democrats

Democrats are set to unveil their “Better Deal” agenda Monday afternoon. And over the past seven months, House Democrats’ campaign arm has sought to foster unity around an economically focused agenda through meetings with stakeholders and conversations with voters.

The goal was to create a unifying message on the economy and jobs that could also be tailored to an individual congressional district as Democrats look flip at least 24 seats and win back the House.

One members of Congress spent his Saturday slinging bags and pouring coffee.

As part of Rep. Eric Swalwell's, D-Calif., #InYourShoes initiative, he worked as a Southwest Airlines baggage handler at Oakland International Airport and a Starbucks barista in Dublin, Calif.

Sergei Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to Washington who was in contact with multiple U.S. officials in Donald Trump’s administration during the 2016 presidential campaign and the lead-up to Trump’s inauguration, left his post over the weekend, the Russian embassy announced in a Saturday morning tweet.

Kislyak was replaced in the interim by Minister-Counseler and Deputy Chief of Mission Denis V. Gonchar until his successor arrives from Moscow.

When congressional Democrats unveil their “better deal” agenda Monday afternoon, they will be trying to reclaim the populist mantle from President Donald Trump.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer says the shift in messaging is about a commitment to reorienting the function of government.

A Republican super PAC aligned with House leadership is preempting the new Democratic messaging point with its own digital ad.

Democrats are expected to unveil their new slogan, “A Better Deal” on Monday. And the Congressional Leadership Fund is launching a digital ad in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s district and in 12 others that President Donald Trump won in November. 

Updated at 9:06 a.m. | Jared Kushner is set to tell the Senate Intelligence Committee he was unaware that Donald Trump Jr. took a meeting with a Russian lawyer expecting to be given Kremlin-provided dirt on Hillary Clinton.

In prepared remarks the president’s son-in-law and senior White House adviser will deliver to the panel behind closed doors later Monday, Kushner will reject the notion that he or other Trump campaign staffers had nefarious ties with Moscow during the 2016 campaign.

A president whose brand is all about flouting basic political manners is getting matched in misbehavior more and more by fellow Republicans in Congress.

The first six months under President Donald Trump have been marked not only by a further coarsening of GOP rhetoric, stoked mainly by incessant infighting in backrooms, but also by increasing defiance of decades of behavioral norms — from Trump’s nominal friends and skeptics alike, when they’ve been trying to work with him and when they’ve been scrambling to maneuver despite him.

Senate appropriators’ forthcoming Pentagon spending bill for fiscal 2018, which will contain tens of billions of dollars less than the House’s measure, should be taken seriously, but not literally.

The Senate spending panel’s defense funding proposal is likely to grow, assuming — as is likely — that an agreement to slightly raise the budget caps is reached, as it has been for every year since the caps called for by the sequester were enacted in 2011.

Democrats are so lost they don’t know how lost they are.

Instead of working feverishly on the substance of a contrast with the imploding Trump administration, they decided it was most important — a year and a half out from the next election — to publicly unveil a new slogan first.