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WASHINGTON (AP) — Next week's presidential election isn't just a referendum on Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. It's also a measure of the influence the world's richest man wields over American democracy. Elon Musk, the South African-born tech and business titan, has spent at least $119 million mobilizing Trump's supporters to back the Republican nominee. His social media platform, X, has become a firehose of pro-Trump propaganda. And he's playing a starring role in Trump-style rallies in critical battleground states. All the while, he's c...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Elon Musk, a tech mogul who is the world's richest person, plunged more than $70 million into helping Donald Trump and other Republicans win in November's election, making him one of the biggest donors to GOP causes this campaign season, according to campaign finance disclosures released this week. Musk made the donated over the summer to America PAC, a super political action committee he launched in May to aid Trump in his bid to return to the White House. It quickly became a central player in Trump's election effort. "The A...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Thursday addressed Jewish donors and an organization gathered to focus on efforts to fight antisemitism hours after an explosive CNN report detailed how one of his allies running for North Carolina governor made a series of racial and sexual comments on a website where he also referred to himself as a "black NAZI." North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson vowed to remain in the race despite the report, and the Trump campaign appeared to be distancing itself from the candidate, while still calling...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Italo Medelius was leading a volunteer drive to put Cornel West on North Carolina's presidential ballot last spring when he received an unexpected call from a man named Paul who said he wanted to help. Though Medelius, co-chairman of West's "Justice for All Party," welcomed the assistance, the offer would complicate his life, provoking threats and drawing him into a state election board investigation of the motivations, backgrounds and suspect tactics of his new allies. His is not an isolated case. Across the country, a n...
WASHINGTON (AP) — As California's attorney general, Kamala Harris successfully defended the death penalty in court, despite her past crusade against it. As a new senator, she proposed abolishing cash bail — a reversal from when she chided San Francisco judges for making it "cheaper" to commit crimes by setting bail amounts too low. And now, as vice president and the Democratic presidential nominee, Harris' campaign insists she does not want to ban fracking, an oil and gas extraction process, even though that was precisely her position just a f...
WASHINGTON (AP) — As he campaigned for the presidency, Joe Biden promised to spend billions of dollars to "save the world" from climate change. One of the largest players in the solar industry was ready. Officials, board members and major investors in First Solar, the largest domestic maker of solar panels, donated at least $1.5 million to Biden's successful 2020 bid for the White House. After he won, the company spent $2.8 million more lobbying his administration and Congress, records show — an effort that included high-level meetings wit...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Alexander Smirnov was cast by Republicans as one of the FBI's most trusted informants, offering a "highly credible" account of brazen public corruption by Joe Biden that formed a pillar of the House impeachment investigation of the Democratic president. Then, last month, the script changed dramatically. Smirnov, 43, finds himself charged with lying to the FBI, accused of fabricating a tale of bribery and espionage involving then-Vice President Biden and the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, and he has told officials he has R...
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AP) — Facing a cash crunch and harsh criticism from a faction of far-right conservatives, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel on Friday called for the party to unite behind the goal of defeating President Joe Biden. McDaniel spoke at the RNC's winter meeting in Las Vegas behind closed doors on Friday, addressing a gathering of state chairmen and other top party members in what's expected to be a critical swing state in the November election. "We Republicans will stick together, as united as the union o...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Before House Speaker Mike Johnson was elected to public office, he was the dean of a small Baptist law school that didn't exist. The establishment of the Judge Paul Pressler School of Law was supposed to be a capstone achievement for Louisiana College, which administrators boasted would "unashamedly embrace" a "biblical worldview." Instead, it collapsed roughly a decade ago without enrolling students or opening its doors amid infighting by officials, accusations of financial impropriety and difficulty obtaining accreditation,...
WASHINGTON (AP) — When Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas headlined a 2017 program at McLennan Community College in Texas, his hosts had more than a speech in mind. Working with the prominent conservative lawyer Ken Starr, school officials crafted a guest list for a dinner at the home of a wealthy Texas businessman, hoping an audience with Thomas would be a reward for school patrons -– and an inducement to prospective donors. Before Justice Elena Kagan visited the University of Colorado's law school in 2019, one official in Boulder suggested...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The IRS failed to pursue mandatory audits of Donald Trump on a timely basis during his presidency, a congressional panel found on Tuesday, raising questions about statements by the former president and leading members of his administration who claimed he could not release his tax filings because of the ongoing reviews. A report released by the Democratic majority on the House Ways and Means Committee indicated the Trump administration may have disregarded an IRS requirement dating back to 1977 that mandates audits of a p...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Florida Sen. Rick Scott said Tuesday that he will mount a long-shot bid to unseat Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, opening the latest front in an intraparty battle between allies of McConnell and former President Donald Trump over the direction of the GOP following a disappointing showing in last week's midterm elections. The announcement by Scott, who was urged to challenge McConnell by Trump, came hours before the former president is expected to launch a comeback bid for the White House. It escalated a long simmerin...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the Arizona Democrat who single-handedly thwarted her party's longtime goal of raising taxes on wealthy investors, received nearly $1 million over the past year from private equity professionals, hedge fund managers and venture capitalists whose taxes would have increased under the plan. For years, Democrats have promised to raise taxes on such investors, who pay a significantly lower rate on their earnings than ordinary workers. But just as they closed in on that goal last week, Sinema forced a series o...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Facebook on Monday removed a campaign video by Republican Missouri U.S. Senate candidate Eric Greitens that shows him brandishing a shotgun and declaring that he's hunting RINOs, or Republicans In Name Only. In the ad, Greitens, a former Missouri governor who resigned in disgrace in 2018, is flanked by a tactical unit outside a home on a tree-lined street as he whispers, "The RINO feeds on corruption and is marked by the stripes of cowardice," using a term popularized by former President Donald Trump and his allies to d...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Amid a steady drip of damaging headlines, pressure is building for Congress to pass legislation that would curtail lawmakers' ability to speculate on the stock market. Trading in Congress has long been criticized by government watchdogs, who say the access to nonpublic information creates a temptation for lawmakers to prioritize their own finances over the public good. But public anger has mounted since the first tremors of the pandemic, when some lawmakers were caught buying and selling millions of dollars worth of stock a...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate approved legislation Tuesday to lift the nation's debt limit by $2.5 trillion under a deal struck between party leaders, defusing a volatile issue until after next year's midterm elections while saddling majority Democrats with a tough vote. The 50-49 party line vote came just one day shy of a deadline set by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who warned last month that she was running out of maneuvering room to avoid the nation's first-ever default. The measure now moves to the House where a vote could come as e...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Days after firebrand conservative Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado was harshly criticized for making anti-Muslim comments about Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat whom she likened to a bomb-carrying terrorist, the two spoke by phone Monday. By both lawmakers' accounts, it did not go well. The conversation, which Boebert sought after issuing a tepid statement last Friday, offered an opportunity to extend an olive branch in a House riven by tension. Instead, it ended abruptly after Boebert rejected Omar's request for a public...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House voted Wednesday to censure Republican Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona for posting an animated video that depicted him killing Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with a sword, an extraordinary rebuke that highlighted the political strains testing Washington and the country. Calling the video a clear threat to a lawmaker's life, Democrats argued Gosar's conduct would not be tolerated in any other workplace — and shouldn't be in Congress. The vote to censure Gosar and also remove him from his House committee ass...
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — President Joe Biden declared preserving voting rights an urgent national "test of our time" on Tuesday but offered few concrete proposals to meet it. Texas Democrats took their own dramatic action to stymie Republican efforts to tighten ballot restrictions in their state. Biden, who has proclaimed protecting ballot access the central cause of his presidency, has faced sharp criticism from allies for not doing more, though political headwinds and stubborn Senate math have limited his ability to act. Despite his ringing w...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate is set for a key vote Tuesday on a sweeping rewrite of voting and election law, setting up a dramatic test of Democratic unity on a top priority that Republicans are vowing to block. Democrats appeared to be coalescing Thursday around changes to the bill that could win the support of moderate West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, the lone Democratic holdout on the legislation. Yet they still faced lockstep Republican opposition that will likely leave Democrats back where they started: lacking the votes to overcome a R...
WASHINGTON (AP) — A year before her election to Congress, Marjorie Taylor Greene searched for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at her Capitol office, taunting the New York Democrat to "get rid of your diaper" and "talk to the American citizens," as shown in video unearthed Friday by CNN. "I am an American citizen. I pay your salary through the taxes that you collect from me through the IRS," Greene says through the mail slot of a locked door. "I am a woman. I am a female business owner and I'm proud to be an American woman. And I do not support y...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is so determined to stop a sweeping elections overhaul pushed by congressional Democrats that he will personally argue against it, armed with a stack of amendments at a Senate hearing this week as Democrats advance the bill toward a vote. It's a rare role for a party leader but shows the extent to which Republicans are prepared to fight the Democratic priority. The legislation would be the largest overhaul of U.S. elections in a generation and touches on almost every aspect of the e...
Big business has ratcheted up its objections to proposals that would make it harder to vote, with several hundred companies and executives signing a new statement opposing "any discriminatory legislation." The letter, published Wednesday in The New York Times and The Washington Post, was signed by companies including Amazon, Google, Starbucks and Bank of America, and individuals such as Warren Buffett and Michael Bloomberg, plus law firms and nonprofit groups. It was the largest group yet to join protests against Republican efforts to change...
Washington (AP) — House Democrats are poised to pass a sweeping elections and ethics bill, offering it up as a powerful counterweight to voting rights restrictions advancing in Republican-controlled statehouses across the country. House Resolution 1, which touches on virtually every aspect of the electoral process, would restrict partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts, strike down hurdles to voting and bring transparency to a murky campaign finance system that allows wealthy donors to anonymously bankroll political causes. This b...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene lashed out Friday at "morons" in both parties who voted to kick her off her committees, a day after the House meted out the unprecedented punishment that Democrats said she'd earned by spreading hateful and violent conspiracy theories. Underscoring the political vise her inflammatory commentary has clamped her party into, all but 11 Republicans voted against the Democratic move on Thursday but none rose to defend her lengthy history of outrageous social media posts. In the most riveting moment of t...
