National Politics

By Fredreka Schouten, CNN (CNN) — Billionaire Elon Musk donated a total of $15 million in June to super PACs favoring President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans ahead of next year’s midterm elections, new campaign finance reports show. The donations of $5 million each to MAGA Inc., the Senate Leadership Fund and the Congressional Leadership

By Kevin Liptak, CNN (CNN) — President Donald Trump said his foreign envoy Steve Witkoff will travel to Russia in the coming days as the president calls for an end to the conflict in Ukraine. Trump revealed Witkoff’s previously unknown travel plans during an event at the White House Thursday afternoon, where he also said

By Hannah Rabinowitz, CNN (CNN) — A Washington, DC, disciplinary board recommended Thursday that Jeffrey Clark, an attorney and longtime ally of President Donald Trump, should lose his law license for trying to include the Justice Department in Trump’s failed attempt to subvert the 2020 election results. The recommendation from Washington, DC’s board on professional

By Nicky Robertson, Morgan Rimmer, CNN (CNN) — Republican Sen. Josh Hawley on Thursday dismissed a dustup with President Donald Trump over a stock trading bill to a misunderstanding, saying he’d spoken with the president in the hours after he dressed him down as a “second-tier senator” and the pair had a good conversation. Trump

By Kevin Liptak, CNN (CNN) — President Donald Trump has been envisioning a new ballroom on the White House campus for a decade and a half. His dream is about to become a reality. Construction will begin in September on a $200 million, 90,000-square-foot ballroom, his press secretary announced Thursday, fulfilling a 15-year ambition by

By Tami Luhby, CNN (CNN) — President Donald Trump is ratcheting up the pressure on major drugmakers to bring their US prices in line with the far lower ones available to patients in other countries — though industry experts don’t expect the pharmaceutical companies to acquiesce. Trump sent letters to 17 major pharmaceutical company CEOs

By Devan Cole, CNN (CNN) — The federal judge in Tennessee overseeing Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s criminal case told the Trump administration on Thursday that officials must moderate their public comments about him to ensure he received a fair trial. The order from US District Judge Waverly Crenshaw comes a week after attorneys for Abrego Garcia,

By John Fritze, CNN Kansas City, Missouri (CNN) — Justice Brett Kavanaugh on Thursday defended the way the Supreme Court is handling the flood of emergency cases that has reached its docket during President Donald Trump’s administration, pushing back on mounting criticism that the court is often resolving those disputes with little to no explanation.

By Michael Williams, CNN (CNN) — The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Joe Kent to a top counterterrorism role, overcoming opposition from Democrats who described the retired Army Green Beret as a conspiracy theorist who has associated with White nationalists and other far-right extremists. Kent will lead the National Counterterrorism Center, which is tasked with analyzing

By Jennifer Hansler, CNN (CNN) — A group of Democratic lawmakers on Thursday pressed for answers from the heads of two private US-based companies whose personnel have worked at the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and who the lawmakers say have been accused of deadly violence against civilians seeking aid in the starving enclave. In a

By Betsy Klein, CNN (CNN) — A senior Trump administration official stated Thursday that President Donald Trump is not currently considering clemency for Jeffrey Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell after the president has repeatedly left the door open on the matter in recent weeks. “No leniency is being given or discussed. That’s just false. The President

By Eva McKend, CNN (CNN) — Former Vice President Kamala Harris will release a book in September about her historic campaign for president. “What the world saw on the campaign trail was only a part of the story,” Harris wrote in a social media post about the book’s release. The book — called “107 Days”

By Gloria Pazmino, CNN New York (CNN) — Zohran Mamdani spent the last hours of his wedding celebration in Uganda huddled remotely with his team after learning of New York’s deadliest mass shooting of the last 25 years. He returned this week to the biggest political test he’s faced since pulling off a stunning victory

By Eva McKend, CNN Virginia Beach, VA (CNN) — At a Filipino restaurant tucked into a strip mall in southeast Virginia, Winsome Earle-Sears stood this week before a crowd of longtime friends and supporters and talked about her background as an immigrant, Marine and Christian conservative. “In no other country is my story even possible,”

By Alayna Treene, Kyle Feldscher, CNN (CNN) — President Donald Trump was joined by professional athletes on Thursday as he signed an executive order that will expand on his council on sports, fitness and nutrition, including by reviving the Presidential Fitness Test in public schools. The event, which featured golfer Bryson DeChambeau, Kansas City Chiefs

By Sunlen Serfaty, Nayeli Jaramillo-Plata, CNN Washington (CNN) — Andrea Murzello has a doctorate in pharmacy and a stable job at a nonprofit. But she says she can’t afford to grow her family — not under the Trump administration’s latest student loan policy shift. She’s one of nearly 8 million borrowers who will see their

By Kevin Liptak, Alayna Treene, CNN (CNN) — President Donald Trump hasn’t found his recent phone calls with war-entangled leaders encouraging. “Very disappointed,” Trump said of his last conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose war in Ukraine is only escalating, despite Trump’s efforts to end it. “It was sort of disappointing,” Trump said Friday

CNN By Lauren Fox, Katelyn Polantz, Sarah Ferris, CNN (CNN) — Senate Democrats are using an arcane procedural tool to try to force the Department of Justice to release additional files from the Jeffrey Epstein case – the latest gambit to keep the issue front-and-center as lawmakers prepare for their month-long August recess. In a

By Kylie Atwood, Zachary Cohen, CNN (CNN) — The Trump administration is targeting Iran’s oil sales by sanctioning a vast shipping empire that is run by the son of a top political adviser to the country’s Supreme Leader, ramping up pressure on Iran following the US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites last month. “Today, Treasury

By Betsy Klein and Ethan Schenker, CNN (CNN) — The Trump administration has reached a multimillion-dollar agreement with Brown University to restore federal funding – its second major deal with an elite university after last week’s $221 million settlement with Columbia University. In return for Brown agreeing to several measures aimed at dismantling certain diversity,