GOP amps up Trump impeachment talk in midterm battle as party leaders woo Kemp for Senate
CNN
President Donald Trump and GOP leaders are beginning to plot their midterm push to hang onto power amid a shaky political environment, courting key candidates in critical battleground House and Senate races while leaning hard on an issue that could animate the MAGA faithful: impeachment.
President Donald Trump and GOP leaders are beginning to plot their midterm push to hang on to power amid a shaky political environment, courting key candidates in critical battleground House and Senate races while leaning hard on an issue that could animate the MAGA faithful: impeachment. Even though Democratic leaders are wary of a third impeachment vote, the topic has become a prominent discussion in GOP ranks, with Trump eager to avoid another all-consuming showdown with an emboldened Democratic majority and Republican leaders banking the talk could help drive up turnout in an election where Trump won’t be at the top of the ticket. “It is a key priority of his, obviously, to keep the House majority, because he knows what would happen if we didn’t,” Speaker Mike Johnson told CNN after meeting with Trump last week to discuss the midterms. “Democrats have already said they’re gonna try another baseless impeachment. They’ll do their best to grind the agenda to a halt.” Midterm elections historically are painful for parties in power. And Democrats believe Trump’s sagging poll numbers and voter fears of an economic recession amid his trade war will be enough to win the narrowly divided House and give them a shot at the Senate majority, though the map is much tougher to flip that chamber. But Trump is already showing intense personal interest in trying to buck the trend, Republican leaders say. In recent days, Trump has met privately with GOP leaders, including Johnson, to discuss candidate strategy and ways the White House can help in key races. Trump is signaling he will be fully engaged in the midterms, already planning more rounds of endorsements and offering to help in other ways, such as fundraisers and rallies, wherever he is needed, three GOP strategists said. And in the Senate, GOP leaders have been on an all-hands-on-deck push to woo perhaps their biggest recruit of the 2026 cycle: Gov. Brian Kemp in Georgia.
Brian Walshe on Thursday came face-to-face for the first time with the man who had been having an affair with his wife before her death, as he took the stand to testify in Walshe’s murder trial.
The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed Texas to use a congressional map that will boost President Donald Trump’s effort to keep Republicans in control of Congress, blocking a lower court decision that found the new boundaries were likely unconstitutional because they were drawn based on race.
The US military carried out a strike Thursday on a suspected drug boat in the Eastern Pacific, killing four people on board, according to a social media post from US Southern Command.
A grand jury voted against indicting New York Attorney General Letitia James after being asked to look at the mortgage fraud case against her a second time, according to multiple people familiar with the development Thursday.
National Guard troops deployed to Washington, DC, can remain there for now, after a federal appeals court on Thursday temporarily froze a judge’s ruling that would have soon required them to leave the city’s streets.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s bad week just got worse. That’s after the long-awaited release Thursday of an inspector general’s report on his sharing of highly sensitive military attack plans on the unclassified app Signal earlier this year.
President Donald Trump has hired a new architect for the White House ballroom amid disputes between the president and his architect originally contracted to complete the project, several sources have told CNN.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth risked compromising sensitive military information that could have endangered US troops through his use of Signal to discuss attack plans, a Pentagon watchdog said in an unclassified report released Thursday. It also details how Hegseth declined to cooperate with the probe.
If nothing else, the controversy over the Trump administration’s second strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean has surfaced a long-overdue debate about its already legally dubious first strikes.
Two top House lawmakers emerged divided along party lines after a private briefing with the military official who oversaw September’s attack on an alleged drug vessel that included a so-called double-tap strike that killed surviving crew members, with a top Democrat calling video of the incident that was shared as part of the briefing “one of the most troubling things” he has seen as a lawmaker.
Authorities in Colombia are dealing with increasingly sophisticated criminals, who use advanced tech to produce and conceal the drugs they hope to export around the world. But police and the military are fighting back, using AI to flag suspicious passengers, cargo and mail - alongside more conventional air and sea patrols. CNN’s Isa Soares gets an inside look at Bogotá’s war on drugs.
Young Americans are “a generation under profound strain” with little confidence in institutions and widespread economic concerns, according to a Harvard Institute of Politics survey of adults younger than 30 released Thursday.
As lawmakers demand answers over reports that the US military carried out a follow-up strike that killed survivors during an attacked on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean, a career Navy SEAL who has spent most of his 30 years of military experience in special operations will be responsible for providing them.