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Sen. John Fetterman delivered the opening statement at this hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on "Food and Nutrition, Specialty Crops, Organics, and Research" after spending a few weeks receiving treatment for clinical depression following a stroke last summer.

Here is John Fetterman asking a question to a witness at today's subcommittee hearing. pic.twitter.com/kb2jXO9O2C

- Greg Price (@greg_price11) April 19, 2023

Sen. Rand Paul told "FOX & Friends" on Wednesday morning that he believes history will judge Dr. Anthony Fauci for his role in securing U.S. government funding the lab that allegedly led to the leak of Covid-19 in Wuhan, China. SEN. RAND PAUL: Yeah, I think Fauci deserves culpability and history is going to judge him very poorly because he made the judgment to fund this research. It's dangerous research. He doesn't want to call it gain of function, but most other scientists do call it gain-of-function, in Wuhan, in an opaque totalitarian country. And in the end, there was a leak from the lab and millions of people died worldwide.

Rep. Chip Roy spoke to "FOX & Friends" on Wednesday morning about his decision to endorse Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the 2024 Republican presidential primary. "I'll support the Republican nominee no matter what, I'm a strong supporter of the America First agenda, but look... I think it's time to have someone who is not a baby boomer, somebody who can serve for two terms and who we know we can get behind to root out all the corruption in this town and beat the swamp that President Trump so ably started when he came in, in 2017," Roy said. "I think it's time we have someone that we can take a new generation into town, and we can kind of build on what President Trump started."

GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene told Steve Bannon's "War Room" podcast that she will not vote for a "clean" debt ceiling increase. "The debt ceiling is a fight because we have to get things through that battle. We're not going to pass a clean debt ceiling bill. There's no way in hell I'll vote for that and I've said ti from the beginning," she said. "Joe Biden can't call anybody's bluff because he is to blame for everything happening here today."

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre cited the Hatch Act and declined to comment on Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announcing that he is challenging President Biden for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination.

FNC's Sandra Smith spoke to the couple involved in a nasty viral video where they were attacked and robbed by a mob of black teenagers on the streets of Chicago to find out what really happened. "They said they were going to kill us, they turned around and started fighting," the woman said. "I have a lot less injuries than he does... everyone went for him... they were jumping him in the middle of the street, it got pretty bad." "It was very random," the man said. "We had just left Nordstrom and we were looking for somewhere to eat... They were out there being stupid, young and dumb." The couple said they didn't know why they were targeted and revealed that police ignored them and "drove right by" during the assault. "The cops drove right by it, acted like they didn't see anything." A local FOX affiliate tracked down the woman who helped them:

This woman saved a couple from a violent Chicago mob on Saturday

A cop at the police station told her: This is going to keep happening because Brandon Johnson got elected pic.twitter.com/PjHulN9B9o

- End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) April 19, 2023 An abridged video of the incident went viral over the weekend as an example of racial violence:

White woman viciously attacked by a group of black teens. You absolutely never see videos like this with the races reversed. Never. Doesn't exist. At some point we need to discuss why this kind of violence literally always goes one way.

https://t.co/jUPyePK5Co

- Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) April 17, 2023

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre hosts Wednesday's briefing around noon.

2024 Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy angered "CNN This Morning" host Don Lemon on Wednesday morning by arguing that Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" reforms did more harm than good to Black Americans. The conversation devolved into a debate about the Civil War and ended with the two men stating that they are each proud of their racial origin. "I think you're doing a disservice to our country, by failing to recognize the fact that [Black Americans] have equality under the law," Ramaswamy told CNN's Don Lemon. Don Lemon quipped that he is insulted by the conversation: "And you're sitting here, whatever ethnicity you are, explaining to me what it's like to be black in America." "When you are in black skin and you live in this country, then you can disagree with me," Lemon also said. "I think we should be able to express our views regardless of the color of our skin. We should have this debate without me regarding you as a black man, but me regarding you as a fellow citizen," Ramaswamy said. POPPY HARLOW: -- I just want to better understand something you said this week speaking before the audience at the NRA. Here's what you said referring to back to 1865. Here it was. VIVEK RAMASWAMY: I want you to raise your hand if you know when the first anti-gun laws were passed in this country. Raise your hand if you do. Eighteen sixty-five. You want to know when it happened? We fought a Civil War in this country to give Black Americans the equal protection under the law that we failed to secure them in 1776. But then you want to know what happened? Southern states passed anti-gun laws that stopped Black people from owning guns. The Democrat Party then, as in now, wanted to put them back in chains. HARLOW: "Then as in now." That's quite an accusation about the current Democratic Party. Who and what were you referring to? RAMASWAMY: I was referring to Joe Biden and his expression of wanting to "put them back in chains," dating back to Lyndon Johnson. I think Lyndon Johnson's so-called Great Society was one of the greatest misnomers in American political history. Even back then, in the 1960s, 70% plus of black kids were born into the two-parent homes. Today, that number is less than 30% in the opposite direction. The very policies that we implemented in this country in the name of helping Black Americans have actually been disastrous for Black Americans and all Americans, and I think that that's something that we need to wake up to. POPPY HARLOW, CNN: In 1865 you're talking about the Black Codes, right? Enacted to make it a crime for a black person to carry a gun in the South. But you're equating that to the current president, you're referring to economic chains? What are you saying? RAMASWAMY: I was referring to Joe Biden's, I think ill-chosen expression, to say they're the party that wants to put you "back into chains." What I'm actually saying is that if you look at the policies of the modern Democratic Party-- POPPY HARLOW: You're talking about Democrats? RAMASWAMY: Absolutely. So what I'm saying is that actually, it's policies like that of Lyndon Johnson and Joe Biden that are actually holding black Americans back. HARLOW: The war on poverty? RAMASWAMY: Yes, and in particular, his Great Society, where he actually created incentives in the family, where if you're a family, you could actually get more money by not having the father in the home. That's what you get, you get what you get you get what you pay for. I think it's been really bad for the Black community. I think it's really bad for all Americans. DON LEMON, CNN: I don't see what one has to do with the other. But go on. I took up a lot of time with Fox's fine. I don't really see what one has to do with the other, especially considering, and using the Civil War to talk about Black Americans. That war was not fought for black people to have guns. That's -- that's -- that's not -- RAMSWAMY: That war was fought for black people to have freedoms in this country. Actually, that's why the civil war was fought. DON LEMON: Okay, but that wasn't fought for black people to have guns, I think. RAMASWAMY: Actually, you don't know, a funny fact is black people did not get to enjoy the other freedoms until their Second Amendment rights were secured. And I think that that's one of the lessons that we learned --- LEMON: But black people still aren't allowed to enjoy the freedoms-- RAMASWAMY: I disagree with you on that. Don, I disagree with that? I think you're doing a disservice to our country, by failing to recognize the fact that [Black Americans] have equality under the law. DON LEMON: When you are in black skin and you live in this country, then you can disagree with me. But we're not. You mentioned in there that we have three different shades of melanin-- RAMASWAMY: I disagree, Don, I think we have to be able to talk about these issues in the open, regardless of the color of our skin. Black Americans today, to say that, to compare that to 1865 and 1964, absolutely -- DON LEMON: I think for you to compare it to 1864, I think it's insulting to black people. It's insulting to me as an African American. I don't want to sit here and argue with you because it's infuriating for you to put that -- to put those things together. It's not right. You're telling of history is wrong. You're-- RAMASWAMY: What part of the history was wrong? DON LEMON: You're making people think that the Civil War was fought for black people, only for black people to get guns, and for black people to have --- RAMASWAMY: The Civil War was fought for black people in this country to get freedoms, a noble mission. And I think that even after even after we succeeded, we had to actually secure those freedoms. DON LEMON: To reduce it, in a speech at the NRA, to say, you're making people think, you are trying to say that black people to get guns? That was the reason that you're there at the NRA? That was the reason for the civil war. It's reductive and I think it's insulting. There were a whole plethora of reasons for the Civil War. RAMASWAMY: It's not reductive. With due respect, I find your explanation reductive, and actually insulting, including to Black Americans, to say that black people today compared to 1964, 1865, haven't made progress, in part because of the freedoms we secured. And the second amendment was part of that. DON LEMON: Hang on, please. I cannot keep a thought If you guys are talking in my ear [talking to the producer in his headset?] So hang on one second, so to say that that black people -- say what you said again. RAMASWAMY: Black people secured their freedoms after the Civil War, it is a historical fact, Don, just study it. Only after their second amendment rights were secured. DON LEMON: They had not secured their freedoms after the Civil War, you are discounting reconstruction, discounting a whole host of things that happened after the Civil War, when it comes to African Americans, including the whole reason that the Civil Rights movement happened, because Black people did not secure their freedoms after the Civil War, and that things turned around. People tried to change the freedoms that were supposed to happen after the Civil War in reconstruction. RAMASWAMY: You know how they got it? They got their second amendment rights, and they actually got -- the NRA played a big role in that, but today, down the road -- DON LEMON: the NRA did not play a big role in that. That is a lie. The NRA did not play a big role in that. It is not a historical fact, just because you say it is a historical fact. RAMASWAMY: It is a historical fact, a historical fact, the part that I find insulting is when you say today, Black Americans don't have those rights, after we have gone through the Civil Rights revolution in this country. DON LEMON: The fact that you are sitting here telling an African American about the rights and what you find insulting about the way I live in the skin I live in every day, and that you find it insulting that I have a different point of view of black and white, and what black people don't have in this country and that black people do have. RAMASWAMY: Well, here's where you and I have a different point of view. I think we should be able to express our views regardless of the color of our skin. We should have this debate without me regarding you as a black man, but me regarding you as a fellow citizen. DON LEMON: And you're sitting here, whatever ethnicity you are, explaining to me what it's like to be black in America. RAMASWAMY: Whatever ethnicity? I'll tell you what I am. I'm an Indian American. I'm proud of it. But I think we should have this debate. Black, white doesn't matter. On the content of the ideas. DON LEMON: What you should do is have the debate in an honest and fair way, and what you're doing is not an honest and fair way. We appreciate you coming on. I look forward to continuing this conversation.