President Donald Trump is getting what he wants.

Specifically, who he wants to serve in his administration. 

The nomination of former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., for attorney general last November? 

That was a lifetime ago. Pushed out. Withdrawn. Unconfirmable. Whatever you want to call it.

The Senate has already confirmed at least one nominee whom political experts deemed as potentially unconfirmable a few weeks ago: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Hegseth skated through to confirmation with three GOP nays. But Vice President JD Vance broke a tie. It was only the second time in U.S. history that the Senate confirmed a Cabinet secretary on a tiebreaking vote by the vice president. 

And by the end of the week, the Senate will likely confirm two other controversial nominees who at one point seemed to be a stretch. The Senate votes Monday night to break a filibuster on the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to serve as Director of National Intelligence. Her confirmation vote likely comes Wednesday. After that, the Senate likely crushes a filibuster on the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to serve as Health and Human Services Secretary. The Senate could confirm Kennedy by late Thursday. 

It was unthinkable in November that Trump may be able to muscle through certain nominees. But this is a confirmation juggernaut. Yes, challenges await former Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Ore., who’s up for Labor Secretary. Some Republicans believe Chavez-DeRemer is too pro-labor. And the Department of Education may not be around long enough for the Senate to ever confirm Education Secretary nominee Linda McMahon. But so far, Republicans are sticking together. 

Many Senate Republicans aren’t willing to buck the president. They believe the GOP owes its majority in the House and Senate to him. So they’re willing to defer to Mr. Trump. Moreover, some Republicans worry about the president hammering them on Truth Social or engineering a primary challenge against them. Or, perhaps just pressuring them.

Groups aligned with the president went after Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, late last year after her initial meeting with Hegseth. Ernst served in the military and is a sexual assault survivor. In an interview on Fox, Ernst suggested she wasn’t on board with Hegseth yet and wanted ‘a thorough vetting.’ But weeks later, Ernst came around and gave Hegseth the green light following a second meeting. 

Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., dodged reporters’ questions in the hallways for several days about his stance on Gabbard.

‘We’re not taking any questions!’ an aide hollered brusquely as the senator tried to evade the Capitol Hill press corps in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. 

The same thing happened the next day.

‘Sorry, we’re not taking questions today. Sorry guys, we’re not taking questions today. Thank you though. Appreciate it,’ said an aide as Young maneuvered through the halls.

Young didn’t tip his hand on Gabbard until the Intelligence Committee prepared to vote on the nomination and send it to the floor. Young released a letter from Gabbard where the nominee apparently allayed the senator’s concerns. 

‘There was certain language I wanted her to embrace,’ said Young.

In particular, he wanted Gabbard to state she wouldn’t push for a pardon for spy Edward Snowden. 

Gabbard once advocated that a pardon was in order for Snowden – even though he made off with perhaps the biggest heist of U.S. intelligence secrets of all time – and fled to Moscow. 

The committee then voted 9-8 to send Gabbard’s nomination to the floor with a positive recommendation toward confirmation. 

What made the difference to Young?

He spoke with President Trump. He spoke with Vance. He even spoke with Elon Musk. 

‘Was there any implication that there would be recriminations if you voted a different way?’ asked yours truly.

‘Never an intimation,’ said Young. ‘I think something the American people don’t understand is that this process sometimes takes a while.’

He argued that obtaining reassurances followed the process that ‘our Founding Fathers wanted people like myself to’ do.

The road to a prospective confirmation for RFK Jr. isn’t all that different. 

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., is a a physician and chairs the Senate Health Committee. After Kennedy’s hearing with that panel, Cassidy signaled he wasn’t prepared to support the nominee yet and wanted to talk with him over the weekend. Cassidy was perplexed by RFK Jr.’s stance on vaccines. But Cassidy was in RFK Jr.’s camp when it came time for the Senate Finance Committee to vote on the nomination a few days later.

‘Mr. Kennedy and the administration committed that he and I would have an unprecedentedly close, collaborative working relationship if he is confirmed,’ said Cassidy. ‘We will meet or speak multiple times a month. This collaboration will allow us to work well together and therefore to be more effective.’

Cassidy’s support dislodged RFK Jr.’s nomination from committee and sent it to the floor. That’s why, like Gabbard, he’s on cruise control for a confirmation vote later this week.

What made the difference in salvaging these nominations which once teetered on the edge?

Multiple Senate Republicans point to their former colleague, Vance.

Vance has worked quietly in the shadows, leaning on his relationship with senators, to convince skeptical Republicans into a comfort zone with controversial nominees. The Trump Administration saw how quickly the nomination of Matt Gaetz evaporated last fall. There was worry that robust GOP pushback could jeopardize an entire slate of nominees. 

So has Vance deployed soft power with senators? Or has he dispelled concerns through brute force? Judge for yourself. 

Consider what the vice president said about the role of senators during an interview on Fox last month:  

‘You don’t have to agree with everything Bobby Kennedy has ever said. You don’t have to agree with everything that Tulsi Gabbard has ever said,’ said Vance of Republican senators. ‘You are meant to ask, ‘Do they have the qualifications and the character to do this job?’ The person who decides whether they should be nominated in the first place, he was the guy elected by the American people. That’s President Trump.’

The Senate has confirmed 13 of Trump’s nominees so far. Eleven obtained bipartisan support. Secretary of State Marco Rubio marshaled the votes of all 47 senators who caucus with the Democrats. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum secured 27 Democratic yeas. Attorney General Pam Bondi scored one Democratic yes. That was Sen. John Fetterman, D-Penn.

But Budget Director Russ Vought and Hegseth failed to win over any Democrats. That’s probably the same case with the upcoming confirmation votes for Gabbard and Kennedy. Not only do Democrats object to these nominees, but their base is compelling major pushback after the administration shuttered USAID and DOGE is mining for cuts – without congressional assistance.

Some Democrats, like Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., believe that presidents deserve to have a cabinet of people they choose – unless they are egregious nominees or unqualified. But now Democrats are flexing their muscles. That’s why the Senate was in all night leading up to the confirmation vote of Vought. Democrats will likely require the Senate to burn all available time on Gabbard and Kennedy.

But Trump is getting what he wants when it comes to confirmations. Most Senate Republicans are unwilling to push back. And Democrats can make the Senate run the clock and speak out against nominees. But, proper or not, there is now a confirmation juggernaut for the president in the Senate. 

Former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard will face another test Monday night in the Senate as she hopes to be confirmed to one of the most important national security posts in the U.S. government. 

President Donald Trump’s nominee to be Director of National Intelligence (DNI) will get a cloture vote at 5:30 p.m., when she will need to get more than 50 votes in order to advance to a final confirmation vote. 

If the cloture motion passes, there will be 30 hours of debate on the Senate floor. Frequently, the debate between the cloture motion and the final vote is minimized in what’s referred to as a ‘time agreement’ between Republicans and Democrats. But with the controversial nature of Gabbard’s nomination and ongoing frustrations with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and its government audit, no such agreements are expected. 

This will set Gabbard up for a final confirmation vote on Wednesday at the earliest, when the 30 hours of debate expire. 

The nominee advanced out of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence last week, snagging the support of crucial GOP Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Todd Young, R-Ind.

Her success on the cloture motion and with final confirmation are much more favorable than her initial odds in the Intel committee were. 

In order to get the support of all the committee’s Republicans, Chair Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Vice President JD Vance worked around the clock. Their conversations with committee members and tireless efforts were credited with getting her past the key hurdle. 

In a final vote, Gabbard can only lose 3 Republican votes, assuming she does not get any Democratic support, as was the case in the committee vote. 

She already has an advantage over Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, as Collins supports her. The senator was one of three votes against Hegseth. 

Despite the limited votes Gabbard can afford to lose, Republicans appear to be confident about her odds. This was signaled through the White House dispatching Vance to Europe for events and meetings during the time of Gabbard’s cloture and confirmation votes. If Republicans expected to need Vance to break a tie in the upper chamber, they likely would not have slated her vote for this week. 

Iran’s assassination threats against Donald Trump have loomed over the president in recent days and are more serious than publicly reported, an upcoming book claims. 

Axios reporter Isaac Isenstadt’s upcoming book, ‘Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump’s Return to Power,’ claims that law enforcement officials warned Trump in 2024 that Iran had placed operatives in the U.S. with access to surface-to-air missiles and that Trump’s orbit worried Iran would try to take out ‘Trump Force One’ as it was taking off or landing while on the campaign trail. Isenstadt previewed his book in an Axios article published Sunday. 

The reported threats and concern of Iran’s threats against Trump hit a fever pitch in September 2024, when a second assassination attempt was thwarted at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, the book claims. Isenstadt reported that his book is based on his conversations with Trump’s ‘inner circle during his campaign.’ 

Fast-forward to Trump’s second presidency in 2025, the 47th president already has issued stern warnings against Iran. Trump said while signing an executive order imposing maximum pressure on Tehran earlier in February that he left special instructions if something were to happen to him. 

During his first term in the Oval Office, Trump withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran nuclear deal, and reapplied crippling economic sanctions on Iran, escalating tensions between Trump and the nation. 

‘That would be a terrible thing for them to do,’ Trump said on Feb. 4 of Iran potentially attempting to assassinate him. ‘If they did that, they would be obliterated. That would be the end.… There won’t be anything left.’

Trump survived two assassination attempts while on the campaign trail in 2024, including the Pennsylvania attempt that left him with an injury to his ear as suspect Thomas Crooks opened fire on the crowd of Trump supporters in July. The Pennsylvania attempt has not been connected to Iran. 

The suspect behind the Florida attempt, Ryan Wesley Routh, wrote a book in 2023 urging Iran to assassinate Trump, the Associated Press reported in September 2024. 

Following the second attempt in Florida, Isenstadt’s book, which will be released March 18, claims Trump’s team was on high alert, including his security detail putting Trump on a ‘Trump Force One’ decoy plane owned by Steve Witkoff to travel to an event shortly after the attempt. The co-chairs of the campaign at the time, current chief of staff Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, split up, with Wiles traveling with Trump on the decoy plane and LaCivita on Trump Force One. 

‘The boss ain’t riding with us today,’ LaCivita reportedly told staffers on the flight. ‘We had to put him into another plane. This is nothing but a sort of test for how things may happen in the future.’

Staffers on Trump Force One reportedly worried they would be ‘collateral damage’ if the plane had been taken down, the book alleges. 

Three aides told Isenstadt that the flight was packed with ‘gallows humor galore’ as staffers reportedly realized the severity of an alleged threat, dubbing the trip as the ‘Ghost Flight’ and remarking the alleged threat was ‘some serious s—.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment on the excerpts from Isenstadt’s book, but did not immediately receive a reply. 

Trump’s campaign continued to face reported threats and scares following the second assassination attempt, including the Secret Service warning that a person might attempt to shoot at Trump’s motorcade after a Long Island rally on Sept. 18, 2024. In a separate incident, Secret Service agents shot a drone with an electromagnetic gun from a sunroof in one of the cars in Trump’s motorcade during a Pennsylvania campaign trip in September 2024, the book claimed. 

‘Don’t f—ing hang out the window and take photos, because you’re a f—ing target,’ LaCivita reportedly told longtime Trump advisor Dan Scavino during one trip on Trump Force One. 

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said in January that his country ‘never’ plotted to assassinate Trump, adding ‘we never will.’ 

The Justice Department announced in November 2024 that it thwarted an Iranian attempt to assassinate Trump, charging an alleged Iranian government asset in the murder-for-hire plot. 

As for the two assassination attempts during the campaign cycle, Trump instructed the Secret Service to hand over ‘every bit of information’ related to the Florida and Pennsylvania incidents, he told the New York Post recently, arguing the Biden administration held back details. 

‘I want to find out about the two assassins,’ the president told the New York Post Friday. ‘Why did the one guy have six cellphones, and why did the other guy have [foreign] apps?’

‘I’m entitled to know. And they held it back long enough,’ he continued, referring to the Biden administration’s handling of information on the attempts. ‘No more excuses.’

Fox News Digital’s Alexandra Koch, Diana Stancy and Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report. 

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced it would be cutting billions in overhead costs associated with federally funded research grants that go to various institutions, as part of a wider move by the Trump administration to slash wasteful spending.

The agency’s announcement unveiling the directive indicated that in fiscal year 2023, the NIH spent around $35 billion across roughly 50,000 grants that go to research institutions, such as universities and hospitals. Of that $35 billion, according to the announcement, $9 billion was allocated for ‘indirect costs’ that cover expenses related to depreciation on buildings, equipment, capital improvements, interest on debt associated with certain buildings, and operations and maintenance expenses.

When a grant is awarded, an additional percentage, on top of the allocated research funding, goes to the facility housing their work to cover these ‘indirect costs.’ According to the announcement, that percentage has historically been around 27 to 28% for each grant; however, the new directive is now imposing a 15% threshold, unless otherwise negotiated. 

‘Most private foundations that fund research provide substantially lower indirect costs than the federal government, and universities readily accept grants from these foundations. For example, a recent study found that the most common rate of indirect rate reimbursement by foundations was 0%, meaning many foundations do not fund indirect costs whatsoever,’ NIH’s announcement, released Friday evening, stated. ‘In addition, many of the nation’s largest funders of research—such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—have a maximum indirect rate of 15%. And in the case of the Gates Foundation, the maximum indirect costs rate is 10% for institutions of higher education.’

Some universities responded to the new, indirect cost cap with confusion and backlash.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison put out a statement arguing the new indirect cost cap will ‘significantly disrupt vital research activity and daily life-saving discoveries.’ It added that the move will also ‘have an inevitable impact on student opportunities to engage in research activities.’ 

At the University of Michigan, which currently has a negotiated indirect cost rate with the federal government of 56%, the school put out a statement emphasizing the ‘great deal of uncertainty’ over how the policy will be implemented. The school said it has begun investigating the implications of this new rule on its current grants.  

‘It seems like it is of a piece with the sort of slash-and-burn philosophy of the current administration,’ Dr. Francis P. Wilson, a Yale associate professor of medicine and public health, told the Yale Daily News. ‘It feels indiscriminate and abrupt, executed with little regard for the potential downstream consequences.’

The Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk, applauded the move in a post on social media. ‘Amazing job by the NIH team,’ the group said in a post on social media. ‘Saved > $4B annually in excessive grant administrative costs.’

‘Can you believe that universities with tens of billions in endowments were siphoning off 60% of research award money for ‘overhead’?’ Musk also posted on social media. ‘What a ripoff!’

‘Contrary to the hysteria, redirecting billions of allocated NIH spending away from administrative bloat means there will be more money and resources available for legitimate scientific research, not less,’ added White House spokesperson Kush Desai in a statement to Fox News Digital.

The NIH declined to comment for this story. 

Democratic lawmakers are fueling concerns of a partial government shutdown, warning they may withhold support for any plan in protest of President Donald Trump’s shakeup of the federal government. 

Left-wing leaders who have warned of the catastrophic consequences of government shutdowns in the past are now publicly signaling it could be a possibility – and they are already positioning to blame Republicans.

‘What leverage do we have? Republicans have repeatedly lectured America, they control the House, the Senate and the presidency. It’s their government,’ House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told reporters when asked about what concessions he would seek in exchange for Democratic help to avert a partial shutdown. ‘We are in the governing season, and so we’re ready to work together on any issue. But I’m also confused about the leverage that we allegedly have in the face of such an overwhelming mandate that was given to Republicans by the American people, according to them.’

Meanwhile, Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., suggested a partial shutdown could even aid in stopping the work of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, which Democrats have repeatedly raised alarms over. ‘This is on them. This is about whether or not they can get the votes. They are the majority. And if they cannot govern, then that’s for the American people to see,’ Kim told NBC News’ ‘Meet The Press,’ referring to Republicans.

‘I’ve worked through multiple government shutdowns. I will be the last person to want to get to that stage. But we are at a point where we are basically on the cusp of a constitutional crisis, seeing this administration taking steps that are so clearly illegal. And until we see a change in that behavior, we should not allow and condone that, nor should we assist in that.’

House Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., signaled one point of opposition was Trump and his allies’ support of allowing Trump to direct less federal spending than what was authorized by Congress, which Democrats argue runs afoul of the Constitution’s separation of powers.

‘We will meet with folks, and we will try to find common ground where it is possible. But what we will not do is engage in an effort that gives Donald Trump money to direct our federal government that he has no plan to utilize or implement,’ Aguilar said at a press conference last week. ‘If we’re going to pass law, we need to know that the law is followed. And it doesn’t appear that House Republicans are in a position to push back against Donald Trump to protect vital funding that supports our communities.’

Progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., told CNN that Democrats should seek a ‘very high’ price in exchange for their votes.

In past fiscal standoffs, Democrats had used the specter of a government shutdown to force Republicans back to the negotiating table.

Jeffries said during the previous round of government funding talks in late December, ‘If the government shuts down, holiday travel will be impacted…Border security and border patrol agents will not be paid. TSA agents will not be paid. Small businesses will be hurt in every single community in this country.’

‘This reckless Republican-driven shutdown can be avoided if House Republicans will simply do what is right for the American people and stick with the bipartisan agreement that they themselves negotiated,’ Jeffries said at the time.

Government funding has long been a thorny issue within the House Republican conference. 

GOP leaders have relied on Democratic support to pass every federal funding bill that has been signed into law since taking the House majority in January 2023.

Despite now having the Senate majority as well, Republican leaders’ razor-thin margins mean House GOP lawmakers would need to vote nearly in lock-step to pass any one bill without Democrats.

The House has about 15 days left in session before the government funding deadline on March 14.

Democratic lawmakers have also previously painted shutdowns as ‘catastrophic’ for the economy and federal workforce.

Aguilar said during a January 2024 press conference, ‘House Democrats are in lock step that we need to avoid a government shutdown, which would be a disaster for our economy and a disaster for hardworking American families.’

President Donald Trump’s first term revolutionized the online relationship between the president and the public, but self-proclaimed ‘White House Tech Support’ Elon Musk is ushering a chronically online generation into Trump’s second term. 

Trump has been using Truth Social in his second term like he used Twitter during his first, blasting off posts at all hours of the day to roll out policy announcements and comment on his favorite – or least favorite – news shows. Truth Social reads like Trump’s own stream of consciousness, and most Truth users are loyal Trump supporters who use the social media platform to rally around his policies.

Musk’s X account reads more like a political debate. Buried in the steady stream of memes and AI edits, ‘special government employee’ Musk uses X as a way to meet Americans where they are – confirming and denying information about his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in real time. 

It is easy to get lost in Musk’s 69,000 posts, but the richest man in the world does not miss a beat. This week, as an unrelenting news cycle focused on DOGE’s United States Agency for International Development (USAID) investigation, Musk used X to confirm reporting as misinformation circulated. 

‘All @DOGE did was check to see which federal organizations were violating the @POTUS executive orders the most. Turned out to be USAID, so that became our focus,’ Musk explained in a post on Monday. 

On Wednesday, Musk confirmed reporting by the Wall Street Journal that DOGE is investigating the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, posting: ‘Yeah, this is where the big money fraud is happening.’

Musk invites his followers to engage in the Democratic process right through the app, asking,’Bring back @DOGE staffer who made inappropriate statements via a now deleted pseudonym?’ Musk asked his X followers in an X poll on Friday morning.

Musk polled his followers on Tuesday as well, asking if DOGE should audit the IRS. 

Between the polls and DOGE confirmations, Musk floods his account with political commentary and quick reactions to trending posts. Musk simply responded with a bullseye emoji when an X user posted, ‘If you’re more angry that a handful of 22 year old software engineers are writing code to uncover fraudulent government spending than at the people who are fraudulently spending your hard earned taxes, it’s time to do some soul searching.’ 

Musk also embraces his platform as a vehicle to spark political debate with Democratic leaders.

In recent days, Democrats in Congress have unleashed attacks on Musk, including Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., who said, ‘Elon Musk is a Nazi nepo baby, a godless lawless billionaire, who no one elected’ at a rally outside the Treasury Department, where protesters were speaking out against DOGE.

‘Elon, this is the American people. This is not your trashy Cybertruck that you can just dismantle, pick apart, and sell the pieces of,’ she continued.

‘We are gonna be in your face, we are gonna be on your a–es, and we are going to make sure you understand what democracy looks like, and this ain’t it,’ Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, said at the same rally. 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., was also in attendance and told the crowd that Musk’s DOGE efforts are ‘taking away everything we have.’

The official DOGE account has a more formal tone and often doubles down on Musk’s posts to verify new information. DOGE has over 3 million followers on X. 

As the owner of X, Musk is the most followed person on the app with a staggering 216.4 million followers. Musk has more followers on X than Trump has on Truth Social (8.83 million) and X (100.4 million) combined. 

These days, Trump follows a Truth Social first media strategy. During his presidential transition, Trump announced his cabinet nominations on Truth Social before the transition team hit send on the press release. The press release that arrived several minutes later simply directed reporters back to the Truth Social post. 

Musk’s constant posts landed him at odds with Trump last week when Musk said OpenAI does not have the money for The Stargate Project’s $500 billion investment in AI over the next four years. Musk said he had it on ‘good authority’ that ‘SoftBank has well under $10B secured’ for the investment, soon after Trump finished a press conference announcing the project. 

Trump shrugged off Musk’s comments later that week, telling the press Musk ‘hates one of the people in the deal.’ OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Musk have a long-standing legal feud. 

While Trump is using X again, he is more likely to post a screenshot of his Truth Social post than break any news on Musk’s platform. Trump was banned from Twitter after Jan. 6 and launched Truth Social in 2022. His account was reinstated after Musk bought Twitter and renamed it X. 

Musk said he bought Twitter to ‘help humanity’ and committed to protecting free speech. While liberal ideology dominated Twitter, X is more likely to lean conservative. A Pew Research Center survey in 2023 found Republicans are more likely to view the site positively since Musk arrived on the scene, while Democrats are more likely to say X has a ne gativeimpact on American democracy.

Fox News’ Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report