Politics

By Melanie Zanona, Gabby Orr, Alex Rogers and Annie Grayer, CNN House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy sought to assuage House Republican concerns at a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill on Monday night, part of his campaign to lead the House GOP conference and possibly take the speakership in the next Congress. The California Republican and

By Zachary Cohen, Jeremy Herb and Kara Scannell, CNN The governments of six foreign countries, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, spent more than $700,000 at then-President Donald Trump’s Washington, DC, hotel over the first two years of his presidency, according to newly released accounting documents. The new documents offer concrete evidence

By Ariane de Vogue, CNN Supreme Court Reporter The Supreme Court cleared the way on Monday for the House select committee investigating the January 6 US Capitol attack to obtain the phone and text records of Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward. Ward served as a fake elector for Donald Trump in Arizona, one of

By Natasha Bertrand, CNN CIA Director Bill Burns met with his Russian intelligence counterpart, Sergey Naryshkin, in Ankara Monday as part of an ongoing effort by the US to “communicate with Russia on managing risk” and to discuss the cases of “unjustly detained US citizens,” a National Security Council spokesperson tells CNN. “We have been

By Daniella Diaz, Ted Barrett and Clare Foran, CNN Lawmakers are set to return on Monday after being away for several weeks campaigning for the crucial midterm elections. They face a jam-packed legislative to-do list before the new congressional session begins in January. With that in mind, Democratic leaders are eager to bring several bills

By Kate Bennett, CNN Former First Lady Michelle Obama said she thinks President Joe Biden is “doing a great job,” but stopped short of a full-throated endorsement for another White House run in a recent interview. “You know, I, I — I will have to see,” Obama said when asked if she hoped Biden would

By Paul LeBlanc, CNN Former President Donald Trump repeatedly told his onetime White House chief of staff, John Kelly, that he wanted the Internal Revenue Service to investigate his political foes, Kelly told The New York Times. Among the people Trump wanted to “get the I.R.S. on” were former FBI Director James Comey and former

By Kevin Liptak, CNN When President Joe Biden first declared that the United States had an obligation to protect Taiwan should China move on it, his words were written off by some as a casual, if unfortunate, mischaracterization of American policy. The fourth time Biden made the same statement, it was evident he wasn’t simply

By Kevin Liptak and MJ Lee, CNN President Joe Biden held a three-hour talk Monday with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, their first in-person encounter since Biden took office and an opportunity that both sides appeared to hope would lead to an improvement in rapidly deteriorating relations. Emerging afterward, Biden told reporters he was “open

By Gregory Clary, CNN Former Vice President Mike Pence said former President Donald Trump’s words on social media during the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol were “reckless” and criticized Trump for being “part of the problem” that day. Pence was asked on ABC News about Trump’s tweet during the attack that said

By Phil Mattingly, CNN Thirty-seven minutes after wrapping up a late-night gala dinner with Asian leaders — punctuated by plates of wild Mekong lobster and beef saraman — an aide handed President Joe Biden the phone. On the other end of the line was David Trone, the millionaire Maryland wine retailer who was thousands of

By Melanie Zanona and Manu Raju, CNN House and Senate Republicans are gearing up for a tense series of closed-door meetings this week as the GOP grapples with what went wrong in the midterms and decides the political fate of its current leaders, who are under fire following last week’s disappointing election results. With the

By Devan Cole, CNN House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Sunday that Republicans’ “horrible response” to the politically motivated attack on her husband last month might have turned off some voters in last week’s midterm elections. “It wasn’t just the attack. It was the Republican reaction to it, which was disgraceful,” the California Democrat told CNN’s