President Joe Biden actually made up his mind a long time ago about Afghanistan.

FILE - In this Jan. 21, 2021, file photo, Transportation Secretary nominee Pete Buttigieg speaks during a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Stefani Reynolds/Pool via AP)WASHINGTON – Pete Buttigieg won Senate approval Tuesday as transportation secretary, the first openly gay person to be confirmed to a Cabinet post. Ad“We all know the nominee as Mayor Pete, a man who basically came onto the national stage as a Midwest mayor, who had lots of enthusiasm for making investments in America’s future,” she said. Under President Donald Trump, Richard Grenell served as acting director of national intelligence and is openly gay, but did not have to face Senate confirmation as an acting director. Ad“Congratulations to Secretary Pete Buttigieg on his historic confirmation,” Alphonso David, president of Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy group, said after the vote.

He hung out in the Senate cloakroom chatting up legislators as vice president. But some of Biden’s courtship is also directed at members of his own party to make sure a deal gets done. As vice president, Biden was a trusted emissary to Capitol Hill for Obama, who had served just four years in the Senate. Lott said Biden was not someone he recalls as often being in the room when Senate leadership was trying to work out a deal on major bills. “There’s people who say you can’t work with the other side,” Biden said a year ago.

First, the Republican leader heaped praise on Trump's “endless” accomplishments as he congratulated President-elect Joe Biden during a morning Senate speech. Then he pivoted, privately warning Republican senators away from disputing the Electoral College tally when Congress convenes in a joint session Jan. 6 to confirm the results. “I want to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden,” McConnell said as he opened the Senate. They finally said aloud what many Republicans had been signaling privately — that Biden is the winner of the presidential election, and they are essentially abandoning Trump's election attacks. Some GOP lawmakers have vowed to carry the fight to Jan. 6 when Congress votes to accept or reject the Electoral College results.

He said Monday’s Electoral College vote “was significant.”Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn said barring further legal challenges it appears Biden will be president. Others have said Trump's legal battles should continue toward resolution by inauguration day, Jan. 20. "Once the Electoral College has voted, most people are going to recognize Joe Biden as the president-elect." "Although I supported President Trump, the Electoral College vote today makes clear that Joe Biden is now President-Elect,” said Sen. Many Republicans are unwilling to declare Biden the winner for the same reasons they avoided standing up to Trump during his presidency.

FILE - In this Aug. 30, 2006, file photo, former Republican Sen. Slade Gorton, center, is introduced at a fundraiser for Republican Senate candidate Mike McGavick in Bellevue, Wash. Gorton, who served in the Washington Legislature, and as state attorney general before he became a three-term U.S. senator, has died. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)SEATTLE Slade Gorton, a patrician and cerebral politician who served as a U.S. Senate Republican leader before he was ousted by the growing Seattle-area liberal electorate in 2000, has died. Gorton died Wednesday in Seattle, said J. Vander Stoep, who served a Gorton's chief of staff in the Senate. In 1980, he won a coveted U.S. Senate seat by knocking off the legendary Maggie Warren G. Magnuson, appropriations committee chairman and Senate president. But within a year, Evans decided to vacate the other Senate seat, and Gorton launched his comeback.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – 8:55 p.m.No Republicans voted to impeach President Donald Trump. Conservative Michigan Rep. Justin Amash, who left the GOP to become an independent, voted to impeach Trump on both charges. Those were the words spoken by President Donald Trump as he opened a campaign rally in Battle Creek, Michigan, on Wednesday night. The New York Democrat explained that it's Vice President Mike Pence who'd become president if the House voted to impeach Trump and the Senate voted to remove him from office. The House has approved rules that allow six hours of floor debate on historic votes to impeach President Donald Trump.