A key House Republican says Congress should consider sending emergency U.S. aid to Israel amid its worsening conflict with Iran.

‘Yeah, absolutely,’ Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., said when asked about a supplemental funding package in the event the crisis became a prolonged conflict. 

‘There’s very, very, very strong bipartisan support, in particular Republican support, for Israel, and I think again, what we are seeing is Israel doing what they need to do to protect themselves from literally being wiped off the face of the planet.’

He also commended President Donald Trump as having handled the volatile situation ‘brilliantly so far.’

The Florida Republican chairs the House Appropriations Committee panel responsible for overseeing foreign aid and State Department funding.

The National Security, Department of State, and Related Programssubcommittee was key to Congress crafting emergency foreign aid packages to Israel, Taiwan, and Ukraine last year — all of which passed Congress with varying degrees of bipartisan support.

Diaz-Balart said he had not spoken with House leaders about the issue, noting most lawmakers were away in their home districts tending to their constituencies this week.

He added, ‘I’ve actually had informal conversations with members.’

He declined to say how those members felt about supplemental Israel funding, however, telling Fox News Digital, ‘I can’t speak for others, but I will tell you that there is a very strong appetite from me to make sure that Israel has all the help that it needs in order to finish the job that it’s doing.’

Meanwhile, he and his fellow subcommittee members have also been crafting their appropriations bill for the next fiscal year coming on Oct. 1.

‘We’re going to do what we’ve been consistently doing, is just, we’re going to be helping Israel. And if there is a need to do more, obviously you’re going to see strong support, whether it’s in the appropriation… bills, or if we need a supplemental, I think you would see strong bipartisan support,’ he said.

Last year, the House authorized just over $26 billion in emergency U.S. funding for Israel, humanitarian aid in the region, and shore up American military operations. The bill passed in an overwhelmingly bipartisan 366 to 58 vote — an increasingly rare occurrence for major legislation in the current political climate.

Twenty-one House Republicans and 37 Democrats voted against the measure at the time.

But since then, Democrats have continued to grow increasingly critical of Israel’s war in Gaza and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conservative government.

At the same time, there’s been a growing skepticism of foreign aid among the House GOP — particularly with the national debt climbing toward $37 trillion.

Diaz-Balart, however, was still optimistic that a hypothetical aid package could pass if brought up in Congress, when asked about both of those factors.

Israeli officials said Iran was dangerously close to having a nuclear weapon when its military launched an attack on Tehran that killed the Islamic regime’s top military figures and hit nuclear sites in and around the capital.

Since then, both sides have exchanged rocket fire, with fatalities reported on both sides.

Fox News Digital reached out to Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., for comment on the possibility of supplemental funding to Israel.

A key House Republican says Israel will continue to have bipartisan support from Congress as its conflict with Iran worsens tensions in the Middle East.

‘Yeah, absolutely,’ Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., said when asked about a hypothetical supplemental funding package in the event the crisis became a prolonged conflict. 

‘There’s very, very, very strong bipartisan support, in particular Republican support, for Israel, and I think again, what we are seeing is Israel doing what they need to do to protect themselves from literally being wiped off the face of the planet.’

He also commended President Donald Trump as having handled the volatile situation ‘brilliantly so far.’

The Florida Republican chairs the House Appropriations Committee panel responsible for overseeing foreign aid and State Department funding.

The National Security, Department of State, and Related Programssubcommittee was key to Congress crafting emergency foreign aid packages to Israel, Taiwan, and Ukraine last year — all of which passed Congress with varying degrees of bipartisan support.

Diaz-Balart said he had not spoken with House leaders about the issue, noting most lawmakers were away in their home districts tending to their constituencies this week.

He added, ‘I’ve actually had informal conversations with members.’

He declined to say how those members felt about supplemental Israel funding, however, telling Fox News Digital, ‘I can’t speak for others, but I will tell you that there is a very strong appetite from me to make sure that Israel has all the help that it needs in order to finish the job that it’s doing.’

Meanwhile, he and his fellow subcommittee members have also been crafting their appropriations bill for the next fiscal year coming on Oct. 1.

‘We’re going to do what we’ve been consistently doing, is just, we’re going to be helping Israel. And if there is a need to do more, obviously you’re going to see strong support, whether it’s in the appropriation… bills, or if we need a supplemental, I think you would see strong bipartisan support,’ he said.

Last year, the House authorized just over $26 billion in emergency U.S. funding for Israel, humanitarian aid in the region, and shore up American military operations. The bill passed in an overwhelmingly bipartisan 366 to 58 vote — an increasingly rare occurrence for major legislation in the current political climate.

Twenty-one House Republicans and 37 Democrats voted against the measure at the time.

But since then, Democrats have continued to grow increasingly critical of Israel’s war in Gaza and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conservative government.

At the same time, there’s been a growing skepticism of foreign aid among the House GOP — particularly with the national debt climbing toward $37 trillion.

Diaz-Balart, however, was still optimistic that a hypothetical aid package could pass if brought up in Congress, when asked about both of those factors.

Israeli officials said Iran was dangerously close to having a nuclear weapon when its military launched an attack on Tehran that killed the Islamic regime’s top military figures and hit nuclear sites in and around the capital.

Since then, both sides have exchanged rocket fire, with fatalities reported on both sides.

Fox News Digital reached out to Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., for comment on the possibility of supplemental funding to Israel.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., doesn’t envision, nor want, the U.S. military becoming directly involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran, but that hinges on whether the Islamic Republic rejoins the negotiating table.

‘Dismantling Iran’s nuclear program is what this is all about,’ Thune told Fox News Digital from his office in the Capitol. ‘And that can happen one of two ways. It can happen diplomatically — voluntarily —or can happen via force.’

Thune’s comments come as questions and concerns swirl on Capitol Hill among lawmakers about whether the U.S. will take a bigger, more direct role in the burgeoning conflict in the Middle East. There are active conversations among senators about what role Congress should play in whether to thrust the U.S. into an armed conflict or if that power should be ceded to the president. 

‘The Israelis may not have the military capability to do everything that’s necessary,’ he continued. ‘If the Iranians are smart, they’ll come to the table and negotiate this in a way in which they choose to end or disavow their nuclear program.’

Israel and Iran traded missile strikes for a fifth day following the Jewish State’s late-night strike last Thursday, where critical infrastructure that would aid Iran in its pursuit of creating a nuclear weapon was damaged or destroyed. Notably, Israel has been unable to damage the heavily fortified Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. 

Bipartisan resolutions requiring that Congress gets to weigh in and take a vote on going to war with Iran and disavowing an armed conflict entirely have circulated this week, while some lawmakers believe that the U.S. should go all in to snuff out Iran’s nuclear capabilities and back up Israel as fighting rages.

President Donald Trump has so far refused to say whether the U.S. would use direct military force to prevent Iran from creating or obtaining a nuclear weapon, and he has continued to urge Iranian leaders to negotiate a nuclear deal.

Still, the president met in the White House’s Situation Room on Tuesday with his National Security Team after leaving the G7 Summit in Canada early.

Ahead of that meeting, he said on his social media platform, Truth Social, ‘We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran.’ In that same post, he noted that the U.S. was aware of where Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was ‘hiding,’ but was not prepared to strike, ‘at least not for now.’

But Thune was more cautious, and contended that ‘we’ll wait and see what they do.’

‘I think right now, they’re definitely on their heels,’ he said. ‘Their command and control has been taken out. Nobody knows who’s really in charge.’

‘We’ll see. If they’re smart, they’ll come to the table.’

However, he hoped to see Iranians begin to rise up against the Ayatollah and believed that’s when the ‘seeds of change’ would begin to appear. He also noted that there are ‘a lot of things here that suggest to me, this may be that moment in time that we haven’t seen since 1979,’ a reference to the Iranian Revolution that saw the overthrow of the monarchy in Iran and the subsequent creation of the Islamic Republic. 

Asked whether lawmakers would put forward a supplemental spending package to further aid Israel, Thune said, ‘We’ll cross that bridge if and when we come to it.’ But he envisioned that if one were necessary, it would be dealt with after the budget reconciliation process, when lawmakers work to fund the government during fiscal 2026 appropriations.

‘I think, for right now, everybody is wishing the Israelis success and, again, hoping that the U.S. doesn’t have to get further involved, but realizing what’s at stake, and not only for Israel but for the region and the world,’ he said. 

Biden-appointed U.S. Judge Julia Kobick issued a ruling Tuesday to temporarily block the Trump administration’s move to only allow two genders, male and female, on U.S. passports.

In line with an executive order signed by President Donald Trump proclaiming the U.S. only recognizes two genders, the Department of State eliminated the ‘X’ designation on passport applications and suspended a policy allowing people to identify as the opposite sex or as intersex or nonbinary.

The move was widely reported by media outlets as ‘targeting transgender’ people. In April, Kobick, who is a federal judge for the U.S. District of Massachusetts, ruled to block the policy with regard to six people who sued the administration over it. 

Her Tuesday ruling extended her previous ruling to temporarily suspend the policy for all Americans.

Kobick stated in her ruling that the suit against the Trump administration’s policy is likely to succeed because she finds that it discriminates on the basis of sex, is ‘arbitrary and capricious’ and ‘rooted in irrational prejudice toward transgender Americans.’

Kobick wrote that ‘transgender and non-binary people who possess passports bearing sex markers that conflict with their gender identity and expression are… significantly more likely to experience psychological distress, suicidality, harassment, discrimination, and violence’ and that ‘obtaining gender concordant identity documents is part of the standard of care for treating gender dysphoria.’

The judge wrote that the policy would cause transgender individuals to ‘experience anxiety and psychological distress or fear for their safety if they were required to travel with passports bearing a sex designation corresponding to their sex assigned at birth, largely because they would effectively ‘out’ themselves every time they presented their passports.’

Trump’s order, titled ‘Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,’ directed executive agencies to ‘recognize two sexes, male and female,’ saying, ‘these sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.’

Though Kobick stated in her ruling that the government failed to demonstrate that the policies are substantially related to an important government interest, Trump’s executive order states that ‘efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being’ and that ‘the erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire American system.’

‘Across the country, ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex have increasingly used legal and other socially coercive means to permit men to self-identify as women and gain access to intimate single-sex spaces and activities designed for women, from women’s domestic abuse shelters to women’s workplace showers. This is wrong … Basing Federal policy on truth is critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, morale, and trust in government itself,’ reads the order.

The White House is working to show President Donald Trump’s consistent stance against Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon, as critics emerge from both sides of the aisle. On Tuesday, the White House’s rapid response team released a series of 30 clips on X showing Trump’s statements over the years on the dangers of Iran getting a nuclear weapon.

In October 2023, just days after Hamas’ brutal massacre in Israel, Trump told a crowd at a campaign rally that Iran could not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.

‘Don’t let Iran have nuclear weapons. That’s my only thing I have to tell you today. Don’t let them have it,’ Trump said at the Oct. 16, 2023, Iowa rally.

Then in January 2024, Trump said, ‘I just don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon, and they weren’t going to have one.’

A few months later, in June 2024, during an appearance on the podcast ‘All-In,’ Trump told the hosts that Iran could not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon.

‘The main thing is Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon. That was my main thing. The deal was a simple deal. Iran can’t have a nuclear. You know, it can’t have a missile, it can’t have a nuclear missile. It cannot have that nuclear capability,’ Trump told the podcast hosts.

The most recent clip was from May 2025 in which Trump told the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum that ‘Iran can have a much brighter future — but we’ll never allow America and its allies to be threatened with terrorism or a nuclear attack… they cannot have a nuclear weapon.’

Vice President JD Vance also commented on the controversy regarding Trump’s stance on Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Vance defended his boss’ Iran position as being focused only on ‘using the American military to accomplish American people’s goals.’

He also described Trump as someone who ‘has been amazingly consistent, over 10 years, that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.’

‘I have yet to see a single good argument for why Iran needed to enrich uranium well above the threshold for civilian use. I’ve yet to see a single good argument for why Iran was justified in violating its non-proliferation obligations. I’ve yet to see a single good pushback against the IAEA’s findings,’ Vance wrote on X.

Although the White House team’s clips date back to 2023, there is even earlier evidence that Trump was against Iran having a nuclear weapon. 

In 2018, during his first term in office, Trump withdrew from the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). At the time, Trump called the JCPOA ‘one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into.’

The White House release on the U.S. withdrawal from the deal has several references to Trump’s opposition to Iran developing a nuclear weapon. At one point it says that ‘Trump is committed to ensuring Iran has no possible path to a nuclear weapon.’

FBI Director Kash Patel took to social media on Tuesday to condemn a former Coast Guard officer who was arrested for allegedly threatening to assassinate President Donald Trump, which Patel claimed resulted, in part, from a ‘destructive’ Instagram post shared earlier this year by his predecessor, former FBI director James Comey. 

‘This is a guy who threatened President Trump’s life using the ‘86 47’ language,’ Patel said of Peter Stinson, the former Coast Guard official who was charged with making threats to kill the president. Stinson, who served from 1988 to 2021 in the Coast Guard – where he held roles as a sharpshooter and FEMA instructor – will appear in federal court for the first time on Wednesday.

Stinson appears to have made multiple, graphic threats against President Donald Trump, according to court documents, including 13 references to the ’86 47′ message shared in a now-deleted Instagram post by former FBI director James Comey. 

Comey in May posted a photo of shells arranged in the sand with the number ’86 47′ on Instagram. The post, which he deleted hours later, prompted backlash, including from Trump himself, and sparked at least two interviews with the Secret Service, as Comey later detailed.

The former FBI director has said in multiple public interviews since that he did not have any dark intentions in sharing the photo and that his wife had associated it with her time as a restaurant server to mean taking something off the menu. 

According to Merriman Webster, ’86’ is slang that can mean ‘to throw out,’ ‘to get rid of’ or ‘to refuse service to.’ Trump, of course, is the 47th president. 

‘I regret the distraction and the controversy around it,’ Comey said of the incident on MSNBC. ‘But again, it’s hard to have regret about something that, even in hindsight, looks to me to be totally innocent.’ 

Comey is not currently under investigation for the post and has said that neither he nor his wife, who was with him at the time, believed it had any nefarious meaning.

Still, the Comeys’ repeated public statements and his compliance with Secret Service personnel have done little to assuage some Trump administration officials, including Patel, who now has Comey’s former job. 

‘Tragically, this case was predictable,’ Patel told Fox News Digital on Tuesday in regard to Stinson’s alleged threats. 

‘When former Director Comey first pulled his destructive Instagram stunt, it forced the FBI to pull numerous agents off of critical portfolios, taking key personnel away from important initiatives protecting the American people to deal with an overwhelming number of copycats following Comey’s lead and posting threatening messages against the president of the United States,’ Patel said.

‘Thankfully, law enforcement did excellent work preventing a potential violent actor, and we’ll continue to be on guard,’ he added.

Stinson is a Northern Virginia resident, and while it is unclear to what degree Stinson was influenced by the Comey Instagram post or the resulting media coverage of it, court documents show that many of Stinson’s threats were posted long beforehand, including in the run-up to Election Day and during the 2024 presidential campaign. 

Stinson, a ‘self-identified’ member of Antifa, made at least one threat appearing to invoke the July 13 assassination attempt against Trump while he campaigned in Butler, Pennsylvania.

‘Those secret service agents moved very slowly,’ Stinson said in a post at the time. ‘They left him in the open way to (sic) long. A missed opportunity will not come around again. They will teach this to future agents as a failure to protect and act.’ 

In February, Stinson posted on his X account, ‘Sure. This is war. Sides will be drawn. Antifa always wins in the end. Violence is inherently necessary.’ 

The most recent post referenced in the document was published on BlueSky on June 11, when Stinson allegedly wrote, ‘When he dies, the party is going to be yuge.’

Comey did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on Patel’s remarks nor on any role that the Instagram post in question may have inadvertently played in the case.

News of Stinson’s arrest comes after a federal grand jury indicted a San Bernardino County, California, man just weeks earlier for allegedly threatening to assassinate then-President-elect Donald Trump after he was elected to a second White House term.

‘This defendant is charged with threatening the life of our President – a man who has already survived two deranged attempts on his life,’ Attorney General Pam Bondi said at the time.

‘The Department of Justice takes these threats with the utmost seriousness and will prosecute this crime to the fullest extent of the law,’ Bondi added.

Fox News Digital’s Andrea Margoli contributed to this report.

 The Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has lashed out at China, Russia and Iran for threatening U.S. national security interests in Africa in exclusive comments to Fox News Digital.

In a wide-ranging interview, Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, discussed the Trump administration’s approach to Africa, highlighting terrorism, war and concerns over trade on the continent. Risch emphasized the importance of Africa to the U.S. 

‘The economic opportunities in Africa cannot be understated, and the United States needs to have a seat at the table regarding trade and investment in the region,’ he said. ‘At the same time, there are serious national security challenges we need to address head on to include terrorism, widespread conflicts affecting regional stability, migration and trafficking.’

Russia, China and Iran have been criticized by Risch as being ‘malign actors’ in Africa, accused of military interventions, exploitative trade practices, and in Iran’s case, reported to be working on an agreement to extract refined ‘yellowcake’ uranium for its controversial nuclear program.

‘The malign actions of China and Russia, and even regional actors like Iran, are serious challenges to our national security interests in Africa,’ Risch said. ‘Countering the influence of these aggressors is as much about the U.S. pursuing greater partnerships with African states as it is about responding to the challenges put forward by countries like Russia and China in Africa.’

Risch weighed in on the role of the U.S. military on the continent, saying it ‘is to protect the American people, first and foremost, and that goal should remain the same in Africa. We have serious security threats in Africa, and we must take them seriously. Remember, Osama bin Laden hid in Sudan, bombed our embassies there, and planned his 9/11 attack.’

Then there’s the question of Islamist terror. Risch said he was ‘concerned about the spread of Islamist militants throughout parts of Africa, and has supported efforts to work with countries to help them get this situation under control.’

He added, ‘I am mindful that it is ultimately not up to us to confront this problem, and we have to stop being the only major player providing international support. Others, including African nations, must do more.’

Washington has Somalian terror clearly on its radar. In banning Somalians from entering the U.S. earlier this month, a White House proclamation stated, ‘The United States Government has identified Somalia as a terrorist safe haven.’

Al-Qaeda and Islamic State-affiliated terrorists operate openly. The U.S. military, through its Africa Command, has ramped up action against the groups since President Trump took office. So far this month, the U.S. has already carried out six air strikes against Islamic State in Somalia.

‘I have advocated so strongly for the United States to build an approach that relies less on a central government partner that has not delivered, and more on partners in Somalia and the region to bring about effective counterterrorism gains.

‘Fortunately, President Trump’s Africa policy has already shown he thinks outside the box, as demonstrated by the handling of recent airstrikes on Somalia with less hand-wringing, and more direct and decisive action.’

In Sudan, Russia and Iran have been fingered as protagonists pushing military agendas and war. An estimated 150,000 have been killed, and more than 12 million displaced, since civil war broke out in April 2023.

‘The war in Sudan must end, and the partition of the Sudanese state must be prevented. This is the worst humanitarian disaster in the world, and a playground for malign actors backing both sides,’ he said.

On President Donald Trump’s spearheading of efforts to bring peace to the Eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Risch said, ‘I know this administration is working hard to secure a deal between DRC and Rwanda that will end the fighting. America must serve as a counterweight to China’s critical minerals deals in the region, but can’t fully do so until the region is more stable.’

In South Africa, government ministers continue to meet with senior Russian, Chinese and Iranian officials. The African National Congress political party, which South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is the leader of, has hosted officials from the Hamas terror group. Yet the country benefits from duty-free benefits for products like cars and fruit in the U.S. under the African Growth and Opportunity Act, AGOA, and other trade deals.

Risch told Fox News Digital, ‘I have consistently raised national security concerns about South Africa’s AGOA eligibility. AGOA is set to expire later this year, and President Trump’s current tariff regime already overrides many of its benefits. I remain critical of the South African government’s posture, which is why I applauded Secretary Rubio’s decision not to allow U.S. representation at the G20.’

In November, South Africa is due to hand over the chairmanship of the G20 to the U.S. But at this time Washington is not sending a single official to the handover ceremony.

Fox News Digital reached out to the South African government, but received no response.

Senate Republicans are gearing up for the first full-scale congressional hearing into the alleged cover-up of former President Joe Biden’s cognitive decline.

Senators John Cornyn, R-Texas., and Eric Schmitt, R-Mo. will co-chair a Senate Judiciary Hearing Wednesday that delves into ‘what exactly went on’ during Biden’s term and why the constitutional power to remove him from office wasn’t triggered.

Cornyn said on the Senate floor that one of the main goals of the hearing was to shine a light on what happened behind the scenes during landmark moments of Biden’s presidency, ‘from the Biden border crisis to the disastrous results from the withdrawal in Afghanistan.

‘And it’s now clear that for many months — no one knows exactly how long — the president was simply not up to the task,’ he said. ‘Whoever happened to be making those decisions and carrying out the duties of the Office of President was not somebody who was authorized by the Constitution or by a vote of the American people.’

Cornyn and Schmitt’s hearing, first announced late last month, will be held after the release of the book ‘Original Sin’ by CNN host Jake Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson, which alleges the Biden White House was trying to control the narrative about the former president’s health and that his allies worked to cover up his decline.

The hearing, ‘Unfit to Serve: How the Biden Cover-Up Endangered America and Undermined the Constitution,’ features a trio of witnesses called by the Senate Republican duo who served during President Donald Trump’s first term and during the Reagan and Bush years.

Among the Republicans’ witnesses are Theodore Wold, who formerly served as acting assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Policy at the Justice Department and deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy during the Trump administration; Sean Spicer, former White House press secretary and communications director; and John Harrison, a legal scholar from the University of Virginia School of Law who previously served during former the Reagan and Bush administrations.

Wold and Harrison told Fox News Digital their testimony would focus on Biden’s alleged usage of an autopen, a device that is used to automatically mimic a person’s signature, typically used signing of numerous documents, and how the usage of the device may have acted as a smokescreen to prevent the triggering of the 25th Amendment.

Biden has rejected assertions by lawmakers and Trump that he habitually used an autopen. Trump recently ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to open an investigation into whether the former president’s aides ‘abused the power of Presidential signatures through the use of an autopen to conceal Biden’s cognitive decline.’

Spicer’s testimony will focus on the media’s treatment of Trump compared to Biden during their respective first terms and how some media outlets were allegedly ‘silent’ when it came to signs of the ex-president’s decline.

Democrats on the panel did not call any witnesses.

The top-ranking Democrat on the committee, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., contended that Cornyn and Schmitt were wasting the panel’s time with their endeavor.

‘We have so many important topics to consider, and this is a totally political undertaking by several of my colleagues,’ he said. ‘It is a waste of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s time.’