President Donald Trump is expected to address House Republicans at their annual retreat on Monday as lawmakers work to enact his goal for a busy first 100 days of the new administration.

It’s another sign of the House GOP conference’s push for unity with Trump that the conference is being held at Trump National Doral, his golf course and resort near Miami.

‘He’s going to come and address the Republicans there, and we’re looking forward to that,’ Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., confirmed to reporters last week.

Trump has made no secret of his intent to keep a close eye on the Republican majorities in the House and Senate this year, particularly as they discuss how to use their numbers to pass a massive conservative policy overhaul via the budget reconciliation process.

By reducing the threshold for Senate passage from 60 votes to a 51-seat simple majority, reconciliation allows a party in control of both congressional chambers to enact sweeping changes, provided they’re relevant to budgetary and fiscal policy.

Meanwhile, lawmakers are also contending with the debt ceiling being reinstated this month after it was temporarily suspended in a bipartisan deal during the Trump administration.

And coming on March 14 is the deadline to avert a partial government shutdown, which Congress has extended twice since the end of the previous fiscal year on Oct. 1.

‘I think obviously everyone is ready to get to work,’ Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., told Fox News Digital. ‘With President Trump’s inauguration behind us, now we’re focused on the task at hand – everything from the border to the tax package, energy and defense and national security, and our debt. What we need to do over the next two years to really fulfill the agenda that we laid out for the American people.’

Lawler said he anticipated reconciliation would be a key focus of Trump’s remarks.

With razor-thin margins in the House and Senate, Republicans can afford few dissenters if they are going to get to the finish line. 

Lawler is one of several Republicans who have drawn red lines in the discussions, vowing not to vote for a reconciliation bill that does not lift state and local tax (SALT) deduction caps – limits that have put a strain on suburban districts outside major cities.

He was realistic about setting expectations for their short Florida trip but was optimistic Republicans would eventually come together.

‘I think we’re in the middle of the process and, you know, this is obviously not going to be resolved over these three days,’ Lawler said. ‘But this is, I think, an important opportunity for everyone to really sit down and spend their time going through a lot of these issues.’

The ordeal may not be over for some of the more than 1,500 Jan. 6 criminal defendants granted clemency by President Donald Trump, as certain prosecutors are currently investigating whether some of the individuals — particularly those alleged to have committed violent crimes — could be charged at the state or local level.

That loophole was floated by Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, who told CNN that his office was looking into the possibility of bringing state election- or conspiracy-related charges against some of the Pennsylvania residents who were pardoned or saw their prison sentences commuted during the first week of the Trump presidency.

Krasner’s office could theoretically take action against the more than 100 Pennsylvania residents who received full pardons or sentence commutations, including a Philadelphia-based Proud Boys leader who was sentenced to 15 years in prison on charges of seditious conspiracy and another Pittsburgh-area man sentenced to 14 years in prison for indiscriminately spraying pepper spray at police officers, throwing a folding chair at officers and wielding a large wooden ‘tire thumper,’ according to the Justice Department.

Krasner declined to detail further how, or if, his office will move on the state charges, and his office did not respond to several requests for comment from Fox News Digital.

However, Krasner maintained that in his view, ‘there is a path’ for charging Jan. 6 individuals — and not just those living in the Keystone State.

Trump’s decision to sign a sweeping act of clemency freed more than 1,500 individuals that were charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol breach.More than 100 police officers were injured, according to officials, and the incident ultimately sparked the largest FBI investigation in the bureau’s history.  

‘In many cases, it will be possible to go after people who have been federally pardoned,’ Krasner told CNN Thursday.

‘The focus for most state prosecutors should be what occurred within their jurisdiction,’ he said. ‘Texting, phone calls, emails, reservations for transportation or hotels. Conspiratorial activity could give rise to a local charge — meaning a state charge — of criminal conspiracy.’ 

Still, that is not to say that the strategy is without significant hurdles.

Former prosecutors told Fox News Digital that those looking to bring state charges against Jan. 6 rioters will almost certainly find themselves mired in a complex legal minefield.

The difficulty of securing state convictions has nothing to do with the seriousness of the crimes committed by the Jan. 6 rioters — which range from charges of seditious conspiracy and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding to assault and assault against police officers — but rather, jurisdictional issues and wide double jeopardy protections.

Here, the facts are especially complex, since both Washington, D.C., and U.S. Capitol grounds fall under federal court jurisdiction, former U.S. prosecutor Andrew McCarthy explained in a Thursday message to Fox News Digital. 

This means any conspiracy to commit a crime would inherently be at the federal level — a complex catch-22 that would be difficult for state prosecutors to isolate in court.

State prosecutors also have a very narrow scope in trying to prove new criminal action. 

That is because they must do so while respecting the broad double jeopardy protections included in the U.S. Constitution, which prevent individuals from being tried for the same case twice. It also is taken to mean that they cannot be tried twice for the same conduct. 

In fact, for state prosecutors to bring charges against an individual, they must prove successive actions are focused on remedying a ‘very different kind of harm or evil’ than the federal charges, and it is unclear whether states will be able to meet that burden of proof. 

McCarthy and other lawyers pointed to the 2019 decision by a New York judge who cited the double jeopardy clause as the rationale for tossing a 16-count indictment state prosecutors brought against Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, ruling that the conduct was not sufficiently different. 

It is unclear how, or if, any charges brought by state prosecutors could satisfy the test of proving a ‘very different kind of harm or evil’ — but Krasner, a self-proclaimed Democrat who has spent more than 20 years as a prosecutor, said he believes so. 

He is not the only one sharing that sentiment. One partner at the Democrat-aligned Elias Law Group told Fox News Digital in an emailed statement Friday that it is their belief that ‘any individuals who committed crimes that day should be held accountable.’ 

‘If any of the rioters may have violated state laws, it is up to state and local law enforcement officials to review the facts and bring charges as appropriate,’ the attorney said. ‘The rule of law must be upheld, regardless of President Trump’s political incentives.’

Meanwhile, Republicans were forced to toe a delicate line in the aftermath of Trump’s pardons — facing tough questions as to what the clemency orders meant for a party that has long been seen as one that ‘backs the blue’ and supports police officer protections.

Vice President JD Vance used an interview on CBS News on Sunday to accuse former Attorney General Merrick Garland of applying ‘double standards in how sentences were applied to the J6 protesters, versus other groups,’ in an attempt to soften his earlier remarks.

Vance, a former U.S. senator, previously told Fox News that Jan. 6 participants who committed violence ‘obviously’ should not be pardoned.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters Wednesday ‘the president has made his decision.’ ‘I don’t second-guess those,’ Johnson said. 

Others were more direct in their criticism.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Ala., told reporters that she was ‘disappointed to see’ the decision to pardon violent offenders, including those who were convicted of violence against police officers. 

‘I do fear the message that is sent to these great men and women that stood by us,’ she said.

This was echoed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who told reporters the pardons were ‘deeply un-American.’

‘Let’s be clear, President Trump didn’t just pardon protesters,’ Schumer said. ‘He pardoned individuals convicted of assaulting police officers. He pardoned individuals convicted of seditious conspiracy. And he pardoned those who attempted to undermine our democracy.’ 

More than 200 people were in the custody of the federal Bureau of Prison system prior to Trump’s pardon. By Tuesday morning, all of them had been released, officials told The Associated Press.

Ed Martin, a defense attorney who represented three men charged in the Jan. 6 riots, was recently appointed as the acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. 

Martin filed a motion Friday to remove all remaining conditions imposed on commuted Jan. 6 defendants, including restrictions that barred certain individuals from entering Washington, D.C., or the U.S. Capitol building.

President Donald Trump said he was open to potentially rejoining the World Health Organization (WHO), just days after he signed a Day One executive order that withdrew the U.S. from the international group.

During a rally at Circa Resort & Casino in Downtown Las Vegas, the president told those in attendance that it was unfair a country like China, with a population much greater than the U.S., was only paying a fraction of what the U.S. was paying annually to the WHO.

‘We paid $500 million a year and China paid $39 million a year despite a much larger population. Think of that. China’s paying $39 million to have 1.4 billion people, we pay $500 million we have – no one knows what the hell we have, does anyone know? We have so many people pouring in we have no idea,’ Trump told rally goers on Saturday.

‘They offered me at $39 million, they said ‘We’ll let you back in for $39 million,’ they’re going to reduce it from [$500 million] to [$39 million], and I turned them down, because it became so popular I didn’t know if it would be well received even at [$39 million], but maybe we would consider doing it again, I don’t know, they have to clean it up a bit.’

An analysis of national contributions to the WHO from NPR found that the U.S. pays for roughly 10% of the WHO’s budget, while China pays about 3%.

Trump withdrew the U.S. from the WHO in an executive order issued hours after he was sworn into office last week. The president cited reasons such as WHO’s ‘mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic,’ the ‘failure to adopt urgently needed reforms,’ and ‘unfairly onerous payments’ forced on the U.S. During Trump’s first term, in July 2020, he took steps to withdraw the U.S. from the WHO but his successor, former President Joe Biden, eventually reinstated the nation’s participation in the global health initiative.

The president’s complaints about the U.S. paying too much to the WHO mirror his complaints about U.S. participation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), as well. During the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week, Trump said he was asking all NATO nations to contribute 5% of their gross domestic products to NATO defense spending.

NATO set a threshold of 2% that countries must pay in 2014, but, according to Trump, ‘most nations didn’t pay’ until he began pushing for other countries to contribute more. Still, according to NATO’s Secretary-General Mark Rutte, countries like Spain, Italy and Canada have yet to even meet that 2% contribution. 

Following Trump’s demands that NATO members spend 5% of their gross domestic product, he questioned whether the U.S. should be spending anything on NATO at all, telling reporters from the Oval Office that the U.S. was protecting NATO members, but those same members are ‘not protecting us.’

‘I’m not sure we should be spending anything, but we should certainly be helping them,’ Trump said from the Oval Office. 

The White House declined to comment for purposes of this story. 

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth arrived for his first day at the Pentagon on Monday with a message regarding the Department of Defense’s (DOD’s) mission. 

Greeted by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. and a gaggle of reporters, Hegseth said it was ‘an honor to serve on behalf of the president and serve on behalf of the country,’ adding, ‘The warfighters are ready to go.’ 

Hegseth quickly turned to the border crisis, acknowledging how President Donald Trump was ‘hitting the ground running’ with executive orders declaring an emergency at the southern border and designating cartels foreign terrorist organizations. Hegseth said the DOD ‘snapped to’ last week in sending more troops to aid in erecting barriers along the southern border, as well as to ‘ensure mass deportations,’ adding: ‘That is something the Defense Department absolutely will continue to do.’ 

‘He’s made it very clear. There is an emergency at the border,’ Hegseth said. ‘The protection of the sovereign territory of the United States is the job of the Defense Department.’ 

Last week, the Defense Department announced 1,500 active-duty service members and ‘additional air and intelligence assets’ were being sent to the southern border ‘to augment troops already conducting enforcement operations in that region.’

When asked if more troops would be deployed to the border now that he is taking the helm, Hegseth said, ‘Whatever is needed at the border will be provided. Whether that is through state active duty, Title 32 or Title 10, because we are reorienting.’ 

‘This is a shift. This is not the way things have been done in the past,’ Hegseth said. ‘The Defense Department will support the defense of the territorial integrity of the United States at the southern border to include reservists, National Guard and active duty with compliance with the Constitution, the laws of our land, and the directives of the commander in chief.’ 

Hegseth, a combat veteran who deployed to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Iraq and Afghanistan, said he anticipated more executive orders from the White House later Monday. Those would include orders to remove diversity, equity and inclusion inside the Pentagon, reinstate troops who were ‘pushed out’ over COVID-19 vaccine mandates and to implement the construction of an ‘Iron Dome for America,’ Hegseth told reporters, vowing to comply with Trump’s directives ‘rapidly and quickly.’ 

‘Every moment I am here I am thinking about the guys and gals in Guam, in Germany, in Fort Benning, in Fort Bragg, on missile defense sites and aircraft carriers,’ Hegseth said. ‘Our job is lethality and readiness and warfighting.’ 

‘We hold people accountable. I know the chairman agrees with that,’ Hegseth, who most recently was a Fox News host before Trump nominated him to lead the Defense Department, continued. ‘The lawful orders of the President of the United States will be executed in this Defense Department swiftly and without excuse. We will be no better friend to our allies and no stronger adversary for those who want to test us and try us.’ 

When asked about a wristband he was wearing, Hegseth said he wore it every day to remember Jorge Oliveira, a soldier he served with in Guantánamo Bay when he was a platoon leader. Oliveira was later killed in Afghanistan while Hegseth was there in a separate unit. 

‘It’s these guys that we do this for. Those who have given the ultimate sacrifice,’ Hegseth said. 

The secretary was also asked about assistance for Afghans who worked with the U.S. government. Last week, Trump issued an executive order pausing all U.S. foreign development aid for 90 days pending an assessment into whether the funds align with his administration’s foreign policy. Reuters reported that flights for approximately 40,000 Afghans who were approved for special visas following former President Joe Biden’s botched withdrawal have been suspended as a result. 

‘We are going to make sure there is accountability for what happened in Afghanistan, and we stand by our allies,’ Hegseth said.