With little time and no deal in sight to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a partial government shutdown by midnight is all but guaranteed.

The battle to prevent the third government shutdown under President Donald Trump in less than six months was lost in the Senate on Thursday. Now, with Congress scattered across the U.S. and several senators headed abroad, there’s no chance that a shutdown will be averted.

Senate Republicans were unable to smash through Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Democrats’ unified front to pass a full-year DHS funding bill, nor were they able to do yet another short-term, two-week extension.

‘The idea of not even allowing us to have an extended amount of time to negotiate this suggests to me, at least, that there isn’t a high level of interest in actually solving this issue,’ Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said.

The final fight on the floor Thursday wasn’t with every lawmaker present, but between Sens. Katie Britt, R-Ala., and Chris Murphy, D-Conn., over giving lawmakers a little more time to keep the agency open while negotiations continue.

Senate Democrats argued that Republicans offered their legislative proposal in the dead of night, giving little time to actually move toward a compromise.

‘We had plenty of time to get a deal in the last two weeks,’ Murphy said. ‘And the lack of seriousness from the White House and from Republicans not getting language until last night has put us in the position we are in today.’

And with the expected shutdown, Democrats’ main targets — Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) — won’t see their cash flow dry up because of billions injected into the agency by Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill.’

Instead, agencies like TSA, FEMA, the Coast Guard, and several others will suffer the brunt of the shutdown.

‘There is no way that you can’t say we’re working in good faith. We want to continue this conversation,’ Britt said on the Senate floor. ‘But yet you’re penalizing a TSA agent. A TSA agent is going to go without a paycheck. Why? So that you can posture politically? I’m over it.’

‘Everybody on that side of the aisle knows that ICE and CBP will continue to be funded,’ she continued. ‘They’re going to continue to enforce the law just as they should. Who’s going to pay the price?’

The final floor argument was a microcosm of what the week had devolved into. Senate Republicans argued that Democrats had burned too much time producing their list of demands, while Senate Democrats contended that they weren’t given enough time by the White House.

And as is typical during the string of shutdowns in the last several months, it has devolved into a public blame game. When asked about the effects a shutdown would have on the agencies not involved in immigration enforcement, Schumer pointed the finger at the GOP and the White House.

‘Talk to the Republicans, OK? We’re ready to fund everything,’ Schumer said. ‘We’re ready to have good, serious proposals supported by the American people. They’re not; they’re sort of dug in the ground, and they’re not moving forward.’

But neither side is willing to divulge publicly what the exact sticking points are in their ongoing negotiations. And Senate Democrats now appear to be considering a counteroffer to the White House, a sign that negotiations aren’t totally dead in the water.

‘Negotiations will continue, and we will see in the course of the next few days how serious they are,’ Thune said.

President Donald Trump’s administration fired a U.S. attorney the same day he was sworn in for the role by a federal court this week.

A board of judges for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York tapped Donald T. Kinsella to serve as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York, according to a court announcement that said Kinsella was sworn in on Wednesday. But Kinsella was then booted from the post on Wednesday. 

Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche was blunt about the firing in a Wednesday post on X.

‘Judges don’t pick U.S. Attorneys, @POTUS does. See Article II of our Constitution. You are fired, Donald Kinsella,’ Blanche wrote.

In a Thursday statement, the court noted, ‘Yesterday the United States District Court appointed a United States Attorney for the Northern District of New York, a position that was vacant.’ 

‘The Court exercised its authority under 28 U.S.C. § 546(d), which empowers the district court to ‘appoint a United States Attorney to serve until the vacancy is filled.’ The United States Constitution expressly provides for this grant of authority in Article II, Section 2, Clause 2, which states in part: ‘the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment’ of officials such as United States Attorneys ‘in the Courts of Law.’ By the end of the day, Deputy Director of Presidential Personnel, Morgan DeWitt Snow notified Mr. Kinsella that he was removed as the judicially-appointed United States Attorney, without explanation,’ the statement noted.

‘The Court thanks Donald T. Kinsella for his willingness to return to public service so that this vacancy could be filled with a qualified, experienced former prosecutor, and for his years of distinguished work on behalf of the citizens of the Northern District of New York,’ the statement added.

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment on Friday.

Kinsella was tapped to succeed John Sarcone III after a judge declared in January that he was serving in the role of acting U.S. attorney illegally, according to NBC News. 

The outlet said U.S. District Judge Lorna Schofield ruled that the Department of Justice took improper action to keep Sarcone in the role past the 120-day limit for U.S. attorneys who the Senate has not confirmed. He demoted himself to first assistant attorney while awaiting an appeal of the judge’s decision, the outlet added.

A new attack ad from Republicans targeting U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., is slamming the vulnerable Democrat senator for requiring entrants at his political rallies to show proof of identification, but arguing that identification requirements for voting are a form of voter suppression. 

‘Want to get into a Jon Ossoff rally?’ the advertisement’s narrator begins, before it goes into a montage of staffers at Ossoff’s Feb. 7 rally asking for entrants’ IDs.

‘Don’t forget your ID’ rally staff can be heard saying as folks walked into the Georgia International Convention Center located in metro Atlanta.

‘Also, do you have your ID with you?’ another staffer can be heard asking entrants in the video captured by a GOP tracker. ‘I’ll just grab your ID from you. Thank you so much,’ another said. ‘Please have your IDs ready, please, thank you.’

Meanwhile, Ossoff has referred to attempts to establish stricter photo-identification rules for voting and voter registration in federal elections as ‘nakedly partisan, totally unworkable, [and] bad faith.’

Ossoff’s team declined to comment for this story. 

On Wednesday, Republicans in the House of Representatives passed the latest iteration of a voter integrity law aiming at requiring stricter in-person documentation requirements, such as needing a photo-ID to vote. This bill is a broader and stricter version of the 2025 version of the bill which focused predominantly on registering to vote as opposed to the act of voting itself.

Ahead of the vote’s passage, one of Ossoff’s Republican challengers in the upcoming U.S. Senate race in Georgia, Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Ga., called out the incumbent Democrat Senator for ‘once [saying] that voter ID was ‘right and appropriate,’ [but] now supports his party as reframing it as ‘voter suppression.”

‘The law didn’t change. Public opinion didn’t change. What changed was he – and other Democrat politicians like him – realized that illegal immigrants could no longer vote to keep Democrats in office,’ Carter asserted. ‘They oppose this bill because it chips away at their voting base; plain and simple.’

Despite Ossoff’s previous opposition to voter integrity laws, his campaign event framed the requirement for photo ID as a security measure.

‘Due to security requirements … be ready to show ID that matches our RSVP list and these arrival instructions (printed or on your phone),’ the campaign event’s confirmation email said.

Fox News Digital’s Leo Briceno contributed to this report.

: A trio of Republican senators are moving to overhaul how federal childcare funds are distributed after what they call ‘mass fraud’ in Minnesota exposed a system that paid providers before verifying children were ever in the room.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, joined by senators Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Rick Scott, R-Fla., is introducing the Payment Integrity Act, legislation that would require states to distribute federally funded childcare dollars based on verified attendance, not enrollment claims.

‘Programs in Minnesota for welfare and childcare were designed to channel resources into protecting vulnerable children but were treated like an open ATM by criminals,’ Cruz told Fox News Digital.

‘The mass fraud in Minnesota shows that American taxpayers can no longer rely on local and state politicians to prevent abuses because those politicians often have electoral and partisan incentives to look the other way. My legislation reduces the risk of the waste and fraud we’ve seen and ensures that resources are provided to children and families who need it.’

The bill would reverse a 2024 Biden administration rule requiring states to pay childcare providers before attendance verification. Under Cruz’s proposal, providers would be paid only after services are confirmed, shifting from enrollment-based payments to attendance-based billing.

Cruz’s bill comes as the outspoken Texan led a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on alleged Somali fraudsters last week. There, lawmakers heard directly from David Hoch, a journalist who accompanied blogger Nick Shirley to sites claiming to be Somali daycare centers.

‘There are few crimes more morally repugnant than stealing from vulnerable children. Every dollar stolen is a meal not eaten, a doctor’s visit missed and a future diminished,’ Cruz said, adding that such fraud ‘plunders our children’s potential.’

Gesturing toward a photo of the ‘Quality Learing Center’ in Minneapolis during the hearing, an alleged fraudulent childcare provider Cruz called ’emblematic’ of the crisis, he said the fraud was occurring not in ‘some distant or lawless place, but in the heart of America’s Midwest.’

Co-sponsor Lee said support for childcare should ‘go to real kids, not empty rooms.’

‘Fake childcare operations are stealing funding from the ones who are actually taking care of America’s children in need. Our bill will address this massive fraud by granting funding based on actual attendance rather than reported enrollment and allowing states to pay retroactively instead of in advance,’ Lee said, adding such ‘diligence’ should have been the law all along.

The Payment Integrity Act also puts into law the January rule from Health and Human Services that established attendance-based billing procedures.

That rule, according to Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s deputy, Jim O’Neill, was also spurred by what has been happening in Minnesota.

‘We’ve seen credible and widespread allegations of fraudulent daycare providers who were not caring for children at all. The reforms we are enacting will make fraud harder to perpetrate,’ O’Neill said in a statement.

The Payment Integrity Act amends the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act signed into law by President George H.W. Bush, to include such ‘attendance-based billing.’

‘Nothing in this subchapter shall be construed to require a lead agency to make a payment to a child care provider prior to the provision of child care services,’ the bill states in a direct reversal of the prepayment system Cruz says allowed fraud to flourish.

: A trio of Republican senators are moving to overhaul how federal childcare funds are distributed after what they call ‘mass fraud’ in Minnesota exposed a system that paid providers before verifying children were ever in the room.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, joined by Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Rick Scott, R-Fla., is introducing the Payment Integrity Act, legislation that would require states to distribute federally funded childcare dollars based on verified attendance — not enrollment claims.

‘Programs in Minnesota for welfare and childcare were designed to channel resources into protecting vulnerable children, but were treated like an open ATM by criminals,’ Cruz told Fox News Digital.

‘The mass fraud in Minnesota shows that American taxpayers can no longer rely on local and state politicians to prevent abuses, because those politicians often have electoral and partisan incentives to look the other way. My legislation reduces the risk of the waste and fraud we’ve seen and ensures that resources are provided to children and families who need it.’

The bill would reverse a 2024 Biden administration rule requiring states to pay childcare providers before attendance verification. Under Cruz’s proposal, providers would be paid only after services are confirmed — shifting from enrollment-based payments to attendance-based billing.

Cruz’s bill comes as the outspoken Texan led a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on alleged Somali fraudsters last week. There, lawmakers heard directly from David Hoch — a journalist seen accompanying blogger Nick Shirley to addresses proclaimed to be Somali daycares.

‘There are few crimes more morally repugnant than stealing from vulnerable children. Every dollar stolen is a meal not eaten, a doctor’s visit missed, and a future diminished,’ Cruz said, adding that such fraud ‘plunders our children’s potential.’

Gesturing towards a photo of the ‘Quality Learing Center’ in Minneapolis during the hearing, an allegedly fraudulent childcare provider Cruz called ’emblematic’ of the crisis, he said the fraud was occurring not in ‘some distant or lawless place, but in the heart of America’s Midwest.’

Co-sponsor Lee said that support for childcare should ‘go to real kids, not empty rooms.’

‘Fake childcare operations are stealing funding from the ones who are actually taking care of America’s children in need. Our bill will address this massive fraud by granting funding based on actual attendance rather than reported enrollment, and allowing states to pay retroactively instead of in advance,’ Lee said, adding such ‘diligence’ should have been the law all along.

The Payment Integrity Act also puts into law January rule from Health and Human Services that established attendance-based billing procedures

That rule, according to Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s deputy Jim O’Neill was also spurred on by what has been happening in Minnesota.

‘We’ve seen credible and widespread allegations of fraudulent daycare providers who were not caring for children at all. The reforms we are enacting will make fraud harder to perpetrate,’ O’Neill said in a statement.

The Payment Integrity Act officially amends the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act signed into law by President George Herbert Walker Bush, to include such ‘attendance-based billing.’

‘Nothing in this subchapter shall be construed to require a lead agency to make a payment to a child care provider prior to the provision of child care services,’ the bill reads, a direct reversal of the pre-payment system Cruz says allowed fraud to flourish.