Former Vice President Mike Pence’s conservative organization wants Republican senators to gut provisions from the ‘big, beautiful bill’ that could jeopardize the legislation’s survival in both chambers.

Advancing American Freedom, Pence’s organization that he founded in 2021, supports the House’s offering in the budget reconciliation process, and views it as the best move to prevent President Donald Trump’s first-term tax cuts from expiring. 

However, Chair Marc Short and President Tim Chapman called on the Senate GOP to make further refinements to the bill to ensure a better end product, in a letter to Senate Republicans first obtained by Fox News Digital. 

And some of those changes would see key provisions that helped move the president’s bill through the House stripped out.

The duo praised House Republicans for ‘hard-fought’ reforms to Medicaid, rolling back of certain provisions from the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, cuts to Planned Parenthood funding and the end of taxpayer dollars flowing to ‘dangerous sex change operations.’

But they believed the Senate GOP could further polish the House’s offering.

‘Even still, the Senate should build on the House’s hard work to perfect the One, Big, Beautiful Bill to deliver for the American people,’ they wrote.

Pence’s organization also called for further lowering the corporate tax rate, which was set at 21% by Trump’s first-term tax cut package, eliminating the state and local tax (SALT) deduction entirely, ending all Green New Deal subsidies, and gutting a proposed increase to the debt limit.

Some of the changes advocated for by Advancing American Freedom, like nixing the debt-limit language, could go a long way toward earning support from Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who has vowed to vote against the bill if the debt-limit hike is left in.

But completely ending green subsidies could pose a problem for a cohort of Senate Republicans who have wanted to see the phase-out authored by House Republicans reworked. Doing away with the SALT deduction could hinder the bill, too.

Senate Republicans largely do not care about the increase to the SALT cap to $40,000 pushed for by blue-state Republicans in the House, given that no Republican senator represents a blue state. But House Republicans from New York, New Jersey and California have vowed to vote against the legislation if the cap is touched.

Congressional Republicans are using the budget reconciliation process to pass a sweeping bill advancing Trump’s agenda on taxes, immigration, energy, defense and the national debt. The main thrust of the colossal package is to extend or make permanent the president’s 2017 tax cuts, but lawmakers are also working to use it to bring down the national debt – nearing $37 trillion – with the aim of cutting $1.5 trillion in federal spending.

While leaders have warned to make as few changes as possible to the House’s offering, the Senate GOP intends to leave its mark on the package, particularly in trying to find steeper savings. Any seismic changes could jeopardize the bill’s survival in the House, where it narrowly passed on a 215 to 214 vote last month.

Short and Chapman noted that the ultimate goal of the package is to prevent Trump’s tax cuts from lapsing.

‘If Congress gets cold feet — or fails to send the package to the president’s desk — 
American households will suffer a $2,100 tax increase on average,’ they wrote.

‘[The One Big Beautiful Bill] not only defuses the looming tax bomb, it takes a first step toward entitlement reform, rebuilds the military, and ensures that our Border Patrol agents and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have the tools they need to secure the border and deport illegal aliens,’ they said. 

Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote a dissent to the Supreme Court’s decision to limit the U.S. Tax Court’s authority in certain Internal Revenue Service (IRS) cases, asserting that the federal tax collecting service could avoid accountability in the future.

Gorsuch wrote the dissent to the high court’s opinion in Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Zuch, a case that centers on Jennifer Zuch’s dispute with the IRS that began in 2012 over the agency’s moves regarding her late 2010 federal tax return filing. 

‘Along the way, the Court’s decision hands the IRS a powerful new tool to avoid accountability for its mistakes in future cases like this one,’ Gorsuch wrote in his dissent.

In this case, Zuch claimed that the IRS made a mistake, crediting a $50,000 payment to her then-husband’s account instead of her own. The IRS disagreed and sought to collect her unpaid taxes with a levy to seize and sell her property.

Over the years after the dispute began, Zuch filed several annual tax returns showing overpayments. Instead of being issued refunds, the IRS applied these to her outstanding 2010 tax liability.

Once the IRS settled Zuch’s outstanding sum, her liability reached zero, and the IRS no longer had a reason to levy her property.

The IRS then moved to dismiss Zuch’s case in Tax Court, arguing that Tax Court lacked jurisdiction since there was no longer a levy on her property. The Tax Court agreed.

The Supreme Court upheld that Tax Court no longer had jurisdiction without a levy.

‘Because there was no longer a proposed levy, the Tax Court properly concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to resolve questions about Zuch’s disputed tax liability,’ read the high court’s opinion.

The decision will not only prevent Zuch from recouping her overpayments that she believes the IRS has wrongly retained, but give the IRS a way to avoid accountability, Gorsuch wrote in his dissent.

‘The IRS seeks, and the Court endorses, a view of the law that gives that agency a roadmap for evading Tax Court review and never having to answer a taxpayer’s complaint that it has made a mistake,’ the justice wrote.

The White House is in ongoing discussions with Capitol Hill to amend a proposed sanctions bill targeting Russia, Fox News Digital has learned, and prefers that route over sanctions led by the executive branch. 

Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., introduced the legislation months ago and garnered 82 co-sponsors, but the Senate has delayed a vote to give President Donald Trump room to pursue a diplomatic settlement between Russia and Ukraine.

Now, with Trump increasingly skeptical of Vladimir Putin’s intentions to end the war, the bill could soon come to the floor. According to three sources familiar with the matter, talks between lawmakers and the White House are active, though no firm timeline has been set.

‘The House has appetite to move it, too,’ said one congressional source. 

Companion legislation has 70 House co-sponsors.

State Department policy planner Michael Anton has privately indicated to allies that the White House isn’t interested in imposing unilateral sanctions, but also won’t stand in the way of the Graham–Blumenthal legislation.

Behind the scenes, the White House is pushing for revisions that would grant the president greater discretion in enforcement. Specifically, officials are seeking to replace any ‘shall’ with ‘may’ in the bill’s text — a subtle but significant shift that would weaken mandatory enforcement.

‘The White House, no matter who is there, always wants the bill watered down — it’s normal,’ the source said. ‘Whenever any committee, congressman or senator wants to do a sanctions bill, career officials always email back and say, ‘Change the ‘shall’ to ‘may.’’

The legislation would impose sweeping economic penalties, including 500% tariffs on any country that does business with Moscow, and sanctions on key Russian officials and entities.

Graham has acknowledged that revisions are likely, including potential carve-outs from the tariff provision for nations providing aid to Ukraine. The exception would offer relief to European allies that are still dependent on Russian energy.

‘Why don’t we carve out for countries who are helping Ukraine?’ Graham said in an interview with Semafor earlier in June. ‘If you’re providing military economic assistance to Ukraine, you get a carve-out. So China, if you don’t want to get sanctioned, help Ukraine.’

Trump, speaking candidly on a podcast published Wednesday, questioned whether Putin has any interest in ending the conflict.

‘I’m starting to think maybe he doesn’t,’ Trump said when asked whether the Russian president minds losing thousands of soldiers in Ukraine each week.

On Capitol Hill, Trump’s top military advisors were pressed Wednesday on whether they believe Putin intends to halt his offensive.

‘I don’t believe he is,’ said Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

‘Remains to be seen,’ added Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The European Union unveiled a fresh sanctions package, that still needs to be voted on, which would ban transactions with the Nord Stream energy pipelines. 

Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. has imposed sweeping sanctions: cutting Russian banks off from the U.S. financial system, freezing over $300 billion in Kremlin assets, banning key technology exports, and blocking imports of Russian fuel.

The House of Representatives passed President Donald Trump’s $9.4 billion plan to claw back federal funds for foreign aid, PBS and NPR.

The 214 to 212 vote was mostly along party lines, with no Democrats voting for the bill. Four Republicans voted against the measure, however – Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., Mike Turner, R-Ohio, Mark Amodei, R-Nev., and Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y.

A dramatic scene played out on the House floor on Thursday afternoon as the bill appeared poised to fail, with six Republican lawmakers having voted ‘no.’

Fox News Digital observed Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., huddled with several moderate Republicans who either voted ‘no’ or had not yet voted.

In the end, two of those holdouts – Reps. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y., and Don Bacon, R-Neb. – elected to support the bill, enabling it to pass on a narrow margin.

Trump allies largely viewed the package as a test run to see whether congressional Republicans could stomach cuts that were widely seen across the GOP as low-hanging fruit.

Spending cuts in the legislation include a $8.3 billion rollback of funding to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and just over $1 billion in cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funnels federal dollars to NPR and PBS.

Republican leaders argued the majority of the USAID dollars getting cut were going toward ‘woke’ programs like $1 million for voter ID in Haiti and $3 million for Iraqi Sesame Street.

On NPR and PBS, conservatives have long accused the two networks of taking federal money while growing increasingly liberal in their bias, rather than focusing on impartiality.

But some moderate Republicans had concerns about the legislation’s effect on critical disease prevention research in Africa.

Others argue that entirely slashing federal funding to public broadcasting would disproportionately hurt small local news outlets that rely on it most, and which are situated in areas that otherwise would be an information desert without those resources.

The legislation ultimately passed, however, and will now be sent to the Senate for consideration.

The $9.4 billion proposal is called a rescissions package, a mechanism for the White House to block congressionally approved funding it disagrees with.

Once transmitted to Capitol Hill, lawmakers have 45 days to approve the rescissions proposal, otherwise it is considered rejected. 

Such measures only need a simple majority in the House and Senate to pass. But that’s no easy feat with Republicans’ thin majorities in both chambers.

If passed, Republican leaders hope the bill will be the first of several rescissions packages codifying spending cuts identified by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Sen. Lindsey Graham is pushing forward to fund President Donald Trump’s border security agenda despite objections from a key Senate Republican who wants to cut the spending in half.

The South Carolina Republican, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, unveiled the Senate’s plan to fund the president’s border security desires, with billions of dollars slated to go toward building a wall at the Southern border, beefing up Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) detention capacity and hiring more Border Patrol Agents, among others.

But Graham’s decision to plow ahead with the Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee’s $128.4 billion bill, which funds the lion’s share of the administration’s border security request, comes after the committee’s chair, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., proposed to cut half the funding baked into the House GOP’s bill.

Paul’s concerns mobilized White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller to hold a closed-door meeting with Senate Republicans on Thursday to justify the price tag.

‘As Budget Chairman, I will do my best to ensure that the President’s border security plan is fully funded because I believe it has been fully justified,’ Graham said in a statement to Fox News Digital. ‘I respectfully disagree with Chairman Paul’s proposal to cut the Trump plan by more than 50 percent.’

‘The President promised to secure our border,’ he continued. ‘His plan fulfills that promise. The Senate must do our part.’

The Homeland Security Committee accounts for the bulk of the White House’s $150 billion request, but not all. The remaining money is expected to come from the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees.  

Graham’s bill, which closely mirrors the House GOP’s version, includes $46.5 billion in funding to build the border wall and additional infrastructure, $4.1 billion to hire more border patrol agents, $2 billion for retention and signing bonuses for the new agents, $5 billion to improve border patrol facilities and $855 million to repair the Border Patrol’s vehicle fleet.

The measure also includes $45 billion to beef up ICE’s detention capacity, $6 billion to improve border surveillance, $6 billion to the Department of Homeland Security to ‘ensure adequate funding for border security across the board’ and $10 billion in grant funding to reimburse states for border security efforts during the Biden years.

Paul, who did not attend Miller’s meeting with Senate Republicans, said the White House ‘threw a number at the wall to see what would stick’ and that certain line items, like the tens of billions for border wall construction, could be drastically reduced to roughly $6.5 billion when breaking down the cost of construction per mile.

He presented his number to the Senate GOP on Wednesday and noted that there were ‘half a dozen senators’ who agreed with him.

When asked why Graham and the leadership opted to skip over him as chair of the committee to release the text of the bill, he said ‘because they disagree with me.’

‘I think Sen. Graham’s job, as he sees it, is to do what the president tells him to do, and my job is to do what I think is fiscally most responsible,’ he said. ‘And so we just have different agendas.’

Senate Republicans are in the midst of producing their version of the House GOP’s ‘big, beautiful bill.’ They’re using the budget reconciliation process to pass a sweeping bill advancing Trump’s agenda on taxes, immigration, energy, defense and the national debt. They are also working to use it to bring down the national debt – nearing $37 trillion – with the aim of cutting $1.5 trillion in federal spending.

But whatever comes from the Senate has to pass muster with the House before making its way to Trump’s desk.

And Miller’s meeting with the Senate GOP was meant to shore up support behind the funding detailed in the House’s bill and answer lingering concerns from fiscal hawks who are trying to find ways to further cut spending in the reconciliation process.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., lauded Miller after the meeting but noted that there were some lawmakers who ‘were upset, and some that just didn’t want to hear.’

‘I mean, Rand Paul’s solution is to cut everything in half and call it good,’ he said. ‘That’s not real budgeting.’

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said there was ‘a little frustration’ from some lawmakers who wanted to see a spreadsheet of the funding. He dismissed the notion that the meeting became tense and said ‘there’s no way to precisely calculate what the administration is going to need’ to clean up the ‘enormous mess’ left by the Biden administration.

‘If anything, we maybe ought to need more. It’s such a big problem,’ Johnson said. ‘I don’t think we’re going to move the number up, but we’re not going to shortchange it.’

‘This is a mess we have to clean up,’ he said. ‘It’s going to cost a lot of money, and we want to make sure this administration has the money to clean up.’

Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., tore into a fellow Empire State lawmaker Thursday after the latter accosted Lawler on the House floor.

Chaos briefly broke out in the House of Representatives during the chamber’s final vote series of the week, when Rep. John Mannion, D-N.Y., began shouting at Lawler that he was on the wrong side of the floor.

Democrats and Republicans traditionally sit on opposite sides of the chamber, but it’s not unusual for lawmakers of either party to enter through any door and cross to their side.

Mannion was then heard shouting at Lawler, ‘Get over there and tell them the country is falling apart.’

‘F—ing get over there and get some f—ing balls,’ Mannion could be heard shouting. ‘You know who I am. I’m a New Yorker, just like you.’

Lawler responded to Mannion on X, writing, ‘John Mannion was entirely unhinged and unprofessional. That was a shameful display that exposed his complete lack of temperament.’

‘No wonder numerous staffers have previously alleged a toxic work environment. He should go seek help for anger management — and f— off.’

Unverified accusations arose during Mannion’s campaign that he had created a toxic work environment for staffers in the New York State Senate, which the New York Democrat dismissed at the time as a ‘false political attack.’

Fox News Digital reached out to Mannion’s office for comment but did not immediately hear back.

The New York Democrat was heard shouting at reporters ahead of the confrontation, ‘We need you. We need you to hold them accountable. Media, it’s your country too.’

‘Don’t cover the distractions. Cover the actions that lead us towards authoritarianism, please,’ Mannion yelled, according to Politico.

Mannion is a first-term Democrat who unseated former Rep. Brandon Williams, R-N.Y., whose district boundaries were changed last year to include more blue-leaning areas.

Lawler’s office referred Fox News Digital to his statement on X when reached for comment.

The dust-up was brief but is a sign of the sky-high tensions in the current political climate.

Democrats were already furious over the forced ejection of Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., from a media event being held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem Thursday.

Israeli Defense Forces launched a sweeping strike on Iran following months of attempted, and seemingly failed, nuclear negotiations between the Trump administration and Tehran.

Fox News’ Trey Yingst reported that Israel carried out strikes in Iran, adding that explosions were heard in the capital of Tehran.

A state of emergency has been declared across Israel as the country braces for an Iranian response.

The strikes came after Israel first threatened to go after Iran’s nuclear facilities in early November following a series of back-and-forth missile attacks between April and October last year.

Direct engagement between Israel and Iran began after Tehran in April 2024 levied its first ever direct strikes against Israeli territory. Israel responded less than a week later and destroyed part of Iran’s S-300 long-range air defense system.

On Oct. 1, Iran levied a ballistic missile strike on Israel, to which Jerusalem responded with a series of hits on Oct. 26 that targeted military facilities and missile storage locations.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later confirmed that Israel’s October strike partially degraded part of Iran’s nuclear program, and international concerns remained heightened that the security threat could escalate in the region. 

Some hoped that President Donald Trump’s administration would be able to make headway in nuclear negotiations where the Biden administration, and others in the international community could not. 

Negotiations between Washington and Tehran, mediated by Oman, resumed in Muscat on April 12 and Trump repeatedly called on Netanyahu not to hit Tehran and to let negotiations proceed. 

Following the first round of talks, Middle East Special Envoy Steve Witkoff told Fox News that the U.S. was looking to limit Iran’s uranium enrichment to 3.67%, a level generally used for civil nuclear energy needs. 

Under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which Trump pulled out of in 2018, Iran committed to maintaining no more than this level of enrichment until 2031 – though it has been found to have repeatedly violated this agreement. 

But the next day, on April 15, Witkoff backtracked his comments and said in a statement that ‘Iran must stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization program.’

Four days later the U.S. entered its second round of nuclear talks in Rome on April 19, before a third round was held in Muscat on April 26. Both sides expressed optimism following the talks.

Details of the negotiations were not released, but reports suggested the discussions largely focused on limiting Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanction relief.

Talks appeared to take a turn after the U.S. hit Iran with another round of sanctions in late April, which resulted in the postponement of the previously scheduled May 3 talks.

The fourth round of talks began to show signs of strain when Iran described the negotiations as ‘difficult but useful,’ and Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi made clear that Washington’s zero enrichment demand was a ‘non-negotiable.’

Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi reported that ‘some but not conclusive progress’ was made following the fifth round of talks held in Rome on May 23. 

By early June, Trump and Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei had repeatedly made clear they both would refuse to bend when it comes to the issue of enrichment, but a sixth round of talks was still set for June 15 in Oman.

It is unclear if those talks will continue following the Israeli strike.