Republicans face a ferocious ad campaign surrounding Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’
CNN
A ferocious advertising campaign is underway with passage of President Donald Trump’s landmark policy bill hanging in the balance, as political groups and business interests spent at least $35 million just this month to try to sway key members of Congress and their constituents.
A ferocious advertising campaign is underway with passage of President Donald Trump’s landmark policy bill hanging in the balance, as political groups and business interests spent at least $35 million just this month to try to sway key members of Congress and their constituents. Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina was facing the pressure from both sides before he announced Sunday that he wouldn’t seek reelection in 2026. Americans for Prosperity, an arm of the conservative megadonor Charles Koch’s political network, spent nearly $2 million this month in key media markets such as Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham. “Trump’s tax cuts put money back in my pocket, and they’re helping young families save for their first homes,” says a woman featured in one of the ads from AFP. “Congress needs to save our tax cuts and protect prosperity.” At the same time, the Democratic-aligned group Unrig Our Economy spent nearly $1 million hammering Tillis over Medicaid cuts in the bill. “Sen. Thom Tillis could vote to take away our health care and give tax breaks to billionaires,” an ad from the group warns. Other Republicans in swing districts face the same dynamic heading into a midterm campaign in which they will need to reach at least some voters who don’t back Trump without angering the president or his core supporters. In Tillis’ case, he announced he wouldn’t seek reelection hours after Trump called for him to face a primary challenge because he didn’t support a procedural vote on the “big, beautiful bill.”
Former Navy sailor sentenced to 16 years for selling information about ships to Chinese intelligence
A former US Navy sailor convicted of selling technical and operating manuals for ships and operating systems to an intelligence officer working for China was sentenced Monday to more than 16 years in prison, prosecutors said.
The Defense Department has spent more than a year testing a device purchased in an undercover operation that some investigators think could be the cause of a series of mysterious ailments impacting spies, diplomats and troops that are colloquially known as Havana Syndrome, according to four sources briefed on the matter.
Jack Smith, the former special counsel who led two failed prosecutions of President Donald Trump, will testify publicly before the House Judiciary Committee on January 22, the panel announced Monday.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has told people that he is unhappy with the decision to criminally investigate Fed Chair Jerome Powell, a source with knowledge of the matter told CNN.
Venezuela’s promise last week to release “a significant number” of political prisoners is progressing far slower than many had hoped, as hundreds of families continue to wait in agony for their loved ones to be freed.
President Donald Trump billed strikes on Venezuela earlier this month as being about drugs, gangs invading the United States and law enforcement – i.e. arresting indicted leader Nicolás Maduro. But of late, he seems conspicuously preoccupied with the country’s oil wealth.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Florida Lt. Gov. Jay Collins announced Monday that he’s running for governor in 2026, hoping to take over for term-limited Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The top career prosecutor in the Justice Department’s Eastern District of Virginia office has been fired, according to three people familiar with the development Monday.
Lawyers for Sen. Mark Kelly filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to block Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s move to cut Kelly’s retirement pay and reduce his rank in response to Kelly’s urging of US service members to refuse illegal orders. The lawsuit argues punishing Kelly violates the First Amendment and will have a chilling effect on legislative oversight.
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren is calling on her party to “read the room” and begin appealing to a wider swath of the working-class public by keeping a stringent focus on the economy.
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner, is scheduled to meet with President Donald Trump on Thursday, a senior White House official told CNN.
The jury in the case of former Uvalde police officer Adrian Gonzales is back in a Corpus Christi courtroom as the trial enters its second week.
The Department of Homeland Security on Monday said it would invest $115 million in counter-drone technologies to secure the World Cup and events marking 250 years of American independence.