Senator Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat and majority leader, insists that Congress isn’t broken — it just has a stubborn glitch. As he celebrated approval this week of a major national security spending measure to aid Ukraine and Israel that took months of wrangling and strategizing, Mr. Schumer said the success of the package […]
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We’ve seen movies aplenty in which a deeply flawed protagonist, someone we’d pretty much given up hope on, has a stirring of conscience or change of heart and puts his immediate interests at risk for the sake of something bigger. The music swells. The credits roll. I never expected the music to swell and the […]
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said on Wednesday that protests at U.S. universities against Israel’s war in Gaza were “horrific” and should be stopped, using his first public comments on the subject to castigate the student demonstrators and portray them as antisemitic. Mr. Netanyahu’s comments could harden division over the demonstrations. They could also […]
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Senator Mitch McConnell does not give much away even in the most private of settings. So it was notable when the typically inscrutable Republican leader asked to speak first at an Oval Office session with President Biden and other congressional leaders called in late February to pressure Speaker Mike Johnson into putting military assistance to […]
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President Biden was set to sign a $95.3 billion package of aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan on Wednesday, reaffirming U.S. support for Kyiv in the fight against Russia’s military assault after months of congressional gridlock put the centerpiece of the White House’s foreign policy in jeopardy. The Senate voted overwhelmingly to approve the package […]
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In our Trump-era politics, there’s always the question of how crazy is too crazy — how disruptive and extreme an elected official can get before becoming so embarrassing that members of her own team feel compelled to abandon her? Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene seems to have reached that outer limit. Again. It’s not simply that […]
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The Senate on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly to move toward a final vote on the long-stalled $95.3 billion package of aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, taking a crucial step toward approving the measure and sending it to President Biden for his signature. The critical test vote reflected the wide bipartisan support for the measure, which […]
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The Senate was headed on Tuesday toward a critical vote to clear the way for final consideration of the $95 billion package of aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, setting the stage for approving the bill and sending it to President Biden for his signature. The measure, passed by the House on Saturday, was expected […]
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On Saturday, the House of Representatives approved the most consequential legislation of this Congress, a foreign aid package for American allies. More Democrats than Republicans voted in favor of the measure that allowed the package to pass. And once again the speaker’s job is at risk. This is just the latest example of how this […]
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For weeks after the Senate passed a sprawling aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, Speaker Mike Johnson agonized over whether and how the House would take up funding legislation that would almost certainly infuriate the right wing of his party and could cost him his job. He huddled with top national security officials, including […]
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When Congress convened in 2023, an empowered far-right Republican faction in the House threatened to upend Washington and President Biden’s agenda. But the intransigence of that bloc instead forced Republicans and Democrats into an ad hoc coalition government that is now on the verge of delivering long-delayed foreign military aid and a victory to the […]
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When Congress convened in 2023, an empowered far-right Republican faction in the House threatened to upend Washington and President Biden’s agenda. But the intransigence of that bloc instead forced Republicans and Democrats into an ad hoc coalition government that is now on the verge of delivering long-delayed foreign military aid and a victory to the […]
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The House vote on Saturday to provide $61 billion in American aid to Ukraine was the clearest sign yet that at least on foreign policy, the Republican Party is not fully aligned with former President Donald J. Trump and his “America First” movement. But more Republicans voted against the aid than for it, showing just […]
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The accolades directed at Speaker Mike Johnson in recent days for finally defying the right wing of his party and allowing an aid bill for Ukraine to move through the House might have seemed a tad excessive. After all, a speaker’s entire job is to move legislation through the House, and as Saturday’s vote to […]
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The House voted resoundingly on Saturday to approve $95 billion in foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, as Speaker Mike Johnson put his job on the line to advance the long-stalled aid package by marshaling support from mainstream Republicans and Democrats. In four back-to-back votes, overwhelming bipartisan coalitions of lawmakers approved fresh rounds of […]
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The House on Saturday was heading toward passage of a $95 billion foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, as Speaker Mike Johnson put his job on the line to advance the long-stalled legislation in defiance against hard-liners from his own party. Lawmakers were expected on Saturday afternoon to vote separately on aid for […]
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From the bloody trenches of the battlefield to crowded cities battered by Russian bombardments, millions of Ukrainians waited in nervous anticipation as the United States Congress prepared, after months of delay, to decide if America will resume providing their country with critical military support. Private Pavlo Kaliuk, who has been fighting to slow the Russian […]
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The House took a critical step on Friday toward approving a long-stalled package of aid to Ukraine, Israel and other American allies, as Democrats supplied the crucial votes to push the legislation past Republican opposition so that it could be considered on the floor. The 316-94 vote cleared the way for the House to bring […]
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House Republicans took a critical step late Thursday night toward bringing up the long-stalled foreign aid bill for Ukraine and Israel, after being forced to rely on Democratic votes to move a plan to consider it out of a key committee and onto the floor. The 9-to-3 vote in the critical Rules Committee was an […]
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The House is set to vote this weekend on a foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan that has been stalled for months. Similar legislation passed the Senate in February with bipartisan support, but, in order to steer around opposition from members of his own party, Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, is […]
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Speaker Mike Johnson’s push to advance an aid package for Ukraine in the face of vehement opposition from his own party was never going to be easy. But it has been made even more politically perilous by a pair of concessions to the far right that he inherited from his predecessor: allowing a single lawmaker […]
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As former President Donald Trump’s first criminal trial begins, there is one battle taking place in a Manhattan courtroom, where he faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. But there is another fight taking place in the court of public opinion, which concerns a much more basic question: What should this trial even be […]
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Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday told Republicans that the House would vote Saturday evening on his foreign aid package for Israel and Ukraine, pushing through resistance in his own party to advance a long-stalled national security spending package for U.S. allies. His announcement came amid a crush of opposition from Republicans who are vehemently against […]
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Speaker Mike Johnson’s elaborate plan for pushing aid to Ukraine through the House over his own party’s objections relies on an unusual strategy: He is counting on House Democrats and their leader, Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, to provide the votes necessary to clear the way for it to come to the floor. If […]
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Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday encountered stiff resistance from Republicans as he embarked on a complicated and politically perilous strategy to push legislation through the House to send aid to Israel and Ukraine — all while beating back a threat to his own job. Mr. Johnson, who has agonized for months over whether and how […]
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After two months of delay, House Republicans on Tuesday delivered articles of impeachment against Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, to the Senate, as they demanded a full trial. Constitutional scholars have called the case against Mr. Mayorkas groundless, and the Democrats who control the Senate have made it clear that they want to […]
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Speaker Mike Johnson said on Sunday after Iran’s overnight attack on Israel that the House would vote in the coming days on aid for Israel, and he suggested that aid for Ukraine could be included in the legislation. “House Republicans and the Republican Party understand the necessity of standing with Israel,” Mr. Johnson said on […]
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Speaker Mike Johnson had a difficult week. He is facing a revolt from one of the most conservative members of his caucus that could cost him his job. The prospect of providing additional aid to Ukraine continues to meet opposition. And it took three tries for the House to renew a warrantless surveillance bill. Then, […]
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Shortly after congressional leaders met with Japan’s prime minister in Speaker Johnson’s ceremonial office in the Capitol on Thursday morning, the conversation turned to Ukraine aid. Mr. Johnson was in the middle of another agonizing standoff with the ultraconservatives in his conference, after they had blocked legislation to extend a major warrantless surveillance law that […]
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The House on Friday passed a two-year reauthorization of an expiring warrantless surveillance law known as Section 702, reversing course after the bill collapsed days earlier when former President Donald J. Trump urged his allies to “kill” it. But disappointing privacy advocates, the House narrowly rejected a longstanding proposal to require warrants to search for […]
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Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has made her first-ever contribution to the campaign arm of House Democrats — a $260,000 donation that is a milestone in the New York Democrat’s long and complicated relationship with her own party’s political establishment. In an interview, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said her decision to give to the campaign arm, the Democratic Congressional […]
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