Donald Trump’s personnel choices for his new Cabinet and White House reflect his signature positions on immigration and trade but also a range of viewpoints and backgrounds that raise questions about what ideological anchors might guide his Oval Office encore.

There was House Speaker Mike Johnson walking behind President-elect Donald Trump’s entourage into Saturday night’s UFC fight at Madison Square Garden.

The America First Policy Institute says “hostile foreign actors” breached its systems.

Congress is off for the campaign season.

There is plenty of jockeying happening at the Republican National Convention among the party's potential 2028 presidential contenders.

Republicans have nominated Donald Trump for the presidency twice before.

South Carolina lawmakers will go before voters next week in state primary elections.

Former President Donald Trump remains stuck in a New York courtroom listening to salacious details of an extramarital sexual encounter he denies.

Staring down a decision so consequential it could alter the course of history -- but also end his own career -- House Speaker Mike Johnson prayed for guidance.

Donald Trump and Nikki Haley will face off Saturday in South Carolina’s first-in-the-South Republican presidential primary.

President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping’s have no shortage of difficult issues to discuss when they meet Wednesday in the San Francisco area.

Evangelical Christian conservatives have long had allies in top Republican leadership in Congress.

There will be no further votes for House speaker on Wednesday after Republicans reached an impasse on how to move forward.

Rep. Jim Jordan has failed to win the vote to become House speaker on a crucial second ballot.

The U.S. House speaker has addressed Israel’s parliament, a rare honor awarded to the highest-ranking Republican in U.S. politics at a time of fraught relations between Israel’s government and Democratic President Joe Biden.

The moment was historic — a U.S. House speaker meeting with the president of Taiwan for a rare visit on American soil.

The annual Conservative Political Action Conference was once one of the premier gatherings on the GOP campaign calendar.

The stalemate over the Republican House speaker vote is more than just an embarrassment for Kevin McCarthy, who is now the first person in a century to muddle through multiple ballots.

When Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that she won't re-up as a House leader next year, even her adversaries acknowledged that hers was a remarkable era.

A Florida judge has ruled that former national security adviser Michael Flynn must testify before a special grand jury in Atlanta that’s looking into whether then-President Donald Trump and his allies illegally tried to influence the 2020 election in Georgia.

President Joe Biden will meet Monday with China's President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of next week’s Group of 20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia.

President Joe Biden says he hopes to use an anticipated meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping to discuss growing tensions between Washington and Beijing over the self-ruled island of Taiwan, trade policies and Beijing’s relationship with Russia.

A judge has ordered former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to testify before a special grand jury in Atlanta that's investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and Republican allies illegally tried to influence the 2020 election in Georgia.

Wednesday was a day for sorting, sifting and framing of an expensive, exhaustive and highly negative midterm election campaign.

First lady Jill Biden and U.S. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy were in Texas Sunday to help members of their respective parties energize voters before Election Day.

Mark Meadows, former White House chief of staff, is trying to avoid having to testify before a Georgia special grand jury that’s investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and his allies illegally tried to influence the state’s 2020 election.

Eager Republican volunteers are knocking on doors in Georgia, trying to persuade reluctant conservatives and supporters of Donald Trump to register to vote in next month’s midterm elections.

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene once was shunned as a political pariah for her extremist rhetoric.

The Georgia prosecutor investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and others illegally tried to interfere in the 2020 election has filed paperwork seeking to compel testimony from a new batch of Trump allies.

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy is rolling out his party's Trump-like midterm election agenda.

President Joe Biden is confronting difficult issues as he travels to New York this week for the annual gathering of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly.

Georgia's Republican Party once relied on votes in Atlanta's close-in suburbs, but today the GOP increasingly relies on the mountains of north Georgia for its votes.

The House panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection is seeking information from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich about his communications with senior advisers to then-President Donald Trump in the days leading up to the 2021 attack on the Capitol.

How has Congress changed in the last four decades.

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says China will not be able to isolate Taiwan by preventing U.S. officials from traveling there.

After infuriating China over her trip to Taiwan, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has met South Korean political leaders in Seoul.

U_S_ House Speaker Nancy Pelosi concluded her visit to Taiwan with a pledge that the American commitment to democracy on the self-governing island and elsewhere “remains ironclad.”.

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has arrived in Taiwan.

The White House is criticizing Beijing’s rhetoric over an expected visit by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan and vowing the United States “will not take the bait or engage in saber rattling."

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has confirmed she will visit four Asian countries this week but made no mention of a possible stop in Taiwan that has riled Beijing, which claims the island as its own territory.

The crisis sparked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s potential visit to Taiwan misses a key point, experts say: that the real focus should be on how the United States and China manage their differences so the risks of confrontation don’t spiral out of control.

President Xi Jinping warned against meddling in China’s dealings with Taiwan during a phone call with his U.S. counterpart, Joe Biden.

In 1997, Beijing grumbled but swallowed its irritation when then-Speaker Newt Gingrich of the U.S. House of Representatives visited Taiwan.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi launched a political career being tough on China.

U.S. President Joe Biden is planning to speak with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping for the first time in four months, with a wide range of bilateral and international issues on the table.

U.S. President Joe Biden plans to speak to Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday, according to a U.S. official.

The intensifying rivalry between former President Donald Trump and his once fiercely loyal vice president, Mike Pence, has been put on stark display in Washington.

An increasing number of Republican officials are defending House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her reported trip to Taiwan.

President Joe Biden says that U.S. military officials believe it’s “not a good idea” for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to visit Taiwan at the moment.

China says it will take “resolute and strong measures" should the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi proceed with reported plans to visit Taiwan.

The next House speaker could very well hail from California, but if Republicans take control, that leader won't come from the part of the state represented by the current speaker, Democrat Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco.

Reps. Lucy McBath and Carolyn Bourdeaux flipped two longtime Republican congressional districts in Atlanta’s northern suburbs with a common strategy of appealing to voters repelled by then-President Donald Trump’s divisive politics.

Former Vice President Mike Pence has unveiled a new policy platform for Republicans ahead of this year’s midterm elections.

Republican lawmakers gathered at a retreat in Florida this week to plot out strategy for this year's midterm elections.

The House panel investigating the U.S. Capitol insurrection has issued subpoenas to two Republican strategists and a Trump administration official regarding their involvement in the planning and preparation of one of the rallies that preceded the deadly attack.

Politicians and family members are remembering Georgia Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson's ability to build consensus and win friends.

For a decade ending last December, ArtPlace America sprinkled $150 million across the nation, backing a kaleidoscope of projects.

Bob Dole’s frequent scowl concealed a dry, often caustic wit.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is likely to face a prominent challenger for the 2022 Republican primary for governor, former Sen. David Perdue.

Americans are remembering Bob Dole, a man who defied the odds in war, only to fall short of his ultimate goal in politics.

President Joe Biden and leading Democratic lawmakers, including Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet and Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, have been fighting to make permanent a child tax credit that would give families at least $300 a month per child.

Republicans are fighting to seize control of Congress.

Republican leaders insist that purging Trump critic Liz Cheney from their ranks was necessary to unify the party ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, who is embroiled in a federal sex trafficking investigation, has denied wrongdoing and refused to resign — or even lay low — amid mounting political pressure.

Facebook has removed hundreds of accounts linked to an Iranian exile group and a troll farm in Albania.

The man behind the effort to remove California Gov. Gavin Newsom from office is a retired county sheriff's sergeant who grew frustrated in 2019 with the governor's policies.

Team Brownsville, a humanitarian group, is helping the migrants reach their final destination in the U.S. A surge of migrants on the Southwest border has the Biden administration on the defensive. Still, the encounters of both unaccompanied minors and families remain lower than at various points during the Trump administration, including in spring 2019. They deride the policies Trump implemented to deter asylum as cruel and inhumane and an abdication of the country’s humanitarian responsibilities. "The Trump administration did everything in their power for four years to make the already broken immigration system as cumbersome and ineffective as possible. ... You leave yourself nowhere to go.”Ad“They’re kind of stuck in a corner,” agreed Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies think tank, which advocates on behalf of more restrictive immigration policies.

Team Brownsville, a humanitarian group, is helping the migrants reach their final destination in the U.S. A surge of migrants on the Southwest border has the Biden administration on the defensive. Still, the encounters of both unaccompanied minors and families remain lower than at various points during the Trump administration, including in spring 2019. They deride the policies Trump implemented to deter asylum as cruel and inhumane and an abdication of the country’s humanitarian responsibilities. "The Trump administration did everything in their power for four years to make the already broken immigration system as cumbersome and ineffective as possible. ... You leave yourself nowhere to go.”Ad“They’re kind of stuck in a corner,” agreed Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies think tank, which advocates on behalf of more restrictive immigration policies.

During the last two months of his tenure, former acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller removed a number of longtime members from several defense policy, health, science and business boards and replaced many with loyalists of former President Donald Trump. And he ordered all committee members who were appointed by the defense secretary to resign no later than Feb. 16. In November, however, Trump appointed him to that same post, just days after firing then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper and putting Miller in the job. Miller appointed Tata to the Defense Policy Board on Jan. 19, his last full day on the job. AdOne new congressionally mandated commission is also being purged of the four members that Miller appointed in early January.

Trump is expected to pardon Bannon, Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021, as part of a flurry of last-minute clemency action that appears to be still in flux in the last hours of his presidency. For instance, joining Cunningham on the pardon list was Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist. The pardon nullified the prosecution of Bannon while the trial was still months away, eliminating the prospect for any punishment for him. He pleaded guilty last fall to acting as an unregistered lobbyist and was awaiting sentencing at the time of his pardon. In the final minutes of his term, Trump pardoned Al Pirro, the ex-husband of Fox News Channel host Jeanine Pirro, in a tax evasion case.

FILE - In this Sept. 13, 2016 file photo, U.S. billionaire Sheldon Adelson speaks during a news conference for the opening of Parisian Macao in Macau. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)LAS VEGAS – Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire mogul and power broker who built a casino empire spanning from Las Vegas to China and became a singular force in domestic and international politics has died after a long illness. In what was widely seen as a mark of the Adelsons’ influence with Trump, Miriam Adelson was given a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2018. Sheldon Adelson adopted his first wife’s three children and had two children with his second wife. Among numerous philanthropic projects, he and Miriam Adelson were especially committed to the research and treatment of substance abuse, a personal cause for Sheldon Adelson.

Adelson died Monday night from complications related to treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Las Vegas Sands announced Tuesday. “If you do things differently, success will follow you like a shadow,” he said during a 2014 talk to the gambling industry in Las Vegas. In politics, Adelson was a record-breaking campaign donor who had the ear of domestic and international leaders, including President Donald Trump. Late in 2015, Adelson secretly purchased the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Soon his Macao revenue outstripped that of his Las Vegas holdings.

But for more than four years, President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence made their marriage of political convenience work. Pence, for his part, was left feeling “hurt” and “upset” by the episode, according to people close to him. Pence's decision to publicly defy Trump was a first for the notoriously deferential vice president, who has been unflinchingly loyal to Trump since joining the GOP ticket in 2016. “If Mike Pence does the right thing we win the election,” Trump wrongly insisted. He repeatedly returned to Pence throughout his speech as he tried to pressure the vice president to fall in line.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., walks off of the Senate floor on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2020. Congress opened in 2019 with the federal government shutdown over Trump's demands for money to build the border wall with Mexico. The Republican-led Senate acquitted the president in 2020 of the charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Trump’s push for $2,000 checks gained sudden momentum when dozens of House Republicans joined Democrats in approving the measure Monday. But the GOP leader has scheduled no votes on his measure and it would be unlikely to have enough support in Congress to pass.

Peterson, like many voters in this area of Atlanta, voted for Democrat Joe Biden but also cast votes for Republican Senate candidates in November. Some of Georgia's most affluent voters, formerly reliable cornerstones of the state's once-ascendant Republican majority, live in million-dollar houses here. Perdue led Ossoff by about 88,000 votes, although the incumbent fell short of the majority required in Georgia because of votes won by a Libertarian. Perdue also ran ahead of Trump in wealthier areas of DeKalb County, a Democratic bastion where Trump won only two of 191 precincts and lost some areas 20-to-1. Once a registered Republican in Pennsylvania — Georgia doesn't register voters by party — Levin said she has “zero respect” for Perdue and Loeffler.

Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate from Georgia Jon Ossoff speaks after voting early in Atlanta on Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2020. For the second time in three years, Jon Ossoff is campaigning in overtime. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)ATLANTA – Though still chasing his first victory, Jon Ossoff is no stranger to the pressure of campaigning in overtime — this time for one of two crucial U.S. Senate seats that will determine control of the chamber. Ossoff ran a formidable campaign even while being mocked by Republicans as a lightweight unqualified to occupy the seat once held by Republican Newt Gingrich. Biden received nearly 100,000 more votes in Georgia than Ossoff.

"That’s a mandate to flip the switch.”The idea of a Biden mandate, though, is relative, certainly embraced by Democrats who want to push ahead with his agenda. California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the House's Republican leader, said the election “was a mandate against socialism," stepping up the relentless GOP attacks, even though Biden is a centrist Democrat. Biden comes to the presidency like few in recent history, with a rare mix of experience but also a potentially divided Congress. Whether McConnell emerges in the new Congress as majority or minority leader with a narrowly divided Senate, the longest serving Republican leader in history will have great leverage over legislation that arrives on Biden's desk. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York and even McCarthy will have oversize roles because of the changed makeup of the new Congress.

It’s not exactly divine intervention, but even the pope considers the U.S. presidential race over. President-elect Joe Biden, a lifelong Roman Catholic, spoke to Pope Francis on Thursday, despite President Donald Trump refusing to concede. Trump claims — without evidence — that the election was stolen from him through massive but unspecified acts of fraud. Biden has said he accepts church doctrine about abortion on a personal level, but does not want to impose that belief on everyone. Having the pope on board, too, likely has special significance for Biden.

NEW YORK – One of publishing's most thriving genres of the past four years, books about President Donald Trump, is not going to end when he leaves office. In 2021 and beyond, look for waves of releases about the Trump administration and about the president's loss to Democratic candidate Joe Biden. “But there are tens of millions of Americans who look to the Trump presidency as an important time and are fans of his administration. Center Street, a Hachette Book Group imprint, has published Donald Trump Jr., Newt Gingrich and Judge Jeanine Pirro among others. Any publisher signing with Trump or a top administration official might face the anger not just of Trump critics among the general public, but from within the industry.

Abrams, the onetime candidate for Georgia governor who has become perhaps the nation's leading voice on voting rights, is being credited for paving those inroads. “There’s a lot of work that’s gone into this, but Stacey really is the architect of what’s been built in Georgia,” said Dubose Porter, the former Georgia Democratic Party chairman and an Abrams mentor. The 2018 campaign marked a notable shift in Georgia Democrats’ overall approach. They’d do it by reshaping the electorate, by exciting the expanding universe of potentially Democratic voters: the youngest native white Georgians; whites from beyond Georgia; Black voters who cast ballots sporadically; Black voters moving to Georgia from other regions; and a growing Latino and Asian-American population. “We’ll take on Antifa, Black Lives Matter, Fair Fight, Stacey Abrams and all of them.”Trump himself was an accelerating variable in Georgia’s shift, pushing some white suburbanites toward Democrats.

ATLANTA – Karen Handel is looking for Republicans to mobilize in Georgia's 6th District, once an incubator of high-profile Republicans. But Democrat Lucy McBath, who unseated Handel in 2018, is trying to show that Atlanta's wealthiest suburbs have changed. But McBath is hitting Handel with a range of attacks, with the most concerted sparring around health care. “My opponent's record on health care is absolutely dismal,” McBath said. “Right now we have a single-issue, completely disengaged member of Congress representing this congressional district,” Handel said.

Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., speaks at Carpenters Local Union 1912 in Phoenix, Thursday, Oct. 8, 2020, to kick off a small business bus tour. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)If you need help with the Public File, call (713) 778-4745.

During the past week, Trump told Sean Hannity of Fox News that Harris would assume the presidency within “three months” of Biden's inauguration. During a conversation with Rush Limbaugh, he warned that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would “replace” Biden with Harris. Trump's focus on Harris is building as he tries to regain an advantage against Biden, who is leading most national and battleground state polls three weeks before the election. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Trump ally, is pushing the president to make Harris a campaign centerpiece. “This is a desire not to run against Joe Biden, to run against anybody but Joe Biden,” he said.

This year's campaign, other Republicans worry, may instead resemble 1980 or 2008: a close race until, at the end, it decidedly wasn’t. Reviewing data afterward, campaign aides worried as they started to see Trump’s support begin to slip. Trump’s campaign worries that it is losing support among suburban voters, women and older voters. The Democrat on Monday will make a trip to Ohio for his general election campaign, another state Trump won convincingly in 2016. Trump’s campaign believes the hearings could change the political narrative away from the virus and draw attention to Biden’s refusal to say whether he would expand or “pack” the Supreme Court.

It cannot, and it must not.”The approach, Biden aides say, is more than lofty presidential rhetoric; it’s necessary groundwork for governing. Being a steady alternative to Trump, the ex-reality television star Biden describes as “erratic” and “dangerous,” may be enough to win in November, they argue. People realize what’s at stake here,” Biden said Saturday in Erie, Pennsylvania, repeating what has become a go-to line in nearly every campaign setting. Biden described his Gettysburg speech as “dramatic” in a preview to donors hours before he delivered it. In a Sept. 22 fundraiser, a top Biden supporter recalled urging the former vice president to run against Trump.

This image provided by the Richard Nixon Foundation shows a copy of correspondence between Donald Trump and Richard Nixon. The letters between once and future presidents, revealed for the first time in an exhibit that opens Thursday, Sept. 23, 2020, at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library & Museum, show the two men engaged in something of an exercise in mutual affirmation. The museum shared the letters exclusively with The Associated Press ahead of the exhibits opening. (Richard Nixon Foundation via AP)

This image provided by the Richard Nixon Foundation shows a copy of correspondence between Donald Trump and Richard Nixon. (Richard Nixon Foundation via AP)WASHINGTON – They were two men in Manhattan who craved the same thing: validation. The two had been spotted together at the “21” nightclub and Trump was writing Nixon to thank him for forwarding a photo. )” Nixon writes to Trump. Pat Nixon thought Trump did “great,” Nixon writes.

FILE - In this Nov. 17, 1973 file photo, President Richard Nixon speaks near Orlando, Fla. to the Associated Press Managing Editors annual meeting. Nixon told the APME "I am not a crook." There were two men in 1980s Manhattan who craved validation one a past president, one a future president. Thats how a thirty-something Donald Trump and a seventy-ish Richard Nixon struck up a decade-long correspondence in the 1980s that meandered from football and real estate to Vietnam and media strategy. Their letters are being revealed for the first time in an exhibit that opens Thursday at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library & Museum.

FILE - In this Nov. 17, 1973 file photo, President Richard Nixon speaks near Orlando, Fla. to the Associated Press Managing Editors annual meeting. There were two men in 1980s Manhattan who craved validation one a past president, one a future president. Their letters are being revealed for the first time in an exhibit that opens Thursday at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library & Museum. “Let me be so presumptuous as to offer a little free advice (which is worth, incidentally, exactly what it costs!”) Nixon writes to Trump. Pat Nixon thought Trump did “great,” Nixon writes.

For decades, Roman Catholic voters have been a pivotal swing vote in U.S. presidential elections, with a majority backing the winner whether Republican or Democrat nearly every time. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)For decades, Roman Catholic voters have been a pivotal swing vote in U.S. presidential elections, with a majority backing the winner — whether Republican or Democrat — nearly every time. “The swinging portion of the Catholic vote swings more than other voting segments — that’s the target-rich segment,” said Brian Burch, president of the conservative advocacy group CatholicVote.org. Among Wisconsin Catholics praising Altman was Kevin O’Brien, co-founder of a movement called Men of Christ. He said priests in his region around Harrisburg are openly suggesting that politicians who support abortion rights should be denied Communion.

WASHINGTON – House Minority leader Kevin McCarthy rolled out Republicans' priorities of tax breaks and police funding Tuesday, the GOP's calling card to voters as they try to wrest back seats from Democrats in a long-shot November election bid for majority control. They're also taking a page from Trump's playbook by portraying Democrats as aligned with the racial injustice protests in American cities, vowing a tougher approach. The GOP rollout comes as House Democrats are vowing to try again to pass a new round of coronavirus relief after a Senate bill collapsed last week. The House Republicans' economic priorities include new tax breaks for businesses, forgivable Paycheck Protection Program loans for companies struggling during the coronavirus shutdown, and making the 2017 GOP tax cuts for families permanent. 2 GOP leader, Rep. Steve Sclaise, R-La., the GOP Whip, said, the party will "renew and restore” the nation.

Mrs. Trump said months ago that she's ready for another four years. Only the second foreign-born first lady in U.S. history, Mrs. Trump is a native of Slovenia, a former communist country in eastern Europe. The first lady is set to speak Tuesday night from the renovated Rose Garden, despite questions about using the White House for a political convention. Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich said people appreciate that Mrs. Trump is her own person. Last week, after Mrs. Obama's forceful rebuke of Trump in an address to the Democrats' largely virtual convention, social media lit up with tongue-in-cheek speculation about whether Mrs. Trump would give the same speech.

On Tuesday, July 21, Trump professed a newfound respect for the protective face masks he has seldom worn. I mean, I carry the mask, Trump responded. But that pronouncement was too little, too late for some public health officials, who have blamed the mixed messaging and Trump's personal actions for politicizing mask-wearing and fueling a partisan social divide. He worried that Trump's words would have only marginal impact in moving Americans who arent consistently wearing masks in public to do so. Trump tweeted a photo of himself in a face mask Monday, calling it an act of patriotism.