National Security and Foreign Affairs
The National Defense Authorization Act is a massive $696 billion defense policy bill that covers everything from F-35 fighter jets to Guantanamo Bay to military pay raises.
THE TOPLINE: After a grueling nine-month campaign, the U.S.-led coalition and Iraq's prime minister declared victory Monday over the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Mosul.
"I announce from here the end and the failure and the collapse of the terrorist state of falsehood and terrorism which the terrorist Daesh announced from Mosul," Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said in a speech on state television, using an Arabic acronym for ISIS.
Two Democratic Reps. have introduced amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act hammering the President's perceived dovishness on Russia.
Rep. Don Beyer (D-Virg) introduced an amendment blocking funding to any new joint cybersecurity effort with Russia, such as the one the President is said to have agreed to with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Officials from both the United States and Russia in the room when President Trump and Putin met Friday both said the leaders agreed to some form of bilateral cybersecurity unit.
President Donald Trump declared on Twitter that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin had "discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit." | Getty
President Donald Trump's pledge for cybersecurity cooperation with Russia would likely fail quickly and could even make the U.S. less secure, numerous cyber analysts said Sunday after the president's announcement met dismay and mockery from lawmakers of both parties.
Donald Trump's plan to forge a cyber security unit with Russia to protect the US from potential election hacking in future has been roundly criticized.
Several amendments to the annual defense policy bill seek to curb U.S. support for the Saudi Arabia-led campaign in the Yemen civil war.
The amendments come as Saudi Arabia's conduct in the war and the region at large comes under increasing scrutiny in Congress, including a closer-than-expected vote in the Senate that would have blocked an arms sale to the country.
Nearly six months into his presidency, President Donald Trump declined yet again Thursday to state definitively that Russia meddled in the 2016 US election.
Trump said it might have been Russia, but he raised the prospect that it could have been others, too, clashing with the US intelligence community's assessment that Russian intelligence agencies interfered.
WASHINGTON West Coast lawmakers are urging the Trump administration to alter its approach toward North Korea after Pyongyang's successful launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of striking Alaska, and possibly other parts of the United States.
The trouble is, they can't agree on what that alteration should look like.