Trump administration

To win elections in a two-party system, the victor needs to erect a big tent. He needs to persuade all kinds of voters in the general election, including many who disagree with each other (but disagree with the other party even more), to vote for him. Experienced politicians call it, “the politics of addition, not subtraction.” The rest of us call it “big tent politics.”  What can poke holes in that tent? What will allow the rain to come pouring in? Those questions loom over Republicans, looking for an umbrella amid tariff disagreement, a volatile market and whispers of a possible recession.  The skies were clear when the big issue was illegal immigration. The party base loved it and so did voters.

Much has been said and written about the Trump administration’s leaked Signal discussion on bombing Houthis in Yemen, most of it forgettable. Virtually all attention has focused on dull questions of competence and whether any heads should roll for communicating sensitive US matters through a private company’s platform, then ineptly letting a reporter in on the chat. The debate is largely news-cycle fodder. The new administration will not succeed or fail based on what phone apps its members use. Yet the Signal debate has entirely overshadowed what should be a major discussion in its own right. Is the new administration quietly sleepwalking the country back into a costly, dangerous policy of Middle East military meddling?

The Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling lifting the order blocking the deportation of accused members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is a significant legal victory for the Trump administration. More importantly, it's also a policy vindication for those within this White House whose approach to government upon their return to Washington was to do everything, everywhere, all at once. The legal victory itself was hailed by every prominent member of the President's deportation team, with Attorney General Pam Bondi announcing she’d redouble her efforts, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem declaring that all those here illegally must “LEAVE NOW” and Stephen Miller practically ebullient in his interview last night with Sean Hannity.

The most important man in the palace of King Donald Trump looks set to leave the court. According to several media outlets, the President has told both his inner circle and the wider cabinet that Elon Musk will be stepping back in the coming weeks from his role in dismantling major parts of the federal government. There were obvious difficulties and time constraints from the outset when Musk started running the new Department for Government Efficiency. A person can only serve as a “special government employee” for a period of 130 days each year – time that is dwindling fast, as we approach the 100-day mark of Trump’s second term. There are also strict rules around conflicts of interests, of which Musk risks having many given all his business operations.

Donald Trump this weekend floated the idea of running for a third term. Unless he’s doing it in 1940 when Franklin D. Roosevelt did, it’s unconstitutional. I don’t mean unconstitutional for Judge Boasberg or Judge Chutkin or some zealot in robes in San Francisco or Seattle. I mean unconstitutional in capital letters for any judge, including a 9-0 vote on the Supreme Court. The legal background here is straightforward. When FDR ran for a third term in 1940 and for a fourth in 1944, there was no legal or constitutional prohibition against doing so. There was simply a well-established norm, begun when George Washington returned to Mount Vernon after two terms. That norm was respected by every subsequent president. Until FDR.

Maybe the surprising thing isn’t that Donald Trump yanked Elise Stefanik’s nomination to become ambassador to the United Nations. It’s that he hasn’t pulled America out of the organization. But perhaps that outcome is in the offing as Trump ponders whether he should select anyone to succeed her abortive nomination. Trump decided to leave Stefanik in Congress because of the slender Republican majority in the House – 218-213, plus four vacancies. “I have asked Elise, as one of my biggest Allies, to remain in Congress to help me deliver Historic Tax Cuts, GREAT Jobs, Record Economic Growth, a Secure Border, Energy Dominance, Peace Through Strength, and much more, so we can MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.

Most people use groupchats to share memes, organize brunch or gossip. The Trump administration plans air strikes. After Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was inadvertently included in the "Houthi PC small group" Signal chat by National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, administration officials were eager to stress that no classified information was included in the unofficial chat. As a result, Goldberg published screenshots of the full conversation this morning. The messages offer a glimpse into not just the views of various cabinet members on foreign affairs; they reveal the texting styles of some of the most consequential government officials in the world. Some are relatable. "Having read thru the full Houthi PC small group logs, I've come to the sad realization that I'm the J.D.

National Security Advisor Mike Waltz spoke to the press this afternoon for the first time since the Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg described how Waltz had inadvertently added him to a Signal groupchat in which air strikes on Yemen were planned. Waltz claimed that he'd “never met, don’t know, never communicated with” Goldberg. The only problem: Goldberg says in his report that the pair has met before. So who's lying? The Atlantic reported Monday how Goldberg was granted access to “precise information about weapons packages, targets and timing” from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, two hours before the US attack on Yemen targets on March 15. “There are a lot of lessons,” Waltz told the press while meeting with President Donald Trump and US ambassadors.

Blimey! Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg has written a fresh exposé that should result in the immediate resignation or firing of National Security Advisor Mike Waltz. His story is called “The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plan.”  In calm and lucid prose, Goldberg explains that he was initially suspicious of his inclusion in a text chain about a potential American military attack on Yemen on the encrypted app Signal. Various Trump national security officials, ranging from Vice President J.D. Vance to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, appeared to be in the chat with him.