Secretary of State Marco Rubio clashed with Rep. Brad Sherman during a House hearing on Wednesday, telling the California Democrat that ‘this is not a game show’ when Sherman demanded that he only answer questions with a ‘yes’ or a ‘no.’

Rubio testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee in Washington, D.C., fielding questions on foreign aid, nuclear proliferation in Saudi Arabia and Iran, the war in Ukraine and more. Sparks began to fly early on when Sherman questioned Rubio on a potential nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia.

‘First, I will tell you that there has been no conversation about entering into one. For example, during the recent trip,’ Rubio began before Sherman cut him off.

‘I’ve got limited time,’ the congressman interjected. ‘Either give me a yes or a no.’

‘Well, I’m going to give you my answer if you want my answer,’ Rubio replied.

But Sherman cut Rubio off, stating that he was reclaiming his time.

‘Well, reclaim your time. But it’s not a game show,’ Rubio said. ‘I get to answer. These are complex questions.’

‘Mr. Secretary, I’m reclaiming my time,’ Sherman said. ‘The filibustering takes place in the Senate. Not here.’

‘I’m not filibustering. I’m trying to answer your question,’ Rubio replied.

Sherman then moved on to his next question, asking whether Rubio could assure Congress that the Trump administration would continue sanctions on Iran until they verifiably agree to abandon all nuclear enrichment.

‘That’s a yes or no question,’ Sherman told Rubio.

Rubio replied: ‘No, it’s not.’

‘Well, can you give me a yes or no? Should I go on to go on to the next?’ Sherman asked.

‘We believe that Iran should not be allowed to enrich uranium, correct,’ Rubio answered. 

‘You believe that?’ Sherman asked.

‘We believe that an acceptable deal with Iran is one in which they cannot enrich, because if they can enrich, they can weaponize,’ Rubio said.

‘I know why we don’t want – I asked you will we agree, will we continue the sanctions until they verifiably agree to get rid of enrichments.’

‘Oh, you have nothing to worry about,’ Rubio said. ‘The worry was the previous administration. This administration–’ 

‘Your refusal to give me an answer is loud and clear,’ Sherman interjected before shouting over Rubio that he was reclaiming his time.

The House hearing brought Rubio to testify on the State Department’s posture on protecting American interests. Throughout the hearing, Rubio asserted that any actions taken by the government must have measurable outcomes for the American people, specifically making the country safer, stronger or more prosperous.

President Donald Trump appeared to distance the U.S. from the conflict between Russia and Ukraine — just two days after speaking over the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

Trump, who called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Monday after speaking to Putin, told reporters Wednesday that the conflict didn’t involve the U.S., despite the fact that the U.S. has adopted the role of mediator between the two countries since Trump came into the White House in January. 

‘It’s not our people, it’s not our soldiers … it’s Ukraine and it’s Russia,’ Trump said in the Oval Office Wednesday while hosting South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. 

Trump also mentioned speaking with Zelenskyy while the Ukrainian president was traveling to South Africa. Zelenskyy visited Ramaphosa in April, but cut his trip short amid attacks from Russia against Kyiv. 

‘I called Zelensky and they said, he’s in South Africa. I said, what the hell is he doing in South Africa?’ Trump said. 

Ramaphosa responded that Zelenskyy was talking with South Africa speaking with him about securing peace. 

‘He’s trying to make peace,’ he said. 

Trump also said Wednesday he believed he ‘made a lot of progress’ with Putin in his Monday call, during which both countries ultimately agreed to a ceasefire and to advance peace talks. However, Trump also indicated that both Moscow and Kyiv would need to take the lead on future talks. 

‘The conditions for that will be negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be, because they know the details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of,’ Trump said in a Monday post on Truth Social. 

Trump and other members of his administration have signaled in recent weeks that the U.S. is willing to step aside from peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv. For example, Vice President JD Vance said Monday that the discussions between the two had reached a bit of an ‘impasse’ and that the U.S. was ‘more than willing’ to step aside from the talks. 

‘There is fundamental mistrust between Russia and the West. It’s one of the things the president thinks is, frankly, stupid,’ Vance told reporters Monday. ‘That we should be able to move beyond. The mistakes that have been made in the past, but … That takes two to tango.’ 

‘I know the president’s willing to do that, but if Russia’s not willing to that then we’re eventually just going to have to say… This is not our war,’ Vance said. ‘It’s Joe Biden’s war, it’s Vladimir Putin’s war. It’s not our war. We’re going to try to end it, but if we can’t end it we’re eventually going to say, you know what? That was worth a try, but we’re not doing it anymore.’

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.

The conservative House Freedom Caucus is demanding House GOP leaders delay plans to vote on President Donald Trump’s ‘one big, beautiful bill’ this week.

The group of GOP rebels is joining House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., for a meeting at the White House later on Wednesday in an apparent bid to hash out differences on the massive piece of legislation, Fox News was told.

‘I don’t think it can be done today. I mean, the runway is short today,’ House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md., told reporters in a press conference on Wednesday.

Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., said the group accepted an ‘offer’ from the White House on Tuesday night. He suggested the offer was not yet included in the broad-based bill that Republicans are hoping to pass via the budget reconciliation process this year.

‘We need to continue to work at that. We as members are at the table. We don’t want the deal to be ended,’ Perry said.

A House Freedom Caucus source told Fox News Digital that the speaker was still ‘digesting’ the agreement, though lawmakers at the press conference declined to say what the deal was, but a White House official pushed back in a statement to Fox News Radio.

‘There was no deal. The White House presented HFC with policy options that the Administration can live with, provided they can get the votes, but they cannot get the votes,’ the official said. ‘There was no deal. The HFC will meet with the president at 3pm to hopefully strike one.’

A House GOP leadership aide also told Fox News Digital that the White House only provided the Freedom Caucus with policy options rather than a deal.

Johnson had told reporters this week that the bill could see a chamber-wide vote as early as Wednesday. However, Harris said, ‘I’m not sure this can be done this week. I’m pretty confident it could be done in 10 days. But that’s up to leadership to decide.’

House conservatives have been pushing for the bill to include more aggressive cuts to Medicaid – specifically the expanded population who became eligible under the Affordable Care Act – and a full repeal of former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and its green energy subsidies.

Allies of Johnson and other House GOP leaders have accused the GOP rebels of ‘moving the goal posts’ from their initial demands of needing at least $1.5 trillion in spending cuts to offset the cost of new spending in the bill. 

However, Harris challenged that notion during the press conference.

‘We’re saying work within the goalposts, rearrange it within the goalposts in accordance with what the president wants – end waste, fraud and abuse in Medicaid, which is wasting dollars that should be spent on the truly vulnerable, and then end as much of the green new scam as possible,’ Harris said.

Earlier this morning, two key critics of the bill told Fox News Digital that negotiations between the House Freedom Caucus and House GOP leaders had regressed.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said talks went ‘massively south’ but declined to go into detail. Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., similarly said in a text message to Fox News Digital, ‘THINGS ARE NOT GOING WELL!!’

There are several outstanding issues with the bill that have not yet been resolved – blue state Republicans pushing for a raise in state and local tax (SALT) deduction caps, and conservatives demanding stricter work requirement rules for Medicaid as well as a full repeal of green energy subsidies in the IRA.

Conservatives have been wary of the New York and California GOP lawmakers’ push, however.

The House Rules Committee, the final gatekeeper before most legislation sees a House-wide vote, has been debating the bill since 1 a.m. Wednesday. The debate is expected to go through the better part of the day.

Critically, Norman and Roy are members of the rules panel – but even if they both voted against it in committee, the numbers are still on Republicans’ side to advance it.

The House of Representatives, where Republicans can lose just three votes to pass anything along party lines, is another story.

Republicans are working to pass Trump’s policies on tax, immigration, energy, defense and the national debt all in one massive bill via the budget reconciliation process.

Budget reconciliation lowers the Senate’s threshold for passage from 60 votes to 51, thereby allowing the party in power to skirt the minority — in this case, Democrats — to pass sweeping pieces of legislation, provided they deal with the federal budget, taxation or the national debt.

House Republicans are hoping to advance Trump’s bill through the House and Senate by the Fourth of July.

Former President Joe Biden and his late son actively chose to conceal details and misled the public regarding Beau Biden’s cancer diagnosis while he served as attorney general of Delaware, a new book claims. 

The book, ‘Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,’ said that the Biden family wanted to keep Beau Biden’s cancer diagnosis a secret and misled the media about his condition. The nonfiction book, authored by journalists Jake Tapper of CNN and Alex Thompson of Axios, was released Tuesday. 

The revelation comes just after former President Biden announced Sunday he had been diagnosed with an ‘aggressive form’ of prostate cancer. The former president’s office later said Tuesday he had never received a prostate cancer diagnosis. 

‘Beau’s cancer treatment also demonstrated the Biden’s capacity for denial and the lengths they would go to to avoid transparency about health issues, even when the person in question is an elected official, in this case the sitting attorney general of Delaware,’ the book alleges. 

The book details how Beau collapsed in the summer of 2013 during a family vacation and that he subsequently faced surgery to remove a brain tumor. By the fall, Beau started to reduce his public appearances and media interviews. 

‘In September, Biden and Beau’s team internally debated how much to disclose about Beau — the vice president’s son and a state’s top law enforcement officer — but ultimately said nothing,’ the book said. ‘In November, Beau told a local reporter he had been given a ‘clean bill of health.’’

Months later, in February 2014, a neurologist revealed that a ‘small lesion’ was removed from Beau’s brain — even though the former president later shared the tumor was larger than a golf ball. 

Beau continued to serve as attorney general of Delaware as he received treatments all over the country. He would enter hospitals using the name George Lincoln, according to the book. 

The book details that Beau’s wife, Hallie, told others she remained confused regarding why Beau’s declining health was kept under wraps, since the public would have likely provided support. However, Joe and Beau remained against sharing details with the public, the book said. 

Hallie did not immediately respond to Fox News Digita’s request for comment. 

Additionally, the book said that the then-vice president ordered his staffers to ‘mislead’ the media regarding his whereabouts as vice president. While his team would say he was departing Washington and going to Delaware on weekends, the vice president would also travel to Houston to be with Beau, who was receiving treatment there. 

‘Publicly acknowledging Beau’s illness would make it a reality,’ the book said. ‘It was them against the world.’ 

A spokesperson for the former president did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. 

Beau died of a glioblastoma brain tumor in May 2015 at the age of 46. 

‘Original Sin’ details the 2024 election cycle and how former President Biden’s team allegedly orchestrated a cover-up to hide just how severely his mental faculties had suffered. 

The book is one of several that detail Biden’s decision to run in 2024 and assert the dramatic decline of his cognitive function.

U.S. health officials knew about the risks of myocarditis from COVID-19 vaccines but downplayed the concern and delayed informing the public about the risks of taking the jab — that is according to a new Senate report released by Sen. Ron Johnson Wednesday.  

Johnson, R-Wis., chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, has been investigating the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines. Earlier this year, he subpoenaed the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for records relating to COVID-19 vaccine safety data and communications about the pandemic. 

The interim report, spanning 55 pages, obtained and reviewed by Fox News Digital, revealed that Biden administration officials ‘withheld crucial health information from the Subcommittee and the public.’ 

Since 2021, Johnson has sent more than 70 oversight letters, which he says were ‘either completely ignored or inadequately addressed.’ 

The report highlights the records Johnson has obtained pursuant to the subpoena from the new, Trump administration-led health agency. Specifically, the report focuses on HHS’ awareness of and response to cases of myocarditis—a type of heart inflammation—following COVID-19 vaccination.

Johnson’s report says the 2,473 pages of records he obtained ‘contain evidence of the Biden administration’s efforts to downplay and delay warning the public about the risks of myocarditis associated with the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.’ 

The report points to records from May 2021, in which health officials at HHS discussed whether to issue a formal warning about myocarditis.

According to the report, the formal warning about myocarditis was initially going to be distributed nationwide as a Health Alert Network message, which, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is CDC’s ‘primary method of sharing cleared information about urgent public health incidents with public information officers; federal, state, territorial, tribal, and local public health practitioners; clinicians; and public health laboratories.’ 

However, Johnson’s report said that health officials at CDC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ‘ultimately decided against issuing a formal HAN and, instead, posted ‘clinical considerations’ on CDC’s website about myocarditis.’ 

‘Based on the subpoenaed records the Subcommittee has received to date, as well as public FOIA documents, this interim report will highlight records and present a timeline showing U.S. health officials knew about the risk of myocarditis; those officials downplayed the health concern; and U.S. health agencies delayed informing the public about the risk of the adverse event.’ 

The report also highlights the Israeli Ministry of Health notifying officials at the CDC in February 2021 of ‘large reports of myocarditis, particularly in young people, following the administration of the Pfizer vaccine.’ 

The report also highlights documents showing CDC officials discussing ‘safety signals’ for myocarditis with mRNA vaccines in April 2021 based on Defense Department and Israeli data, but ‘still not taking immediate steps to warn the public.’ 

Documents obtained by Johnson also show CDC officials communicating with Moderna and Pfizer representatives about the risks. 

Johnson also obtained ‘draft meeting notes from late May 2021 exchanged between U.S. public health officials which included the question: ‘Is VAERS signaling for myopericarditis now?,’ and the answer: ‘For the age groups 16-17 years and 18-24 years, yes.’’ 

‘VAERS’ is an acronym for the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. 

‘Rather than provide the public and health care providers with immediate and transparent information regarding the risk of myocarditis following mRNA COVID-19 vaccination, the Biden administration waited until late June 2021 to announce changes to the labels for the Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines based on the ‘suggested increased risks’ of myocarditis and pericarditis,’ the report states. ‘Even though CDC and FDA officials were well aware of the risk of myocarditis following COVID-19 vaccination, the Biden administration opted to withhold issuing a formal warning to the public for months about the safety concerns, jeopardizing the health of young Americans.’ 

The report added that the Biden administration’s decision ‘to downplay the COVID-19 vaccine health risks and delay warning the public about cardiac-related adverse events associated with the mRNA vaccines jeopardized the public’s health.’ 

According to the report, as of April 25, 2025, VAERS reported 38,607 deaths and more than 1.6 million ‘adverse events worldwide associated with the administration of COVID-19 injections.’ 

Of the more than 38,000 deaths, the report said 25% occurred on Day 0, 1, or 2 following injection, compared to ‘2,663 deaths reported to VAERS associated with the flu vaccine over a period of 35 years.’ 

‘No other reports of adverse events associated with any other drug or vaccine even come close to these statistics,’ the report states. ‘And yet, those who oversaw the development and distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines continue to insist it is safe and effective, without providing the data to prove their claims.’ 

Johnson’s report demands that the ‘full extent’ of the Biden administration’s ‘failure to immediately warn the public about all COVID-19 vaccine adverse events must be completely exposed.’ 

‘The American people fund the federal health departments and agencies with their hardearned tax dollars,’ the report states. ‘The information developed by these departments and agencies belong to the American people, and should be made fully and transparently available.’ 

The report states that as ‘the roadblocks are removed and more documents that have been hidden and withheld for years become available, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations will provide transparency and let the American public see what is their right to see.’