Trump’s VP rollout and convention planning complicated by Biden woes as former president looks to regain spotlight
CNN
Donald Trump is entering a critical stretch of his presidential campaign in an unfamiliar place: out of the spotlight.
Donald Trump is entering a critical stretch of his presidential campaign in an unfamiliar place: out of the spotlight. Over the next 10 days, the former president will announce his running mate, hold a pair of campaign rallies and kick off a Republican convention in Milwaukee where he will officially become the party’s presidential nominee for the third time in eight years. But the rollout of Trump’s summer plans have been overshadowed by the dramatic fallout over President Joe Biden’s lackluster debate performance and a Democratic Party in the throes of a crisis about its expected nominee. While the Trump campaign was happy to sit back and watch Biden and his allies spiral through the holiday weekend, the former president is quickly approaching a marquee period over which he planned to be the center of attention. That is no longer the expectation, though, and his campaign is now trying to navigate how to maximize the rollout of his vice presidential pick under unprecedented circumstances while pulling off a convention that can successfully set up the new ticket for the final 3½ months of the race. Uncertainty around Biden may have also injected new factors for Trump and his advisers to consider in a running mate. Though Trump had previously indicated he had already made a selection “in my mind,” a Republican fundraiser close to the former president said the prospect of Biden ending his White House bid has likely altered Trump’s calculus.
Speaker Mike Johnson is a political survivor, weathering crisis after crisis since his unlikely ascent two years ago.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan are well matched, rhetorically forceful opposites. And they have been clashing for more than a decade over an increasingly relevant question of presidential power: How easy should it be for the president to fire the heads of independent agencies?
The Army gynecologist described in a recent lawsuit as a “predator in uniform” is now being held in the Bell County Jail in Texas, “after apparently violating conditions of liberty imposed by his commander,” according to an Army spokesperson.
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.