Welcome to the Fox News Politics newsletter, with the latest political news from Washington, D.C. and updates from the 2024 campaign trail. 

Here’s what’s happening…

– Democratic congressman demands expansion of Trump’s security perimeter 

– Security experts weigh in on risk to Trump after second assassination attempt

– Democrats pour $25 million into Senate races

EXCLUSIVE: Former President Trump said President Biden and Vice President Harris’ “rhetoric” is what is causing him to be “shot at,” following the second assassination attempt against him since July, while telling Fox News Digital that the suspected gunman “acted” on “highly inflammatory language” of Democrats.  

Trump spoke exclusively with Fox News Digital Monday morning, just a day after he was rushed off of the golf course at Trump International in West Palm Beach, Fla., after the Secret Service discovered a gunman in the bushes. 

The suspected gunman, Ryan Wesley Routh, had an AK-47 style rifle pointing through the chain-link fence out toward the green; a go-pro camera; and two backpacks. He ran from the scene but was pulled over and arrested on I-95. 

Authorities are treating the episode as an apparent assassination attempt against Trump.

Trump was safe following the second assassination attempt against him since July….Read more

SACRED LAND: Apache tribe takes fight with federal government, copper producers to Supreme Court …Read more

‘UNACCEPTABLE’: Dem rep demands Secret Service expand Trump protective perimeter …Read more

CLOSE CALL: Security, military experts weigh in on danger to Trump in latest attempt on his life …Read more

‘HIGHLY DAMAGING’: Whistleblower allegations on first Trump assassination attempt ‘highly damaging’ to Secret Service: Hawley …Read more

PAPER TRAIL: Suspect in second Trump attempted assassination has lengthy pro-Ukraine paper trail …Read more

‘BURNT OUT’: Secret Service ‘redlined,’ Pennsylvania task force says after assassination plot …Read more

WEIRD RESPONSE: Trump assassination attempt suspect laughs, smiles during first court appearance in Florida …Read more

‘WE MUST STOP THEM: House Dem leader slammed ‘extreme MAGA’ GOP amid news of Trump assassination attempt …Read more

‘NO JOKE’: Vulnerable Dem blasted for blaming ‘fearmongering’ as top issue related to border crime …Read more

‘CONFLICT OF INTEREST’: Tammy Baldwin faces scrutiny over partner’s Wall Street gig …Read more

‘END THE MIGRANT INVASION’: Trump reveals new pledge amid Haitian refugee controversy …Read more

BIG SPENDER: Dems pour $25M into ground game as GOP inches closer to Senate majority …Read more

HIGH STAKES MEETING: Harris eyes endorsement in high-stakes meeting with only major union that hasn’t endorsed her campaign …Read more

FINAL COUNTDOWN: Harris-Trump race rocked by second assassination attempt with 50 days until election …Read more

‘LIVELIHOODS’ AT STAKE: ‘Auto Workers for Trump’ says union support ballooning …Read more

‘POLITICAL PERSECUTION’: America First Legal sues Manhattan DA’s office for records related to Trump prosecution …Read more

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION: Trial on using race-based admissions in the Naval Academy kicks off …Read more

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Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more on FoxNews.com.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday announced new actions the Lonestar state is taking against Tren de Aragua — a violent Venezuelan gang that has been causing havoc in multiple states across the United States.

Abbott announced that he is declaring the gang a foreign terrorist organization and establishing a database to verify if arrests being made are TdA members or not.

“We will bring the full weight of the government against the TdA,” Abbott said. “By declaring TdA a foreign terrorist organization, Texas will use the courts to halt their operations, use civil asset forfeiture to take the property and use enhanced criminal penalties to keep them in jail behind bars for longer periods of time.”

BLOODTHIRSTY VENEZUELAN STREET GANG SPARKS FEAR IN US AMID MIGRANT SURGE: WHAT TO KNOW

The gang is believed to have originated in Venezuelan prisons and moved north over the last decade. But its reputation within the U.S. has grown this year, in part due to a number of high-profile crimes linked to the gang, with many believed to have arrived by coming across the southern border as part of the sharp increase in migration in recent years.

Border officials told Fox recently they are targeting the gang as a priority, and officials in Dallas told Fox that they have seen gang activity in the north Dallas area linked to TdA. The gang hit the headlines over reports of a takeover of apartment buildings in Aurora, Colorado.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE COVERAGE OF THE BORDER SECURITY CRISIS

Fox News Digital reported in July that TdA members have been given a “green light” to fire on or attack law enforcement in Denver. The Biden administration designated the group a “significant transnational criminal organization” in July and offered up to $12 million for information leading to the arrest of three of its leaders.

Abbott said that the database being created would look at common characteristics of gang members, including tattoos, scars, types of crime and methods of operation.

Abbott had already launched a statewide operation to deter and disrupt the gang, and said that now there are nine anti-gang centers across the state, with more than $100 million in funding. Recently, a hotel in El Paso where TdA were active has been shut down. 

AFTER VIDEO OF ARMED VENEZUELAN GANG SHARED BY LOCAL OFFICIAL GOES VIRAL, COLORADO CITY TAKES ACTION

He also noted more than 100 gang members were arrested during a riot at the U.S.-Mexico border near El Paso earlier this year. On Tuesday, he said that strike teams were being formed to surge resources to areas where gang members are believed to be working. 

“Our goal among law enforcement in the state of Texas is to defend our state from the growing threat of TdA,” he said. “We are not going to allow them to use Texas as a base of operations to terrorize our citizens. Texas is a law and order state, and I will ensure that law enforcement has every tool they need to keep our community safe.”

Following revelations of private memoranda and conversations between Supreme Court justices published in the New York Times, legal experts are warning that such sensitive leaks are “destructive” to the high court. 

The New York Times reported that internal memos and deliberations that they claimed showed Chief Justice Roberts as having “molded” the outcomes of three major cases the court considered dealing with Jan. 6 rioters, and granting former President Donald Trump certain immunity for presidential acts. 

Roberts wrote the majority in the decisions, and the report claims that he “provided crucial support for hearing the historic [immunity],’ and made last minute and unexplained changes to authorship of the politically charged opinions. 

The leak follows the unprecedented leaked draft of the Dobbs opinion which overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, and a concerted effort by Democratic lawmakers and the Biden administration to make sweeping changes to the court and ethics enforcement. 

TRIAL ON USING RACE-BASED ADMISSIONS IN THE NAVAL ACADEMY KICKS OFF IN CRUSADE AGAINST AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

Republican lawmakers, such as Senators Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. and John Kennedy, R-La., claim those efforts are politically motivated to delegitimize one the court now sits with a majority of Republican-appointed justices.

Some legal experts say this latest leak is part of that effort to undermine the Supreme Court. 

“I think it’s enormously destructive to the court when people inside the court disclose to the press confidential memoranda, confidential emails and what appears to even be remarks made at the justices’ conference,” James Burnham of King Street Legal and former senior Justice Department official told Fox News Digital. 

NAVY LAUNCHES FIRST SUBMARINE BUILT FOR BOTH GENDERS 

“It’s destructive because the justices can’t be candid with each other if they think that anything they say could end up in the New York Times. And that means they’re going to speak less to each other. It means they’re not going to be able to deliberate with the same openness that they historically have, and it ultimately undermines the court’s decision making,” he added. 

“It reads to me like somebody is trying to cast a negative light on the Chief Justice and the other justices in the majority for what I think was a plainly correct and brave decision,” he said.

Carrie Seveino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network, said that “if there is someone on the Court who deserves censure for being overly political in this case, it’s the individual who leaked” the “highly confidential internal” documents.

She added that the incident “is of a piece with the continued left-wing PR campaign against the Court.”

WINERY, BREWERY, BAGEL SHOP TEAM UP TO CALL OUT BERKELEY’S PERMISSIVENESS OF HOMELESS ENCAMPMENTS

“It’s an attempt to smear the Court as an institution, and as part of that, some justices have been targeted more than others,” she said. 

John Shu, a constitutional attorney who served in both Bush administrations, Shu says he believes the leaks are politically motivated, and are most likely designed to keep Roberts anchored in the center or perhaps push him towards center-left in the upcoming term, especially if Trump is elected this November.

“Because he is the Chief Justice, he gets to assign opinions when he’s in the majority, which is much of the time, and he has administrative power that the other justices do not have,” said Shu. “And much like the President is the embodiment of Article 2, the Chief Justice is the embodiment of Article 3.”

“It’s really scary that yet another norm has been shattered, violating the sacred confidentiality of deliberations and the opinion drafting process,”Shu said.

A new poll conducted entirely after last week’s debate indicates Vice President Kamala Harris holding a three-point edge over former President Trump in Pennsylvania, which is arguably the most crucial of the seven key general election battleground states.

Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, is ahead of Trump, the GOP nominee, 49%-46% among likely voters in Pennsylvania, according to a USA Today/Suffolk University poll conducted Wednesday through Saturday (Sept. 11-14).

The vice president’s advantage over the former president among the 500 respondents is within the poll’s margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.

HEAD HERE FOR FOX NEWS UPDATES ON THE SECOND ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ON TRUMP

The survey was conducted before Sunday’s second assassination attempt against Trump. And the poll was released on Monday, which marks 50 days until Election Day on November 5.

Both Harris and Trump have repeatedly made stops this summer in Pennsylvania, which along with Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada, had razor-thin margins that decided the outcome of the 2020 election between Trump and President Biden. And the seven states will likely determine whether Harris or Trump wins the 2024 presidential election.

HARRIS-TRUMP SHOWDOWN ROCKED AGAIN, WITH 50 DAYS TO GO UNTIL ELECTION 

But with 19 electoral votes at stake, Pennsylvania’s the biggest of the key battlegrounds. And while the campaigns and their allied super PACs are pouring resources into all seven states, more money has been spent to run spots in Pennsylvania than any of the other battlegrounds. And both sides have dished out more dollars to reserve airtime going forward in the Keystone State than any of the other swing states, according to figures from AdImpact, a top national ad tracking firm.

Pennsylvania, along with Michigan and Wisconsin, are the three Rust Belt states that make up the Democrats’ so-called “Blue Wall.”

The party reliably won all three states for a quarter-century before Trump narrowly captured them in the 2016 election to win the White House.

Four years later, in 2020, Biden carried all three states by razor-thin margins to put them back in the Democrats’ column and defeated Trump.

WHAT THE LATEST FOX NEWS POWER RANKING IN THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE SHOW

In addition to her statewide edge over Trump, two separate USA Today/Suffolk University surveys conducted post-debate in Erie and Northampton counties – two bellwethers that have historically predicted which presidential candidate carries Pennsylvania – indicate the vice president ahead by mid-single digits.

All three surveys indicated that a widening gender gap that benefits Harris is fueling her overall advantage over Trump.

In the statewide survey, Harris tops Trump by 17 points among female voters while the former president leads the vice president by a slimmer 12 points among men. Harris had even wider leads among women in Erie and Northampton counties.

“This is female-gender advantage on steroids,” Suffolk University Political Research Center director Dave Paleologos told Fox News. “In all three data sets, the women margin is around almost twice Trump’s edge among men.”

The USA Today/Suffolk survey is the first conducted in Pennsylvania following the debate, which was held in Philadelphia. A CBS News survey in the field in early September, in the week before the debate, indicated a tied race in the Keystone State.

“It’s the one state that it’s hard to see someone losing and then still winning the presidential race,” Mark Harris, Pittsburgh-based longtime Republican national strategist and ad maker, told Fox News Digital earlier this month. “It’s clearly ground zero.”

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub. 

California Democrats are working to advance another bill aimed at providing benefits to illegal immigrants, but Republican lawmakers are pushing to block the new bill. 

“It’s insulting that California Democrats are even considering expanding unemployment benefits to illegal immigrants,” Senate Majority Leader Brian Jones said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “Under the Newsom administration, the unemployment insurance fund is already broke with a $20 BILLION deficit. We cannot afford to expand benefits to those here illegally.”

In a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom, Jones explained that the Employment Development Department (EDD) is still recovering from its shortcomings in managing the overwhelming demand for benefits following the COVID-19 shutdowns.

SB 227, introduced by Democratic Senator María Elena Durazo, would require the EDD to develop a detailed plan to establish a permanent Excluded Workers Program to provide cash assistance that resembles unemployment insurance benefits to unemployed workers who are ineligible for unemployment insurance due to their immigration status.

NEWSOM VETOES CONTROVERSIAL BILL THAT WOULD HAVE GIVEN HOUSING LOANS TO ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

Jones mentioned that not only is the EDD still recovering from COVID-19, they are also dealing with its failure to prevent tens of billions of dollars in fraudulent unemployment claims.

“Until the EDD demonstrates it has effective systems and procedures to ensure timely benefits and prevent fraud, it should not be tasked with new responsibilities and costs,” Jones continued.

Jones also stated that enacting this bill would impose additional demands and expenses on the EDD, divert resources away from implementing essential reforms, and further plunge the state into undermining federal immigration laws.

GOV. NEWSOM SIGNS BILL TO RESUME HARSH PENALTIES FOR SMASH-AND-GRAB ROBBERIES IN CALIFORNIA

“This radical proposal sends a dangerous message: come to California and get free money for not working. As California goes, so goes the rest of the nation.” Jones said. “Americans should be very concerned about a Harris-Waltz Administration taking this policy nationwide.” 

California Assemblyman James Gallagher also echoed Jones and said small businesses are suffering due to the mismanagement of funds. 

“Newsom is already jacking up taxes on small businesses to pay off the debt he rang up with his mismanagement of our unemployment system during COVID,” Gallagher said. “Democrats plan to open up the benefits to illegal immigrants is only going to invite more fraud and waste more money.”

CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN LAWMAKER REACTS TO ‘CRAZY’ BILL THAT WOULD GIVE UNDOCUMENTED FIRST-TIME HOMEBUYERS MONEY

“Wouldn’t it be great if Democrats focused as much on bringing down our highest-in-the-nation unemployment rate as they do on pushing new giveaways to illegal immigrants?” 

Gov. Newsom’s office told Fox News Digital that the measure will be evaluated on its merits and that the deadline to sign or veto legislation on the Governor’s desk is September 30. 

This is the second bill the senate has introduced that would provide benefits for illegal immigrants.

Last month, the California legislature advanced AB 1840, known as the “California Dream for All” loan program, which would have given illegal immigrants up to $150,000 in first-time homeownership loans — a bill that if signed into law would have given first-time homebuyers up to 20% of a home’s value or up to $150,000 as down payment assistance.

“This bill seeks to prohibit the disqualification of applicants from one of California Housing Finance Agency’s (CalHFA) home purchase assistance programs based solely on their immigration status. Given the finite funding available for CalHFA programs, expanding program eligibility must be carefully considered within the broader context of the annual state budget to ensure we manage our resources effectively,” Newsom said in the veto letter. 

“For this reason, I am unable to sign this bill.”

Fox News Digital’s Jamie Joseph contributed to this report. 

The man suspected of an assassination attempt on former President Trump’s life on Sunday went on the record with the New York Times last year to promote his efforts to recruit Afghan soldiers to fight the war in Ukraine. 

More than a year ago, Ryan Routh spoke to the New York Times after spending “months” in Ukraine during its war against Russia. Routh, whom the New York Times described as a former North Carolina construction worker, told the outlet that as the number of foreign volunteers fighting on behalf of Ukraine in a military unit called the International Legion dwindled, he was working to recruit Afghan soldiers who fled the Taliban to join the front lines of the war in Ukraine. 

“Mr. Routh, who spent several months in Ukraine last year, said he planned to move them, in some cases illegally, from Pakistan and Iran to Ukraine. He said dozens had expressed interest,” the New York Times reported in an article published on March 25, 2023. 

“We can probably purchase some passports through Pakistan, since it’s such a corrupt country,” Routh told the outlet in an interview from Washington, D.C. 

RYAN ROUTH, ARMED MAN ARRESTED AT TRUMP GOLF COURSE, POSTED PROLIFICALLY ABOUT TRUMP, POLITICS

Routh was arrested Sunday afternoon after allegedly taking an AK-47-style rifle to the Trump International Golf Club, and pointing it through a chain-link fence toward where Trump was playing golf. 

Routh fled the area in his car and was soon apprehended by authorities on I-95. Trump was not injured during the incident, and the campaign quickly issued a statement that he was safe on Sunday afternoon. 

Fox News Digital pored over Routh’s apparent social media accounts on Sunday and found he prolifically posted about world events, Trump, the 2020 election, and the previous attempt on Trump’s life in July. 

ALLEGED TRUMP GUNMAN RYAN ROUTH HAS A PAPER TRAIL OF PRO-UKRAINE ADVOCACY: REPORTS

“I am flying to Ukraine to fight.  We need to launch a media campaign to encourage every human around the globe to meet in Ukraine and join in the fight.  We need hundreds of thousands of civilians to make the cost of war high for putin and a flood of fighters,” he posted on Feb. 17, 2022. 

Following repeated messages declaring his intention to fight on behalf of Ukraine, he posted in April that he was in Kyiv. 

“I am here in kyiv and want to use Independence Park to create a tent city of all the foreigners here in support to get thousands more foreign civilians to come and support Ukraine,” the account posted. 

LAW ENFORCEMENT SOURCES IDENTIFY RYAN WESLEY ROUTH AS SUSPECT IN TRUMP SHOOTING

In another post, he declared in all caps that he was willing to “FIGHT AND DIE” in Ukraine. 

“I AM WILLING TO FLY TO KRAKOW AND GO TO THE BORDER OF UKRAINE TO VOLUNTEER AND FIGHT AND DIE,” he posted in 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine. 

His X account was suspended following police confirming his name on Sunday. 

The New York Times reporter who interviewed Routh last year about his efforts in Ukraine published an essay Sunday regarding the interview and article. The reporter, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, explained that he was put in touch with Routh by a former colleague from Kabul, and noted that Routh was one of the first interviews he conducted for the March 2023 piece. 

DONALD TRUMP SAFE AFTER SHOTS FIRED OUTSIDE PALM BEACH GOLF CLUB

“Mr. Routh, who had spent some time in Ukraine trying to raise support for the war, was seeking recruits from among Afghan soldiers who fled the Taliban. And so the former Afghan soldier reckoned Mr. Routh could get him to the Ukrainian front. (Anything, even war, was better than the conditions in Iran for Afghans after the Taliban retook Kabul in August of 2021.),” the essay explained. 

Routh told the reporter that while he was eager to rally support and volunteers to fight on behalf of Ukraine, he did not fight in Ukraine citing his age and his lack of military experience. Routh is 58 years old as of 2024. 

“In my opinion everyone should be there supporting the Ukrainians,” he told the reporter. 

Routh told the New York Times last March that he had built a list hundreds of names long of Afghans living in the Middle East whom he planned to recruit and help transport to Ukraine. 

The interview was “brief” and conducted ahead of Routh saying he had lined up a two-hour meeting with members of Congress regarding Ukraine. 

TRUMP SHOOTING: TIMELINE OF ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT

The reporter noted in his essay it’s unclear if Routh ever had the meeting, and that the discussion left him thinking Routh “was in way over his head.”

“He talked of buying off corrupt officials, forging passports and doing whatever it took to get his Afghan cadre to Ukraine, but he had no real way to accomplish his goals. At one point he mentioned arranging a U.S. military transport flight from Iraq to Poland with Afghan refugees willing to fight,” Gibbons-Neff wrote. 

“I shook my head. It sounded ridiculous, but the tone in Mr. Routh’s voice said otherwise. He was going to back Ukraine’s war effort, no matter what.”

The reporter said that Routh “fell off the map” following the publication last year, “until Sunday.” 

Routh headed to federal court Monday morning, where he was seen smiling and laughing before his first court appearance. 

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

He faces charges of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. Authorities said he could be hit with additional charges. 

Trump has since blamed Democratic rhetoric promoted by President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for the attempt on his life. Trump survived another assassination attempt in July, when a gunman opened fire on a campaign rally in Pennsylvania and hit Trump in the ear. 

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is planning another vote on a Democrat-backed bill on in vitro fertilization (IVF) that has already failed in the upper chamber. 

He revealed in a letter to senators on Sunday that another vote on the measure would take place on Tuesday. 

“As our national debate on reproductive rights has continued to unfold, we have seen the Republican Party’s nominee for president claim to be ‘a leader in fertilization’ and come out in support of expanding access to IVF by requiring insurance companies to cover IVF treatment — a key provision included in the Right to IVF Act,” Schumer penned in his letter. 

“So, we are going to give our Republican colleagues another chance to show the American people where they stand.”

DEMS POUR $25M INTO GROUND GAME AS GOP INCHES CLOSER TO SENATE MAJORITY

Schumer’s decision to bring the bill back to the Senate floor comes after former President Donald Trump vowed to mandate insurers to cover IVF, as he emphasized his support of the procedure. 

“I’m announcing today in a major statement that under the Trump administration, your government will pay for — or your insurance company will be mandated to pay for — all costs associated with IVF treatment,” Trump said at a Michigan event last month. “Because we want more babies, to put it nicely.”

TAMMY BALDWIN FACES CONFLICT OF INTEREST CONCERNS OVER PARTNER’S WALL STREET GIG

Under the IVF bill, which was introduced by Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., “A group health plan or a health insurance issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage shall provide coverage for fertility treatment, if such plan or coverage provides coverage for obstetrical services.”

This would extend to nearly all insurers, as obstetrical coverage is considered a routine inclusion. 

In June, nearly all Senate Republicans voted the measure down during a key procedural vote, preventing it from getting the 60 necessary votes to advance. 

JON TESTER CASTS DOUBT ON UNFAVORABLE POLL IN MONTANA SENATE RACE: ‘GIVE ME A BREAK’

Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Katie Britt of Alabama proposed their own IVF bill later in the summer, which they said would prevent bans on the procedure but allow for commonsense regulation. That measure was blocked from being voted on when Cruz made a unanimous consent request to proceed with it. It has not been slated for a traditional vote by Schumer, either. 

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., also led a bill designed to promote IVF earlier this summer, which was bicameral and introduced in the House by Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Fla. His measure sought to decouple Health Savings Accounts (HSA) from health insurance plans and raise the contribution limits for families to assist in paying for expenses such as IVF. 

Scott said he wouldn’t speak about private conversations with Trump when asked by Fox News Digital if they had discussed the former president’s IVF proposal, but he reiterated, “I’m very supportive of IVF, and we’ll see what Schumer brings up.”

Pressed on the component to mandate insurers to cover the procedure, he said he would see what’s written in the bill. 

TOP SENATORS BRIEFED ON ‘MAJOR ERRORS’ LEADING UP TO TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT

Senate Minority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., who is running for Republican Senate leader in November, said he hadn’t discussed the IVF proposal with Trump but perhaps some of his colleagues had. 

“Obviously, it’s an idea that’s out there that we’re having discussions about. But, we’ll react to it if and when it happens, if that’s the direction Schumer decides to go,” he told Fox News Digital. 

Asked about mandating private insurance coverage for a procedure, which isn’t a traditionally conservative position, Thune said, “I guess that’s the conversation we’re going to have to have.”

“Obviously, it’s something that our nominee has come out in support of, but there are lots of mandates that are imposed on insurance companies, which raise rates,” he explained. 

“Every Republican is for IVF. I don’t know of any Republican that isn’t,” he said. “The question of whether or not insurance ought to cover it is another issue that we need to talk about.”

EXCLUSIVE: At a scheduled House hearing on Wednesday, Republicans plan to grill Small Business Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman over what they have characterized as the agency’s behavior in regard to claims of taxpayer-funded electioneering in swing-state Michigan.

Texas Rep. Roger Williams, chair of the House Small Business Committee, said Monday that Guzman will be asked directly about alleged agency efforts to register voters in Democrat-heavy precincts of the Wolverine State.

“The Small Business Administration has lacked transparency and stonewalled committee oversight at every turn,” Williams said.

“The administrator must answer directly to our members about what we are hearing from our constituents back home, particularly about why small business concerns are being ignored within the Biden-Harris administration…”

WATCHDOG GROUP SUES FEDS FOR RECORDS AS LAWMAKER CALLS VOTER REGISTRATION EFFORTS A ‘SLAP IN THE FACE’

Williams and his Senate counterpart, Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, began demanding documents and other information in May over what the SBA had called its “first-ever” voter registration agreement with Michigan officials.

The SBA in March had forged an MOU or “Memorandum of Understanding” with the Michigan Department of State, pursuant to President Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14019 – promoting access to voting.

Since then, Williams and committee Republicans have been demanding information including documents and travel schedules of top agency officials. The letter from the two lawmakers also cited Guzman as the “most-traveled” cabinet member.

To date, the committee has said SBA’s compliance has been markedly insufficient, with lawmakers claiming the agency has “slow-rolled… and wasted time producing documents that were either nonresponsive to the Committee’s requests or duplicative.”

The agency is “diverting its resources away from assisting Main Street so it can register Democratic voters,” Williams said.

In August, an SBA spokesperson argued that the agency has provided “extensive testimony, briefings, transcribed interviews, documents and other information in response to congressional inquires, including the Committee’s most recent subpoena.”

HOUSE COMMITTEE DEMANDS BIDEN AGENCY REVEAL STAFF TRAVEL HISTORIES AMID ELECTIONEERING ALLEGATIONS

“We are continuing the work to fulfill the subpoena beyond our initial document production. Any suggestion that the agency is conducting improper work or that its response has been anything other than cooperative is simply not true,” the spokesperson added.

Democrats on the panel, meanwhile, have dismissed the majority’s demands and claimed their behavior tarnishes the panel’s record:

The House Small Business Committee has otherwise “prided itself in bipartisan cooperation to help American entrepreneurs,” ranking member Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y., told Fox News Digital in June. 

“Unfortunately, with [these] subpoenas, Republicans have rejected these principles to pursue a partisan inquiry,” Velazquez said.

However, others have countered that Democrats are politicizing the committee, as a source with knowledge of the committee’s work pointed to at least five derogatory mentions of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 in the committee’s last session.

Velazquez and Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., had invoked the conservative advocacy group’s work to rebut Republican amendments aimed at reducing regulatory burdens on small business. 

KEY BIDEN AGENCY SLAPPED WITH HISTORIC SUBPOENAS OVER ‘IMPROPER’ SWING-STATE VOTER REGISTRATION PUSH

Democrats have sought to link Republican officeholders and former President Donald Trump to Project 2025 as a form of criticism. While several of Trump’s former Cabinet secretaries and top White House senior aides are authors of the project, Trump has denied having any connection to it.

Williams said that, instead of voter registration in Michigan or other related concerns, the SBA should be focused on its founding mission.

“The American taxpayers deserve to know the truth about who the SBA is truly working for, because the last few years have been a disaster for Main Street America,” he said Monday.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Fox News Digital has also learned the committee will question Guzman on the agency’s reported decision to end active collection on COVID-era small business loans under $100,000, while the agency saw billions of loan dollars accidentally go to fraudulent concerns.

The committee also plans to address Vice President Kamala Harris’ small business tax deduction proposals, and how witnesses may believe it meshes with potential plans to allow a current 20% small business tax deduction to expire.

The race for Michigan’s 7th Congressional District is generating national attention as Republicans attempt to tie their Democratic opponent to a controversial deal with a Chinese Communist Party-backed company.

Michigan Republicans are calling on former Democratic State Sen. Curtis Hertel, who is currently running to represent Michigan’s 7th Congressional District, to break his silence on a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) he signed in order to obtain details on controversial plans to use taxpayer funds to help build an electric vehicle battery plant in west Michigan owned by a company with ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

The plant, which was announced by Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in October 2022, was set to get millions in incentives as part of a deal with Michigan lawmakers and Green Charter Township, with promises of bringing over 2,000 jobs to the area.

But the project quickly drew the ire of local voters, in large part due to the company behind the plant, Gotion Inc., being a subsidiary of Gotion High-Tech, which has strong ties to the Chinese Communist Party. 

CCP-BACKED TECH COMPANIES ARE POISED TO CASH IN ON BIDEN’S CLIMATE BILL, NATIONAL SECURITY EXPERTS WARN

Last fall, local voters ousted five of the seven township board members over their support of the project, while the other two members resigned.

That controversy has now bled over into the race for Michigan’s 7th Congressional District, one of the few true toss-up House races in the state, thanks to Hertel being one of several lawmakers from both parties to sign the NDA with the Michigan Economic Development Corporation that allowed them to learn about and negotiate details on the proposed plans for the plant.

Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin, who is vacating her seat in Michigan’s 7th District to pursue a run for U.S. Senate, recently spoke out against the Gotion deal, further intensifying calls on Hertel to do the same.

“To me, until there’s a national security vetting, I don’t love the idea of moving forward on any project or any sale of farmland” to a Chinese entity, Slotkin told reporters at a campaign event earlier this month. “I believe that we need to not just think about economic [aspects], but also about the national security implications of Chinese-affiliated companies.”

BIDEN ADMIN GREEN-LIGHTS CHINESE EV BATTERY FACTORY IN MICHIGAN, DESPITE LOCAL OPPOSITION

“Hertel must answer whether or not he agrees with his comrade pal Elissa Slotkin, and if he regrets signing the NDA to sell out Michigan taxpayers to the CCP,” National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Mike Marinella.

The controversy over the plant has also garnered attention in the presidential race, with former President Donald Trump saying on Truth social last month that he is “100% OPPOSED” to the plant, adding that Gotion “would put Michiganders under the thumb of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing.”

Meanwhile, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, highlighted the controversy during a campaign stop in Michigan last week.

“I think the most important thing is we have to stop paying Chinese manufacturers to manufacture, whether it’s here or overseas,” Vance told reporters in Michigan after his speech. “We want to build an American manufacturing industry and an American middle class. If we want to pursue these policies, let’s do them for Americans and American businesses.”

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But questions over Hertel’s involvement in the project continue to be the focus of Michigan Republicans, most notably after it was reported last year that Hertel was on of several Democratic lawmakers in the state to receive funds from a Political Action Committee (PAC) linked to the law office of Warner Norcross + Judd, a firm acting as a foreign agent to represent Gotion.

According to a Fox News report last September, the firm’s PAC donated $2,400 to the state campaign for Hertel, who represented Michigan’s 23rd State Senate district from 2015 until January.

One lawmaker who did not sign an NDA related to the project is former Republican State Sen. Tom Barrett, Hertel’s opponent in the race for Michigan’s 7th Congressional District. Barrett has also seized on the controversy, arguing Hertel owes people an explanation for his involvement with the project.

“Curtis Hertel, a 22-year career politician, owes the people of Mid-Michigan an explanation as to why he signed a secret NDA to give $175 million of their tax dollars to a CCP-backed company,” Barrett told Fox News Digital. “The fact that he took money from foreign agents on behalf of Gotion should disqualify him from Congress.”

Reached for comment by Fox News Digital, Hertel campaign communications director Sam Kwait-Spitzer dismissed the claims by Republicans as a “false attack.”

“Curtis signed no NDA with Gotion, and Tom Barrett is trying to cover for his own record of voting against 5,000 good-paying manufacturing jobs here in Mid-Michigan and trying to cede the future of the auto industry to China,” he said.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

The alleged gunman arrested at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, has a lengthy paper trail of pro-Ukraine advocacy, according to several news reports Monday.

The suspect, Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, was arrested Sunday after allegedly pushing the muzzle of an assault rifle through a chain-link fence near former President Donald Trump’s golf course, where the former president was playing the fifth hole. However, this is not the first time Routh has been identified.

Routh is a pro-Ukraine activist who has spent time in the Eastern European country volunteering to raise more support for the nation’s military efforts and even sought Afghan veterans who fled from the Taliban to fight in the war, a New York Times report noted.

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He was also interviewed by Semafor in March 2023 and expressed frustration at the Ukranian government for having too much red tape around admitting foreign soldiers to fight in the war. 

“Ukraine is very often hard to work with. Many foreign soldiers leave after a week in Ukraine or must move from unit to unit to find a place they are respected and appreciated,” Routh told Semafor, adding that he’d been “yelled at” for suggesting Afghan veterans. 

“They’re afraid that anybody and everybody is a Russian spy,” he said.

Routh also talked to Newsweek’s Romania edition in 2022, again about his recruitment efforts for the International Legion Defense of Ukraine, which is an on-the-ground unit for the nation’s army.

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“The question as far as why I’m here … to me, a lot of the other conflicts are grey, but this conflict is definitely black and white,” Routh told Newseek. “This is about good versus evil. This is a storybook, you know, any movie we’ve ever watched, this is definitely evil against good.“

Routh also claimed to have fought in the war and reportedly bragged about his involvement on his social media accounts. His pro-Ukraine advocacy also appears to have led him to write a 291-page book, “Ukraine’s Unwinnable War,” which is still available on Amazon. 

“I presume that I must be clear, that while on the current path Ukraine will not win, it is imperative for the world that they do win, and that is why this book is so important, for us all to recognize that losing is not an option and what we must do to win,” Routh wrote in the description. “I obviously did not write this to make any money, as that is totally unimportant; the extremely important issue is that we openly discuss daily the major issues that face Ukraine and what we each must try to do to fix them.”

The X account appearing to belong to Routh also repeatedly issued Ukraine-related posts to X that he was ready to fly to Ukraine to fight Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

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“I am flying to Ukraine to fight.  We need to launch a media campaign to encourage every human around the globe to meet in Ukraine and join in the fight.  We need hundreds of thousands of civilians to make the cost of war high for putin and a flood of fighters,” the apparent Routh account posted on Feb. 17, 2022. 

Following repeated messages declaring his intention to fight on behalf of Ukraine, the X account posted in April that Routh was in Kyiv. 

“I am here in kyiv and want to use Independence Park to create a tent city of all the foreigners here in support to get thousands more foreign civilians to come and support Ukraine,” according to the X post. 

Trump has said on several occasions that if elected, he would end the Ukraine-Russia conflict within 24 hours. During the ABC debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump did not explicitly say he wanted Ukraine to triumph in the war.  “Just get it done. All right. Negotiate a deal,” Trump said.

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A background check also previously reviewed by Fox News Digital found that Routh has had repeated run-ins with law enforcement spanning decades in North Carolina. 

A majority of the arrests included ones for simple possession, driving without a license, driving with an expired registration, driving without insurance. 

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton and Brooke Curto contributed to this report.