Happy New Year 2025

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Legal experts say Kash Patel’s opposition to warrant requirement is not a major split

Kash Patel, President Donald Trump’s pick for FBI director, claimed Thursday that he won’t stand for federal law enforcement needing a warrant for surveillance in some scenarios because it’s plainly impractical in real-time practices. Despite lawmakers’ surprise at his opposition, legal experts say his take is far from unusual within the law enforcement arena.

Patel was peppered with questions Thursday on a provision called Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. When asked if he believed that a warrant requirement is “practical and workable or even a necessary element of 702,” Patel said he had issues with “those that have been in government service and abused it in the past.” Patel said that because of the viability of abuse, “we must work with Congress to provide the protections necessary for American citizens dealing with these matters.”

“Having a warrant requirement to go through that information in real time is just not comported with the requirement to protect American citizenry,” Patel said during his Senate hearing. “I’m all open to working with Congress on finding a better way forward. But right now, these improvements that you’ve made go a long way.”

4 OF THE BIGGEST CLASHES BETWEEN PATEL, SENATE DEMS AT HIS CONFIRMATION HEARING

“The fact that the soon-to-be head of the nation’s, sort of, top law enforcement agency takes the position that is favored by law enforcement shouldn’t surprise anybody,” former assistant district attorney and criminal defense attorney Phil Holloway told Fox News Digital.

“When Mr. Patel answered the question the way that he did, that answer is adverse to the public positions taken by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.”

Patel, throughout his testimony, emphasized his interest in working with Congress if he were to head the FBI.

President Donald Trump’s pick to head the FBI, Kash Patel, indicated during his Senate hearing on Thursday that while FISA’s Section 702 can be used appropriately, a warrant requirement can be impractical in real-time. (AP)

“Some lawmakers have absolutely called for the necessity of a warrant in these situations. And so it makes sense that the senators would ask the nominee to run the FBI whether or not he has an opinion on it,” Holloway continued. “But, ultimately, it’s not his call.”

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“I’ve always thought that there’s a middle ground here where you don’t have to. And I think there are some situations that warrant a warrant and deserve a warrantless search,” Palm Beach County, Fla., state attorney Dave Aronberg told Fox News Digital. “And I think Patel’s remarks show that he thinks the same way.”

Aronberg noted that under U.S. law, there is a warrant exception under exigent circumstances, i.e. emergency situations, where it is impractical to obtain a warrant.

Kash Patel was peppered with questions Thursday on a provision called Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. (Getty Images)

“What Kash Patel is saying is that there may be some situations that may be in that gray area where you shouldn’t have to get a warrant,” Aronberg said. “And I am encouraged by his comments because I do think that law enforcement needs flexibility when it comes to national security matters, especially with the very real threat of terrorism here on our shores.”

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Congress voted to pass a renewal of FISA’s Section 702 last April. The legislation serves as a governmental tool in gathering intelligence on foreign subjects using the compelled assistance of electronic communication service providers.

If the renewal had not been passed, the expiration would have meant companies would not be forced to comply with the government’s requests for surveillance aid under the bill.

Kash Patel and President Donald Trump. (Getty Images)

Without the FISA section’s reauthorization, the government would be required to seek a warrant to compel any such assistance, which is a process that can span extended periods of time.

Earlier this month, a federal district court ruled that the federal government had violated the Fourth Amendment when it searched the communications of an Albanian citizen residing in the U.S. at the time of his arrest without a warrant. The information had been collected under FISA’s Section 702.

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“The individual rights of people in the United States under our Constitution come first,” Holloway said. “So having constitutional requirements that sort of frustrate or perhaps slow down law enforcement, this is a tension that is not new at all. And so what we’re seeing is this playing out.”

Fox News Digital’s Liz Elkind and Julia Johnson contributed to this report.

Haley Chi-Sing is a Writer for Fox News Digital. You can reach her at @haleychising on X.

January 31, 2025
Egg prices aren’t coming down anytime soon: experts say

Cameron Mitchell Restaurants founder and CEO Cameron Mitchell unpacks the impact of the the disease on the cost of goods on ‘The Claman Countdown.’

Elevated egg prices are expected to persist throughout 2025 as supply shortages continue, according to industry experts.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) predicted that egg prices, which can fluctuate significantly month to month, will rise by more than 20% in 2025.

The outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) – or bird flu – that began in 2022 and have persisted into 2025, are to blame. Experts tell FOX Business that cases of bird flu have significantly reduced the U.S. laying egg flock, which is pushing prices higher at the store.

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To put this in perspective, prices were 36.8% higher in December 2024 than they were a year earlier, although they were still below peak prices in January 2023, according to the USDA.

“When detections are high, lower egg supplies will drive prices higher,” Bernt Nelson, an economist with the American Farm Bureau Foundation, told FOX Business, adding that “egg prices have been riding the waves of avian influenza since this outbreak began and this is likely to continue.”

Egg cartoons at Key Food in the Upper East Side neighborhood of Manhattan on Jan 27, 2025. (Fox News / Angelica Stabile / Fox News)

Nelson estimated that more than 136 million birds have been affected by avian influenza since 2022. In December, there were over 18 million birds affected, which he said led to “bare grocery shelves in some places and widespread higher prices.”

Kevin Bergquist, Wells Fargo Agri-Food Institute sector manager, also raised concerns that the recent rash of even more bird flu cases in late 2024 and thus far in 2025 are still driving the flock numbers lower.

The issue is when bird flu is detected, the entire flock is depopulated to prevent the disease from spreading and to ensure no infected birds enter the food supply.

The USDA said the disease is highly contagious with one bird being capable of spreading it “from flock to flock within a matter of days.” Depopulating or euthanizing affected animals is “one of the most effective ways to stop disease spread and protect U.S. animal health as a whole,” the agency said.

Egg cartoons at Key Food in the Upper East Side neighborhood of Manhattan on Jan 27, 2025. (Fox News / Angelica Stabile )

US EGG PRODUCTION DROPS AS PRICES CONTINUE TO RISE ALONG WITH BIRD FLU CASES

Nelson and Bergquist said it takes several months to sterilize the layer facilities and repopulate the location with birds capable of laying eggs.

Egg cartoons at Key Food in the Upper East Side neighborhood of Manhattan on Jan 27, 2025. (Fox News / Angelica Stabile / Fox News)

“Often, laying hen operations are concentrated with well over a million birds located on a single site. So, if HPAI hits a particular location, that whole flock is lost,” Bergquist said. The loss of many hens also puts pressure on the supply of new chicks, he added.

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Even after a detection is resolved, there is a mandatory quarantine period of 21 days. Then, a chicken needs to be about 18 weeks old before it can begin to lay eggs, meaning it takes more time to bring a flock back into production, Nelson said.

Bergquist said it is likely that additional bird flu outbreaks will occur in the next few months, which “resets the number of laying hens lower, sometimes by millions of layers at a time. Fewer birds mean fewer eggs, sustaining the pricing pressure,” Bergquist added.

January 31, 2025
Health experts teach Democrats about anti-vaccine claims ahead of RFK hearings

A group of Democratic senators previewed several anti-vaccine arguments during a roundtable discussion, including a claim that vaccines cause autism, several days before Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s scheduled confirmation hearings later this week.

Even though Kennedy’s name was “not supposed” to come up during the hearing, according to at least one of the health experts present at the discussion, his nomination to be the next secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was invoked frequently by lawmakers seeking answers about how to combat anti-vaccine claims and so-called “misinformation,” including arguments about vaccines that Kennedy has promoted in the past.

One claim the senators asked the public health experts at the roundtable about was whether vaccines cause autism, a claim Kennedy has discussed publicly in interviews.

“This is something that I hear a concern about quite a lot,” Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., asked the panel. “What, if any information, can you give us to help us push back against that?”

RFK IS THE LEAST ‘SCARY’ THING HAPPENING TO THE US HEALTH SYSTEM, DR MAKARY WARNS

Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images/File)

The doctors on the panel explained the lack of robust studies proving this link while highlighting the wide breadth of studies that have shown no links between vaccines and autism.

“Academic researchers, pediatricians, scientists took that concern seriously enough to spend tens of millions of dollars to answer the question,” said Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician with an expertise in virology and immunology. “The more impactful part of your question is how do you get that information out there, because frankly, once you’ve scared people it’s hard to unscare them.”

Offitt added that since there is no clear cause of autism, it makes it harder to refute claims from Kennedy and others. Dr. Joshua Sharfstein of Johns Hopkins pointed lawmakers to preeminent medical authorities within the U.S., such as the National Academy of Sciences, as places they could go for evidence that vaccines do not cause autism.

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The Democratic group of lawmakers, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who caucuses with Democrats, asked questions about, and learned ways to refute, other anti-vaccine claims, such as whether vaccine manufacturers are immune from being held accountable for vaccine injuries.

The experts pointed out the presence of a National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program that allows certain vaccine injury victims to receive compensation from the government, but they suggested that if Kennedy upended the current system and opened up more companies to liability, it could potentially put vaccine manufacturers out of business.

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“Am I right that the HHS secretary has some discretion about removing vaccines from that list [and opening them up to civil litigation] if they were to choose?” asked Sen. Time Kaine, D-Va. “Because if that were the case, I would obviously worry about – that would be one worry I would have and a set of questions I might like to ask people nominated for positions within HHS.”

Sen. Tim Kaine (Getty Images/File)

Other questions from lawmakers that the health experts helped answer included queries about how to distinguish between vaccine side effects versus vaccine complications, how to combat claims that vaccines are not studied enough, questions about how the government monitors the safety of vaccines, questions about how undermining vaccine efficacy can impact public health and more.

DIET AND NUTRITION EXPERTS WEIGH IN ON HOW RFK JR’S NOMINATION COULD IMPACT HOW WE EAT

Kennedy will face tough questions about his stance on vaccines this week during his confirmation hearings in front of both the Senate Committee on Finance and the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP).

Robert Kennedy Jr. (Jon Cherry/Getty Images/File)

The chair of the Senate’s HELP committee, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., called Kennedy “wrong” on vaccines during an interview earlier this month.

Democrats, meanwhile, have been more pointed about their criticism. During the roundtable discussion with public health experts, Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., called Kennedy “dangerous” and “unqualified” for the position of HHS secretary.

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“The bird flu, if it explodes, we’re going to need to have some confidence, especially in those people who should be vaccinated, that they can trust the government when they say that it’s safe, they can trust the medical community, and I’m just very afraid of Robert F. Kennedy’s candidacy,” Markey said.

“Say goodbye to your smile and say hello to polio,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said after news of Kennedy’s nomination to head HHS. “This is a man who wants to stop kids from getting their polio and measles shots. He’s actually welcoming a return to polio, a disease we nearly eradicated.”

January 28, 2025
Experts say first week of ‘Trump effect’ is derailing global climate movement’s ‘house of cards’

The global climate movement is already feeling the sting of the “Trump effect” after green energy policies were a target of President Donald Trump’s first executive orders, according to energy experts who reacted to the president’s first week in office.

Trump was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States Monday, signing numerous executive orders aimed at unraveling former President Joe Biden’s climate agenda.

“President Trump has not wasted any time to undo Biden’s many climate policies designed to make energy more expensive and less affordable. America and the world can look forward to a brighter future because of the actions that President Trump has started on his first day in office,” Myron Ebell, chairman of the American Lands Council, said in a statement.

But Ebell added that “it’s going to be a long, hard fight because of ferocious opposition” from climate groups.

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President Donald Trump was sworn in as president Monday. (Evan Vucci)

This week, Trump signed an executive order to ax the U.S. climate standards, which aimed to reduce emissions 61-66% by 2035.

Additionally, the president ended the electric vehicle (EV) mandate and withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement, a legally binding treaty among more than 190 parties committed to international cooperation on climate change.

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“President Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Accords is a victory for American workers and families, rejecting policies that prioritize the Chinese Communist Party’s interests over our own,” said Jason Isaac, CEO of the American Energy Institute and a former Texas state representative.

Trump canceled Biden’s electric vehicle mandate Monday. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

“The Paris framework does nothing to mitigate a changing climate but drives up energy costs and burdens Americans with decarbonization mandates rooted in the climate hoax. By making American energy more affordable and accessible, President Trump is benefiting not only our nation but the world.”

Marc Morano, publisher of Climate Depot, a communication platform for climate issues designed by the Committee For a Constructive Tomorrow, a D.C.-based public policy group, said that Trump’s second term “could become one of our lifetimes’ most consequential presidencies.”

“Trump is poised to, once and for all, put a stake through the heart of the U.N. globalist climate change scam,” Morano said in a statement shared with Fox. “The Trump effect is already derailing the U.N. climate summits, canceling EV mandates, disintegrating the Wall Street climate group and Net Zero goals. Trump’s policies could have the effect of collapsing the entire climate house of cards.”

President-elect Donald Trump takes the oath of office from U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts during inauguration ceremonies in the Rotunda of the Capitol Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Kevin Lamarque/AFP)

Trump’s executive orders were not accepted by many Democratic lawmakers and climate groups, who criticized the president’s executive orders.

“It’s the second day of the second Trump presidency, and there are three things we know for sure: there is no energy emergency; there is a climate emergency; and the policies rolled out in these past 24 hours will make the climate crisis worse,” said Manish Bapna, president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

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Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress plan on going even deeper on reversing green energy policies enacted over the past four years. Republicans in the House have already introduced legislation to block Biden’s climate standards on household appliances.

Aubrie Spady is a Writer for Fox News Digital.

January 25, 2025
Energy experts weigh in after Canadian premier says she wants to discuss Keystone Pipeline 2.0 with Trump

The premier of a key oil region in Canada is open to talking with President Donald Trump about reopening the Keystone Pipeline, which, according to experts, could strengthen energy security and affordability.

Danielle Smith, the premier of Alberta, Canada, said on Tuesday that she was interested in talking to the Trump administration about potentially reopening the Keystone XL oil pipeline – a system that was designed to carry oil from Alberta to the U.S. through to states like Illinois, Texas and Oklahoma.

The pipeline has been at the forefront of political debate since the project began construction in 2010, and was eventually halted by former President Barack Obama before it was finished. Trump revived it during his first term, but in 2021, former President Joe Biden again blocked the project.

Trump could resume construction during his second term, and do so with the help of Smith, who said that she wants to have conversations about potential cross-border pipelines, according to the Washington Free Beacon.

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Pipes for the Keystone XL pipeline stacked in a yard near Oyen, Alberta, Canada, on Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2021. (Jason Franson)

“What I would propose is—are there ways that we can look at increasing pipeline access, perhaps some new routes or perhaps some new proposals on existing routes?” Smith told the outlet. “So, whether it’s a Keystone 2.0 or something else, I’m looking forward to starting those conversations in earnest once the interior secretary is sworn in.” Trump tapped Gov. Doug Burgum, R-N.D., to lead the U.S. Department of the Interior, but he has not yet been confirmed by the Senate.

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The White House did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. However, this week, Trump rescinded Biden’s executive order that canceled the pipeline’s permits, a move that could reopen potential construction of the oil system.

“Restarting the Keystone XL pipeline aligns with President Trump’s agenda to lower food and energy costs by bolstering North American energy infrastructure and reducing reliance on costly imports,” Jason Isaac, CEO of the American Energy Institute (AEI), told Fox News Digital.

President Donald Trump looks on during Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest at the Phoenix Convention Center on Dec. 22, 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Rebecca Noble)

“The pipeline’s ability to transport heavy sour crude, rich in sulfur, will support the production of affordable fertilizers, a critical input for agriculture, ultimately lowering food-production costs,” Isaac said. “Additionally, the increased supply of crude oil will stabilize fuel prices, reducing transportation and energy costs that significantly impact food prices. This project strengthens energy security, fosters economic growth, and directly contributes to making energy and food more affordable for American families.”

Another expert said that Trump will likely face litigation if he chooses to proceed with construction of the pipeline, but that Congress could help limit legal action.

Pipes for the Keystone XL pipeline stacked in a yard near Oyen, Alberta, Canada, on Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2021. Former President Joe Biden revoked the permit for TC Energy Corp.’s Keystone XL energy pipeline via executive order hours after his inauguration.

“The Trump administration will, no doubt, provide the needed permits for completing the Keystone XL, but litigation is sure to occur,” Steve Milloy, a senior fellow at the Energy & Environmental Legal Institute and former Trump EPA transition team member, told Fox News Digital. “The trick will be to limit the litigation so that investors don’t get scared off. Congress could aid the process by ordering the pipeline completed and limiting the litigation.”

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In December 2022, the Biden administration’s Department of Energy (DOE) published a report that said the Keystone XL project would have created between 16,149 and 59,000 jobs and would have had a positive economic impact of between $3.4 and 9.6 billion, citing various studies.

Aubrie Spady is a Writer for Fox News Digital.

January 24, 2025