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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
Leigh Ann Caldwell
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June 11, 2025
The Invisible Fetterman
The arc of the formerly progressive senator’s career has bent more and more toward the right, and away from his own party. Would he actually jump ship?
Leigh Ann Caldwell
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June 8, 2025
The Great Congressional Cutoff
The “most transparent administration in history” has choked off the information flow down Pennsylvania Avenue, doling out intel as a reward to allies while staying mostly mum about what’s happening at USAID, or even who’s running the C.D.C.
Leigh Ann Caldwell
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June 4, 2025
Hawley’s Comet
Four years after his January 6 fist pump made him a Senate pariah, Josh Hawley has reinvented himself as a populist champion for Medicaid—still a lonely position within the G.O.P., and one that’s fueling chatter about his undulled ambition to succeed Trump in 2028.
Leigh Ann Caldwell
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June 1, 2025
Reservoir DOGE
As Elon Musk exits the White House, Republicans are scratching their heads over what all the chaos really accomplished, and how DOGE’s slapdash attempts to trim the budget stack up next to the $4 trillion budget-buster they just jammed through the House. As Trump himself reportedly said, “Was it all bullshit?”
Leigh Ann Caldwell
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May 28, 2025
Trump’s Senate Antagonists (Ranked)
Failure is not an option for Republicans as the Big Beautiful Bill moves to the Senate. The question is what remains of the multitrillion-dollar, debt-exploding monstrosity when Rand Paul, Ron Johnson, Mike Lee, and the chamber’s other deficit hawks get done with it.
Leigh Ann Caldwell
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May 25, 2025
Great Expectations
Inside the sniping and second-guessing of Hakeem Jeffries as the Democratic leader still faces questions about his leadership and, of course, the omnipresent comparisons to Nancy Pelosi. Allies say he’s improving, but the complaints do exist. “He’s not a general,” said one senior Democratic aide, “and we’re in the fight for our lives.”
Leigh Ann Caldwell
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May 21, 2025
Johnson Faces the Senate SALT Mines
As the House speaker struggles to find “equilibrium” in his conference between the deficit cutters and the SALT-cap raisers, he faces a potentially even more complicated problem down the line: the Senate.
Leigh Ann Caldwell
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May 8, 2025
The Banks Job
A candid chat with Indiana freshman Senator Jim Banks about tariffs, midterms, and not repeating the G.O.P.’s 2017 mistakes.
Leigh Ann Caldwell
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May 7, 2025
Kamala vs. … Cloobeck?
As the Democrats stumble out of the wilderness, California’s otherwise snoozy governor’s race might provide a test of voters’ patience for their own party’s version of the real estate developer turned reality star turned pol.
Leigh Ann Caldwell
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May 4, 2025
Mike Johnson: Man on Wire
One hundred days into Trump’s term, the speaker faces his greatest test yet: passing the president’s “big, beautiful bill” through a fractured and mutinous conference. “Rarely have the stakes been higher; rarely have the margins been narrower,” said one of his closest confidants. “And rarely has the difference of opinion of where we need to go in the House been starker.”