Politics Election category, Page 217

Threatening to tank Congress’ massive covid relief and government funding package, President Donald Trump’s demand for bigger aid checks for Americans confronts Republicans traditionally leery of such spending with an uncomfortable test of allegiance. On Thursday, House Democrats who also favor $2,000 checks will all but dare Republicans to break...

Spotlight PA is an independent, non-partisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media. Sign up for our free newsletters. HARRISBURG — As he seeks to overturn Pennsylvania’s election results in the courts, President Donald Trump invited Republican members of the...

The video message that plunged Washington into chaos was filmed in secret. President Donald Trump stood in the White House’s Diplomatic Reception Room, holiday garland and gleaming ornaments draped on the fireplace behind him, and spoke into the camera not to deliver warm Christmas wishes, but to threaten to detonate...

Words matter. But numbers tell stories, too. Presidential historians and others will plumb them as they assess President Donald Trump’s legacy, Trump’s presidency is reflected in a broad range of numbers representing everything from the U.S. death toll during the coronavirus pandemic to the miles of his “big, beautiful wall”...

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — President Donald Trump took to social media to lash out at South Dakota U.S. Sen. John Thune, saying his political career is over. The attack on Thune comes following remarks by the 59-year-old Republican about efforts by some GOP members in the U.S. House to reject...

Just a few days before Christmas, President Donald Trump is in a giving mood. On Tuesday, Trump announced that a slate of aides and loyalists would be assigned to federal advisory boards and commissions as he looks to reward his allies in the final stages of his presidency. The president...

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Tuesday pardoned 15 people, including Republican allies, a 2016 campaign official ensnared in the Russia probe and former government contractors convicted in a 2007 massacre in Baghdad. Trump also commuted the sentences of five others. While it is not unusual for presidents to grant...

HARRISBURG — Statewide judicial races will be among Pennsylvania’s most closely watched election contests in the coming year, with lawyers and judges around the state already lining up supporters and trying to figure out if they can raise enough money to win. The marquee race will be for Supreme Court,...

NEWARK, Del. — President-elect Joe Biden on Monday received his first dose of the coronavirus vaccine on live television as part of a growing effort to convince the American public the inoculations are safe. The president-elect took a dose of Pfizer vaccine at a hospital not far from his Delaware...

WASHINGTON — Trump administration political appointees tried to block or change more than a dozen government reports that detailed scientific findings about the spread of the coronavirus, a House panel investigating the alleged interference said Monday. Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., said his coronavirus subcommittee investigators have found evidence of a...

WASHINGTON — Attorney General William Barr used his final public appearance to undercut President Donald Trump on multiple fronts Monday, saying he saw no reason to appoint a special counsel to look into the president’s claims about the 2020 election or to name one for the tax investigation of President-elect...

NEW YORK — President Donald Trump’s administration is ending how it began, with over-the-top declarations of praise for the chief executive. But now the flattery is mixed with a sense of finality as key people in the president’s orbit are beginning to turn the page and acknowledge his defeat. Trump...

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump floated naming lawyer Sidney Powell, who was booted from his campaign’s legal team after pushing unfounded conspiracy theories, as a special counsel investigating allegations of voter fraud. During a Friday meeting at the White House, Trump went as far as discussing getting Powell security clearance,...

WASHINGTON — Contradicting his secretary of state and other top officials, President Donald Trump on Saturday suggested without evidence that China — not Russia — may be behind the cyberattack against the United States and tried to minimized its impact. In his first comments on the breach, Trump scoffed at...

WASHINGTON — Vice President Mike Pence and the leaders of the House and Senate received their first doses of the covid-19 vaccine on Friday as they tried to reassure the American public that the shot is safe. Pence, in a live-television event, celebrated the milestone as “a medical miracle” that...

WASHINGTON — The House passed a two-day stopgap spending bill Friday night to avert a partial government shutdown, trying to buy time for frustratingly slow endgame negotiations on an almost $1 trillion covid-19 economic relief package. Senate action wasn’t guaranteed but appeared likely before the midnight deadline. The House passed...

WASHINGTON — Bearing down on a midnight shutdown deadline, top negotiators on a must-pass, almost $1 trillion covid-19 economic relief package are committed to sealing an agreement Friday as they resolve remaining differences in hopes of passing the legislation this weekend. The pressure is on. Government funding lapses at midnight...

President-elect Joe Biden announced Thursday that he had chosen North Carolina regulator Michael S. Regan as his nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency and New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland as his pick for interior secretary. Biden said the selections round out what he said would be an experienced climate...

WASHINGTON — Congressional negotiators on the long-delayed $900 billion covid-19 economic relief package worked through a handful of remaining holdups Thursday as they labored to seal a final agreement for more help to businesses and the unemployed and new stimulus payments to most Americans. Top congressional leaders also finally acknowledged...