FIRST ON FOX: Republicans in the Senate are introducing a bill to block a push by the Biden administration to give humanitarian parole to illegal immigrants living in the U.S. who have American spouses — amid a broader conservative opposition to the administration’s use of parole.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, is leading more than a dozen senators in introducing The Visa Integrity Preservation Act, which would amend federal law to explicitly bar illegal immigrants — specifically those who have entered illegally or overstayed a visa for more than 180 days — from receiving a waiver of the in-person consular interview. 

The rule would affect the Biden administration’s introduction of “parole in place,” which was announced in June and allows it to grant humanitarian parole and a path to permanent residency for certain illegal immigrant spouses of U.S. citizens without them having to leave the country and interview at a consulate, as they generally do in order to apply for a visa.

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The new process, called “Keeping Families Together,” applies to noncitizen spouses who have lived in the U.S. for 10 years as of June and are judged not to pose a threat to public safety or national security. The administration argues that families live in fear and “face deep uncertainty about their future” due to the requirement that they depart and be processed abroad.

“In addition, individuals must have no disqualifying criminal history or otherwise constitute a threat to national security or public safety and should otherwise merit a favorable exercise of discretion,” a fact sheet said. DHS estimates that it will affect approximately 500,000 illegal immigrants. The process would not be eligible for new arrivals, as they must be in the U.S. for more than 10 years by June 2024.

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Republicans have pushed back furiously against the broad use of parole by the administration, including not only parole in place, but also the use of the CBP One app to grant parole to over 1.3 million foreign nationals in recent years both at the border and via a travel authorization program for four nationalities.

The Republican bill would mean that any illegal immigrant who wished to apply for a visa would still have to leave the U.S. for a consular interview before they could be granted a visa. Joining Cornyn on the bill are Sens. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., Ted Cruz, R-Texas, James Risch, R-Idaho, Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, Steve Daines, R-Mont., Katie Britt, R-Ala., Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., Ted Budd, R-N.C., James Lankford, R-Okla., and Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.

Cornyn’s office said it would prevent the administration from using “amnesty” to regularize illegal immigrants.

“For almost four years, the Biden-Harris administration has waived their magic amnesty wand to create unlawful programs that allow any and every person to enter and stay in the U.S. — legally or not,” Sen. Cornyn said in a statement. “By strengthening the laws already on the books, our legislation would root out this massive pull factor while also preserving the integrity of our employment-based nonimmigrant visa program, and I’m grateful to my colleagues for their support.”

The bill marks the latest pushback by Republicans against the program. Republican states, led by Texas, sued the administration over the rule, and a federal court has paused the program indefinitely.

The states argued that the rule violates federal law by an unlawful use of parole, which is limited to use on a “case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.”

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“Claiming that it has ‘unfettered discretion,’ Implementation of Keeping Families Together…DHS has announced the creation of a program that effectively provides a new pathway to a green card and eventual citizenship; announcing that it would allow more than 1.3 million aliens who are unlawfully present in the United States—more than 200,000 of whom live in Texas—to circumvent the processes established by Congress to apply for permanent residency,” the states argue in the filing.

The White House, responding to the lawsuit last month, accused Republican officials of being “more focused on playing politics than helping American families or fixing our broken immigration system.”

“This lawsuit goes against our nation’s values, and we will vigorously defend Keeping Families Together and our ability to make the immigration system more fair and more just. We will also continue securing our border and enforcing our laws, something Congressional Republicans have refused to do time and time again,” a White House spokesperson said.

Earlier this year, the Biden administration eased sanctions on Venezuela in efforts to persuade dictator Nicolas Maduro to hold free and fair elections. It didn’t work. 

Now, Latin America watchers say, it’s time to bring back those sanctions in full force – by canceling the licenses for U.S.-based oil and gas companies to do business there. 

The U.S. reinstated sanctions on the gold mining industry that were lifted earlier this year under the Barbados Agreement in April, as Maduro continued to crack down on the opposition, including by barring opposition primary winner Maria Corina Machado from running.

It allowed the expiration of some sanctions relief and export licenses, but critics say the administration left major carve-outs for U.S.-based companies doing business there. 

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In July, Venezuela’s National Electoral Commission claimed that Maduro won 51.2% of the vote, defeating the Unity Platform candidate Edmundo González, backed by Machado. But precinct-level vote counts published by the opposition show González winning by a large margin. The U.S. government recognized González as the winner on August 1, yet Maduro still clings to power. 

In September, U.S. officials unveiled new personal sanctions against Maduro and his acolytes over human rights abuses. “The individual sanctions are meaningless and obviously haven’t changed [Maduro’s] behavior one bit,” Victoria Coates, former deputy national security advisor and senior advisor at the Department of Energy under Trump, told Fox News Digital. 

Maduro officials have enforced the election results they claim through harsh post-election repression of protesters, including charging González with terrorism before he sought refuge in the Spanish embassy. González said last week he was “forced” to accept the Maduro win before being allowed to seek asylum in Spain.

“They’ve done nothing serious to try to challenge the results of the fraudulent election, to support the folks who are trying to get the information out, and then to offer an off-ramp to Maduro.”

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“Get him out of the country, figure out what his terms are,” Coates went on. “By the way, there are a bunch of the senior military brass in Venezuela who like to spend a lot of time in Miami. Is that something you want to hold at risk?”

“They could see if they could have some conversations with them about what a transition would look like. But rather than doing any of that, they’re just letting the oil flow.”

“The administration is, on the one hand, doing some actions that would make it appear that it is heightening enforcement against the Maduro regime,” Andres Martinez-Fernandez, lead Latin America policy adviser at Heritage’s Allison Center for National Security, told Fox News Digital.

“But it’s clearly holding off on really restating and fully pressuring the Venezuelan government with sanctions and economic restrictions, particularly when it comes to the oil sector.”

One option would be to cancel the remaining licenses for big oil companies like Chevron to make deals with PDVSA, the country’s state-owned oil company. Chevron scored a license to do business with the oil-rich state in 2022 after Maduro had expressed an openness to conducting fair elections. The White House left open the possibility for other companies to apply for such licenses to take advantage of the nation’s oil-rich reserves. 

“The oil licenses, which only benefit Maduro and his cronies, should have been canceled as soon as they refused to recognize the real results of the election showing his loss by two million votes,” Rep. Maria Salazar, R-Fla., chair of the House Foreign Affairs Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, told Fox News Digital. 

“The failure to make these decisions is sending a clear signal around the world that United States leadership is weak, and you can get away with whatever you want.”

“We want them canceled … this is a lifeline to the regime,” opposition adviser Rafael de la Cruz said in reference to the licenses during a panel discussion hosted by the New York-based Council of the Americas business organization earlier this month. 

He said the presence of U.S. oil companies serves to “normalize … de facto dictatorship that he is trying to set up in Venezuela.”

The National Security Council has said its sanctions are designed to ​​”hold Nicolas Maduro and his representatives accountable for its electoral fraud and violent repression, without harming the everyday Venezuelan people.” 

But critics say that oil money rarely flows down to everyday Venezuelans, nearly 80 percent of whom fall below the poverty line.  

“The primary sanction facing the Venezuelan people is the regime itself,” Andres Martinez-Fernandez said. 

“The Venezuelan regime uses its revenue primarily not to support the Venezuelan people, but to ensure its own grasp on power, whether that’s through buying loyalty in the military or sowing discord abroad” he went on. 

“[The sanctions] never should have been lifted, they got scammed,” Senator Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told Fox News Digital. 

Why, exactly, the Biden administration hasn’t taken enforcement action is up for debate. 

Coates believes it is “to keep domestic energy prices low before the election.” 

Martinez-Fernandez said there could be heavy lobbying involved behind the scenes, and the administration could be worried that removing U.S. companies from the scene would create a space for China to swoop in and set up operations.  

“The administration is still hoping beyond reason that there is a path to a sort of negotiated settlement with the regime,” he said. “This is what the administration did earlier in the year and late last year with the removal of sanctions, and then dangling the threats of reinstating them. And clearly, that had none of the desired effects.” 

Chevron spokesman Bill Turenne said in a statement: “We remain committed to conducting our business in compliance with applicable laws and regulations, both in the U.S. and the countries where we operate.”

FIRST ON FOX: A consumer watchdog agency is warning lawmakers in the Senate to end plans to codify a legal doctrine that the Supreme Court struck down earlier this year.

The high court ruled in favor this summer of a group of fishermen who challenged a federal agency, claiming that a decades-old legal doctrine gave the administrative state too much power over their business.

Known as the Chevron doctrine, the legal theory established in the 1980s says that if a federal regulation is challenged, the courts should defer to the agency’s interpretation of whether Congress had granted it authority to issue the rule, as long as the agency’s interpretation is reasonable and Congress had not addressed the question directly.

Democrats in Congress have since attempted to pass legislation that would codify Chevron deference. Alliance for Consumers, a national consumer advocacy organization, is urging those lawmakers to not “[re-empower] bureaucrats to ban or wipe away even more products with near impunity and a thumb on the scale for the government against the little guy.”

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“The end of Chevron deference was a huge win for consumers,” Alliance for Consumers Executive Director O.H. Skinner wrote in a letter Wednesday. 

“Chevron deference gave agencies a sense of invincibility in the way they interpreted their authority and the power Congress gave them by statute,” Skinner wrote. 

Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., have both introduced legislation that would reform “the federal rulemaking process to protect consumers, workers, health care, and our environment. We must pass our bill to level the playing field and ensure our government puts people first, not giant corporations.”

Wyden argued that “the Chevron doctrine acknowledged that courts should give deference to agency experts to write rules and regulations in order to implement laws passed by Congress,” and that “the overturning of Chevron deference undermines government agencies’ ability to promote worker safety, ensure clean air and water, and protect consumers.”

Wyden did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on Skinner’s letter.

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However, Skinner argues in his letter to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs that “what we have now, with the end of Chevron deference, is a better world, where Congress’s words matter (not the policy preferences of bureaucrats) and agencies are no longer allowed to freely take advantage of statutory ambiguity to extend their powers and reshape the things available to consumers.”

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“With the end of Chevron deference, everyday consumers will now have a chance when facing off against the government in a challenge to federal edicts that do enter the world,” he continued. “Chevron deference put a thumb on the scale in every case against the government, never more so than when individuals or small businesses were going up against an agency over a mundane regulation or requirement.”

Skinner added that “while mega-corporations facing an existential-level regulation could always push on in the Chevron deference era to the Supreme Court, the little guy was trapped in a world where deference had the most power and sway, and the deck was stacked in the government’s favor.”

“That is thankfully no longer true,” he said. 

The Senate committee did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on Skinner’s letter.

The Democratic candidate for senate in Maryland has pulled significantly ahead of her Republican rival, according to a recent poll. 

The Washington Post-University of Maryland poll released Thursday shows Democrat Angela Alsobrooks holding an 11% lead over her rival, Republican Larry Hogan.

Alsobrooks is leading Hogan 51% to 40%, according to the Washington Post-University of Maryland poll. 

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The gap between them among likely voters is surprising, given that both candidates enjoy a similar level of popularity with respondents.  

Approximately 53% of respondents expressed favorable impressions of Hogan, compared to 27% who reported an unfavorable impression. Respondents gave Alsobrooks a 50% favorability rating, compared to 22% unfavorability.

Registered voters in the poll ranked the economy as the most important issue of the November elections, followed by immigration and then abortion.

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The Washington Post-University of Maryland poll was conducted between Sept. 19 and Sept. 23 with a sample size of 1,012 registered voters. 

It has a reported margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

With Democrats outnumbering Republicans by a roughly two-to-one margin in the state, Hogan will need a good chunk of cross-over voters to have a chance and has been highlighting his opposition to Trump and his independence from his party as he runs for the Senate.

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Hogan, who flirted with a 2024 White House run before deciding against it, stood out from most other Republicans this spring for publicly calling for the guilty verdicts in Trump’s criminal trial to be respected.

Hogan skipped July’s Republican National Convention, where Trump was formally nominated, and has said he would not be voting for the former president. Hogan’s campaign, after the former president’s comments, spotlighted in a statement that “Governor Hogan has been clear he is not supporting President Trump just as he didn’t in 2016 and 2020.” 

Republicans are also aiming to flip seats in Ohio and Montana, two states Trump comfortably carried four years ago. And five more Democratic-held seats up for grabs this year are in crucial presidential-election battleground states.

Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser and Julia Johnson contributed to this report.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are virtually tied in three crucial battleground states, according to new statewide surveys from Marist College.

The Marist Poll released Thursday finds that Harris and Trump are tied at 49% among likely voters in North Carolina who were asked which candidate they were leaning toward. Of those polled who have made up their minds, 91% said they strongly support their choice.

The race is tight in Arizona as well, where Trump polls just one point ahead of Harris, 50% to 49%, according to the Marist Institute for Public Opinion. The same goes for Georgia, where 50% of likely voters are leaning towards Trump and 49% say they are more inclined to vote for Harris.

The Marist Polls were conducted from Sept. 19-24, surveying 4,643 registered voters across all three states who report they are definitely voting in this year’s election. 

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There are 43 Electoral College votes up for grabs between Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina. Trump, a Republican, won all three in his 2016 victory over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, but lost Arizona and Georgia to President Biden in his 2020 defeat. North Carolina, a swing state that Trump won twice, has an incumbent Democratic governor and appears more competitive this year as the Republican candidate for governor, Mark Robinson, is mired in scandal over posts he allegedly made on a porn website and polls poorly against state Attorney General Josh Stein, the Democratic candidate. 

“North Carolina, with its 16 electoral votes, is both the Harris and Trump campaigns’ backup plan after the hard-fought battle over Pennsylvania,” said Dr. Lee M. Miringoff, Director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion. “North Carolina is so close that the five regions in the state line up now almost exactly as they did four years ago. It’s as if the Biden years and the 2024 campaign haven’t happened.”

Harris and Trump are tied at 48% among North Carolina independents who are likely to vote. Biden carried Tar Heel independents by four points in 2020, according to the 2020 Presidential Exit Poll. Harris leads Trump among Black voters 86% to 13%, but underperforms compared to Biden, who earned 92% of the Black vote in North Carolina in 2020. Trump has an advantage over Harris with white voters, 59% to 40%, though Harris has improved with this demographic over Biden, who won 33% of the white vote in 2020. 

The top issues for North Carolina voters are inflation (32%), preserving democracy (28%), immigration (14%) and abortion (11%), according to the poll. 

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Over in Arizona, Harris edges Trump among independents 51% to 47%. Biden won Arizona independents by 9 points four years ago, 53% to Trump’s 44%. Again, Trump leads Harris among white voters 51% to 48%, while the Latino vote is competitive, with 51% leaning towards Trump and 49% towards Harris.

The top issues for Arizona voters are preserving democracy (27%), inflation (26%), immigration (21%) and abortion (14%), the survey said.  

“Arizona’s 11 electoral votes are up for grabs, but the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate (Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz.) has a double-digit lead,” said Miringoff. “Voters in the state, like elsewhere, are willing to split their ticket this time unlike the straight party voting that occurred in 2016 and 2020.”

Harris also leads Trump among Georgia independents by five percentage points, 51% to 46%. Similar to Arizona, Biden won Georgia independents by 9 points in what was the first presidential election win for Peach State Democrats since 1992. Trump heavily contested the 2020 results in Georgia and continues to make unproven allegations of widespread voter fraud that have been rejected by Georgia officials, including Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. 

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“Georgia was ground zero for election controversies in 2020. Yet, the overwhelming majority of Georgians express confidence that elections will be fair and accurate,” said Miringoff. “Interestingly, most Democrats and Republicans share this view despite the results last time.”

Georgia voters rank inflation as the top issue (34%), followed by preserving democracy (24%), immigration (13%) and abortion (11%).

A Fox News national poll taken after the first debate between Harris and Trump spotlighted that 39% of voters surveyed said the economy was their most pressing issue, far ahead of immigration (16%) and abortion (15%). All other issues tested were in single digits. 

“An increasing number say grocery prices and housing costs are tough for their family,” the Fox News poll notes.

Trump led Harris on the economy by 5 points in the Fox News poll. 

“The issue profile of this election continues to favor Trump,” said Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who conducts the Fox News Poll along with Democrat Chris Anderson.

But Shaw added that Trump’s “edge on economic issues has decreased, probably due to Harris’ messaging on housing costs and taxes, both of which target the middle class and appear to be paying off.”

Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser and Victoria Balara contributed to this report.

Former President Donald Trump struck back at Vice President Kamala Harris by releasing what he says is Harris’ version of a “Project 2025” on Thursday.

The list of policies Trump accuses Harris of supporting comes in reference to the Heritage Foundation’s own Project 2025. Democrats have sought to tie Trump to the Heritage project, but he says he has not read it and does not support it.

Trump argued on social media that Harris’ “Project 2025” includes such policies as “Citizenship for 20 million illegals” and “taxpayer funded reparations,” among other things.

Trump later followed up with a post highlighting inflation in key swing states that took place during the Biden-Harris administration.

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While Trump has denied any connection to Project 2025 throughout the campaign cycle, he most clearly divorced himself from it during his debate against Harris earlier this month.

Harris attempted to smear Trump as radical by citing some of the policies in the Heritage document.

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“On this debate tonight, you’re gonna hear from the same old tired playbook. A bunch of lies, grievances, and name-calling. What you’re gonna hear tonight is a detailed and dangerous plan called Project 2025 that the former president intends on implementing if he were elected again,” Harris said at the time.

Trump flatly rejected any involvement with the group, however.

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“As you know, and as she knows better than anyone, I have nothing to do with Project 2025. That’s out there. I haven’t read it. I don’t want to read it purposely. I’m not going to read it,” Trump responded.

“This was a group of people that got together. They came up with some ideas, I guess some good, some bad. But it makes no difference,” he added. “Everybody knows I’m an open book. Everybody knows what I’m going to do.”

Authorities are investigating a mysterious “deep fake” video call that successfully impersonated a Ukrainian high official.

Democratic Sen. Benjamin Cardin announced Wednesday that he had turned over materials to law enforcement after an unknown suspect had tricked him onto a video call via impersonating a foreign official.

“In recent days, a malign actor engaged in a deceptive attempt to have a conversation with me by posing as a known individual. After immediately becoming clear that the individual I was engaging with was not who they claimed to be, I ended the call and my office took swift action, alerting the relevant authorities.”

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He continued, “This matter is now in the hands of law enforcement, and a comprehensive investigation is underway.”

Cardin had been duped into accepting the call after receiving what seemed like authentic emails from Dmytro Kuleba — the Ukrainian foreign minister — requesting an opportunity for a one-on-one conversation.

When the Democratic senator logged on to a video call with the Ukrainian official, everything seemed normal at first — but the conversation soon turned tense and Cardin realized something was wrong.

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The Kuleba impersonator reportedly asked Cardin a series of increasingly direct foreign policy questions, such as “Do you support long-range missiles into Russian territory? I need to know your answer.”

After realizing what was happening, Cardin reportedly disconnected the call and contacted the authorities.

The Senate security office issued an alert to relevant leaders on the Hill urging vigilance against similar schemes.

The alert noted that the impostor asked a series of “politically charged questions in relation to the upcoming election” that were “likely trying to bait the senator into commenting on a political candidate.” 

The FBI is reportedly investigating the incident. 

North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson hired an attorney who previously worked for former President Trump to investigate allegations that Robinson made controversial comments on a porn website. 

Robinson, the current Republican lieutenant governor running against Democratic state Attorney General Josh Stein to replace Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper in the battleground state, hired the Binnall Law Group from northern Virginia to investigate the claims raised in a CNN report published earlier this week. 

“Normally, something like this, an investigation, you know, run by the Department of Justice and the FBI would take months or years,” Binnall told Fox News Digital. “We can’t do that in this case because the voters need an answer before the election. And so we are going to move very quickly and still give them a very fulsome report.” 

“He absolutely denies saying any of the things that are in the CNN piece,” Binnall said of Robinson. “What my investigation is going to do is we are going to follow the facts. We are going to investigate this strenuously. We are going to leave no stone unturned. We’re going to be very, very aggressive. And the citizens of North Carolina deserve nothing less than a full investigation of this matter, which is what we are going to do.”

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“One of the problems with these October surprise hype reporting pieces on someone is it doesn’t give you the full amount of time to fully respond, to show the voters that the allegations were just wrong and that the voters could end up being deceived,” Binnall said. “And so, for that reason, my team understands the importance of moving quickly – very, very quickly and decisively in order to get to the truth, in order to get to a point where we can have full accountability for the true facts of this case.” 

The CNN report surfaced comments Robinson allegedly made more than a decade ago on a porn site messaging board, including describing himself as a “black NAZI;” saying he enjoyed transgender pornography; saying that he preferred Hitler to then-President Barack Obama in 2012; and criticizing the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as “worse than a maggot.” 

Robinson has denied saying those words, but Republicans have begun to distance themselves from the candidate, who, if elected, would be North Carolina’s first Black governor. Trump did not mention Robinson, who he endorsed before the March primary and has spoken at other Trump events, during the Republican presidential nominee’s campaign rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, Saturday. 

The Republican Governors Association on Monday said it was not renewing its ad buy in North Carolina. In an X post Wednesday, Robsinson said he spoke with Republican leaders across the state and made it clear that “this is an election about policies, not personalities. Now is not the time for intra-party squabbling and nonsense.” 

“The allegations against me are outright lies, fabricated to distract voters from Josh Stein’s disastrous record,” Robinson said in a statement to Fox News Digital regarding the investigation. “The great people of North Carolina deserve the truth, and I am fully committed to ensuring they get it with complete transparency.”

Though the probe is in its early stages, Binnall, who also has represented former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and former Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., in the past, said that his investigators include a former FBI agent, and that they are working expeditiously.

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“We are at the very beginning of our investigation right now,” Binnall told Fox News Digital. “But the one thing that I know from my years as a lawyer is that it is very normal for people, especially in politics, to be able to skew the facts in order to tell a particular narrative. And there’s any number of different ways with technology and other ways out there right now that this information could be manipulated. We do not know the full extent of what that might be yet.” 

Binnall did not point a finger at CNN, but rather claimed that “there are left-wing actors in this country that have in their playbook time and again to lie and mislead the American people by dropping stories and allegations late in the political cycle and trying to mislead people,” As examples, he cited claims put forth in the media before the 2020 election that the Hunter Biden laptop story might have been disinformation, as well as unproven allegations that Trump colluded with Russia before the 2016 election.

“Wait to see how the facts develop. Wait and see. And judge for yourself, because these are very scandalous allegations,” Binnall said. “I think there’s a reason that they weren’t brought out until very late in the campaign. But we’re going to get to the bottom of it, and so for the voters in North Carolina, I just say to wait and judge the facts for yourself.”

When the CNN report first dropped, Robinson published a video statement comparing it to the “high-tech lynching” that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said he faced when, during his Supreme Court confirmation process, he was accused of sexually harassing Anita Hill. 

Binnall agreed that that is what his client is up against. “Clarence Thomas went through hell. I think all Americans know that now. It was a high-tech lynching against Clarence Thomas, an attempt to try to destroy a very, very good man in that very well could be the same thing here,” Binnall said. “But rather than guess what the facts are going to be, we are going to follow the facts. We are going to let the facts guide us in this case.”

“When someone has nothing to hide, what they want is a full investigation,” Robinson’s attorney added. “And that’s why I think it’s important that Mr. Robinson went right out to us in order to conduct this investigation and then to take appropriate action based on those results.” 

The House task force investigating the assassination attempts against former President Trump is holding its first hearing Thursday.

“They’ve done a lot of work behind the scenes. They’ve interviewed dozens of witnesses. They gathered thousands of documents. They’ve been doing the work to lead up to the hearing, and I know there’ll be a lot of interest in that,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Tuesday.

“The American people desire and deserve answers, and the task force is working around the clock to deliver them.”

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The task force was assembled after unanimous approval in the House, a rare feat in today’s partisan environment. 

Its scope was just expanded last week after a foiled second alleged attempt on Trump’s life, this time while the ex-president was golfing at his own course in West Palm Beach.

Thursday’s hearing, however, will focus on the July 13 shooting at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

A 20-year-old gunman opened fire from a rooftop just outside the rally perimeter, killing one attendee and injuring others. Trump was struck in the ear by a bullet and was quickly evacuated offstage by Secret Service agents.

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Witnesses will include Edward Lenz, commander of the Butler County Emergency Services Unit; Butler Township Police Patrolman Drew Blasko; Pennsylvania State Police Lt. John Herold; former Secret Service agent Patrick Sullivan; and the Allegheny County medical examiner, Dr. Ariel Goldschmidt.

The task force, led by Chairman Mike Kelly, R-Pa., and ranking member Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., has already sent out a flurry of information and document requests to local, state and federal officials.

Lawmakers hope to get to the bottom of how Thomas Matthew Crooks was able to position himself so close to the rally with his weapon despite being noticed by some attendees and even local officials long before he opened fire.

“The communication failures on the day of the event were clearly catastrophic [and] led to what we saw happen that day. So, I anticipate we’re going to hear testimony from people who were there, who were part of that process, who can give us information about how those breakdowns occurred,” Rep. Laurel Lee, R-Fla., a task force member, said on “Fox News Live” Sunday.

The hearing comes a day after the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee released a damning interim report detailing planning and security failures that occurred July 13.

The report said the Secret Service did not have an adequate chain of command in place for approving security decisions ahead of the rally and failed to coordinate security specifically in relation to the building the shooter fired from.

It accused the Secret Service Counter Sniper Team leader of not going inside or on top of the building and said a sniper team charged with monitoring the area had an obstructed view, among other issues.

Next week’s highly anticipated vice presidential debate between Republican Ohio Sen. JD Vance and Democrat Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, while sure to generate buzz, is unlikely to make much difference in pushing undecided voters toward either presidential candidate, former President Trump or Vice President Harris, insiders agree.

Even so, experts who spoke to Fox News Digital did say there could be some indirect impact that can’t be completely discounted in a very close race.

“The VP debate is usually pretty [low-profile], they usually don’t get as much attention as the presidential debates,” Christopher Devine, author of “Do Running Mates Matter?: The Influence of Vice Presidential Candidates in Presidential Elections,” told Fox News Digital in an interview.

Devine suggested that while the upcoming debate will probably result in some viral moments, it won’t have the same level of interest or influence on voters as the 2008 VP debate when Sarah Palin on Republican John McCain’s ticket stole the spotlight in her matchup with then-Sen. Joe Biden.

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“But the running mate does have what we call an indirect effect on vote choice in that it influences what people think of the presidential candidate, knowing that Donald Trump could have picked anybody and chose JD Vance or that Kamala Harris could have picked anyone and chose Tim Walz, and how they perform on the debate stage,” Devine added.

Tevi Troy, a presidential historian and a former George W. Bush Cabinet member, agreed but said their performances will reflect more of an impact on the public’s view of themselves. 

“Many VP debates are completely forgettable,” Troy told Fox News Digital.

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“This year might be different, and it might be different because of the whole Harris-Walz hide-the-ball campaign where she didn’t run for the nomination, so she wasn’t scrutinized,” he continued. “Then she’s been very reluctant to have any unscripted interviews since then, and when she does, it’s usually with a very friendly reporter, and even in the debate against Trump, there’s a perception that the moderators were harder on him than they were on her.”

“There have been a number of instances where Walz has [been] asked about her views, and he kind of ducks what her views are because if they say what she’s been in the past, which is pretty liberal, [one of the] most liberal U.S. senators, then that’s not popular and not helpful to her political prospects,” Troy added. “But Vance also has a number of things from his past that have surfaced, that have led to bad stories, like the cat-lady thing, for example, and Walz has not been shy about willing to go after Vance and criticize.”

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After the Harris-Trump debate, a Fox News Poll this month found that voters thought Harris performed better than Trump. 

With no further presidential debates in the works before November, the running mates will likely be making the final head-to-head case to voters for their respective campaigns. 

Each candidate is sure to jab the other, with Vance likely zeroing in on Walz’s progressive policies in Minnesota and Walz likely to paint Vance as extreme, citing earlier statements on abortion prior to joining the Trump ticket.

The CBS vice presidential debate airs Tuesday, Oct. 1, at 9 p.m. ET and will be simulcast on Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network.