*By Carlo Versano*
There is an unspoken tradition in Washington that the president faces the press a day after a midterm election that revokes power from his party in Congress. When Democrats gained control of both houses in 2006, a humbled President George W. Bush called it a "thumping." In 2010, an equally-chastened President Barack Obama admitted his party took a "shellacking."
No such thing happened on Wednesday.
President Trump vacillated between subdued and combative as he called Tuesday's election ー in which Democrats took control of the House and several pivotal governorships ー a "very close-to-complete victory."
Trump took credit for the GOP's ability to maintain control of the Senate and blamed certain losses of House Republican candidates on their disloyalty. He praised Rep. Nancy Pelosi, calling her "very smart," but then warned House Democrats that he would have Senate Republicans probe their conduct, should they use their newfound subpoena power to investigate him.
In a nearly two-hour-long press conference from the East Room of the White House that began with a low-key statement but quickly deteriorated into a rollicking Q&A, the president ratcheted up his antagonism of the gathered press corps. He called CNN's Jim Acosta a "rude, terrible person" and excoriated PBS' Yamiche Alcindor for asking "a racist question" when she attempted to probe him on whether his rhetoric was emboldening white nationalists.
As the president spoke, the AP called the contested Montana Senate race for Jon Tester, one of the Democrats that Trump was reportedly most hoping to defeat.
Prices paid by U.S. consumer jumped 7% in December from a year earlier, the highest inflation rate since 1982.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell told lawmakers on Tuesday during his confirmation hearing that it is time to wind down the central bank's aggressive pandemic-era policies.
President Biden on Tuesday called on the Senate to change its rules to allow the passage of voting rights legislation in his most pointed remarks yet on the issue.
2021's supply chain woes are quickly becoming a 2022 problem as well. Here's what experts are anticipating for Year Two of the supply chain crisis.
U.S. employers added a modest 199,000 jobs last month while the unemployment rate fell sharply, at a time when businesses are struggling to fill jobs with many Americans remaining reluctant to return to the workforce.
A top Tennessee House Republican lawmaker has apologized for losing his temper and being ejected from watching a high school basketball game after getting into a confrontation with a referee.
Locked in a dispute over his COVID-19 vaccination status, Novak Djokovic was confined to an immigration detention hotel in Australia on Thursday.
President Joe Biden addressed the nation Thursday from the U.S. Capitol Building, as it marks one year since rioters breached the building in a deadly attack.
Federal Reserve policymakers at a meeting last month said the U.S. job market was nearly at levels healthy enough that the central bank's low-interest rate policies were no longer needed.
The U.S. and the Iraqi military say a Katyusha rocket has struck an Iraqi military base hosting U.S. troops at Baghdad’s international airport, and in Syria, eight rounds of indirect fire hit a base where members of the U.S.-led coalition are deployed.
