Politics

CNN Editorial Research Here’s a look at the life of US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. Personal Birth date: December 13, 1950 Birth place: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Full name: Thomas James Vilsack Father: Bud Vilsack Mother: Dolly Vilsack Marriage: Christie (Bell) Vilsack (1973-present) Children: Jess and Doug Education: Hamilton College, B.A., 1972; Albany Law School J.D.,

By Manu Raju and Melanie Zanona, CNN House Republicans are plotting tactics for their new majority and weighing how to use their leverage to enact a laundry list of demands, with many zeroing in on an issue with enormous economic implications: Raising the nation’s borrowing limit. It’s an issue confronting House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy,

By Hannah Rabinowitz and Holmes Lybrand, CNN One week after the historic seditious conspiracy conviction of Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, federal prosecutors will try to once again prove that other members of the far-right militia were planning to violently stop Congress from certifying the 2020 presidential election. This time, however, prosecutors face a new

By Gregory Krieg and Eric Bradner, CNN The final drama of the 2022 midterm elections is coming to a head in Georgia on Tuesday, as Peach State voters — for the second time in as many years — cast ballots in a high-stakes US Senate runoff. Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock was the leading vote-getter in

By Ali Zaslav and Ted Barrett, CNN Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock will win Georgia’s Senate runoff, CNN projects, allowing Democrats to secure a slim 51-49 majority over Republicans in the chamber. Democrats will have significant governing advantages compared to the 50-50 split in the current Congress, during which a power-sharing agreement gives Republicans considerable leverage

By Joan Biskupic, CNN Senior Supreme Court Analyst When Chief Justice William Rehnquist helped decide the 2000 presidential election, his radical legal theory failed to gain a majority. But today’s conservative court is giving it another chance, in a case that could transform elections in 2024 and beyond. Back in 2000, the justices by a

By Joan Biskupic, CNN Senior Supreme Court Analyst At the Supreme Court, the conservative majority seems to have a new mantra that half way is no way. From the beginning of oral arguments on Monday, it appeared the Supreme Court’s conservatives had come to the bench with their minds set. They sidestepped the lack of

By Ariane de Vogue, CNN Supreme Court Reporter As the Supreme Court gathered for more than two hours on Monday to discuss whether a graphic designer can refuse to do business with same-sex couples, the justices somehow strayed into dueling hypotheticals concerning Black and White Santas and dating websites. Hypotheticals are nothing new at the

By Clare Foran, Manu Raju and Ted Barrett, CNN Republicans returned to Washington on Monday facing a familiar drama that has played out continually in the Trump years: GOP members forced to confront a controversy that they would rather ignore. After days of silence over former President Donald Trump’s call to terminate the Constitution, several

By Shania Shelton and Maeve Reston, CNN Vice President Kamala Harris will swear in Karen Bass as the 43rd mayor of Los Angeles in an inauguration ceremony on Sunday in a meeting of two Democratic women who have broken barriers in politics. Bass will make history as the first female mayor of Los Angeles, also

By Gabby Orr and Kristen Holmes, CNN Back in 2015, Donald Trump‘s first campaign rally in Iowa as a contender for the Republican presidential nomination came just 10 hours after he declared his candidacy in New York. The following day, he was across the country in New Hampshire, with plans to visit South Carolina before

By Priscilla Alvarez and Daniella Diaz, CNN Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have landed on an initial framework intended to bolster border security and provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children, sources told CNN. Democrats have been betting

By Kara Scannell and Michelle Watson, CNN A federal judge has thrown out bribery and fraud charges against former New York Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin, saying the prosecutors did not allege a sufficient quid pro quo. Benjamin, a Democrat, has had three of the five charges against him dismissed, a court filing and docket shows.