范·霍伦称民主党必须“顺应这一时局”，系其挑战舒默后首次公开亮相

Van Hollen says Democrats must ‘meet this moment’ in first appearance since challenging Schumer

2026-11-13T16:00:58.441Z / CNN

• Charting the course: High-profile Democrats — including potential 2028 presidential contenders — are speaking at a conference in Denver today following the party’s sweeping midterm wins.

• Leadership challenge: Sen. Chris Van Hollen made his first public remarks since announcing an uphill challenge to Chuck Schumer for Senate majority leader, telling attendees that voters have demanded change.

• House speakership: Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is widely expected to lead the chamber’s new majority. He faced hecklers as he spoke at the Democratic gathering, though other attendees tried to drown out the interruptions.

• More midterm results: In the latest evidence of a midterms landslide, CNN projects that Democrats will win both the Kansas and Alaska governor’s races. More than 75% of Americans living in the 50 states will have a Democratic governor once they are sworn in.

Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen said he will not run for president in the upcoming election.

A fixture in Washington, Van Hollen had previously said he’s interested in a 2028 presidential run. He has been a top Democratic voice criticizing Israel over the treatment of Palestinians. He also flew to El Salvador last year to meet with an immigrant father who was wrongly deported there and advocated for the man’s ultimate return to the US.

Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin said she is “glad to see there’s more people getting in the race” when asked about Sen. Chris Van Hollen challenging Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to lead the chamber’s new Democratic majority.

“We’ve had good conversations. I’ve been open that I’m not voting for Sen. Schumer. I’ll have more to say about this next week,” she told reporters in Denver, Colorado, today.

Slotkin had earlier talked about how she is keen to be “a part of the next generation of leaders going forward that does things differently.”

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger and New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill shared lessons from their first year in office that informed Democratic success in the 2026 midterms, emphasizing the overriding importance of cost of living concerns.

“We have that off-year cycle, we had to get into that race right away,” Sherrill recalled of her election, saying that people on the ground were “telling me, affordability.”

“And everybody else is telling me that’s boring, and that’s not a way to run an election,” she said, speaking at the “What’s Next” summit in Denver. “You have to run a democracy and NATO, and you name the issue at the time, DOGE, and democratic institutions, but people on the ground are telling me affordability.”

Michigan Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin addressed a letter she received from the US attorney in Texas, saying this is the second time she’s been threatened over potential congressional investigations of the Trump administration.

Calling it a playbook that she has seen in eastern Europe and the Middle East, Slotkin said, “This says more about him than it does about me. And I’m happy to have him demonstrate to the world that freedom of speech is something he wants to criminally indict.”

Remember:A US attorney in Texas sent a letter yesterday to Slotkin over her call for Democrats to investigate President Donald Trump’s orbit, asking the lawmaker to preserve records related to any planned probe.

Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego said at a gathering of Democrats today that the swing of Latino voters toward the party in the midterm elections should not be taken for granted.

Republicans, particularly President Donald Trump, made significant inroads with Latino voters in the past few election cycles. However, in this election, Democrats widened support among the base by 11 percentage points since the 2022 midterms.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Friday that Democrats would take early action in the new Congress to reverse health care cuts under the Trump administration.

“We’ve got to fix what’s been broken and we’re going to begin very early on… by working to reverse the Medicaid cuts and working to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits,” Jeffries, who is widely expected to become the House Speaker in January, said in a public appearance in Denver.

Jeffries said Democrats should in the future work toward lowering the age of eligibility for Medicare, expanding the program to cover hearing, vision and dental care, and guaranteeing health care to every child in America.

He identified other legislative goals for the party during a lightning round of questions:

The Justice Department has added a new charge of terrorism against the man who, armed with guns and knives, stormed a Secret Service checkpoint at the White House Correspondent’s dinner in April.

The man, Cole Tomas Allen, was previously charged with attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump and assaulting a law enforcement officer when he allegedly shot a Secret Service agent with a shotgun as he ran through security.

Trump, along with other administration officials, were attending the dinner in a nearby ballroom that Allen was allegedly attempting to breach.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen declared that Americans “voted for change” in his first public appearance since announcing his bid for Senate Democratic leader.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2026/11/13/hakeem-jeffries-heckled-denver-conference.cnn

Jeffries interrupted by hecklers at conference for Democrats

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A top Justice Department official told a judge on Friday that the department isn’t aware of any document destruction related to the renovation of a Washington, DC, golf course that President Donald Trump has wanted.

Judge Ana Reyes had raised the possibility in the first moments of another heated court hearing challenging the East Potomac Golf Course’s planned closure because she has for weeks questioned the ethics and truthfulness of DOJ attorneys and government officials appearing before her.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani stopped short of endorsing Sen. Chuck Schumer’s bid for majority leader in the Senate, just a day after Sen. Chris Van Hollen announced he would challenge Schumer for the post.

“I think the American people made their voices very clear, they sent a message that they want Democratic leadership across the board that will deliver material improvements for the working class and as the mayor of New York City that is exactly what I want to see for New Yorkers across our five boroughs,” Mamdani said Friday during an unrelated press conference. “So I care less about who it is and I care more about what they do with that power.”

Mamdani was specifically asked whether he believed Schumer “deserved” to lead Democrats in the Senate and if his policies were progressive enough. He did not answer the question.

Schumer’s relationship with Mamdani has been at arm’s length. The longtime Brooklyn Democrat did not endorse Mamdani in the race for mayor last year. Schumer also declined to say who he had voted for when he cast his vote last November.

Schumer who has been a stalwart defender of Israel ultimately stayed out of the New York City mayor’s race where the topic became a flashpoint. Mamdani has been a long time critic of the Israeli government.

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Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has voluntarily agreed to appear before the Senate Banking Committee to answer their questions about export controls related to Nvidia, after the GOP committee chair Tim Scott on Thursday requested his testimony.

“Secretary Lutnick has proactively agreed to appear voluntarily before the Banking Committee to address their questions,” a spokesperson for Lutnick, Kristen Eichamer, told CNN.

A source familiar said that the details are still being worked through. Scott requested the testimony after Huang resigned as CEO of Nvidia after reports of his affair with an alleged Chinese spy. Others have raised issues with Lutnick’s failure to label a Chinese-connected company called Megaspeed — which is also involved in the scandal — as a national security threat.

Scott wrote letters to Lutnick and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang requesting that they voluntarily testify in a public hearing before the Senate Banking Committee, citing “serious concerns about our national security.” Scott asked Huang to appear on December 3 and Lutnick on December 10.

“Given the Department of Commerce’s central role in issuing and enforcing export control regulations, your testimony before the Committee will be essential to our oversight of these efforts,” Scott wrote to Lutnick, adding, “we appreciate your willingness to appear before the Committee.”

But Scott ended his letter to Huang with a warning: “Should you fail to appear before the Committee on a voluntary basis, the Committee is prepared to use all tools at our disposal, including subpoenas, to conduct this legitimate and necessary oversight.”

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A US attorney in Texas sent a letter yesterday to Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin over her call for Democrats to investigate President Donald Trump’s orbit, asking the lawmaker to preserve records related to any planned probe.

The letter came as the Trump administration ramps up aggressive rhetoric and legal warnings against Democratic lawmakers, who have signaled they will launch aggressive investigations into Trump and his circle once they take over Congress.

Last month, Slotkin said at an event, “You need to pick those signature cases and go hard on accountability, not just Trump. … I want to look at these signature cases and not just focus on the president, but on the people who enabled him.”

He added: “In other words, your ‘oversight’ plans seem to have no legitimate legislative purpose and may therefore be unlawful.”

Earlier this week, Reitz sent a similar letter to Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, accusing him of threatening “citizens for associating themselves with the President and other public officials.”

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A group of potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidates is in Denver to discuss the party’s future, in one of the first major gatherings following the midterms.

Attendees will include former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and former US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel, as well as Sens. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, Raphael Warnock of Georgia, Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Cory Booker of New Jersey.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — who is poised to become speaker in January — and Rep. Ro Khanna of California are on the lineup.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who is launching a challenge to Chuck Schumer for Senate majority leader, is also scheduled to speak.

The group of speakers also includes Govs. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey and Abigail Spanberger of Virginia.

The “What’s Next” summit, which began yesterday, is being hosted by Majority Democrats, an organization that launched last year to help Democrats win in more places.

In staging the event less than two weeks after the midterms, the group is looking to move quickly to outline the lessons learned from the election that could be instructive going forward, including in the next White House race.

Organizers chose Denver partly because it is one of the cities under consideration to host the 2028 Democratic National Convention.

CNN’s Adrienne Vogt contributed to this post.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2026/11/13/who-is-sen-chris-van-hollen-chuck-schumer-leadership-challenge-midterms-2026.cnn

Who is Chris Van Hollen, the senator who wants Schumer’s leadership role?

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Who is Chris Van Hollen, the senator who wants Schumer’s leadership role?

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Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen announced Thursday he would challenge New York Sen. Chuck Schumer for Senate majority leader, launching an uphill battle to lead the chamber’s Democrats after their sweeping victory in the midterms.

“This is not about any one individual, but it is about answering the call of the American people,” Van Hollen said in an MS NOW interview, calling his candidacy a response to the “huge outburst of democracy” in the midterms.

“The call was really to reject the status quo and to reject business as usual,” he added. “And to do that, I think we need new leadership.”

The closed-ballot leadership election is scheduled for December 1. Several returning Senate Democrats — and most incoming freshmen — have declined to publicly back Schumer for the job, though Schumer needs just majority support from his caucus to win.

Watch more on his background in the video above.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2026/11/12/democrats-alaska-governor-win-jonathan-kreiss-tomkins-midterms-2026.cnn

Democrats pick up win in Alaska after midterms shellacking for GOP

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Democrats pick up win in Alaska after midterms shellacking for GOP

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CNN projected that former state Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins will win Alaska’s governor race, becoming the first Democrat elected to lead the state in two decades.

CNN also projected that Democrat Cindy Holscher will defeat Republican Ty Masterson in the Kansas governor’s race.

After a blue wave swept the midterms, roughly 75% of Americans living in the 50 states will have a Democratic governor after the winners are sworn in.