The top Democrat in the Senate plans to inflict maximum pain on Senate Republicans in their march to pass President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ before lawmakers even get a chance to debate the legislative behemoth.

Indeed, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., plans to force clerks on the Senate floor to read the entirety of the GOP’s 940-page megabill. His move to drain as much time as possible will come after Republicans vote on a key procedural test to open debate on the legislation.

‘I will object to Republicans moving forward on their Big, Ugly Bill without reading it on the Senate floor,’ Schumer said on X. ‘Republicans won’t tell America what’s in the bill

‘So Democrats are forcing it to be read start to finish on the floor,’ he said. ‘We will be here all night if that’s what it takes to read it.’

Indeed, staffers were seen carting the bill onto the Senate floor in preparation for the all-night read-a-thon.

Schumer’s move is expected to take up to 15 hours and is designed to allow Senate Democrats more time to parse through the myriad provisions within the massive legislative text. Ultimately, it will prove a smokescreen as Senate Republicans will continue to march toward a final vote.

Once the bill reading is done, 20 hours of debate evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans will begin, likely early Sunday morning. Democrats are expected to use their entire 10-hour chunk, while Republicans will go far under their allotted time.

Then comes the ‘vote-a-rama’ process, where lawmakers can offer an unlimited number of amendments to the bill.

Democrats will again look to extract as much pain as possible during that process, while Republicans, particularly senators that have lingering issues with key Medicaid and land sale provisions, will continue to try and shape and mold the bill.

The last time clerks were forced to read the entirety of a bill during the budget reconciliation process was in 2021, when Senate Democrats held the majority in the upper chamber.

At the time, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., demanded that the entire, over-600-page American Rescue Act be read aloud. Schumer, who was the Senate Majority Leader attempting to ram then-President Joe Biden’s agenda through the upper chamber, objected to the reading. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday said alleged calls in Iran for the arrest and execution of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi are ‘unacceptable and should be condemned.’

Rubio’s warning came after Iranian parliament vice speaker Hamid Reza Haji Babaei banned Grossi and removed surveillance from its nuclear facilities, accusing Israel of acquiring ‘sensitive facility data,’ according to a report from Mehr news.

‘We support the lAEA’s critical verification and monitoring efforts in Iran and commend the Director General and the lAEA for their dedication and professionalism,’ Rubio wrote in an X post. ‘We call on Iran to provide for the safety and security of IAEA personnel.’

The lAEA this week commented on damage at Iranian nuclear facilities, following U.S. airstrikes on key nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.

While speaking on Fox News’ ‘The Story with Martha MacCallum,’ Grossi said Isfahan and Natanz were damaged, with Natanz showing ‘very serious damage’ in one of the centrifuge halls where enrichment was being performed.

Though a ceasefire agreement was made between Israel and Iran, Grossi alleged 900 pounds of potentially enriched uranium had been taken to an ancient site near Isfahan.

‘I have to be very precise, Martha,’ Grossi said. ‘We are the IAEA, so we are not speculating here. We do not have information of the whereabouts of this material.’

He claimed Iranian officials had told him they were taking protective measures, which could include moving the material.

‘My job is to try to see where is this material, because Iran has an obligation to report and account for all the material that they have, and this is going to continue to be my work,’ Grossi said.

President Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal Tehran signed with the U.S., U.K., European Union, France, Germany and Russia in 2018, prompting Iranian threats to remove cameras and limit access to its facilities.

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

Fox News Digital’s Greg Wehner contributed to this report.

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts warned Saturday of the dangers of politicians using heated rhetoric against judges. 

‘It becomes wrapped up in the political dispute that a judge who’s doing his or her job is part of the problem,’ Roberts said in Charlotte, North Carolina, at the Judicial Conference of the Fourth Circuit, a gathering of judges and lawyers. 

‘And the danger, of course, is somebody might pick up on that. And we have had, of course, serious threats of violence and murder of judges just simply for doing their work. So, I think the political people on both sides of the aisle need to keep that in mind.’

Roberts didn’t name anyone but appeared to be referencing President Donald Trump and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer when he said he’d felt compelled to speak out against rhetoric by Democrats and Republicans in the past. 

Trump has criticized judges many times over the years, including calling for the impeachment of a judge who ruled against a deportation policy earlier this year, referring to him as ‘radical left’ and a ‘lunatic.’ 

Roberts responded at the time, saying, ‘For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.’

In 2020, Roberts condemned Schumer for saying that Trump-appointed Supreme Court justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch would ‘pay the price’ regarding an abortion rights case during Trump’s first term. 

‘You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price,’ Schumer said at a rally outside the Supreme Court at the time. ‘You will not know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.’

Schumer later said he was referring to the political price he believed Senate Republicans would pay, but he said, ‘I shouldn’t have used the words I did, but in no way was I making a threat. I never, never would do such a thing, and Leader McConnell knows that.’ 

Roberts, at the time, said of Schumer, ‘Justices know that criticism comes with the territory, but threatening statements of this sort from the highest levels of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous. All members of the court will continue to do their job, without fear or favor, from whatever quarter.’

In April, an armed man who was arrested outside of Kavanaugh’s home pleaded guilty to attempting to assassinate the justice. 

Roberts’ remarks came after the Supreme Court issued the final decisions of its term, handing the Trump administration a win Friday by limiting judges’ ability to block his agenda through court orders. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Senate Republicans rammed President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ through a procedural hurdle after hours of tense negotiations that put the megabill’s fate into question. 

Speculation swirled whether Republicans would be satisfied by the latest edition of the mammoth bill, which was released just before the stroke of midnight Saturday morning.

Nearly every Republican, except Sens. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., all voted to unlock a marathon 20-hour debate on the bill. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., could only afford to lose three votes.

Though successful, the 51-49 party line vote was not without drama.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., flipped his vote from a ‘no’ to ‘yes’ in dramatic fashion, as he and Sens. Rick Scott, R-Fla., Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, made their way to the Senate floor accompanied by Vice President JD Vance.

Vance was called in case he was needed for a tie-breaking vote, but only his negotiating services ended up being used.

No lawmaker wanted to be the fourth and final decisive vote to kill the bill. Republican leadership kept the floor open for nearly four hours while negotiations continued – first on the Senate floor and then eventually in Thune’s office.

The bill won’t immediately be debated thanks to Senate Democrats’ plan to force the reading of the entire, 940-page legislative behemoth on the Senate floor, which could drain several hours and go deep into the night.

The megabill’s fate, and whether it could pass its first test, was murky at best after senators met behind closed doors Friday, and even during another luncheon on Saturday.

Lingering concerns in both chambers about Medicaid — specifically the Medicaid provider tax rate and the effect of direct payments to states — energy tax credits, the state and local tax (SALT) deduction and others proved to be pain points that threatened the bill’s survival.

However, changes were made at the last-minute to either sate holdouts or comply with the Senate rules. Indeed, the Senate parliamentarian stripped numerous items from the bill that had to be reworked.

The Medicaid provider tax rate was kept largely the same, except its implementation date was moved back a year. Also included as a sweetener for lawmakers like Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and others was a $25 billion rural hospital stabilization fund over the next five years.

Collins said that she would support the bill through the procedural hurdle, and noted that the rural hospital stabilization fund was a start, but whether she supports the bill on final passage remains to be seen.

‘If the bill is not further changed, I will be leaning against the bill, but I do believe this procedural vote to get on the bill so that people can offer amendments and debate it is appropriate,’ Collins said.

Tillis, who is also concerned about the changes to Medicaid and would like to see a return to the House GOP’s version, said that he would not vote in favor of the bill during final passage.

The SALT deduction included in the House GOP’s version of the bill also survived, albeit the $40,000 cap will remain intact for five years. After that, the cap will revert to its current $10,000.

Other sweeteners, like expanding nutrition benefit waivers to Alaska and a tax cut for whaling boat captains, were thrown in, too, to get moderates like Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, on board with the bill.

Lee announced that he withdrew his open lands sale provision, which proved a sticking point for lawmakers in Montana and Idaho. 

Still, Republicans who are not satisfied with the current state of the bill will use the forthcoming ‘vote-a-rama,’ when lawmakers can offer an unlimited number of amendments, to try and change as much as they can before final passage. 

Democrats, however, will use the process to inflict as much pain as possible on Republicans.

Once the amendment marathon concludes, which could be in the wee hours of Monday morning, lawmakers will move to a final vote to send the bill, which is an amendment to the House GOP’s version of the ‘big, beautiful bill,’ back to the lower chamber.

From there, it’s a dead sprint to get the package on the president’s desk by July 4.

In a statement of administration policy obtained by Fox News Digital, Trump signaled that he would sign the bill.

‘President Trump is committed to keeping his promises,’ the memo read. ‘And failure to pass this bill would be the ultimate betrayal.’ 

Lawmakers from across the aisle are reacting to President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ passing a key Senate vote on Saturday night.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who flipped his vote from a ‘no’ to ‘yes’ in dramatic fashion, said in a statement that the mammoth bill is a ‘necessary first step’ to fiscal sustainability and cleaning up the mess left by the Biden administration.

‘Biden and the Democrats left behind enormous messes that we are trying to clean up – an open border, wars, and massive deficits,’ Johnson said. ‘After working for weeks with President Trump and his highly capable economic team, I am convinced that he views this as a necessary first step and will support my efforts to help put America on a path to fiscal sustainability.’

The 51-49 vote went along party lines, with only Sens. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., voting against unlocking a marathon 20-hour debate on the bill.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., was among the Democrats against what he called a ‘radical’ bill.

‘Senate Republicans are scrambling to pass a radical bill, released to the public in the dead of night, praying the American people don’t realize what’s in it,’ Schumer said in a statement. ‘If Senate Republicans won’t tell the American people what’s in this bill, then Democrats are going to force this chamber to read it from start to finish.’

The bill will not immediately be debated thanks to Senate Democrats’ plan to force the reading of the entire, 940-page legislative behemoth on the Senate floor.

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., however, said he was ‘proud’ to work with Trump on the bill and ‘put our nation on a path to balance the budget after years of Democrats’ reckless spending.’

Trump has said that he wants the bill, which must pass the Senate before being sent to the House for a vote, on his desk by July 4.

Trump called the Senate vote a ‘great victory’ and directly praised Sens. Johnson, Scott, Mike Lee, R-Ariz., and Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., in a post on his Truth Social platform.

‘They, along with all of the other Republican Patriots who voted for the Bill, are people who truly love our Country!’ Trump wrote. ‘As President of the USA, I am proud of them all, and look forward to working with them to GROW OUR ECONOMY, REDUCE WASTEFUL SPENDING, SECURE OUR BORDER, FIGHT FOR OUR MILITARY/VETS, ENSURE THAT OUR MEDICAID SYSTEM HELPS THOSE WHO TRULY NEED IT, PROTECT OUR SECOND AMENDMENT, AND SO MUCH MORE. GOD BLESS AMERICA &, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!’

In a second post, Trump wrote, ‘VERY PROUD OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY TONIGHT. GOD BLESS YOU ALL! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!’

Fox News Digital’s Alex Miller contributed to this report.

A leaked Defense Intelligence Agency report is casting doubt on President Donald Trump’s claim that recent U.S. airstrikes ‘completely and totally obliterated’ three Iranian nuclear facilities, instead concluding the mission only set back Iran’s program by several months.

The report, published by CNN and The New York Times, comes just days after Trump approved the strikes amid escalating tensions between Israel and Iran. In a national address immediately following the operation, Trump declared the sites ‘completely and totally obliterated.’ 

While members of the Trump administration have waged a new war to discredit the initial report from the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, multiple experts told Fox News Digital that there is too little information available right now to accurately determine how much damage the strikes did. 

Piecing together a thorough intelligence assessment is complex and time-consuming, they said. 

Dan Shapiro, who previously served as the deputy assistant secretary of Defense for the Middle East and the U.S. ambassador to Israel, said he didn’t put a lot of stock in both overly pessimistic or overly optimistic assessments that emerged quickly, and said that the initial assessment from DIA was likely only based on satellite imagery. 

‘That’s one piece of the puzzle of how you would really make this assessment,’ Shapiro, now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told Fox News Digital. ‘You’d really want to have to test all the other streams of intelligence, from signals intelligence, human intelligence, other forms of monitoring the site, potentially visits by International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, potentially visits by other people. So that’s going to take days to weeks to get a real assessment.’ 

‘But I think it’s likely that if the munitions performed as expected, that significant damage was done, and would set back the program significantly,’ Shapiro said. 

Gen. Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Sunday that initial battle damage assessments suggested ‘all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction,’ but he acknowledged that a final assessment would ‘take some time.’ 

Still, media reports based on the DIA report painted a different picture, and CNN’s reporting on the initial report said that Iran’s stash of enriched uranium was not destroyed in the strikes, citing seven people who had been briefed on the report. The findings were based on a battle damage assessment from U.S. Central Command, according to CNN. 

Other members of the Trump administration, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, have subsequently pushed back on the DIA report’s conclusions, claiming that the report was labeled ‘low confidence.’ 

The term is commonly used when labeling initial assessments, and means that conclusions are based on limited data, according to experts. 

Retired Navy Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, who previously served as the director for transnational threats at the National Security Council for former President Bill Clinton, said the low confidence description is commonly used in early assessments. 

‘Low confidence means the analyst is not sure of the accuracy of their assessment,’ said Montgomery, now a senior fellow at the Washington think tank the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. ‘This is frequent when with a Quick Look 24-hour assessment like this one.’

Montgomery’s colleague, Craig Singleton, also a senior fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said that the low confidence label is used in cases with thin evidence and serves as a warning to policy-makers to seek additional information. 

‘Most importantly, low confidence assessments are usually issued when key facts have yet to be verified, which certainly applies in this case,’ Singleton said.

Rob Greenway, former deputy assistant to the president on Trump’s National Security Council, told Fox News Digital that it will take one or two months to get a more thorough assessment with higher confidence. 

Greenway also said that the strikes were designed to create damage underground, which will complicate the assessment of damage, because it is not immediately available and will require multiple sources of intelligence, such as signals or human intelligence, to draw conclusions. 

Israel had also previously conducted strikes targeting the sites, adding to the web of analysis that must be evaluated, Greenway said. 

‘Each of these are one piece of a much larger puzzle, and you’re trying to gauge the ultimate effect of the entirety of the puzzle, not just one particular strike,’ said Greenway, now the director of the Allison Center for National Security at The Heritage Foundation. ‘All of that means it’s going to take time in order to do it.’ 

Even so, Greenway said that the amount of ordnance dropped on the sites – including more than 14 30,000-lb. bombs – means that the targeted facilities have been so heavily compromised they are no longer serviceable. 

‘We were putting twice the amount of ordnance required to achieve the desired effect, just to make sure that we didn’t have to go back,’ Greenway said. 

‘There’s virtually no mathematical probability in which either facility can be used again by Iran for the intended purpose, if at all, which again means that everything now is within Israel’s capability to strike if that’s required,’ Greenway said. 

And Michael Allen, a former National Security Council senior director in the George W. Bush administration, said that even though a final judgment from the intelligence community won’t be ready soon, the intelligence portrait will become ‘richer’ in the coming days. 

‘Stuff is pouring in, and we’re out there collecting it, and they’re trying to hustle it to the White House as soon as possible,’ Allen, now the managing director of advisory firm Beacon Global Strategies, told Fox News Digital. 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that very few people had access to this report, and those who leaked it to the media will be held accountable as the FBI investigates who shared the document with the press. 

‘That person was irresponsible with it,’ Leavitt told reporters Thursday. ‘And we need to get to the bottom of it. And we need to strengthen that process to protect our national security and protect the American public.’

The top Democrat in the Senate plans to inflict maximum pain on Senate Republicans in their march to pass President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ before lawmakers even get a chance to debate the legislative behemoth.

Indeed, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he’ll force clerks on the Senate floor to read the entirety of the GOP’s 940-page megabill. His move to drain as much time as possible came after Republicans vote on a key procedural test to open debate on the legislation.

‘I will object to Republicans moving forward on their Big, Ugly Bill without reading it on the Senate floor,’ Schumer said on X. ‘Republicans won’t tell America what’s in the bill

‘So Democrats are forcing it to be read start to finish on the floor,’ he said. ‘We will be here all night if that’s what it takes to read it.’

Indeed, staffers were seen carting the bill onto the Senate floor in preparation for the all-night read-a-thon.

Schumer’s move is expected to take up to 15 hours and is designed to allow Senate Democrats more time to parse through the myriad provisions within the massive legislative text. Ultimately, it will prove a smokescreen as Senate Republicans will continue to march toward a final vote.

Once the bill reading is done, 20 hours of debate evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans will begin, likely early Sunday morning. Democrats are expected to use their entire 10-hour chunk, while Republicans will go far under their allotted time.

Then comes the ‘vote-a-rama’ process, where lawmakers can offer an unlimited number of amendments to the bill.

Democrats will again look to extract as much pain as possible during that process, while Republicans, particularly senators that have lingering issues with key Medicaid and land sale provisions, will continue to try and shape and mold the bill.

The last time clerks were forced to read the entirety of a bill during the budget reconciliation process was in 2021, when Senate Democrats held the majority in the upper chamber.

At the time, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., demanded that the entire, over-600-page American Rescue Act be read aloud. Schumer, who was the Senate Majority Leader attempting to ram then-President Joe Biden’s agenda through the upper chamber, objected to the reading.