As she ran for the White House in the 2024 election cycle, Nikki Haley made her calls for ‘new generational leadership’ a key component of her Republican presidential campaign.

And front and center from day 1 of her campaign as the former South Carolina governor and former United Nations ambassador declared her candidacy in February 2023 was her call for ‘mandatory mental competency tests for politicians over 75 years old.’

As Haley challenged then-76-year-old former President Donald Trump for the 2024 GOP nomination in hopes of eventually facing off in the general election against then-80-year-old President Joe Biden, the proposal became one of the most visible and at times controversial parts of her campaign stump speech.

Haley faced charges of ageism from a host of politicians opposed to the idea, including a now-83-year-old Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who at the time called her idea ‘absurd.’

While Haley’s campaign took off, and she ended up being the last Republican candidate standing against Trump during last year’s primaries, she eventually bowed out of the race in March 2024 as Trump marched toward clinching the presidential nomination.

Fast-forward to today, and long-standing questions about Biden’s physical and mental fitness – and whether Democrats should have more forcefully urged him to bow out of the 2024 race – haven’t gone away; they’re front and center.

This as Biden’s condition is once again making headlines, courtesy of excerpts from a new book being released this week, ‘Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,’ which offers claims of a White House cover-up of the then-president’s apparent cognitive decline.

Additionally, last week’s leaked audio of Biden’s 2023 interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur, in which the then-president appears to suffer memory lapses, is also fueling the conversation.

Hur, who investigated whether Biden years earlier had improperly stored classified documents, made major headlines early last year when he decided not to charge Biden but described the then-president as an ‘elderly man with a poor memory.’

Last week’s developments were followed by Sunday’s blockbuster announcement that Biden was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that had spread to his bones.

The news, while eliciting sympathy from both sides of the political aisle, is unlikely to sidetrack the current firestorm over the former president’s mental acuity.

‘While the media may have been shocked by Nikki’s call for mental competency tests, Americans never were,’ a source in Haley’s political orbit told Fox News. ‘It was common sense. Nikki always believed our leaders should be completely transparent and remember who they serve: the American people. After a yearslong cover-up, those who hid President Biden’s mental decline must finally acknowledge what Nikki and the American people always knew to be true.’

Haley, who was 51 when she announced her candidacy in 2023, reupped her calls for a mental competency test throughout her campaign.

In January last year, during the heat of the primary battle, Haley pointed to some verbal stumbles by Trump on the campaign trail.

‘He’s not what he was in 2016. He has declined. That’s a fact,’ Haley said at the time.

Trump repeatedly fired back as he touted acing a cognitive test he took five years earlier and said, ‘I think I’m a lot sharper than her.’

A month later, after the release of Hur’s written report regarding Biden’s mental acuity, Haley said, ‘Joe Biden can’t remember major events in his life, like when he was vice president or when his son died.’

‘That is sad, but it will be even sadder if we have a person in the White House who is not mentally up to the most important job in the world,’ she added as she reiterated her calls for Biden to take a mental competency test ‘immediately.’

Haley, in a Fox News op-ed in May 2023, spelled out the specific test she recommended for politicians over age 75.

‘The Montreal Cognitive Assessment Test is a widely used tool for detecting cognitive decline,’ Haley wrote at the time.

And she elaborated, ‘This is not a qualification for office. Failing a mental competency test would not result in removal. It is about transparency. Voters deserve to know whether those who are making major decisions about war and peace, taxation and budgets, schools and safety can pass a very basic mental exam.’

Veteran political scientist Wayne Lesperance, noting the current media spotlight on Biden, said it has ‘renewed concerns many Americans have about the age and ability of our elected officials. Public service demands clarity of thought, sound judgment, and the ability to manage complex issues.’

And Lesperance, president of New England College, said ‘Americans must conclude that a fair and nonpartisan cognitive assessment, perhaps irrespective of age, is important to ensure all who seek to lead are equipped to serve with the sharpness and clarity the role requires.’

House Republicans are channeling Edward Hopper this week as they try to pass President Trump’s big, ‘beautiful bill.’

Hopper is known for ‘Nighthawks,’ one of the most iconic paintings in American history. The 1942 painting depicts four people in a diner in the middle of the night. A deserted streetscape commands the foreground. Two men – heads festooned with fedoras – sit separately at the counter, nursing coffee. One of the men has a cigarette tucked between his index and middle fingers. He’s positioned next to a woman with scarlet hair and a red dress. She appears to holding a bite of a doughnut or sandwich, studying it as though it were a rare artifact. She seems to debate whether she should eat it. A young counterman – attired in white with a crisp envelope hat – leans downward in search of glassware or dishes hidden underneath.

It’s the dead of night. Everyone is distant and detached. Even the couple – even though they sit side-by-side – don’t look at each other.

In Nighthawks, everyone appears as though they’re just trying to make it through the night to dawn.

It’s kind of what House Republicans are going through this week.

The House Budget Committee convened at 10:26 p.m. ET Sunday night to advance the tax cut and spending reduction package after a hiccup stalled the measure Friday afternoon. At 10:39 p.m. ET, the committee approved the bill 17-16 – with four House Republicans voting ‘present.’

The next stop is the House Rules Committee, the final parliamentary way station before depositing a piece of legislation on the floor.

At 12:31 a.m. ET Monday, the Rules Committee announced it would prep the bill for the floor – with a meeting at 1 a.m. Wednesday morning. That session could last all day Wednesday. Literally. The Energy and Commerce panel met for 26 consecutive hours last week to prepare its section of the budget reconciliation measure. The Ways and Means Committee huddled all night long.

The group of House Republicans pushing to state and local tax for high-tax states (known as SALT) scheduled a meeting with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., for 9 p.m. ET Monday. And it’s entirely possible that the House could be debating or even voting on the measure late Thursday, the wee hours of Friday morning or even Friday night.

This is how Capitol Hill rolls when there’s a big piece of legislation on the clock. The hours are late. The meetings are long. Lawmakers convene different sessions whenever they need to – just to get the measure across the finish line.

The only difference between the halls of Congress now and ‘Nighthawks’ is that the coffee fueled the figures in the painting until dawn. It was 1942. But this is 2025. Edward Hopper would know nothing of Celsius or Red Bull.

There’s an actual parliamentary reason as to why the Budget Committee met so late on Sunday night after its stumble on Friday afternoon. And there’s a method to the Rules Committee’s 1 a.m. madness on Wednesday.

Let’s rewind.

The Budget Committee tried to blend the various provisions from nearly a dozen House committees into one unified legislative product midday Friday. That effort came up short. A total of five Budget Committee Republicans voted nay. They groused about spending cuts, green energy tax credits and the timeframe of work requirements for those on Medicaid.

Four of the five GOP noes were truly opposed. Rep. Lloyd Smucker, R-Penn., voted nay so he could order a re-vote. Rules allow a member on the winning side of an issue (in this case, the nays), to ask for another vote later. Smucker supported the plan. But he then switched his vote to nay to be on the winning side. That teed up a possible re-vote.

‘Calling a vote moves the process forward. I think it’s a catalyst,’ said Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Tex., after the failed vote Friday.

The Budget Committee then announced it would convene at 10 p.m. ET Sunday.

This is where things get interesting:

The key here was for the Budget Committee to finish its work before midnight Friday. Once it got rolling, the process would only consume 15 or 20 minutes. The Budget Committee approved the plan 17-16 with four Republicans voting ‘present.’

‘We’re excited about what we did,’ said Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., who was one of the GOPers who voted nay Friday.

But Norman still wasn’t excited enough to vote yes on Sunday night. He voted present.

‘There’s so much more that we have to do to rein in government and rein in the costs and the deficits,’ said Norman on FOX Business Monday.

But regardless, the measure was out of the Budget Committee before the witching hour on Sunday. And then came the Rules Committee announcement – just after midnight on Monday – about a session at 1 a.m. Wednesday to ready the ‘big, beautiful bill’ for the House floor.

There are several reasons House Rules Committee Republicans decided to huddle at 1 a.m. et Wednesday. Let’s begin with the parliamentary one.

The Budget Committee wrapped up just before midnight Sunday. The rules allow Democrats two full days to file their paperwork and viewpoints after that meeting. So, they had all day Monday and all day Tuesday. The Rules Committee needs an ‘hour’ to announce its formally meeting. So, the ‘official’ announcement of the Rules Committee meeting on Wednesday will go out just after 12:01:01 a.m. ET Wednesday. That triggers a 1 a.m. ET meeting on Wednesday.

Here are the other, more practical reasons.

Republicans need all the time they can get. There is talk of trying to vote on the floor late in the day on Wednesday. We’ll see about that. But the early Rules Committee meeting time makes that a possibility.

Second of all, it’s possible the Rules Committee meeting could consume the entire calendar day of Wednesday. Streams of lawmakers from both sides will file into the Rules Committee to propose various amendments. This is a protracted process.

But by the same token, meeting at 1 a.m. ET could diminish attendance. After all, who wants to show up at 1 a.m. ET for a meeting and maybe discuss your amendment at 6:30 a.m. ET? You get the idea. 

And once the bill gets out of the Rules Committee, expect late night meetings among Republicans as they try to close the deal. It’s possible the House could vote at virtually any time of day Wednesday, Thursday or Friday to pass the bill. That could be late in the evening. Or even overnight. They will vote when the bill is ready, regardless of the time on the clock.

Such is the lot drawn this week by House Republicans for the ‘big, beautiful bill.’ Maybe they’ll have the votes. Maybe they won’t. Maybe they’ll pass more spending cuts. Maybe there’ll be a deal on SALT for state and local taxes. Maybe not. Maybe the vote comes at 3 in the afternoon. But more likely, sometime late at night.

Just like in Nighthawks, everyone on Capitol Hill is just trying to make it through the night and to the dawn.

A federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s dismantling of the U.S. Institute of Peace, writing in a ruling that the removal of its board members and the takeover of its headquarters by members of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are actions that are ‘null and void.’ 

The response this week from U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell comes after the Institute filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration in March calling for ‘the immediate intervention of this Court to stop Defendants from completing the unlawful dismantling of the Institute and irreparably impairing Plaintiffs’ ability to perform their vital peace promotion and conflict resolution work as tasked by Congress.’ 

‘The Administration removed the Institute’s leadership, including plaintiff Board members and its president in contravention of statutory limitations, and had personnel from a newly created federal office, called the Department of Government Efficiency, forcibly take over the Institute’s headquarters on March 17,’ Howell wrote in her ruling. ‘With a newly installed USIP president, the Administration then handed off USIP’s property for no consideration and abruptly terminated nearly all of its staff and activities around the world.’

‘Congress’s restrictions on the President’s removal power of USIP Board members are squarely constitutional, and the President and his Administration’s acts to the contrary are unlawful and ultra vires. The actions that have occurred since then – at the direction of the President to reduce USIP to its ‘statutory minimums’ – including the removal of USIP’s president, his replacement by officials affiliated with DOGE, the termination of nearly all of USIP’s staff, and the transfer of USIP property to the General Services Administration, were thus effectuated by illegitimately-installed leaders who lacked legal authority to take these actions, which must therefore be declared null and void,’ she added. 

The Institute of Peace is an independent, national institution funded by Congress that was established in 1984 under the Reagan administration to promote peace and diplomacy on the international stage.  

‘Congress has endorsed USIP’s important work by continuing to fund the Institute through appropriations bills signed by seven different Presidents from both major political parties, including the current President during his first term in office,’ Howell said in the ruling.  

‘In a drastic and abrupt change of course, within the first month of his second term, President Trump unilaterally decided that USIP is ‘unnecessary,’ issuing Executive Order 14217 to this effect, and then his Administration rushed through actions, including removal of Board members, to reach the professed goal of reducing all of USIP’s operations and personnel to the bare minimum to perform only mandated statutory tasks, while ignoring the broader statutory goals set out for this organization to fulfill,’ she also said. 

Ultimately, Howell concluded, the Trump administration’s actions ‘represented a gross usurpation of power and a way of conducting government affairs that unnecessarily traumatized the committed leadership and employees of USIP, who deserved better.’

The White House did not immediately respond Tuesday to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. 

In March, it said the Trump administration gutted the Institute of Peace of ‘rogue bureaucrats’ who held a tense standoff with a DOGE team that required police intervention. 

‘Rogue bureaucrats will not be allowed to hold agencies hostage,’ White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said at the time. ‘The Trump administration will enforce the president’s executive authority and ensure his agencies remain accountable to the American people.’ 

The administration now has 30 days to file an appeal to the ruling.

‘The United States Institute of Peace has existed for 40 years on a $50 million annual budget, but failed to deliver peace,’ Kelly told the Associated Press. ‘President Trump is right to reduce failed, useless entities like USIP to their statutory minimum, and this rogue judge’s attempt to impede on the separation of powers will not be the last say on the matter.’ 

Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton contributed to this report. 

As the Trump administration and Republicans across the country push to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies across the board, the executive director of a top consumer advocacy group spoke to Fox News Digital about what companies and institutions are doing to skirt those efforts.

‘Over the last few months, we’ve sort of seen a phase shift in the ways that they’re trying to keep this DEI grift going,’ Consumers’ Research Executive Director Will Hild told Fox News Digital about companies, organizations, hospitals and other entities that are attempting to rebrand DEI and environmental, social and governance in the Trump era. 

‘At first, they just pushed back on, tried to defend DEI itself, but when that became so obvious that what DEI really was was anti-White, anti-Asian, sometimes anti-Jewish discrimination in hiring and promotion, they abandoned that,’ Hild said. ‘Now what they’re trying to do is simply change the terminology that has become so toxic to their brand. So we’re seeing a lot of companies move from having departments of DEI, for example, to ‘departments of belonging’ or ‘departments of inclusivity.’’

Several major companies have publicly distanced themselves from DEI in recent months as the new administration signs executive orders eliminating the practice while making the argument that meritocracy should be the focus. 

However, FOX Business exclusively reported in April on Consumers’ Research warning that some businesses appear to be rebranding the same efforts rather than eliminating them. 

‘It is the exact same toxic nonsense under a new wrapper, and they’re just hoping to extend the grift because a lot of these people, I would say most of the people working in DEI are useless,’ Hild told Fox News Digital. 

‘They are mediocrities who have managed to get very high-level positions that they’re not qualified for by running this DEI grift, and they’re desperate,’ he continued. ‘They can’t just move into running logistics for Amazon because that takes actual competence and intelligence and if you’re in a DEI department, you probably don’t have either of those things. So they are desperate to keep this grift going so they can justify their own existence. So they’re changing it into a new wrapper.’

Hild, who spoke to Fox News Digital at the State Financial Officers Foundation conference in Orlando, Florida, also explained some of the other issues Consumers’ Research is focused on going forward, including fighting ‘woke’ hospitals in three different areas.

‘One is net zero pledges and activities that raise costs for consumers, patients having to pay more because these hospitals are investing millions, sometimes tens of millions of dollars, into green boondoggle projects that have nothing to do with the treatment of patients and the improvement of their health, but they do raise prices,’ Hild said.

Secondly, Hild said that his group is concerned about DEI quotas at hospitals.

Hild explained that the third and ‘worst’ issue is transgender surgeries and procedures being forced onto children.

‘Pushing of radical left transgender ideology onto kids, and not just pushing it ideologically and rhetorically, but pushing it physically, and what I mean by that is the injection of damaging, lifelong damaging hormones into children to, quote, unquote, change their sex, which is impossible, and even worse, the actual surgical application, removal and mutilation of their genitals, which is a grotesque violation of the Hippocratic Oath,’ Hild said.

Consumers’ Research has been actively involved in launching advertising campaigns against hospitals across the United States, including a recent campaign against Henry Ford Health in Michigan, calling out what it says are situations where hospitals are putting ‘politics over patients.’