A growing number of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have declared they’re forgoing their paychecks as the government shutdown drags on.

The federal government has been shut down for nearly a week after Senate Democrats rejected Republicans’ plan to fund agencies through Nov. 21 multiple times.

Reps. Chip Roy, R-Texas, Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, Tom Barrett, R-Mich., Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, and Rob Bresnahan, R-Pa., are among the Republicans who wrote to the Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives asking for their pay to be withheld during a shutdown.

Democrats like Reps. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., and Lou Correa, D-Calif., have requested the same.

But lawmakers requesting their pay be withheld cannot forgo it altogether, because federal law requires them to be paid.

Article I of the Constitution states, ‘The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States.’

Further, the 27th Amendment prevents any changes to congressional pay until after the next election.

Most House and Senate lawmakers are paid $174,000 yearly — a figure that has not changed since 2009 — while members of congressional leadership can earn more.

A source familiar with the matter told Fox News Digital that members of Congress can elect to have their pay withheld until a shutdown is over, but they must receive that as backpay when the government is funded again.

Meanwhile, Rep. Joe Morelle, D-N.Y., the top Democrat on the Committee for House Administration, told Bloomberg Government last week that those checks can go into an account separate from lawmakers’ usual salaries. He told the outlet, ‘It’s an administrative way of withholding pay for people who choose to.’

Congressional staffers, meanwhile, automatically miss paychecks if their pay period falls during a government shutdown — but that is also backpaid when the shutdown ends.

Some lawmakers, like Sens. Ashley Moody, R-Fla., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., have announced they would donate their paychecks for the duration of the shutdown.

‘Each day the government remains closed, I will be donating my salary to the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay, which provides help to vulnerable populations who may be impacted by this reckless choice,’ Moody said in a statement last week.

Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, a staunch and unflinching Israel supporter, wants Hamas to accept the peace deal President Donald Trump is aiming to help broker, and is calling out pro-Palestinian protesters for not demanding that Hamas agree to the peace deal.

‘Good morning to everyone except all the protesters who aren’t protesting for Hamas to accept the peace deal,’ the senator declared in a Sunday post on X.

In a post on Friday, Fetterman shared a screenshot of a Mediaite headline that read, ‘CNN’s Dana Bash Wonders Why Pro-Palestine Movement Isn’t Pressuring Hamas to Accept Trump Deal’ — in his post, the senator commented, ‘For those protesters: Hamas > Peace,’ adding, ‘No flotilla, blocking a highway or disrupting public events demanding Hamas to take the peace deal.’

Israel went to war against Hamas in response to the heinous October 7, 2023, attack in which terrorists committed atrocities including mass murder, rape, and kidnapping. But Trump posted a statement on Truth Social last week in which Hamas declared willingness to negotiate a deal including the release of all hostages, dead and alive.

‘Hamas must choose peace or its own destruction. Send the hostages home, now. As an unapologetic supporter of Israel, the Gaza War must end to have peace and security for Israel and Palestinians. Politics aside, credit to @POTUS’ peace plan to get to this encouraging point,’ Fetterman noted in a Friday post on X, sharing a screenshot of a Reuters headline that said, ‘Hamas says it agrees to release all Israeli hostages under Trump Gaza plan.’

Trump indicated in a Sunday evening Truth Social post, ‘There have been very positive discussions with Hamas, and Countries from all over the World (Arab, Muslim, and everyone else) this weekend, to release the Hostages, end the War in Gaza but, more importantly, finally have long sought PEACE in the Middle East.’  

Later in the post, he warned, ‘TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE OR, MASSIVE BLOODSHED WILL FOLLOW — SOMETHING THAT NOBODY WANTS TO SEE!’

Fetterman accused the Democratic Party of an ‘ongoing and escalating betrayal of Israel,’ in a post on X last month.

Sharing a screenshot of a headline from The Hill that read, ‘Pair of Senate Democrats charge Israel with ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Palestinians,’ Fetterman firmly pushed back.

‘I reject this in the strongest terms. My party’s ongoing and escalating betrayal of Israel is gross and outrageous,’ he asserted.

FBI Director Kash Patel said the agency has surged additional personnel and investigative resources to Minnesota as part of an ongoing effort to ‘dismantle large-scale fraud schemes exploiting federal programs.’

Patel said Sunday that the bureau moved resources into the state before recent online attention intensified, pointing to the Feeding Our Future investigation, which uncovered a $250 million scheme that siphoned federal food aid intended for children during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The case has already resulted in 78 indictments and 57 convictions, with prosecutors also charging defendants in a separate plot to bribe a juror with $120,000 in cash, Patel said, adding that the investigation remains ongoing.

‘The FBI believes this is just the tip of a very large iceberg. We will continue to follow the money and protect children, and this investigation very much remains ongoing,’ he wrote on X. ‘Furthermore, many are also being referred to immigrations officials for possible further denaturalization and deportation proceedings where eligible.’

Patel’s announcement comes in the wake of a viral video posted on social media Friday by independent journalist Nick Shirley that highlighted alleged fraud involving Minnesota childcare and learning centers. 

In the video, many of the facilities appeared non-operational despite allegedly receiving millions of dollars in government aid.

Republican lawmakers, including House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., and Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., as well as Vice President JD Vance, have responded to the viral video, with Emmer accusing Gov. Tim Walz of sitting ‘idly by while billions were stolen from hardworking Minnesotans.’

Shirley’s video also follows a group of Minnesota state staff members who accused Walz in November of failing to act on widespread fraud warnings and retaliating against whistleblowers.

An X account calling itself Minnesota Staff Fraud Reporting Commentary, which says it consists of more than 480 Minnesota state staff members, wrote that Walz is ‘100% responsible for massive fraud in Minnesota.’

‘We let Tim Walz know of fraud early on, hoping for a partnership in stopping fraud but no, we got the opposite response. Tim Walz systematically retaliated against whistleblowers using monitoring, threats, repression, and did his best to discredit fraud reports,’ the group claimed. ‘In addition to retaliating against whistleblower[s], Tim Walz disempowered the Office of the Legislative Auditor, allowing agencies to disregard their audit findings and guidance.’

Walz addressed the fraud at a press conference in late November, saying it ‘undermines trust in government,’ and ‘undermines programs that are absolutely critical in improving quality of life.’

‘If you’re committing fraud, no matter where you come from, what you look like, what you believe, you are going to go to jail,’ he added.

The New York Times reported that what initially appeared to many Minnesotans as an isolated case of pandemic-era fraud has broadened into a much wider concern for state and federal officials.

The Times reported that over the past five years, according to law enforcement authorities, several fraud schemes proliferated in parts of Minnesota’s Somali community. A number of individuals allegedly created companies that billed state agencies for millions of dollars’ worth of social services that were never delivered.

President Donald Trump is scheduled to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago on Monday afternoon, with talks expected to focus on renewed tensions with Iran and the possibility of advancing to additional stages of the Gaza peace plan.

Before meeting with the president, Netanyahu is slated to meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday morning.

Dr. Dan Diker, president of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, told Fox News Digital that President Trump has likely been pressuring Netanyahu since the peace plan’s implementation, noting that the American leader has little patience for Middle Eastern timelines, which he said are far longer than those in the U.S. and the real estate sector.

‘The problem is that Hamas knows all it has to do is survive and continue controlling the western part of Gaza while attacking Israel, as it has been doing from Gaza’s tunnel network, in order to ratchet up tensions between Israel and the U.S.,’ Diker said.

Netanyahu’s mission during the visit, he continued, will be first to lay out Israel’s threat assessment regarding Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas as extremely serious, and to impress upon the president that Tehran is rebuilding its military capabilities. He is also likely to seek to persuade Trump to allow Israel to take the steps it deems necessary to defeat Hamas.

Israeli opposition leader and former prime minister Yair Lapid told Fox News Digital that ‘We [Israel] should be coordinating with President Trump on all the major fronts, but the top priority has to be the management of stage two in Gaza.’

Lapid added, ‘Israel needs to achieve the disarmament of Hamas and the removal of the threat from Gaza, and that requires the implementation of President Trump’s plan.’

During the meeting, Netanyahu will reportedly present Trump with plans for a potential strike on Iran. Israel has warned Washington that a recent Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps missile drill could be masking preparations for an attack, a concern that IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir conveyed to U.S. Central Command chief Adm. Brad Cooper during recent meetings in Tel Aviv.

In a Saturday interview reported by the country’s media, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said his country is engaged in what he described as a ‘total war‘ with the U.S., Israel and Europe. The Times of Israel reported him saying, ‘In my opinion, we are at total war with the United States, Israel and Europe,’ Pezeshkian said. ‘They want to bring our country to its knees.’

Axios reported that U.S. intelligence assesses there is no immediate threat, while Israeli defense officials say forces remain on heightened alert.

According to Dr. Meir Javedanfar, a lecturer on Iran and the Middle East at Reichman University, Netanyahu’s plan is expected to call for strikes on Iran’s missile program.

‘Israel will probably hope that such a wide-scale attack would further undermine the legitimacy of Iran’s supreme leader, thereby creating greater political instability within the country. This is especially true given that after the recent war with Israel, Iran’s economy has deteriorated significantly, and the regime is not taking the necessary steps to address these problems,’ he said.

Israeli Minister for Settlement and National Missions Orit Strook stressed the importance of completing full Gaza demilitarization before moving forward with further stages of the plan.

She referenced Trump’s address to the Israeli Knesset in October, noting that he highlighted his role in building international support for Gaza’s demilitarization and securing a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for the full dismantling of weapons, tunnels and terror infrastructure.

‘Hamas wakes up every day with a mission to hurt us,’ Strook told Fox News Digital. ‘The IDF will not withdraw even one meter, and no rehabilitation framework will be established until full demilitarization is completed.

‘If, God forbid, the opposite happens in the meeting, it will be a failure of the peace plan, a failure for Trump himself — who would be settling for fake demilitarization— and a failure for us. We will not be able to say that we won this war if Hamas remains armed,’ she added.

Trump is nevertheless expected to soon unveil the second stage of his Gaza framework, despite Hamas’s failure to return the remains of Israel Police Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, who was killed during the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre, and whose body was taken to Gaza by Hamas terrorists.

Fox News Digital’s Sophia Compton contributed to this report.

U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz said he believes President Donald Trump’s new Gaza peace plan could represent a ‘once-in-a-generation opportunity for Middle East peace.’

On Monday, Trump released his Gaza peace plan, which Israel agreed to. Despite U.S. criticism of the U.N.’s actions in Gaza, the plan relies on the international body’s assistance. When asked how this would work, Waltz said that the U.S., while working with the U.N. in Gaza, will ‘continue to call it out’ and will ‘demand reforms.’

In an interview with Fox News Digital, Waltz highlighted a key issue with the U.N.: aid delivery in Gaza. The U.N.’s numbers show that nearly 90% of its aid trucks were intercepted by armed groups or crowds of hungry people between May 19 and Aug. 5. The U.S. has pointed to Hamas as the main culprit, saying operatives of the terrorist organization steal the aid to make money by selling it.

‘We can’t have a situation where U.N. agencies — the U.S. pays for about a quarter of their costs — are actually delivering aid in a way that Hamas takes it over. Hamas uses it to make money reselling it on the black market,’ Waltz told Fox News Digital.

The U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has been heavily criticized by the U.N., said on Friday that it had delivered more than 178 million meals since starting its operation in May.

Waltz hit the ground running after his appointment to the role on Sept. 19, just days before the international body held its ‘High-level Week.’ During that week, leaders from around the world, including Trump, addressed fellow member states in New York City.

Trump has made it clear that his goal is to be a peacemaker, something Waltz emphasized during his sit-down with Fox News Digital. However, that doesn’t mean he isn’t bringing his own experience to the role.

‘Green Berets are called ‘warrior diplomats.’ We often have a big stick behind us,’ Waltz, who was the first Green Beret elected to Congress, told Fox News Digital.

He compared this ethos to Trump’s handling of Iran over the summer.

‘He gave them opportunity after opportunity to walk away from a weaponized nuclear program, to handover their enriched materials, to engage in diplomacy and when they didn’t, our amazing B-2s went and took it out,’ he said.

Waltz said he was looking to follow Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visions to carry out America First policies and ‘make the U.N. great again.’ He said the institution had moved away from its roots and was not acting as a place where everyone from around the world could work out issues, but the U.S. is looking to bring that back.

The other major priority for the U.S. at the U.N., according to Waltz, is to get rid of ‘the bloat.’

‘Like any bureaucracy over 80 years, it has gotten too big, too bureaucratic, and therefore less effective. So I’m not going to say that we’re going to pull the DOGE up here, but we definitely need to make some cuts,’ he told Fox News Digital.

Waltz pointed to a recent vote on Haiti as an example of the U.S. working to achieve results at the U.N. As a former congressman from Florida, he noted that the lawlessness in Haiti has spilled onto U.S. shores. However, Waltz believes the U.N.-backed gang-suppression force will restore law and order, without making the U.S. foot the bill.

‘In line with what the president has demanded, we’re going to share the burden,’ Waltz said. ‘Other countries are involved. Kenya has taken the lead, El Salvador is taking a key role. Other countries are paying for it. It’s not just all on the United States’ shoulders.’

Waltz acknowledged Americans’ skepticism about the U.N., but he argued that it’s essential for the world’s leaders to meet on U.S. soil, and for Washington to remain at the table. He also pointed to the growing influence of international bodies on the American economy through regulation.

‘There’s all these international bodies that can directly affect our economy and our way of life that touch aviation and how we fly around the world, space, telecommunications, radio, data,’ he said. ‘And just as we fight for deregulation in our own federal government, we certainly don’t want global overregulation on many of our industries.’

Waltz stressed that staying engaged globally is critical to protecting U.S. interests and preventing bad actors from filling the void.

‘We have to say engaged, I think, to fight for the values that we hold dear. And if anything, this president is a fighter. We’re going to keep fighting for our way of life,’ Waltz said.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Republicans are winning the messaging war over the ongoing government shutdown and urged his conference to keep the heat on congressional Democrats during a private call with lawmakers on Saturday.

The call came on the fourth day of the shutdown, a day after Senate Democrats again rejected a GOP-led plan to keep federal agencies funded through Nov. 21.

During the call, Johnson and other House GOP leaders urged fellow Republicans to use this next week in their districts to tell constituents about what the ongoing shutdown means for them, Fox News Digital was told.

The House speaker expressed confidence that the shutdown would end quickly if Republicans ‘hold the line,’ Fox News Digital was told, and praised the House GOP’s unity so far amid the fallout.

Johnson also told Republicans toward the end of the call that the House would return only after Senate Democrats voted to reopen the government, a source said.

House and Senate GOP leaders have signaled that they will not budge from their current federal funding proposal, a short-term spending bill called a continuing resolution (CR) that would keep spending levels roughly flat for seven weeks.

That measure passed the House — largely along party lines — on Sept. 19. The House has since been out of session in a bid to put pressure on Senate Democrats to accept the plan.

It is also why Johnson opted on Friday to designate the next week as a district work period, canceling a previously planned legislative session from Tuesday through Friday.

Johnson told House Republicans on the Saturday call that it was the best way to prevent ‘Democrat disruptions,’ Fox News Digital was told. 

No Republicans voiced disagreement with the plan, Fox News Digital was told, signaling the GOP’s unity on the issue.

He told reporters during a press conference Friday morning that the House may not return until Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Democrats agreed with Republicans’ bill.

‘We passed it, and it’s been rejected by the Senate,’ Johnson told reporters during a news conference. ‘So the House will come back into session and do its work as soon as Chuck Schumer allows us to reopen the government. That’s plain and simple.’

Democrats, who were infuriated by being sidelined in the federal funding negotiations, have been pushing for an extension of Obamacare subsidies enhanced during the COVID-19 pandemic. Those enhancements would expire by the end of 2025 without congressional action.

Democrats have also introduced a counter-proposal for a CR that would keep the government funded through Oct. 31 while reversing the GOP’s cuts to Medicaid made in their ‘One Big, Beautiful Bill’ (OBBB).

The counter-proposal would have also restored federal funding to NPR and PBS that was cut by the Trump administration earlier this year.

Republicans have panned that plan as a non-starter full of partisan demands, while pointing out that Democrats have voted for a ‘clean’ measure similar to the GOP proposal 13 times during former President Biden’s time in office.

On the Saturday call, House GOP leaders encouraged Republicans to emphasize that Democrats’ counter-proposal would restore funding for illegal immigrants receiving Medicaid dollars that was cut by the so-called Big, Beautiful Bill, Fox News Digital was told.

Democrats have accused Republicans of lying about that line of attack.

GOP leaders also emphasized on the call that military members are not paid during government shutdowns, urging Republicans to make that point in their districts, while also warning that federal flood insurance funding is also in danger of drying up.

Fox News Digital was also told that House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said the next important date in the shutdown fight would be Oct. 15, the date of servicemembers’ next paycheck — which they could miss if the shutdown is ongoing.

Senate Democrats have now rejected the GOP’s funding plan four times since Sept. 19. The Senate is expected to next vote on the bill again on Monday.

The government shutdown costs taxpayers $400 million every day to pay federal employees who are not actively working, totaling $1.2 billion as of Friday, Congressional Budget Office (CBO) data published by Sen. Joni Ernst’s, R-Iowa, office estimates. 

‘Schumer’s Shutdown Shenanigans mean taxpayers will be on the hook for another $400 million today to pay 750,000 non-essential bureaucrats NOT to work,’ Ernst said in comment to Fox News Digital Friday. 

‘Democrats’ political stunt to fight for taxpayer-funded healthcare for illegal immigrants has officially become a billion-dollar boondoggle,’ she added. ‘Enough has to be enough for the radical left. We must reopen the government and get Washington back to work serving veterans, families, and hardworking Americans.’ 

A law passed in 2019 requires furloughed employees receive backpay after a funding agreement is reached and a shutdown ends. The CBO found that the furloughed employees’ daily cost of compensation sits at about $400 million, or a total of $1.2 billion as of Friday. 

‘Using information from the agencies’ contingency plans and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), CBO estimates that under a lapse in discretionary funding for fiscal year 2026 about 750,000 employees could be furloughed each day; the total daily cost of their compensation would be roughly $400 million,’ a letter from the Congressional Budget Office to Ernst stated Tuesday. The data was released after the Iowa Republican requested CBO provide a data cost breakdown of the shutdown in September as the deadline clock ran out. 

The CBO data largely was based on statistics from a five-week partial shutdown that ran from Dec. 22, 2018, until Jan. 25, 2019, under the first Trump administration, the office noted in its letter to Ernst.

The letter added that the number of furloughed federal employees, which is currently estimated to sit at about 750,000 staffers, could vary by the day ‘because some agencies might furlough more employees the longer a shutdown persists and others might recall some initially furloughed employees.’ 

The government shut down early Wednesday morning after Senate lawmakers failed to reach a budget agreement. House lawmakers had approved a short-term extension of fiscal year 2025 funding earlier in September that aimed to keep the government funded through Nov. 21. 

The Trump administration and Republicans have since pinned blame for the shutdown on Democrats, claiming they sought taxpayer-funded medical benefits for illegal immigrants. Democrats have denied they want to fund healthcare for illegal immigrants, and instead have blamed Republicans for the shutdown.

Fox News Digital reached out to Schumer’s office for comment on the CBO data and Ernst’s remarks but did not immediately receive a reply. 

White House spokesman Kush Desai slammed Democrats as ‘not serious people’ when asked about the CBO data Friday morning. 

‘Democrats are burning $400 million a day to pay federal workers not to work because they want to spend $200 billion on free health care for illegal aliens,’ Desai told Fox News Digital. ‘These are not serious people.’ 

Trump repeatedly has said he did not want a shutdown to unfold, but noted Tuesday as the clock ran out that some ‘good’ could come from it. 

‘A lot of good can come down from shutdowns,’ he told reporters. ‘We can get rid of a lot of things that we didn’t want, and they’d be Democrat things. But they want open borders. They want men playing in women’s sports. They want transgender for everybody. They never stop. They don’t learn. We won an election in a landslide.’ 

The administration is expected to lay off federal employees across various agencies amid the shutdown, with Trump meeting Office of Management and Budget chief Russell Vought Thursday to map out which departments and programs to target for cuts. 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday that ‘thousands’ of employees will likely be laid off. 

‘Look, it’s likely going to be in the thousands,’ Leavitt said. ‘It’s a very good question. And that’s something that the Office of Management and Budget and the entire team at the White House here, again, is unfortunately having to work on today.’