FIRST ON FOX: Seeking to tackle persistent cost pressures on American families and small firms, the Small Business Administration (SBA) is unveiling a new initiative that will review and roll back federal rules the administration says have driven up prices in sectors ranging from housing to food production.

The Deregulation Strike Force, led by the SBA’s Office of Advocacy, will coordinate a government-wide review aimed at identifying regulations that hinder economic growth.

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Trump administration officials say the effort is intended to eliminate what they describe as excessive Biden-era regulations that have imposed an estimated $6 trillion in cumulative compliance costs on American families and small businesses.

“Bidenomics brought historic new highs in inflation that crushed working families and small businesses, driven in part by the massive bureaucracy that heaped trillions in new federal regulations onto the backs of hardworking Americans,” SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler wrote in a statement.

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“Through our Deregulation Strike Force, SBA is leveraging its unique authority to deregulate across the federal government and cut senseless red tape that drove up costs for small businesses and consumers, especially in industries hit hardest by Bidenflation,” Loeffler said, adding that the initiative will build on President Trump’s push to reduce costs across the country.

Citing what it describes as four years of excessive regulatory overreach, the SBA said its strike force will target cuts across key small-business sectors, including housing and construction, healthcare, agriculture and food production, energy and utilities, transportation and other goods and services across the supply chain.

They also argue the latest deregulation campaign reinforces President Donald Trump’s economic message heading into the new year, positioning regulatory relief as a central tool for tackling high prices.

The SBA said it has already played a key role in eliminating an estimated $98.9 billion in federal regulations since Trump’s return to office.

Some of these actions include changes to reporting rules, energy-efficiency standards and diesel exhaust fluid requirements, which the agency says have contributed to nearly $200 billion in total regulatory savings.

California’s potential to lead a national Democratic comeback was on full display as party leaders from across the country recently gathered in downtown Los Angeles.

But is the party ready to bet on the Golden State?

Appearances at the Democratic National Committee meeting by the state’s most prominent Democrats, former Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Gavin Newsom, crystallized the peril and promise of California’s appeal. Harris failed to beat a politically wounded Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential race and Newsom, now among President Trump’s most celebrated critics, is considered a top Democratic contender to replace the Republican president in the White House in 2028.

California policies on divisive issues such as providing expanded access to government-sponsored healthcare, aiding undocumented immigrants and supporting LGBTQ+ rights continually serve as a Rorschach test for the nation’s polarized electorate, providing comfort to progressives and ammunition for Republican attack ads.

“California is like your cool cousin that comes for the holidays who is intriguing and glamorous, but who might not fit in with the family year-round,” said Elizabeth Ashford, a veteran Democratic strategist who worked for former Govs. Jerry Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger and Harris when she was the state’s attorney general.

Newsom, in particular, is quick to boast about California being home to the world’s fourth-largest economy, a billion-dollar agricultural industry and economic and cultural powerhouses in Hollywood and the Silicon Valley. Critics, Trump chief among them, paint the state as a dystopian hellhole — littered with homeless encampments and lawlessness, and plagued by high taxes and an even higher cost of living.

Only two Californians have been elected president, Republicans Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon. But that was generations ago, and Harris and Newsom are considering bids to end the decades-long drought in 2028. Both seized the moment by courting party leaders and activists during the three-day winter meeting of the Democratic National Committee that ended Saturday.

Harris, speaking to committee members and guests Friday, said the party’s victories in state elections across the nation in November reflect voters’ agitation about the impacts of Trump’s policies, notably affordability and healthcare costs. But she argued that “both parties have failed to hold the public’s trust.”

“So as we plan for what comes after this administration, we cannot afford to be nostalgic for what was, in fact, a flawed status quo, and a system that failed so many of you,” said Harris, who was criticized after her presidential campaign for not focusing enough on kitchen table issues, including the increasing financial strains faced by Americans.

While Harris, who ruled out running for governor earlier this year, did not address whether she would make another bid for the White House in 2028, she argued that the party needed to be introspective about its future.

“We need to answer the question, what comes next for our party and our democracy, and in so doing, we must be honest that for so many, the American dream has become more of a myth than a reality,” she said.

Many of the party leaders who spoke at the gathering focused on California’s possible role in determining control of Congress after voters in November approved Proposition 50, a rare mid-decade redrawing of congressional districts in an effort to boost the number of Democrats in the state’s congressional delegation in the 2026 election.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass rallied the crowd by reminding them that Democrats took back the U.S. House of Representatives during Trump’s first term and predicted the state would be critical in next year’s midterm elections.

Newsom, who championed Proposition 50, basked in that victory when he strode through the hotel’s corridors at the DNC meeting the day before, stopping every few feet to talk to committee members, shake their hands and take selfies.

“There’s just a sense of optimism here,” Newsom said.

Democratic candidates in New Jersey and Virginia also won races by a significant margin last month which, party leaders say, were all telltale signs of growing voter dissatisfaction with Trump and Washington’s Republican leadership.

“The party, more broadly, got their sea legs back, and they’re winning,” Newsom said. “And winning solves a lot of problems.”

Louisiana committee member Katie Darling teared up as she watched fellow Democrats flock to Newsom.

“He really is trying to bring people together during a very difficult time,” said Darling, who grew up in Sacramento in a Republican household. “He gets a lot of pushback for talking to and working with Republicans, but when he does that, I see him talking to my mom and dad who I love, who I vehemently disagree with politically. … I do think that we need to talk to each other to move the country forward.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks as his wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom looks on during an election night gathering at the California Democratic Party headquarters on November 04, 2025 in Sacramento.

(Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)

Darling said she listens to Newsom’s podcast, where his choice of guests, including the late Charlie Kirk, and his comments on the show that transgender athletes taking part in women’s sports is “deeply unfair” have drawn outrage from some on the left.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, another potential 2028 presidential candidate whose family has historically supported Newsom, was also reportedly on site Thursday, holding closed-door meetings. And former Transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, also a possible White House contender, was in Los Angeles on Thursday, appearing on Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show and holding meetings.

Corrin Rankin, chair of the California Republican Party, cast the DNC meetings in L.A. as “anti-Trump sessions” and pointed to the homeless encampments on Skid Row, just blocks from where committee members gathered.

“We need accountability and solutions that actually get people off the streets, make communities safer and life more affordable,” Rankin said.

Elected officials from across the nation are drawn to California because of its wellspring of wealthy political donors. The state was the largest source of contributions to the campaign committees of Trump and Harris during the 2024 presidential contest, contributing nearly a quarter of a billion dollars, according to the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization Open Secrets, which tracks electoral finances.

While the DNC gathering focused mostly on mundane internal business, the gathering of party leaders attracted liberal groups seeking to raise money and draw attention to their causes.

Actor Jane Fonda and comedian Nikki Glaser headlined an event aimed at increasing the minimum wage at the Three Clubs cocktail bar in Hollywood. California already has among the highest minimum wages in the nation; one of the organizers of the event is campaigning to increase the rate to $30 per hour in some California counties.

“The affordability crisis is pushing millions of Americans to the edge, and no democracy can survive when people who work full time cannot afford basic necessities,” Fonda said prior to the event. “Raising wages is one of the most powerful ways to give families stability and hope.”

But California’s liberal policies have been viewed as a liability for Democrats elsewhere, where issues such as transgender rights and providing healthcare for undocumented immigrants have not been warmly received by some blue-collar workers who once formed the party’s base.

Trump capitalized on that disconnect in the closing months of the 2024 presidential contest, when his campaign aired ads that highlighted Harris’ support of transgender rights, including taxpayer-funded gender-affirming surgery for inmates.

“Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you,” the commercial stated. The ad aired more than 30,000 times in swing states in the fall, notably during football games and NASCAR races.

“Kamala had 99 problems. California wasn’t one of them,” said John Podesta, a veteran Democratic strategist who served a senior advisor to former President Biden, counselor to former President Obama and White House chief of staff for former President Clinton.

He disputed the argument that California, whether through its policies or candidates, will impact Democrats’ chances, arguing there’s a broader disconnect between the party and its voters.

“This sense that Democrats lost touch with the middle class and the poor in favor of the cultural elite is a real problem,” said Podesta. “My shorthand is, we used to be the party of the factory floor, and now we’re the party of the faculty lounge. That’s not a California problem. It’s an elitist problem.”

While Podesta isn’t backing anyone yet in the 2028 presidential contest, he praised Newsom for his efforts to not only buck Trump but the “leftist extremists” in the Democratic party.

The narrative of Californians being out of touch with many Americans has been exacerbated this year during the state’s battles with the Trump administration over immigration, climate change, water and artificial intelligence policy. But Newsom and committee members argued that the state has been at the vanguard of where the nation will eventually head.

“I am very proud of California. It’s a state that’s not just about growth, it’s about inclusion,” the governor said, before ticking off a list of California initiatives, including low-priced insulin and higher minimum wages. “So much of the policy that’s coming out of the state of California promotes not just promise, but policy direction that I think is really important for the party.”

Omer Shem Tov was dancing with friends at the Nova Music Festival in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists launched a devastating attack, killing hundreds and loading Shem Tov and dozens of others onto the backs of pickup trucks bound for Gaza.

The 20-year-old Israeli spent the next 505 days in Hamas captivity, serving as a slave in the terrorist group’s elaborate tunnels until “fear” filled their eyes on Nov. 5, 2024 — when President Donald Trump won the presidential election, he told Fox News Digital.

Shem Tov recounted his months living in Hamas’ captivity in Gaza as war raged between the terrorist group and Israel during a recent Zoom interview with Fox News Digital. He was released from captivity in February and traveled to the U.S. shortly afterward to meet with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office.

“As soon as Trump was elected, I saw the fear in their eyes,” Shem Tov said. “They knew that everything on ground is gonna change, that something else is gonna happen, and they were scared. They were very scared.”

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Shem Tov said that for roughly the last five months of his captivity, he lived in Hamas’ tunnel system beneath the Gaza Strip, where he was worked mercilessly.

“I was digging for them, and I was cleaning for them, and I was moving around bombs from place to places, and (carrying) food. I can tell you,  just so you know, crazy amounts of food. Amounts of food that I’ve never seen before,” he recounted. 

Shem Tov learned about the American presidential election from his Hamas captors, who watched Al Jazeera on a TV kept in the tunnels.

“The last five months, the terrorists, they brought TV to the tunnel and most of the time they watched Al Jazeera. That’s the only thing they watch. And … they wouldn’t let me watch TV, yeah, but sometimes I would overhear the TV,” he said.

He said he overheard the terrorists discussing the election and “how they want Kamala to win.”

Once the election was decided, Shem Tov said, the terrorists changed the way they treated him, even offering him more food. He said he mostly survived on small biscuits throughout his captivity, despite Hamas controlling large amounts of food.

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“So everything changed,” he said of how Hamas changed following Trump’s win. “The amount of food that I got changed. The way they treated me changed. I could see just them preparing for something bigger.”

Shem Tov recounted that he spent his 21st birthday in captivity, just weeks after he was first kidnapped. He said that between Oct. 7 and Oct. 30 of 2023, he did “not cry once,” but that he felt a swell of emotion when remembering his family on his birthday. 

“At my birthday, it was the thirty-first of October, it was the first time that I broke down, I cried. It’s for me, thinking of my family, that’s something that really hits me. Understanding that my family, they’re back home, they’re safe, yeah, but but they have to worry about me. … They don’t know if if I’m alive, if I’m starving … they had no idea. And I can tell you that while I was there, I suffered. I truly suffered. I was abused, I was starved in the most extreme way,” he said. 

Since his release, Shem Tov has praised Trump for his role in freeing the hostages and pursuing peace in the Middle East. He told Fox News Digital that he had long heard Trump’s name and knew he was a “big supporter of Israel,” but had largely stayed out of politics before his kidnapping.

There is currently a cease-fire between Israel and Gaza after Trump rolled out a 20-point plan to secure peace in the region in September. The plan included the release of all the hostages. All hostages have been released from Hamas captivity except one, slain police officer Ran Gvili, whose body remains in Gaza.

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Shem Tov was among a handful of hostages who traveled to the White House to meet with Trump earlier in 2025, where he relayed that he and other hostages are “so grateful to him.”

“I personally told him that me and my family, and I would say all of Israel, believe that he was sent by God to release those hostages and to help Israel,” Shem Tov recounted of what he told Trump during his meeting in February. “And he made that promise. He made that promise, he said that he will bring back all the hostages.”

For Shem Tov, freedom after captivity has meant keeping close ties with fellow hostage survivors.

“I would say they become like my family, like my brothers and sisters. We have many group chats and we see each other every once in a while and there are some who really become like brothers of mine,” Shem Tov said.