WASHINGTON
Leigh Ann Caldwell
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June 18, 2025
Trump’s BBB Black Book
The president is strategically withholding endorsements for senators who may need them to hold on to their seats. But would he risk losing the Republican majority—and face very real political consequences himself—for the sake of spite?
John Heilemann
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June 17, 2025
Homeland Insecurities
A bracing conversation with former D.H.S. secretary Jeh Johnson about the realities of mass deportation, Trump sending troops to L.A., the handcuffing of Senator Alex Padilla, and America “being pushed to a breaking point.”
Abby Livingston
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June 16, 2025
D.C.’s Stock Trading Epidemic
Senate Democrats (and a few Republicans) are reviving efforts to ban stock trading by members of Congress—a surprisingly complex issue with bad actors on both sides of the aisle.
Leigh Ann Caldwell
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June 15, 2025
Trump’s A.I. Contradictions
On his first full day in office, Trump convened tech leaders to launch an A.I. initiative to boost adoption and compete with China. But his one legislative agenda—the massive spending bill now with the Senate—leaves the U.S. profoundly vulnerable to A.I.’s social and economic disruptions.
Leigh Ann Caldwell
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June 12, 2025
Warning Schatz
A wide-ranging conversation with Senator Brian Schatz about Trump deploying troops to Los Angeles, the dangerous rhetoric of “invasion,” the trouble with the Big Beautiful Bill, and how to un-DOGE America.
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?
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.
Abby Livingston
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June 9, 2025
Mike Johnson’s Blood Sacrifice
The Big Beautiful Bill will likely return to the House with cuts to the SALT deduction that blue-state Republicans can’t stomach—forcing them to decide between aggravating Trump or their constituents, with the fate of the G.O.P. majority on the line.
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.
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?
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.
John Heilemann
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June 3, 2025
A Wolf of Wall Street
Former Obama advisor, perennial golf buddy, and summertime Martha’s Vineyard neighbor Robert Wolf on the Trump-Musk divorce, the TACO trade, and the strange state of the MAGA economy.
Abby Livingston
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June 2, 2025
More Rahm Than Right
As Trump’s grip weakens, Democrats are recruiting candidates straight from the Rahm Emanuel 2006 playbook: military vets, small-business owners, health care workers, etcetera. Career politicians and Biden insiders need not apply.
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?”
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.
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.
John Heilemann
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May 27, 2025
The Biden Cover-Up Family
In the eye of the weeklong storm around the Biden-bruising, bestselling ‘Original Sin’ are authors Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, who are as unwavering in their criticism of the former president, and his coven of enablers, as they are in their reporting. Here’s what they had to say.