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The Best & The Brightest
Tara Palmeri, Julia Ioffe, Peter Hamby, Tina Nguyen, and Abby Livingston
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Monday - Thursday
The Best & the Brightest is Puck’s daily political newsletter from Washington, featuring Tara Palmeri, Julia Ioffe, Peter Hamby, Tina Nguyen, and Abby Livingston 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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September 20, 2022
Trump’s Putin Lust & the Final Frontier of Democracy
A candid and searing look at Trump’s most astounding provocations, from Barr and Putin to Xi and Playboy, in conversation with Susan Glasser and Peter Baker, the authors of The Divider.
WASHINGTON
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September 13, 2022
Fear and Loathing in Moscow
The former queen mother of the Russian opposition, now living in exile, reflects on the terror that drove her compatriots from the capital, the contempt among those left behind, and the oligarchs who are on the verge of revolt.
WASHINGTON
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September 6, 2022
Washington’s New Crisis of Diplomacy
At a time when America needs its allies more than since the Bush years, some of our most important embassies remain empty—a foreign manifestation, naturally, of a very domestic crisis.
WASHINGTON
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August 30, 2022
Zero Hour in Ukraine
There is understandable trepidation in Washington and Kyiv as Ukraine mounts a stunning counteroffensive. Should it succeed, it would solidify Ukraine’s reputation as the military comeback kid. If it fails, it could make this winter’s triumph look like a fluke—and embolden Putin for a new wave of horrors.
WASHINGTON
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August 25, 2022
Who Killed Dasha Dugina?
The fire from the car bomb targeting Putin’s arch-propagandist hadn’t been extinguished before the speculation began: who could’ve come for Dugina? The Ukrainians? The F.S.B.? And, more importantly, why?
WASHINGTON
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August 23, 2022
Putin’s Surprise Triumph of the Will
Six months into the invasion of Ukraine, it turns out that Putin kept his warlike intentions to himself—away from his ministers and presidential aides—until the very last moment. And yet now his war is more popular than ever in the motherland.
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.