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The hottest topic nowadays revolves around Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its potential to rapidly and imminently transform the world we live in — economically, socially, politically and even defensively. Regardless of whether you believe that the technology will be able to develop superintelligence and lead a metamorphosis of everything, the possibility that may come to fruition is a catalyst for more far-leftist control.  

The likeliest starting point will be more calls for Universal Basic Income (UBI), a program by which the government guarantees every American some form of ongoing payment (such as a monthly stipend). Despite direct and indirect pilots of UBI being a failure, a potential ‘crisis’ will render that fact moot.  

Using the prospect of AI software and hardware (aka robots) taking large swaths of American jobs, politicians won’t focus on retraining, they will go for the easy popular fix of promising something for ‘free.’ And something politicians can offer at someone else’s expense while creating more dependence on the government is a far-leftist dream. 

Unfortunately, that dream is an economic nightmare for the rest of us. The government doesn’t produce anything productive, and any money that it has is either taken from us via taxes or ‘printed’ which devalues our purchasing power.  

With an existing massive debt and deficit problem that has created a weak fiscal foundation, the government is in no position to create new entitlement programs. Further, taking money from workers, laundering it through the government and redistributing it to those who are not working is not a productive use of capital. It’s also not good for morale or giving people a sense of purpose in their lives. 

With that, there will likely be a communist-leaning conversation about any AI that takes jobs and who should have ownership over that AI. If AI drives — or is even perceived to possibly create in the future — a deeper rift between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots,’ there’s no doubt that government ownership or societal sharing of the AI will be seized upon by those who look for any reason to push socialistic or communistic ideals.  

Then, there is the potential for tyranny. If you thought the COVID-19 lockdowns were bad, wait until attack drones and robots create societal chaos. It’s not hard to imagine a scenario where people are told to lock down or give up their freedoms until protocols are sorted out.  

This is why we should be imagining and planning for those scenarios today, and not let reactive crises lead to an erosion of our freedoms.  

Likewise, protecting our individual rights in the digital sphere, particularly as AI companies lobby to help shape regulation, is critical. 

And a final piece of the puzzle is embedded in the AI itself. A Substack, called ‘Contemplations on the Tree of Woe,’ raised a related concern, noting that just as the left captured the culture via the mainstream media and Hollywood, a similar thing is happening with AI. The piece notes, ‘The code is not neutral … every major LLM is aligned with leftist priors. OpenAI’s GPT, Anthropic’s Claude, Google’s Gemini, every single one leans Left. Even the much-ballyhooed Grok is at best Centrist. (And, unfortunately, the ‘center’ of the political compass these days isn’t exactly Philadelphia 1776.)’  

The piece goes on to say that if a left-leaning worldview is embedded in the coding and the output, and if something isn’t done to counter that, leftist ideals will be at the foundational core of everything, from education to culture to science (or repression of science). 

If you thought the COVID-19 lockdowns were bad, wait until attack drones and robots create societal chaos. It’s not hard to imagine a scenario where people are told to lock down or give up their freedoms until protocols are sorted out.  

We need balance. A foundational infrastructure that is too far left or too far right can each cause myriad problems that compound and become too entrenched to resolve.   

Americans tend to be very reactive instead of proactive in addressing issues. But with AI, we cannot wait. If we let AI become a catalyst to move us permanently to the far left, or if the underpinnings of the AI do that inherently and foundationally, we will give up our checks, balances and freedoms for the future. 

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other politicians from the U.S. and Latin America condemned the shooting of Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe on Sunday.

Rubio blamed the assassination attempt on ‘violent leftist rhetoric’ originating from the Colombian government. Uribe, a Colombian senator, is currently fighting for his life after sustaining three gunshot wounds, one of which was to the head.

‘The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms the attempted assassination of Senator Miguel Uribe. This is a direct threat to democracy and the result of the violent leftist rhetoric coming from the highest levels of the Colombian government,’ Rubio wrote.

‘Having seen firsthand Colombia’s progress over the past few decades to consolidate security and democracy, it can’t afford to go back to dark days of political violence. President Petro needs to dial back the inflammatory rhetoric and protect Colombian officials,’ he added.

Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno also condemned the attack in a statement on social media.

‘The assassination attempt on leading presidential candidate Miguel Uribe is a vile attack on democracy. This evil act must be investigated and anyone responsible, directly or indirectly, must face swift punishment,’ Moreno wrote.

Chilean President Gabriel Boric also reacted to Uribe’s shooting.

‘My strongest condemnation of the attack against Miguel Uribe Turbay, pre-presidential candidate in Colombia. In a democracy, violence has no place or justification,’ Boric wrote.

Authorities say Uribe was shot by a 15-year-old hit man, and they are investigating who was behind the attack.

‘Miguel is fighting for his life at this moment. Let us ask God to guide the hands of the doctors who are attending to him,’ Maria Claudia Tarazona, Miguel’s wife, wrote on her husband’s X account. ‘I ask everyone to join together in a prayer chain for Miguel’s life.’

Colombian President Gustavo Petro, Uribe’s chief opponent in the presidential race, said the attack crossed a ‘red line’ and ordered an investigation. He also canceled a planned trip to France this week, citing the ‘seriousness of the events.’

Colombia’s Ministry of Defense has offered a nearly $750,000 reward for information relating to the assassination attempt.

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Former President Barack Obama’s White House physician said in a new interview that former President Joe Biden’s doctor should have performed a cognitive test to evaluate his fitness to serve in office. 

Obama’s doctor, Jeffrey Kuhlman, told The Washington Post that Biden White House physician Kevin O’Connor should have performed a cognitive test during Biden’s last year as president, given his age. 

O’Connor, who Kuhlman first appointed as Biden’s doctor in 2009 when he was vice president, declared in a 2024 report that the then-81-year-old president ‘continues to be fit for duty.’ The report did not mention any neurocognitive testing. 

‘Sometimes those closest to the tree miss the forest,’ Kuhlman told the Post.

‘It shouldn’t be just health, it should be fitness,’ Kuhlman said. ‘Fitness is: Do you have that robust mind, body, spirit that you can do this physically, mentally, emotionally demanding job?’

Kuhlman, who departed the White House Medical Unit in 2013, described O’Connor as ‘a good doctor’ who appeared to do his best to ‘give trusted medical advice.’

‘I didn’t see that he’s purposely hiding stuff, but I don’t know that,’ Kuhlman told the Post. ‘Maybe the investigation will show it.’

President Donald Trump on Wednesday ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate whether Biden’s aides ‘abused the power of Presidential signatures through the use of an autopen to conceal Biden’s cognitive decline and assert Article II authority.’ 

‘This conspiracy marks one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history,’ the order says. ‘The American public was purposefully shielded from discovering who wielded the executive power, all while Biden’s signature was deployed across thousands of documents to effect radical policy shifts.’  

‘Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency,’ Biden said in a statement Wednesday night. ‘I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.’

Trump’s order appeared to nod to the findings of special counsel Robert Hur, who investigated Biden’s handling of classified documents while he was vice president. 

In a report released in February 2024, Hur concluded Biden ‘willfully retained and disclosed’ sensitive materials but should not stand trial, describing the president as a ‘sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.’ Hur cited instances when Biden could not recall key dates and events, including when he served as vice president and when his son, Beau, passed away. The report was released at a time when Biden was still planning a second term run. 

Last week, House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., issued a subpoena for O’Connor to appear for a deposition at the end of the month ‘as part of the investigation into the cover-up of President Joe Biden’s cognitive decline and potentially unauthorized issuance of sweeping pardons and other executive actions.’ 

The committee re-posted the Post’s interview with Kuhlman to X, writing, ‘Even Obama’s doctor admits the truth. This is precisely why Chairman @RepJamesComer subpoenaed Dr. Kevin O’Connor, Biden’s physician. This is a scandal of historical proportions, and we will investigate it thoroughly!’ 

In a letter to O’Connor, Comer said the transcribed interview would focus on the physician’s February 2024 assessment that Biden was ‘a healthy, active, robust 81-year-old male, who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency.’

‘Among other subjects, the Committee expressed its interest in whether your financial relationship with the Biden family affected your assessment of former President Biden’s physical and mental fitness to fulfill his duties as President,’ Comer wrote. 

Questions about Biden’s cognitive state stretch extend solely past Republicans. 

CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson recently published a book titled ‘Original Sin,’ which details concerns and debates inside the White House and Democratic Party over Biden’s mental state and age.

In the book, Tapper and Thompson wrote, ‘Five people were running the country, and Joe Biden was at best a senior member of the board.’

Naomi Biden, the former president’s granddaughter, dismissed the book as ‘political fairy smut for the permanent, professional chattering class.’ 

Comer requested transcribed interviews with Biden’s White House senior advisers Mike Donilon and Anita Dunn, former White House chief of staff Ron Klain, former deputy chief of staff Bruce Reed and Steve Ricchetti, a former counselor to the president. He also called for former senior White House aides Annie Tomasini, Anthony Bernal, Ashley Williams and Neera Tanden to appear before the committee and suggested subpoenas could be forthcoming if they did not schedule voluntary interviews. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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One of the leading opponents of President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ declared not even the commander in chief will be able to deter him from speaking out against what he sees as a bill that falls short of Republicans’ goal of cutting government waste.

‘It’ll completely backfire on him,’ Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told Fox News Digital of any attempts by Trump to sway him on the current legislation.

Johnson has become a prominent voice of opposition against the House GOP’s offering to the budget reconciliation process. Senate Republicans finally began the tedious process of parsing through the bill this week.

Lawmakers in the upper chamber, Johnson included, are determined to make changes to the bill, with most wanting to make reductions to Medicaid and food stamps more palatable. Trump has made it clear his bill must pass but has acknowledged the Senate will need to make a few changes.

Trump’s directive has been to deliver a bill that can survive the razor-thin majorities in both chambers.  

Johnson, however, wants to see spending returned to pre-pandemic levels, cuts that are trillions of dollars deeper than what House Republicans could stomach. And he is ready to vote against the bill unless he sees the changes he wants.

And he believes that a pressure campaign from the president against him and other like-minded fiscal hawks will fail.

He said a better approach would be to work with lawmakers and fiscal hawks like him to gain a better understanding of the reality of the country’s fiscal situation, a reality that ‘is grim,’ he said.

Johnson has been up front about his disdain for the bill but has so far avoided public retribution from Trump. In fact, the two have spoken twice this week, once on Monday and later during a Senate Finance Committee meeting at the White House Tuesday.

The lawmaker has told Trump he’s in Trump’s corner and that he wants ‘to see you succeed,’ but he has been steadfast in his position that the bill does not go far enough to tackle the national debt.

And the debt continues to climb, nearing $37 trillion and counting, according to Fox News’ National Debt Tracker.

The House’s offering set a goal of $1.5 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade, which lawmakers in the lower chamber have pitched as a positive step forward to righting the country’s fiscal ship, an offering Johnson panned as falling drastically short of the GOP’s promises to cut deep into government spending.

‘What’s so disappointing about what happened in the House is it was all rhetoric. It’s all slogans,’ Johnson said. ‘They picked a number. Literally, they picked a number out of the air.’

Johnson views this attempt at the budget reconciliation process as a rare opportunity to ‘do the hard things’ when it comes to spending cuts, but others in the GOP have been more hesitant to cut as deep.

Johnson said a main reason Republicans have so far fallen short of meeting the moment for the most part is that lawmakers don’t understand just how much the federal government shovels out the door year in and year out.

The lawmaker recalled a moment roughly three years ago during a debate over another year-end omnibus spending bill, when each of the dozen appropriations bills is crammed into one, bloated package that is universally reviled and almost always passes.

He asked his colleagues if they really knew just how much the government spends, and no one ‘volunteered to answer.’

‘Nobody knew. I mean, think of that. The largest financier in the world. We’re supposedly, in theory, the 535 members of the board of directors, and nobody knew,’ he said. ‘Why would they? We never talked about it.’

Johnson has been busy trying to better educate his colleagues, putting together his own charts and graphs that cut out the ‘noise,’ like the latest nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office report that found the legislation would add $2.4 trillion to the national debt over a decade. The GOP has universally panned that projection.

‘We can’t accept this as a new normal,’ Johnson said. ‘We can’t accept — you can take pot shots of CBO, but you can’t deny that reality. [It] might be off a little bit, but that is the trajectory, and that’s undeniable.’
 

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By all appearances, the world is edging perilously close to the brink of a catastrophic global conflict. In just the past few days, five deeply troubling developments have emerged — each significant on its own — but taken together, they form a pattern too urgent to dismiss. Viewed in context, these events expose a rapidly deteriorating international order, where diplomacy is failing, deterrence is weakening, and the risk of multi-theater war is rising sharply. 

First, Ukraine’s audacious drone strike deep inside Russian territory — reportedly destroying or damaging a significant share of Russia’s strategic bomber fleet — bears the hallmarks of Western involvement. While Kyiv claimed responsibility, the attack’s sophistication, including precise long-range targeting and coordinated timing, suggests U.S. or NATO intelligence and technological support.  

Former intelligence officials have even pointed to likely CIA or allied agency involvement. Whatever the true origin, Moscow now sees itself not merely at war with Ukraine, but with the broader Western alliance. Russia’s retaliation — whether cyber, kinetic or covert — could spiral well beyond the front lines. 

Second, efforts to rein in Iran’s nuclear ambitions have collapsed further. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei publicly rejected a U.S. proposal that would have permitted tightly restricted low-level uranium enrichment. Denouncing the offer as ‘100% against our interests,’ he reaffirmed Iran’s demand for full sovereign enrichment rights.  

With Israel openly contemplating military action and negotiations at a standstill, the Middle East stands on the edge of a potentially region-wide conflagration — especially if Iran accelerates toward weapons-grade enrichment. 

Third, a highly anticipated phone call between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin yielded no diplomatic breakthrough. Though both men discussed the escalating war and the drone strike, the call ended with no commitments, no ceasefire, and no plan for de-escalation.  

Trump admitted it was not the kind of conversation that would bring peace. Instead, the call served to underscore how deeply entrenched the conflict has become — and how narrow the remaining diplomatic off-ramps now are. 

Fourth, a chilling threat emerged on American soil. Federal prosecutors charged a Chinese national couple with attempting to smuggle Fusarium graminearum into the U.S. — a crop-killing fungus labeled by the Justice Department as a potential ‘agroterrorism weapon.’ The pathogen can devastate wheat, barley and corn, and its toxins are harmful to both humans and livestock.  

The couple is linked to Chinese state-sponsored research and is suspected of prior smuggling attempts. Whether or not this plot was state-directed, it underscores an alarming vulnerability: America’s homeland is increasingly exposed to unconventional threats from hostile actors. 

Fifth, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth warned that China may be preparing to launch a full-scale invasion of Taiwan. Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, he declared, China ‘is rehearsing for the real deal.’  

With Beijing ramping up military drills and tightening its rhetoric, the Taiwan Strait has become a powder keg. Should China act, U.S. intervention would be virtually guaranteed — potentially igniting a major conflict in the Indo-Pacific. 

Together, these flashpoints paint a stark picture of a world in crisis. Three nuclear powers — Russia, China and Iran (potentially) — are simultaneously testing Western resolve.  

The United States faces a mounting burden to deter aggression on multiple fronts, with few diplomatic successes to lean on. Traditional tools — talks, sanctions, summits — are proving inadequate. What remains is a binary choice: step back from global leadership or confront rising threats in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, possibly all at once. 

This is not alarmism. This is convergence. With diplomacy unraveling, adversaries emboldened and the homeland no longer secure, the global order is careening toward synchronized escalation. The world is not yet at war — but it is teetering dangerously close to systemic conflict that could engulf major powers and redraw the map of the 21st century. 

The warning lights are flashing red. The only question now is whether the world will act — or continue its drift toward fire. 

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One day after seeing their largest-ever one-day drop, Tesla shares recovered some losses Friday as the spat between CEO Elon Musk and President Donald Trump that exploded into public view Thursday took appeared to take a breather heading into the weekend.

Shares in the electronic vehicle maker gained as much as 5% amid broader market gains following a report showing the U.S. added more jobs in May than forecast.

Even with Friday’s rally, Tesla shares are still down approximately 21% in 2025 — a decline that accelerated last week following Musk’s departure from the Trump administration.

Musk, the world’s richest person and until recently Trump’s cost-cutter-in-chief, said last week he was leaving as the head of his Department of Government Efficiency project to refocus on his businesses.

Those companies — Tesla, the satellite and space-launch company SpaceX, the social media platform X and the brain tech startup Neuralink — have faced growing criticism as Musk oversaw deep cuts to the federal workforce. Tesla sales around the world have fallen sharply this year.

Trump and Musk traded escalating insults Thursday afternoon, with the president threatening on his Truth Social platform to ‘terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts.’ Yet there was no sign of any follow through on the threat Friday. At the same time, a senior White House official told NBC News that Trump is “not interested” in a call with Musk.

Tesla stock closed more than 14% lower Thursday. The automaker is Musk’s only publicly traded company — and one that the president tried to boost as recently as March, drawing sharp criticism on ethical grounds for turning the White House driveway into a car showroom just as the company’s stock was plunging.

The Trump-Musk rift has dented Tesla’s stock anew after Musk slammed the GOP spending bill as ‘a disgusting abomination” in a post on X last week.

‘Bankrupting America is NOT ok!’ he wrote in another post, part of an ongoing barrage of public ridicule.

Musk began speaking out after an electric-vehicle tax credit that would help incentivize Tesla purchases was not included in the bill, which is estimated to add $2.4 trillion to the national debt over 10 years. Musk has lobbied congressional Republicans for that tax credit, NBC News reported Wednesday.

‘I was, like, disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, doesn’t decrease it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,’ Musk told ‘CBS Sunday Morning’ over the weekend.

As Trump spoke about the former DOGE chief in the Oval Office on Thursday alongside German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Musk began firing off dozens of posts on X.

‘Whatever,’ he wrote. ‘Keep the EV/solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil & gas subsidies are touched (very unfair!!), but ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill. In the entire history of civilization, there has never been legislation that both big and beautiful. Everyone knows this!’

Trump pushed back further on Musk’s criticism.

“Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here, better than you people. He knew everything about it. He had no problem with it,” he said during the meeting with Merz. “All of a sudden he had a problem, and he only developed the problem when he found out that we’re going to have to cut the EV mandate because that’s billions and billions of dollars, and it really is unfair.”

As Trump continued speaking, Musk posted another comment: ‘False, this bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!’

Tech analyst Dan Ives said the EV tax credit isn’t the main factor behind Tesla’s stock slide. “The reason Tesla stock’s off the way it is — and I think overdone — is because of the view that this means that Trump is not going to play nice when it comes to regulatory” issues, he told CNBC on Thursday. The feud between the two men is “not what you want to see as a Tesla shareholder,” Ives added.

‘Where is this guy today??’ Musk added Thursday in yet another post, resharing a compilation of Trump’s past tweets including one in which Trump called the federal debt ‘a national security risk of the highest order.’

‘Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,’ Musk added on social media. ‘Such ingratitude.’

Musk is the richest person on the planet, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires index. His net worth of $368 billion is $125 billion more than that of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who is ranked second. Musk spent $250 million supporting Trump’s most recent campaign.

The president quipped from the White House that he thinks Musk ‘misses the place.’

‘I think he got out there and all of a sudden he wasn’t in this beautiful Oval Office,’ Trump said. ‘He’s got nice offices too, but there’s something about this one.’

The president’s own publicly traded company, Trump Media & Technology Group, has also suffered in the market. Shares of the Truth Social parent company fell more than 8% Thursday and are down over 41% so far this year.

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QQQ and tech ETFs are leading the surge off the April low, but there is another group leading year-to-date. Year-to-date performance is important because it includes two big events: the stock market decline from mid February to early April and the steep surge into early June. We need to combine these two events for a complete performance picture.

TrendInvestorPro uses a Core ETF ChartList to track performance and rank momentum. This list includes 59 equity ETFs, 4 bond ETFs, 9 commodity ETFs and 2 crypto ETFs. The image below shows the top 10 performers year-to-date (%Chg). Seven of the top ten are metals-related ETFs. Gold Miners (GDX), Silver Miners (SIL), Platinum (PLTM) and Gold (GLD) are leading the way. The Aerospace & Defense ETF (ITA), Transformational Data Sharing ETF (BLOK) and ARK Fintech Innovation ETF (ARKF) are the only three non-commodity leaders. The message here is clear: metals are leading.

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TrendInvestorPro has been tracking the Platinum ETF (PLTM) and Palladium ETF (PALL) since their big breakout surges on May 20th. The chart below shows PALL with a higher low from August to April and a breakout on May 20th. The ETF fell back below the 200-day SMA (gray line) in late May, but resumed its breakout with a 7.75% surge this week.

The bottom window shows the PPO(5,200,0) moving above +1% on May 21st to signal an uptrend in late May. This signal filter means the 5-day EMA is more than 1% above the 200-day EMA. The uptrend signal remains valid until a cross below -1% (pink line). As with all trend-following signals, there are bad signals (whipsaws) and good signals (extended trends). Given overall strength in metals, this could be a good signal that foreshadows an extended uptrend.

TrendInvestorPro is following this signal, as well as breakouts in other commodity-related ETFs. Our comprehensive reports and videos focus on the leaders. This week we covered flags and pennants in several tech ETFs (XLK, IGV, SMH, ARKF, AIQ, MAGS). Click there to take a trial and get your four bonuses. 

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Some of the White House’s conservative House allies say they’re interpreting the upcoming vote on President Donald Trump’s $9.4 billion spending cut proposal as a ‘test’ of what Congress can achieve in terms of rolling back federal funding.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said he would not speak for members of the Trump administration but added, ‘I do think it is a test.’

‘And I think this is going to demonstrate whether Congress has the fortitude to do what they always say they’ll do,’ Roy said. ‘Cut the minimal amount of spending – $9 billion, NPR, PBS, things you complain about for a long time, or are they going to go back into their parochial politics?’

House GOP leaders unveiled legislation seeking to codify Trump’s spending cut request, known as a rescissions package, on Friday. It’s expected to get a House-wide vote sometime next week.

‘The rescissions request sent to Congress by the Trump Administration takes the federal government in a new direction where we actually cut waste, fraud, and abuse and hold agencies accountable to the American people,’ House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said in a statement introducing the bill.

The legislation would claw back funding that Congress already appropriated to PBS, NPR, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) – cuts outlined by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) earlier this year.

And while several Republican leaders and officials have already said they expect to see more rescissions requests down the line, some people who spoke with Fox News Digital believe the White House is watching how Congress handles this first package before deciding on next steps.

‘You’re dead right,’ Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., told Fox News Digital when asked if the rescissions package was a test. ‘I think that it’s a test case – if we can’t get that…then we’re not serious about cutting the budget.’

A rescissions package only needs simple majorities in the House and Senate to pass. But Republicans in both chambers have perilously slim majorities that afford them few defections.

Republicans are also racing the clock – a rescissions package has 45 days to be considered otherwise it is considered rejected and the funding reinstated.

Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Texas, did not directly say whether he viewed the spending cuts as a test but dismissed any potential concerns.

‘This is very low-hanging fruit, and I don’t anticipate any problems,’ Gooden told Fox News Digital.

‘I’ve heard a few comments in the media, but I don’t think they’re serious comments. If someone on the Republican side can make a case for PBS, but they won’t take a tough vote against illegal immigration, then we’ve got a lot of problems.’

Paul Winfree, president and CEO of the Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC), told Fox News Digital last week, ‘This first rescissions package from President Trump is a test as to whether Congress has the ability to deliver on his mandate by canceling wasteful spending through a filibuster-proof process.’

‘If they can’t then it’s a signal for the president to turn up the dial with other tools at his disposal,’ Winfree, who served as Director of Budget Policy in the first Trump administration, said.

Both Roy and Norman suggested a process known as ‘pocket rescissions’ could be at least one backup plan – and one that Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought has floated himself.

‘Pocket rescissions’ essentially would mean the White House introduces its spending cut proposal less than 45 days before the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. In theory, it would run out the clock on those funds and allow them to expire whether Congress acted or not.

Vought told reporters after meeting with Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Monday that he wanted to ‘see if it passes’ but was ‘open’ to further rescissions packages.

‘We want to send up general rescissions bills, to use the process if it’s appropriate, to get them through the House and the Senate,’ Vought said. ‘We also have pocket rescissions, which you’ve begun to hear me talk a lot about, to be able to use the end of the fiscal year to send up a similar rescissions, and have the funds expire. So there’s a lot of things that we’re looking at.’

Still, some moderate Republicans may chafe at the conservative spending cuts.

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Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., refused to comment on whether he’d support the legislation before seeing the details but alluded to some concerns.

‘Certainly I’m giving you a non-answer right now until I read the details,’ Bacon said.

‘It does bother me because I have a great rapport with Nebraska Public Radio and TV. I think they’ve been great to work with, and so that would be one I hope they don’t put in.’

He also raised concerns about some specific USAID programs, including critical investments to fight Ebola and HIV in Africa.

The legislation is expected to come before the House Rules Committee, the final gatekeeper before most legislation sees a House-wide vote, on Tuesday afternoon.

It’s separate from Trump’s ‘one big, beautiful bill,’ a broad piece of legislation advancing the president’s tax, energy, and immigration agenda through the budget reconciliation process.

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Elon Musk appeared to jokingly reconsider his stance on the Big Beautiful Bill after a California Democrat came to his defense.

Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., wrote on X that ‘I can’t believe I’m saying this – but [Elon Musk] is right.’ However, that seems to be the last point on which the two agree. They both object to the Big Beautiful Bill, viewing it as full of pork. Musk opposes the bill because he believes it raises government spending too much, while Schiff objects to what he calls its ‘far-right’ content, which he describes as ‘dangerous.’

Musk fired off a response rejecting Schiff’s alleged praise of the tech billionaire’s position on the bill.

‘Hmm, few things could convince me to reconsider my position more than Adam Schiff agreeing with me!’

On May 30, Musk’s time with the administration came to an end, and he seemed to leave things on good terms. President Donald Trump thanked Musk for his work with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and gave him a symbolic ‘key to the White House’ as a parting gift. 

Following his departure from the White House, Musk said he was looking forward ‘to continuing to be a friend and adviser to the president.’ However, things took a sharp turn as a feud between Trump and Musk quickly heated up after the Tesla founder began publicly criticizing the Big Beautiful Bill. 

After the legislation passed the House, Musk said that the ‘massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. ‘Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.’

Musk’s criticisms received mixed reactions from Republicans, with some — such as Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. — agreeing with him. Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson said he was ‘surprised’ by Musk’s reaction and claimed the two of them had a good discussion about the bill.

Trump and Musk then began slugging it out on their respective social media platforms — X and Truth Social — as well as TV. The president told reporters in the Oval Office that he was ‘very disappointed’ with Musk and claimed that the former DOGE head knew what was in the bill, something that Musk denied. 

The heated exchange led to two explosive tweets, both of which were later deleted. In one post, Musk claimed Trump was mentioned in files relating to Jeffrey Epstein, the deceased sex offender and disgraced financier. In his other post, Musk endorsed a message that called for Trump’s impeachment and said that Vice President J.D. Vance should take over.

While it’s unclear whether Trump and Musk will reconcile, for now it seems unlikely. Trump told Fox News chief political anchor Bret Baier that he was not interested in talking to Musk and that ‘Elon’s totally lost it.’

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From bringing the heat to retreating on the beef.

Elon Musk appears to be backtracking on some of the wild accusations he made during his ugly spat with President Donald Trump earlier this week.

Musk sensationally posted on Thursday that the president’s name appears in unreleased Jeffrey Epstein files — and said that’s why the files haven’t been made public.

‘@RealDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files,’ Musk wrote on X. ‘That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!’

Musk followed the post with another, saying, ‘Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out.’

But eagle-eyed online sleuths noticed that Musk had quietly deleted the posts.

The former ‘First Buddy’ dropped the allegation in response to a back-and-forth series of social media messages between him and Trump. But as of today, the post has been removed from the Tesla CEO’s timeline. 

The post wasn’t the only one he deleted: Musk also appears to have taken down a post endorsing a message that read, ‘Trump should be impeached’ and that Vance ‘should replace him.’

Musk shared the post and wrote ‘yes,’ but his comment is no longer visible. 

The beef between Musk and Trump exploded onto the national scene this week with the SpaceX CEO publicly blasting Trump’s major legislation, the Big Beautiful bill, for increasing the deficit by around $2.5 trillion.  

The feud came despite a months-long ‘bromance’ between the pair, with Musk donating around $277 million to Trump’s campaign and enthusiastically supporting his return to office. Trump’s return to office also saw Musk oversee the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) for months. 

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in the aftermath of Musk’s post that it was an ‘unfortunate episode from Elon, who is unhappy with the One Big Beautiful Bill because it does not include the policies he wanted.’

The White House said a source familiar with the Epstein matter said it is widely known that Trump kicked Epstein out of his Palm Beach Golf Club.

The source also pointed out that the administration released the Epstein files, which included Trump’s name, and nothing was new about Musk’s revelation.

‘If Elon truly thought the President was more deeply involved with Epstein, why did he hang out with him for 6 months and say he ‘loves him as much as a straight man can love a straight man?” the source said.

Musk’s bombshell allegation against Trump comes months after a trove of files pertaining to the Epstein case were released.

In February, Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a letter to FBI Director Kash Patel explaining the delay in the release of documents and placing blame on an FBI field office in New York.

Bondi said she requested the full Epstein case file before Patel was confirmed as the head of the FBI and received about 200 pages — far fewer than the number of pages released last year in a civil lawsuit connected to Ghisalaine Maxwell, the trafficker’s former lover and convicted accomplice.

Although Bondi pushed for the release of the full dossier, which included records, documents, audio and video recordings, and materials related to Epstein and his clients, the request remains unfulfilled.

One of the key pieces that remains unreleased is a client list, though Bondi claimed in February it was on her desk to be reviewed.

The documents that have been released so far include flight logs, an evidence list, a contact book and a redacted ‘masseuse list’ believed to refer to Epstein’s victims.

Many people named in the documents have never been accused of Epstein-related wrongdoing. However, some have, like Maxwell; Prince Andrew, who has denied allegations of wrongdoing; and Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modeling agent who, like Epstein, died in a jail awaiting trial.

Epstein, Maxwell and unnamed co-conspirators allegedly abused young women and underage girls between 1996 and his death in 2019, according to the lawsuit. Citing police documents, it alleges that Epstein recruited girls between 14 and 16 as well as students at Palm Beach Community College for ‘sex-tinged sessions.’

Maxwell is appealing her conviction while serving a sentence at a federal prison in Tallahassee. She is due for release in the summer of 2037.

Fox News Digital’s Andrew Mark Miller and Mike Ruiz contributed to this report.

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