Congressional allies to both candidates brace for test of mental fitness to overshadow presidential debate
CNN
Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill say that one looming question will be hanging over Thursday night’s presidential debate–how both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump address concerns over their age and mental acuity.
Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill say that one looming question will be hanging over Thursday night’s presidential debate – how both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump address concerns over their age and mental acuity. Democrats want the president’s performance to dispel the GOP-propelled narrative that the 81-year-old president lacks the fitness to hold the nation’s highest office, and by extension prove that Trump, who was found guilty in one criminal trial and faces three more, is the one who is unfit to serve. Republicans, meanwhile, are engineering a double-edged expectations game that seemingly raises the stakes on Biden, while lowering them for Trump. Beyond that, Democrats say they want Biden to clarify what he can and cannot do to help the economy while Republicans implore Trump to stay on message and not resort to personal attacks. In conversations with over a dozen lawmakers, both sides acknowledged that a debate performance four months out from election day is unlikely to make or break either candidate, but each side said they had high expectations for the rematch that presents a unique opportunity for both men to outline what they accomplished in four years as president. The chair of the House GOP campaign arm, Rep. Richard Hudson, wants Trump to focus on his record and not go after Biden for his age, telling CNN he doesn’t think that should be a political issue.
A California woman told police that Trump Cabinet pick Pete Hegseth physically blocked her from leaving a hotel room, took her phone, and then sexually assaulted her even though she “remembered saying ‘no’ a lot,” a police report obtained by CNN shows.
For more than a decade, Chinese students have flocked to the United States, drawn by the prestige of an overseas education and the glamor of the American Dream. But that’s changing now – and recent statistics suggest the allure may be wearing off.
After rarely being seen in public in the two weeks since he delivered a brief, 46-second victory speech on election night, JD Vance reemerged this week to play one of the most important roles he will be expected to fill as Donald Trump’s No. 2: His point person on Capitol Hill.
A Florida man was arrested Wednesday and charged in a plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange this week, according to the FBI.
The Senate on Wednesday voted down an effort led by Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders to block a series of planned US weapons sales to Israel.
Republicans on the House Ethics Committee fell in line behind GOP leaders and voted not to release the results of their investigation into Donald Trump’s attorney general pick, Matt Gaetz, despite growing calls from the Senate GOP to make the findings public ahead of his confirmation hearing.
Senate Democrats have confirmed some of President Joe Biden’s picks for the federal bench this week in the face of President-elect Donald Trump’s calls for a total GOP blockade of judicial nominations – in part because several Republicans involved with the Trump transition process have been missing votes.
A former University of Virginia student pleaded guilty Wednesday to fatally shooting three football players and wounding two other students on the Charlottesville campus in 2022.
Donald Trump is considering a right-wing media personality and people who have served on his US Secret Service detail to run the agency that has been plagued by its failure to preempt two alleged assassination attempts on Trump this summer, sources familiar with the president-elect’s thinking tell CNN.
The United States has vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that called for an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, on the grounds it would not have secured the release of hostages.
A Democratic election official in Pennsylvania offered an impassioned apology Wednesday for claiming “precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country” to justify counting about 600 faulty ballots in defiance of state Supreme Court rulings.