David A. Graham

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
Shortly after becoming president, as Lyndon B. Johnson struggled to pass the Civil Rights Act, some allies warned him that the success wouldn’t be worth the electoral hit he’d take. Johnson was insistent that the point of winning elections was to push the policies he wanted.

Building an empire takes decades. Destroying it can only take a few years, and sometimes the vandals are in the palace, not outside the gates.
For much of the 20th century, American broadcast television revolved around three networks: NBC, ABC, and CBS. William S. Paley, CBS’s longtime CEO, made sure that his company—the Columbia Broadcasting Service—was a leader among them. The network was home to Edward R.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
In his first term, President Donald Trump was assiduous in courting his base of committed supporters, often at the expense of voters who were persuadable. Those decisions helped lose him the 2020 election.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
One thing that’s helpful in a crisis is steady leadership. Unfortunately, disaster-stricken Americans are stuck with Kristi Noem instead.
Noem, the secretary of homeland security, was unequivocal at a March Cabinet meeting: “We are eliminating FEMA.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
Not that long ago, believe it or not, Donald Trump ran for president as the candidate who would defend the First Amendment.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
Signs were all around, but the clinching evidence that the Tea Party is back came this week in New Hampshire, where the Republican Scott Brown announced that he’d be running for U.S. Senate.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
In March, President Donald Trump was preparing to invoke the Alien Enemies Act to deport noncitizens.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
Jessica Ramos, a Democrat running for mayor of New York, has had scathing words for Andrew Cuomo, the former governor who is also running for mayor.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
When Donald Trump raised the idea of toppling Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei yesterday, it wasn’t just the idea that was surprising. It was the particular phrase he used to describe it.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
Back in March, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard delivered a view of Iran to the House Intelligence Committee that was in line with Trump-administration policy: hostile toward Tehran, but also skeptical of the need for American intervention.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
This past weekend marked a high for opposition to Donald Trump, and another low for the opposition party.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
Donald Trump is focused this week on cracking down on the people he calls “insurrectionists”—but not so much on the ones who fought an actual armed rebellion against the U.S. government in the 1860s.
On Tuesday, Trump traveled to Fort Bragg, in North Carolina.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
For months, as Donald Trump has hollowed out the executive branch, defied courts, and worked to suppress dissent, his critics have rightly worried about the lack of visible public opposition.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
Under Donald Trump, the federal government is like a bad parent: never there when you need him but eager to stick his nose in your business when you don’t want him to.
The relationship between Trump and California has always been bad, but the past few days represent a new low.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
Past leaders have imagined the United States as a “shining city upon a hill,” a melting pot, a “beacon to the world.” Donald Trump is working toward a different vision: the United States as a fortress.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
From the moment Elon Musk bounded onstage, midriff bared, to campaign for Donald Trump, cynics predicted that the two men’s egos were too large to allow for a lasting alliance. Improbably, however, the bond persisted, despite the rocky rollout of the U.S.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
Who manages the disaster if the disaster managers are the disaster?
That’s a question that the people of the United States may have to answer soon. As hurricane season begins in the U.S., the Federal Emergency Management Agency is in disarray.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
For the second time in less than a month, the Trump administration has used law enforcement to directly target Congress. And for the second time in less than a month, Congress is showing that it doesn’t have the desire or ability to defend itself.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
One way to trace the past nine years of Donald Trump is the journey from taco bowls to TACO bulls. (Hey, don’t click away! This is going somewhere!)
Back in May 2016, the then–GOP presidential candidate posted a picture of himself eating a Trump Tower Tex-Mex entree. “I love Hispanics!” he wrote.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
Paul Walczak didn’t have a plausible defense, but he did have a backup plan. As a Florida nursing-home executive, he’d defrauded taxpayers out of almost $11 million, using it to fund a lavish lifestyle.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
During Donald Trump’s first stint as president, the political scientist Daniel Drezner maintained a very long thread on the site formerly known as Twitter.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
To understand how much the American right has changed, consider its journey from fiercely resisting President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s efforts to expand executive power to surpassing them.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
One of the key predecessors of the modern Republican Party was the Know Nothing Party, so called because of its secrecy. When asked about the organization, members would reputedly reply, “I know nothing.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
The struggle to pass Donald Trump’s second-term agenda in Congress has never been between Republicans and Democrats; the minority party has had little real role so far.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
You don’t hear a lot of good news these days, and you hear even less good news about crime. In fact, this is a consistent structural problem with crime reporting. When crime is rising, it gets a great deal of attention—following the old newsroom adage that “if it bleeds, it leads.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
Unemployment rates are near historical lows, and finding good help is hard. Perhaps that’s why Donald Trump keeps turning to the same group of officials to fill multiple positions.
Todd Blanche is the deputy attorney general, the No. 2 official at the Justice Department—a big and important job.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
On this much, there is bipartisan agreement: The Federal Aviation Administration is in a bad mess. After years of exceptional safety, the U.S. air-travel system has recently been beset with near misses and, in one horrifying case, a collision.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
Donald Trump is in talks to accept a $400 million gift from a foreign government.