House Republican leaders are eyeing a plan to fund the government that would lump the planned 12 appropriations bills into two or three separate packages, Fox News Digital has learned, apparently backing away from an earlier vow to hold floor votes on each of the bills individually.  

It was a vow made by ex-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., when Republicans took control of the House after the 2022 elections and has been upheld by House GOP leadership through as recently as November. 

The right had criticized the previous Democrat-led Congress for funding the government via a single massive ‘omnibus’ bill, which they argued leads to more federal spending and gives less of a voice to rank-and-file members than voting on 12 separate bills would. Large, combined spending bills also tend to be magnets for spending and other priorities of individual members since the measures can more easily be hidden away. 

But with the clock ticking until the first of two partial government shutdown deadlines next week, sources told Fox News Digital that GOP leaders are now considering turning the 12 individual bills into a series of ‘minibus’ spending packages – smaller than the omnibus but still stitching together spending bills. They are only ‘mini’ in relation to the ‘omni.’

Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., the No. 3 House Republican, confirmed to Fox News Digital that passing minibuses is ‘on the table’ and blamed Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., for not working with the House on its individual spending bills.

‘Due to the Schumer Senate’s inability to pass individual appropriations bills and the tight timeline we’re working with, all options are on the table including minibus appropriations bills,’ Emmer said. ‘Thanks to Speaker Johnson’s leadership, the days of massive omnibus bills are behind us.’

Current government funding expires on two deadlines, with some agencies and offices running out of money on March 1 while others end March 8. Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., came up with the idea to separate the deadlines in order to avoid a single ‘omnibus’ spending bill. 

Johnson told Fox News Sunday in early November that the House was ‘committed to bringing 12 bills to the floor,’ adding it ‘hasn’t been done in many years.’

But a GOP lawmaker and a senior House GOP aide both told Fox News Digital that appropriators are at this point eyeing at least two minibuses to get government funding over the line.

‘I don’t think the parameters of the minibus will be exactly reflecting the two tracks we’re on, it’s probably going to be smaller than that. Maybe a subset of that, a minibus of two or three [appropriations] bills,’ the lawmaker said.

The lawmaker pointed out that while it’s been a goal for conservatives to vote on the 12 bills separately, it’s not really an aim for Democrats — whose votes House GOP leaders will need to pass anything in a divided Congress.

‘There are always going to be a handful of members who refuse to budge from voting on every one of the 12 bills separately,’ the lawmaker said. ‘These negotiations are less focused on getting 216 Republicans to vote for them and more on getting the majority of Republicans and a majority of Democrats to vote for them, and that concern about voting on all 12 is not going to be as prominent.’

The aide said, ‘I think when they started this, they wanted to do three minibuses. I think right now where they’re at is that they think they can do two.’

While the end result would still avoid the prospect of a massive omnibus bill that most Republicans oppose, GOP lawmakers are already bristling at the idea of walking away from their promise to keep the 12 bills separate.

Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., told Fox News Digital he’s ‘not surprised, looking at the calendar and just how things have been [dragged] out.’ Like Emmer, he accused the Senate of slow-walking the process and forcing House Republicans into this position.

‘What’s really still disheartening is the way the Senate has dragged out the appropriations process. It’s really disheartening to watch how Washington spends the people’s money, because there’s no real effort to have real negotiations early and take care of your business in an orderly fashion,’ Donalds said. ‘They try to run everything up to the end of the clock and force you into bad deals.’

A member of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., told Fox News Digital that passing minibuses would amount to ‘failure’ for Republicans.

‘Last year, we promised the American people that our House Republican majority would reject the Swamp’s status quo. Part of that promise includes handling government funding in a conservative and fiscally responsible manner, as well as passing each of the 12 appropriations bills,’ Clyde said.

‘We certainly made progress by passing 7 of the spending bills last year but advancing minibuses or an omnibus to finish the job would be a failure, in my opinion.’

Johnson’s office did not return a request for comment by Fox News Digital.

Don’t let the title fool you. ‘The Internationalists: The Fight to Restore American Foreign Policy After Trump,’ a new book by Alexander Ward, a national security reporter at Politico, may lead you to think ‘puff job.’  It’s not, even though the title fairly screams at a browser in one of the Beltway’s bookstores or passing by the kiosks of Reagan and Dulles airports that President Joe Biden and his two key aides, Secretary of State Tony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan are real-life Jedi Knights come together to rebuild not just one but many alliances from the ruins left behind by President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor Ambassador Robert O’Brien.

Whomever signed off on the vast access given Ward must surely have counted on at least a little bit of love in return for the sort of welcome usually reserved for Bob Woodward at 1600 when presidents and their inner circles want ‘their side of the story’ out there. This play rarely works out. It certainly didn’t here. For the picture that emerges of Team Biden is of would-be NBA All Stars of national security who have, through three years, steadily, relentlessly, almost purposefully proved themselves to be the Washington Generals of the post World War II era. Sharpshooters from beyond the line in their own mind, they turn out to be bricklayers of the most cringe-inducing sort.

Biden, et al. have confronted five crucial moments in his slightly more than first two years as captain of our national security ship: Three of them became major and deadly-beyond-imagining-in-2020 disasters, plus two smaller dramas that seemed like good ideas with good results at the time.

Biden wanted a summit in June of 2021 with Vladimir Putin and got one. Ward dutifully reports Biden’s account of the president leaning in close to the Russian dictator, Clint Eastwood-style, and stating ‘I looked in your eyes and I don’t believe you have a soul.’ Then, Ward recounts, a jubilant ‘Biden left the meeting telling his aides that he got his message through to Putin.’ A ‘senior staffer’ alerts Ward that ‘Biden had come to Geneva to do what he needed to do.’

‘Now he could put Putin aside and deal with other issues,’ the staffer purred, less than three months before Abbey Gate and eight months before Putin would roll his tanks into Ukraine. The president, it turns out, was clueless about Putin.

Just as the president had been a month before when Hamas began firing barrages of rockets from Gaza into Israel after street fighting broke out in Jerusalem between Arabs and Jews. Sullivan dove into the crisis on May 9. Meetings were held on the 11th. More meetings on the 12th. Joe calls Bibi, repeatedly. They are old acquaintances. He knows how to handle Bibi. The rockets keep coming and the Israeli Air Force pounds back. The left wing of the Democrats acts up. Senator Bernie Sanders writes an op-ed; Rashida Tlaib lectures Biden. Biden leans on Bibi to conclude a ceasefire, which occurs (and which Hamas will savagely destroy on 10/7.) ‘Something had clearly changed,’ Ward recounts on that week. ‘The White House could no longer count on Democrats supporting their [Israel] policy.’  

These were the two warm up acts to the Afghanistan disaster which Ward rightly brands ‘The Humbling’ and what is now struggling as the left and right balk at the ‘too little, too late and now too long’ Ukraine policy.

In these two failures to foresee what would turn out to be inevitable, the Biden Administration’s vaunted ‘adults in the room’ couldn’t read the rooms in Kabul, Kyiv or Moscow. Then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley gets tossed under various buses in the accounts Biden loyalists give Ward. Milley and Secretary of Defense Austen wanted to abandon Bagram Air Force Base. The Intel said the Afghans could hold out two years or at least one, (and, later, the Ukrainians a week if lucky.) The late Beau Biden was heavy on the president’s mind: ‘The Iraq War may not have directly killed Beau but it may have contributed to his untimely passing in 2015,’ Ward tells us of the president’s view. Biden ‘never wanted a parent to suffer life he suffered’ and he wanted out of Afghanistan.

(Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden did in fact serve a year in Iraq from 2008 to 2009. He was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme in 2013. There are less than 200,000 of these deadly tumors every year and they spread rapidly. The president’s introduction of Beau at various points in his presidency has always struck most observers as, at best, a grieving parent’s overreach. But that sort of causation argument shouldn’t be a trigger for presidential decision-making.)

No one needs to be reminded of August 2021 in Kabul though it would have been appropriate for the president to have at least spoken the names of the fallen at Abbey Gate. There never was any serious reckoning inside the administration,’ Ward writes about the Afghanistan fiasco. ‘Biden told his top aides, Sullivan included, that he stood by them and that they had done their best during a tough situation.’

The account of the run-up on the U.S. side to Putin’s order to invade Ukraine would be a comedy were it not so tragic. Everyone is surprised at first. Then paralyzed. More meetings. A ‘Tiger Team’ is organized.

But the surprise is complete. Biden doesn’t even mention Ukraine at his speech to the General Assembly. CIA Director Burns gets dispatched to Moscow to talk one-on-one with Putin to stop the madness. But Putin’s not there. He’s gone to his fortress in Sochi. Burns is granted a phone call from Moscow to Sochi. Long way to go to make a call. But that’s Team Biden. Next the Brain Trust dispatches State’s #2, Wendy Sherman, she of the Iran and North Korea nuclear deals, to a NATO-Russia last gambit to avert the invasion. The Russians first ignore her. She gets mad and insists they listen to her tale of Ukrainian roots. Then she cries. We can only guess what the Russians think.

The U.S. closes its embassy in Kyiv and Ukrainian President Zelensky is outraged (as he has been with Biden, Blinken and Milley throughout.) Milley predicts the Russians will roll into Zelenskyy’s capital city in two or three days. Zelenskyy won’t leave. He’s furious with the Americans. After the invasion Biden strides to the cameras. ‘Every asset they [the Russians] have in America will be frozen,’ Biden tells the U.S. on February 24. It’s a lie as it passes his lips for as Ward points out, Team Biden had already exempted to Russian energy sector from sanctions.

Ward wraps up his account before the terrorists of Hamas who were appeased in May of 2021 could conduct their massacre and launch their war on 10/7 of 2023. This book looks to have been intended by the Comms wizards around Biden to hit shelves just as Campaign 2024 was lifting off. Now they must be scurrying about trying to buy up all the copies. It’s a sad tale of incompetence after incompetence and the woes that follow in their wakes.

The most revealing passage in the book? When an unnamed aide tells Ward about the war in Ukraine, that the Administration’s fumbling there ‘wasn’t a do-over of Afghanistan.’

‘Nothing could be that,’ the aid continues. ‘But this does help ensure that it won’t be the only thing Jake and Tony are remembered for.’

Jake and Tony. Not Joe. The book was not doubt planned by Team Biden to build up President Biden to an FDR-like master of all the surveys, or at least a Reagan standing up to Gorbachev. Instead, we get a detailed portrait of the Peter Principle on full display inside the Beltway and the disastrous consequences that has meant for the world.

And it doesn’t even include 10/7 or Xi Jinping’s unimpeded buildup across the Taiwan straight, though North Korea’s return to missile launching is mentioned. As the president declines before our eyes, don’t expect his national security team to get stronger in response. It’s the same guys who brought us President Obama’s red line in Syria. With the same result. It’s deadly to be our friend when Democrats are in the White House, and there’s never been an easier time to be our enemy than in this age of ‘The Internationalists.’

Hugh Hewitt is one of the country’s leading journalists of the center-right. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990, and it is today syndicated to hundreds of stations and outlets across the country every Monday through Friday morning. Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and this column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his forty years in broadcast, and this column previews the lead story that will drive his radio show today.

Divisions in the Democrat Party’s progressive wing are continuing to deepen in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel, forcing some pro-Israel Democrats out of key factions.  

Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y. has left the House Congressional Progressive Caucus, Axios first reported on Wednesday, making him the second Democrat to depart the caucus in recent months. Rep. Lois Frankel, D-Fla., left in November last year. 

Torres has been at odds with some of his Democratic colleagues, including far-left ‘Squad’ members about his support for Israel. 

In December, he and Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., clashed after she suggested Torres was comfortable with Palestinian casualties as a result of Israel’s response to the Hamas attacks. 

‘Every casualty is a tragedy, every war is a humanitarian crisis, but we have to keep in mind the causes of the war,’ he told CNN host Dana Bash in an interview. ‘Israel did not start the war, the war was imposed upon Israel by the barbaric terrorism of Hamas, which butchered 1,400 Israelis, including babies,’ he said, referring to the terrorist attack on Oct. 7 in southern Israel.

‘You know, my colleague, Rep. Omar, has voted against Iron Dome, which is a missile defense system that protects Israeli civilians from relentless rocket fire,’ he told CNN host Dana Bash. ‘Were it not for Iron Dome interceptions, there would be far more dead Israelis – far more, by orders of magnitude. So the policy position that she has taken would have led to more dead Israelis and more dead Palestinians.’

In December, Torres responded to Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., and other hard-left figures after she seemed unable to explain why there was a hesitation among some progressives to condemn Hamas’ sexual violence against Israeli women. 

CNN’s Bash asked Torres in an intervew why it was so difficult for progressives to ‘unequivocally call out the barbaric sexual violence against Israeli women.’

‘Look, there’s often been a double standard against Israel when it comes to condemning the sheer butchery and barbarism of Hamas,’ Torres said. 

‘Public officials have a moral obligation to speak with clarity rather than caveats. And I found it deeply troubling, for example, that the U.N. Women, the so-called women’s rights arm of the United Nations, went 50 days without commenting on or condemning the sexual atrocities that Hamas perpetrated against Israeli women. For me, this is not about politics. This is about decency. It is indecent to deny or downplay or ‘both sides’ the rape and sexual violence against Israeli women on Oct. 7.’

Torres was also one of 22 Democrats to vote to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., for her anti-Israel comments. 

Torres’ office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. 

Fox News Digital’s Alexander Hall and Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report. 

Former President Donald Trump is edging President Biden in a hypothetical general election rematch, according to new polling that reveals growing concerns over the president’s physical health.

A new Quinnipiac University poll found that Biden currently leads in a hypothetical race against Trump by four points, locking in 49% support of likely voters over 45% who said they would vote for the former president.

The results reflect a slight narrowing in the race, after a Jan. 31 poll found Biden leading Trump by 6 points, 50% to 44%.

Trump remains the frontrunner in the Republican presidential primary, securing support from 80% of Republican-identifying respondents, while only 17% said former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley is their preferred GOP nominee.  

Amid growing concerns over the president’s fitness, a large majority of voters, 67%, said they believe Biden is too old and not physically capable of completing another four-year term as president.

On the flip side, 57% of voters think Trump is not too old to serve another term as president.

The survey also noted that nearly twice as many voters believe Trump to be more physically fit than Biden.

‘A Biden-Trump split decision on physical and emotional fitness leaves both looking vulnerable,’ Tim Malloy, Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst, said in a statement. ‘Yes, Trump wins walking away on the age and stamina question, but voters have more confidence in Biden’s empathy toward them and his emotional stability to handle the job.’

Only 40% of voters said they approve of Biden’s handling of the presidency.

The polling results come just weeks after Special Counsel Robert Hur released his report on Biden’s handling of classified documents and described the president as ‘a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.’ 

Former Republican presidential candidate Asa Hutchinson called former President Donald Trump ‘offensive’ for comparing himself to deceased Russian activist Alexei Navalny.

Hutchinson reacted to the former president’s words in an interview with CNN’s John Berman, saying the comment lacked ‘common decency.’

‘Well, it’s offensive to me. And there should be common decency, first of all. A respect for Alexei Navalny, that gave his life for freedom and fighting against a dictator. There should be respect for that,’ said Hutchinson.

Hutchinson continued, ‘And there should also be a clear understanding that Putin is responsible, and that Putin is bad for Russia. He’s bad for anybody that loves freedom, and the United States should be having a clear voice.’

Trump wrote on social media following the news of Navalny’s death that the mysterious passing ‘has made me more and more aware of what’s happening in our country. It is a slow, steady progression with crooked radical left politicians and prosecutors and judges.’

The comment received strong backlash from those inside and outside the Republican Party, with many calling the remarks tone deaf.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley claimed Trump’s comments were intentionally and obviously self-serving.

‘This is on the heels of Trump saying that he would encourage Putin to invade any NATO countries that didn’t pull their weight – and now the only comment he’s going to make about Navalny is not hitting Putin for murdering him, not praising Navalny for fighting the corruption that was happening in Russia. But instead he’s going to compare himself to Navalny and the victim that he is in his court cases?’ she said.

Trump again addressed the suspicious death while participating in a Greenville, South Carolina, town hall hosted by Fox News’ Laura Ingraham just days ahead of the state’s Republican presidential primary – striking a more sympathetic tone.

‘Navalny – a very sad situation. He was very brave because he went back [to Russia] when he could have stayed away,’ Trump said when asked about the outrage from world leaders surrounding Navalny’s death, as well as claims by his opponents that he doesn’t care about human rights and freedom.

Fox News Digital’s Charles Creitz, Brandon Gillespie, and Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.