Over a decade ago, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, predicted that healthcare premiums would skyrocket, even in the face of subsidies put into effect under Obamacare that were meant to bring them down. 

Today, the ballooning of those premiums and their accompanying subsidies are at the center of the 22-day shutdown that looks poised to get longer still.

‘Despite Obamacare subsidies, many Americans will still be paying higher premiums in 2014 as a result of Obamacare,’ Cruz said in 2013, referring to the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

In his 2013 floor speech, Cruz pointed to research from Avik Roy, a healthcare researcher who, at the time, was a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Roy’s research made the case that subsidies passed by the Obama administration would do little to stop government-backed healthcare plans from growing more expensive over time or competing effectively with non-government-backed plans. 

But even those forecasts have paled in comparison to the costs of the government’s emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The subsidies under Obamacare have vastly expanded in recent years. An emergency provision included in President Joe Biden’s 2021 American Rescue Plan widened the range of eligible applicants as a response to the global pandemic. 

Now that those COVID-era provisions are set to sunset at the end of 2025, an expiration date set by Democrats themselves, Democrats are voicing alarm that Obamacare policyholders will have to shoulder the costs of health insurance without the enhanced supplemental aid. 

According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan think tank that focuses on fiscal policy, continuing the expanded credits could cost upwards of $30 billion annually. Findings by KFF, a healthcare policy group, say that over 90% of the 24 million Obamacare enrollees make use of the enhanced credits.

KFF analysis indicates that the enhanced premium tax credits saved subsidized enrollees an average of $705 last year. 

Democrats in Congress, led by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have demanded some sort of extension to the already expanded COVID-era subsidies as a condition for passing spending legislation to end the current government shutdown, which is now the longest full shutdown in history.

Republicans, who maintain that the subsidies are completely unrelated to government funding considerations, have said lawmakers will address the subsidies when the government is open again.

The most conservative members in Congress have said cutting back on the subsidies is key to returning the government to pre-COVID levels of funding.

Lawmakers in the Senate have voted 11 times on a short-term spending extension meant to keep the government open through Nov. 21 but have so far failed to move past the gridlock over the enhanced premium tax credits.

Cruz did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

President Donald Trump met with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte Wednesday — days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the White House andafter calling off a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

‘We canceled the meeting with President Putin,’ Trump told reporters in the Oval Office with Rutte Wednesday. ‘It just it didn’t feel right to me. It didn’t feel like we were going to get to the place we have to get. So I canceled it. But we’ll do it in the future.’ 

Trump also shed insight into why he isn’t interested in arming Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles, after indicating earlier in October he might do so. 

‘There is a tremendous learning curve with the Tomahawk. It’s a very powerful weapon, very accurate weapon,’ Trump said. ‘And maybe that’s what makes it so complex. But it will take a year. It takes a year of intense training to learn how to use it, and we know how to use it. And we’re not going to be teaching other people. It will be just too far out into the future.’ 

Rutte said he visited the White House to discuss ways to end the war, although he said ‘no peace plan is on the table.’ 

‘That’s why I’m here — to dialog again with the president … how NATO, my colleagues and other colleagues in NATO can be of maximum support to get that,’ Rutte said. 

NATO announced Tuesday that Rutte would visit Washington Wednesday, as Trump has said he wants to direct his focus on ending the conflict between Russia and Ukraine following the ceasefire deal in the Middle East. 

Ahead of his arrival at the White House, Rutte said that Wednesday’s White House visit aimed to build on the momentum after securing the peace agreement in the Middle East. 

‘I was texting with the president after an enormous success in Gaza, and we said, ‘Hey, let’s have a meeting in Washington to discuss how we now can deliver his vision of peace in Ukraine,’’ Rutte told reporters on Capitol Hill Wednesday after meeting with lawmakers, according to The New York Times.

‘I have total confidence in President Trump. He’s the only one who can get this done,’ Rutte said. 

Rutte has visited the White House on several occasions during Trump’s second term, including in July and also in August after Trump’s Alaska summit with Putin. NATO has backed Ukraine since Russia first invaded, and has provided Kyiv with military equipment and other assistance since 2022. 

In August, Rutte and other European leaders joined Zelenskyy in an effort to advance peace talks to end the war in Ukraine. At the time, Trump said that European nations would shoulder the bulk of the burden by providing Ukraine with security guarantees in an attempt to deter future aggression from Russia. 

As part of these security guarantees, Ukraine has sought to become a member of NATO during the peace negotiations. However, Trump has routinely ruled that out as a possibility. 

Meanwhile, Russia’s list of demands has historically included prohibiting Ukraine from ever joining NATO, and concessions on some land that previously belonged to Kyiv. 

Additionally, Rutte’s meeting comes after Trump appeared to throw cold water on any hopes that the U.S. would arm Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles, like Trump had said he was considering doing days ahead of Zelenskyy’s visit. 

‘I would much rather have them not need Tomahawks,’ Trump told reporters Friday. ‘I would much rather have the war be over to be honest, because we’re in it to get the war over.’ 

Additionally, Trump changed his tune on whether Ukraine would need to cede territory it had lost to Russia as part of a peace deal. Although Trump altered his position in September and said that Ukraine could secure back its lost territory, Trump reverted to his previously held position on the matter. 

‘They can negotiate something later on down the line,’ Trump told reporters Sunday. ‘But I said cut and stop at the battle line. Go home. Stop fighting, stop killing people.’

The change in tone came after Trump spoke with Putin Thursday and the two were originally slated to meet this month in Budapest. However, plans for the meeting were scrapped after Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. 

‘Secretary Rubio and Foreign Minister Lavrov had a productive call,’ a senior official said in a statement Tuesday to Fox News. ‘Therefore an additional in-person meeting between the Secretary and Foreign Minister is not necessary and there are no plans for President Trump to meet with President Putin in the near future.’ 

Meanwhile, Trump has recently cast doubt on whether Ukraine can defeat Russia. 

‘They could still win it. I don’t think they will, but they could still win it,’ Trump told reporters Monday. 

Fox News’ Gillian Turner and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

The Democrats, or Socialists, or whatever they are these days, are hopping mad over President Donald Trump’s construction of a ballroom in the East Wing of the White House, and while it may be their silliest freakout of the entire Trump era, it is also quite telling.

The ladies on ABC’s ‘The View’ were apoplectic when they saw images of demolition, a fairly ordinary way to begin renovations, at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. They echoed one-time resident Hillary Clinton’s complaint that Trump doesn’t own the White House, even taking to song about it.

What makes this argument so absurd, is that Trump is not building this ballroom for his personal use or glory. It’s not a vanity project. It is a long-considered addition to an executive home that lacked the capacity to hold large indoor events.

Trump, as has always been his wont, is looking to create grandeur, and that seems to be something to which leftists reflexively object.

Trump is obviously not the first president to renovate the White House. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt put in a swimming pool. His successor, President Harry Truman, practically gutted the place to add a balcony. President Nixon covered the swimming pool but added a bowling alley. Finally, President Obama transformed the tennis court into a basketball court.

Note that these are all changes that were made to serve the respective president’s personal taste or enjoyment, like a Roman emperor adding a water feature to his personal dining area.

What Trump is doing is completely different. The ballroom he is constructing will likely survive as a symbol of American power long after we are all gone. It will be, in a sense, our generation’s contribution to the people’s home.

Trump wants this venue, this symbol of America, to be grand and classically inspired, a timeless marble monument to a United States that emerged from the 20th century as the world’s only super power.

And in a way, this is part of what the left objects to, not just in regard to the White House project, but to Trump’s proposed new arch in Washington, D.C., and great statuaries of American heroes, not to mention the recent massive military parade.

In the post-Cold War era, part of America’s international style and sensibility was to be understated. Like the star quarterback who is also a model and a chess prodigy, we learned not to rub it in.

In that time, very little public art or architecture was done on a grand and classic scale, and in more recent times, our society has been so hellbent on taking statues and monuments down, that we gave little thought to putting them up.

Trump instinctively understands that in 2025, America may still be the world’s only superpower, but not by so hegemonic a distance as in the recent past. China, among others have been catching up, and the ‘aw, shucks’ attitude of the past needs some adjusting.

World leaders as well those on public White House tours should have their breath taken away when they walk into the presidential ballroom. Such displays are as old as nations themselves, from the pyramids to the Coliseum, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.

Though this expansion of the White House would be well worth taxpayer money, Trump has found a way to build it with private donations, as well as his own funds. Still the left is throwing a fit. Why?

Recent polling showed that only 36% of Democrats are very, or even just somewhat, proud of America. This being the case, it’s easy to understand why they object to building testaments to its power and glory.

What Democrats and socialists are really objecting to here is not that Trump’s ballroom celebrates himself, it’s that his ballroom unabashedly celebrates America.

Fifty years from now, when King George VII of Great Britain dines at the White House, people will little remember that it was built by Trump, even if all the gold leaf remains. By then, it will simply be a great piece of American architecture we can all be proud of.

Americans want and deserve a big, beautiful ballroom for their nation’s executive mansion, and there has never been a president more capable of delivering it than our real estate mogul-in-chief.

Liberals can stamp their feet in anger all they want. But the ballroom is going to be built, and eventually, most of them will come to appreciate it.

In today’s political environment, it is hard to envision important issues where Republicans and Democrats can find common ground. Protecting the safety and security of citizens from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is hopefully still that issue. 

In recent years, we have seen growing agreement among lawmakers that the CCP is actively working against the security of the U.S. Whether through coercive trade practices, espionage, military aggression or technology theft, the CCP is intent on undermining American strength. 

President Donald Trump has rightly identified our nation’s increased dependence on Chinese companies as a clear threat to national security. In response, he has taken action to rebuild our domestic industrial manufacturing bases. This is especially true in critical security industries like defense, nuclear development, pharmaceutical manufacturing and data center infrastructure. 

The Trump administration should now look at medical devices. This lesser-known threat to American privacy and security lurks within our hospitals, health care facilities and even in the homes of everyday Americans. Used to treat patients, monitor patient health and inform medical decisions made by health care professionals, medical devices are critical tools used in the everyday care of our most vulnerable members of society. 

It is no wonder, then, that medical devices made by Chinese companies not only have the potential to take advantage of that intimate access, but have already been shown to exploit those vulnerabilities to gain access to the personal, private data of American patients.

Just this month, it was reported that medical hardware from Shanghai-based United Imaging has been installed in some of the country’s top research labs. In some instances, these labs were even funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Not only has United Imaging worked alongside the Chinese military and the state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences, according to the FBI, the company has also bribed employees working at an NIH-funded lab to backchannel non-public information about their research to United Imaging and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. 

Earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning about a patient monitor made by Chinese-based company Contec, specifically calling attention to a software backdoor on the device that once connected to the internet ‘begins gathering patient data, including personally identifiable information (PII) and protected health information (PHI), and exfiltrating (withdrawing) the data outside of the health care delivery environment.’ 

The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) followed up with its own report, saying that the backdoor enabled remote actors to engage in ‘remote code execution and device modification with the ability to alter its configuration.’

Far from being an idle threat, CISA explained that this vulnerability in a machine that monitors and displays critical information like electrocardiograms and blood pressure could result in life-or-death consequences: ‘This introduces risk to patient safety as a malfunctioning monitor could lead to improper responses to vital signs displayed by the device.’

Medical devices made by Chinese companies have quietly made their way into many hospitals and clinics in the United States, bringing with them hidden risks that are waiting to be abused by the CCP. 

First, patient privacy is compromised when unknown actors can access and siphon the most sensitive and confidential data from every patient in America, undermining the very foundation of trust in our health care system. 

Compounded with the fact that Chinese law compels Chinese companies to cooperate and share information with the CCP and that China prizes big data and is gathering information on individuals around the world, we can be assured that whatever private information is gathered on American patients is not in our national interest.

Second, we cannot trust that information siphoning will not escalate to more serious tactics that put patient lives at risk. Remote access to medical devices could result in real-world harm to patients if those devices were reconfigured to display false information that then led to unnecessary and harmful medical interventions. 

Third, the U.S. healthcare system is becoming too dependent on Chinese companies to run our hospitals. It does not take much of a leap to think about what would happen if the CCP decided to cut off the supply of medical devices. Just like critical minerals, energy or military equipment, depending on Chinese companies for medical devices is a clear threat to American security.

What these threats amount to is that the U.S. can no longer blindly outsource medical devices – some of our most vital and sensitive equipment – to companies that operate at the behest of foreign adversarial governments like the CCP. It is critical that America has a domestic supply chain of medical devices. 

Now is the time that lawmakers, both at the federal and state level, take this threat seriously and take meaningful steps to reduce the risks posed by these medical devices. 

Protecting Americans from threats to their health and security should be an easy, bipartisan win.