President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he ordered military airstrikes in Somalia, taking out a senior ISIS attack planner and other terrorists the planner had recruited.

The strikes come just weeks after an ISIS-inspired terrorist killed 14 people and injured dozens more after he plowed a truck into New Year's Eve revelers in New Orleans. 

"These killers, who we found hiding in caves, threatened the United States and our Allies," Trump wrote on Truth Social. 

Trump said that the strikes destroyed the caves the terrorists were living in and did not "in any way" harm civilians. 

6 TIMES ISIS HAS INSPIRED TERROR ATTACKS ON US SOIL

"Our Military has targeted this ISIS attack planner for years, but Biden and his cronies wouldn’t act quickly enough to get the job done. I did!" Trump wrote.

"The message to ISIS and all others who would attack Americans is that ‘WE WILL FIND YOU, AND WE WILL KILL YOU!’" Trump wrote.

It is unclear how many people in total were killed.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth provided further details on the strikes, saying they were carried out by U.S. Africa Command in coordination with the Somali government.

"I authorized U.S. Africa Command to conduct coordinated airstrikes today targeting ISIS-Somalia operatives in the Golis mountains," Hegseth said in a statement.

"Our initial assessment is that multiple operatives were killed in the airstrikes and no civilians were harmed. This action further degrades ISIS's ability to plot and conduct terrorist attacks threatening U.S. citizens, our partners, and innocent civilians."

Hegseth said the strikes "send a clear signal" that the U.S. always stands ready to find and eliminate terrorists who threaten the country and its allies even as it carries out robust border protections at home. 

An official in the Somali president's office, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the strikes to Reuters and said Somalia's government welcomed the move.

"Somalia cannot be a safe haven for terrorists," said the official, adding that the impact of the strikes was still being assessed.

The United States has periodically carried out airstrikes in Somalia for years under Republican and Democratic administrations.

A strike, which also targeted Islamic State militants, was carried out by the U.S. in coordination with Somalia last year. It killed three members of the group, the U.S. military said.

Reuters contributed to this report.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) on Saturday elected Minnesota party leader Ken Martin, who once called for President Donald Trump to be tried for treason, as its next national chair in the wake of the party's disastrous performance in the November elections.

The election of Martin is the party's first formal step to try and rebound from the November elections, in which President Donald Trump recaptured the White House, and Republicans flipped the Senate, held on to their fragile majority in the House and made major gains with working-class, minority and younger voters.

"We have one team, one team, the Democratic Party," Martin said following his victory. "The fight is for our values. The fight is for working people. The fight right now is against Donald Trump and the billionaires who bought this country."

Martin, over the past eight years, has served as a DNC vice chair and has led the association of state Democratic Party chairs.

RNC CHAIR, AFTER CRUISING TO RE-ELECTION, VOWS TO BE ‘TIP OF SPEAR’ TO PROTECT TRUMP

He topped Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler by over 100 votes among the 428 DNC members who cast ballots as they gathered for the party's annual winter meeting, which this year was held at National Harbor in Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C.

Martin O'Malley, the former two-term Maryland governor and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate who served as commissioner of the Social Security Administration during former President Biden's last year in office, was a distant third in the voting.

Among the longshot candidates were Faiz Shakir, who ran the 2020 Democratic presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and Marianne Williamson, who ran unsuccessfully for the 2020 and 2024 Democratic presidential nominations. Williamson endorsed Martin on Saturday, ahead of the vote.

FINAL DNC CHAIR DEBATE ROCKED BY PROTESTS 

The eight candidates in the race were vying to succeed DNC Chair Jaime Harrison, who decided against seeking a second straight four-year term steering the national party committee.

With no clear leader in the party, the next DNC chair could become the de facto face of Democrats from coast to coast and will make major decisions on messaging, strategy, infrastructure and where to spend millions in political contributions.

In his victory speech, Martin stressed unity and that the party needed "to rebuild our coalition."

"We need to go on offense," Martin said. "We're going to go out there and take this fight to Donald Trump and the Republicans."

Martin has used stronger language against Trump in the past.

In 2020, he called Trump a "traitor" who should be tried for treason.

"[Donald Trump] should be immediately impeached and then put on trial for treason," Martin wrote on June 29, 2020, citing an anonymously sourced news story. "His actions led to the deaths of American soldiers. He is a traitor to our nation and all those who have served."

Trump, during his first term in office, at times accused Democrats of being "un-American" and "treasonous."

An key Martin supporter, longtime New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley, told Fox News Digital ahead of the chair election that "it's an important opportunity for us to not only refocus the party and what we present to voters, but also an opportunity for us to look at how we internally govern ourselves."

WHAT RNC CHAIR WHATLEY TOLD FOX NEWS 

Buckley, a former DNC vice chair and Martin's predecessor as head of the state party chairs, said he's "very excited about the potential of great reform within the party." He emphasized that he hoped for "significantly more support for the state parties. That's going to be a critical step towards our return to majority status."

Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who succeeded President Biden last July as the party's 2024 standard-bearer, spoke with Martin, Wikler and O'Malley in the days ahead of Saturday's election, Fox News confirmed. But Harris stayed neutral in the vote for party chair.

In a video message to the audience as the vote for chair was being tabulated, Harris said that the DNC has some "hard work ahead."

But she pledged to be with the party "every step of the way," which could be a signal of her future political ambitions.

The debate during the three-month DNC campaign sprint mostly focused on the logistics of modern political campaigns, such as media strategy and messaging, fundraising and grassroots organizing and get-out-the-vote efforts. On those nuts-and-bolts issues, the candidates were mostly in agreement that changes are needed to win back blue-collar voters who now support Republicans.

But the final forum included a heavy focus on race and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, issues that appeared to hurt Democrats at the ballot box in November.

The forum, moderated and carried live on MSNBC and held at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., devolved into chaos early on as a wave of left-wing protesters repeatedly interrupted the primetime event, heckling over concerns of climate change and billionaires' influence in America's elections before they were forcibly removed by security.

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The chair election took place as a new national poll spelled more trouble for the Democrats.

Only 31% of respondents in a Quinnipiac University survey conducted over the past week had a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party, with 57% seeing the party in an unfavorable light.

"This is the highest percentage of voters having an unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party since the Quinnipiac University Poll began asking this question," the survey's release noted. 

Meanwhile, 43% of those questioned had a favorable view of the GOP, with 45% holding an unfavorable opinion, which was the highest favorable opinion for the Republican Party ever in Quinnipiac polling.

Fox News' Matthew Reidy contributed to this report

The unprecedented cover-up of Joe Biden is finally seeing sunlight. 

Critics of the legacy media have long accused news organizations of shielding the 46th president from bad press, particularly when it came to revelations of his family's shady financial dealings as well as his cognitive decline, which was put on full display at last year's CNN debate resulting in his exit from the 2024 presidential race. 

Efforts to cover up for Biden began as early as May 2019 as the primary race for the 2020 Democratic nomination was underway. Last week, former Politico reporter Marc Caputo shed light on a report he had written at the time that stemmed from opposition research from the campaign by one of Biden's Democratic rivals. The report involved a "tax lien" on Biden's son Hunter pertaining to his work at Ukrainian energy company Burisma. At the time, the former vice president held a substantial lead over Democratic candidates in the polls. 

"And I wrote what would have been a classic story saying, you know, ‘The former vice president’s son was slapped with a big tax lien for the period of time that he worked for this controversial Ukrainian oil concern, or natural gas concern, which is haunting his father on the campaign trail.' That story was killed by the editors. And they gave no explanation for that either," Caputo said on the "Somebody's Gotta Win" podcast.

EX-POLITICO REPORTERS REVEAL EDITORS QUASHED, SLOW-WALKED NEGATIVE BIDEN STORIES ‘WITH NO EXPLANATION’

Fast-forward to October 2020. Biden had secured the Democratic nomination and maintained a narrower lead in the polls against then-incumbent President Trump. The New York Post published its bombshell report on Hunter Biden's laptop, offering unprecedented insight into his overseas finances and their potential ties to his father. 

"I was covering Biden at the time, and I remember coming to my editor and saying, ‘Hey, we need to write about the Hunter Biden laptop.’ And I was told this came from on high at Politico: Don’t write about the laptop, don’t talk about the laptop, don’t tweet about the laptop," Caputo said. 

Caputo, now with Axios, called out Politico's one and only story about the laptop, which he referred to as the "ill-fated headline" that read "Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say." The report cited an open letter signed by 51 intelligence officials declaring that the material from the laptop had "all the earmarks of a Russian intelligence operation."

Then-candidate Biden cited the open letter while dismissing the laptop revelations as a "Russian plant" during the second presidential debate with Trump.

Politico wasn't the only one that was caught turning a blind eye towards Hunter Biden's laptop. A leaked audio recording obtained by Project Veritas showed top CNN executives directing staff not to cover the controversy. 

"Obviously, we're not going with the New York Post story right now on Hunter Biden," CNN political director David Chalian said during a conference call on Oct. 14, the same day the Post published its first story on Hunter Biden's emails. Chalian later insisted the report was "giving its marching orders" to the "right-wing echo chamber about what to talk about today."

"The Trump media, you know, moves immediately from – OK, well, never mind – the [Michael Flynn] unmasking was, you know, found to be completely nonsensical to the latest alleged scandal and expects everybody to just follow suit," then-CNN president Jeff Zucker told his staff on Oct. 16. "So, I don't think that we should be repeating unsubstantiated smears just because the right-wing media suggests that we should." 

FROM ‘SMEAR CAMPAIGN’ TO ‘RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION,’ LIBERAL MEDIA TEAMED UP TO DISMISS HUNTER BIDEN STORY

Several CNN stars echoed their bosses' dismissive stance on the brewing scandal to their viewers.

"There's a lot about this story that does not add up," CNN's Brian Stelter told his viewers at the time. "And, I mean, for all we know, these emails were made up, or maybe some are real and some are fakes, we don't know. But we do know that this is a classic example of the right-wing media machine."

"The right wing is going crazy with all sorts of allegations about Biden and his family. Too disgusting to even repeat here," Jake Tapper said during a segment. "I mean, some of the ones I've seen from the president's son and some of the president's supporters are just wildly unhinged."

Much of the legacy media either offered minimal coverage rejecting the scandal or offered zero coverage altogether. ABC News' George Stephanopoulos completely avoided mentioning the laptop during a Biden town hall he moderated. Social media giants blocked users from sharing  The New York Post's reporting on their platforms. 

NPR public editor Kelly McBride addressed a listener's question about the news outlet's blackout of the Hunter Biden story. After claiming that the Post's reporting had "many, many red flags," including its potential ties to Russia, NPR apparently determined that the "assertions don’t amount to much."

"We don't want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don't want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions," NPR managing editor Terence Samuel told McBride. "And quite frankly, that's where we ended up, this was … a politically driven event, and we decided to treat it that way."

LOOKING BACK ON 2024: LIBERAL MEDIA INSISTED BIDEN WAS STILL SHARP UNTIL DEBATE DEBACLE EXPOSED HIM

Last year, veteran NPR editor Uri Berliner came forward suggesting that the decision not to cover the laptop was politically motivated.

"The laptop was newsworthy. But the timeless journalistic instinct of following a hot story lead was being squelched. During a meeting with colleagues, I listened as one of NPR’s best and most fair-minded journalists said it was good we weren’t following the laptop story because it could help Trump," Berliner wrote in a tell-all essay about NPR for The Free Press. 

Berliner was later forced out of NPR and has since joined The Free Press as an editor. 

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald similarly blew the whistle on The Intercept, the news outlet he co-founded, alleging "repression, censorship and ideological homogeneity" from its editors aiding Biden's campaign just days before the 2020 election. 

"The Intercept’s editors, in violation of my contractual right of editorial freedom, censored an article I wrote this week, refusing to publish it unless I remove all sections critical of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, the candidate vehemently supported by all New-York-based Intercept editors involved in this effort at suppression," Greenwald wrote in October 2020.

Even after Biden won the presidency and was sworn into office, reporting about his scandal-plagued son was still being slow-walked, at least according to former Politico reporter Tara Palmeri, who broke the story of Hunter Biden's gun incident that led to a felony charge for lying about his drug use on a gun form. 

"I spent three months on it, I went to the laptop shop, and I did all of the reporting in Delaware, and I did all of that. But yeah it had, it had to be like much- it had to be 100% nailed down," Palmeri told Caputo on the podcast. "I had everything, you know, the police reports… I’m a solid reporter. But I do wonder if it could have, if it would have been published a little quicker if it was a different type of story."

Speaking with Fox News Digital, Palmeri expanded on how her bosses dragged their feet before running her story.

"I certainly had to push very hard to get that reporting published. Like, it was a constant, 'Hey, when are we going to do this? Hey, when are we going to get this out there? Hey, when we're going to do this?' Because it was so difficult. Like it was kind of a known feeling that like, it's gonna be difficult to report stuff that's really tough on the Biden administration and family. It's just like a culture." Palmeri told Fox News Digital last week. "And I think when the culture is that a reporter has to push so hard that it just creates a feeling that there's not an interest in that type of reporting. And ultimately, you know, we work to be published and to get our editors to support our work."

BIDEN LASHES OUT AT REPORTERS ASKING ABOUT AGE CONCERNS AFTER SPECIAL COUNSEL REPORT: 'THAT IS YOUR JUDGMENT!'

Palmeri, now with Puck News, said she first obtained the police report shortly after Biden's inauguration in January 2021, but her story wasn't published until late March 2021.

"I just think if it was a Trump kid, it would have been published much sooner," Palmeri said. "I just had to work really hard to like- you're like 'Hey, what's going on with the story? Hey, what's going on with the story? Like, what's going on with the story?' We gave the White House a lot of time, like a week or so to respond. I don't know if that would have been the case for a Trump story."

The former Politico journalist went on to cite the "honeymoon phase" of the Biden administration as being a factor behind the slowed pace of her story.  She also suggested her bosses wouldn't run the story unless she was able to link it to a federal agency.

"It had to be about the fact that the Secret Service was involved," Palmeri told Fox News Digital. "The blanket fact that he lied on the gun form, which I had. I had the gun form and I pointed out that he lied on it. But in the piece, we downplayed it and said, ‘Although many people lie on gun forms and are not prosecuted for it’ which is true, by the way. But it's not like the headline wasn't ‘Hunter Biden lies on gun form,’ which is a felony. That was not the headline even though I had the gun form in which he lied."

It wasn't until 2022 that the media began conceding legitimacy to the controversies surrounding Hunter Biden. Several news organizations that dismissed the laptop like Politico, CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, NBC News and CBS News ultimately verified the laptop. 

The shielding of Joe Biden evolved to encompass not just questions about his family's finances but about the president's own health. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Biden was having "good days and bad days" for White House staff to deal with as early as spring 2021. 

"Yet a sign that the bruising presidential schedule needed to be adjusted for Biden’s advanced age had arisen early on—in just the first few months of his term. Administration officials noticed that the president became tired if meetings went long and would make mistakes," the Journal wrote. 

BIDEN ADMIN OFFICIALS NOTICED STAMINA ISSUES IN PRESIDENT'S FIRST FEW MONTHS IN OFFICE: REPORT

It appears White House staff weren't the only ones aiding Biden. Former ESPN host Sage Steele revealed her March 2021 interview was "scripted" by network executives. 

"That was an interesting experience in its own right because it was so structured," Steele told Fox News Digital in April 2024. "And I was told, ‘You will say every word that we write out, you will not deviate from the script and go.’" 

"To the word. Every single question was scripted, gone over dozens of times by many editors and executives. Absolutely. I was on script and was told not to deviate," Steele said. "It was very much ‘This is what you will ask. This is how you will say it. No follow-ups, no follow-ups. Next.' … This went up to the fourth floor, as we said, where all the bosses, the top executives, the decision makers are, the president of our company, the CEO, where they all worked."

Two other Biden interviewers, on the condition of anonymity, previously spoke with Fox News Digital about their experience with the president's frailty. 

"I was left with the impression that he is old, and it's impossible not to notice this and be focused on it. His voice is so soft," one interviewer said. The other said "I will say he was careful not to go on at length with answers. It was clear he was trying to edit himself, possibly because he’d been coached to keep answers short." Both noticed his "stiff" physical presence. 

The media's efforts to dismiss concerns over Biden's mental decline went into high gear in 2024, particularly when he became the presumptive Democratic nominee. News organizations seethed after the February release of Special Counsel Robert Hur's damning report on Biden's handling of classified documents that described him as a "sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory." 

The New York Times went with the "Republicans pounce" framing when covering Biden's reported memory issues, Jeffrey Toobin returned to CNN to insist Hur made "unnecessary points" about Biden’s advanced age, and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow gushed that everything is fine because Biden still "rides a bike." 

Later in the year, the media ran the White House's talking points that accused conservatives of peddling "cheap fakes" when moments that showed Biden wandering or freezing up went viral. 

"Experts have warned that while advanced technology like generative artificial intelligence can spread misinformation, so-called cheap fakes that often use only minor or selective editing can be more effective at spreading false narratives," NBC News wrote in reaction to one viral moment. 

LIBERAL MEDIA OUTLETS ‘RUNNING COVER’ FOR BIDEN BY CALLING VIRAL CLIPS ‘CHEAP FAKES,’ CRITICS SAY

The Washington Post similarly elevated the term "cheap fakes," telling readers such "deceptively edited videos… misrepresent events simply by manipulating video or audio, or by leaving out context" and that they've "become staples of Republican attacks against Biden." 

MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace condemned the "highly misleading & selectively edited videos" while refusing to show the raw footage to viewers. CBS News released a report sounding the alarm on "cheap fakes" and their impact in the upcoming election, echoing the White House's claim that Biden is "victim to a simpler version of ‘deepfakes.’"

The Associated Press ran its own fact-check on the video showing Biden standing still at his star-studded LA fundraiser until former President Obama was seen grabbing his wrist and guiding him off the stage with his hand behind Biden's back. 

"CLAIM: Biden froze onstage during his fundraiser in Los Angeles on Saturday night and had to be led away by Obama," AP wrote at the time. "THE FACTS: Biden paused amid cheers and applause as he exited the stage with his predecessor following an interview moderated by late-night host Kimmel."

Notably, actor George Clooney, who attended the LA fundraiser that the AP fact-checked, came clean in the now-infamous New York Times op-ed revealing the Biden he saw just weeks prior "was the same man we all witnessed at the debate."

In June, just weeks before the CNN debate, The Wall Street Journal published a bombshell report about Biden's "signs of slipping" behind closed doors. It was met with strong hostility from liberal pundits. MSNBC's "Morning Joe" declared the report was a "Trump hit piece on Biden." Then-CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy accused the paper of "playing into a GOP-propelled narrative" and that it "owes its readers — and the public — better." 

It wasn't until after Biden's disastrous debate performance and his exit from the 2024 race that journalists began expressing regret over their lack of coverage of his cognitive decline.

New York Times correspondent Peter Baker suggested journalists broadly need to do some "soul-searching" on how they handled covering Biden. 

NYT, MSNBC, PBS JOURNALISTS PRESSED ON HOW THEY COVERED BIDEN'S AGE: WE PROBABLY NEED TO DO ‘SOUL-SEARCHING’

"It's very personal. Anybody who's had a father or mother whose age and you talk to them by taking away their keys, these are not easy issues… And how do you write something in the appropriate way, balanced and yet tough," Baker said in September during a panel discussion at the Texas Tribune Festival. "I can sit down and make the case that we did too little about it. I can make the case we did too much. I can play it either way. But the truth is, it's an important issue."

"We weren't relentlessly covering, the way some of my peers were, Biden's age necessarily, even all the way up until the debate," PBS NewsHour's Laura Barrón-López said in the same panel. "It is and was a valid question. Many times when I was on the trail, even before the debate, voters would bring it up. Almost every single voter I spoke to would bring it up, even if they were planning to vote for President Biden."

The Guardian's David Smith, also on the panel, conceded the possibility of bias: "There was perhaps, even on an unconscious level, the notion that if you focus so much on Joe Biden's age, you are somehow helping Donald Trump." 

In December, ex-CNN editor-at-large Chris Cilizza offered an "apology" for not pushing hard enough to question Biden's mental health, admitting he felt guilty of "age shaming" by the president's allies. 

"While I did ask the question from time to time… I didn't really push on it, if I'm being honest," Cillizza said in a video message. "I probably should've pushed harder on the Biden age stuff because, in retrospect, it's clear that the people close to him knew that at best, he had some good days and some bad days."

"And so I think it's a lesson that we have to learn going forward. Because again, Donald Trump will be the oldest person ever to hold office if he serves for four years, and I will be mindful of that. Because again, asking those questions isn't a partisan thing. Asking those questions is a journalism thing, and I should have pushed harder and not been as willing to accept the 'Nah, he's fine. Look at him when he's in public' campaign," he added. 

Nearly three months after Democrats' major setbacks up and down the ballot in the 2024 elections, the party gathers on Saturday to choose new leadership.

It's the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) first formal step to try and emerge from the political wilderness and rebound in upcoming elections after President Donald Trump recaptured the White House and Republicans flipped the Senate, held onto their fragile majority in the House and made major gains with working-class, minority and younger voters.

And with no clear leader in the party, the next DNC chair will become the de facto face of Democrats from coast to coast and will make major decisions on messaging, strategy, infrastructure and where to spend millions in political contributions.

"It's an important opportunity for us to not only refocus the party and what we present to voters, but also an opportunity for us to look at how we internally govern ourselves," longtime New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley told Fox News.

DEMOCRATS RALLY AROUND LIGHTENING ROD ISSUE AT FINAL DNC CHAIR DEBATE

Buckley, a former DNC vice chair, said he's "very excited about the potential of great reform within the party." And he emphasized he hoped for "significantly more support for the state parties. That's going to be a critical step towards our return to majority status."

Eight candidates are vying to succeed DNC Chair Jaime Harrison, who decided against seeking a second straight four-year term steering the national party committee.

FIRST ON FOX: AFTER 2024 ELECTION SETBACKS, DEMOCRATS EYE RURAL VOTERS

The next chair, as well as vice chairs and other officers, will be chosen by the roughly 450 DNC voting members gathered for the party's winter meeting, which is being held this year at National Harbor just outside Washington, D.C.

Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Chair Ken Martin, a DNC vice chair who has led the association of state Democratic Party chairs, is considered to be the frontrunner for chair heading into Saturday's election, with Wisconsin Chair Ben Wikler close behind. 

Martin recently told Fox News Digital that if he becomes chair, the first thing he would do is "figure out a plan to win. And we need to start writing that plan, making sure we’re looking underneath the hood. How much money do we have at the party? What are the contracts? What contracts do we need to get rid of? And, frankly, bringing all of our stakeholder groups together. That’s the biggest thing."

DEMOCRATS' NEW SENATE CAMPAIGN CHAIR REVEALS KEYS TO WINNING BACK MAJORITY IN 2026

Wikler, in a Fox News Digital interview, emphasized that the party needs to show voters "that we're fighting for them against those who would try to rig the economy for those at the very top and deliver that message in places where people aren't paying attention to politics much. But they know what they're struggling with in their own lives."

Wikler, who pointed to the success of Democrats in his home state, a crucial battleground, added, "That means communicating in clear language in a way that shows people that we see them. And with our actions showing that we're fighting for them to bring costs down and make sure that working people have a fair shot in this country."

Also considered competitive is Martin O'Malley, the former two-term Maryland governor and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate who served as commissioner of the Social Security Administration during former President Biden's last year in office.

DEMOCRATS' HOUSE CAMPAIGN CHAIR TELLS FOX NEWS HER PLAN TO WIN BACK MAJORITY

O'Malley told Fox News Digital he's running for DNC chair "because I love my country, and the only way we're going to save the Republic is if the Democratic Party gets itself battle-ready as quickly as possible." 

Pointing to his past steering the Democratic Governors Association, he noted, "I'm the only candidate that's actually chaired a national committee — the Democratic Governors — and I'm the only candidate that's actually run for office and been elected to office, city council, mayor, governor. And we need to recruit people all across the ballot in order to bring our party back."

Among the longer-shot candidates for chair are late entry Faiz Shakir, who ran the 2020 Democratic presidential campaign of progressive champion Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and Marianne Williamson, who ran unsuccessfully for the 2020 and 2024 Democratic presidential nominations.

"This party's not going to rise up unless there's some deeper honesty," Williamson told reporters Thursday after the final chair election forum, as she took aim at the Democrats' establishment.

The debate during the three-month DNC campaign sprint has mostly focused on the logistics of modern political campaigns, such as media strategy and messaging, fundraising and grassroots organizing and get-out-the-vote efforts. On those nuts-and-bolts issues, the candidates are mostly in agreement that changes are needed to win back blue-collar voters who now support Republicans.

But the final forum included a heavy focus on systemic racism and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, issues that appeared to hurt Democrats at the ballot box in November.

And the forum, moderated and carried live on MSNBC and held at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., devolved into chaos early on as a wave of left-wing protesters repeatedly interrupted the primetime event, heckling over concerns of climate change and billionaires' influence in America's elections before they were forcibly removed by security.

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The chair election comes as a new national poll spells more trouble for the Democrats.

Only 31% of respondents in a Quinnipiac University survey conducted over the past week had a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party, with 57% seeing the party in an unfavorable light.

"This is the highest percentage of voters having an unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party since the Quinnipiac University Poll began asking this question," the survey's release noted. 

Meanwhile, 43% of those questioned had a favorable view of the GOP, with 45% holding an unfavorable opinion, which was the highest favorable opinion for the Republican Party ever in Quinnipiac polling.

FIRST ON FOX: President Donald Trump is expected to sign a memo Friday to lift the collective bargaining agreements (CBA) former President Joe Biden put into effect before leaving office, Fox News Digital has learned. 

The president’s memo will direct federal agencies to reject last-minute collective bargaining agreements issued by the Biden administration, which White House officials said were designed to "constrain" the Trump administration from reforming the government. 

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION OFFERS BUYOUTS TO FEDERAL EMPLOYEES, INCLUDING REMOTE WORKERS: 'DEFERRED RESIGNATION'

The memo prohibits agencies from making new collective bargaining agreements during the final 30 days of a president’s term. It also directs agency heads to disapprove any collective bargaining agreements that Biden put through during the final 30 days of his term. 

The White House said collective bargaining agreements enacted before that time period will remain in effect while the Trump administration "negotiates a better deal for the American people." 

Biden’s Social Security Administration Commissioner, Martin O’Malley, in December 2024 came to an agreement with the American Federation of Government Employees guaranteeing that the agency’s 42,000 employees would not have to work in office during the Trump administration. 

The White House told Fox News Digital that the new policy "ensures the American people get the policies they voted for, instead of being stuck with the wasteful and ineffective Biden policies rejected at the ballot box." 

'GET BACK TO WORK': HOUSE OVERSIGHT TO TAKE ON GOVERNMENT TELEWORK IN 1ST HEARING OF NEW CONGRESS

"The outgoing Biden administration negotiated lame-duck, multi-year collective bargaining agreements — during the week before the inauguration — in an attempt to tie the incoming Trump administration’s hands," a White House fact sheet on the memo obtained by Fox News Digital states. 

The White House pointed to the Biden administration’s Department of Education’s agreement that prohibited the return of remote employees and agreements for the Biden Small Business Administration and Federal Trade Commission. 

"These CBAs attempt to prevent President Trump from implementing his promises to the American people, such as returning Federal employees to the office to make government operate more efficiently," the fact sheet states. "President Biden’s term of office ended on January 20th. Under this memorandum, he and future Presidents cannot govern agencies after leaving office by locking in last-minute CBAs." 

WHITE HOUSE OPM ORDERS ALL DEI OFFICES TO BEGIN CLOSING BY END OF DAY WEDNESDAY

The president’s new memo is also aimed to ensure that federal government agencies operate under similar rules as private sector unions and employers. 

The memo comes after the White House Office of Personnel Management (OPM) directed agency and department heads to notify employees by the new return to in-person work order. That order required employees to work full-time in the office unless excused due to disability or qualifying medical conditions. 

TRUMP WILL FIGHT BIDEN REMOTE WORK DEAL; UNION VOWS TO FIGHT BACK

Additionally, OPM sent emails this week to the full federal workforce offering the option of resignation with full pay and benefits until Sept. 30 if they do not want to return to the office. Those workers have until Feb. 6 to decide. 

The federal workers who did not get that option include postal workers, military immigration officials, some national security officials and any positions agencies decide to carve out. 

President Trump’s FBI director nominee Kash Patel pledged in his confirmation to end the "targeting" of Americans by the government specifically as it relates to citizens who were in the crosshairs of the Biden administration for religious reasons.

"Is it appropriate for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to attempt to recruit spies or informants into religious institutions in this country, particularly Catholic parishes?" GOP Sen. Josh Hawley asked Patel in his confirmation hearing on Thursday.

Patel responded, "I don’t believe so, senator."

"Mr. Patel, are you familiar with the recent actions of the FBI in this regard, including this memo that I have right here making a list of Catholic churches and parishes that they regard as potentially suspect and directing the potential recruitment of informants and other spies, let's be honest, into those parishes," Hawley asked.

GRAHAM GRILLS FBI NOMINEE PATEL OVER 'DISGUSTING' AND 'CORRUPT' CROSSFIRE HURRICANE PROBE

Patel told Hawley is familiar with the memo leading the Missouri Republican into his next question.

"Mr. Patel, would you commit to me that you will, if you are confirmed, that you will finally and officially withdraw this memo and make it clear that this is not only unacceptable, but that it is an absolute violation of the First Amendment, that every American voice under the Constitution of the United States," Hawley asked.

"If I'm confirmed, Senator, yes," Patel said back. 

KASH PATEL FLIPS SCRIPT ON DEM SENATOR AFTER BEING GRILLED ON J6 PARDONS: 'BRUTAL REALITY CHECK'

"Will you also commit to me that you will conduct an investigation and find out who wrote this memo, who spread this memo?" Hawley asked. "The field offices involved in this memo, because I can tell you, we've had your predecessor sit right where you're sitting. And he has repeatedly, repeatedly lied, there's no other word for it, lied to this committee. He told us initially that it didn't happen, that the FBI didn't make any list of churches. That's not true. We have it. A whistleblower brought forward the list for us."

"He said then that only one field office had worked on, it turns out we know from another whistleblower, multiple field offices worked on it, worked on it. He said that it was never posted on the internal system. It turns out it was. We believe it's still in effect. Will you find out who was involved in this gross abuse of Americans First Amendment rights? And will you discipline them? And if you possibly can, will you fire them? Mr. Patel, consistent with Department policy and law?"

Patel told Hawley that the senator has his "commitment" to "investigate any matters such as this" that "are important to Congress."

"I will fully utilize, if confirmed, the investigative powers of the FBI to give you the information you require, and also to hold those accountable who violated the sacred trust placed in them at the FBI," Patel told Hawley.

Hawley responded, "I'm glad to use the word sacred trust, because that's exactly what it is. The FBI's the most powerful law enforcement body in this nation, arguably the most powerful law enforcement body, at least in a free nation in the world and to have this body corrupted politically such that it is targeting people of faith in this country and then lying about it to this committee and the American people is unimaginable."

"I'll be honest with you, I never thought this would happen in the United States of America, I just didn't. If you had told me five years ago we'd be reading memos like this, I would have said, no way, no way. That's bad fiction. In fact, it's a horrible reality. The department needs to be cleaned up."

The exchanges comes on the heels of Trump's recent announcement that he would pardon pro-life activists convicted under the FACE Act during President Joe Biden's administration.

The pardons, first reported by The Daily Wire, would apply to activists convicted of protesting near abortion clinics during various demonstrations. The details and scope of the pardons have yet to be revealed.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, has also introduced legislation that would dismantle the FACE Act. Many lawmakers have argued that Democratic administrations have weaponized it against pro-life groups and Christians.

Fox News Digital's Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report
 

On President Donald Trump’s first day back in office, he signed an executive order entitled "Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government," responding to the Biden administration’s lawfare against him. Democrats still harshly criticize that E.O.

On Nov. 15, 2022, former President Donald Trump announced that he again was running for president. On Nov. 18, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith as special counsel to investigate and prosecute Trump, a historical first because prosecuting a former president and the leading presidential candidate of the major opposition political party shattered two centuries of legal norms and tradition. 

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, recently said that Biden’s "Justice Department’s infected with political decision-making, while its leaders refuse to acknowledge that reality."

Trump consistently and correctly criticized the Biden administration’s politicization and weaponization of government. He must now fundamentally choose whether to allow the Democrats’ wrongful lawfare against him to naturally end.

SHOULD PROSECUTORS BE PROSECUTED FOR THEIR LAWFARE CAMPAIGN AGAINST TRUMP?

Unfortunately, the Biden administration’s last-minute machinations, such as politicized special counsel reports and Biden’s blanket pardons for his family, friends and political allies, signal that Democrats likely will not stop lawfare and weaponization until they are turned against them. 

Biden’s statement accompanying his pardons showed that he knew lawfare was wrong: "baseless and politically motivated investigations wreak havoc on the lives, safety and financial security of targeted individuals and their families… being investigated or prosecuted can irreparably damage their reputations and finances."

If Democrats disavowed lawfare and committed to never doing it again, Biden’s last-minute pardons would have been unnecessary. Instead, they indicate that Democrats still want lawfare, expect tit-for-tat Republican-led investigations of Democrats, and anticipate that Trump perhaps will pardon his family, appointees and political supporters when he leaves office.

NEW YORK LEGAL LAWFARE CIRCUS AGAINST TRUMP IS CONSTITUTIONAL THREAT THAT MUST BE DISMISSED

Democrats recently signaled their commitment to lawfare when they attacked Pam Bondi during her confirmation hearings about "future weaponization" at DOJ. They intend to do the same at Kash Patel’s upcoming hearings for FBI director. 

Their questions followed Special Counsel Jack Smith’s pointless report, where he inaptly claimed that he would have convicted Trump for J6 but for the 2024 election. Smith is wrong because he ignored the Supreme Court’s Trump immunity case and cases such as Fischer, McDonnell, and Yates, all of which stripped away the heart of Smith’s charges. Ironically, Smith was the lead prosecutor in McDonnell; the Supreme Court ruled against him, 9-0.

Furthermore, Smith’s report futilely cited the Trump dissenting opinions and the lower courts’ denials of presidential immunity, even though the Supreme Court rejected them; this reveals Smith’s bias and poor legal judgment. 

THE PUBLIC REJECTED LAWFARE WHEN THEY RE-ELECTED TRUMP

Smith’s report implied that the Supreme Court was wrong: "no court had ever found that presidents are immune from criminal responsibility for their official acts, and no text in the Constitution explicitly confers such criminal immunity on the President." The Supreme Court, however, never before had to rule on presidential immunity because no DOJ ever prosecuted a former president.

Perhaps Smith takes comfort from legacy media outlets which supported him. For example, The Washington Post noted that Smith’s report "seems to make a point to offer a subtle but pretty unmistakable rebuke of the Supreme Court and its role in sparing Trump a possible conviction."  Smith’s duty as a special counsel, however, is to obey the Supreme Court, not ignore or "rebuke" it.

Customarily, special counsel reports are dry, boring, factual documents.  Smith filled his with politically tinged allegations that he cribbed from his indictments and the congressional J6 committee. 

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He so strenuously claimed that he and his office were "unbiased," "neutral," and "professional" such that he "doth protest too much, methinks" as per Shakespeare’s "Hamlet," Act 3, Scene 2. No previous special counsel felt the need to repeatedly declare his own fairness and disinterest; none ever prosecuted a former president and the leading candidate of the main opposition party.

Worse, Smith dropped an "October Surprise" when he filed a huge J6 court brief shortly before Election Day, one-sidedly reciting unflattering allegations against Trump. It wrongly claimed, among other things, that Trump directed "an angry mob to the United States Capitol to obstruct the congressional certification of the presidential election and then leverage rioters’ violence to further delay it" and that Trump "resorted to crimes."

Smith violated DOJ’s internal rules, which state that federal prosecutors "may never select the timing of any action, including investigative steps, criminal charges, or statements, for the purpose of affecting any election or for the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party." 

It appears that Pam Bondi will be confirmed as attorney general. She and President Trump can right our DOJ and criminal justice system, but only if the Democrats admit that their lawfare and weaponizing the government were wrong and backfired on them. 

Sadly, it may be that Democrats have to be shown that investigations and prosecutions can descend on them just as easily as they did on Republicans in order to drive a stake into lawfare’s heart.

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The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.

President Donald Trump is kicking off his second tour of duty in the White House in a stronger polling position than during the start of his first administration eight years ago, a new national poll indicates.

Forty-six percent of voters say they approve of the job the Republican president is doing so far, with 43% disapproving, according to a Quinnipiac University survey released on Wednesday.

The poll was conducted Jan. 23-27, during Trump's first week back in the White House following his Jan. 20th inauguration.

The president's approval rating is an improvement from Quinnipiac polling in late January 2017 – as Trump began his first term in office – when he stood at 36% approval and 44% disapproval.

WHAT THE LATEST FOX NEWS POLLING SHOWS

The survey indicates a predictable huge partisan divide over the GOP president.

"Republicans 86-4 percent approve of the job Trump is doing, while Democrats 86-8 percent disapprove," the poll's release highlights. "Among independents, 41 percent approve, while 46 percent disapprove and 13 percent did not offer an opinion."

While Trump's first approval rating for his second term is a major improvement from his first term, his rating is below the standing of his predecessor, former President Biden, in the first Quinnipiac poll from his single term in office.

CLICK HERE FOR FOX NEWS COVERAGE OF TRUMP'S FIRST 100 DAYS

Biden stood at 49%-36% approval at the start of February 2021.

His approval rating hovered in the low to mid 50s during his first six months in the White House. But Biden's numbers sank into negative territory in the late summer and autumn of 2021, in the wake of his much-criticized handling of the turbulent U.S. exit from Afghanistan, and amid soaring inflation and a surge of migrants crossing into the U.S. along the nation's southern border with Mexico.

Biden's approval ratings stayed underwater throughout the rest of his presidency.

Trump has kept up a frenetic pace during his first week and a half in office, with an avalanche of executive orders and actions. His moves not only fulfilled some of his major campaign trail promises, but also allowed the returning president to flex his executive muscles, quickly put his stamp on the federal government, and also settle some longstanding grievances.

"In our first week in office, we set records, taking over 350 executive actions," Trump touted on Wednesday. "That's not been done before, and it has reportedly been the single most effective opening week of any presidency in history."

TRUMP MOVING AT ‘WARP SPEED' DURING HIS FIRST DAYS BACK IN OFFICE

According to the new poll, six in ten approve of Trump's order sending U.S. troops to the southern border to enhance security.

"The huge deployment of boots on the ground is not to a dicey, far away war theater, but to the American border. And a majority of voters are just fine with that," Quinnipiac University polling analyst Tim Malloy said.

The poll indicates 44% support deporting all undocumented immigrants, while 39% back deporting only those convicted of violent crimes.

According to the survey, 57% disapprove of Trump's pardoning or commuting the sentences of more than 1,500 people convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters aiming to upend congressional certification of Biden's 2020 election victory.

Meanwhile, by a two-to-one margin, those questioned gave a thumbs down to Biden's issuing of preemptive pardons – in his final hours in office – for five members of his family who haven’t been charged with any crimes. Voters were divided on Biden's preemptive pardons for politicians and government officials who Trump had targeted for retaliation.

The poll also indicates that 53% disapprove of Elon Musk – the world's richest person – enjoying a prominent role in the new Trump administration, with 39% approving.

Democrats lost control of the White House and the Senate majority and failed to win back control of the House in November's elections. And the new poll spells more trouble for them.

Only 31% of respondents had a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party, with 57% seeing the party in an unfavorable light.

"This is the highest percentage of voters having an unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party since the Quinnipiac University Poll began asking this question," the survey's release noted. 

Meanwhile, the 43% of those questioned had a favorable view of the GOP, with 45% holding an unfavorable opinion, which was the highest favorable opinion for the Republican Party ever in Quinnipiac polling.

Quinnipiac questioned 1019 self-identified registered voters nationwide. The survey's overall sampling error was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Lawmakers at the state and federal levels are responding to President Joe Biden’s record presidential pardon spree – as more than 3,000 people found their sentences commuted or pardoned. The pardons, some of which came in the final hours of Biden's presidency, were issued to many members of his own family.

The last-minute tranche on Sunday that included James Biden, Hunter Biden and Valerie Biden-Owens came only weeks after a record 1,500 commutations in a single day – notably including that of disgraced Pennsylvania Judge Michael Conahan.

Conahan, of Wilkes-Barre, was dubbed the "kids for cash judge" after he was charged in connection with a scheme to send juvenile offenders to for-profit prisons in exchange for kickbacks.

Pennsylvania state Sen. Lisa Baker, R-Dallas, represents the area where Conahan once sat on the bench.

LAWMAKERS DEMAND SCRANTON CHANGE ‘BIDEN EXPRESSWAY’ NAME AFTER JUDGE PARDONED

Baker told Fox News Digital the former president’s pardon in that case was "disrespectful to the victims, their families, the juvenile justice system, and to all the officials who have worked to reform the system so that this kind of scandal cannot happen again."

She and other lawmakers are also trying to bring new attention to victim notification processes that exist at the federal level and in many states, including Pennsylvania.

A source familiar with the federal process said the system is a voluntary construct, in that victims may sign up for notifications but are not automatically informed if convicts are pardoned, transferred or released.

Rep. Dan Meuser, R-Pa., said he was troubled by much of Biden’s pardon spree, including those given preemptively to family and President Donald Trump critics, as well as convicts like Conahan – whose "kids for cash" scandal greatly affected his constituents – and added that the former president may have damaged the pardon process.

"These preemptive actions amount to an implicit admission of wrongdoing," Meuser said of pardons given to Biden family members.

ECONOMY BORDER & ABORTION DIVIDE BIDEN'S HOMETOWN AS RESIDENTS LOOK BACK ON NATIVE SON'S FIRST TERM

"This sets a dangerous precedent that undermines the long-standing purpose of the presidential pardon power. Historically, pardons have been used to offer clemency or correct injustices—not to shield one's family members from potential accountability before any charges are even brought."

Unfortunately for Biden critics, Meuser said the presidential pardon power is enshrined in Article II of the Constitution, and Congress has no power to intervene or change it.

"While I vehemently disagree with Biden’s decision to preemptively pardon members of his family, the presidential pardon power is established [therein]. That means, absent the ratification of a constitutional amendment, Congress does not have the power to review, alter, or pass legislation limiting a president’s pardon power."

Meuser pointed to the 1974 Supreme Court case Schick v. Reed, which confirmed Congress cannot have a role.

"Nevertheless, our Founding Fathers never could have conceived that a president would pardon a son who broke countless laws and utilized the White House to defraud and leverage millions of dollars in a pay-to-play scheme that also involved other family members."

Rep. Rob Bresnahan, R-Pa., who flipped Biden’s home district in November, has also expressed concern over Biden’s use of presidential pardons.

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"I think what's discouraging is that you heard time and time again along the campaign trail that he wasn't going to do something like this, but I'm certainly not surprised," Bresnahan recently told WBRE.

"I'm sure much of America is not surprised."

While countless Americans who fell victim to those pardoned, including Conahan, may have little recourse, Baker said she is participating in the drafting of legislation in Harrisburg late Friday that will attempt to remove Biden’s likeness from part of his home area.

While the former Spruce Street in Scranton – since renamed Biden Avenue – is city property, Baker said the "President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Expressway" splitting off Interstate 81 into his hometown is within PennDOT’s bounds.

"The reaction has been so strong that many have called for renaming the President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Expressway, which was designated by Scranton City Council in 2021," Baker said.

The lawmaker added Biden’s legacy is forever "stained" by Conahan’s "inexplicable and infamous commutation."

"We owe it to the juvenile victims, their families, and all the believers in equal justice to remove the name of Joe Biden and replace it with someone truly deserving of the honor."