But what America’s forces of progress have long understood is that America’s ideals are a trap that can be sprung on those who betray them, and Trump has betrayed them. What Democrats have not known, at least since Obama, is how to spring that trap. Trump’s dominance of the post-Obama landscape has led many Democrats…
Frank Bruni: Bret, you just wrote a compelling column calling President Trump’s truce with Iran less a deal than a debacle. I couldn’t agree more. But doesn’t it perfectly fit this presidency’s pattern? Trump blusters about restored American greatness — about our country being the “hottest” in the world, whatever that means — while making…
new video loaded: How Trump Weaponized the Antiwar Platform transcript Back transcript How Trump Weaponized the Antiwar Platform Matt Duss, the executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, joins “The Ezra Klein Show” to discuss how President Trump successfully weaponized an antiwar platform that Democrats abandoned. You mentioned JD Vance in the 2024…
An auction of oil leases in Alaska’s remote Arctic National Wildlife Refuge ended on Friday with just nine bids covering only about 10 percent of the available land, undercutting President Trump’s claims that drilling in the pristine wilderness area would set off an economic boom. The sale brought in about $3.7 million, nearly half of…
Jill Biden knew something was wrong before her husband ever took the debate stage. In her memoir, “View from the East Wing,” released on Tuesday, the former first lady wrote that she did a “double take” when she saw President Joseph R. Biden Jr. just before the debate against Donald J. Trump in June 2024….
Timothy Mellon, a reclusive banking heir who was one of President Trump’s and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s biggest financial backers in the 2024 election, gave two sprawling properties in Connecticut last year to Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group Mr. Kennedy founded. The donation, which has not previously been reported, shows how tightly intertwined Mr….
The justices’ views did not track along simple ideological lines. Justice Byron White, a Kennedy appointee, felt that limiting spending was critical; otherwise, “you can get and spend all the money you want,” according to notes kept by Justice William J. Brennan Jr. But five other justices were First Amendment hard-liners, from William Rehnquist, a…
What would the founding fathers say? You can’t write about American independence, especially this year, without fielding that question in every variation. To which political party would George Washington belong? What would Ben Franklin think of the tech bros? How would John Adams feel about failing to land a role in “Hamilton”? What would Thomas…
Bret Stephens: Frank, is it time for someone to make a TV show called “Real Housewives of the Trump Cabinet”? Frank Bruni: The ingredients are all there! Gilded locations. Flamboyant pettiness. Booze. An exorbitant hair and makeup budget. But I do have a question: Are we spotlighting actual spouses — Kristi Noem’s, Lori Chavez-DeRemer’s, Melania…
On a sweltering night in August 2024, moments before Robert F. Kennedy Jr. endorsed then-candidate Donald J. Trump at a packed rally in Arizona, a conservative young wellness podcaster named Alex Clark had a fleeting backstage conversation with the once-and-future president. “I said, ‘Mr. President, please keep talking about food and pharma; this has a…
