State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said the United States does not support recent Israeli airstrikes on Syria and called for ‘dialogue’ between the two Middle East powers.

‘The United States unequivocally condemns the violence. All parties must step back and engage in meaningful dialogue that leads to a lasting ceasefire,’ Bruce announced at a State Department press briefing Thursday afternoon. 

On Wednesday, Israeli airstrikes in the Syrian capital of Damascus struck the country’s Defense Ministry headquarters and an area near the presidential palace, killing three and injuring dozens of others, according to reports. 

The Israeli military said it was intervening to defend the minority Druze population in southern Syria, a community that shares a border with Israel, amid armed skirmishes between local Bedouin Sunni tribes and the recently installed Syrian government.

‘We are acting decisively to prevent the entrenchment of hostile elements beyond the border, protect Israeli citizens and prevent harm to Druze civilians,’ Eyal Zamir, chief of the Israeli Defense Forces’ general staff, said during a situational assessment at the Syrian border.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Wednesday afternoon that an agreement had been reached between Israel and Syria to end the ‘troubling and horrifying situation.’

‘This will require all parties to deliver on the commitments they have made, and this is what we fully expect them to do,’ he added.

‘Thankful to all sides for their break from chaos and confusion as we attempt to navigate all parties to a more durable and peaceful solution in Syria,’ U.S. Special Envoy to Syria Tom Barrack added.

When asked Thursday what prompted the Israeli strikes and whether the U.S. suspected any foreign fighters, like ISIS, of being involved in the conflict in Syria between the Bedouins and the Druze, Bruce said there will need to be continued investigation to figure out exactly why this Israeli airstrike occurred.

Rubio said Wednesday he believed Israel’s strike on the Syrian capital of Damascus was ‘likely’ due to ‘a misunderstanding.’

Bruce on Thursday responded to reporters’ questions about what U.S. officials meant when they said ‘confusion’ and ‘misunderstanding’ from Israel were what led to their involvement. 

‘This is an ancient rivalry between the Druze and the Bedouins and violence ensued, the Syrians moving to that area to quell and stop that violence. And the Israelis, who see that occurring to the Druze community and their concerns, then entered what they assessed was something larger than what, or even not what it was at all,’ Bruce said at Thursday’s briefing. 

‘The good news is, the story is, it stopped, as within the management of that larger conflict. Again, there’s still skirmishes and other issues. … The Syrian government is going to have to lead — obviously, there will be other involvement — but lead in to this de-escalation and to the stability.’

Fox News Digital’s Caitlin McFall contributed to this report.

Senators are not thrilled with a top White House official’s comments that the government funding process should become more partisan, and fear that doing so could erode Congress’ power of the purse.

Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought told reporters during a Christian Science Monitor Breakfast Thursday morning that he believed ‘the appropriations process has to be less bipartisan.’

His sentiment came on the heels of Senate Republicans advancing President Donald Trump’s $9 billion clawback package, which would cancel congressionally approved funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting, just a few hours before.

Unlike the hyper-partisan bills that have dominated the Senate’s recent agenda, including the rescissions package and the president’s ‘big, beautiful bill,’ the appropriations process is typically a bipartisan affair in the upper chamber.

That is because, normally, most bills brought to the floor have to pass the Senate’s 60-vote threshold, and with the GOP’s narrow majority, Senate Democrats will need to pass any spending bills or government funding extensions to ward off a partial government shutdown.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who alluded to issues down the line with the appropriations process if Republicans advanced Trump’s resicssions package, took a harsh stance against Vought. 

‘Donald Trump should fire Russell Vought immediately, before he destroys our democracy and runs the country into the ground,’ Schumer said. 

Members of the Senate Appropriations Committee also did not take kindly to Vought’s comments.

‘I think he disrespects it,’ Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said. ‘I think he thinks that we are irrelevant, and I wish I had actually heard the speech, because, you know, again, everything in context.’

‘But you have to admit that when you look at the quotes that are highlighted in the story this morning, it is pretty dismissive of the appropriations process, pretty dismissive,’ she continued.

Vought has no intention of slowing the rescissions train coming from the White House, and said that there would be more rescissions packages on the way.

He noted another would ‘come soon,’ as lawmakers in the House close in on a vote to send the first clawback package to the president’s desk.

‘There is no voter in the country that went to the polls and said, ‘I’m voting for a bipartisan appropriations process,’’ Vought said. ‘That may be the view of something that appropriators want to maintain.’

Both Murkowski and Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, voted against the rescissions package, and warned of the cuts to public broadcasting, lack of transparency from the OMB and the possible effect it could have on legislating in the upper chamber.

‘I disagree with both those statements,’ Collins said of Vought’s push for a more partisan appropriations process. ‘Just as with the budget that the President submitted, we had to repeatedly ask him and the agencies to provide us with the detailed account information, which amounts to 1000s of pages that our appropriators and their staff meticulously review.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the OMB for comment. 

Vought’s comments came at roughly the same time as appropriators were holding a mark-up hearing of the military construction and veterans’ affairs and Commerce, Justice and Science spending bills.

Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said during the hearing that Senate Republicans coalescing behind the rescissions package would only make hammering out spending bills more difficult, and argued that ‘trust’ was at the core of the process.

‘That’s part of why bipartisan bills are so important,’ she said. ‘But everyone has to understand getting to the finish line always depends on our ability to work together in a bipartisan way, and it also depends on trust.’

Other Republicans on the panel emphasized a similar point, that, without some kind of cooperation, advancing spending bills would become even more challenging.

Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., said that finding ‘critical mass’ to move spending bills was important, and warned that people have to ‘quit saying it’s gotta just be my way or the highway,’ following threats Schumer’s threats last week that the appropriations process could suffer should the rescissions package pass. 

‘People better start recognizing that we’re all gonna have to work together and hopefully get these [appropriations] bills to the floor and see what we can move,’ he said. ‘But if somebody just sits up and says, ‘Oh, because there’s a rescission bill, then I’m not going to work on Appropriations,’ you can always find an excuse not to do something. Let’s figure out how we can work forward.’

What can you get for $9.4 billion?

3G Capital recently purchased footwear giant Skechers for $9.4 billion. 

$9.4 billion could cover your rent for a pretty nice apartment in New York City for more than 40,000 years. 

Yes, it will just be you and the cockroaches by then. 

Or, you could pay the cost of every major disaster in the past four decades – ranging from Chernobyl to Fukushima to Hurricane Sandy. 

But $9.4 billion isn’t a lot when cast against nearly $7 trillion in annual spending by the federal government. 

And it’s really not much money when you consider that the U.S. is about slip into the red to the tune of $37 trillion. 

Which brings us to the Congressional plan to cancel spending. That is, a measure from Republicans and the Trump Administration to rescind spending lawmakers already appropriated in March. The House and Senate are now clawing back money lawmakers shoved out the door for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and foreign aid programs under USAID. The original proposal cut $9.4 billion. But that figure dwindled to $9 billion – after the Senate restored money for ‘PEPFAR,’ a President George W. Bush era program to combat AIDS worldwide. 

In other words, you may have a couple thousand years lopped off from your rent-controlled apartment in New York City. Of course that hinges on what Democratic mayoral nominee Zorhan Mamdani decides to do, should he win election this fall. 

Anyway, back to Congressional spending. Or ‘un-spending.’ 

The House passed the original version of the bill in June, 216-214. Flip one vote and the bill would have failed on a 215-215 tie. Then it was on to the Senate. Republicans had to summon Vice President Vance to Capitol Hill to break a logjam on two procedural votes to send the spending cancellation bill to the floor and actually launch debate. Republicans have a 53-47 advantage in the Senate. But former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., along with Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska and Susan Collins, R-Maine, voted nay – producing a 50-50 tie.

Fox is told some Senate Republicans are tiring of McConnell opposing the GOP – and President Trump – on various issues. That includes the nay votes to start debate on the spending cancellation bill as well as his vote against the confirmation of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in January.

‘He used to be the Leader. He was always telling us we need to stick together,’ said one GOP senator who requested anonymity. ‘Now he’s off voting however he wants? How time flies.’

Note that McConnell led Senate Republicans as recently as early January.

But McConnell ultimately voted for the legislation when the Senate approved it 51-48 at 2:28 am ET Thursday morning. 

Murkowski and Collins were the only noes. The services of Vice President Vance weren’t needed due to McConnell’s aye vote and the absence of Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn. She fell ill and was admitted to George Washington Hospital for exhaustion. 

As for the senior senator from Alaska, one GOP senator characterized it as ‘Murkowski fatigue.’

‘She always asking. She’s always wanting more,’ groused a Senate Republican.

Murkowski secured an agreement on rural hospitals in exchange for her vote in favor of the Big, Beautiful Bill earlier this month. However, Murkowski did not secure more specificity on the DOGE cuts or help with rural, public radio stations in Alaska on the spending cut plan.

‘My vote is guided by the imperative of coming from Alaskans. I have a vote that I am free to cast, with or without the support of the President. My obligation is to my constituents and to the Constitution,’ said Murkowski. ‘I don’t disagree that NPR over the years has tilted more partisan. That can be addressed. But you don’t need to gut the entire Corporation for Public Broadcasting.’ 

In a statement, Collins blasted the Trump administration for a lack of specificity about the precision of the rescissions request. Collins, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee in charge of the federal purse strings, also criticized the administration a few months ago for a paucity of detail in the President’s budget. 

‘The rescissions package has a big problem – nobody really knows what program reductions are in it.  That isn’t because we haven’t had time to review the bill,’ said Collins in a statement. ‘Instead, the problem is that OMB (the Office of Management and Budget) has never provided the details that would normally be part of this process.’

Collins wasn’t the only Republican senator who worried about how the administration presented the spending cut package to Congress. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss.,  fretted about Congress ceding the power of the purse to the administration. But unlike Collins, Wicker supported the package.

‘If we do this again, please give us specific information about where the cuts will come. Let’s not make a habit of this,’ said Wicker. ‘If you come back to us again from the executive branch, give us the specific amounts in the specific programs that will be cut.’

DOGE recommended the cuts. In fact, most of the spending reductions targeted by DOGE don’t go into effect unless Congress acts. But even the $9.4 billion proved challenging to cut. 

‘We should be able to do that in our sleep. But there is looking like there’s enough opposition,’ said Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., on Fox Business.

So to court votes, GOP leaders salvaged $400 million for PEPFAR.

‘There was a lot of interest among our members in doing something on the PEPFAR issue,’ said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. ‘You’re still talking about a $9 billion rescissions package – even with that small modification.’

The aim to silence public broadcasting buoyed some Republicans.

‘North Dakota Public Radio – about 26% of their budget is federal funding. To me, that’s more of an indictment than it is a need,’ said Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D. 

But back to the $9 billion. It’s a fraction of one-tenth of one percent of all federal funding. And DOGE recommended more than a trillion dollars in cuts.

‘What does this say for the party if it can’t even pass this bill, this piddling amount of money?’ yours truly asked Sen. John Kennedy, R-La.

‘I think we’re going to lose a lot of credibility. And we should,’ replied Kennedy.

But the House needed to sync up with the Senate since it changed the bill – stripping the cut for AIDS funding. House conservatives weren’t pleased that the Senate was jamming them again – just two weeks after major renovations to the House version of the Big, Beautiful Bill. But they accepted their fate.

‘It’s disappointing that we’re $37 trillion in debt. This to me was low-hanging fruit,’ said Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo. ‘At the end of the day, I’ll take a base hit, right? It’s better than nothing.’

White House Budget Director Russ Vought is expected to send other spending cancellation requests to Congress in the coming months. The aim is to target deeper spending reductions recommended by DOGE. 

But it doesn’t auger well for future rescissions bills if it’s this much of a battle to trim $9 trillion.

What can you get for that much money? For Republicans, it’s not much. 

Republicans were swinging for the fences with spending cuts.

But in the political box score, this is recorded as just a base hit.

Congress is officially sending a package detailing $9 billion in spending cuts to President Donald Trump’s desk, minutes after midnight on Friday.

The bill, called a ‘rescissions package,’ was approved by the House of Representatives in a late-night 216 to 213 vote after intense debate between Republicans and Democrats. Just two Republicans, Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., and Mike Turner, R-Ohio, voted in opposition.

Friday was also the deadline for passing the legislation, otherwise the White House would be forced to re-obligate those funds as planned.

It’s a victory for House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., but a mostly symbolic one – the spending cuts bill was largely seen by Trump allies as a test run of a fiscal claw-back process not used in more than two decades.

‘This bill tonight is part of continuing that trend of getting spending under control. Does it answer all the problems? No. $9 billion, I would say is a good start,’ House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said during debate on the bill.

When signed by Trump, it will block $8 billion in funding to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and $1 billion to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for the remainder of the fiscal year. The dollars had been allocated by Congress for the duration of fiscal year 2025.

Republicans celebrated it as a victory for cutting off the flow of U.S. taxpayer dollars to what they called ‘woke’ initiatives abroad, while Democrats accused the right of gutting critical foreign aid.

Rescissions packages are a way for the president to have input in Congress’ yearly appropriations process. The White House sends a proposal to block some congressionally obligated funds, which lawmakers have 45 days to get through the House and Senate.

Republicans have also been able to sideline Democrats so far, with the rescissions process lowering the Senate’s threshold for passage from 60 votes to 51.

The last time a rescissions package was signed into law was 1999.

Consideration of the bill began with a House Rules Committee hearing at 6 p.m. on Thursday evening.

Democrats attempted multiple times throughout the process to weaponize the ongoing inter-GOP fallout over the Jeffrey Epstein case, both in the House Rules Committee and on the chamber floor during debate on the bill. 

Multiple calls were made for votes to force the release of the so-called Epstein ‘files.’

‘If every Republican votes to block our attempt to release the records, they are telling Epstein’s victims, you don’t matter as much as our political convenience. And that should disgust every single one of us,’ said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass.

Far-right GOP figures are demanding accountability, while Trump has called on his base to move on after the Department of Justice (DOJ) signaled the case was closed.

Initial plans to begin advancing the bill earlier in the day were quickly scuttled, with Republicans on the committee being concerned about being put into a difficult position with potential Epstein votes.

In the end, a compromise led to the House Rules Committee advancing a separate nonbinding measure dealing with Epstein transparency, on a parallel track to the rescissions bill.

‘All the credible evidence should come out. I’ve been very clear with members of the House Rules Committee. Republicans have been taking the incoming criticism because they voted to stop the Democrats’ politicization of this, and they’re trying to stick to their job and move their procedural rules to the floor so we can do our work and get the rescissions done for the American people,’ Johnson told reporters during negotiations earlier in the day.

Democrats nevertheless pressed on, mentioning Epstein multiple times on the House floor. McGovern even briefly led a chant of ‘release the files’ when closing debate on the bill.

Republicans, in turn, accused Democrats of hypocrisy.

‘Interesting how they talk about Jeffrey Epstein, because for four years, Mr. Speaker, President Joe Biden had those files, and not a single Democrat that you’re hearing tonight tried to get those files released,’ House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said at one point during the House floor debate.

The House initially voted to advance a $9.4 billion rescissions package, but it was trimmed somewhat in the Senate after some senators had concerns about cutting funding for HIV/AIDS prevention research in Africa.

Trump is expected to sign the bill on Friday.

Former Biden administration staffer Annie Tomasini is expected to appear before congressional investigators on Friday after being subpoenaed by House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky.

Tomasini, former Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for ex-President Joe Biden, was previously scheduled to appear for a voluntary transcribed interview on Friday.

A committee aide told Fox News Digital earlier this week that Tomasini’s counsel requested the subpoena, but did not say why. 

When she arrives for the 10 a.m. closed-door deposition on Friday, she will be the third ex-Biden administration aide to come under subpoena in Comer’s probe in recent weeks.

Comer is investigating allegations that Former President Joe Biden’s former top White House aides covered up signs of his mental and physical decline while in office, and whether any executive actions were commissioned via autopen without the president’s full knowledge. Biden allies have pushed back against those claims.

In an interview with The New York Times on Thursday, Biden affirmed he ‘made every decision’ on his own.

Just before Tomasini, House investigators heard from Anthony Bernal, a longtime aide to ex-first lady Jill Biden. 

Bernal pleaded the Fifth Amendment on all questions about Biden and was out of the committee room less than an hour after going in.

Lawmakers are largely not expected to attend the closed-door deposition, which is traditionally staff-led.

Comer has been to several so far, and progressive firebrand Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, has made surprise appearances as well.

CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios political correspondent Alex Thompson revealed in their book, ‘Original Sin,’ that Tomasini and Bernal ‘loaded a written Q&A into a prompter ahead of a local interview – a document that the campaign had used in prep with Biden.’

Tomasini and Bernal brought out the teleprompter as his aides were trying to soften his blunders as Biden struggled to stay on message, according to the book. But the teleprompter fiasco became an easy attack line throughout Biden’s re-election campaign, as President Donald Trump ‘weaved’ through his myriad unscripted moments.

The book described how Tomasini and Bernal grew closer to Biden during the pandemic, eventually becoming Joe and Jill Biden’s most trusted aides. 

Tapper and Thompson describe the ‘intensely loyal’ duo – Tomasini and Bernal – as taking on an ‘older-brother-and-little-sister vibe’ among Biden’s inner circle.  

Bernal and Tomasini later took on some of the residence staffers’ roles in the White House. Tapper and Thompson said the aides ‘had all-time access to the living quarters, with their White House badges reading ‘Res’ – uncommon for such aides.’

‘The significance of Bernal and Tomasini is the degree to which their rise in the Biden White House signaled the success of people whose allegiance was to the Biden family – not to the presidency, not to the American people, not to the country, but to the Biden theology,’ the authors wrote. 

A source familiar with the Biden team’s thinking called House Republicans’ probe ‘dangerous’ and ‘an attempt to smear and embarrass.’

‘And their hope is for just one tiny inconsistency between witnesses to appear so that Trump’s DOJ prosecute his political opponents and continue his campaign of revenge,’ the source said.