes clash over the powers of the judiciary and the executive branch. 

The news comes after Elon Musk departed his official post heading up the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which had been behind many of the widespread RIFs across federal agencies. 

His last official day was Friday, as Fox News reported. 

To date, however, there are no signs that the department will be winding down in his absence, and Musk himself said Friday that his departure does not mark the end of DOGE ‘but rather, the beginning.’ 

Fox News’ Diana Stancy contributed to this report.

On June 2, Pennsylvania’s Democratic Senator John Fetterman and his GOP counterpart Dave McCormick took part in a Fox News town hall event in a replica of the U.S. Senate chamber; you could tell it wasn’t the real Senate because the conversation was shockingly respectful, substantive and promising. 

With a light touch, moderator Shannon Bream’s questions raised an array of issues on which not only do Fetterman and McCormick more or less agree, but their shared positions are at the commonsense core of today’s American voter. 

On the question of recent antisemitic attacks, including a Molotov cocktail attack on a Jewish group in Boulder on Sunday, both senators not only condemned such violence but acknowledged its roots in the dangerous anti-Israel rhetoric on college campuses. 

As Fetterman put it regarding these attacks, ‘You know, the kinds of, the rank antisemitism, it’s out of control, and for me and as my friend just pointed out, this is just rampant across all the universities…’ 

Both senators made plain their solid support for Israel, something Fetterman was not shy about pointing to as a cause of the recent attacks leveled against his competence.  

Both senators agreed on forcefully stopping Iran’s nuclear program, securing the border and sanctioning Russia to firm up President Donald Trump’s hand in negotiating against Russian President Vladimir Putin. They also both gave a thumbs up to the sale of US Steel, celebrated by Trump in the Keystone State last week. 

Long story short, there was a lot of agreement on display, and while it might not be as sexy as two combatants screaming at each other, it might still be what the American people actually want. 

McCormick made the very key point that ‘there is a lot of overlap’ between the people who voted for him and Fetterman. Both men have strong ties to the steel industry, and both spoke about the need to lift up long-forgotten industrial towns. 

It is not an accident that Pennsylvania has been a swing state for as long as that term has existed, with two world-famous cities, major industry, major farming and everything in between. It is a cross-section of America. Centrisism comes naturally in the commonwealth. 

The two current senators harken back to Pennsylvania figures like Gov. Bob Casey Sr. one of the last loudly pro-life Democrats and Sen. Arlen Specter, who often tortured fellow Republicans before eventually leaving the party. 

For now, it has only been Fetterman angering members of his own party by aligning with some positions seen as pro-Trump, McCormick has not had occasion to disagree with Trump policies, but then again, it’s not McCormick’s party in the political wilderness. 

Fetterman has been a unique voice in the Democratic caucus urging calm, suggesting that freaking out like a teenage girl at a 1950s Elvis concert every time Trump opens his mouth isn’t working. 

Meanwhile, Democrats have been trying to spread outrage around the media every time Trump opens his mouth about anything. 

Sadly, some of this leftist outrage has been directed at Fetterman himself in supposed bombshell reports from anonymous sources about his unfitness for office. On this, the less said, the better. Fetterman’s appearance itself made it self-evident the claims are malicious smears that should never be spoken of again. 

It may be lonely in the center left for Fetterman right now, but I suspect it won’t be for long. Recent polling puts the favorability of the Democratic Party at a record-low 19%. If it gets much lower, we will have to add an asterisk and ‘if necessary,’ to references to the 2028 primary. 

The far-left approach, with its oligarchy tours on private jets and old 60s folk songs sung by folks in their 70s, and the constant cursing, none of it is working, it’s all making things worse for the Democrats. 

Progressives understand this. That is why they blame sexism for former Vice President Kamala Harris’ defeat last year, instead of her horrible candidacy and their failed policies, it is exactly why they are terrified not of Trump, but of more moderate Democrats who could kick them out of power in the party. 

For the progressives, continuing the lie that men can become women is more important than winning elections; continuing the lie that Israel is committing genocide is more important than winning elections. 

On issues such as these, the far left will never compromise, because to compromise is already to lose. 

Both parties saw a potential future in the town hall on Monday, two Pennsylvania politicians who both listen to and understand the concerns of working Americans trying to give their kids a better life, and in this political environment, that goes a long, long way. 

Sen. John Fetterman is comfortable taking a sharp stance against his own party, a point that he reiterated during a forum moderated by Fox News’ Shannon Bream alongside his Republican counterpart, Sen. Dave McCormick.

The Democratic maverick has made a name for himself as willing to buck his party’s marching orders, oftentimes siding with Republicans on thorny policy issues since coming to the Senate two years ago. Indeed, the lawmaker agreed on many issues with his fellow Pennsylvanian McCormick during the roughly half-hour forum. 

Fetterman addressed the repercussions that tend to come from his brand of bipartisanship when discussing his agreement with President Donald Trump’s handling of nuclear talks with Iran or the president’s push for a rare earth minerals agreement with Ukraine.

‘That’s part of the bipartisanship where, you know, it’s getting more and more kind of, punitive to just agree with some of these things in the middle of the party right now,’ he said.

He also called out his own party for his colleagues’ stances on Israel and immigration, and worked in a subtle jab at Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s handling of the government funding fight earlier this year.

Fetterman condemned the recent attack in Boulder, Colorado, and noted that parts of his party had ‘lost the argument’ when it came to bucking antisemitism and standing behind Israel.

‘For me, that moral clarity, it’s really firmly on Israel,’ he said. ‘I refuse to allow to try to turn Israel into a pariah state, and that’s right in the middle of that.’

Fetterman also dug in on his support of immigration policies pushed by the GOP.

He said that while he largely did not support Republicans’ efforts to ram Trump’s agenda through Congress, there was common ground to be had with his colleagues across the aisle when it came to putting a dent in the nation’s debt, and injecting more funding into the White House’s priorities at the southern border.

In fact, the only thing he said he supported among the sea of policy changes and spending would be the over $150 billion in the colossal package that would go toward building Trump’s border wall, bolstering Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the building of new immigration detention centers and facilities, among others.

‘That’s a mistake that our party made, and that’s the border,’ he said. ‘I absolutely support those kinds of investments to make our border secure as well.’

He contended that Democrats did not handle the border properly when they controlled the White House, and noted the hundreds of thousands of migrants that were able to make their way into the U.S. under the Biden administration’s porous border policies.

‘We can all agree that’s wrong,’ he said. ‘Being very pro-immigration as [a] Democrat, it’s like you’re trying to think two things must be true, and sometimes that’s put me at the odds of my party and my base to assume that I changed my values, and that’s never changed. That’s never changed.’

He also levied subtle criticism of how Schumer, D-N.Y., handled the government funding showdown earlier this year, which saw the Democratic leader ultimately back down at the last minute from his desire to shutter the government over the GOP’s funding plan.

‘I refuse to ever shut our government down,’ Fetterman said. ‘And when we have that opportunity in September to do that, I will still be there, and … I’ll take the beating, because that’s, I think, what defines leadership.’

But Fetterman’s rogue-like tendencies have led to intensified scrutiny in recent weeks for alleged erratic behavior, skipping out on votes and droves of staff leaving his office, criticism that Fetterman has rebuked.

The Philadelphia Inquirer’s editorial board argued in an opinion piece published on Sunday that if the lawmaker couldn’t handle the scrutiny, he should ‘step aside.’ In response, Fetterman couched the criticism as part of a campaign against him for his position on Israel, the border and his dances with bipartisanship.

‘It’s just part of a smear, and it’s just not accurate,’ he said.