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President Biden on Monday urged Congress to raise the debt ceiling, blaming Republicans for the impasse and warning of a potential economic calamity if the U.S. defaults on its financial obligations for the first time in history. “The United States is a nation that pays its bills and always has from its inception. We have never defaulted,” Mr. Biden said in remarks from the White House. Mr. Biden accused Senate Republicans of playing “Russian roulette” with the economy by threatening to use their filibuster power to block Democrats from raising the debt limit. The president described the Republicans’ position as “hypocritical, dangerous and disgraceful.” The U.S. is fast approaching the Oct. 18 deadline to raise the cap on the maximum amount of money the government can borrow to pay its bi...

Warring Democrats were forcing President Biden on Sunday to pick up the pieces of his shattered first-year economic plan for trillions of dollars in new spending and massive tax increases, with liberals saying they had no choice but to remind the White House that its agenda included huge benefits for families and not just cash for roads and bridges to enthuse the centrist wing. Mr. Biden will promote his agenda in Michigan on Tuesday as part of a take-it-to-the-people tour after a Friday visit to Capitol Hill failed to mollify the factions and delayed a House vote on an infrastructure package that passed the Senate in August. The delay was a coup for liberals who, hoping to strike before the midterm campaign season, are withholding support for the bipartisan achievement until they see a bi...

What a difference a year makes on the border. In August 2020, the Trump administration managed something stunning. Border Patrol agents caught more than 47,000 illegal immigrants and immediately released just 10 of them into the interior. This August, under President Biden, the Border Patrol made more than 195,000 arrests and released 43,941 people — an increase of more than 430,000%. Security experts say that’s the difference between a secure border and an unprecedented migrant surge. “If you tell the migrant they’re not going to be released, they’re not going to come. If a migrant knows they will not be released into the United States awaiting their immigration process, they will not come,” said Mark Morgan, who served as acting head of Customs and Border Protection in the Trump administ...

DENVER — Celeste Archer was driving to work at the University of Colorado Denver last month when she learned she had been banned from campus because she had contracted or been exposed to the coronavirus — which wasn’t true. Before Ms. Archer had a chance to clear it up, however, she was told she would need to undergo contact tracing and school administrators were alerted to her status — all based on an anonymous complaint that her attorney described as a “hoax.” “I called the person who was the signatory of that email and said, ‘What is this? I don’t have COVID, never have had it, have no symptoms,’” Ms. Archer told The Washington Times. “And her reply to me was that ‘somebody heard that they heard that you were showing symptoms or had tested positive.’ And that’s when I said, ‘I’m sorry, ...

Virginia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Terry McAuliffe boasts that he presided over booming economic growth in the commonwealth during his time as governor, but the numbers show a different story. Mr. McAuliffe, running for a second, nonconsecutive four-year term against Republican businessman Glenn Youngkin, describes himself on the campaign trail as a governor who “created 200,000, new high-paying jobs.” Since 2009, when Mr. McAuliffe first ran for governor, he promised to “create more jobs than all the other 49 governors.” He made the same promise at a 2013 debate during his second run for governor. He followed up with the pledge each year after that until 2017, during his term as governor. “I did it before, and they all know with a Democratic legislature, boy, I feel bad for those o...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has signaled to party leaders that she plans on sticking around through the 2024 elections and is hoping the lingering shadow of former President Donald Trump will help Democrats defend their slim House majority in the midterm elections next year. Those hopes will take a severe blow if Mrs. Pelosi can’t resolve the messy negotiations over President Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure plan and $3.5 trillion reconciliation package. The bills have fractured the moderate and liberal wings of her caucus. The spotlight is on the ability of Mrs. Pelosi, 81, to salvage her party’s agenda and on her future as the leader of a Democratic caucus riven by generational and ideological differences. Rep. Gregory W. Meeks, New York Democrat, said he isn’t sure what the future hold...

For the past 30 years, Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake thrived in the highly competitive world of TV journalism — and then, she says, “fake news” drove her out of the biz and into politics. She spent two decades in the Phoenix market and became a local celebrity, someone Arizonans trusted to deliver the news of the day. Now, as a front-runner for the Republican nomination for governor, Ms. Lake fuels her campaign by railing at “fake news” and the dishonesty of the industry she once revered. Her metamorphosis began with her reaction to news outlets’ coverage of former President Donald Trump, whom she said she secretly supported since 2016. “I thought, ‘Wow, what a great candidate to cover, what a great person to get into politics because he‘s representing the people....

ANALYSIS/OPINION: Former Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice sits cloistered in the White House, rarely seen or heard despite having one of the highest-profile jobs in the Biden administration. Her two dutiful former deputies, Antony Blinken and Avril Haines, have been installed at the top of the diplomatic and intelligence communities, respectively. The shadowy Ron Klain, also a former Obama aide, runs the West Wing, tightly managing a president increasingly kept from the press and public eye.  The content and countenance of the top military leaders before Congress last week means we now know that the strategy surrounding the Afghanistan withdrawal was not driven by the military but by the political apparatchiks in control of the Biden White House.  Last week was the week...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi threw in the towel on getting the Thursday floor vote that she had hoped would deliver a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill to President Biden. In a “Dear Colleague” letter, Mrs. Pelosi acknowledged that “Discussions continue with the House, Senate and White House to reach a bicameral framework agreement to Build Back Better through a reconciliation bill.” The bill, which the California Democrat originally planned to bring to the floor Monday but moved to Thursday, could not attract enough support from House progressives, who demanded the legislation be paired with Mr. Biden’s $3.5 trillion social welfare package. Despite late-night negotiations, House Democratic leaders had contended a floor vote would happen. But Democratic lawmakers from the progressive caucus ...

A federal appeals court issued an order Thursday preserving the government’s powers to expel illegal immigrants who jump the border during the pandemic. A lower court judge has ruled the expulsions, known as Title 42 authority, illegal, but the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia put his ruling on hold pending more arguments. The three-judge appeals panel set oral argument for January, signaling the government has at least three more months to use Title 42 to block at least some illegal immigrants in the current unprecedented border surge. Title 42 is a finding by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that the pandemic is so bad that allowing illegal immigrants in would be a serious health risk. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan had ruled the expulsions went bey...