Ah… Watch out!

You might get what you’re after.

Cool babies.

Strange. But I’m not a stranger.

I’m an ordinary guy.

Burning down the house. —Talking Heads. ‘Burning Down the House.’ 1983

David Byrne’s hypnotic, octave plunge between the lyrics ‘watch’ and ‘out’ is a sonic caveat.

Those are the very first lines of the Talking Heads ‘80s anthem ‘Burning Down the House.’ The listener is forewarned. A tumultuous musical adventure lies ahead. The pending libretto is gnarly gibberish. Words which fit together — but don’t make any sense. A near homage to ‘I Am the Walrus’ by the Beatles.

Like Byrne’s lyrics, what’s going on these days in the U.S. House of Representatives, doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Watch out. The House is seemingly out of control right now. Political arsonists are striking matches and pouring gasoline all over the place.

Republicans hold the majority. But they’ve been burning down their own House.

‘Things have not been functioning well at all and that needs to change,’ beseeched Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Penn.

Chaos grips the House.

That’s saying something, considering this is an institution which practically mastered dysfunction.

‘We can’t get anything done,’ lamented Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill.

Lawmakers are exasperated.

‘My Republican friends are barely hanging onto this majority by their fingernails,’ said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee.

My house…

Is out of the ordinary.

That’s right.

Don’t want to hurt nobody.

House Republicans have blocked their own bills — drawn up with the blessing of GOP leaders — from hitting the House floor a staggering six times in the past eight months. The House usually requires the lawmakers approve a ‘rule’ to allocate debate time and dictate whether amendments are in order. Only then can legislation come to the floor. 

The majority usually votes yes, greenlighting the debate. The minority customarily opposes the rule. But Republicans have torched their own rule six times. That’s a startling figure. Previous majorities only defeated two rules in the previous 23 years.

Republicans have struggled for 13 months now with their narrow majority. It started with the 15-round Speaker’s race in January of last year — an exercise not witnessed since 1858.

‘We only had a two-vote margin at the end (of our majority),’ said former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

But Pelosi could empathize with the contemporary struggles of House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.

‘I don’t think people understand how hard it is,’ said Pelosi ‘Respect members on both sides of the aisle. Build consensus. Prioritize your issues. Don’t put people out on a limb on things that aren’t important.’

T. S. Eliot wrote that ‘April is the cruelest month’ in his seminal poem, ‘The Waste Land.’

Back on Capitol Hill, Johnson, might argue with Elliot about the brutality of April.

February has been an unmitigated disaster for House Republicans. More things have gone wrong for the GOP than points scored in the NBA All-Star Game.

To wit:

Republicans torched two of their own ‘rules.’ They failed during their first attempt to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas — before impeaching him by just a solitary vote after the GOP took a mulligan. Johnson even put a bill on the floor to aid Israel — which promptly failed. That was an unforced error. Conventional wisdom is that Johnson shouldn’t have pressed on the Israel bill — especially since the defeat came moments after the failed impeachment vote. And Republicans even saw their meager majority dwindle even further. 

Former Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y. won a special election in New York to succeed expelled Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y. The GOP majority will shrink from 219 Republicans to 213 Democrats when the House swears-in Suozzi on Wednesday. That means Johnson can only lose two votes on any given roll call and still pass a measure — sans Democratic assistance.

On the morning after Suozzi’s victory, Ryan Schmelz of Fox News Radio asked Johnson how he’d ‘handle a narrow majority.’

‘Just as we do every day. We just do a lot of member discussion,’ replied Johnson.

It’s about the math. But how they’ve done things ‘every day’ hasn’t provided a victory.

This is why some Republicans are taking aim at Johnson. They’ve regretted the House ditching former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. That’s why McCarthy allies are particularly infuriated at how bad things have been in the House of late.

‘Whatever the cards were for McCarthy are the same cards that are being dealt to Speaker Johnson,’ said Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla. ‘All it did was take a crowbar to it and make it worse.’

Some Republicans criticized the leadership for indecision and making late play calls.

‘They’ve got to start thinking strategically over the long-term. Not just what’s in front of us,’ said Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla.

Some lawmakers are certainly making long-term strategic decisions. They’re getting out.

So far, five committee chairs have announced their retirements: Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Kay Granger, R-Tex., Energy and Commerce Committee Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., special China committee Chairman Mike Gallagher, R-Wisc., Financial Services Committee Chairman Patrick McHenry, R-N.C. and Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn.

Green said he wouldn’t seek re-election shortly after the House impeached Mayorkas. Green will serve as the lead impeachment manager (or prosecutor) as the House presents its case to the Senate. Green saw that as an opportunity to go out on top.

‘My point being, you go out for the win, right? And I’ve accomplished what I wanted to do,’ said Green.

A recent poll by Monmouth University found that only 17 percent of people surveyed approve of the job Congress is doing. But not everyone believes political paralysis is bad.

‘Let me just tell you something about the people I represent,’ said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Tex. ‘They don’t want this body to keep passing more laws and spending more money for the sake of it.’

This is the ‘burning down the House’ problem which bedevils lawmakers. Especially as two government funding deadlines loom.

We talked about February and April earlier. So expect March to enter like a lion.

So not only burning down the House. But perhaps shutting down the government, too.

Former President Donald Trump claims that his wife Melania is expected to make more regular public appearances on the campaign trail.

Trump made the remarks during his interview at a Fox News townhall earlier this week with host Laura Ingraham. 

‘It’s funny, she was a very successful model, very, very successful, and yet she was a private person. She’s going to be out a lot. Not because she likes doing it, but she likes the results,’ he said Tuesday. ‘She wants to see this country really succeed. She loves the country.’

‘You know, a lot of first ladies would go out — they want to be everywhere. They get angry at their husband because he’s not introducing them,’ Trump continued. ‘If I didn’t introduce Melania, she’d be very happy about it. She’s just a different kind of a person.’

Melania has been largely absent from her husband’s 2024 presidential bid thus far, making few public appearances and staying out of the media.

Her absence, until recently, has been explained by the passing of her mother, Amalija Knavs, earlier this year. But as the campaign season becomes more intense, political commentators have questioned whether she will step back into efforts supporting Trump.

Trump also expressed appreciation that Melania has been dedicated to raising their son, Barron Trump.

‘Her life revolves around that boy. It’s so important to her,’ Trump said. ‘At the same time, it also revolves around our country and the success of our country. She’s raised a lot of money for charity. She’s a private person.’

‘And she loves the country,’ Trump added. ‘She’s going to be out a lot, but she does it for the good of the country, not for her. She’s somebody with a lot of confidence. She doesn’t need that.’

Trump’s Fox News town hall came four days before South Carolina’s Republican presidential primary, which commences Saturday. 

The latest public opinion polls indicate that he maintains a very large double-digit lead over former U.N. ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, his last major rival for the GOP nomination.

It’s the dark of night, the middle of the Red Sea, but it’s not quiet. The whine of several F-18 super hornet fighter jets produce an ear-splitting sound on the deck of the USS Dwight D Eisenhower. 

In bright primary-colored shirts, sailors on the flight deck tend to their specific jobs. The munitions officers, in red shirts, flip a switch that engages the sidewinder missiles on the outside of the fighter jet’s wings. It’s like taking the safety off your gun. The missiles are now ready to be fired. The pilot inches his jet forward so catapult officers can hook the tow-bar on his front wheel to the shuttle which runs down a steaming slot to the end of the flight deck.  

Through a series of hand signals, a deck officer with yellow flashlights tells the pilot it’s time. He throttles the jet engines to full power and everyone’s rib cages shake on deck. An officer with the title shooter triggers the catapult and with a mighty roar the super hornet is launched into combat over the Red Sea.

Each takeoff is a launch into combat. Everything happens in the ‘weapons engagement zone,’ close enough to Houthi controlled Yemen that they are in range of hostile fire.  

‘We are in constant self-defense out here when it comes to threats that can be shot at us,’ says Rear Admiral Marc Miguez, commander of the strike group. 

Self-defense does not mean they don’t go on the offensive. Often times, the F-18s launch with a planned target. Captain Marvin Scott, commander of the air wing on the carrier says his pilots have already degraded the ability of the Houthis to fire at cargo ships and warships crossing the Red Sea. ‘By targeting their ability to see us, their surveillance radars, and now we’re primarily focused on their military capabilities,’ he says.

Many of the targets are ‘dynamic targets’, something that presents itself after the F-18 is in the air. U.S. Central Command says on Thursday U.S. forces struck four drones and two anti-ship cruise missiles that were prepared to launch. On Friday, they shot down three drones near commercial ships in the Red Sea.  

The threats are constant and while the sailors have proven to be effective at shooting missiles out of the sky, it’s not an easy task and failure is not an option. ‘We have to be right 100% of the time and they only have to be right once,’ says Miguez.

The USS Eisenhower is one of six ships in strike group two. One of them is a cruiser, the USS Philippine Sea. It serves as a sentinel for the strike group, with layers of sailors who monitor high-tech electronics that detect incoming threats. In a matter of seconds, the ‘watchstanders’ determine the nature of the threat and how to respond. 

‘It just depends what the threat is and what’s coming at us,’ Says Captain Steve Liberty who defined what his ship is ready for, ‘Anything they can throw our way,’ he says.

In the end, their mission is as old as the Navy itself. Protecting safe maritime trade is the reason the Navy was created in the first place. ‘Freedom of Navigation,’ Says Captain Chris Hill, Commander of the Dwight D Eisenhower, ‘It’s something we’ve been doing since 1775, and it’s something we’re really good at.’

Voters are casting ballots today in South Carolina, the last of the major early states to choose a Republican nominee for president before Super Tuesday.

Former President Donald Trump has maintained a consistent and commanding polling lead, while the state’s former governor, Nikki Haley, will try to prove that she is a viable candidate with a competitive performance.

She will need to win at least in Charleston and Richland to clear that bar, while Trump will be looking to sweep the rest of the state.

Greenville and Spartanburg are battlegrounds to watch

Two counties in upstate South Carolina, Greenville and Spartanburg, add up to about 16% of the registered voter population of the state.

Like the overall region, these two counties are also heavily White and evangelical.

As we saw in Iowa, these voters favor Trump by wide margins, and the latest polling in South Carolina suggests they will vote similarly here today.

When Trump first ran for president in 2016, he had two major competitors in the Palmetto State: Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.

Both candidates put up a serious fight in these two counties. In Greenville, they took 24.5% of the vote each; Trump won overall with 26.7%.

Cruz, who courted the evangelical vote throughout his run, took 24.5% in Spartanburg, while Rubio received 22.9%. Trump won with 32.6%.

The results from recent primaries and polling suggest that most of the Cruz voters have found a new home with Trump. 

Therefore, to win the state, Trump will look to take home at least a similar share of the vote in the upstate region as the combined share that he and Cruz took in 2016. For a performance in line with polling expectations, and with all other things being equal, he’ll look for something in the area of 65-75%.

With such an evangelical tilt, Haley is not likely to be very competitive here.

Charleston and Richland should be more favorable to Haley than other parts of the state

In line with her strategy in New Hampshire, Haley will look to win in highly populated urban and suburban areas. 

Charleston and Richland, which make up about 16% of the overall statewide vote, are at the top of the list.

Charleston County is home to the city of the same name, which is also the most populated city in the state. Richland County contains Columbia, the state’s capital and home of the University of South Carolina.

In 2016, these were the only counties where Rubio eked out a win.

They are also more affluent than most other parts of the state, and have more voters with a college degree; two of Haley’s key constituencies. 

Polling shows Haley running behind Trump but remaining competitive in these cities. The former hometown governor will need to do better than that to make this a race.

The better Haley does in these areas, the greater the chance that Haley will leave South Carolina with at least some delegates. That’s because, in addition to 29 statewide delegates, the state awards three delegates to the winner of the vote in each of its seven congressional districts.

Trump continues to dominate in rural areas

Some of Trump’s best performances in the 2016 Republican primary came from very small, rural counties.

He received more than 40% of the vote in 13 counties, ten of which had populations of less than 50,000 people.

Look to places like Lee County, in central South Carolina, where Trump took home 47% of the vote, beating closest rival Cruz by 25 points. Lee County’s population is about 16,000 people and dropping.

Head south to Allendale County, home to less than 8,000 South Carolinians. Trump received 44% there, beating the second place candidate, Rubio, by 19 points. Its population is also declining.

He received between 30% and 40% of the vote in another 27 counties, about half of which had populations of less than 50,000.

And that was in a race with two popular challengers, at a time when Trump had not yet persuaded the base that he had the right conservative credentials.

Collectively, these rural areas represent a powerful part of the overall statewide vote in South Carolina.

To win, Trump will look to bring out as many votes as possible.

Special coverage begins at 7PM ET on Fox News Channel

All polls close in South Carolina at 7 p.m. ET. Expect to see an early vote reported first in most areas; that vote will likely favor Haley.

Special coverage on Fox News Channel also begins at 7, anchored by Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum. 

Stay tuned for insights from our best-in-class Fox News Voter Analysis and the Fox News Decision Desk, which will call this race.

Nikki Haley asserted two days ahead of the South Carolina Republican primary that former President Trump ‘will not win the general election.’ 

‘What I’m trying to tell all Republicans and anybody – Independents as well – anybody that’s voting in those primaries is if you want a change in the country, which I think the entire country wants a change, is we won’t get a change if we don’t win an election,’ the former South Carolina governor told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Thursday. 

She proclaimed, ‘Donald Trump will not win the general election. You can have him win any primary you want, he will not win a general election. We will have a female President of the United States: It will either be me or it will be Kamala Harris. But if Donald Trump is the nominee, you can mark my words, he will not win a general election.’

Some general election polls have shown Haley could fare better against President Biden than Trump, but the former president has a decisive lead heading into the Palmetto State’s Saturday primary. 

Haley further warned, ‘Don’t complain about what happens in a general election if you don’t vote that in this primary.’

‘We can do better,’ she added, noting that Trump and Biden are the ‘two most disliked politicians in America.’ 

She added that a majority of Americans have said they feel both men are ‘too old’ to hold the office again. 

‘We need someone who can work eight years straight of hard work, day and night, fully disciplined with no drama, no vendettas, just results or the American people,’ she said. 

Haley has already lost the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary to Trump, but has said she has no plans to get out of the race. 

Trump senior advisor Jason Miller told Fox News Digital in a statement: ‘Birdbrain would get crushed by Joe Biden so badly she’d even lose Texas.’

The Haley did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

President Biden faces Jimmy Carter-like approval ratings as he barrels towards the end of his first term and Election Day in November.

Biden’s job approval rating stands at 38%, just one point above his all-time low and far below the 50% rating typical of presidents who are re-elected, according to a new Gallup survey. 

‘Biden’s overall job rating has slipped to 38%, and his ratings on immigration, the Israel-Hamas situation, foreign affairs and the economy are even lower,’ said Megan Brenan, a research consultant at Gallup. 

‘He has lost some ground among his party in recent months on immigration and the situations in the Middle East and Ukraine, though his overall rating hasn’t dropped among Democrats.’ 

Biden’s numbers are reminiscent of modern one-term presidents, including Carter, who averaged a record-low 37.4% after his third year in office. Former President Donald Trump, whom Biden defeated in 2020, left office in January 2021 with a personal all-time low 34% approval rating. 

A clear majority of Americans, 59%, disapprove of how Biden has performed in office, according to the poll. 

The president has negative numbers on major issues facing the U.S., but his worst issue by far is immigration. Only 28% of survey respondents approve of how the president has handled the border, while a walloping 67% disapprove.

Americans have also soured on the president’s handling of foreign affairs, with 62% disapproval of his leadership amid the Israel-Hamas war; 53% disapproving of Biden’s record on Ukraine; and 62% disapproving of his handling of foreign affairs in general.

‘Biden’s approval rating has not risen above 44% since August 2021, and his 39.8% average rating for his third year in office was the second worst among post-World War II presidents elected to their first term,’ Brenan observed.

If there is a silver lining for the president, it’s that Americans are slightly more upbeat about his handling of the economy. Low unemployment, stabilizing inflation and record-high stock market numbers have contributed to a four-point increase in his approval ratings on the economy to 36%, up from 32% in the last Gallup survey. 

That incremental increase was buoyed by independents, who moved six points in Biden’s direction to 30% approval on the economy. 

The survey results show Biden has some work to do to recapture support from Democrats on immigration and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While about three-quarters of Democrats approve of his handling of the economy, only 55% approve of Biden’s job on immigration, and 51% rate him positively on situations in the Middle East.

Overall, Biden’s approval rating among Democrats stands at 82%, but is still lower than the near-unanimous approval Gallup recorded during his first 11 months in office, Brenan said. 

Republicans unsurprisingly rate Biden poorly, giving him just 3% approval on immigration and 4% on the economy. 

Independents give Biden a 32% approval rating, which is largely unchanged from previous Gallup surveys.

The Gallup survey was conducted by telephone interviews from Feb. 1-20, with a random sample of 1,016 American adults living in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. 

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley says that there is going to be a female president soon — either herself or Vice President Kamala Harris.

Haley made the remarks during a Thursday interview on CNN with anchor Jake Tapper.

‘Donald Trump will not win the general election,’ Haley told Tapper. ‘You can have him win any primary you want, he will not win a general election.’

‘We will have a female President of the United States, it will either be me or it will be [Vice President Kamala] Harris.’

Haley’s comments seem to indicate she believes President Biden will either not stand for re-election or will not be able to complete his term, turning the Oval Office over to Harris.

Haley, who is trailing Trump significantly in her home state of South Carolina, has not yet won a Republican primary. 

Regardless, the former U.N. ambassador asserts that she is the only viable candidate in the general election.

‘If Donald Trump is the nominee, you can mark my words, he will not win a general election,’ Haley said in the interview.

Haley has repeatedly pledged to stay in the Republican presidential nomination race at least through March 5, when 15 states hold contests on Super Tuesday.

She faces an extremely steep uphill climb to win the nomination against the former president, who remains the commanding frontrunner in the GOP race as he bids a third straight time for the White House.

‘We are focused on every state before us. Now it’s South Carolina on Saturday. Then it will be Michigan, then it will be Super Tuesday states, and we’ll take it from there,’ Haley told Fox News Digital interview on Wednesday.

Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.