After the United Kingdom paused some arms shipments to Israel on Monday, it’s not entirely clear whether Vice President Kamala Harris could follow the same path. 

The Democratic presidential candidate is under intense pressure from progressives to get tough on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the war with Hamas drags on for nearly a year. 

Harris insists she’s committed to Israel’s defense. But as a peace deal continues to evade the war in Gaza, Harris has declined to answer questions on whether the U.S. could use its soft power in halting weapons shipments to a top ally in the Middle East to affect policy change under her leadership.

Last week, Harris was pressed on whether she would do anything differently from President Joe Biden with Israel and the war in Gaza. She answered in the negative, but quickly pivoted to the need for a peace deal. 

The Harris campaign did not respond to a request from Fox News Digital on whether halting weapons shipments would be on or off the table if Harris takes the White House. 

‘President Biden has tried unsuccessfully to end the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. He’s been doing it for months and months, along with you. Would you do anything differently? For example, would you withhold some U.S. weapons shipments to Israel?’ CNN’s Dana Bash asked the vice president on Thursday. 

‘Let me be very clear. I’m unequivocal and — and unwavering in my commitment to Israel’s defense and its ability to defend itself,’ she said, before detailing the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and noting ‘too many Palestinian civilians have been killed.’ 

Some 42,000 Palestinians have died in the conflict since October, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. 

‘We have to get a deal done. This war must end,’ she went on. ‘Let’s get the hostages out. Let’s get the ceasefire done.’

‘But no change in policy in terms of arms and — and so forth?’ Bash pressed again. 

‘No. We have to get a deal done. Dana, we have to get a deal done. When you look at the significance of this to the families, to the people who are living in that region — a deal is not only the right thing to do to end this war but will unlock so much of what must happen next.’

‘I remain committed, since I’ve been on Oct. 8, to what we must do to work toward a two-state solution where Israel is secure and in equal measure the Palestinians have security and self-determination — and dignity.’

Israel said last week the U.S. had shipped more than 50,000 tons of arms and military equipment since war broke out in October. Congress passed a bill that included $26 billion in arms assistance for Israel and aid for Gaza in April. 

The United Kingdom on Monday paused dozens of weapons exports to Israel over concerns those arms could be used to violate international law. 

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy told lawmakers on Monday that the decision related to about 30 of 350 export licenses for equipment that includes parts for military aircraft and drones and items used for ground targeting.

Lammy said the British government believes the equipment ‘is for use in the current conflict in Gaza’ and represents a ‘clear risk’ that some could be used to ‘commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law.’

Back home, Netanyahu is under attack from all sides after it was revealed that six Israeli hostages were found dead in a Hamas tunnel. Protesters took to the streets to demand a hostage deal over the weekend. Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a 23-year-old Israeli-American whose parents made an emotional plea for a hostage deal at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) last month, was among the dead.

President Joe Biden replied ‘no’ over the weekend when asked if Netanyahu is doing enough to secure the hostages. 

Over the weekend, Biden and Harris worked on a hostage deal with their negotiating team as the news of the additional deaths broke.

The president said ‘we’re very close’ to securing a hostage deal that all sides could agree to, though such a deal has evaded negotiators for months. ‘Hope springs eternal,’ he said.

House Republican leaders are vowing to push back on anti-Israel protests that are once again taking over college campuses as students return for the fall semester.

It comes as activists have already begun defacing property and staging demonstrations at Columbia University in New York City, which was a hotbed of controversial activity in the spring.

‘There should be a zero tolerance policy for antisemitic violence on campus that targets Jewish students. If universities won’t hold protestors accountable, Congress will,’ Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., told Fox News Digital. ‘Just last month, we subpoenaed several Columbia University officials, and we will continue our investigations and take action on the floor as students return to campus.’

GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., similarly said, ‘Columbia University has repeatedly enabled radical pro-Hamas mobs, putting Jewish members of their community at risk and allowing antisemitic hate to take root at a once acclaimed institution. House Republicans will use every tool at our disposal to demand immediate action from Columbia University on behalf of the Jewish students who want to pursue their education without fear.’

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., told Fox News Digital, ‘It’s no wonder the pro-terrorist mob is back at Columbia — the Democrats have enabled and empowered the antisemites in their party.’

Emmer said House Republicans would ‘continue to send a resounding message’ of support for Israel and for Jewish students in the U.S.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., meanwhile, urged the White House to speak out against the protests as well.

‘It is the first day of class at Columbia University and the pro-Terrorist, antisemitic mob is already back,’ Johnson wrote on X. ‘The Biden-Harris Administration should condemn this mob immediately.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for a response.

At least one protester was arrested during the Manhattan demonstrations on Tuesday, video shows. Footage also shows activists pushing barricades, and a second person was taken into custody outside of Columbia’s sister school, Barnard College.

Republicans have seized on Israel as a unifying issue for their own party as the left continues to fracture over U.S. relations with its close Middle Eastern ally.

Moderate Democrats, however, have pointed to the primary losses of anti-Israel progressives as proof that the left is capable of policing its own anti-Semitism problem.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, is convinced that American voters care more about having secure elections than the politics of a possible government shutdown, he said Tuesday, 

‘My constituents want [honest elections], they want a secure border, they don’t really give two flying s—s about the government funding,’ Roy told Fox News Digital in an interview.

Members of Congress will be back in Washington, D.C., next week after their summer recess, returning with just three weeks to find an agreement to avoid a partial government shutdown by Oct. 1.

It’s all but certain that a short-term funding extension called a continuing resolution (CR) will be needed to buy negotiators more time to hash out spending priorities for fiscal 2025.

Roy and other conservative rebels in the House have been pushing Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to pair a CR with the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, a bill to require proof of citizenship for registering to vote. 

But the SAVE Act has been deemed a nonstarter by the White House and Senate Democrats, and both sides are wary about the optics of a partial government shutdown just weeks before Election Day.

Roy declined to say whether he would support a shutdown but told Fox News Digital the blame would be on Democrats rather than Republicans.

‘I’m not going to play the shutdown game … the press wants to make it about a shutdown. Democrats want to make this about a shutdown,’ Roy said. ‘Our point is pretty simple. We’re offering to fund the government – all manners of sin, by the way, in that government…we’re willing to do that, but these guys need to make sure our elections are secure.’

‘If [Democrats] want to shut the government down, that’s on them.’

Two sources told Fox News Digital on Tuesday that pairing the bill with a CR through March is at least one plan being discussed by House GOP leadership. 

Johnson’s office did not return a Friday request for comment on the record on whether that would be his plan. Fox News Digital followed up on Tuesday.

Former President Trump said on Monica Crowley’s podcast last week that House Republicans should ‘shut down the government’ if such a proposal isn’t passed.

Meanwhile, House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole, R-Okla., previously said he would support a CR through December but cast doubt on whether the SAVE Act would be attached, noting any final product would have to pass the Democrat-controlled Senate.

But Roy’s comments are an early warning sign that the fight to fund the government in the next fiscal year could be as messy as last year’s protracted battle that resulted in the ouster of ex-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.

In vitro fertilization (IVF) accounts for only 2% of all U.S. births, but that hasn’t stopped it from becoming a major campaign issue dividing some Republicans from their party standard-bearer, former President Trump, who recently indicated he would push for federally funding the procedures if elected.

But some Republicans and pro-life religious conservatives aren’t fully on board with federally funded IVF procedures.

Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., — a Trump ally — said on ABC’s ‘This Week’ on Sunday that he would rather support a tax-credit for IVF users ‘to encourage people to have children.’

‘We’ve been accused — the party has — of being against birth control,’ Graham, who voted with most Republicans against the Democrat-led Right to IVF Act this year that would have protected access to IVF this year, said. ‘We’re not. We’ve been accused of being against IVF treatments. We’re not.’

‘I’ll talk to my Democratic colleagues,’ he added. ‘We might be able to find common ground here.’

Meanwhile, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ Sunday that ‘all Republicans, to my knowledge, support IVF in Congress.’ 

‘And there’s no state that prohibits or regulates IVF in a way that makes it unacceptable,’ he said. ‘It is expensive for many couples. I understand that. So, it’s something I’m open to, [and] that most Republicans would be open to.’

Nearly all of California Republicans likewise voted against a Democrat-led bill last week aimed at expanding IVF access, too.

While former President Trump skirted attacks from his pro-life base last week for suggesting he may oppose Florida’s six-week abortion ban — calling it ‘too short’ — he later came out in opposition to Amendment 4, an initiative on the Sunshine State’s ballot this November that critics say would enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution.

Trump also said he’d subsidize the costly IVF treatments, because ‘we want more babies,’ despite leaving abortion access up to the states. The Trump campaign did not directly respond to what constitutes a state issue versus a federal one when asked via email last week.

‘President Trump also supports universal access to contraception and IVF. Contrarily, Kamala Harris and the Democrats are radically out of touch with the majority of Americans in their support for abortion up until birth and forcing taxpayers to fund it,’ Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

IVF is a fertility treatment for couples struggling to have children that involves freezing eggs to use later for conception. But some religious pro-lifers believe the procedure is a moral dilemma. The treatments also cost tens of thousands of dollars per couple. 

Illume Fertility, a leading modern fertility treatment network, reported in May that when their clinic retrieves 12 eggs, approximately 80% — or nine to 10 eggs — are viable. Of these viable eggs, around 80% will successfully fertilize, resulting in about seven to eight embryos per patient, the report noted.

Eric Sammons, executive director of faith-based magazine Crisis Pub, said, ‘No child created via IVF is evil any more than a child created via rape is evil. But that fact doesn’t make the method of creation good.’

Live Action social media consultant Samantha D. wrote, ‘We still need to keep the pro-life pressure on Trump. Government funded IVF is CRAZY. So many lives will be lost.’

Lila Rose, the founder of Live Action, also sparked controversy last week for her comments suggesting she would not vote for Trump unless he made more public anti-abortion statements. She has also slammed the notion of funding IVF treatments. 

‘Trump just announced his admin would either pay for IVF with tax dollars or force all insurance companies cover it,’ Rose wrote last week on X, ‘How is this morally different than the contraceptive mandate under Obama?’

An Alabama Supreme Court ruling earlier this year established that frozen embryos created in the IVF process are considered children. However, IVF treatments have a success rate of around 50% for women under 35, dropping further with age. To increase the likelihood of a successful pregnancy, critics argue that clinics reportedly create more embryos than needed, leading to the freezing or disposal of millions of excess embryos.

Republican presidential nominee former President Trump is outperforming his 2020 support among Hispanics, who prefer him on immigration during the 2024 race, according to a new poll. 

Hispanic voters give Trump a 42% to 37% advantage over Democrat presidential candidate Vice President Harris regarding immigration policy, Reuters/Ipsos polling shows. 

Among the broader electorate, 46% preferred Trump on immigration over the 36% who preferred Harris, according to the Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted on Aug. 21-28. 

Hispanics, described as a diverse and fast-growing section of the electorate in the United States, prefer Harris’ approach over that of Trump by 18 points for health care and 23 points for climate change, according to the poll. On the economy, the survey found registered voters overall prefer Trump’s platform over that of Harris by 45% to 36%. 

But Trump and Harris drew equally on the economy among registered Hispanic voters, garnering 39% support from that base each. 

That means Democrats have gained some ground since Biden backed out of the race. In May, Reuters/Ipso polling showed Biden behind Trump by four points among Hispanic voters regarding the economy. 

Trump’s performance among Hispanics overall looks to see a significant improvement compared to 2020. Harris currently has a 13-point lead among registered Hispanic voters, the poll showed. The Hispanic vote went to Biden by 21 points four years ago, according to a 2020 Pew Research exit poll analysis. A 2020 Fox News Voter Analysis, conducted in partnership with the Associated Press, showed 35% of Hispanic or Latino voters preferred Trump while 63% preferred Biden.

In 2022, Census Bureau data showed Hispanics made up about 14% of voting-age U.S. citizens, an increase from the 9% for 2005-2009, Reuters reported. 

‘The Latino vote is probably the most pure swing group of voters in America right now and will be for a long time,’ Chuck Rocha, a Democrat strategist who advised Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign, told Reuters.

‘Hispanics have historically strongly favored the Democratic Party, so for Trump to be breaking even with Harris on the economy has to be seen as a win for him,’ said Giancarlo Sopo, a Republican strategist who handled Trump’s 2020 media outreach to Hispanic voters.

While the Heritage Foundation’s latest Mandate for Leadership and its overarching Project 2025 have been turned into a right-wing-‘boogeyman’ style Democratic talking point and fodder for Trump critics, its founders and current leaders maintain that its work product past and present speak for itself.

President Donald Trump has also criticized the latest iteration and denied any involvement in its formation: ‘I disagree with some of the things they’re saying, and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal,’ Trump said last month.

From the Reagan administration through the present, the Heritage Foundation has published its Mandate for Leadership series almost every election cycle.

However, project leaders, including former Attorney General Edwin Meese III, who is now considered the preeminent ‘elder statesman’ of the conservative movement, contend there is nothing radical about the endeavor.

In an interview on Wednesday, Meese said the major difference between 1980 and 2024 is that the mechanics of the project have changed.

‘In the first one, in 1981, it was much more organizational, with information on structure and organizational norms, where – later on in 1989 – it was much more individual policy issues-based,’ he said. 

After then-President-elect Reagan named Meese director of his transition team, Meese recalled being invited to a dinner with members of the Heritage Foundation and other conservatives and being offered early proofs of the 1981 Mandate for Leadership itself.

Charles Heatherly, who worked on the first project during the 1980 cycle, said on Thursday that the Carter crew had been approached to discuss the initiative – appearing to debunk present-day claims the projects have been one-sided partisan affairs.

‘Both the Reagan campaign and the Carter campaign were invited to send a representative to that dinner. The Carter campaign never responded,’ he said.

Meanwhile, Meese said the 1981 project had been ‘particularly helpful’ in the Reagan years, because nothing of the sort had been done in a long time.

‘Years ago, there had been a coalition, I think, during the Johnson administration. That was quite some time before 1980. And, so it was really time [for this project]. . . .’

‘It was a really great effort [Heritage] made. They recruited authors who knew the [policy] topics because they had actually worked in those departments or in other [areas], which gave them the opportunity for knowledge about how the rest of the government worked.’

‘And each department or agency had a chapter in the book. It was about 500 some-odd pages, I remember. And so I was very much impressed with what had happened.’

Meese recalled telling Reagan about the new project and said the California Republican had been immediately eager to view the final product.

‘Reagan was so impressed that he had a meeting of his cabinet before the inauguration. And he put a copy of the book at every person’s desk.’

The meeting was held in the State Department’s conference center, and each secretary was told to ‘find your chapter,’ Meese said.

From that point on, what had started as a meeting of conservative experts began to have a positive effect on the efficiency and policymaking within the new conservative White House.

One excerpt reported by UPI recommended against affirmative action, in that the new 1981 administration should ‘base its civil rights policy on the notion that every person has an inherent right to obtain whatever economic or other rewards he or she has earned, by virtue of merit, and that it is inherently wrong to penalize those who have earned their reward by giving preferential treatment and benefits to those who have not.’

As for how the Reagan administration utilized the first project’s work, Heatherly said the then-president’s political appointees were a ‘mixed bag,’ which led to differences in consideration.

‘Some agencies took it more seriously than others,’ he said.

Heatherly also pointed to his recent Wall Street Journal column defending the project then and now:

He said he had recruited 20 teams of experts from previous White Houses, academic institutions and within then-fledgling Heritage itself. 

The 1980 cycle’s book project went on to make the Washington Post’s bestseller list for three weeks, he added.

Steve Groves served as an assistant special counsel in the Trump administration while the president was being probed by former FBI Director Bob Mueller.

He is also the co-editor of this term’s Mandate for Leadership – the policy book portion of Project 2025.

Groves pushed back on the idea that Project 2025 or its book were intentionally geared toward Trump. 

‘It’s just a lot of sloppy journalism,’ he said. ‘Most [journalists] don’t chase the facts to get them right.’

Groves said after Biden politically collapsed in the June debate, mentions of Project 2025 in the media ‘spiked through the roof.’

He said it was evidence that the media-liberal-political coalition needed a new narrative, which was to make the Mandate for Leadership into an ‘insane document.’ Groves said that many of the allegations, such as demands for the next president to outlaw abortion and end birthright citizenship, were entirely false.

‘They just wanted to change the subject,’ he said.

‘[The idea] it’s Trump’s project is a lie,’ Groves added, pointing to the fact the anthology came out in 2023 and had been crafted in 2022 when the presidential election was anyone’s game.

Groves and Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts echoed each other’s sentiments in that regard, as Groves noted that many of the chapters in this year’s work do not present a singular ideological viewpoint.

Regarding trade policy in particular, conservatives hold divergent views that both fall under the proverbial ‘big tent’ on the right.

As Groves noted, Trump ally Peter Navarro – who would be considered a ‘fair trade’ proponent – and the CEO of the pro-‘free-trade’ Competitive Enterprise Institute, Kent Lassman, co-authored that chapter. 

Groves said Lassman’s purview more closely aligns with Heritage’s longstanding platform – but that Navarro’s inclusion further deconstructs allegations the project is a pro-Trump, far-right piece of propaganda.

For his part, Roberts suggested that situations like the above are what sets Heritage and Project 2025 apart from actual partisan policymaking endeavors.

In the 2024 cycle, he said, Heritage offered Project 2025 materials to every candidate or prospective candidate in the 2022-2023 timeframe, including Biden, Trump, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

‘President Biden did not respond, but if he responded, I would have personally gone over to the White House very happily, not sarcastically, and offered him a briefing,’ Roberts said.

‘On the origins of the mandate, it’s always been the case that we offer it to any presidential candidate who is interested in a briefing. I mean, we offer congressional briefings to Democrats. Of course, here in Washington, fewer and fewer over the years have taken us up on that. But maybe one day we can see that happen again.’

Roberts said that another misconception is that Heritage has issued the same type of ‘project’ every election cycle. In two ways, he said, that claim is flawed.

One, in elections like 2004, there was no reason to completely rewrite the manual for conservatism for either George W. Bush or then-Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., because a Bush re-election would have represented policy continuity.

Spencer Chretien, a Project 2025 associate director, said at the project’s inception that conservatism has also changed in the time since the 1980 election. Conservatives used to oppose things like the 1975 ‘Church Committee’ – a congressional panel led by then-Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho, examining the inner workings and ‘abuses’ of the intelligence community. 

Church’s committee might now be welcomed by conservatives, who have grown weary of the left’s embrace of the ‘government’s vast power.’ No longer do many conservatives see the Church Committee as a ‘kooky leftist attack’ against brave public servants, as they now themselves seek accountability for the actions of unelected bureaucrats there, he said.

Project 2025 is in other ways more like the original 1980-81 iteration, Roberts argued, in that it represents a consortium of sometimes-conflicting viewpoints that all fall within the conservative realm rather than a singular Heritage-viewpoint-based policy document.

Roberts also spoke to right-wing concerns about the project, including the high-profile condemnation from Trump – as many of the authors of Project 2025, like Navarro, were former administration officials, while others like Lassman were not.

‘This speaks to the heart of the project,’ Roberts said. ‘The project is really candidate-agnostic – so it’s been interesting to see commentary ranging from ‘This is specific to Trump’ to ‘It’s not specific to Trump enough.’

‘That actually underscores the point about how serious we are about it being candidate-agnostic. It’s important, obviously, given our IRS designation, but more importantly, our own ethics of the thing as it relates to Mr. Trump’s distancing of his campaign from it. That’s totally understandable.’

Roberts noted how the media have turned Project 2025 into a ‘boogeyman.’ When Americans of all stripes are told exactly what is in the project, they’re more amenable to it than any critic claims they should be.

The Heritage leader also dispelled rumors that the July departure of co-editor Paul Dans had anything to do with Trump’s comments or the media’s condemnations. Dans’ work had ended, and he had moved on to other projects, Roberts said.

He also added that, just like when Heritage presented the first project to Meese and Reagan, there remains no presumption that a candidate – conservative or not – will implement it.

‘It’s the kind of work that Heritage does all the time. Our honest response about Trump’s reaction to it: We’re gratified to see that it looks like a lot of that has calmed down,’ he said.

‘We want to wake up in a normal country. We want to wake up in a country where the American dream is alive. That’s what this project is about.’