Bipartisanship

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer said her appearance at the Oval Office was not an "endorsement" of President Donald Trump, as the Democrat has faced backlash for her latest White House visit.

Whitmer appeared alongside Trump on Wednesday after delivering a speech in which she said she understood some of "the motivation" behind the president's now largely paused global tariff plans.

Newsweek has contacted Whitmer's office for comment via email.

President Donald Trump praised Gretchen Whitmer in a White House meeting on Wednesday, echoing a bipartisan message the Michigan governor delivered during an earlier speech in Washington, D.C.

The meeting was Whitmer’s second sit-down with the president since he took office. She raised the ongoing ice storm in northern Michigan, investments in the Selfridge Air National Guard Base outside of Detroit, invasive fish in the Great Lakes and the hottest topic of the day — tariffs — according to a spokesperson for the governor.

For the second time in a month, Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was scheduled to meet with second-term Republican President Donald Trump on Wednesday as the state continues to confront tariff and manufacturing issues.

Before that meeting, Whitmer delivered a speech near the White House to lay out her long-term ideas to grow American manufacturing and build national defense.

Earlier this year, Whitmer was a vocal critic of Trump’s tariff plans but has been relatively silent since broad taxes on goods entering the country were enacted last week.

A bipartisan, bicameral group is rolling out legislation Tuesday to try to increase transparency over a slice of federal spending.

The bill, from Sens. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Gary Peters (D-Mich.), as well as Reps. Barry Moore (R-Ala.) and Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.), requires that so-called “other transaction agreements,” which are aimed at providing flexibility and fall outside of several typical federal contracting rules and regulations, be published on USAspending.gov, a website that tracks all government spending projects.

President Donald Trump urged lawmakers Tuesday night during his first joint address to Congress of his second term to repeal the CHIPS and Science Act.

The $280 billion bill, passed with bipartisan support and signed into law by former President Joe Biden in 2022, provided $52 billion for U.S. companies to produce computer chips that were in critical demand, as well as tens of billions more to boost semiconductor manufacturing, advance scientific research, and combat China by strengthening U.S. competitiveness.

The House on Thursday passed a bipartisan bill backed by the federal judiciary that would create dozens of new judgeships despite President Joe Biden's pledge to veto it.

The legislation has already passed the Senate with bipartisan support and was considered to be uncontroversial — until President-elect Donald Trump won the election last month.

House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark, of Massachusetts, sent a note before the vote Thursday urging colleagues to vote against the bill.

Once-bipartisan legislation to expand the federal judiciary for the first time since 1990 has hit a political brick wall. Republicans postponed a final vote until after the presidential election, and President Joe Biden said Tuesday he would veto the measure if it reached his desk.

Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman said he would vote to confirm his colleague Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) as secretary of State if selected by President-elect Trump. 

“Unsurprisingly, the other team’s pick will have political differences than my own. That being said, my colleague @SenMarcoRubio is a strong choice and I look forward to voting for his confirmation,” Fetterman wrote in a Tuesday morning post on the social platform X. 

Local governments are uniquely able to combat growing national polarization, according to a new study out Wednesday from the nonprofit research organization CivicPulse and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

The study, which involved interviews with more than 1,400 local elected policymakers and local civil service leaders, found that 87% of those surveyed said political polarization negatively affects the country “a great deal” or “a lot.” But just 31% of local officials said that political polarization negatively impacts their local communities to that extent.