WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump seems headed for acquittal in his impeachment trial after Sen. Lamar Alexander's decision to stick with fellow Republicans and oppose Democratic efforts to call more witnesses and keep the Senate trial going for weeks or even months. A vote on witnesses, expected Friday, could lead...
AP-NORC Poll: GOP More Fired up for 2020, Democrats Anxious
When it comes to the 2020 presidential election, Democrats are nervous wrecks and Republican excitement has grown. That's according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research as Americans look ahead to a high-stakes election that is 10 months away but still very much top...
Trump Says He's Open to Witnesses as Trial Rules Are Set
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate plunged into President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial with Republicans abruptly abandoning plans to cram opening arguments into two days but solidly rejecting for now Democratic demands for more witnesses to expose what they deem Trump’s “trifecta” of offenses. Trump himself said Wednesday he wants top aides to...
Analysis: Pelosi's Delay Tests Public Opinion on Impeachment
WASHINGTON — Democrats know they don't have the votes to convict President Donald Trump when the Senate convenes as the Court of Impeachment. So they are pursuing the case in the court of public opinion. It became a defining moment, one that stunned Washington, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi declined to...
House Approves Measure to Restrain Trump’s Actions on Iran
WASHINGTON — Reigniting a debate over who has the power to declare war, the Democratic-controlled House on Thursday approved a resolution asserting that President Donald Trump must seek approval from Congress before engaging in further military action against Iran. The war powers resolution is not binding on the president and...
Trump Conservative Critics Launch PAC to Fight Reelection
NEW YORK — A small group of President Donald Trump's fiercest conservative critics, including the husband of the president's own chief adviser, is launching a super PAC designed to fight Trump's reelection and punish congressional Republicans deemed his “enablers." The new organization, known as the Lincoln Project, represents a formal...
Panel Vote Sends Trump Impeachment Charges to Full House
WASHINGTON — Democrats propelled President Donald Trump’s impeachment toward a historic vote by the full U.S. House as the Judiciary Committee on Friday approved charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. It's the latest major step in the constitutional and political storm that has divided Congress and the...
Walters: An Epic Capitol Power Struggle Recalled
Exactly 40 years ago today, a political power struggle erupted in the California Assembly, one that lasted nearly a year and fundamentally altered the Capitol’s culture. Many of today’s legislators weren’t even born when Assemblyman Howard Berman, the majority floor leader, abruptly demanded that Assembly Speaker Leo McCarthy step down...
Poll: Facts Not Major Driver of American Democracy
WASHINGTON — At a time when many Americans say they're struggling to distinguish between fact and fiction, the country is broadly skeptical that facts underlie some of the basic mechanisms of democracy in the United States — from political campaigns to voting choices to the policy decisions made by elected...
AP FACT CHECK: Nunes Asserts a Biden Crime That Wasn’t
WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans at impeachment hearings Tuesday tried to defend President Donald Trump by pushing a widely discredited claim that former Vice President Joe Biden pressed Ukraine’s government to shut down a corruption investigation of Burisma, the energy company paying Biden’s son Hunter. A look at some of the remarks in...