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WASHINGTON

How will Fox, facing a potential $1.6 billion legal bill, navigate the Trump indictment drama?

CNN’s Trump Indictment Stress Test

The inside conversation surrounding Fox News’ post-Dominion politics and CNN’s centrist pivot as cable media braces for the return of the Trump show.
Tara Palmeri & Dylan Byers • March 20, 2023
Tara Palmeri • March 16, 2023
Pence & Sensibility
What exactly is Pence’s lane, and is there really any constituency clamoring for his candidacy?
Absent a coalition or a lane or movement, Mike Pence’s putative presidential campaign seems unclear. Is he just running to reclaim his dignity?
Tina Nguyen • March 16, 2023
DeSantis’s ’24 Policy Gamble
DeSantis’s promise to ensure that no “blank checks” will be written to Ukraine placates the MAGA voter, and reassures the norms-based international order and moderate Republicans hoping for a less volatile president.
News and notes on the subtle movements on the right: DeSantis’s domestic policy-based foreign affairs play, and the N.R.A.’s long shadow.
Kremlin state media has been elated at Ron DeSantis’s statement on Ukraine.
Julia Ioffe • March 14, 2023
Putin’s Boy from Tallahassee
In the zero-sum world of rightward Republicanism, politicians are using a yearning to confront China as a veil to abandon Ukraine.
On the Hill, which is filled with gossips and more gossips, observers are trying to decipher A.O.C.’s strategy.
Tara Palmeri • March 13, 2023
The Remaking of A.O.C.
Five years into her legislative career, a more subdued and party-line-toeing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is inciting all kinds of curiosity. She’s either playing three dimensional chess en route to the Senate and beyond, or she’s diligently earning her stripes on the Hill. Which is it?
Mitch McConnell and new N.R.S.C. chairman Steve Daines have been rushing to consolidate support around strong MAGA-enough candidates whom they can put forward before Trump offers his own batshit crazy alternative.
Tara Palmeri • March 10, 2023
McConnell’s Olive Branch & Fox’s New D.C. Headache
News and notes around town: Republican senatorial rapprochement and a media scrum for our times.
Has CPAC transformed from a big-tent activist spectacle into a polarizing MAGA-world sideshow?
Tina Nguyen • March 8, 2023
CPACalypse Now
An insider’s analysis of how D.C.’s preeminent conservative political summit lost its clout.
Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, imprisoned since January 2021, is the subject of the Oscar-nominated documentary ’Navalny.’
Julia Ioffe • March 7, 2023
Surviving Putin
A gripping conversation with Christo Grozev, lead Russia investigator for Bellingcat, about his role in the Oscar-nominated documentary ‘Navalny,’ sleeper agents in Europe, and why he can’t go home again.
Outgoing Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow, likely hoping to avoid Democrat-on-Democrat violence, has suggested to Hill Harper that he run for mayor of Detroit instead.
Tara Palmeri • March 7, 2023
Hill Harper Against the Machine
Outgoing Senator Debbie Stabenow has been trying to stage manage her succession, playing cruise director of the state party. Harper, who is expected to challenge Elissa Slotkin in April, is going for the Wes Moore playbook instead.
In many ways, Ron DeSantis’s inner circle is really only composed of himself and his wife, Casey.
Tara Palmeri & Peter Hamby • March 7, 2023
Jeff Roe’s Declaration & The DeSantis Inner Circle
News and notes on the G.O.P.’s early ’24 arms race, the dark horse beneficiaries of the Trump-DeSantis cage match, Glenn Youngkin’s MAGA playbook, and more.
Hill Harper, the multihyphenate who starred on CSI: NY and Good Doctor, plans to challenge Elissa Slotkin for outgoing Senator Debbie Stabenow’s Senate seat in Michigan, according to a senior advisor.
Tara Palmeri • March 3, 2023
“CSI” Actor Hill Harper Readying a Senate Run
Hill Harper, the Harvard-trained lawyer-turned-actor-turned-aspiring politician is planning to take on Elissa Slotkin in Michigan.
New Hampshire Chris Sununu led Mitch McConnell and the N.R.S.C. on for over a year with the false hope that he would run for Senate. That little maneuver didn’t make him many friends in D.C.
Tara Palmeri • March 2, 2023
The Sununu Tease, Hakeem’s Burden & Fettermania
News and notes on the talk around town: Is Chris Sununu a serious 2024 contender, or just a master brand builder and hype man? Can Hakeem Jeffries keep his most senior colleagues in office through the summer? And is there any truth to the right’s Gisele Fetterman bogeymania?
A wave of political figures have publicly indicated their inclination for Ron DeSantis for president, presumably over Trump.
Tina Nguyen • March 1, 2023
DeSantis’s Unholy Coalition
If early proto-endorsements are any indication, DeSantis is racking up the support of Taliban 20ers, Florida-adjacent rich guys, and people who want to destroy Trump. Is that a leading indicator of ’24 viability?
Russians in Putin’s governing class have begun to feel that, even if the initial blitzkrieg failed, things are back on track.
Julia Ioffe • February 28, 2023
Putin’s Oligarchs Fall in Line
The shock and disgust that many Russian elites felt at the beginning of the war—at the notion that Putin had just single-handedly made a disastrous decision that would destroy their own country—has abated. “The universal position is to trust their commander in chief.”
After being endorsed by Liz Cheney, Elissa Slotkin is already being branded by rivals as the next Kyrsten Sinema.
Tara Palmeri • February 28, 2023
Michigan’s Senate Battle Royale
Elissa Slotkin is a veritable money-raising machine. But there’s a sneaking suspicion among Democrats that she could be headed for a brutal primary.
As Joe Biden prepares to embark on a re-election campaign, Kamala Harris will enter uncharted territory.
Tara Palmeri • February 28, 2023
Can Harris Re-Write Her Narrative in Time for ’24?
Democratic strategist Karen Finney makes the bull case for Harris’s vice presidency, for keeping her on the 2024 ticket, and what her many critics get wrong.
Joe Manchin has yet to decide whether he will run for re-election in West Virginia, where he may battle centi-millionaire governor Jim Justice.
Tara Palmeri • February 23, 2023
Manchin’s Senioritis & Gallego’s Silicon Valley Swipe
News and notes on a series of professional machinations in the upper chamber.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.aFlordia governor Ron DeSantis, as a matter of rhetoric, has made his presumptive candidacy about the general feeling that the left’s social-justice warriors have gone too far.
Tina Nguyen • February 22, 2023
DeSantis Donor Fears & Haley’s MAGA Turn
A candid conversation about the political fundraising questions percolating in the pre-’24 landscape: Will DeSantis eventually alienate the Silicon Valley bigwigs? Will MAGA buy Haley’s act? What’s behind the Larry Ellison-Tim Scott bromance? And can George Santos keep from imploding?