The Supreme Court on Thursday limited the authority of judges to block infrastructure projects due to environmental concerns.

The nine justices handed down the lone decision Thursday morning, slightly curbing judicial authority at a time when President Donald Trump’s administration is loudly complaining about alleged judicial overreach. The case, Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, relates to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the requirement for environmental impact statements (EIS) in infrastructure projects supported by the federal government.

‘NEPA does not allow courts, ‘under the guise of judicial review’ of agency compliance with NEPA, to delay or block agency projects based on the environmental effects of other projects separate from the project at hand,’ Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the opinion of the court.

‘Courts should afford substantial deference and should not micromanage those agency choices so long as they fall within a broad zone of reasonableness,’ the opinion continued.

Kavanaugh went on to state that agencies should not be expected to consider the environmental impact of any project aside from the one they are currently working on, ‘even if’ the environmental impacts ‘might extend outside the geographical territory of the project or materialize later in time.’

‘The fact that the project might foreseeably lead to the construction or increased use of a separate project does not mean the agency must consider that separate project’s environmental effects,’ the court ruled.

Thursday’s decision was an 8-0 ruling, with Justice Neil Gorsuch taking no part in the consideration of the case. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett joined with Kavanaugh’s opinion.

Meanwhile, Justice Sonia Sotomayor filed a separate concurring opinion, onto which joined Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Trump, having a history in major construction projects, has repeatedly complained about environmental impact statements and the roadblocks they can cause.

Republicans have also widely criticized what they see as judicial overreach in federal judges unilaterally blocking major aspects of Trump’s agenda.

‘Universal injunctions are an unconstitutional abuse of judicial power,’ Sen. Charles Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told Fox News Digital earlier this month.

‘Just this past week, a D.C. district judge issued a universal injunction blocking the president’s executive order requiring voter ID or proof-of-citizenship prior to voting in national election,’ he continued. ‘Judges are not policymakers.’

The Supreme Court is considering the wide use of universal injunctions in a separate case that will be handed down in the coming weeks.

Elon Musk’s criticism of House Republicans’ ‘big, beautiful bill’ has left some GOP lawmakers frustrated at the tech billionaire.

‘This is why Mr. Musk has no place in Congress,’ one House GOP lawmaker, granted anonymity to speak freely, told Fox News Digital. ‘He wants to codify discretionary cuts. He didn’t find enough waste, fraud, and abuse to fund [the Small Business Administration], let alone reduce our debt.’ 

‘This was a gimmick. He got used. He’s now upset. He played the game, he got what he wanted, then he ended up like everyone else who gets too close.’

House Republicans passed a broad-ranging bill last week advancing President Donald Trump’s agenda on tax, immigration, defense, and energy. Congressional Republicans are hoping to pass it via the budget reconciliation process, a mechanism for passing fiscal legislation while waiving the Senate’s 60-vote threshold and sidelining the minority party.

Musk told ‘CBS Sunday Morning’ the legislation ‘undermines the work’ done by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). 

He called it a ‘massive spending bill’ that ‘increases the budget deficit.’

However, Republican supporters of the bill have contended that the kind of spending cuts Musk is looking for, and the kind DOGE outlined, cannot be done via the reconciliation process. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., himself pledged in a public statement after Musk’s comments that House Republicans would tackle DOGE cuts – albeit in a different vehicle than the ‘big, beautiful bill.’

Reconciliation primarily deals with mandatory government funding that Congress must change by amending the law itself, like federal safety net programs.

The White House is also planning to send a package of proposed spending cuts to Congress next week, including cuts outlined by DOGE, that target discretionary government spending. Discretionary spending refers to the cash flows that Congress controls annually via the budget appropriations process.

Other supporters of the bill, like Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., said its focus was on people outside of Musk’s wealth class.

‘The bill strikes the proper balance between rooting out fraud to achieve savings and not impacting citizens who rely on government programs. The biggest winners for a change are not billionaires like Musk but middle-class families who will see the bulk of savings returned to them in the form of real tax relief,’ Malliotakis told Fox News Digital.

‘That’s who President Trump and House Republicans set out to help.’

A second House Republican who requested anonymity to speak freely told Fox News Digital that Musk did ‘put a lot of work in’ with DOGE but argued he was wrong on the facts.

‘I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time that he didn’t really have a handle on the process,’ the House Republican said. ‘So, you know, we really have to bake the DOGE cuts into the budget rather than through reconciliation.’

Fox News Digital reached out to Musk for comment via Tesla but did not immediately hear back.

The White House pointed Fox News Digital to Trump advisor Stephen Miller’s public statement about fiscal hawks’ concerns about the bill. 

Miller said, ‘DOGE cuts are to discretionary spending. (Eg the federal bureaucracy). Under Senate budget rules, you cannot cut discretionary spending (only mandatory) in a reconciliation bill. So DOGE cuts would have to be done through what is known as a rescissions package or an appropriations bill. The Big Beautiful Bill is NOT an annual budget bill and does not fund the departments of government. It does not finance our agencies or federal programs. Instead, it includes the single largest welfare reform in American history.’

On the other side of the House GOP Conference, fiscal hawks who also had issues with the legislation rallied around Musk’s comments.

‘I share Mr. Musk’s concerns about the short-term adverse effect on the federal deficit of the limited spending reductions in the BBB. Debt markets remain concerned about US total debt and annual deficits,’ said House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md.

The Maryland Republican voted ‘present’ on the reconciliation bill last week.

‘Hopefully the Senate will take those concerns into consideration as the legislative process moves forward,’ Harris said.

Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, the lone House Republican to vote against the bill, posted on X, ‘Hopefully, the Senate will succeed where the House missed the moment. Don’t hope someone else will cut spending someday, know it has been done this Congress.’

‘Despite pleas to step back and look at the sum of the parts passed by 11 different committees, this bill was rushed to the floor when it should have been fixed,’ Davidson said.

Musk announced late on Wednesday that he was stepping away from his federal government role because his ‘scheduled time as a Special Government Employee’ was coming ‘to an end.’

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk bid farewell to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in a Wednesday night X post, ending his tenure as the face of the agency as it shifts to a new phase in President Donald Trump’s second term. 

‘As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,’ Musk said on X. ‘The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.’

Musk has been the public face of DOGE since Trump signed an executive order establishing the office on Jan. 20. DOGE has since ripped through federal government agencies in a quest to identify and end government overspending, corruption and fraud.

After Musk’s departure, a senior White House official told Fox News Digital that DOGE will operate as it has always operated and that the agency is ‘part of the DNA of this federal government.’

The official added that DOGE now operates in ‘nearly every federal government agency department’ with the ‘sole job’ of cutting waste, fraud and abuse with the goal of efficiency.

‘The DOGE employees at their respective agency or department will be reporting to and executing the agenda of the president through the leadership of each agency or department head,’ the official said. 

In a post on X, White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller said, ‘The work DOGE has done to eliminate government waste and corruption — the rot embedded deep within Washington — is among the most valuable services ever rendered to government. And the work has only just begun.’

While Musk has been the public face of DOGE for months, he was not an employee of the United States DOGE Service and did not report to the acting DOGE administrator, Amy Gleason, according to a court filing in March that shed additional light on the internal workings of the office.

Gleason, who has been described by her peers as a ‘world-class talent,’ previously worked for the United States Digital Service, which was founded in 2014 by former President Barack Obama as a technology office within the Executive Office of the President.

DOGE is a temporary cross-departmental organization that was established to slim down and streamline the federal government. The group itself will be dissolved on July 4, 2026, according to Trump’s executive order.

Musk’s tenure with DOGE resulted in an estimated $175 billion in savings through a combination of asset sales, contract cancellations, fraud payment deletion and other cost-cutting measures, according to the agency’s website, which was last updated on May 26.

The savings amount to $1,086.96 per taxpayer, according to the website. 

Amid Musk’s work with DOGE, Democrats and activists have staged protests against the tech billionaire and his companies, including working to tank Tesla stocks. 

Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton and Elizabeth Pritchard contributed to this report.

As the White House trims over 100 aides from its National Security Council staff, some former officials and analysts are asking if the smaller team can meet the demands of a fast-moving and dangerous global security environment.

Roughly half of the NSC’s 350-person team will depart in what the White House is calling a ‘right-sizing’ of a historically bureaucratic body composed largely of career diplomats – many of whom are seen as out of step with the president’s agenda.

Aides originally on loan from agencies like the State Department and the Pentagon are being sent back to their home departments. Political appointees placed on administrative leave have been told the White House will find other roles for them elsewhere in the administration.

Some former NSC officials told Fox News Digital it’s too early to tell whether the overhaul will result in a more efficient agency – or one ill-equipped to deliver timely intelligence for national security decisions.

Privately, national security sources questioned whether Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is currently serving as interim national security advisor, might be paring back the agency to avoid internal power struggles once he returns to his original post.

Michael Allen, a former senior director at the NSC, said the staffing changes reflect President Donald Trump’s desire for direct control over key decisions.

‘I think he wants people to bring decisions to him earlier than previous presidents,’ Allen told Fox News Digital.

The NSC has charted rocky waters since it lost national security advisor Mike Waltz following the inadvertently publicized Signal chat. His deputy, Alex Wong, also recently departed the agency, and other aides who had a large impact on the administration’s early foreign policy decisions were pushed out in Friday’s restructuring.

Eric Trager, the senior director for Middle East issues who traveled with envoy Steve Witkoff for some of his Iran negotiations, is out. So is Andrew Peek, senior director for Europe and Eurasia, who helped coordinate the approach to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. 

Additionally, the restructuring will move Andy Barker, national security advisor to Vice President JD Vance, and Robert Gabriel, assistant to the president for policy, into roles serving as deputy national security advisors. 

‘This happens naturally on NSCs, the kind of stasis we saw in the Biden administration is highly untypical,’ said Victoria Coates, former deputy national security advisor to Trump. 

She noted that President Ronald Reagan had six national security advisors over two terms as president, in addition to two acting NSAs. 

‘For the president, he has legitimate concerns about the NSC from the first term, given what happened, and then, you know, there’s no sugar-coating it: the situation with Signalgate was a problem for NSA Waltz,’ Coates went on. ‘The president is taking actions to get the NSC into a condition that he would have complete confidence in it.’

With a slimmer NSC, the president is expected to lean more heavily on Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard for his daily intelligence briefings.

‘One thing that makes this administration unique is that it’s the president himself and a small circle of advisors who truly matter and make decisions,’ said Brian Katulis, a former NSC official and fellow at the Middle East Institute. ‘They just don’t see the need for ongoing interagency meetings like in previous administrations.’

Katulis added that the biggest risk isn’t necessarily a lack of intelligence – but a lack of coordination.

‘Rather than gaps in intel or knowledge, what I’d worry more about is whether different agencies are singing from the same sheet of music,’ he said.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House for comment on Friday’s cuts and their intent. 

Others argue that the NSC has become bloated and is in need of a reset.

‘The NSC under Democratic presidents grows to 300, 400 people,’ said former Trump NSC official Alex Gray. ‘It becomes its own department.’

‘When I was there, we took it down to about 110 people doing policy – and it could probably go down another 50 and still be effective,’ he said.

‘Do you want an NSC that formulates and directs policy, or one that gives the president advice, lets him decide, and then implements it? You don’t need hundreds of people to do that.’

But the NSC is the primary agency tasked with making sure other agencies are in line with the president’s agenda. 

‘Rather than preparing options for him, they should take his direction and implement it,’ said Coates.  But, she added, ‘if you take it down too far, it’s not going to have the manpower to implement those directions from the White House into the departments and agencies which are always bigger and better funded than the NSC.’ 

‘How many heads do you have to bash together to get them to do what the president wants them to do? Our experience was in the first term that we needed a fair amount of heft on our end to get them to do stuff they didn’t want to do, like designate the IRGC as an FTO, for example,’ Coates added. 

Even with a leaner staff, the NSC remains responsible for managing critical global challenges – from Iran nuclear talks and the war in Ukraine to military competition with China.

That puts added pressure on Rubio, who will bear the blame if any crucial intelligence slips through the cracks.

‘The big issue is the national security advisor needs to make sure the president has all the information he needs to make a decision,’ Allen said.

Fox News’ Diana Stancy contributed to this report. 

House Republicans are celebrating Medicaid reform in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which the House GOP says eliminates waste, fraud and abuse to deliver for Americans who need coverage most. 

Meanwhile, Democrats have railed against possible Medicaid cuts since President Donald Trump was elected in November. Now that his ‘big, beautiful bill’ has passed in the House of Representatives, Democrats are defining Medicaid cuts as a driving issue ahead of competitive midterm elections in 2026. 

Republicans say there is more to the story. 

‘The One, Big Beautiful Bill puts Americans first. We’re securing the border. We’re protecting benefits for the most vulnerable. We are investing in American manufacturing. We’re investing in our own energy production,’ Rep. Erin Houchin, R-Ind., told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview. 

‘The Democrats have been focusing on this specific line of attack that 13.7 million Americans are going to lose their health care, and that’s just blatantly false.’

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a nonpartisan analysis for the U.S. Congress, estimates that 8.6 million people in the United States will lose health insurance by 2034 through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s Medicaid reform. 

‘Five million of those people are receiving a tax credit under the Affordable Care Act that was passed by the Democrats with a sunset date that was implemented by the Democrats. We’re simply allowing the sunset date to expire as the Democrats originally intended,’ Houchin said. 

CBO estimates that 13.7 million Americans will lose coverage by 2034, which also includes the 5 million Americans who were already set to lose coverage. A number of Democrats have already deployed the figure in campaign messages rejecting Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ passing in the House.

‘I don’t trust the CBO score, nor should the American people, because it’s been proven again and again to be wildly off,’ added Houchin, who served on three major committees leading budget markup, including the House Rules, Budget and Energy and Commerce committees. 

The American Accountability Foundation, a conservative government research nonprofit, found that of the 32 staff members on CBO’s Health Analysis Division, 26 of them have ‘clearly’ verified liberal partisan biases, as a Democrat donor, registered Democrat or a Democratic primary voter, as Fox News Digital reported this month. 

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act does not cut Medicaid for the most vulnerable, according to Houchin. Instead, she says targeting waste, fraud and abuse in the Medicaid program cuts benefits to illegal immigrants, those ineligible to receive benefits who are currently receiving benefits, duplicate enrollees in one or more states and those who are able-bodied but are choosing not to work. 

‘If you have to think about the four things that we’re doing in Medicaid to strengthen it, we’re removing anybody that is illegal, ineligible or duplicate, and we’re ensuring that able-bodied adults, on the expansion population, have a very modest work requirement, in exchange for receiving benefits. Those things are overwhelmingly supported by the American people, yet the Democrats continue to lie about what this bill is actually doing,’ Houchin said. 

Republicans say they are cleaning up the program to ensure working families and the most vulnerable Americans can rely on the program for generations to come. 

‘What we’re trying to do is protect precious Medicaid dollars for those who need it most,’ Houchin said. ‘That’s what we’re doing. No one in the traditional Medicaid population needs to worry. And even if you’re in the able-body expansion population, there are many opportunities to comply to participate in Medicaid.’

However, Democrats have already designated Medicaid cuts as a defining issue in 2026. 

‘House Republicans’ giant tax scam will kick millions of people off their health insurance,’ Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) spokesperson Viet Shelton told Fox News Digital. ‘It is fact. Independent analysts say it. Health care professionals say it. Hell, even Republican senators say so. Their saying anything to the contrary is just them trying to protect their already in danger majority.’

After weeks of negotiating through budget reconciliation, House Republicans finally reached a consensus and passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last week. The bill passed just 215 to 214, and all Democrats voted against it. Republicans’ slim majority managed to deliver a legislative win for Trump. 

However, the ‘big, beautiful’ fight is far from over as the Senate is tasked with drafting their own version of the bill. Senate Republicans have indicated they do not support the bill in its current form. 

‘I don’t want to see rural hospitals close their doors because funding got cut. I also don’t like the idea of a hidden tax on the working poor. That’s why I’m a NO on this House bill in its current form,’ Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said. 

The sweeping, multitrillion-dollar legislation advances Trump’s agenda on taxes, immigration, energy, defense and the national debt. The bill includes Trump’s key campaign promises, including no tax on tips and overtime, and it seeks to permanently extend his 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. 

‘By passing the largest cut to Medicaid in history, Republicans are ripping away health care from millions of Americans and levying a de facto hidden tax on working-class families,’ DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene said in a statement after the bill passed. ‘Now that vulnerable Republicans are on the record voting for it, this betrayal of the American people will cost them their jobs in the midterms and Republicans the House Majority come 2026.’

While Democrats target vulnerable Republicans for supporting Medicaid reform in Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill,’ Republicans are taking aim at Democrats for voting against the bill’s tax cuts.

‘House Democrats voted for the largest tax increase in generations while giving taxpayer-funded freebies to illegal immigrants. The NRCC will make sure voters don’t forget how they betrayed working families,’ National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC) spokesman Mike Marinella said in a statement to Fox News Digital. 

As House members return to their home states and communicate with constituents during the congressional recess, the NRCC is encouraging House Republicans to go on the offense on Medicaid reform. 

‘We’re encouraging all of our caucus, our conference members to continue to communicate with the local and national media to reiterate what we know to be true about this One Big Beautiful Bill,’ Houchin said. 

‘It puts Americans first and will ensure that these programs will be around for the next generation, because we’re not wasting any tax dollars, any precious benefits on people who are illegal, ineligible, enrolled in multiple states or are able-bodied and could be working. These programs were designed for our most vulnerable Americans, and the One Big Beautiful Bill protects benefits for those people.’

Fox News Digital’s Elizabeth Elkind and Louis Casiano contributed to this report. 

House Republicans are mounting a push to start a new select committee focused on investigating the Biden administration for allegedly ‘covering up’ signs of the 82-year-old former president’s decline.

Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Ga., is introducing legislation Thursday that would establish a panel of congressional investigators to ‘investigate and report upon the facts of President Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.’s cognitive and physical health decline and the potential concealment of information from the American public,’ according to bill text obtained by Fox News Digital.

As of Thursday morning, the resolution had four co-sponsors in addition to Carter: Reps. Mark Alford, R-Mo., John Rose, R-Tenn., Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., and Barry Moore, R-Ala.

Republicans have unleashed a tidal wave of scrutiny on the previous Democrat White House as new reports – as well as old concerns previously dismissed by mainstream media – surface about Biden’s mental state while in office and what lengths those closest to him took to allegedly hide it from others. 

Carter’s text calls to investigate former Vice President Kamala Harris and former first lady Jill Biden as well as whoever took part in keeping the audio tapes of Special Counsel Robert Hur’s interview with Biden from the public.

The select committee would also focus on whether Biden allies ‘concealed’ his prostate cancer diagnosis before it was announced publicly last week. 

Biden’s spokesperson denied prior knowledge of the diagnosis in a statement to the New York Times.

The resolution also specifically called for a probe into the use of the autopen in Biden’s White House to sign meaningful legislation.

‘This is potentially the biggest political scandal of our lifetime, and the American people deserve to know the truth about who was really running the White House during Biden’s tenure as president,’ Carter told Fox News Digital of his legislation.

‘From using the autopen to pardon his own family members to likely concealing a cancer diagnosis, our government must restore trust with the public by fully investigating the former administration’s lies and getting to the bottom of one of the most consequential coverups in history.’

Carter, who is currently running for Senate in Georgia, was among several Republicans who demanded Biden take a cognitive test last year.

‘The American people can no longer be left to wonder about their safety and security because of the President’s deteriorating mental state,’ Carter wrote in a June 2024 letter to the White House.

His new resolution comes on the heels of House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., opening his own investigation into revelations surrounding Biden’s cognitive decline.

Comer spent much of the last Congress investigating whether Biden and his family unjustly profited from foreign cash.

The House Oversight chair sent letters to former senior White House aides, including Biden’s doctor, Kevin O’Connor, announcing a probe into ‘the role of former senior Biden White House officials in possibly usurping authority from former President Joe Biden and the ramifications of a White House staff intent on hiding his rapidly worsening mental and physical faculties.’

Meanwhile, first-term Rep. Jimmy Patronis, R-Fla., called for a similar select committee on Wednesday.