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Click image to see more photos. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP) Visiting French President François Hollande told President Barack Obama on Friday that France's combat troops would leave Afghanistan by year's end and pledged to find a way "for our allies to pursue their mission" in talks at a looming NATO summit. The two leaders also bonded [...]

Billionaire political donor Joe Ricketts clearly has President Barack Obama in his line of fire this election season, as we learned this week. But when it comes to Ricketts writing checks, apparently all Republicans—and even some libertarians—are welcome.

Nothing is easier to mock in politics right now than the apparent reluctance of leading Republicans to sign on as Mitt Romney’s second banana. A few weeks ago, Jon Stewart summarized the way that Rob Portman was plugging his Senate colleague Marco Rubio, who in turn was passing the baton to Jeb Bush, with the line, “Doesn’t anyone want the rock in crunch time?”

Mitt Romney is out with his first campaign ad of the general election, a spot detailing what "day one" of his potential presidency would look like. Romney told reporters Thursday his first ad would be "positive," but the 30-second spot takes plenty of digs at President Barack Obama. Among other things, Romney vows to "immediately" [...]

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, who offered a tepid endorsement of Mitt Romney only after the Republican primaries, pushed back hard against the idea that he'll be chosen as Romney's running mate Friday. "Let me just give you the best tip you'll get all day. Make some easy money and bet against this whole idea," Daniels [...]

President Barack Obama on Friday kicks off a frenetic four days of guns-and-butter diplomacy, including a pair of high-stakes international summits focused on reviving the sputtering global economy and winding down the unpopular war in Afghanistan. Both issues will shape Obama's legacy — not to mention his hopes for re-election in November.

Closing arguments were delivered in the John Edwards corruption trial on Thursday in Greensboro, N.C., with prosecutors telling the jury that Edwards knew exactly what he was doing in 2008 when in using nearly $1 million in campaign funds to cover up his affair with Rielle Hunter, and lawyers for the former presidential candidate arguing [...]

Mitt Romney continued to distance his campaign from a conservative super PAC's proposal to run ads linking President Obama to his controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Speaking to reporters in Jacksonville, Fla., where he campaigned on Thursday, Romney said he rejects any efforts to link Obama with Wright.

Bottom Line Can John Edwards recover a career from this scandal? That's the question we're answering today on The Bottom Line. First things first.  Tomorrow the jury takes his fate in their hands, deciding whether he broke federal campaign laws with those payments funneled to Rielle Hunter. 

It's been three weeks since the Boston Herald first reported of Elizabeth Warren's past claims of Native American heritage. And while Warren, and her campaign for Scott Brown's Senate seat in Massachusetts, would clearly like to move past the controversy and turn attention to her criticism of Wall Street, political observers from both parties say [...]

After a hard-fought battle, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels has held off a challenge from former President George W. Bush to defend his title as the winner of the Ticket's Tepid Romney Endorsement tournament. By a vote of 3,110 to 2,748, readers preferred Daniels' scornful characterization of Romney as out of touch with the middle class—delivered [...]

Mitt Romney says he rejects efforts to use President Barack Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, in ads attacking the president, insisting the campaign should remain focused on the economy. "I repudiate the effort by that PAC to promote an ad strategy of the nature they've described," Romney said in an interview with Townhall.com. [...]

Chris Christie is on the move. The Republican New Jersey governor, who could become Mitt Romney's running mate later this year, wouldn't have much trouble adjusting to the red-hot travel schedule of a veep nominee. Christie already has been racking up the frequent flier miles all over the country, according to an analysis by his [...]

A conservative super PAC is considering an advertising plan to attack President Obama's ties to Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright  Jr., his controversial former spiritual adviser, and "do what John McCain would not let us do" during the 2008 presidential campaign. The Chicago Cubs owner, billionaire Joe Ricketts, commissioned the $10 million plan, know as "The [...]

Mitt Romney raised just over $40 million for his campaign and the Republican National Committee in April—a pace that nearly matched the $44 million that President Barack Obama pulled in during the same period. The New York Times was first to report the figure, which includes money received for Romney's 2012 campaign and the Romney [...]

President Barack Obama's administration has repeatedly said over the past few months that it won't ship arms to Syria's outgunned opposition, warning that doing so will only escalate the bloody conflict there.

Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich announced Wednesday he has decided against running for Congress in Washington state, where activists had urged him to launch a campaign.

Mitt Romney called Democratic criticism over his record at Bain Capital "misguided" and chided President Barack Obama for approving the attacks while at the same time raising cash from other members of the private equity industry. In an interview with Hot Air's Ed Morrissey, the presumptive Republican nominee denounced an ad launched this week by [...]

President Barack Obama on Wednesday took a novel approach to courting congressional leaders due at the White House for lunch—he got takeout. Obama made the brief trek from the White House to a nearby Taylor Gourmet sandwich shop, where he held a round table with small-business owners, including Taylor Gourmet co-owners Casey Patten and David Mazza. [...]

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has readily admitted that his big personality is probably not "necessarily suited to being No. 2." A new poll of his constituents shows that a slim majority of them agree. A Quinnipiac University survey of registered voters in New Jersey found that 52 percent said that Christie wouldn't be satisfied [...]

The defense in the John Edwards corruption trial rested on Wednesday morning in Greensboro, N.C., without calling the former presidential candidate, his daughter Cate or Rielle Hunter, his former mistress, mother of his 4-year-old love child and the woman at the center of the scandal that spawned the federal case against him. According to MSNBC, [...]

For the second day in a row, Mitt Romney trashed President Barack Obama's record on government spending, suggesting the growing federal debt is going to lead to a "dramatic" tax increase and drag down an already sluggish economy. Speaking in St. Petersburg, Fla., the presumptive Republican nominee was flanked by a group of seniors and [...]

Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday launches a two-day campaign swing through the critical battleground state of Ohio. He will unleash a blistering attack on "Romney Economics," charging that the presumptive Republican nominee's business background shows he would favor wealthy investors over working-class Americans if he wins the White House. "Nobody knows better than the [...]

Top Line Former Sen. Bill Bradley's ambitions are still as lofty as he is tall. He is now retired from the Senate, where the Democrat represented the state of New Jersey for 18 years. But the 6'5" NBA Hall of Fame player and one-time candidate for the White House isn't done trying to fix Washington. [...]

State Sen. Deb Fischer won the Republican nomination in Nebraska's Senate race Tuesday, beating odds-on favorite Jon Bruning in a surprise upset. Fischer narrowly edged out the state Attorney General 41 to 36 percent with 91.5 percent of precincts reporting. State Treasurer Don Stenberg received 19 percent and three additional candidates divided the remainder of [...]

Mitt Romney could ease the concerns of conservative religious leaders who backed his rivals in the Republican primaries by selecting a strong social conservative to be his running mate, says Family Research Council President Tony Perkins.

Mitt Romney warned Tuesday that out of control government spending "threatens what it means to be American" and pledged that if elected he'll lead the country out of "this debt and spending inferno."

Take a step back from the “Mitt Romney, Teen Bully” dust-up, and ask yourself why The Washington Post spent 5,500 words delving into the details of Romney’s prep-school days, or why Barack Obama’s youthful romances garnered so much attention when excerpts from David Maraniss’ biography appeared in Vanity Fair.

Mitt Romney has the support of George W. Bush. “I’m for Mitt Romney,” Bush told ABC News this morning as the doors of an elevator closed on him, after he gave a speech on human rights a block from his old home — the White...

For the past year, if you'd asked political observers to name the candidate most likely to win the Republican nomination for senator from Nebraska, the response probably would have been state Attorney General Jon Bruning. But in the last few weeks, high-profile Republicans and tea party groups have stepped into the open-seat race and divided [...]