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President Donald Trump on Tuesday ordered a total blockade of oil tankers entering or leaving Venezuela, declaring the Nicolás Maduro regime a foreign terrorist organization and accusing it of using stolen U.S. assets to finance terrorism, trafficking and other criminal activity. ‘Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America,’ Trump said on Truth Social. ‘It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like...

A federal judge on Tuesday said he was ‘inclined to deny’ a bid to force the Trump administration to halt construction of the White House ballroom but warned officials not to undertake any irreversible work before a January hearing that could still stop the project. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon said he will hold another hearing during the second week in January and hinted he may still order a pause. ‘Any below ground construction’ in...

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., is being sued by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) for tens of billions of dollars in damages for a lawsuit he filed against the country during his time as Missouri’s attorney general. Schmitt is being sued by the People’s Government of Wuhan Municipality, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Wuhan Institute of Virology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for roughly $50 billion, several years after the lawmaker sued...

There’s a year-end rush in all aspects of life. Businesses try to run up profits in December. Supervisors want to finish employee reviews. Professors must grade exams. Congress is no different. There’s always a race to the finish line in December on Capitol Hill.  This year’s adventure is health care. But it’s a practical impossibility that Congress can actually make law on health care before the calendar flips. Premium spikes for 24 million Americans loom...

President Donald Trump isn’t offended by White House chief of staff Susie Wiles’ comments in Vanity Fair describing him as someone with ‘an alcoholic’s personality.’ On Tuesday, Vanity Fair published the first part of a two-part story about Wiles and the second Trump administration — which White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed featured comments that were ‘wildly’ taken out of context.  In response, Trump and his allies have come to dish out praise for...

Sen. Lindsey Graham warned that the U.S. mission in Venezuela must end with Nicolás Maduro removed from power, arguing that leaving the embattled leader in place after a major U.S. show of force would be a ‘fatal mistake to our standing in the world.’ ‘If after all this, we still leave this guy in power… that’s the worst possible signal you can send to Russia, China, Iran,’ Graham, R-S.C., told reporters after a classified all-senator...

Lawyers for the Trump administration and a historic preservation group are slated to appear in court Tuesday afternoon in a bid to halt — at least temporarily — President Donald Trump’s plan to continue building out a $300 million White House ballroom on the site of the now-demolished East Wing.  ‘No president is legally allowed to tear down portions of the White House without any review whatsoever — not President Trump, not President Biden, and...

Vice President JD Vance brushed off a report from Vanity Fair that White House chief of staff Susie Wiles called him a ‘conspiracy theorist’ on Tuesday. Vance made the comments while taking questions from the press in Pennsylvania, leaning in on his conspiratorial side and suggesting Wiles didn’t intend the comment to be critical. ‘Sometimes I am a conspiracy theorist, but I only believe in the conspiracy theories that are true,’ Vance told reporters. ‘Susie...