President Trump nominated Chris Klomp for deputy health secretary on Thursday, cementing the influential aide's role as a de facto No. 2 to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Why it matters: Klomp has won praise from health industry leaders and other stakeholders since being elevated from Medicare director to chief counselor of the Department of Health and Human Services in February. - His nomination adds to the backlog of Trump health appointments awaiting Senate action — including Erica Schwartz for Centers for Disease Control director and Nicole Saphier for surgeon general. Driving the news: "Chris is a Strong and Inspiring Leader and a Highly Successful Entrepreneur. Everywhere Chris goes, he earns TRUST," Trump said in…
President Trump is demanding that Congress pass the SAVE America Act to change American elections. Our national politics reporter Nick Corasaniti looks at what’s in it.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s pledge to freeze rents for rent-stabilized apartments became a centerpiece of his campaign. Six months into his first year, a city panel delivered.
Moderate House Democrats are warning they're prepared for "war" if incoming progressives and democratic socialists try to hijack the House floor to secure ideological concessions. Why it matters: This strategy would mean even more work for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) to tamp down divisions and keep his caucus unified come 2027. - Despite being generally more closely aligned with Jeffries than the progressive wing, these centrists say they cannot allow their party to be dragged to the left without a fight. - "Clearly there has to be organization," one centrist House Democrat told Axios. "You can't just wring your hands on this stuff." - "There's going to be a war," a second centrist lawmaker said, calling the…
The Trump administration has asked OpenAI to limit the release of its next model, GPT-5.6, to only a small set of government-approved partners before any wider release, citing security concerns, according to a source familiar with the matter. Why it matters: This marks the first time the U.S. government has preemptively asked an American AI company to restrict the launch of a model before release. Driving the news: The White House's Office of the National Cyber Director and the Office of Science and Technology Policy asked OpenAI to limit the rollout of GPT-5.6 as the administration builds a framework for testing and evaluating the security of new models, per the source. - The Information reported earlier Thursday that OpenAI CEO Sam…
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) emerged from a White House meeting Thursday with two much-needed wins: - President Trump publicly urged House Republicans to stop tanking procedural votes , which could help unstick the House floor. - Johnson officially transmitted the bipartisan housing bill to the White House, a sign of confidence that it's on track to become law after Trump had refused to sign it just a day earlier. Why it matters: The SAVE America Act has consumed the House GOP, with some Republicans frustrated that a bill they've already passed three times is now paralyzing their agenda. - Johnson was forced to scrap votes and end the House's workweek early after conservatives made clear they would tank rule votes on the floor over the…
After the Supreme Court struck down Hawai'i's gun law Thursday, lawmakers and gun-control advocates are reassessing which firearm restrictions they can enact that this court will let stand. Why it matters: The ruling shows how hard it has become to design modern gun laws under the court's exacting standard, which asks whether any new restrictions fit within the nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation. - Hawaiʻi crafted its law specifically to survive that test — and still lost, 6-3. Driving the news: The court's ruling in Wolford v. Lopez determined that the state can't force private businesses open to the public to be gun-free zones. - The justices effectively shifted the burden of keeping guns out of private…