The Senate has produced the quickest top-level Cabinet confirmation process in the last 20 years under new Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota. At the outset, it wasn't clear that would be the case. President Donald Trump was making demands the new Senate leader be ready to put the chamber into recess so he could skip over the Senate confirmation process. Thune has been successful in showing the Republican president the confirmation process can work. But the decision to push forward on even the most unconventional Cabinet nominees has come at a cost. Arizona Democrat Mark Kelly says the damage Trump is doing to America's international reputation isn't something it easily recovers from.

Kentucky Republicans are considering the race for the U.S. Senate seat being opened by Mitch McConnell's announcement he's retiring. McConnell is ending a decadeslong tenure as a power broker who championed conservative causes but ultimately ceded ground to the fierce populism of President Donald Trump. McConnell chose his 83rd birthday on Thursday to share his decision to retire when his current term ends in 2027. U.S. Rep. Andy Barr says he'll make a decision soon about his future. Former state Attorney General Daniel Cameron says "it's time for a new generation of leadership" in the Senate. Another looming GOP candidate is businessman Nate Morris. Barr, Cameron and Morris have professed loyalty to Trump.

President-elect Donald Trump told reporters that he would consider pardoning embattled New York Mayor Eric Adams, said the country was "not going to lose" the polio vaccine and weighed in on the flurry of drone sightings over New Jersey during a freewheeling press conference Monday at his Mar-a-Lago club. Holding court with reporters for the first time since he won the election and secured a second term, Trump also called on the Biden administration to stop selling off unused portions of the border wall, threatening legal action. "We're going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more on building the same wall we already have," he railed. "It's almost a criminal act."

House Speaker Mike Johnson will move ahead with a temporary spending bill that would prevent a partial government shutdown when the new budget year begins on Oct. 1, despite the headwinds that prompted him to pull the bill from consideration last week. The bill includes a requirement that people registering to vote must provide proof of citizenship. The requirement has become a leading election-year priority for Republicans who are raising the specter of noncitizens voting in the U.S. even though it's already illegal to do so and research shows that such voting is rare. The legislation faces an uphill climb in the House and has no chance in the Senate.

Senators are heading home for the month after failing to advance a bill to expand the child tax credit and restore some business tax breaks. Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer dared Republicans to vote against the tax cut package Thursday as campaign season ramps up, saying they'd voting against tax cuts for many low-income families and businesses. But GOP senators did just that during a 48-44 procedural vote that required support from 60 lawmakers to advance. Republicans said Democrats weren't serious about addressing their concerns about the bill and that they would be in position to write a better measure next year.

Donald Trump has made a triumphant return to Capitol Hill to meet with House and Senate Republicans for the first time since the Jan. 6, 2021 attack. GOP lawmakers find themselves newly energized and reinvigorated by Trump's bid to retake the White House. This is despite the federal charges against Trump for conspiring to overturn the 2020 election and his recent guilty verdict in an unrelated hush money trial. He held an hour-long closed-door morning meeting with House Republicans and then was meeting with Senate Republicans at campaign headquarters near the Capitol to discuss party priorities. It's his first visit as the party's presumptive nominee.

By temperament and manner, Joe Biden and Mitch McConnell are decidedly mismatched. But with the days of politically divided government under Biden underway, their long relationship will become even more important. The Senate Republican leader's experience in cutting deals and the political capital he retains among his members could leave him much freer to negotiate thorny matters with the White House. Both men also see political imperatives in strategically cooperating. When asked about his relationship with McConnell earlier this month, Biden said: "We've always been able to work together."

President Joe Biden is holding out the promised makeover of a dilapidated bridge over the Ohio River as a symbol of what can happen when Republicans and Democrats work together. His visit Wednesday to the Brent Spence Bridge connecting Kentucky and Ohio came even as the president condemned what he labeled an "embarrassing" scene of GOP disarray back in Washington, where Republicans have been unable to unify on electing a new House speaker. The infrastructure law will offer more than $1.63 billion in federal grants to Ohio and Kentucky to build a companion bridge that will help unclog traffic on the Brent Spence.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats are again claiming the Senate majority, but much of the chamber's focus is on the top Republican as Mitch McConnel…