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    Whistleblowers saying FBI targeted parents via terrorism tools ‘scary stuff’: Rep. Jordan

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    Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, called the FBI’s alleged move to target parents who protested schools’ COVID policies “scary stuff” on Sunday and said it looks like Attorney General Merrick Garland had been misleading on the topic. 

    Jordan and fellow Republican Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., said last week that they have evidence that the FBI targeted parents who spoke out against schools’ policies despite assurances from Garland that it never happened. 

    In a letter addressed to the Garland, Jordan and Johnson said they have evidence that the FBI labeled dozens of investigations into parents with a threat tag created by the bureau’s Counterterrorism Division to assess and track investigations related to school boards. The evidence comes from “brave whistleblowers” within the Department of Justice, they said in the letter.

    During an exclusive interview on “Sunday Morning Futures,” Jordan explained why it looks to him like Garland was misleading, arguing that “the very apparatus they put in motion with his memo that sets up the line for reporting, then the email that went out from FBI agents to agents all across the country, that process was used to go after moms and dads.” 

    He told host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday that there were “more than two dozen cases.”

    Jordan argued that Garland “said he wouldn’t use the counterterrorism measures of the government to go after parents, but that looks exactly like what they did.”

    SEVENTEEN STATES ASK BIDEN, GARLAND TO STOP INTIMIDATING PARENTS INTO SILENCE AT SCHOOL BOARD MEETINGS

    In testimony before Congress in October 2021, Garland told lawmakers that his Department of Justice had not deployed antiterrorism tools against parents protesting the actions of school boards. “I can’t imagine any circumstance in which the Patriot Act would be used in the circumstances of parents complaining about their children, nor can I imagine a circumstance where they would be labeled as domestic terrorism,” he said at the time.

    The National School Boards Association (NBSA) sent a letter to the Biden administration in September calling on the Biden administration to use the Patriot Act against parents who are accused not just of being violent towards, but who were otherwise intimidating to school board officials. Five days later, the DOJ issued a memo directing the FBI to investigate threats to school boards. 

    Republican Rep. Jim Jordan called the FBI’s alleged move to target parents who protested schools’ COVID policies “scary stuff” and said it looks like Attorney General Merrick Garland had been misleading. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images/Pool)

    The memo highlighted the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center, which Jordan and Johnson likened to a “snitch line” for tips about parents at school board meetings. 

    An internal email from the FBI’s criminal and counterterrorism divisions instructed agents to apply the threat tag “EDUOFFICIALS” to all investigations and assessments of threats directed specifically at education officials. 

    Jordan and Johnson, citing a whistleblower, said the FBI opened investigations with the EDUOFFICIALS threat in every region of the country and relating to all types of educational settings. 

    The lawmakers cited several examples where someone reported a parent, or a state elected official using the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center. 

    In one investigation, FBI officials interviewed a mom for allegedly telling a school board member “we are coming for you.” The person reported the mom because she belonged to a “right wing mom’s group” called “Moms for Liberty,” and because she is a gun owner. FBI officials eventually determined this mother was not a threat. 

    Jordan pointed to that example on Sunday, noting that the mother was allowed to own a firearm under the Constitution.

    “And the person who reported her on the snitch line said those were the reasons that she reported this person and the FBI investigated,” Jordan said. “So this is scary stuff.” 

    The Republican representative also pointed to “the speed and intensity” with which the FBI and Justice Department allegedly tried to “chill speech.” 

    “The School Board Association sends a letter on September 29 of last fall. Five days later, the attorney general does a memorandum to all U.S. attorneys, every single one around the country, saying, ‘Set up this snitch line.’ And then 16 days after that, the FBI sends out the email saying, ‘Establish this designation, this threat tag label,’” Jordan told Bartiromo. “That all happens in 22 days.”

    “The intensity they went after parents to chill speech, I have never seen that. I don’t know if anyone’s ever seen the federal government move that quickly on anything. But boy, when it comes to chilling speech and going after moms and dads, they operated at record speed,” he argued. 

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    Fox News reached out to the Department of Justice and the FBI for comment, but did not immediately hear back. 

    Fox News’ Bradford Betz contributed to this report. 

    Sen. Cruz: Dems ‘openly celebrate abortion as a wonderful thing’

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    Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, argued on Sunday that today’s Democrats “openly celebrate abortion as a wonderful thing” and have gone “to the extreme left.” 

    The Texas senator made the comments during an exclusive interview on “Sunday Morning Futures” three days before Senate Democrats are expected to vote on a bill to codify the abortion protections in Roe v. Wade, and days after a draft Supreme Court opinion leaked last week that could mean the overturning of that case.

    Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., announced the planned vote, which will be a procedural vote rather than final passage of the bill, in a Thursday press conference. 

    The vote almost certainly will fail because Republicans are expected to filibuster it. Democrats are expected to make hay of that fact ahead of the midterm elections, seizing on an issue where they believe the public is on their side. 

    Cruz told host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday that “it’s likely we’ll have a vote in either this week or next and Schumer in all likelihood will bring back the same bill that we voted on earlier.” He then pointed out that “that bill failed.”

    “It’s interesting, he [Schumer] calls it a bill to codify Roe v. Wade, but that’s not, in fact, what the bill does,” he continued. 

    “It is a radical abortion bill which, sadly, reflects where today’s Democrats are.”

    SUPREME COURT SET TO OVERTURN ROE V. WADE, LEAKED DRAFT OPINION SHOWS: REPORT

    He then said that “the bill that we voted on last time is a bill that would strike down every reasonable, common sense restriction on abortion across the country.”

    “It would strike down restrictions on partial-birth abortion, it would strike down restrictions on late-term abortion, it would strike down restrictions on taxpayer funding, it would strike down parental consent and parental notification laws,” the Texas senator continued. 

    “And the amazing thing is that today’s Democratic Party on the issue of abortion has gone to the extreme left like they’ve done on economics, embracing socialism, like they’ve done on the border, embracing open borders.”

    Cruz went on to argue that Schumer is “not going to get the 60 votes he needs” and he “knows that,” but is proceeding anyway, in an attempt to satisfy “the left-wing constituency in the Democrat party.”

    “We are a long, long way from when Bill Clinton was president. In the State of the Union he said he wanted abortion safe, legal, and rare,” Cruz noted, stressing that “I didn’t agree with that statement then, but he was at least recognizing that abortion was something he wanted rare.”

    “Today’s Democratic Party doesn’t believe that,” Cruz argued. “They openly celebrate abortion as a wonderful thing.”

    NYC CHURCH SWARMED BY PRO-ABORTION PROTESTERS: ‘I’M KILLING THE BABIES’

    A Politico report last week revealed a draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito which, if published as the court’s opinion, would overturn Roe v. Wade entirely. Roe was the 1973 Supreme Court case which ruled there is a constitutional right to abortion, anchored in a right to privacy.

    Conservatives have long railed against the decision as poor judicial practice while Democrats tout it as a key protection of women’s rights. 

    If the court indeed votes to overturn Roe, which it could do before its current term ends in late June or early July, the decision on whether to allow legal abortion would return to individual states. That is, unless Congress succeeds in passing nationwide legislation. 

    Cruz pointed that out on Sunday noting that “If in fact, the court does overturn Roe, the result is not that abortion is illegal across the country, the result is that it’s up to the people, it’s up to democracy.” 

    “That will mean in bright blue states, in states like New York and California — at least for the immediate future — we will continue to see abortion on demand because that’s where their elected politicians are,” he said. 

    “In redder states, in states like my home state of Texas, we’ll see some meaningful restrictions and the restrictions will vary state by state and they will reflect the values and the mores of the citizens in each state.”

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    “And that’s exactly how the framers of the Constitution intended it and Justice Alito’s draft opinion explains that, that this returns the issue to the people so that we, the people, can decide what the right answer is,” Cruz continued. 

    Fox News’ Tyler Olson and Kelly Phares contributed to this report. 

    Texas Gov. Abbott: Biden’s border policies ‘most disastrous thing’ anyone has ever witnessed

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    Texas Governor Greg Abbott argued on Sunday that President Biden’s stance on the southern border is the “most disastrous thing” anyone has ever witnessed. 

    The Texas governor made the argument during an exclusive interview on “Sunday Morning Futures” referencing the Biden administration’s move to end the use of the Title 42 public health order to expel migrants at the border. 

    Abbott told host Maria Bartiromo that the move “will be catastrophic for the United States of America.” 

    Earlier this month, the Biden administration confirmed it will terminate the policy at the end of May despite fears from both Democrats and Republicans, as well as officials within the administration, of a massive migrant wave in the coming months.

    The administration has acknowledged a potential migrant surge, as it has been preparing for up to 18,000 migrants a day.

    “Do the math on that and you will find it means that more than six million people will be coming across the border a year, and about half of those will be in the state of Texas,” Abbott said. 

    He then noted that this would mean more people would be coming across the border in one year than the amount of people who live in the state’s largest city of Houston. 

    “There is no way the state of Texas can assimilate those people, and there’s no way the United States can assimilate that number of people, and so what Joe Biden is doing is far more than reckless, it’s the most disastrous thing to the United States of America anybody has ever witnessed in our lifetime,” Abbott said. 

    Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas earlier this month claimed that the Department of Homeland Security has “put in place a comprehensive, whole-of-government strategy to manage any potential increase in the number of migrants encountered at our border.”

    Abbott told Bartiromo that he has taken matters into his own hands, given that the situation at the border is “a total disaster.” He argued that this was not only created by President Biden and his administration, but “by the Democrats across the board.” 

    Governor Greg Abbott discusses the ‘historic deals’ he negotiated with the governors of Mexican states in an effort to secure the southern border.  (Fox News)

    “We have a president of the United States who has not negotiated with the president of Mexico, so I, as governor of Texas, have taken matters into my own hands, and I have negotiated landmark, historic deals with the governors of Mexican states that are adjacent to Texas where these Mexican states are going to step up, and they are going to start securing the border,” Abbott said. 

    He noted that this “is on top of things that Texas has done that’s never been done before in the history of America.” 

    DUCEY, ABBOTT AND OTHER GOP GOVERNORS JOIN BORDER STRIKE FORCE TO COMBAT ILLEGAL ACTIVITY AT SOUTHERN BORDER

    Abbott provided examples, noting that Texas is building its own border wall, installing “miles of razor wire to prevent people from coming across the border,” and creating a boat blockade. 

    Abbott also said that the Texas National Guard “turned back more than 15,000 people who attempted to come across the border illegally.” 

    “So Texas is doing everything that we possibly can to contain a completely out of control border situation that is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” he continued. 

    Abbott also weighed in on the missing National Guard soldier who tried to rescue illegal migrants, calling the situation a “tragedy.” 

    “It shows how dangerous it is on the border,” he said. “It shows heroism by the member of the Texas National Guard who was trying to save lives.” 

    Two illegal migrants who a now-missing Texas National Guard soldier tried to save from a river were involved in “illicit transnational narcotics trafficking,” officials said Saturday as the search for the missing service member resumed.

    The soldier went missing on Friday after entering a river in Eagle Pass to help two migrants who officials say “appeared to be drowning as they illegally crossed the river from Mexico to the United States.”

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    In a statement, the Texas Military Dept. said that initial reports from Texas Rangers “have determined that the two migrants were involved in illicit transnational narcotics trafficking.” They are both in Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody.

    Abbott told Bartiromo that the goal is “to locate this missing soldier” and “hopefully it’ll lead to a safe outcome.” 

    Fox News’ Bill Melugin and Adam Shaw contributed to this report. 

    McCarthy blasts Biden for insufficient response to Ukraine invasion, suggests how he could have deterred Putin

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    House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., joined “Sunday Morning Futures” from Poland where he spoke with refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine, noting the “atrocities” in the country amid the Russian invasion and the “sheer strength of the Ukrainian people.” 

    In the exclusive interview, the GOP leader blasted President Biden for acting “too slow” in Ukraine.

    “Had Biden sent, one weaponry earlier, maybe [Russian President Vladimir] Putin would not have made the decision to enter Ukraine,” McCarthy argued on Sunday. “Had Biden said that he would sanction before they entered, maybe Putin would not have entered.”

    “But now that the war was created and you have other countries willing to provide MiGs to Ukraine to defend themselves in their own air,” he continued. “[Ukraine is] not asking for American men and women to fight, all they’re asking is to have the weapons to defend themselves from an aggressor that is going in and killing women and children, innocent individuals, and there really has to be consequences for Russia’s action.”

    He then stressed that what the U.S. needs to do “is supply Ukraine with the weapons they need to win this war.”

    The U.S. and NATO pledged Thursday to increase support for Ukraine amid rising concerns that Russia is about to launch a large offensive in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, but officials have remained mum on what type of weaponry they will send Kyiv. 

    As an organization, NATO has been refusing to send troops or weapons to Ukraine or impose a no-fly zone over it to keep the trans-Atlantic group from being drawn into a wider war with nuclear-armed Russia. However, individual NATO countries have provided some weapons to Ukraine, as well as equipment and medical supplies.

    House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., blasted President Biden for acting “too slow” in Ukraine. (Photo by Drew Angerer |  JIM WATSON/AFP  Getty Images)

    NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg declined to say which countries were stepping up supplies or what exactly they might send to Ukraine, but said, “Rest assured, allies are providing a wide range of different weapons systems, both Soviet-era systems but also modern equipment.”

    Washington has provided more than $1.7 billion in aid since the invasion began in February and more than $2.4 billion since January 2021. 

    A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment. 

    However, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week that the “sickening images and accounts coming out of Bucha and other parts of Ukraine” have strengthened the West’s resolve to punish Russia and step up support for Ukraine.

    Blinken said the United States is “looking across the board right now not only at what we provided, and what we continue to provide, but whether there are additional systems that could make a difference.”

    McCarthy stressed on Sunday that Ukraine needed the weapons “beforehand and this is a lesson we should learn long-term.”

    RUSSIA-UKRAINE: LIVE UPDATES

    “Remember, before the sanctions, the president said just threatening the sanctions will stop Putin and then once Putin enters Ukraine, then the president says sanctions will take a long time to work,” he told Bartiromo. 

    President Biden suggested late last month that sanctions were not meant to deter the actions of Putin, telling reporters now that “sanctions never deter.” 

    “Sir, deterrence didn’t work. What makes you think Vladimir Putin will alter course based on the action you’ve taken today,” Biden was asked by CBS reporter Christina Ruffini during a press conference at a NATO summit in Brussels, Belgium.

    “Let’s get something straight. You remember if you covered me from the very beginning, I did not say that, in fact, the sanctions would deter him. Sanctions never deter. You keep talking about that. Sanctions never deter,” Biden responded.

    Biden’s remarks came after weeks of messaging from key Biden administration officials – including Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken – who claimed the sanctions placed on Russia were meant to deter the actions of Putin.

    On Sunday, McCarthy stressed that “the number one thing that works is a country able to defend themselves.” He then argued that the U.S. should “look to the future” and learn how America can “make sure that we do not make this mistake again.” 

    McCarthy also argued that the Biden administration “should be supplying Taiwan with weapons to defend themselves so China does not get the idea to enter Taiwan.”

    “This is the lesson that has to be learned,” McCarthy, who is leading a congressional delegation to Eastern Europe, stressed. 

    NATO EXPECTING ‘MAJOR OFFENSIVE’ FROM PUTIN EASTERN UKRAINE, ALLIANCE PREPARING FOR ‘LONG HAUL’ WAR

    “Anyone that can see the refugees that are here, the millions of refugees from old to young, sleeping on floors with Poland opening up their homes and others, they don’t want to leave Ukraine. They want to defend Ukraine,” he continued, speaking from Warsaw. 

    “They did nothing wrong. And Putin entered and is now killing innocent women and children in an atrocity that we have not seen for decades, since World War II.”

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    “And there really has to be consequences for the actions that Russia has taken in this situation, and the world should unite around that,” he stressed. 

    European Union member nations like Poland and Romania, the two neighboring countries to Ukraine, have received the most refugees. Of the more than 4 million refugees that have fled Ukraine, over 2.4 million have crossed into Poland. While many have traveled onward throughout Europe, many refugees have stayed in Poland, which is offering free temporary accommodation, medical care, education and some social benefits. 

    Fox News’ Caitlin McFall, Kyle Morris and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

    Sen. Hagerty warns ending Title 42 will lead to ‘disaster of epic proportions’ at the southern border

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    Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., warned on Sunday that the Biden administration’s move to end the use of the Title 42 public health order to expel migrants at the border, will lead to a “disaster of epic proportions.” 

    He also warned that the “border’s going to collapse.”

    “There’s going to be a tidal wave coming across this border,” Hagerty said during an exclusive interview on “Sunday Morning Futures” speaking from Laredo, Texas. “It’s going to be a mass of drugs coming across the border, illegal activity, and there’s going to be a tidal wave of humanity coming across the border at the same time.”

    The Biden administration on Friday confirmed it will terminate the policy at the end of May despite fears from both Democrats and Republicans, as well as officials within the administration of a massive migrant wave in the coming months.

    Border officials have been warning that the border is already at crisis levels, with 7,000-plus encounters a day, more than 164,000 encounters in February, and that number expected to be even higher for March. 

    Hagerty told host Maria Bartiromo that Title 42 is “the last tool” that Border Patrol Agents “have left to send people back across the border.” 

    “They’re already overwhelmed,” he added. “They’ve got capacity to process perhaps 5,000 coming across the border, they’re now getting 7,000.”

    BIDEN ADMINISTRATION TO LIFT TITLE 42 AT END OF MAY, DESPITE FEARS OF LOOMING MIGRANT WAVE 

    Hagerty then warned that the number could go up to 18,000 overnight because of the policy coming to an end. 

    Sen. Bill Hagerty speaks with “Sunday Morning Futures” in an exclusive interview from Laredo, Texas about the Biden administration’s move to end the use of Title 42. (Fox News )

    “In fact, what the president has done is send an invitation to come to America,” Hagerty told Bartiromo. 

    62,000+ ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS GOT PAST BORDER PATROL AGENTS IN MARCH: SOURCES

    He added that Tennessee is already “feeling” the repercussions of the flood of migrants.

    “We’re losing kids to overdoses every night and every day,” Hagerty said.

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    Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Friday claimed that DHS has “put in place a comprehensive, whole-of-government strategy to manage any potential increase in the number of migrants encountered at our border.”

    “We are increasing our capacity to process new arrivals, evaluate asylum requests and quickly remove those who do not qualify for protection,” Mayorkas said in a statement. “We will increase personnel and resources as needed and have already redeployed more than 600 law enforcement officers to the border. We are referring smugglers and certain border crossers for criminal prosecution. Over the next two months, we are putting in place additional, appropriate COVID-19 protocols, including ramping up our vaccination program.” 

    Fox News’ Adam Shaw and Kelly Laco contributed to this report. 

    Sen. Rubio reveals ‘likeliest’ scenario regarding Russia’s use of chemical, biological weapons

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    Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., argued on Sunday that the “likeliest thing you are going to see” from Russian President Vladimir Putin is his trying to use chemical or biological weapons “in a way that makes it look like someone else did it.”

    He argued that he made that prediction based on Putin’s history and pointed to an example. 

    “When chemical weapons were deployed in Syria, clearly [Syrian tyrant Bashar al-Assad] Assad was behind it, but he [Putin] spent weeks sort of building up this notion that somehow the rebels and the opposition to Assad were the ones who were going to use chemical weapons and did,” Rubio told host Maria Bartiromo during an exclusive interview on “Sunday Morning Futures.” 

    In fact, in 2015, Putin called allegations that the Syrian president attacked rebel forces with chemical weapons “ludicrous.” 

    “And so my feeling is that that’s exactly the kind of thing he [Putin] would try to do here,” Rubio said. “I don’t think that he would himself admit that he is using these chemical weapons, I think that he would want to blame that on Ukraine or NATO and say that it was them who did it.” 

    The vice chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence offered the insight during an exclusive interview on “Sunday Morning Futures,” three days after President Biden in Brussels said that the U.S. will “respond” if Putin used chemical weapons, and that “the nature of the response would depend on the nature of the use.” 

    Rubio said “we should not be in a position of ruling out what we are going to do,” given “we don’t know exactly how this is going to play out and who it’s going to impact.”

    “It’s possible that these kinds of attacks could very well have a direct impact on a NATO country or American personnel in the region and then the response will be very clear,” he told Bartiromo.

    Rubio went on to say that the U.S. would “have to go after whoever it is did that or where they did it from.” 

    The Florida senator also warned of potential cyberattacks.  

    RUSSIA INVADES UKRAINE: LIVE UPDATES

    He argued that Putin’s “military today is stuck in a quagmire” and are “stalled” as the war between Russia and Ukraine continues into its second month. 

    Rubio noted that the only options Putin has to escalate include either chemical and biological attacks or through a cyberattack against one of America’s companies.

    “In essence he’ll have strike options before him and they’ll say, ‘Look we have access to these companies, these industries,” he told Bartiromo. “Obviously, the ones I’d keep an eye on are telecommunications, and banking and energy, oil and gas companies, because those are the ones that would most hurt the country. That would be his equivalent of sanctions against the U.S. economy.”

    Biden said last week that Russia is “exploring options” to target the U.S. and its allies through cyberattacks as tensions with Moscow remain precarious.  

    “The more Putin’s back is against the wall, the greater the severity of the tactics he may employ,” the president said Monday. “One of the tools he’s most likely to use in my view, in our view, is cyberattacks.”

    “The magnitude of Russia’s cyber capacity is fairly consequential, and it’s coming,” he added.

    Under the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty, also known as the Washington Treaty, an attack on one member of the 30-nation alliance will be viewed as attack on all allied nations – a concept that applies to cyberwarfare. 

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    But Biden’s national security advisor Jake Sullivan said last week that while a Russia-based cyberattack could prompt a NATO-wide reaction, it does not necessarily mean a military response will be activated. 

    Fox News’ Caitlin McFall contributed to this report. 

    Sen. Rubio reveals ‘likeliest’ scenario regarding Russia’s use of chemical, biological weapons

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    Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., argued on Sunday that the “likeliest thing you are going to see” from Russian President Vladimir Putin is his trying to use chemical or biological weapons “in a way that makes it look like someone else did it.”

    He argued that he made that prediction based on Putin’s history and pointed to an example. 

    “When chemical weapons were deployed in Syria, clearly [Syrian tyrant Bashar al-Assad] Assad was behind it, but he [Putin] spent weeks sort of building up this notion that somehow the rebels and the opposition to Assad were the ones who were going to use chemical weapons and did,” Rubio told host Maria Bartiromo during an exclusive interview on “Sunday Morning Futures.” 

    In fact, in 2015, Putin called allegations that the Syrian president attacked rebel forces with chemical weapons “ludicrous.” 

    “And so my feeling is that that’s exactly the kind of thing he [Putin] would try to do here,” Rubio said. “I don’t think that he would himself admit that he is using these chemical weapons, I think that he would want to blame that on Ukraine or NATO and say that it was them who did it.” 

    The vice chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence offered the insight during an exclusive interview on “Sunday Morning Futures,” three days after President Biden in Brussels said that the U.S. will “respond” if Putin used chemical weapons, and that “the nature of the response would depend on the nature of the use.” 

    Rubio said “we should not be in a position of ruling out what we are going to do,” given “we don’t know exactly how this is going to play out and who it’s going to impact.”

    “It’s possible that these kinds of attacks could very well have a direct impact on a NATO country or American personnel in the region and then the response will be very clear,” he told Bartiromo.

    Rubio went on to say that the U.S. would “have to go after whoever it is did that or where they did it from.” 

    The Florida senator also warned of potential cyberattacks.  

    RUSSIA INVADES UKRAINE: LIVE UPDATES

    He argued that Putin’s “military today is stuck in a quagmire” and are “stalled” as the war between Russia and Ukraine continues into its second month. 

    Rubio noted that the only options Putin has to escalate include either chemical and biological attacks or through a cyberattack against one of America’s companies.

    “In essence he’ll have strike options before him and they’ll say, ‘Look we have access to these companies, these industries,” he told Bartiromo. “Obviously, the ones I’d keep an eye on are telecommunications, and banking and energy, oil and gas companies, because those are the ones that would most hurt the country. That would be his equivalent of sanctions against the U.S. economy.”

    Biden said last week that Russia is “exploring options” to target the U.S. and its allies through cyberattacks as tensions with Moscow remain precarious.  

    “The more Putin’s back is against the wall, the greater the severity of the tactics he may employ,” the president said Monday. “One of the tools he’s most likely to use in my view, in our view, is cyberattacks.”

    “The magnitude of Russia’s cyber capacity is fairly consequential, and it’s coming,” he added.

    Under the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty, also known as the Washington Treaty, an attack on one member of the 30-nation alliance will be viewed as attack on all allied nations – a concept that applies to cyberwarfare. 

    CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

    But Biden’s national security advisor Jake Sullivan said last week that while a Russia-based cyberattack could prompt a NATO-wide reaction, it does not necessarily mean a military response will be activated. 

    Fox News’ Caitlin McFall contributed to this report. 

    Biden hammered for spending time at Camp David while Taliban take over Afghanistan

    Republican members of Congress criticized President Biden on Sunday for spending time at the Camp David presidential retreat instead of the White House as the Taliban fought to finalize a takeover of Afghanistan.

    “Why is Joe Biden on vacation?” asked Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, on “Sunday Morning Futures.” “I don’t think he’s taken one question from the press this entire weekend, so this is a frightening situation.”

    Fox News confirmed on Sunday morning that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country as Taliban fighters entered Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul.

    “Why is Joe Biden hiding?” asked Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.

    BIDEN VACATES DC AS AFGHANISTAN, IMMIGRATION CRISES ACCELERATE

    Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., accused Biden of “dereliction of duty.” Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., and Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., also echoed the criticism.

    Camp David has historically been used both for work and relaxation by U.S. presidents, and is fully equipped with secure video-conferencing technology. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said last week that Biden “likes Camp David.”

    “It’s a place to be outside, spend time with family and certainly has beautiful, beautiful scenery there,” Psaki continued.

    Two House Democrats also took to Twitter to blast the Biden administration for how they handled the Afghanistan withdrawal. 

    Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota said, “As a Gold Star son of the Vietnam War listening to the White House briefing on the Afghanistan War withdrawal, my heart particularly aches for the thousands of Gold Star families of an eerily similar and painful episode forty-six years later,” referring to Saigon.

    “There’s no way to hide it. The situation in Afghanistan is another shame on this admin. Withdrawal was never going to be easy but it didn’t need to come to this,” Rep. Vicente Gonzalez of Texas tweeted. “The US must do everything in its power to help our partners & allies to safety & protect our national security.”

    The White House tweeted out a picture Saturday of Biden sitting down at Camp David and taking notes during a video conference with his national security team.

    President Biden speaks with Vice President Kamala Harris and members of his national security team from Camp David in Maryland, Saturday, Aug. 14, 2021. (Photo: White House)
    (White House)

    And on Sunday, a White House official told Fox News that Biden has “spoken to members of his National Security team on the situation in Afghanistan and will continue to receive updates and be briefed throughout the day.”

    Jordan said he doesn’t believe the United States has seen something this “crazy” in foreign policy since the Vietnam War, referring to the infamous finale at the Saigon embassy, where Americans were evacuated from a rooftop by helicopter in 1975. 

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    “Let’s hope we can protect American lives. But this would not happen. This would not happen if President Trump was in the White House. We know that we would not be treated the way we are from our adversaries,” Jordan said. “We would not have what took place up in Anchorage, Alaska, a few months ago where Secretary Blinken was treated the way he was by his Chinese counterpart. That just would not happen when you project strength and confidence from the White House. But unfortunately, we don’t have that today.”

    The White House did not respond to Fox News’ request for comment on Sunday about the GOP criticism.  

    Sen. Cotton: Biden has been ‘rolling over for aggressors around the world’

    Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., argued during an exclusive interview with “Sunday Morning Futures” that President Biden has been “rolling over for aggressors around the world,” including China, Russia and Iran, adding that recently the president “seemed to draw moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas when it [the Biden Administration] began to demand a cease-fire.”

    Israel, late last week, announced that it had come to a cease-fire agreement with Hamas that put an end to 11 days of fighting in which Hamas fired thousands of rockets indiscriminately at Israeli civilian targets, to which Israel responded with bruising airstrikes. 

    On Thursday, President Biden sought to take credit for the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, despite reports that it was Egypt that brokered the peace.

    Biden, who spoke at the White House, included a sentence in his remarks commending Egyptian officials for their “critical role” in ending the fighting. But he repeatedly emphasized the intensive work he said was done by his own administration.

    A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment. 

    Cotton made the comments on Sunday, while discussing the letter the Arkansas senator, along with seven others including Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., sent to Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), three days before requesting information on gain of function research (making pathogens deadlier or more easily transmissible).

    The letter noted that “since the beginning of the pandemic, the exact origin of SARS-CoV-2 has remained elusive” and pointed to recent developments. 

    RAND PAUL, FAUCI AGAIN SPAR OVER COVID ORIGINS, CONTROVERSIAL WUHAN LAB

    “Recently, in response to the World Health Organization’s study of SARS-CoV-2’s origins, a group of 18 scientists published a letter in Science Magazine stating that a leak of the virus from a lab is a ‘viable’ theory and should be thoroughly investigated,” the letter continued, before noting that “obtaining information about the research on bat coronaviruses conducted at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology has been very difficult.” 

    The senators requested that NIH provide several pieces of information and records, related to a 2014 moratorium, which “defines gain of function research as ‘research projects that may be reasonably anticipated to confer attributes to influenza, MERS, or SARS viruses such that the virus would have enhanced pathogenicity and/or transmissibility in mammals via the respiratory route.’” 

    The letter also asked Collins to explain what prompted the establishment of a moratorium on gain of function research in 2014 as well as who was involved in drafting and giving the final approval for the moratorium document. 

    On Sunday, Cotton told host Maria Bartiromo that the letter he signed “very specifically asks the National Institutes of Health why they were funding gain of function research in these Wuhan labs.”

    “Dr. Fauci has been to Congress and he said this absolutely did not happen, but Dr. Fauci is playing word games,” he continued.

    Cotton alleged that “the money that the NIH gave went to an American organization, which turned around and gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to these Wuhan labs to investigate coronaviruses and to find ways to make them more contagious and more dangerous.” 

    “We asked Francis Collins, who is Dr. Fauci’s boss, to come clean, tell us exactly what was happening, why this research was being funded…during  a time in which the Obama Administration had explicitly banned this kind of gain of function research, research into the making of some of the deadliest pathogens even more dangerous.”

    A spokesperson for Fauci and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a subset of the NIH where Fauci is the director, did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment. 

    “I think that there could be an example here of these public health bureaucrats thinking that they know better and they’re not going to answer to political oversight and accountability even in the Obama Administration and they went ahead with this research that could be very dangerous,” Cotton told Bartiromo, explaining “that’s why it is imperative that the NIH come clean and tell us exactly what happened.”

    CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

    Fox News’ Tyler Olson and Jack Durschlag contributed to this report. 

    Sen. Cotton: Biden has been ‘rolling over for aggressors around the world’

    Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., argued during an exclusive interview with “Sunday Morning Futures” that President Biden has been “rolling over for aggressors around the world,” including China, Russia and Iran, adding that recently the president “seemed to draw moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas when it [the Biden Administration] began to demand a cease-fire.”

    Israel, late last week, announced that it had come to a cease-fire agreement with Hamas that put an end to 11 days of fighting in which Hamas fired thousands of rockets indiscriminately at Israeli civilian targets, to which Israel responded with bruising airstrikes. 

    On Thursday, President Biden sought to take credit for the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, despite reports that it was Egypt that brokered the peace.

    Biden, who spoke at the White House, included a sentence in his remarks commending Egyptian officials for their “critical role” in ending the fighting. But he repeatedly emphasized the intensive work he said was done by his own administration.

    A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment. 

    Cotton made the comments on Sunday, while discussing the letter the Arkansas senator, along with seven others including Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., sent to Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), three days before requesting information on gain of function research (making pathogens deadlier or more easily transmissible).

    The letter noted that “since the beginning of the pandemic, the exact origin of SARS-CoV-2 has remained elusive” and pointed to recent developments. 

    RAND PAUL, FAUCI AGAIN SPAR OVER COVID ORIGINS, CONTROVERSIAL WUHAN LAB

    “Recently, in response to the World Health Organization’s study of SARS-CoV-2’s origins, a group of 18 scientists published a letter in Science Magazine stating that a leak of the virus from a lab is a ‘viable’ theory and should be thoroughly investigated,” the letter continued, before noting that “obtaining information about the research on bat coronaviruses conducted at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology has been very difficult.” 

    The senators requested that NIH provide several pieces of information and records, related to a 2014 moratorium, which “defines gain of function research as ‘research projects that may be reasonably anticipated to confer attributes to influenza, MERS, or SARS viruses such that the virus would have enhanced pathogenicity and/or transmissibility in mammals via the respiratory route.’” 

    The letter also asked Collins to explain what prompted the establishment of a moratorium on gain of function research in 2014 as well as who was involved in drafting and giving the final approval for the moratorium document. 

    On Sunday, Cotton told host Maria Bartiromo that the letter he signed “very specifically asks the National Institutes of Health why they were funding gain of function research in these Wuhan labs.”

    “Dr. Fauci has been to Congress and he said this absolutely did not happen, but Dr. Fauci is playing word games,” he continued.

    Cotton alleged that “the money that the NIH gave went to an American organization, which turned around and gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to these Wuhan labs to investigate coronaviruses and to find ways to make them more contagious and more dangerous.” 

    “We asked Francis Collins, who is Dr. Fauci’s boss, to come clean, tell us exactly what was happening, why this research was being funded…during  a time in which the Obama Administration had explicitly banned this kind of gain of function research, research into the making of some of the deadliest pathogens even more dangerous.”

    A spokesperson for Fauci and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a subset of the NIH where Fauci is the director, did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment. 

    “I think that there could be an example here of these public health bureaucrats thinking that they know better and they’re not going to answer to political oversight and accountability even in the Obama Administration and they went ahead with this research that could be very dangerous,” Cotton told Bartiromo, explaining “that’s why it is imperative that the NIH come clean and tell us exactly what happened.”

    CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

    Fox News’ Tyler Olson and Jack Durschlag contributed to this report.