Politics

By Jennifer Hansler, CNN Baghdad (CNN) — US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made an unannounced visit to Iraq Friday to meet with Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani as the international community grapples with the implications of the Syrian government’s collapse. Blinken met with Sudani for more than an hour in Baghdad — the latest

CNN By Katelyn Polantz, Paula Reid and Hannah Rabinowitz, CNN (CNN) — President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly pledged to pardon US Capitol rioters on Day One, but one month before Inauguration Day it’s not clear who among the hundreds of convicted rioters, defendants awaiting trial and remaining fugitives would receive clemency. Trump advisers are still

By Katelyn Polantz, Paula Reid and Hannah Rabinowitz, CNN (CNN) — President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly pledged to pardon US Capitol rioters on Day One, but one month before Inauguration Day it’s not clear who among the hundreds of convicted rioters, defendants awaiting trial and remaining fugitives would receive clemency. Trump advisers are still solidifying

By Marshall Cohen, CNN (CNN) — Nevada prosecutors have refiled criminal charges against the six Republican “fake electors” who tried to overturn Donald Trump’s 2020 defeat in that state. The retooled charges were announced Thursday by Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, a Democrat. His original case, filed last year, was thrown out by a Las

By Kristen Holmes, Alayna Treene, Kate Sullivan and Steve Contorno, CNN (CNN) — Donald Trump, eager to turn his inauguration into a global event, is personally extending invitations to some foreign leaders, including heads of state that have clashed with the United States in the recent past. Already, Trump has asked Chinese President Xi Jinping

By Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck, CNN (CNN) — President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Ed Martin, a hardline, socially conservative activist and commentator, to serve as the next chief of staff at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). As CNN first reported in July, Martin has publicly advocated for a national abortion ban without

By Jennifer Hansler and Haley Britzky, CNN (CNN) — The Biden administration is working to surge deliveries of weapons to Ukraine in its final days in office in a concerted effort to put Kyiv on a strong footing going into 2025, according to a senior administration official. The push is in stark contrast to that

By Haley Britzky, CNN (CNN) — The rate of sexual assaults in US military academies “significantly decreased” in 2024, a new Pentagon report released on Thursday said, down from the highest rate ever recorded in 2022. But officials warned that more work was still needed, as the latest data still indicates a higher rate of

By Manu Raju, Sarah Ferris and Ali Main, CNN Washington (CNN) — Democratic Sen. John Fetterman said he expects to bring up a series of allegations against Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth, when the two men sit down for their first meeting later Thursday. “I know there haven’t been any formal

By Aaron Pellish, Haley Britzky and Katie Lobosco, CNN (CNN) — Accompanying his selection as Time’s Person of the Year, President-elect Donald Trump sat down with the magazine for a wide-ranging interview that published on Thursday. The president-elect, fresh off his election victory and recognized by the magazine as its Person of the Year for

By Annie Grayer and Pamela Brown, CNN Washington (CNN) — As Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy make sweeping promises to cut $2 trillion dollars of federal spending, senior House Republicans have raised concerns with GOP leadership that efforts to cut wasteful federal spending will put the party on a collision course. Senior House Republicans, including

By Katelyn Polantz, CNN (CNN) — An FBI informant accused of lying about the Biden family has cut a plea deal with special counsel David Weiss, the prosecutor who led the criminal probe into Hunter Biden. Alexander Smirnov is set to plead guilty to four charges, including tax evasion and obstructing justice by providing false

By Kristen Holmes, Manu Raju, Jeremy Herb, Lauren Fox and Jeff Zeleny, CNN (CNN) — Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota is the kind of Republican who has been willing to clash with Donald Trump in the past and could be seen as wavering on some of the president-elect’s more controversial choices for his Cabinet.

By Gregory Krieg and Gloria Pazmino, CNN (CNN) — The victor of a cutthroat primary for mayor in 2021, New York City’s Eric Adams rushed to embrace national political stardom. He declared himself the “face of the new Democratic Party” and, after an early invitation to the White House from President Joe Biden, dropped a

By Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck, CNN (CNN) — Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, has repeatedly criticized policies allowing gay people to serve openly in the US military, calling them part of a “Marxist” agenda to prioritize social justice over combat readiness. In his 2024 book “The War on Warriors”

By MJ Lee, CNN (CNN) — President Joe Biden announced Thursday that he is commuting the sentences of some 1,500 individuals and pardoning 39 people convicted of non-violent crimes – marking a broad use of the presidential clemency power just weeks from the end of Biden’s administration. White House officials are billing Thursday’s move as

By Betsy Klein, CNN (CNN) — First lady Jill Biden is looking to a post-White House future building on work she began while in office to shine a light on women’s health, a chronically underfunded and under-researched space – and one impacting half the population. At a White House event Wednesday, geneticist Dr. Marlena Fejzo

By Arit John, CNN (CNN) — Republicans in the North Carolina House pushed through a measure restricting the powers of the incoming governor and other Democrats, overriding outgoing Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto. The bill passed with 72 members voting for the override and 46 against. Three House Republicans who opposed the measure last month