Senate

Looking back at the performance of TWS’s First Forecast Model

Is the criminal justice reform bill being considered in the Senate all it’s cracked up to be?

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

The possible takeaways from Beto O'Rourke's performance.

Republicans lost the House but held the Senate in the midterm election. That puts Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell in the catbird seat.

The data did a pretty good job in 2018.

A Democratic strategist weighs in.

The Senate races that could shock you on election night.

With the November midterms fast approaching, Missouri’s Democratic senator Claire McCaskill is doing her best to stave off a late surge from her Republican challenger, state attorney general Josh Hawley. But with under ten days to go until Decision Day, the latest polling shows that Hawley may have…

An object lesson in Trumpism.

Marsha Blackburn might be the most important Republican on the Senate map.

The Republican win probability has doubled in Arizona.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

Our model shows Republicans winning about 70 percent of model simulations.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said he has no idea how a key vote will go on Friday morning for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Who are people searching for, and what issues do they care about?

A swing through the best/worst realistic scenarios for both parties.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

He’s still the favorite, but it’s not risk-free.

On Monday night, the Senate Judiciary Committee announced that Christine Blasey Ford would have the opportunity to testify at a public hearing next Monday about her accusation that Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when the two were high-school students, and Kavanaugh will have a chance to…

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

We've made a few changes that increase the model's accuracy.

Amid the Kavanaugh hearing chaos, the Nebraska senator offers a much-needed civics lesson.

Arizona governor Doug Ducey: 'It's not the time for newcomers.'

Jan Brewer would be an interesting choice for the Arizona Senate seat.

A letter to Senate Judiciary Committee members Chuck Grassley and Dianne Feinstein stands in contrast to a similar letter from Yale law students.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

Both parties have had some good polls. Here's how you should digest the results.

Grassley, citing Dem opposition, says: “I question the sincerity of demands for more documents.”

Second verse, same as the first.

“We want to do something that changes behavior,” says Majority whip John Cornyn.

An all-encompassing poll of campaigns provides a different way to chart out key races.

The Senate majority leader did not mention the president by name, and in response to a question later said, “I'm not here to critique anyone else. I'm here to speak for myself.”

The GOP primary in Wisconsin is a contest of personalities, not policies.

SwingSeat: Republicans get good news in Tennessee but bad news in West Virginia and Montana.

SwingSeat update: Why new polling Arizona, Texas, and Nevada doesn't change the overall picture.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

The model might be too high on Sinema. But it also might have a point.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes

Plus, Jerry Springer finds the end of the road.

SwingSeat update: We have updated forecasts in Texas, Arizona, and Florida.

In a potential Trump-Putin meeting, senators would want the president to talk about Syria, Ukraine, and election meddling.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

Corey Stewart, chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, narrowly defeated Delegate Nick Freitas in Tuesday's Virginia Senate primary. With 99 percent of precincts reporting, Stewart led Freitas by 1.7 points—just over 5,000 total votes statewide—much closer than many had…

Plus, why lit George Conway is the best George Conway.

Time is running out to confirm top federal judges in 2018.

Lawmakers lay out a list of demands to President Trump ahead of planned summit.

“Hybrid warfare is already here and America is not ready," says Nebraska senator.

Senate committee approves amendment requiring the reporting in annual defense authorization bill.

Ranking Democrat on the Intelligence committee Mark Warner noted she has widespread support at Langley.

Allies, committed to deal and looking to preserve economic benefits to Tehran, risk U.S. sanctions

She is expected to get enough support in the full Senate to be confirmed.

What induces someone to run against Mitt Romney in Utah?

Republicans are panicking as internal polls show Don Blankenship, a coal baron who spent time in jail for a mining disaster that killed 29 workers, surging into the lead in the West Virginia Senate GOP primary over Attorney General Patrick Morrissey and Congressman Evan Jenkins.

If Democrats love the United States and loathe Donald Trump as much as they claim—and we have no reason to doubt their sincerity in these regards—they ought to express delight and gratitude when the president appoints someone with none of his own odious qualities to a high-level position. Instead,…

The Senate majority leader is not depressed.

Seven Democratic caucus members voted for Donald Trump’s pick to lead the State Department.

This isn't a story about Donald Trump's takeover of the GOP.

Can West Virginia Republicans take down Joe Manchin?

Lawmakers on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee introduce legislation to do just that.

Rick Scott is running to unseat Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson in Florida.

On Tuesday, Mississippi Democratic Senate candidate Mike Espy's campaign released an internal poll showing him in the lead in Mississippi's upcoming Senate election. The headline might sound like good news for Democrats—every candidate obviously prefers to be ahead, and Mississippi is extremely…

What if there were no polls?

Two weeks after Hillary Clinton sparked an uproar by blaming backward-looking voters in middle America for her 2016 election loss, Republicans are already laying plans to turn her remarks into a major campaign talking point. Missouri Senate candidate Josh Hawley on Monday released two ads tying…

After threatening to veto a $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill before a midnight government shutdown deadline Friday morning, President Donald Trump ultimately signed the measure, citing national security concerns.

President Trump threw a potential wrench into congressional budget discussions Friday morning, threatening to veto the omnibus package that Republican leaders pushed to his desk just hours before to avoid a government shutdown.

Chesterfield, Mo.

For decades, Ohio has been a political bellwether—a quadrennial swing state that often voted for the winning presidential candidate. But in 2016, something odd happened—Ohio jerked sharply to the right, giving now President Trump an eigh-point win despite his two-point national popular vote loss.…

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Tuesday that he would be disappointed if Democrats raised fresh objections to the nomination of Gina Haspel as CIA director.

Senators on both sides of the aisle shot back at Russian President Vladimir Putin Thursday after he boasted in an annual state-of-the-union address that Russia possesses nuclear weapons capable of bypassing missile defense systems.

She doesn’t say so, but 2018 has been a tricky year so far for Arizona Senate candidate Kelli Ward. After months of polling strongly as an uncompromising, Trump-loving alternative to unpopular incumbent Jeff Flake, the conservative firebrand now finds herself squeezed between two new challengers:…

Which party is going to win control of the Senate in the midterm elections? It’s a simple question. But also a difficult one. And right now, I’m in the middle of the process of building a model that will try to shed some light on it by calculating win probabilities for every Senate contest.

In the wake of the Florida school massacre that left 17 innocents dead, there’s been a push to renew the Assault Weapons Ban. “Courage and conviction led to an assault weapons ban once before. Let’s do it again,” tweeted Bill Clinton, who signed the Assault Weapons Ban into law in 1994. The federal…

Three answers to one question Tuesday night summed up the Republican primary in the Indiana Senate race. During the campaign’s opening debate, the moderator asked the trio of candidates running to replace incumbent Democrat Joe Donnelly to name two spending cuts they would vote to make right away.…

After dedicating three days of floor time and casting a grand total of four votes on different proposals to address the precarious future of 700,000 unauthorized immigrants who were brought to the country as children, the United States Senate is taking a week off. And when lawmakers return from…

Bob Corker would like you to know that he’ll stick around Washington a little bit longer, if you want him to. The Tennessee Republican announced his retirement on September 26, 2017, in a short humblebrag celebrating both the power he’d accumulated and the sacrifices he’d made.

There’s been a lot of rancor in Washington over immigration this past month—you may recall President Trump’s concern about immigrants from s—hole countries, the ensuing s—storm in the media, and the less-memorable government shutdown. Four separate immigration bills were shot down in the Senate on…

On January 9, President Donald Trump sat down with a group of about two dozen members of Congress and told them in front of the nation that he would sign “whatever” bill they could come up with to protect nearly 700,000 Dreamers from deportation. Although Trump listed his priorities—securing funds…

President Trump on Wednesday threw his weight behind Sen. Chuck Grassley’s immigration plan, urging the Senate to pass the “responsible and commonsense” proposal based on the White House’s immigration priorities and threatening to veto proposals that contain further Democratic concessions.

The freewheeling, open process that was expected to define this week’s high stakes immigration debate in the Senate is off to a slow start. On Tuesday morning, the chamber did what it does best—that is, not much.

Lawmakers in the Senate voted overwhelmingly Monday night to move forward with a contentious immigration debate this week. Let the race to 60 votes begin.

Editor's note: It has been our great privilege to publish dozens of articles over the years by Jeffrey Bell, and it was with great sadness that we learned of his death over the weekend. You can read a tribute to Jeff by his colleague Rich Danker elsewhere on this page (as well as other tributes,…

Lawmakers in the Senate are expected to pass a bipartisan two-year budget deal ahead of a midnight government shutdown deadline when it comes to a vote Thursday evening, leaving the ball in the House’s court.

Senate leaders announced Wednesday afternoon that they reached a massive two-year budget deal after weeks of negotiations in hopes of averting a government shutdown when funding runs out Thursday at midnight.

A bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill to form a select committee to investigate the U.S. Olympic Committee’s role in enabling decades of sexual misconduct involving USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar, who was sentenced in January to 40-175 years in prison for sexually abusing dozens…

With just three days remaining until a government shutdown deadline, House Republicans on Monday night moved forward on a stopgap funding measure that is likely to breeze through the chamber on a party-line vote but will face slim odds in the Senate.

“What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered?” Bill Murray asks in Groundhog Day. “That about sums it up for me,” a drinking buddy answers.

Susan Collins, the Republican senator from Maine, has always had about her the air of the schoolmarm. It didn’t surprise us that she was the person who at last discovered the secret to dealing with United States senators: treat them like kindergartners. During the government shutdown last weekend,…

The basic math of the 2018 Senate elections shows a challenge for Democrats. In order to win control of the upper chamber, the party need to successfully defend all 26 of its seats up for election (some of which are in highly red states like Missouri, Indiana, North Dakota, West Virginia, and…

Congress has just two weeks to come to a consensus on how to codify protections for the Dreamers—roughly 700,000 unauthorized immigrants who were brought to the United States as children—before government funding runs out February 8, or risk another shutdown scenario.

It’s not surprising that members of Congress would have a habit of repeating a short list of talking points, given how often they face the media and how important it is for them to stay on message. But that tendency was more apparent than usual last week during a feud over a stopgap spending…

“Republicans Just Killed The Bill To Make Sure Troops Get Paid During Shutdown,” or so ran a headline from Addicting Info, flagged as potential fake news by Facebook users.

Lawmakers in the Senate reached an agreement to end the government shutdown Monday afternoon, but congressional Democrats who voted down a spending bill that would have kept the government open on Friday because it did not include a replacement for the expiring Deferred Action for Childhood…

Considering they were protesting what they call “the greatest human rights violation of our time,” the crowd that gathered on the National Mall Friday morning for the March for Life was oddly upbeat. Church and school groups who had traveled across the country to show their opposition to 45 years…

On the first anniversary of President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the U.S. government shut down.

Update, 9:54 p.m. ET: The Senate voted overwhelmingly 97-2 to proceed on the House CR late Thursday night. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell objected to Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s attempt to force a cloture vote Thursday night, pushing the final vote closer to the government shutdown deadline…

We’re more than 11 months out from Election Day, and there are too many moving parts (changes in national environment, primary elections, possible retirements, fundraising, strategic decisions, and more) to know anything for certain.

Sen. Orrin Hatch announced Tuesday that he would retire at the end of his term. Hatch’s retirement is interesting from a political perspective—former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, one of President Trump’s most vocal opponents within his party—may end up in the Senate. But it’s less…

Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and 2012 Republican presidential nominee, is planning a Senate bid to replace retiring Sen. Orrin Hatch in 2018, according to three individuals close to the situation.

Republican senator Orrin Hatch of Utah announced he would not seek re-election to an eighth term in 2018 in a video Tuesday afternoon.

Think you have heard the last of the Republican tax plan that now seems certain to become law? Think again.

Republican Maine Sen. Susan Collins said Monday afternoon that she will vote for the final version of the Republican tax bill, likely guaranteeing that it will pass the upper chamber this week.

Winning isn’t everything, nor is it the only thing for Democrats in special elections this year. Political observers had built up Tuesday’s Alabama Senate vote as yet another put-up-or-shut-up moment for Washington’s minority party, suggesting that a loss by Doug Jones there would be another…

For the last five weeks, most of the political world has been (rightly) focused on the wild race for the Alabama Senate seat that l Jeff Sessions vacated earlier this year to become attorney general. But other key races didn’t stop while Democratic senator-elect Doug Jones was beating…

In the wake of Democrat Doug Jones’s surprise win over Republican Roy Moore in the Alabama special election to replace Jeff Sessions in the Senate, pundits and prognosticators were scrambling to make sense of the new political landscape. The verdict was almost all bad for the Republican party.

Despite the best efforts of the president and the Republican National Committee, voters in Alabama didn’t elect a man credibly accused of sexual predation to the U.S. Senate.

Very few congressional Republicans wanted Roy Moore to win. They knew, for one thing, that Democrats were prepared to link them to him for at least the next three years. Rather than make it clear that Moore had no place in the GOP, however, many referred blithely to “the will of the people” and the…

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that no matter who wins Tuesday’s Senate election in Alabama, Republican Luther Strange will remain in the seat until the end of the session this year.

Today on the Daily Standard Podcast, senior writer John McCormack talks with host Eric Felten about the closing days of Tuesday's Alabama special election for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Jeff Sessions.

Gaming TripAdvisor. Surely, you've used sites like Yelp!, TripAdvisor, or others when visiting strange news places. What if one of the top-rated restaurants there was a complete fake? That's what VICE UK's Oobah Butler, a clever prankster, did with his backyard shed:

The chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee said Thursday that the committee will never support Roy Moore, the Alabama Senate candidate who has been accused of sexual misconduct with teenage girls.

Sen. Al Franken took a quick glance up at a jam-packed Senate press gallery as he entered the chamber Thursday, preparing to ask Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan, who was presiding over the chamber, to allow him to make the speech that would end his political career.

Minnesota Sen. Al Franken announced Thursday morning that he would resign from the Senate amid allegations that he forcibly kissed or groped several different women. Franken’s resignation would trigger a special election for the seat in the 2018 midterms and allow Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton to…

After a week spent limping along under the weight of accusations of sexual misconduct, Sen. Al Franken announced his resignation from the Senate Thursday morning.

Today on the Daily Standard Podcast, deputy managing editor Kelly Jane Torrance talks with host Eric Felten about politicians felled—and one not felled—by sex abuse scandals in recent days.

Next Tuesday, we’ll finally know whether Republican Roy Moore or Democrat Doug Jones will become the next Senator from Alabama.

Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore's account of when he began dating his wife Kayla would place the start of their courtship before her divorce from her first husband, according to court documents.

Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., would be more likable were it not for the fact they’re craven opportunists.

Because it looks increasingly and unfortunately likely that we’re going to have to hear the phrase “Senator Roy Moore” before too long, journalists have moved on to the next question: Will the U.S. Senate make good on its threats, and perhaps refuse to seat the twice-booted judge, who has been…

Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He has a reputation for being fair-minded. Al Franken (D-Minn.) is a Democratic member of the committee who balked at the nomination of a Minnesota judge to a federal appeals court.

On Aug. 19, 2012, Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill received one of the biggest gifts of her political career. While discussing abortion in the case of rape, her Republican opponent Todd Akin said, “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.” Almost…

The GOP tax plan cleared its first major hurdle in the Senate Wednesday afternoon, after a motion to proceed to amendments passed on a 52-48 party line vote.

The Alabama special Senate Election is a bit of a rollercoaster. Republican Roy Moore held a real lead over Democrat Doug Jones for most of the race—until the Washington Post and other outlets published credible allegations that Moore had inappropriate sexual contact with teenagers while he was in…

Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore made his first public appearance in nearly two weeks Monday night, dodging press and refusing to take questions at a rally in Henagar, Alabama, as he railed against “malicious and false attacks which reflect the immorality of our time.”

In the two weeks since sexual misconduct allegations began to surface against him, Senator Al Franken has repeatedly apologized to the four women who have accused him of groping them. He’s said he’s “embarrassed and ashamed,” and insisted that “we have to listen to women and respect what they say.”…

This week on the Confab, executive editor Fred Barnes talks with host Eric Felten about Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's strategy for passing tax reform in the Senate.

Pennsylvania’s kaleidoscopic regions—divided by geography and socio-economics—make predicting its electoral outcomes a perpetual guessing game. But Pennsylvania also suffers the sentence handed down by James Carville. He once described the state as Paoli (suburban Philadelphia) and Penn Hills…

Asked about allegations Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore dated and engaged in appropriate conduct with teenage girls several decades ago, Alabama state senator Dick Brewbaker commented, “I do not buy the idea that suddenly because it’s now the U.S. Senate, she felt like she had to come…

The urge to vote for the outsider—the dissenter, the maverick, the troublemaker hated by those elites—is a reasonable one. Political parties become stale and predictable, their officeholders self-seeking and cowardly. The ordinary voter, exasperated by his elected leaders’ inability or refusal to…

Birmingham, Ala.

It's becoming increasingly unlikely that Roy Moore will be elected to the Senate—or, perhaps, endure as the Republican nominee for the seat once held by Attorney General Jefferson Sessions. But in the event that Judge Moore wins his election, it is interesting to note that more than a few…

A Los Angeles news anchor and former model on Thursday accused Sen. Al Franken of sexually assaulting her during a USO tour to the Middle East in December 2006.

Creepy Christianity and Roy Moore. Yesterday, we looked at some of the concerning behavior and statements of religious figures in Alabama concerning Roy Moore. There are, if you'll forgive, moore things to report. And they're not good.

Will Republicans hold the Senate in 2018?

Today on the Daily Standard Podcast, senior writer John McCormack joins host Eric Felten to talk about the GOP's Roy Moore mess.

Most Republican senators have been quick to distance themselves from Roy Moore since allegations emerged in the Washington Post late last week that he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl when he was 32 and pursued relationships with three other teenagers. With legislators having time to review…

While the allegations of sexual misconduct and assault against Roy Moore have seriously cast the viability of his Senate candidacy in doubt, some Republicans are now calling for his expulsion if he still wins the Senate race in deep-red Alabama.

A new accuser has come forward with an accusation of sexual assault against Senate candidate Roy Moore.

Roy Moore has a story, and he is sticking to it. One day after a damning Washington Post story alleging that Moore, the GOP candidate in the upcoming Alabama Senate election, sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl and sought out relationships with three other teenagers between the ages of 16 and 18,…

The Senate campaign arm of the Republican Party on Friday severed ties with Roy Moore, one day after the Washington Post reported that Moore had sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl and pursued inappropriate relationships with several other teenagers while he was a district attorney in his 30s.

Judge Roy Moore, the Republican candidate for Alabama's upcoming special Senate election, denies allegations that he romantically pursued teenagers as young as 14 when he was in his 30s. Even if the allegations are true, one statewide elected official in Alabama said it's "much ado about nothing."…

Election wonks don’t play favorites with polls. We love them all equally. (Translation: We do our best to judge them impartially based on their past accuracy, methodology, question wording, context and other relevant factors.) But it’s hard not to have a soft spot for surveys that offer something…

The verdict in the corruption trial of Democratic senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey may come as early as this week. If Menendez is convicted of a felony, Democrats face big trouble.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, Congress’s longest-serving member, is privately planning to retire at the end of his term, according to a report from the Atlantic on Friday.

In a speech on the Senate floor on October 24, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) announced his intention not to seek reelection in 2018. We regret his decision and the state of affairs that led him to make it: Flake is a solid conservative and a decent man, an implacable critic of government waste and a…

The head of the House’s Ways and Means Committee isn’t disputing that tax reform will be harder now that President Donald Trump is at war with two members of the rickety GOP Senate majority. But he does want you to know that he and Trump are doing just fine.

Arizona senator Jeff Flake announced Tuesday that he would not seek re-election to the Senate in 2018. When an incumbent senator decides not to run again, it’s usually easy to gauge the electoral consequences—sitting senators usually perform better than non-incumbents, so if a senator retires in a…

Potential Senate candidate Kid Rock, a term that never becomes any less weird each time you write it, said Tuesday that he will not challenge Michigan Democrat Debbie Stabenow in next year’s election.

Two top lawmakers slammed the Trump administration Wednesday for failing to “get their act together” and meet an October deadline to start implementing Russia sanctions.

A key Democrat said Tuesday that he would support supplemental agreements to the Iran nuclear deal, but urged the administration in the interim to certify Iranian implementation of the deal ahead of an upcoming deadline.

Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley announced Monday evening that he is running for Senate in 2018. The young Republican may prove the most formidable challenger yet to Claire McCaskill, who is widely seen as one of the Senate’s most vulnerable Democrats.

President Donald Trump and outgoing senator Bob Corker of Tennessee got into an unexpected and personal Twitter fight Sunday morning, the nastiest public conflict yet between the White House and Senate Republicans.

Tennessee congresswoman Marsha Blackburn announced Thursday that she would run for the Senate seat that retiring senator Bob Corker is vacating in 2018.

President Donald Trump’s judicial nomination of Amy Barrett has become a religious-liberty flashpoint in recent weeks, with Democratic senators arguing that her conservative Catholicism would interfere with her ability to uphold the law. Sen. Jeff Flake defended Barrett on the Senate floor Monday…

Washington stands by to see which brand of Trumpism will carry the day in a Alabama's special election primary between Luther Strange and Roy Moore, a race that has become something of a proxy war for the Republican Party. Polls close at 7 p.m. ET Tuesday and THE WEEKLY STANDARD will be tracking…

Tennessee senator Bob Corker announced Tuesday that he won't run for reelection next year, putting to rest weeks of speculation about the influential Republican's potential retirement from the Senate.

Vice President Mike Pence departed New York City immediately after President Trump concluded his speech before the United Nations General Assembly Monday morning to attend a Senate policy lunch in Washington, D.C. to help wrangle votes on the latest Obamacare repeal effort.

Some of Kid Rock’s best-known work is mashups of genres and past hits. He made a fortune fusing rap and metal. He created a worldwide chartbuster mixing “Werewolves of London” with “Sweet Home Alabama.” Now he’s sewing a political image cut from the theatrics of Idiocracy’s President Camacho and…

The effort to repeal and replace Obamacare isn’t quite dead. It will officially expire on September 30 without any further congressional intervention. According to guidance handed down by the Senate parliamentarian just before Labor Day, the end of the federal fiscal year is when this year’s budget…

Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, who after the departure of Jeff Sessions has emerged as the Senate's leading immigration hawk, says he would support the legalization of all current DACA recipients -- nearly 800,000 of them -- if Congress would at the same time pass measures to protect…

Since the defeat of the Obamacare repeal effort in the Senate, President Donald Trump has seemed to be on the warpath against the upper chamber. He has made negative comments about a number of Republican senators, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Some reports suggest he may strike out on…

On November 12, 2015, officials in New York and New Jersey thought they had struck it rich. They had arranged a 50-50 deal with the federal government in which the feds would pay for half the cost of a new tunnel under the Hudson River, the renovation of Penn Station, and a lot more.

On November 12, 2015, officials in New York and New Jersey thought they had struck it rich. They had arranged a 50-50 deal with the federal government in which the feds would pay for half the cost of a new tunnel under the Hudson River, the renovation of Penn Station, and a lot more.

Today on the Kristol Clear podcast, filling in for Bill Kristol is senior writer Michael Warren, who talks about the Senate's epic failure to repeal Obamacare, and the chaos being spread by the president's new communication director, Anthony Scaramucci.

Republican senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Ron Johnson, and Bill Cassidy told reporters Thursday afternoon that they despise the idea of a “skinny” Obamacare repeal bill—but that they would vote for it on the condition health reform ends up being negotiated further between the House and…

Today on the Daily Standard podcast, deputy online editor Chris Deaton talks with host Eric Felten about the Obamacare repeal debate going on in the Senate Wednesday.

Senate Republicans advanced an instrument more than an idea for Obamacare repeal Tuesday with a wild vote interrupted by jeering protesters and applause for the pivotal return of an ailing colleague.

Senate Republicans still don't have 50 votes to pass any piece of legislation dealing with Obamacare, but they may nevertheless vote to proceed to debate on health care legislation Tuesday with no apparent endgame in sight.

Today on the Daily Standard podcast, executive editor Fred Barnes talks about why Senate Republicans fumbled health-care reform so badly.

When Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, endorsed the latest draft of the Senate healthcare bill after it included a tweaked version of a proposal he had pushed, many observers expected his longtime ally and original co-author, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, to quickly follow.

Josh Hawley is a rarity in politics. Elected attorney general of Missouri last November, he’s held that office for five months. Yet he’s already under extraordinary pressure from Republicans to run for the Senate in 2018.

This week on the Confab, Fred Barnes talks with Eric Felten about how state attorneys general, such as Missouri's Josh Hawley, are moving up the slippery pole of politics. Ethan Epstein comes by to discuss North Korea's ballistic missiles, and Phil Terzian tells us about a final exoneration of day…

Josh Hawley is a rarity in politics. Elected attorney general of Missouri last November, he’s held that office for five months. Yet he’s already under extraordinary pressure from Republicans to run for the Senate in 2018.

The legislation faces opposition from both conservatives for not doing enough and from moderates for cutting too much.

Today on the Kristol Clear podcast, editor at large William Kristol talks with host Eric Felten about the Senate leadership's proposed repeal, replace (or at least rethink) of Obamacare. Can support be built for healthcare legislation that is rushed?

The draft health care bill released by Senate Republicans on Thursday contains a number of differences with the House bill. One provision, a holdover from Obamacare, prompted a lawsuit from the House of Representatives in 2014.

All this time, the national headlines about health care reform in Congress have prioritized the terms “CBO” and “pre-existing conditions.” Not nearly enough attention has been paid to “Medicaid.”

The Senate voted Thursday to impose new sanctions against Russia for its efforts to disrupt last year's presidential election through cyberattacks against the Democratic party and state election rolls.

President Trump urged the Senate to eliminate its 60-vote threshold for ending debate on most legislative matters Tuesday morning, though his reasoning appears to be garbled.

Senator Ben Sasse's new book The Vanishing American Adult calls attention to a coming-of-age crisis: The undeniable drag that consumerism, technology, and other modern forces have had on the institution of family and the work ethic for which Americans were once recognized around the world.

The Senate is unique among American political bodies in that its very rules and traditions have often been the basis for consequential oratory. Such was the case on Thursday, when South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham delivered a 3,000-word speech on the chamber's elimination of the 60-vote…

At 39, Tom Cotton is the youngest member of the Senate. He was elected from Arkansas in 2014 after two years in the House. And having served in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan as an infantry captain, he quickly emerged as an influential senator on military and foreign affairs.

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell was asked at his weekly press conference on Tuesday if he was confident Republicans had the votes necessary to confirm Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court by eliminating the Senate minority's ability to filibuster Supreme Court nominees.

Less than two weeks before the 2016 elections, Virginia senator and Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine said that he would support eliminating the 60-vote hurdle to confirm Supreme Court nominees in order to get Judge Merrick Garland on the court.

"In any election,” Tom Coburn often says, “you should vote for the candidate who will give up the most if they win.” All things being equal, we should prefer politicians who have accomplished something in their lives beyond government work—and who are willing to sacrifice it, at least temporarily,…

The impending filibuster of Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch continues apace, but one Democrat is on record questioning whether Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer's plan to return the favor after the Senate GOP stymied Merrick Garland's nomination will backfire.

Senate Democrats delayed a committee vote Monday on Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch to next week, with the top Democrat on the judicial panel citing the failed appointment of Merrick Garland, interest-group spending in support of Gorsuch, and the jurist's answers about past High Court…

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with legal expert and Hoover Institution research fellow Adam J. White on the Gorsuch nomination, the forthcoming Democratic filibuster, and a potential deal to restore the filibuster for other judicial nominees as a trade for a Gorsuch confirmation.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced his expected plans to vote "no" on Judge Neil Gorsuch's nomination to the Supreme Court and promised that Republicans would have to overcome a Democratic filibuster in order to seat him.

With the confirmation of four more of President Trump's secretary-level appointments this week, the new administration is close to filling all 15 openings that technically comprise the "cabinet". Only two departments, Agriculture and Labor, still have vacancies.

South Carolina representative Mick Mulvaney was confirmed to lead the Office of Management and Budget on Thursday morning by a razor-thin 51-49 vote, overcoming the opposition of fellow Republican John McCain.

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…

Democratic antagonism toward attorney general nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions continued Wednesday ahead of a confirmation vote, with former presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders following Elizabeth Warren's lead from the night before.

For the remainder of Tuesday night and for most of Wednesday, Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren is prohibited from debating on the floor of the Senate. That's because her Senate colleagues found her guilty of impugning another senator, Jeff Sessions, whose nomination for attorney general is…

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer isn’t a happy warrior. He loves the spotlight, but everyone's paying more attention to his colleagues Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. He hoped to be majority leader, but Republicans surprised most observers by holding the Senate on Election Day. He…

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with deputy online editor Chris Deaton on President Trump's new SCOTUS pick and his story on the Senate prospects for Neil Gorsuch's nomination.

The Senate confirmed President Donald Trump's nominee for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson 56 to 43 Wednesday, with every Republican and three Democrats voting in support. The former Exxon Mobil CEO managed to quell doubts from top Republicans, but is sure to face scrutiny from still-skeptical…

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday night he has "very serious doubts" whether Judge Neil Gorsuch will meet his standard for winning confirmation to the Supreme Court. "The burden is on … Gorsuch to prove himself to be within the legal mainstream and, in this new era, willing to…

President Trump announced Tuesday night his nomination of Neil Gorsuch to replace the late Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court.

In mid-October, when it seemed likely that Democrats would win the White House and a Senate majority, retiring Senate minority leader Harry Reid said that Senate Democrats would scrap the 60-vote hurdle for Hillary Clinton's Supreme Court nominee, just as they had done in 2013 for lower-court and…