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 There have also been numerous calls to have it repealed.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 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.’

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 Senate is once again finding a moment of bipartisan unity in its fury over a recently-passed law that would allow lawmakers to sue the federal government and reap hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money as a reward.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle continue to grapple with the inclusion of a provision in a package designed to reopen the government that would allow only senators directly targeted by the Biden-led Department of Justice (DOJ) and former special counsel Jack Smith’s Arctic Frost investigation to sue the U.S. government for up to $500,000.

Both Senate Republicans’ and Democrats’ ire at the provision is multi-pronged: some are angry that it was tucked away into the Legislative branch spending bill without a heads-up, others see it as nothing more than a quick pay day for the relatively small group of senators targeted in Smith’s probe.

‘I think it was outrageous that that was put in and air dropped in there,’ Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., told Fox News Digital. ‘It’s outrageous. It’s basically just a cash grab for senators to take money away from taxpayers. It’s absolutely outrageous, and needs to be taken out.’

The provision was included in the spending package by Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., on request from lawmakers in the GOP. And it was given the green light by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

The provision is narrowly tailored to just include senators, and would require that they be notified if their information is requested by the DOJ, be it through the subpoena of phone records like in the Arctic Frost investigation or through other means. The idea is to prevent the abuse of the DOJ to go after sitting senators now and in the future.

Thune pushed back on the notion that lawmakers weren’t aware the provision was in the bill, given that the entire package was released roughly 24 hours before it was voted on, but acknowledged their frustration over how it was added was warranted.

‘I think I take that as a legitimate criticism in terms of the process, but I think on the substance, I believe that you need to have some sort of accountability and consequence for that kind of weaponization against a co-equal branch of the government,’ Thune said.

Schumer, when asked about the anger brewing on both sides of the aisle, heaped the blame on Thune, but noted that it was an opportunity to get protection for Democrats, too.

‘Look, the bottom line is Thune wanted the provision, and we wanted to make sure that at least Democratic senators were protected from [Attorney General Pam] Bondi and others who might go after them,’ Schumer said. ‘So we made it go prospective, not just retroactive, but I’d be for repealing all the provision, all of it. And I hope that happens.’

The House is expected to vote on legislation that would repeal the language, and many in the upper chamber want to get the chance to erase the provision should it pass through the House. Whether Thune will put it on the floor remains in the air though.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., was one of the eight senators whose records were requested during Smith’s probe. He told Fox News Digital that he was neither asked about the provision, nor told about it, and like many other lawmakers, found out about it when he read the bill.

‘I just think that, you know, giving them money –- I mean making a taxpayer pay for it, I don’t understand why that’s accountability,’ he said. ‘I mean, the people who need to be held accountable are the people who made the decisions to do this, and, frankly, also the telecom companies. So I just, I don’t agree with that approach.’

He also took issue with the fact that the provision was narrowly tailored to only apply to the Senate, and argued that it could be reworked to only provide for declaratory judgement in court rather than a monetary one.

‘I could see the value of having a court say this was illegal and ruling against the government,’ Hawley said. ‘I think it’s the monetary provisions that most people, including me, really balk at. Like, why are the taxpayers on the hook for this, and why does it apply only to the Senate?’

The provision set a retroactive date of 2022 to allow for the group of senators targeted in Smith’s Arctic Frost probe to be able to sue. That element has also raised eyebrows on both sides of the aisle.

Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., told Fox News Digital that he supported repealing the provision, but wanted to fix it.

‘The best way to be able to handle it, I think, is to be able to fix it, take away the retroactivity in it,’ he said. ‘The initial target of this whole thing was to make sure this never happened again.’

Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., told Fox News Digital that the provision was a ‘total mess,’ and raised concerns on a bipartisan basis.

Not every Senator was on board with ditching the provision, however.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., made clear that he intends to sue the DOJ and Verizon, his phone carrier, and argued that he didn’t believe that the provision was self-dealing but rather to deter future, similar actions. He also wants to take the provision, or the core idea of it, a step further.

Graham said that he wanted to open up the process to others, including dozens of groups, former lawmakers and others affected by the investigation.

‘Is it wrong for any American to sue the government if they violated your rights, including me? Is it wrong if a Post Office truck hits you, what do you do with the money? You do whatever you want to do with the money,’ Graham said.

‘If you’ve been wronged, this idea that our government can’t be sued is a dangerous idea,’ he continued. ‘The government needs to be held accountable when it violates people’s rights.’

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tx., was far more succinct. When asked if he would support a repeal of the provision, he told Fox News Digital, ‘No.’

A U.S. citizen jailed in Saudi Arabia for criticizing the royal family online was freed Wednesday by Saudi authorities, ending a four-year ordeal in the country, according to media reports.

Saad Almadi’s release came just a day after President Donald Trump met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Washington, D.C., per the New York Post.

Almadi, 75, a retired engineer and U.S. resident since 1976, was detained in 2021 during a family visit to Riyadh and later sentenced to more than 19 years in prison on terrorism charges tied to a series of posts online.

The charges were reduced to cyber crimes, and although he was released from prison in 2023, Almadi was held in the country under an exit ban which prevented him from going back home to the U.S.

The Almadi family issued a statement Wednesday celebrating the good news and thanking Trump.

‘Our family is overjoyed that, after four long years, our father, Saad Almadi, is finally on his way home to the United States!’ they said.

‘This day would not have been possible without President Donald Trump and the tireless efforts of his administration. We are deeply grateful to Dr. Sebastian Gorka and the team at the National Security Council, as well as everyone at the State Department.’

A third portion of the statement expressed appreciation to others who had supported the case over the years.

‘We extend our thanks to the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh for keeping our father safe, and to the nonprofit organizations and members of Congress who fought for his freedom,’ the statement read.

Almadi’s case also drew attention from human rights groups and U.S. lawmakers after he was accused of terrorism over 14 social media posts.

One suggested that a street in Washington be renamed after Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018.

U.S. pressure to lift Almadi’s exit ban had also intensified since Trump’s May visit to Saudi Arabia.

The president’s national security advisor, Sebastian Gorka, also met with Almadi’s son at the White House.

The Foley Foundation, which advocates for Americans detained overseas, praised the news Wednesday, saying it was ‘so excited’ the family’s fight had finally succeeded.

Per reports, Almadi was flying to the U.S. from Riyadh on Wednesday, according to his family, after Trump and the crown prince set foot on stage at a forum in Washington.

Fox News Digital has reached out to Sebastian Gorka, the Department of State and The White House for comment.

The House of Representatives unanimously voted against a provision that allows Republican senators whose phone records were seized by former Special Counsel Jack Smith to sue the federal government.

The provision was included in the recently passed bill to end the 43-day government shutdown, which President Donald Trump signed into law last week.

Despite supporters saying the provision is necessary to give senators recourse when the executive branch oversteps its constitutional bounds and reaches into congressional communications, the last-minute inclusion of the measure outraged both Republicans and Democrats, underscoring the ever-present tensions between the House and Senate.

The repeal passed 426 to 0, with 210 Democrats and 216 Republicans in the tally.

Dubbed ‘Requiring Senate Notification for Senate Data,’ the provision would allow senators directly targeted in former special counsel Jack Smith’s Arctic Frost investigation to sue the U.S. government for up to $500,000.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., who was involved in crafting part of the successful funding deal, told Fox News Digital he had even been afraid it could derail the final vote to end the shutdown.

‘It had been added in the Senate without our knowledge,’ Cole said. ‘It was a real trust factor … I mean, all of a sudden, this pops up in the bill, and we’re confronted with either: leave this in here, or we pull it out, we have to go to conference, and the government doesn’t get reopened.’

It was placed into the bill by Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and given the green light by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., sources confirmed to Fox News Digital last week.

Thune put the provision into the bill at the request of members of the Senate GOP, a source familiar with the negotiations told Fox News Digital, which included Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. 

It was a big point of contention when the House Rules Committee met to prepare the legislation for a final vote last Tuesday night. Reps. Chip Roy, R-Texas, Austin Scott, R-Ga., and Morgan Griffith, R-Va., all shared House Democrats’ frustration with the measure, but they made clear it would not stand in the way of ending what had become the longest shutdown in history.

Even Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., appeared blindsided by the move.

‘I had no prior notice of it at all,’ Johnson told reporters last week. ‘I was frustrated, as my colleagues are over here, and I thought it was untimely and inappropriate. So we’ll be requesting, strongly urging, our Senate colleagues to repeal that.’

Those Republicans agreed with the motivations behind their Senate counterparts wanting to sue but bristled over the notion that it would come at the expense of U.S. taxpayers.

Rep. John Rose, R-Tenn., told Fox News Digital the senators ‘have been wronged, no doubt in my mind’ but added its scope was too narrow.

‘This provision does not allow other Americans to pursue a remedy. It does not even allow the President of the United States, who was equally wrongfully surveilled and pursued by the Justice Department — they didn’t even include President Trump in this,’ Rose said.

And while several senators who would be eligible for the taxpayer-funded lawsuits have distanced themselves from the issue amid uproar, others have stuck to their guns.

‘My phone records were seized. I’m not going to put up with this crap. I’m going to sue,’ Graham said on ‘Hannity’ Tuesday night. He said he would be seeking ‘tens of millions of dollars.’

Cruz also told Fox News Digital that he did not support repealing the provision.

And Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., defended the provision in comments to Politico. 

‘I’d like for us to be able to defend our branch when DOJ gets out of control,’ he said.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., similarly suggested to reporters on Wednesday that he was in favor of the measure.

‘I would just say, I mean, you have an independent, co-equal branch of government whose members were, through illegal means, having their phone records acquired — spied on, if you will, through a weaponized Biden Justice Department,’ Thune said. ‘That, to me, demands some accountability.’

He added, ‘I think that in the end, this is something that all members of Congress, both House and Senate, are probably going to want as a protection, and we were thinking about the institution of the Senate and individual senators going into the future.’