President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday banning all federal funding for ‘dangerous’ gain-of-function research in China, Iran and other countries and blocking all federal funding for foreign research that could cause another pandemic. 

The president signed the order Monday afternoon to improve the safety and security of biological research in the U.S. and around the world. 

The White House said the order ‘will drastically reduce the potential for lab-related incidents involving gain-of-function research, like that conducted on bat coronaviruses in China by the EcoHealth Alliance and Wuhan Institute of Virology.’ 

Gain-of-function research typically involves modifying a virus to make it more infectious among humans. Gain of function research took place at the Wuhan Lab before the COVID-19 pandemic began. 

The White House said the order will protect Americans from lab accidents and other biosecurity incidents, ‘such as those that likely caused COVID-19 and the 1977 Russian flu.’ 

The president’s order ends any present and all future federal funding of gain-of-function research in countries with insufficient oversight of research, and it empowers U.S. research agencies to identify and end federal funding of any other biological research that could pose a threat to American public health, public safety or national security. 

‘For decades, policies overseeing gain-of-function research on pathogens, toxins, and potential pathogens have lacked adequate enforcement, transparency, and top-down oversight,’ the White House said in a fact sheet describing the order. ‘Researchers have not acknowledged the legitimate potential for societal harms that this kind of research poses.’ 

The order, according to the White House, ‘protects Americans from dangerous gain-of-function research that manipulates viruses and other biological agents and toxins, but it does not impede productive biological research that will ensure the United States maintains readiness against biological threats and continues to drive global leadership in biotechnology, biosecurity, and health research.’ 

‘President Trump has long theorized that COVID-19 originated from a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and has consistently pushed for transparency in investigating its origins,’ the White House said. 

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

Israeli forces on Monday struck Yemen’s port city of Hodeidah, targeting the Iran-backed Houthis in response to ‘repeated attacks’ against the Jewish state, in particular its missile strike that nearly hit Tel Aviv’s largest airport. 

The Israel Defense Forces said fighter jets targeted the port city, which is along Yemen’s coastline, and a concrete factory. 

‘The terrorist infrastructure sites struck in the Hudaydah port serve as a central supply source for the Houthi terrorist regime,’ an IDF statement said. ‘The Hudaydah Port is used for the transfer of Iranian weapons, military equipment, and other equipment intended for terrorist purposes.’

In addition, the IDF also struck the ‘Bajil’ Concrete Plant, which serves as a significant economic resource for the Houthis, the IDF said. The facility is also used for the construction of underground tunnels and terrorist infrastructure for the terrorist regime, officials said.

During the strike, the Houthis retaliated with surface-to-surface missiles and drones that were launched at Israel and civilians, Israel said. 

Following Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the Houthis have targeted commercial shipping in and around the Red Sea in solidarity with the terror group. 

U.S. naval forces have been deployed to the region, where they have launched repeated airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen. 

The group is funded and trained by Iran. 

Israel’s strike was in retaliation for a Houthi missile attack that nearly struck Ben Gurion Airport, causing multiple international airlines to cancel flights to Israel.

The missile reportedly evaded both Israeli and U.S. missile defenses, according to Israeli media.

On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed retaliation.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, told the graduating class at Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi, during a commencement speech on Sunday that they know how to ‘use a chair’ in the face of adversity. 

‘There are people that are going to tell you that there is not a table in which there is not a seat for you, but I am here to remind you of Montgomery and those folding chairs. Let me tell you that we know how to use a chair, whether we [are] pulling it up or we doing something else with it,’ Crockett said. 

During her remarks, Crockett seems to reference the viral video from August 2023 of a group of White boaters attacking a Black riverboat captain, Dameion Pickett, in Montgomery, Alabama. The white folding chair became a symbol of resistance when a Black man raised a chair over his head in Pickett’s defense as the other men attacked him. 

The Texas Democrat urged the graduating class at the historically Black college on Sunday to pull up their own seat at the table, reminding students of the bystanders who rushed to defend Pickett when he was attacked. Conservatives were quick to reply to the clip of Crockett’s remarks, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said Crockett’s comments were ‘not cool.’

Crockett’s remarks come on the heels of a contentious back-and-forth with President Donald Trump on Sunday. 

‘For you to be in charge of the WHOLE country, you sure do have my name in your mouth a lot. Every time you say my name, you’re reminding the world that you’re terrified of smart, bold Black women telling the truth and holding you accountable. So keep talking,’ Crockett said. 

Trump on Sunday told Kristen Welker, host of NBC’s ‘Meet the Press,’ that Crockett is a ‘low I.Q. person,’ calling her the future of the Democratic Party, which he described as in ‘disarray.’

Reports last week indicated that Crockett, who is currently the vice ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has her eyes set on the chair position of the committee. Crockett would lead oversight of the federal government if she gets the gig, which could include leading investigations into Trump’s agenda. 

Conservatives have accused Crockett of inciting violence during Trump’s first 100 days. The progressive lawmaker from Texas was slammed online earlier this year for implying that Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, ‘has to be knocked over the head, like hard.’

Crockett also said Democrats need to be willing to ‘punch’ in races against Republicans.

The White House’s rapid response account replied to the comments on X, calling Crockett ‘another unhinged Democrat inciting violence.’

Earlier this year, Attorney General Pam Bondi accused Crockett of ‘threatening lives’ and said she should apologize for her rhetoric against Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) for saying, ”All I want to see happen on my birthday is for Elon to be taken down.” Crockett would clarify that her comments were intended as ‘nonviolent’ resistance. 

Crockett was also criticized this year for calling Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas, who is in a wheelchair, ‘Governor Hot Wheels.’ She tried to walk back the comments after her remarks went viral, calling the outrage a ‘distraction’ and claiming she was ‘appalled that the very people who unequivocally support Trump – a man known for racially insensitive nicknames and mocking those with disabilities – are now outraged.’

Crockett did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

New York Attorney General Letitia James on Monday said she is leading a coalition of 20 states in suing the Trump administration over its cuts to public health funding and the Department of Health and Human Services, describing the efforts in a press conference as the most ‘sweeping and unlawful assault on public health’ in U.S. history.

The lawsuit, filed by James and other state attorneys general, accuses the Trump administration of violating ‘hundreds’ of laws and regulations in attempting to dismantle the Department of Health and Human Services, both by firing thousands of HHS employees in an effort to slash its overall workforce by 20,000 people and shuttering crucial health programs across the U.S.

‘This administration is not streamlining the federal government; they are sabotaging it,’ James said Monday. 

She used a press conference to highlight the risks these cuts pose for Americans in New York and across the country.

‘When you fire the scientists who research infectious diseases, silence the doctors who care for pregnant people and shut down the programs that help firefighters and miners breathe or children thrive, you are not making America healthy; you are putting countless lives at risk,’ James said. 

‘This is not how government is supposed to work. These actions are dangerous, cruel and illegal. They defy Congress’s authority and they violate federal law. And that is why today I am leading a lawsuit joined by Democratic attorneys general across the country to stop this administration from tearing down our public health infrastructure.’

The plaintiffs, who filed the lawsuit Monday in the U.S. District Court in Rhode Island, are asking the court ‘to halt the unlawful dismantling of HHS, to stop the mass firings, and to restore the life-saving programs that millions of Americans depend on,’ James said.

New York is joined in the lawsuit by the attorneys generals of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia.

Their lawsuit accuses the Trump administration in the lawsuit of erasing ‘decades of public health progress’ and leaving HHS ‘unable to execute many of its most vital functions.’

Such actions, they argue, are ‘in violation of Congress’s instructions, the U.S. Constitution, and the many statutes that govern the Department’s programs and appropriate funds for it to administer.’

These actions included terminating 10,000 full-time employees, collapsing 28 agencies into 15, and closing half of HHS’s 10 regional offices. 

James cited many of these issues directly in the press conference Monday, taking aim at the administration for systematically depriving HHS of the ‘resources necessary to do its job.’

The government has ‘all but stopped testing for measles in the middle of an unprecedented measles outbreak,’ James said. 

New York’s Wadsworth Center, she noted, is one of the ‘only labs in the country still equipped to detect rare infectious diseases’ and is ‘scrambling to fill the void left by a hollowed-out CDC.’

Her remarks come after HHS announced thousands of layoffs in March and April, including at the FDA, the CDC and NIH. The reductions were in keeping with a Department of Government Efficiency-led push for agencies to slash the size of the federal workforce and trim government spending, prompting criticism from Democrats and some Republicans.

These cuts included terminating HHS employees tasked with determining SNAP and Medicaid eligibility for low-income or disabled Americans; the firing of the CDC’s entire maternal health team; and the gutting of mental health and substance abuse services and personnel.

‘None of these layoffs were necessary to accommodate a funding shortfall – Congress’s appropriations have remained steady, or in many cases, grown in recent years,’ the plaintiffs said in their lawsuit.

‘All told, 20,000 full-time employees – almost twenty-five percent of HHS headcount – would be terminated in a few months to save, by Defendants’ own estimate, less than one percent of HHS expenditures.’

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit asked to halt HHS efforts to dismantle the HHS-led agencies and programs that were cut as a result of the reorganization. States are also seeking declaratory and injunctive relief to prevent what they described as the ‘unconstitutional and illegal dismantling of the Department.’

The lawsuit is not the first time James, a longtime foe of the current president, has sparred with Trump since the start of his second presidential term.

To date, she’s joined Democrat attorneys general in more than a dozen other lawsuits challenging his early actions.

President Donald Trump on Monday said he held a ‘productive’ call with Turkish President Recep Erdogan on a range of topics, including the war between Russia and Ukraine.

Trump shared details of the call in a post on his TRUTH Social platform.

‘I just had a very good and productive telephone conversation with the President of Turkey, Recep Erdoğan, concerning many subjects, including the War with Russia/Ukraine, all things Syria, Gaza, and more,’ Trump wrote.

The president added that he is looking forward to working with Erdogan to end the ‘ridiculous, but deadly’ Russia-Ukraine war.

Trump has vowed to end the three-year war between Russia and Ukraine, though the U.S. has tempered expectations regarding recent peace talks it’s brokering between the warring nations.

Gaza has also been a major issue for the Trump administration as Israel works to get its hostages returned after Hamas led a deadly attack on Oct. 7, 2023. As the fighting in Gaza has escalated, Trump has pushed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ‘to be good to Gaza’ because the people there ‘are suffering.’

Trump noted that his relationship with Erdogan during his first term was ‘excellent,’ adding that the Turkish leader invited him to Turkey at a future date. Trump said Erdogan will also visit Washington, D.C., though no date was immediately provided.

Trump also highlighted that he and Erdogan had ‘worked together closely on numerous things,’ including the return of American pastor Andrew Brunson, who Trump said was freed ‘immediately upon my request.’

Brunson was imprisoned and detained in Turkey for 735 days on terror and treason charges in October 2016 over his alleged ties to an outlawed group after a massive government crackdown following a failed coup months earlier.

Some Republican leaders are hoping they can pass a massive bill codifying President Donald Trump’s agenda into federal law by the Fourth of July.

It means the sweeping policy overhaul could reach Trump’s desk for a signature by the 250th anniversary of the United States’ founding.

‘I’ve said all along, my goal is, is for the president to sign this one big, beautiful bill on July 4th,’ House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., told ‘Fox News Sunday.’

It comes as House Republicans struggle to reconcile differences on clean energy and Medicaid in talks to find at least $1.5 trillion in spending cuts to pay for Trump’s tax policies.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters days earlier on Capitol Hill, ‘We’ve got three legs to the President’s economic agenda: trade, tax and deregulation, and we hope that we can have this tax portion done by Fourth of July.’

Republican lawmakers are working on a multitrillion-dollar piece of legislation aimed at advancing Trump’s policies on tax, defense, energy, immigration, border security and at raising the debt limit.

Trump’s tax policies, a cornerstone of his platform and the costliest portion of the bill, include extending the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) and eliminating taxes on tips, overtime pay and retirees’ social security.

Republican leaders and tax hawks have warned that failing to extend TCJA by the time its provisions expire at the end of this year could result in a tax hike of over 20% for millions of families. 

House GOP leaders said in a letter to lawmakers dated April 5, ‘Immediately following House adoption of the budget resolution, our House and Senate committees will begin preparing together their respective titles of the reconciliation bill to be marked up in the next work period. As always, this will involve input from all Members and will keep us on track to send a bill to the President’s desk by Memorial Day.’

However, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has since somewhat walked that goal back, telling reporters he believes the House can finish its portion by Memorial Day.

‘We are on track to pass the bill out of the House. As we’ve said from the very beginning, and get it over, to the next stage by Memorial Day,’ Johnson said during a press conference last week.

He was optimistic about beating the early July goal after meeting with Bessent and other top lawmakers last Monday, however.

‘He says July 4 because that’s a big, big birthday for us. And everybody knows that,’ Johnson said of Bessent’s comments. ‘But I think – and I hope, and believe – that we can get it done sooner than that.’

A House GOP leadership aide told Fox News Digital that Johnson ‘stated his goal is to move the bill through the House by Memorial Day’ and that it was ‘not in conflict’ with sending a bill to Trump by July 4.

When asked if that goal was feasible, Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., told Fox News Digital, ‘It’s gonna have to be.’

Others who spoke with Fox News Digital were more skeptical.

A senior House Republican aide told Fox News Digital, ‘Deadlines are so arbitrary in Congress. Passing the bill by Memorial Day was always a long shot, but moving the goalposts from Easter to Memorial Day to July 4 just shows weakness.’

‘We better stick with this one, because the next federal holiday isn’t until September!’ the aide said.

Republicans are not only racing the clock on the TCJA deadline, but also the possibility of a national credit default. The U.S. is expected to run out of cash to pay its debts sometime this summer, according to several projections – a somewhat murky deadline based on a number of factors, including yearly tax filings.

Hitting that date without acting on the debt limit would send domestic and global financial markets into turmoil.

Republicans are looking to move Trump’s agenda via the budget reconciliation process. By lowering the Senate’s threshold for passage from 60 votes to 51, it allows the party in power to sideline the opposition, in this case Democrats, while passing legislation focused on spending, taxes and debt.

After both the House and Senate passed budget ‘frameworks’ earlier this year, the relevant committees named in the frameworks are working to write policy in line with the spending cut or surplus they are granted.

Seven of 11 House committees have completed their work so far. However, three critical panels – the committees on Ways & Means, Agriculture, and Energy & Commerce – had to delay initial tentative plans to advance their portions this week.

Republicans in blue states, who GOP leaders view as critical to keeping the majority, have raised alarms about cutting too deeply into Medicaid. It is under the jurisdiction of the Energy & Commerce Committee, which is tasked with finding $880 billion of the $1.5 trillion in spending cuts.

Negotiators have insisted they are only interested in going after waste, fraud and abuse in the system, but it has not stopped Democrats from accusing the GOP of trying to cut critical healthcare programs for millions of Americans.

Meanwhile, the committee is also going to have to decide on an ongoing battle between conservatives and blue state Republicans over whether to repeal some or all of the former Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) green energy tax subsidies.

In March, 21 House Republicans signed a letter urging their colleagues to preserve the green energy tax credit.

‘Countless American companies are utilizing sector-wide energy tax credits – many of which have enjoyed broad support in Congress – to make major investments in domestic energy production and infrastructure for traditional and renewable energy sources alike,’ they wrote.

The anti-IRA Republicans, however, said in a letter last week that the U.S.’ growing green energy sector was the product of government handouts rather than genuine sustainable growth.

‘Leaving IRA subsidies intact will actively undermine America’s return to energy dominance and national security,’ they said. ‘They are the result of government subsidies that distort the U.S. energy sector, displace reliable coal and natural gas and the domestic jobs they produce, and put the stability and independence of our electric grid in jeopardy.’

Negotiations are expected to continue this week.

When reached for comment on whether the Senate could meet the Independence Day goal, a spokesperson for Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., pointed Fox News Digital to a recent interview where he signaled openness to the idea.

‘We have a similar target. And I think the House is, you know, they would like to, the speaker would like to have it out of the House by Memorial Day. And the Senate has a more complicated procedure that we have to go through when it comes to reconciliation that makes it harder and more complicated and takes a little bit longer time,’ Thune said.

‘But there’s been a ton of work done already, and we’re working closely with our counterparts in the House on all the relevant authorizing committees that have been instructed.’

President Donald Trump will host a Russian-American ballerina at the White House on Monday, roughly a month after the Trump administration secured her release from a Russian prison, Fox News Digital has learned. 

Ksenia Karelina, a former ballerina, was sentenced to 12 years in a Russian penal colony in 2024 for treason. The 33-year-old was released and returned to the U.S. on April 10 through a U.S.-Russian prison swap, Fox Digital previously reported. 

‘Mr. Trump, I’m so, so grateful for you to bring me home and for [the] American government. And I never felt more blessed to be American, and I’m so, so happy to get home,’ Karelina said in a video posted by Trump deputy assistant Sebastian Gorka on April 11 upon her return to the U.S. 

A White House official confirmed to Fox Digital on Monday that Karelina will visit the White House on Monday afternoon. 

Karelina, who is a U.S. citizen, was born in Russia and had been living and working in Los Angeles at the time of her arrest. She was visiting her family in Yekaterinburg, Russia, in 2024 when Russia’s Federal Security Service – the country’s top security agency – inspected her phone and found she donated about $50 to a U.S.-based charity that works to aid Ukraine, Fox Digital previously reported. 

She was initially detained for ‘petty hooliganism,’ but the charge was later upgraded to treason as Russian officials claimed she raised money for the Ukrainian army and took part in actions that supported Ukraine while in the U.S. 

Karelina was returned to the U.S. in exchange for the U.S. releasing Arthur Petrov, a dual German Russian citizen who was accused of exporting sensitive U.S. electronics to the Russian military. He was arrested in 2023 and charged with crimes such as conspiracy and violating export controls, Reuters previously reported. 

Karelina’s family celebrated her release last month, with her former stepmother Eleonra Srebroski telling Fox News at the time that she was ‘euphoric’ over the prisoner swap while praising Trump for the release. 

‘My spirit is high. We are extremely happy. This is beyond any emotion…This is healing,’ Srebroski said. ‘We were putting a lot of hope in the Trump administration, and we knew she would be next after Marc Fogel. We support Trump even more.’

Karelina’s boyfriend, Chris Van Heerden, told the New York Post upon her release in April that the couple was eager to meet Trump and thank him. 

‘We really need to thank him personally. When the time’s right, she’d love to meet him and I would love to shake his hand for bringing back the love of my life. And I’m not into politics,’ Van Heerden told the outlet at the time. 

‘I was begging the Biden administration for a whole year to bring Ksenia back. About seven months I realized that’s not going to happen. They’re not going to do it for me. I had faith and I truly believed when President Trump came into power, he could do it and he did it,’ he added. 

Karelina’s release follows the Trump administration striking another prisoner swap deal with Russia in February that saw the release of U.S. citizen and teacher Marc Fogel, who had been in Russian custody since 2021 when he was arrested for possession of marijuana at an airport. 

– BOSTON – He is out of power, but former Vice President Mike Pence does not feel powerless. 

Pence, the once loyal vice president who broke with President Donald Trump as he defied his one-time boss’s request to throw out the results of the 2020 presidential election, pledged to be a vocal GOP critic when Trump, during his second tour of duty in the White House, veers from the ‘conservative agenda’ that defined the Trump-Pence administration.

‘When you look at those Trump-Pence years, they were years that we governed on a conservative agenda,’ the former vice president said in an exclusive national digital interview with Fox News minutes after receiving the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in Boston on Sunday night.

Pence said he gives ‘President Trump all the credit in the world for an historic victory last November, and for sparing the country one more liberal Democrat administration.’

He also praised Trump ‘not only for his victory, but for securing our southern border, for restoring morale and recruitment in our military, for taking the fight to the Houthis.’

However, he argued that ‘I truly do believe that some of the other steps the president is taking away from that conservative agenda should be a concern that would work against his legacy and ultimately the success of our party or our country. And so we’re going to continue to be a voice against them.

‘I really do believe that for prosperity…for the success of our country, we need to stick to those time-honored principles of strong defense, American leadership on the world stage, less government, less taxes, traditional moral values, and the right to life, and I’m going to be a voice for that,’ added Pence, long a champion of social and fiscal conservative values.

On the suggestion in recent weeks by some House Republicans to raise taxes on the wealthy to help pay for Trump’s second-term agenda, an idea some in the White House contemplated before the president came out against the proposal, Pence was clear in his opposition.

‘Any suggestion that I’ve heard among some in and around the administration that we raise the top margin rate, the so-called millionaires tax, would be an enormous tax increase on small business owners across America,’ Pence said.

He additionally emphasized that ‘It needs to be opposed. Let’s make all the Trump-Pence tax cuts permanent. That’s a way to really lay a foundation to grow the economy in the days ahead.’

The former vice president, a proponent of a muscular U.S. foreign policy, has criticized the president’s upending of longstanding U.S. foreign policy and has urged Trump to stand with longtime international allies.

Pence received a standing ovation from the audience at Boston’s JFK Presidential Library when, in his acceptance address, he stressed that the U.S. ‘must continue to stand with Ukraine.’

Pence ran on a traditional conservative platform, framing the future of the Republican Party against what he called the rise of ‘populism’ in the party, as he bid for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, as part of a large field that unsuccessfully challenged Trump.

While Pence, who became the first running mate in over 80 years to run against their former boss, regularly campaigned in the crucial early-voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, his White House bid never took off. 

Struggling in the polls and with fundraising, he suspended his campaign just four and a half months after launching it.

When asked if there was another political chapter ahead, and possibly another bid for national office, Pence told Fox News Digital, ‘I leave that up to the American people.’

He reiterated that he intends to ‘be a voice’ for traditional and conservative values and ‘we’ll let the future take care of itself.’

As for Trump’s repeated flirtations the past three months with seeking a third term in office in 2028 – which is forbidden by the 22nd Amendment in the U.S. Constitution – Pence said, ‘I think there’s no higher priority for a president or any elected official to keep faith with the Constitution of the United States.’

‘Every single one of us takes the same oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and my hope and my prayer is for the president on down, Republicans and Democrats, will take that oath to heart, because that’s the pathway forward for our country and all the American people,’ he added.

Pence spoke with Fox News Digital after receiving the Profile in Courage Award, which is named for a book the late John F. Kennedy published in 1957 before he became president.

The annual award honors public officials who take principled stands despite the potential political or personal consequences. Among the previous recipients were former Presidents Barack Obama, George H.W. Bush and Gerald Ford.

Pence was honored with the award for his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, during the attack on the U.S. Capitol by right-wing extremists — including some chanting ‘hang Mike Pence’ — who stormed the U.S. Capitol aiming to upend congressional certification of the 2020 election.

Hours later, after the rioters were cleared from the Capitol building, Pence resumed his constitutional duties by overseeing congressional certification of former President Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory.

‘Vice President Pence put his life, career and that of his family on the line to execute his constitutional responsibilities. His actions preserved the fundamental democratic principle of free and fair elections, and we are proud to honor him,’ former Ambassador Caroline Kennedy, the late President Kennedy’s daughter, said in presenting Pence with the award.

Pence, in accepting the annual award, emphasized that it is a ‘distinction that I will cherish for the rest of my life.’

The former vice president, pointing to his actions on Jan. 6, said to a standing ovation, ‘I will always believe by God’s grace that I did my duty that day.’

Additionally, Pence, in his interview, noted that ‘in all my travels across the country in the last four years, I’ve been deeply humbled by how many Americans have come up to me and just taken a point to encourage us and support us, and it convinces me that the American people know that what ever differences we may have, the Constitution is the common ground on which we stand.’