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President Trump’s scuttling of a hearing to review his pick for director of national intelligence has once again plunged Congress into chaos over who will lead the intelligence community and how lawmakers can renew the nation’s lapsed spy powers. The Senate spent the morning ping-ponging over whether members would even hear from nominee Jay Clayton, who serves as a U.S. attorney. Trump said the hearing was canceled, but Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), an ally of the president, initially rebuffed him, saying the hearing would still go on. Cotton later backtracked and announced the “regrettable” decision that the...

Republican senators are growing tired of the White House throwing curveballs into things they want to get done. For example, many Republican senators want a now-lapsed surveillance law that allows intelligence agencies to spy on foreign threats to be reauthorized. The problem? They need Democratic support to overcome a filibuster in the Senate. President Trump has now twice thwarted efforts to win over that support. The first time he named Bill Pulte, the controversial head of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac who had no intelligence experience, as acting director of national intelligence. Democrats and Republicans alike howled in protest. Trump...

President Trump joked Wednesday that he will blame Vice President Vance if the preliminary deal with Iran falls through. “I like that idea, sure,” Trump said when asked by Fox News’s Peter Doocy if his vice president would take the fall if the deal fails. “If it works out, I’m going to take the credit. If it doesn’t work out, I’m blaming JD. You better be careful, JD. He’s going to turn his plane around and get the hell out of here,” he joked

Records show the price tag for the White House ballroom is rising to $600 million, with half of the costs funded by taxpayer dollars, according to a new report from The Washington Post. The news comes months after President Trump said private donors would pay for the $400 million initiative to construct a new ballroom in place of the East Wing. At the end of March, Trump told reporters “We’re donating a building that’s approximately $400 million.”

President Trump on Thursday suggested the federal government could “take back” Washington if the democratic socialist candidate wins the race to replace outgoing Mayor Muriel Bowser. “I wouldn’t like it — and maybe we take back Washington, run it on the federal basis,” Trump said when asked what he would do if a “crazy socialist” were elected to the role. “We won’t put up with it. We’re not going to lose our businesses,” he told reporters during an Oval Office event. The president did not directly name the candidate, but he is likely talking about D.C. Council member Janeese Lewis...

Hunter Biden has burst back onto the political scene with a social media spree marked by crude responses to Republican critics and self-deprecating humor about his troubled personal life. As the son of former President Biden, his return to the public eye has quickly drawn the attention of hundreds of thousands of followers on the social platform X in a matter of weeks. After spending most of his father’s presidential term under a cloud of controversy, social media users are flocking to Hunter Biden’s posts about a myriad of subjects — from resources for addicts to cryptocurrency to attacks on...

President Trump on Wednesday endorsed a third $350 billion reconciliation bill, urging Congress to “IMMEDIATELY” pass it with the Save America Act included. “I am hereby calling on Republicans in Congress to IMMEDIATELY advance and pass the forthcoming $350 Billion Reconciliation Bill (Recon 3.0) — which, at the request of our Great Department of War — will include THE SAVE AMERICA ACT as well,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “No games, no delays, and no weak compromises! Do this ASAP,” he added. His comments come a day after Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Senate...

But voters were also asked in the online survey conducted by YouGov: "Which of the following outcomes would you prefer occur on November 3, 2020? Donald Trump wins re-election or A giant meteor strikes the earth, extinguishing all human life." Sixty-two percent of Democrats picked the meteor, while 38 percent chose a second term for Trump.

President Trump denied Friday that he campaigned on avoiding “endless” wars, as he seeks to reach a deal to end hostilities with Iran. “I didn’t promise anything. I don’t like these endless wars. This is not an endless war,” he told host Kristen Welker on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” in an interview that aired Sunday. “We’ve been doing this for three months,” Trump added, referring to the Iran conflict that began on Feb. 28. “Much of it has been under… a pretty good form of ceasefire.” The president later said that he would “not have built the strongest military in...

The Trump administration on Friday auctioned off rights to drill in a pristine wildlife refuge in Alaska, but the lease sale attracted only two bidders on a few tracts of land. Of the about 60 tracts of land opened up for leasing by the Trump administration, only five received bids.

After Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) defeated Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate last month, it wasn’t surprising that Republicans launched a barrage of attacks against Democratic nominee James Talarico. What was surprising, though, and troubling, is that they attacked not Talarico’s record or past rhetoric, but his masculinity. Paxton got things rolling on election night, calling him “Tofu Talarico,” “James Tala-freako,” and “low-T Talarico.” Trump aide Stephen Miller piled on, suggesting that Talarico was transgender. Others insinuated that he was secretly gay and that his girlfriend was fictional. (This is a bold strategy, because...

Ukrainian soldiers are racing against time to achieve a breakthrough in the southeast before the rainy and cold weather kicks in and worsens fighting conditions, which could happen as soon as next month. The counteroffensive is unlikely to end just because of poor weather, but it is expected to complicate the fighting and slow down operations. Ukraine is stressing the weather will not impact the overall military operation, but some analysts expect the war could soon shift into a new phase. Mathieu Boulegue, a nonresident senior fellow with the Transatlantic Defense and Security Program at the Center for European Policy...

The Democratic candidate in the Texas Senate race has a slight edge over his Republican opponent in a new poll released Friday. Forty-seven percent of likely general election voters in the state backed state Rep. James Talarico (D) in the poll from Texas Public Opinion Research, compared with 44 percent for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R). Nearly a third of the respondents who voted for Cornyn in the runoff indicated in the poll that they will support the Democratic nominee in the November election. A plurality — 44 percent — of these voters said they will now choose Paxton,...

Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner is leading Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) in the race for her seat by 7 points, according to a new poll. In the Pan Atlantic Research poll, 48 percent of likely voters said they back Platner in a hypothetical matchup, while 41 percent said they support Collins. Eleven percent were undecided. When broken down by gender, 53 percent of women respondents backed Platner and 34 percent supported Collins. Men surveyed, meanwhile, said they support Collins over Platner, with 47 percent backing the incumbent and 44 percent supporting her potential challenger. The Democratic Party establishment was...

Democrats have spent nearly a decade in fight mode against President Trump. And some in the party worry that they may remain trapped there. An autopsy released by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) on Thursday underscored the point, saying that Democrats relied too heavily on negative partisanship and became too dependent on attacks on Trump in their messaging to voters.The report also stated that “anti-Trump sentiment” has its limitations in terms of achieving electoral success. As they were hammering Trump in their anger, Democrats did not provide a vision to lure voters to their side or an argument for what...

Key Senate Republicans are raising concerns about a reported peace deal being negotiated with Iran, arguing it would be a disaster for the United States that would make meaningless the war launched by President Trump nearly three months ago. “The rumored 60-day ceasefire — with the belief that Iran will ever engage in good faith — would be a disaster,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, wrote in a post on social platform X. He said the effects of the joint military operation between the U.S. and Israel titled “Operation Epic Fury” would “be...

Senate Republicans on Tuesday vented their frustration and disappointment over President Trump’s decision to endorse state Attorney General Ken Paxton over Sen. John Cornyn (R) in the Texas Senate Republican primary, a move that deals a crushing blow to Cornyn’s hopes of winning the May 26 runoff. “I don’t understand. He is an ethically challenged individual,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said of Paxton, who was charged with defrauding investors in a Dallas-area tech startup before he completed a pretrial diversion program. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said she was “supremely disappointed” in Trump’s endorsement of Paxton over Cornyn. “I don’t understand...

The Trump administration and GOP lawmakers are seeking to win over U.S. farmers, a core constituency for the president during his 2016 and 2024 White House wins that has been aggravated by rising prices caused by his trade policies and the Iran war. Ahead of a midterm election season where the GOP is working to win every vote it can, the White House and its allies in Congress are reaching out to farmers in red and blue states alike. On the way back from Beijing after his summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, President Trump assured farmers that they would...

“When President Xi very elegantly referred to the United States as perhaps being a declining nation, he was referring to the tremendous damage we suffered during the four years of Sleepy Joe Biden and the Biden Administration, and on that score, he was 100% correct,” [ snip ] Trump did not point to a specific comment made by Xi. But the post comes after his Chinese counterpart, in opening remarks at a U.S.-China bilateral meeting, questioned if the two nations could overcome the “Thucydides Trap” — a theory suggesting that when a rising power threatens to displace an established one,...

President Trump ripped The New York Times on Tuesday morning over a report detailing the ballooning cost of his project to repair and renovate the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. “The Failing New York Times, which is one of the worst newspapers anywhere in the World, and is losing subscribers on an hourly basis, is now at it again,” Trump wrote in a lengthy, early-morning Truth Social post. “Just like they covered my Landslide 2024 Presidential Election Victory inaccurately, and without shame, constantly making major mistakes and incorrect predictions at every path along the way, they are now trying to justify...