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A Pennsylvania man is accused of setting a home on fire after police said he became upset when a woman at the residence rejected him, killing an Army veteran and seriously injuring two others.

Robert Shane Zimmerman, 40, was arrested after allegedly starting a fire at a home in Lewistown around 11:55 p.m. on Wednesday, the Lewistown Police Department wrote on Facebook. 

When officers arrived at the scene, several residents said the fire was intentionally set and that people were trapped inside the home, which was rented out to several subletters.

A man suffered significant facial injuries after jumping from the second floor of the home and was flown to a burn trauma center with internal burns to his throat. He informed authorities that his girlfriend was still inside.

TEXAS WOMAN CHARGED FOR APARTMENT FIRE AFTER ALLEGEDLY BURNING BOYFRIEND’S CLOTHES IN BBQ PIT

A woman also sustained serious injuries after passing out from smoke inhalation and falling onto a concrete sidewalk below, according to police. She was also transported to a trauma center for treatment.

Another victim, identified as Brandy Phillippe, 44, was found dead inside the home after authorities said she appeared to have attempted to escape but became trapped in the residence, according to the Mifflin County Coroner’s Office.

Multiple witnesses reported Zimmerman was at the home to profess his love for a woman living in the attic, police said. The fire was later confirmed to be arson by the Pennsylvania State Police Fire Marshal.

"It was reported that Zimmerman became upset when he was rejected by the female and he began setting several items on fire on the first floor of the residence," police said, adding that the woman was later taken into custody for a prothonotary warrant issued in February.

During the investigation, witnesses reported hearing Zimmerman admit to starting the fire. They also said they saw him standing in a nearby alley watching the residence burn.

Surveillance images appeared to corroborate the witnesses’ statements, police said.

Zimmerman was later taken into custody at his home on an outstanding warrant, as well as for questioning related to the house fire, with police saying he smelled like ash and smoke.

ILLINOIS TEEN STABS PREGNANT WOMAN 70 TIMES, KNIFES DOG, SETS HOME ABLAZE DURING FACEBOOK MARKETPLACE MEETUP

After being taken into custody, Zimmerman said he had just ingested fentanyl and displayed signs of an opioid overdose. He was transported to a hospital for evaluation. Several hours later, medical staff cleared him, and he was transported to the police department for questioning in connection with the fire.

During questioning, Zimmerman made "several incriminating statements," police said.

Zimmerman claimed he could not recall any details from the exact time the fire began, but he was able to make several statements about events immediately before and after the fire started, according to police.

When he was informed someone in the residence had died as a result of the fire, police said Zimmerman had a "strong emotional response."

Zimmerman is being held at the Mifflin County Correctional Facility on multiple charges, including arson, police told the Lewistown Sentinel.

Fox News Digital has reached out to police for additional information.

It was not immediately clear whether Zimmerman had legal representation.

Phillippe's death is being investigated as a homicide, according to the coroner’s office.

According to her obituary, Phillippe was a "woman of many talents" who had a background in culinary arts and attended flight attendant school.

"She was a proud Army veteran who specialized in Patriot missiles during her service. Later in life, she achieved her CDL and worked as a professional truck driver," the obituary reads.

"She had a passion for cats and loved many over the years," it continued.

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The Trump administration is using the immense muscle of federal power to punish media outlets whose coverage is disparaged as overly negative.

The president has long used harsh rhetorical attacks against such companies as CNN and The New York Times, as well as individual journalists, and filed a flurry of lawsuits against them. He’s even accused the press of "seditious" conduct. I suppose we’ve grown accustomed to that.

But there is a whole new level of escalation that goes beyond intimidation. Trump and his allies are pushing the regulatory levers to force networks to spend enormous time and money to preserve their franchise.

And the biggest target right now is ABC.

TUNING OUT: WHY MANY AMERICANS ARE SICK OF THE NEWS – ESPECIALLY TRUMP NEWS

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who along with Trump has demanded Jimmy Kimmel’s firing, has launched a review of the local station licenses connected to the Disney-owned company. This legal war will drag on for years and is unlikely to succeed; only one license has ever been pulled, and that was a half-century ago.

Think about it. Why should an ABC-owned station in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles have its license jeopardized because a federal agency dislikes the network’s content?

ABC has produced 11,000 documents in the inquiry so far, which gives you an idea of the scope of the showdown.

FCC LAUNCHING PROBE INTO ABC'S 'THE VIEW' AMID CRACKDOWN ON EQUAL TIME FOR CANDIDATES

"The commission’s actions threaten to upend decades of settled law and practice and chill critical protected speech, both with respect to ‘The View’ and more broadly," ABC said in a legal filing.

Yes, "The View," the all-female talk show founded by Barbara Walters in 1997 and syndicated by ABC. That’s now a bullseye within the larger target.

The show has generally featured one conservative to balance the aggressively liberal Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar. But these days the conservative panelists are also strongly anti-Trump.

REPUBLICANS VIRTUALLY SHUT OUT OF DEM-DOMINATED TALK SHOWS AS FCC AIMS TO REFORM NETWORK BIAS

The initial filing was based on an ABC station in Houston, KTRK, stemming from a minor dispute with "The View." And as the New York Times points out, the station’s paperwork was signed by former solicitor general Paul Clement.

At issue is whether the program, which is part of ABC’s news division, should be exempt from equal-time rules.

ABC says it has invited JD Vance, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Lindsey Graham, Josh Hawley, Elon Musk, Kevin McCarthy and Marco Rubio, according to the Hollywood Reporter, but all have refused.

TEXAS-BASED ABC AFFILIATES FILE EQUAL TIME NOTICES AS FCC CRACKS DOWN ON ‘THE VIEW’ OVER TALARICO SEGMENT

"The View" was given an exemption as a news show back in 2002.

Disney also notes that the FCC hasn’t gone after conservatives – or liberals – on talk radio. 

We’ve seen these tactics in other realms. The Trump Justice Department last fall brought an indictment against James Comey, which was rejected by a judge. After Trump fired Pam Bondi for not getting results, the department last month brought a second, much narrower indictment against the former FBI chief despised by Trump, based solely on the posting of seashell art that said 86*47. And Comey has to hire lawyers again.

TRUMP, DEMOCRATS LOCKED IN ENDLESS CYCLES OF PAYBACK AFTER COMEY INDICTMENT AND TARGETING PRESIDENT'S ENEMIES

It so happens that the media, even most conservative legal commentators, are calling the case absurd.

Says National Review’s Andy McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor: 

"Sure, Comey plainly did not intend to threaten bodily harm. More fundamentally, though, even if Comey’s state of mind had been sinister, he’d still be innocent because the seashell array was not an actionable threat…

LINE IN THE SAND: WHY TRUMP IS DRAWING FLAK FOR THE JAMES COMEY INDICTMENT OVER SEASHELLS

"The case must be thrown out pretrial because ‘86 47’ is not a true threat." 

Look, the administration has done what it can to crack down on the press, such as booting Pentagon reporters out of the building after they refused to submit to advance censorship.

And Trump has previously collected at least $16 million apiece from earlier lawsuits against CBS and ABC.

What’s more, Trump’s friend, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and his son David, who bought CBS without government interference, may soon control CNN as well. The expectation is that they would shift the world’s first 24-hour network, whose founder Ted Turner died last week, in a more Trump-friendly direction.

Singling out a network or program for retaliation is itself a form of sheer partisanship.

And using the unchecked levers of government against disliked journalists and programs, down to the Whoopi Goldberg level, is deeply troubling. 

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TUCSON, Ariz. — Blood spatter on Nancy Guthrie's front porch shows she was still alive when coerced out of her home by a lone abductor in the Catalina Foothills of Tucson, according to a retired FBI profiler — who also believes that the masked suspect made enough mistakes that he will be identified eventually.

"We also know at least that she was alive at that time," said Jim Clemente, who spent 22 years in the bureau.

That's based on his analysis of blood on her front porch. There was a concentration of round droplets near the front door, then a thinning trail toward her driveway.

NBC HOST SAVANNAH GUTHRIE’S MOTHER TAKEN FROM HOME AS EXPERT RAISES ALARMING NEW THEORIES AMID LACK OF LEADS

"She must have aspirated and then coughed up blood with her face very close to the ground, and I don't believe that would have happened had two people been carrying her at that point," he told Fox News Digital.

Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of "Today" co-host Savannah Guthrie, is believed to have been kidnapped from her home around 2:30 a.m. on Feb. 1. For days, there were few clues about who was responsible, until the FBI and Google recovered imagery from her Nest doorbell camera that showed a masked man wearing gloves and a holstered pistol arrive on her front steps the night she vanished.

FBI REVEALS NEW SUSPECT DETAILS, INCLUDING BACKPACK, IN NANCY GUTHRIE DISAPPEARANCE; DOUBLES REWARD TO $100K

He is described as above average height and build. He was wearing a black Ozark Trail backpack, long sleeves, gloves and a ski mask. And he remains unidentified nearly 100 days later.

Still, the video is full of clues, Clemente told Fox News Digital.

FOLLOW THE FOX TRUE CRIME TEAM ON X

Although the suspect is believed to have scouted the location in advance, he resorted to using foliage to block the Nest camera lens and had the potential to shed facial hair through his ski mask, Clemente said.

A $10 WALMART GUN HOLSTER COULD HELP IDENTIFY SUSPECT IN NANCY GUTHRIE CASE

"In the process of doing that, I believe he revealed what looked like a tattoo on his wrist, which would not have been revealed had he adequately prepared for that camera being there," he said.

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"So it tells me that he is not a sophisticated offender. He was sort of bumbling his way through this, and he made other mistakes, and I believe those mistakes will directly lead to his capture."

While investigators have kept details about the inside of the home close, some have leaked, and they paint a story, Clemente said.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE REVEALS NEW DETAILS IN MOM’S VANISHING THAT DON’T ADD UP AS QUESTIONS HAUNT CASE: EXPERT

"I believe that what it means is he threatened her with his gun when he was at her bedside," he told Fox News Digital. "He got her to come down, and at the front door is where she realized he's going to take me and this is very dangerous and I should fight. And she did."

The doorbell video does not show Guthrie being taken from her home, although there was blood clearly visible on her stone walkway. The camera itself was missing when deputies arrived the next morning. However, the fact that the FBI was able to recover video anyway likely shocked the kidnapper, Clemente said, and someone in his orbit should have been able to pick up the signs.

LISTEN TO THE NEW 'CRIME & JUSTICE WITH DONNA ROTUNNO' PODCAST

"Because of all the mistakes this guy made, because of his ineptness and non-professional behavior in this, I believe that he exhibited a great degree of stress when the images were first released," Clemente said. "Anybody around him should have noticed that change in behavior and potentially be able to identify him because of that."

FBI HAS RECEIVED DNA DATA FROM NANCY GUTHRIE CASE: SOURCES

There was also an unidentified hair sample recovered from the home. The sheriff's department initially sent it to a private lab in Florida. After 11 weeks, the lab there sent it to the FBI for more advanced analysis.

LIKE WHAT YOU'RE READING? FIND MORE ON THE TRUE CRIME HUB

"If it is a hair from the offender, then it will lead to his identification," Clemente said. "They will have his name."

There is a combined reward of more than $1.2 million for information that cracks the case.

To remain anonymous, contact Tucson's 88-Crime tip line at (520) 882-7463.

The family is also urging anyone with information to dial 1-800-CALL-FBI.

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President Donald Trump and Republicans are hailing the blockbuster ruling by the Virginia Supreme Court to strike down the state's congressional redistricting ballot measure, which was a major setback for Democrats in the battle for the U.S. House majority.

"Huge win for the Republican Party," the president proclaimed in a social media post on Friday minutes after Virginia's highest court struck down the referendum passed by voters last month.

The new map drawn by the Virginia legislature would have given Democrats four more left-leaning House districts in the Commonwealth ahead of this year's midterm elections, when Republicans will be defending their razor-thin majority in the chamber.

The Virginia ruling, along with the recent opinion by the conservative majority on the Supreme Court to slash a key Voting Rights Act protection, is giving Trump and the GOP a major boost in their ongoing political fight with Democrats to redraw congressional district maps ahead of the midterms. At stake in this nationwide redistricting showdown is which party will control the House during the final two years of Trump's second term in the White House.

BLOCKBUSTER RULING: VIRGINIA SUPREME COURT STRIKES DOWN DEMOCRAT-BACKED CONGRESSIONAL MAP

In Virginia, the decision means the map used in the 2024 elections will stay in place for the 2026 ballot box showdowns. Democrats currently control the state's U.S. House delegation by a 6-5 margin. The now overturned map could have resulted in a 10-1 advantage for Democrats in the blue-leaning but competitive state.

In the wake of their latest legal setback, House Democratic Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York said, "We are exploring all options to overturn this shocking decision."

And the House minority leader vowed, "No matter what it takes, House Democrats will win in November so we can help rescue this nation from the extremism being unleashed by Donald Trump and Republicans."

But the 2026 redistricting wars are far from over, and the political landscape may get even rougher for Democrats going forward.

Here's where things stand.

The Supreme Court's decision reshaped the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act by ruling that race should not dictate the redrawing of legislative district maps. And the opinion specifically ruled that Louisiana's congressional district map was unconstitutional.

Last week, the Supreme Court said that its decision declaring Louisiana's map unconstitutional should go into effect immediately, breaking with its usual procedure of waiting roughly a month before its opinions become official.

That cleared the way for the GOP-controlled state legislature to begin the process of redrawing the map, and hearings got underway on Friday.

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, a top Trump ally, took swift action in the immediate aftermath of the high court's ruling, when he delayed the May 16 U.S. House primary elections in Louisiana.

Louisiana Republicans are aiming to erase one or both of the two Black-majority House seats, which are represented by Democrats.

Republicans in Tennessee moved even faster.

The GOP-dominated Tennessee legislature on Thursday quickly adopted a new map that would eliminate the only Democrat-controlled congressional district in the state, and would likely give Republicans control of all nine districts.

TENN GOV LEE CALLS SPECIAL SESSION TO REDRAW HOUSE MAP IN GOP'S FAVOR 9-0

GOP Gov. Bill Lee quickly signed the new maps into law.

Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen, who represents the majority Black district that's being carved up, vowed legal action.

"Trump knows he HAS TO rig the game to keep his majority in November. And the TN GOP was willing to go along with it. It’s shameful," Cohen wrote on social media. "Next stop is the courts."

Lawmakers in the Alabama legislature, where the GOP holds a supermajority in both chambers, are advancing legislation as they met this past week in a special session focused on redistricting. The new maps may result in eliminating one or both of the state's two blue-leaning U.S. House districts.

The special session was called by Republican Gov. Kay Ivey.

But any new map passed by Alabama lawmakers will need to be greenlit by the Supreme Court. That's because Alabama is currently prohibited by the high court from redistricting until 2030. It's unclear if the court will lift its injunction.

Protests rocked both the Alabama and Tennessee legislatures as Republican lawmakers pushed forward the new maps.

In South Carolina, the GOP-controlled legislature returns in special session on Monday, as Republican lawmakers consider a new map that could put longtime Rep. Jim Clyburn, the only Democrat in the state's seven-person House delegation, out of a job.

Republicans in Georgia are divided over GOP Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia's decision not to call state lawmakers back into a special session on redistricting.

The state's primary is on May 19 and early voting is already underway in Georgia.

Meanwhile, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday signed a bill passed last week by the GOP-dominated state legislature that redraws the red-leaning state's congressional districts, adding four more right-leaning seats by eliminating districts currently controlled by Democrats.

Republicans currently control Florida's U.S. House delegation by a 20-8 margin.

The battle over the maps ignited last spring when Trump, aiming to prevent what happened during his first term in the White House when Democrats reclaimed the House majority in the 2018 midterms, first floated the idea of rare, but not unheard of, mid-decade congressional redistricting.

The mission was simple: redraw congressional district maps in red states to pad the GOP's fragile House majority to keep control of the chamber in the midterms, when the party in power traditionally faces political headwinds and loses seats.

When asked by reporters last summer about his plan to add Republican-leaning House seats across the country, the president said, "Texas will be the biggest one. And that’ll be five."

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas called a special session of the GOP-dominated state legislature to pass the new map.

But Democratic state lawmakers, who broke quorum for two weeks as they fled Texas in a bid to delay the passage of the redistricting bill, energized Democrats across the country. Among those leading the fight against Trump's redistricting was Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California.

California voters in November overwhelmingly passed Proposition 50, a ballot initiative that temporarily sidetracked the left-leaning state's nonpartisan redistricting commission and returned the power to draw the congressional maps to the Democratic-dominated legislature.

That led to five more Democratic-leaning congressional districts in California, which aimed to counter the move by Texas to redraw their maps.

But the fight quickly spread beyond Texas and California.

Republican-controlled Missouri and Ohio and swing state North Carolina, where the GOP dominates the legislature, drew new maps as part of the president's push.

But in blows to Republicans, a Utah district judge late last year rejected a congressional district map drawn by the state's GOP-dominated legislature and instead approved an alternate that will create a Democratic-leaning district ahead of the midterms.

And Republicans in Indiana's Senate in December defied Trump, shooting down a redistricting bill that had passed the state House.

Facing the president's wrath, five of those Republican state senators in Indiana were ousted by Trump-backed challengers in last week's GOP primary.

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The cruise ship linked to a deadly Hantavirus outbreak arrived early Sunday off the Spanish island of Tenerife, where the evacuation of passengers is expected to begin.

Passengers will be tested by Spanish health authorities to ensure they are asymptomatic before being transported ashore in small boats, Spanish officials said, according to Reuters.

Evacuation is expected to begin between 7:30 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. local time, with Spanish nationals disembarking first, followed by passengers of other nationalities, Reuters reported.

They are then expected to be taken to the island’s main airport and flown back to their home countries. Multiple Americans are believed to be aboard the MV Hondius.

AMERICANS TO BE EVACUATED FROM HANTAVIRUS CRUISE SHIP AS GLOBAL HEALTH CHIEF TRAVELS TO QUARANTINE ISLAND

Fox News Digital previously reported that the U.S. government is planning to transfer American passengers to a military base in Nebraska for quarantine and monitoring.

The ship set course for Spain on Wednesday from the coast of Cape Verde after the WHO and European Union requested assistance in managing the outbreak.

The ship’s arrival comes hours after World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus arrived on the island.

The WHO said Friday that eight people aboard the ship had fallen ill, including three who died. Six cases have been confirmed, with two others suspected.

HANTAVIRUS DEATHS ON CRUISE SHIP HIGHLIGHT DANGERS OF RODENT-BORNE DISEASE

In a statement Saturday, Ghebreyesus said the public health risk remains low.

"I know you are worried. I know that when you hear the word 'outbreak' and watch a ship sail toward your shores, memories surface that none of us have fully put to rest," he said.

"The pain of 2020 is still real, and I do not dismiss it for a single moment. But I need you to hear me clearly: this is not another COVID-19. The current public health risk from Hantavirus remains low. My colleagues and I have said this unequivocally, and I will say it again to you now," he continued.

ARGENTINA INVESTIGATORS ZERO IN ON POSSIBLE ORIGIN POINT OF HANTAVIRUS IN DEADLY CRUISE OUTBREAK

Ghebreyesus noted that the virus identified aboard the ship is the Andes strain of hantavirus, which can be severe.

"Three people have lost their lives, and our hearts go out to their families," he wrote, reiterating that the public health risk posed by the virus remained low.

About 30 crew members are expected to remain on board as the vessel continues to the Netherlands, where it will be disinfected.

Fox News Digital's Robert McGreevy and Reuters contributed to this report.

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As fraud concerns ramp up across the country, particularly involving Medicaid, North Carolina State Auditor Dave Boliek tells Fox News Digital that the problem is very real in his state, especially when it comes to autism therapy, an area that has been highly scrutinized in Minnesota.

Boliek is sounding the alarm on potential waste, fraud, and abuse within the state’s Medicaid program, specifically calling out in an interview with Fox News Digital a 47,000% explosion in autism therapy billings that he has flagged since taking office last year. 

"Those are vital services to folks and individuals that need that therapy," Boliek said. "But when you have, like in North Carolina, a system that went from $1.4 million or so in total billings for autism therapy to more than $660 million a year in billings on autism therapy within a five-year range, that begs an audit from the state auditor, who in North Carolina, we are the top watchdog agency for taxpayer waste, fraud, and abuse prevention. So we've dug down into that or in the middle of that."

Boliek, who was speaking to Fox News Digital from the State Financial Officers Foundation annual conference in Orlando, says his office is "hand-in-hand" with Vice President JD Vance’s focus on eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse to "make sure that the people who need the services and deserve those services get the services" without "wasting money."

NORTH CAROLINA AUDITOR EXCITED FOR 'REAL EFFECT' OF STATE-LEVEL DOGE: 'KEEPING GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABLE'

One of the core problems, Boliek explained, is that the system is oftentimes designed in a way that fails to properly safeguard against waste and abuse.

"What we’ve got is we’ve seen examples where there might be three different clinical providers billing during the same tranche of time on an autism therapy client and that is because of poor rulemaking," Boliek explained. "Some of it is possibly illegal and probably illegal, and we’re going to point that out, and we’re going to try to put people in cuffs because of it."

"But some of it might be technically legal because of the lax oversight from a Democrat-led Department of Health and Human Services," Boliek said, referencing the top state health agency in North Carolina.

In a March 10, 2026, hearing of the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Medicaid, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services presented data that matches Boliek's narrative of exponential growth in the autism therapy space.

TRUMP ELECTION INTEGRITY PUSH EXPOSES MASSIVE AMOUNT OF DEAD PEOPLE ON NORTH CAROLINA VOTER ROLLS

The report confirmed that Medicaid spending on ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) therapy grew by 347% between 2022 and 2025 alone and that total spending is projected to hit $842 million in state fiscal year 2026 and $1.14 billion by state fiscal year 2027.

Medicaid fraud has been a hot-button issue across the United States when a scandal in Minnesota gained widespread attention last fall and spreading to places like California and Ohio, the latter being the subject of a recent Daily Wire exposé examining seven medical buildings in Columbus, Ohio, that house 288 Medicaid companies and bill the government $250 million.

The key issues with Medicaid and the ease with which it can be abused both illegally and legally, according to Boliek, are the "minutia of rulemaking" that is "built in by government."

"For example, how individual entities, whether they are a provider of clinical medical services or whether they're a provider of daycare services or other services that can be paid for through departments of Health and Human Services, how those rules are set up and what the billing rules are," Boliek explained.

GOP SENATOR LAUNCHES EFFORT TO CLOSE MEDICAID LOOPHOLE ALLOWING FRAUDSTERS TO RAKE IN MILLIONS

"It really is minutiae, but in North Carolina, for example, we still have some services that are delivered on a fee-for-service basis, and they lack transparency and lack accountability with respect to who can bill and how much can be billed for particular services. That's why we've taken a deep dive into some particular fee-for-service areas in North Carolina and are looking at provider data on exactly how those services are billed. That's where the flaws are."

During the developing fraud scandal in Minnesota, federal agents discovered that one suspected scammer defrauded the state’s autism-treatment program of roughly $14 million and allegedly billed Medicaid for fake therapy sessions, used untrained staff and paid parents $300 to $1,500 a month to keep their kids in the program. 

The state’s autism program’s budget jumped from $3 million in 2018 to nearly $400 million in 2023, according to Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

"The fraud is so obvious, just simply looking at the exponential growth in some of these social services programs, that anybody kind of looking at how fast this was growing should have known that a fraud was a major reason why," Minnesota state Sen. Michael Kreun, a Republican, told Fox News Digital in December about social services fraud in his state.

In terms of next steps in North Carolina, Boliek says his office is working with lawmakers to strengthen fraud enforcement by increasing financial accountability, expanding investigative and Medicaid audit resources and investing in staff and technology to recover misused funds. 

Boliek explained that one important tool to crack down on fraud is artificial intelligence. 

"Look, we've got to pour jet fuel on artificial intelligence in the area of state auditing because the fraudsters are using AI and if we're not using AI to combat the fraud, then we're going to be on our heels and the taxpayer isn't going to be protected."

He emphasized that these steps, especially enhancing oversight of programs like Medicaid, are aimed at holding individuals accountable and returning taxpayer dollars for more effective use. 

The State Financial Officers Foundation, a group of financial officers that collectively oversees more than $3 trillion in state funds, released a report earlier this year outlining how the organization safeguarded more than $28 billion of waste, fraud, and abuse in 2025 alone.

"Every wasted dollar is a dollar that can't be spent on a person who actually needs service," Boliek said.

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House Democrats are staying far away from questions about whether former Vice President Kamala Harris should run for president again in 2028.

"I have no idea," Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., the former House majority whip, told Fox News Digital.

"I have no idea who's running, and we'll focus on 2028 after 2026," Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., answered, referring to the November midterms.

Although the slate of presidential candidates has ample time to settle, the responses hint at party uncertainty about whether Harris is the strongest figure who could represent the party in 2028 and underscore reluctance from lawmakers to project what their party might look like two years down the road.

KAMALA HARRIS TEASES SHE 'MIGHT' RUN FOR PRESIDENT AGAIN IN 2028

"I won't comment until I know whether she really actually is or not," Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., said.

Democrats suffered a blistering defeat in 2024, losing the popular vote nationally as Republicans stormed to a governing trifecta across the White House, Senate and House of Representatives.

Harris, who did not outperform former President Joe Biden’s 2020 election performance in any county across the U.S., raised eyebrows when she passed up an opportunity to run for governor of California, freeing her up for another shot at the White House.

"In recent months, I have given serious thought to asking the people of California for the privilege to serve as their Governor," Harris said in a statement posted to Instagram last July.

"I love this state, its people and its promise. It is my home. However, after careful reflection, I’ve decided not to run for Governor in this election."

But — even if Harris decides to throw her name in the ring — she likely won't be the only candidate with a national profile looking to flip Democratic fortunes in 2028.

KAMALA HARRIS REVEALS TIMETABLE FOR MAKING MAJOR POLITICAL DECISION IN DEEP BLUE STATE

Alongside Harris, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer are all names being floated as potential presidential contenders, each of whom has made a name for themselves by opposing President Donald Trump.

Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., believes that Democrats will have choices — and not just among governors either.

"I think that's her decision," Larson said of Harris. "But I believe there should be a wide-open Democratic primary, and I think there'll be a lot of contenders; you know, governors, senators. But I also think people outside of government will be interested in running too."

"It’ll be a healthy experience, and that anyone who's interested ought to run," Larson added.

Larson did not list any specific names he would support or expect to be a frontrunner in that picture.

HERE ARE THE DEMOCRATS WHO MAY EVENTUALLY RUN FOR PRESIDENT IN 2028

Although he declined to definitively say whether he believes Harris ought to lead the Democratic ticket, at least one Democrat, Rep. Glenn Ivey, D-Md., said he wouldn’t rule Harris out.

"I think there's definitely a lot of support still out there for her. And she seemed real sharp on the issues still. So, we'll see how it goes. But there's gonna be a lot of people jumping in that one," Ivey said.

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