National Politics

By Phil Mattingly, Chief White House correspondent A White House facing the first full day of a special counsel investigation sought to maintain a business-as-usual attitude, highlighting what has become a central objective amid an uncertain and potentially perilous new reality. President Joe Biden welcomed Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio to the White House, making

By Katherine Dillinger, CNN Dr. David Kessler, chief science officer for the White House Covid-19 Response Team, is retiring, according to a statement from the US Department of Health and Human Services. “For decades, Dr. Kessler has worked tirelessly to address our nation’s most challenging public health issues, and his work during the COVID-19 pandemic

By Kara Scannell and Nicki Brown, CNN Former President Donald Trump denied sexually assaulting former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll and said he never pressured a woman to have sex with him in a deposition transcript that was unsealed Friday. “But it’s a false accusation. Never happened. Never would,” Trump said of Carroll’s allegation that

By Natasha Bertrand, Jennifer Hansler and Alex Marquardt, CNN The Biden administration is preparing to ask Congress to approve the sale of 40 F-16 fighter jets to Turkey, after weighing a Turkish request for the planes for more than a year, congressional sources familiar with the deliberations told CNN. If approved, the sale would be

By Devan Cole and Ariane de Vogue, CNN The Supreme Court agreed Friday to take up the case of a former US Postal Service worker who wants the justices to revisit a decades-old test for determining whether employers can deny religious accommodation requests. Conservatives have long sought to throw out the standard set in 1977,

By Maegan Vazquez, Marshall Cohen, MJ Lee, Arlette Saenz and Zachary Cohen, CNN It was an office fit for a former vice president working in Washington — dark hardwood floors, plush seating and a spacious desk set to a lofty backdrop of the Capitol building. This week, what took place inside that office — a

By Gabby Orr, CNN A three-way race for chairman of the Republican National Committee could deal another setback to a party looking to enter the 2024 cycle with a unified front. Each of the three candidates running for chair — incumbent Ronna McDaniel, California-based attorney Harmeet Dhillon and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell — confirmed to

By Kara Scannell and Devan Cole, CNN Investigations into the Trump Organization’s business practices are entering a new chapter and will “go as long as the facts and the law require,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg told CNN on Friday, even as he stressed that “a very important chapter” of the probe ended after the

By Kara Scannell, CNN A New York judge has given Steve Bannon until the end of February to find new lawyers to advise him in a criminal fraud case after the former Donald Trump aide’s attorney said there were “irreconcilable differences” and communications have broken down. Bannon attorney David Schoen said in court Thursday that

By Hannah Rabinowitz, CNN Attorney General Merrick Garland and Steve Dettelbach, the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), announced new regulations Friday that would subject pistol-stabilizing braces to additional regulations, including higher taxes, longer waiting periods and registration. Gun control proponents argue that stabilizing braces — which can be attached

By Clare Foran, CNN House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has invited President Joe Biden to deliver the annual State of the Union address to Congress on February 7, and the White House said Biden has accepted the invitation. “It is my solemn obligation to invite you to speak before a Joint Session of Congress on Tuesday,

By Nikki Carvajal and Tami Luhby, CNN The Treasury Department said Friday the US could default on its debt as soon as June, setting up one of the first major battles on Capitol Hill after Republicans took control of the House. The US will reach the debt limit on January 19 and then “extraordinary measures”

By Shawna Mizelle, CNN Lawmakers in the Missouri House of Representatives this week adopted a stricter dress code for women as part of a new rules package, and now requires them to cover their shoulders by wearing a jacket like a blazer, cardigan or knit blazer. The addition, which was proposed by Republican state Rep.

By Jennifer Hansler, CNN The US State Department’s top official for hostage and detainee issues quietly traveled to Venezuela last month as efforts to bring home Americans wrongfully detained there continue. Roger Carstens, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, visited the Venezuelan capital of Caracas shortly before Christmas, a US official and family members