Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Bryan Bedford announced Thursday that hundreds of air traffic controllers and technicians who worked during the government shutdown will receive bonus checks.

TheDepartment of Transportation (DOT) said in a statement that 776 air traffic controllers and technicians will be awarded $10,000 for their ‘patriotic work to ensure the safety of the skies during the Democrats’ 44-day government shutdown.’

‘These patriotic men and women never missed a beat and kept the flying public safe throughout the shutdown,’ Duffy said in a statement. ‘Democrats may not care about their financial well-being, but President Trump does.’

The secretary added, ‘This award is an acknowledgment of their dedication and a heartfelt appreciation for going above and beyond in service to the nation.’

DOT said checks would only be sent to workers who maintained perfect attendance during the recent shutdown and that the payments should arrive by Dec. 9, in time for the holidays.

‘I am profoundly proud and grateful for the air traffic personnel who worked during extraordinary operational challenges to keep the National Airspace System (NAS) running safely during the longest government shutdown,’ Bedford said in a statement. ‘Their dedication represents the highest levels of public service.’

The announcement came after President Donald Trump previously floated the idea of rewarding controllers who remained on the job, writing in a post on Truth Social last week, ‘For those Air Traffic Controllers who were GREAT PATRIOTS, and didn’t take ANY TIME OFF for the ‘Democrat Shutdown Hoax,’ I will be recommending a BONUS of $10,000 per person for distinguished service to our Country.’

‘For those that did nothing but complain, and took time off, even though everyone knew they would be paid, IN FULL, shortly into the future, I am NOT HAPPY WITH YOU,’ Trump added.

On Nov. 13, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem handed out $10,000 bonus checks to Transportation Security Administration TSA agents at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport who continued working during the shutdown.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House for comment.

Congressional Republicans are sorting out what their plan to tackle expiring Obamacare subsidies will be, but they acknowledge that, ultimately, President Donald Trump will be the deciding factor. 

Senate Democrats turned the latest record-breaking shutdown into a push to extend the subsidies, which were enhanced during the pandemic under former President Joe Biden and are set to sunset by the end of this year. 

Many Republicans recognize that the subsidies must be dealt with as healthcare premiums begin to skyrocket, but most don’t want to extend them in their current form. 

And both chambers are eyeing different approaches, which could further complicate the path forward to reaching a deal by the end of the year.

In the upper chamber, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has guaranteed Senate Democrats a vote on a proposal of their choice. However, whatever kind of legislation they put on the floor has to be bipartisan, given the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold, in order to pass. 

Whether a plan can be bipartisan is still in the early stages, and a roadblock could be the GOP’s desire to include the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal funds from covering the costs of abortions.   

Thune said the major question was ‘will the Democrats accept applying Hyde to any changes or reforms that might be made?’

‘I mean, I think there’s an openness, because, you know, we’ve got members, and a lot of members, who are very interested in addressing the affordability of healthcare,’ he said. ‘The question is, what’s the best way to do it?’

Senate Republicans have floated proposals since before the shutdown ended, but there is some consensus growing behind taking subsidy money and putting it directly into healthcare savings accounts (HSAs) for Americans — something Trump has backed and was first floated by Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla. 

Scott and Republicans scoffed at Senate Democrats’ proposal to extend the subsidies for one year, and contended doing so would send billions directly to insurance companies. They also want reforms and guardrails like the Hyde Amendment language. 

‘They pay for abortions. Republicans are not going to vote to have taxpayers pay for abortions under their COVID-19 Biden subsidies,’ Scott told Fox News Digital.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., also has his own proposal that would similarly transfer funds directly to the consumer rather than to insurance companies.

Cassidy, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, told Fox News Digital that whichever plan Republicans went with would originate in his committee and from the Senate Finance Committee, where he hoped that ‘we have something which is bipartisan.’ 

He also noted that the Hyde Amendment language is important to Republicans, but that in the end, all roads lead back to Trump. 

‘Anybody looking for something which actually can be signed into law has got to look at the kind of direction that President Trump has given,’ he said. 

In the House of Representatives, meanwhile, multiple top Republicans are eyeing a second ‘big, beautiful bill’ via the budget reconciliation process — this time focused mostly on healthcare.

‘We’ve got a variety of options for affordability, but most importantly, we want to make healthcare affordable,’ Republican Study Committee Chairman August Pfluger, R-Texas, told Fox News Digital of plans for a second reconciliation bill. ‘We want it to be transparent, we want it to be competitive. Not a single Republican voted for any of these provisions over the last 15 years, and yet prices have gone up, so it’s a shame.’

The reconciliation process allows the party in power to change federal budgetary law while completely sidelining the minority, by effectively allowing legislation to bypass the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold in favor of a simple majority.

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md., told Fox News Digital a healthcare-focused reconciliation effort ‘may come to pass.’

‘It depends on whether the Democrats are serious about actually bringing down healthcare premiums for Americans. And I’m not talking about subsidized healthcare premiums, I’m talking about actual healthcare premiums,’ Harris said. ‘If they’re not serious, then it’s going to have to be done through reconciliation.’

Harris also backed the idea of an HSA, telling reporters, ‘It works with the functionality of a debit card. You can go to any provider, and that provider has to give you the most favorable rate.’

A senior House GOP lawmaker also told Fox News Digital that Republicans were in the process of working on legislation specifically aimed at reforming different sectors of the healthcare system.

Tentative plans include reforms on cost-sharing reductions, or CSRs, pharmaceutical reform, and pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) reforms, the lawmaker said.

CSRs are a discount facilitated by the federal government, written under Obamacare, which help lower how much people pay for deductibles and copayments.

PBMs, meanwhile, act as intermediaries between drug companies and insurers — a system critics have said chiefly serves to inflate the cost of prescription drugs for consumers.

But another House Republican who spoke on the condition of anonymity was skeptical that the GOP could pass another reconciliation bill after the long and politically precarious process of Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill.’

‘I don’t even see close to the votes for another reconciliation,’ the second GOP lawmaker said. ‘I think some of us are a little snake-bit on where the money that was supposed to go places, isn’t going where it’s supposed to go.’

Senate Republicans and Democrats squared off on the Senate floor Thursday, blocking attempt after attempt to repeal or change a controversial law that would allow senators to sue for hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money.

The partisan back-and-forth came as lawmakers in the upper chamber were jetting from Washington, D.C., for the upcoming Thanksgiving recess. 

Two different attempts to fast-track a repeal or tweak of the law that would allow senators targeted in the Biden-led Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Arctic Frost probe to sue the federal government for $500,000 were shut down. 

The provision, ‘Requiring Senate Notification for Senate Data,’ was tucked away in the government funding package designed to reopen the government and signed into law by President Donald Trump last week.

There has been growing bipartisan fury over the law, varying from anger that it would allow lawmakers to possibly enrich themselves with taxpayer money, that it was included at the last minute in the package to reopen the government and the retroactive nature of the provision. There have also been numerous calls to have it repealed. The House unanimously passed legislation Wednesday night to do just that. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., offered a resolution that would clarify that any monetary damages won in a lawsuit against the government would not go toward personal enrichment for a senator, but would instead be forfeited to the U.S. Treasury, still maintaining the core idea of the law to act as a deterrent from the DOJ subpoenaing records from senators without notifying them. 

‘Just to be clear, no personal enrichment, accountability,’ Thune said on the Senate floor. ‘And I think protection for the Article 1 branch of our government, which, in my view, based on what we saw and what we’re seeing as the facts continue to come into the Arctic Frost investigation, there was clearly a violation of the law and a law that needs to be strengthened and clarified so those protections are in place for future members of the United States Senate.’

But his attempt was swiftly blocked by Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich.

‘I’m not saying there was anything nefarious, but it got in there. It clearly is wrong,’ he said. ‘Anybody who looks at the face of it knows it’s wrong. That’s why the House voted unanimously, and that’s why I hope at some point we can do the right thing and fix this.’

Thune, after requests from some in the Senate GOP, included the provision in the legislative branch appropriations bill as lawmakers were hammering out the final details of the bipartisan package to reopen the government.

He was given the green light by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who argued that he wanted to give Democratic senators protections from the DOJ under the Trump administration. Still, he wanted to see the provision repealed after the fact. 

Thune’s move to tweak the bill followed a similar fast-track request from Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., who wanted to force a vote on the House’s bill to completely repeal the law. 

Heinrich, who is the top Democrat on the legislative branch appropriations subcommittee, charged that the provision was airdropped into the bill ‘at the last minute’ by Senate Republicans and would allow Senate Republicans targeted in former special counsel Jack Smith in his Arctic Frost probe to sue for ‘millions of dollars from the U.S. government.’

‘That means that each senator could actually pocket millions of dollars, and that money would be paid from your hard-earned tax dollars,’ he said. ‘And that’s even though the law was followed by the government at the time. And it’s, frankly, this is just outrageous to me.’

But some in the Senate GOP, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas., don’t want to see the law repealed.

And Graham was on the Senate floor to block Heinrich’s move. 

He argued that his phone records were not lawfully obtained, and that he wouldn’t let ‘the Democratic Party decide my fate. We’re going to let a judge decide my fate.’

‘This is really outrageous,’ Graham said. ‘You want to use that word? I am really outraged that my private cellphone and my official phone were subpoenaed without cause. That a judge would suggest that I would destroy evidence or tamper with witnesses if I were told about what was going on.

‘I’m going to sue,’ he continued. ‘I want to let you know I’m going to sue Biden’s DOJ and Jack Smith. I’m going to sue Verizon, and it’s going to be a hell of a lot more than $500,000.’

The conservative movement has found itself in a season of confusion in recent weeks. Former friends quarrel, familiar institutions are in turmoil, and some voices, both new and old, on the right have begun to wonder aloud whether the United States should still stand with Israel. 

That question deserves a resolute answer, and the answer is this: for our security, for democracy in the Middle East and for the very destiny of our nation, America must stand with Israel.

Americans should always be open to debate how we spend our money abroad and whether our foreign policy truly serves national interest. The rising generation in particular demands rigorous answers beyond empty platitudes.  

But lately, it seems that something deeper, something darker, has driven those questions. After decades of conflict in the Middle East, some are tempted to embrace isolationism, to treat moral clarity as naïveté, and to spurn our allies as unwanted burdens under the strain of massive national debt. For others, it is nothing more than antisemitism.  

The acceptance of antisemitic voices on the left and the right, from the halls of Congress to social media, represents a vile and dangerous trend in American politics, and it must be forcefully opposed wherever it appears. There is no place in the conservative movement for antisemitism.

For nearly 80 years, the bond between the United States and Israel has been more than a diplomatic arrangement. It has been a covenant of free peoples who share the same ideals: faith in God, belief in human dignity and gratitude for the blessings of liberty. Israel’s survival has never depended on our charity; it has depended on our partnership, and that partnership has made America safer and paid dividends. 

Centuries before the founding of modern Israel, our Founding Fathers championed the return of the Jewish people to Israel and made special provision for the Jewish faith in America. George Washington assured Jewish Americans that the fledgling United States ‘gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.’ John Adams supported ‘the Jews again in Judea’ as ‘an independent nation.’ Elias Boudinot, the president of the American Revolution’s Congress, boldly suggested that ‘God has raised up these United States… for the very purpose of… bringing his beloved people to their own land.’ Even the famously thrifty Benjamin Franklin once opened his coffers to help a local Philadelphia synagogue weather financial difficulty.  

But the case for Israel is far more than historic.

Today, Israel stands as an oasis of democracy in a Middle East where dozens of its neighbors are Islamic states or still practice monarchy. It is a cruel irony that, in a world of 46 majority-Muslim nations, the presence of a single majority-Jewish nation is seen by many of Israel’s neighbors as one too many. Thirty-one countries still refuse to recognize Israel on their maps. Some of those would love nothing less than to see Israel wiped off the map altogether. And yet Israel persists.  

Thanks to Israel’s courage and the decisive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities by the United States, we no longer live under a nuclear sword of Damocles wielded by a regime that chants ‘Death to America.’ From the Stuxnet cyber operation that crippled Iran’s enrichment program, to Israel’s assistance with U.S. airstrikes, and to many heroic covert operations, Israel has repeatedly helped delay Tehran’s progress toward obtaining nuclear weapons. Those actions protected not only Jerusalem and Tel Aviv – they protected Washington, New York and every American city within reach of Iran’s hatred. 

That may not matter much to a segment of the New Right that confuses isolation for safety. But the rest of us know better. We understand what it would mean if the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism ever possessed nuclear weapons.  When Israel takes the fight to Iran’s terror network proxies like Hezbollah, Hamas and the Revolutionary Guard, it is not merely doing our bidding; it is doing what conscience and common sense require. It stands between civilization and chaos. Israel’s cause is our cause.  

When Israel succeeds, as it did in 2024 by decapitating Hezbollah’s leadership in a precision pager-bombing campaign, America is safer. The practical case for our alliance is clear.

Centuries before the founding of modern Israel, our Founding Fathers championed the return of the Jewish people to Israel and made special provision for the Jewish faith in America.

But the heart of American support is still a matter of shared values and faith. We stand with Israel because we believe in right over wrong, in good over evil, and in liberty over tyranny. Israel must be empowered to finish the fight against those who would harm her, terrorists who hide behind women, children, hospitals and holy places as they launch rockets indiscriminately into Israel. Peace and justice, within Gaza and without, require that Hamas be destroyed. 

In the end, Americans have always supported Israel because the very existence of this enduring nation bears witness to God’s faithfulness. And the support of millions of Americans throughout the generations has been built upon the ancient words recorded in Genesis where God promises to ‘bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse, and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.’

For 250 years, America has been blessed like no other country in history. As we prepare to celebrate our blessings as a nation, I believe we must never forsake that promise or our cherished ally. If the world knows nothing else, let the world know this: America stands with Israel. 

The chair of the House Republican campaign arm says the Democrats’ sweeping victories in this month’s 2025 elections are a ‘wake-up call’ for GOP voters.

And Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, who’s chairing the National Republican Congressional Committee for a second straight election cycle, said in an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital that he wants President Donald Trump ‘out there on the trail’ in next year’s midterm elections, when the party defends its razor-thin House majority.

Democrats won the only two races for governor this year, in New Jersey and Virginia, by double digits, and also scored big wins in ballot box showdowns in battlegrounds Georgia and Pennsylvania and left-tilting New York City and California.

Plenty of Republicans have discounted the Democrats’ high-profile victories, since they mostly occurred in blue-leaning states, since they mostly occurred in blue-leaning states.

Hudson noted the top elections took place in ‘Democrat states,’ but added, ‘I think our big takeaway as Republicans is the Democrats were energized. They turned out at record levels. Republicans turned out in normal levels.’

‘I think there’s a wake-up call there to conservatives and Republicans who are happy with the direction of the country. They’re glad President Trump’s back in the White House. But if they want to keep this momentum going, they’ve got to show up and vote,’ he emphasized.

Many of Trump’s MAGA supporters are considered low-propensity voters, who head to the polls only when Trump is on the ballot. But Trump won’t be on the ballot in the 2026 midterms.

Hudson, who noted that ‘House Republicans are very closely aligned with President Trump, and we’re supporting his agenda,’ said that ‘we want him out there on the trail, campaigning with our candidates. I think he brings a lot of energy.’

Pointing to ‘a lot of folks who don’t vote when he’s not on the ballot,’ Hudson said, ‘I don’t need all of them to show up, but I need some of them. And so having President Trump out there will be a big benefit for us.’

Those requests for the MAGA motivator are already coming in to the president’s political team.

Matt Van Epps, the Republican nominee in next month’s special congressional election for a vacant GOP-held House seat in Tennessee, has asked for Trump to campaign in person with him ahead of the Dec. 2 election.

Democrats were laser-focused on affordability on the 2025 campaign trail.

Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said his party’s candidates met ‘voters at the kitchen table. . . . From New Jersey and Virginia and New York, to Georgia and beyond, Democrats ran campaigns relentlessly focused on costs and affordability.’

And Martin emphasized the 2025 elections were a preview of things to come in next year’s midterms.

‘In ‘26, we’ll do it again. We’ll run a National Coordinated Campaign to win races up and down the ballot to provide a check on the out-of-control Trump administration and its Republican rubber stamps,’ he argued.

Hudson, pointing to former President Joe Biden, said ‘there are challenges out there with the economy, because Biden broke it, and House Republicans, working with President Trump, are going to fix it, and we’re working very hard to do that. ‘

‘Certainly, we could always improve the way we communicate with our voters about it,’ he added. ‘But we are laser focused on the issues that matter to them. You know, it’s the cost of things, it’s the security in their neighborhood, it’s a secure border. We are very focused on that, and we’ve delivered a lot of things that are going to make their lives better.’

And looking ahead to next year, he added, ‘come tax season, a lot of families are going to be really happy to see they’ve got a lot more take-home pay, and that’s because of Donald Trump and House Republicans.’

Hudson, in step with fellow Republicans, aimed to link Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a socialist who pushed a far-left platform on the campaign trail this year, to House Democrats who may face challenging re-elections next year.

‘The entire Democrat Party has shifted to the left. This is Mamdani’s party now,’ Hudson charged. ‘And every single House Democrat needs to answer for his policies, and they need to let their constituents know, do they stand with Mamdani or not?’

The power in power, which nowadays is clearly the Republicans, traditionally faces political headwinds in the midterm elections.

And Hudson was interviewed as two new national polls indicated Democrats with the upper hand in the 2026 battle for the House majority.

But Hudson said: ‘The only number I’m concerned about is three. We have three Republicans in seats Kamala Harris carried.’

And he highlighted that Democrats have ‘thirteen sitting in seats Donald Trump won. They’ve got 21 more sitting in seats that Donald Trump barely lost. So there, there are only a few seats up for grabs this time, most of them are Democrat seats.’