FIRST ON FOX: Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is urging the Biden administration to halt a $1.25 billion “Digital Equity” program, calling it unconstitutional for using race-based criteria to expand broadband access.

“I urge you to withdraw the unlawful [Notice of Funding Opportunity] NOFO and halt issuing Program grants before you cause real harm,” Cruz wrote to Alan Davidson, the assistant secretary of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Thursday morning. “NTIA’s use of racial classifications, as set forth in the NOFO, does not serve a compelling governmental interest.”

The letter comes as Republicans push back against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives as they gear up for the incoming Trump administration. Under the soon-to-be Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, such programs like the Digital Equity Competitive Grant Program could be examined as government waste.

“Any source of government waste is in scope for DOGE,” a Ramaswamy spokesperson told Fox News Digital. 

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The letter criticizes NTIA’s guidance for the Digital Equity Competitive Grant Program, as Cruz claims it violates the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, lacking evidence of racial discrimination in internet access and failing to provide clear metrics for its race-based criteria.

The program was a key initiative under the Digital Equity Act, which was authorized by President Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021. It is the third of three digital equity programs established by the act.

Cruz asserts that the program requires grant applicants to prioritize “Covered Populations,” a category that explicitly includes racial and ethnic minorities in the program. He argued the approach includes impermissible racial discrimination, arguing that the federal government cannot use racial classifications without demonstrating a compelling interest and “narrowly tailored” measures. 

RAMASWAMY OUTLINES DOGE’S VISION

President-elect Donald Trump announced Elon Musk, left, and Vivek Ramaswamy, right, would be leading the Department of Government Efficiency on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024. (Getty Images)

“The NOFO provides no evidence racial minorities face discrimination in accessing the internet, let alone specific instances of discrimination that NTIA is seeking to address,” Cruz wrote. “And it does not attempt to make any claim that this discrimination is necessary to avoid a prison race riot.”

Cruz added that “the NOFO does not define ‘minority,’ making it impossible to determine whether it is underinclusive, but in any event, it is overinclusive because it includes anyone who falls into some racial group, without any determination that that specific group has faced discrimination in access to broadband.”

ELON MUSK, VIVEK RAMASWAMY TO LEAD TRUMP’S DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY

Congress is racing to be ready to execute the recommendations of President-elect Donald Trump’s new DOGE commission. (Getty Images)

Cruz, the ranking member of the Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee, urged the NTIA to respond by Dec. 12, either by confirming the withdrawal of the guidance or by providing a detailed explanation of how it complies with constitutional requirements.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the NTIA for comment. 

The speaker of the House, the man second in line to the presidency — Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana — had to photobomb the much-shared shot taken aboard the so-called Trump Force One airplane last weekend. There was no room for him at the four-top table where the real power bros — Donald Trump, of course, son Don Jr., world’s wealthiest man Elon Musk, and supposed health nut Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — were grabbing for greasy McDonald’s burgers and fries during their night out to see the UFC fights at Madison Square Garden.

But at least Johnson was in the picture. JD Vance was not.

The man soon to be first in the line of succession was cut out of the clique — as he seemingly has been since the election of the Trump-Vance ticket two weeks ago.

That’s raised a question around Washington that would be louder but for the cacophony about whether Trump’s Cabinet picks — alleged fellow sexual bad boys Matt Gaetz and Pete Hegseth; fellow admirer of murderous tyrants Tulsi Gabbard, and Kennedy, the conspiracy-minded anti-vaxxer who’s usually not a fan of fast food — will win Senate confirmation to head the Justice, Defense, intelligence and health departments, respectively.

Where’s the vice president-elect?

“Y’all seen JD Vance?” former Republican Party Chair Michael Steele wondered on MSNBC over the weekend.

The future veep was finally spotted on Wednesday, not beside Trump but back on Capitol Hill, ducking in and out of offices. Vance, a senator from Ohio for less than two years, was squiring Gaetz around to his Republican colleagues’ offices in hopes of persuading them to support confirmation of the manifestly unqualified Cabinet pick. As if Vance, rather than a vengeful Trump, has that kind of pull with the senators.

Meanwhile, Musk has been so ubiquitous at the president-elect’s side that Trump advisors are reportedly getting sick of him. The satirists at the Onion headlined an item, “Trump Locks Bathroom Door So Elon Musk Can’t Follow Him In.”

For the megabillionaire (and mega Trump donor), whose fortune owes much to his federal auto and aerospace contracts over the years, the joined-at-the-hip comradery with Trump — at Mar-a-Lago, day-tripping in Washington, courtside in Madison Square Garden and then in Texas for a SpaceX rocket launch on Tuesday — is already good for business.

“He’d be worthless” but for government subsidies, Trump sniped in 2022, before the two formed their mutually beneficial bond only months ago. Since the election, Musk’s net worth has increased nearly 25% based on future growth assumptions, Bloomberg estimated. And the federal largesse he enjoys isn’t likely to be threatened by the spending cuts that Trump has promised: Welfare of the corporate kind is rarely on Republicans’ chopping block, but certainly not now, given that Trump has put Musk in charge of a Department of Government Efficiency to identify targets to slash.

In past administrations, that’s the kind of role that presidents would delegate to their vice presidents, much as Bill Clinton assigned Al Gore to “reinvent government” and George W. Bush allowed Dick Cheney to essentially call the shots in his “war on terror.”

More than two weeks into Trump’s transition back to power, we know what he wants Musk to do, as well as Gaetz, Hegseth, Kennedy, Gabbard and more. Vance, not so much.

Aside from shepherding Trump’s nominees, Vance has been missing in action not just in Mar-a-Lago but in the Senate, too. That provoked intraparty grousing this week, even from Trump, when Vance’s absence in the closely divided body helped Senate Democrats, who still run the joint until January, to push through the confirmations of some of President Biden’s final nominees to federal judgeships. Vance posted on X that one of his right-wing critics was a “mouth breathing imbecile” and then deleted the post.

“No more Judges confirmed before Inauguration Day,” the boss warned Republican senators. (That’s rich coming from the man who, after his 2020 defeat, had Senate Republicans ram through a number of judges — including U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida, Trump’s judicial helpmeet who delayed and then stunningly dismissed the case against him for making off with classified documents in 2021.) As in his first term, Trump will get to fill whatever vacancies Biden leaves behind.

Vance’s deleted post did provide one clue to his activities lately: He’s been interviewing candidates to be the director of the FBI. That suggests both that Trump will indeed fire Christopher Wray, his first-term pick who subsequently enraged him by, among other things, approving the successful search of Mar-a-Lago for classified material in 2022, and that Vance may be carving a niche for himself as Trump’s retribution deputy.

When Trump tapped 40-year-old Vance for veep, the Ohioan was described by many Republicans as the future of a MAGA-fied party and country. Yet he embodies a future at odds with the nation’s challenges and trends.

Vance will play his T.B.D. part in an administration that seems hellbent on exacerbating climate change with a full-on embrace of fossil fuels. That would hasten the nation’s fiscal insolvency by further cutting taxes for the rich. That would threaten that economy (and the United States’ moral standing) by mass-deporting migrants when an aging population needs their labor. And that would purportedly make America great again by returning to a system in which white men continue to dominate, despite the country’s ever-growing diversity and women’s advancement.

Whatever Vance’s role, at least by his virtual invisibility he’s not running the risk that Musk is: Stealing the spotlight from the narcissist in chief. That never ends well.

@jackiekcalmes

Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., successfully won re-election in Wisconsin all while President-elect Donald Trump simultaneously flipped the state back to red in the presidential election. 

As to how she did it, the Democrat attributes much of her win to her “72-county strategy.” Baldwin made sure during her campaign to traverse the entire state, venturing far from the two large blue enclaves of Milwaukee and Dane counties. 

“I think showing up matters, listening matters,” she said in an interview with Fox News Digital. “And so I go, and I really listen and get to know the challenges and aspirations of people all over the state, rural areas, suburban areas, urban areas.”

Baldwin won by a few tens of thousands of votes in the state, clinching victory by roughly the same margin as Trump. 

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According to her campaign, she did more than 250 events in Wisconsin in 2024 alone. She also hosted several targeted tours during her campaign, including her Dairyland Tour and her Rural Leaders for Tammy Tour.

Further, Baldwin’s campaign microtargeted rural communities to deliver content regarding her agricultural work. 

But her rigorous travel is not the only thing that sealed the deal for her. The senator acknowledged that people can go everywhere, but they also need to effectively engage voters in each place they travel to. 

One thing she noted is that she’s “had years to earn the trust of Wisconsin voters,” referencing the short few months that the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris had to turn out voters for her in the state. 

Baldwin also said she convenes roundtables and forums on relevant issues while she travels in Wisconsin.

“So I’ve done that on, say, the fentanyl and opioid epidemic, bringing together first responders, public health officials, concerned community members to talk about what does the epidemic look like in this community, in this area of the state? What resources do you need? What are your biggest worries?”

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A woman wears a Cheesehead hat with the American flag in Wisconsin. (Reuters/File)

She also held events geared toward agricultural issues, she noted. 

Baldwin notably credits, in part, her work on agricultural issues with her re-election win. In early October, Baldwin earned the endorsement of the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation Board of Directors, which was a significant achievement for a Democrat in a statewide election. 

“They cited a number of different measures that I either championed or actually got into law,” she said. 

The senator pointed to her Dairy Business Innovation Act, which provides small grants to various dairy producers and processors. 

“I went this past spring to a particular farm that had received one of these grants, and they had also invited several other farmers and processors who had received grants to show me what they were able to do with these grants in order to grow their business and improve their bottom line,” she said.

RICK SCOTT OUTLINES CONSENSUS FOR ‘DRAMATIC CHANGE’ TO SENATE OPERATION IN POST-MCCONNELL ERA

Dairy is a large agricultural industry in Wisconsin. (AP Photo/Charlie Litchfield/File)

The Wisconsin Democrat also pointed to the large manufacturing sector in her state and attributed her push for “buy America” rules in pieces of legislation as helping her win some of those voters. 

On whether her campaign is a model for other Democrats, specifically those in swing states, she said, “I think it is something that would be helpful to many public officials.”

Baldwin added that she realized the need to travel Wisconsin to this extent during her first Senate campaign: “I had been in the House of Representatives representing, as you know, seven counties in [the] south-central part of the state. I had to learn Wisconsin as I was running.”

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Baldwin touted her 72-country strategy. (Reuters/File)

“And so traveling to do that learning was extremely important, being exposed to, you know, the timber industry and the north woods. We didn’t have a big timber industry in the south-central part of the state.”

The Midwestern senator also said this was the first time she heard from Wisconsinites that elected officials hadn’t been spending much time in certain parts of the state.

“One thing I will say that I hear from constituents when I show up is just like, ‘I don’t remember the last time we had a U.S. senator visit our community, and especially not a Democrat,’” she said.

“It’s like, you know, the timber industry folks saying, ‘I don’t think we’ve ever had a senator pay so much attention to us,’” she added.