Cornyn ratchets up fundraising push amid battle with Thune for Senate GOP leader
CNN
Sen. John Cornyn is privately pitching his fundraising prowess as his under-the-radar campaign against Sen. John Thune to be the next Senate GOP leader quietly takes shape behind the scenes.
Sen. John Cornyn is privately pitching his fundraising prowess as his under-the-radar campaign against Sen. John Thune to be the next GOP leader in the chamber quietly takes shape behind the scenes. Cornyn, a former Senate GOP campaign chairman who hails from donor-rich Texas and has spent years building his political operation, is using his fundraising apparatus to send out checks to incumbent senators running for reelection and GOP Senate nominees in key states. In the first quarter of 2024, Cornyn raised $5.6 million through his joint fundraising arm, called the Cornyn Victory Committee, and to the National Republican Senatorial Committee as well as directly for GOP incumbents and candidates, according to a source familiar with his political operation. The source said the numbers, which are not yet public, total $17.2 million that Cornyn raised for Senate Republican incumbents and candidates this cycle. The money, which amounts to the most Cornyn has raised in a single quarter since his joint fundraising committee was established in 2021, increased after Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky announced on February 28 that he would not run for leader in the next Congress, ending what will be an 18-year tenure atop the Senate GOP, the longest of any party leader in history. Cornyn raised $2.8 million since the start of the leadership race that began in earnest after McConnell made his announcement, the source said. The jockeying over fundraising and the candidates’ ties with high-dollar donors are among several key factors that senators say they are considering as they weigh whom to support for the high-stakes race, which will take place after the November elections. The next leader will have to chart out the GOP’s legislative and political strategy; take the helm of McConnell’s high-spending super PAC, known as the Senate Leadership Fund; and help guide the NRSC, which is the main Senate GOP campaign arm. And they’ll have to raise gobs of cash, recruit key candidates and go toe-to-toe with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer’s political machine.
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.