“Rockin’ around the Christmas treeAt the Christmas party hop” – Brenda LeeIt’s a yuletide tradition on Capitol Hill. An annual custom of rockin’ around a congressional Christmas tree, festooned with hundreds of legislative ornaments, Advent appropriations and mistletoe modifications.A political Polar Express chugs through the halls of Congress nearly every December.
President-elect Trump announced Saturday he has tapped the creator of “The Apprentice” to serve a diplomatic role in the United Kingdom.In a Truth Social post, Trump named Mark Burnett, a British-American TV producer who was born in London, as the next U.S. special envoy to the United Kingdom.”It is my great honor to appoint Mark Burnett as the Special Envoy to the United Kingdom,” the president-elect said.
As the dust settles on Congress frantically passing a stopgap bill at the eleventh hour to avoid a government shutdown, lawmakers are having their say on a chaotic week on Capitol Hill.President Biden signed the 118-page bill into law on Saturday, extending government funding into March, the White House announced. The bill provides over $100 billion in disaster aid for those affected by storms Helene and Milton in the U.S. Southeast earlier this year.
President-elect Trump dropped his latest round of nominations Saturday afternoon, including two picks to help lead the Department of Justice (DOJ) and one to work within the Department of Transportation (DOT).In a Truth Social post, the president-elect announced he was nominating Aaron Reitz to lead the DOJ’s Office of Legal Policy.
Senators voted to pass a new version of a stopgap spending bill early Saturday morning after the midnight deadline for a partial government shutdown came and went.The Senate advanced the third version of a short-term spending bill by 85 to 11, and it will now head to President Biden’s desk, who has already signaled that he will sign it.
A partial government shutdown began at 12:01 on Saturday morning after Congress failed to pass a stopgap spending measure before the deadline and send it to President Biden’s desk.However, the Senate is actively working through amendment votes and other considerations in order to send the measure to Biden. The stopgap bill is expected to be passed in the Senate in the coming hours. The partial shutdown comes only days before Christmas and New Year’s.
As President Biden’s term comes to an end, he is reportedly considering commuting the sentences of most, if not all, of the 40 men on the federal government’s death row.The Wall Street Journal, citing sources familiar with the matter, reported that the move would frustrate President-elect Trump’s plan to streamline executions as he takes office in January.
House lawmakers voted Friday to approve a newly negotiated spending bill that included many of the same components of the earlier legislation — but without the debt limit provision that had sparked consternation among many in the party.Republican leaders shared the text late Friday, shortly before lawmakers approved the spending legislation, 366-34.
Over 30 House Republicans voted Friday against a bill to avert a partial government shutdown.Lawmakers scrambled to reach consensus on a spending package ahead of the looming partial government shutdown deadline Friday. An initial 1,547-page bipartisan deal that would have extended the government funding deadline until March 14 was released Tuesday night, but the proposal crumbled after Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy criticized the spending bill.
House Republicans failed to secure the majority votes needed Thursday on a spending bill to avert a government shutdown by week’s end, handing a decisive loss to President-elect Trump in an early test of his ability to unite Republicans in the chamber. The bill failed by a vote of 235-174, including 38 Republicans who voted down the legislation. The bill not only failed the method that allowed lawmakers to fast-track it with a two-thirds majority.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sounded off Thursday about Elon Musk’s influence over the spending drama on Capitol Hill. “If you’re just catching up: the Republican Party, taking orders from the world’s richest man, is on course to shut down the government over the holidays, stopping paychecks for our troops and nutrition benefits for low-income families just in time for Christmas,” the 2016 presidential candidate wrote on X.
A bill to avert a partial government shutdown that was backed by President-elect Trump failed to pass the House of Representatives on Thursday night.Congress is inching closer to the possibility of a partial shutdown, with the deadline coming at the end of Friday.The bill needed two-thirds of the House chamber to pass, but failed to even net a majority. Two Democrats voted with the majority of Republicans to pass the bill, while 38 GOP lawmakers bucked Trump to oppose it.
House Democrats are balking at the latest iteration of a spending plan that was released on Thursday by Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.”The Musk-Johnson proposal is not serious, it’s laughable. Extreme MAGA Republicans are driving us to a government shutdown,” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., indicated Democratic leadership would whip their members to vote “no” on the deal.Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md.
Presidents past and present have displayed breathtaking Christmas trees at the White House. Former President Benjamin Harrison is credited by the White House Historical Association as the first to display a Christmas tree in the White House, having placed one in the Second Floor Oval Room in 1889. That first known Christmas tree to be displayed in the White House was adorned with candles for Harrison’s grandchildren, according to the White House Historical Association.
The 1,547-page interim spending bill to avoid a government shutdown is effectively dead. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has all but yanked the plan off the floor after President-elect Trump, Vice President-elect Vance and Elon Musk torched the package to avoid a government shutdown this weekend and fund the government through March 14.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., while speaking at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., called out House Republicans for breaking a bipartisan agreement to fund the government and avoid a government shutdown, accusing them of hurting everyday Americans across the country.
President-elect Trump commented Wednesday that it was “too bad” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., was recently turned down for a leadership position on a House committee, prompting an amused response by the progressive politician. “Really too bad that AOC lost the Battle for the Leadership Seat in the Democrat Party,” Trump wrote Wednesday on Truth Social. “She should keep trying.
A ‘clean’ CR that keeps the government funded in the short term should be the way to go for the House right now.
House GOP leaders are working toward a backup plan after an initial bipartisan deal to avoid a partial government shutdown on Friday was killed by an avalanche of conservative opposition.The legislation angered conservatives in both the House and Senate, as well as President-elect Trump’s pick to co-chair his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Elon Musk.
President-elect Trump on Wednesday said he is “totally against” the continuing resolution (CR) being debated by the House to keep the government from shutting down through March.Trump spoke with “FOX & Friends” co-host Lawrence Jones on Wednesday, telling him the “fight starts now.””I just spoke with President-elect [Trump], and he is ‘totally against’ the proposed CR,” Jones wrote in a post on X.
Members of Congress are vulnerable. They’re not super men and women. They are of flesh and bone like anyone else.A series of unconnected events in recent days spoke to the vulnerabilities of those who work on Capitol Hill as health scares impacted three well-known Congressional figures.Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., fell during the weekly Senate lunch last week.
President-elect Trump dropped his most recent round of ambassador nominations on social media Tuesday night, before issuing a warning to Senate Republicans about any potential deals with Democratic lawmakers.The Republican leader began by nominating Herschel Walker as his choice for U.S. ambassador to the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. Walker, a staunch Trump ally, ran for the U.S. Senate in 2022 as a candidate from Georgia.
Some lawmakers in the new Congressional DOGE Caucus are eyeing a crackdown on federal agencies work-from-home policies when Republicans take over the levers of power in Washington DC next year.The group’s name is an acronym for Delivering Outstanding Government Efficiency, coinciding with the Department of Government Efficiency – also DOGE for short – a new advisory panel commissioned by President-elect Trump and led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
Congressional leaders are unveiling their plan to avoid a partial government shutdown by the Friday federal funding deadline.House Republicans released the 1,547-page text of a short-term extension of fiscal year (FY) 2024 government funding levels to give lawmakers more time to agree on funding the rest of FY 2025.It’s the second such extension, called a continuing resolution (CR), since FY 2024 ended on Sept. 30.
Welcome to the Fox News Politics newsletter, with the latest updates on the Trump transition, exclusive interviews and more Fox News politics content.Here’s what’s happening…-Red state reveals plan to purchase auctioned border wall materials to store for Trump-Electoral College vote moves Trump another step toward officially becoming president-Vance will likely be 2028 front-runner, but RNC chair ‘excited about the bench that we have’Former Rep.
Their accuser has finally confessed she made up her rape claim, but she wasn’t the only fraudster who preyed on the Left’s uncharitable assumptions about young white men.
FIRST ON FOX: President-elect Donald Trump is suing the Des Moines Register and its top pollster J. Ann Selzer for “brazen election interference” and fraud over its final 2024 presidential poll showing Vice President Kamala Harris leading him in Iowa, despite his ultimate victory in the state by more than 13 percentage points, Fox News Digital has learned. The lawsuit was filed Monday night in Polk County, Iowa under the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act and related provisions.
President-elect Trump announced his nominations for U.S. ambassadors to five countries on Monday, including Austria and Japan.In a series of Truth Social posts on Monday night, the incoming president detailed his picks for the U.S. ambassadors to Japan, the Dominican Republic, Austria, Luxembourg and Uruguay. Each nominee will need to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.Trump named George Edward Glass, a former U.S. ambassador to Portugal, to serve as the incoming U.S. ambassador to Japan.
A top aide on Vice President Harris’ failed presidential campaign recently called for more cultural voices like the vocal anti-America and anti-Israel Twitch star, Hasan Piker, who previously faced backlash for saying that “America deserved 9/11.
Judge Juan Merchan on Monday rejected Trump attorneys’ request to dismiss charges brought against him by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on the basis of presidential immunity.The ruling comes after President-elect Trump and his team in July requested Merchan overturn his guilty verdict in New York v. Trump, citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that presidents have immunity for official acts.