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Reporter’s Notebook: Alcohol, not coffee
Republicans control the House and Senate.
But characterizing it as the «Republican Congress» doesn’t do justice to the present circumstances.
This truly is «President Trump’s Congress.»
The president’s relationship with Republican lawmakers is light-years away from the fraught, shotgun marriage of 2017 after he unexpectedly captured the White House. Republicans on Capitol Hill didn’t know what to do with him.
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Former national security advisor Mike Waltz (Saul Loeb/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
Congressional Republicans «didn’t read the tweets.» They snickered behind his back. They chortled at what they believed were untenable ideas emanating from the White House.
And Trump also didn’t know what to do with congressional Republicans, either.
He and then-House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., formed the Odd Couple of politics.
But Trump’s relationship with then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was even worse.
So they focused on areas of agreement. Congressional Republicans viewed the Trump presidency as a means to an end. They saw an opportunity to pass some of their legislative priorities.
REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK: WHERE WE STAND WITH TRUMP’S ‘BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’
President Donald Trump and outgoing Sen. Mitch McConnell have a contentious relationship. (AP Photo; Reuters)
McConnell muscled three of President Trump’s Supreme Court nominees to confirmation, altering the contours of the high court for a generation. Ryan bored deeply into his area of expertise: tax policy. By Christmas 2017, the Republican-led Congress approved the vaunted «Trump tax cuts.»
But they stumbled early on repealing and replacing ObamaCare.
«I will not sugarcoat this. This is a disappointing day for us,» said Ryan when he had to yank an initial plan to end ObamaCare off the floor in the spring of 2017.
The House finally approved a revamped repeal and replace package more than a month later. But the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., torpedoed the effort with his vote against the plan later that summer.
But things are different this time around between Trump and congressional Republicans.
«He’s still the biggest dog in the pound,» said Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn.
Rep. Tim Burchett speaks to reporters upon arrival at a House Republican Conference meeting on Nov. 14, 2023, in Washington. (Anna Rose Layden/Getty Images)
So now congressional Republicans are teaming with the president to pass his «big, beautiful bill.»
«We are on track to pass the bill out of the House – as we’ve said from the very beginning – and get it over to the next stage by Memorial Day,» said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.
But that doesn’t mean there isn’t GOP skepticism.
«Seems like that’s a pretty tight timeframe,» said Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., of Johnson’s aspirations. «I’m not aware of any consensus, even within one of the bodies. Let alone a bicameral consensus.»
«A July 4 timeframe will be optimistic,» said Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla. «If we can get this done by the end of July, I would count that as a win.»
But deep divides cleave Republicans.
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U.S. Capitol at sunset on Jan. 30, 2025. (Fox News Digital)
«I don’t think we’re on the same page even inside the House, much less in the House and the Senate,» said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas.
Roy questioned what was so magical about finishing the bill by «Memorial Day» or «Independence Day.»
«Christmas? Easter? Memorial Day? July 4th? Does that have anything to do with policy? Hell no. It has to do with what? Jet fumes! People leaving town, right?» argued Roy. «Every single policy, as long as I can remember, is based on that more than it is on policy.»
But some Republicans aren’t convinced Congress is moving fast enough.
President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Feb. 26, 2025. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, relayed what he heard from constituents in Ohio.
«People were like, «What’s taking so long?’ They don’t think it’s rushed by any means. They’re like, ‘Where’s the bill?’» said Davidson. «If we don’t get this by mid-June, I think people back home are going to go ‘What are you guys doing?’»
This is why Democrats say Republicans are fretting privately.
«They’re clearly conflicted about Medicaid cuts,» said Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va. «They’re conflicted about raising the debt ceiling just with Republican votes. They’ve traditionally wanted to get Democratic votes for that and not do it all on their own. But if they do it in the reconciliation bill, they’re going to have to do it all on their own.»
And Republicans are starting to get nervous about the success or failure of the bill. The president – and most congressional Republicans – have banked their entire political calculus on this gambit.
«It’s a job for alcohol. Not coffee,» said Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., noting the anxiety now permeating congressional Republicans. «Some of them would make a Valium nervous.»
Kennedy contends he’s not worrying. But says that even after another two months of hand-wringing, the Senate «won’t reach consensus. Nor will the House.»
But who will forge common ground?
«The president is going to have to be the arbiter because he’s going to put his muscle behind this to sell it,» observed Kennedy.
The sides are much more in sync. But this bill is such a behemoth that 53 Senate Republicans and 220 House GOPers won’t be able to sort this out on their own. They will look to the president to solve this.
«What do you think is the difference between Republicans and how they responded to President Trump during his first term? And what you see now?» yours truly asked Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
«I think they are much more afraid of him now. He’s done much more in terms of threatening them in both privately and even publicly,» replied Schumer. «They don’t know what to do. They’re between a rock and a hard place. On the one side, Trump threatens. On the other side, there are the American people who hate what Trump is proposing.»
I posed a similar interrogative to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
«Can you characterize the difference in the response from congressional Republicans to President Trump this time around, compared to 2017? They seemed a little skeptical of him in 2017. That’s not the case now,» I observed.
«We all watched what happened in November and the mandate he got from the American people. It was clear. It was decisive,» said Thune. «A lot of us who served with him in the last term also saw the effects and the results of a lot of the decisions that he made with respect to policy. And they were the right ones. And in the end, he was proven right when it came to the economy, the border and national security.»
The point is that Trump enjoys a very different Congress compared to the one he tangled with in 2017. It’s Trump’s Congress now. GOPers will generally do what he asks. But when it comes to the tax cut and spending package, Trump must ultimately make the decisions on specific items he wants in the legislation. The question is whether the president will eventually rule things in or out. Trump’s Congress will respond to that.
President Donald Trump delivers remarks at his Michigan rally commemorating the first 100 days of his second term. (Getty Images)
«He has been clear to all of the members that this is critical for him. He wants his one big, beautiful bill,» said House Republican Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain, R-Mich., on Fox. «I wouldn’t want be the one that stands in the way of the president on his agenda.»
But this won’t be easy. Expect a challenging few months.
Kennedy may be right. This is one for alcohol. Not coffee. Grab a dram of the Glenlivet and Lagavulin. Shelve the Starbucks and Nescafe.
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That is, unless the tariffs spiked the price of liquor and coffee too much.
If that’s the case, just drink water.
Congress,House Of Representatives,Senate,Politics
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House Dem’s graphic chicken decapitation ‘horrified’ her college roommates: ‘Blood went everywhere’
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FIRST ON FOX: College roommates of Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash., who is now 37-years-old, said they were «horrified» after the now-Democrat member of Congress up for reelection this year allegedly «serrated» a chicken’s head off with «a dull kitchen knife» while they lived together.
The incident allegedly stemmed from the vulnerable Democratic congresswoman and her roommates engaging in the practice of «urban farming,» a practice that is quite popular in Portland, where they went to a small private school called Reed College.
Gluesenkamp Perez’s former roommate and others connected to her from their time at Reed College, recounted the incident when they were all trying to research ways to humanely kill the chicken, but Glusenkamp Perez allegedly thought everyone was being «f—ing pu–ies,» so she «grabbed» the chicken and began «grinding [the chicken] down with a dull knife» leading the animal to begin «gasping for air with no lungs to suck it in.»
«Then she held up the body as it spazzed out and blood went everywhere like some crazy Santeria voodoo ritual,» recalled her former roommate, Isaac Eger, while attending Reed, who also wrote about his house’s «epic fail» at urban farming back in 2014.
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Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Eger, who hosts the podcast that brought together folks from Gluesenkamp Perez’s past for an episode a few weeks ago, refused to speak with Fox News Digital or provide any comments on, or to clarify events from, his time living with the Washington State congresswoman. He did imply to Fox News Digital that his podcast is a joke, and said that if he had to clarify any part of it, that would extinguish the comedic value.
«Marie bravely was like, ‘Ill dispatch of this chicken,’» Eger recounted on the podcast episode subscribers must pay to listen to titled «Absolutely Sweet Marie Gluesenkamp Perez.»
«Dude, I will never forget, like, frantically YouTubing how to humanely kill a chicken and Marie was just like, ‘You f—ing pussies, like, you’re on YouTube?’ It was, like, you and I on a computer, like, trying to figure this out and she just grabbed it and started swinging it around,» added Sam.
«That’s not at all what happened,» Eger interjected. «She didn’t just ‘chop it.’ She took a dull kitchen knife and tried to serrate[ly] cut … she was grinding this thing down with a dull knife and I remember you were horrified. It was really bad. And we saw, like, the chicken’s, like, decapitated head just, like, gasping for air with no lungs to suck it in, and then she held up the body as it spazzed out and blood went everywhere like some crazy Santeria voodoo ritual.»
While Sam contested the serrating, he affirmed the knife was quite dull and said «for sure» after Eger began to describe the scene of the chicken’s blood spurting everywhere.
«For sure, for sure. Everyone knows that you can run around like a chicken with your head cut off, but what that saying leaves out is what happens to the head without the body and it’s, like, also still completely functioning for a second,» Sam continued as Eger laughed.
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Eger went on to point out what he felt the incident symbolized, particularly as it related to his old college roommate’s time as an elected member of U.S. Congress.
He said that while part of him «respected» Gluesenkamp Perez «for her bravery» and her pro-activeness in killing the chicken, he also chided the inhumane nature in which she killed the chicken and said it represented the large amount of «hubris» the now-congresswoman had even as a college student at a small private liberal arts school.
Rep. Emily Randall, D-Wash., accepts the «The Chick» painting from Rep. Michael Baumgartner, R-Wash., left, as members of the Washington State delegation look on, in Longworth building on Friday, January 9, 2026. The painting goes to the newest member of the delegation every new Congress. Pictured in the background are, from left, Reps. Baumgartner, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash., Marilyn Strickland, D-Wash., Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., Kim Schrier, D-Wash., and Rick Larsen, D-Wash. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
«I think Marie is a very proud and she’s an incredibly stubborn person who I think has unbelievable confidence in herself,» Eger said during the podcast episode, which was entirely focused around the congresswoman and their history with her in college.
«I think [that] is what it takes to become a f—ing congressperson,» Eger said.
«I think we are finding a thread here, yeah,» added Sam. «I think also, like, being like, ‘F–k the consequences. I’m just going to go, like, being head– being headstrong.’ And just, like, ‘I’m going to take care of this. Like, and this might be a really bad idea, but here I am. It’s already done. It’s already happening.»
During the Jan. 29 podcast episode, Eger, Boguslaw, who also declined to speak to Fox News Digital, and Sam also recounted their time living with Gluesenkamp Perez and her bunny she brought with her at the time named «Meatball.» According to the crews of former Reed College students, Gluesenkamp Perez would breed Meatball and then eat its kids.
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«A friend of mine said that when he came back to the house once, she started a rabbit-eating cult,» Eger said during the podcast. He and Boguslaw recalled how «absent-minded» Gluesenkamp Perez was when it came to their «urban farming venture,» describing how they would often have to take care of her animals for her less they would perish.
«Did you go with her to breed her rabbit and we watched them, like, smash the rabbit against the wall?» Eger asked Sam during the podcast episode.
«Meatball? Hell yeah,» Sam responded.
Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Democrat from Washington, reads a document on the steps of the US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, on Saturday, Sept. 30, 2023. (Anna Rose Layden/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Eger also took shots at the congresswoman he used to room with, describing her as a carpetbagger and accusing her of «cosplaying as a poor person» during college and still today even though he believed she was likely having college paid for by her parents, arguing she could not have been eligible for financial aid.
«Her parents are wealthy. Because if you can afford – and she’s one of four kids – if you can afford to pay for a $40,000 a year college, so that doesn’t include like the other, like at least $10,000 dollars a year in living expenses, you’re wealthy,» Eger argued during his podcast. «That means she wouldn’t have qualified for financial aid. Now, what she says in order – this is part of her lore, she’s definitely cosplaying as a poor person.»
«Which never happened at Reed. As far as I’m concerned,» Boguslaw said back sarcastically with a laugh.
Eger also charged Gluesenkamp Perez with lying about being a fifth generation Washingtonian during his 2-hour-long podcast episode, alleging she is actually originally from Houston.
«She grew up in Houston, Texas. Her father was Mexican, born in Mexico, where her mother, who is from Washington, met him,» Eger said. «She brought him over the border, and then Marie’s kind of an anchor baby.»
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Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash., walks up the steps of the U.S. Capitol. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Gluesenkamp Perez is the member of Congress representing Washington’s 3rd Congressional District, which covers the southwest portion of the state, including the Vancouver and Portland-area suburbs around Clark County.
She was first elected to Congress in 2022 and then was reelected in 2024. Gluesenkamp Perez has significantly out-raised all of her competitors, with almost $2.5 million cash-on-hand, according to Ballotpedia.
Her nearest competitor is Republican John Braun, a member of the Washington State Senate, who has a little over $700,000 cash-on-hand, per Ballotpedia.
Gluesenkamp Perez, nor any of her representatives, responded to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on this story.
democrats,washington,democrats elections,midterm elections,politics
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Luego de bombardear Ucrania con 400 drones, Rusia dijo que no espera avances rápidos en el diálogo de Ginebra
El Kremlin advirtió el martes que no espera resultados el primer día de las conversaciones de paz en Ginebra, horas después de que Rusia lanzara casi 400 drones y 29 misiles contra Ucrania en un ataque que dejó al menos tres muertos, nueve heridos y a decenas de miles de personas sin calefacción ni agua.
“No creo que debamos esperar noticias hoy, ya que está previsto que los trabajos continúen mañana”, declaró el portavoz del Kremlin, Dmitri Peskov, en rueda de prensa, descartando cualquier anuncio relevante para la jornada.
El bombardeo nocturno apuntó al sistema energético ucraniano en 12 regiones. Tres trabajadores energéticos murieron cerca de la ciudad industrial de Sloviansk cuando un dron ruso atacó el vehículo en que se transportaban. En Odesa, ciudad portuaria del sur, decenas de miles de residentes quedaron sin calefacción ni agua potable.
“Fue un ataque combinado, calculado deliberadamente para causar el mayor daño posible a nuestro sector energético”, escribió el presidente ucraniano Volodimir Zelensky en redes sociales.
Las defensas aéreas ucranianas lograron derribar 24 de los 25 misiles de crucero y 367 de los aproximadamente 396 drones lanzados, según la Fuerza Aérea de Ucrania. Los cuatro misiles balísticos Iskander-M no pudieron ser interceptados.
Pese al ataque, las delegaciones de Moscú y Kiev llegaron a Ginebra para la tercera ronda de negociaciones tripartitas mediadas por Estados Unidos, que se extenderá durante dos días. El enviado del presidente Donald Trump, Steve Witkoff, y el yerno presidencial Jared Kushner participarán en los encuentros, junto al general Alexus Grynkewich, comandante de las fuerzas estadounidenses y de la OTAN en Europa.
Las expectativas de avance, sin embargo, son bajas. Según una persona familiarizada con las negociaciones que habló con AP bajo condición de anonimato, se esperan discusiones “duras” sobre el territorio ucraniano ocupado por Rusia, dado que Moscú insiste en que Kiev ceda el control del Donbas. Los jefes militares de los tres países también discutirán cómo funcionaría el monitoreo de un eventual cese del fuego.
Las conversaciones de Ginebra son la tercera ronda de un proceso que comenzó en Abu Dabi el 23 de enero y tuvo su segunda sesión en esa misma ciudad el 4 y 5 de febrero.
Trump describió la reunión como “grandes conversaciones” y, al regresar a Washington desde Florida el lunes por la noche, advirtió: “Ucrania mejor que venga a la mesa rápido”. No quedó claro de inmediato a qué se refería, dado que Kiev ha participado activamente en todas las rondas de negociación y ha aceptado las propuestas estadounidenses, incluida la de un cese del fuego incondicional y de largo plazo.
Zelensky señaló que el bombardeo ruso complica precisamente esos esfuerzos diplomáticos. “Cuanto más mal venga de Rusia, más difícil será para todos llegar a acuerdos con ellos. Los socios deben entender esto. En primer lugar, esto concierne a Estados Unidos”, escribió.
El mandatario exigió además que Rusia sea “responsabilizada” por sus ataques contra la población civil y reclamó sanciones y apoyo militar inmediato. “Nuestra diplomacia será más eficaz si hay justicia y fortaleza”, afirmó.
Las conversaciones celebradas a principios de este año en Abu Dabi se centraron en cuestiones como la forma de establecer una zona desmilitarizada en las zonas en disputa y cómo las fuerzas armadas de todas las partes podrían mantenerse en contacto, según la fuente.
Las conversaciones de Ginebra tuvieron lugar mientras funcionarios estadounidenses también mantenían conversaciones indirectas con Irán en la ciudad suiza.
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