Politics
Trump return to Iowa likely ahead of high-stakes midterms, GOP gubernatorial candidate says
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
President Donald Trump’s campaign blitz to help Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections will bring him back to Iowa just a few months before the November races take place, a Republican gubernatorial hopeful there said.
Rep. Randy Feenstra, R-Iowa, was one of several House Republicans traveling with the president during his latest stop in the Hawkeye State on Tuesday, which Trump capped off with a rally-style speech in Clive in the late afternoon. The conservative Republican is also the frontrunner in the Republican gubernatorial primary there, and is expected to face off against Democrat state official Rob Sand in November.
“He’s coming back. So we have the 250th anniversary — that’s going to be at the state fair. He’s come down for that. We’re going to have a big bash, it’s going to be exciting. That’s gonna be a big deal,” Feenstra told Fox News Digital on Wednesday. “Hopefully he comes back a few more times.”
The Iowa State Fair will take place in Des Moines from Aug. 13 to 23, according to the event’s website.
SEN TIM SCOTT: REPUBLICANS JUST GETTING STARTED, BUT NEED TIME TO STOP RADICAL LEFTISTS
Left: Then-candidate and former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally, Jan. 5, 2024, in Mason City, Iowa. Right: Iowa Republican Rep. Randy Feenstra, gubernatorial candidate, speaks during Iowa’s Roast and Ride, Oct. 11, 2025, at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images; Cody Scanlan/The Register/USA Today Network via Imagn Images)
That’s roughly three months ahead of what’s expected to be a tough midterm season for Republicans across the country. History dictates that the president’s party normally suffers political setbacks during the election cycle two years after power changes hands.
Meanwhile, Democrats across the country have fallen back into positioning Trump as a divisive political boogeyman. But Feenstra argued the opposite, and said Trump’s effort to stay active during the election cycle will “absolutely” benefit Republicans.
TRUMP SAYS DEMOCRATS ARE ‘MEANER’ THAN REPUBLICANS, WARNS OF IMPEACHMENT IF GOP LOSES MIDTERMS
President Donald Trump speaks to guests as he visits the Machine Shed restaurant, Jan. 27, 2026, in Urbandale, Iowa. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
“He carried Iowa by 13 points, and him engaging and stimulating the base — I mean, he turns out voters like nobody else. He had 77 million Americans that voted for him in the last election talking about making America great again. Now he’s talking about lowering prices, making things more affordable,” Feenstra said.
“He’s lowered the price on gas, he lowered the price on eggs, he’s lowered the price on a lot of pharmaceuticals. He’s lowered the price on healthcare. I mean, people are going to get the biggest refund they’ve ever had through…the Working Families Tax Cuts Act. These are all things that are really relatable to people, I think that will help turn people out.”
Other House Republicans who traveled with Trump on Tuesday are Reps. Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, and Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, the latter of whom is running for U.S. Senate.
President Donald Trump arrives to speak about the economy at a rally, Jan. 27, 2026, in Clive, Iowa. (Charlie Neibergall/AP Photo)
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Before the speech, they and Trump traveled to the Machine Shed, a restaurant near the rally venue where they met with everyday Iowa voters.
“They wanted their hats signed, they want their napkins signed, they wanted to talk to him about, you know, how things were, and what he has done over the last year has truly benefited them,” Feenstra said. “We had one gentleman pray with him, which I found very interesting. He just said, ‘Hey, Mr. President, will you pray with me?’ And they prayed together. So it was just the Iowa way of life.”
Politics
Biden special counsel’s ‘runaway train’ scooped up sensitive lawmaker info: ‘Abuse of power’
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Former special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into President Donald Trump swept up text messages from nearly 50 members of Congress, bypassing a required review process in what one victim alleged is a direct constitutional violation.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said the situation is more proof Smith’s probe was a “runaway train” of abuses of power, and the elder statesman and Senate Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., jointly released their filings Tuesday evening.
Grassley and Johnson’s findings were from a full-scale probe of Operation Arctic Frost, the code name for Smith’s endeavor to investigate Trump for alleged corruption and election malfeasance, an operation top Senate Republicans call “worse than Watergate.”
LEGAL WAR ON TRUMP’S AGENDA GAINS FIREPOWER AS FEDERAL LAWYERS DEFECT TO DEMOCRATS
Jack Smith, former U.S. special counsel, arrives for a closed-door deposition before the House Judiciary Committee in Washington, D.C., Dec. 17, 2025. (Getty Images)
Forty-four members of Congress had the contents of their text messages obtained and reviewed by Smith’s team in a way that bypassed protocol. A “filter team” was tasked with reviewing millions of documents in the case and should have had first crack at determining whether such messages were relevant or potentially violated statute or ethics.
Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., one of the lawmakers whose texts were swept up in this way, said Tuesday such reviews amounted to clear violations of the Constitution’s speech and debate clause that protects lawmakers from being questioned in “any other place” than the Capitol for legislative acts.
Internal communications have been historically included in that clause in the courts as technology has advanced.
SUPREME COURT JUSTICES HEAD TO CAPITOL HILL FOR FIRST CONGRESSIONAL APPEARANCE SINCE 2019
Stefanik said in a statement that the new records prove Smith’s team “unlawfully and unconstitutionally accessed my private text messages, along with 43 other Members of Congress, in clear violation of the Constitution.”
She said she long suspected there had been “unconstitutional spy[ing] on members of Congress.”
The records were provided by the Trump Justice Department to Grassley and Johnson, which the chairmen said indicated Smith’s team had “circumvented its own filter review process.” The process is additionally meant to protect attorney-client privilege, they said in a statement.
OBAMA-APPOINTED JUDGE TORCHES TRUMP ADMIN IN LATEST COURTROOM SHOWDOWN, REFERS ATTORNEY FOR BAR REVIEW
Former special counsel Jack Smith says the Pledge of Allegiance before he prepares to testify during a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill Jan. 22, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Al Drago/Getty Images)
The news also complicated some of Smith’s prior depositions under oath, including an excerpt in which he answered “no” to a question from a congressional counsel whether records he requested from congresspeople included text messages.
Johnson called the situation a “grotesque example” of Biden-era “weaponization” of the executive branch.
“Jack Smith’s criminal investigation of President Trump was a runaway train that had no brakes,” Grassley added Tuesday.
“Based on the information that’s been produced to me and Senator Johnson, Biden DOJ and FBI investigators apparently ignored their own routine investigative protocols to obtain and review work-related messages from me and dozens of my Republican and Democrat colleagues who were outside the scope of the government’s investigation.”
Grassley added that he hopes Democrats caught up in the otherwise bipartisan text tranche will finally discard their partisanship and recognize the severity of the alleged violations by Smith.
He also indicated he planned to recall Smith before Congress to “hold him accountable.”
Of the 44 members swept up in the text reviews, several were Democrats, including Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Adam Smith of Washington.
Grassley, Johnson and Stefanik were also swept up in the situation, along with top figures like senators Mike Lee, R-Utah; Josh Hawley, R-Mo.; Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska; Rand Paul, R-Ky., former Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.; and the late Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
SIGN UP TO GET THE POLITICS NEWSLETTER
Former House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., was one of the victims, along with current House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, as well as House Freedom Caucus member Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin of New York, Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins of Georgi, and prominent Trump critic Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Several lawmakers sounded off on the news soon after Grassley announced his findings, including Hawley, who called for “everyone involved [to] be prosecuted.”
“Joe Biden’s DOJ not only tapped my phone; I just learned they illegally obtained my texts with members of President Trump’s administration,” the Missourian fumed.
Paul called the allegations a “blatant abuse of power and exactly what our Founders warned about,” while citing Smith’s past denial under oath.
Fox News Digital reached out to a representative for Smith for comment.
Politics
After lawsuit, ICE pauses construction of Bay Area detention facility
The federal government agreed to temporarily hold off on construction of a planned Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Northern California.
The voluntary pause until Sept. 9 comes after the California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and Santa Clara County officials sued the Trump administration last month to block the facility from being developed near Gilroy. The lawsuit remains ongoing.
“This pause in the construction, demolition, and development at the site of the challenged ICE facility is a significant step towards protecting our people, our communities, and our environment while the case remains ongoing,” Bonta said in a statement Monday night.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
State and local officials believe the facility will be used for short-term detention of up to 150 people at a time, though ICE denied that it would be a detention center.
Community members and advocates for immigrants swiftly opposed the project. ICE has consistently looked to increase its detention capacity in California, where eight detention centers can now hold a combined 9,000 people, though the state has long been a thorn in the agency’s side.
The halt is part of a compromise between both sides involved in the legal action. After the state and county submitted a request for the court to temporarily halt the project, a hearing was set for Oct. 7.
Now, state and federal officials jointly requested that the court move up the hearing by at least a month. The agreement also extends how much time the federal government has to respond.
A federal judge signed off on the agreement Monday night.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in San José, alleges that the leased land is zoned exclusively for agricultural use and that the federal government violated laws requiring state and county notification, as well as procedural steps before beginning construction.
Politics
Why Supreme Court Justices Are Asking for More Security
Supreme Court justices are asking lawmakers on Capitol Hill to increase their 2027 budget, with most of the additional funding earmarked for security. Ann E. Marimow, a New York Times reporter, explains why the justices say these measures are necessary to protect them from rising threats.
-
Movie Reviews5 minutes agoSaari Review: Memory, Betrayal and Identity Converge at River Valley Film Festival – Hollywood Times
-
Science41 minutes ago
New Winged Robot Can Fly and Swim Like a Puffin
-
Lifestyle1 hour ago‘The Trojan Teddy Bear’: The promise and peril of childhood in the age of AI
-
Technology1 hour agoGoogle and Epic give up fighting — third-party Android app stores are coming next week
-
World1 hour agoFBI snares an American heir indicted for allegedly bankrolling anti-cop, pro-Hamas communist revolution
-
Politics1 hour agoBiden special counsel’s ‘runaway train’ scooped up sensitive lawmaker info: ‘Abuse of power’
-
Health2 hours ago‘Miracle on the Hudson’ hero Captain ‘Sully’ Sullenberger reveals Alzheimer’s diagnosis
-
Sports2 hours agoAmerican League stars outshine National League in 96th MLB All-Star game