s fox 5 tom fitzgerald ive at the wilson building tonight. tom, i was surprised t hear this was a legal defense. have other states or cities enacted laws to do away with this act? >> you knhe, i'm right t with you, shawn. reading rst started out this, you know, you shake your head. how could that be? how cld that be a criminal defense? but turns out, in fact, in several ways, defendants across the country used what's beens termed a gay panic as way to defend themselves in court. pretty much shawn, what this almost turns blame around to the vi tims inhese cases, which is justsh astonig, that somebody could be the victim of an assaulto but yet into court to have your due process and then somehow, y know, have the person who assau you, you know, claim they were somehow excused from in behavior because of the g panic, it's something that many states across the country are a lookingt right now. some haveha move w dc is ants to be the first one in bit our area to gethis on the isbooks. is not a way somebody could use to defend themselves in court i

. >> fox5's tom fitzgerald is live in rockville tonight. tom, montgomery county we know a sanctuary county. break down exactly what happened here and why people are fired up about th, if you will. >> yeah, shawn, we shld tell you that was caroline sturgis, she is onef the top aidsou to montgomenty executive marc elrich. now elrich over the summer issued an executive order. it code fied the fact, put it ia writint montgomery county were not going to work with immigration and customs enforcement when it comes to customs ement. this anen old argument from montgomery county politi cians. they say immigration enforcement is not their job, so they do not cooperate wi the federal government when it comes to immigration enforcement. th also oppose the trump administration's policy when it comes toig immtion enforcement. so that's there baseline he. what's gone on in the last couple of days though, is that you have four very high profile individuals, who are all illegal immigrants, who are allha ced with sexual assaultn this county, andhere are very

big results will come >> let's check in with tom fitzgerald and there's clearly n clean-up opee a white house. >> rorter: yesterday we were wondering -- how the correion tour would take, now we know less tha24 ho president not always sending on you the tweet about intelligencest that yo saw a minute ago but the other tweet and he only started at 5:45 this morning. the president writing that some people were very angry about the fact that he had been gettingel putin.l with vladimir you see it right there. and went on to say hs calls thi new t conditionrump derangement syndrome. then moved on toul a sed cabinet meeting. he began by talking about what he saw as the economics of his administration and also the diplomatic successes that he s during that nato meeting and during his summit with vladimir putin.se but tho were remarks, the esidentent off script at one point. w as asked if he thought that russia was still targeting the united state through cyber attacks. the presid answered no. >> we made incredible progress toward achieving greater peace, security and prosperity for america, for

if they leave >>> larry hogan as the state's general assembly returned to session >> tom fitzgerald is live. >> reporter: the first of the 90-day session where the gel assembly gets back down to business the next couple of months, that you say will not be a it's an election year. larry hogan, as you know is up for reelection in he 2018 and he is well aware that when we sat down with him today, you know, the governor made it clear, there are a couple of ways you can go when you're in the final year of your term. you could play it safe, rest in your laurels. that does not seem to be the way the hogan team is looking at 2018. he said they're going to hit the ground running, they are going to put what he calls a very aggressive sears of legislation in this legislature. one of them is going to be term limits to limit the amount of time that is people can return here to power in annapolis. another is going to be on fiscal responsibility. but you know when we talked to him today, listen to how he describes how he views what he said might be the most important year of his term here. >> i think

tom fitzgerald is live at the supreme court. this races a loft different questions for a lot of different people. >>reporter: it does, shawn and jim. here's the thing when you rent a car, you you don't own that car. you're essentially signing an agreement with the rental company to take possession of that car, but if the police pull you ove they decide to want to search your vehicle, well, if it's not really your vehicle could you give permission for it to be searched? and that is at the heart of this case that was heard today at the us supreme court. there are a lot of implications riding on this and conservative legal analyst over the heritage foundation john michael say blij says if the court decides to over turn the pennsylvania law that is in question here, in his opinion it could prevent an obstacle or be an obstacle to police when they try to search vehicles. the petitioner here is arguing that if you have potential and control of this rental car then you you have a privacy interest but the government says, hold on a seco

. >>> the arlington county board is being led by a millennial >> tom fitzgerald sat down with 32-year-old katie crystal -- the board's new chairperson >> good evening, this is a remarkable change, not just politically but generationally here in arlington county. katie crystal was born in 1985. anybody born between the early 80's and the mid 90's. now, understand, this is a group that does not always get the most favoritesible media coverage. they're too self-centered, no the as likely to get involved in politics. they are cynical. these are all things that have been put based on millennials, and this is something that chairperson crystal said she wants to change the narrative about, and she wants to do that by using herself as an sample her, leading the government in arlington county >> this is a generation that is actually incredibly passionate about having jobs with purpose, voluntaryism. and the sense of wanti ourselves. i think when you give young people opportunities to plug into local government in a purpose-driven way. they flock, rise to the occasion. >> now, crystal may be a mill

fitzgerald is tonight. this is not a place normally you see lines at but a couple days before christmas here we are. >> reporter: looks like a store checkout counter. this is that quite a loop hole. this falls into the category people trying to get under the wire before a lot of this kicks in. we're here at the arlington county board headquarters and this is where the treasury department is and where you would have found a lot of people online today paying their real estate taxes now before the changes kick into place. a lot of people have been paying attention to the fact that some state and local tax deductions will go away once this goes into effect. kim rutger, the deputy director of the treasury say showing up here now trying to pay their taxes and hoping to avoid this loss deduction in 2018. >> we can definitely see a difference. it's usually very slow. and as you noticed there's a quite few people in line. on average two or three taxpayers that like to come in and prepay their taxes but we're seeing

. >> melanie mentioned thanal tom fitzgerald broke that earlier about the positive train control. there's anti-regulatory climate we live in times and there are times that's necessary. to some extent. >> absolutely, look in the last nine, ten months or so all of the thing that have been deregulated and let's hope they can pass this through and this is not just -- >> just because inconvenine doesn't mean it's not necessary. >> it's definitely necessary. >> following bomb shell developments in continuing investigation into grade fixing in prince school system they knew more than a year ago students were graduating and didn't have record to she they earned a diploma. students are graduating without meeting state requirements and grades are changed properly and that was prompted by our reporting at "fox5". significance is schools denied knowing about the issues and then did it's own audit and that found reports are were not prop arealy maintained with state ran mandates and students were graduating before staff verified they were eligible. >> there was a big meeting tonight and we'll

. >> fox5's tom fitzgerald live at fcc headquarters with what happened and what this all means. fitz you have three explain everything you know about net neutrality. go! >> reporter: wow. i don't know if i can do that. >> clock is ticking. >> reporter: what this -- what they were saying today, the protesters were that they think the internet is dead. they even had a funeral for it with flowers out in front of the fcc today. the internet is not dead. but what happened today was the fcc voted to kill net neutrality. now, what net neutrality is, this is a law that went in under the obama administration that basically said if you're an internet service provider like at&t, like comcast, like any of these other people that you get your internet from, you can't pick and choose the content providers. you can't allow some content providers like facebook or netflix to come under your service faster because you like them. likewise, you can't slow down other services because either you don't like them or don't like what they stand for or you don't get any money from them for it. so, this vo

let's take a listen actually we'll get to tom fitzgerald right now. fitz obviously a lot of talk about this one today. >> reporter: well, we can talk about those salvos, jim, because it really did open a lot of eyes. what he said when he was on the floor of the u.s. senate today was standing there unaware of the fact that he was leaving the united states senate when the president of the united states and the republican senate candidate for the seat in alabama roy moore have themselves both been accused of sexual assault and sexual harassment. franken made these comments today and in time did say some things that did catch some people off gou guard a bit. he then disputed some of the claims against him but at the end said he was going to resign because he wanted this to not be about him and that the minnesota voters that put him here deserve better. i got to tell you the reaction here has been resounding. no more so than the female members that we have spoken here to today. we caught up with d.c. delegate eleanor holmes norton and virginia congressman

a massive rally by pro immigration demonstrators >> tom fitzgerald was in the midst of the protests and joins us from the hill with more. fitz? >> reporter: good evening, any time you have an issue like the government shutdown or immigration, individually, those are hot button issues on capitol hill. you put those two things together and you got the makings of an explosive situation, a look at this rally that went on up here today on capitol hill, these were close to 1,000 protesters protesting the fact that despite the fact that people had said that daca was going to be replaced, that they were going to have a system in place, that still hasn't happened. a lot of these people up here on capitol hill today were very angry about this, yes, they were harsh words for president trump but there were also a lot of harsh word for congress. several democrats said they won't vote for any spending bill, that does not have a diagnostic replacement as part of it. and those thoughts were echoed today >> we will not rest until not only the dreamers are put in a safe place but their moms, dad's, uncle

tom fitzgerald is live. >>reporter: the trump administration has been coming up on this one-year mark next month and looking for things to highlight. they may have found it today and this comes in the form of immigration enforcement there was a new report release today showing what immigration customs border patrol has been up to over the past year and these are simply stunning numbers. consider this, they have a 93 percent increase in the amount of people who have been arrested for immigration violations. they also reported today an 83 percent increase in the number of p people who have been arrested for being in connection with a violent street gang ms13. here at ice headquarters where this report was release the director of ice thomas , in his view his agency under the trump presidency in his view is unleashed and allow to pursue what he says was their mission from day one. if you're in this country illegally and you enter this country illegally which is a crime within itself, let's remember that and yet

. >> he sat down with wide ranging interview with tom fitzgerald. fits, what did he have to say. >> good evening we'll start withing is s people were talking about today. express lane coals on i 66 the governor hold you. yes they went up to 34 at one point. when we sat down in his office in richmond today he said look, we have to understand the toll changes baseden how traffic works and you need to give time it's 4.50 and for of minutes and those dynamic tools gorp and what they're trying to tell you don't go on the lanes. >> from there we moved on to crime in imgrates. in northern vir vr a lot of community where plagued by ongoing and increasingly disturbing gang violence program. at the same time governor mcauliffe is a loud and i consist be critic of the trump administration efforts to crackdown on illegal immigration. not he thinks that the trump administration policies have hurt or helped virginia. >> his travel ban and immigration policy scared f foxz. they've hurt small business especially in northern virginia and policies were a disaster for

. >> fox5's tom fitzgerald spoke with the governor and rushern baker. fitz what's going on here. >> reporter: well, you know there's this disagreement going on between the governor and the county executive. that's been simmering. today that boiled over and here's what turned up the heat. this was a letter that that went out this morning from to governor hogan. what this says is they are asking governor hogan to meet with them directly because of what they see as an injustice to the students in prince george's county surrounding this grade fixing scandal that we've been covering at length here on fox5. they requested a meeting with the governor. we were told late this morning that that meeting will happen but the governor wasn't finished there. we spoke with him today and he says he has very serious questions about what he sees as the lack of action between county officials and school officials in responding to this grade fixing situation. >> when the findings came in and found widespread wrongdoing, the school system again and both the county and the sc

let's bring in fox 5 tom fitzgerald live on the hill with m more. >> reporter: when these police blotters come out, you'll see traffic violations, security violations somebody maybe tries to bring a weapon through a checkpoint. when there's a sexual assault on this u.s. capitol police blotter, that sticks out. and that is apparently what had happened here last wednesday, which has now been revealed through this report. we first learned of this with news congressional producer and reporter chad tells us u.s. capitol police so far released very little information as far as details on this case. >> in this instance, it referred to two people in the capitol visitors' center, who were there presumably for a tour, and someone else came over to them and groped them. those two individuals then went to the u.s. capitol police, reported this individual, and they arrested him. >> reporter: fox 5 news tried to get the united states capitol police to talk to us on camera about this case. we were told no. they said they do not comment on investigations. about 4:30 this afternoon, they finally did send

let's get right to fox5 tom fitzgerald live on the hill. we know there was a loft back and forth especially with the president and the democrats. that's true, republicans cleared a big hurdle on this tax bill. they were able to get it out of the senate budget committee. that sends it on to the floor of the national as you just detailed it is not quite clear how that is going to go at this point as the vote counts go. overhanging all of this today was this question about the government shutdown. understand on december 8, unless they pass a new continuing resolution, they are going to have to shutdown the government today and part of what the president was going to do up here on the hill was going to be meeting with democratic leaders nancy pelosi and chuck nobody is ever going to confuse the united states congress with the objection ford debating society, but this place looked a heck of a lot less like oxford and a the lot more some high school lunchroom having a freud between two tables and here's why. look at the tweet that the president s

let's check in now with tom fitzgerald at the russian embassy tonight. fits i know you spoke with d.c.'s council president who is actually sphere heading this idea. what's this about? >> well, he teamed up with a couple of members of the u.s. senate. chris counsels and mark owe rubio on this one. and where we are right now is hemundz and davis street and the idea is this. they want to rename this one block of wisconsin avenue boris nemzof. he was a russian disodent going back to '9 a vocal opponent of vladimir putin. he was murdered on a bridge in moscow. d.c.'s local government will rename this portion of the street. the this will be a ceremonial name change. but it would sit right in front of the russian embassy building. the reason for this, d.c. city council phil mendleson says it's to accepted a message about silencing of disowe dent and send the message directly to vladimir putin. >> citizens of d.c. support democratic principles and we leave it's important for people of all political persuations speak out and bori is someone active in speaking out

let's bring in fox5 tom fitzgerald who has been getting reaction from lawmakers the investigation is moving forward and the house ethics committee? what is everybody saying about this? >>reporter: i'll tell you this this is not just any congressman , john conyers has been up here so long he was on the house judiciary committee that passed the articles of impeachment against richard nixon. that's the better part of four decades and this revelation today is stunning a lot of people up here on the hill. now this settlement, it was $27,000. it came out of this building behind us. this is where the congres congressional office of compliance is located. all of this that has happened two years ago was done in secret. why is it done in secret, well, that is the system that congress laid out for itself. this story first came to light late last night when buzz feed news report ed it, the journalist who broke the story, paul mack cloud , he talked to fox5 news today and said that in these legal documents in this case other women who work for congressman john con yairs detailed similar treatment

. >> fox5's tom fitzgerald is live on capitol hill with the fallout and reaction to this. fitz. >> reporter: well, good evening, you know, this has been an explosive del supposed to be about tax cuts but a lot of conversation was about al franken. let's show that photograph again, the one in leann tweeden has now published herself. she says that she was completely unaware of this and only found this photograph on her camera after she returned from that trip. tweeden had a press conference in los angeles today and said this incident of the groping and kissing happened after franken insisted they rehearse a scene that he had written for a uso show. >> he just put his hand on the back of my head and he mashed his face against -- i mean, it happened so fast and he just mashed his -- his lips against my face and he stuck his tongue in my mouth so fast. and all i could remember is that his lips were really wet and it was slimy. in -- in my mind i called him fish lips the rest of the trip because that's just what it reminded me of, i don't know why, and he stuck his tongue down r

tom fitzgerald is live on the hill with the very latest. fitz? >> reporter: good evening. the answer to this shawn and sarah came quickly. less than 24 hours since that hearing yesterday where congress woman jackie speier there were two sitting members of congress who were harassed staffers on the hill now. we asked her about that again today, she refused to name who those people are siding the nondisclosure agreements in place on capitol hill. but we've been taking a closer look at the system, the system the congressional workers have to go through in order to even file a complaint, i want you to look at this, this is the congressional office of complaints. this has been in place since mid 90's, this is what you have to go through if you're going to file a complaint. it starts off up here, reporting this incident to the office of compliance. then you have mandatory counseling, then forced to sign. there's mandatory mediation, a cooling off period, and only then can you file a formal complaint. the issue is this, people this system the way it's designed is designed to disc

fox5's tom fitzgerald here tonight. break it down. >>reporter: this is the first opportunity that we've heard from jeff sessions since the revelation that george pap done lose, a former campaign advisor to the trump campaign accepted a guilty plea as part of robert mueller's russia investigation. now there is a photograph that has since come out of pap done lose during the campaign and n a meeting with both then alabama senator jeff sessions and candidate donald trump. now, the white house had tried to portray pop done lose as a low- level volunteer. that photograph speaks in contrast to that. some house members wanted to know whether or not jeff sessions has been completely on nest his testimony about this and whether or not he has been lying. sessions took issue with that, very strongly denied that he has ever lied to congress in any of his testimony and took umbridge with anybody who would suggest it. in all of my testimony i can only do my best to answer your questions as i understand them and to the best of my memory. but i will

tom fitzgerald is at the sc scene. this has been a hot button issue fitz. state of politics he's these days. we're standing now in front of republican head quard ers in montgomery coupe. take a look at what these things are. these are flyers from right wing extremist groups. and now these wound up on the front door of the republican committee here in montgomery county. but they will tell you they have nothing to do with these groups. they don't support these groups and they don't like these groups and somebody came to their front door and literally glued these things right out here. and we talked to the republican chairman of montgomery county an he says rain in and simple this is a smear campaign. >> maybe this was a smear campaign trying affiliate us with these people and we have absolutely no interest in supporting them. they -- we do got have the same beliefs and if they put them on our door to influence us they did the wrong thing. >> well it turns out whoever is behind these dirty tricks might not know they were captured on camera. reps in montgomery

fitzgerald was there and joins us live from arlington with more. hey, fitz. >> reporter: we have a whole new era in virginia politics and it started this morning right on time at 10:00 a.m. the governor elect ralph northum heading to the state complex today in richmond to hold his first news briefing as the governor elect. now, there were a couple of purposes in this but the first off was he was asked about whether or not he thought about all this conversation about whether or not his election was a direct reaction to president trump, northum said in his opinion, it was, but he made the point of also saying that there are some things he thinks the president is doing that will benefits virginia and when that happens, governor elect says he will work with the president. >> the divisive ness, the hatred, the bigot ry, the po apart, that's not the united states of america people love. it's certainly not the commonwealth of virginia that they love. there are things that president trump talked about wanting to do for this country that would be very benef

fox5's tom fitzgerald with the story in arlington tonight with more. and this is a new twist for sure, fitz. >> reporter: well, you know, we've been talking about this ad and you've probably seen it. we've been showing it on the air since i think about tuesday now. it's an advertisement which shows a group of minority children running up to each other, telling each other that they have to go and the reason they have to go in these advertisements is because there is a pickup truck the pickup truck has a confederate flag on it and on the back has an ed gillespie for governor bumper sticker. now, that ad was made and produced by a group called latino victory fund. the ralph northam campaign has said since this hit the web the other day, they didn't have anything to do with this ad, they didn't know about this ad, they didn't like the content of this ad. however, as we found out today, there is a financial connection between this group, latino victory fund, and the northam campaign and it comes by way of this. this is a filing that was made with the virgin

tom fitzgerald is covering that angle tonight. fitz? >> reporter: well, this started this morning as mote things do these days on twitter. the president of the united states went talk about the diversity visa program then called it a schumer beauty. of course, referring to the senate democratic leader chuck schumer. the larger point was this, he said he's taking steps to end this diversity program that allowed this suspect to enter the u.s. because he has very serious concerns, he says, about the vetting that goes on to allow these individuals into the u.s. schumer, as you'll hear here in a minute, fired back. >> we want people that are going to help our country. we want people that will keep our country safe. we don't want lotteries where the wrong people are in the lotteries and guess what? who are the suckers that get those people? >> look, the president ought to stop tweeting and start leading. the american people long for leadership. not divisive ness. not finger pointing, not name calling. this is >> reporter: well, he saipov got

tom fitzgerald, fox5 local news. at just 28 years old she holds a power house. we have an exclusive with the press secretary, lindsay walters, on the other side of the break. ralph northam: i'm ralph northam, candidate for governor, and i sponsored this ad. narrator: they call him enron ed. because washington, dc lobbyist ed gillespie represented the worst of the worst. lenders trying to keep student loan rates high. corporations sending jobs overseas. and of course the enron scandal. now, enron ed is lobbying for donald trump's agenda. like cuts to virginia school funding, enron ed gillespie. he's not lobbying for you. i'm a proud woman. welcome back to 5@6:30. she's been serving in the white house as deputy press secretary. her name is lindsay walter. let's check in with ronica cleary for the very latest. let's check in with ronica cleary. it's a name many of our viewers you may not be familiar with. she is a very familiar face to those who cover the white house. she works closely with sarah hug bisanders . her name is lindsay walters. she's handled quite a fe

. >> tom fitzgerald starts us live with the specific charge that manafort and gates are facing. fits. >> good evening, jim, shawn this is a water head is moment in everything that led up this moment this 31 page indictment 12 counts and not only against paul manafort former campaign manager but long term associate rick ga gates. these are extremely serious charges. these are felonies and there's language in here like a conspiracy against the united states. money laundering and it essentially boils down to this folks what they're saying it paul manafort in consulting business overseas was using money from places like ukraine and then bringing that on shore without reporting income and prosecutor's words using funds to live extravagant lifestyle. and now when he came out of that courtroom today like gang busters manafort attorney wanted to get to one point right awe and those were the two words that you did not read in this indictment today. despite all this ta for months now, about the russia investigation and election medaling the attorney for paul manafort made it clear the two

. >> tom fitzgerald joins us with update on progress of super speedy hyper loop. hey, fits. >> sounds like something out of "star trek" or "star wars" it's called hyper loop because it literally moves you faster than you have ever moved probably on any ground base public mass transit system before. how this would work is they basically put you in a little tube like this water bottle not a water bottle but a large tube and they shoot you through a vacuum magnetized track underground about maybe 75 feet and they would be able to propel people possibly up to 450 miles an hour. they think they can get between washington and new york city in 2 4 minutes. they think they can initially get between d.c. and baltimore in 15. now state of maryland and department of transportation is green lit a section just a section of about 10 miles of tunneling that will go on between area ever 95 and for the immediate. we talked to governor hogan about this. he says this is vital and it's coming to some part of the united states and he wants to make sure that part is through maryland. f

. >> tom fitzgerald is live from virginia to breakdown some of the polling numbers. looks like the mantra is don't >> yeah. >> reporter: well, you know, believe what you like to read. [laughter] >> reporter: if you like one candidate or another, there's a poll out there for you. keep in mind just in the last two days we want to show this to you, these were just a couple of the polls that have come out in just the last two days, right. now, this is the christopher newport university poll. that's got ralph northam at 48 percent, ed gillespie down at 44 percent. all right. put check this out. you go to the monmouth university poll, they've got ed gillespie up by one point in this race, all right, still within the margin of error but hold onto your hat. look at what quinnipiac college has now. they are now looking at this race as a 14-point edge for ralph northam. 53 percent to 39 percent. now, that gives you an idea of exactly why you when we talked to people about what they feel about polls this year as opposed to what they saw happen when all of those polls said that

tom fitzgerald tracking this one for us. fitz >> this has been months in the making. jeff sessions the attorney general hasn't testified before the senate judiciary committee since back at his confirmation hearing. what's happened since then. this was the scene, session appearing before the senate judiciary committee, remember, he today that answer he gave in that confirmation hearing, that answer that he had never met with russian officials. turns out a couple of days later, he did and had to recuse himself from the russia investigation, why did he say that? sessions today indicated that he didn't understand the question, and that is why he gave the wrong answer. >> i took that to mean not any casual conversation, but did i participate with russians about the 2016 election that something was wrong. every one of your previous questions talk about improper involvement. i felt the answer was no. >> reporter: that line of questioning only the tip of the iceberg, they also got into daca and immigration situation in the country. sessions said that the administration is ope

tom fitzgerald thank you. and death toll continues to rise in puerto rico following devastation left by sure can maria. 48 people died. you're look at images in puerto rico. the three most recent deaths were people that were unable has alreadyty as of this morning only 72% of island had access to clean water. puerto rico governor says the goal is to get power back on 90% of island by december. >> and keeping eye on raging wildfires out west. tens of thousands of people heading tomorrow at the threat tapers off. 17 large fires burning across northern parts of states. two of three most sgrukttive fires are more than half con tapes and forecasters say temperatures will remain hot even dry in hard hit areas and much needed rain is on way to region thursday. >> let's talk about the weather in our region. question not bay wig change. we have seen dramatic change. 15 to 20 cooler than yesterday and as a result of that great set up tonight with frost. frost add vusry posted tore suburbs north and wet of us. watched to

. >> caitlin owens healthcare reporter at axios and tom fitzgerald are here to break down the executive order. thanks for joining us. >> thanks for having us. >> caitlin let me start with you. what does this mean for americans? i know a lot of people are watching thinks this is going to help us. >> i think it's important to say this executive order that was signed today, you know, it's kind of just directing agencies to write rules. it says more regulations are going to come so, labor treasury hhs they still have to write these rules. what it's trying to do is first of all allow more short term health insurance policies length of those policies from three months to about a year. and then it will also allow something called association health plans and, you know, basically what that does is allows small businesses to ban together to be part of the employer -- the large employer market. and so basically what i think -- i think what could happen is two things. first of all for young healthy americans i think it gives them more -- you know, if it's written as has been described it gives the

tom fitzgerald live tonight to break the all down for us. what we heard tom, what you got? >> this morning, the president going to right at it tweeting that he said democrats want massive tax increases. that republicans want the largest tax cut in u.s. history. this trip for the white house was a big step towards something donald trump has done many, many years now. he is doing it to score the first big legislative win of his presidency. in harrisburg as jim said rapping up moments ago. president said this plan, if enacted will be a big boom to the middle class. >> we're here today to discuss our vision for america's economic revival, which has already started. it started on november 8th. we want lower taxes. bigger paychecks and more jobs for american truckers and for american workers. >> so one of the highlights tonight, the seven tax brackets we currently have will turn into three, 12, 25 and 35. the small business rate will be set now at 25%. the corporate tax rate will be set at 20%. been slamming this plan today, saying they don't think this will help the middle class

fox 5 tom fitzgerald joins us for the latest on this administration shake-up. fitz? >> reporter: well, shawn, jim, good evening, this news is certainly eye opening but this is far from a surprise to a lot of the folks who had been following this the last couple days. these allegations continue to build and secretary tom price seemed increasingly unable to explain why he was having taxpayers pay for private planes to places like nashville where he had lunch with his son or to philadelphia, which is only 135 miles away and easily accessible from an amtrak train a couple blocks away from where we are right now at the health and human services department. that governor nearly under $200. in the end, price was not able to sustain his job and it was not only this plane flap that played a factor, for weeks, the his displeasure with price's leadership on the job that he was brought here to the health and human services department to do. to repeal and replace obamacare. never took flight or got point where congress was going to vote for a program that was sustainable. today,

. >> let's get you out to tom fitzgerald live on the au campus with more on fitz we've seen this happen before on campus. >> reporter: jim, shawn, we were just talking about this kind of thing last week. at georgetown university when they found swastikas inside the bathroom of a dormitory on campus a couple of weeks ago. before that we were at georgia washington university where somebody had posted anti-muslim flyers. this is a problem not only on this campus but progressively, campuses across this country, people coming on to these campuses and doing things like this in this instance this was a flyer with a confederate flag on it that said the words haz ua dixie, there was also piece of cotton on that when we talked to the campus university police they want you to take a look at this. you see this guy, if this is a disguise, he was hiding in plain site. he got a bright yellow vest son's he's got a bright colorado shirt wearing camel pants in that unmistakable red helmet and jim and shawn this is what they're telling us about this. they don't think this was coincidence, these fires happ

let's bring in tom fitzgerald to break this all down for us. >>reporter: shawn, i'm not formally trained as a political science, but 96 percent is a lot of democrats who say that they are going to go to the polls. remember, these are likely voters because they do not like donald trump. clearly on the face of it this means the bit of donald trump problem on his hands as he tries to become the virginia governor. when you look at this poll that was re lease today by the christopher newport university it also shows that there may be some trouble brewing on the democratic horizon for candidate ralph north em as well. a lot of virginia voters who say they are likely voters are at odds with his stand. where does this leave this? virginia as we know is a purple state. threes a lot of red, there's a lot of blue of the both sides have to appeal to the others to get that election tied up. however, some of the experts who have been looking at this poll today, one of them virginia tech's and contact deem and says what she sees are some signs that both repub

tom fitzgerald has been on campus all day talking to students and has a little more reaction. hey, fitz. >> reporter: good evening, this is disturbing stuff. this is not the first time georgetown has dealt with this. there have been two other incidents just this month, two of them, two of them at this building behind us. this is the loyola rider dormitory here on the campus of georgetown. this morning a lot of these students found out about this for the very first time. take a look at this video that we shot when we got down here this morning. this is when georgetown police were on the scene this this was when the liaison unit from the metropolitan d.c. police were also on the scene here this morning. so, this is what happened. somebody discovered a swastika painted on the stall of a woman's bathroom here at georgetown. if that was not bad enough there was more to this. along with the swastika there was also a threat written and directed a campus. so, what are they doing about this? well, we asked about security video. we were told because this took place in a bathroom, becaus

. >>> tom fitzgerald live in northwest with more on the growing concerns, he agreed that there's a lot of speed traps out there, fitz. >> reporter: it's hard anywhere, get out of your driveway in some parts of the district without getting in the panel of one of these speed cameras, red light cameras, but this is what we're about specifically as speed cameras >> what she wants to know is this. take a look at this, we're up over k street, where it goes underneath the washington circle and look at that camera, obviously, it's rush hour, obviously, those cars are barely inching forward if they're lucky. when it's not that time, when cashes are speeding through here, well, a lot of drivers are saying, that speed camera is not fair because they can't see it, they don't know where it is, and often they're caught off guard, on camera, and raking up very big bills. we spoke to the council woman today, she said she wants more view on these cameras, they bring in $100 million into this distct they have to cough you up about half of that, she said they will have to find the money in the budget bec

. >> let's bring in tom fitzgerald life at ice headquarters. this is not the way they expected this to go. what happened? >> this is a situation you enter into something you think it will go great and immediately regret that decision we're here at ice immigration and customs enforcement headquarters here in southwest d.c.. why are we here this institution was called on to be defunded to the protesters that interrupted her victory lap where she would tell latino americans all the work she's been doing to get daca sknded to work on the dream act. but that's not what happened. this is what happened. >> for been fighting fight for dreamers. >> we're not dreamers. >> we're not dreamers >> all 11 million. >> all 11 million. >> do you you want to hear an answer or do you want to thought. >> apparently they wanted to shout. that there went on for about a half hour. now, who are these proest testers they say they're not daca recipients not dreamer part of 12 million illegal immigrants who were in this country and they wanted pelosi to promise today she

tom fitzgerald more with this one reporter roar as if we needed another reminder how critical virginia politics are in this year. you've got a governor's race going on. you've got a us snrat race coming down the pike, but the key toll getting into these general assemblies, races that by and large determine how virginia politics get made. so here was the scene in falls church today you had tom perez, and then you had coming in from california billionaire businessman tomorrw schneider. why is he here in well, he's here because he was donating a million dollars to the virginia democratic effort today through his next gen. his political action committee. why was he doing h? well, he says in his viewpoint that getting in to these smaller general assembly races in his viewpoint is the key to unlocking virginia and then down the line key to unlocking national races as well . in 2017 virginia is going to be the focal point of politics in the united states of america. it's not just because you have the mos governor's race in the country this year. it's also because of charlottesville. it's beca

. >> "fox5" tom fitzgerald is live now with how the nation paid tribute to the many, many lives lost that day. fitz. >> jim, shawn, i know we say this every year but it is hard to believe. it has been 16 years now since the terrorist attacks both here in the d.c. area and of course in pennsylvania. and new york. and every year we have marked the solemnly occasion it's up to the president of the united states to step into the role to lead this nation's observance and that was the case today. new course ep stepping into that role. this was the scene at the white house today as the president led the observance of moments of silence that is traditionally held at the white house and then the president went on to mark the observance at the pentagon memorial in arlington, virginia today. the president did not make very long remarks but he did make very poignant remarks about how the united states is on this global war on terror right now and in the president's words speaking today at the pentagon with nation's military and the families of the victims assembled the president made it very cle

. >> tom fitzgerald spent the day on the hill. fitz what really came out of this. >> reporter: there's a couple of things going on today. what we're going to start with, though, is these developments on facebook today with the russia investigation, reports coming out that facebook has indeed confirmed to senate intelligence staffers that they have identified nearly 400 fake accounts that they say came out of saint petersburg these are accounts we're told that were linked to troll sites that supported russian government entities. now, facebook says about 3,000 posts had come out between the period of 2015 and 2017. the goal here wasn't really so much to endorse a particular candidate. that's not what was going on. they were poking and prod at americans' hot button issues like gun control, like civil rights. the result of this today, though, was that the watchdog group common cause, they filed this complaint. take a look at this thing. this went to the justice department. this also went to the federal elections commission. what they

live in gauge eringersburg tom fitzgerald is there. fitz i know there's a lot of politicians hpinging around throughout. >> you cannot throw a stick without hitting one of tond, jim and shawn. nobody is happy to seener go. but if you cover politics this is the sweet spot now between september and never when people finally go to the po polls. a lot of these people are running for all different kind of races, rubbing for mayor, running for county council and some congress and some wanting to governor and a lot of people came here today to gaithersburg. the former sirt of the house tip o'neal says all politics is local. if you ever find yourself cynical by politicians come here it will remind you at the ends of the day these are real people talking to real voters. ♪ ♪ this is gaithersburg, mar mash, labor day, 20 and for the 79 pl year in a row since fdr was president the streets are lined with pomp, with paradeers, and of course, with politicians. >> there is nothing better than face to face physical contact you really get to sense w

in north bethesda, maryland, tom fitzgerald reporting. two potential witnesses who were near a loudon county confederate statue at the same time it was vandalized. they spray painted it with vulgar language. these two witnesses right there, the people mr. is say those people or anything about this incident l call the loudon county's sheriff's office. a popular tell advantage list is taking heat for something he didn't do. it's certainly not this. there he is. we're going to talk about expwroal ol steen didn't do for his mega church followers. we'll give you you an especially dawt update on the situation when five at six:zero comes right back. z2fwdz z16fz y2fwdy y16fy evangelist joel olstein opened the doors of his 16,000 mega seat in houston after taking a lot of social heat on social media. that is congress. that is not the church. he was delivering the invocation. he treat tweeted that he and his wife were praying for everyone effect. people on social media blasted oal steen for the not opening up the church to people who were flooded

tom fitzgerald talked with the governor of d.c. fits, let's put a difficult area shelters amount on this. i really thought that was going to be some kind of train song. the billion here, jim and shawn is a big one. paul white feld, the metro gm, he wants $500 million and he sell this. you folks already know why. this system is old. these safetrack repairs that we just got through, this work isn'tinging anywhere. these problems aren't going anywhere. he's leaving it up to d.c., virginia and maryland to figure out how individually they're going to pay for this. now, is this going to be a sales tax. is this going to be some kind of gas tax in they're simply going to whip out one of those big cardboard checkbooks that they have and writeoff a big number and hand metro this money. they all seem to be in agreement today at this summit that they held in mount voarn on that this money is needed. they also were in agreement that this metro board, this board is way too big and way too insufficient. they want to syringe this metro board . wha

let's bring in fox5's tom fitzgerald. fitz a lot of folks are scratching their heads at this one. >> reporter: jim, you and your details. you and your details. clearly, yeah, that's the big question. the president spent over a year campaigning around the country saying that mexico was going to pay for this wall and now here we are about to have congress return from its recess and the president is talking about shutting down the federal government if congress does not authorize funds for the construction of a southern border wall. but this goes way beyond the border wall. remember, just a couple of hours ago, prior to today, the president had tweeted out that he had called on congress to add the veterans' administration bill to the raise the debt ceiling. today, you know, we get this other tweet from the president today flat out calling out mitch mcconnell over his failure to get the healthcare reforms passed. so, this is becoming a real problem between this republican white house and this republican congress. the presiden

let's bring in fox5's tom fitzgerald right now. the aclu is blasting the democratic governor. >>reporter: yeah, that's shawn and jim. this has been controversial within the aclu in virginia itself. one of the members resigned because of this because they thought that the ac lu coming in on the side of the white supremest neo nazis and clan members that have demonstrated down there in charlottesville was not where they wanted to be on this. you could be on the side of the law in their opinion and not be right at the same time. so keep in mind even though the aclu of virginia is now finding itself in opposition to the governor right now in virginia there is not unmint about where they stand on this issue. the situation is this, the governor has imposed a ban on protests at the robert e lee statue in richmond for the time being. now, in his order, the governor said this is was an interest of public safety and to not allow these kinds of demonstrations to escalate into the kind of violence we charlottesville. the aclu of virginia has come out in a very strong statement and basical

tom fitzgerald has hor on this one. break this down for us fits. >> it sounds like secrets service is having money problems here. some of these could have been anticipated just you know when you get your arms around how many different places and family members president trump actually have. consider this. during the obama administration secret service had protection duties of 31 individuals and right now they're 42 it includes president adult children and eric trulp and they travel around the globe as part of the trump organization business and they have to be protected by u.s. secret service and president himself we have well documented likes to make trips on the weekends to his frontties be it golf course in lorton virginia or bedminster or trump tower last week. couple in the fact that the role of the secret service has been expanded not only this year but they are just coming off a campaign year in 2016. and so this is led to a situation where you got nearly 1,000 agents right now who at the end of august have alrea

tom fitzgerald has gone over the suit and enjoyed this liver from the district courthouse in d.c. fitz what is this all about? >> sarah, tom, this is it here and it was filed e morning against the u.s. secret service. where this came from is watchdog group by the name of public citizen. they're alleging for the past four months they've been trying to get visitor logs for the white house from the u.s. secret service. basically they want to know who has been going into white house meeting and coming out of white house meeting. they filed this request they say under the freedom of information act. foia that's the particular way you go about requesting publicly available infor information. public sit discontinues say whether they filed the foia request they were told in turn they were not allowed to have records even though public citizens believes those are pubicly available record. that's what led to the lawsuit they say today by the attorney dina rosen baw. she told us what happened when she reached out to the secret service to get these logs. >> sect first by telling us they were

and tom fitzgerald with more on this. fitz? >> reporter: good evening, jim, shawn, there is not just one statue of confederate f there are 12. and what is getting attention of a lot of people is if you compare that to how many african-americans statues there are. there are four. this controversy, for couple of days now, is shining new light on the united states capitol building and not in way that many people who are calling for these statues' removals are happy about. of case in point, take a look at some of this video that we shot today. now, this is inside the united states capitol. there's a statue of thomas jefferson. there's a statue of georgia washington. you would expect that. they're founding fathers. but there's also a statue of the president of the confederacy in would be jefferson davis, across the hall there's alexander hamilton stevens the vice president of the confederacy, one level below in the crypt of the united states capitol. robert e. lee across the way from him, john ccalhoun, a major force on the side of