David A. Graham

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Updated at 5:37 p.m. ET on March 27, 2025
“What we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence” in the federal government “and seize them,” Russ Vought told The New York Times in 2023. As the Trump administration’s first two months prove, he wasn’t bluffing.

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Nothing revitalizes an old franchise like an ambitious crossover event, and this week, two of the dominant memes of the first Trump administration came back and combined forces: But her emails! and There’s always a tweet.

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The Trump administration has provided many jaw-dropping moments, but few have been as shocking as editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg’s scoop published today.

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Who will defend the federal government against itself? Donald Trump’s administration is waging an aggressive campaign against the executive branch as it has long existed.

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Columbia University faces one of the most consequential choices of its nearly three-century history this week. The Trump administration has given the school a deadline of tomorrow to make a series of concessions in exchange for keeping $400 million in federal funding.

This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present and surface delightful treasures. Sign up here.
One of the great weaknesses of the Donald Trump presidency is its failure to learn or heed history. (If you are or know a member of the administration, consider spending some time in our archive!)
“His understanding of global events, his understanding of global history, his understanding of U.S.

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Yesterday, the Trump administration battled against a federal judge using the instruments of the law.

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On Friday, President Donald Trump delivered an unusual speech at the Justice Department.

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“We will win!” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer chanted at a rally last month protesting Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service infiltrating Treasury Department payments systems. If Democrats want to win, though, they’ll have to fight first, and they don’t seem totally ready for that.

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This morning, President Donald Trump used the standard diplomatic channel—his Truth Social account—to announce retaliation against Canada for Ontario’s new electricity tariffs, which were themselves retaliatory.

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Yesterday marked four months since Election Day, but North Carolinians somehow still don’t know who will fill a key seat on the state supreme court.
The problem is not that no one knows who won. Justice Allison Riggs, an incumbent Democrat, won by a tiny margin—just 734 votes out of 5,723,987.

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For a few years, Democrats were so regimented that one could almost forget Will Rogers’s well-worn quip that he was not a member of any organized political party but rather a Democrat.

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Somewhere, Richard Nixon is raging with envy. Nixon was twice left for politically dead, after the 1960 presidential election and then the 1962 California governor’s race, but Watergate proved too much for even him to overcome.

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Nothing could have prepared Americans for what the first 50-ish days of the second Trump administration have been like. Even some Cabinet members and Republican members of Congress seem caught off guard.

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They don’t make Washington scandals like they used to. Consider the tale of Representative Wilbur Mills and Fanne Foxe. In October 1974, Mills, a powerful Arkansas Democrat who led the Ways and Means Committee, was pulled over in D.C. while driving with his lights off.

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A new president has taken office, elected in response to widespread economic dissatisfaction. Now he’s trying to make big changes to the government, and some voters are upset.

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Grasping the scale of President Donald Trump’s assault on American governance is no small matter. The administration is challenging laws, claiming the right to reinterpret the Constitution, questioning judges’ powers, and arrogating new powers to itself.

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“It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS,” then–CBS President and CEO Leslie Moonves cackled in February 2016, as Donald Trump’s presidential campaign churned forward. “The money’s rolling in and this is fun … It’s a terrible thing to say. But, bring it on, Donald. Go ahead.

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Updated at 2:24 p.m. ET on Feb. 14, 2025
It’s not hard to find hostage videos online, if for some reason you’re into that sort of thing. Seeing one broadcast live on national television is more unusual, but that’s exactly what happened this morning.

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The single greatest success of Donald Trump’s second term so far might be his Cabinet. Today, senators confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, one day after confirming Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence.

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Ask Trump supporters why they like the president, and chances are good you’ll hear something like: He tells it like it is and says what he means. The question, then, is why so many of them refused to take him at his word.

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During his most recent presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised to “put unelected bureaucrats back in their place.” Apparently, that place is in the federal government, doing what they want with little accountability.

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Donald Trump really knows how to sell someone on working for him. “I told Linda, ‘Linda, I hope you do a great job at putting yourself out of a job,” he said Tuesday in the Oval Office. That’s Linda McMahon, whom he’s nominated to lead the Department of Education.

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So you’re a world leader and you’ve been threatened by the American president. What now? First, take some consolation: You’re not alone. The first two weeks of the second Trump administration have seen the White House trying to wring policy concessions from allies and adversaries both near and far.

Updated at 4:54 p.m. ET on January 29, 2025.
The great federal-grant freeze of 2025 is over, but don’t expect it to be gone for good.
The Office of Management and Budget, which issued a memo freezing grants on Monday, has revoked it, The Washington Post first reported. The whole thing went so fast that many people may have never had a chance to sort out what was happening.

Updated on January 25, 2025 at 2:32 p.m. ET
Some presidents turn to think tanks to staff their administrations. Others turn to alumni of previous White Houses. Donald Trump has turned to Fox News to fill the ranks of his Cabinet.
Former Fox & Friends host Pete Hegseth was confirmed to be secretary of defense Friday night in a dramatic vote worthy of cable news, if not the world’s greatest fighting force. After three Republican senators voted against Hegseth, Vice President J. D.

During Donald Trump’s first term as president, critics used to ask, Can you imagine the outcry if a Democrat had done this? As Trump begins his second, the relevant question is Can you imagine the outcry if Trump had done this eight years ago?
Barely 24 hours into this new presidency, Trump has already taken a series of steps that would have caused widespread outrage and mass demonstrations if he had taken them during his first day, week, or year as president, in 2017.

Judge Aileen Cannon isn’t done blocking and tackling for Donald Trump—especially blocking.
In a brief order today, the federal judge in Florida temporarily barred the Justice Department from releasing Special Counsel Jack Smith’s final report of his investigation into the president-elect. The order, which came after a request from Trump’s co-defendants, not only prevents the public release of the report but also bans DOJ from sharing it with other areas of the government.

The first former president to be convicted of a felony is now also the first convicted felon to be elected as president.
Donald Trump won reelection on November 5, paving the way for his return to the White House—as well as the end or postponement of the criminal cases against him. The extent to which those cases also paved the way for his return to the White House will be a topic of debate for years.