Emmanuel Macron has a grand vision for the West. Putin has exposed the limits of his influence
CNN
On February 20, Emmanuel Macron held a phone call with Vladimir Putin. Shortly after it ended, the French President announced he would broker a summit between his Russian counterpart and US President Joe Biden, on the condition that Russia did not invade its neighbor.
The next day, Putin declared two regions of Ukraine as independent and by the end of the week had sent troops into the country.
Ever since the crisis began, Macron has assumed the role of Europe's statesman, willing to talk face-to-face and on the phone multiple times with Putin in a way that other world leaders would be either unwilling or, Macron's supporters believe, unable to do.
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.
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.
President-elect Donald Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency, a nongovernmental entity helmed by billionaire Elon Musk and biotech entrepreneur and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, is expected to make a push for an end to remote work across federal agencies as a way to help reduce the federal workforce through attrition.