Trump's billionaire budget-cutters are dangerously out of touch

Wild surveillance video captured a car dashing down a Brooklyn sidewalk — knocking over entire storefronts and nearly plowing over pedestrians after the driver suffered a medical episode.

Picking the right baby name isn't child's play.

Since confirming her breakup from the Grammy winner last month, the TikTok star has accused her ex of emotional abuse.

Couric said that she thought Harris "really did well in so many areas, but I was frustrated by her inability to really succinctly answer questions."

Rep.-elect Sarah McBride became the first transgender person elected to Congress when she won the race for Delaware's only House seat two weeks ago.

Ridley Scott's return to Gladiator brings new faces to the franchise. Pedro Pascal, Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger share their experience joining the series.

It took billions of dollars in losses, a company-wide overhaul, cost-cutting and price hikes to get there, but Bob Iger and Walt Disney Co. appear to have reached a long-awaited turning point in the streaming business.

This turkey chili with white beans is an easy way to revive Thanksgiving leftovers with new flavors.

Former WWE Champion & member of The New Day Kofi Kingston joins NY Post Pro-Wrestling Columnist Josheph Staszewski to discuss the secret to the longevity of The New Day.

With The New Day set to be honored on WWE Raw for their 10 years as a group, Kofi Kingston opens up to The Post about the faction's longevity.

Michael Kay is pouring some water on the hot stove for Yankees fans.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will decide Tuesday whether to delay sentencing Donald Trump after his conviction on charges related to hush money paid to a porn star

Julie Roginsky made the claim on CNN's "NewsNight" late Monday -- just hours after President-elect Trump confirmed he would utilize "military assets" to help boot illegal migrants from the US when he steps foot back in the White House early next year.

The United States has seen a significant increase in the use of clean energy over the last few years; however, Chris Wright has claimed otherwise.

So, there’s one to file under “things I never thought I’d see in my lifetime.” Dating in New York is a circus, but this? Next level. I should have known by his little smirk.

Sources say President-elect Donald Trump will be on hand with Elon Musk for the sixth test flight of SpaceX's huge Super Heavy-Starship rocket today.

"I don’t regret working with him," she clarified in a recent interview.

Police in Norway have arrested the 27-year-old son of Crown Princess Mette-Marit on suspicion of rape, saying the alleged victim was "unable to resist the act."

South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace faced a wave of backlash after introducing a resolution to bar transgender women from the women's bathrooms on Capitol Hill.

In an exclusive interview, Jennifer Lawrence, Malala Yousafzai, and Sahra Mani talk about their new documentary showing the struggles of Afghan women. Kelly O'Grady has more.

Financial experts generally advise against it, but it could make sense in some situations. Here's why.

As House Democrats conduct the leadership elections Tuesday, the party is still reeling from the results of the 2024 elections — and reckoning with the path forward.

A California man woke up from surgery after stabbing his wife and himself — and immediately confessed to also killing his mother, police said.

The Justice Department is reportedly asking a judge to force Google's parent company to sell its Chrome browser following a ruling that declared the company's search engine practices an illegal monopoly.

When I lived in China, a decade ago, I often saw propaganda billboards covered in words that supposedly expressed the country’s values: Patriotism. Harmony. Equality. And … Democracy. Indeed, China claims to consider itself a democratic country. So do Russia, Cuba, Iran, and so on down the list of nations ranked by their level of commitment to rights and liberties. Even North Korea fancies itself part of the club. It’s right there in the official name: the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.I thought of those Chinese billboards recently, when a postelection poll showed that many American voters touted the importance of democracy while supporting a candidate who had tried to overturn the results of the previous presidential election. According to a survey by the Associated Press, a full one-third of Trump voters said that democracy was their top issue. (Two-thirds of Harris voters said the same thing.) In a poll conducted before Joe Biden dropped out of the race, seven out of 10 uncommitted swing-state voters said they doubted that Donald Trump would accept the election results if he lost—but more people said they’d trust Trump to handle threats to democracy than said they’d trust Biden.Almost all Americans say they support democracy. They even agree that it’s in trouble. But when researchers drill down, they find that different people have very different ideas about what democracy means and what threatens its survival, and that democracy is just one competing value among many. In the collective mind of U.S. voters, the concept of democracy appears to be so muddled, and their commitment to it so conditional, that it makes you wonder what, if anything, they’d do anything to stop its erosion—or whether they’d even notice that happening.[Yoni Appelbaum: Americans aren’t practicing democracy anymore]Americans perceive democracy through an almost completely partisan lens. In recent polls, Democrats tend to cite Trump—in particular, the likelihood of him seeking to subvert elections—as the biggest threat to democracy. They also point to gerrymandering, voter suppression, and Trump’s rhetoric about using the government to exact retribution as causes for concern. For Republicans, by contrast, threats to democracy take the form of mainstream media, voting by mail, immigration, and what they see as politically motivated prosecutions of Trump. Perhaps the best Rorschach test is voter-ID laws, which get characterized as “election integrity” or “voter suppression” depending on the perspective: Republicans see them as a commonsense way to make elections more accurate and accountable, while Democrats see them as a ploy to disenfranchise voters who don’t have state-issued identification. No surprise, then, that campaigning on a platform of preserving democracy didn’t work for Kamala Harris. Invoking the term to rally support assumes a shared understanding of what it means.Even more troubling, American voters rarely prioritize democracy over other considerations. For the most part, we’re willing to overlook mischief that undermines democracy as long as our own team is the one doing it. A 2020 study in the American Political Science Review by Matthew H. Graham and Milan W. Svolik of Yale University found that only 3.5 percent of Americans would vote against a candidate whose policies they otherwise support if that candidate took antidemocratic actions, like gerrymandering or reducing the number of polling stations in an unfriendly district. Another survey found that when left-wing voters were presented with hypothetical undemocratic behavior by right-wing politicians—prohibiting protests, say, or giving private groups the ability to veto legislation—62 percent of them considered it undemocratic. But when the same behavior was attributed to left-wing politicians, only 36 percent saw it as undemocratic.[Graeme Wood: Only about 3.5 percent of Americans care about democracy]Some scholars have dubbed the phenomenon “democratic hypocrisy.” Others, however, argue that voters aren’t pretending that the antidemocratic behavior they’re supporting is democratic; they really feel that way. “People are pretty good at reasoning their way to believing that whatever they want to happen is the democratic outcome,” Brendan Nyhan, a political-science professor at Dartmouth University, told me. That’s especially true if you can tell yourself that this could be your last chance before the other guy abolishes elections altogether. We just have to sacrifice a little democracy for the sake of democracy, the thinking goes. Graham, who is now an assistant professor of political science at Temple University, has studied the reaction to the 2020 presidential election and the “Stop the Steal” movement. “Our conclusion was that pretty much everyone who says in polls that the election was stolen actually believes it,” he told me.The disturbing implication of the political-science research is that if the typical forms of incipient democratic backsliding did occur, at least half the country likely wouldn’t notice or care. Stacking the bureaucracy with loyalists, wielding law enforcement against political enemies, bullying critics into silence—these measures, all credibly threatened by President-Elect Trump, might not cut through the fog of partisan polarization. Short of tanks in the streets, most people might not perceive the destruction of democratic norms in their day-to-day life. And if Trump and his allies lose elections or fail to enact the most extreme pieces of their agenda, those data points will be held up as proof that anyone crying democratic erosion is a Chicken Little. “This is a debate that’s going to be very dumb,” Nyhan said.You might think that, in a democracy, support for democracy itself would be nonnegotiable—that voters would reject any candidate or leader who didn’t clear that bar, because they would recognize that weakening democracy threatens their way of life. But that simple story isn’t always true. The job of genuinely pro-democracy politicians is to convince voters that democratic norms and institutions really are connected to more tangible issues that they care about—that an America with less democracy would most likely also be one with more economic inequality, for example, and fewer individual liberties.The alternative to making and remaking the case for democracy is a descent into apathetic nihilism. Just look at the Chinese media’s coverage of the U.S. election. A video shared by China News Service said that whoever won would merely be “the face of the ruling elite, leaving ordinary people as mere spectators.” The state broadcaster China Central Television claimed that the election was plagued by “unprecedented chaos.” That kind of talk makes sense coming from democracy’s enemies. The danger is when democracies themselves start to believe it.

The "Let's Be Honest" podcast host discussed her love life after her friend exposed her past flings with the "Fast & Furious" actor and the country singer.

Arthur Frommer, whose "Europe on 5 Dollars a Day" guidebooks helped average Americans embark on budget vacations abroad, has died. He was 95.

Enjoying a glass of wine with your pizza is a natural pairing, but what if your wine was your pizza?

TSA administrator David Pekoske talks with "CBS Mornings" about anticipated record holiday travel ahead of Thanksgiving, new travel technologies and working with the incoming Trump administration.

The human toll on families and communities has become an existential concern in California and beyond as immigrant and civil rights groups mobilize to challenge Trump’s policies.

Former leaders and climate experts have issued a letter calling the U.N.'s annual climate meeting "no longer fit for purpose." Recently, CBS News spoke with U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm about the summit and what the incoming Trump presidency means for clean energy and climate change. The conversation took place before the president-elect made his pick for energy secretary.

John Stamos' gesture to support his "Full House" co-star with cancer isn't going over well on social media.

The trial continues for a man accused of killing Georgia nursing student Laken Riley as it enters its third day of testimony. Prosecutors say Jose Ibarra, who entered the U.S. illegally two years ago, killed Riley while she was out jogging in February and left behind a trove of physical evidence. Defense attorneys say the evidence is not linked to Ibarra. CBS News legal contributor Caroline Polisi says immigration will not be discussed at the trial.

At a rally in Las Vegas in September, the reggaeton star Nicky Jam came onstage in a Make America Great Again hat and endorsed Donald Trump. “We need you. We need you back, right? We need you to be the president,” he said. But after a comedian at Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden last month called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage,” the singer—whose father is Puerto Rican and who was raised partly on the island—had second thoughts.“Never in my life did I think that a month later, a comedian was going to come to criticize my country and speak badly of my country, and therefore, I renounce any support for Donald Trump,” Nicky Jam said.He had no right to be surprised. Trump himself had previously gone after Puerto Rico—he punished its leaders for criticizing him after Hurricane Maria, and sought to swap it for Greenland—but even if Nicky Jam had missed or forgotten that, he had to know who Trump was.Nicky Jam was ahead of the curve. Since the election, Trump has moved swiftly to do things he’d said he’d do, and yet many people—especially his own supporters—seem stunned and dismayed. This is absurd. Surprise was perhaps merited in late 2016 and early 2017, when Trump was still an unknown quantity. But after four years as president, culminating in an attempt to erase an election he lost, Trump has demonstrated who he is. Somehow, the delusion of Trump à la carte—take the lib-owning, take the electoral wins, but pass on all of the unsavory stuff—persists.In an article about how Trump’s transition is “shocking the Washington establishment,” Peter Baker of The New York Times writes: “Nine years after Mr. Trump began upsetting political norms, it may be easy to underestimate just how extraordinary all of this is.” He’s right that the aberrant nature of the picks may be overlooked, as I have warned, yet it is also true that the actual unpredictability of them is overestimated.[From the January/February 2024 issue: Trump isn’t bluffing]On K Street, Politico reports, health-care-industry lobbyists can’t believe that Trump has nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. They were “expecting a more conventional pick,” even though Trump emphasized Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda late in the campaign, and even though Kennedy said that Trump had promised him control of HHS. To be sure, Kennedy is a shocking and disturbing pick, as Benjamin Mazer and my colleague Yasmin Tayag have recently written for The Atlantic, but his nomination should not come as a surprise—especially for people whose entire business proposition is being highly paid to advise clients on how Washington actually works. (The influence peddlers reportedly hope that senators will block Kennedy. The fact that they’re still waiting for someone else to solve their problems is further evidence of how little they’ve learned, years into the Trump era.)Meanwhile, the New York Post, a key pillar of Rupert Murdoch’s right-wing media juggernaut, is similarly jittery about the Kennedy choice. Back when Kennedy was a thorn in President Joe Biden’s side, threatening to run against him in the Democratic primary, the Post’s editorial board was all too happy to elevate him. Now the board condemns his nomination and tells us that it came out of a meeting with him last year “thinking he’s nuts on a lot of fronts.” The columnist Michael Godwin, who beamed on November 9 that Trump’s victory “offers the promise of progress on so many fronts that it already feels like Morning in America again,” was back a week later to complain that “it’s not a close call to say” that Kennedy and Matt Gaetz, Trump’s pick for attorney general, are “unfit” for the roles.The lobbyists and editorialists are in good company, or at least in some sort of company. On Capitol Hill, Republican senators say they are shocked by many of Trump’s Cabinet picks. Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who notoriously professed surprise when Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, is “shocked” at the Gaetz nomination. Gaetz’s House Republican colleagues are “stunned and disgusted.”Reactions to Pete Hegseth’s nomination as secretary of defense are less vitriolic, if no less baffled. “Wow,” Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska told NBC. “I’m just surprised, because the names that I’ve heard for secretary of defense have not included him.” Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana was even blunter. “Who?” he said. “I just don’t know anything about him.”[David A. Graham: The Trump believability gap]If this is true, the senators could perhaps do with some better staff work. Hegseth was a real possibility to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs in the first Trump administration; more to the point, he’s a prominent figure on Fox News, which is a dominant force in the Republican Party, from whose ranks Trump has repeatedly drawn appointees.Staffers at the affected agencies have also expressed shock and horror at the prospect of an Attorney General Gaetz, a Defense Secretary Hegseth, or a Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.Ordinary Americans may also be taken aback. As I reported last month, Trump critics were concerned about a “believability gap,” in which voters opposed some of Trump’s big policy ideas, sometimes quite strongly, but just didn’t trust that he would really do those things. Although they perhaps deserve more grace than the Republican officials and power brokers who are astonished, they also had ample warning about who Trump is and how he’d govern.Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump vowed to deport undocumented immigrants en masse. He’s appointing officials such as Stephen Miller and Tom Homan who are committed to that, and yesterday morning, Trump confirmed on Truth Social a report that he would declare a national emergency and use the military to conduct mass deportations. And yet, when the roundups start in January, many people are somehow going to be taken by surprise.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom says he will respect the will of the voters after they replaced the Los Angeles district attorney who made a last-minute push in case.

Logan Paul said he feels "so stupid" for ruining his brother Jake Paul's victory lap after he defeated legendary boxer Mike Tyson on Friday night.

In a major policy shift, the Biden administration has authorized Ukraine to use the ballistic missiles within Russia.

A professor at the University of South Florida led efforts to uncover the mystery behind what a rare 2,000-year-old ancient Egyptian mug was used for — here's the compelling result.

Kelliher previously had a fling with King.

"He checked into rehab in Florida fairly recently," an insider told US Sun, adding that the "Saturday Night Live" alum "flew in on a private jet."

Nikki Haley, a former Republican presidential candidate, laid into Scarborough and Brzezinski after they revealed on-air Monday they had a face-to-face with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in a bid to “restart communications."

The murder trial for the suspect accused of killing Georgia nursing student Laken Riley is underway in Athens, Georgia. Suspect Jose Ibarra, an undocumented migrant from Venezuela, waived his right to a trial by jury and is facing life in prison if convicted.

The "Strong Enough" singer, who was previously married to Sonny Bono, also recalls the "last straw" in her and Allman's relationship.

Here are seven bedding solutions for overnight guests that can fit anywhere in your home.

The Rangers are 11-4-1, fifth overall in the NHL with a .719 points percentage that equates to a 118-point season that would break the franchise record of 114 points established last season. Yet no one is happy with the start of the season. The players aren’t. The head coach doesn’t seem to be much of...

Moscow will now consider a conventional attack on Russia by any nation supported by a nuclear power to be a joint attack, according to a change in the country's nuclear doctrine signed into law by Vladimir Putin. The move comes after President Biden gave Ukraine approval to strike targets inside Russia using American-supplied long-range weapons. CBS News senior foreign correspondent Holly Williams has more.

The leader of a New York City church where pop star Sabrina Carpenter filmed scenes for a music video has been stripped of his duties.

An Australian company unveils a lab-cultured version of foie gras, the luxury item made from force-feeding geese that has prompted protests and even bans.