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Republicans are hand-wringing over former President Donald Trump’s hand-picked candidate Herschel Walker entering a critical Senate race. Surprisingly, Mitch McConnell isn’t one of them. After vowing earlier this year to tangle with Trump if necessary to nominate electable GOP candidates in must-win Senate primaries, the Senate minority leader is tacitly blessing many of Trump’s endorsements. As McConnell surveys Trump’s picks in Senate battlegrounds, he's concluded that “I don't believe they're troubling.”

Ben Sasse is about to be censured by the Nebraska GOP for his antagonistic stance toward Donald Trump — again. But he doesn't care. As Sasse's fellow Republican critics of Trump fret over blowback from a base that demands loyalty to the ex-president, the senator isn't even trying to dissuade those seeking to punish him. Sasse conceded in an interview: “I assume I'm going to be censured on Saturday, but I haven't spent any time to talk anybody out of it.”

Chuck Schumer lost the first impeachment trial battle to Mitch McConnell. But the Democratic leader and his party insist they can still win the war. While Senate Majority Leader McConnell has locked up enough Republican votes to ignore demands for a bipartisan framework for President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, his Democratic counterpart is readying a counteroffensive. Schumer will force a series of votes designed to squeeze vulnerable Republicans and harm them on the campaign trail if they side with Trump. Democrats argue the half-dozen at-risk GOP senators will need some daylight between them and Trump to get reelected. And if...

Migrants are the “lifeblood” of America, not Americans and their children, says former top Democrat Sen. Harry Reid. “Immigrants are the lifeblood of our nation,” Reid said, ignoring the 4 million Americans who turn 18 this year in a homeland with 260 million Americans, 34 million legal immigrants and at least 11 million illegal migrants. Migrants, he said, “are our power and our strength.” Reid made the claim as he tried to slam President Donald Trump’s call on Oct. for a reform of the birthright citizenship rules. Reid led the Senate Democrats until 2016. His elevation of migrants above Americans...

Harry Reid on Wednesday said Donald Trump is "profoundly wrong" after the president quoted his 1993 position on revoking birthright citizenship in perhaps his harshest criticism of the president since leaving office... "... I(Harry) made a mistake" by proposing a bill to remove birthright citizenship from immigrants who entered the country illegally. In a speech on the Senate floor 25 years ago, Reid said "no sane country" would offer a "reward for being an illegal immigrant." Referring to that speech, Trump said Reid was correct "before he and the Democrats went insane and started with the Open Borders (which brings...

Democratic leaders need a unified caucus to put maximum pressure on a handful of holdout Republicans. Democrats have all the cover they need to vote in lockstep against Brett Kavanaugh. But a half-dozen of them have refused to go there, even after the pair of sexual assault allegations against the Supreme Court nominee. Democratic insiders are feeling more bullish than ever that the party’s 49 caucus members ultimately will oppose Kavanaugh. Yet the undeclared bloc of Democratic senators could be a problem for Democratic leaders, who want to put the weight of the nomination entirely on a handful of holdout...

Ted Cruz is taking some time off from the Senate to recover from a brutal presidential campaign. After returning to Washington last week to work on a defense policy bill, the Texas senator is spending this week back home. He'll miss votes on Zika funding legislation as well as appropriations bills...

The Club for Growth's PAC, after warning Republican candidates that backing Donald Trump could cost them the group's support, is giving conservatives a pass now that the business mogul has effectively locked up the nomination. Club for Growth Action, which has been spending millions to try and sink Trump, had told its preferred candidates and those vying for its support to stay away from Trump. But on Wednesday a spokesman for Club for Growth Action, said that with Ted Cruz and John Kasich out of the race, candidates are freed from those restrictions...

The Club for Growth is issuing a warning to its stable of congressional candidates this fall: Endorse Donald Trump and you might just lose your backing. . . More spending is expected over the next two weeks, which could be decisive in determining whether Trump is the nominee, sources at the Club said.

Senate Democrats will offer a pair of gun-related amendments to a budget bill on Thursday, seeking to put Republicans on record on the charged issue in the aftermath of Wednesday's mass shooting in California. At a special caucus meeting on Thursday morning, Democratic senators agreed to offer Legislation that would make it harder for people on the terrorism watch list to buy guns, and a re-vote on universal background checks that failed in 2013, senators and aides said. The votes could become major campaign fodder in next year's Senate races. A third amendment proposed by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid...

President Barack Obama’s Iran deal looks increasingly likely to survive a challenge from congressional Republicans after several swing Democrats said they would back the deal just as the Senate sped toward recess on Wednesday. Minutes after Senate leaders locked in an agreement to begin debating the nuclear deal on Sept. 8, Independent Maine Sen. Angus King came to the floor to announce his support for the agreement. King’s decision will make it hard for GOP opponents to block the lifting of legislative sanctions when the Senate votes no later than Sept. 17. Story Continued Below “This is the most difficult...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell concedes that there’s little congressional Republicans can do to fight the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of same-sex marriage nationwide, though he predicted a flurry of litigation aimed at protecting “religious liberty” in light of the decision. The Kentucky Republican has been a staunch opponent of same-sex marriage: He was one of just six Senate Republicans to sign an amicus brief urging the high court to reject federal protection of same-sex marriage. And though he reiterated to Kentucky TV station WDRB on Tuesday evening that his position has not changed, he also said there is...

Mitch McConnell is postponing a vote on the Senate’s Iran legislation in the face of an expected Democratic filibuster. The Senate majority leader has decided to delay a Tuesday vote on legislation that would allow Congress to approve or reject any nuclear agreement that global powers reach to scale back Iran’s nuclear ambitions. He informed the Senate Republican Conference of the decision on Thursday afternoon following Senate Democrats’ decision to vote against advancing the bill before March 24. “It is clear that Senate Democrats will filibuster their own bill—a bill they rushed to introduce before the White House cut a...

Sen. Kelly Ayotte returned home to New Hampshire Friday, planning to see “The Nutcracker” with her daughter this weekend. But there was an unexpected conflict: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Cruz, along with Utah Sen. Mike Lee, took to the floor Friday night to demand Republicans stop President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration and scuttled a bipartisan agreement to push back votes until Monday, effectively forcing the Senate to return for a rare weekend session and cast a marathon series of procedural votes. Senior Republicans say there’s a problem with Cruz’s strategy: The GOP lacks the votes to stop Obama...

Sen. Marco Rubio jumped into Iowa’s contested Senate primary on Monday, throwing his support behind conservative candidate Joni Ernst. After indicating in recent weeks that he would stay away from GOP primary season, the Florida senator decided to wade into one of the most consequential Senate races in the country by backing Ernst. Not only does Iowa hold the first-in-the-nation presidential caucus in 2016, but the state also will be central to the battle for the Senate this fall — unlike contested primaries in red states such as Oklahoma and Nebraska. Rubio made the announcement through his Reclaim America PAC...

Liz Cheney has not made a case for her challenge to Mike Enzi in a Wyoming Republican primary next year, former Sen. Olympia Snowe told POLITICO. The Maine Republican senator said the decision by Cheney to take on the genial third-term senator is “unfortunate,” given that Enzi travels home often and reflects his constituents’ conservative beliefs while also working “to do the right thing for the right reasons” legislatively. “There is no reason to challenge him. What is the basis? That he’s not working hard enough? He’s working very hard,” Snowe said. “That he’s not conservative enough? I think it’s...