Politics

The Associated Press reports: The Republican-led Senate on Monday confirmed Callista Gingrich, wife of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, as the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican. Senators approved her nomination, 70-23, with more than 20 Democrats joining Republicans in backing her for the post. Newt Gingrich is an ally of Trump, who had announced in May that he would nominate …

Patch reports: White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders will brief reporters Monday afternoon at 2 p.m. Eastern. Sanders will likely face questions about the president’s recent decisions on the Iran deal and health care. At a Cabinet meeting earlier in the day, Trump declared that Obamacare is “dead,” despite the fact that his administration is still tasked with enforcing …

CNN reports: Top White House aides, lawmakers, donors and political consultants are privately asking whether President Donald Trump realizes that losing the House next year could put his presidency in peril. In more than a dozen interviews, Republicans inside and outside the White House told CNN conversations are ramping up behind the scenes about whether Trump fully grasps that his …

Yahoo News reports: The Russians who worked for a notorious St. Petersburg “troll factory” that was part of Vladimir Putin’s campaign to influence the 2016 presidential election were required to watch the “House of Cards” television series to help them craft messages to “set up the Americans against their own government,” according to an interview broadcast Sunday (in Russian) with …

The Hill reports: Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) predicted that Democrats would lose to President Trump again if they are too liberal. Durbin — the second highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate — said on local Chicago radio station WLS-AM on Sunday that Democrats shouldn’t “overdo it” by acting too liberal in response to Trump. “We don’t give up on our values, …

The Washington Post reports: Austria became the latest European country to take a sharp turn right on Sunday, with the conservative People’s Party riding a hard-line position on immigration to victory in national elections and likely to form a government with a nationalist party that has long advocated for an even tougher stance. The result puts the 31-year-old foreign minister …

The Washington Examiner reports: President Trump said Monday morning he hopes Hillary Clinton runs for president again in 2020. Trump defeated Clinton nearly one year ago, and the next presidential election is 1,114 days away. In an interview last month with CBS, Clinton said she wouldn’t seek the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020. “I am done with being a candidate,” …

From a lengthy New Yorker profile of Mike Pence: “Trump thinks Pence is great,” Bannon told me. But, according to a longtime associate, Trump also likes to “let Pence know who’s boss.” A staff member from Trump’s campaign recalls him mocking Pence’s religiosity. He said that, when people met with Trump after stopping by Pence’s office, Trump would ask them, …

The Miami Herald reports: Florida has a U.S. senator who once flew aboard the Space Shuttle. A congressional candidate from Miami can go one better: Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera says she’s been aboard a spaceship too. But this one was crewed by aliens. As in extraterrestrials. Three blond, big-bodied beings — two females, one male — visited her when she was …

Buzzfeed reports: A high-stakes legal showdown is brewing for President Donald Trump, as a woman who said he groped her has subpoenaed all documents from his campaign pertaining to “any woman alleging that Donald J. Trump touched her inappropriately.” The previously unreported subpoena was issued in March but entered into the court file last month. The White House did not …

The Hill reports: President Trump headed to his golf course in Virginia with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) Sunday morning, according to multiple reports. Trump departed the White House just after 10:00 a.m., according to a reporter traveling with the president. Trump was wearing a white polo and USA hat, the reporter added. Trump and Paul have had a tense relationship …

Here’s a bit of the story that has Hair Furor raging: President Trump leaves little doubt about what he thinks of his predecessor’s top domestic and international legacies. The health care program enacted by President Barack Obama is “outrageous” and “absolutely destroying everything in its wake.” The nuclear deal with Iran is “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions …

The Washington Post reports: “Saturday Night Live” may have found its most uncharitable caricature of someone in President Trump’s orbit this weekend, featuring Kellyanne Conway as the scary clown from Stephen King’s recently revitalized film, “It.” The real butt of the joke, though, is cable news. In the highly cinematic, prerecorded sketch, CNN’s Anderson Cooper (played by Alex Moffat) stumbles …

The Associated Press reports: Six physician groups are condemning a Trump administration decision to halt payments to insurers under the Obama-era health care law. Their statement Friday calls on Congress to act immediately to restore the payments to prevent what it called “dramatic, if not catastrophic, increases in premiums across the country” and millions of Americans losing coverage. The groups …

According to a screencap tweeted this afternoon by a Fox Business reporter, on Sunday porn mogul Larry Flynt will run a full-page ad in the Washington Post offering a $10 million reward for information leading to the “impeachment and removal for office of “Donald J. Trump.” Back in October 2016, Flynt offer a $1 million bounty for “recordings of Donald …

NBC News reports: President Donald Trump is expected to put the 2015 Iran nuclear deal squarely in the hands of Congress, refusing to certify that Iran is in compliance with the deal but letting lawmakers decide whether to tear it up. Congress will now have to decide if they will reimpose sanctions on Iran with regard to the country’s nuclear …

“We are stopping cold the attacks on Judeo-Christian values. As we approach the end of the year—you know, we’re getting near that beautiful Christmas season that people don’t talk about anymore. They don’t use the word Christmas because it’s not politically correct. You go to department stores and they’ll say Happy New Year and they’ll say other things; it’ll be …

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports: “Shark Tank” billionaire Mark Cuban said Thursday he is “seriously considering” running for president and that he might do so as an independent. Cuban was asked about his political aspirations during an appearance at the Venture Atlanta business conference in Georgia. In recent months, the Dallas Mavericks owner has indicated a presidential run might be in …

At a press conference streamed live on Facebook just now, Republican Sen. Susan Collins announced that she will not leave the Senate next year to run for governor of Maine. Collins put an end to months of speculation when she made her announcement at the Samoset Resort in Rockport Friday morning. Collins is Maine’s senior U.S. Senator, having held her …

The Associated Press reports: In a brash move likely to roil insurance markets, President Donald Trump will “immediately” halt payments to insurers under the Obama-era health care law he has been trying to unravel for months. Before sunrise Friday morning, Trump went on Twitter to urge Democrats to make a deal: “The Democrats ObamaCare is imploding,” he wrote. “Massive subsidy …