Politics
Trump travels to DC to meet with congressional Republicans, speak with nation's top business executives
Former President Trump will travel to the nation’s capital on Thursday to take part in a series of meetings with Republicans from both the House and Senate, and attend an event with top business executives in America.
The former president’s meetings with congressional Republicans will be “looking ahead at the policies that will save the nation,” a senior Trump campaign official told Fox News Digital.
Such policies, according to the campaign official, include “Trump’s commitment to protecting seniors with no cuts to Social Security or Medicare, policies that actually secure our border and make our communities safe again, an America first foreign policy that reclaims peace through strength and world leadership, and economic policies of lower taxes that reignite the vibrant Trump economy we had just a few years ago.”
With less than five months to go before Election Day, Trump will kick off his Thursday morning at the Capitol Hill Club – a popular members-only haunt for House Republicans in Washington, D.C., that also serves as home to the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) – around 9:30 a.m.
TRUMP TO MEET WITH HOUSE, SENATE REPUBLICANS IN DC THIS WEEK
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, left, former President Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (Getty Images)
An invitation sent to senior House GOP aides on Tuesday morning, obtained by Fox News Digital, showed that Trump is coming on a joint invitation from House leaders – Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., and House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y.
House GOP leaders have been almost completely in lockstep with Trump since Johnson took the speaker’s gavel in late October. Multiple sources previously told Fox News Digital that Johnson keeps Trump in the loop before announcing major House agenda items.
Trump and the GOP lawmakers will “discuss growing the House Republican majority and the 2025 legislative agenda,” Johnson’s office told Fox News Digital.
Following his meeting with House Republicans, which will be closed to the press and take place amid a House Judiciary Committee hearing to examine Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s “political prosecution of President Trump,” the former president will take part in a discussion with top business leaders.
Trump will attend and speak at an event hosted by Business Roundtable, an association of more than 200 CEOs of America’s leading companies. There, he will make his case for a more prosperous economy should he receive a second term in the White House.
The off-the-record discussion, which is scheduled to start at 11:15 a.m., will be steered by FOX Business host Larry Kudlow, who served as the director of the National Economic Council in the Trump administration from 2018 to 2021.
Former President Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Sunset Park in Las Vegas on June 9, 2024. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)
White House chief of staff Jeff Zients will also be in attendance for the roundtable discussion, speaking on behalf of President Biden while he travels overseas for the G-7 Summit in Italy.
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After the roundtable event, Trump will meet with Senate Republicans at 12:30 p.m.
A Trump campaign source told Fox News Digital that Trump’s meeting with Republicans from the upper chamber will be closed to the press and take place at the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) headquarters.
Senate GOP Conference Chair John Barrasso’s office confirmed to Fox News Digital on Monday that Trump would address Senate Republicans this week.
“I’ve invited President Trump to meet with members of our Republican Conference,” Barrasso, R-Wyo., wrote to fellow Senate Republicans in a message obtained by Fox News Digital. “I believe it will be helpful to hear directly from President Trump about his plans for the summer and to also share our ideas for a strategic governing agenda in 2025.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who endorsed Trump’s bid to take back the White House in March, said Wednesday that he would be in attendance for the meeting and that the former president has “earned the nomination by the voters” for the 2024 presidential election. It’ll be the first time the two high-profile Republicans have met since December 2020.
After the gathering concludes, Trump and Senate Republicans are expected to speak to members of the press.
Former President Trump leaves after addressing members of the media following the verdict in his New York trial at Trump Tower on May 31, 2024. (Getty Images)
Trump’s visit comes as he continues to shape his own presidential re-election and GOP races across the country, just weeks ahead of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The former president’s trip also comes as he continues to face a steady stream of legal battles. The deadline for Trump’s legal team to file any post-trial motions in New York v. Trump is set for the end of the day Thursday.
After meeting with congressional Republicans on Thursday, Trump will have another sitdown with Johnson and NRCC Chairman Richard Hudson, R-N.C., from his Mar-a-Lago resort on Monday, a source familiar with planning told Fox News Digital.
Fox News’ Liz Elkind, Julia Johnson, and Brooke Singman contributed to this update.
Politics
Biden special counsel’s ‘runaway train’ scooped up sensitive lawmaker info: ‘Abuse of power’
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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.”
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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