AP US Politics News

By DAVID A. LIEB and JESSE BEDAYN Associated Press A battle between Texas Republicans and California Democrats to bolster their party’s advantage in the U.S. House has led politicians in other states to consider ways they, too, could leverage partisan power to rack up more victories in the 2026 congressional elections. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott

By The Associated Press A standoff in Texas over redrawn U.S. House maps escalated as dozens of Democratic lawmakers fled the state to block a vote on a redrawn congressional map sought by President Donald Trump to shore up Republicans’ 2026 midterm prospects. ___ This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.

By JENNIFER PELTZ Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Jeffrey Epstein ‘s former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, wants to keep grand jury records secret in the sex trafficking case that sent her to prison, her lawyers said Tuesday as prosecutors continued urging a court to release some of those records in the criminal case-turned-political fireball. Maxwell

By JACK BROOK and MICHAEL CASEY Associated Press BOSTON (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from reallocating $4 billion meant to help communities protect against natural disasters. U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns in Boston granted a preliminary injunction sought by 20 Democrat-led states while their lawsuit over the funding

By JIM VERTUNO Associated Press AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday asked the state’s highest court to remove the Democratic House leader from office, escalating efforts to end the holdout that is blocking redrawn U.S. House maps sought by President Donald Trump. Bypassing lower courts, Abbott filed a rare emergency

By JOEY CAPPELLETTI Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer met with President Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday to discuss the toll tariffs are taking on the auto industry and the potential effects of his tax and spending bill on Medicaid. It’s the latest in a string of meetings between

By ERIC TUCKER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — News that Attorney General Pam Bondi is advancing a criminal investigation into the Obama-era origins of the Trump-Russia investigation means that one of the most studied, and politically polarizing, chapters of modern American history will be under the microscope yet again. Here’s a look at what’s known

By ANTHONY IZAGUIRRE Associated Press It might be hard to find someone to have your back in politics if you get caught lying about your life story, become one of a handful of people ever expelled from Congress and then are thrown into federal prison. But George Santos is no ordinary former politician. In a

By SEUNG MIN KIM and MEG KINNARD Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday established a task force on the 2028 Olympic Games being held in Los Angeles that he said would ensure the event is “safe, seamless and historically successful.” The 2028 Games will be the first Olympics to be hosted

By The Associated Press The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed the Department of Justice on Tuesday for files in the sex trafficking investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, part of a congressional probe that lawmakers believe may show links to President Donald Trump and other former top officials. The Republican-controlled committee also issued subpoenas for depositions with former

By NICHOLAS RICCARDI, LINLEY SANDERS and AMELIA THOMSON-DEVEAUX Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Mairekk Griffiths, a 26-year-old cook in a Denver suburb, doesn’t think he’ll ever pay a lot of attention to U.S. politics unless radical change happens. “If another party was likely to win, I’d be interested in that,” said Griffiths, who voted for

By JOSH BOAK Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — When the coronavirus surged during President Donald Trump’s first term, he called for a simple fix: Limit the amount of testing so the deadly outbreak looked less severe. When he lost the 2020 election, he had a ready-made reason: The vote count was fraudulent. And on Friday,

By ERIC TUCKER and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Pam Bondi has directed that the Justice Department move forward with a probe into the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation following the recent release of documents aimed at undermining the legitimacy of the inquiry that established that Moscow interfered on the

By BECKY BOHRER Associated Press JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, speaking with Alaska reporters Monday, toyed with the idea of running for governor and defended her recent high-profile decision to vote in support of President Donald Trump’s tax breaks and spending cuts bill. Murkowski, speaking from Anchorage, said “sure” when asked

By MICHAEL R. BLOOD AP Political Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) — California Democrats are considering new political maps that could slash five Republican-held House seats in the liberal-leaning state while bolstering Democratic incumbents in other battleground districts. The move comes in direct response to efforts by Texas Republicans to redraw House districts in order to

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — The monthly jobs report is already closely-watched on Wall Street and in Washington but has taken on a new importance after President Donald Trump on Friday fired the official who oversees it. Trump claimed that June’s employment figures were “RIGGED” to make him and other Republicans

By MELISSA GOLDIN Associated Press Days after he sent letters instructing top pharmaceutical manufacturers to use a “most favored nation” pricing model for prescription drugs, President Donald Trump told reporters on Sunday that he had cut costs by up to 1,500%. But Trump’s grandiose claim is mathematically impossible. Here’s a closer look at the facts.

By MIKE SCHNEIDER Associated Press ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Federal and state officials in Florida must produce agreements showing which government agency or private contractor has legal authority to detain people or perform immigration officer roles at “Alligator Alcatraz,” the immigration detention facility in the Everglades, a federal judge said Monday. Officials must provide by

By MEG KINNARD Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — In firing the head of the agency that produces monthly jobs figures, President Donald Trump alleged that the recent weaker-than-expected numbers were phony and that positive numbers reported before the 2024 election were manipulated to make him look bad. It’s a familiar cadence Trump has adopted in

By KEVIN FREKING Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawmakers have left Washington for the annual August recess, but a few weeks of relative quiet on the U.S. Capitol grounds can’t mask the partisan tensions that are brewing on government funding and President Donald Trump’s nominees. It could make for a momentous September. Here’s a look

By BRUCE SCHREINER Associated Press CALVERT CITY, Ky. (AP) — Republican Nate Morris had deftly warmed up a crowd of party faithful, gushing about President Donald Trump and recounting his own life’s journey — from hardscrabble childhood to wealthy entrepreneur — when he turned his attention to the man he wants to replace, Sen. Mitch

By DAVID A. LIEB Associated Press When Democratic lawmakers left Texas to try to prevent the Republican-led Legislature from redrawing the state’s congressional districts, it marked the latest episode in a long national history of gerrymandering. The word “gerrymander” was coined in America more than 200 years ago as an unflattering means of describing political

By JEFF AMY Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) — Former University of Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley on Monday announced his 2026 Republican bid for the U.S. Senate in Georgia against Democratic incumbent Jon Ossoff. The 57-year-old Dooley is backed by Gov. Brian Kemp and has been teasing a bid since June. He joins a GOP