The 2024 election is projected to be the most expensive cycle in history, according to an AdImpact report released Tuesday.
Why it matters: Presidential general election spending is expected to swell to $2.1 billion, with seven battlegrounds driving three-fourths of that spending.
House Republicans have fallen into a state of paralyzed chaos on their second day back from recess, with no obvious exit ramp in a government spending fight of their own creation.
Why it matters: On the first night of the House speaker election — after hard-right rebels denied Kevin McCarthy the gavel on three consecutive ballots — we published a piece headlined, "The ungovernable House GOP." Eight months later, that sentiment has never rung more true.
Parts of New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham's emergency health order suspending the right to carry guns in public in the state's largest metro area was temporarily blocked by a federal judge in Albuquerque on Wednesday.
Driving the news: U.S. District Court Judge David Urias said in his decision that the 30-day suspension in Albuquerque and the surrounding Bernalillo County contravened a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said it's a constitutional right to carry a weapon in public for self-defense purposes.
Florida's Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo cautioned against COVID boosters for people younger than 65 Wednesday.
Why it matters: The DeSantis administration said Florida is the first state in the country to recommend against boosters for under-65s. The recommendation contradicts CDC guidance that calls for "everyone 6 months and older" to receive the new boosters ahead of the winter virus season.
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) privately toyed with creating a new political party that would "endorse whichever party's nominee isn't stupid," The Atlantic's McKay Coppins writes in the first excerpt from an upcoming biography.
Why it matters: Romney said Wednesday he floated the new party with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) "months ago" and has tried to convince the centrist Democrat not to run as an independent in 2024.
The Atlantic's McKay Coppinsis out with the first excerpt of his highly anticipated biography of Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), timed to the 2012 GOP presidential nominee's announcement today that he will not seek re-election.
Why it matters: Romney — the only GOP senator to vote to convict former President Trump in his first impeachment trial — was brutally honest about his Republican colleagues over the course of two years of interviews with Coppins.
North Korea leader Kim Jong-un met with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Wednesday amid rising concerns about military cooperation between the two U.S. adversaries.
Why it matters:U.S. officials are worried that Pyongyang could supply weapons to the Kremlin for Putin's war in Ukraine. Asked whether the leaders would discuss arms supplies or "military-technical co-operation," Putin said "we will discuss all issues," per a BBC translation.
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said Wednesday he will not seek a second term in the Senate, telling the Washington Post it is time for a new generation to "step up."
Why it matters: It marks the end of a decades-long political career for the former Massachusetts governor and 2012 GOP presidential nominee, who in recent years became one of the most high-profile Republican critics of former President Trump.
Sen. Tim Scott's campaign is pushing the Republican Party to change the qualifying and podium placement rules for the upcoming GOP presidential debates, calling for more emphasis on polls in early voting states rather than national polls.
Why it matters: Qualifying for the third debate will be critical for every campaign — and being closer to the center of the stage often correlates with more speaking time, as it largely did in the first debate last month.
The White House on Wednesday emailed the leaders of several major news organizations, including Axios, arguing the media needs to "ramp up its scrutiny" of House Republicans' efforts to impeach President Biden.
Why it matters: The White House argues that the media's reporting about incremental updates on the impeachment inquiry process over the substance of the inquiry "is woefully inadequate when it comes to something as historically grave as impeachment."
A federal judge on Wednesday issued a protective order against former President Trump limiting how and when he can discuss restricted information with his legal team in his classified documents criminal case.
Why it matters: Special counsel Jack Smith sought the limitations, which permit Trump to only talk about the documents in secure locations to prevent the "unauthorized" disclosure of sensitive national security information.
Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows' request for an emergency stay in Georgia was rejected, according to a new court filing Wednesday.
Driving the news: Meadows, one of former President Trump's18 co-defendants in the sweeping 2020 election interference case, filed the emergency request on Monday after a judge denied a prior request to move the case to federal court.
President Biden's presidential campaign sent a fundraising email on Wednesday slamming the impeachment inquiry and urging supporters to "show that you're standing with the president."
Why it matters: It's the first fundraising email from Biden's campaign since House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) launched the inquiry.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) decision to launch an impeachment inquiry on Tuesday has done little to clear the obstacles in his path to averting a government shutdown.
Why it matters: McCarthy will likely need both GOP hardliners and Democrats to fund the government, but the gambit failed to pacify the former group while incensing the latter.
The Consumer Price Index accelerated in August as gasoline prices soared, though a closely watched measure of underlying inflation showed a more encouraging picture, the Labor Department said on Wednesday.
Why it matters: The report is one of the final inflation reads before the Federal Reserve's interest rate decision next week.
President Biden, befitting his generation, loves newspapers and the classic columnists. David Ignatius, Tom Friedman and David Brooks top his list.
Driving the news: Ignatius, 73, a well-wired Washington Post foreign-affairs columnist who writes spy novels on the side, is out with a column(page A23 Wednesday) with the blunt headline: "President Biden should not run again in 2024."
Just before the 2020 election, Joe Biden and his campaign said his son Hunter hadn't made money from China — and that Biden hadn't met one of Hunter's Ukrainian business associates while he was vice president, except for maybe a brief hello.
Both of those claims were false, according to recent sworn testimony by Hunter Biden and his business partner, Devon Archer.
Why it matters: House Republican leaders now have zeroed in on those two denials by Joe Biden in 2020 tohelp justify an impeachment inquiry into the president.
The expected spike in poverty — particularly child poverty — between 2021 and 2022 shows the impact of letting major pandemic-era safety net program expansions expire, a policy experiment with no precedent in the U.S.
Why it matters: The pandemic programs were enacted as temporary measures. But their expiration still stings for the Americans who experienced an economic boost only to lose it — and there's more to come.
Republican Vivek Ramaswamy says he wants to cut a million civilian employees from the federal government — more than a third of the non-military federal workforce — if he's elected president in 2024.
Why it matters: It's the latest proposal from the political novice that tacks far to the right of every other Republican in the presidential race — in this case, by gutting major government agencies that often have been the scorn of the GOP's most conservative members.
New York City's pension funds, joined by the state of Oregon, filed a lawsuit against Fox Corporation and its board on Tuesday.
Driving the news: The lawsuit, filed under seal in Delaware, accuses the company of failing its responsibility to shareholders by allowing itself to spread false political narratives about the 2020 presidential election and thus making way for defamation cases.
