The Medicaid debate among Senate Republicans continues to rage on, but a new proposal geared toward sating concerns over the survivability of rural hospitals could help to close the lingering fissures within the conference.

Senate Republicans are sprinting to finish their work on President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill,’ which is filled with key priorities like making his first-term tax cuts permanent, funding his immigration and border security agenda, and rooting out waste, fraud and abuse across a variety of programs.

But lawmakers are still at odds over changes made in the Senate’s version of the bill to the Medicaid provider tax rate and the effects that it could have on rural hospitals, threatening to derail the legislation near the finish line.

A proposal making the rounds from the Senate Finance Committee obtained by Fox News Digital would create a separate stabilization fund that would go toward aiding and upgrading rural healthcare.

The committee’s proposal would allocate $3 billion annually to states that apply to the program over the next five fiscal years.

But that amount is too low for some senators and far too much for others.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, has been working on a similar proposal but would prefer a much higher fund of $100 billion. That number is unlikely to pass muster with her colleagues and still isn’t high enough for her.

‘I don’t think that solves the entire problem,’ she said. ‘The Senate cuts in Medicaid are far deeper than the House cuts and I think that’s problematic as well.’

Collins would prefer a return to the House GOP’s proposed changes to the provider tax rate, rather than the Senate’s harsher crackdown.

The Senate changes to the provider tax rate hit close to home for Collins, whose state’s rural hospitals are already in jeopardy because the state of Maine failed to advance its budget in time, leaving roughly $400 million in Medicaid funding that would have gone to rural hospitals in limbo.

‘Obviously any money is helpful. But no, it is not adequate,’ she said.

Indeed, the changes to the Medicaid provider tax rate, which were a stark departure from the House GOP’s version of the bill, angered the Republicans who have warned not to make revisions to the health care program that could shut down rural hospitals and boot working Americans from their benefits.

The Senate Finance Committee went further than the House’s freeze of the provider tax rate, or the amount that state Medicaid programs pay to healthcare providers on behalf of Medicaid beneficiaries, for non-Affordable Care Act expansion states and included a provision that lowers the rate in expansion states annually until it hits 3.5%.

However, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz and some Senate Republicans have argued that the provider tax rate is a scam rife with fraud that actually harms rural hospitals more than it helps.

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., was in the same camp, and has argued that the rate should be nixed completely. He has similarly pushed for a separate fund but wasn’t keen on the cost of the current proposal.

‘I don’t know that we need $15 billion,’ he said. ‘But this needs to be run by CMS.’

And others wanted to see more money injected into a stabilization fund.

‘I think $5 billion a year would more than make them whole,’ Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., said.

He contended that, as the only lawmaker who has run a rural hospital, there are only roughly 12 million people on Medicaid in rural America, and that lawmakers should ‘tighten things up’ when it comes to funding the health care program.

He said that being on Medicaid was ‘not the same as having healthcare,’ and added that ‘at best, two thirds of doctors accept Medicaid, and even many of the specialists, when they say they do, they won’t give you an appointment for six months or a year.’

‘Medicaid is not the solution,’ he said. ‘It’s the most broken federal system up here.’ 

Emil Bove forcefully rejected criticisms that he was President Donald Trump’s ‘henchman’ or ‘enforcer’ during a Senate hearing Wednesday focused on his nomination by Trump to serve as a federal judge.

Bove, a top Department of Justice (DOJ) official vying to fill a lifetime role on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, said media reports painted a ‘wildly inaccurate caricature’ about him.

‘I am not anybody’s henchman. I’m not an enforcer,’ Bove said, referring to descriptors used in headlines about him. ‘I’m a lawyer from a small town who never expected to be in an arena like this.’

Bove served as a key attorney on Trump’s personal defense team during the president’s four criminal prosecutions. Prior to that, he led drug trafficking and terrorism cases during his decade as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York.

But Bove’s formidable demeanor and controversial decisions upon joining DOJ leadership, which included dismissing New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ corruption charges and warning of personnel action for FBI employees who worked on Jan. 6 cases, have caused his nomination to the powerful appellate court bench to attract heightened scrutiny.

Capping off a string of reports examining these controversies was a whistleblower claim leveled Tuesday, one day prior to Bove’s nomination hearing.

The whistleblower, Erez Reuveni, a 15-year veteran of the department who was fired this year for perceived insubordination, alleged that Bove warned during an internal meeting that DOJ attorneys might need to say ‘f*** you’ to judges and defy any adverse orders they issue regarding one of Trump’s most provocative maneuvers to deport alleged illegal immigrants.

Senate Democrats, who have widely objected to Bove’s nomination, grilled the nominee over the claim, noting that flouting court orders was unconstitutional and disqualifying. Bove said he has never advised anyone to defy judges’ orders.

‘Did you or did you not make those comments during that meeting?’ Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., pressed.

‘I did not suggest that there would be any need to consider ignoring court orders. At the point at that meeting there were no court orders to discuss,’ Bove said. 

Schiff repeated the profane phrase several times, asking if Bove said it in relation to the courts.

‘I don’t recall,’ Bove said.

‘You just don’t remember that,’ Schiff replied incredulously.

Other Democrats pressed Bove on the Adams saga, which had led in February to a handful of high-level DOJ employees resigning in protest of Bove’s order that they dismiss the mayor’s federal corruption charges. A judge ultimately dropped Adams’s charges at Bove’s request, but not before excoriating the DOJ for giving ‘inconsistent’ justifications for wanting to drop the case.

Bove was accused by the ousted lawyers of asking the courts to toss out Adams’s charges in exchange for the mayor’s cooperation with the Trump administration’s immigration policy. Bove denied the allegation when pressed on it.

‘The suggestion that there was some kind of quid pro quo was just plain false,’ Bove said.

Despite Democrats’ concerns, as well as concerns voiced by some defense lawyers who said they have had negative experiences with the nominee, Bove has some loyal supporters. No Republican senators have voiced opposition to him at this stage, a sign that he could eventually be confirmed, albeit narrowly.

In an interview prior to the hearing, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Bove’s longtime friend and colleague, told Fox News Digital that Bove was a ‘freaking brilliant lawyer.’

Blanche said reports that Bove was unqualified were ‘distorted’ and that installing him on the Third Circuit was a ‘no-brainer.’

Anthony Bernal, the former advisor to former first lady Jill Biden, is refusing to appear before the House Oversight Committee to be questioned about the alleged cover-up of former President Joe Biden’s mental decline.

Chair James Comer, R-Ky., said in a press release Tuesday that Bernal was refusing to appear on June 26 for a transcribed interview, as part of the committee’s investigation into the Biden cover-up, and also the potentially unauthorized use of autopen for executive actions and pardons.

‘Now that the White House has waived executive privilege, it’s abundantly clear that Anthony Bernal – Jill Biden’s so-called ‘work husband’ – never intended to be transparent about Joe Biden’s cognitive decline and the ensuing cover-up,’ Comer said. ‘With no privilege left to hide behind, Mr. Bernal is now running scared, desperate to bury the truth. The American people deserve answers and accountability, and the Oversight Committee will not tolerate this obstruction.’

The chairman added that if Bernal does not wish to come on his own, he will issue a subpoena to compel Bernal to provide testimony before the committee.

Letters obtained by Fox News Digital from a source familiar with the matter show the Trump administration will not allow the people of interest in Comer’s probe to use their past White House work as a legal shield.

Deputy Counsel to the President Gary Lawkowski sent the letters to former Biden Chief of Staff Ron Klain, former senior advisors Anita Dunn, Steve Ricchetti, Mike Donilon, Annie Tomasini, Bruce Reed, Ashley Williams and Bernal.

‘In light of the unique and extraordinary nature of the matters under investigation, President Trump has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the national interest, and therefore is not justified, with respect to particular subjects within the purview of the House Oversight Committee,’ the letters said. ‘Those subjects include your assessment of former President Biden’s fitness for the office of the President and your knowledge of who exercised executive powers during his administration.’

Congressional Republicans and the White House are investigating whether the senior Biden aides in question played any role in keeping concerns about the former president’s mental acuity shielded from the public eye and even from lower-level White House staffers.

‘Just yesterday, we heard from our first witness, Neera Tanden, the former Staff Secretary who controlled the Biden autopen,’ Comer said Wednesday. ‘Ms. Tanden testified that she had minimal interaction with President Biden, despite wielding tremendous authority. She explained that to obtain approval for autopen signatures, she would send decision memos to members of the President’s inner circle and had no visibility of what occurred between sending the memo and receiving it back with approval.

‘Her testimony raises serious questions about who was really calling the shots in the Biden White House amid the President’s obvious decline,’ Comer continued. ‘We will continue to pursue the truth for the American people.’

Bernal’s team previously confirmed he would appear for a transcribed interview on June 26, 2025, according to Comer’s office. But yesterday, the White House counsel’s office notified Bernal that it was waiving executive privilege regarding the Oversight Committee’s investigation.

Bernal’s legal team then told the committee he would no longer appear for the interview.

Comer’s team said in the press release that during the last Congress, the chairman subpoenaed three key White House aides, including Bernal, who allegedly ran interference for Biden to cover up his decline.

Despite the subpoenas, the White House under Biden allegedly obstructed the committee’s investigation by refusing to make the aides available for interviews or depositions.

Fox News Digital’s Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.

Mossad Director David Barnea thanked the men and women working for the agency after the success of Israel’s Operation Rising Lion. He also expressed his appreciation to the U.S. — particularly the C.I.A. — for their work in countering Iran’s nuclear program.

‘These are historic days for the people of Israel. The Iranian threat, which endangered our security for decades, has been significantly thwarted thanks to the extraordinary cooperation between the IDF, which led the campaign, and the Mossad, which operated alongside it, with the support of our ally, the United States,’ Barnea said.

The Mossad, Israel’s equivalent of the C.I.A., had personnel in Iran ready for the launch of Operation Rising Lion, something that was revealed in unprecedented fashion when the agency released video of its operatives at work.

Ahead of the U.S. strikes in the early hours of Sunday morning, Iran time, there was speculation whether Washington and Jerusalem were coordinating. President Donald Trump made it clear after the strikes that he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been working together behind the scenes.

‘I want to thank and congratulate Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. We worked as a team — like perhaps no team has ever worked before — and we’ve gone a long way to erasing this horrible threat to Israel,’ Trump said in his address to the nation following the strikes on Iran.

While Barnea expressed his gratitude to Israeli and American forces alike, he also said that ‘the mission is not yet complete.’

‘The Mossad will continue, with determination, to monitor, track, and act to thwart the threats against us—just as we always have—for the sake of the State of Israel and its people,’ Barnea said.

Iran’s nuclear chief, Mohammad Eslami, said on Tuesday that the country was assessing the damage and preparing to restore the facilities, according to Reuters. He added that Iran’s ‘plan is to prevent interruptions in the process of production and services.’

Both Trump and Netanyahu vowed to respond if Iran rebuilds its nuclear program.

The House Oversight Committee says it will subpoena top Biden family aide, Anthony Bernal, after the committee said he refused to testify as part of their investigation into former President Biden’s mental acuity and his use of an automatic signature tool that allowed aides to sign pardons, memos and other important documents on Biden’s behalf. 

‘Jill Biden’s longtime aide Anthony Bernal is DEFYING Congress and REFUSING to testify tomorrow about Joe Biden’s cognitive decline after the White House waived his executive privilege,’ the committee posted on X Wednesday after Bernal was expected to testify on Thursday morning.

‘He’s running scared. The cover-up is collapsing. We will subpoena him immediately.’

By proxy, as the first lady’s top aide, Bernal became one of the most influential people in the White House, according to recent reports, and he was expected to face tough questions about what he knew and when he knew about Biden’s mental decline.

‘No one spent more time, whether it was in the motorcade, on the plane, in the private residence at the White House, Camp David, and at both houses in Delaware, nobody spent more personal time around them and their family and the Biden family than Anthony,’ Democratic strategist Michael LaRosa, who served as press secretary to former first lady Jill Biden, told Fox News Digital. 

LaRosa told Fox News Digital that Bernal, former special assistant to Biden and deputy director of Oval Office Operations, was an ‘indispensable’ part of the Biden team whose top priority was ‘protecting the Bidens,’ even if it was politically harmful due to a ‘personal and emotional attachment’ that became more of a familial relationship than a professional one. 

Fox News Digital previously reported on how the book ‘Original Sin,’ by CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios political correspondent Alex Thompson, described Bernal as one of the most influential people in the White House who wielded loyalty as a weapon to weed out the defectors.

During the pandemic, Biden traded the campaign trail for lockdown. Bernal and Annie Tomasini, who is expected to testify next month, found their way into Joe and Jill Biden’s pod, shifting the power dynamic of Biden’s so-called ‘Politiburo,’ the group of advisors who steered Biden’s political orbit, the book explained. 

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

‘Their instincts, to hide the ball on often frivolous issues is what ultimately got them in trouble,’ LaRosa told Fox News Digital about the ‘bunker mentality’ from Bernal and other aides around Biden. 

‘Their reflexive need to hide and protect was a deficiency and a blind spot and I never understood it.’

A former White House staffer fired back against Tapper and Thompson’s allegations about Bernal in a statement to Fox News Digital earlier this year.

‘A lot of vignettes in this book are either false, exaggerated, or purposefully omit viewpoints that don’t fit the narrative they want to push. Anthony was a strong leader with high standards and a mentor to many. He’s the type of person you want on a team – he’s incredibly strategic, effective, and cares deeply about the people he manages,’ the former White House staffer said. 

Politico reported in 2021 that Bernal’s management style was viewed by some as ‘toxic’ and would sometimes lead to crying staffers. 

LaRosa told Fox News Digital that Bernal has a ‘big heart’ but acknowledged he was one of the more ‘challenging’ people he had to work with. 

Bernal’s appearance before the committee, if it happens, follows testimony from former Biden aide Neera Tanden, who said she was authorized to direct autopen signatures but was unaware of who in the president’s inner circle was giving her final clearance.

When Tanden was asked whether she ever discussed Biden’s health or his fitness to serve as president during her time as a top aide, including during the period of the former president’s widely criticized debate performance last summer, Tanden said she did not. Lawmakers laid out a list of names of officials she could have potentially discussed it with, and Tanden said ‘no’ to each name, according to a source familiar with her closed-door testimony. 

Fox News Digital’s Liz Elkind, Alec Schemmel and Deirdre Heavey contributed to this report.