A Senate Republican wants to crack down on childcare providers convicted of fraud with legislation that would, among a handful of tweaks to current law, require the fraudsters to pay back the misspent taxpayer money.

The bill from Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, would amend the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act to impose harsher penalties on childcare providers convicted of fraud, and one of several moves in the upper chamber to tackle the sprawling Minnesota fraud scandal.

Cornyn’s bill, the Stop Fraud by Strengthening Oversight and More Accountability for Lying and Illegal Activity (SOMALIA) Act, is narrowly tailored toward addressing fraudulent activity in childcare and daycare centers, but the breadth and scope of the unfurling scandal goes beyond that.

Federal prosecutors estimate that up to $9 billion was stolen through a network of fraudulent fronts posing as daycare centers, food programs and health clinics.

‘The Minnesota scandal has exposed a deep-rooted, morally bankrupt fraud empire, and it is clear more must be done to rid our nation of these heinous criminals,’ Cornyn said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

The legislation would require mandatory permanent debarment from all federally funded child care assistance programs, repay misspent federal funds, require referral for federal criminal investigations, and require states to enforce the above bans and halt providers from evading debarment by restructuring the business or changing the business name.

There’s also an immigration component to the bill that would make non-citizens convicted of fraud deportable, bar them from asylum, adjustment of status, and subject them to mandatory detention and expedited removal.

Cornyn’s effort is one of many coming from the Senate GOP, where lawmakers are looking at several options to crack down on fraud, both in Minnesota and more broadly in the federal government.

Every Senate Republican joined in on a letter to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz last week, and demanded that he provide a paper trail on the state’s role in the scandal. And Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., floated that budget reconciliation, the same procedure used to pass President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill,’ could be used to deal with fraud.

And the Trump administration has moved to or threatened cancellation of federal funds to the state in the wake of the scandal.

‘I applaud President Trump for his efforts to end this corruption, and I’m proud to take it a step further with the Stop Fraud by SOMALIA Act, which would ensure these consequences are enshrined into law before any more funds are misused or sent overseas to fund American-hating terrorist networks like we saw in now-disgraced Governor Walz’s state,’ Cornyn said.

Democrats and Republicans are united in opposing U.S. military strikes against Iran to retaliate for the killing of protesters amid a wave of massive demonstrations against the Iranian government in recent weeks, according to a new national poll.

Seventy percent of voters questioned in a new Quinnipiac University survey said they think the U.S. should not get involved militarily in Iran, with 18% saying the U.S. should take military action.

The vast majority of Independents (80%-11%) and Democrats (79%-7%), as well as a majority of Republicans (53%-35%) said the U.S. should not get involved if protesters in Iran are killed while demonstrating against the regime.

The poll, conducted Jan. 9–12, comes as President Donald Trump has turned up the heat on the regime in Tehran, threatening strikes on Iran if its forces continue to kill demonstrators.

The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency announced Tuesday that nearly 2,000 people have been killed in the protests. Other reports say the death toll is over 3,000, with the real number likely to be even higher. 

The protests against Iran’s dire economic conditions, which have rapidly escalated in recent days, are seen as some of the most violent since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that installed the current system of clerical rule.

Trump took to social media earlier this week, urging ‘Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING — TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS.’

The president also said that ‘HELP IS ON ITS WAY,’ and apparently pointing to Iranian authorities, he warned, ‘They will pay a big price.’

Pointing to the possibility of Iranian authorities executing some of the protesters, Trump said in a CBS News interview this week, ‘If they do such a thing, we will take very strong action.’

And the White House confirmed on Monday that Trump was weighing whether to bomb Iran in reaction to the crackdown.

But seven in 10 questioned in the poll said that, in general, a president should first receive congressional approval before deciding to take military action against another country.

‘Talk of the U.S. military potentially intervening in Iran’s internal chaos gets a vigorous thumbs down, while voters signal congressional approval should be a backstop against military involvement in any foreign crisis,’ Quinnipiac University polling analyst Tim Malloy said.

But there’s a partisan divide, with 95% of Democrats and 78% of Independents saying a president should first receive approval from Congress, but Republicans, by a 54%-35% margin, saying congressional approval is not needed.

Trump last June ordered U.S. military strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities as part of Operation Midnight Hammer, amid fighting between Tehran and Israel.

Voters are also divided on Trump’s move earlier this month to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife and bring them to the U.S. to face drug trafficking charges. Forty-seven percent supported the president’s decision, with 45% opposed.

And there was an expected partisan divide, with 85% of Republicans supporting the military action to capture Maduro, with 79% of Democrats opposed. Independents were divided.

More than half of voters (57%) opposed the U.S. running Venezuela until Washington is satisfied that the government there will operate the way the U.S. wants it to. Nearly three-quarters (73%) said they opposed sending U.S. ground troops to Venezuela and 55% opposed the U.S. taking over the South American country’s oil sales.

‘Voters are divided on the merits of overthrowing Maduro. And while split on whether in the long run the people of Venezuela will be better off, they strongly disapprove of America’s temporary domain over Venezuela and are heartily against putting U.S. troops on the ground,’ Malloy noted.

Trump has also turned up the volume in his efforts to acquire Greenland from Denmark.

‘The United States needs Greenland for the purpose of national security,’ the president argued in a social media post Wednesday.

Trump’s push for the U.S. to acquire Greenland is causing tension with Denmark and other NATO allies who insist that the semiautonomous Danish territory should determine its own future. 

Trump officials are openly considering all options, including military force, to take Greenland, spurring bipartisan opposition from some in Congress.

According to the poll, 86% of voters said they would oppose military action to take over Greenland. And by a 55%-37% margin, voters said they opposed trying to buy Greenland.

But there’s a stark political divide, with more than two-thirds of Republicans supporting efforts to buy or capture Greenland.

Senate Republicans successfully spiked a bipartisan attempt to curb President Donald Trump’s war powers authority after a pair of key GOP lawmakers reversed their positions. 

Republicans turned to a rarely used Senate procedure previously used by Senate Democrats in a similar situation to nullify the Venezuela war powers resolution from Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va. The successful effort came after five Senate Republicans joined all Senate Democrats to advance the resolution last week. 

Their move drew heavy criticism and anger from Trump, who demanded that they ‘should never be elected to office again.’ 

The resolution was tanked on a 51 to 50 vote, with Vice President JD Vance coming in to break a tie in favor of Trump. 

Turning to the arcane procedural move served as a victory for both the president and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., after last week’s rare defeat on the floor.  

Thune, like several other Republicans, contended that the resolution was not germane to the issues at hand in Venezuela. 

‘We don’t have troops in Venezuela. There is no kinetic action, there are no operations,’ Thune said. ‘There are no boots on the ground. And I think the question is whether or not there ought to be expedited consideration or privilege accorded to something that’s brought to the floor that doesn’t reflect what’s what is current reality in Venezuela.’

‘And so I think it’s very fair for Republicans to question why we ought to be having this discussion right now, particularly at a time when we’re trying to do appropriations bills,’ he continued.

Thune, Senate Republican leadership, Trump and several administration officials launched a pressure campaign on the five original defectors who helped Senate Democrats advance the bill. While not every lawmaker flipped, Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Todd Young, R-Ind., proved the decisive votes to help kill the resolution. 

Hawley’s primary concern was whether the administration would place troops in Venezuela, but after several meetings and conversations with Trump administration officials, he was convinced that no further military action would take place. 

‘To me, this is all about going forward,’ Hawley said of his reversal. ‘If the president decides we need to put troops on the ground in Venezuela, then Congress will need to weigh in.’

Young kept tight-lipped about his plan until the vote opened, and explained before walking onto the Senate floor that the deliverables and guarantees he had received from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the administration were enough for him. 

Among those were promises that if Trump did want to use force against Venezuela, he would first request authorization from Congress, and that Rubio would appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for a public hearing in the coming weeks to give an update on the situation in the region.

‘Those who understand how Congress works, the good and the bad and the ugly, understand that votes like this, in the end, are communications exercises,’ Young said. ‘They’re important communications exercises, but unless you can secure sufficient votes, not only to pass the United States Senate, but to get out of the House, with which is highly questionable, right, and then to override what was an inevitable presidential veto, which is impossible. No one can tell me how we get there.’ 

‘I had to accept that this was all a communications exercise,’ he continued. ‘I think we use this moment to shine a bright light on Congress’ shortcomings as it relates to war powers in recent history.’

Still, Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Rand Paul, R-Ky., joined Senate Democrats to try and save the effort. 

Most Senate Republicans who were briefed on the matter last week argued that the strikes in Venezuela were justified and that the military was used to assist in a law enforcement operation to capture Maduro.

Rubio, in a letter to Senate Foreign Relations Chair James Risch, R-Idaho, affirmed, ‘There are currently no U.S. Armed Forces in Venezuela.’

‘Should there be any new military operations that introduce U.S. Armed Forces into hostilities, they will be undertaken consistent with the Constitution of the United States, and we will transmit written notifications consistent with section 4(a) of the War Powers Resolution (Public Law 93-148),’ Rubio wrote.

Kaine, who was confident that he would have the votes, panned that move ahead of the vote.

‘If people want to just say, ‘Hey, President Trump, do whatever the hell you want,’ Let them vote that way, but don’t change the rules of the Senate in a way that might disable future Senates that do have a backbone,’ Kaine told reporters.

The Iranian regime has allegedly broadcast at least 97 ‘coercive confessions’ from detained protesters on state television in just over two weeks, human rights groups say, as residents endure the longest internet blackout on record.

The videos reportedly feature handcuffed detainees with blurred faces showing remorse for their actions since the protests began Dec. 28, according to a rights group tracking the videos.

It said ominous music can be heard, and edited footage shows attacks on security forces, according to reporting by The Associated Press and data from the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA).

Other rights groups also claim the confession videos are coerced and obtained under duress, with protesters ‘dragged before cameras under the threat of torture and execution.’

‘The regime’s broadcast of so-called confessions by detained protesters is a threadbare and worn tactic,’ Ali Safavi, a senior official with the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), told Fox News Digital.

‘Time and time again, the henchmen drag arrested demonstrators before cameras under the threat of torture and execution, coercing them to recant their beliefs or invent absurd stories.’

The broadcasts come amid nationwide protests sparked by public anger over political repression, economic collapse and alleged abuses by security forces.

Demonstrations have spread across major cities despite mass arrests, lethal force and sweeping restrictions on communication.

Safavi said the confessions serve a dual purpose. 

‘First, they are meant to justify the mass slaughter of protesters, no fewer than 3,000, which NCRI President-elect Maryam Rajavi has stated constitute manifest crimes against humanity,’ he said.

‘These forced confessions are designed to demoralize the Iranian people and sow fear and doubt.’

But he said any mass executions or staged confessions ‘won’t achieve that because no amount of televised coercion or repression will break the protesters’ resolve.’

U.S.-based HRANA has warned that forced confessions in Iran frequently follow psychological or physical torture and can carry severe consequences, including death sentences.

‘These rights violations compound on top of each other and lead to horrific outcomes,’ Skylar Thompson, HRANA group’s deputy director, told The Associated Press, adding that the scale of broadcasts is unprecedented.

The confession campaign coincides with a sweeping internet shutdown that has effectively cut the public off from independent information.

According to NetBlocks, Iran’s internet blackout has surpassed 144 consecutive hours, making it one of the longest disruptions ever recorded.

‘The shutdown is still ongoing, making it one of the longest blackouts on record,’ Isik Mater, NetBlocks’ director of research, told Fox News Digital.

‘State TV continues to operate normally via satellite transmission, which does not depend on the public internet, which means households can still watch Iranian state channels even during a near-total shutdown.’

Mater said the blackout magnifies the impact of state propaganda because ‘while the public is cut off, the state relies on broadcast media and its domestic National Information Network to control what people see,’ he said, likening Iran’s information strategy to that of North Korea.

‘A useful comparison is North Korea where the vast majority of citizens there have little to no access to the global internet, yet the state TV and radio broadcast regime propaganda 24/7,’ he said.

‘Information flows through closed systems, like North Korea’s domestic intranet Kwangmyong and not the open internet.’

Mater added that shutdowns are highly selective, with senior officials and state institutions retaining connectivity through ‘whitelisted networks.’

‘Senior officials and state institutions retain connectivity via whitelisted government networks and private links,’ Mater said.

‘This is why Ali Khamenei and other government officials continue posting on global social media platforms during the blackout, enabling the regime to shape the narrative internationally while citizens are unable to document events or even respond.’

France’s ambassador to the United Nations said Paris has strongly condemned Iran’s violent crackdown on nationwide protests, as the French government weighs possible satellite communications support to help Iranians circumvent a near-total internet blackout.

In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Jerome Bonnafont described what he said was an escalation in repression by Iranian authorities and outlined France’s response, including sanctions and diplomatic pressure.

‘We have condemned very, very strongly, at the highest level, the repression against the popular movement in Iran,’ Bonnafont said. ‘This time it seems to me that the repression is even more violent than it used to be.’

His remarks come as France’s foreign minister confirmed Paris is studying the possible transfer of satellite terminals operated by Eutelsat to Iran, following a sweeping internet shutdown imposed by Iranian authorities during the unrest, and as the G7 issued a joint statement condemning Iran’s violent crackdown on nationwide protests. 

The foreign ministers of France, the United States and other G7 nations warned they were prepared to impose additional restrictive measures if Iran continues to violate international human rights obligations.

Earlier Tuesday, Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar, urged France to support designating Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization at the EU level during a call with French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot.

Asked whether France would back such a move, Bonnafont did not address the IRGC designation directly, instead emphasizing existing sanctions and international pressure.

‘There are sanctions against the police of the regime. And there are sanctions also against several individuals, more than 200 people in Iran for these reasons,’ he said.

‘What we have to do is to condemn and to address the right message to the people in Iran and to the regime, so that the regime stops with this massive repression.’

NATO and Europe’s defense responsibility

Bonnafont also addressed repeated calls from President Donald Trump for European allies to shoulder more of NATO’s defense burden, arguing that Europe is already moving in that direction.

‘There is a will by the Europeans to take the full responsibility of the protection of its own continent,’ he said.

He stressed that the approach reflects a long-standing French position. ‘It is a very old theme for the French governments that there has to be within NATO an autonomous, self-capable entity for European defense,’ Bonnafont said, referring to France’s long-standing advocacy for European strategic autonomy, a position repeatedly emphasized by President Emmanuel Macron.

Ukraine as a test case

Bonnafont pointed to Europe’s response to Russia’s war in Ukraine as evidence that European governments are prepared to act collectively when core security interests are threatened.

‘Ukraine has been attacked by Russia four years ago. Now it has been invaded by Russia, and it has decided to resist and to fight for its independence, its territorial integrity, its sovereignty,’ he said.

He described European backing for Kyiv as both unified and extensive. ‘And Europeans are going in support of Ukraine. And what we are doing in terms of financial support is massive. What we are doing in terms of political support is unanimous,’ Bonnafont said.

According to the ambassador, France and the United Kingdom are working to organize what he described as a ‘coalition of volunteers’ to provide Ukraine with long-term security guarantees once negotiations with Russia become possible.

‘When Ukraine enters into discussion with Russia, and when Russia accepts to enter into discussion with Ukraine, and when the elements of a peace, sustainable peace, are put on paper, Ukraine can have security guarantees,’ he said.

Bonnafont also pointed to France’s domestic budget decisions as evidence that Europe is backing rhetoric with resources. ‘There is presently the negotiation of the next budget for France for 2026,’ he said. ‘It includes a strong increase in our defense budget, and it is the only budget that is going to be increased in our whole budget this year.’

UN reform and budget cuts

Beyond NATO and Europe’s defense posture, Bonnafont said France is pushing for institutional reform at the United Nations, where member states recently approved significant budget reductions. ‘The institution has to reform. It always has to reform,’ he said.

‘We decided by consensus with the American government and all the others a budget which presents a reduction of 20% of manpower and a reduction of 15% of the funds allocated to the U.N.,’ Bonnafont added. ‘Give me another example of a public structure that is capable of such an effort in such a short time,’ he said.

Despite the cuts, he defended the U.N.’s relevance. ‘Yes, we are serious about reform. Yes, we want it to be streamlined,’ Bonnafont said. ‘But yes, we need the U.N. for the world.’

UNRWA dispute and U.S. funding cuts

Asked about the U.S. decision to halt funding for several U.N. agencies, including UNRWA, Bonnafont defended the agencies, saying, ‘Organizations are more efficient when they are universal,’ adding that participation remains a sovereign decision for the United States.