Then-Vice President Joe Biden in 2015 told the CIA he would ‘strongly prefer’ an intelligence report documenting Ukrainian officials’ concerns with his family’s ties to ‘corrupt’ business deals in the country ‘not be disseminated’ — and so it wasn’t, according to a newly-declassified email and records made public by the agency. 

CIA Director John Ratcliffe declassified the heavily redacted records, which he said he believes is an example of ‘politicization of intelligence.’

Fox News Digital obtained the declassified documents, which were discovered during a CIA review of historical agency records.

A senior CIA official briefed Fox News Digital on the declassified documents and intelligence report, stating that the intelligence was discovered along with an email showing that Biden ‘expressed a preference to not share the report.’

Representatives for Biden did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

CIA officials discovered and declassified an email dated February 10, 2016, with the subject line stating: ‘RE: OVP query regarding draft [REDACTED].’ The email was sent to the CIA.

The classification of the email was listed, and crossed out, as ‘SECRET.’

‘Good morning, I just spoke with VP/ NSA and he would strongly prefer the report not/not be disseminated. Thanks for understanding,’ the email states, signed by a redacted name, but with the title of ‘PDB Briefer.’ The ‘PDB’ is the presidential daily brief.

The report in question included intelligence revealing that Ukrainian officials viewed the Biden family’s alleged ties to corrupt business practices in Ukraine ‘as evidence of a double-standard within the United States Government towards matters of corruption and political power.’

‘Intelligence officials agreed that, at the time of collection, it would have met the threshold [for dissemination], but based on the Office of the Vice President’s preference, the information was never shared outside of the CIA,’ the official said.

The CIA, during its review, confirmed that Biden’s request was granted and that the intelligence report ‘had not been disseminated.’

The senior CIA official told Fox News Digital that it was ‘extremely rare and unusual’ and ‘inappropriate to go outside of the intelligence community and inquire with the White House on the dissemination of a particular report for what appears to be political reasons.’

The newly declassified intelligence report, which Biden sought to keep private, had a subject line of: ‘NON-DISSEMINATED INTEL INFORMATION: Reactions of [REDACTED] Ukrainian Government Officials to the Early December Visit of Senior United States Government Official.’

The document states the date of the information came in December 2015. The document was created in 2016.

At the time, Biden was vice president and was running U.S.-Ukraine relations and policy for the Obama administration.

The intelligence document stated that ‘officials within the administration of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko expressed bewilderment and disappointment at the 7-8 December 2015 visit of the Vice President of the United States to Kiev, Ukraine.’

‘These officials highlighted that, prior to the visit, the Poroshenko administration and other [REDACTED] Ukrainian officials expected the U.S. Vice President to discuss personnel matters with Poroshenko during the visit, and had assumed that the U.S. Vice President would advocate in support of or against specific officials within the Ukrainian Government,’ the intelligence states.

‘After the visit, these officials assessed that the U.S. Vice President had come to Kiev almost exclusively to give a generic public speech, and had not had any intention of discussing substantive matters with Poroshenko or other officials within the Ukrainian government,’ the intelligence states.

‘Following the visit of the U.S. Vice President, [REDACTED] officials within the Poroshenko administration privately mused at the U.S. media scrutiny of the alleged ties of the U.S. Vice President’s family to corrupt business practices in Ukraine,’ the intelligence states. ‘These officials viewed the alleged ties of the U.S. Vice President’s family to corruption in Ukraine as evidence of a double-standard within the United States Government towards matters of corruption and political power.’

Biden, on Dec. 9, 2015, gave a speech in Ukraine, in which he discussed corruption in the country.

‘And it’s not enough to set up a new anti-corruption bureau and establish a special prosecutor fighting corruption,’ Biden said in the speech. ‘The Office of the General Prosecutor desperately needs reform.’

In that speech, Biden also said Ukraine’s ‘energy sector needs to be competitive, ruled by market principles — not sweetheart deals.’

‘It’s not enough to push through laws to increase transparency with regard to official sources of income,’ he said. ‘Senior elected officials have to remove all conflicts between their business interest and their government responsibilities.  Every other democracy in the world — that system pertains.’

At the time, Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin was investigating Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings. Several months later, in March 2016, Biden successfully pressured Ukraine to remove Shokin. At the time Shokin was investigating Burisma Holdings, Hunter Biden had a highly lucrative role on the board, receiving tens of thousands of dollars per month.

Biden, at the time, threatened to withhold $1 billion of critical U.S. aid if Shokin was not fired.

‘I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion.’ … I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,’’ Biden recalled telling then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. 

Biden recollected the conversation during an event for the Council on Foreign Relations in 2018.

But during his first term, President Donald Trump was impeached after a July 2019 phone call in which he pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to launch investigations into the Biden family’s actions and business dealings in Ukraine, specifically Hunter Biden’s ventures with Burisma and Joe Biden’s successful effort to have former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin ousted.

At the same time as that call, Hunter Biden was under federal investigation, prompted by his suspicious foreign transactions. 

Trump was acquitted in Feb. 2020 on both articles of impeachment against him — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — after being impeached by the House of Representatives in December 2019. 

Meanwhile, the declassified intelligence report had a ‘warning,’ noting that ‘due to the extreme sensitivity, this report should be distributed only to the renamed recipients. No further distribution is authorized without prior approval of the originating agency. Violation of established handling procedures are subject to penalty, including termination of access to this reporting channel.’

It added that ‘any discussion of or reference to information in this report [REDACTED] is strictly prohibited. Any references to this report in derived or finished intelligence should include this warning.’

A senior CIA official told Fox News Digital that Ratcliffe believes the suppression of this intelligence is an example of ‘politicization of intelligence.’

‘Director Ratcliffe believes this is an example of politicization of intelligence that we need to work to eliminate and for what we have zero tolerance,’ a senior CIA official told Fox News Digital. ‘We believe transparency is important. We will release information and avoid any future weaponization of the intelligence community.’

As for the heavily redacted nature of the intelligence report, the senior CIA official told Fox News Digital that the agency was ‘careful about protecting CIA sources and methods with redactions.’

The official stressed that Ratcliffe believes in ‘maximum transparency’ and said he will continue to declassify CIA information and intelligence ‘when it serves the public’s interest.’

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives launched an impeachment inquiry against Biden during his presidency, and found, after years of investigating, that he engaged in ‘impeachable conduct,’ ‘abused his office,’ and ‘defrauded the United States to enrich his family.’ 

A diplomatic battle is being waged between leading Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Nigerian government officials. Cruz has warned he will hold those officials accountable for the reported ‘mass slaughter’ of tens of thousands of Christians in Nigeria. Officials have claimed Cruz is lying, with one claiming that despite even the pope publicly calling out the killings, there is religious harmony in the country.

Nigeria is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a Christian, according to international Christian advocacy group Open Doors International’s 2025 World Watch List (WWL). An estimated 48% of the population is Christian. But of the 4,476 Christians reported killed worldwide in WWL’s latest reporting period, 3,100 of those who died — 69% — were in Nigeria.

On Saturday, the spokesperson for Nigerian President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, told a Lagos, Nigeria newspaper, that Cruz should ‘stop these malicious, contrived lies’ over the murders.

In response, Cruz, the Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health Policy, told Fox News Digital, ‘Nigeria’s federal government and a dozen state governments enforce blasphemy laws in their criminal and sharia codes, and they ignore or facilitate mob violence targeting Christians.’

On Friday, the Nigerian Minister of Information, Mohammed Idris, spoke exclusively to Fox News Digital, rejecting Cruz’s claims of Christians being massacred in his country. ‘The Nigerian government rejects that. This is certainly not true,’ he said.

In reaction, Sen. Cruz told Fox News Digital that the killings ‘are the result of decisions made by specific people, in specific places, at specific times. The United States knows who those people are, and I intend to hold them accountable’.

Cruz said, ‘Since 2009, over 50,000 Christians in Nigeria have been massacred, and over 20,000 churches and Christian schools have been destroyed. These atrocities are directly linked to the policies of Nigerian federal and state officials. They are the result of decisions made by specific people, in specific places, at specific times — and it says a great deal about who is lashing out now that a light is being shone on these issues.’

On Friday, Cruz posted on X: ‘Officials in Nigeria are ignoring and even facilitating the mass murder of Christians by Islamist jihadists. It’s time to hold those responsible accountable.’ He went on to refer to a new bill he has introduced in the Senate: ‘My Nigeria Religious Freedom Accountability Act would target these officials with powerful sanctions and other tools.’

This drew an immediate response from Nigerian presidential spokesperson, Bayo Onanuga. Interviewed by the Nigerian Daily Post the next day, Onanuga demanded, ‘Senator, stop these malicious, contrived lies against my country. Christians are not targeted. We have religious harmony in our country.’

Idris told Fox News Digital that Cruz’s comments are ‘very misleading. This is not true. This is not the reflection of what is on the ground. I mean it’s false where you say over 20,000 churches have been burned. It’s also false if you say 52,000 (Christians killed), where did he get those numbers from? I think this is absolutely absurd. It’s not supported by any facts whatsoever. The Nigerian government rejects that. No Nigerian officials will willingly, deliberately indulge in the act of siding with violent extremists to target any particular religion in this country. This is absolutely false.’

Idris also stated, ‘Nigeria is a multi-faith country, meaning that it’s a country that has multiple religions. We have Christians, we have Muslims, we even have those who don’t believe in any of these two religions. Nigeria is a very tolerant country. The government of Nigeria is committed to ensuring that there is religious freedom in this country, but we do have extremist organizations in this country.’ 

Idris continued, ‘It’s unfortunate sadly, that some of these extremists have killed a number of Christians and a number of Muslims almost everywhere where this violent extremism has support. So it’s (the accusation by Sen. Cruz) not true. We find that to be very unfortunate. It’s despicable, it’s not right. This is absolutely false to say that there is a calculated or a deliberate attempt to kill a particular religious group, is not correct and we find that really very, very unfortunate.

Open Doors’ Natalie Blair says independent data from Nigeria shows ‘Christians can be targeted by radical extremists, and radical extremists can also kill Muslims who do not conform to their radical ideology.’ But Blair, a senior member of Open Doors Advocacy team, told Fox News Digital, ‘Boko Haram and ISWAP (Islamic State West Africa Province) have explicitly and repeatedly declared Christians as targets.  And many victims have told us that when Fulani militants attack they don’t just shout ‘Allahu Akbar’, (God is Great), they yell, ‘we will destroy all Christians.’

Blair added: ‘According to the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa, data of civilians killed — exempting out the military and terrorist deaths — in northern Nigeria is unequivocal: more Christians are killed by the extremists than Muslims — if you are a Christian you are 6.5 times more likely to be killed than a Muslim. This does not make the suffering of a Muslim less significant, it just makes it less likely.’

Bishop Wilfred Anagbe’s Makurdi Diocese is almost exclusively Christian. But the constant and escalating attacks by Muslim Fulani militants led him to testify at a congressional hearing in March in Washington, saying there is ‘a long-term Islamic agenda (in Nigeria) to homogenize. The population has been implemented over several presidencies through a strategy to reduce and eventually eliminate the Christian identity of half of the population all over Nigeria. These terrorists are going about on a jihad and conquering territories and renaming them accordingly.’ 

Idris was dismissive of the Bishop’s Congressional testimony: ‘let me say that the Bishop’s position is an extreme one. It’s not true. The Nigerian government has debunked that in the past.’

Open Doors’ Blair, with access to Nigerian villagers, responded, ‘We must listen to the voices of those who have experienced the violence firsthand.  People on the ground do not trust that anyone will pay for these violent crimes. This is because they have seen hundreds of suspects arrested over the years and then most of them released, having never been charged or brought to trial.’

Blair concluded, ‘the right to life, guaranteed under Section 33 of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution, is meaningless unless the state acts decisively to punish those who violate it. The ongoing culture of impunity will only result in more bloodshed and continue to erode public trust in the rule of law.’

The House Oversight Committee has dropped its subpoena for former FBI Director James Comey, after he said he had no knowledge relevant to the panel’s investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, The Hill reported, citing a letter Comey sent to the committee.

In the Oct. 1 letter sent to Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky, Comey said he had no ‘knowledge’ or ‘information relevant to the Committee’s investigation’ into the late pedophile.

Comey was slated to sit for a deposition on Tuesday before the committee that is examining Epstein’s contacts and potential government ties dating back to the 1990s. 

‘I offer this letter in lieu of a deposition that would unproductively consume the Committee’s scarce time and resources,’ Comey wrote.

Comey served as deputy attorney general from 2003 to 2005 and later as FBI director from 2013 to 2017 — two periods now under scrutiny by House Republicans seeking answers about Epstein’s federal connections.

‘At no time during my service at the Department of Justice or the FBI do I recall any information or conversations that related to Jeffrey Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell,’ Comey wrote.

Because the letter was submitted under penalty of law — making any false statements a potential federal crime — Comer accepted Comey’s response and withdrew the subpoena.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the Oversight Committee for a copy of Comey’s letter and confirmation of the subpoena’s withdrawal.

The late pedophile Epstein committed suicide in 2019 while awaiting prosecution on federal sex trafficking charges, though questions continue to swirl about the circumstances surrounding his death.

Comer issued a wave of subpoenas in August tied to the Jeffrey Epstein investigation — including to Comey and former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Comer also subpoenaed the Justice Department for records related to Epstein’s case.

Others ordered to appear include former FBI Director Robert Mueller and former Attorneys General Loretta Lynch, Eric Holder, William Barr, Jeff Sessions and Alberto Gonzales.

Holder and Attorney General Merrick Garland sent letters similar to Comey’s, denying any knowledge of Epstein and prompting Comer to withdraw those subpoenas as well, per The Hill.

It’s unclear if sessions for the Clintons will proceed.

The committee’s work comes amid growing partisan tension over how to handle the Epstein investigation, and the GOP base has fractured over the current administration’s handling of the case.

Top Republicans, including President Donald Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., support continuing the Oversight inquiry as the fastest route to uncover new information. Comer has already released thousands of pages of subpoenaed documents from the Justice Department and Epstein’s estate.

Critics, however, accuse the GOP of shielding certain figures by selectively releasing records. Several lawmakers are instead pushing legislation to declassify all government files related to Epstein and Maxwell — a move endorsed by multiple Epstein victims.

Fox News’ Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.  

The Senate remains deadlocked on a path to end the shutdown as it nears its second week, and Republicans’ meager support across the aisle to reopen the government may be crumbling.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., needs at least eight Senate Democratic caucus members to join Republicans to reopen the government, given that Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has consistently voted against the GOP’s bill.

So far, a trio of Democratic caucus members, Sens. John Fetterman, D-Pa., Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., and Angus King, I-Maine, have crossed the aisle to reopen the government.

That group has joined Republicans in nearly all five attempts to reopen the government.

But, as time drags on and a deal remains out of reach, at least one is considering changing his vote.

King said ahead of the fifth vote to reopen the government on Monday that he was considering flipping his support of the GOP’s bill, and he argued that he needed ‘more specificity about addressing the problem’ of the expiring Obamacare tax credits.

‘I think this problem is urgent, and just saying, as the leader did on Friday, ‘well, we’ll have conversations about it,’ is not adequate,’ he said.

King’s possible defection comes as Republicans and Democrats engage in low-level conversations on a path out of the shutdown. Those impromptu dialogues have so far not morphed into real negotiations, however.

And the stalemate in the upper chamber has only further solidified both sides’ positions.

Senate Democrats, led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., want a firm deal in place to extend expiring Obamacare subsidies. Senate Republicans have said that they will negotiate a deal only after the government is reopened and want reforms to the program that they charge has been inflationary and further increased the cost of healthcare for Americans.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, has circulated an early plan that includes a discussion of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies that could be a way out of the shutdown, but so far, it’s in its preliminary stages.

‘It suggests that there be a conversation on the ACA extension for the premium tax credits after we reopen the government,’ she said. ‘But there will be a commitment to having that discussion.’

President Donald Trump signaled on Monday that he would be open to a deal on the subsidies, and he said that negotiations with Democrats were ongoing.

However, Schumer pushed back and called Trump’s assertion ‘not true.’ The top Senate Democrat has also shifted the onus of the shutdown, and lack of negotiations, directly onto House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.

‘Clearly, at this point, he is the main obstacle,’ Schumer said on the Senate floor. ‘So ending this shutdown will require Donald Trump to step in and push Speaker Johnson to negotiate.’

Meanwhile, the White House is exerting more pressure on Senate Democrats to cave and reopen the government. A new memo reported by Axios suggested that furloughed federal employees may not have to receive back pay, running counter to a law that Trump signed in 2019 that guaranteed furloughed workers would receive back pay in future shutdowns.

That comes on the heels of a memo from the Office of Management and Budget last month that signaled mass firings beyond the typical furloughs of nonessential federal workers, and it follows the withholding of nearly $30 billion in federal funds for blue cities and states.

Thune argued that ‘if you’re the executive branch of the government, you’ve got to manage a shutdown.’

‘At some point, you’re going to have to make some decisions about who gets paid, who doesn’t get paid, which agencies and departments get priorities and prioritized and which ones don’t,’ Thune said. ‘I mean, I think that’s a fairly standard practice in the event of a government shutdown. Now, hopefully that doesn’t affect back pay … but again, it’s just that simple: open up the government.’

President Donald Trump met with Edan Alexander, who was freed in May from captivity with Hamas, on Tuesday — exactly two years after Hamas attacked Israel. 

This marks the second time Alexander, a 21-year-old American–Israeli who spent nearly 600 days as a hostage after Hamas abducted him after its initial attack on Israel, will visit the White House since his release from captivity. Alexander previously visited the White House in July. 

Alexander was raised in Tenafly, New Jersey, and headed to Israel when he was 18-years-old to volunteer for the Israel Defense Forces. He lived with his grandparents in Tel Aviv before he was taken hostage by Hamas. 

Alexander’s appearance at the White House also comes as the Trump administration has put forth a 20-point plan to end the conflict and return the 48 hostages still in captivity. The plan would require all hostages, both dead and alive, to be returned within 72 hours of Hamas signing off on the deal. It also calls for Israeli forces to withdraw its troops and for a complete disarmament of Hamas. 

Trump’s Justice Department has cracked down on Palestinian militant group Hamas, and established a new task force in March aimed at providing justice to the victims of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. 

Attorney General Pam Bondi said the group, known as Joint Task Force October 7, would focus on identifying, charging and prosecuting those who conducted the 2023 attacks, which took the lives of roughly 1,200 people — including 47 U.S. citizens. Hamas also took more than 250 people hostage that day, including eight U.S. citizens.

The IDF is the national military for Israel. Hamas has served as the governing body of Gaza.

Meanwhile, lawmakers on Capitol Hill have warned that antisemitic attacks are becoming more common in the U.S., in the aftermath of the ongoing conflict. Antisemitic violence reached a new high in 2024, according to the Anti-Defamation League, which recorded 9,354 antisemitic instances of harassment, assault and vandalism in the U.S. in 2024. That is a 5% increase from the 8,873 incidents recorded in 2023 and a 344% increase in the past five years.

‘The October 7 Hamas-led terrorist attack was not only a horrific assault on innocent civilians in Israel, including numerous American citizens, but it was also a wake-up call to the threats we face here at home,’ Rep. Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, said in a Tuesday statement to Fox News Digital.

‘In the two years following this tragedy, acts of terrorism and targeted antisemitic violence are increasingly common on U.S. soil, as both foreign and domestic terrorists work to inspire lone-wolf actors,’ Garbarino said. ‘Jewish Americans continue to face intimidation and attacks simply because of their faith. This is unacceptable, and anyone who defends these calls for violence is complicit.’ 

Trump also met with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney Tuesday amid ongoing trade negotiations between the two countries.

Fox News’ Caitlin McFall contributed to this report. 

Senate Republicans confirmed a staggering tranche of President Donald Trump’s nominees on Tuesday as the government shutdown continues.

Lawmakers voted along party lines to confirm the batch of 107 of Trump’s nominees, a move that whittled down the remaining pending nominees on the Senate’s calendar to double digits. It also came as the upper chamber was deadlocked in the midst of a government shutdown, during which floor votes have largely been dedicated to trying to reopen the government.

The slate of confirmed nominees included many of Trump’s top allies and former candidates that he hand-picked to run in previous elections.

Some of the most recognizable on the list were former Republican Senate candidate and ex-NFL star Herschel Walker, who was tapped as the U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, and Sergio Gor, a top advisor to Trump who he picked to be his U.S. Ambassador to India.

Other posts confirmed included a wave of senior administration officials, several prosecutors and the reappointment of Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins to a seat on the commission until 2031.

The vote also marked the second time that Senate Republicans have deployed the new rule change surrounding confirmations since going ‘nuclear’ on Senate rules last month.

Republicans opted to change confirmation rules to allow a simple majority of votes to advance large swathes of nominees in response to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and his caucus’ blockade of Trump’s picks that lasted nearly nine months into his presidency.

Typically, subcabinet-level nominees, particularly those with bipartisan support out of committee, are sped through the Senate either by unanimous consent or through a voice vote, two fast-track procedural moves in the upper chamber. But Senate Democrats refused to relent, and Republicans argued they forced their hand on a rules change that they believed would benefit both parties in the future.

The rule change allows for an unlimited number of nominees to be confirmed in a single batch, but includes several procedural hoops to jump through before a final confirmation vote.

Senate Republicans previously confirmed 48 of Trump’s picks last month. Among that batch were Kimberly Guilfoyle, who Trump tapped to be the U.S. ambassador to Greece, and Callista Gingrich, who was picked to be the U.S. ambassador to Switzerland.

An expected sixth vote to reopen the government didn’t come to fruition on Tuesday, but lawmakers face a new wrinkle: the possibility that furloughed employees won’t be paid. 

The government shutdown marched into its seventh day with both Senate Republicans and Democrats still at odds on a path forward, and no real clear end in sight. The Senate was expected to vote on the GOP’s plan again, but no agreement could be reached to bring the bill, along with the Democrats’ counter-proposal, to the floor. 

Both sides are still entrenched in their positions, too. Senate Democrats want a firm deal on the extension of expiring ObamaCare tax credits to earn their votes to reopen the government, while Senate Republicans have promised that negotiations on the credits can happen once the government is open again.

Lawmakers failed to hold a sixth vote to reopen the government Tuesday as a new White House memo warned that furloughed workers may not get paid.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has continued to ramp up his messaging that Americans broadly support their push, and blamed House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and House Republicans for not being in session as a major roadblock to progress. 

‘Hundreds of thousands of federal workers are furloughed and thousands more are working without pay. And meanwhile, House Republicans are getting paid and not working,’ Schumer said. ‘So federal workers working and not getting paid. House Republicans paid and not working. Very bad. Very bad thing for them. Very bad picture for them.’

While lawmakers traded barbs and discussed an off-ramp on Capitol Hill, the latest memo from the White House, first reported by Axios, signaled that up to 750,000 nonessential furloughed federal workers may not be paid.

The memo adds fresh uncertainty for hundreds of thousands of federal employees caught in the political crossfire.

When asked if it was the White House’s position whether federal workers should be paid back pay, President Donald Trump said, ‘I would say it depends on who we’re talking about.’

‘I can tell you this,’ Trump said. ‘The Democrats have put a lot of people in great risk and jeopardy, but it really depends on who you’re talking about. But for the most part, we’re going to take care of our people. There are some people that really don’t deserve to be taken care of, and we’ll take care of them in a different way.’

Many lawmakers had just learned about the memo as of Tuesday afternoon. It suggested that a 2019 law signed by Trump that guaranteed back pay for furloughed workers in future shutdowns may not have to be followed.

‘I just heard that,’ Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.V., said. ‘My phones are lighting up.’

When asked if the memo hurt or helped talks, she said, ‘It could get more urgent, it also could tick a lot of people off.’

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said that the memo was ‘probably not a good message to send right now to people who are not being paid.’

‘I’m not an attorney, but I think it’s bad strategy to even say that sort of stuff,’ Tillis said. ‘We got a lot of hard-working people there on the sidelines now because the Democrats have put them there.’

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said that she believed that issue had been settled with the 2019 law, but as a ‘back up,’ Congress could pass a bill that any ‘obligations that were incurred during the shutdown are authorized to be paid.’

And Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, argued that regardless of the memo, the law said ‘shall.’

‘I left my law degree in the car, but ‘shall’ is relatively straightforward,’ he said. ‘I think it doesn’t matter at all, because we’re fighting for healthcare.’

The latest pressure tactic on Senate Democrats comes after the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) directed in a previous memo that mass firings could be on the horizon beyond the typical furloughs during a shutdown.

It also comes after OMB Director Russ Vought announced nearly $30 billion in federal funding was set to be withheld from blue cities and states. 

Both Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., wanted to see federal workers get paid, but contended that the issue would go away if Schumer and Senate Democrats reopened the government.

‘My assumption is that furloughed workers will get back pay,’ Thune said. ‘But that being said, this is very simple. Open up the government and this is a non-issue. We don’t have to have this conversation. Everybody gets paid when the government is open.’

Meanwhile, the previous tactics did little to nudge Democrats from their position, and so far, have not killed talks between either side.

But Sen. Jean Shaheen, D-N.H., who has been a key communicator for Senate Democrats in bipartisan talks, said that Vought’s actions weren’t helping matters.

‘It would be a lot easier to resolve the situation if Russ Vought would stop talking,’ Shaheen said.