EXCLUSIVE: New House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md., wants to focus on two key issues for the remainder of this year – government funding and next year’s House GOP Conference rules. 

“I’ve been on the Freedom Caucus, really, since, since the beginning,” Harris told Fox News Digital on Tuesday night, in his first interview since being elected chair of the ultra-conservative group.

“I’ve watched, you know, all our chairs do a great job pushing the conservative agenda with Congress, and with the American people. And right now our big fight is going to be on controlling spending. It’s going to be on what the rules look like for the next Congress.”

Harris promised, “I’m going to roll up my sleeves and battle those two issues.”

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The Maryland Republican, who was first elected in 2010, was chosen to lead the Freedom Caucus for the remainder of the year after Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., vacated the role following his June primary loss to another Republican.

Harris has not been known to be particularly chatty with reporters on Capitol Hill, making him an understandable successor for a group that keeps even its membership list undisclosed.

The Freedom Caucus has also long been seen as a thorn in the side of House GOP leaders, pushing them to go further in pushing conservative policies through Congress.

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Harris, however, praised Speaker Mike Johnson’s leadership on government funding ahead of a Wednesday vote on a Freedom Caucus-backed plan to avoid a government shutdown.

The plan is a six-month extension of this year’s federal funds known as a continuing resolution (CR), to give lawmakers more time to hash out fiscal year 2025’s priorities, paired with a measure requiring proof of citizenship in the voter registration process.

Rep. Bob Good recently stepped aside from the chairmanship (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

“The leadership he’s shown on this issue is excellent,” Harris said. “I think if we had had this discussion one month ago and someone suggested that Speaker Johnson was going to bring a six-month CR to the floor, and, oh, by the way, we add the [Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act] into it – most people wouldn’t believe it.”

But the Democrat-controlled Senate and White House have called the legislation a nonstarter.

Harris would not say how conservatives could force Johnson to stick by the plan, even as several Republicans have publicly opposed the measure over concerns the speaker would not fight for the SAVE Act if it was rejected by the Senate. 

“If it fails, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” he said.

Harris did, however, urge those GOP critics to take a “second look” at the bill ahead of Wednesday’s vote.

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“I hope they take a second look before tomorrow and realize that the important signal would send to the American people,” Harris said. “I’d love to hear the argument Chuck Schumer is going to make to say, ‘Yeah, you know, we’re going to reject that because we want illegal aliens to vote.’”

The Maryland Republican similarly would not go into detail about what changes he would want to see to the House GOP Conference rules – though the issue is expected to take center stage in the end-of-year leadership elections.

Harris praised Speaker Mike Johnson’s leadership in the government funding fight (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Ex-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., agreed to changing certain conference rules to win over his critics after House Republicans won the majority in the 2022 midterm elections.

That notably included lowering the threshold for triggering a vote on the speaker’s ouster – called the motion to vacate the chair – from a simple majority to just one vote.

“I hope that in its wisdom, that the Republican majority next year – because I believe there will be a Republican majority – not only adopts and endorses all those changes we made this term, but maybe make some further changes. Those will be discussed more obviously in the next two months.”

When pressed for details, Harris noted there were other members of the group besides himself.

“That’s going to be up to what the Freedom Caucus says,” Harris said. “I’m the chairman, but I’m not all the members.”

FLINT, Michigan – Former President Donald Trump argued that it is “consequential” presidents who face the threats he has over the last few months at a town hall event in Flint, Michigan, the former president’s first since surviving an assassination attempt Sunday.

“You wonder why I got shot at right. You know, only consequential presidents get shot at right,” Trump said during the town hall at Flint’s Dort Financial Center.

The event marked Trump’s first official campaign stop since the latest attempt on his life Sunday, when a lone gunman was spotted by U.S. Secret Service agents while Trump was playing a round of golf at Trump International Golf Club in Florida.

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The gunman, identified as 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh, was spotted by Secret Service agents as Trump moved between holes five and six on the course, with the agents firing at Routh after spotting his rifle and scope poking out of the brush.

Trump, who was about 300-500 yards away from the shooter at the time of the incident, escaped uninjured.

The attempt marked the second time Trump faced an assassination attempt, coming just over two months after the former president was grazed in the ear by a bullet fired at him during a rally in Butlery, Pennsylvania.

Trump reflected on the attempts on his life during the Michigan event, saying being and running for president is a “dangerous business.”

FBI investigators gather evidence from the perimeter of Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida on Monday, September 16, 2024.   (Mega for Fox News Digital)

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“It’s a dangerous business. However, being president, it’s a little bit dangerous. It’s. You know, they think race car driving is dangerous. No, they think bull riding. That’s pretty scary, right? No, this is a dangerous business, and we have to keep it safe,” Trump said.

The former president spent much of the event, which took place in a critical swing state, hitting Vice President Kamala Harris on issues such as inflation and the auto industry.

“’I’ll say this for Michigan, if I don’t win, you will have no auto industry within two to three years,” Trump said. “China is going to take over all of your business because of the electric car and because they have the material we don’t.”

Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump attends a town hall meeting moderated by Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) at the Dort Financial Center in Flint, Michigan, on September 17, 2024. (Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY / AFP) (Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images)

Michigan figures to play a key role in this year’s election. Trump won the state by less than one percentage point in 2016, but lost it to President Biden in 2020 by less than three percentage points.

Polls show a close race brewing in the state again, with Harris holding a less than one percentage point lead as of Tuesday, according to the Real Clear Politics polling average.

The Biden administration is moving to reinstate a Trump-era rule that lifted endangered species protections on gray wolves in the U.S.

Wolves were delisted from the Endangered Species Act (ESA) under President Trump in 2020, returning management of gray wolf populations to state and tribal wildlife professionals, according to a press release from the Department of Interior.

However, a federal judge reversed Trump’s decision in 2022 after environmental groups sued the Department of the Interior over the delisting, reinstating protection for the species.

Gray wolves are currently protected under the ESA as “threatened” in Minnesota and “endangered” in the remaining states, except for those in the Northern Rocky Mountain region, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services. However, a new filing by the Biden administration suggests that the Trump-era ruling should be reinstated.

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Attorneys with the Justice Department filed a motion with the 9th U.S. District Court of Appeals on Friday to reverse the court’s decision on the Trump-era delisting and lift ESA protections on gray wolves.

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The filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco claimed that the court was wrong in overturning the Trump-era ruling on the species. 

“The district court misunderstood the ESA’s clear mandate and compounded that error by imposing its own views of the science,” court documents read. “Its decision invalidating the rule should be reversed.”

The Biden administration is moving to reinstate a Trump-era rule that lifted endangered species protections on gray wolves in the U.S. (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg )

The Biden administration claimed in its 87-page filing that gray wolves no longer meet ESA standards of protection in that they are no longer considered “endangered” or “threatened.”

Court documents referenced the 2020 ruling from Trump’s Department of Interior Fish and Wildlife Service that delisted the wolf species.

“After that thorough analysis, the Service concluded that no configuration of gray wolves was threatened or endangered in all or a significant portion of its range. That analysis was well-reasoned and well-supported by the administrative record,” the brief reads.

The move comes just months after a group of 20 House Republicans sent a letter to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Director Martha Williams, urging the Biden administration to remove protections for the gray wolf, citing sometimes life-threatening conflicts with ranchers and farmers.

Wolves were delisted from the Endangered Species Act under President Trump in 2020. (Alex Brandon/AP Newsroom)

In February, FWS rejected requests from conservation groups to restore protection for gray wolves across the Northern Rocky Mountain region. 

Most recently, a bipartisan group of House lawmakers passed legislation in April to end federal protection for gray wolves and remove them from the endangered species list.