(CNN) - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is predicting the demise of the Tea Party movement.
"The Tea Party was born because of the economy," Reid said in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" set to air Sunday. "The economy is probably the worst it's ever been except for maybe the great depression. The Tea Party will disappear as soon as the economy gets better and the economy's getting better all the time."
The Nevada Democrat narrowly won reelection in November against Sharron Angle, a Tea Party-backed Republican candidate.
(CNN) - Two members of the U.S. House were particularly remorseful Friday night after missing the crucial oath of office ceremony for the 112th Congress which took place on Wednesday. GOP Congressmen Pete Sessions of Texas and Mike Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania wrote a letter of apology to House Speaker John Boehner to express their regret.
"Our absence on the House floor during the oath of office ceremony for the 112th Congress – while not intentional – fell short…by creating uncertainty regarding our standing in this body," they wrote in the letter. "We understand that our error allowed the integrity of this great legislative body's proceedings to be called into question. We regret that this incident adversely affected House proceedings and apologize for any individual inconvenience our actions may have caused."
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(CNN) - Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is hopeful the staff shake ups at the White House this week that included a new chief of staff and director of the National Economic Council are a sign President Barack Obama is moving toward the political center.
"Finally they found a guy who has some real world business experience," McConnell said on CNN's "John King, USA." "So maybe the president is going to take a more centrist direction and if he does we may be able to do some business."
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Washington (CNN) - President Obama signed a defense spending bill into law Friday, saying he would work to repeal provisions making it harder to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
H.R. 6523, which authorizes the funding for all military activities of the United States for fiscal year 2011, includes a provision that bars the use of funds, authorized by the law, to transfer detainees from the detention facility into the United States. In a written statement after signing the bill into law, Obama called the provision "a dangerous and unprecedented challenge to critical executive branch authority to determine when and where to prosecute Guantanamo detainees, based on the facts and the circumstances of each case and our national security interests."
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(CNN) - In an exclusive interview on CNN's "John King,USA," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Medicare and social security will not be issues in the 2012 campaign because Congress will address the programs by then.
"I think that any entitlement reform done by Democrats and Republicans jointly will not be an issue in 2012," Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell told CNN Chief National Correspondent John King.
Watch the entire interview Friday @ 7 p.m. ET on CNN's "John King, USA."
Washington (CNN) - When Ronald Reagan left office, a group of Washington-area students were still years from being born. But they stood listening to a tour guide Friday at the National Archives, among the first to see a new exhibit on the former president that opened just hours earlier.
Rarely shown in public, the exhibition includes documents and mementos from Reagan's presidency as part of the centennial celebration of the 40th president's birth.
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Washington (CNN) - Washington's water authority has some advice for Congressional offices looking for ways to work within the newly passed (and smaller) House budget: tap water.
DC Water General Manager George Hawkins sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner on Thursday offering to supply members of Congress with reusable water bottles and free water quality testing in all congressional buildings.
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(CNN) - Rep. Mike Pence, the Indiana congressman who is considering a presidential bid, introduced an anti-abortion bill Friday that is certain to be greeted fondly by many Republicans ahead of his attendance at a conservative gathering in South Carolina this weekend.
The measure, which has 122 cosponsors and is called the Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act, seeks to ban federal funding for other services to organizations that perform abortions. The government is already banned from using Title X funds for abortions, but this bill–a version of which was first introduced two years ago–would expand the restrictions.
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(CNN) - The state of Oklahoma will file a lawsuit within the next few weeks challenging the constitutionality of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, according to the state's incoming attorney general.
"There is great clarity for me on the necessary and urgent need to exercise my responsibility to defend Oklahoma's Constitution against a federal government and president that have gone too far in their overreach of power and authority," Attorney General-elect Scott Pruitt said in a written statement Friday.
FULL STORY(CNN) - The result of a Senate committee's long-awaited review of media-based ministries has finally been released.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, began the investigation into six televangelists in November 2007, when he was head of the Senate Committee on Finance. His office released the review Thursday.
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