Politics Archives

Wednesday

November 12, 2025

Cockburn

The new Epstein Files are no smoking gun

The House Oversight Committee released some Jeffrey Epstein emails this morning, and, sure enough, Donald Trump is in the Epstein Files. Like a malignant ghost that haunts the President’s dreams, Epstein has risen from the great beyond to point his bony finger at Donald Trump, saying, “it was you all along.” Or has he? In an April 2, 2011 message to his associate and fixer Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein wrote “i want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump.” Then, the word VICTIM appears in a black box, followed by “he has never once been mentioned. police chief, etc. im 75% there.” Never mind that the late financier who didn’t kill himself never seemed to use punctuation or capitals in his personal communication.

Joel Griffith

The Heritage Foundation’s exodus of experts

Under Kevin D. Roberts, the Heritage Foundation is unraveling the remarkable legacy Edwin Feulner built. Once known as “the intellectual backbone of the conservative movement,” Heritage’s moral and philosophical clarity has yielded to confusion, populism and personality-driven politics. The damage to Heritage’s mission and credibility is becoming irreparable. Much of the recent outcry focuses on Roberts’s decision to maintain Heritage’s partnership with Tucker Carlson after Carlson’s now-infamous interview with Holocaust-denier Nick Fuentes.

Alexander Larman

Will the Andrew formerly known as prince appear before Congress?

Amidst all the ceremony and gravity of Britain’s Remembrance Day service on Sunday, one salient fact could not be ignored. The King has long talked of his desire for a “stripped-down monarchy,” and now he has his wish. The only male figures from the Firm who were out on show alongside him were the Prince of Wales and Prince Edward, who together had the effect of making the royals look a rather paltry selection compared to the grander gatherings of the past. We all know about Harry, but although some would like to see him, too, stripped of his royal title, Montecito’s second most famous resident continues to be able to refer to himself as a prince.

Jacob Heilbrunn

Trump is creating a political Frankenstein

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump depicted himself as synonymous with winning. “We’re gonna win so much,” he said, “you may even get tired of winning and you’ll say please, please, it’s too much winning we can’t take it anymore.” Lately, however, Trump has been losing – losing not only in the court of public opinion, but also the courts themselves. The latest instance came with the decision of Utah judge Dianna Gibson to reject a congressional map that Republican lawmakers drew to try and ensure that a Democrat cannot win even a single seat in the state. Gibson ruled that the map “unduly favors Republicans and disfavors Democrats.” Utah Democrats rejoiced.

Anthony Thomas

‘Mamdanimaniacs’ are fleecing themselves

Zohran Mamdani’s victory came as little surprise. On both the left and right comparisons to the 2008 presidential election abound; Mamdani is said to mean nothing less than the rebirth of American liberalism. Like Obama, he was initially a foe of the Democratic establishment, but then embraced. And like Obama, he gets his intellectual and cultural ballast from politically active, urban, college-educated men. Mamdani’s victory can, in a narrow sense, be explained by the demographics of New York City. But what differentiates him from Cuomo and other establishment Democrats is his ability to speak to the popular, online leftism that millennial, professional New Yorkers traffic in. This particular subculture has seen little electoral representation until now.

Tuesday

November 11, 2025

Neal Pollack

The depressing truth about the media and John Fetterman

When Whoopi Goldberg announced on The View that Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania would appear on the show to discuss why he voted to end the government shutdown, one audience member shouted “Boo!” It was just one audience member, on The View, on a Monday morning. But the liberal mind loves performative booing. Fetterman appeared on the show today via split screen from Washington, DC, wearing his signature black hoodie. The man won’t dress up for any occasion, and we must admire him for that. View host Alyssa Farah Griffin, the token Republican on the panel, said: You were critical of this shutdown from the outset, saying it never should have happened, never should have come to this, even at times criticizing your own party.

Isaac Schorr

Has Trump finally shut down Schumer?

The end of the Democrats’ government shutdown is at last in sight, and so too is the final act of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. On Sunday night, eight Senate Democrats finally broke with Schumer and voted in favor of a procedural step necessary to eventually pass a continuing resolution to end the more than monthlong standoff. “Democrats have been fighting for months to address America's healthcare crisis,” tweeted Schumer, who vowed that they would “keep fighting.” It was the kind of weak, empty gesture that has come to define Schumer’s tenure at the helm of his conference. Because regardless of what spin Schumer might like to put on this turn of events, the truth is that it represents yet another unambiguous failure on his part.

Andrew Roberts

The sinister rise of Churchill revisionism

Winston Churchill is one of Britain’s enduring symbols. His relentless drive, deep conviction and steadfast leadership means that he remains admired by millions around the globe. Yet for years, the political mainstream has been compelled to defend his memory from spurious attacks from the left, such as the British politician John McDonnell calling him a “villain.” Depressingly that threat – and the same pernicious desire to denigrate one of the West’s greatest heroes – can now be found on the right. Spawned from a sinister fringe of the ultra-MAGA movement, these views have been propagated to millions. Tucker Carlson hosted the pseudo-historian Darryl Cooper on his podcast in an episode that has attracted over 33 million downloads.

Jacob Heilbrunn

Is Trump becoming a lame duck?

No sooner did Democrats in the Senate reach a deal to end the federal government shutdown than a frenzy of liberal pearl clutching ensued. The Democrats should have held out longer, they argued. Healthcare subsidies could have been rescued. Donald Trump’s approval ratings were plunging. Golly, maybe the Democrats could even have driven the dreaded Trump from office? Jonathan Chait’s verdict in the Atlantic was not untypical: “Senate Democrats just made a huge mistake.” Don’t believe a word of it. The surprising thing isn’t that Democrats folded. It’s that they held out as long as they did. In the end, the moderate Democratic Senators, ranging from Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman to Nevada’s Catherine Cortez Masto, made the right call.

Monday

November 10, 2025

Michael Evans

Why is Trump sending an aircraft carrier to Venezuela?

Venezuela has been on tenterhooks for weeks, waiting as the United States gathers an armada of warships. The world’s largest aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R. Ford, looks likely to arrive in the Caribbean from the Mediterranean early next week to join the assortment of destroyers, frigates, amphibious assault vessels and a nuclear-powered submarine. No one seems to know exactly what this magnificent display of American naval firepower is all about. Has it been sent to destroy the cocaine smuggling networks in Venezuela, or topple President Nicolás Maduro, the egregious leader of that poor country? Or is its purpose to remind the Latin American region that the US under Donald Trump could come in guns a-blazing whenever it wants?

Cockburn

Trump takes on the British disinformation complex

President Trump is waging war on the great British disinformation complex. The White House is gearing up to revoke the visa of British citizen and chief executive of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), Imran Ahmed, amid the Trump administration's greater battle against the BBC. By “countering digital hate,” the CCDH means censoring speech it disagrees with. The British campaign group, which has an office in Washington, has pushed for the deplatforming of Trump officials from social media and for greater restrictions on speech online generally. The CCDH advocated that Twitter/X remove Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Theo Padnos

The jihadist I knew: my life as al-Sharaa’s prisoner

As Washington rolls out the red carpet today for the former al-Qaeda chieftain and now Syrian president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria’s minorities continue to live in terror. An army of destruction, half Mad Max, half Lollapalooza is rolling through the desert somewhere south of the country’s capital, Damascus. Who has ordered these militants into action? No one knows. What do they want? It isn’t clear. But, as a former prisoner of al-Sharaa’s band of jihadists, I can’t say I’m surprised by what is unfolding in Syria. Whatever else might be said about the old regime of Bashar al-Assad, no one was ever in doubt as to who was in charge.

Sunday

November 9, 2025

Jacob Heilbrunn

Is Trump’s $2,000 tariff dividend plan loopy?

It’s becoming increasingly taxing for Donald Trump to defend his tariff policy. His latest gambit is to float the prospect of a $2,000 rebate to Americans from the tens of billions that the federal government has collected in tariffs. But will this prove any more successful than his previous attempts to justify his loopy tariffs?With the Supreme Court apparently poised to strike down his tariffs as a form of revenue collection designed to perform an end-run around Congress, Trump is scrambling. As usual, bravado prevails. On Sunday, he declared, “A dividend of at $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone,” the president said on Truth Social.” Trump also dismissed his detractors as “FOOLS!

Lisa Haseldine

Is Germany ready for military service?

It’s finally crunch time for Boris Pistorius’s plan to reintroduce military service in Germany. Following a delay of several months thanks to the country’s snap federal election campaign at the start of the year, the defense minister’s new "Modernization of Military Service" draft law is currently being debated in Berlin. Under Pistorius’s proposals, all 18-year-olds will be asked to complete a questionnaire that will gauge their willingness and ability to carry out military service. For men, the quiz will be compulsory; for "other genders" – including women – it will be optional. Those who declare themselves willing to serve will be invited for a formal assessment for recruitment into the armed forces, while anyone refusing to fill out the questionnaire could face a fine.

Saturday

November 8, 2025

Ian Williams

China is holding the West to ransom over rare earths

China’s naked weaponization of rare earths brings to mind Mao Zedong’s "four pests" campaign, the old tyrant’s fanatical effort to exterminate all flies, mosquitoes, rats and sparrows, which turned into a spectacular piece of self-harm. Sparrows were always an odd choice of enemy, but Mao and his communist advisors reckoned each one ate four pounds of grain a year and a million dead sparrows would free up food for 60,000 people. The campaign, launched in 1958, saw the extermination of a billion sparrows, driving them to the brink of extinction. But the sparrows also ate insects, notably locusts, whose population exploded, and the ravenous locusts wreaked far more damage to crops than the sparrows ever did, hastening China’s descent into the deadliest famine in human history.

Friday

November 7, 2025

Gavin Mortimer

Why is it only left-wing leaders who are allowed to be young?

There was a time when the French left turned its nose up at all things American. Too low-brow for them. Not now. The victory of Zohran Mamdani in the New York mayoral race has caused much joie de vivre in left-circles. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the Gallic Bernie Saunders and the leader of the far-left La France Insoumise, described Mamdani's win as "very good news." The general secretary of the center-left Socialist party, Olivier Faure, posted a smiley face on X above a headline in Le Monde, hailing Mamdani as "the youngest mayor in New York history." Mamdani referenced his age during his victory speech in Brooklyn. "The conventional wisdom would tell you that I am far from the perfect candidate," he proclaimed. "I am young, despite my best efforts to grow older. I am Muslim.

Neal Pollack

We begged Hollywood for Sydney Sweeney

Sydney Sweeney is back in the news again, because the news keeps making the news about Sydney Sweeney. This week, it’s an interview with Sweeney by GQ, titled “Sydney Sweeney on Life at the Center of the Conversation.” It’s sparked a “wokelash” among people who hate Sydney Sweeney, meaning no one you actually want to know. Even though GQ is short for Gentlemen’s Quarterly, and the audience is ostensibly gentlemen who like to look at Sydney Sweeney, Katherine Stoeffel, GQ’s features director, conducted the interview. Women have always and will continue to work for GQ, but Stoeffel seems to not understand what gentlemen want and like. Inside American women right now, there are two wolves. Sweeney is one of them. Stoeffel is the other.

Chris Mondics

Will the Supreme Court force Trump to repay tariffs?

The most important thing to know about the Trump administration’s defense of its hotly contested use of tariffs to bring allies and opponents to heel is not that it is a novel and unprecedented legal argument but rather a full-throated articulation of the campaign themes that got the president elected – in both 2016 and 2000.In its legal documents, and in the oral arguments that took place before the Supreme Court Wednesday, the Trump administration paints a picture of America under siege.Once thriving industrial towns in the Midwest hollowed out. Factories dismantled as supply chains have been moved offshore. Hostile foreign nations flooding the US with drugs and once productive workers turning to opioids and alcohol for solace as opportunities slip away.

Thursday

November 6, 2025

Neal Pollack

The medical emergency in the Oval Office

The buzzword in politics, in the wake of the socialist takeover of New York City, is “affordability.” That was certainly on Donald Trump’s mind today during an Oval Office announcement for cheaper GLP-1s, or, as Trump called them, “fat drugs.” Trump took brief potshots at Gavin Newsom and the Obama Presidential Library, and, of course, continued to urge pregnant women not to take Tylenol. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, when Trump called him out, said he was “not yet” on GLP-1s. “Good,” Trump said, adding “CMS administrator Mehmet Oz, he doesn’t take it” – obviously, since we can all agree Dr. Oz looks great. Trump did, however, roll call the quite large White House head of communications Steven Cheung. “He’s taking it,” Trump said.

Jacob Heilbrunn

Who will replace Pelosi in Republican demonology?

Nancy Pelosi’s career is ending as it began. She entered Congress in 1986 during the Reagan administration and is ending it under the most influential Republican president since the Gipper. On Thursday she released a six-minute video announcing her retirement in 2027 from Congress, the latest octogenarian to depart it. No sooner did this contagonist announce that she would not seek reelection, than Donald Trump crowed that he had outlasted her. Old age, it seems, is no barrier to a slanging match. A few days ago the 85-year old Pelosi called him an “evil creature.” Now Trump, on the verge of becoming an octogenarian himself, returned the favor. She was evil, corrupt and only focused on bad things for our country,” Trump said.