Donald Trump Twitter Account Video Reveals Covert U.S. Navy SEAL Deployment During Iraq Visit  —  President Donald Trump and the White House communications team revealed that a U.S. Navy SEAL team was deployed to Iraq after the president secretly traveled to the region to meet …

Trump tries to steer shutdown focus to financial impact for Democrats  —  President Donald Trump seemingly added a new spin to his usual shutdown rhetoric Thursday, tweeting that its economic impact disproportionately falls on Democrats.  —  “Have the Democrats finally realized …

Michelle Obama Ends Hillary Clinton's Run as Most Admired  —  WASHINGTON, D.C. — For the first time in 17 years, a woman other than Hillary Clinton has been named by Americans as the woman they admire most.  Former first lady Michelle Obama, who finished second to Clinton three times …

How Mark Burnett Resurrected Donald Trump as an Icon of American Success  —  With “The Apprentice,” the TV producer mythologized Trump—then a floundering D-lister—as the ultimate titan, paving his way to the Presidency.  —  “Expedition: Robinson,” a Swedish reality-television program …

MSNBC Beats Fox News in Weekly Cable News Ratings for First Time Since 2000  —  MSNBC ended the week of Dec. 21st with the #1 cable news ratings on television, beating Fox News for the first time in 17 years.  For the Monday through Friday leading up to the Christmas holiday …

U.S. Stocks Set to Fall After Wall Street's Record Surge  —  Stocks in Japan rise sharply, but European equities broadly drift lower  —  U.S. stocks were poised to drop on Thursday after a record-breaking rally on Wall Street, as anxiety persists about slowing economic growth and uncertain policy out of Washington.

Probe of Trump's charity could crash ‘like a Mack Truck’ into his real estate empire  —  “There seems to be entanglements in terms of people and probably in terms of money,” said Mimi Rocah, a former federal prosecutor and NBC News/MSNBC legal analyst.  —  The Trump Foundation …

Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker Incorrectly Claims Academic All-American Honors  —  Claim from Whitaker's University of Iowa football days listed on résumé and government documents  —  Matthew Whitaker, the acting U.S. Attorney General, has incorrectly claimed …

Giuliani calls for Mueller to be investigated for destruction of FBI evidence  —  Rudy Giuliani has an unmistakable New Year's message for special counsel Robert Mueller: It is time for the chief investigator in the Russia case to be investigated in 2019.  —  In wide-ranging interviews …

California Republicans fear even bigger trouble ahead for their wounded party  —  House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., leaves the chamber after the Republican-led House approved funding for President Donald Trump's border wall in legislation that pushes the government closer …

Trump's presidency has changed Washington, defied convention  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — Mr. Trump went to Washington.  And he changed it.  —  In his first two years in office, President Donald Trump has rewritten the rules of the presidency and the norms of the nation's capital …

Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Knights of Columbus?  —  Recently, Sen. Mazie Hirono claimed that Democrats have a hard time connecting with voters because they (Democrats) are so “smart” and “know so much.”  If Democrats are smart and knowledgeable, you can't prove it by Hirono.

USA TODAY/Suffolk Poll: What do Democrats want in 2020?  Someone new - and Biden.  But definitely not Hillary  —  Former Vice President Joe Biden hints at a 2020 run, saying he thinks he's “the most qualified person” in this Country to be president.  Veuer's Justin Kircher has the story.  —  CONNECT

One year of legal pot sales and California doesn't have the bustling industry it expected.  Here's why. … When Californians voted in 2016 to allow the sale of recreational marijuana, advocates of the move envisioned thousands of pot shops and cannabis farms obtaining state licenses …

Homeland Security Chief Faults Parents, ‘Open Border’ Supporters In Migrant Kids' Deaths  —  Kirstjen Nielsen ordered an overhaul of medical screening procedures at the Mexican border after Felipe Gómez Alonzo, 8, died on Christmas Eve.  —  Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen …

Sweet Shutdown, Roll On  —  It never seems to occur to the Democrats, currently bellyaching about the largely phantom “government shutdown,” that the last people Donald Trump cares about offending are the army of Democrat-voting bureaucrats who will be the only folks inconvenienced by Senator Charles Schumer's latest temper tantrum.

Things really aren't that bad.  But we like to think they are.  —  Mitch Daniels, a Post contributing columnist, is president of Purdue University and a former governor of Indiana.  —  Human nature being as it is, every decade or two someone has to write a book to set us straight and cheer us up.

$800 Million in Taxpayer Money Went to Private Prisons Where Migrants Work for Pennies  —  Detention for migrants is big business—and a Daily Beast investigation reveals new details about just how lucrative it's become.  —  For $3 a day, Yesica works the graveyard shift in the kitchens …

Trump Imperils the Planet  —  Endangered species, climate change — the administration is taking the country, and the world, backward.  —  The editorial board represents the opinions of the board, its editor and the publisher.  It is separate from the newsroom and the Op-Ed section.