President Donald Trump shared what appeared to be an AI-generated image Monday night of a golden eagle statue affixed to the White House facade, and while the post was ridiculed by critics, one former GOP staffer flagged what they believed was a hidden message.

The image in question shows a golden eagle statue attached to the front facade of the White House holding a red, white and gold shield surrounded by 11 stars. Trump described it as a “golden gift to the White House for its 250th birthday year,” suggesting there may be plans to bring the image to life.

However, Steve Schmidt, the former GOP strategist and co-founder of the conservative anti-Trump organization the Lincoln Project, zeroed in on the number of stars featured on the statue, which differed from the typical 13 to represent the original 13 colonies.

“This is grotesque and un-American,” Schmidt wrote Tuesday in a social media post on X to his more than 1.4 million followers. “11 stars represent the Confederate States of America, not the United States of America.”

Schmidt was making reference to the 11 states that seceded from the United States between 1861 and 1865 to form the Confederate States of America, largely out of a desire to preserve their right to enslave African Americans.

Trump has sparked controversy throughout his two terms regarding the Confederacy. In 2020, Trump ruled out renaming U.S. military bases named after Confederate officers, going as far as to restore the name of a base that was stripped of its reference to a Confederate officer during the Biden administration.

Trump also attacked NASCAR over its Confederate flag ban and has called Confederate monuments "beautiful" and criticized efforts to see them removed.

A crowd of reporters gathered outside the Capitol Hill office of Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ) Tuesday morning, but the long-missing congressman has not yet shown.

Kean last voted in the House on March 5. He has missed more than 140 votes since then.

He has said only that he is dealing with a "personal medical issue." His office said he would return on Tuesday and finally explain his absence.

"No sign yet!" Charlie Cotton, a reporter, wrote on X just after 9:30 a.m., posting a photo of reporters and a camera crew camped outside Kean's office door.

"No sight of him yet," Mychael Schnell, a Capitol Hill reporter, wrote minutes later, noting Kean was "expected to address his absence today."

A week ago, a New York Times reporter found Kean at his New Jersey home. He was dressed in a suit and tie.

"I'll talk to you next week," Kean said, and went inside.

A person familiar with his plans told CNN that Kean intends to deliver a floor speech addressing his health. His spokesperson said he would be "fully transparent."

He is also scheduled to attend a fundraiser on Tuesday evening.

Kean represents one of the most competitive House districts in the country. He is running for a third term against Democrat Rebecca Bennett.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has said he knows what is wrong with Kean but is keeping it private at Kean's request. "I do know what his health issue is, but he's asked me not to disclose that," Johnson said.

As of Tuesday morning, Kean's office had not said when, or whether, he would appear.

With Senate Republicans appearing unwilling to nuke the filibuster to pass President Donald Trump’s SAVE America Act, House Republican leaders are trying a new tactic to pressure states to enact the bill’s severe voting rights restrictions without actually passing the bill itself.

The SAVE America Act has already passed the House multiple times. Trump has tried to hold a bipartisan housing bill hostage in order to pressure Senate Republicans to pass the bill without support from Democrats, but failed to get enough GOP senators on board.

On Sunday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told Fox Business that “we’re going to try to pass it again, and this time we’re going to try to put it on a reconciliation bill,” which “prevents the necessity of 60 votes in the Senate.”

Punchbowl reported on Monday that GOP leadership had expressed interest in creating a $4 billion grant program in order to incentivize states to enact parts of the bill, including requirements that voters re-register to vote with documents proving their citizenship and provide voter ID at the polls while outlawing mail-in ballots in most cases.

Johnson’s plan is an alternative to the approach taken by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), and a group of other staunch Trump allies, who have threatened to torpedo the National Defense Authorization Act unless the full SAVE America Act is attached in a bid to force the Senate to pass it.

Luna has said that if her amendments are ruled out of order, she and her far-right colleagues will vote against procedural rules on other House bills to essentially grind the chamber to a halt.

Trump and other supporters of the legislation have said these measures are necessary to prevent noncitizens from voting, which is already illegal.

Even data from the right-wing Heritage Foundation, which has authored much of Trump’s second-term agenda, shows that noncitizen voting is exceedingly rare: It has identified just 77 instances of noncitizen voting between 1999 and 2023.

Federal law already requires that voters provide their driver’s license or the last four digits of their Social Security number when registering to vote, which allows election officials to verify their citizenship status.

But Republicans are hoping to replace this system with one that is far more burdensome, requiring voters to provide original copies of personal documents to prove their citizenship, such as a passport or birth certificate matching their legal name, and to present them in person at an election office, effectively banning online registration.

Critics have warned that millions of eligible voters could face cost burdens when attempting to exercise their right to vote as a result, as a passport costs $165 to acquire and tens of millions of Americans do not have access to the original copy of their birth certificate.

Many voters, especially in rural areas, also live several hours away from their election office, and around 69 million married women have different legal names than the ones on their birth certificates.

Only two states, Georgia and Arizona, have historically enforced laws requiring voters to prove their citizenship with documents. But according to the Center for American Progress, 12 more have enacted provisions similar to those in the SAVE America Act since 2024, though many cannot be applied to federal elections and some have been blocked by courts.

New Hampshire, Wyoming, South Dakota, Ohio, Utah, Louisiana, and Florida have enacted laws requiring voters to prove their citizenship using physical documentation. Kansas, Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Indiana have enacted laws that can require certain voters flagged as potential noncitizens to present proof.

Following a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling on Monday in which two conservative justices joined the three liberals to rule that states can count mail ballots that arrive after Election Day as long as they are postmarked before, Trump put more pressure on Republican holdouts in the Senate.

“All Dumocrats, and our five Republican Senate Hold Outs, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Thom Tillis, Bill Cassidy, and Mitch McConnell must vote to SAVE OUR COUNTRY,” he wrote on Truth Social.

Cassidy (R-La.) wrote in response, “Mr. President, I don’t know which version of the SAVE America Act you’re referring to, but I am a cosponsor and support the latest version. I don’t know which staffer misled you, but thank you for your attention to this matter!!”

“Btw, it’s irresponsible to postpone signing the Housing bill due to the SAVE Act. We need to start delivering relief to people for the high cost of housing ASAP!!” the senator added.

In the Oval Office, Trump told reporters that all other bills, including the housing bill and the defense spending bill, were “a big yawn” in comparison to the SAVE America Act.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said that “as the midterm elections approach, Trump and his allies are working overtime to silence Americans’ votes” and vowed that “Senate Democrats will continue to do everything we can to protect free and fair elections, where everyone’s voice is heard.”