Joe Biden

A classified US intelligence report delivered to the White House on Tuesday was inconclusive on the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, in part due to a lack of information from China, according to US media reports.

The assessment, which was ordered by President Joe Biden 90 days ago, was unable to definitively conclude whether the virus that first emerged in central China had jumped to humans via animals or escaped a highly secure research facility in Wuhan, two US officials familiar with the matter told the Washington Post.

News footage of thousands of Afghans desperate to leave their country as it is overrun by the Taliban evokes painful memories for Phat Bui, who remembers the horror of his 1975 flight from Saigon.

Bui and his family -- parents and eight siblings -- fled the advancing Vietcong with just two changes of clothes.

A group of nine conservative Democrats tried to flex their muscle against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on the infrastructure package -- but ended up with egg on their faces.

For those unfamiliar with Washington jargon, there are actually two infrastructure packages: One is a smaller bipartisan bill that deals with roads and bridges, the second is a budget bill that deals with human infrastructure.

On Tuesday night, the Supreme Court announced a consequential decision that amounted to an aggressive assertion of judicial authority against President Joe Biden.

In a four-sentence order, the justices left in place a lower court's injunction preventing the Biden administration from ending Donald Trump's "Remain in Mexico" policy, which left many asylum-seekers unable to enter the United States as their cases proceed through the long and arduous process. Essentially, the court is saying Biden has to continue to Trump's policy because he didn't end it in the right way. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who was appointed by Trump, had previously ordered Biden to continue the policy on the grounds that the decision to reverse it was "arbitrary and capricious." The Supreme Court has upheld that procedural move, which is now expected to stay in place as the litigation proceeds.

Former Trump White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany told Fox News on Tuesday that former President Donald Trump's tenure in office was practically crisis free.

While talking with host Jesse Watters, McEnany pointed to the current evacuation in Afghanistan as proof that Biden wasn't up to running the country, and she predicted three more years of crises to come.

On Tuesday, Cristiano Lima of The Washington Post reported that the Federal Communications Commission is proposing a $5 million dollar fine against pro-Trump serial scammers Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman for a series of illegal robocalls trying to suppress voter turnout.

Wohl and Burkman's robocalls sought to trick voters out of casting ballots by mail by falsely telling them that the personal information of absentee voters "will be part of a public database that will be used by police departments to track down old warrants and be used by credit card companies to collect outstanding debts."

In a Fox News interview Tuesday, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) blamed former President Donald Trump for causing many of the problems that are being seen in Afghanistan.

"He set this in motion," said Cheney, whose father was in the White House when the war first began. "The idea that you can sit at a table and negotiate with the Taliban, count on them to defend our security, is wrong."

Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., is a hardcore Donald Trump loyalist and alleged architect of the "Stop the Steal" movement, which led to the Jan. 6 insurrection. That didn't prevent him from being the target of ire on Saturday night at a Trump rally in Cullman, Alabama, after encouraging the crowd to move on from the 2020 election.

Brooks was in the process of introducing Trump himself — who may or may not be planning to run again in 2024, and claims it's "illegal" for him to make that clear (it's not) — when the congressman suddenly wandered into dangerous terrain.

According to an analysis by CNN contributor Ronald Brownstein, Republican-held governors' seats in three of the four sunbelt states that are being ravaged by the resurgent COVID-19 pandemic are at risk of being flipped in the 2022 midterm elections.

All four states, Florida, Arizona, Texas and Georgia, are currently led by GOP governors who have been blocking efforts to slow the spread of the Delta variant which, in turn, has put them at odds with a majority of their constituents and could come back to haunt several of them as they run for re-election.

The biggest threat to American democracy isn't a military coup -- but from the U.S. Supreme Court , according to one legal expert.

Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, feared former president Donald Trump might orchestrate a "Reichstag moment" to retain power after his election loss, and he and other military leaders resolved to stop any such action, but Los Angeles Times legal affairs columnist Harry Litman published a new piece explaining why the government's own judicial branch poses an even greater threat.

US Central Intelligence Agency chief William Burns held a secret meeting in Kabul with Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.

The Monday meeting, which if confirmed will have been the highest-level encounter between the Islamist group and the Biden administration since the militants' return to power, came as efforts to evacuate thousands of people from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan became increasingly urgent.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) said he and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) have the blessing of former president Donald Trump to raise money off baseless claims about the 2020 election.

The Florida Republican has held a series of rallies with Greene to help build support for a Trump presidential bid in 2024, and the twice-impeached one-term president has spoken to the pair about their efforts and given his support, reported Business Insider.