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Leigh Ann Caldwell, Peter Hamby, Julia Ioffe, Marianna Sotomayor, John Heilemann, & Abby Livingston
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Sunday through Thursday
Puck’s daily political newsletter from Washington—featuring Leigh Ann Caldwell, Peter Hamby, Marianna Sotomayor, Julia Ioffe, John Heilemann, and Abby Livingston—on what’s really happening in this town, from the White House to the Pentagon to Capitol Hill, K Street, the campaign trail, and beyond.
THE LATEST ARTICLES
Julia Ioffe
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July 17, 2025
State Expectations
Guess what: The mass firing of 1,300 career State Department officials has resulted in the predictable chaos, anger, recriminations, and occasional bouts of gallows humor at town halls and on message boards. Naturally, everyone inside Foggy Bottom only expects things to get worse.
Julia Ioffe
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July 10, 2025
What Is Marco Rubio Doing?
Marco Rubio’s appointment at Foggy Bottom was greeted with optimism in the building, where staffers saw him as a serious foreign policy person. But their hope quickly died as America’s chief diplomat instead became a mute accessory to Trump.
Julia Ioffe
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June 26, 2025
The Truth About Obliterategate
The president rushed to insist on the complete and total success of his Iran strikes without waiting for a full assessment; his critics similarly rushed to declare he must be wrong. The reality is that the full picture will take time to emerge—but in the meantime, intelligence is being further politicized.
Julia Ioffe
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June 19, 2025
Inside Bibi’s Trump–Iran Psyop
An apparent Israeli campaign to credit Trump for the attack on Iran, and to flatter the president into joining the war, has met internal resistance and plenty of eye-rolling in the national security world. Still, there’s no question that Bibi knows how to play his counterpart—and that the American president is uniquely susceptible to ego stroking.
Julia Ioffe
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June 10, 2025
A Musk in Moscow & Hegseth’s War at Home
News and notes on the fears of the professional class in Washington: the military mobilization in L.A., impending layoffs at State, and the curious saga of Elon Musk’s father in Moscow.
Julia Ioffe
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June 5, 2025
State of Play
Once upon a time, State Department officials would register dissent by writing a memo, or even resigning in protest. But what good would that do under Trump, where debate is squashed, and 20 percent of the agency is about to be laid off?
Julia Ioffe
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May 29, 2025
The B.F.F.s Remaking State
Inside the Ben Franklin Fellowship’s efforts to restore the foreign service to a mythical meritocracy of yore, when the watchwords were “pale, male, and Yale,” and women weren’t getting so many dang promotions.
Julia Ioffe
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May 22, 2025
Putin’s All or Nothing War
The Trump White House is belatedly recognizing what the foreign policy world has understood for years: Putin has no interest in ending the war in Ukraine until he gets exactly what he wants. And he’s prepared to out-suffer the West to get it.
Julia Ioffe
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May 15, 2025
The Landau Leap
Once upon a time, not long ago, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau was a Harvard Law grad and former Scalia clerk who became a D.C. legal bigwig and then ambassador to Mexico. So how did he become the kind of guy welcoming white Afrikaner “refugees” at Dulles?
Julia Ioffe
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May 11, 2025
Putin Is More Powerful Than Ever
A conversation with scholars, practitioners, and members of the Russian opposition about why Putin—despite sanctions, war, and isolation—keeps surviving and consolidating power.