Michael Warren

The outgoing U.N. ambassador sounds a lot like someone running for something.

The outgoing U.N. ambassador will stay in New York and says she wants to be a "voice" on foreign policy.

What is 'vote harvesting,' anyhow? And why did Arizona ban it?

The GOP can’t even win in Orange County.

Office of Legal Counsel says Whitaker’s designation “comports with the terms of the Vacancies Reform Act.”

Trump can maybe eke out victory in 2020 by trading suburban votes for greater rural turnout, but that doesn’t solve his House problem.

The suburbs spell trouble for Trump.

The special counsel investigation is now under the purview of acting AG Matthew Whitaker.

He just doesn't realize it yet.

There are questions as to whether she will serve the entire six years.

Another suburban Republican goes down.

Tennessee Republicans had a good night, clinching both of the marquee statewide races and further dimming Democrats’ hopes of getting control of the U.S. Senate. In the governor’s race, Republican businessman Bill Lee has defeated Democrat Karl Dean, the former mayor of Nashville. Lee will be the…

The district has been trending toward Democrats in recent years.

Stewart’s alignment with far-right figures likely depressed his chances of statewide appeal.

The Trump administration is directing transaction network to cut off Iranian banks.

But one of the biggest state-level elections may be headed to a runoff after next Tuesday.

The former president raises questions about whether the secretary of state is too compromised to oversee an election in which he’s campaigning.

The voter-suppression rap on Georgia’s Brian Kemp is unfair.

Marsha Blackburn finally seems to be pulling ahead in the Senate race.

And then they'll act.

Another win for Israel and Trump.

Marsha Blackburn, the Republican Senate candidate in Tennessee, doesn’t have much disagreement with Donald Trump. “Tennessee needs a senator who is going to support President Donald Trump, and I am going to be there to stand with President Donald Trump,” she said at a rally with the president…

America's favorite septuagenarian socialist is back—Bernie Sanders is getting ready for another White House bid.

But Phil Bredesen says he thinks the chances his party wins a Senate majority are "minuscule."

The first time I felt it was in the first grade. I wasn’t in Mrs. Conn’s class, but she reprimanded me for talking back as we stood in line in the lunchroom. The feeling, a cold burn, rose briefly in my chest before sinking down, down, down, into the pit of my stomach. Woooop, went the Big Sink.…

The outgoing U.N. ambassador does not mention her future plans.

Taylor Swift finally gets political.

Are California’s Democrats really charting a future path for the rest of the country?

Source tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD that comment about wearing a wire was ‘sarcastic.’

Hillary Clinton would never have spoken at a political venue—oh. Nevermind.

Michael Warren reviews Bob Woodward’s book about life in Trump World

Pompeo, Coats, Pence, Mattis, and others have issued statements distancing themselves from the article.

It’s only been online for a few hours, but the anonymous New York Times op-ed penned by a “senior official in the Trump administration” has set off a frenzy of guessing about who is claiming to be one of the people “working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst…

It’s only been online for a few hours, but the anonymous New York Times op-ed penned by a “senior official in the Trump administration” has set off a frenzy of guessing about who is claiming to be one of the people “working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst…

With an eye toward helping its native sons (and daughter), California moves its presidential primary.

With Bloomberg denying, could it be someone within the West Wing?

After Manafort and Cohen, the Democrats are struggling not to overreach.

With the Cohen-Manafort one-two punch, Trump’s choices come back to haunt him in a big way.

It’s been a while since a New York Times story has spun up Donald Trump enough to prompt an angry tweet storm. On Saturday, the Times published a lengthy report on the cooperation of White House counsel Don McGahn with Robert Mueller’s office of the special counsel. The paper reported that over the…

You know how movie studios cherry-pick quotes from negative reviews to make them sound positive? It's just like that.

Can a high-profile former governor and presidential hopeful find happiness as a hardworking energy secretary?

It's long been suspected that Trump took the unprecedented step of having his White House staff sign NDA's. For the first time, it's now been confirmed.

“What’s happening today is part of a coordinated campaign of pressuring Tehran.”

Press secretary says the president's call for the attorney general to fire special counsel

Mere days ago he condemned Hassan Rouhani’s ‘demented words of violence & death' in a tweet.

Giuseppe Conte heads a right-wing and populist coalition government

The White House press secretary’s statement seemingly came out of nowhere: “Not only is the president looking to take away [former CIA director John] Brennan's security clearance,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday. “He's also looking into the clearances of Comey, Clapper, Hayden, Rice, and…

Is there anything with a shorter shelf life than the official talking points of the Trump White House? For Donald Trump, it’s the script to go off script, and any statement he makes today will be altered, contradicted, or undone tomorrow.

Putin has already won.

The disgraced FBI agent's high-minded self-defense is hard to take seriously, but Republicans present no evidence that he did anything to stop Trump.

President Trump tweeted the news Thursday afternoon.

The Patriot Legal Expense Fund is here to help Trumpworld.

Driving on Interstate 85 between Atlanta and Charlotte through the northern third of South Carolina, aka the “Upstate,” you’ll definitely see that giant peach-shaped water tower in Gaffney that looks like, er, something else. But after you’re done laughing (or cringing) at this symbol of the…

Anyone who read Charles Krauthammer’s writing, saw him speak on television, or knew anything about his incredible life story could tell you he was exceedingly intelligent. Those who knew Charles well also speak about his dry sense of humor. I often think of the time I witnessed Charles combine…

Nothing good is likely to come from Trump’s tariffs.

Kim "wants to make his country great."

The former Goldman Sachs executive also says retalitory tariffs could undo the benefits of tax reform.

Did John Bolton sign off on this?

The big takeaways from the joint Trump-Kim communique.

Watching the president’s trade messaging shift in real time.

Mike Pence and John Bolton are on the bench.

White House press secretary faced several questions Monday after the NYT reported that Trump's legal team said he did dictate the statement.

Why should the U.S. trust Kim ever again?

"The Singapore summit . . . will not take place."

The Justice Department and House Republicans achieve détente Thursday.

But there's little reason to think the president doesn't want to go to Singapore on June 12.

Mick Mulvaney says he'd take the chief of staff job if offered, and Michael Anton defends the upcoming North Korea summit.

The president surfaces concerns about "infiltration" of his campaign by the FBI.

Looking back at the day that changed the Trump presidency.

But is it just sound and fury from Kim?

Paul Ryan's deadline fast approaches.

And Gina Haspel picks up another Democratic vote.

The president may be prematurely spiking the football.

Meet the new swamp.

Trump's CIA pick to face a tough Senate hearing.

The president will speak from the White House Tuesday afternoon to announce a decision that will affect the future of the Iran nuclear deal.

The Washington Post reports Gina Haspel tried to withdraw on Friday.

Scott Gottlieb is Trump's "star" at the FDA who even has liberals singing his praises.

Trump’s FDA chief hasn’t been much in the news—and that’s a good thing.

The newest Trump legal team member makes a stunning admission.

The House speaker credits Trump administration's pressure campaign for progress with Kim regime.

Scott Walker said Monday he would be willing to campaign alongside President Trump in the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections. The Wisconsin governor, who is running for a third term this fall, spoke at THE WEEKLY STANDARD’s Midwest Conservative Summit in Milwaukee and told my colleague Charlie…

An executive order about Gitmo reaches a deadline.

Pompeo gets the Senate nod, but the headaches over confirmations may only get worse.

It may be all up to Trump.

Slapdash personnel decisions haunt the president and frustrate his party.

The retired general was passed over for Trump's national security adviser twice.

There's no sign Kim has agreed to "denuclearize" yet.

There remains a divide within the Trump administration about the goals and aims of the planned tariffs on Chinese imports. In the new issue of the magazine, I explore this tension between free-traders and protectionists within the White House, but I start by looking at the public comments, required…

The White House aims at Chinese trade practices, hits Americans.

Kellyanne Conway and Tom Cotton go to bat for the CIA director.

And Kudlow pulls back from TPP tease.

And the Cohen circus continues.

And a "Never Trump" aide backs out of Pence aide job.

The president zigs and zags on tariffs and TPP.

Tumult continues to plague the National Security Council and President Trump’s broader natsec team. On Wednesday, deputy national security adviser for strategy Nadia Schadlow tendered her resignation, just a few months after being tapped for the position to succeed Dina Powell. Schadlow had been a…

If Tom Bossert had any sense beforehand he would be out of a job on Tuesday, he didn’t show it over the weekend. President Trump’s homeland security adviser spoke on behalf of the White House about Syria and national security on ABC News’s This Week Sunday. And in an appearance later that day at…

The president leaves open the possibility he'll fire the special counsel.

Michael Anton, the spokesman for the National Security Council and an important intellectual force in the Trump administration, is leaving the White House. Eliana Johnson of Politico first reported Anton’s departure on Sunday, on the eve of John Bolton’s first day as national security adviser.…

They are emails designed to grab you by the lapels. "CRISIS AT OUR SOUTHERN BORDER," announced one. "MS-13 Is 'Taking Over the School' One Teen Warned Before She Was Killed," read another. The subject lines are always over the top:

The Trump administration on Friday announced a new set of sanctions against 38 individuals and entities in Russia in response to a "consistent pattern of malign activities" by the Russian government.

What has the White House been tellings friendly voices in the media? I explore this in the new issue of the magazine. Here's an excerpt:

The Trump administration is sending the National Guard to the southern border, per a presidential memorandum issued on Wednesday. Citing a "drastic surge of illegal activity on the southern border" including drug trafficking, illegal border crossings, and gang activity, President Trump authorized…

President Trump will attend a private dinner Wednesday night in Washington, hosted by America First Action, a pro-Trump super PAC. Also attending the dinner, which is listed on the president's official schedule as an event "with supporters," is House majority leader Kevin McCarthy, the White House…

Here's one more indication the White House's infrastructure proposal is stuck in a ditch: D.J. Gribbin, the National Economic Council's point man on the project, is leaving the administration—for "new opportunities" as a White House official put it. The official added Gribbin does not have a set…

President Trump's National Security Council will convene at the White House Tuesday. Among the topics up for discussion: the American military's future in Syria, where around 2,000 troops are stationed as part of a mission to contain the growth and influence of ISIS. Syria has been torn apart for…

Before heading to church on Easter Sunday, President Trump took to Twitter to complain about America's "dumb immigration laws," saying he was no longer interested in making a deal with Democrats to reinstate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and threatening to end the North…

The departure of Hope Hicks, the single most trusted aide to President Trump, from the White House Thursday has left two voids in the West Wing. The first is as just about the only person around him who can give an unvarnished opinion to the president—and be heard and taken seriously. This position…

President Trump announced on Twitter Wednesday afternoon that he was firing Veterans Affairs secretary David Shulkin and plans to nominate Admiral Dr. Ronny Jackson to head the department. Shulkin is the third Trump Cabinet official to be fired.

Russia continues to face international backlash following the assassination of a former spy and his daughter in the United Kingdom earlier this month. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Tuesday that more than 25 countries have now expelled Russian intelligence agents "hiding under diplomatic cover" since…

Russia continues to face international backlash following the attempted assassination of a former spy and his daughter in the United Kingdom earlier this month.* Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Tuesday that more than 25 countries have now expelled Russian intelligence agents "hiding under diplomatic…

White House chief of staff John Kelly is telling staffers at the National Security Council that their jobs are, for a time, secure as John Bolton transitions into the role as national security adviser. No position is permanently guaranteed, but fears of a purge on the NSC, Kelly has indicated, are…

The much-hyped 60 Minutes interview with Stormy Daniels aired Sunday, and did not reveal much more than we already know about the alleged brief sexual relationship between the porn actress and Donald Trump a decade before he became president. Daniels, who signed a non-disclosure agreement about the…

Long before John Bolton was named Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser, the president often trusted the Fox News contributor over his own national security team. On July 17, when President Trump reversed himself at the last minute on his plan to recertify the Iran deal, it was thanks to an…

Long before John Bolton was named Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser, the president often trusted the Fox News contributor over his own national security team. On July 17, when President Trump reversed himself at the last minute on his plan to recertify the Iran deal, it was thanks to an…

President Trump is planning to announce a new round of tariffs on Chinese imports Thursday as the White House continues to crack down on what they term unfair Chinese trade practices and intellectual property theft. “Tomorrow the president will announce the actions he has decided to take on USTR’s…

The newest member of Donald Trump’s legal team, Joseph diGenova, has lately been appearing on cable news to blast the Mueller investigation as part of a “brazen plot” to “frame” the president—revenge of the Swamp and the Deep State, if you will. But earlier this month diGenova was yukking it up…

Ben Carson, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development, pinned the blame for his department’s purchase of a $31,000 dining room set for his office on his wife and staff. In testimony before the House Appropriations Committee Tuesday, Carson also said the reason he authorized the purchase of new…

President Trump on Monday unveiled new plans for programs to combat America’s opioid epidemic, including educational campaigns, an anti-drug advertising blitz, and harsh new penalties for drug dealers. “Defeating this epidemic will require the commitment of every state, local, and federal agency,”…

Over at the Washington Post, opinion columnist Ruth Marcus reports something remarkable: Early in the Trump administration “senior White House staff members were asked to, and did, sign nondisclosure agreements vowing not to reveal confidential information and exposing them to damages for any…

President Trump is moving closer toward shaking up his administration in a big way, according to sources familiar with his thinking. The Washington Post reported Thursday night that Trump had decided to fire H.R. McMaster, his national security adviser. Shortly after the story broke, White House…

This is Peter Navarro’s moment. The gadfly economist, whose idée fixe is America’s capitulation to China on trade, joined the Trump administration on Day One, heading up the National Trade Council, a new office created by the new president. But for the first 13 months, Trump did little to advance…

More than a year after getting shut out of a White House job, economic commentator and CNBC host Larry Kudlow will succeed Gary Cohn as the chairman of the National Economic Council, the White House confirmed Wednesday. Kudlow and his fellow supply-side writer Stephen Moore were top economic…

(Updated: 8:00 a.m.) The firing of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was a textbook example of Donald Trump’s approach to personnel decisions: abrupt, humiliating, and executed from a safe distance. The White House maintains that Tillerson was encouraged to resign twice last week and warned that…

Republicans in Washington—including President Donald Trump—are preparing for their possible defeat in today’s special election for a southwestern Pennsylvania House seat. The district leans heavily Republican, with Trump winning its voters by double digits in 2016, but Democrat Conor Lamb has…

Perhaps it’s no longer shocking or surprising when Donald Trump is “unleashed” as he was over the weekend—but it’s still notable, and may tell us something about his state of mind at a difficult moment for his White House. Key staffers have left in recent weeks, including communications director…

It wouldn’t be a week at the Trump White House if there weren’t talk of a staff shakeup, and that’s how this week appears to be closing. First, CNN reported Thursday the Pentagon was “considering options” for moving national security adviser H.R. McMaster into a four-star general role back at the…

Promising to “do something about this horrible situation,” President Trump on Wednesday met with survivors of last week’s school shooting in Parkland, Florida, to listen to their accounts of the tragedy. Among those who joined the president were Vice President Mike Pence and Education Secretary…

Ivanka Trump, the White House official and daughter of President Trump, will be leading the U.S delegation to the closing ceremonies of the Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. According to senior administration officials, Ivanka will leave for Seoul on Thursday on a commercial flight, arriving in…

Is the Trump administration doing anything about an Iranian airline violating U.S. sanctions? The White House so far hasn’t commented on Mahan Air, which the Wall Street Journal reported Monday has been buying “U.S.-made jet engines and parts through Turkish front companies over the past several…

Will President Trump’s interest in new legislation to toughen federal background checks on gun purchasers last? As White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement Monday morning, Trump is “supportive of efforts to improve the federal background check system” and has spoken…

Donald Trump spent a big chunk of the Sunday before Presidents Day tweeting—about the Mueller investigation, the “fake news” media, and NASCAR. But in one tweet, Trump highlighted new poll numbers. And they weren’t even his own!

What did we learn from infrastructure week about the Republican party’s priorities on spending and deficits during the Trump administration? In the new issue of the magazine, my colleague Haley Byrd and I write on this question. Here’s an excerpt:

Paul Ryan, of all people, was in a defensive posture about his commitment to fiscal discipline. Speaking on February 13 to Maria Bartiromo of the Fox Business Network, the speaker of the House insisted that the two-year budget deal Republicans in Congress had just brokered was a necessary…

Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday expressed confidence in John Kelly and the “remarkable job” the retired Marine general is doing. The embattled White House chief of staff came under fire last week for his handling of domestic abuse allegations against former staff secretary Rob Porter.

Are Republicans in the Trump era deficit-hawks-in-name-only? Or does the party still have faithfulness toward reducing the federal deficit in meaningful ways. Between last week’s Republican-forged budget deal that ended a severely flawed, but effective, system of spending caps and the advent of…

If there was any enthusiasm for President Trump’s infrastructure proposal on Capitol Hill on Monday, it was hard to find. Republican Bill Shuster, the chairman of the House Transportation committee, gave a perfunctory statement noting the White House’s framework while hardly endorsing it.

It’s finally infrastructure week at the White House. The administration plans to release its legislative proposal on infrastructure Monday morning, including $200 billion in federal spending over the next 10 years.

Rob Porter, the now-former staff secretary at the White House, was given the benefit of the doubt when credible allegations he had physically abused his ex-wives emerged this week. That’s how deputy press secretary Raj Shah put it in his briefing to the press Thursday, a day after Porter tendered…

The resignation of a quiet but powerful West Wing aide is raising all sorts of questions. Rob Porter, who issued a statement Wednesday saying he would be leaving his position as staff secretary to President Trump, has been credibly accused by both of his ex-wives of abusive behavior. It’s not clear…

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon did not appear Tuesday to deliver planned testimony before the House Intelligence committee. Ranking member Adam Schiff said in a statement that Bannon’s lawyers “informed the Committee that the White House continues to prohibit Mr. Bannon from…

Will there be another government shutdown this week? “I sure hope not,” said White House spokesman Hogan Gidley on Fox News Monday. But it doesn’t sound like there’s much hope for finding a deal on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and border wall funding, which held up a budget…

Donald Trump says the House Intelligence committee memo on the FBI’s application to surveil an associate of his campaign “totally vindicates” him in the special counsel investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. The memo, authored by Republican Intelligence chairman Devin Nunes, does…

We’re likely to see the Memo—that’s the House Intelligence committee’s memo, written by GOP chairman Devin Nunes, alleging wrongdoing on the part of the FBI’s initial investigation into Russian meddling by Trump campaign associates—sometime on Friday. Whatever Nunes’s summary of the FBI’s FISA…

President Trump has until Friday to decide what to do with the so-called Nunes memo, the document alleging widespread misbehavior at the FBI that the House Intelligence Committee voted along partisan lines to release to the public on Monday. Committee rules provide the White House a five-day window…

President Trump delivered a relatively straightforward State of the Union address with few surprises and almost none of the glibness he often exhibits in public appearances. Trump began with an optimistic tone to tout the recently passed tax cuts, offered platitudes on trade and infrastructure, and…

Tuesday night is Donald Trump’s first State of the Union address, the annual event where the president speaks to a joint session of Congress with lofty rhetoric about where the country is and where he wants it to go. The Constitution doesn’t require the chief executive to deliver the State of the…

The Trump administration on Thursday released a framework for a compromise immigration deal to members of Congress. The plan calls for a pathway to citizenship for people brought to America illegally as children, increased spending for security on the U.S.-Mexico border, and new restrictions on…

Donald Trump very nearly had the special counsel investigating him fired, until the top White House lawyer told the president he would resign rather than give the order to the Justice Department. That’s the gist of the latest bombshell story from the New York Times, which reports President Trump…

The Trump administration did not condemn Turkey last week after the country’s military began attacking Kurdish forces in northwestern Syria. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders exemplified the administration’s response: “We hear and take seriously Turkey’s legitimate security…

President Trump told reporters Wednesday that he welcomed the chance to speak under oath to Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating the Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. "I'm looking forward to it, actually," Trump told reporters during an impromptu briefing in the West…

The recent assault by Turkey’s military on Kurds in northwestern Syria has presented a conundrum for the administration: Turkey is our (strained) NATO ally while the Kurds have been one of America’s most important friends in the region, with Kurdish forces fighting valiantly alongside Americans in…

After a two-day impasse, enough Senate Democrats agreed to pass a short-term continuing budget resolution Monday, the first step to ending a government shutdown that began early Saturday morning. The measure passed overwhelmingly, with just 18 senators, mostly Democrats, opposing. The House of…

Donald Trump and the White House have greeted the government shutdown, which has been in effect since the Senate was unable to pass a continuing budget resolution by early Saturday morning, as an opportunity to push this point: Democrats are extremists on immigration.

Saturday is the first anniversary of Donald Trump’s inauguration, so in the brand-new issue of the magazine I take a look at four lessons we can learn from Year One of the Trump presidency. Here’s an excerpt:

The first year of the Trump presidency was like the election that preceded it: unpredictable, norm-shattering, and disorienting. From the “American carnage” in his inaugural address to the kerfuffle over whether he referred to countries in Africa as “s—holes” or “s—houses,” Washington and the…

A West Wing source says the White House is “cautiously optimistic” that a government shutdown can be avoided by the Friday spending deadline. Questions remain: Can the House pass its continuing resolution (which leadership spent Wednesday whipping on) to fund the government for another month?…

National security adviser H.R. McMaster met with his counterparts from Japan and South Korea (Shotaro Yachi and Chung Eui-yong, respectively) in San Francisco this weekend, as Jonathan Swan of Axios first reported. The meeting, which had been planned months ahead of time, nonetheless came shortly…

Another week means another round of questions about Russian interference for associates of the Trump campaign. Fox News reports that on Tuesday, former White House adviser Steve Bannon will testify before the House Intelligence committee. Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski is also…

President Trump’s administration made a significant policy move on Friday—extending the Iran deal by waiving nuclear sanctions, while simultaneously issuing new, non-nuclear sanctions against Iran in light of the recent protests there. But you’d be forgiven for forgetting all about that, because a…

This post has been updated.

If there were any doubt about the numerous reports that President Trump referred to Haiti and nations in Africa as “shithole countries” in a Thursday meeting about immigration with lawmakers, it melted away with a statement from the White House that did nothing to deny it.

If there were any doubt about the numerous reports that President Trump referred to Haiti and nations in Africa as “shithole countries” in a Thursday meeting about immigration with lawmakers, it melted away with a statement from the White House that did nothing to deny it.

After striking a conciliatory tone on immigration reform in a meeting with lawmakers Tuesday, President Trump returned to tougher line on Wednesday, insisting that any legislation reinstating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program must also include funding for a border wall.

After striking a conciliatory tone on immigration reform in a meeting with lawmakers Tuesday, President Trump returned to tougher line on Wednesday, insisting that any legislation reinstating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program must also include funding for a border wall.

Say, where are those new sanctions on Iran? The White House was said last week to be considering new, non-nuclear sanctions against Iran in response to the anti-government and anti-regime protests—and the violent response by government forces. The administration last week did sanction five…

Following the recent protests across Iran and the impending deadlines related to the nuclear deal, President Trump faces a few big choices this week—and on some of them, his staff in the White House still isn’t quite sure what he’s going to do.

As someone who covers the Trump White House daily, I’m having a hard time figuring out what I think of Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury. On the one hand, the book is full of suggestions and half-truths that Wolff treats as fact. That might be forgiven if the author were writing a gossipy exposé—except…

Your must-read of the day comes from the New York Times, and it’s full of interesting details about special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe. Michael Schmidt reports that Mueller has learned a lot of new information about the nature of Donald Trump’s decision-making in his first few months as…

Michael Wolff couldn’t have asked for better publicity. His new book, Fire and Fury, doesn’t officially come out until January 9, but its salacious revelations about the infighting within the Trump campaign, transition, and administration dominated the political news cycle Wednesday, including the…

Michael Wolff couldn’t have asked for better publicity. His new book, Fire and Fury, doesn’t officially come out until January 9, but its salacious revelations about the infighting within the Trump campaign, transition, and administration dominated the political news cycle Wednesday, including the…

The protests in Iran challenging the repressive Islamist regime present both an opportunity for the Trump administration, as one White House official puts it, and a challenge. The administration is quietly urging European and regional allies to join President Trump in offering support for the…

Donald Trump begins 2018 with a rare condition for his presidency: the biggest news story isn’t directly about him. That doesn’t mean the president hasn’t had a lot to say about the wave of anti-regime protests in Iran that have taken place since last Thursday. As Jeryl Bier reported, the Trump…

When President Trump and Congress come back to Washington in January, will infrastructure be first on the to-do list? My new piece for the magazine looks at the White House’s plans for building new roads and bridges. Here’s an excerpt:

The deadly derailment of an Amtrak train near Tacoma, Wash., last week prompted a tweet from Donald Trump. The accident, the president wrote, “shows more than ever why our soon to be submitted infrastructure plan must be approved quickly. Seven trillion dollars spent in the Middle East while our…

It was a joyous celebration on the White House lawn Wednesday afternoon, and deservedly so. Republicans in Congress passed their tax cut bill, their biggest legislative achievement all year, amid some difficult circumstances—particularly their little-room-for-dissent Senate majority. Donald Trump…

A procedural hurdle in the U.S. Senate means the House of Representatives will return on Wednesday to vote on a slightly modified version of the tax bill it passed Tuesday. After House speaker Paul Ryan gleefully gaveled the vote, but before the Senate parliamentarian determined three provisions…

Voting on the final Republican tax bill begins Tuesday, and a pledge Monday afternoon from Maine senator Susan Collins that she would support it all but sealed the deal—she’s the 50th vote in the Senate, and Vice President Mike Pence, if needed, can provide vote number 51.

President Donald Trump will deliver remarks Monday afternoon on his new national security strategy, a comprehensive set of priorities, challenges, and proposed solutions required by law of every administration since that of Ronald Reagan. Appropriately, Trump will deliver his Monday speech at the…

Could we be seeing some voluntary turnover at the White House come New Year? I explore this question in a piece for the new issue of the magazine. Here’s a preview:

Washington was surprised to learn that Dina Powell, the deputy national security adviser for strategy, will be leaving her post early in the new year. Powell, one of the few veterans of the George W. Bush administration to take a senior role under Trump, had been something of a rock of normalcy in…

Before Rod Rosenstein began his testimony before the House Judiciary committee on Wednesday, a Justice Department source told me the deputy attorney general would be “calm and very well versed in the law.” Since Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself, Rosenstein has overseen the FBI’s…

Doug Jones’s victory in Tuesday’s special Senate election in Alabama is an “embarrassment,” as one Washington Republican told me. Embarrassing because it’s Alabama, one of the most GOP-friendly states in the country. Embarrassing because the party’s candidate, Roy Moore, was perhaps one of the only…

It’s Election Day in Alabama, and what might have been a sleepy affair—replacing long-time senator Jeff Sessions with another conservative Republican—has been anything but. The wildly divergent polls show everything from a relatively modest victory for the Republican, former state supreme court…

Here’s the president’s message to Alabama voters ahead of Tuesday’s special election for the U.S. Senate: “Get out and vote for Roy Moore.” That’s what Donald Trump said Friday in Pensacola, just across the state line in Florida and well within the Mobile media market.

As special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators continue to bore into President Trump’s inner circle, Republicans have intensified their attempts to discredit the investigators as partisan hacks. As news began to break last weekend that former national security advisor Michael Flynn had struck a…

It’s become a joke around Washington that every week is “infrastructure week” at the White House, a policy focus derailed usually within the first few hours of Monday by news developments (or President Trump’s tweets).

One day after President Trump formally endorsed Roy Moore, the Alabama Senate candidate and accused sexual predator, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders offered this explanation for the move: the allegations against Moore are troubling, but the prospect of electing a Democrat is more…

On the Monday following Thanksgiving, the principals of President Trump’s National Security Council met to discuss what the administration would do about recognizing the capital of the state of Israel. A federal law requires the U.S. embassy to be moved to Jerusalem unless waived by the president…

Donald Trump endorsed Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore on Monday morning with a pair of messages on the president’s Twitter account about political prudence.

Here’s what most folks are overlooking on the issue of Michael Flynn’s guilty plea on Friday: Mueller’s exchange for Flynn’s cooperation may not primarily concern what the former national security adviser admitted to lying to the FBI about. Perhaps Mueller is looking to pin down President Trump or…

Discussions to remove Rex Tillerson from the State Department and replace him with CIA director Mike Pompeo have been going on for months, even if State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert says White House chief of staff John Kelly is telling State the “rumors are not true.”

The White House is moving forward with a plan to replace Secretary of State Rex Tillerson with CIA director Mike Pompeo. The New York Times reports Tillerson could be forced out “within the next several weeks.”

Will the president accept just about anything on tax reform? He seemed to suggest as much at his rally in Missouri Wednesday. “If they send it to my desk, I promise all of the people in this room, my friends, so many friends in this room—a great state—I promise you I will sign it,” Donald Trump…

The Senate Budget committee voted to move forward on the Republican tax bill Tuesday afternoon, a small but substantial step forward for the GOP overhaul, which will now go before the full Senate for debate. “I think we're going to get it passed,” said President Donald Trump at a White House…

A federal judge ruled against a deputy director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Tuesday, declining to issue a restraining order against the Trump administration for installing its own selection for acting director of the agency.

The president’s crack Monday afternoon about “Pocahontas”—aka Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren—was classic Donald Trump.

It’s been more than five days since President Trump figuratively stood by Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore. As he was leaving the White House last Tuesday to spend Thanksgiving with his family at Mar-a-Lago, Trump stopped to talk with the press and told them Alabama does not need to send a…

President Trump tweeted Saturday night a link to a sycophantic website that traffics in conspiracy theories and has aligned itself to the alt-right and white nationalist movements. Here’s the Trump tweet, which promotes MAGAPILL.com’s “President Donald Trump Accomplishment List”:

Donald Trump is confident he can get a comprehensive agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. As one diplomat in Washington recently put it, the president is more optimistic than anyone else for peace in the Middle East. Trump told Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority,…

For nearly two weeks, the White House has been tiptoeing around the sexual assault allegations against Roy Moore, neither condemning nor defending the embattled Senate candidate, who has been accused of pursuing teenage girls for dates as a grown man and even touching a 14-year-old girl sexually…

Donald Trump’s predictable unpredictability on Twitter has gone from a frustration to a mere annoyance for Capitol Hill, his cabinet, and his White House staff. Amazingly enough, Washington seems to have factored Trump’s tweets into the complex equation of how government works. But the president…

President Trump was understandably thrilled by the House’s passage of its tax-cut bill Thursday. On Twitter he called the vote a “a big step toward fulfilling our promise to deliver historic TAX CUTS for the American people by the end of the year.” Trump did not celebrate in the Rose Garden with…

What did President Trump accomplish on his 12-day, 5-nation trip through East Asia? Not much, at least not substantively—and that’s judging by the president’s own remarks at the White House on Wednesday. Speaking to cameras and the press pool from the Diplomatic Room, the president provided a…

President Trump came home from his Asia trip with a significant political conundrum on his hands: What to do about Roy Moore. For days, the White House has been publicly cautious in rendering any judgment on the credible sexual misconduct allegations against Moore, even as Republican senators and…

Attorney general Jeff Sessions has told political allies in Alabama that he is not considering running for his old Senate seat as a write-in candidate in next month’s special election. That’s according to a spokeswoman for Sessions at the Department of Justice, Sarah Isgur Flores, who also tells me…

Attorney general Jeff Sessions has told political allies in Alabama he is not considering running for his old Senate seat as a write-in candidate in next month’s special election. That’s according to a spokeswoman for Sessions at the Department of Justice, Sarah Isgur Flores, who also tells me…

President Donald Trump, said White House aide Kellyanne Conway on Sunday, “is not as focused on this as he is his major 13-day trip abroad.” The “this” is the question of Roy Moore and his political future after the Washington Post’s bombshell report last week that included, among other…

So far, the White House is urging people to be “cautious” about the allegations against Republican Senate nominee Roy Moore of Alabama documented in a Thursday article in the Washington Post. Citing 30 sources, the Post reports four teenage girls who now say the thirtysomething Moore asked them on…

More Election Day Fallout—The White House pushed back Wednesday on the conventional assessment that the Democratic wave election in Virginia and elsewhere reflected poorly on Donald Trump: The president’s party always faces “headwinds” in elections in the first year; Virginia was trending…

More Election Day Fallout—The White House pushed back Wednesday on the conventional assessment that the Democratic wave election in Virginia and elsewhere reflected poorly on Donald Trump: The president’s party always faces “headwinds” in elections in the first year; Virginia was trending…

Republican Ed Gillespie didn’t just lose his race for governor in Virginia on Tuesday. The former George W. Bush aide and Washington lobbyist led the GOP ticket in what ended up being a huge rout for the party. From gubernatorial nominee Ralph Northam to the lieutenant governor and attorney general…

What have we learned from the first day of marking up the House Republicans’ big tax reform bill? There’s a long way to go, with lots of tweaks and alterations to be made to the bill House Ways and Means chairman Kevin Brady released last week. There are plenty of factions in the House GOP…

There was a noticeable absence of anyone from the Trump administration on the five main Sunday talk shows. President Donald Trump himself was just two days into his marathon foreign trip to Asia, but there seemed to be no eagerness on the part of the White House or the rest of the administration to…

George Papadopoulos was ambitious and underqualified, the kind of wannabe who fills the lower rungs of many a political campaign. This foreign policy adviser to the Donald Trump campaign would not have been even a footnote in the history of the 2016 election before he pleaded guilty to lying to the…

Vice President Mike Pence made a relatively quiet visit to the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency on Wednesday. According to the White House schedule, the visit consisted a series of briefings with CIA officials, but Pence also delivered prepared remarks to agents and employees there.

Wednesday was supposed to be a big day in Washington for Republicans still searching for a big legislative accomplishment for Donald Trump’s first year in the White House. GOP leaders in the House of Representatives had planned to release their legislation Wednesday, which the White House is saying…

The White House is walking a tightrope in its attempt to distance the president and his campaign from Monday’s big developments in the special counsel investigation into Russian interference. “Today's announcement has nothing to do with the president, has nothing to do with the president's campaign…

Update, 8:37 a.m.: We now know the targets of the Mueller indictments. The New York Times reports that Paul Manafort and Rick Gates have been ordered to surrender to authorities in conjunction with the Russia investigation. Manafort served as manager for the Trump campaign during the summer of…

The Trump administration is finally providing guidance on new Russia sanctions passed by Congress in August, issuing long overdue details on which entities tied to the Russian government will be targeted.

The latest Fox News poll is pretty dismal for President Trump: Just 38 percent of registered voters approve of the job he’s doing, his lowest rating in the poll since Fox began asking the question in February. Trump’s disapproval is at an all-time high, too, with 57 percent of registered voters…

The upcoming retirements of Bob Corker and now Jeff Flake from the United States Senate will be helpful to President Donald Trump if his supporters get what they hope for: Republican successors in those seats who will be better soldiers for Trump. That’s very likely in Tennessee, where the…

Two days after an uneventful and friendly conference call with the Republican House conference, Donald Trump will attend the Senate GOP’s weekly policy lunch meeting. Will the president get so amicable a greeting? Despite Trump’s on-again friendship with the majority leader, Mitch McConnell, and…

With the Senate passing a revised budget resolution last week, President Trump and his administration are kicking off this week with a renewed pitch for tax reform. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence joined the GOP House conference call Sunday, and the president encouraged House Republicans to…

The truth about what President Trump really wants on the cost-sharing reimbursements of Obamacare remains, well, confusing. It’s been a back-and-forth from the president since it was first learned this week that Lamar Alexander, a Republican, and Patty Murray, a Democrat, were working on a deal for…

There’s no good, clean way out of the latest controversy to hit the Trump White House. Amid a days-long discussion about his willingness to call the families of armed service members killed in the line of duty, President Trump called the family of one Sgt. La David Johnson, one of the Green Berets…

If there’s a legislative fix on the way for the scrapped cost-sharing payments to insurance companies under Obamacare, President Trump seems to be behind it. Trump last week announced he would end reimbursements to insurers selling discounted policies to low-income customers, which the…

Kicking off his surprise press conference with Mitch McConnell at the White House Monday afternoon, Donald Trump made the message of the day perfectly clear: “Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell . . . has been a friend of mine for a long time.”

The “failing” New York Times continues to be President Donald Trump’s favorite newspaper, even if he would never admit it. In a pair of Sunday morning tweets, the president blasted the paper and its chief White House correspondent, Peter Baker, for failing to list in a recent article all the…

President Donald Trump will announce Friday he is decertifying the Iran deal is in the national security interests of the United States. In a speech outlining the administration’s new policy on Iran, the president will call on Congress to amend its Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act to insist on…

It’s Friday the thirteenth, and it’s also the day President Trump will announce his administration’s new Iran policy. That will come in a speech from the White House at 12:45 p.m., and Trump is expected to announce he will decertify that the sanctions relief afford to Iran under the nuclear deal.…

After a short stint at the White House, principal deputy chief of staff Kirstjen Nielsen is likely headed back to the Department of Homeland Security. President Donald Trump nominated Nielsen for the top DHS job Wednesday, which has been vacant since July. The previous DHS secretary was John Kelly,…

What is President Donald Trump willing to negotiate over when it comes to immigration? In her briefing Wednesday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders repeated what the administration has said since Sunday, when it released its list of legislative priorities on immigration: the…

President Donald Trump spent part of his Columbus Day on the golf course at Trump National in Virginia with sometime-rival Lindsey Graham. The South Carolina senator later said on Twitter that he “really enjoyed a round of golf” with Trump, praising the president for shooting a “73 in windy and wet…

The Trump administration has released its list of “legislative priorities” on immigration to the leadership and relevant committee chairs on Capitol Hill. Citing a review process that involved several departments and agencies, White House legislative director Marc Short told reporters Sunday…

Donald Trump is expected to decertify the Iran nuclear deal ahead of this month’s deadline. What that means, and how the president came to this decision, is the subject of a story in the brand-new issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD. The story, which I co-wrote with editor-in-chief Steve Hayes pulls back…

The most revealing moment in Rex Tillerson’s hastily convened press conference Wednesday came when he was asked about the most explosive element of the NBC News story published Wednesday morning: that in July Donald Trump’s secretary of State had called the president of the United States a “moron.”…

More bad news for congressional Republicans coming out of the White House Tuesday: Politico reports that Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff is whipping up donors to “purge” GOP lawmakers who don’t rally behind the president’s legislative agenda.

It was a somber President Trump who addressed the nation Monday morning from the White House. Several hours earlier, hundreds of people had been shot while attending a country music concert in Las Vegas. The gunman had fired down at the outdoor concert from a corner suite at the Mandalay Bay hotel.

As Puerto Rico still reels in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, the mayor of San Juan has found herself the latest target of President Trump’s Twitter feed. It began on Friday when Carmen Yulin Cruz, the mayor of Puerto Rico’s capital and largest city, criticized the self-congratulatory tone the…

Things keep getting worse for Tom Price, the Health and Human Services secretary who has taken numerous chartered private or government jets to travel around the country and the world, all on the taxpayer’s dime. Nearly every day the total bill for Price’s known flights keeps going up—the latest…

President Trump announced on Wednesday the broad outlines of a sweeping tax reform package that would simplify and cut taxes. He praised the framework as “a middle-class miracle” and “a tax code to put American jobs first.”

The Republican tax reform gets its big introduction on Wednesday by way of a presidential speech in Indiana. President Donald Trump will deliver an afternoon address in Indianapolis, joined by, among others, the state’s Democratic senator, Joe Donnelly.

A trio of Republican senators are hoping to solve the DACA problem, and they have reason to believe President Trump will get on board. The senators, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Orrin Hatch of Utah, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, have introduced the Solution for Undocumented Children through…

Where do things stand now that the great presidential football uproar weekend is over? Donald Trump’s comments in Alabama on Friday about NFL players—primarily former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick—protesting police by kneeling during the national anthem set people off in a most…

On his last day in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, President Trump held his final bilateral meeting of the week with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. It was the leaders’ first one-on-one meeting since Erdogan’s trip to Washington in May. Here’s how Trump introduced…

President Trump announced on Thursday new economic sanctions on “individuals, companies, financial institutions that finance and facilitate trade with North Korea.” Making a statement in New York at the beginning of a meeting with South Korean president Moon Jae-in and Japanese prime minister…

The squeeze is on Paul Manafort, the former chairman of Donald Trump’s campaign who has become a major target of special counsel Robert Mueller’s aggressive investigation. The latest details from the Washington Post describe email evidence that Manafort offered “private briefings” about the Trump…

United Nations Watch—President Trump’s first address to the United Nations General Assembly was a bit of a hodge-podge. At times, it sounded as if it were a message to Americans that Trump would be defending them and their interests even if (and especially when) those interests contradicted the…

Ever since John Kelly was tapped as White House chief of staff, right-wing news outlets have been publishing articles making harsh allegations about Donald Trump’s national security adviser, H.R. McMaster.

The Mueller investigation is heating up, and it doesn’t look good for Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort. CNN reported Monday that federal investigators wiretapped Manafort’s phones under “secret court orders” both before and after the 2016 presidential election:

Donald Trump is back in his hometown for a full week of meetings surrounding the convening of the United Nations General Assembly. The president’s anticipated speech before the GA isn’t until Tuesday, but Trump has a packed schedule starting Monday, including bilateral meetings with the leaders of…

It has taken just under eight months for the signature issue of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign—the construction of a border wall along our southern border with Mexico—to become negotiable. You could almost hear Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer grinning as they typed their statement out…

Nobody knew MAGA could be so complicated.

The Trump administration has completed its comprehensive review of America’s Iran policy, according to an administration source, setting the stage for a possible recalibration of the nuclear deal with that country, which Donald Trump campaigned against in last year’s election.

The president’s effort to help get tax reform passed by the end of this year is in full swing. Tuesday night Donald Trump held a bipartisan dinner at the White House with three Republican senators on the Senate Finance committee and three moderate Democrats up for reelection next year in swing…

The White House has a new argument for why President Donald Trump fired James Comey earlier this year: The FBI director possibly committed perjury. At her Monday briefing, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders faced a question about former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon’s recent…

Is Donald Trump a rogue Republican—an independent president rather than a party leader? Or is he simply remaking, in fits and starts and with the establishment kicking and screaming, the GOP in his own image? This is a central political question of Trump’s presidency, one coming into focus as the…

With the North Koreans claiming to have successfully tested a hydrogen bomb this week, President Donald Trump on Thursday reiterated that “military action would certainly be an option” against the rogue regime. “I would prefer not going the route of the military, but it’s something certainly that…

Nearly a month ago, it looked as if Donald Trump could be setting himself up to leave the Republican party. His departure could either be official or de facto, but the signs were beginning to suggest that Trump, who has no real ties to the GOP establishment or its infrastructure, was putting…

Has there been an administration in the modern era where the internal debates are hashed out in so public a manner? Consider Tuesday, when two members of Donald Trump’s cabinet spoke out forcefully on unresolved policy questions.

This article has been updated with information that Haley provided in her speech.

Will hundreds of thousands of young immigrants, brought illegally to the United States as minors by their families, suddenly be at risk for deportation? That’s what hangs in the balance with the Trump administration’s expected announcement that he will fulfill a campaign promise and rollback the…

Remember when Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, was on thin ice with President Trump? For a couple weeks in July, the president was passive-aggressively criticizing Sessions on a near daily basis. But ever since John Kelly took over as chief of staff at the very end of July, Trump’s uttered…

The flooding and rain continues in Texas (and now Louisiana, too), but the White House is already talking about getting an emergency relief spending package through Congress next week. The Washington Post reports the funding “is expected to only be a partial down payment and serve in part to…

The president travels to Springfield, Missouri, on Wednesday to deliver a speech about tax reform. Congress will take up this next legislative agenda item when it returns from its August recess after Labor Day. But don’t expect Donald Trump to roll out a detailed set of proposed reforms and changes…

President Donald Trump is off to Texas Tuesday—specifically Corpus Christi, the coastal town south of Houston where Hurricane Harvey first made landfall in the Lone Star State.

There’s a protest of sorts happening among some of President Trump’s Cabinet officials and top advisers. It was Gary Cohn, the director of the National Economic Council, who kicked things off on Friday by way of an interview with the Financial Times. Following the president’s broadly criticized…

Things went from bad to slightly worse between Donald Trump and Republican leadership in Congress Thursday. It started—as it always seems to—with a series of presidential tweets.

Donald Trump has been president for just over seven months.* The 2020 election is more than three years away. So why is his chief pollster asking if Republicans would vote for him in a presidential primary today? That’s what Tony Fabrizio asked 1,500 self-described Republican or Republican-leaning…

The president’s speech at his political rally in Phoenix Tuesday night was a disjointed ping-pong between a prepared address and Donald Trump’s own extemporaneous comments. In other words, it was a typical Trump campaign speech.

President Donald Trump opened his statement of policy on Afghanistan and South Asia by offering a rare allowance that he had changed his mind about an issue—namely, about withdrawing American troops from Afghanistan. “My original instinct was to pull out, and historically I like to follow my…

Throughout the entire length of the administration’s internal debate about Afghanistan, President Donald Trump was torn between two competing impulses: his desire to end the 16-year-long war, and his need to win. When it came time to make a decision on Afghanistan, which he will announce in a…

The departure of Steve Bannon from the White House won’t have a big impact on the day-to-day operations of the West Wing. An economic nationalist who served as Donald Trump’s political id (as well as his chief strategist), Bannon was effectively sidelined back in April, after he was removed from…

For the first time, Donald Trump has inserted himself into a 2018 Republican primary against an incumbent. The president tweeted Thursday morning that it was “great” to see Trump nemesis Jeff Flake of Arizona get a Republican challenger. “Great to see that Dr. Kelli Ward is running against Flake…

One of the leading public intellectuals who formulated and argued on behalf of a coherent ideology around Donald Trump now says he “sorely regrets” supporting the Republican president. Writing Thursday in the New York Times, Julius Krein says his optimism about Trump and Trumpism was “unfounded.”

Vice President Mike Pence is returning from his Latin American trip to Washington on Thursday, a day earlier than planned. Could a decision on the war in Afghanistan be in the offing?

Vice President Mike Pence is returning from his Latin American trip to Washington on Thursday, a day earlier than planned.

There’s a reason why it was necessary for President Donald Trump to denounce specifically and unequivocally the white nationalists whose demonstration last weekend in Virginia became violent—not the “many sides” who were also protesting, or violence in general. It’s true there were left-wing…

There are reports that White House aides were caught off guard by Donald Trump’s Tuesday press conference in which he said the “alt-left” deserved blame for the violence in Charlottesville last weekend and that there were “fine people” on both sides of the white nationalist rally there. Trump “went…

The only thing likely protecting Steve Bannon’s job is the fact that everyone in Washington expects he’s about to lose it. Administration officials inside the West Wing are already acting as if Bannon is halfway out the door. On Meet the Press Sunday, National security adviser H.R. McMaster refused…

There’s not much more that can be said about President Trump’s insufficient and equivocal statement on Saturday in response to a rally of white nationalists and neo-Nazis in Virginia that turned violent. Our editor-in-chief, Stephen Hayes, demonstrated that Trump has a recent history of being…

As the federal investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller digs deeper into the business dealings of Paul Manafort, the former campaign chairman for Donald Trump is changing his legal team.

President Donald Trump is inching closer to abandoning the Republican party, even as the GOP is in the middle of an effort to remake itself in Trump’s image.

Whatever strategic planning the Trump administration has for a North Korea with nuclear weapons capabilities, there was no preparing for the president’s comments on Tuesday. The White House, including the national-security team, was unaware President Trump was preparing to speak publicly about…

President Donald Trump responded to reports Tuesday that U.S. intelligence believes North Korea has missile-ready nuclear weapons.

The fallout continues from this weekend’sNew York Times article about the “shadow campaigns” for president forming around ambitious Republicans—including Vice President Mike Pence—ready for if and when President Donald Trump does not run for reelection in 2020.

The war on White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster continues, with allies of Steve Bannon using sympathetic media outlets to push a narrative that McMaster is thwarting the will of President Donald Trump. Senior White House aides now wonder among each other whether Bannon himself and/or…

One story going around among conservatives online Thursday was the production of a letter from Trump national security adviser H.R. McMaster to one of his predecessors in the job, Susan Rice. The April letter alerts Rice, who worked in the Obama administration, that her security clearance has been…

General John Kelly may be trying to institute military-style discipline in the West Wing, but that hasn’t put a stop to the civil war happening over President Donald Trump’s National Security Council. If anything, the dawning of the Kelly era may have accelerated that war.

General John Kelly may be trying to institute military-style discipline in the West Wing, but that hasn’t put a stop to the civil war happening over President Donald Trump’s National Security Council. If anything, the dawning of the Kelly era may have accelerated that war.

Two conservative senators will appear alongside President Trump at the White House Wednesday to announce a new version of their bill to restrict and reform legal immigration. Arkansas’s Tom Cotton and Georgia’s David Perdue have been coordinating with the White House on the legislation, which may…

Two conservative senators will appear alongside President Trump at the White House Wednesday to announce a new version of their bill to restrict and reform legal immigration. Arkansas’s Tom Cotton and Georgia’s David Perdue have been coordinating with the White House on the legislation, which may…

Anthony Scaramucci is gone from his position as communications director because, the White House claimed in a Monday statement, Scaramucci “felt it was best to give Chief of Staff John Kelly a clean slate and the ability to build his own team.”

John Kelly begins his first week on the job as chief of staff at a time of great challenge in the White House. President Donald Trump’s first major legislative effort, repealing Obamacare, has failed. Prospects for the next agenda items—tax reform, a budget deal, infrastructure, immigration—are…

There’s not much more to add to what Anthony Scaramucci told the New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza on Wednesday night. Shortly before publicly making a false accusation against Reince Priebus, the brand new White House communications director laid into Priebus, White House aide Steve Bannon, and many other…

A reporter with a Turkish newspaper has admitted he made up quotations about White House adviser Jared Kushner—including comments that Kushner believes Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is “trying to make his country great.”

The reporter who published information that White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci claimed was leaked denies that anyone from the administration leaked it to her. Politico reporter Lorraine Woellert reported Wednesday on Scaramucci’s financial disclosure, which Woellert wrote was…

President Donald Trump is thinking about making a recess appointment of a new attorney general next month. Luckily for him, two of his administration’s top lawyers are experts on the subject of recess appointments.

Over at the Justice Department, it’s “business as usual here.”

Is Attorney General Jeff Sessions heading out the door, or isn’t he? White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirms that Sessions visited the West Wing on Monday but did not meet with President Donald Trump. A source close to Sessions tells me his Monday trip was a “standing” meeting:…

What will new White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci do to shake things up in the West Wing? Let’s go to the tape, specifically to Fox News Sunday, where Scaramucci spoke extensively with host Chris Wallace about his plans. Scaramucci listed (in his discursive manner) three actions…

Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary who became a celebrity in his own right, has resigned, according to multiple reports. Spicer tendered his resignation Friday morning following the hiring of Anthony Scaramucci has communications director.

Donald Trump is angry and frustrated with the federal investigation into Russian meddling in our election. In his view, the inquiry doesn’t just call into question the legitimacy of his election. Now he feels his own family is a target and under siege. Trump blames the highest-ranking members of…

Donald Trump is angry and frustrated with the federal investigation into Russian meddling in our election. In his view, the inquiry doesn’t just call into question the legitimacy of his election. Now he feels his own family is a target and under siege. Trump blames the highest-ranking members of…

“It’s extremely unfair.”

The White House is attempting to revive a repeal and replacement of Obamacare, starting with overtures to one of the Republican senators who expressed his opposition to the Senate’s Better Care Reconciliation Act. President Donald Trump will unveil his plans to the gathering of Senate Republicans…

Donald Trump met with Russian president Vladimir Putin a second time at this month’s G20 summit in Hamburg. Following the two leaders’ bilateral meeting on July 7, Trump and Putin spoke privately after a dinner hosted by German chancellor Angela Merkel.

On Monday afternoon, President Donald Trump spoke at a White House event about American manufacturing. But he eventually wended his way to the pending health-care legislation in Congress. “I think we’re going to surprise a lot of people,” Trump said. “But they’re pushing very hard. The Republican…

The Trump administration called Iran “one of the most dangerous threats to United States’ interests” and a senior administration official said that that the United States. has “not seen any change to Iran’s malign behavior in the region” since the implementation of a multi-national agreement to…

Jay Sekulow is not Donald Trump Jr.’s lawyer. The Republican attorney, who works on the private legal team for President Donald Trump, reiterated on many of the five Sunday political talk shows that he does not represent the president’s son. Nor did Sekulow represent the Trump presidential…

Donald Trump hates the Iran nuclear deal. Brokered by the Obama administration and officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the agreement has the stated purpose of preventing Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability. But the president believes the deal gave Iran…

“Our goal is to be as transparent as humanly possible, and to put every bit of information that we have at the forefront, and willing to cooperate with anybody that is looking into the matter,” said Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the deputy White House press secretary, at the Wednesday

In a prepared statement Tuesday, President Donald Trump called his oldest son, Don Jr., a “high-quality person” and added, “I applaud his transparency.” Deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders read this statement to reporters in the White House briefing room Tuesday afternoon, a few short…

Another day, another troubling development in the latest story about the possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government during the 2016 election.

Three prominent figures in the Trump presidential campaign appear to have sought the assistance of a Russian political operative with ties to the Putin government months before last November’s election. This comes via reporting by the New York Times, which broke a story over the weekend that Donald…

Delbert Hosemann doesn’t have the profile of a member of the Resistance. For one thing, he’s a Republican elected official. He’s also from Mississippi, where Donald Trump won nearly 58 percent of the vote in an election that Hosemann, as secretary of state, personally oversaw.

The Trump administration will announce Thursday an agreement with the government of Poland to sell the Eastern European ally American-manufactured surface-to-air missile systems. The agreement comes seven years after the Obama administration removed a group of missile launchers from near the…

Recent American presidents have held up Poland as a beacon of freedom and democracy in the post-Soviet era. Of all the former Communist bloc states in Eastern Europe, Poland most closely resembles the United States—a nation of freedom-loving, working-class religious people. And as Barack Obama,…

President Donald Trump leaves for Europe Wednesday morning ahead of the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg Friday and Saturday. But instead of starting off with meetings with the leaders of traditional allies of the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, the president will first travel to our NATO ally…

The Republican party—the party of the Kemp-Roth tax cuts, the Laffer curve, the George W. Bush tax cuts, and the Obama-era extension of nearly all of those Bush tax cuts—currently controls both houses of Congress and the presidency. That means the GOP has its best chance in more than a generation…

Tweet On Thursday morning, after the Senate Republicans unveiled their version of the bill passed last month in the House of Representatives, four conservative senators expressed their opposition to the bill as written (while leaving open the option to eventually support an amended bill). At least…

President Donald Trump tweeted a somewhat cryptic message about China and North Korea on Tuesday: “While I greatly appreciate the efforts of President Xi & China to help with North Korea, it has not worked out. At least I know China tried!”

Ivanka Trump, assistant to and daughter of the president, trekked to Capitol Hill Tuesday for a meeting with Senator Marco Rubio to discuss the Florida Republican’s ideas on expanding child tax credits. The mini-summit provided the internet with a photo of Rubio greeting Ivanka at the Capitol in an…

Where is President Trump’s response to the terrorist attack in London? Not the June 3 attack, when three Muslim men in a van drove over several pedestrians on London Bridge before stabbing many more in a market. Eight were killed and nearly 50 injured, and it prompted a series of tweets from Trump…

President Donald Trump offered “deepest condolences” Monday to the family of a college student who died shortly after returning home from North Korea, where he had been imprisoned for supposedly removing a poster from a wall.

There are a lot of problems plaguing the Trump administration and hampering the White House from completing its agenda. President Trump's poll numbers remain low. The Republican House is fractured and in the Senate, the GOP majority is razor-thin. Democrats are unified and fervent in their…

The special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election—and the possible involvement of the Trump campaign or associates thereof—continues to move along, and not in the direction the White House would prefer. The Washington Post reported Wednesday night that the…

President Trump has authorized his secretary of defense, James Mattis, to determine American troop levels in Afghanistan. Mattis confirmed this Wednesday morning in a hearing before the Senate Appropriations committee. "At noon yesterday, President Trump delegated to me the authority to manage…

President Trump announced late Wednesday morning that the man who shot up a baseball practice of Republican members of Congress in Northern Virginia has died. James Hodgkinson, an Illinois man who opened fire Wednesday morning and injured five individuals, including House Republican whip Steve…

President Donald Trump released a statement Wednesday morning following reports of a shooting at a baseball practice of Republican members of Congress.

The most strident Trump critics have a problem. There's no evidence Jeff Sessions, the attorney general and former Alabama senator, colluded with Russian officials to sway the election toward Donald Trump. This was the implication of questions from Democratic senators at Tuesday's Senate…

Who is running the White House's defense against claims of obstruction of justice and others stemming from the ongoing Russia investigation? From the looks of it, it's Marc Kasowitz, the outside counsel of President Donald Trump.

The fallout from last week's Senate Intelligence committee hearing with former FBI director James Comey continues. The White House—and Donald Trump's new outside counsel Marc Kasowitz—has decided on two messages, each distilled into two of the president's Sunday morning tweets.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Friday called on four Arab states to end an economic blockade of the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar. "We call on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt to ease the blockade against Qatar," Tillerson said Friday afternoon at the…

What did we learn from James Comey, the fired FBI director, when he testified on June 8 before the Senate Select Intelligence Committee? Not enough to prove Donald Trump committed high crimes and misdemeanors warranting impeachment, as the president's most strident opponents were hoping. Neither…

What did we learn from James Comey, the fired FBI director, when he testified on June 8 before the Senate Select Intelligence Committee? Not enough to prove Donald Trump committed high crimes and misdemeanors warranting impeachment, as the president's most strident opponents were hoping. Neither…

On Wednesday, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released the prepared opening statement of former FBI director James Comey, kickstarting the most anticipated event in Washington since President Trump's inauguration.

Is Jeff Sessions on his way out? That would be a reasonable interpretation of White House press secretary Sean Spicer's cautious response to a question during Tuesday's press briefing. Asked whether President Donald Trump still has "confidence" in his attorney general, Spicer said, "I have not had…

The Trump administration was notified ahead of Monday's decision by four Arab countries to cut diplomatic ties with Qatar. Qatar has long been considered the most recalcitrant of the Arab states when it comes to curbing its financing of terrorism. The Trump White House, in fact, celebrated the fact…

President Donald Trump's initial public reaction to the weekend's terror attack in London came via his Twitter feed. "We need to be smart, vigilant and tough," tweeted the president, as the news came in that terrorists had crashed a van and stabbed several people in crowded areas of London. "We…

The White House is referring all questions about the investigation into Russian meddling the 2016 election, now under the direction of special counsel and former FBI director Robert Mueller, to President Donald Trump's outside counsel, New York litigator Marc Kasowitz. Trump had reportedly…

I'm fascinated by the photograph of the Beatles in the open gatefold of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which was released 50 years ago today. From left to right sit Ringo Starr, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison, clad in colorful psychedelic military garb against a yellow…

Sean Spicer will no longer be taking any questions about the Russian investigation and the former FBI director who was once leading that investigation. That's what the White House press secretary told reporters in a short, off-camera briefing Wednesday, directing reporters to contact President…

At his first on-camera briefing of the press since President Trump returned to Washington, Sean Spicer spent a good 10 minutes Tuesday recapping the highlights of an "incredible, historic trip" to the Middle East and Europe. "We've never seen before at this point in a presidency such sweeping…

If there's a shakeup for the West Wing staff coming, no one has much to say about it. Former campaign aides Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie reportedly met with President Trump Monday at the White House, though whether either will be tapped to official positions in the administration—as opposed…

Donald Trump's first budget request does not propose fixing the two major entitlement programs, Social Security retirement and Medicare. But as Trump's director of the Office of Management and Budget testified Wednesday, the White House's proposal could be the last balanced budget request to not…

Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, will defend the White House's budget request in front of the respective congressional committees Wednesday and Thursday. The administration's goal on Capitol Hill this week, according to a White House source, is two-fold: to make a…

Committee chairs in Congress look at White House budget proposals with something between indifference and disdain. Congress, not the White House, writes the budget, or so the thinking goes. So why, besides the law mandating he submit one, does a president spend so much time and energy crafting a…

In an effort to debunk a story dogging him for the last several days, President Trump seems to have revived questions. The story is the report that Trump, in his May 10 meeting in the Oval Office with two top Russian government officials, revealed up-to-then classified intelligence from a foreign…

Can President Trump broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians? That's the "ultimate deal" that will be on the president's mind as he travels Monday to Israel. Here's more from the New York Times:

The Washington Post reports that the federal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election (and possible collusion with the Trump campaign) has "identified a current White House official as a significant person of interest." The paper hints at who that person might be.

Washington greeted the news that the Justice Department had named Robert Mueller special counsel to oversee the FBI's investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election with a collective sigh of relief. The speed and intensity of events and developments about this interference—and the…

Washington greeted the news that the Justice Department had named Robert Mueller special counsel to oversee the FBI's investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election with a collective sigh of relief. The speed and intensity of events and developments about this interference—and the…

Robert Mueller—the former FBI director who on Wednesday was appointed by the Department of Justice as a special prosecutor to investigate Russian meddling in the 2016 election, and possible collusion with Trump campaign associates—loves to prosecute.

Does the president have recordings of the conversations he had with James Comey? It's a question the White House has had to deal with since Friday morning, when President Trump tweeted a vague threat of sorts to the man he had ousted as FBI director. "James Comey better hope that there are no…

The White House national security adviser on Tuesday did not deny several reports that President Donald Trump disclosed to high-ranking Russian officials previously classified intelligence from a foreign intelligence service. Speaking to reporters at the White House, H.R. McMaster said repeatedly…

President Trump appeared to admit Tuesday morning that he did share sensitive information, which multiple news outlets have reported was classified, with Russian officials in the Oval Office.

If the Washington Post's bombshell report Monday is true, then President Trump has a big, big problem on his hands. As the Post reported, last Wednesday in the Oval Office Trump relayed what had been highly classified intelligence information related to ISIS to Russian foreign minister Sergei…

The Washington Post reports that President Trump "revealed highly classified information" to high-ranking Russian officials last week. According to the Post's sources, Trump disclosed to Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak information about a source of…

President Trump will be making a decision soon—though likely not this week, I'm told—about whether to send at least 3,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. That's the main element of a proposal presented to Trump by the National Security Council's principals committee (the whole of the president's…

The firing of FBI director James Comey was a long time coming, to hear the insiders of the Trump administration tell it. But the final actions that put it in motion took place over the course of slightly more than 24 hours—light speed by government standards, and the hastiness and improvisation…

The firing of FBI director James Comey was a long time coming, to hear the insiders of the Trump administration tell it. But the final actions that put it in motion took place over the course of slightly more than 24 hours—light speed by government standards, and the hastiness and improvisation…

Why did President Trump fire James Comey? The initial explanation offered by the administration on Tuesday night was that the FBI director had mishandled the investigation of Hillary Clinton's private email server, dating back to a public appearance by Comey back in July 2016—10 months ago. It had…

Tuesday at the White House began with an almost unusual stillness, with President Trump having no public appearances on his schedule. Trump met with aides, received his daily intelligence briefing, and tweeted a series of criticisms of his former acting attorney general. A normal morning, really.

President Trump has fired the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In a statement, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said James Comey has been "terminated and removed from office." Spicer also stated that both Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the deputy AG, Rod Rosenstein,…

What's going on at the National Security Council? Eli Lake at Bloomberg View reports that President Trump himself has "clashed" with National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster "in front of his staff." And it's not just the president, Lake writes:

President Donald Trump will nominate 10 people to federal judgeships on Monday, the New York Times reported Sunday evening. The nominations include five appeals court seats, four district court seats, and a federal clams court seat.

As President Donald Trump and House speaker Paul Ryan spoke on the phone Thursday morning, hours before the House would vote on the American Health Care Act, they discussed an idea: If the bill passed, Ryan and a group of House Republicans would travel to the White House for a post-vote statement…

When Reince Priebus wants to talk with the most powerful aide in the West Wing, he steps out of his corner office, walks down the hall toward the Oval Office, and knocks on the door of Jared Kushner—sometimes twice. Priebus may be the chief of staff, but it's he who waits for Kushner, the…

What's the holdup? Deputy national security advisor K.T. McFarland is waiting to leave the White House to prepare for her new assignment as the U.S. ambassador to Singapore. An administration official confirmed back on April 9 that McFarland, a veteran of the Reagan administration who was a Fox…

If the House of Representatives ends up passing a new version of the American Health Care Act in the next couple of weeks, Republicans can thank the White House—for staying mostly out of the way. While both President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence continue to speak with both House…

Welcome to White House Watch, a new reported feature here at THE WEEKLY STANDARD, written by me. I aim to continue what I started with the First 100 Days, my daily chronicle of the Donald Trump White House's whirlwind first period. That ended this weekend (read my wrap-up for Trump's first 100 days…

"With this president, you never know."

Is the administration preparing for something with North Korea? That was the impression of many in Washington ahead of a Wednesday afternoon White House briefing of nearly all 100 U.S. senators by military and national security officials. Those briefing the senators included Secretary of State Rex…

The Trump administration has hit another court challenge to an immigration-related executive order. On Tuesday, a district court judge in California issued a preliminary injunction against last month's order from the White House that so-called sanctuary cities—those localities that choose to harbor…

Does President Trump want border-wall funding in this week's spending bill, or doesn't he? Just over the weekend, top administration officials were suggesting they might push for money to begin construction on a wall along the southern border with Mexico as Congress gets ready to deal with the…

It’s the beginning of a big week for Washington. Congress returns from recess while the Trump administration prepares for its 100th day on Saturday. The campaign had made much of this initial period of a Trump presidency, releasing a "Contract with the American Voter" before the election that…

Officially, the Trump administration certified this week that Iran has complied in the strictest terms with the requirements of the nuclear deal, known officially as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. But as President Donald Trump indicated in a Thursday press conference with Italian prime…

Will the Trump administration scrap the Iran nuclear deal, or is the basic framework of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action here to stay? On Thursday, the deputies of the National Security Council will hold their first meeting to discuss the Trump administration's review of Iran's compliance…

Late Tuesday night, the Associated Press first reported that the Trump administration had certified that Iran has so far been compliant in the nuclear deal forged by the Obama administration. The deal had been sharply criticized by Republicans and even a few Democrats, and its undoing was one of…

Tuesday's special House election in Georgia carries with it an inordinate degree of focus on Donald Trump. The president created the House vacancy in the suburban district north of Atlanta after picking Representative Tom Price to be the secretary of Health and Human Services. Price had won the…

Tensions are rising as North Korea continues its attempted shows of provocation and the United States ramps up its effort to deal with Pyongyang. The White House, including the president himself, is sending public signals that stopping North Korea from having a deliverable nuclear weapon is a top…

The Trump White House is taking stock of what it sees as a solid seven days for its national security and geopolitical policies. “It's difficult to portray this as anything but a really great week," said one senior administration official on Wednesday.

Last week's strike on the Syrian airfield from which Bashar al-Assad launched his latest chemical-weapons attack on his own people has somewhat overshadowed President Trump's meeting with Xi Jinping, the president of China. The summit at Mar-a-Lago last Thursday and Friday was the first chance for…

The Russian government has been spreading "disinformation" about last week's chemical-weapons attack, according to senior White House officials.

While the Trump administration's second attempt at repealing Obamacare sits in a holding pattern as Congress is in recess, attention has turned to the other major legislative goal for Republicans in Washington: tax reform. Except, the Associated Press reported Monday, Trump has "scrapped" his tax…

Last week’s successful strike on a Syrian airfield has been followed up by important questions for the Trump administration: What happens to Bashar al-Assad now? Will U.S. policy toward the Assad regime change? Will Trump call for regime change through force? What will the United States do if Assad…

President Donald Trump appears to have been mugged by reality this week following Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad's chemical-weapons attack on his own people. The result? Assad's regime—and in particular, the airbase in central Syria where his attack was launched—got a swift dose of reality in the…

On Wednesday afternoon, the National Security Council convened in the White House, with President Donald Trump in the chair, to discuss how the United States would respond to Bashar al-Assad. Just a couple of hours earlier, in a press conference in the Rose Garden, Trump had denounced in strong…

President Trump will meet with Chinese president Xi Jinping Thursday in what will be his most important and consequential meeting with a foreign leader so far. Not only does Xi lead a major regional and world power, with a population of nearly 1.4 billion and an economic output that competes with…

How does the Trump administration’s Syria policy differ from the Obama administration's? It's not evident there's much practical distance between the two, despite a prepared statement from President Trump Tuesday afternoon blasting "the past administration's weakness and irresolution."

President Trump may address Chinese sanctions against South Korea in his meetings this week with China President Xi Jinping, according to a senior White House official. The installation of the United States's Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system in South Korea has…

There are two big, outstanding questions surrounding Donald Trump, Barack Obama, and Russia: Did associates of the Trump campaign and transition have improper or illicit contact with Russian officials? Did the Obama administration improperly monitor and leak identifying details about those Trump…

President Donald Trump has three big meetings this week with important world leaders. The first two come from the Middle East. On Monday, Trump will meet for several hours with Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi at the White House, followed by a Wednesday meeting with King Abdullah II of…

Michael Flynn, the short-tenured national security advisor for President Trump, is offering to testify to both the FBI and the congressional intelligence committees about possible connections between the Trump campaign and Russia in exchange for immunity. The Wall Street Journal had the scoop…

The New York Times reports that two White House officials were involved in uncovering and distributing intelligence reports that wound up in the hands of House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes last week. "Several current American officials identified the White House officials as Ezra…

It's official: Ivanka Trump is now an employee of the federal government. The daughter of President Donald Trump and wife of senior adviser Jared Kushner, Ivanka is making official what was already clear from her frequent appearances alongside her father at the White House and last week's news that…

There are two related but separate issues regarding House Intelligence committee chairman Devin Nunes's revelation last week that identifying information about associates of the Trump campaign and transition team was collected by and distributed within the intelligence committee.

In the time since President Trump's March 4 tweets alleging he had his "'wires tapped' in Trump Tower" shortly before last year's election by President Obama, there's been no evidence revealed that strictly supports his claim. Trump opponents view this lack of evidence as proof the president made…

"There could have been more outreach to conservative groups."

In a short briefing of reporters in the Oval Office late Friday afternoon, President Donald Trump said he was "disappointed" and "a little surprised, to be honest," that the American Health Care Act did not have the votes to pass the House of Representatives. Flanked by Vice President Mike Pence…

President Trump is "moving on" from health care after the House scuttled a planned Friday afternoon vote on the White House-backed American Health Care Act, says a senior White House aide.

The top spokesman for President Trump declined to rule out that someone at the White House may have given or alerted the House Intelligence committee chairman about documents revealing intelligence collection involving Trump campaign associates. On Wednesday California congressman Devin Nunes…

For Donald Trump's domestic agenda, this week was the best of times and the worst of times. First, the best: Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch aced his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary committee. The well-prepared Gorsuch gave a near-perfect performance, sparring easily with…

I'll admit, I have few childhood memories of the nativity scene my grandparents kept on their mantel every Christmas. I recall more clearly the haunting portrait of Santa Claus hanging in the foyer and the towering Christmas tree, with its pink ribbons and bows. And, of course, the bounty of…

The House of Representatives will vote Thursday on the American Health Care Act, a bill President Donald Trump has enthusiastically endorsed and what the administration considers its best and perhaps only chance to repeal and replace Obamacare. It's the first and possibly biggest test so far of…

The Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare is either quite nearly dead or right on-course to become law—depending on which Republican you ask. President Trump's Tuesday trip to Capitol Hill seemed designed to either cajole or intimidate on-the-fence House Republicans to support the bill.…

Where to begin? Monday was jam-packed with news regarding Donald Trump and his administration. Unfortunately the best news for Trump, a solid first day of hearings for his Supreme Court nominee (more on that below), was overshadowed by the appearance of FBI director James Comey and National…

The Senate Judiciary committee will convene its first day of hearings to confirm Neil Gorsuch to the United States Supreme Court on Monday. Since President Donald Trump nominated Gorsuch to the seat in late January, the federal judge has pretty much sailed through the pre-hearing process, which…

While activity and controversy have consumed the White House over the past few weeks—the rollout of the health-care bill, President Trump's claims he was wire-tapped by President Obama, the travel ban's legal troubles, and the unveiling of the Trump budget—Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch has…

Over the weekend, a personnel dispute within the National Security Council between the national security advisor, H.R. McMaster, and senior White House aides Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon was eventually brought to President Trump himself. As Politico reported Tuesday evening, Trump overruled…

Another day with the same big and frustrating story for the Trump administration: The effort to repeal and replace Obamacare is not going well. The House bill continues to lose supporters publicly, and not just from the far-right Freedom Caucus.

The Congressional Budget Office is finally out with its analysis of the Trump-backed American Health Care Act, and the results are, well, not great, Bob! The big headline, and the big headache for the White House, is the estimate that in less than a decade 24 million fewer people would have…

Not much over the past couple of days has made the passage of the American Health Care Act seem more likely. One of the House bill’s chief Republican critics, Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, told ABC's George Stephanopoulos Sunday that the proposal "as it's written today…cannot pass the Senate."

The White House continues to argue that the House Republican health-care bill is the best and only way to repeal Obamacare. "No matter where you are, especially on the conservative side, you cannot possibly believe that the current health care system is an effective program," said press secretary…

President Trump met with a select group of leaders from conservative organizations Wednesday evening to discuss the health-care bill. Represented at the meeting were the Club for Growth, the Heritage Foundation (and its political arm, Heritage Action), Americans for Prosperity, FreedomWorks, and…

The House Republican health care bill has an odd problem: Nobody seems to support it. Nobody, that is, except President Trump and his administration. While the House plan appears to be the work of Speaker Paul Ryan and the two committee chairmen of Ways and Means, and Energy and Commerce, the White…

The Trump administration has a problem with anonymous sources and the media outlets who run stories based entirely on them. This, in the White House’s view, is how unfair and untrue narratives about the Trump campaign's nefarious connections with Russia persist. "People start taking things as fact…

President Trump signed a new executive order on Monday to replace a previous order that restricted travel into the United States from several foreign countries. The new order maintains the restriction from six of the seven countries in the original one—Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and…

So what happened this weekend? For a full briefing on President Trump's claim that President Obama ordered a wiretap of Trump Tower during the election—what was alleged, what the president knew when he alleged it, and what to make of the various responses to those allegations—read editor in chief…

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has promised to recuse himself from any Justice Department investigations into the Trump presidential campaign. His blanket recusal likely will not satisfy his most ardent opponents, who wanted to see the Alabama Republican resign after it was revealed Sessions had…

Gary Cohn isn’t the oldest of President Donald Trump's senior White House aides, or the most experienced, at least when it comes to government. Indeed, unlike Mike Pence, Reince Priebus, and Kellyanne Conway, Cohn has no experience in politics to speak of. He's not even a Republican!

The era of big government is back. That was the clear message from President Donald Trump's first address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night. His speech, as light on specifics as the White House promised, was nonetheless a call for a muscular response from government to the nation's…

We know very little about what to expect in President Trump's address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night. That was obvious from the Democratic "prebuttal" that House minority leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer delivered on Monday, which volleyed between standard…

The fight to repeal Obamacare is ramping up as Congress prepares to return from its recess. Senators and representatives will hear from President Trump on Tuesday during his address to a joint session, and repeal and replace is expected to be among the most important talking points in the speech.

Donald Trump will make his first address to the Conservative Political Action Conference as president of the United States Friday. It's not Trump's first time speaking at the conservative confab—that would be his 2011 appearance, where the Apprentice star said he would be deciding soon if he would…

“It's going to be a very busy March and April for us," said White House press secretary Sean Spicer at his Wednesday briefing. That's when the Trump administration expects to start moving forward on its legislative agenda—and at the top of that list is the repeal and replacement of Obamacare.

Rave reviews continue to come in for the new White House national security advisor, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, including from frequent Trump administration critic John McCain (more on him below).

A week after Donald Trump asked Mike Flynn to resign from his post as national security advisor, the president has announced another Army general, H.R. McMaster, as Flynn’s replacement. If there are any worthwhile objections to McMaster's appointment among the broad national security, military, and…

President Donald Trump has named U.S. Army lieutenant general H.R. McMaster to be his new national security advisor. The Monday afternoon announcement comes nearly one week after Mike Flynn was asked to resign from the job following revelations he had misled the White House on his conversations…

Last Monday's dismissal of national security advisor Mike Flynn seems to have only raised more questions, and scant answers, in the ensuing week. For starters, who will replace Flynn? Nearly a week later, the Trump administration has yet to find a candidate who will take the job, although the…

It was one hour and 17 minutes of—well, I'm not sure quite what. Donald Trump's first official presidential press conference Thursday afternoon was at various times shocking, confusing, funny, frustrating. He harangued the gathered reporters his White House had asked to attend the event. He…

President Trump has lost two important figures in his administration within 48 hours. His national security advisor, Mike Flynn, resigned Monday night, while Trump's nominee for Labor secretary, Andy Puzder, withdrew on Wednesday, the day before his Senate hearing. So, Washington wants to know, who…

We have not yet reached the end of the Mike Flynn story. The former national security advisor’s abrupt resignation on Monday night might have been the end of his story, as far as the American people are concerned, had his downfall been personal or isolated. But the factors that cut Flynn's White…

It took only three weeks for the Trump administration to experience its first scandal and senior-level resignation. Mike Flynn, the retired lieutenant general and a trusted national security aide to Donald Trump, resigned his post as national security advisor late Monday night. The administration…

Republicans in the Senate have been privately concerned about Andy Puzder, Donald Trump's choice for Labor secretary, and the fast-food CEO could be in real trouble if more than two GOP senators vote against him. Now the Washington Post reports that four Republican senators are "on the fence" about…

The political world is abuzz about the possibility Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, is on the outs with Donald Trump. That’s due to a not-so-deep reading of some comments by Chris Ruddy, the CEO of Newsmax Media and a donor and friend to Trump, on CNN's Reliable Sources Sunday.

Donald Trump spoke on the phone Thursday night with his counterpart in China for the first time since being inaugurated—and for the first time since Trump accepted a phone call from the president of Taiwan late last year. The Taiwan call, which took place in early December when Trump was still the…

Elliott Abrams, CNN reports, will not be nominated as deputy secretary of state. A veteran diplomat and foreign policy expert with experience in both the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations, Abrams was Secretary Rex Tillerson's choice for the number-two position at the State Department. He…

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has spoken and…it will not lift the temporary restraining order on President Trump's travel restriction executive order. The three-judge panel ruled unanimously Thursday evening that the federal government did not present a compelling case in its effort to receive…

Is the United States "bogged down" in military conflict? That's the phrase President Donald Trump used in a series of tweets Thursday morning responding to a Republican senator who was critical of a recent U.S. military raid in Yemen.

At 10:30 Thursday morning, Jeff Sessions will officially be sworn in as attorney general of the United States. On a near party-line vote, 52 to 47, the Senate confirmed one of its own Wednesday night for the job of the nation's top law enforcement officer. Sessions was one of Donald Trump's…

Donald Trump's most contentious cabinet appointee (so far), Betsy DeVos, is now the Secretary of Education. Her nomination cleared the Senate Tuesday afternoon after all 48 Democrats voted unanimously against her (along with 2 Republicans), resulting in a 50-50 tie that Vice President Mike Pence…

It’s the first full week of February, and Donald Trump has been president for nearly two and a half weeks. So why, besides the executive orders, do things seem to be moving so slowly for the Trump administration?

Obviously, the come-from-behind overtime win by the Patriots over (my beloved) Falcons was the biggest news from Super Bowl Sunday. But in Washington the talk this past weekend was consumed by the president's latest controversial remarks about Vladimir Putin and a judicial fight over his travel…

On a late January afternoon, as press secretary Sean Spicer walked into the White House media briefing room, a tall, thin, bespectacled man poked his head in the doorway for a moment before turning around and heading back into the West Wing. Later that week, at another briefing, the man stayed…

On a late January afternoon, as press secretary Sean Spicer walked into the White House media briefing room, a tall, thin, bespectacled man poked his head in the doorway for a moment before turning around and heading back into the West Wing. Later that week, at another briefing, the man stayed…

Conservatives and Republicans appear to be in nearly universal agreement: In nominating Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, President Donald Trump has hit a home run. Immediately after Trump made the announcement Tuesday night from the White House, my email inbox was flooded with statements of…

It was a difficult weekend for the Trump administration as it sought to implement and defend its most controversial executive order to date, the travel ban. Fortunately for Trump, there's a chance to reset from the executive order fiasco with Tuesday night's announcement of his nominee for the…

The White House will neither confirm nor deny reports that Homeland Security secretary John Kelly was not briefed beforehand on last Friday's executive order banning travel from citizens of seven Muslim countries.

What did the Trump administration know about Friday's "extreme vetting" executive order, and when did they know it?

As the first full week of the Trump administration comes to a close, the White House appears to be getting into something of a groove. On Monday, there was a bit of chaos within the West Wing, with staffers looking a little lost or unsure of where to go and what to do. One veteran White House…

The border wall begins! Well, sort of. On Wednesday, President Trump signed two executive orders to deliver on one of his most famous and consistent campaign promises. Trump's first order directs the Department of Homeland Security to "immediately plan, design, and construct" the physical wall, and…

In the early days of the Trump presidency, the president and his administration seem to be traveling down two separate, parallel paths. On the one hand, President Trump has been pursuing concrete policy ends, primarily through executive orders: withdrawing from TPP, reinstating the Mexico City…

The weather Monday in Washington was windy, rainy, and messy—but those were hardly the conditions inside the West Wing on what the Trump administration was calling its first "working day." President Trump had an early meeting with CEOs of some of the country's largest manufacturers, a phone call…

White House press secretary Sean Spicer turned heads on Saturday evening when he called reporters to the briefing room and read from a written statement: "This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration—period—both in person and around the globe." Spicer drew intense criticism because…

Donald Trump has been president for nearly four days, but transition officials had suggested last week that Monday should be considered the "first" working day of the famed first 100 days. That may be the view in the West Wing, but quite a bit happened over the weekend that made it clear the Trump…

Donald Trump has said repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act should be done "very quickly"—but the issue was nowhere to be found in the president's inaugural address at the U.S. Capitol Friday. Trump's speech, which struck populist themes on trade, immigration, foreign policy, and…

Today is Inauguration Day, so it seems fitting to kick things off with the inaugural edition of this new feature here at THE WEEKLY STANDARD. For the first 100 (or so) days of the Donald J. Trump administration, look to this space for inside coverage of our 45th president, his White House, and his…

President-elect Donald Trump is "troubled" by President Barack Obama's commutation of the sentence of former Army private Chelsea Manning, according to a spokesman.

On the day set aside to celebrate the life and cause of the celebrated civil rights leader, here are a few selected speeches from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

President-elect Donald Trump says his proposal to replace Obamacare will guarantee "insurance for everybody" and "great health care" that is "much less expensive and much better." Here's more from the Washington Post's interview with Trump:

Michael Flynn, the designated national security advisor for incoming president Donald Trump, communicated by phone frequently late last month with Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak. And according to the Washington Post, in one of those phone conversations, Kislyak invited the…

It was an appropriate, if inauspicious, beginning to Thursday's confirmation hearing for Mike Pompeo that the lights suddenly went out during opening statements. The Kansas congressman is Donald Trump's selection to head the Central Intelligence Agency, which operates in the shadows. But even this…

Donald Trump said Wednesday that he believes the hack of emails of officials of the Democratic National Committee was backed by Russia.

The first day of the confirmation hearing for attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions could have been a zoo. As one of Donald Trump's earliest and most ardent supporters, Sessions might have been the first opportunity for Democrats and the activist left to indirectly channel their opposition to the…

CNN reports that American intelligence officials have briefed Donald Trump on documents that allege the Russian government has "compromising personal and financial information" about the president-elect. Details about the existence of this compromising information have been circulating among…

South Carolina senator Tim Scott says he will support his fellow Republican senator, Jeff Sessions, for attorney general. In a statement released late on the eve of Sessions's confirmation hearing, Scott allowed that while he and the Alabama senator "may not agree on everything", he would…

Jared Kushner, the husband of Ivanka Trump, will serve his father-in-law Donald Trump as senior advisor to the president. NBC News has the story:

Nat Hentoff, the music critic and columnist, has died at the age of 91. His son reported Hentoff's death on Twitter:

President-elect Donald Trump said he has a "constructive meeting and conversation" with officials in the intelligence community Friday. Trump, who has recently cast doubts publicly about intelligence reports that Russian-supported cyber-attacks tried to influence last November's presidential…

Two of the country's top intelligence officers say the man behind the WikiLeaks organization, Julian Assange, has no credibility and has done damage to the United States.

Tom Perriello, the one-term Democratic congressman from Virginia, will run for governor in this year's election. Jonathan Martin at the New York Times reports:

Arkansas senator Tom Cotton blasted Barack Obama for his accommodation of Russian aggression over the past eight years and argued that Russia has committed "crimes and transgressions against the United States and our interests" while the administration "looked the other way." Speaking to Tucker…

The new minority leader in the Senate, New York Democrat Chuck Schumer, said Tuesday he would "absolutely" attempt to keep open the Supreme Court seat once held by the late justice Antonin Scalia. "It's hard for me to imagine a nominee that Donald Trump would choose that would get Republican…

Donald Trump gently criticized the House Republican conference Tuesday for approving a rule change that would curb the powers of an independent ethics office in Congress. Taking to Twitter, the Republican president-elect said Congress should focus instead on taxes and health care first.

Reuters reports with an exclusive:

Politico reports:

Majority leader Kevin McCarthy and Foreign Affairs committee chairman Ed Royce announced Monday night that the House of Representatives will hold a vote Thursday on a resolution blasting last month's United Nations Security Council resolution regarding Israeli settlements. The Obama administration…

The Washington Post reports:

At the New York Post, Daniel Halper reports on the launch of a new quarterly journal, American Affairs:

Russian president Vladimir Putin is already waging a war against the West and American hegemony—if only leaders in the United States would look at the evidence. That's what Molly K. McKew argues in a new feature at Politico magazine.

The Obama administration announced an amendment to an executive order Thursday that introduces targeted sanctions on Russian assets here in the United States. The sanctions come in response to reported cyber attacks on the Democratic National Committee and other groups by Russian-backed hackers.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday his government has "absolutely incontestable evidence that the United States organized, advanced, and brought" an anti-Israel resolution to the United Nations Security Council. In an on-camera statement from Jerusalem, Netanyahu said he would…

In his Wednesday speech on the Middle East, outgoing secretary of state John Kerry said a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinian people was the only way to achieve piece. Kerry, the 2004 Democratic nominee for president, also scolded the leadership of the democratic Jewish state of…

Tucked away in Jason Zengerle's New York magazine profile of outgoing Senate minority leader Harry Reid is a little nugget about what Senate Democrats and their new leader, Chuck Schumer, plan to take their first stand on in the new Congress: Donald Trump's nominee for Health and Human Services,…

Israel's deputy minister and former ambassador to the United States said Tuesday that he and the Israeli government "welcome" the proposed plan of incoming president Donald Trump to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Sources tell the Washington Free Beacon's Adam Kredo that Vice President Joe Biden lobbied foreign leaders whose countries sit on the United Nations Security Council to vote for a resolution that calls for the end of Israeli settlement activity. Here's an excerpt from the Beacon:

Barack Obama told his former adviser and campaign manager, David Axelrod, that he could have beaten Donald Trump had the president been able to run again in 2016. The Washington Post reports on Obama's appearance on Axelrod's podcast. Here's an excerpt:

When 14 members of the United Nations Security Council voted in 2011 for a resolution condemning the expansion of Israeli settlements as illegal, the Obama administration exercised the United States's veto power to block its passage. Opposition to settlements beyond Israel's borders established in…

The United Nations Security Council passed on Friday a resolution calling for an end to further Israeli settlement—with the United States government and its U.N. ambassador Samantha Power abstaining from the vote. The United States is one of five permanent members of the Security Council with veto…

Donald Trump has selected his campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, to be counselor to the president. Conway, who joined the Trump campaign in August after previously working for a super PAC supporting Texas senator Ted Cruz, will "continue her role as a close advisor to the president and will work…

Writing at Maclean's, Terry Glavin argues the pit of blood and despair Bashar al-Assad has created with his own people in his own country of Syria—and the civilized world's acquiesence to the terror—is ushering in a new age of tyranny around the world.

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said the incident Monday at a Berlin Christmas market that left 12 people dead and dozens more injured is a "terrorist attack." Here's the New York Times with more:

President-elect Donald Trump said Monday night that the assassination of the Russian ambassador to Turkey earlier that day in Ankara was the work of a "radical Islamic terrorist."

Donald Trump has officially become the president-elect, as electors in Texas put the Republican nominee over the required 270 votes to win the White House over the Democrat, Hillary Clinton.

Vincent Viola, a businessman who owns the Florida Panthers hockey team and served in the U.S. Army on active and reserve duty, has been tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to be the Secretary of the Army. Reuters has more:

The Washington Post's perceptive book critic Carlos Lozada examines the most lauded aspect of Barack Obama's political profile—the president's oratorical skills—and finds a troubling consistency: the primacy of Obama's own personal story. "This was a presidency preoccupied with Obama's…

Elliott Abrams, writing at the Council on Foreign Relations website, argues that America has an interest in supporting democracy in the Arab world. Here's an excerpt:

It's the opportunity Republicans have been awaiting for six years, which invites the obvious question: Are they going to screw it up? In January, a united Republican Congress and Republican White House will finally have the ability to dispose of Obamacare, the unpopular and destructive…

The Washington Post reports that last week, President-elect Donald Trump was agonizing over his shortlist of candidates for secretary of state—which included Mitt Romney, Bob Corker, Rudy Giuliani, and David Petraeus. Trump was reportedly unsatisfied with his choices when a new name, that of…

On a recent episode of the Weekly Substandard podcast, co-hosts Victorino Matus, Jonathan V. Last, and Sonny Bunch discussed their favorite Christmas movies, including 1983's A Christmas Story. While Jonathan isn't a fan of the film, millions of Americans tune in every Christmas Eve and Christmas…

In the New York Times's new extensive report on the massive Russian-backed operation to hack American political and government severs—including a successful hack of the Democratic National Committee's server—the paper reveals that President Barack Obama had been "briefed regularly" on Russia's…

The regime of Bashar al-Assad has begun to take over neighborhoods in the beseiged city of Aleppo, with the Syrian authoritarian's forces killing at least 82 civilians on Monday. The New York Times reports on the atrocities:

Donald Trump said on Twitter Monday he would announce on Tuesday his selection for secretary of state. The New York Times reports that Trump has picked ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson. Here's the Times:

After saying late last month he would leave the business operations of his corporation upon taking office, President-elect Donald Trump reportedly will delay a planned public announcement with details of what he'll do with his business operations. Trump's press conference, planned for later this…

The government of New York City is offering counseling and support services for its city workers who are feeling "distressed" or "vulnerable" following last month's elections. In an email sent to city government employees last week and obtained by THE WEEKLY STANDARD, a coalition of agencies…

At the Washington Free Beacon, Aaron MacLean writes about the false narratives about the state of the economy and the world under the Obama administration. MacLean suggests the alternative reality presented by Obama and propagated by a compliant media led the country to revolt against it and reject…

CNN reports:

The Washington Post reports:

Utah's senior senator, Republican Orrin Hatch, remains popular in the Beehive State. But a poll conducted on behalf of a political action committee that seeks more conservative Senate candidates has also found voters in Utah believe the seven-term Republican should retire rather than run again in…

Hillary Clinton, speaking at the United States Capitol Thursday to unveil a portrait of outgoing senator Harry Reid, called "fake news" a "danger" to the country.

It’s the opportunity Republicans have been awaiting for six years, which invites the obvious question: Are they going to screw it up? In January, a united Republican Congress and Republican White House will finally have the ability to dispose of Obamacare, the unpopular and destructive…

Retired Marine general John Kelly, Donald Trump's selection for Secretary of Homeland Security, is likely to bring a tough-on-drugs mentality to that department. Kevin Baron, the executive editor at Defense One, explains:

Just a week after saying he would leave the operations of his business upon taking office, President-elect Donald Trump is reportedly considering maintaining a financial interest in the company. The New York Times reports:

John Kelly, the retired Marine general who most recently was the head of U.S. Southern Command, is Donald Trump's selection for Secretary of Homeland Security. CBS News reports:

Writing at National Journal, Josh Kraushaar suggests Democrats' far-left policies on energy and the environment have been a problem for the party at the ballot box. There are even some Democratic politicos, Kraushaar reports, who are discussing pulling back from the party's hard line on energy…

The son of Donald Trump's pick for national security advisor was fired from the Trump transition team for publicly embracing a conspiracy theory. Michael G. Flynn, whose father is retired Lt. General Mike Flynn, is "no longer involved" with the transition, spokesman Jason Miller told reporters on a…

A leading House Democrat called on his party to reconsider its political strategy ahead of the 2018 elections and praised incoming president Donald Trump for making a "smart" political decision by convincing an American manufacturer to keep some jobs in the United States. Adam Schiff, an eight-term…

Republican members of Congress have introduced companion resolutions urging the newly opened Smithsonian musem of African-American history to include the achievements of Justice Clarence Thomas, the second (and currently only) black member of the Supreme Court.

Retired Marine general John Kelly is Donald Trump's leading pick to become the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, reports Eliana Johnson at Politico:

Former vice president Al Gore met with President-elect Donald Trump Monday at Trump Tower, according to the transition pool report. The former Tennessee senator and 2000 Democratic nominee for president was expected to meet with Trump's daughter Ivanka, but Gore also says he spoke with Trump.

The alt-right movement, relatively minuscule but outsized in the media coverage it has received before and since Donald Trump's election, is the latest iteration of America's dalliance with identity politics. So writes WEEKLY STANDARD senior editor Christopher Caldwell in the New York Times. Here's…

Irving Kristol famously wrote in 1978 that we might offer "two cheers for capitalism"—an insight borrowed from E.M. Forster's similar suggestion about democracy. The phrase is a call for restraint among supporters of free-market economics. Kristol himself said he and his fellow neoconservative…

Matthew Continetti, writing in the Washington Free Beacon, argues that Donald Trump's cabinet picks so far aren't a betrayal of his promise to "drain the swamp" in Washington—they're a confirmation of it. Read an excerpt below:

The New York Times's Jonathan Martin reports that congressman Keith Ellison is "facing increasingly vocal resistance" from influential groups within the party over the Minnesotan's effort to become Democratic National Committee chairman. That resistance apparently includes Jewish organizations like…

Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic senator from Massachusetts, says she would support the man she defeated in 2012, Scott Brown, if Donald Trump nominates the former Republican senator to head the Department of Veterans Affairs. Politico reports:

Top aides for the presidential campaigns for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were involved in heated and emotional exchanges during a quadrennial forum at Harvard University's Institute of Politics. The Washington Post reports:

Donald Trump's selection for defense secretary once made a cross-country road trip that stopped at the homes of many families of fallen servicemembers. Read more from ABC News on General James Mattis's trip, which he took shortly after he retired from the Marine Corps after 41 years of service:

Donald Trump held a rally in Cincinnati Thursday to begin what's been dubbed the president-elect's "Thank You" tour.

Readers of THE WEEKLY STANDARD had a clear advantage during Tuesday night's episode of Jeopardy! when the category of "Leaning Conservative" came up.

Mitch McConnell didn't have much to complain about on the night of November 4, 2014. In that day's elections, Republicans gained a net nine Senate seats, securing a majority and ensuring McConnell would become Senate majority leader. This was a crowning achievement in a turbulent year for the…

Donald Trump has officially tapped his picks to run the Departments of the Treasury and of Commerce, according to the presidential transition. Trump will nominate Steven Mnuchin, the former Chief Information Officer at Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs, for Treasury secretary, while Wilbur Ross, a…

Tom Price, a Republican congressman from Georgia and orthopedic surgeon, is Donald Trump's choice for secretary of Health and Human Services. The New York Times reports:

While left-wing Western leaders celebrate the late Fidel Castro—whitewashing much of Cuba's recent history in the process—it's worth remembering how total and insidious the Communist dictator's tyrannical regime was for the Cuban people. Over the years, THE WEEKLY STANDARD has documented some of…

Mitch McConnell didn’t have much to complain about on the night of November 4, 2014. In that day's elections, Republicans gained a net nine Senate seats, securing a majority and ensuring McConnell would become Senate majority leader. This was a crowning achievement in a turbulent year for the…

Keith Ellison, the Minnesota congressman who is seeking the chairmanship the Democratic National Committee, is beginning to feel the heat for his past profession of radical views and associations with extremists. At the New York Times, Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman report that "some…

House speaker Paul Ryan stepped in Wednesday to block an effort by some House Republicans to partially resurrect earmark spending, six years after the practice was banned. Here's the Wall Street Journal with the report:

Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, an Army veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, has proposed a $26-billion "emergency" supplement to next year's defense budget. Speaking on the floor of the Senate Wednesday, the freshman Republican noted the threats from a resurgent Russia, an aggressive China, and a…

The newly elected House Republican conference voted to nominate Paul Ryan for speaker on Tuesday, a little more than a year after first being elected speaker. Ryan will now face a full vote of the House of Representatives in January, when the new Congress is called into session.

Mike Rogers, the former Michigan congressman who chaired the House Intelligence committee for four years, is no longer working on the transition team for President-elect Donald Trump.

Donald Trump has won the presidential election. He overcame the polls, the expectations, and the faith-based belief of the political establishment that he couldn't do it. As the results began to come in Tuesday night, as must-win states for Trump slid easily into his column, and as the Democrats'…

Republican senator Tim Scott has won reelection in South Carolina, according to the projection of the Associated Press. Scott, who was first appointed to the Senate in 2013 following the retirement of fellow Republican Jim DeMint, won the 2014 election to fill the remainder of DeMint's term. His…

Wilmington, N.C.

Greenville, N.C.

A new poll of likely voters in Indiana finds Republican Senate candidate Todd Young leading his Democratic rival, former senator Evan Bayh, by five points. The new survey from WTHR and Howey Politics Indiana found Young, a three-term congressman, with 46 percent support, while Bayh has 41 percent…

Donald Trump, whose recent campaign trips to Wisconsin suggested his campaign thought the Badger State might be in play, is losing to Hillary Clinton in a new poll of likely voters there. The Marquette University law school's survey found in a head-to-head match-up, Clinton leads Trump by 4…

Politics makes strange bedfellows—even stranger than normal in the 2016 election season. On Thursday morning, Republican presidential nominee tweeted a grateful message to left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore:

Can Republicans salvage their congressional majorities in the Year of Trump? Each day brings conflicting evidence. Donald Trump's stalling poll numbers are depressing performance for Republican Senate candidates in swing states like Nevada and Florida, and some are predicting big losses for the GOP…

Earlier this month, Republican senator Kelly Ayotte committed what was supposed to be a devastating gaffe when she said Donald Trump would "absolutely" be a role model for her children. But a new poll released Tuesday morning suggests the first-term New Hampshire senator is still very much alive…

A right-wing news website worked with a far-left activist to disrupt the Republican primary opponents of Donald Trump. Politico reports:

Donald Trump believes he has lost the presidential election. That's the only reasonable explanation for the Republican nominee's decision on Saturday in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to reiterate his claim that the more than 10 women who have accused Trump of past acts of sexual assault are liars.…

If there's a Republican on the ballot this year who deserves to be called the anti-Donald Trump, it might be Colorado's Mike Coffman. The Denver-area congressman is testing whether his strategy—running as the spiritual opposite of the GOP presidential nominee—won't pay off in a tough swing district.

House speaker Paul Ryan has issued a statement condemning President Obama's decision to lift trade restrictions with Cuba, the Carribbean island nation still controlled by Fidel and Raúl Castro's Communist regime. Obama announced Friday the United States would be lifting the limits to importing…

The Federal Bureau of Investigation released several documents Monday morning confirming discussions between officials at the State Department and at the FBI about a "quid pro quo" to reclassify documents stored on Hillary Clinton's private email server. Among the 34 released documents, which are…

An independent conservative presidential candidate with no national name recognition has statistically tied the two major-party candidates in Utah. The latest Rasmussen poll of Utah finds Republican Donald Trump with 30 percent support, independent Evan McMullin with 29 percent, and Democrat…

While there was little doubt where his sympathies lay, it was not until Thursday that Donald Trump fully and publicly embraced the most conspiratorial aspects of right-wing American politics. Witness his speech in West Palm Beach, Florida, in which Trump engaged in the sort of rhetoric once…

During an appearance on On the Record with Brit Hume Tuesday night, WEEKLY STANDARD senior writer John McCormack discussed House speaker Paul Ryan's decision to focus entirely on House races and not campaign with Donald Trump. Ryan made the announcement on a conference call Tuesday with House…

A new poll of likely voters in Utah finds the Republican nominee for president tied with the Democrat—a remarkable development in a state that has voted for every GOP nominee since 1964. In the new Deseret News poll, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are tied among voters in the Beehive State at 26…

Paul Ryan deserves credit and support for his decision to stop defending and campaigning for Donald Trump, says the Washington Examiner in a new editorial published Wednesday. Here's an excerpt:

Donald Trump is a terrible champion for Republicans for many reasons—the recently released 2005 audio tape reveals the most egregious one. But his performance in Sunday's debate in St. Louis against an ineffective Hillary Clinton demonstrated just how ill-equipped Trump is to challenge the weakest…

Embattled New Hampshire senator Kelly Ayotte says she will not be supporting Donald Trump, the Republican party nominee, for president. Ayotte, who faced a tough challenge from Democrat Maggie Hassan, released a statement Saturday morning in which she said she will write in Mike Pence, Trump's…

Former Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina has withdrawn her endorsement of Donald Trump.

Alabama representative Martha Roby is the latest Republican member of Congress to denounce her party's presidential nominee and call for him to step away from the presidential race. The three-term House member released a statement Saturday morning in response to the report that Donald Trump, in…

Donald Trump is a "dirty old man" and was not committing a youthful indiscretion during his lewd conversation with TV host Billy Bush in 2005. That's what Bill Kristol told CNN's Jake Tapper Friday afternoon in response to the released audio of that conversation, which featured the future…

Bill Kristol said the recently released audio of Donald Trump speaking lewdly about women is a "window into his character." Joining Kirsten Powers on CNN's The Lead with Jake Tapper Friday, Kristol reacted to the news, first reported by the Washington Post, that a private conversation between Trump…

The Washington Post has obtained a video recording of Donald Trump speaking lewdly about sex acts and his attempt to seduce a married woman. The video, which features a conversation between Trump and TV host Billy Bush that was inadvertantly caught on a hot microphone, was recorded just months…

McKay Coppins at BuzzFeed reports that independent conservative presidential candidate Evan McMullin will announce his running mate is 35-year-old Republican consultant Mindy Finn. Here's Coppins:

Farmville, Va.

After the Washington Post last week published a glossed-over history of how Hillary Clinton "wrestled with" allegations of her husband Bill Clinton's extramarital affairs in the run-up to his 1992 run for president, our own Andrew Ferguson tried to fill in the gaps in the Post's story. Here's an…

The New York Times's report on Donald Trump's tax records from 1995 suggests the Republican nominee may have avoided paying federal income taxes for up to nearly two decades afterward. That's because Trump declared a loss of almost $1 billion from his business dealings, and U.S. tax law allows…

President Barack Obama traveled to the memorial service for former prime minister and Israeli founding father Shimon Peres Friday. The service was held at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, the site of the national cemetery of Israel. The White House press office released to the public Obama's remarks at…

Writing at City Journal, Clifford Asness notes that neither candidate on the debate stage Monday night seemed willing or able to defend free enterprise or conservative economic ideas. "There were many frustrating examples in the first debate of Donald Trump failing even to challenge Hillary…

Hempstead, N.Y.

Matthew Continetti writes at the Washington Free Beacon on what President Obama's final address to the United Nations General Assembly tells us about the failure of Obama's worldview:

Ted Cruz, the Texas senator and one of Donald Trump's main rivals in the Republican presidential primary, has endorsed the Republican nominee in a lengthy Facebook post. "After many months of careful consideration, of prayer and searching my own conscience, I have decided that on Election Day, I…

The Associated Press reports:

Hillary Clinton is making a tactical mistake by focusing too much on Donald Trump and not enough on her own plans for her prospective presidency, Bill Kristol argued. Joining Brit Hume on Fox News Wednesday night, Kristol pointed out that his own experience as part of the losing campaign for George…

Top Obama adminstration officials have characterized the threat from climate change as "more terrifying" and "more potentially destructive and destabilizing" than a host of other threats, including terrorism and diseases like Zika and Ebola.

The campaign manager for Donald Trump referred to George H.W. Bush as a "92-year-old former president" and said she respected his right to vote for whomever he chooses. Speaking to CNN's Erin Burnett Tuesday night, Kellyanne Conway, who last month took over as Trump's campaign manager, responded to…

The father of the New York bomber alerted federal law enforcement about his son being a "terrorist" back in 2014, the New York Times reports. Mohammad Rahami, the father of Ahmad Khan Rahami, told police his son was a terrorist after the younger Rahami was arrested following a domestic dispute with…

The White House press secretary said Monday the United States is in a "narrative fight, a narrative battle" with the Islamic State terrorist group. Josh Earnest, speaking with CNN host Chris Cuomo about the recent bombings in New York and New Jersey as well as the stabbing attack in Minnesota over…

Police are searching for a 28-year-old Afghan-born New Jersey resident they believe is behind a bombing this weekend in New York and possibly another in Jew Jersey. Here's the report from the Associated Press:

The Washington Examiner editorial board has declared the legacy of Barack Obama to be a transformed America—one that trusts its government and institutions less than it did when he became president. Here's an excerpt from the magazine's editorial:

In a recent op-ed in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, lawyer Michael W. Smith recalls a judge he clerked for in the Civil Rights era being targeted for intimidation and threats to his life and family as he ordered the desegregation of schools. Smith argues that judicial independence—not just from the…

On his Wednesday broadcast, radio host Rush Limbaugh read aloud the entirety of an essay published at the website of the Claremont Review of Books. The essay, published under the byline Publius Decius Mus, refers to the 2016 presidential race as the "Flight 93 Election," likening the stakes to…

A new ad from Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton argues "veterans deserve better" than her Republican rival, Donald Trump. The 30-second video features Trump's most infamous comments juxtaposed with images of military veterans—many of them with physical injuries—and their loved ones…

Speaking in Illinois Monday, Hillary Clinton touted her relationship with the Roman Catholic Church's newest saint, Teresa of Calcutta, even though the two had opposing views. "I was fortunate enough to know Mother Teresa. I was fortunate enough to even work with her," Clinton said, according to…

The New York Times reports on the death of Phyllis Schlafly:

The BBC reports:

Matthew Continetti, writing at the Washington Free Beacon, examines the fate of traditional conservatives in state- and congressional-level primaries—as well as the long-term implications for the Republican party and conservative movement.

Brian Mast, a first-time candidate and political novice, won a crowded Republican primary for a South Florida House seat Tuesday. Among the candidates he beat were the wife of the state senate president. The 35-year-old father of three isn't just a multi-tour combat veteran of Afghanistan—he's a…

Donald Trump will be traveling to Mexico Wednesday to meet with that country's president. The meeting will occur just hours before Trump plans to give a speech on immigration in Phoenix. The Republican presidential nominee confirmed the trip, first reported by the Washington Post, in a tweet…

Gene Wilder, the comedic actor and director who died Monday at the age of 83, had the qualities of a good character actor: an idiosyncratic voice, a mop of curly hair, and a familiarly quirky manner. But somehow, he became a star in a string of successful comedies in the 1970s and 1980s, including…

Radio host Rush Limbaugh told a frustrated caller on his Monday show that he "never" took Donald Trump seriously on the Republican nominee's signature issue, immigration. The caller, identified as Rick in California, told the veteran conservative host about his irritation with Limbaugh's defense of…

A division of the Department of Justice has released an instructional video for police officers across the country on how to interact with individuals who identify as transgendered. The video, which runs nearly 13 minutes, focuses on teaching cops the approved terminology with those they believe…

Among the worst demographic groups for Donald Trump are college graduates and young people. A recent CNN poll, for instance, found that just 25 percent of voters under 30 say they're voting for the Republican nominee—far below the average of 38 percent GOP candidates have received with this group…

Kellyanne Conway, the veteran GOP pollster who as of last week is the campaign manager for Donald Trump, has built a career advising Republican candidates about ways to appeal to women voters. Conway is frequently cited as an expert on the political attitudes and opinions of women. Her firm, The…

Washington Free Beacon editor Matthew Continetti joined PBS NewsHour Thursday to discuss the alt-right, an online-based movement of racist and bigoted provocateurs who have largely rallied around the candidacy of Donald Trump. In the segment Continetti, who is a contributing editor to THE WEEKLY…

Stephen Bannon, the new CEO of the Donald Trump presidential campaign who was recently the chairman of Breitbart News, was accused of physically attacking his wife. The New York Post has the scoop:

A new poll of likely voters in Utah shows Republican Donald Trump with a 15-point lead over his next closest competitor, Democrat Hillary Clinton. But the GOP nominee has only a plurality of support in a field that includes third party and independent candidates, and he remains very unpopular in…

The top spokesman for the Republican National Committee defended Donald Trump's outreach and appeal to black voters, citing the color-blind membership policy of the GOP nominee's swanky South Florida Mar-a-Lago golf club.

The crown prince of Bahrain attempted to arrange a meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2009 by using his connections to the Clinton Foundation. That's according to newly released emails between Clinton's State Department aide Huma Abedin and former Bill Clinton aide Doug Band, who…

Lobbying firms with ties to the campaigns of both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are being investigated by the Department of Justice for potential violations of foreign agent registration statutes and connections to corruption in Ukraine.

Donald Trump's campaign chairman Paul Manafort has resigned. The news, first reported by the Washington Post, was confirmed by a statement Friday morning from the Republican nominee.

Paul Manafort, the Republican campaign veteran who is chairman for Donald Trump's White House bid, was reportedly engaged in a secret effort to influence Americans on behalf of the reigning pro-Russian political party in Ukraine. The Associated Press has the story:

The Hillary Clinton campaign has taken notice of Donald Trump's newest hire, blasting the Republican for tapping former Breitbart News chairman Stephen Bannon as the campaign's CEO. Here's an excerpt from a Clinton fundraising email sent Thursday morning:

As George Costanza once said, it's not a lie if you believe it. He might have said the same of political spin. It's not clear whether Michael Cohen, an executive vice president with the Trump Organization and a surrogate for the Donald Trump campaign, believes his latest spin on the increasingly…

The chairman of the right-wing news and opinion website Breitbart is now effectively in charge of the Donald Trump presidential campaign. The Wall Street Journal broke the news early Wednesday about the Trump campaign's shakeup:

Did Hillary Clinton commit perjury at a congressional hearing about the Benghazi attack? That's what two House Republican committee chairmen are asking the Justice Department to investigate. On Monday, House Oversight chairman Jason Chaffetz of Utah and House Judiciary chairman Bob Goodlatte of…

In the latest episode of Conversations with Bill Kristol, University of Virginia professor Paul Cantor joins Kristol to talk about his recommended reading list. Cantor includes several writers through the ages, both well and lesser known, who might appeal to lovers of liberty and classical…

The New York Times's Maggie Haberman and Alexander Burns have a revealing look at the tumult behind the scenes in the Donald Trump campaign. The Republican nominee for president has been under seige, they report, from advisors and aides urging Trump to remain on message and focused on winning the…

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is "discrediting conservatism." That's what Bill Kristol said Friday on CNN about the New York businessman and reality-TV star.

A group of more than 70 former Republican officeholders and national committee staff and officers have penned a letter to RNC chair Reince Priebus urging him to stop spending party money to boost Trump's presidential campaign and instead focus on vulnerable House and Senate seats. Politico has the…

When Evan McMullin was growing up just outside of Seattle, he wanted to be a filmmaker. He and his friends would film their own movies around the neighborhood and edit them on his VCR. “Some of them were pretty good," he says.

It seems a near-impossible hill for Evan McMullin, independent candidate for president, to climb. With the filing deadlines in half of the states already past and several more approaching in the coming days, the unknown 40-year-old former CIA agent doesn't have a straightforward way even to appear…

Donald Trump said Tuesday if Hillary Clinton is able to select federal judges as president there is "nothing you can do" to stop it—before adding, "Although the Second Amendment, people, maybe there is, I don't know."

A former CIA counterterrorism officer and congressional staffer is launching a long-shot third-party bid for president, aiming to provide a conservative alternative to Republican nominee Donald Trump. The candidate's name is Evan McMullin and his campaign staff consists of operatives from the super…

Paul Ryan said there could be something Donald Trump would do or say to lose the House speaker's endorsement but that he didn't know what that would be. In an interview Friday with Wisconsin radio host Charlie Sykes, Ryan said no endorsement of a candidate comes with a "blank check" or an…

The Trump Taj Mahal resort in Atlantic City, New Jersey, is closing down. Here's the latest from the Press of Atlantic City:

Chuck Todd and Hallie Jackson of NBC News report that allies of Donald Trump are planning a "candidate intervention" to convince the Republican nominee for president that his campaign needs an overhaul.

In the end, it wasn't even close. Kansas congressman Tim Huelskamp lost the Republican primary for his seat to a political novice, obstetrician Roger Marshall, by 15 points. Local news station KWCH reported just an hour after polls closed Tuesday night that Huelskamp's campaign staff "has told…

Donald Trump is refusing to endorse two prominent congressional Republicans in their upcoming primaries—even after both have endorsed him. According to an interview with Washington Post, the GOP nominee says he's "not quite there yet" in endorsing House speaker and Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan,…

Writing at the Federalist, Susan Kristol reflects on the sacrifices made by the parents of those members of the military deployed into or killed in combat—and suggests Donald Trump should have responded much more empathetically to the appearance of two such parents, Khizr and Ghazala Khan, at the…

Arizona senator John McCain has released a statement condemning fellow Republican Donald Trump's recent statements about the Khan family, whose son Humayun was a U.S. Army captain killed defending the lives of his fellow soldiers in Iraq in 2004. Khan's parents have criticized Trump's proposed ban…

The two most powerful Republicans in Congress say the memory of Army captain Humayun Khan, a Muslim-American soldier who died in Iraq in 2004, should be honored and valued—but both stopped short of criticizing the GOP nominee for president, Donald Trump. Khan's parents spoke out against Trump's…

Philadelphia

Philadelphia

Philadelphia

Philadelphia

Philadelphia

The New York Times reports:

Cleveland

Cleveland

Cleveland

Cleveland

Cleveland

Cleveland

The new episode of Conversations With Bill Kristol features National Review senior editor Jonah Goldberg, who talks with the boss about the state of conservative in the era of Trump, his updated assessment of the insights in his book Liberal Fascism, and the prospects of a political realignment.…

Cleveland

At the Resurgent, a publication of conservative radio talk-show host Erick Erickson, a number of leaders in the "Never Trump" confederation have a thorough rundown of why Donald Trump should not be the Republican nominee or the president of the United States.

Jay Nordlinger writes a brief but poignant reflection on Thursday night's massacre of nearly 100 innocents in Nice, France. Here's Nordlinger at National Review Online:

Democrat Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump by healthy margins in four important swing states the Republican would need to win the White House. In Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia, Clinton polls ahead of Trump, each by more than five points. That's according to the new survey of…

A truck drove through a crowd of celebrants in the French city of Nice Thursday night, reportedly killing at least 60 people and injuring many more.

Donald Trump has selected Indiana governor Mike Pence as his running mate, according to two independent reports. Both Roll Call and the Indianapolis Star are reporting the first-term Republican governor and former congressman will be Trump's pick for the vice presidency. Here's the Star:

Two new polls of important swing states finds Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump among registered voters.

Donald Trump claimed last week that Saddam Hussein, the deceased Iraqi dictator who was deposed from power more than a decade ago, was "so good" at killing terrorists. The presumptive Republican nominee's point was to suggest Iraq would be better off as it was prior to the 2003 invasion by…

The Iran government tried to obtain nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons technology from German companies, according to a new report from the Jerusalem Post. Here's Benjamin Weinthal, a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, reporting from Berlin for the Post:

President Obama said at a Saturday press conference in Poland that it is "very hard to untangle the motives" of the shooter in Dallas who killed five police officers Thursday evening.

Vice President Joe Biden has canceled two planned campaign appearances on behalf of Hillary Clinton following the fatal shooting of five law enforcement officers in Dallas.

House speaker Paul Ryan spoke Friday morning on the floor of the House on the fatal shooting of five police officers in Dallas Thursday.

Donald Trump offered "thoughts and prayers" to the victims and their families of Thursday night's attack on police officers in Dallas. In Friday morning posts on both Twitter and Facebook, the presumptive Republican nominee for president said America must "restore law and order."

Hillary Clinton said on Twitter that she "mourns" the police officers in Dallas who were shot by snipers in the midst of protests Thursday night. The presumptive Democratic nominee for president tweeted her message Friday morning:

Bill Kristol joined the table on MSNBC's Morning Joe Thursday to discuss the latest in the effort to unbind delegates to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland later this month. Kristol disputed the idea that Donald Trump espoused in his Ohio speech Wednesday that the "Never Trump"…

The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation says that while there is evidence Hillary Clinton and her State Department aides violated statutes with regard to her privately held email server, the Bureau will not be recommending the Department of Justice prosecute the former secretary of…

A new poll from NBC News suggests other high-profile Republicans would perform better in a general election against Democrat Hillary Clinton than would presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump.

A deputy head in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard threatened that the Tehran-backed Lebansese terrorist group Hezbollah had the missile capability to launch a sustained attack on Israel. The Jerusalem Post reports:

The debate over marijuana legalization is fraught with problematic surveying and misappropriation of data, says David W. Murray. A senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, Murray has penned a response to the 2015 Healthy Kids Colorado school survey's findings on teen marijuana use. Here is a summary…

If you're looking for some reading material worth your time this Independence Day weekend, there's plenty from the WEEKLY STANDARD archives to satisfy and enlighten.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch said her recent meeting with Bill Clinton at the Phoenix airport "raises questions and concerns." Speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival Friday, Lynch was asked about her meeting with the former president whose wife, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, is under…

As the sun rose over the valley of the Somme River in northern France on the first of July a century ago, the soldiers of the British Empire began their charge on the entrenched Germans. It would be the deadliest day—and the start of the deadliest battle—in British history.

Bill Kristol appeared on CNN Wednesday night with host Don Lemon and American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp to discuss the 2016 election. Kristol responded to the idea, expressed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and others, that Donald Trump could be moving toward a "pivot" to…

More than half of likely Republican voters would like someone other than Donald Trump to be their party's presidential nominee. That's according to a new Fox News poll released Wednesday, which asked who those voters would prefer the win the GOP nomination. Just 48 percent said they would prefer…

A new survey of likely voters in several swing states finds presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump trailing Democrat Hillary Clinton by anywhere from 5 points to 12. But two hypothetical GOP candidates perform much better than Trump against Clinton, with one Republican beating her in all seven…

A group of Republican activists from Vermont and Virginia have written a letter to the delegates attending the Republican National Convention, urging those delegates to withhold their vote for Donald Trump unless and until the New York businessman releases his tax returns.

The delegate-led effort to stop Donald Trump from receiving the Republican nomination for president continues to grow. That's according to participants in a conference call Sunday evening that coordinated efforts from activists and Republican National Committee delegates who oppose Trump's…

The BBC projects that the United Kingdom has voted to leave the European Union, as are other media outlets:

Congressman Patrick Murphy of Florida has long been considered by national Democrats as the party's best chance to snatch Republican Marco Rubio's seat. The young, attractive, establishment-friendly House member (from a wealthy family, no less) looked like a much surer and smarter bet when Barack…

Security features on Hillary Clinton's private email server she kept while Secretary of State were temporarily disabled, according to new emails released under a court order. The Associated Press has the story:

Twitter user @ThomasHCrown breaks down how Donald Trump's campaign strategy—pitching himself—comes from a page right out of the handbook for Trump's first career in real-estate development. Take a look at his Twitter essay below:

Why did Marco Rubio, who vowed to not run for reelection to the Senate, change his mind? "Had to," he told me Wednesday morning, shortly after the news broke the Florida Republican would, in fact, run again for a second term.

Donald Trump suggested to a group of evangelical activists that America's leaders don't deserve prayer because they're "selling Christianity down the tubes." Trump also said it was more important that people pray "to get everybody out to vote" for him in the general election.

The latest filing reports released by the Federal Election Commission show Democrat Hillary Clinton with nearly 40 times as much campaign cash on hand than her Republican rival, Donald Trump.

Donald Trump has fired his campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, after previously saying he would remain "loyal" to campaign operative. The New York Times reports:

Did House speaker Paul Ryan tacitly lend his support to Republican National Convention delegates to dump presumptive nominee Donald Trump at the convention? In an interview with NBC's Chuck Todd that aired on this Sunday's Meet The Press, the Wisconsin Republican seemed to do just that.

Sunday is Father's Day, and THE WEEKLY STANDARD has had a lot to say about dads over the years. Senior writer Jonathan V. Last wrote last year about how fatherhood brings about a shift in man's own perception of his manliness:

Is the Republican National Committee concerned delegates to the national convention may revolt against nominating Donald Trump for president? CNN reports that RNC chairman Reince Priebus has been "quietly having conversations with state party leaders" about the latest chatter that some delegates…

Matthew Continetti, editor of the Washington Free Beacon and a contributing editor for THE WEEKLY STANDARD, writes about the Republican party's "self-immolation" as it prepares to nominate Donald Trump as its presidential nominee. Here's an excerpt:

An American veteran of the Iraq war who was among those soldiers tasked with "bringing baskets of money…and handing it out" to compensate Iraqis affected by the fighting has responded to Donald Trump's suggestion those Americans stole money.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump suggested at a Tuesday rally in North Carolina that American soldiers in the Iraq War tasked with "bringing baskets of money, millions and millions of dollars, and handing it out" are "living very well right now."

A new poll of likely voters in the general election gives Democrat Hillary Clinton a 12-point lead over Republican Donald Trump. The survey from Bloomberg found Clinton with 49 percent support to Trump's 37 percent. Libertarian Gary Johnson receives nine percent, while four percent say they "aren't…

A Republican donor and former fundraising bundler for Mitt Romney has launched a new group, Better for America, to seek ballot access for a third-party conservative candidate challenger to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Maggie Haberman at the New York Times has the scoop:

Hackers working for the Russian government stole opposition research information about Republican candidate Donald Trump from the computers of the Democratic National Committee. The Washington Post reports on the hack that hit systems from across the political spectrum:

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The Democratic party sent out a fundraising email to supporters Monday night that calls for "action" in the wake of the Orlando shooting that killed nearly 50 people. But the letter, signed by Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, does not mention terrorism nor the…

Hillary Clinton signed a fundraising email Monday that warned against "inflammatory anti-Muslim rhetoric" and called for "more than prayer" in the wake of Sunday's terrorist attack in Orlando that killed 49 people and wounded even more. The likely Democratic nominee said that what America…

Federal officials are telling members of Congress the man who killed at least 50 people at a Florida nightclub may have pledged allegiance to ISIS. Omar Mateen, the 29-year-old U.S.-born citizen who opened fire at a gay nightclub in Orlando early Sunday morning, was reportedly "on the radar" of…

Newt Gingrich made a curious claim on radio host Mike Gallagher's Thursday program. The former House speaker reiterated his contention that Donald Trump's recent comments about federal judge Gonzalo Curiel's Mexican heritage were "totally, utterly unacceptable." Then Gingrich added, "I am glad…

Barack Obama endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in an online video released Thursday afternoon. "I don't think there's ever been someone so qualified to hold this office," Obama said.

Donald Trump said Tuesday it was "unfortunate" that his recent comments about the judge in the case against Trump University were "misconstrued" to be racial.

House speaker Paul Ryan said Tuesday that presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump uttered a “textbook definition of a racist comment" about the fitness of the federal judge in the Trump University case. But the Wisconsin Republican said he remained committed to supporting Trump because the…

The Republican attorney general of Florida reportedly solicited a donation from Donald Trump’s foundation as the office was considering joining a multi-state fraud lawsuit against the New York billionaire.

Seventy-two years ago Monday, nearly 160,000 Allied troops made the treacherous amphibious landing on the beaches of Normandy in France, under the command of American general Dwight D. Eisenhower. Their successful operation to take the 50 miles of beach from Nazi forces began in the early hours of…

David French, the conservative writer, attorney, and war veteran, is reportedly weighing an independent bid for president. Back in 2014, French delivered a graduation address to a small group of home-schooled seniors, which he previewed at National Review Online. The address offers not only a…

Donald Trump, at long last, has revealed how much money has been donated to veterans' charities after the Republican candidate's January fundraiser. At a Tuesday press conference in Trump Tower, Trump stated that nearly $5.6 million in checks have been sent to at least 40 different charities. The…

Rumors of Paul Ryan's impending endorsement of Donald Trump have been greatly exaggerated. That's according to the House speaker, who said he didn't know the origin a Tuesday evening Bloomberg report that Ryan was hoping to "end his standoff" with Trump and was closer to endorsing the presumptive…

At his New York Times blog, Ross Douthat "games out" a potential third-party presidential candidacy by Mitt Romney. Douthat considers situations where Romney would place in third behind Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, and in second place ahead of Trump but behind Clinton. Then there's the…

Mitt Romney could remake his legacy from a two-time failed presidential candidate into “the last best hope" for American conservatism. That's what Jamie Weinstein writes in his latest column at the Daily Caller. Here's an excerpt:

Bill Kristol joined the political roundtable on ABC's This Week Sunday to discuss the presidential race, the latest polls, and the opportunity for a third-party conservative candidate to join the race. Watch the videos below:

At the Washington Post, reporter David Fahrenthold writes that Donald Trump appears to have raised significantly less for veterans' groups than he originally claimed after his January fundraiser:

If there were any doubts Paul Manafort is running Donald Trump's campaign, the latest hire should put them to rest. Politico first reported Monday evening the Trump campaign has hired Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio, a veteran of several successful campaigns including Florida governor Rick…

Among those Washington Republicans who met with presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump Thursday was Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee. Priebus tweeted a message that his meeting with Trump, Paul Ryan, and other congressional leaders was "great" and a "very…

Paul Ryan is not endorsing Donald Trump for president—not yet, at least. But it was clear from the House speaker's Thursday press conference that Ryan is moving in that direction. The Wisconsin Republican told reporters that his meeting with Trump Thursday morning was "encouraging" and "pleasant."

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney called on Donald Trump to release his tax records Wednesday in a statement posted to Romney's Facebook page.

In Washington, the talk of the town for weeks has been Paul Manafort, the adviser recently hired by Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Just read Politico, the insider journal that has mentioned Manafort in more than 100 articles in the last month. Or tune into one of the Sunday political talk…

Virginia Republicans are considering efforts to block Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe’s new executive order restoring the voting rights of the state's former felons. McAuliffe's order, announced on Friday, would give nearly 206,000 violent and nonviolent convicts who have served their time the…

Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign is vetting Carly Fiorina as a potential running mate, THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned.

Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe defended his executive order to restore voting rights to more than 200,000 ex-felons, citing the state's past history of disenfranchisement and saying it was the "right thing to do morally." Speaking with ABC News's George Stephanopoulos Sunday morning, McAuliffe,…

My favorite Prince song, I'm reticent to admit, is "Purple Rain." The choice is a bit clichéd—it's the title track from Prince's most successful album (and first film)—and it's hardly representative of Prince's eclectic musical style or risqué lyrics. But what I love about "Purple Rain" is the…

Towson, Md.

Donald Trump has an op-ed in Friday's Wall Street Journal in which the Republican presidential candidate rails against the "system" and his top rival, Ted Cruz. The diction of the op-ed is much more cerebral than Trump's typical style, but the thrust of the piece is pure Donald. Particularly in its…

Donald Trump is explaining his recent loss in Colorado by once again blaming "the establishment" for introducing changes to Colorado's delegate-selection process that would secretly undermine his campaign. But contrary to Trump's conspiratorial claims, interviews with participants in the debates…

Bronx, New York

Ted Cruz accused Donald Trump of saying “anything to try to get elected" and that "truth is not a barrier for him." In an interview with THE WEEKLY STANDARD, Cruz said the Trump campaign's claim that the Texas senator illegally coordinated with a super PAC was untrue, adding that it fit a pattern…

In an error-riddled statement released Tuesday night, the Donald Trump campaign claimed Ted Cruz was "coordinating with his own Super PACs (which is illegal), who totally control him." That's more than just campaign bluster; the charge of illegal coordination between a federal candidate and a super…

Ted Cruz's speech in Wisconsin Tuesday night—one of the best of his presidential campaign—only briefly mentioned his top rival for the GOP nomination, Donald Trump. Instead, the Texas Republican, reinvigorated by a series of recent primary wins capped off by the double-digit victory in Wisconsin,…

Ted Cruz continues to prove his is the most organized campaign in the Republican field. The Texas senator is maximizing the delegates he can count on at this summer's Republican National Convention by exploiting both the party's rules and the failure of his chief rival, Donald Trump, to capitalize…

Could a crack in Donald Trump's airtight national media strategy be emerging? There are reasons to believe the continuing story of Michelle Fields, the Breitbart News reporter who was forcibly grabbed by Trump's campaign manager earlier this month, is doing harm to one of the GOP frontrunner's best…

Scott Brown’s 2010 election to the U.S. Senate was a major moment for opponents of what was to become President Barack Obama's health care law. Brown ran as a Republican in Massachusetts in a special election to replace the late liberal lion Ted Kennedy, and his improbable victory there came in no…

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump stumbled to defend his recent attacks on his top rival's wife during an interview on a Wisconsin radio station Monday. Trump joined WTMJ's Charlie Sykes, a prominent conservative talk-radio host in Milwaukee and a supporter of Ted Cruz, to discuss…

Who started it? The question recalls juvenile disputes between siblings or classmates, but at the moment it's the issue at the center of the increasingly puerile Republican presidential primary. Did Donald Trump or Ted Cruz start the fight over each other's wives? One thing is for sure: Cruz has…

House speaker Paul Ryan’s address Wednesday was billed as a disquisition on the "state of American politics." But it was less an assessment of our politics than Ryan's own optimistic prescription for improving it. With references to his mentor Jack Kemp and a time when members of Congress "took our…

Donald Trump's victory Tuesday in Arizona's Republican primary delivered to him all 58 of the state's delegates, but even as his win there pulls him closer to the nomination, there are signs the GOP frontrunner remains weak. Meanwhile Trump's rival Ted Cruz pulled nearly 70 percent of the vote to…

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump took to Twitter Tuesday night to threaten to "spill the beans" on the wife of his rival, Ted Cruz. Trump criticized Cruz as "Lyin' Ted" and criticized the Texas senator for supposedly using a magazine photo shoot of Trump's wife in an ad against the…

It’s hard to decide which part of Donald Trump's Monday afternoon press conference in Washington was the most bizarre. There was the spectacle of holding the event in Trump's newest hotel, being constructed at a D.C. landmark, the Old Post Office Building. The sound system helped Trump's voice echo…

Utah governor Gary Herbert endorsed Ted Cruz for president, according to a report from Fox 13 in Salt Lake City. "Herbert confirmed his endorsement for Cruz at a signing for H.B. 27 – a bill that adds an "In God We Trust" license plate as one of the standard options available to Utah residents,"…

The day before Tuesday's Ohio primary, Donald Trump tweeted a photo that implied an endorsement of a Buckeye State sports legend. Former Cincinnati Red and disgraced gambler Pete Rose had seemingly signed a baseball with a message encouraging Trump in his presidential bid. Here's Trump's tweet:

Florida attorney general Pam Bondi has endorsed Donald Trump the day before the Sunshine State's Republican presidential primary. The Tampa Bay Times reports Bondi endorsed Trump at a rally Monday and called him "the most popular person in Florida, by far."

Florida senator Marco Rubio told reporters Saturday he's not sure if he could support Donald Trump if the New York businessman were the Republican nominee for president.

If Donald Trump has a personal credo, it might be something like what he said Friday morning in Palm Beach: "When somebody hits, I have to hit back."

Donald Trump began his post-primary press conference in Jupiter, Florida, Tuesday evening by castigating the “$38 million dollars worth of horrible lies" against him by his political opponents over the last week. But in true Trump form, the GOP frontrunner delivered a litany of lies, falsehoods,…

Support for Donald Trump is weakening in Michigan, while both Ted Cruz and John Kasich are on the rise, says a new poll of the Republican primary there by Monmouth University. The poll found Trump with the support of 36 percent of Michigan Republicans, who will vote in the presidential primary on…

Donald Trump cancelled his planned appearance at the largest annual gathering of conservative political activists Friday. Trump had been scheduled to address the Conservative Political Action Conference just outside Washington, D.C., on Saturday morning. But the current frontrunner for the…

“A recent article somewhere said Donald Trump is a world-class businessman who goes out and he does get along with everybody," said Donald Trump early in Thursday's Republican debate in Detroit. The only "recent article somewhere" I can find where this is true is a December 29 Washington Post…

An instructor at Donald Trump's Trump Entrepreneur Initiative—originally known as Trump University—once offered advice about how illegal immigrants can purchase homes in the United States. Real estate agent Tina Merritt wrote a blog post for the Trump Blog in April 2010 titled "Can an Illegal…

Mitt Romney excoriated Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump and called on primary voters to rally behind three of the remaining GOP candidates in each state where those candidates can best stop Trump. At a speech Thursday at the University of Utah, the 2012 Republican nominee warned…

Not long after the polls closed in many Super Tuesday states, the narrative was already being cast: Marco Rubio was the night’s big loser. Several members of the media promoted it. So did the GOP frontrunner himself, Donald Trump, who spent several minutes of his election night press conference…

Ben Sasse, the Republican senator from Nebraska elected in 2014, told CNN's Jake Tapper Monday that he would support a third-party candidate if the GOP nominates Donald Trump and Democrats nominate Hillary Clinton. Sasses also said he expects more candidates to enter the presidential race.

Tim Scott, a Republican senator from South Carolina, criticized Donald Trump's unwillingness to denounce the Ku Klux Klan Sunday.

Purcellville, Va.

Marco Rubio delivered a performance in Dallas Friday that would have made Donald Trump proud—if Trump hadn't been the target.

Both Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz hit Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in Thursday's debate over questions about Trump University.

Conservative TV and radio host Glenn Beck has endorsed Ted Cruz. He’s appeared at rallies for Cruz and spoken passionately about the need to elect a constitutional conservative like the Texas senator. He's suggested electing either Hillary Clinton or Marco Rubio would inspire a "violent…

A new poll of likely Virginia Republican primary voters shows Donald Trump with a 14-point lead over his closest competitor, Florida senator Marco Rubio. In the Monmouth University poll, Trump has support from 41 percent of those surveyed, with Rubio earning 27 percent support.

Veterans-in-Command, a Queens, New York-based vets group, was in serious need of a cash infusion when it asked Donald Trump for help last year. Trump wasn’t yet a candidate, but Veterans-in-Command official Rodney Moore told the New York Daily News last month that the group might grab the Donald's…

Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who sits on the Senate Judiciary committee, put it plainly. “There'll be no hearing, no votes until the next president," Graham said Tuesday as he left the first weekly GOP conference meeting since the death of Antonin Scalia.

Ted Cruz has asked one of his top advisers to resign Tuesday, according to media reports. Rick Tyler, who is Cruz's communications director and the chief spokesman for the campaign, publicized a news story and video Sunday that falsely stated Marco Rubio mocked a Cruz staffer for reading the Bible.

As Donald Trump tries to notch his third win in a row in Tuesday's Nevada caucuses, his two chief challengers for the Republican nomination appear to be more concerned with fighting it out for second place.

As Jeb Bush exits the presidential race and Donald Trump marches on as the Republican frontrunner, it’s worth considering a counterfactual: Without Bush, would Trump's candidacy have even gotten off the ground?

Representatives from two more veterans’ groups listed by the Donald J. Trump Foundation as recipients of donations from the Republican presidential candidate's January 28 fundraiser say their organizations have received donations. Earlier this week, I spoke to representatives of nine other groups,…

How much money has Donald Trump donated to the veterans? That seemingly simple question has anything but a simple answer. When Trump held his January 28 fundraiser for the vets after backing out of the Republican debate in Iowa, his campaign wasn’t shy about sharing the good news: Trump had helped…

A former Georgia congressman supporting Ted Cruz for president called Donald Trump’s recent comments about George W. Bush and the September 11 attacks "ridiculous."

South Carolina governor Nikki Haley will endorse Marco Rubio for president. The Post and Courier reports:

The latest survey of likely GOP primary voters in Virginia from polling firm Overtime Politics gives Trump a 14-point lead over Rubio, 33 percent to 19 percent. John Kasich comes in third place at 14 percent, followed by Ted Cruz at 12 percent and Jeb Bush and Ben Carson at 8 percent each.

At Saturday’s debate in South Carolina, Donald Trump called into question the idea that Jeb Bush's brother, George W. Bush, "kept us safe" by pointing out the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack occurred while the older Bush was president. Trump repeated that attack in a Monday afternoon press…

One prominent former elected official supporting Donald Trump has declined to criticize the New York businessman for stating President George W. Bush and his administration knowingly lied about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In an email exchange with THE WEEKLY STANDARD Scott…

Had Marco Rubio performed a week ago in the New Hampshire debate as he did Saturday night in South Carolina, the Florida senator might have vanquished his non-Trump, non-Cruz rivals for good. Seven days after having the worst debate performances of his presidential campaign, and even less time…

Mark Halperin of Bloomberg Politics recently ran a focus group with a small number of South Carolina Republicans who remain undecided in the primary. Several of the voters seem open to the idea of supporting Donald Trump, but much of the room tells Halperin they are "troubled" by their collective…

Manchester, N.H.

Manchester, N.H.

Windham, N.H.

Peterborough, N.H.

Peterborough, N.H.

Bedford, N.H.

In John Kasich's final TV ad pitch to New Hampshire primary voters, the Ohio governor makes a dubious claim. "My record?" Kasich says. "I've cut taxes, balanced budgets, created jobs, rejected Obamacare without leaving anyone behind."

The latest dead-on-arrival lame-duck proposal from the White House came Thursday. In a statement about its “21st Century Clean Transportation System" plan, the Obama administration said it would pay for new infrastructure spending with a "new fee paid by oil companies." Here's an excerpt:

Ames, Iowa

Sioux City, Iowa

Sioux City, Iowa

Sioux City, Iowa

Emmetsburg, Iowa

Des Moines

If several Donald Trump’s Republican rivals have any thoughts about the GOP frontrunner's decision to skip Thursday's debate in Iowa to hold a fundraiser for his charity foundation, they aren't speaking up about it.

ABC News reporter Liz Kreutz took a tour of Hillary Clinton's Iowa campaign headquarters in Des Moines Wednesday. With camera in tow, Kreutz discovered a group of foreign exchange students from China working in a back room as volunteers for the campaign.

Donald Trump may have the media attention, the lead in the national and early-state polls, and increasingly the air of inevitability as the Iowa caucuses approach. But one thing he doesn’t have, says a top advisor for Ted Cruz, is the ability to get enough supporters to caucus on February 1, many…

Bill Kristol joined David Gergen and Katrina Pierson on CNN Tuesday night to react to Donald Trump's announcement he will not participate in Thursday's debate in Iowa. Host Erin Burnett suggested many Republican primary voters might look favorably on Trump's decision, which would show he is…

Some New Hampshire primary voters may be trying to decide between John Kasich and...Bernie Sanders?

Jeb Bush has the support of just one percent of likely Republican caucusgoers in Iowa, according to a new poll from CBS News. The poll, released Sunday, found Bush with the same level of support as Carly Fiorina, Rick Santorum, and John Kasich. That puts Bush behind Chris Christie (2 percent), Rand…

Julián Castro is ostensibly still the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, a post he's held since 2014 after he resigned as mayor of San Antonio. But according to Politico, the Texas Democrat seems to have spent a lot of his 18 months in Washington getting ready for the next job:…

North Conway, N.H.

Hillary Clinton may have a Millennial problem on her hands. A survey from USA Today and Rock the Vote released last week found her main Democratic opponent, Vermont independent senator Bernie Sanders, is winning Democratic primary voters between the ages of 18 and 34 by more than 10 points, 46…

Marco Rubio went into Thursday night's debate in South Carolina with a nagging problem. The Florida senator has been sitting around third place in the polls, including in Iowa and New Hampshire, for weeks, while Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have battled it out at the top. Without some kind of…

Texas senator Ted Cruz now says Edward Snowden is a "traitor" who should be "tried for treason." Cruz told the New York Times in a statement his current view on the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked the details of a classified surveillance program.

Governor Chris Christie is out with a new 30-second TV ad in which he claims his "top priority" as president would be to "protect the lives of the people of the United States of America." The ad, which is running in TV markets across Iowa, features the New Jersey Republican speaking to the camera…

The latest poll of likely Democratic caucusgoers in Iowa from the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg finds Hillary Clinton just two points ahead of Bernie Sanders. The survey of 503 likely participants in the February 1 caucuses found 42 percent support Clinton, the former secretary of state, while…

The latest poll of likely Republican Iowa caucusgoers from the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg finds Senator Ted Cruz in a smaller lead with 25 percent support to Donald Trump's 22 percent.

Chris Christie says he was misquoted more than 20 years ago as saying he had donated to Planned Parenthood. In an interview with CBS's John Dickerson that aired Sunday, Christie denied a claim made by presidential rival Marco Rubio that the New Jersey Republican had once donated to Planned…

Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator, has a five-point lead over his rival Hillary Clinton among likely Democratic caucusgoers in Iowa. That's according to a new poll from Quinnipiac University, which found Sanders with 49 percent support to Clinton's 44 percent.

A new poll of likely Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire finds Vermont senator Bernie Sanders with a 14-point lead over Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state. Sanders, a self-proclaimed socialist, has 53 percent support according to the new poll from Monmouth University. Clinton,…

Among the points the internet has in its favor is the way it organically remembers random artifacts of our pop culture. A few years ago, someone uploaded to YouTube a clip from Bing Crosby's 1977 Christmas special for CBS. In the clip, Crosby sings a version of "The Little Drummer Boy" with, of all…

A new poll from NBC News and the Wall Street Journal Sunday gave a shocking assessment of the state of the Democratic caucuses in Iowa. Widely considered the frontrunner and a near-lock for the Democratic nomination, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton appears to be leading her main…

The press secretary for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign called the former secretary of a state and the president of the nation's largest abortion provider "badasses."

Chris Christie, the New Jersey governor running for president as a Republican, told CBS's John Dickerson Sunday that he "never donated to Planned Parenthood." Christie was responding to a charge by one of his GOP rivals, Florida senator Marco Rubio, who said late last week that the two-term…

Is the New York Times obsessed with Marco Rubio's boots? That's the conclusion of the Florida senator's presidential campaign spokesman Alex Conant, who tweeted this image of the Gray Lady's top online political stories:

Des Moines -- There's no other way to say it: Hillary Clinton is very boring. The Democratic presidential frontrunner's campaign stops are, too. The members of her traveling press corps look like they'd rather be anywhere else. So do some of the attendees, who shift in their seats starting around…

Senator Marco Rubio criticized Chris Christie, one of his rivals for the Republican nomination, for doing "a number of things that are very similar to the Obama agenda."

The former president of an influential conservative organization is endorsing Marco Rubio for president, THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned. Chris Chocola, the former Indiana congressman who was president of the Club for Growth from 2009 to 2014, tells TWS the Florida senator is a "strong fiscal…

Des Moines

Davenport, Iowa

The boss spoke with ABC News's Ben Bell in an interview published this weekend about the Republican nomination, what to expect in 2016, and Donald Trump's prospects in the race. Here's an excerpt:

Lindsey Graham may have been approaching zero in the polls when he bowed out of the race for the Republican nomination Monday, but his exit, and the aftermath, are noteworthy for a few reasons.

The latest theatrical installment in the Star Wars franchise, The Force Awakens, hit theaters nationwide Friday. There's plenty of good reading on the Star Wars universe for everyone from the die-hard fan to the casual viewer. Here are a few recommendations while you're waiting in line at the…

Donald Trump, fresh off his endorsement from Russian president Vladimir Putin, defended the dictator on MSNBC Friday morning. Watch the video below:

Every morning, I make an egg for my son. The task doubles as a chance for daydreaming, a rare occurrence when you're the parent of a toddler. I strap Henry into his chair, toss a few Cheerios in his direction, and get to work.

Open warfare has broken out between the respective presidential campaigns of Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio for Florida, just 24 hours after the Republican senators traded barbs and debated their records in Las Vegas.

The day after a well-received debate performance that involved a contentious exchange with rival Marco Rubio about immigration, Texas senator Ted Cruz joined Fox News's Bret Baier and faced some difficult questions about his own murky position. The interview, aired live on Fox Wednesday night,…

Donald Trump may have been at the middle of the lineup during the Republican debate, but it was Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio—and their debate over national security, foreign policy, and immigration—who took center stage. The two Cuban-American, first term senators sparred in some of tensest…

Tuesday's Republican presidential debate in Las Vegas is the final GOP primary debate of 2015. With about a month and a half before the first primary contest—the Iowa caucuses on February 1—it's become clear the field of plausible contenders is much smaller than the 13 Republicans who will debate…

It's official: Ted Cruz leads the polls in Iowa less than two months before the caucuses and may very well be in the lead for the Republican nomination. The newest poll from the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg has the Texas senator with 30 percent support among likely GOP caucusgoers, placing…

Members of an audience waiting to hear from Hillary Clinton in Oklahoma Friday audibly groaned when it was revealed the Democratic presidential candidate would be late for the event.

As he's campaigned around New Hampshire over the last several months, Chris Christie says plenty of voters would approach him after his events to tell him, "You're in my top three." In an interview earlier this week with THE WEEKLY STANDARD, the New Jersey governor shared a hopeful development on…

While Ted Cruz has been willing to engage in back-and-forth debates with some of his GOP rivals—most notably and recently his Senate colleague Marco Rubio—the Texas Republican has refrained from disagreeing or distinguishing himself from the party's frontrunner, Donald Trump. At least publicly,…

A prominent Hispanic political activist in Nevada who was once touted by the Jeb Bush campaign as a supporter has said he will caucus for Marco Rubio next year.

Texas senator Ted Cruz has taken the lead in a new poll of likely Republican voters in Iowa. The Monmouth University poll has Cruz with 24 percent support in the Hawkeye State, overtaking Donald Trump (at 19 percent). In a close third is Florida senator Marco Rubio, with onetime Iowa leader Ben…

President Barack Obama lives in a "fantasy world" and is trying to "distract" from the challenges Islamic terrorism poses. That was New Jersey governor Chris Christie's takeaway from the president's Sunday evening address from the Oval Office. In an exclusive interview with THE WEEKLY STANDARD…

Chris Christie called for Congress push to restore the National Security Agency's metadata collection program as part of its forthcoming spending bill. In an exclusive interview with THE WEEKLY STANDARD Monday morning, the New Jersey governor and Republican presidential candidate also took on some…

Thanks to a law recently passed by Congress and signed into law, federal law enforcement are unable to access phone records of the terrorists who killed or injured dozens of people in San Bernardino this week. The Associated Press reports:

Days after the ISIS-organized attacks in Paris last month, President Obama publicly criticized Republicans for being afraid of allowing women and children to enter the country as refugees from the Middle East. Obama scolded unnamed Republican politicians for rhetoric that would serve as a "potent…

In a new national poll of possible Republican primary voters, Donald Trump has a large, 20-point lead with 36 percent support. The poll from CNN shows Trump's closest rival is Ted Cruz at 16 percent, with Ben Carson at 14 percent and Marco Rubio at 12 percent. On the other end of the poll, one-time…

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush said he would "whup" leading Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton if he faced her next November. Speaking Thursday afternoon at the Jewish Republican Coalition's presidential forum in Washington, Bush addressed a receptive audience that gave him multiple standing…

To say Donald Trump's appearance at the Republican Jewish Coalition's presidential forum in Washington was bizarre would be an understatement. Taking the stage around noon Thursday, Trump offered a somewhat quieter version of his rambling tough-guy shtick, boasting about his wealth, his awards, and…

Marco Rubio, the Florida senator running for president, ended his prepared remarks at Thursday's Republican Jewish Coalition presidential forum in Washington with a veiled shot at some of his rivals for the GOP nomination. "I have been a staunch supporter of our military assistance to the Jewish…

Marco Rubio took a swipe at his Republican rival Donald Trump over Trump's comments about the need for Israel to "sacrifice certain things" to reach a peace deal.

Texas senator Ted Cruz kicked off Thursday's Republican Jewish Coalition presidential forum in Washington with a speech filled with applause lines that revved up the crowd.

In an interview this week with the Associated Press on his foreign policy and national security views, Senator Ted Cruz took a hard line against what he described as "torture" of terrorism suspects. As AP reporter Steven Peoples puts it, the Republican from Texas "rejects the idea that torture can…

Earlier this week, Texas senator Ted Cruz faced tough questions from NBC reporter Kasie Hunt over his definition of amnesty for illegal immigrants. After repeated questioning, Cruz told Hunt amnesty means "forgiving the law-breaking of those who come here illegally and having no consequences, and…

A new poll of Republican primary voters nationwide shows reality TV star Donald Trump maintaining his lead for the presidential nomination with 27 percent support. Closest behind Trump are Florida senator Marco Rubio at 17 percent, Texas senator Ted Cruz at 16 percent, and retired neurosurgeon Ben…

Retired general James Mattis of the U.S. Marine Corps recently spoke with Military History about lessons learned from his 41-year career.

Congressional Republicans plan to fight back this week against new regulations from the Obama administration's Environmental Protection Agency. The House of Representatives will take up measures against the rules as President Obama attends a global climate-change summit in Paris.

Bill Kristol joined the roundtable on ABC's This Week Sunday to discuss the 2016 election and Republican primary. Watch the video of the panel below:

The New Hampshire Union Leader has endorsed Chris Christie for president. The state's largest daily newspaper, which has a conservative-leaning editorial board, published the endorsement Saturday. Here's an excerpt:

New Jersey governor Chris Christie directly challenged an account from presidential rival Donald Trump that "thousands" of Muslims in the Garden State cheered on the day of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

As the administration at Princeton University prepares to consider removing the name of Woodrow Wilson from the institution's school of foreign affairs amid protests, one prominent parent of a Princeton student is speaking out. New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who is running for the Republican…

A new poll of Iowa Republicans shows Texas senator Ted Cruz moving into a close second to Donald Trump in the race for the presidential nomination. The Quinnipiac poll of 600 likely GOP caucusgoers found 25 support Trump while 23 percent support Cruz.

An audience member at a Memphis rally for Hillary Clinton Friday fainted during the Democrat's speech. After Clinton asked for someone to help the supporter, she joked, "I thought it was the talk of Republicans that might have done it."

The Lexington Herald-Leader published an editorial cartoon Thursday mocking the Republican governor-elect Matt Bevin's position against allowing refugees from Syria to settle in Kentucky. The cartoon, drawn by Joel Pett, shows a cowering Bevin underneath his desk, while an aide points to the framed…

It was a story too good to check. The day after some 200 activist students at Vanderbilt University marched into the administration building to deliver their demands for more diversity and inclusivity to the school's chancellor, the reactionary forces on campus struck back in the most disgusting…

President Obama, traveling in the Philippines, criticized presidential candidates for suggesting the U.S. should not take in some Syrian refugees in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris. The president said such talk is helping the terrorist group ISIS recruit. "I cannot think of a more potent…

The fight between GOP presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio continues to heat up. Cruz set things off last week with a direct hit against Rubio over the latter’s support for the Gang of 8 immigration plan, an attack that the Rubio camp seemed ready for. This week, their debate has moved…

Iowa congressman Steve King has endorsed Texas senator Ted Cruz for president. Watch the video of King's announcement below:

CNN's Jim Acosta was one of several reporters to question President Barack Obama Monday about the current U.S. strategy against ISIS after the attack on Paris. At a press conference in Turkey, where Obama is meeting with other members of the G20 nations, Acosta asked a pointed question.

Sioux City, Iowa

Why is it so hard to figure out what Ted Cruz actually believes should be done about illegal immigration? When the Texas senator, through the help of radio host Laura Ingraham, zeroed in on Marco Rubio's involvement drafting and supporting the Gang of 8's comprehensive immigration reform plan in…

Speaking on Laura Ingraham’s radio show Thursday, Ted Cruz attacked Marco Rubio for the Florida senator's involvement in the Gang of 8 comprehensive immigration reform plan. Without mentioning Rubio by name, Cruz condemned the Gang of 8’s plan to amnesty illegal immigrants while contrasting it with…

The president of Purdue University has sent a campus-wide email reminding students and faculty of the school's commitment to its "shared values" of being a "welcoming, inclusive, and discrimination-free community" while also remaining "steadfast in preserving academic freedom and individual…

Donald Trump says he helped out his Republican rival Jeb Bush at Tuesday night's debate in Milwaukee. In an interview with Morning Joe Wednesday, host Joe Scarborough asked the reality TV star how he could unify the GOP after saying harsh things about Bush and other Republicans.

Tuesday night’s fourth Republican primary debate, held in Milwaukee, did little to change the dynamics of the presidential race.

If you were just listening to Chris Christie’s answers Tuesday night, you might have thought he was debating Hillary Clinton. The Republican governor of New Jersey used his demotion to the undercard debate in Milwaukee to focus not on the other three low-polling Republicans on stage but instead on…

The Marco Rubio campaign is predicting the Florida senator will deliver a knockout punch to former Florida governor Jeb Bush in Tuesday night's debate, according to one reporter at the Fox Business Network. Charles Gasparino said he's hearing confidence from the Rubio camp.

The super PAC supporting former Florida governor Jeb Bush for president told the New York Times that it plans on using its resources to hit Florida senator Marco Rubio over his pro-life record as well as missed votes in the Senate. The Times reported Tuesday that Right to Rise, which has raised…

Jeb Bush's campaign has long emphasized the importance of the 12 primary contests on March 1—nicknamed the "SEC primary" because several states have schools in the NCAA's Southeastern Conference. Bush has even campaigned at SEC football games, calling the appearances "SEC Tailgating with…

Hillary Clinton can be defeated in 2016, writes Matthew Continetti at the Washington Free Beacon. Here's an excerpt:

Jeb Bush's campaign reboot is in full swing, as a video on the former Florida governor's official YouTube page indicates. The normally quiet Bush began shouting at a recent event that "the president has to lead."

Black voters have long been aligned with the Democratic party. In the Barack Obama era, the alignment has been closer than ever, with 2012 black turnout higher and more Democratic than ever. If Hillary Clinton hopes to win the White House, she'll need to get similar numbers to Obama among black…

The leading Republican presidential candidate in donor and establishment support is down to just four percent of the vote in a new national poll. Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, is in a far fifth place in the latest Quinnipiac poll, getting four percent and trailing Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio,…

Texas senator Ted Cruz said the Rebel Alliance in George Lucas's Star Wars films are "unequivocally" the good guys. The Republican presidential candidate told THE WEEKLY STANDARD Tuesday evening the question over which side in the original three movies, the Rebels and the all-powerful Galactic…

New Jersey governor Chris Christie came out swinging against his rival for the GOP presidential nomination Marco Rubio Tuesday. In a Tuesday interview with radio host Laura Ingraham, Christie responded to Rubio's claim that the Obama administration's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program…

Part of former Florida governor Jeb Bush's fifth campaign reboot is, apparently, media training for the candidate. Gabriel Sherman at New York magazine reports the Bush campaign has hired Jon Kraushar to help improve the Republican's image:

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, coming off a poorly perceived debate performance last week and struggles in the polls, appeared in Tampa Monday morning to "reboot" his campaign. Bush will define this new campaign shakeup with a mantra that he wants to come to Washington to "fix it."

Boulder, Colo.

Boulder, Colo.

Boulder, Colo.

A new national poll of Republican primary voters finds retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson in the lead, overtaking reality TV star and New York businessman Donald Trump. The CBS News/New York Times poll found 26 percent of Republican primary voters polled support Carson, while 22 percent support Trump.…

Democrat John Bel Edwards and Republican David Vitter will face off in the November 21 runoff for governor of Louisiana. Edwards and Vitter were the top two vote-getters in Saturday's jungle primary.

The problems just keep stacking up for Louisiana Republican David Vitter as he battles to stay alive in what's become a contentious race for governor. The two-term U.S. senator has been dogged by new allegations surrounding his use of prostitutes in New Orleans and Washington, D.C.

For a while, it looked as if Republican senator David Vitter had a better-than-good shot at winning the 2015 governor’s race in Louisiana. For several months since last December, Vitter had led in the polls against the Democrat and two Republicans also running in the state’s open primary, which is…

The Boston Globe reports that Tom Stemberg, the founder of office-supply retailer Staples, has died. Stemberg started Staples with the help of Mitt Romney's Bain Capital investment firm, and the two men became friends.

Trey Gowdy, the Republican chairman of the House's select committee investigating the Benghazi attacks, spent several minutes at Thursday's hearing questioning former secretary of state Hillary Clinton over the unusual advisory relationship she had with an old friend who had business interests iin…

Hillary Clinton acknowledged that the U.S. ambassador to Libya who was killed on September 11, 2012, in a terrorist attack did not have the secretary of state's personal email address.

The Republican chairman of the House select committee on the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack told Hillary Clinton that his investigation is "not about" the former secretary of state, despite claims to the contrary from members of Congress in both parties.

Two former high-ranking Obama administration officials say they did not know about the existence of Hillary Clinton’s private email server while she was serving as secretary of state. They also refused to say whether they approved her use of such a server.

Hillary Clinton looked competent, tough, and in control during Tuesday’s low-key Democratic debate in Las Vegas. Clinton excelled amid a field of hapless has-beens, would-be revolutionaries, and ideological outliers by delivering a solid performance and looking like the adult in the room. The…

A new poll of the Democratic presidential primary shows frontrunner Hillary Clinton remaining under 50 percent support against Vermont senator Bernie Sanders and Vice President Joe Biden. The Fox News poll, which was released the day of the first Democratic debate, shows Clinton with 45 percent…

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has a habit of trying to have it both ways on the Iran nuclear deal

All is fine and well in the House GOP conference, according to to the Republican rank-and-file.

It was just over a week ago when House majority leader Kevin McCarthy first considered dropping out of the race for speaker.

House speaker John Boehner has released a statement following the announcement that majority leader Kevin McCarthy is dropping out of the race for speaker. Here's the statement:

Kevin McCarthy, the California Republican and House majority leader, has pulled himself out of the running to replace House speaker John Boehner. National Review Online's Eliana Johnson broke the news:

The father of a Virginia television reporter who was murdered on air in August is calling for "commonsense gun control legislation" on behalf of the political committee of Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe.

Jeb Bush is qualifying some recent criticism of fellow Floridian and GOP rival Marco Rubio. Last week the former Florida governor said that the young senator does not have the “skills to fix things” as president. (See update below.)

Joe Biden was the source for an August New York Times column that documented the vice president's son's deathbed plea that Biden run for president. Politico reports:

Arkansas senator Tom Cotton will place a hold on three ambassador nominations until the Obama administration agrees to investigate and discipline officials within the Secret Service over a leak of private personnel information about a sitting congressman.

Since becoming the leading candidate for House speaker, majority leader Kevin McCarthy has been treated with suspicion by some conservative commentators. Sean Hannity is one of them, and in an appearance on Hannity’s Fox News program Tuesday, McCarty faced tough questions from the host about what…

House majority leader Kevin McCarthy officially announced his campaign for speaker of the House. In a letter sent to his fellow Republican congressmen, McCarthy promised that if elected he would lead a House of Representatives that would "have the courage to lead the fight for our conservative…

With John Boehner stepping down as House speaker, House majority leader Kevin McCarthy of California looks like the likeliest candidate to replace him. Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican, has already said he won’t run and has endorsed McCarthy. Texas congressman Jeb Hensarling could be a dark…

Something has gotten into Ted Cruz. The Republican senator is known as a conservative firebrand willing to take on his own party, but in a Thursday meeting with reporters in his Capitol Hill office, Cruz was sounding almost ecumenical. Maybe it was the presence of Pope Francis.

Something has gotten into Ted Cruz. The Republican senator is known as a conservative firebrand willing to take on his own party, but in a Thursday meeting with reporters in his Capitol Hill office, Cruz was sounding almost ecumenical. Maybe it was the presence of Pope Francis.

In the middle of his trip to Washington, D.C., Pope Francis made an "unschedued" stop to meet with members of an group of nuns suing the federal government over the Obama administration's contraception and abortifacient mandate in the health-care law. The Little Sisters of the Poor is an order of…

Vice President Joe Biden has made significant gains in the national Democratic primary polls in recent weeks, with a new Bloomberg poll showing a quarter of registered Democratic primary voters supportin him, his best numbers yet.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton mocked her Republican rivals for the White House for being unable to name an "American woman" worthy of going on the $10 dollar bill—and then was unable to name one such woman herself.

Ed Feulner, the former president of the Heritage Foundation, writes about our culture's double standards for tobacco cigarettes and for marijuana. Here's an excerpt:

The fallout from Scott Walker's exit from the presidential race continues in Iowa, which had been the Wisconsin governor's stronghold. The Des Moines Register's Jennifer Jacobs reports that Texas senator Ted Cruz has gained the support of three of Walker's county chairs:

Four members of Scott Walker's Iowa campaign are now aligning with Marco Rubio. With the Wisconsin governor exiting the presidential race Monday, the Walker campaign's network of activist supporters in the early primary states are free to endorse other candidates.

Florida senator Marco Rubio has picked up the support of a South Carolina Republican activist who had previously supported Scott Walker.

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker's presidential campaign announced a press conference for Monday evening, and the New York Times reports the Republican is likely to drop out:

A new CNN poll of the registered Republican and Republican-leaning voters finds Carly Fiorina taking second place in the GOP presidential primary, behind Donald Trump and just one point ahead of Ben Carson. The poll, taken over the course of the three days following CNN's September 16 debate, found…

For some, politics is the family business, and increasingly so in Washington. On Thursday, Illinois Republican Darin LaHood was sworn in to the House of Representatives, taking over the seat once occupied by disgraced congressman Aaron Schock and, before that, LaHood's own father, Ray LaHood.

While their fireworks have earned Carly Fiorina and Donald Trump the most attention after Wednesday night’s Republican debate in California, the winner for the most detailed and substantive performance may go to Marco Rubio. 

From the beginning of her campaign for president, Carly Fiorina has had to deal with lowered expectations, encapsulated in a frequent question: Aren’t you just running for vice president? “People ask that because I’m a woman and I’m not a politician,” she told me earlier this year. “I’m running to…

California governor Jerry Brown gave signs in a Wednesday interview on CNN that he may be considering running for president.

As Republicans in the Senate bring forward a bill next week that would ban most abortions after 20 weeks of gestation—when babies are capable of feeling pain and can survive outside the womb—Senate minority leader Harry Reid declined to say whether he supports any limits on abortion during any…

A leading Democratic senator said Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell is continuing to push for an up-or-down vote on approving the Iran nuclear deal to score points with "some groups."

A new poll of the Republican presidential primary from the New York Times and CBS News shows consensus frontrunner Donald Trump making "modest" gains, from 24 percent at the beginning of August to 27 percent. But his closest rival for the nominatjon, Ben Carson, has seen a bigger jump in that time,…

The super PAC supporting Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina has a new 60-second ad that's a not-so-subtle response to her GOP rival Donald Trump. The ad, titled "Faces," features the former Hewlett-Packard CEO speaking about the important role of women in the Republican party.

New polls of likely Republican voters in two early primary states show Donald Trump maintaining a solid lead for the presidential nomination. The CBS News/YouGov tracking polls in both Iowa and New Hampshire show the real-estate magnate and reality TV star with big leads in those states.

Nearly 14 years ago, President George W. Bush took to the mound at Yankee Stadium to throw out the ceremonial first pitch in Game 3 of the World Series. This was weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and Bush's down-the-middle-strike was a triumphant moment that helped unite the country.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, came out swinging against several of the Republican candidates for president in a Thursday breakfast with reporters. The Florida congresswoman reserved most of her fire for her fellow Sunshine Staters, calling Marco Rubio a…

The chairwoman of the Democratic party attributed the popularity of both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump as evidence that Americans are fed up with their current government. 

More Iowa Democrats say they support Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton in a new Quinnipiac poll of likely caucusgoers. According to the poll, 41 percent say they support Sanders, the Vermont senator, with 40 percent supporting Clinton, the former secretary of state and New York senator. In…

Martin O'Malley, the Democratic presidential candidate, accused the chairwoman of his party of rigging the primary process for Hillary Clinton. Speaking on MSNBC's Morning Joe Thursday, O'Malley praised vice chairs of the Democratic National Committee who have called for more primary debates. The…

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush laid out details of his economic plan in North Carolina Wednesday, focusing primarily on how he would reform the tax code as president. The proposal, Bush said, would help achieve his stated goal of four-percent annual economic growth.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has written a letter to CNN president Jeff Zucker asking the news network donate the ad profits for next week's GOP presidential debate to veterans. Trump posted a photo of the letter to his Twitter account. See the tweet below:

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush has announced the outline of his tax proposal in a new Wall Street Journal op-ed published Tuesday evening. Among Bush's proposals are three income-tax brackets (28 percent, 25 percent, and 10 percent), cutting the corporate tax rate to 20 percent, and eliminating…

Bill Clinton, the husband of Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, will “reemerge,” as CNN puts it, next week on behalf of his wife’s presidential campaign. The former president will headline a fundraiser in Chicago on September 17, the first of what the campaign says will be several events where…

A new Pew poll finds shrinking support among the American people for the nuclear deal with Iran. The poll found 49 percent are opposed to the deal, with 21 percent in support and 30 percent who say they don't know.

A new national poll of Democrats and Democrat leaners finds Hillary Clinton with 42 percent support in her party's presidential primary, down 10 points from a month ago and facing significant opposition from other candidates. The Monmouth University poll found Clinton, the former secretary of…

The Hillary Clinton presidential campaign is planning on relaunching (or reintroducing, or reengineering) its candidate this fall, reports the New York Times. Reporter Amy Chozick says the former secretary of state will attempt to "show her humor" and "show her heart."

Bill Kristol, the chairman of the Emergency Committee for Israel, has a statement on behalf of the group:

Hillary Clinton sat down with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Friday in a rare one-on-one interview. After several questions from Mitchell about Clinton's use of a private email and a homebrew server while she was secretary of state, the Democratic frontrunner apologized the controversy was "confusing" the…

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush is launching his first TV ad campaign next week, according to a spokesperson. The $500,000 purchase for New Hampshire TV markets will begin next Wednesday and run through the rest of September. The campaign says 15 percent of that buy will go toward…

Radio host Hugh Hewitt interviewed Donald Trump Thursday and asked the Republican frontrunner some details on foreign policy. After Trump confused some terminology, he accused Hewitt of asking "gotcha questions."

A spokesman for Hillary Clinton told CNN he did not know what it means for a computer server to be "wiped."

A new Monmouth poll of registered or leaning Republican primary voters nationally finds New York businessman Donald Trump continuing to lead in the crowded GOP field. Trump's support is at 30 percent, 4 points higher than he was in Monmouth's August poll and 17 points higher than in its July poll.

Comedian Stephen Colbert launches his version of The Late Show on CBS on September 8, and one of his first guests will be Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush. The Bush campaign was quick to turn the appearance into a fundraising opportunity. As the Associated Press reported, the campaign…

Former vice president Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz Cheney appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe Wednesday morning to promote their new book, Exceptional. The Cheneys spoke about national security, foreign policy issues like the Iran deal, and 2016 politics.

The latest stash of emails from Hillary Clinton's private server released by the State Department has (once again!) revealed Washington to be a particularly unbearable place, employing particularly insufferable people. From Clinton's email correspondence with her senior staff we can observe how…

A prevailing media narrative is that while Republicans have pitched a fit over Barack Obama’s negotiated deal with Iran over that country’s nuclear program, the seeds of such a deal were sown by the previous administration.

More than 200 elected officials, Republican and conservative activists, and business leaders have signed a letter to CNN president Jeff Zucker requesting the cable network award Carly Fiorina a spot in the upcoming Republican presidential primary debate. Fiorina campaign staff posted the letter on…

Jeb Bush has said Donald Trump "should be treated like the frontrunner" for the Republican nomination. On Tuesday, the Bush campaign continues to do just that with a short web video aimed squarely at the leading GOP contender's past "liberal" views on taxes, health care, and abortion as well as…

The State Department released another tranche of emails from Hillary Clinton's private server Monday evening. While messages between Clinton and other State and administration officials concerning the most interesting and consequential subjects (like the Benghazi attacks) were heavily redacted,…

Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon from Maryland, has had a good August in Iowa. In the last three polls of likely Republican caucusgoers, Carson has come in second to Donald Trump, with both candidates overtaking one-time leader Scott Walker. In the latest poll, Carson and Trump are actually…

Donald Trump has a new online video ad that hits Republican rival Jeb Bush for the former Florida governor's statement that immigrating illegally to the United States is an "act of love." The ad, available on Trump's Instagram feed, features audio and video of Bush speaking about the issue of…

A new poll of likely Republican caucusgoers in Iowa finds Donald Trump and Ben Carson tied for the lead at 23 percent support. The Monmouth University poll is the first since July to show Trump not in the sole lead position in Iowa.

Norfolk, Va.

The most frequent words that come to mind when Americans think about Hillary Clinton are "liar" and "dishonest." That's according to a new national poll from Quinnipiac that asked more than 1500 registered voters to say the "first word" that comes to mind when they hear the Democratic presidential…

Hillary Clinton compared Republican views on federal funding for abortion and elective contraception to the views of terrorists. Speaking in Cleveland Thursday, Clinton criticized Republicans who want to limit federal funding for abortions as wanting to deny "access to health care."

Nearly 200 retired generals and admirals have written a letter to Congress urging its members to reject the proposed nuclear deal with Iran. The retired military officials say the consequences of the deal will national security.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton offered her thoughts on Wednesday's fatal shooting of two TV news station employees in Virginia:

Senate minority leader Harry Reid of Nevada said Monday he is working toward filibustering a disapproval vote on President Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, Politico reports. Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, a Republican who has been a vocal critic of the deal, released a statement blasting the Nevada…

A new poll of "usual" Republican primary voters in New Hampshire gives Donald Trump his biggest lead yet in the Granite State. The Public Policy Polling survey found Trump with 35 percent support, a good 26-point advantage over the next closest GOP candidate, Ohio governor John Kasich at 11…

Bernie Sanders leads Hillary Clinton in a new poll of "usual" New Hampshire Democratic primary voters. According to Public Policy polling, a Democratic firm, Sanders has 42 percent support to Clinton's 35 percent support.

Rob Portman of Ohio may have one of the toughest Senate reelection campaigns in the country next year, and the Republican isn't wasting time hitting his likely Democratic opponent, former governor Ted Strickland. The Portman campaign has launched a new set of online ads targeting Strickland's…

Donald Trump's presence in the Republican primary for president has not significantly damaged the other GOP presidential candidates with respect to Hispanic Americans. That's according to a new poll from Gallup that finds the New York businessman with a highly negative net favorability among…

What’s the matter with Jeb Bush? The establishment favorite and frontrunner in the fundraising primary can’t seem to catch a break. Bush’s performance in the August 6 debate in Cleveland was judged as mediocre at best. He’s dropped to number two in New Hampshire and is tied for sixth place in Iowa.…

New Jersey governor Chris Christie says America needs a "strong law enforcer as president" in a new 30-second TV ad. In the spot, Christie, a Republican, lists off examples of "lawlessness in America and around the world under Barack Obama," including the terror of ISIS, sanctuary cities for…

A growing majority of Americans say Congress should reject the nuclear deal with Iran brokered by the Obama administration, according to a new CNN poll. Here's more from CNN:

The website for What So Proudly We Hail has compiled several tributes to Amy Kass, who died Wednesday. Joining those from Bill Kristol and Gertrude Himmelfarb are thoughts from Robert P. George and William Schambra.

Republican presidential candidate John Kasich told a voter in New Hampshire Wednesday that Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court case that legalized abortion in the United States is the "law of the land."

The Republican National Committee is selling a special, "Hillary-Clinton"-branded wipe cloth.

The Associated Press reports that under the provisions of the deal, the Iranian government will be allowed to use its own inspectors on one site thought to have been used to develop nuclear weapons. Here's more from the AP:

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker is nothing if not a campaign veteran. He’s run and won three statewide races since 2010, including the highly contentious recall election in 2012. In fact, since an unsuccessful bid for the state assembly in 1990 when he was just 22, Walker hasn’t lost an election.…

Jeffrey Anderson, writing at the Federalist, calls Scott Walker's Obamacare replacement proposal a "winning conservative alternative." Here an excerpt:

Bob Menendez, the Democratic senator from New Jersey and one of the leading voices for tougher sanctions on the Iranian regime, delivered an address Tuesday at Seton Hall University in which he declared he would oppose the nuclear deal with Iran.

Hillary Clinton said the lack of medical insurance coverage for gender-reassignment surgery is an issue that's "going to have to be dealt with." At a townhall campaign event in Nevada Tuesday, a woman who said she was the mother of a transgendered person asked the Democratic candidate about…

Hillary and Bill Clinton were recently vacationing at Martha's Vineyard, the tony island getaway off the coast of Massachusetts. The former first couple attended a birthday party for former aide Vernon Jordan, and a member of the band playing at the party shot video of the Clintons dancing. Watch…

Manchester, N.H.

Alabama senator Jeff Sessions, a Republican, released a statement Sunday praising the immigration proposal from presidential candidate Donald Trump. ""This is exactly the plan America needs," said Sessions. "Not only would the plan outlined in this paper work, but more quickly than many realize.…

Vermont senator Bernie Sanders has doubled his support in the Democratic presidential primary since June while frontrunner Hillary Clinton has seen her support among primary voters nationally drop by more than 20 points in that same time. That's according to a new poll from Fox News that shows…

A new ad from Veterans Against the Deal features the father of U.S. Army specialist Clay Farr, who was killed by an Iranian bomb in Iraq in 2006. In the 60-second spot, Patrick Farr describes the day he learned of his son's death and expresses his opposition to a deal that will reward the regime…

Joe Biden has been consulting with a prominent Democratic operative in South Carolina about a possible run for the White House, the New York Times reports:

Maryland's Republican governor Larry Hogan is angering immigration activists with his decision to comply with a federal immigration enforcement directive. The Washington Post reports that Hogan actually made the decision "with no fanfare" in January that Maryland will notify federal immigration…

The pro-Hillary Clinton opposition research super PAC Correct the Record has a new post criticizing Carly Fiorina's record as CEO of Hewlett-Packard. The blog post notes Fiorina, a Republican candidate for president, was named "one of America's worst CEOs" and that HP fired or laid off 30,000…

Vice President Joe Biden is hearing from friends and political allies that he should get in the race for the Democratic nomination for president. The Wall Street Journal reports:

Carly Fiorina says she disagrees with her Republican rival for president Donald Trump on the issue of Planned Parenthood. Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Tuesday that "we have to look at the positive also for Planned Parenthood" and said abortions were just a "small part" of what the…

Iraq veteran Robert Bartlett appeared with Megyn Kelly of Fox News last night to discuss his opposition to the nuclear deal with Iran. Bartlett was severely wounded in 2005 in Iraq by an Iranian bomb, which also killed or injured several of his friends. Watch the interview below:

Donald Trump is down nine points among Republican primary voters nationally, according to a post-debate poll from Rasmussen Reports. The real estate magnate and reality TV star still leads the crowded primary field, but with 17 percent support Trump is down nine points from Rasmussen's pre-debate…

A new poll of likely GOP caucusgoers in Iowa finds that Marco Rubio and Ben Carson made the most positive impression in the first Republican debate.

A new poll of New Hampshire GOP primary voters conducted after the first presidential debate shows Donald Trump stumbling, and John Kasich and Carly Fiorina getting significant bumps in support. The poll from Franklin Pierce University and the Boston Herald finds Trump with 18 percent, which is…

A new ad from the group Veterans Against the Deal features retired Army staff sergeant Robert Bartlett, who in 2005 was badly injured while serving in Iraq. The supplier of the bomb that "cut me in half, from the left corner of my temple to through my jaw" was the regime in Iran. In the ad,…

Hillary Clinton still leads the Democratic field in Iowa, but according to a new Public Policy Polling survey of "usual Democratic voters" in the Hawkeye state independent Vermont senator Bernie Sanders is making gains there.

No one quite knows what the first Republican debate will look like, who exactly will be onstage, or what it means that Donald Trump will be there, too. This, it seems, is the Republican National Committee’s solution to the debacle of the 2012 debates. The problems are memorable: too many primary…

Coming off a well-received performance in Thursday's 5 p.m. debate, Carly Fiorina appeared on MSNBC's Hardball, where host Chris Matthews grilled the Republican candidate over her onstage claim that Hillary Clinton lied. "Hillary Clinton lies about Benghazi, she lies about e- mails," Fiorina said…

If anyone believed Donald Trump would be any different in Thursday night’s Republican presidential debate, they were dead wrong. The Donald was his boastful, pugilistic, funny, and entertaining self, starting from the very first question of the night.

Carly Fiorina was the clear winner in a dull and relatively uneventful undercard debate Thursday evening. The former Hewlett Packard CEO was the most composed and effective of the seven candidates taking the stage in Cleveland, getting off a few memorable lines and detailed policy proposals.

Two Republican candidates for president have approached the politics of the controversy over Planned Parenthood in different and revealing ways.

Goffstown, N.H.

Manchester, N.H.

Manchester, N.H.

Denver

A new national Quinnipiac University poll finds Donald Trump leading the crowded Republican presidential primary field with 20 percent support, even as 30 percent of registered Republican voters say there is "no way" they would support him for president. The New York reality TV star and real-estate…

Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard and a Republican candidate for president, will address the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California, on Monday evening on her foreign policy outlook. In her speech, Fiorina will discuss how as president she would broker a "new deal" with…

A former Obama administration official says Hillary Clinton should release her private email server to the public.

Democrat Hillary Clinton is trailing some potential Republican opponents in three key swing states, according to a new poll from Quinnipiac, and doing about as well against the GOP as one of her rivals for the Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders.

Rick Santorum is keeping expectations low for his second presidential campaign. Asked if he would need to win the Iowa caucuses to stay in the race, the former senator said it “depends.”

Martin O'Malley said the rise of the terrorist organization ISIS in the Middle East can be traced to climate change. In a Friday interview on Bloomberg aired Monday, the Democratic presidential candidate and former Maryland governor said a drought in Syria helped create the conditions for ISIS's…

A new poll of likely Republican caucusgoers in Iowa finds Scott Walker with a broad base of support just a week after the Wisconsin governor officially entered the presidential race. The new survey from Monmouth University finds Walker with 22 percent support, leading his closest competitor, Donald…

Bill Kristol appeared on ABC's This Week Sunday and said he is "finished" with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. At a political event in Iowa over the weekend, the New York businessman had criticized senator John McCain's record on veterans' issues and dismissed the Arizona…

The first Republican presidential debate isn't until next month, but former Texas governor Rick Perry is already hitting back at fellow GOP contender Donald Trump. In a statement, Perry knocked Trump's criticism of the governor's 14-year tenure in Austin, saying the New York businessman has a…

House minority leader Nancy Pelosi told reporters Thursday that the release of four Americans being held in Iran should not be part of a deal with the Islamic Republic. 

A new TV ad argues the Obama administration's nuclear deal with Iran is repeating history, drawing parallels with the 1994 nuclear deal President Bill Clinton brokered with North Korea. The ad, produced by the Foundation for American Security and Freedom, interchanges lines from both president's…

How should Republicans in Congress approach the process of repealing Obamacare? Jeffrey Anderson suggests a careful use of Senate reconciliation rules. Here's Anderson:

Barack Obama scolded a reporter at his Wednesday briefing after getting a critical question about the nuclear deal with Iran. CBS News's Major Garrett pressed the president on the imprisonment of Americans in Iran.

Arnold Steinberg, a polling expert, offers a good reason to think the latest poll showing Donald Trump leading the Republican presidential field is problematic. Here's an excerpt:

Another poll of likely Democratic presidential primary voters shows Vermont senator Bernie Sanders closing a considerable gap with Hillary Clinton, while Vice President Joe Biden looks like he could be a spoiler if he decides to run for the nomination. The latest Monmouth University poll finds…

The latest Suffolk University/USA Today poll is likely spooking Republicans in Washington and eliciting cheers from Hillary Clinton headquarters. The poll finds Donald Trump leading the pack of GOP White House hopefuls with 17 percent support, with all the remaining candidates but Jeb Bush…

Businessman and TV personality Donald Trump tops the latest Suffolk University/USA Today poll of the Republican presidential primary. Trump has 17 percent support among likely GOP primary voters nationwide, edging out former Florida governor Jeb Bush with 14 percent. The remaining candidates earn…

As the news of the nuclear deal reached between the United States, its Western allies, and the Islamic Republican of Iran broke Tuesday morning, Republican presidential candidates were nearly unanimous in condemning the agreement.

In his recent interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump sharply criticized the way the Obama administration has been negotiating the forthcoming nuclear deal with Iran.

The director of the Office of Personnel Management will resign her post as more details emerge of a massive hack that has compromised the personal information of million of Americans. The New York Times's Julie Davis reports:

There’s been plenty of sound and fury over the Republican presidential primary debates. Who will make the 10-candidate cut? Who will get left out? Will Ohio’s governor John Kasich be shut out of the first debate, which is being held in his own state? What nutty thing(s) will Donald Trump say?

Bill Kristol joined Anderson Cooper on CNN Wednesday night to discuss the newsman's interview with real-estate mogul and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. The boss argued Trump is a force for good in the GOP presidential primary. Kristol debated Democratic operative and Hillary…

The political action committee headed by Ohio governor John Kasich has a new advertisement as the Republican prepares to run for president. The 60-second ad features Kasich speaking directly to the camera about his experience both as governor and as a longtime member of the House of…

As the negotiations over a nuclear deal with Iran drag on in Vienna, the Boston Globe's Matt Viser provides an inside look at how the United States delegation spends its time as the top diplomats confer. Among the details about snacks and American officials falling asleep is a nugget about the U.S.…

Bill Kristol appeared with Steve Malzberg on Newsmax TV Tuesday to discuss Donald Trump's influence on the Republican presidential field. The boss argued that despite Trump's inappropriate comments about illegal immigrants, Republicans should not be so quick to disregard the issues the real-estate…

If you’re searching for an explanation for Donald Trump’s relatively modest surge in the crowded Republican presidential field, look no further than this story from the Washington Post’s Philip Rucker:

The Professional Golfers' Association of America will move its annual Grand Slam of Golf tournament from a Los Angeles-area golf course owned by New York businessman and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. The tournament, which features the winners of the four major championships, was…

The Chamber of Commerce has launched two new ads focusing on what are expected to be some of the closest Senate races of the 2016 cycle: the seats up in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

How should Republicans court the conservative Christian vote in 2016? Among the presidential candidates, Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz are offering competing models for maintaining and growing a critical part of the GOP’s coalition in the primaries and in the general election. Both strategies show promise…

The Bernie Sanders moment does not appear to be passing, at least not yet. The latest Quinnipiac poll of of likely Democratic caucusgoers in Iowa shows the Vermont senator trailing Hillary Clinton by 19 points—a gaping deficit, until you consider that just two months ago, Clinton led Sanders by 45…

Thousands appeared in Madison, Wisconsin Wednesday night for a rally supporting Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont running for the Democratic nomination for president. CNN reporter Dan Merica tweeted a photo of the rally held at Veterans Memorial Coliseum, which seats 10,000…

Some Republican leaders are sharply criticizing the Obama administration for establishing official diplomatic ties with Cuba, the Caribbean island nation that has been under the control of Communist dictator Fidel Castro and his brother Raul since 1959. A number of GOP presidential candidates and…

A new poll from Suffolk University and USA Today finds the majority of Americans do not want to debate gun control in the 2016 presidential election. According to the poll of 1,000 adults, 52 percent say they would not like gun control to be a "significant subject" during the election, with 43…

On Tuesday, New Jersey governor Chris Christie became the fourteenth Republican to join the presidential race, promising in a rambling announcement in his hometown of Livingston that he would bring “strong leadership” to Washington. Christie also argued the country should not turn control over to…

The The Republican National Committee is releasing a new video to argue that Democrat Hillary Clinton turn over the private email server she maintained while serving as secretary of state to an indpendent investigator. The web video showcases several reporters and members of the media excoriating…

Bernie Sanders is within single digits of Hillary Clinton in a new poll of New Hampshire Democratic primary voters. The survey from CNN and WMUR finds Clinton's support among Granite State Democrats at 43 percent, while Sanders, a Vermont senator, registers 35 percent support. That's the best…

Vermont senator Bernie Sanders is being attacked in a new ad for not being liberal enough on guns. 

Jim Webb, the former Virginia senator who may run for the Democratic nomination for president, released a statement on Facebook regarding the Confederate battle flag and the debate over its continued use in state-funded memorials. Here's the message:

Former Clinton advisor Paul Begala told CNN's Chris Cuomo Tuesday morning that Hillary Clinton "absolutely" has to answer for standing by her husband when he served as governor of Arkansas and defended that state's flag's relationship to the Confederate battle flag.

Summer means it's wedding season, and in Washington that means plenty of potential for conflicts of interest. Consider the wedding of one Hillary Clinton aide, attended by several members of the national political press covering Clinton and her rivals for the White House.

In his run for the GOP nomination in 2000, George W. Bush successfully united establishment Republicans and social conservatives. As a Chamber-friendly evangelical who could speak honestly about how Jesus Christ “changed my heart,” Bush created an unbeatable coalition that energized the socially…

It’s no accident that Texas senator Ted Cruz sounds like a minister on the stump. His father, Rafael, is an evangelical pastor, after all. And as the Republican presidential candidate displayed before the faith-focused crowd at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference in…

Kentucky senator Rand Paul has introduced a tax reform proposal that promises to "blow up the tax code" and replace it with a flat tax on individual and business income. Here's Paul introducing his proposal in the Wall Street Journal:

Both Florida Republicans running for president are tied for first among registered voters in their party, according to a new poll of the Sunshine State from Quinnipiac.

On Fox News's Special Report this week, Steve Hayes suggested Hillary Clinton is vulnerable in her march to the Democratic nomination for president and that Vermont senator Bernie Sanders could be the one to cut into her support.

The only female Democratic candidate for president may have a problem with male voters in that party, judging by a new Suffolk University poll of the New Hampshire primary. The poll, which shows former secretary of state Hillary Clinton below 50 percent support and just 10 points ahead of senator…

A second poll of New Hampshire Democratic primary voters shows Vermont senator Bernie Sanders closing the gap with former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. According to a new Suffolk University poll, 41 percent of likely primary voters in the Granite State support Clinton, while 31 percent…

When it comes to beer, the craft connoisseurs say Americans just don’t get it. Right-thinking drinkers all know that bitter is better. But despite the explosion in the market for craft beers, which are often high-alcohol, hoppy ales, Americans still like their Bud Light. According to the Washington…

Jeb Bush looked relieved to say it. “I’ve decided I’m a candidate for president of the United States of America,” said the former Florida governor Monday afternoon. Standing on a stage at Miami Dade College, Bush let out an audible sigh immediately after the announcement as the crowd around him…

Bernie Sanders, the independent Democratic senator from Vermont, is within striking distance of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton in a new poll of likely New Hampshire presidential primary voters. A new survey from the Morning Consult finds 44 percent of New Hampshire voters who say they…

The Obama administration is funding a provision of the Affordable Care Act unconstitutionally and against the decision of Congress, a Republican House member says. Peter Roskam of Illinois joined Fox News's Greta van Susteren Thursday to talk about the details of his findings in an oversight…

Carly Fiorina has a message for Democrats who oppose a ban on late-term abortions: You don't represent most women. The Republican presidential candidate and former Hewlett-Packard CEO said she backs a bill, passed by the House of Representatives and just introduced in the Senate, that limits…

Johnny Isakson, the two-term senator from Georgia, has been talking for nearly a year about running for reelection, and he officially announced his intention to run just days after last November’s midterm election. And when the 70-year-old Republican announced on Wednesday that he has Parkinson’s…

On Wednesday, Democrat Hillary Clinton posted her first photo to Instagram, the photo-based social network, with a joke referencing her memoir Hard Choices. Here's the photo, which shows several red, white, and blue pantsuits hanging on a rack:

A new poll of Florida Republican primary voters finds a tightening race between the Sunshine State's two favorite sons in the 2016 GOP presidential primary. According to St. Leo University's Polling Institute, former governor Jeb Bush has 30 percent support among likely Republican primary voters in…

More than 50 Republican activists and officeholders in New Hampshire have signed an open letter to the heads of Fox News and the Republican National Committee to "urge" those leaders to "reconsider the criteria and to design a debate that will allow voters to hear from a more diverse and inclusive…

Oklahoma City

Former Virginia senator Jim Webb said American foreign policy over the last two decades has had a lack of clarity and purpose. But the potential Democratic candidate for president stopped short of directly criticizing former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.

Rick Perry, the former Texas governor, announced Thursday afternoon he is running for president in 2016. Introduced by his wife Anita and flanked by retired U.S. Navy SEALs Marcus and Morgan Luttrell, Perry spoke about his upbringing in West Texas, touted his job-creation record during his 14 years…

Former Texas governor Rick Perry is running for president, releasing a video focusing on his record and background. The Republican will formally announce the campaign Thursday during an event outside of Dallas.

Former president Bill Clinton will be the keynote speaker at a conference of health-insurance executives this week. America's Health Insurance Plans, the largest health-insurance provider trade group in the country, is holding its Institute 2015 conference in Nashville this week. Clinton, whose…

Former president Bill Clinton will be the keynote speaker at a conference of health-insurance executives this week. America's Health Insurance Plans, the largest health-insurance provider trade group in the country, is holding its Institute 2015 conference in Nashville this week. Clinton, whose…

“Is Finland crazy? I want somebody to comment on that.” 

Republican House majority leader Kevin McCarthy is dubbing the third week of June “health care week.” It is then the House of Representatives will bring up a series of health care-related bills as the Supreme Court prepares to issue its ruling on a major provision of the Affordable Care Act at the…

Hillary Clinton told a New Hampshire supporter looking for an autograph to "go to the end of the line."

Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina says the United States is "not making progress" in its fight against ISIS. In a recent interview with THE WEEKLY STANDARD, Fiorina said President Obama "understates the significance of the situation" with the terrorist group that has taken over large…

Kate McKinnon, a performer on NBC's Saturday Night Live, says she's "rooting" for Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate whom McKinnon portrays. The TV star made the comments in a group interview with other female comedians with the Hollywood Reporter. McKinnon was asked about the…

Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator and runner-up for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012, will run for president again in 2016. The Associated Press reports:

Kentucky senator Rand Paul says the "hawks" in the Republican party helped create and grow the Islamic State terrorist group. Paul, who is running for president, appeared Wednesday morning on MSNBC, where host Joe Scarborough asked him about fellow senator Lindsey Graham's own likely White House…

Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Carly Fiorina will both be campaigning in Columbia, South Carolina, on Wednesday, and the Fiorina campaign is making sure reporters know its candidate will be answering questions. Fiorina will be available to speak to the press, says deputy campaign manager…

Former Texas governor Rick Perry has a message for three of the current Republican White House hopefuls: Run for governor before you run for president. Speaking about Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Rand Paul, all three U.S. senators, Perry said in an interview last week with THE WEEKLY STANDARD that…

Hillary Clinton was forwarded an article a month after the terrorist attack on Benghazi that killed U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens that quoted Stevens's father. In the October 14, 2012, Bloomberg article, Jan Stevens, the late ambassador's father, was quoted saying that it would be "abhorrent" to…

Oklahoma City

Republican members of the House intelligence committee say the Obama administration should release more of the one million-plus documents found after the 2011 raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Oklahoma City

Oklahoma City

Republican senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas said President Obama is "not providing the resources" to defeat the Islamic State in and that United States ought to send "a few thousand more" troops into Iraq to combat the terrorist group in that country.

On Wednesday afternoon Kentucky senator Rand Paul, a Republican presidential candidate, began what he's calling a filibuster of the Senate's renewal of the PATRIOT Act. Here's a tweet from Paul announcing the speech:

After an event in Iowa on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton responded to a report from the New York Times that an old aide to President Bill Clinton and family friend, Sidney Blumenthal, may have inappropriately advised Clinton when she served as Secretary of State.

Congressman Adam Schiff won't be running for California's open Senate seat in 2016. But the Los Angeles-area Democrat says someone from his part of the state should offer a challenge to Kamala Harris, the attorney general from the Bay Area and the perceived leading candidate in the race to replace…

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker said America should focus on the current challenges and problems faced in Iraq. Speaking on CBS's Face the Nation, Walker responded to a question from Bob Schieffer about potential 2016 rival Jeb Bush's difficult time answering questions about the 2003 invasion of…

Since announcing his candidacy for the president last month, Florida senator Marco Rubio has surged in the polls for the Republican nomination. He's now tied with Wisconsin governor Scott Walker and trails former Florida governor Jeb Bush by two points in the Real Clear Politics average of polls.…

Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan has an unusual decoration on the wall of his Capitol Hill office: a framed Laffer curve. This totem of supply-siders everywhere is drawn on a napkin and signed by the economist Art Laffer himself. “To my friend, Paul Ryan,” reads the note. 

B.B. King, born Riley B. King and also called the Beale Street Blues Boy and the King of the Blues, has died at the age of 89. Earlier this month, he announced he was in hospice care due to complications from diabetes. (Nearly 15 years ago, B.B. had become a paid spokesman for a blood glucose test…

A liberal political action group has produced an ad and fundraising campaign that claims "Republican cuts" to infrastructure spending and Amtrak funding have "killed again." The Agenda Project Action Fund, which has been behind such campaigns as the ad featuring a Paul Ryan look-alike pushing an…

For Jeb Bush and the issue of the Iraq War, the third time was the charm—but you wouldn’t know that from reading the headlines. Bush, the former Florida governor and brother of the president who took American troops into Iraq in 2003, had a difficult time explaining his position on the war this…

The Republican field for president is remarkably large, but are there really 36 possible contenders for the nomination? That's how many options a new online straw poll from the Republican National Committee offers.

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush has stumbled in his effort to answer questions about the wisdom of invading Iraq, given intelligence failures revealed since his brother George W. Bush launched the war in 2003. Members of the media have taken the opportunity to ask other would-be or…

New Jersey governor Chris Christie told CNN's Jake Tapper Tuesday that it "wasn't" the right decision to go to war in Iraq, given what we know now about the intelligence failures leading up to the invasion in 2003.

A Democratic Senate candidate from Missouri has argued that politicians in Washington ought to "take on their party bosses," even as he raises money in Las Vegas with the leader of his party in the Senate, Nevada's Harry Reid.

Barack Obama says part of the problem with continued poverty in America is misplaced middle-class resentment of the poor, fueled by false media narratives. The president made his remarks at a summit on poverty Tuesday afternoon at Georgetown University in Washington.

Pat Toomey is considered one of the more vulnerable senators up for reelection in 2016, but one new poll finds the Pennsylvania Republican leading possible Democratic challengers. A new survey from Harper Polling, a GOP firm, finds Toomey ahead by double-digits against three Democrats considering a…

In her first week as a candidate for president, Carly Fiorina’s TV schedule alone has been dizzyingly prolific. Since announcing her run on May 4th, Fiorina has done the following: two interviews on ABC’s Good Morning America; two Fox News interviews, one in the morning and another in primetime; a…

The House of Representatives will vote on a bill next week that would ban nearly all late-term abortions, House majority leader Kevin McCarthy tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD. The legislation would establish a national limit on abortion at 20 weeks after conception—five months into pregnancy—which is the…

Alabama senator Jeff Sessions, a Republican, has written a letter to President Barack Obama regarding the request that Congress "fast-track" legislation on Trade Promotion Authority. Sessions says he has a number of questions Congress should expect answers to before the body agrees to "yield its…

A new Quinnipiac poll of likely Iowa Republican presidential caucusgoers finds Wisconsin's Scott Walker in front of the GOP pack with 21 percent support and a 9-point advantage over his closest primary opponents. That's down from 25 percent and a 12-point lead in Quinnipiac's February poll, but…

Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO and new Republican presidential candidate, appeared on NBC's Late Night with Seth Meyers Tuesday to talk about her candidacy. Host Seth Meyers brought up the fact that Fiorina had failed to purchase the internet domain carlyfiorina.org before launching…

Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas and a 2008 Republican candidate for president, announced Tuesday he is running for the GOP nomination again in 2016. At an event in his hometown of Hope, Arkansas, Huckabee hit on populist and social conservative themes, repeatedly entreating voters to…

Former neurosurgen Ben Carson says he's "in" the presidential race. Carson announced his run in a TV interview Sunday evening, with a more formal announcement Monday in Detroit, his hometown. Here's Carson announcing the run on Twitter:

The first person to appear in Carly Fiorina's video announcing she is officially running for president is Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. The 60-second launch video begins with the former first lady and secretary of state's own announcement from last month playing on a TV, before Fiorina uses…

Ashland, N.H.

Ohio governor John Kasich, who may run for the Republican nomination for president, said he is in talks with publisher and conservative activist Steve Forbes to develop a flat tax reform proposal.

Is there anything separating Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush on the question of what to do about the Iran deal? As with many issues, the distinction between the two Florida Republicans falls more in the realm of tone and emphasis than on policy.

Republican senator Ted Cruz said Wednesday afternoon he is “long-term optimistic and short-term pessimistic” on the question of passing any immigration reform legislation. Speaking with Javier Palomarez, the president of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Texan presidential…

A new poll of likely Iowa Republican presidential caucus goers finds a wide-open field with three candidates vying for the top spot and a plurality undecided. Scott Walker, the governor of neighboring Wisconsin, leads the latest poll from Loras College, earning 12.6 percent support. Florida senator…

Late-night TV host Seth Meyers spent a segment of his program Thursday knocking Peter Schweizer's new book Clinton Cash. The Schweizer book documents the web of conflicts of interest and secretive cash flows that surround the foundations and initiatives of Bill and Hillary Clinton. News outlets as…

Nashua, N.H.

Manchester, N.H.

Nashua, N.H.

Windham, N.H.

A prominent Pakistani-born women's rights activist is asking presidential candidates, including Hillary Clinton, to pledge not to accept donations from foreign nations that oppress women. Raheel Raza, the Canadian journalist behind the documentary film Honor Diaries, is requesting all the…

While Hillary Clinton was meeting with voters in Iowa on her second full day as a presidential candidate, Marco Rubio spent part of his discussing a tax policy white paper at a Washington think tank. The newly declared candidate joined with Utah Republican Mike Lee at the Heritage Foundation to…

Scott Walker and Hillary Clinton may very well face off against other in the general election for president next year, but the Republican from Wisconsin has claimed to have had Clinton's number for more than a decade. Long before he had become a national figure, Walker said on a Wisconsin radio…

Marco Rubio told ABC News's George Stephanopoulos that the United States is at a "generational moment"—a further sign the 43-year-old Republican senator will make his youth a focus of his presidential campaign against older candidates in both the primary and general election.

Florida senator Marco Rubio is running for president. The Associated Press reports Rubio told donors Monday he would seek the Republican nomination. Here's the AP:

Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state, New York senator, and first lady, is running for president. Clinton, a Democrat, announced Sunday afternoon with a video showcasing numerous Americans "getting ready" for something—retirement, a baby, school. The video ends with Clinton saying, "I'm…

Marco Rubio, the Florida senator who is expected to announce he is running for president next week, has released a video titled "A New American Century." The five-and-a-half-minute video stitches together several speeches Rubio has given since his 2010 run for the U.S. Senate. The patchwork speech…

It appears to be a three-way tie in the Mike Lee presidential primary. At a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor in Washington Friday morning, the Republican and first-term senator from Utah spoke glowingly about his “three best friends” in the Senate who are or are preparing to run…

Lincoln Chafee, a former Republican senator and independent governor in Rhode Island, says he is exploring a bid for the Democratic nomination for president in 2016. Watch the video below:

There are no guarantees in politics, but Joe Nosef feels pretty confident in his prediction regarding the May 12 special election for Mississippi’s open congressional seat.

A front-page story in Tuesday’s Washington Post examines former Florida governor Jeb Bush’s record on ending affirmative action for college admissions. Through a 2000 executive order, Bush banned racial preferences in Florida’s public universities and colleges. The move was controversial at the…

Kentucky senator Rand Paul launched his presidential campaign Tuesday, promising to be a "different kind of Republican" who can extend the party's reach to minorities and young people. Paul's campaign website even offers a handy slate of social-media profile pictures for different members of these…

A new video from American Legacy PAC draws from history to aim at the Obama administration's nuclear deal with Iran. "It's time for American leadership," says the voiceover, morphing an image of British prime minister Neville Chamberlain to Barack Obama. "Not surrender."

Hillary Clinton has reportedly leased office space in Brooklyn on Wednesday for what is likely to be a campaign for president. The Democrat supposedly signed the lease sometime in the last few days, and according to regulations Clinton must file with the Federal Election Commission within 15 days…

As Kentucky senator Rand Paul gears up to launch a presidential campaign, the libertarian leaning Republican may have some problems getting social conservatives on board. Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, suggested in an interview that Paul’s brand of Republicanism doesn’t…

Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, said Indiana governor Mike Pence was “unprepared” for the backlash to the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act but defended the law as a necessary safeguard for religious liberty.

Kevin Williamson writes at National Review Online about a society where it is no longer "safe to be popular," in the words of Adlai Stevenson. Here's Williamson:

Several of the likely Republican presidential candidates have embraced Indiana’s new Religious Freedom Restoration Act. But a front-page story in Wednesday’s Washington Post suggests the controversy over Indiana’s law has dragged the GOP “into the divisive culture wars”—to the detriment of the…

Several of the likely Republican candidates for president have spoken out in defense of Indiana governor Mike Pence and his decision to sign the state's Religious Freedom Restoration Act. CNN reports that several White House hopefuls, including Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal, and…

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush will be a "special guest" speaker at the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference convention at the end of April. Bush, who is exploring a run for the White House, will attend the convention in Houston.

A new poll of New Hampshire GOP primary voters from the Boston Herald and Franklin Pierce University finds Jeb Bush and Scott Walker are tied at 15 percent support, with a slew of other likely candidates close behind in the first presidential primary of the cycle. Here's the Herald on the…

Matthew Continetti, writing at the Washington Free Beacon, explains why Jeb Bush has a problem in his foreign policy adviser James Baker. Baker recently spoke at a conference for the left-wing group J Street. Here's an excerpt from Continetti's column:

Senate minority leader Harry Reid is retiring after the 2016 elections, the Nevada Democrat announced Friday. In a video message, the 75-year-old Reid claimed the decision had nothing to do with being in the minority, or with difficult reelection prospects, or with his recent accident in his home.…

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee met with about 40 conservative scholars in California Thursday in preparation for a potential presidential run in 2016. The discussion and Q&A session occurred at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, and included in attendance George Shultz, Ronald…

The super PAC supporting former Texas governor Rick Perry has a new web ad focusing on the Republican's farming roots and showcasing his recent trips to Iowa. "My background is off of a dry-land cotton farm 200 miles west of Fort Worth, Texas," says Perry in the video. "I understand blue-collar,…

Governor Chris Christie has a big fan in Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. The New Jersey governor posted a video on the social media website from his latest town hall event. Zuckerberg "liked" the post and even commented. Check out a screenshot below:

The United States Army has charged Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl with desertion and "misbehavior before the enemy." Bergdahl allegedly abandoned his post in Afghanistan and was held captive by Taliban-aligned forces for nearly five years before the Obama administration negotiated a deal with the Taliban…

Bowe Bergdahl, the American soldier held captive in Afghanistan by Taliban-affiliated terrorists for nearly five years, will be charged with desertion. Bergdahl was returned to the United States last year in exchange for five Taliban commanders being held at the detention facility at Guantanamo…

Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal released a statement Tuesday blasting President Obama as an "inept commander in chief. Jindal, who may run for the GOP nomination for president, criticized Obama's willingness to dismiss the Iranian supreme leader's "death to America" exhortations as "political…

A spokeswoman for former Florida governor Jeb Bush says the possible Republican presidential candidate "disagrees" with one of his foreign policy advisers who spoke at a left-wing anti-Israel group this week.

Former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley sounds a populist note in a short new video that suggests the Democrat may be preparing for a presidential run.

Lynchburg, Va.

Is former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley moving closer to running for president? A short video on the Democrat's Facebook page looks like the beginning of a campaign ad.

Former Texas governor Rick Perry responded to news that the Obama administration is instituting new regulations on hydraulic fracturing.

To hear administration officials tell it, the "fourth quarter" of the Obama presidency will be focused on economic growth and what the president calls “middle-class economics.” Brian Deese, senior advisor to the president on climate and energy, emphasized this at a Friday breakfast with reporters…

Florida senator Marco Rubio took the floor of the U.S. Senate Thursday to call the Obama administration's treatment of the state of Israel a "historic and tragic mistake." Rubio's address came on the same day as a report the White House is considering not defending Israel in front of attacks from…

The Obama administration appears to be moving toward a shift in its relations with a foreign ally, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has nothing to say. White House officials have been suggesting the United States may not continue support Israel from charges and attacks by international…

Former Texas governor Rick Perry said he was "alarmed" by reports the Obama administration is considering not supporting the state of Israel at the United Nations. Perry, who may run for president in 2016, said he urged Obama to "turn away from such a path."

Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal responded to a report that the Obama administration may consider changing the United States's longstanding position of defending Israel within the United Nations against criticism of that country's settlements. “We are signaling that if the Israeli government’s…

A Jewish fraternity at Vanderbilt University has been the target of apparent anti-Semitic vandalism. The Vanderbilt Hustler reports:

Scott Walker may not be a candidate for president yet, but the Wisconsin governor’s growing political action committee staff is already going after a potential rival in the Republican primary. GOP strategist Liz Mair, CNN reports, has just signed on to consult for Walker’s Our American Revival PAC,…

Bowie, Md.

Former Texas governor Rick Perry released a statement Thursday citing his "concern" that President Barack Obama may not seek congressional approval for the ongoing nuclear weapons negotiations with Iran.

With more than a year and a half until Election Day 2016, things are already gearing up for high-profile political contests, and not just on the presidential level. In Ohio, the quintessential presidential battleground state, first-term Republican senator Rob Portman is one of the Democrats’ top…

Daniel Halper, online editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD and author of Clinton, Inc., joined Fox News host Bill O'Reilly Tuesday to talk about the Hillary Clinton email scandal. Watch the video below:

Hillary Clinton said she deleted emails stored on her private server during her time at the State Department because she "didn't see any reason to keep them."

A new poll from the Wall Street Journal and NBC News shows Florida senator Marco Rubio and Wisconsin governor Scott Walker have the most goodwill among Republican primary voters ahead of both men's possible bids for the presidency.

Moorestown, N.J.

The Justice Department will bring criminal charges to Democratic senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey. CNN reports:

The new Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee has recommended a defense budget $16 billion larger than President Obama’s proposed budget, but far below the figure that military and national security experts suggest is needed for maintaining readiness. Mac Thornberry, the 11-term…

Republican senators Marco Rubio of Florida and Mike Lee of Utah have returned to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to tout their latest tax reform proposal. The Republicans call their plan both "pro-growth" and "pro-family," and say it addresses inequities in the tax code for businesses and…