Dour, somber Mitch McConnell was gleeful, if such a thing can be imagined. Surveying the aftermath of the January 6 riot, the longtime Kentucky senator concluded that Donald Trump was finished. “I feel exhilarated by the fact that this fellow finally, totally discredited himself,” he told a reporter. “He put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.”
That was a little more than three years ago. Today, McConnell surrendered to Trump.
The parallel was striking—but perhaps no one wanted to see it.
Last week, corruption allegations that underpinned the House GOP’s push to impeach President Joe Biden collapsed after federal prosecutors charged Alexander Smirnov, the informant who’d brought them forward, with lying to the FBI.
The Biden impeachment was never about the substance of the allegations against him; it was revenge for what former President Donald Trump’s allies view as witch hunts against him.
For almost a decade, the country has been just one simple trick away from relegating Donald Trump to obscurity.
Most recently, Trump-skeptical Republicans wrung their hands that a too-large field of challengers in the 2024 presidential primary was preventing GOP voters from coalescing around a good alternative candidate. If a consensus anti-Trump candidate emerged, the hope went, the party could finally buck him.
So much for that.
A New York judge fined Donald Trump $355 million today, finding “overwhelming evidence” that he and his lieutenants at the Trump Organization made false statements “with the intent to defraud.”
Justice Arthur Engoron’s ruling in the civil fraud case is not fatal for Trump’s business empire, but it might be a near-death experience. The fine fell just short of the $370 million that New York Attorney General Letitia James sought.
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No one alive has seen a race like the 2024 presidential election. For months, if not years, many people have expected a reprise of the 2020 election, a matchup between the sitting president and a former president.
But that didn’t prevent a crowded primary.
Not long ago, the idea that a former president—or major-party presidential nominee—would face serious legal jeopardy was nearly unthinkable. Today, merely keeping track of the many cases against Donald Trump requires a law degree, a great deal of attention, or both.
In all, Trump faces 91 felony counts across two state courts and two different federal districts, any of which could potentially produce a prison sentence.
A special counsel’s report into Joe Biden’s handling of classified material released today has good news for the president, and very bad news.
The good news is that Robert Hur did not recommend charges against Biden, likely spelling the end of any legal jeopardy for sloppy storage of documents, though the report says that “the practice of retaining classified material in unsecured locations poses serious risks to national security.
Mardi Gras comes next Tuesday, but Republicans decided to throw a wild carnival a week early. With disarray on Capitol Hill, in the courts, and at the Republican National Committee, yesterday was a throwback to the vertiginous days of the Trump administration.
The Biden administration launched air strikes against Iranian interests in Syria and Iraq Friday, the latest volley in a growing proxy war across the Middle East.
But in a policy paradox, the move appears to be an attempt to deescalate by means of powerful air strikes. The White House felt a need to respond to a drone attack this week in Jordan that killed three U.S. service members, and which the U.S. has blamed on Kataib Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militia in Iraq.
When Donald Trump was impeached, and then impeached again, some Republicans warned that repeated uses of the process would lead to it being degraded and meaningless. House Republicans are now determined to prove that was true.
Early this morning, the House Homeland Security Committee narrowly voted, along party lines, to advance articles of impeachment against Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security. The full body is expected to consider the impeachment next week.
A jury in New York today put a price on Donald Trump’s inability to keep his mouth shut, awarding the writer E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million in damages in a defamation lawsuit.
It’s the second time a jury has ordered Trump to pay Carroll. She alleged in 2019 that Trump raped her in a department-store dressing room in the 1990s. When Trump denied it, Carroll sued him for defamation and battery. Last May, a jury found Trump liable for assaulting her and awarded her $5 million.
Well, here it is.
With Donald Trump’s victory in tonight’s New Hampshire primary, the die is cast. Or rather, the public can no longer ignore that the die is cast. Really, it was cast months, even years, ago and it has landed on what most Americans consider a bad roll: a rematch of the 2020 election between Trump and President Joe Biden.
Dread of this outcome is perhaps the most unifying issue in an otherwise polarized political moment.
Sign up for The Decision, a newsletter featuring our 2024 election coverage.
No one alive has seen a race like the 2024 presidential election. For months, if not years, many people have expected a reprise of the 2020 election, a matchup between the sitting president and a former president.
That didn’t prevent a crowded primary. On the GOP side, more than a dozen candidates announced campaigns against Trump, but that’s down to just Nikki Haley.
Not long ago, the idea that a former president—or major-party presidential nominee—would face serious legal jeopardy was nearly unthinkable. Today, merely keeping track of the many cases against Donald Trump requires a law degree, a great deal of attention, or both.
In all, Trump faces 91 felony counts across two state courts and two different federal districts, any of which could potentially produce a prison sentence.
Donald Trump was determined to make one more scene in his fraud trial in New York today, and he succeeded.
After a Fox News town hall last night in Iowa, Trump flew to Manhattan, where he rose to speak during closing arguments in the trial—or perhaps more accurately, to rant.
“There wasn’t one witness against us,” Trump said, as The New York Times reported. He called the case a “political witch hunt” and said he was “an innocent man.” He said his financial statements were (naturally) “perfect.
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 the Civil War is in the news, it’s almost never a good sign about the health of the republic.
First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
Trump’s lawyer walked into a trap.
Have you heard about the president who received money from China and other foreign countries? No, not the current president. The former one.House Republicans recently launched an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, premised on the claim that he is hiding, in the words of Speaker Mike Johnson, “millions of dollars in payments from America’s foreign adversaries.” As yet, they have produced no evidence to back up the idea that Biden profited.
Not long ago, the idea that a former president—or major-party presidential nominee—would face serious legal jeopardy was nearly unthinkable. Today, merely keeping track of the many cases against Donald Trump requires a law degree, a great deal of attention, or both.In all, Trump faces 91 felony counts across two state courts and two different federal districts, any of which could potentially produce a prison sentence.
For all the focus on recent changes in the political mood on college campuses, the downfall of Harvard President Claudine Gay turns out to be a story about some of the oldest values of academia.Gay, a political scientist, resigned today, making her the second president of an Ivy League institution to bow out in the past month. University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill stepped down on December 9, but the cases are not as similar as they might initially seem.
This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present, surface delightful treasures, and examine the American idea. Sign up here.Not so long ago, an Atlantic writer set out to defend the former president, a notorious liar with a knack for escaping jams—and one who derived an unseemly joy from impunity. Hand-wringing about this sort of behavior, Roy Blount Jr.
No one alive has seen a race like the 2024 presidential election. For months, if not years, many people have expected a reprise of the 2020 election, a matchup between the sitting president and a former president.But that hasn’t prevented a crowded primary. On the GOP side, more than a dozen candidates are ostensibly vying for the nomination.
Bill Clinton sometimes joked that the White House was “the crown jewel of the federal penitentiary system,” a sentiment shared by a few other presidents. In the 2024 presidential election, the winner will be remanded to the facility. But in a unique set of circumstances, the loser—whether it’s Donald Trump or Joe Biden—might also face incarceration, in a real federal prison.
Donald Trump is an old man.He’s 77 years old. When Trump was born, Harry S. Truman was president and Perry Como topped the year’s pop charts. Betty White hadn’t yet started her career in film. Israel and Pakistan didn’t exist. Korea was a unified country, and Vietnam was not. The pioneering computer ENIAC was just four months old.Trump’s cultural references are dated, and only getting more so. Elton John and the Rolling Stones headline his rally playlists.
Not long ago, the idea that a former president—or major-party presidential nominee—would face serious legal jeopardy was nearly unthinkable. Today, merely keeping track of the many cases against Donald Trump requires a law degree, a great deal of attention, or both.In all, Trump faces 91 felony counts across two state courts and two different federal districts, any of which could potentially produce a prison sentence.
Fiction can be riveting, as the many lies that supported Representative George Santos’s political career have demonstrated. But facts can also be entertaining too—a point made by the House Ethics Committee’s investigation into the New York Republican, released today.The report is full of language that, even in the formal tone of congressional documents, is scorching.
Not long ago, the idea that a former president—or major-party presidential nominee—would face serious legal jeopardy was nearly unthinkable. Today, merely keeping track of the many cases against Donald Trump requires a law degree, a great deal of attention, or both.In all, Trump faces 91 felony counts across two state courts and two different federal districts, any of which could potentially produce a prison sentence.
No one alive has seen a race like the 2024 presidential election. For months, if not years, many people have expected a reprise of the 2020 election, a matchup between the sitting president and a former president.But that hasn’t prevented a crowded primary. On the GOP side, more than a dozen candidates are ostensibly vying for the nomination.
Not long ago, the idea that a former president—or major-party presidential nominee—would face serious legal jeopardy was nearly unthinkable. Today, merely keeping track of the many cases against Donald Trump requires a law degree, a great deal of attention, or both.In all, Trump faces 91 felony counts across two state courts and two different federal districts, any of which could potentially produce a prison sentence.
No one alive has seen a race like the 2024 presidential election. For months, if not years, many people have expected a reprise of the 2020 election, a matchup between the sitting president and a former president.But that hasn’t prevented a crowded primary. On the GOP side, more than a dozen candidates are ostensibly vying for the nomination.
The symmetry is striking: two lawyers, two different eras of Donald Trump’s career, and two courtrooms in different regions of the country. The lessons from Jenna Ellis and Michael Cohen, however, are the same. Loyalty to Trump is seldom returned, with disastrous results for those who offer it.In an Atlanta courtroom today, Jenna Ellis, a former attorney for Trump, pleaded guilty to a single felony count of aiding and abetting false statements.