MacDonough serves as a de-facto referee to interpret Senate rules, which includes determining which provisions meet the strict requirements governing the budget reconciliation process. Trump called on Republicans to replace McDonough after she stripped out his $1 billion request to enhance Secret Service security measures during the construction of the White House ballroom.

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“Shockingly, Republicans have kept the very important position of ‘Parliamentarian’ in the hands of a woman, Elizabeth MacDonough, who was appointed, long ago, by Barack Hussein Obama and a vicious Lunatic known as Senator Harry Reid, who ran the Senate for the Dumocrats with an ‘iron fist,’” Trump said on Truth Social. “Over the years, she has been brutal to Republicans, but not so to the Dumocrats — So why has she not been replaced? There are many fair people who would be qualified for that vital job. The Republicans play a very soft game compared to the Dumocrats.”

“It is their single biggest disadvantage in politics,” Trump continued. “The Dumocrats cheat, lie, and steal, especially when it comes to Votes in Elections, but stick together, whereas the Republicans allow the Elizabeth MacDonoughs of the World to stay in power, and brutalize us. We need THE SAVE AMERICA ACT passed, and NOW — And, likewise, kill the Filibuster, which would give us everything! If we don’t pass at least one of these two provisions quickly, you will never see another Republican President again … The Republicans aren’t doing it because they say the Dumocrats will never do it, but the Republicans are WRONG. Get smart and tough Republicans, or you’ll all be looking for a job much sooner than you thought possible!”

MacDonough said on Saturday that the language regarding the Secret Service measures violated the Byrd Rule, which dictates that provisions in a reconciliation bill must have a direct, non-incidental impact on the federal budget. She ruled the language would need to be reworked if Republicans want to pass the package along party lines, according to the Senate Budget Committee.

The entire Secret Service provision was struck down because MacDonough said it fell outside of the jurisdiction of the Judiciary Committee, which included the language in their portion of the immigration bill, according to Politico.

Thune said that Trump’s calls were “concerning,” claiming that she had been targeted.

“Obviously, it’s concerning when anybody gets targeted like that. But it’s, I guess, his opinion,” Thune said. “We’ll make sure everybody’s got security around here.”

Ryan Wrasse, a spokesperson for Thune, said on X that the ruling was not “abnormal.”

“Redraft. Refine. Resubmit. None of this is abnormal during a Byrd process,” Wrasse said.

On Friday, MacDonough ruled that four sections in the Republican-led $72 billion immigration enforcement package would need to be reworded, ruling that they violated the Byrd Rule. The impacted provisions involved funding for Border Patrol, Department of Homeland Security appropriations and additional funds to screen unaccompanied migrant children.

The spending package would fund approximately $71.7 billion to $72 billion in new mandatory spending, with $38.2 billion going toward ICE and between $22 billion and $26 billion to CBP.

In June 2025, MacDonough also put several provisions in the big, beautiful bill on the chopping block, advising Republicans to strike an array of banking and environmental-related provisions from their budget proposal that sought to deliver on Trump’s agenda.

MacDonough was appointed by former Senate Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in 2012.

LifeNews Note: Nicole Silverio writes for Daily Caller. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience.

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“This reorganization restores the HHS Civil Rights Division and the Conscience and Religious Freedom Division and strengthens the Office for Civil Rights’ ability to defend religious liberty, enforce conscience protections, and combat unlawful discrimination,” Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said in a statement. He added, “Under President Trump’s leadership, HHS will defend these rights with clarity, accountability, and resolve.” HHS OCR Director Paula M. Stannard said, “This reorganization reinstitutes a structure that rightly prioritizes civil rights and conscience and religious freedom alongside health information privacy and security.” She observed, “All three areas are deserving of subject-matter expertise and distinct senior executive leadership for OCR to best serve the American people.”

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According to an HHS press release, the Conscience and Religious Freedom Division is charged with protecting “the fundamental and unalienable rights of conscience and religious freedom” and will “advance the protection of conscience rights, address race-based discrimination in a color-blind manner, eradicate antisemitism and anti-Christian bias, and restore biological truth.”

The Washington Stand has learned that the Conscience and Religious Freedom Division will “serve as a headquarters-level division dedicated to advancing voluntary compliance by regulated entities with federal statutes and regulations related to conscience and religious freedom in health and human services,” according to an HHS official. While the official policies and mechanism of the Conscience and Religious Freedom Division have yet to be formally announced, they division’s work is expected to protect pro-life Americans and American Christians from being pressured or coerced into participating in abortions, gender transition procedures, and other procedures which conflict with a biblical worldview.

“The Division will stand for the principle that it is fundamentally unfair to coerce, treat differently, persecute, or penalize an individual or organization for acting in accord with its religious or moral beliefs when those actions constitute protected conduct under Federal law,” the HHS official told The Washington Stand. “Many providers of health care and human services are motivated by their religious beliefs or moral convictions, and they should not be driven out of Federal programs because of those convictions.”

In comments to The Washington Stand, Mary Szoch, Director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council, said, “I’m so grateful to the Trump administration for prioritizing the conscience rights and religious liberty of all Americans — especially health care workers. Allowing health care workers to follow their consciences results in better care for everyone, and it allows more people to join the healthcare profession.” She added, “My hope is that the work of this office will result in a greater respect for human dignity and religious freedom around the country.”

According to a lengthy report from the Department of Justice (DOJ) published late last month, the Biden administration weaponized numerous government agencies — including HHS — to violate conscience and religious liberty rights, especially those of American Christians. Under the Biden administration, HHS imposed new rules for gender transition procedures for minors, centralizing the religious exemption process and often denying religious or conscience exemptions, according to the report. The Biden HHS also reinterpreted the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) to require hospitals and emergency rooms to commit “emergency” abortions, without regard for conscience or religious exemptions.

Another DOJ report confirmed that the Biden administration routinely collaborated with abortion industry activists to unfairly target pro-life Americans, including aggressively prosecuting pro-lifers charged with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and requesting maximum sentencing for non-violent offenses, while failing or refusing to prosecute pro-abortion activists charged with FACE Act violations for targeting pro-life pregnancy resource centers and churches.

LifeNews Note: S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washigton Stand.

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At least three high-ranking FDA officials have departed since Makary’s sudden resignation last Tuesday. Acting Director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) Tracy Beth Høeg refused to sign a letter of resignation and was subsequently fired. Høeg was the fifth acting director of CDER during the second Trump administration (acting officials can serve no longer than 210 days in positions requiring Senate confirmation) and was influential in altering the FDA’s recommended immunization schedule, a policy change now blocked in federal court.

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Katherine Szarama, acting director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), was also pushed out of her role, although she will remain at the FDA in a different capacity. Szarama had served as acting CBER chief for only 10 days, following the departure of Vinay Prasad, who left at the end of April, days before Makary.

Additionally, FDA chief of staff Jim Traficant was also removed from the position he had held since March 2025, although the former health executive will stay on with the FDA in an advisory role.

Mike Davis, Høeg’s former deputy, replaced Høeg as acting director of CDER. FDA advisor Karim Mikhail took over for Szarama as acting director of CBER. And FDA Deputy Commissioner and Special Counsel Lowell Zeta succeeded Traficant as acting chief of staff.

All three top personnel changes came within just a few days of Makary’s sudden departure and his replacement by FDA Deputy Commissioner for Food Kyle Diamantis as acting commissioner.

One pharmaceutical industry publication suggested the reason for the FDA leadership shake-up is that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services was working to “remove controversial appointees across the HHS and replace them with more traditional options,” to avoid alienating voters in the upcoming midterm elections.

However, most Americans have never even heard of the CDER and CBER, subagencies with the FDA, nor of the people who run them, making this theory an implausible reach. Furthermore, neither FDA officials nor President Trump will be on the ballot in the fall, making a midterm connection an even greater logical leap.

A much likelier explanation is that Acting Director Diamantis plans to run the agency differently than Makary and may even have orders from his superiors to do so. That different plan may entail different leadership, especially among positions that were filled by non-Senate-confirmed “acting” positions anyway.

The FDA-related issue weighing most heavily on the Trump administration in terms of political capital is the status of a Biden-era policy removing safeguards from the abortion pill, mifepristone. The FDA initially approved the chemical abortion pill during the Clinton administration, with strict guidelines surrounding its use. These guidelines were relaxed under the Obama administration, but they still included an in-person consultation with a physician, a necessary step to verify gestational age and rule out an ectopic pregnancy. If the baby is developed beyond a certain point, or if the pregnancy is ectopic, use of the abortion pill can jeopardize the mother’s life — in addition to taking the life of her child.

After the Dobbs decision re-empowered elected officials to regulate abortion in 2022, the Biden administration demolished the remaining safeguards on mifepristone use.

Early in his tenure, Commissioner Makary promised a full review of the Biden-era policy. However, more than a year later, there are no evident signs that the FDA has made any progress — a fact strangely at odds with the Trump administration’s quick movement on any policy it chooses to prioritize.

Pro-life advocates gradually came to fear that the FDA under Makary was deliberately dragging its feet, and pro-life senators who met with the FDA reached the same conclusion. This makes the Trump administration’s abortion policy effectively indistinguishable from the Biden administration’s abortion policy, and it nullifies pro-life laws in dozens of states when abortion pills are mailed across state lines. (Like the Biden administration, the Trump administration has also declined to enforce the Comstock Act, which prohibits the mailing of anything intended for use in an abortion.)

Pro-life activists hope that new leadership at the FDA will take the concerns about the abortion pill more seriously.

“We look forward to seeing positive changes at the FDA under its new leadership, most importantly, decisive action to defend women and unborn children from dangerous abortion drugs,” Joy Stockbauer, policy analyst for the Center for Human Dignity at FRC, told TWS. “The Trump administration has the opportunity to do so much more than reinstate the Democratic administrations’ bare minimum protections on these drugs. This administration can make real, historic changes that actually disrupt the cycle of abortion drug violence, and we will celebrate when they take steps to make that happen.”

LifeNews Note: Joshua Arnold is a staff writer at The Washington Stand, contributing both news and commentary from a biblical worldview. Originally published by The Washington Stand.

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A grand jury indicted Jon Rueben Demeter on Thursday on charges of abortion, a first-degree felony punishable by five years to life in prison, and injury to a child. The indictment replaces an initial charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

According to a search warrant, Demeter gave the woman — the mother of his other children — a bottle containing a white milky substance at his home. He told her it was an electrolyte drink that had helped the mother of his other children during pregnancy.

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The woman later became ill and went to the hospital, where she gave birth at 14 weeks gestation. Her baby girl did not survive.

The woman told detectives she did not want to have an abortion, but Demeter did.

Court records show he had previously offered to obtain abortion medication online and pay her $1,000 to kill the baby, but she refused.

A search of Demeter’s home revealed a glass bowl containing white powder residue and evidence of a crushed white pill. Demeter admitted to ordering abortion pills online and giving the woman the drink, but denied that the substance contained the pills.

The Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office confirmed the indictment. The case highlights the dangers of mail-order abortion drugs being used without a woman’s consent, even in a state where abortion is illegal except to save the mother’s life.

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The Democrat-run state will no longer require Christian parents to fake gender pronouns or socially transition foster children in violation of their religious beliefs. That comes under a settlement reached with a couple who lost their foster-care license for refusing to compromise their faith and push the trans agenda on their foster children.

The agreement, announced May 20, includes a permanent injunction requiring the state Department of Children, Youth, and Families to revise its licensing policies. The department can no longer attach any conditions or restrictions to a foster-care license solely because of a family’s religious beliefs, including those pertaining to marriage, gender or sexual relationships.

The state also agreed to remove its regulation on using biologically incorrect pronouns and to pay $250,000 in attorneys’ fees.

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The settlement follows an April 23 federal district court ruling in DeGross v. Senn that the state’s policy plausibly violated the First Amendment. The court denied the state’s request to dismiss the lawsuit brought by Shane and Jennifer DeGross.

The DeGrosses, who hold traditional Christian beliefs on the sanctity of the human body and believe a child should embrace rather than reject their biological sex, had served as foster parents for nine years before Washington enacted the 2022 regulation. They lost their license because they could not certify compliance with the requirement to affirm a child’s made-up gender identity and use fake pronouns.

The policy, outlined in Washington Administrative Code rule 110-148-1520, restricted speech by prospective parents on topics of sexual orientation, gender identity and expression while compelling speech that aligned with the state’s perspective.

In its ruling, the court stated: “The situation would be no different if the state had restricted parental speech favoring more ‘progressive’ views of sexuality and gender identity, while compelling speech along the lines of [the DeGrosses’] more traditional understanding.”

It added: “In essence, the Department has forced the DeGrosses to choose between forfeiting their freedom of speech to obtain an unrestricted license, or upholding their beliefs surrounding SOGIE, and receiving a less-favorable license subject to certain restrictions.”

Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Johannes Widmalm-Delphonse, who represented the DeGrosses, welcomed the outcome.

“Washington’s policy failed to respect religious diversity because it singled out applicants with traditional religious beliefs on the sanctity of the human body,” Widmalm-Delphonse said. “The DeGrosses merely asked to be treated the same as any other family—without being asked to compromise their core beliefs. This is a win-win because it will ensure more families can serve as foster parents to help meet the needs of every precious child in Washington’s foster-care system. We are thrilled to see common sense and religious liberty prevail.”

The DeGrosses sued state officials in 2024 after the department declined to issue them a standard license following an onerous renewal process, limiting placements to children age five or younger unless the couple abandoned their convictions.

The settlement ensures religious families across Washington can now foster without being required to promote gender ideology that conflicts with their faith.

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Indiana’s pro-life law bans most abortions, with exceptions for rape, incest, medical emergencies in the first 10 weeks, or fetal anomalies “incompatible with sustained life” up to 20 weeks. Indiana was the first state to enact an abortion ban after the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade, while other states had “trigger” bans passed beforehand that went into immediate effect when Dobbs was handed down.

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Planned Parenthood argued the abortion ban presented several circumstances where the life and health of a woman are at risk due to pregnancy where an abortion would be necessary. However, Monroe Circuit Court Special Judge Kelsey Hanlon found that Indiana’s abortion ban did not infringe on the rights of any patient or medical provider to any protected medical care.

“Plaintiffs have not shown an instance where an abortion is necessary to treat a serious health risk but would also fall outside of the Health and Life Exception,” wrote Judge Hanlon. His ruling further noted that the law’s “Health and Life Exception” permits doctors to exercise “reasonable medical judgment” for determining whether abortion is necessary when a woman’s life is at risk.

In 2023, the Indiana Supreme Court upheld the state’s abortion ban from a previous ACLU challenge on behalf of Planned Parenthood which attempted to strike down the law on “women’s rights.” The court ruled that it is “undisputed” that the state constitution empowers the legislature to protect unborn life.

One legal challenge against the law remains stemming from two women who claim they have a “religious right” to abortion. One woman identifies as Jewish while the other does not claim a specific religious tradition but claims “personal religious and spiritual beliefs that guide her life.” In March 2026, a Marion County Superior Court Judge issued a permanent injunction preventing the state from applying the abortion ban against these women. The Indiana Supreme Court granted the state’s appeal and will hear the case in September 2026.

Liberty Counsel’s Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “Indiana’s pro-life law protects innocent unborn lives. Most abortion laws allow physicians to make appropriate medical judgments and decisions to protect both patients—the mother and her unborn child. Abortion harms women physically and emotionally, and there is no right to cruelly kill defenseless children in the womb.”

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