Politics
Inside the minds of older, left-wing women driving new voting bloc of ‘Resistance Grandmas’ opposing Trump
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FIRST ON FOX: A Trump-aligned political consulting firm set out to investigate the ideological swing of affluent, college-educated white women who were once considered moderate, but have since moved farther to the left, uncovering what researchers describe as a new voting bloc of left-wing women: “Resistance Grandmas.”
“We are so knowledgeable about everything,” one woman said in a Northern Virginia focus group video reviewed by Fox News Digital, referring to herself and the other women who joined the session while slamming President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.” “When [Trump voters] start being personally impacted, that’s when I’m hopeful that a little bit of something is gonna change.”
“It’s gonna be a catastrophe,” another woman chimed in, as another middle-aged woman added, “However, they will find a way to blame Democrats.”
Fox News Digital exclusively obtained a report conducted by the National Public Affairs (NPA), the polling arm of Trump campaign-aligned American Made Media Company, in September, as well as the full two-hour focus group session in northern Virginia that showcased the beliefs of 10 white, liberal, middle-aged, college-educated, upper–middle-class suburban women.
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A 2024 billboard in Hastings, Minnesota, informing voters to “trust women and vote Democratic.” ((Photo by: Michael Siluk/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images))
The women who participated in the focus group were not informed it was conducted by a Trump-aligned polling firm, only told that they were brought in to discuss political topics for a focus group commissioned by another research firm. The researcher leading the focus group told the women at the start of the meeting that she had “no stake” in their comments “one way or the other,” and that the women “could say whatever comes to mind.”
“Pretty much anything is fair game,” the focus group leader told the women.
Fox News Digital is not publishing footage of the video or names of the women, but reviewed extensive footage of the session for the purposes of this article.
Justifying ‘ugly’ racist Virginia sign, using N-word analogy
The focus group was conducted to study how affluent middle-aged and older white women have increasingly shifted to the political left in recent years, and was sparked by a racist sign displayed outside a Northern Virginia school board meeting in August targeting Republican gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earle-Sears.
“In the year since President Trump’s historic victory, commentators have obsessed over what they call the radicalization of young white men. But a quieter, just as revealing transformation has swept another group once known for moderation and civility: older, affluent white women. This change came into sharp focus last August in Arlington, Virginia,” NPA’s report outlines.
The Virginia gubernatorial cycle is at a fever pitch, with the election just over two weeks away pitting ex-CIA agent and former Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger against Republican Earle-Sears. In August, a white woman was spotted holding a Jim Crow-era-reminiscent sign targeting Earle-Sears, who is Black, when the candidate attended a school board meeting.
“Hey Winsome, if trans can’t share your bathroom, then blacks can’t share my water fountain,” the sign read, igniting outrage from conservatives and others who called it racist.
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Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears was the subject of a sign condemned by Virginia leaders as offensive and inappropriate. (Winsome Earle-Sears Campaign)
The women in the focus group overwhelmingly characterized the sign as written in poor taste, describing its words as “ugly,” but also justified it by arguing Republicans have “already taken it too far with their trans bans.” Another woman used the N-word while comparing the sign to those of the segregated Jim Crow era of the late 19th to the mid-20th centuries in the American South.
“What’s the best analogy for a trans person not being able to use a particular bathroom in our recent modern history?” one participant asked the group.
Another woman chimed in: “You used to have hotels that said ‘No n—-rs, no Jews, no dogs at these hotels. Is that… I don’t know if that’s the same thing.”
“Like, I don’t think I would feel uncomfortable, and I definitely wouldn’t hold up that sign,” the first woman said in response. “But this person, I think, was just trying to find an appropriate analogy.”
Recent voting history of white women
The NPA report explained that polling data since the 2012 election, which pitted former Democrat President Barack Obama against Republican Mitt Romney, showed “voting patterns among white voters and women haven’t moved much in a decade.”
The shift to the left, the report argued, is not due to gender or race, but rather income and education.
“In 2012, college graduates leaned Republican, 51-47, while postgraduates favored Democrats 55-42. By 2024, that pattern had flipped and widened: Harris won college grads 53-45 and postgrads 59-38. Non-college voters went the other way. High-school grads and those with some college, once evenly split, gave Trump a 56-43 lead,” the report found.
“Income followed suit. Voters earning under $50,000, once a 60-38 Obama bloc, shifted to a 50-48 Trump edge. Those earning over $100,000 flipped from a 54-44 Romney majority to a 51-47 Harris win,” it continued.
The report took issue with the media asking and diving into explanations on “what ‘broke’ young white men” to move farther to the right and help re-elect Trump in 2024, but argued the question should instead be: “What radicalized rich white women, and whether they even realize it.”
Former Vice President Kamala Harris is seen as a guest on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on July 31, 2025. (Scott Kowalchyk/CBS via Getty Images)
‘Luxury’ of studying the news
The women in the focus group overwhelmingly presented themselves as arbiters of knowledge, reporting that they have the “luxury” of reading news articles from different outlets, while other voters are more concerned about costs of living and putting food on the table.
DEMOCRATS ARE MAKING A CRITICAL MISTAKE — AND VOTERS ARE LETTING THEM KNOW
One woman in the group recounted that her cousin living in a Heartland state was a lifelong Democrat who announced ahead of the 2024 election that he was leaning towards voting for Trump, which the woman said made her nearly fall “off my chair.”
The cousin, a male farmer, reported to her that the Biden administration had not helped U.S. farmers.
“He doesn’t know. He’s not paying attention to China’s not buying wheat or soybeans,” the female voter said. “He’s just concerned about his daily life and making enough money to support his family. And so I don’t think they’re paying attention.”
“I think a lot of times people are just very focused on … how it impacts them on that day and not reading The Washington Post or The New York Times or other things that we all have access to and, you know, have the luxury of doing,” she added.
Scene from the Jan. 6 2021 Capitol riot. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
Turning in a friend who breached U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6
Another woman reported to the group that she turned in her longtime friend after she found out she breached the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. The FBI launched a tip line shortly after Jan. 6, 2021, where people could report those who were “instigating violence in Washington, D.C.”
“She said, ‘We were just walking around,’” the woman in the focus group recounted of the conversation with her friend about Jan. 6. “And I know she slipped. I know she didn’t mean to tell me she was in the Capitol.”
“And I said, ‘It wasn’t a f—ing open house. You weren’t, you weren’t buying the Capitol,’” she continued, as other women in the group remarked, “Wow” and “Good for you.”
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The woman said she has not spoken to her former friend since, and submitted a tip to authorities that she was in the Capitol the day of the protests.
“And then I had that whole inner turmoil of, ‘do I go on that website and say I think that she would’ …. I went back and forth on that for probably two weeks and asked some people. And finally, I just went on and said ‘she was there, and I don’t know what role she had, what it was,’” she said. “‘She was in that building by her own admission.’”
A new report published by a Trump-aligned pollster examined how educated, wealthy white women have move more to the left. (Getty Images)
A more cohesive future
“As the session ended, they voiced a small hope that the country might still find a way back to calm and common purpose. Whether that hope can survive a culture built on outrage is uncertain. But their conversation left one clear lesson. Beneath polls and party lines, the real contest for the nation’s future is over how Americans think, speak, and live with one another,” the report concluded.
The women in the group called on the Democrat Party to find cohesion and to disseminate their message to party leaders across the country in order to win upcoming elections.
“Democrats need to stop primarying for the lesser Republican. So what’s happening is … Democrats are voting between two Republican primary candidates, and they’re voting for the idiot, crazy, right-wing guy so that they don’t have to compete against this actual intelligent person. And that’s where we’re getting these nutcases,” one woman said.
Another woman said the DNC should combat everything Trump says, including when the president pinned blame on radical liberal violence for the assassination of Charlie Kirk in September.
“I think it comes from the DNC. I think they need to organize. I think they need a cohesive message. I think they need to be vocal every time Trump says something, even about Charlie Kirk. Yes. No one should be killed for what they believe in. A hundred percent. But they are turning him into a martyr,” one woman said.
Politics
EXCLUSIVE: ICE says El Paso detention facility will stay open under new contractor after $1.2B deal scrapped
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EXCLUSIVE: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas will remain open and is undergoing an operational upgrade, Fox News Digital has learned.
“Camp East Montana is NOT closing, quite the opposite,” an ICE spokesperson exclusively told Fox News Digital Tuesday.
“Rather, ICE has contracted with a new provider following Secretary Noem’s termination of the old contract inherited from the Department of War. ICE is always looking at ways to improve our detention facilities to ensure we are providing the best care to illegal aliens in our custody.”
Camp East Montana is photographed Friday, March 6, 2026, in El Paso, Texas. (Omar Ornelas/El Paso Times / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
BLUE-STATE GOVERNORS MOVE TO KEEP HEAT ON NOEM AS DHS FIRES BACK
The spokesperson said the new contract will allow the facility to maintain what the agency described as the “highest detention standards” while expanding oversight.
According to ICE, the new contractor will also provide increased on-site medical care, additional staffing and a “PRECISE quality assurance surveillance plan.”
The agency said the updated agreement also strengthens ICE’s direct oversight of operations at the El Paso-area facility.
“Far from closing, Camp East Montana is upgrading,” the spokesperson said.
El Paso immigration facility faces scrutiny but ICE says Camp East Montana is upgrading, not closing, after the $1.2 billion contract termination. (Omar Ornelas/El Paso Times / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
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The news that the facility will remain open comes after The Washington Post reported that the facility could face closure amid scrutiny over operations.
A document was distributed to ICE staff, the Post reports, indicated that the agency was drafting a letter to terminate the facility’s $1.2 billion contract at an unspecified date.
ICE officials, however, characterized the contract termination as a deliberate effort by Noem to raise standards and improve services.
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Camp East Montana is photographed Friday, March 6, 2026, in El Paso, Texas, as a bus enters the detention center. (Omar Ornelas/El Paso Times / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
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The facility, located at Fort Bliss in Texas, has been used to house thousands of detainees as part of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts.
ICE did not immediately provide details on the identity of the new contractor or the timeline for full implementation.
WASHINGTON — Russia is emerging as one of the few early economic beneficiaries of the war with Iran, as disruptions to energy infrastructure drive up demand for Russian exports and the world casts its gaze to the Middle East and away from Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
The U.S. and its European counterparts slapped severe sanctions on Russia in March 2022, barely a month into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The effect was a stranglehold on Russia’s exports, depriving Putin’s war effort of at least $500 billion, experts say. But over the last week, as President Trump’s war in the Middle East choked energy markets worldwide, the White House began easing its restrictions on Moscow.
“It is traitorous conduct for you to help Russia,” California Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) said on X, demanding the Trump administration reverse course. “Russia is giving intelligence info to Iran that helps Iran target American forces.”
Crude droplets rained over Tehran after Israeli airstrikes decimated oil depots, draping the Iranian capital in a dense smog. Iranian counterattacks have also targeted refineries and oil fields in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Crude oil prices have surged, and traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has all but ceased, sending energy importers in search of alternate sources.
Those spikes are giving Russia, one of the world’s largest oil and gas exporters, a rare advantage. After spending a decade as the world’s most sanctioned nation over his aggression in Ukraine, Putin is finally starting to regain some leverage in global markets.
“In the current economic situation, if we refocus now on those markets that need increased supplies, we can gain a foothold there,” Putin said at a meeting at the Kremlin on Monday, according to Russian state media. “It’s important for Russian energy companies to take advantage of the current situation.”
On March 4, the Treasury Department issued a temporary 30-day waiver allowing Indian refiners to purchase Russian oil. The appeal by the Trump administration was described as a way to ease demand for Mideast oil, but was criticized as a reversal of sanctions placed against Putin meant to deny him the capital needed to fund his occupation of eastern Ukraine.
Now, Moscow is poised to press that advantage further, after Trump said Monday he will further lift sanctions on oil-producing countries to ease the trade friction and reintroduce additional oil and gas supplies. The only countries with U.S. oil sanctions are Russia, Iran and Venezuela.
“So, we have sanctions on some countries. We’re going to take those sanctions off until this straightens out,” Trump said at a news conference at his golf club in Doral, Fla. “Then, who knows, maybe we won’t have to put them on — they’ll be so much peace.”
The surprise concession to Moscow comes as reports suggest Russia is assisting Iran in targeting U.S. personnel.
Trump’s announcement followed an unscheduled hourlong call with Putin about the situation in the Middle East.
The war has also set the stage for Russia to make gains in Ukraine, as hostilities draw the global spotlight away from Kyiv and its struggle to hold back the bigger Russian army. U.S.-brokered talks between the two adversaries have been sidelined as Washington shifts focus to its war in Iran.
“At the moment, the partners’ priority and all attention are focused on the situation around Iran,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on X. “We see that the Russians are now trying to manipulate the situation in the Middle East and the Gulf region to the benefit of their aggression.”
Putin is unlikely to intervene militarily on Iran’s behalf, according to Robert English, an international foreign policy expert at USC. Instead, Putin is expected to play his position carefully, reap the economic rewards, and keep focused firmly on Ukraine at a time when key air defense systems are diverted from Ukraine to the Persian Gulf.
“Russia is winning the Iran-U.S.-Israel war, at least so far. Oil and natural gas prices have soared, filling Putin’s Ukraine war chest,” he said. “Russia is gathering forces for a big spring offensive in Eastern Ukraine, and it’s not even front-page news.”
Ukraine has dispatched drone interceptors and ordered its anti-drone experts to pivot from their war with Russia to help Western allies help intercept Iranian attacks. Zelensky’s allegiance may not pay off, English said.
“When will Ukraine see the benefits of helping the U.S. with anti-drone technology? No time soon, apparently,” he said.
Even several weeks of interruption in Gulf energy supplies could bring the largest windfall to Russia, the Associated Press reported, citing energy analysts.
The economic turmoil caused by the war has exposed vulnerabilities in Europe’s energy system, particularly its lingering dependence on Russian fuel.
Despite sanctions, the European Union remains a major purchaser of Russian natural gas and crude oil. Russian gas accounted for approximately 19% of E.U. gas imports in 2025. Allied Europeans have agreed to completely stop importing Russian liquefied natural gas, oil and pipeline gas by late 2027.
Putin expressed no desire Monday to rescue the European market now that U.S.-Israeli escalations and Iranian retaliation have choked oil production and shipping. The Russian president instead proposed to divert volumes away from the European market “to more promising areas” like the Asia-Pacific region, Slovakia and Hungary, which he said were “reliable counterparties.”
European leaders have been criticized for being “stunned, sidelined, and disunited” since hostilities began in late February. Excluded from the initial military planning by the U.S. and Israel, Europe entered the conflict with gas storage at only 30% capacity, the lowest levels in years. Instead of bold action, English said, European leaders have quarreled over internal divisions and rivalries.
“Sky-high energy prices are the underlying cause of many of these frictions, as Europe struggles now more than ever to find affordable alternatives to the cheap Russian petroleum,” English said.
Antonio Costa, president of the European Council, told European leaders in Brussels on Tuesday that rising energy prices and the world’s shifting attention risk strengthening the Kremlin at a critical moment in the war in Ukraine.
“So far, there is only one winner in this war,” Costa said. “Russia.”
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President Donald Trump is taking his feud with Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., to the libertarian lawmaker’s home turf on Wednesday.
Trump is expected to hold an event in Hebron, Kentucky, on Wednesday, the Republican Party of Kentucky announced on social media Monday. It’s located in the northern part of the state’s 4th Congressional District, which Massie represents.
Massie’s primary rival, Ed Gallrein, will attend the Hebron event, his campaign confirmed to Fox News Digital on Tuesday, while deferring all other questions on the matter to the White House.
Massie himself will miss the event due to a previously scheduled official engagement, his spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
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President Donald Trump will be visiting Rep. Thomas Massie’s congressional district on Wednesday. (Win McNamee/Getty Images; Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
When asked about the visit, White House spokeswoman Liz Huston told Fox News Digital, “President Trump will visit the great states of Ohio and Kentucky on Wednesday to tout his economic victories and detail his Administration’s aggressive, ongoing efforts to lower prices and make America more affordable.”
The president has thrown his considerable influence behind Gallrein to unseat Massie after the GOP lawmaker publicly defied Trump on multiple occasions.
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Massie most recently was one of two House Republicans to vote to stop Trump’s joint operation in Iran with Israel, though the legislation was successfully blocked by the majority of GOP lawmakers and a handful of Democrats.
Ed Gallrein, left, seen with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House. (Ed Gallrein congressional campaign)
He was also one of two Republicans to vote against Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” last year.
Trump in turn has hurled a slew of personal attacks against Massie, including calling him “weak and pathetic” in a statement endorsing Gallrein in October.
“He only votes against the Republican Party, making life very easy for the Radical Left. Unlike ‘lightweight’ Massie, a totally ineffective LOSER who has failed us so badly, CAPTAIN ED GALLREIN IS A WINNER WHO WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN,” Trump posted on Truth Social at the time, one of numerous criticisms targeting the Kentucky Republican through the years.
He called Massie the “worst Republican congressman” in July amid Massie’s bipartisan push to force the Department of Justice (DOJ) to release its files on Jeffrey Epstein.
Then-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, and Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, during a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
But Massie has so far appeared to defy political gravity despite making political enemies out of both Trump and House GOP leaders.
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He handily defeated multiple primary challengers in 2024 and 2022, despite public feuds with Trump, and has served his district since 2012.
Gallrein is a retired Navy SEAL and farmer who launched his campaign days after Trump made his endorsement. Their primary election day is May 19.
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