Brett McGurk, top U.S. envoy in ISIS fight, resigns  —  Brett McGurk, special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, had been planning to exit his post in February 2019.  But sources tell CBS News that he informed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that he will accelerate …

For Trump, ‘a War Every Day,’ Waged Increasingly Alone  —  At the midpoint of his term, the president has grown more sure of his own judgment and more isolated from anyone else's than at any point since he took office.  —  WASHINGTON — When President Trump grows frustrated with advisers during meetings …

Trump Plan to Win the Shutdown: A Noun, a Verb, and ‘Caravan’  —  The White House intends to send surrogates on television to hammer Democrats and to accuse them of wanting drugs, terror, and ‘trafficking’ pouring over the southern border.  —  With the latest government shutdown …

Trump Discusses Firing Fed's Powell After Latest Rate Hike, Sources Say  — Advisers warn ousting Fed chairman would lead to market rout  — President's legal authority to remove Powell is unclear  —  President Donald Trump has discussed firing Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell …

Russians launched pro-Jill Stein social media blitz to help Trump win election, reports say  —  Building support for Stein was one of a “roster of themes” the Moscow-sanctioned internet trolls “turned to repeatedly,” report says.  —  Two days before the 2016 presidential election …

A reporter's dispatch from Trump country featured a ‘Mexicans Keep Out’ sign.  But he made it all up.  —  When an out-of-town journalist showed up in Fergus Falls, Minn., in February 2017, Michele Anderson couldn't help but feel skeptical.  Claas Relotius had been telling residents …

Cory Booker Is Building A 2020 Campaign That's Just Like Him: Vegan, Hyperactive, And Unapologetically Unconventional  —  French fries with Iowans in Newark.  Eager big donors.  A clearly defined message of “radical love.”  Cory Booker has spent a year laying the groundwork for an ambitious possible presidential bid.

It's official.  We lost the Cold War.  —  Perhaps the timing of George H.W. Bush's death last month was merciful.  This way he didn't have to see America lose the Cold War.  —  Bush presided over the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991.  But the triumph he and others earned with American blood …

The GOP Ends Its One-Party Rule In Shambles  —  The government is literally shut down as Republicans get ready to hand over the House to Democrats.  —  WASHINGTON Republicans couldn't believe their luck after the 2016 elections.  Many of them fully expected Hillary Clinton to become president.

Americans have a different view about indicting a sitting president  —  Much has been made of the Justice Department's standing opinion that a sitting president cannot be indicted while in office.  That's an opinion, not settled law, and one that is the subject of lively debate among legal scholars.

You Can't Serve Both Trump and America  —  The story is told of Jim Mattis, when he was the commanding general at Quantico, relieving a young lance corporal on Christmas.  The rest of that wintry day, those entering the front gate of the Marine base were startled to see that the sentry was a general …

The Year of the Old Boys  —  It's hard to overstate the extent to which childish masculinity revealed itself in 2018 as the engine of power in America.  —  Many of us have spent 2018 trying to wrap our heads around how, exactly, the country whose slightly priggish brand was once meritocracy …