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The defense secretary’s recommendation to Trump has not been revealed.

Scott Pruitt pushed back against criticism of his Italy trip in a radio interview on Thursday.

Karen McDougal, the former Playboy centerfold model who alleges she had a 10-month romantic affair with Donald Trump, pushed back tonight against White House claims that there was no truth to her allegations of a previous relationship with the president.

“I think somebody’s lying,” McDougal told CNN. “And I can tell you, it’s not me.”

McDougal’s interview –- after a decade of silence — comes just two days after she filed a lawsuit in state court in California, seeking to invalidate a contract she signed with American Media, Inc., the parent company of the National Enquirer. In August 2016, AMI purchased the rights to McDougal’s story in exchange for $150,000 and a deal for her to write columns and appear on covers of fitness magazines owned by AMI.

But AMI never published a story about her alleged affair with Trump.

She’s alleging in court filings that AMI colluded with her former attorney and Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to purchase her story with the purpose of…

This week seemed to do its best to overload Washington’s circuits.

Andy McCabe authorized the FBI to investigate whether Sessions misled Congress.

Over a week after polls closed, Democrat Conor Lamb emerged victorious in Pennsylvania’s special election after Republican Rick Saccone conceded the election.

The TAKE with Rick Klein

The presidential tweets are definitely mean. But the substance of what special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating appears to be getting wider by the day.

Two pieces of new exclusive ABC News reporting expand the public understanding of the potential avenues Mueller is pursuing.

News that fired former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe had opened an investigation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ comments about Russia contacts points the way toward something Mueller may have been quite interested in. Even if that portion of Mueller’s inquiry is now closed, it’s unclear whether the special counsel may still be pursuing other matters related to Sessions, statements he made to Congress – or other people – since he was confirmed.

Separately, Mueller’s team is interested in understanding more about the relationship between the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee, and Cambridge Analytica, sources tell ABC News. The firm that has sparked a…

Some significant action has been taken on the state level.

Republican-affiliated campaigns, committees and outside groups have spent more than $3 million at various Trump properties since just after the 2016 election.

The TAKE with Rick Klein

So President Donald Trump calls Vladimir Putin. And, according to the White House, Trump congratulates Putin and says he wants to get together soon … but doesn’t mention election meddling or the poison attack in the United Kingdom.

“We don’t get to dictate how other countries operate,” said White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, when asked if the US government believes Putin’s election was “free and fair.”

This is unusual White House behavior, by any modern standard. (It was all going on at the same moment that the bipartisan members of the Senate Intelligence Committee were outlining ways to block Russia’s future meddling in midterm elections that have already begun.)

This is not just a matter of Trump refusing to criticize Putin. The now freshly re-elected Russian president gets to use Trump’s public kindnesses to further his agenda – an agenda that has been demonstrated to include doing further harm to the American political system.

Maybe…