On Tuesday, former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) said he will not run for Senate in 2026.
Sununu, who served as governor for four two-year terms before not seeking reelection in November, announced his decision in an interview with local news outlet the Pulse of New Hampshire.
“I’m not going to run,” Sununu said, according to NH Journal. “I really thought about it. I actually talked to the White House this morning. I talked to Tim Scott. Thanked him for all their support and confidence and all that. But I don’t have to be the candidate, and I’m not going to be the candidate.”
Speculation that Sununu may run was further stoked on Sunday after President Trump said that he met with Sununu in the Oval Office and declared his support for his potential candidacy. Trump said he hoped that Sununu would run and expected that he would win.
On the Democrat side, Rep. Chris Pappas announced his candidacy for the seat on Thursday after a listening tour in which he traveled to all 10 of the state’s counties as he considered running.
Former Sen. Scott Brown, a Republican who represented Massachusetts in the Senate from 2010 to 2013, recently announced his candidacy for Senate.
.@ChrisSununu and the entire Sununu family are patriots who have made our state a better place – looking forward to seeing what’s next for him and working alongside him for New Hampshire’s future #nhpolitics 💪🇺🇸
Illegal Immigration in the United State via Wikimedia Commons
History in the making…
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) have reportedly come to an agreement to allow ICE to access taxpayer information to locate illegal immigrants subject to deportation.
According to Fox News, the Trump administration filed a memorandum of understanding late Monday with a court to create guardrails and a process for ICE requests to the IRS to further investigations of criminal illegal immigrants who have failed or refuse to leave the United States 90 days after a judge has issued a final order of removal.
“The Internal Revenue Service and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement have entered into a memorandum of understanding to establish a clear and secure process to support law enforcement’s efforts to combat illegal immigration,” a Treasury Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital in a statement.
“The bases for this MOU are founded in longstanding authorities granted by Congress, which serve to protect the privacy of law-abiding Americans while streamlining the ability to pursue criminals,” the statement said. “After four years of Joe Biden flooding the nation with illegal aliens, President Trump’s highest priority is to ensure the safety of the American people.”
A senior Treasury Department official said the illegal immigrants have been given due process but have overstayed 90 days post a judge’s removal order.
The MOU outlines a process to ensure that sensitive taxpayer data information is protected while allowing law enforcement to pursue criminal violations, the official said.
A draft agreement reported last month by the Washington Post said it would limit ICE to confirm the addresses of illegal immigrants who have final removal orders.
The deal would allow ICE to submit the names and addresses of illegal immigrants to the IRS, who could then cross-check those immigrants’ tax records and provide the immigration agency with current address information.
The significant step forward comes amid the Trump Administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis had earlier mandated the administration to “facilitate and effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s return by midnight, emphasizing that his deportation was an “administrative error.” The Department of Justice (DOJ) acknowledged the mistake but argued that the court’s injunction was “patently unlawful,” asserting that the government lacks the authority to retrieve him from El Salvador.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis had earlier mandated the administration to “facilitate and effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s return by midnight, emphasizing that his deportation was an “administrative error.” The Department of Justice (DOJ) acknowledged the mistake but argued that the court’s injunction was “patently unlawful,” asserting that the government lacks the authority to retrieve him from El Salvador.
Abrego Garcia, 29, had been residing legally in the U.S. with authorization from the Department of Homeland Security and has no criminal record. An immigration judge had previously ruled in 2019 that he should not be deported due to the likelihood of facing persecution by gangs in El Salvador. Despite this, he was detained and deported last month.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/us_icegov/54295293536/in/photostream/, Creative Commons Attribution-Public Domain Mark 1.0 Universal (CC BY-NC-SA 1.0)
Monday’s “administrative stay” does not address the underlying merits of the dispute and is not necessarily an indication of how the court will rule.
The Trump administration has acknowledged an “administrative error” that mistakenly removed Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who resides in Maryland, despite an immigration judge’s 2019 ruling protecting him from being deported to El Salvador over fears of violence.
Abrego Garcia was one of hundreds of migrants deported to a notorious Salvadoran prison last month. The administration has accused him of being connected to MS-13 based on a report from a confidential informant, but Abrego Garcia’s family rejects that he has any gang ties.
Casa Presidencial El Salvador, Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/fotospresidencia_sv/, Creative Commons Attribution-Public Domain Mark 1.0 Universal (CC BY-NC-SA 1.0)
DOJ asserts that it cannot return Abrego Garcia to Maryland now that he is under the supervision of Salvadoran authorities.
The administration has linked Abrego Garcia to the MS-13 gang, a claim that has been contested due to a lack of supporting evidence. The case has drawn significant attention, highlighting tensions between judicial authority and executive actions in immigration enforcement.
Both Biden appointees were previously ousted by President Trump, who argued that restructuring federal agencies gave him the authority to fire appointees at will. A three-judge panel with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals initially backed that move. But the full court disagreed.
In its Monday ruling, the court said the firings broke the law—specifically, legal protections that say members of independent agencies like the NLRB and MSPB can only be removed for cause, such as “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” The majority leaned on long-standing Supreme Court precedent to support their stance.
The dissenting judges argued that courts shouldn’t have the power to reinstate executive officers.
AgnosticPreachersKid, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
With Wilcox and Harris back in place, both boards now have quorum and can resume their functions in overseeing employee grievances and labor disputes.
The highly unusual ruling takes direct aim at one of the Trump administration’s core legal claims: that the president can fire appointees at will, even in independent agencies.
Politico‘s Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney have additional details on the fallout and what to expect next:
It’s a whiplash-inducing turn for the two officials, fired by Trump in the first days of his term. Judges on the federal district court bench in Washington reinstated both of them, harshly scolding Trump for ignoring the laws meant to protect the officials from removal without misconduct or other improper behavior.
But last month, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit blocked those orders from taking effect, ruling 2-1 that the laws improperly restricted the president’s ability to manage the executive branch. Monday’s ruling, in turn, withdraws that order and allows the officials to return to their posts.
In the unsigned order Monday, the appeals court’s majority pointed to Supreme Court decisions from the 1930s and 1950s in which the justices “unanimously upheld removal restrictions for government officials on multimember adjudicatory boards.” While more recent rulings from the high court have undermined the rationale of those decisions, the justices have never flatly reversed them.
Legal analysts expect the case to head to the Supreme Court. If it does, it could become a defining case on the limits of presidential power and the independence of federal agencies.
Threats to kill President Donald Trump have emerged in Iran’s propaganda newspaper after he threatened to bomb the regime “like never before” as Iran has also reportedly placed its military on “high alert.”
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is said to have put Iran’s military on standby to prepare for any future strikes from the US.
Tehran was slapped with a chilling deadline to either hold direct talks and sign a new nuclear agreement or potentially face military action. However, Khamenei has reportedly strongly refused to agree to Trump’s demands, saying that Iran will not engage in any direct negotiations with the US.
Amid the potential strike threat, Kayhan – a hardline Iranian newspaper managed by Khamenei’s representative – issued a column calling to assassinate Trump.
The chilling threat was written in retaliation to the 2020 killing of IRGC’s Qassim Soleimani by US airstrikes.
President Trump has given his team strict instructions to “obliterate” Iran if the country ever assassinates him.
It was revealed in November that an Iranian agent had been charged with plotting to kill Trump in an assassination.
US prosecutors say the rogue state told ex-con Farhad Shakeri — said to be hiding in Tehran — to devise a seven-day plan to spy on and murder him.
In February, Trump responded to a question over what protocols would instantly be triggered should he be killed by an Iranian plot by saying there is already a plan set.
He said: “I’ve left instructions if they do it, they get obliterated, there won’t be anything left.”
Federal authorities have been tracking Iranian threats against Trump and other US administration officials for years.
Meanwhile, Khamenei is said to be amassing troops to brace for a potential conflict.
The chair of the English Department at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire has been placed on administrative leave after allegedly flipping the College Republicans’ table on campus Tuesday morning.
UW-Eau Claire Interim Provost Michael Carney confirmed the incident with Fox News.
SPREAD THE WORD!!!
We are DEMANDING the termination of Jose Felipe Alvergue from UWEC after he ATTACKED the UWEC Republicans’ peaceful assembly this morning. The ‘tolerant’ left needs to be stopped. Sick of this bullshit happening. pic.twitter.com/XAvjr53tqV
Violent outburst today in Eau Claire WI by Jose Felipe Alvergue, an unhinged liberal whose wife is up for reelection. He needs to be FIRED. pic.twitter.com/QSCV3zgETr
“I am deeply concerned that our students’ peaceful effort to share information on campus on election day was disrupted,” Carney said in a statement. “UW-Eau Claire strongly supports every person’s right to free speech and free expression, and the university remains committed to ensuring that campus is a place where a wide variety of opinions and beliefs can be shared and celebrated.”
He added that “civil dialogue is a critical part of the university experience, and peaceful engagement is fundamental to learning itself.”
“We are working with the Universities of Wisconsin and the Office of General Counsel, which is conducting a comprehensive investigation of this matter. The faculty member involved has been placed on administrative leave pending that investigation,” Carney said.
The UW-Eau Claire College Republicans identified the faculty member on Instagram as English Department Chair José Felipe Alvergue.
Tatiana Bobrowicz, UW-Eau Claire College Republicans chair, said in a video posted to the chapter’s Instagram page that she had just finished setting up a table on Election Day.
Jose Felipe Alvergue has now been confirmed by the university to be the attacker from this morning. pic.twitter.com/X1F2OtEoni
“A professor came up and flipped our table in a violent attack towards us. This is unacceptable,” Bobrowicz said in a statement posted to the UW-Eau Claire College Republicans Instagram account on Tuesday. “The university has since confirmed that this attacker was the chair of the university’s English Department. Once again, this type of violent attack will not be tolerated.”
UW director of media relations Mark Pitsch told Fox News in a statement that university staff “appreciate that UW-Eau Claire has taken swift action, and we will be working with them to conduct the investigation.”
A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to immediately make arrangements for the return of a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to an El Salvador prison.
Fox News reports that U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said that Kilmar Abrego Garcia had been illegally deported to El Salvador and said he must be returned by Monday before midnight.
This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, announced Friday that its fact-checking program in the United States would be “officially over” on Monday.
The news comes after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in January that the company would end fact-checking and move to restore free speech on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Starting Monday, fact-checkers will no longer be able to rate new content, and old fact-checks placed on content will no longer appear.
Instead of fact-checks, Meta will adopt an X-style community notes system where users can add context to posts, which are then rated by other users. Anyone will be able to sign up to be a contributor to community notes if they are over 18 and have had a verified account for over six months.
Joel Kaplan, Meta’s chief global affairs officer, announced the changes on Friday.
“By Monday afternoon, our fact-checking program in the US will be officially over. That means no new fact checks and no fact checkers. We announced in January we’d be winding down the program & we haven’t applied penalties to fact-checked posts in the US since then. In place of fact checks, the first Community Notes will start appearing gradually across Facebook, Threads & Instagram, with no penalties attached,” Kaplan posted on social media.
The changes come after Meta was placed under congressional scrutiny for targeting conservative views on topics like the 2020 election, the COVID vaccine, and the Hunter Biden laptop story. Zuckerberg has pinned much of the blame for the censorship on former President Joe Biden, saying Meta was pressured to target conservative content.
Meta started testing out its community notes feature last month, allowing some 200,000 potential contributors to sign up.
In January, Zuckerberg said that the move was part of Meta’s goal of restoring free speech on its platforms.
“We’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms,” Zuckerberg said. “We’re going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with Community Notes similar to X, starting in the United States.”
Zuckerberg said restrictions on discussions on topics like immigration and gender were “out of touch with mainstream discourse.”
“What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas,” he said.
In that same announcement, Zuckerberg said that Meta would work with the incoming Trump administration to fight censorship abroad.
Could this no-nonsense Democrat be angling for a presidential bid?
Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman (D) did not rule out a 2028 presidential run during a Wednesday podcast with political analyst Chuck Todd.
When Todd pressed Fetterman on “The Chuck ToddCast” about whether he would run for the White House, the senator indicated he was unsure about whether he was paving the way for another independent-minded Democrat or considering his own bid.
“I know we’re wrapping up, so I’m going to make you answer the ’28 question,” Todd said. “What would it take to get you to run for president?”
“I am focusing right now on just the burgeoning kinds of chaos and trying to find a balance and find a way forward,” Fetterman replied. “And, you know, doing things that I know that will anger parts of my base. I hope that there is room in my party for someone who wants that kind of truth.”
Todd pressed further, asking if Fetterman was attempting to “plow a path forward for somebody like that” or if he wanted to “take the path” himself.
“I don’t know,” Fetterman responded before Todd cut him off, noting the senator was “not saying no” to a potential run.
“I’m not afraid of being honest. And now if there is going to be blowback or I’m punished, I get that. But for me, I think it’s more important to be honest and to describe the danger of where we possibly are at,” Fetterman responded. “And we have to stop and think before we make another significant mistake that’s even more and more difficult to come back from.”
Todd told the senator he would mark Fetterman “as not a no for ’28.”
“What I’m saying is that there will be a 2028,” the senator responded.
Watch:
A Washington Post analysis from January this year listed Fetterman as one of “12 Democrats who make the most sense for 2028,” citing his independence within the Democratic Party.
Others considered to be potential Democratic 2028 contenders include failed 2024 candidates Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, former Obama White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and a handful of Democratic governors — Gavin Newsom of California, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Wes Moore of Maryland. Polling generally suggests that Democrats are by far most interested in seeing Harris become the party’s nominee again, followed distantly by Buttigieg and Newsom, according to Newsweek.
Todd on Sunday recommended Harris not pursue political office for the next several years.
“If I were advising her, I’d tell her: go throw yourself into the rebuild of LA and get involved with the LA Olympic Committee,” he said. “Be above politics for a couple of years and come back maybe in 2030 or 2032.”
Vice President Vance said Thursday that billionaire Elon Musk will remain a “friend and an adviser” to the White House after Musk departs from his role as a special government employee next month.
“Of course he is going to continue being an adviser. And by the way, the work of DOGE is not even close to done. The work of Elon is not even close to done,” Vance told “Fox & Friends” co-host Lawrence Jones in an interview.
“DOGE has got a lot of work to do. And yeah, that work is going to continue after Elon leaves,” Vance continued. “But fundamentally, Elon is going to remain a friend and an adviser of both me and the president. And he’s done a lot of good things. People don’t realize how vast and uncontrolled the bureaucracy was. We’ve started to chip away at it, but there’s a lot of work to do. It’s not going to happen all in six months, it’s going to take a long and committed effort.”
A Wednesday report indicated that Elon Musk is preparing to step down from his role as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the Trump administration. President Donald Trump reportedly informed his inner circle and Cabinet members of Musk’s impending departure, with both parties agreeing that Musk will soon return to focus on his business ventures.
Musk’s tenure at DOGE has been marked by ambitious cost-cutting measures aimed at reducing federal spending by $1 trillion. While many view these efforts as successful, they have also sparked controversy, leading to widespread protests and legal challenges.
The exact timeline for Musk’s departure remains unspecified, but it’s anticipated to coincide with the conclusion of his special government employee status, which has a 130-day limit. Despite stepping back from his official role, Musk is expected to maintain an informal advisory relationship with the administration.
UK Government, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
This development comes amid reports of tensions within Trump’s inner circle regarding Musk’s prominent role in the administration. Some aides have expressed concerns about his influence and the potential political implications of his actions.
On Capitol Hill, Musk is increasingly viewed as a political liability by congressional Republicans, despite his alignment with aspects of the Trump’s America First agenda.
While Musk’s efforts to streamline government spending and slash bureaucracy through the Department DOGE have earned him praise from certain fiscal conservatives and right-wing populists, others within the GOP—particularly traditionalists and establishment figures—have expressed concern over his:
-Controversial public statements and social media presence, which have drawn negative attention and created unnecessary distractions.
-Growing political influence, which some fear undermines the White House’s messaging or creates the impression of a tech billionaire running government policy.
-Business entanglements, which raise questions about conflicts of interest as he juggles leadership roles in Tesla, SpaceX, X (formerly Twitter) and Neuralink.
Privately, even some Trump aides have reportedly grown wary of Musk’s visibility and the potential backlash from swing voters or moderate Republicans who view him as polarizing or self-serving.
Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
That said, Musk still commands a loyal following among many conservative voters—especially those aligned with anti-woke, pro-free speech and populist sentiments.
While there is no direct evidence linking the report of Musk’s impending departure from the Trump administration to Tuesday night’s Republican underperformance in Florida’s special congressional elections or the 10-point defeat in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, the timing is politically notable.
Republicans are beginning to question whether the administration’s focus on high-profile, unconventional figures like Musk has distracted from core electoral priorities. Others point to a broader concern: that the Trump team may be drifting out of sync with key voter blocs, including suburban moderates and independents, particularly in swing states like Wisconsin.
The Florida results, in districts Trump carried comfortably in 2024, and the surprising margin in Wisconsin, suggest potential cracks in turnout strategy or messaging—something Musk’s polarizing profile could exacerbate, at least among voters wary of his influence.
While not officially linked, yesterday’s underwhelming Republican electoral performances may be fueling pressure on the president to recalibrate, and Musk’s exit could be part of that reset.
