New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, seen here with Gen. James Mattis in January prior to his confirmation as Defense secretary, has recorded the most votes opposing President Donald Trump’s nominees so far. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call file photo)
On the last day before the August recess, the Senate confirmed 65 of President Donald Trump’s nominees with a single bipartisan voice vote.
That has been a marked difference from the way Democratic senators have approached Trump’s picks for his team.
Sens. Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, left, and Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts at a 1997 press conference introducing the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. (Douglas Graham/CQ Roll Call File Photo)
If the failure of health care reform taught us anything last week, it’s that somebody somewhere in Washington is going to have to start compromising if anything is ever going to get done.
But if you’re thinking a successful compromise is going to come from moderates like Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, or Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., think again. Although those senators’ roles will be important, all of the moderates from both parties together still don’t have enough votes to pass legislation.
White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus is out as President Donald Trump’s chief of staff. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
By STEPHANIE AKIN and JOHN T. BENNETTUpdated at 7:20 p.m. | President Donald Trump has named Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly as his new White House chief of staff, replacing an embattled Reince Priebus.
Trump’s announcement came after a week of turmoil in the White House that had prompted fervent speculation Priebus would be the next to go. But Priebus’s job has been in question almost since the beginning when he was given the almost impossible goal of uniting disparate ideological factions within the Trump administration and serving as a bridge to establishment Republicans.
10:20 p.m. | Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell walks back to his office from the Senate floor. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)
The Senate went into the wee hours of Friday morning to consider amendments to legislation most Republicans hoped would repeal parts of the 2010 health care law.
The health care effort was attached to a budget process known as reconciliation, which traditionally comes to a conclusion with an all-night vote-a-rama session on the Senate floor, in which members consider dozens of amendments.
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., voted against a GOP single-payer amendment. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call File Photo)
Democrats largely protested a GOP effort to put senators on the record on a plan providing universal health care, but a handful running for re-election in Republican-leaning states decided to reject the single-payer system.
Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont, introduced an amendment Wednesday night to amend the House-passed health care legislation currently on the floor and replace it with a Democratic bill giving every American health care through Medicare. Daines does not support the Medicare-for-All bill, but he argued that the American people should know Democrats’ position on the issue. Democrats cried foul, saying that Republicans were playing politics.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been the target of almost daily taunting from President Donald Trump. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)
When Jeff Sessions was preparing last fall to begin a third decade in the Senate, his future as a rock-ribbed conservative legislative force looked limitless, but just three seasons later, he’s been pushed to the precipice of his career.
The almost daily taunting he’s taking from President Donald Trump points toward one of two probably quick endings to his brief run as attorney general, quitting or getting canned.
President Donald Trump have often said Democratic leaders like Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., will eventually come to him to make a deal on health care. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call File Photo)
President Donald Trump on Wednesday again appeared to change his stance on just which path he wants Republican senators to take on health care. But he has long been infatuated with the notion of House and Senate Democratic leaders asking — begging, even — for his help on health care.
This week, the president and his aides have been posturing to put that very scenario in play, even as his own party attempts to resurrect a measure that would repeal most of and partially replace the 2010 health care law in one swoop.
Alabama Sen. Luther Strange faces a competitive Republican special election primary next month. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call file photo)
Eight months into the 2018 election cycle and with 16 months to go, the fundamentals of the Senate map haven’t changed.
One state has been added to the map: Alabama.
Terri Storer of the West Virginia Citizens Defense League listens to Attorney General Patrick Morrisey during his Senate campaign launch in Harpers Ferry, W.Va., on Monday. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)
HARPERS FERRY, W.Va. — The front-runners have now formally entered a potentially bruising Republican Senate primary in West Virginia, even as the state’s incumbents are in the middle of the health care debate.
Patrick Morrisey, the state attorney general, kicked off his widely expected campaign from a motel here in his home base in the Mountain State’s eastern panhandle.
Rep. Claudia Tenney, seen here with Georgia Sen. David Perdue and President Donald Trump in April, opposes certain cuts to social services programs vital to her upstate New York district. (Rex Features via AP Images)
CHITTENANGO, N.Y. — It would make sense that the hometown of L. Frank Baum, the creator of the Wizard of Oz, would be in a county that voted for President Donald Trump.
Trump easily carried this part of upstate New York, which contains places just as rural as Dorothy Gale’s Kansas. But despite the nearby Yellow Brick Road Casino in a converted strip mall, there’s no Emerald City. So Republican members of Congress who represent these parts have a particular challenge and have to fight for federal dollars for their districts.
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