National Politics

The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to pass a short-term funding bill to avert a government shutdown at the end of the week, buying more time for negotiations over sweeping legislation to keep the government funded along with additional pandemic relief. The final vote tally was 343-67. The stopgap bill, known as a continuing resolution,

In mid-November, as President Donald Trump railed against the election results, his wife, first lady Melania Trump publicly agreed with his sentiments. But privately, a handful of days after the final state tally, the first lady tasked an emissary with discreetly finding out what was available to her in terms of budget and staff allocation

President-elect Joe Biden sought to sell his choice for defense secretary, retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, to congressional Democrats who are balking at the prospect of waiving the requirement that the position be filled by someone who has been out of active-duty military service for at least seven years. Biden formally introduced Austin as his

Gen. Lloyd Austin, President-elect Joe Biden’s choice to lead the Pentagon, is poised to make history as the first Black secretary of defense and is “the person we need in this moment,” Biden says — but first, he will have to overcome resistance from the President-elect’s own party. The epic nature of Austin’s journey —

The Pentagon is expected to receive “just under 44,000 doses” of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine early next week, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Thomas McCaffery announced Wednesday, with the first doses going to medical personnel and a select number of senior leaders. “In the coming days, we expect the department to receive its

Georgia’s television viewers have been inundated with attack ads lambasting the four candidates in the state’s two critical Senate runoff elections. One race pits Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler against Democrat Raphael Warnock. The other pits Republican incumbent David Perdue against Democrat Jon Ossoff. Republicans have focused their barrage on Warnock, a prominent Black pastor they

Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe announced a bid for his old job on Wednesday, announcing a gubernatorial run that would make him one of only a handful of Virginia politicians to serve multiple terms as governor of the commonwealth. “This pandemic has given us big, tremendous challenges,” McAuliffe said. “I am running for governor again

We’ve entered the part of the negotiations over stimulus relief to the Covid-19 pandemic and its economic fallout where everyone is putting their ideas on the table. That’s productive, but with just nine days to go until the next spending deadline, there’s not much time left for it. There are a lot of proposals and

Congressional Republican leaders rejected a resolution that asserted that Joe Biden is president-elect, the latest effort by the Hill GOP to refuse to accept the election results even though it’s been clear for weeks that President Donald Trump lost. The rejection came Tuesday in a private meeting after House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer offered a

The House of Representatives on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a sweeping defense bill with a veto-proof majority after a veto threat from President Donald Trump sharply divided Republican lawmakers, forcing them to choose between loyalty to him and legislation that sets defense policy for the country. The vote, which broke down to 335-78, is a major

The repetitive and meritless legal challenges to the November 3 election results from President Donald Trump and his allies have sent one fundamental message: Millions of votes cast by their fellow Americans are worthless. Trump lawyers have argued for the widescale disenfranchisement of voters, including in Pennsylvania. So far, they have failed to convince the

Senate Democrats are uneasy about granting a rarely invoked waiver that would allow President-elect Joe Biden’s pick of retired Gen. Lloyd Austin to head the Defense Department, the first nominee to encounter resistance from senators in the incoming President’s own party. A number of top Democrats praised Austin’s service and credentials, and the historic nature

President-elect Joe Biden is expected to make two additional Cabinet announcements in the coming days by tapping Tom Vilsack to lead the Department of Agriculture and Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge as secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Vilsack’s nomination was confirmed by two sources familiar with the matter, one of whom said the announcement could

President-elect Joe Biden is expected to nominate Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge as secretary of Housing and Urban Development, two people familiar with the transition said, a decision that would add another African American woman to the ranks of his Cabinet. Fudge also had been under consideration for agriculture secretary, but in the last week the

The head of the NAACP planned to push President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to create the role of civil rights czar, following a model Biden has already established in naming John Kerry to a Cabinet-level position as a climate envoy, during a virtual meeting Tuesday. The proposal was to come during a

The Supreme Court on Tuesday denied a request from Pennsylvania Republicans to block certification of the commonwealth’s election results, delivering a near fatal blow to the GOP’s long-shot bid to invalidate President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. The Supreme Court’s action is a crushing loss for Trump, who has frequently touted the high court’s potential to overturn

President-elect Joe Biden introduced top members of his health team on Tuesday and announced the team’s key objectives when he takes office. “It’s a team of world-class experts at the top of their fields, crisis-tested, defined by a deep sense of duty, honor and patriotism. Already ready to jump in. They’ve been advising me, many

Chris Krebs, the former top administration official for cybersecurity, whom President Donald Trump fired after the election, is suing the Trump campaign and a lawyer working with the campaign to overturn the results of the election, accusing them of defamation. Krebs was fired after he said the election was the most secure in American history.

President-elect Joe Biden has named retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin as his nominee for secretary of defense, the Biden transition team announced Tuesday. The former commander of the US Central Command would make history as the first Black person to lead the Pentagon if confirmed by the US Senate. “Today, I ask Lloyd Austin to

The Army announced Tuesday that 14 senior officers will be punished following a probe that was initiated after the murder of a soldier and several other deaths at the Army’s Fort Hood base in Texas this year. The issues at Fort Hood are “directly related to leadership failures,” Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said. “I directed

The Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC affiliated with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, is overseeing the Peachtree PAC, a new political action committee that emerged in recent days to shape the US Senate runoffs in Georgia, officials tell CNN. The group will spend $43 million in new television and radio ad spending. That’s on

With the presidential election technically over, all eyes are now on Georgia. Not only has the state’s election process led to Republican infighting, but Georgia is also set to host two runoff elections that will determine control of the US Senate. Two of the four senatorial candidates, Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler and her Democratic challenger

President Donald Trump made yet another symbolic effort Tuesday to combat coronavirus — even as cases continue to rise and administration officials have admitted that the White House missed an opportunity to acquire more vaccine doses. On Tuesday, the President signed a largely symbolic executive order aimed at prioritizing the shipment of the coronavirus vaccine