America’s emotional divide over the federal government has never been wider, according to a new Pew Research Center survey showing record-high anger among Democrats, rising Republican contentment, and near-collapse levels of public trust – all captured days before the government plunged into a 43-day shutdown.

The probability-based, nationally representative poll, conducted Sept. 22-28, 2025, finds nearly half of Americans (49%) say they feel frustrated with the federal government, 26% say angry and only 23% say they are basically content.

Pew reports that 44% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents now say they feel “angry” toward the federal government, or “highest share expressed by members of either party in surveys dating back to 1997.”

The number has jumped 10 points from 34% among Democrats during President Trump’s first term.

Just 8% of Democrats say they are content. 

IT WON’T GET ANY BETTER: WASHINGTON FACES ANOTHER LOOMING GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

Republicans and GOP leaners show a dramatically different mood with 40% reporting contentment, half as frustrated and 9% angry. GOP anger, by comparison, peaked during the then-Obama and then-Biden administrations.

Pew says this emotional gap between the parties is now the largest ever measured.

Only about one-in-five Americans say they trust the federal government to do what’s right “just about always” or “most of the time,” a level Pew notes is “one of the lowest in the nearly seven decades since the question was first asked.”

YOUNG AMERICANS GIVE BIG THUMBS DOWN TO DEMOCRATS, REPUBLICANS, TRUMP: POLL

Democratic trust in the federal government sits in single digits in this wave. Republican trust, while still limited, is higher than it was a year ago before Trump was re-elected to hold the presidency.

Pew’s long-running trend shows frustration has been the nation’s default mood for nearly three decades, but this survey captures a rare structural shift: frustration dipping slightly, while both anger and contentment rise almost entirely along party lines.

That movement, Pew says, signals deepening emotional and political distance between Americans who are reacting to the same Trump administration in completely different ways.

Fox News Digital has requested comment from the White House on the survey’s findings.

Pew researchers say they will continue tracking these attitudes into the 2026 midterms, noting that large swings in anger and trust have historically preceded shifts in political engagement and voter behavior.

For now, Pew’s new survey offers one conclusion that is hard to ignore: Americans aren’t just divided by politics, but by how they emotionally experience Trump 2.0. 

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Thursday announced the arrests of multiple Afghan nationals, released into the U.S. by the Biden administration during Operation Allies Refuge and Operation Allies Welcome, with convictions for crimes including kidnapping and child fondling.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said the Biden administration created “one of the worst and most complex national security crises in American history,” which the Trump administration has been working to remedy.

The announcement comes after it was uncovered the suspect accused of killing one National Guard member and wounding another in a Nov. 26 Washington, D.C. ambush, was an Afghan national vetted by the CIA in Afghanistan.

The Department of State has paused all visas for individuals traveling on Afghan passports.

PATEL BLASTS BIDEN’S ‘EMBLEMATIC FAILURE’ AFTER AFGHAN NATIONAL CHARGED IN GUARD SHOOTING

“Under Secretary [Kristi] Noem, DHS has been going full throttle on identifying and arresting known or suspected terrorists and criminal illegal aliens that came in through Biden’s fraudulent parole programs,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin wrote in a statement. 

“When Joe Biden let 190,000 Afghan nationals in, they didn’t do criminal background checks or vet social media, someone just vouched for them and they took the words as truth,” she continued. “We have been saying we are getting the worst of the worst out—and we are. We are working around the clock to get these public safety threats out of our country.”

According to DHS, some of the Afghan nationals arrested by ICE include:

On Aug. 29, ICE arrested Qesmat Din Zafran, a criminal illegal immigrant who entered the U.S. under Operation Allies Refuge in September 2021. 

His criminal history includes a conviction for lewd or lascivious acts with a minor under 16.

THIRD AFGHAN NATIONAL FROM BIDEN-ERA PROGRAM ARRESTED IN A WEEK BY ICE AGENTS IN VIRGINIA: DHS

On Oct. 2, ICE arrested Mansour Walizada, a criminal illegal immigrant who entered the U.S. under Operation Allies Refuge in 2021. 

His criminal history includes two convictions for sexual battery and an arrest for child fondling.

On June 8, ICE arrested Mohammad Tabesh Rasoli, a criminal illegal immigrant who entered the U.S. under Operation Allies Refuge in September 2021. 

His criminal history includes a conviction for hit-and-run with serious bodily harm. 

Per the arrest report, Rasoli hit a pedestrian going about 50 mph.

On May 8, ICE took custody of Javid Ghamgeen from the Iowa Department of Corrections.

Ghamgeen, a criminal illegal immigrant, entered the U.S. under Operation Allies Welcome in 2021. 

His criminal history includes convictions for two counts of possession of methamphetamine, burglary and aggravated assault against a public officer.

On Oct. 9, ICE arrested Asirullah Khalid-Khan, a criminal illegal immigrant who entered the U.S. under Operation Allies Welcome in 2021. 

His criminal history includes a conviction for kidnapping and an arrest for rape.

On July 21, ICE arrested Said Mohammad Tanai, a criminal illegal immigrant who entered the U.S. under Operation Allies Refuge in 2021. 

His criminal history includes a conviction for assault with intent to commit sex abuse.

As President Donald Trump promises U.S. military action targeting cartel operations within Venezuela’s borders, a national security expert warned there could “absolutely” be reprisals against U.S. citizens on the home front.

The Trump administration has been unleashing deadly strikes on the cartel’s drug boats from Venezuela in the Caribbean for months. Now, the president is saying he will take the fight to Venezuela proper.

In an interview with Fox News Digital, former senior Trump national security advisor Victoria Coates said that though she believes the president has sweeping authority to carry out these operations, there is a possibility that the cartels will attempt to retaliate by targeting U.S. citizens for terror activities.

Coates, who now serves as vice president of the Heritage Foundation’s Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, pointed to the deadly shooting by an Afghan national of two National Guard soldiers just blocks from the White House during Thanksgiving week.

GOP SAYS TRUMP FACING TOUGHER SCRUTINY FOR CARIBBEAN STRIKES THAN OBAMA DID FOR DRONE PROGRAM  

“We don’t know all of what has come into the country during the Biden administration and the open border policies they pursued, but certainly there’s been a lot of latitude for the cartels,” she said.

Coates added that the Trump administration is well aware of these threats and is on high alert for any possible reprisals from cartels or forces supporting Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

The U.S. government has repeatedly linked Maduro to cartel activity. In November, the State Department designated the Cartel de los Soles, allegedly headed by Maduro, a foreign terrorist organization. According to the administration, the Cartel de los Soles “provides material support” to other terrorist organizations known to be in the U.S., including Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa Cartel, both of which have been behind several high-profile violent crime incidents across the country. In 2024, members of Tren de Aragua allegedly seized control of an apartment building in Aurora, Colorado, and were terrorizing and extorting the residents.

In late November, Trump delivered a stern ultimatum to Maduro to leave Venezuela immediately before announcing the country’s airspace should be closed, according to the Miami Herald. According to the outlet, Washington’s warning was delivered in a phone call with Caracas and offered guaranteed evacuation for Maduro, his wife Cilia Flores, and their son, but only if the dictator agreed to resign on the spot. 

Maduro, in turn, framed the escalation as “imperialist” aggression from the U.S. and vowed that “if the empire attacks us, we will defend every inch of our territory.”

This resistance could also manifest within the U.S., according to Coates, especially with the known presence of Venezuelan organized crime groups in the country.

HOUSE REPUBLICANS BACK TRUMP’S VENEZUELA MOVES FOR NOW AS ESCALATION UNCERTAINTY LOOMS  

“They obviously have cells in the United States, both for human trafficking and for drug trafficking. And so that is a very, very deep concern,” explained Coates.

Coates said that she knows the FBI and other law enforcement agencies are closely monitoring these threats and “are being hyper vigilant about it.”

Regarding additional actions the administration should take to mitigate the threat, Coates answered that this is why Trump’s deportation agenda and cartel crackdown are so important.

“That’s what they’re actually doing,” she explained. “They’re trying to track and deport as many of these bad actors as they can. So, that work is ongoing.”

“Identifying where the cartels are active, what their assets are in the United States, and doing everything we can to disrupt that activity, that’s what our professionals in the FBI do. That’s their job. So, they are doing it.”

HEGSETH DEFENDS LETHAL STRIKES AGAINST ALLEGED DRUG TRAFFICKERS: ‘BIDEN CODDLED TERRORISTS, WE KILL THEM’

“This is a new kind of threat, a drug cartel that is associated with a foreign government,” she said. “That’s why the president is taking the actions that he has.”

“The administration [has] kind of [been] feeling their way a little bit to figure out how to get after this threat. But they’re the first ones who have actually confronted it, and I think it’s critically important,” she said.

“What I think is critical for the American people to realize is this has morphed internationally into something that’s more than a drug enforcement issue,” Coates added. “We’re losing 100,000 citizens a year to the drugs that are coming in. Everyone knows fentanyl; it’s also record amounts of cocaine that are coming out of Venezuela. And it’s gone from being a nuisance to being a major national security threat.”

Senate Democrats attempted to derail a batch of dozens of President Donald Trump’s nominees, but ended up giving Senate Republicans a surprise victory in the process.

Republicans were on the way to starting the long procedural process of confirming 88 of Trump’s picks but were blocked by Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., over an issue with one of the nominees in the group.

When Senate Republicans went nuclear and changed the rules surrounding the confirmation process earlier this year to break through Senate Democrats’ blockade, they limited the scope to only sub-cabinet level positions that would be advanced through a simple, 50-vote majority.

SENATE CONFIRMS DOZENS OF TRUMP NOMINEES IN FIRST TEST OF NEW NUCLEAR RULES

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said ahead of the vote that Democrats’ failed blockade of Trump’s picks could be chalked up to “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

“Democrats and their base still can’t deal with the fact that President Trump won last November,” Thune said. “And so they have held up every single one, every single one of his nominations in revenge. But Republicans have not been daunted. We’ve just continued plowing ahead on nominations, helping us rack up a historic number of votes this year in the process.”

But one of the nominees in the group, Sara Bailey, was considered a “level 1” nominee, meaning she would hold a cabinet-level position. Trump tapped Bailey in March to be his drug czar as director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

SENATE GOP LEADER MOVES TO LOWER FILIBUSTER THRESHOLD FOR TRUMP NOMINEES THROUGH NUCLEAR OPTION

Her inclusion in the package meant that in order for the 87 other nominees to be confirmed, Republicans would have to break the 60-vote filibuster threshold, which was unlikely given Senate Democrats’ wholesale disapproval of many of Trump’s picks.

Senate Republicans took advantage of the opportunity and have decided to tack on even more of the president’s picks in a new, beefed-up package that will include 97 of Trump’s nominees. 

“I think we’ll add some more and do it next week,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., told Fox News Digital. “You know what happened was, you can’t have cabinet-level, and I think drug czar is a cabinet-level now, and so the name was on the list, we just sort of invalidated the list.”

SCHUMER UNVEILS DEMOCRATS’ OBAMACARE FIX PLAN, LIKELY DEAD IN THE WATER

Bennet’s objection still pushes back Senate Republicans’ timeline to confirm the batch of nominees. Lawmakers had planned to move through the procedural steps and finish the process by the end of next week, but now the timeline is expected to stretch into the third week of December.

Once the process is finished, Republicans will have confirmed over 400 of Trump’s picks, putting him well ahead of former President Joe Biden, who at the same point last year had roughly 350 of his nominees confirmed.

And even though Senate Democrats believed they scored a win against the administration, Republicans are relishing the unexpected victory.

“Senate Republicans will now have the opportunity to confirm even more qualified nominees! Thank you to the Democrats for making this possible,” a spokesperson for Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said.

Admiral Mitch Bradley confirmed to lawmakers that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth did not order all survivors of counter-narcotics strikes to be killed — even as they had mixed opinions on whether the so-called “double tap” strike was justified. 

An initial Washington Post report had claimed that Hegseth ordered those in charge of the counternarcotics strikes to “kill them all,” leading Bradley to interpret this as orders to kill remaining survivors. 

“The Admiral confirmed that there had not been a kill them all order and that there was not an order to grant no quarter,” Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, told reporters after a briefing with the admiral. 

“Admiral Bradley was very clear that he was given no such order, not to give no quarter or to kill them all,” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said.

SENATE REPUBLICANS BLOCK BIPARTISAN EFFORT TO HALT MILITARY ACTION, DRUG BOAT STRIKES IN THE CARIBBEAN 

Still, he said the full video footage of the Sept. 2 strikes showed that the two survivors were “shipwrecked sailors.”

“What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service. You have two individuals in clear distress, without any means of locomotion with a destroyed vessel, who were killed by the United States,” Himes went on. “Now there’s a whole set of contextual items that the admiral explained. Yes, they were carrying drugs. They were not in the position to continue their mission in any way.”

Democrats and Republicans seemed to have strikingly different impressions of the video they’d been shown of the strikes.

Cotton said video of the strikes showed the survivors “trying to flip their boat back over and continue their mission.”

Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., ranking member of the defense appropriations subcommittee, said, “I think it’d be hard to watch the series of videos and not be troubled by it.” 

“I am deeply disturbed by what I saw this morning. The Department of Defense has no choice but to release the complete, unedited footage of the September 2nd strike,” said Sen. Jack Reed, R.I., top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee.

Rep. Rick Crawford, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, appeared to take aim at Democrats for claiming he was “troubled” by the video. 

“Those who appear ‘troubled’ by videos of military strikes on designated terrorists have clearly never seen the Obama-ordered strikes, or, for that matter, those of any other administration over recent decades. I am deeply concerned by the public statements made by others that seek to ignore the realities of targeting terrorists to score political points. I call upon them to remember their own silence as our forces conducted identical strikes for years — killing terrorists and destroying military objectives the same as in this strike — and ask themselves why they would seek to attack our forces today.”

SPEC OPS CHIEF ORDERED DEADLY CARIBBEAN STRIKE ‘IN SELF-DEFENSE’ WITH HEGSETH’S SIGN-OFF, WHITE HOUSE SAYS

“There is [another] example where survivors actually were shipwrecked and distressed and not trying to continue on their mission, and they were treated as they should be, as noncombatants. They were picked up by U.S. forces,” Cotton said.

“It’s just an example of how, of course, our military always obeys the laws of war. Our military also acts with an appropriate, lawful authority to target these narcoterrorists.”

In another Oct. 16 strike that killed two, two survivors were captured and sent back to Colombia and Mexico. In a series of four strikes on Oct 27 that killed 14, one survivor was left for retrieval by the Mexican coast guard.

Cotton said the protocol for handling survivors remains the same since the strikes began in early September. 

After reporting that a September 2 strike on alleged narcoterrorists had left two survivors who were killed in a follow-up strike, lawmakers and legal analysts expressed concern that top military brass had violated the Pentagon’s Law of War manual, which deems attacking persons rendered “helpless” due to “wounds, sickness or shipwreck” is explicitly prohibited and described as “dishonorable and inhumane.” Shipwrecked individuals are protected unless they resume hostile action or otherwise regain the capacity to pose an immediate threat.

But Pentagon officials have suggested the survivors may have been in a position to call for backup and that Bradley viewed that as a threat.

Secretary Pete Hegseth has said he viewed the initial strike in real time, but was not present to view the second strike. He’s said he had no involvement in the decision to call for a second strike but stands by Bradley’s decision.

Bradley is now locked in a whirlwind day of meetings on Capitol Hill to explain his decision — he’s given separate briefings to the top lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee, Senate Intelligence Committee, House and Senate Armed Services Committees and top members on the defense appropriations subcommittees. 

Admiral Mitch Bradley confirmed to lawmakers that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth did not order all survivors of counter-narcotics strikes to be killed — even as they had mixed opinions on whether the so-called “double tap” strike was justified. 

An initial Washington Post report had claimed that Hegseth ordered those in charge of the counternarcotics strikes to “kill them all,” leading Bradley to interpret this as orders to kill remaining survivors. 

“The Admiral confirmed that there had not been a kill them all order and that there was not an order to grant no quarter,” Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, told reporters after a briefing with the admiral. 

“Admiral Bradley was very clear that he was given no such order, not to give no quarter or to kill them all,” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said.

SENATE REPUBLICANS BLOCK BIPARTISAN EFFORT TO HALT MILITARY ACTION, DRUG BOAT STRIKES IN THE CARIBBEAN 

Still, he said the full video footage of the Sept. 2 strikes showed that the two survivors were “shipwrecked sailors.”

“What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service. You have two individuals in clear distress, without any means of locomotion with a destroyed vessel, who were killed by the United States,” Himes went on. “Now there’s a whole set of contextual items that the admiral explained. Yes, they were carrying drugs. They were not in the position to continue their mission in any way.”

Democrats and Republicans seemed to have strikingly different impressions of the video they’d been shown of the strikes.

Cotton said video of the strikes showed the survivors “trying to flip their boat back over and continue their mission.”

Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., ranking member of the defense appropriations subcommittee, said, “I think it’d be hard to watch the series of videos and not be troubled by it.” 

“I am deeply disturbed by what I saw this morning. The Department of Defense has no choice but to release the complete, unedited footage of the September 2nd strike,” said Sen. Jack Reed, R.I., top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee.

Rep. Rick Crawford, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, appeared to take aim at Democrats for claiming he was “troubled” by the video. 

“Those who appear ‘troubled’ by videos of military strikes on designated terrorists have clearly never seen the Obama-ordered strikes, or, for that matter, those of any other administration over recent decades. I am deeply concerned by the public statements made by others that seek to ignore the realities of targeting terrorists to score political points. I call upon them to remember their own silence as our forces conducted identical strikes for years — killing terrorists and destroying military objectives the same as in this strike — and ask themselves why they would seek to attack our forces today.”

SPEC OPS CHIEF ORDERED DEADLY CARIBBEAN STRIKE ‘IN SELF-DEFENSE’ WITH HEGSETH’S SIGN-OFF, WHITE HOUSE SAYS

“There is [another] example where survivors actually were shipwrecked and distressed and not trying to continue on their mission, and they were treated as they should be, as noncombatants. They were picked up by U.S. forces,” Cotton said.

“It’s just an example of how, of course, our military always obeys the laws of war. Our military also acts with an appropriate, lawful authority to target these narcoterrorists.”

In another Oct. 16 strike that killed two, two survivors were captured and sent back to Colombia and Mexico. In a series of four strikes on Oct 27 that killed 14, one survivor was left for retrieval by the Mexican coast guard.

Cotton said the protocol for handling survivors remains the same since the strikes began in early September. 

After reporting that a September 2 strike on alleged narcoterrorists had left two survivors who were killed in a follow-up strike, lawmakers and legal analysts expressed concern that top military brass had violated the Pentagon’s Law of War manual, which deems attacking persons rendered “helpless” due to “wounds, sickness or shipwreck” is explicitly prohibited and described as “dishonorable and inhumane.” Shipwrecked individuals are protected unless they resume hostile action or otherwise regain the capacity to pose an immediate threat.

But Pentagon officials have suggested the survivors may have been in a position to call for backup and that Bradley viewed that as a threat.

Secretary Pete Hegseth has said he viewed the initial strike in real time, but was not present to view the second strike. He’s said he had no involvement in the decision to call for a second strike but stands by Bradley’s decision.

Bradley is now locked in a whirlwind day of meetings on Capitol Hill to explain his decision — he’s given separate briefings to the top lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee, Senate Intelligence Committee, House and Senate Armed Services Committees and top members on the defense appropriations subcommittees. 

Republican Matt Van Epps of Tennessee was sworn in on the House floor Thursday morning by Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La,, giving the GOP slightly more breathing room as they hold on to a razor-thin majority in the lower chamber of Congress.

Van Epps was sworn in less than 48 hours after winning a hotly contested special election for a vacant GOP-held seat in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District that was viewed as a must-win for Republicans, who will defend their House majority in next year’s midterm elections.

He vowed in a floor speech to “work every day with President Trump and my colleagues in this House to deliver on the America First agenda.”

Van Epps’ swearing in brings the balance of power in the House to 220 Republicans and 213 Democrats.

WHAT THE RESULTS IN THE HOTLY CONTESTED TENNESSEE SPECIAL CONGRESSIONAL ELECTION MEAN FOR THE 2026 MIDTERMS

But the Republican number will drop back to 219 early next month, when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a MAGA firebrand who had a falling out with Trump, resigns.

There are 213 Democrats in the House, with two Democrat-held seats currently vacant. The late Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner of Texas died in March, but a special election to fill the seat won’t be held until Jan. 31.

TRUMP-BACKED REPUBLICAN KEEPS CRUCIAL CONGRESSIONAL SEAT IN GOP HANDS

And now-former Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey resigned last month after winning the Garden State’s gubernatorial election. A special election to fill the vacant seat will be held in April.

Van Epps on Tuesday defeated Democratic congressional nominee Aftyn Behn in the race to succeed former GOP Rep. Mark Green, who resigned from office in June to take a private sector job.

Trump carried the district — which is located in central and western Tennessee, stretches from Kentucky to Alabama, and includes parts of Nashville — by 22 points in last year’s presidential election. And Green won the district by over 20 points in his 2022 and 2024 re-elections.

But Democrats, energized after decisive victories last month in the 2025 elections, eyed flipping the seat, and national Democratic and Republican groups poured millions of dollars into the race.

Van Epps ended up topping Behn by roughly 9 points, thanks in part to high turnout for a special election held during the holiday season.

In a sign of the importance of keeping the seat in GOP hands, Johnson traveled to Tennessee and campaigned at a slew of events with Van Epps on election eve.

“We cannot take anything for granted. Since I became speaker, I presided over some of the smallest majorities in history. Every seat counts,” Johnson said in a Fox News Digital interview on Monday morning.

And Johnson highlighted that “special elections are strange because a lot of people take for granted in a deep red district like this that the Republicans are just going to win automatically. Nothing’s automatic.”

Fox News’ Kelly Phares contributed to this report.

Republican Matt Van Epps of Tennessee was sworn in on the House floor Thursday morning by Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La,, giving the GOP slightly more breathing room as they hold on to a razor-thin majority in the lower chamber of Congress.

Van Epps was sworn in less than 48 hours after winning a hotly contested special election for a vacant GOP-held seat in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District that was viewed as a must-win for Republicans, who will defend their House majority in next year’s midterm elections.

He vowed in a floor speech to “work every day with President Trump and my colleagues in this House to deliver on the America First agenda.”

Van Epps’ swearing in brings the balance of power in the House to 220 Republicans and 213 Democrats.

WHAT THE RESULTS IN THE HOTLY CONTESTED TENNESSEE SPECIAL CONGRESSIONAL ELECTION MEAN FOR THE 2026 MIDTERMS

But the Republican number will drop back to 219 early next month, when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a MAGA firebrand who had a falling out with Trump, resigns.

There are 213 Democrats in the House, with two Democrat-held seats currently vacant. The late Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner of Texas died in March, but a special election to fill the seat won’t be held until Jan. 31.

TRUMP-BACKED REPUBLICAN KEEPS CRUCIAL CONGRESSIONAL SEAT IN GOP HANDS

And now-former Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey resigned last month after winning the Garden State’s gubernatorial election. A special election to fill the vacant seat will be held in April.

Van Epps on Tuesday defeated Democratic congressional nominee Aftyn Behn in the race to succeed former GOP Rep. Mark Green, who resigned from office in June to take a private sector job.

Trump carried the district — which is located in central and western Tennessee, stretches from Kentucky to Alabama, and includes parts of Nashville — by 22 points in last year’s presidential election. And Green won the district by over 20 points in his 2022 and 2024 re-elections.

But Democrats, energized after decisive victories last month in the 2025 elections, eyed flipping the seat, and national Democratic and Republican groups poured millions of dollars into the race.

Van Epps ended up topping Behn by roughly 9 points, thanks in part to high turnout for a special election held during the holiday season.

In a sign of the importance of keeping the seat in GOP hands, Johnson traveled to Tennessee and campaigned at a slew of events with Van Epps on election eve.

“We cannot take anything for granted. Since I became speaker, I presided over some of the smallest majorities in history. Every seat counts,” Johnson said in a Fox News Digital interview on Monday morning.

And Johnson highlighted that “special elections are strange because a lot of people take for granted in a deep red district like this that the Republicans are just going to win automatically. Nothing’s automatic.”

Fox News’ Kelly Phares contributed to this report.

EXCLUSIVE: Afghan evacuees with rap sheets that include convictions for sexual battery and lewd acts with a minor and arrests for alleged child-fondling and terror-group support were among the “worst of the worst” recently swept up by ICE and the Department of Homeland Security.

DHS released the list days after one former Afghan evacuee allegedly shot two West Virginia Guardsmen, killing one, and another was charged in a Newark, Del., terror plot. The agency says the arrests reveal explosive failures in the 2021 vetting system that rushed evacuees into the country after Kabul fell.

Biden administration officials insisted their 2021 Operation Allies Welcome vetting was sound, but a senior DHS official said the president’s “trust without verification” approach to evacuee backgrounds helped drive the recent surge in attacks and plots.

“Under Secretary Noem, DHS has been going full throttle on identifying and arresting known or suspected terrorists and criminal illegal aliens that came in through Biden’s fraudulent parole programs,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said. “When Joe Biden let 190,000 Afghan nationals in, they didn’t do criminal background checks, vet social media, someone just vouched for them, and they took the words as truth.”

BONDI WARNS OF VETTING FAILURES AFTER ‘FRIGHTENING’ ARREST OF AFGHAN NATIONAL FOR BOMB THREATS IN TEXAS

DHS has captured sexual predators, terror suspects, pedophiles and other violent “unvetted” foreigners in their persistent daily work of executing President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement orders, the agency added in a statement.

Not all of the arrests have involved Afghan evacuees. ICE arrests have included Iraqi “criminal illegal alien” Ziaulhaq Faqiri, who entered the U.S. as a “special immigrant Iraqi employee” during former President Joe Biden’s term. Faqiri’s criminal history includes convictions for “carnal abuse” and sexual assault.

PATEL BLASTS BIDEN’S ‘EMBLEMATIC FAILURE’ AFTER AFGHAN NATIONAL CHARGED IN GUARD SHOOTING

But many arrests have involved those who came to America in the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

One of the evacuees from Operation Allies Refuge – the mass exodus upon the immediate fall of Kabul often involving third-party countries, versus “Allies Welcome,” the process that utilized domestic military bases as housing – was arrested recently as a “criminal alien” residing in the U.S.

Qesmat Din Zafran was apprehended around the fourth anniversary of the 2021 Afghan withdrawal, and has convictions for lewd and lascivious acts with a minor.

Other recent captures include the October arrest of Operation Allies Refuge participant Mansour Walizada, who has convictions for sexual battery and an arrest for child fondling, according to DHS.

ALLEGED DC SHOOTER ENTERED US UNDER AFGHAN RESETTLEMENT PUSH MAYORKAS VOWED WOULD BE DONE ‘SWIFTLY AND SAFELY’

Mohammad Tabesh Rasoli was recently arrested by ICE, which found him to have a conviction for hit-and-run. The case involved Rasoli seriously injuring a pedestrian he struck while driving 50 miles per hour, the agency said.

Iowa authorities honored a request to transfer another Afghanistan evacuee: Javid Ghamgeen.

Ghamgheen had been convicted of two meth-possession counts, as well as burglary and assault on a public officer.

DC NATIONAL GUARD SHOOTING SUSPECT FORMALLY CHARGED

Two others arrested after coming to the U.S. following the American withdrawal were Asirullah Khalid-Khan and Said Mohammad Tanai.

Tanai had a prior conviction for assault with intent to commit sexual abuse, while Khalid-Khan’s record included sexual assault and kidnapping.

In yet another incident, an Afghan evacuee was arrested in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley on allegations he provided support to the Khorosan Group, also known as ISIS-K.

USCIS HALTS ‘ALL ASYLUM DECISIONS’ AFTER DC SHOOTING OF NATIONAL GUARD MEMBERS

Jaan Shah Safi was arrested on Wednesday in Waynesboro – just outside Staunton.

DHS officials said Safi’s father is currently a commander of an Afghan militia group.

Safi was brought to Philadelphia about one week after the Afghanistan evacuation commenced and applied for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) – but saw it terminated by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem earlier this year.

NATIONAL GUARD KILLING REIGNITES IMMIGRATION WAR IN CONGRESS AS REPUBLICANS DEMAND SWEEPING REFORMS

Officials said Safi was the third Afghan terror suspect arrested in “recent days” who was brought to the U.S. during the Biden-era operations.

Meanwhile, a Mideast-born student at Biden’s alma mater was arrested in Delaware on Wednesday after police conducted a traffic stop near Newport.

Police encountered 25-year-old University of Delaware student Luqmaan Khan with a Glock handgun, multiple magazines, a ballistic-armored plate and a notebook that included handwritten descriptions of how the weapons could be used in an attack.

The book also included the name of a University of Delaware police officer, the layout of a university building and the words “UD Police Department.”

Pakistan’s foreign office disputed reports Thursday that Khan was of “Pakistani-origin,” with spokesman Tahir Andrabi telling Arab News that Islamabad’s investigation of the situation found Khan to instead be an Afghan national who fled to Pakistan with his family as a refugee.

Biden graduated from UDel in 1965 with a double-major in history and political science before heading to Syracuse for law school.

Biden did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. 

Fox News Digital’s Louis Casiano contributed to this report.

A suspect who allegedly planted pipe bombs blocks from the U.S. Capitol on January 5, 2021, is now in federal custody after a nearly five-year investigation, law enforcement sources told Fox News Digital on Thursday.

The FBI arrested the suspect, a male living in Virginia, early Thursday morning, the sources said.

Authorities discovered the two pipe bombs near the Republican and Democratic National Committees’ headquarters around the same time that thousands of protesters a few blocks away began to descend on the Capitol over the 2020 election results.

Video footage released by the FBI showed an unidentified person placing the pipe bombs near the two headquarters more than 16 hours before law enforcement found them.

The suspect was seen wearing a gray hoodie, Nike Air Max Speed Turf sneakers, a face mask, glasses, and gloves, but the person’s identity had long been unknown.

This is a developing story. Check back soon for updates.