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Reps. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), are expressing support for censuring their fellow Republican Rep. Paul Gosar (Ariz.) for posting a photoshopped anime video this week depicting himself killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). Cheney and Kinzinger have frequently criticized their own party over its continued ties to former President Trump, but it is nevertheless extraordinarily rare for lawmakers to back censure efforts against members of their own party. A group of House Democrats, led by Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), formally introduced a resolution on Friday to censure Gosar over the video, which the Arizona Republican defended as a...

Former President Trump argued that then-Vice President Pence was ‘well-protected’ during the Jan. 6 riot and defended angry chants against the vice president from rioters, including those calling for him to be hanged, according to a new audio excerpt released by ABC News on Friday. The excerpt, shared by ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl with Axios, is from an interview Karl conducted with Trump on March 18. The interview is part of a 90-minute interview conducted at Mar-a-Lago and will be included as part of Karl’s forthcoming book, “Betrayal,” according to Axios. In the audio clip, Karl asked...

Senior Trump-era Department of Justice officials made a flurry of calls on Jan. 6, including two calls between the acting attorney general and then-Vice President Mike Pence, and late afternoon calls from the White House main line, according to newly released call logs. The logs, released as part of a public records suit filed by the group American Oversight, detail a frantic timeline of calls between DOJ officials and Congressional leadership, law enforcement and military officials — with a call from the White House line not coming until shortly before 4 p.m. the day of the attack.

Texas Attorney General candidate George P. Bush (R) warned on Sunday that a Democrat would be elected to the role if incumbent Ken Paxton (R) won the Republican nomination again. “This time around he will not win, because he’s facing corruption and bribery charges. Imagine having a Democrat AG with a Democrat president and what that means for Texas politics,” Bush, the son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), said during “Lone Star Politics,” a Sunday political show, according to The Dallas Morning News

Former President Trump on Sunday doubled down on his criticism of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other Senate Republicans who voted in favor of passing a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. “All Republicans who voted for Democrat longevity should be ashamed of themselves, in particular Mitch McConnell, for granting a two month stay which allowed the Democrats time to work things out at our Country’s, and the Republican Party’s, expense!” Trump said in a statement. The former president called Republican lawmakers who voted in favor of the bill “RINOs” — a widely used term he favors that means...

Rudy Giuliani, who served as Former President Trump's personal attorney, said during a deposition in mid-August that he “didn’t have the time” to look into whether reports of election fraud were credible, CNN, which obtained deposition tapes, reported Friday. Giuliani is being sued by Dominion Voting Systems after he and other defendants connected to the former president repeatedly made claims, without evidence, that the 2020 election was rigged by Dominion Voting Systems in favor of Joe Biden. “We had a report that the heads of Dominion and Smartmatic, somewhere in the mid-tweens, you know 2013, 2014, whatever, went down to...

The U.S. military "absolutely" could defend Taiwan from a potential Chinese attack if asked to do so, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley said Wednesday. Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum, Milley said he did not expect China to attempt to seize the self-governing island in the next 24 months, but should it happen, U.S. forces “absolutely have the capability” to defend Taipei, “no question about that.” He also allowed that Beijing is “clearly and unambiguously building the capability to provide those options to the national leadership if they so choose at some point in the future.”

Former CNN senior political commentator Rick Santorum has been hired by conservative news network Newsmax, six months after he and CNN parted ways following offensive comments the former lawmaker made about Native Americans during a speech earlier this year. Santorum will join Newsmax as its Senior Political Analyst and make his debut for the company with special election coverage on Tuesday night, Newsmax said in a statement. “Rick Santorum is one of the most articulate and candid political analysts in media today, and we are honored to have him leading Newsmax’s team of commentators Tuesday and beyond,” Newsmax CEO Chris...

Former President Trump and other White House officials were "distracted" by the 2020 election and prioritized campaigning over any COVID-19 mitigation strategies, the administration's former coronavirus advisor Deborah Birx told House investigators earlier this month. In excerpts of closed-door testimony conducted Oct. 12-13 to the House Select Coronavirus Subcommittee shared with The Hill, Birx said she felt the White House focus on campaigning took people’s time away, and distracted them from focusing on the pandemic. "I felt like the White House had gotten somewhat complacent through the campaign season, and I wanted to make sure that as soon as everyone...

A reminder — the one-year anniversary of the 2020 presidential election is days away. Yes, it is quite the milestone because the losing candidate, Donald Trump, still refuses to concede that he lost. Get this — Trump now declares that Republicans won’t vote in the 2022 midterms or the 2024 presidential election if fraud is not uncovered to show he was the winner of the 2020 race. Yet, most Republicans in Congress are still marching along with this farce, which is getting dangerously close to throwing GOP chances of gaining a majority in the House in 2022 over the edge...

In a recent Washington Post opinion piece, Robert Kagan presented a chilling, but disturbingly accurate, portrayal of American politics today and its dire portents given the deep political divisions and dysfunctional state of our institutions. A premise of his thesis is that “party loyalty has superseded [executive-legislative-judicial] branch loyalty … in the Trump era.” A more descriptive statement of the Republican side of the ominous national problem — Democratic extremists deserve at least equal blame — would be that loyalty to Donald Trump has superseded party loyalty. Trump has proved himself to be the ultimate embodiment of a “Republican in...

A nonpartisan audit of the results of the 2020 presidential race in Wisconsin found that the state’s voting machines correctly tabulated the votes cast in the crucial swing state, marking another dismissal of claims by former President Trump and his allies of widespread irregularities. The report released by the Legislative Audit Bureau did not find any important errors made by the machines. And while a slate of recommendations were made by the elections panel, lawmakers involved in the process said the review underscored the security of the November race.

Moscow officials said on Thursday that Russia’s capital will start implementing COVID-19 restrictions to combat a surge of coronavirus infections and deaths that have rocked the country, the Associated Press reported. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced that between Oct. 28 and Nov. 7, places including entertainment spots, gyms, restaurants and nongrocery stores would be closed to the general public for that period in addition to kindergartens and schools. Only those who have a COVID-19 digital pass, which indicates proof of vaccination or previous COVID-19 encounters, will be allowed to frequent certain entertainment venues like theaters and museums, according to the...

The Supreme Court on Monday sided with law enforcement in a pair of cases that implicated “qualified immunity,” the controversial legal doctrine that gives police broad protection from lawsuits. In a pair of unsigned summary rulings issued without noted dissent, the justices reversed two federal appeals courts that had permitted excessive force lawsuits to proceed against officers in separate cases arising from California and Oklahoma. The justices ruled the officers should be granted qualified immunity, which shields government officials from liability unless it is proven they violated a “clearly established” right, a difficult legal hurdle. Both lawsuits dealt with police...