As Trump contorts on abortion, will his potential running mates bend with him?
CNN
For Donald Trump’s potential running mates, the former president’s latest evolution around abortion presents a new challenge as they compete for his attention.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem said Donald Trump was “exactly right” to want states in charge of abortion access in America. Unaddressed in her social media post Monday, though, was the former president’s support for exceptions for rape and incest in anti-abortion laws – the kind left out of the ban she has defended in her own state. Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Sen. Tim Scott balked at a reporter asking about Trump declining to endorse a federal abortion ban – a policy that the South Carolina Republican called a “moral obligation” for his party while he campaigned last year to be its presidential nominee. For Noem, Scott and others in consideration to become Trump’s running mate, the former president’s latest contortions around abortion present a new challenge as they compete for his attention. Many of those in the mix have spent their political careers as unyielding opponents of the procedure and unflinching allies of the anti-abortion movement. Now, those records stand at odds with the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Trump angered several anti-abortion leaders this week by refusing to back a federal abortion ban while embracing exceptions that Republicans throughout the country have for years opposed as morally questionable. His support for the post-Roe v. Wade status quo – where states like Texas are free to outlaw almost all abortions and others like California can legalize the procedure in all instances before viability – is a position Trump arrived at out of political expediency as Democrats ready millions of advertising dollars to remind voters who is responsible for the loss of federal abortion protections. But for a party that has long defined life as beginning at conception, Trump’s latest evolution on abortion will test those aspiring to run with him. The reality is a stark reversal from the last time Trump landed on Mike Pence for his running mate eight years ago in hopes the Indiana governor’s staunch opposition to abortion could assuage fears from the Christian right about the thrice-married Manhattan socialite who once declared himself “very pro-choice.” Now, Trump sees abortion as a potentially damaging issue for Republicans to navigate as he seeks a return to the White House.
Four days after Donald Trump’s inauguration, Elon Musk’s top lieutenants at the Treasury Department asked its acting secretary, a career civil servant, to immediately shut off all USAID payments using the department’s own ultra-sensitive payment processing system.
CNN’s 5 Things AM brings you the news you need to know every morning
Security for the Super Bowl in New Orleans will feature more boots on the ground, more tech and more intelligence – spearheaded by a federal official who grew up 40 miles from where kickoff will take place.
The Trump administration’s rapid moves to dismantle the US Agency for International Development have left thousands of workers scrambling to figure out what comes next and scores of those posted in dangerous hotspots around the world afraid for their safety.
President Donald Trump’s bid to remake the federal government is already affecting some vulnerable populations in the United States, according to nonprofits and health care providers who are grappling with delays in federal funding, new rules and changed guidance.
President Trump is seeking to end birthright citizenship in the United States. What is it, which other countries apply the policy and who would be affected by the order?
Panama denied a claim made by the State Department on Wednesday that the Central American nation had agreed to no longer charge fees for US government ships to transit the country’s famous canal.
The one-time Georgia prosecutor accused of using her office to impede the investigation into Ahmaud Arbery’s killers is set to stand trial more than four years after the Black 26-year-old’s death fueled nationwide protests over racial injustice.
Eligible federal workers must decide by 11:59 pm ET on Thursday whether to take the Trump administration’s deferred resignation offer, which will allow them to leave their jobs but be paid through the end of September.
Two Treasury Department employees affiliated with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency will keep limited access to the highly sensitive payment system within the agency, following emergency court proceedings Wednesday that arose out of privacy concerns about DOGE’s access to the system.
The CIA has sent the White House an unclassified email listing all new hires that have been with the agency for two years or less in an effort to comply with an executive order to downsize the federal workforce, according to three sources familiar with the matter – a deeply unorthodox move that could potentially expose the identities of those officers to foreign government hackers.
After nearly three weeks in the minority, Democrats have finally settled on a target to rally against: Elon Musk.
The Office of Personnel Management’s chief financial officer, who manages more than $1 trillion in funds, was pushed out this week, two sources with knowledge of the situation told CNN.