Leigh Ann Caldwell • 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 • 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 • 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 • 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.

Abby Livingston • May 26, 2025

The Democrats’ Original Sin Pandemic

As the Tapper-Thompson exposé on Biden’s gerontocracy hits Washington, House Democrats are coming to terms with their own culpability in supporting an aging caucus.

Leigh Ann Caldwell • 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 • 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 • 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 • 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 • 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 • 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 • 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 • 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 • 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 • 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.