A drug executive fainted in the Oval Office on Thursday as President Donald Trump announced a new deal with pharmaceutical companies to lower the cost of obesity drugs.  

Dr. Mehmet Oz., a heart surgeon and former TV personality who is now the director of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service, rushed over to catch the man before he hit the floor.

Oval Office emergency

The man's knees started to buckle during remarks from Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks, who turned and said, "Are you OK? Gordon, are you OK?"

Trump stood up from the Resolute Desk and watched quietly as the man was tended to, and the press was shooed out of the room.

The medical event paused Trump's press conference for about thirty minutes. Later, the press was brought back into the room, and the president offered a comment.

"One of the representatives of the companies, of one of these companies, got a little bit lightheaded," he told the press. "We saw he went down, and he's fine. They just sent him out, and he's got doctors here. But he's fine."

Who fell ill?

The identity of the man who fell ill during the event was not immediately clear.

Getty Images identified him as Gordon Findlay, the global brand director for Novo Nordisk, but the company said he wasn't among the drug executives present. Eli Lilly ultimately confirmed that the individual was a guest of the company and that he is doing "great."

"If you've ever been in the Oval Office, you stand a long time and it's warm. I'm pleased to say that the White House medical staff did a great job, and he's doing great, so nothing to be concerned about. Thanks for your concern,” David Ricks, Eli Lilly CEO, said.

Critics politicize incident

While there was nothing political about this scary incident, it has predictably become fodder for Trump's critics.

Some took issue with Trump's stoic reaction to the apparent emergency, but according to Dr. Oz, Trump comforted the unidentified man's wife over the phone when the cameras were turned off.

Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was also criticized, with some accusing him of "bolting" out of the room. The video actually shows him walking away. Sources told People that Kennedy went to get a chair to support the man who fell.

In April, Dr. Oz's granddaughter passed out as he was being sworn into his new role, and he rushed over to help her. She turned out to be just fine.

The U.S. Supreme Court will allow enforcement of President Donald Trump's executive order that requires passports to accurately reflect biological sex.

The ruling split the court along ideological lines, with six conservatives siding with Trump as the three liberals joined in an emotional dissent.

On the first day of his second White House term, Trump signed an executive order requiring the State Department to identify passport holders using their true, biological sex.

Trump reversed the previous administration's approach, which allowed passport holders to inaccurately identify as members of the opposite sex or even as "X."

Trump's passport order

A federal district court blocked Trump's policy from taking effect, with the judge finding it was based on nothing but pure, irrational prejudice. An appeals court declined to overturn that order, spurring Trump to seek the Supreme Court's intervention.

The Trump administration challenged the lower court's block as an affront to "scientific reality" and Trump's authority over foreign affairs.

"U.S. passports are official government documents, addressed to foreign nations. The Executive Order in this case is an exercise of power conferred on the President both by the Constitution and by statute to determine the contents of U.S. passports. Yet the court’s injunction countermands that Order -- and in so doing, interferes with the President’s foreign-policy prerogatives," Solicitor General John D. Sauer wrote.

Conservatives side with reality

In a brief, unsigned order, the conservative majority found that Trump's policy does not violate equal protection principles.

"Displaying passport holders’ sex at birth no more offends equal protection principles than displaying their country of birth -- in both cases, the Government is merely attesting to a historical fact without subjecting anyone to differential treatment," the majority wrote.

The justices also said they saw no evidence that Trump's policy was motivated by an arbitrary desire to inflict harm on a particular social group, as the challengers claimed.

On the other hand, the justices found that Trump faces "irreparable injury" from the lower court interfering with "an Executive Branch policy with foreign affairs implications concerning a Government document."

Jackson explodes

In an emotional, nearly 12-page dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson blasted the court's intervention as inappropriate and said it would greenlight "imminent, concrete injury."

"This Court has once again paved the way for the immediate infliction of injury without adequate (or, really, any) justification. Because I cannot acquiesce to this pointless but painful perversion of our equitable discretion, I respectfully dissent," she wrote.

Justice Jackson infamously declined to define what a woman is during her confirmation hearing.

Congresswoman Nancy Mace (R-SC) has been hit with a bombshell lawsuit by her ex-fiancé accusing her of fabricating sexual assault allegations as part of an elaborate conspiracy, the New York Post reports. 

Businessman Patrick Bryant accused Mace of convincing an "impressionable" woman, who is known only as Jane Doe, that she was "gang raped" at the home of Bryant's friend, Eric Bowman.

Rape claims

In February, Mace gave a speech on the House floor in which she accused Bryant, Bowman, and two other men of assaulting Mace and a dozen other women.

Mace shared no evidence but claimed to have found a trove of videos on Bryant's phone.

“Last year, I had to tell a woman that she’d been raped, and she didn’t even know it,” Mace said at the time.

The woman Mace cited in her speech filed a lawsuit in May, claiming she was raped by an associate of Bryant's at Bowman's home in a 2018 incident. The unidentified Jane Doe, who previously worked for Bryant, claimed that Bryant and Bowman filmed the assault while she was unconscious.

After Doe's suit was filed, Mace held a press conference where she read aloud from the complaint and took no questions, the Post and Courier noted.

All lies?

In his countersuit, Bryant said he is the only victim and that the shocking claims against him were fabricated by Mace and Bowman's estranged wife as part of a blackmail scheme that involved falsely convincing Doe that she was assaulted.

Doe told another person that Mace never showed her video of the alleged assault, Bryant claims.

“What Mace did not tell Doe is that she concocted an entire false narrative of an assault, to blackmail Bryant, gain leverage in their separation proceedings, and try to ruin Bryant for her personal gain,” according to Bryant's lawsuit.

Mace and Bryant were engaged for a little over a year, splitting in late 2023. Bryant claims that Mace tried to hack his phone over suspicions of cheating and that she asked a former political consultant to blackmail Bryant using images she found on the device, but she never mentioned anything about sexual assault.

The consultant, Wesley Donehue, has testified under oath that Mace wanted him to threaten Bryant into giving Mace full ownership of two pricey homes the former couple bought together in South Carolina and Washington, D.C.

Mace reacts

Mace issued a taunting response to her ex's lawsuit, saying, "It’s almost as if Patrick Bryant is asking to write me another check. I just got him sanctioned in court. And rape victim Jane Doe and I are still waiting on him to pay our legal fees after he weaponized the court against us.”

On Oct. 29, a court order determined that Bryant’s company and his lawyer violated South Carolina law by issuing subpoenas and deposing people without court approval in Doe’s case.

One of House Speaker Mike Johnson's staffers turned up the volume on a nearby television after Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ) attempted a demonstration outside of his office, Raw Story reported. Ansari set up a table with a provocative sign and claimed that Johnson was holding up the swearing in of Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ) for political reasons.

As the government shutdown drags on, political stunts escalate. Ansari took up her cause to have a conversation with Johnson by setting up a table outside of his office. The sign on Ansari's table said, "Mike Johnson is starving families and gutting healthcare to cover up the Epstein Files. CHANGE MY MIND."

She claims that since Grijalva would be the extra vote needed to release the files of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Johnson is holding back. CBS News's Patrick Maguire shared a photo of the lawmaker and her table in a post to X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday.

Rebuttal

Ansari thought she'd be cute and use the format made famous by other political pundits to elicit debate. However, the stunt backfired on Ansari after a staffer decided to drown out her point with noise from a nearby television.

This nugget came from a post by Jamie Dupree, reporter and Substack writer, who posted about the incident to X. "Angered by the refusal of Speaker Johnson to swear in Adelita Grijalva, Rep. Yassamin Ansari D-AZ set up her own protest outside the Speaker's office. His staff cranked up the volume on the TV to drown her out," the caption said.

A video of the supposed drowning out of her message was posted to X by Fox News reporter Aisah Hansie. The audio makes it difficult to hear what's happening, but it was more about the optics than what she actually had ot say anyway.

Government Shutdown

While Ansari is attempting to make a huge issue out of Johnson's refusal to swear in a new congresswoman, what she won't say is that this is all due to the government shutdown. Democrats are holding out on passing a continuing resolution, and Johnson has sent lawmakers back to their districts rather than stay in town with nothing to do.

According to The Hill, Grijalva complained on Thursday that Johnson is being "negligent and cruel" by not swearing her in. "House Speaker Mike Johnson’s recess of the U.S. House of Representatives during a time of grave national crises is shockingly irresponsible," she claimed in an op-ed published to USA Today.

"House Republicans have been on vacation for six weeks while our economy crumbles, federal workers go without paychecks, health care premiums skyrocket and funding for food stamps dwindles. This is negligent and cruel," Grijalva lamented.

She added that her swearing in is delayed longer than any representative "in recent history to be sworn in following a special election" after she was elected to replace her father, the late Rep. Raúl Grijalva. "As these crises unfold and intensify, Speaker Johnson refuses to swear me into office, an unprecedented and starkly undemocratic position that sets a very dangerous precedent and deprives 813,000 Arizonans of the congressional representation they deserve," Adelita Grijalva said.

Democrats are perpetuating the government shutdown, but now they're claiming to be victims. Johnson is simply responding to what his opponents are doing, and if it means someone will not get sworn in, perhaps the Democrats should consider that when continuing to vote down any funding.

President Donald Trump's Justice Department has fired as many as 70 immigration judges since his new administration began in January, Breitbart reported. While estimates differ, this comes as Trump is attempting to narrow protections for asylum-seekers left over from then-President Joe Biden.

The Justice Department said that the firings have occurred for fewer than 55 judges, but that hasn't stopped the left from decrying the move. The government agency further noted that the decision on which judges have to go is not a political one.

"DOJ doesn’t ‘target’ or ‘prioritize’ immigration judges for any personnel decision one way or the other based on prior experience. DOJ continually evaluates all immigration judges, regardless of background, on factors such as conduct, impartiality/bias, adherence to the law, productivity/performance, and professionalism," a spokesperson for the DOJ said.

"Pursuant to Article II of the Constitution, IJs (Immigration Judges) are inferior officers who are appointed and removed by the Attorney General," the spokesperson added. This means that the cuts came come if there are performance problems or there is less need for judges, and fewer immigrants gaining entry under asylum could have something to do with it.

Limiting Asylum

The focus of immigration courts has shifted from asylum-seeking to deportations, according to Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. "But the way the Trump administration is approaching immigration courts reflects a really high prioritization of immigration enforcement and [the administration] has really made deportations this whole-of-government effort," Bush-Joseph said.

Meanwhile, Trump is cracking down on asylum claims and expediting the process for those in the system to close the loophole for as many as 10 million illegal immigrants who claimed asylum under Biden. Instead, they're being sent home, and the 1.1 million who have pending asylum claims will see their pleas denied.

Because they're eliminating asylum and conducting raids on illegal immigrants, the number of newcomers is expected to shrink considerably as others are simply turned away at the border. "Between explicit policy changes and implicit threats to get in line or get fired, [asylum] judges on the whole seem to be following [Trump] orders to deny, deny, deny," researcher Austin Kocher wrote.

"This is not an accident—this is a policy decision," he added.  Indeed, it is.

According to the BBC, Trump has severely limited asylum claims, which were liberally permitted under Biden. Just about anyone from a nation whose economic or political condition was worse than that of the U.S., which encompasses most of the world, was given asylum under the previous regime. Trump has changed that, and of course, some are crying racism.

Legitimate Claims

The Trump administration has reduced the number of refugees from 125,000 under Biden to approximately 7,500, which is expected to be the number admitted for the year. The BBC is particularly upset that the priority will go to white South Africans, which is surely an attempt to claim this is a white supremacist policy.

However, the administration said that the new criteria require the refugee status to be "justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest." This seems to track with broader immigraiton decisions based on what Trump has said about the Afrikaners, who are descendants of French and Dutch settlers, and the way they're being starved out of South Africa.

During a White House meeting in February with South Africa's ambassador Ebrahim Rasool, Trump showed the video of the situation there for the white farmers and the danger posed by their own government. Some have called it a "dog whistle," including the ambassador, but the truth is that they are being targeted in their own country and should be eligible to receive help.

There is no reason to admit so many refugees into the U.S. every year when the system is already stretched so thin. It's noble to help the less fortunate, but the policies initiated under Biden have inexplicably admitted more people than the nation can handle, and Trump is doing all he can to roll back those measures.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the Trump administration can enforce a policy requiring people to list their biological sex on passports, undoing a Biden-era rule that allowed people to self-select their gender or write X in the space where gender should be listed. 

Americans will now have to select "male" or "female" on their passport application, corresponding to their sex assigned at birth.

Trump had made an emergency request to the court to stay a lower court order that would have allowed people to select their gender on a passport based on how they "identify."

“Displaying passport holders’ sex at birth no more offends equal protection principles than displaying their country of birth—in both cases, the Government is merely attesting to a historical fact without subjecting anyone to differential treatment,” the court said in its order.

"There are two sexes"

Attorney General Pam Bondi celebrated securing “our 24th victory at the Supreme Court’s emergency docket” in a post to X.

“Today’s stay allows the government to require citizens to list their biological sex on their passport,” she continued. “In other words: there are two sexes, and our attorneys will continue fighting for that simple truth.”

The vote was 6-3 on the ruling, with the court's liberal-leaning judges dissenting on the ruling.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote the dissent, saying in part, “This Court has once again paved the way for the immediate infliction of injury without adequate (or, really, any) justification. Because I cannot acquiesce to this pointless but painful perversion of our equitable discretion, I respectfully dissent.”

The case

The case came about because President Donald Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office requiring in part that passports reflect biological sex.

In response, several transgender-identifying people sued to block the order, arguing that the rule violates their right to equal protection under the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment, as well as a federal law called the Administrative Procedure Act.

A federal judge in Massachusetts ruled against Trump, and the appeals court declined to block the lower court ruling.

The Supreme Court said in its ruling that Trump was likely to succeed on the merits of the case, which was why they decided to block the lower court's order.

In addition, the Supreme Court said, “And the District Court’s grant of class-wide relief enjoins enforcement of an Executive Branch policy with foreign affairs implications concerning a Government document. In light of the foregoing, the Government will suffer a form of irreparable injury absent a stay."

Allowing people to choose a gender different from their biological sex could have national security implications and lead to confusion about people's identities. It's clear that this ruling was needed, and will hopefully remain the law of the land.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has decided to press criminal charges against a man who groped her while she was in the streets of Mexico City on Tuesday, Breitbart reported. Video of the event shows the alleged perpetrator casually slipping past her security and putting his hands on Sheinbaum.

The president announced her decision during a news conference on Wednesday. "I decided to file a complaint. This is something that I lived and it is something that women have to live with."

The brazen attack took place in broad daylight as Shainbaum made her way through the city for an event. The man can be seen at first putting his arm around her shoulder and nuzzling his neck before placing his hands on her breasts. A video of the incident was shared in a post to X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday.

Security Failure

The incident highlighted a troubling security issue for the president of Mexico that has far-reaching implications. Not only did the alleged perpetrator put his hands on her, but it took several seconds for anyone in her entourage to even speak to the unidentified man.

One of her assistants seemed to chastise the man, but that didn't stop him from trying to approach her a total of three times. What's more, this seems to be a pattern in the nation where top politicians are not kept safe, including Carlos Manzo, the mayor of Uruapan, Michoacán, who was shot to death on Saturday.

In his case, a gunman was again able to circumvent any security personnel and fire several shots at Manzo despite having 14 National Guardsmen supposedly protecting him as part of his security detail. This came after the mayor was reportedly going after criminals and the Mexican drug cartels in his city.

The brazen murder sparked off days of riots in Michoacán and in the state capital, Morelia, CNN reported. The demonstrators used the slogan "enough of abuses and omissions" as their rallying cry, though the protests eventually turned violent, with some people breaching the city's Government Palace.

It wasn't just Manzo's murder that whipped citizens into a frenzy. Just last month, Bernardo Bravo Manríquez, who was a citrus farmer in Apatzingán, was found dead after speaking out in favor of more security for the nation's agricultural workers.

Plea for Peace

Unfortunately, Manzo's murder happened as the politician was attempting to clean up crime in the city. His suspected killer is thought to be a teen between the ages of 17 and 19 and may have been part of Mexico's organized crime community, though it's unknown since the suspect was killed after the incident.

Manzo was likely targeted for cracking down on these types of crimes and was often seen in public wearing a bulletproof vest. "Any criminal you encounter who is armed and resists arrest or attacks citizens, if you detect them during operations, you must take them down; there should be no leniency with them," Manzo said in a video posted to social media in May.

He was also critical of the Mexican president, whom he claimed was too soft on crime, as Sheinbaum often pushed for "peace and justice" rather than punishment for criminals. Like many on the American left, Sheinbaum has sought to address crime problems by addressing their root causes, such as poverty and a lack of education.

Now Sheinbaum has experienced the lawlessness for herself and has decided to press charges. However, the problems go far beyond political assassinations or public attacks on female politicians, and she and others in the government seem at a loss for how to stop it.

The fact that the female leader of the country is not safe on the streets speaks volumes about the situation for average citizens. The nation has been struggling for decades to get crime under control, but it seems the drug cartels and organized crime rings have a hold that's a strong as ever.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced another strike on a suspected drug boat on Saturday that killed narcotics drug traffickers whom he compared to terrorists, Just the News reported. Hegseth posted a video of the strike, which he said was ordered by President Donald Trump and precipitated a strike this week, along with an official designation for such suspected criminals.

Hegseth took to X, formerly Twitter, to make the announcement. "Today, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War carried out a lethal kinetic strike on another narco-trafficking vessel operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization (DTO) in the Caribbean," Hegseth wrote.

"This vessel—like EVERY OTHER—was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics. Three male narco-terrorists were aboard the vessel during the strike, which was conducted in international waters. All three terrorists were killed, and no U.S. forces were harmed in this strike. These narco-terrorists are bringing drugs to our shores to poison Americans at home—and they will not succeed. The Department will treat them EXACTLY how we treated Al-Qaeda. We will continue to track them, map them, hunt them, and kill them," Hegseth said.

New Strategy

According to CBS News, the Trump administration positioned the USS Gerald R. Ford strike group in the Caribbean to continue what it considers a vital mission. Saturday's move was the 15th such strike since September, but was by no means the last. These strikes are meant to stop the inflow of dangerous illicit drugs that kill Americans.

Of course, some members of Congress have slammed the president for not being more forthcoming about the strikes. On October 30, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia complained about not being informed as the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Even some Republicans are beginning to question the intelligence that is being used to justify the strikes.

There has been little information given, including how it is that the administration knows the people on the boats are drug traffickers. Amid these questions, Hegseth announced yet another strike this week. Hegseth again said that it was "at the direction of President Trump" that the strike occurred after "intelligence confirmed that the vessel was involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics," Hegseth wrote.

"The strike was conducted in international waters in the Eastern Pacific. No U.S. forces were harmed in the strike, and two male narco-terrorists — who were aboard the vessel — were killed. We will find and terminate EVERY vessel with the intention of trafficking drugs to America to poison our citizens. Protecting the homeland is our TOP priority. NO cartel terrorist stands a chance against the American military," the Secretary of War noted.

Opposition

According to the New York Times, the Senate is expected to vote on a law that would bar Trump from making these unilateral military moves, including in Venezuela. Both parties believe that Trump is wrong to do so without consulting Congress or obtaining a vote.

The White House sent out a classified memo to Congress with information about the legal justification, but Democrats say that it falls short. "There’s nothing that was said that changed my mind that they are making illegal strikes," said Rep. Gregory W. Meeks of New York. The lawmaker is the leading Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Meanwhile, Warner continues to question the administration's source of authority to launch these strikes. "Even if at some point there was authority, how long does this last?" Warner asked.

"There is no legal basis in any legal opinion that we have been discussing that addresses Venezuela in any shape," he added. Meanwhile, Trump continues to say that these actions and has given conflicting remarks about possible military intervention in Venezuela, though moving the USS Gerald R. Ford into the area has brought some 5,000 military personnel.

Trump is doing his best to keep America safe and put the drug traffickers on the run with proactive strikes against their main transportation pipeline. Whether Democrats like it or not, it appears to be within his rights to do that without consulting them.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials said Wednesday that an Illinois lawmaker lied when he accused agents of targeting a preschool teacher and entering a daycare center to arrest her.

Rep. Mike Quigley (D) posted on X that the agents "abducted a preschool teacher without a warrant — in front of children."

But the Department of Homeland Security quickly called Quigley out and said that the situation was quite different than how Quigley and other officials portrayed it.

The rebuttal

"Congressman, you are deliberately misrepresenting the facts," the agency rebutted. "ICE law enforcement did NOT target a daycare and were only at this location because the female illegal alien fled inside."

The real story, DHS posted, was that agents tried to pull over a car containing a female illegal immigrant from Colombia, but the male driver would not stop.

After a chase, he drove the car into a shopping center and both the male and female fled into the daycare center, barricading themselves in the vestibule.

She was arrested in the vestibule, not inside the daycare center, DHS said. It was the Colombian immigrant who put the children and adults inside the daycare at risk, not the ICE agents.

What they wanted to believe

But of course, the narrative put forth by Quigley dovetails exactly with what they want to believe about ICE's activities: that ICE agents are targeting innocent people and putting people at risk with their brutal and violent raids.

It seems like rumors abounded when passersby or shoppers saw the raid happen, and Quigley was quite content to spread the disinformation without bothering to verify any facts.

ICE further said that the woman who was arrested lied about her identity and claimed not to know the man driving her car during the traffic stop and chase.

According to her, she picked up a perfect stranger at the bus stop and let him drive her car. This scenario is highly unlikely, of course.

But the left is so desperate to make ICE the bad guys that the truth really doesn't matter at all.

This kind of hateful misinformation is going to get ICE agents killed, but that will only make partisans like Quigley even happier, I'm afraid.

A handful of Democrats have entered talks on ending the government shutdown, undermining Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) as he continues to hold out for concessions from Republicans.

As the costs of the shutdown continue to mount, some Democrats including Senators Maggie Hassan (NH), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), and Gary Peters (D-MI) are working on a deal to end the impasse, the Hill reported.

The shutdown became the longest in U.S. history this week as the impacts continued to spread, with funding lapsed for food stamps and millions of federal workers missing paychecks.

Dems splinter on shutdown

Republicans need at least eight Democrats to cross the aisle in order to break the 60-vote filibuster. For weeks, only three Democrats have voted to end the shutdown consistently, and they are Sens. John Fetterman (D-PA), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), and Angus King (ME), an independent who caucuses with the Dems. If Hassan, Peters, and Shaheen join that group, Republicans would still need two more votes.

“There’s a plan, we’ve all kind of semiagreed to it and we’re now seeing not whether [Senate Democratic Leader Chuck] Schumer will support it but whether he will not blow it up,” one senator said.

A source said that at least eight Democrats expressed interest in opening the government at a tense Tuesday meeting where the party's factions clashed over a path forward, but the situation remains fluid.

“To me, it looked like there were eight votes, but it could change. There’s a lot to think about,” the source cautioned. “Nobody can predict the future.”

Schumer losing control?

According to the Hill, the tentative deal would likely include at least some regular, full-year spending bills and a commitment to vote on extending Affordable Care Act subsidies that Democrats have made central to the fight.

But some Democrats think it would be a mistake to back down without more solid concessions, especially a commitment from Republicans to ensure that the subsidies pass. These pro-shutdown Democrats are fearful Schumer is losing control as the caucus starts to split.

“That’s what leadership is all about. Is this just to let us all vent so we can pretend we were hurt? Or are we shaping this into a plan that keeps Democrats united and achieves some objective? That requires a person with the hand on the tiller,” said one Schumer skeptic.

Election emboldens Dems

Another factor motivating the shutdown Democrats is that the party won big in Tuesday night's elections, including in Virginia, which has a large number of furloughed federal workers. But not all Democrats are convinced that the results were all that meaningful.

“Last night was a good night but it was one night of the year,” Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona (D) told CNN.

Schumer has not said which way he is leaning, but he said a Thursday lunch with the caucus was "productive."

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) is holding another vote on Friday to put Democrats to the test.

"I think the clear path forward here with regard to the [Obamacare] issue, open up the government, and we head down to the White House and sit down with the president and talk about it," Thune said. "But I just, right now there is hostage taking, as you all know. The consequences are getting more pronounced."

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