WASHINGTON
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.”
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.
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.
Peter Hamby
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May 20, 2025
McMahon Hard Truths & ‘Original Sin’ Ripple Effects
A candid conversation on the Biden “cover-up” book that’s got everyone talking. Plus, the latest chatter surrounding the abrupt “resignation” of CBS News chief Wendy McMahon.
Abby Livingston
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May 19, 2025
A Big, Beautiful Mistake?
A growing contingent of Republicans point to Trump’s decision to unleash tariffs before tax cuts as a tactical error—and wonder if they still have the political momentum to pass his megabill with all its components intact.
John Heilemann
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May 18, 2025
Confessions of a Never-Trump Florida Man
David Jolly, the former Florida Republican congressman turned independent anti-Trump pundit, has just registered himself as a Democrat ahead of an all-but-certain run for governor of the Sunshine State. He dishes on the Qatar plane deal, the “big, beautiful bill,” and what Dems are actually doing right.
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?
Peter Hamby
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May 13, 2025
Dem & Dumber
Despite Trump’s unpredictable, anxiety-provoking, market-rattling, ethics-pulverizing first 100 days, the latest Puck/Echelon poll shows he’s still more popular than Democrats with voters.
Abby Livingston
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May 12, 2025
Liberation Day Revisited
Republicans are enjoying a sudden reprieve from the looming economic calamity of tariff-induced dislocations and the specter of empty shelves. But there’s still plenty of political pain ahead, from a battle over SALT and Medicaid cuts to nagging fears that the G.O.P. could be in trouble in Texas.
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.
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.
Peter Hamby
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May 6, 2025
The Virginia Monologues
A Republican scandal has upended the Virginia governor’s race—but not in the way that anyone expected, with the MAGA base flocking to John Reid, an openly gay Trump supporter, and turning on Glenn Youngkin for trying to push Reid out. “Trump broke the evangelical stuff,” said a campaign operative in Richmond. “There is purity, and there is winning. And they are both drugs, but one of them is a lot more addictive.”
Abby Livingston
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May 5, 2025
All the Oversight We Cannot See
Gerry Connolly’s looming retirement from Oversight has once again set off a leadership scramble: A.O.C. may be out, for now, but the dam has broken for a House Democratic caucus riven by generational change.
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.”
Julia Ioffe
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May 1, 2025
Trump’s Obama Doctrine
On questions of war, NATO, Russia, Ukraine, and Asia, the worldviews of the 44th and 47th presidents are more similar than either man would like to admit.
Leigh Ann Caldwell
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April 30, 2025
Smiling Through the Trumpocalypse
Senate and House Republicans are determined to stick by the president, even as his poll numbers dip and more Americans start to question his tariffs, deportations, executive orders, and DOGE downsizing.