Hampton Dellinger, the former head of the Office of Special Counsel who was fired by President Donald Trump on Feb. 7, announced on Thursday that he will not contest his firing further.

Dellinger, appointed to the role by former President Joe Biden, sued the Trump administration in Washington, D.C., federal court after his firing, but a federal appeals court had cleared the way for the firing to proceed on Wednesday.

‘My fight to stay on the job was not for me, but rather for the ideal that OSC should be as Congress intended: an independent watchdog and a safe, trustworthy place for whistleblowers to report wrongdoing and be protected from retaliation. Now I will look to make a difference – as an attorney, a North Carolinian, and an American – in other ways,’ Dellinger said.

D.C. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson had argued in a filing last month that Dellinger’s firing was ‘unlawful.’

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia sided with the Trump administration in a Wednesday ruling, however. 

Jackson claimed that the court ‘finds that the elimination of the restrictions on plaintiff’s removal would be fatal to the defining and essential feature of the Office of Special Counsel as it was conceived by Congress and signed into law by the President: its independence. The Court concludes that they must stand.’

Dellinger has maintained the argument that, by law, he can only be dismissed from his position for job performance problems, which were not cited in an email dismissing him from his post.

Earlier in February, liberal Supreme Court justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson voted to outright deny the administration’s request to approve the firing.

Conservative justices Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito dissented, saying the lower court overstepped. They also cast doubt on whether courts have the authority to restore to office someone the president has fired. While acknowledging that some officials appointed by the president have contested their removal, Gorsuch wrote in his opinion that ‘those officials have generally sought remedies like backpay, not injunctive relief like reinstatement.’

: President Donald Trump reflected on his first address of his second administration to a joint session of Congress, telling Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview that he ‘felt very comfortable there’ and that ‘even the fake news said good things.’ 

‘I felt very comfortable there,’ Trump told Fox News Digital Thursday morning. ‘I was very comfortable with the subject matter.’  

‘People liked the delivery,’ the president continued. ‘So, it all ended up well.’ 

The president told Fox News Digital that he ‘got wonderful reviews.’ 

‘Even the fake news said good things,’ Trump told Fox News Digital. 

The president spoke for about an hour and 40 minutes — the longest address a president has delivered before a joint session of Congress, according to the American Presidency Project at the University of California at Santa Barbara. 

The president used his first address to a joint session of Congress to highlight the accomplishments of his administration thus far, using his infamous ‘art of the weave’ technique to tie each section together. 

The theme of the president’s speech was ‘the Renewal of the American Dream,’ focusing on border security, the economy, energy, the end of ‘woke’ America, his plans for peace around the world and a strengthened military, and more. 

‘To my fellow citizens, America is back,’ Trump declared at the start of his Tuesday speech, prompting the audience to break into chants of ‘USA, USA, USA.’ 

A CBS News poll found that a large majority of those who watched the president’s address approved of his speech. It reported 76% of Americans who watched Tuesday night approved of the speech. 

A CNN poll also showed that at least 7 in 10 Americans who watched the speech said they had at least a ‘somewhat positive’ reaction to the speech, with 44% saying they had a ‘very positive’ reaction. 

The New York Times also published a piece titled: ‘What Some Reluctant Trump Voters Thought of His Speech,’ featuring interviews with a number of Americans — some of whom said his address brought ‘confidence,’ ‘hope’ and ’empathy.’ 

Meanwhile, the president’s address was interrupted by Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, who eventually was thrown out of the House Chamber by the Sergeant-at-Arms.

The House of Representatives Thursday, in a bipartisan vote, censured Green, D-Texas, for repeatedly disrupting the president’s address. 

‘He should be censured,’ Trump told Fox News Digital.

‘He should be forced to pass an IQ test because he is a low IQ individual and we don’t need low IQ individuals in Congress,’ Trump told Fox News Digital, further blasting Green as ‘a fool and a clown.’  

‘Nobody takes him seriously,’ Trump told Fox News Digital. ‘He is an embarrassment to Congress but a much bigger embarrassment to the Democrats.’ 

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

: President Donald Trump told Fox News Digital Thursday that Rep. Al Green ‘should be forced to pass an IQ test because he is a low IQ individual, and we don’t need low IQ individuals in Congress,’ after the Democrat disrupted his joint session address. 

The House of Representatives on Thursday, in a bipartisan vote, censured Green, D-Texas, for interrupting the president’s Tuesday joint session address to Congress. 

In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, the president reacted. 

‘He should be censured,’ Trump told Fox News Digital. 

The president also blasted Green as ‘a fool and a clown.’ 

‘Nobody takes him seriously,’ Trump told Fox News Digital. ‘He is an embarrassment to Congress but a much bigger embarrassment to the Democrats.’ 

The 77-year-old Democrat was removed from Trump’s joint address to Congress Tuesday night after repeatedly disrupting the beginning of the president’s speech.

He shouted, ‘You have no mandate!’ at Trump as he touted Republican victories in the House, Senate and White House.

House Speaker Mike Johnson had Green removed by the U.S. Sergeant-at-Arms.

Green, on Tuesday night, after being thrown out of the House chamber, spoke to the White House press pool and said he was ‘willing to suffer whatever punishment is available to me. I didn’t say to anyone, ‘don’t punish me.’ I’ve said I’ll accept the punishment.’

‘But it’s worth it to let people know that there are some of us who are going to stand up against this president’s desire to cut Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security,’ he said, according to the pool report. 

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

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates. 

House lawmakers have voted to censure Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, after he was thrown out of President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night.

Ten Democrats joined Republicans in voting for the measure. Green himself voted ‘present,’ along with first-term Rep. Shomari Figures, D-Ala.

‘Al Green’s childish outburst exposed the chaos and dysfunction within the Democrat party since President Trump’s overwhelming win in November and his success in office thus far. It is not surprising 198 Democrats refused to support Green’s censure given their history of radical, inflammatory rhetoric fueled by Trump Derangement Syndrome,’ House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., told Fox News Digital.

Before the formal censure could be read out to Green, however, Democrats upended House floor proceedings by gathering with the Texas Democrat and singing ‘We shall overcome.’ Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., was forced to call the House into a recess after failing multiple times to quell the protest.

Decorum eroded further afterwards, with several Democrats including ‘Squad’ member Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., engaging in a heated exchange with Republicans, including first-term Rep. Ryan MacKenzie, R-Pa.

The 10 Democrats who voted to censure Green are Reps. Ami Bera, D-Calif.; Ed Case, D-Hawaii; Jim Costa, D-Calif.; Laura Gillen, D-N.Y.; Jim Himes, D-Conn.; Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa.; Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio; Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla.; Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash.; and Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y.

Republicans raced to introduce competing resolutions to censure Green on Wednesday, with three separate texts being drafted within hours of each other.

Fox News Digital was told that Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., whose resolution got a vote on the House floor Thursday morning, had reached out to Johnson about a censure resolution immediately after Trump’s speech ended on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the House Freedom Caucus had aimed to make good on a threat to censure any Democrats who protested Trump’s speech, and Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, crafted his own censure resolution against Green that got more than 30 House GOP co-sponsors.

But Newhouse took to the House floor on Wednesday afternoon to deem his resolution ‘privileged,’ a maneuver forcing House leaders to take up a bill within two legislative days.

Newhouse told Fox News Digital after the vote, ‘President Trump’s address to Congress was not a debate or a forum; he was invited by the speaker to outline his agenda for the American people. The actions by my colleague from Texas broke the rules of decorum in the House, and he must be held accountable.’

A bid by House Democrats to block the resolution from getting a vote failed on Wednesday. Green himself voted ‘present.’

The 77-year-old Democrat was removed from Trump’s joint address to Congress on Tuesday night after repeatedly disrupting the beginning of the president’s speech.

He shouted, ‘You have no mandate!’ at Trump as he touted Republican victories in the House, Senate and White House.

Johnson had Green removed by the U.S. Sergeant-at-Arms.

It was part of a larger issue with Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday night, with many engaging in both silent and vocal acts of protest against Trump. Democrats were also chided for not standing up to clap when Trump designated a 13-year-old boy an honorary Secret Service agent.

The House speaker publicly challenged Democrats to vote with Republicans in favor of the censure on Thursday.

‘Despite my repeated warnings, he refused to cease his antics, and I was forced to remove him from the chamber,’ Johnson posted on X. ‘He deliberately violated House rules, and an expeditious vote of censure is an appropriate remedy. Any Democrat who is concerned about regaining the trust and respect of the American people should join House Republicans in this effort.’

Green, who shook Newhouse’s hand before speaking out during debate on his own censure, stood by his actions on Wednesday.

‘I heard the speaker when he said that I should cease. I did not, and I did not with intentionality. It was not done out of a burst of emotion,’ Green said.

‘I think that on some questions, questions of conscience, you have to be willing to suffer the consequences. And I have said I will. I will suffer whatever the consequences are, because I don’t believe that in the richest country in the world, people should be without good healthcare.’

Other recent lawmakers censured on the House floor have been Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., former Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., and now-Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.

Lin Manuel Miranda and the producers of his hit show ‘Hamilton’ are throwing away their shot to light up the stage at the Kennedy Center in protest over the Trump administration replacing the failed leadership at the far-left institution.

The cancelation is just another example of the progressive elites in our nation insisting that we are living through some political emergency that must occupy our entire lives and impact every decision we make.

We saw this attitude of existential crisis from Democrats in Congress this week with their childish displays during President Donald Trump’s joint address, in which lefty lawmakers refused to stand or applaud for a childhood cancer survivor because … Trump.

Meanwhile, at Columbia University, pro-terrorist protests are erupting again, taking over libraries, because the political emergencies of our time make the mere act of simple studying an unacceptable luxury.

For the perpetually outraged Left, it all boils down to one message: ‘This is not normal.’ They claim Trump is such a danger that we must, with every waking hour and breath, acknowledge and confront that fact.

But here’s the thing, and I hear it everywhere I go, from Texas to West Virginia, from California to Wisconsin: People want normalcy back. They want to be able to talk to their family and friends on the other political side, they want to enjoy a beer without engaging in the culture war.

By and large, the people standing in the way of a return to normalcy today are those on the Left, and Miranda’s hare-brained scheme to close his own show is a perfect example.

Let’s imagine for a moment that Richard Grenell, Trump’s new president of the Kennedy Center, decided to cancel ‘Hamilton,’ in which the founding fathers are played by people of color, and replace it with the 1970s hit ‘1776,’ with an all-White cast.

All bloody hell would break loose, and rightfully so. But that didn’t happen, and would never happen, because like most conservatives, Grenell has no interest in censorship. 

Miranda and his ilk are laughably claiming they are protesting political bias in the leadership shakeup, as if the ideological makeup of the Kennedy Center hasn’t been somewhere to the left of Chairman Mao for decades.

Long story short, the Trump administration is not censoring Miranda, Miranda is censoring Miranda.

Now, it will be argued that Trump himself is not exactly courting national unity with his breakneck executive orders, mass firings of public employees and moves like the Kennedy Center shakeup itself, but there is a key distinction: Trump’s actions are political, not social.

The president has always played by mafia rules. If you are in the game, you are a fair target, but he doesn’t attack regular folks. Trump rarely, if ever, demeans those who didn’t vote for him, perhaps in part because he doubts they even exist.

It isn’t normal to refuse to perform a play, or refuse to politely listen to a speech, or refuse to allow fellow students to do their work. It’s downright abnormal.

What Miranda is doing by canceling ‘Hamilton,’ what Democrats in Congress did with their ridiculous antics during Trump’s address and what the hoodlums backing Hamas at Columbia have in common is their compulsion to invade your social life if you don’t share their world view. If you are a Trump supporter, they don’t even want to be in a room with you.

In my travels, I have met heartbroken parents whose kids won’t talk to them because of Trump, lifelong friends cast aside. In fact, almost everyone I ask has some such story. And you want to know something? That is what isn’t normal.

It isn’t normal to refuse to perform a play, or refuse to politely listen to a speech, or refuse to allow fellow students to do their work. It’s downright abnormal. Yet again and again, it is the choice that the American Left is making.

Perhaps progressives such as Miranda are rightfully scared that Americans will like the huge changes being wrought by the Trump administration, but can they give it six months to find out? After all, he did win the election.

The good news is that, unlike eight years ago when the widespread fear and disdain towards Trump was so flammable that stunts like canceling ‘Hamilton’ in protest caught the fire of the public imagination, it can now barely light a candle.

The American people don’t want preening histrionics from our elites, they just want dinner and a show without their whole lives having to be about Donald Trump. 

But sadly, Miranda and his show will not go on. Instead, he is boycotting the room where it happens, and that is a loss for everyone. A decade ago, ‘Hamilton’ brought the country together. Today it divides us. Fortunately, the American people can see a better way forward, even if Lin Manuel Miranda cannot.

House lawmakers have voted to censure Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, after he was thrown out of President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night.

Ten Democrats joined Republicans in voting for the measure. Green himself voted ‘present,’ along with first-term Rep. Shomari Figures, D-Ala.

‘Al Green’s childish outburst exposed the chaos and dysfunction within the Democrat party since President Trump’s overwhelming win in November and his success in office thus far. It is not surprising 198 Democrats refused to support Green’s censure given their history of radical, inflammatory rhetoric fueled by Trump Derangement Syndrome,’ House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., told Fox News Digital.

The 10 Democrats who voted to censure Green are Reps. Ami Bera, D-Calif.; Ed Case, D-Hawaii; Jim Costa, D-Calif.; Laura Gillen, D-N.Y.; Jim Himes, D-Conn.; Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa.; Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio; Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla.; Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash.; and Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y.

Republicans raced to introduce competing resolutions to censure Green on Wednesday, with three separate texts being drafted within hours of each other.

Fox News Digital was told that Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., whose resolution got a vote on the House floor Thursday morning, had reached out to Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., about working on a censure resolution immediately after Trump’s speech ended on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the House Freedom Caucus had aimed to make good on a threat to censure any Democrats who protested Trump’s speech, and Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, crafted his own censure resolution against Green that got more than 30 House GOP co-sponsors.

But Newhouse took to the House floor on Wednesday afternoon to deem his resolution ‘privileged,’ a maneuver forcing House leaders to take up a bill within two legislative days.

Newhouse told Fox News Digital after the vote, ‘President Trump’s address to Congress was not a debate or a forum; he was invited by the Speaker to outline his agenda for the American people. The actions by my colleague from Texas broke the rules of decorum in the House, and he must be held accountable.’

A bid by House Democrats to block the resolution from getting a vote failed on Wednesday. Green himself voted ‘present.’

The 77-year-old Democrat was removed from Trump’s joint address to Congress on Tuesday night after repeatedly disrupting the beginning of the president’s speech.

He shouted, ‘You have no mandate!,’ at Trump as he touted Republican victories in the House, Senate and White House.

Johnson had Green removed by the U.S. Sergeant-at-Arms.

It was part of a larger issue with Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday night, with many engaging in both silent and vocal acts of protest against Trump. Democrats were also chided for not standing up to clap when Trump designated a 13-year-old boy an honorary Secret Service agent.

The House speaker publicly challenged Democrats to vote with Republicans in favor of the censure on Thursday.

‘Despite my repeated warnings, he refused to cease his antics, and I was forced to remove him from the chamber,’ Johnson posted on X. ‘He deliberately violated House rules, and an expeditious vote of censure is an appropriate remedy. Any Democrat who is concerned about regaining the trust and respect of the American people should join House Republicans in this effort.’

Green, who shook Newhouse’s hand before speaking out during debate on his own censure, stood by his actions on Wednesday.

‘I heard the speaker when he said that I should cease. I did not, and I did not with intentionality. It was not done out of a burst of emotion,’ Green said.

‘I think that on some questions, questions of conscience, you have to be willing to suffer the consequences. And I have said I will. I will suffer whatever the consequences are, because I don’t believe that in the richest country in the world, people should be without good healthcare.’

Other recent lawmakers censured on the House floor have been Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., former Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., and now-Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.

Two House Democrats, including prominent President Donald Trump critic Jasmine Crockett, suggested during a live stream on Tuesday that the president’s policy agenda is aimed at driving Black people ‘back to the fields’ to the time of slavery.

‘They have decided to go after immigrants and things like that and say, ‘oh they takin your black jobs, they taking your black jobs, not really,’ Crockett told Rev. Franklin Haynes on Tuesday as part of the ‘State of the People’ stream to counter to Trump’s address to Congress. 

‘They are obviously jobs they want us to go back to, such as working the fields, those immigrants that come into our country work the fields, something that we ain’t done in a long time and clearly he is trying to make us go back to the fields.’

Crockett’s suggestion that Trump’s goal is to send Black Americans ‘back to the fields’ was echoed by Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson in the same video.

‘It’s a recipe to make education unavailable to Black people,’ Johnson said about Trump’s plans for education policy. ‘It puts us back to when America was ‘great’ and we were picking cotton and doing the productivity that they’re putting my Latino brothers and sisters who migrate here to do that work because we are not suited intellectually to do it anymore.’

‘But they would have us back, confined to doing that kind of work. We gotta watch out for where we are headed. It’s the people that will save our democracy that will stop this movement toward the past that Trump has us hurtling towards.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the offices of Crockett and Johnson for comment. 

Crockett’s comment came shortly after she faced criticism from conservatives on social media after claiming that Trump is an ‘enemy to the United States’ and a ‘dictator.’

Crockett has become one of the most prominent faces of the Democrat pushback against Elon Musk’s DOGE efforts and recently said that if she could say anything to Musk it would be, ‘F— off.’

The comments from Crockett and Johnson were made just a few months after Trump made historic strides with Black voters at the ballot box in November. 

A Fox News Voter Analysis showed Trump’s crossover appeal to Democratic constituencies was foundational to his success. He improved on his 2020 numbers among Hispanics (41%, +6 points), Black voters (15%, +7 points) and young voters (46%, +10 points).

These rightward shifts were particularly notable among Hispanic men (+8 points), Black men (+12 points) and men under 30 (+14 points) from 2020.

Trump’s strength with Black voters was felt in Anson County, North Carolina, where the Republican candidate won there for the first time since the 1970s and only the second time in more than 100 years. Trump received 50.9% of the vote compared to 48.2% for then-Vice President Kamala Harris. Black residents make up 47% of the population in Anson County.

Fox News Digital’s Chris Pandolfo contributed to this report.

A federal judge has further blocked the National Institutes of Health from implementing a policy to crackdown on how much money it doles out for indirect costs associated with grants it awards.

NIH announced a plan last month to set the rate at 15% across the board.

‘The United States should have the best medical research in the world. It is accordingly vital to ensure that as many funds as possible go towards direct scientific research costs rather than administrative overhead. NIH is accordingly imposing a standard indirect cost rate on all grants of 15% pursuant to its 45 C.F.R. 75.414(c) authority,’ the NIH explained in a notice last month.

But the agency has been blocked from implementing the policy as challenges play out in court.

U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley, who had issued a temporary restraining order last month, granted a preliminary injunction on Wednesday.

‘The imminent risk of halting life-saving clinical trials, disrupting the development of innovative medical research and treatment, and shuttering of research facilities, without regard for current patient care, warranted the issuance of a nationwide temporary restraining order to maintain the status quo, until the matter could be fully addressed before the Court,’ the court document declared.

‘Following full briefing and oral argument by the parties, as well as review of accepted amicus briefs, the Court GRANTS a nationwide preliminary injunction,’ the document states.

After then-President Joe Biden nominated Kelley to serve on the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in 2021, Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Susan Collins of Maine voted with Democrats to confirm the jurist to the role.

The judge’s decision comes as various states, universities and other entities challenge NIH’s attempt to adopt the across-the-board 15% rate.