The Trump campaign’s options to dispute the election have largely evaporated, but that hasn’t stopped some of the President’s supporters from trying to gum up election certifications in battleground states. In Michigan, two Republican members of the canvassing board in Wayne County — which includes Detroit — on Tuesday temporarily blocked certification of the election
Continue Reading A handful of current Trump administration officials, as well as some political appointees who left in recent months, have quietly started to reach out to members of President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team, according to people briefed on the matter. The outreach is a sign that President Donald Trump’s refusal to concede the election and the
Continue Reading William Hartmann, a Republican member of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers who temporarily blocked certification of election results in the Michigan county, has recently shared conspiracy theories about the election and Covid-19 on Facebook, CNN has found. He also shared racist posts about President Barack Obama during his presidency. On Tuesday, he was one
Continue Reading The US military reported a record high number of coronavirus cases on Tuesday with 1,314 new cases, according to Defense Department statistics. There are currently about 25,000 active Covid-19 cases in the ranks, and another 44,390 service members have recovered from the virus, according to the Pentagon. The number of military cases has grown over
Continue Reading Some of the last remaining stimulus programs for the unemployed, renters and student loan borrowers are set to expire by the end of December unless Congress or President Donald Trump takes action. While Congress moved swiftly to deliver trillions of dollars in pandemic relief programs when the country first shut down in March, a lot
Continue Reading Two more House members announced Wednesday they have tested positive for Covid-19 and are isolating, the latest in a string of diagnoses that have hit Capitol Hill. The cases brings CNN’s tally to 26 House members and eight senators that have so far tested positive or been presumed positive. Rep. Dan Newhouse, a Republican from
Continue Reading Three top ethics experts and prominent critics of President Donald Trump on Wednesday formally requested the Senate Ethics Committee investigate whether Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina violated the chamber’s rules in his probe over how mail-in voting was conducted in the 2020 presidential election. In a letter, Walter Shaub, a former top ethics
Continue Reading While incidences of Covid spike across the country, the Supreme Court is once again considering arguments from houses of worship that say pandemic-related restrictions are violating their religious freedom rights. The two latest cases arise out of New York as a Roman Catholic Diocese in Brooklyn and a group of Orthodox synagogues are challenging Democratic
Continue Reading The Trump campaign filed for a limited recount of two Wisconsin counties on Wednesday in a long-shot bid to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the state. The campaign is limiting its Wisconsin recount requests to Milwaukee County and Dane County, according to a press release from the campaign. CNN projected that Biden will win
Continue Reading New York was called early on election night for President-elect Joe Biden, but if the Empire State had been a presidential battleground, the drama that gripped the country for a few days might now be stretching into its third week. There is no state slower at counting its ballots and, despite Democratic control of the
Continue Reading Several women who worked on Joe Biden’s campaign are being considered for top White House communications roles in the Biden-Harris administration, sources with knowledge of the deliberations tell CNN. Karine Jean-Pierre, a senior adviser to Biden’s campaign who later served as chief of staff to Kamala Harris, and Symone Sanders, who served as a senior
Continue Reading House Democrats nominated Nancy Pelosi to serve as speaker in the next session of Congress in leadership elections on Wednesday. A full House floor vote for the speakership will take place in January, and Pelosi is poised to remain in the top leadership post for House Democrats. At a news conference, Pelosi appeared to affirm
Continue Reading WASHINGTON, DC — A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from turning back unaccompanied migrant children at the U.S.-Mexico border under a public health order implemented in March, a major blow to the administration, which has relied on the order to swiftly expel migrants during the coronavirus pandemic. Earlier this year, as coronavirus swept
Continue Reading NEW YORK, NY — A federal judge in New York who ruled over the weekend that the new DACA rules were invalid tore into the Trump administration for its handling of the program in a hearing Wednesday, calling the latest government actions a “sad and inappropriate use of executive authority.” “I just want you to
Continue Reading America is at an unsettling moment, with a resurgent pandemic and a president who refuses to accept the results of a national election. Most schoolchildren remain out of the classroom, people are working from their living rooms, restaurants are half-empty, social gatherings largely scaled back. Yet one tradition will continue as planned: The President of
Continue Reading Rep. Adam Kinzinger on Wednesday said he believes his Republican colleagues are “waiting” until President Donald Trump “comes to terms” with the fact that he lost the presidential election before they openly recognize Joe Biden as the next president. Asked by CNN’s John Berman on “New Day” when his colleagues would openly say it’s time
Continue Reading A bipartisan panel in Michigan’s largest county unanimously certified its presidential results on Tuesday night, a stunning reversal hours after Republicans had temporarily blocked certification based on dubious claims of voting irregularities in Detroit. The Wayne County Board of Canvassers initially deadlocked 2-2 on whether to certify the results, with two Democrats voting to certify
Continue Reading Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Wednesday said it was “mind-boggling” that Republicans on the state’s most populous county board tasked with certifying election results would initially refuse to recognize President-elect Joe Biden’s clear victory because of baseless claims of voter fraud. Whitmer, a Democrat, was responding on CNN’s “New Day” to the shocking decision Tuesday
Continue Reading The family of an American kidnapped in Afghanistan earlier this year expressed their fears he may be left behind after the Trump administration announced they are withdrawing more troops from the country over the next few months. “We want to see US troops come home, but my brother is a Navy veteran and the same
Continue Reading President-elect Joe Biden has assembled a team that will lead the confirmation battles for his nominees in the Senate. The team’s formation comes as the former vice president prepares to build out his Cabinet in the coming weeks. The confirmation process could mark the Biden team’s first political showdowns in the Senate, including with Senate
Continue Reading Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who is 87 years old, tweeted Tuesday that he tested positive for Covid-19 on Tuesday, after saying earlier he would self isolate after a possible exposure. “I’ve tested positive for coronavirus,” Grassley wrote. “I’ll (be) following my doctors’ orders/CDC guidelines & continue to quarantine. I’m feeling good + will
Continue Reading President Donald Trump on Tuesday fired the Department of Homeland Security official who had rejected Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud. Trump announced on Twitter he was firing Chris Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and directly tied it to Krebs’ statement that said there “is no evidence that any voting
Continue Reading Rudy Giuliani, representing President Donald Trump’s campaign, tried to deliver a sweeping broadside against mail-in voting Tuesday in a federal courtroom, only to face questions from a judge who suggested that the President’s campaign shouldn’t even be in court. Judge Matthew Brann of the Middle District of Pennsylvania hasn’t yet ruled on whether the Trump
Continue Reading The Department of Homeland Security tried to self-correct its line of succession for the second time in the last three months over concerns about acting Secretary Chad Wolf’s authority. Over the weekend, a federal judge ruled Wolf was not legally serving as acting secretary when he signed rules limiting applications and renewals for the Deferred
Continue Reading President Donald Trump’s order of a further withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and Iraq is the latest foreign policy move on a growing list in his final weeks in office that are meant to limit President-elect Joe Biden’s options before he takes office in January. The White House has directed newly installed acting Defense
Continue Reading Student loan borrowers haven’t had to make payments since March — but that piece of federal pandemic relief is set to expire on December 31, unless President Donald Trump or Congress act to extend it. If neither push the deadline back, millions of student loan payments will come due a couple of weeks before President-elect
Continue Reading President Donald Trump finally has something legitimate to take credit for in his coronavirus response: A vaccine that appears poised to reach Americans in record time. The federal government poured billions into developing and manufacturing vaccine candidates in the hopes they would prove safe and effective. The pricey gamble appears to be paying off, with
Continue Reading President Donald Trump’s agenda listed “no public events” on Tuesday — the 10th time since the election that those words have appeared on his daily schedule. He has answered no questions from reporters, invited no cameras into the Oval Office and ventured no further than his namesake golf course, 25 miles from the White House
Continue Reading The top three highest-ranking House Republicans will remain in their leadership posts in the 117th session of Congress following elections held on Tuesday. Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California was reelected by the members of the Republican conference to continue on as House GOP leader, while his deputies — GOP Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana and
Continue Reading Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina acknowledged on Tuesday that his efforts to probe state officials went beyond Georgia into two other states where Democratic President-elect Joe Biden also won, while President Donald Trump sought to discredit the result of the election. Graham, a top Trump ally, defended his outreach to officials in Arizona,
Continue Reading