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The Best & The Brightest
Tara Palmeri, Julia Ioffe, Peter Hamby, Tina Nguyen, Abby Livingston & John Heilemann
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Daily
Puck’s daily political newsletter from Washington, featuring Tara Palmeri, Julia Ioffe, Peter Hamby, Tina Nguyen, Abby Livingston and Puck's new Chief Political Columnist, John Heilemann, on what’s really happening in this town—inside the White House and the Pentagon, on Capitol Hill, K Street, and the campaign trail.
THE LATEST ARTICLES
WASHINGTON
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August 16, 2022
The C.I.A.’s Trump Deja Vu
News of the ex-president’s unsecured intel stash is triggering national-security P.T.S.D. all over this town. The man who tormented their sleep for years, it turns out, might still have the nuclear codes after all.
WASHINGTON
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August 9, 2022
Defund… the F.B.I.?
The raid on Mar-a-Lago has re-opened MAGA tensions with an institution that some on the right associate with Comey, Russiagate, and so forth. But it’s ironic how Republicans are applying the same anti-police rhetoric they once shamed liberals for using.
WASHINGTON
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August 2, 2022
Pelosi’s Last Cold War & The Griner Prisoner Dilemma
The Speaker’s trip to Taipei is the latest, and possibly the final hawkish turn in her three decade conflict with Beijing. (“She wants to stick it to China,” as one person put it.) Meanwhile in Washington, the Biden administration faces a lose-lose negotiation with Moscow.
WASHINGTON
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July 26, 2022
Aspen’s World War III Rumblings
During a few days in bucolic Aspen, Beijing’s envoy to the U.S. summarily defended China’s designs on Taiwan and Hong Kong, stood up for Putin, eye-poked Biden, and scared the bejesus out of the otherwise clubby U.S. foreign policy community.
WASHINGTON
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July 19, 2022
This Town, Revisited
A candid catch-up with Mark Leibovich, Washington’s preferred bard and the author of Thank You For Your Servitude, on Bubble World, D.C. appeasement, Liz Cheney, and the modern G.O.P.
WASHINGTON
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July 12, 2022
The Trials of Brittney Griner
Griner—Black, American, gay—has become ensnared in a Russian penal system that effectively makes her Putin’s personal prisoner, and, potentially, a geopolitical pawn in the Ukraine war. So far, it doesn’t seem she’ll be released anytime soon.
WASHINGTON
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July 5, 2022
Europe Braces for Life After Biden
Last week’s Bavaria-Brussels-NATO schmoozefest was haunted by fears that there will be no second Biden term—and that the return of America-first isolationism will soon leave Europe at Putin’s mercy.
WASHINGTON
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June 28, 2022
The G.O.P. Inside Conversation on Roe
During the past few days, I’ve been talking to Republican operatives across D.C. They were all careful not to gloat, but they’ve also been shocked at how little the Democratic Party is doing to fight back.
WASHINGTON
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June 21, 2022
The Putin Apostates Come Home
If the West was counting on sanctions to create enough economic pain for the Russian population to rise up, sweep Putin from power, and end the war, they have been wildly unsuccessful. In fact, many conscientious objectors who at first fled the country are wending their way back home.
WASHINGTON
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June 14, 2022
The War Comes to Kalorama
Philippe Étienne, the French ambassador to the U.S., is probably the most popular, and polished, figure in establishment Washington. And he may know more about Russia than anyone else in this town.