Senate begins marathon vote series as GOP takes first step to advance Trump agenda
CNN
Senate Republicans kicked off a marathon vote series Thursday evening in a bid to adopt a budget blueprint, taking the first step to advance President Donald Trump’s sweeping agenda and setting up a clash with the House.
Senate Republicans kicked off a marathon vote series Thursday evening in a bid to adopt a budget blueprint, taking the first step to advance President Donald Trump’s sweeping agenda and setting up a clash with the House. Trump has endorsed a competing plan from House Republicans that is more expansive, but that hasn’t stopped Senate Republicans from forging ahead, a sign of the challenges congressional Republicans face as they navigate narrow majorities and divergent views over strategy. Senate Republicans have put forward a more narrow budget resolution that would bolster funding for immigration enforcement, national security and energy production. In contrast, House Republicans have more far-reaching plan that would allow them to address tax policy, a critical issue that Senate Republicans want to take up later as part of a second legislative package. House Republicans, with a razor-thin majority, want to address all of the party’s major priorities in a single bill in a bid to get everything done at once. Senate Republicans, on the other hand, want the party to score an early win on issues important to voters, like immigration and the border, before moving on to address tax policy, a thorny issue that may take longer – and prove more challenging - for the party to thread the needle. Trump called on both chambers to pass the House plan on Wednesday, saying on Truth Social that it implements “my FULL America First Agenda, EVERYTHING, not just parts of it!” But Trump weighed in with praise for Senate Republicans as the marathon vote session got underway Thursday evening. “Thank you to Majority Leader John Thune, and the Republican Senate, for working so hard on funding the Trump Border Agenda,” the president said on Truth Social. “Your work on funding this effort is greatly appreciated!”
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.
The murder trial of Brian Walshe, who is accused of killing and dismembering his wife in 2023 continues. Follow for live updates.