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Michael Genovese, President of the Global Policy Institute at Loyola Marymount University, joins Rosemary Church to discuss the significance of the New York special election and the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
House Homeland Security Chair Green set to retire
House Homeland Security Chair Mark Green is expected to announce plans to retire as early as Thursday, marking a surprise exit for a prominent committee chief.
Green is expected to announce he will not seek reelection just days after he spearheaded the GOP push to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, according to two Republicans familiar with his plans. His exit is already coming as a shock to his colleagues given the win he'd notched with the Mayorkas vote.
Green demurred during a brief Wednesday interview when asked if he planned to retire.
“Today, I am running for election,” Green told POLITICO, while declining to discuss the matter further. He later confirmed his resignation to Axios.
Green, a former Green Beret, showed an eagerness to rise in the ranks after being elected in 2018. He made a bid for the top spot of the House Oversight Committee before later securing the gavel leading the Homeland Security panel. While at the helm this Congress, he made it a clear mission to hammer the Biden administration on the U.S.-Mexico border as the rate of illegal border crossings soared.
He ultimately proved successful in steering the Mayorkas impeachment this week, but only after the party faced an embarrassing vote miscalculation the week before where they failed to properly count the votes.
Fox News Politics: Borderline impeachment
Welcome to Fox News’ Politics newsletter with the latest political news from Washington D.C. and updates from the 2024 campaign trail.
What's Happening?
- House Republican warns of serious national security threat related to space
- Mayorkas becomes first cabinet secretary to be impeached since the 19th century
- Democrat Tom Suozzi triumphs in special election to replace Santos
On the eve of Valentine's Day and Ash Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was impeached in a historic vote over his mishandling of the illegal immigration crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. Three Republican lawmakers, Reps. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., Ken Buck, R-Colo., and Tom McClintock, R-Calif., jumped the aisle to vote against the impeachment.
The 214-213 vote came after the first impeachment failed earlier this month. Every House Democrat showed up to protect the cabinet secretary, including Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, who temporarily left the hospital where he was recovering from surgery to cast his vote. Once Rep. Steve Scalise returned to D.C. from a cancer treatment, the GOP had the numbers to advance the articles of impeachment.
House Republicans have accused Mayorkas of violating his oath to defend the U.S. by failing to secure the border and "refusing" to enforce immigration laws.
The three Republicans who voted against impeachment on Tuesday have criticized Mayorkas' handling of the border but expressed reservations over whether it rose to the level of impeachment. McClintock warned it could set a precedent for political impeachments that could harm Republican officials in the future.
This is the first time a Cabinet secretary has been impeached by the U.S. Congress since 1876.
It's now up to the Senate — where Democrats run the show — to hold an impeachment trial.
'SERIOUS' THREAT: House Intel Chair Turner issues vague warning on 'serious national security threat,' urges Biden to declassify …Read more
'WILLING TO TRADE': Republican senators rally support to add 'meaningful' border security to House's foreign aid package …Read more
'DEVASTATING REPUDIATION': White House claims Suozzi's victory in NY special election speaks volumes about GOP, Trump …Read more
WHITE HOUSE DODGE: Sullivan avoids details when pressed on 'serious national security threat' …Read more
'HEY EVERYBODY!': WH compares Ronny Jackson to 'Simpsons' character in email to Fox Digital …Read more
BACK AGAIN: Who is Tom Suozzi? A look at the Democrat who flipped Santos' seat blue …Read more
BLAME GAME: Haley faults Trump for New York special election loss …Read more
'EVERY SINGLE PENNY': Lara Trump says RNC funds will go to electing father-in-law Donald Trump …Read more
'INCOMPETENT': New poll reveals the top 2 issues negatively affecting voter confidence in Biden …Read more
PENCE HITS BACK: Former VP Mike Pence's policy think tank pushed back on Vance claim that foreign aid has a hidden 'impeachment time bomb' …Read more
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Several Republican lawmakers want Schumer to reconvene Senate ‘immediately’ for Mayorkas impeachment trial
Some Senate Republicans want the upper chamber to reconvene "immediately" to proceed with an impeachment trial of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his handling of the ongoing migrant crisis at the southern border. The House voted to impeach Mayorkas Tuesday night in a tight 214-213 vote.
Mayorkas is the first Cabinet secretary to be impeached by the U.S. Congress since 1876.
"Schumer should reconvene the Senate immediately and proceed to trial," Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., wrote in a post on X Tuesday night.
Fox News Digital reached out to Schumer's office for comment and did not hear back by time of publication. But in a statement Tuesday night after the vote, Schumer said the impeachment trial will begin later this month. The Senate is scheduled to return from recess on Feb. 26.
"The House impeachment managers will present the articles of impeachment to the Senate following the state work period," Schumer said in a statement. "Senators will be sworn in as jurors in the trial the next day."
HOUSE VOTES TO IMPEACH DHS SECRETARY MAYORKAS OVER BORDER CRISIS
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said in a post that the Senate "cannot fail" to "uphold" its constitutional duty and "conduct an impeachment trial for Secretary Mayorkas, who has ignored his duty to protect our country."
"Chuck Schumer is trying to sweep this travesty under the rug by violating the constitution and foregoing a trial. Republican leadership cannot stand idly by and let him," he wrote.
Echoing the urgency, Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla. urged the upper chamber to take quick action: "The Senate must take this up immediately."
"While some in the Senate sided with securing Ukraine's border before our own, I'm glad to see House Republicans do the right thing and hold this lawless administration accountable," he wrote Tuesday night.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., compared how Democrats treated Trump's impeachment trials versus "the cabinet member responsible for 9 million illegal migrant entries on the southern border."
"They show zero interest in demanding real accountability," Schmitt said. "This impeachment coming to the Senate will undoubtedly show how unserious Democrats have become when it comes to responsibly leading the country and protecting Americans. Mayorkas’ impeachment proceedings should be brought to the Senate floor ASAP, but don’t hold your breath for any meaningful change at the border while Democrats are in charge."
Schmitt's sentiments are shared by several Senate Republicans who opposed the failed border bill that was in the national security supplemental package, citing concerns about increased power for President Biden and Mayorkas. They argued that shifting asylum claim responsibilities to the secretary of Homeland Security undermines immigration court processes.
HERE ARE THE 3 HOUSE REPUBLICANS WHO TORPEDOED MAYORKAS’ IMPEACHMENT VOTE
The Senate ultimately voted to remove the border bill text and passed a standalone $95 billion foreign aid bill.
"I don't think it ever made sense to many Americans that we're negotiating a border deal with the person we're trying to impeach," Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., told Fox News Digital in an interview ahead of the vote on Tuesday.
"I welcome the impeachment," Marshall said. "He didn't enforce the law of the land, he broke his oath to Americans as well. So I think, for all those reasons, he should be impeached."
Tuesday evening’s vote marked House Republicans’ second attempt at impeaching Mayorkas. GOP lawmakers targeted the Biden official over the ongoing migrant crisis at the U.S. southern border, accusing him of deliberately flaunting existing immigration law and worsening the situation.
OVER 40 LAWMAKERS SIGN BRIEF TO SUPPORT TEXAS IN IMMIGRATION FIGHT WITH BIDEN ADMINISTRATION
Fox News Digital has reached out to DHS for comment. In a statement following the House's vote, DHS spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg said: "House Republicans will be remembered by history for trampling on the Constitution for political gain rather than working to solve the serious challenges at our border. While Secretary Mayorkas was helping a group of Republican and Democratic Senators develop bipartisan solutions to strengthen border security and get needed resources for enforcement, House Republicans have wasted months with this baseless, unconstitutional impeachment.
"Without a shred of evidence or legitimate Constitutional grounds, and despite bipartisan opposition, House Republicans have falsely smeared a dedicated public servant who has spent more than 20 years enforcing our laws and serving our country. Secretary Mayorkas and the Department of Homeland Security will continue working every day to keep Americans safe," Ehrenberg added.
Fox News' Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.
Speaker Mike Johnson finds time for impeachment stunt, but not to help Ukraine
House Speaker Mike Johnson has plenty of excuses for not taking up the Ukraine aid package the Senate passed early this week, saying that he’s just got too many serious issues on his plate to help in the fight for democracy against Russian totalitarianism. He told reporters Wednesday morning that “we have to address this seriously, to actually solve the problems and not just take political posturing as has happened in some of these other corners.”
Yes, he seriously accused Ukraine aid proponents of “political posturing” just hours after he led House Republicans in their second—barely successful—sham impeachment vote of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. By the way, that reporter’s question was spot on. Johnson effectively killed the original Senate bill that included a border security package by saying it would be dead on arrival in the House. Now he complains that the aid bill “has not one word about the border.”
Johnson also insists that he’s too busy figuring out how to avoid a government shutdown on March 1 and that it will take time for his team to “process” the Senate’s package. Guess what’s not on the House schedule this week? That’s right: Any appropriations bills to fund the government ahead of the looming deadline. Again, he was able to carve out more time to impeach Mayorkas and to force the Senate to deal with that just days before the government funding deadline.
The Senate is out until Feb. 26 and is going to have to deal with the Mayorkas impeachment as soon as they return. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer outlined the process in a statement, indicating that the House impeachment managers will “present the articles of impeachment to the Senate” as soon as they’re back in, and “[s]enators will be sworn in as jurors in the trial the next day.”
Which means two days of valuable Senate time will be wasted on this because the Senate will never vote to convict Mayorkas, but they have to deal with it anyway. They’ll dispense with it as quickly as the Senate can do anything, but they need every hour for the long process of passing the bills to keep the government from shutting down.
That process between the House and Senate is going nowhere fast because of all the poison-pill riders about abortion, contraception, and trans issues the House Republicans crammed into their spending bills.
On top of all that, Johnson—who just spent an embarrassing week and a half of floor time impeaching one of Biden’s cabinet members—is now demanding that Biden take him seriously and have a face-to-face meeting with him on the Ukraine bill. A White House spokesperson told NBC that Johnson “needed to wrap the negotiations he has having with himself and stop delaying national security needs in the name of politics.” Biden is not included to help Johnson out of this one.
“That body language says: ‘I know I’m in a tough spot. Please bail me out,’” one Democrat involved with the supplemental aid package told NBC.
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Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas likely won't face the weekslong impeachment trial that former President Donald Trump did just a few years ago.
Trump spent years exploiting immigrants he now claims are ‘poisoning’ our country
Former President Donald Trump used language right from Hitler’s playbook when he claimed that immigrants coming to the U.S. are “poisoning the blood of our country.” What’s particularly scary is just how many Trump supporters embrace his fascistic rhetoric about immigrants. Rolling Stone reported on the results of a University of Massachusetts Amherst poll that found that 35% of Trump’s 2020 voters agree with his dark message about the threat posed by immigrants.
But what they probably don’t realize is the total hypocrisy of Trump’s rhetoric. That’s because for decades, including during Trump’s presidency, his company relied on undocumented workers to fill jobs as housekeepers, waiters, groundskeepers, and stonemasons at his properties, The Washington Post reported.
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The newspaper wrote:
Using them brought a double advantage: Trump could reap the financial benefit of undocumented labor — the ability to pay his employees lower wages and fewer benefits — and the political benefit of attacking it.
The subject of immigration and the border crisis has become the hot button issue for Republicans. House Republicans narrowly impeached Cuban-born Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas Tuesday evening for allegedly failing to enforce immigration laws. But for decades, the Trump Organization ignored the employment eligibility of its workers.
RELATED STORY: House GOP votes to impeach Mayorkas, after failing first attempt
In December 2019, The Washington Post shared that its reporters had spoken with 48 undocumented immigrants who had worked for the Trump Organization at 11 of its properties, including five golf courses in New Jersey and New York and the Mar-a-Lago private club in Florida. Trump has said he was unaware that his properties had hired undocumented workers.
One of the undocumented workers, Sandra Diaz, an immigrant from Costa Rica who used a fake Social Security card to get hired, worked as Trump’s personal housekeeper at his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey. She described her duties to The Washington Post as follows:
Moving quickly through the two-story house in the mornings, Diaz carried out Trump’s fastidious instructions. In his closet, she would hang six sets of identical golf outfits: six white polo shirts, six pairs of beige pants, six neatly ironed pairs of boxer shorts. She would smear a dollop of Trump’s liquid face makeup on the back of her hand to make sure it hadn’t dried out.
In late 2018, Diaz and her successor as Trump’s personal housekeeper at Bedminster, Victorina Morales, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, approached The New York Times through their immigration lawyer to talk about their experiences working at the Trump golf club.
Diaz, who worked at Bedminster from 2010-2013, is now a legal resident of the U.S., the Times reported. Morales was still working at Bedminster when she went public about her immigration status; she no longer works at the club and has filed an application for asylum status.
Morales told the Times that she could no longer keep silent because she felt hurt by Trump’s public comments equating Latin American immigrants with violent criminals and by abusive comments from a supervisor at the golf club about her intelligence and immigration status.
“We are tired of the abuse, the insults, the way he talks about us when he knows that we are here helping him make money,” Morales told The Times. “We sweat it out to attend to his every need and have to put up with his humiliation.”
That led to more reports in The Washington Post and other major news outlets. Here’s an interview the two women gave to NowThis News.
After the women came forward, the Trump Organization began cracking down. It audited employees’ immigration papers and started using the federal E-Verify online system to check documents to confirm employment eligibility for new hires. Dozens of undocumented workers were either fired or quit in the runup to the 2020 election campaign.
In May 2019, CNN interviewed 19 of the undocumented immigrants who had worked at Trump golf clubs in New York and New Jersey:
But after 2020, this story about undocumented workers at Trump properties simply faded away. It’s important to keep Trump’s hypocrisy in the forefront as he has made immigration the major issue of his 2024 presidential campaign and is dehumanizing immigrants with fascistic rhetoric worse than when he ran in 2016.
The New York Times reported that Trump plans to introduce even more draconian immigration laws if elected than he did in his first term, which was marked by such cruel policies as separating children from their parents at the border. Trump’s plans for a second term include: deporting millions of people who don’t have legal status, setting up massive camps along the border to hold people awaiting deportation, a renewed Muslim travel ban, and the end of birthright citizenship.
Todd Schulte, the president of FWD.us, an immigration and criminal justice advocacy group, told The New York Times:
“Americans should understand these policy proposals are an authoritarian, often illegal, agenda that would rip apart nearly every aspect of American life — tanking the economy, violating the basic civil rights of millions of immigrants and native-born Americans alike.”
It’s worth noting that about 200 undocumented Polish construction workers laid the foundation for Trump’s real estate empire when they were hired in 1980 to demolish a department store on Fifth Avenue on the future site of Trump Tower. In August 2016, just months before the presidential election, Time Magazine reported about how the Polish workers were exploited, “putting in 12-hour shifts with inadequate safety equipment at subpar wages that their contractor paid sporadically, if at all.” Trump denied that he knowingly used undocumented workers, instead blaming the contractor. But documents reviewed by Time showed that Trump sought out the Polish workers for the demolition project when he saw them working on another job.
After a protracted legal battle, Trump settled a lawsuit in 1998 regarding the workers over union pension violations, agreeing to pay nearly $1.4 million. Time reported the settlement details in 2017 after going to court to get the records unsealed.
Time reported that in 1990, Daniel Sullivan, a labor consultant and FBI informant hired by Trump in 1980 to deal with the problem of the undocumented Polish workers, told People magazine:
“It was disgusting how he used people,” Sullivan said. “I said, ‘Don’t exploit them like that. Don’t try to f-ck these poor souls over.’ It baffled me then, and it makes me sick even now that he knowingly had these Poles there for the purpose of Trump Tower at starvation wages. He couldn’t give a sh-t because he’s Donald Trump and everybody is here to serve him. Over time he became more and more monstrous and arrogant. I asked myself, ‘How long is it going to take for all of this to catch up with him?'”
It certainly hasn’t so far.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who like other Republican politicians has bowed the knee to Trump, even brought up the issue of Trump’s hiring of undocumented immigrants to work at or construct some of his properties during a February 2016 Republican presidential debate. But that didn’t stop Trump from winning the nomination with his promise to build a wall along the southern border and have Mexico pay for it.
Someone has been poisoning our democracy, and it sure isn’t hard-working immigrants.
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Campaign ActionWATCH LIVE: White House holds briefing as House impeachment of DHS Secretary Mayorkas goes to Senate
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will hold a news briefing on Wednesday as the House impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas heads to a trial in the Senate. The event is scheduled to begin at noon. Please watch in the player above. The U.S. House voted Tuesday to impeach Mayorkas, with the Republican majority determined to punish the Biden administration over its handling of the U.S-Mexico border after failing last week in a...
Mike Pence’s think tank rebuts JD Vance’s ‘impeachment time bomb’ claim in foreign aid package
FIRST ON FOX: Former Vice President Mike Pence's policy think tank, Advancing American Freedom (AAF), sent a memo to senators Wednesday pushing back against Sen. JD Vance's theory that the $95 billion foreign aid package contains an "impeachment" clause for the next administration hidden in its text.
AAF's memo comes after Vance circulated a memo ahead of the national security supplemental package vote Monday arguing the bill includes a provision that could be grounds to impeach former President Donald Trump if he wins the White House again.
The text assures the delivery of $1.6 billion to finance Ukraine's military as well as just under $14 billion for Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative through Sept. 30, 2025 – the same aid mechanism that Trump temporarily paused while pushing for an investigation into Biden family foreign business dealings.
"The president’s duty to faithfully execute the law is written into the Constitution," AAF's memo reads. "It’s not an ‘impeachment time bomb’ created by the foreign aid package."
According to the memo, AAF argues that the Constitution mandates the president to faithfully execute laws, rejecting attempts from lawmakers to interpret this as permission to ignore statutes.
The Impoundment Control Act ensures Congress controls funding, requiring presidential notification and approval for cuts within a 45-day timeframe. Congress wields the power of the purse, the AAF memo states, despite changes in administrations.
SENATOR PAUL ASSERTS UKRAINE AID PACKAGE WOULD 'TIE THE HANDS' OF FUTURE ADMINISTRATIONS
"Congress routinely appropriates funds across presidential terms," the memo reads. "Following the argument to its logical conclusion, all advance appropriations are ‘impeachment time bombs.’"
"The Trump-Pence administration sold weapons to Ukraine that the Obama-Biden administration refused to," the memo continued. "It also countered Putin’s influence by blocking Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which President Biden green-lighted."
Meanwhile, Vance's memo claimed that the supplemental bill "represents an attempt by the foreign policy blob/deep state to stop President Trump from pursuing his desired policy, and if he does so anyways, to provide grounds to impeach him and undermine his administration."
Trump has promised he would end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours if he is elected president.
SEN. VANCE MEMO WARNS GOP COLLEAGUES OF ‘SYSTEMIC FAILURES’ IN US AID TO UKRAINE
The Trump administration, through the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), withheld a total of about $400 million in security assistance from Ukraine in 2019. This came just before Trump asked Ukrainian President Voldomyr Zelenskyy to investigate the family of his 2020 rival, Joe Biden, and while the White House allegedly was withholding an Oval Office visit from Zelenskyy in exchange for an investigation.
These actions are what fueled the impeachment effort against Trump, in which he was ultimately acquitted.
Mark Paoletta, former OMB general counsel during the Trump administration, told Fox News Digital in a statement this week that the clause in the bill text is an "effort to inappropriately tie President Trump’s hands in his next term by locking in Ukraine funding for multiple years."
SENATE PASSES CONTROVERSIAL FOREIGN AID BILL SENDING BILLIONS TO UKRAINE, ISRAEL AND TAIWAN
Last week, AAF praised the bill for its continued assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, but bashed the billions of dollars earmarked for "non-lethal" aid, such as "direct budget support" to Ukraine. It also criticized the bill for not including H.R 2, the House's border security policy passed last year that would crack down on asylum screenings and restore most Trump-era restrictions at the southern border.