A shining city on a hill. Ronald Reagan loved the phrase. He used it over and over again, perhaps most notably in his 1989 presidential farewell address.
I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it.
President Donald Trump uses his pardon power as an instrument of personal ambition. He pardons people who have lied to protect him, and people who have expressed loyalty to him. Yesterday, he pardoned Charles Kushner, whose son is married to one of Trump’s daughters. More Trump-family pardons may soon be coming.Public-spirited citizens are understandably angry about these abuses.
On Friday, December 18, the secretary of the Army and the Army chief of staff formally disavowed any intention of participating in a military coup: “There is no role for the U.S. military in determining the outcome of an American election.”That’s a fine statement, in line with the long-standing traditions of the U.S. military. It’s alarming, though, that anybody thought it necessary at all.
Here’s the first and most important thing to understand about the crime for which President Trump just pardoned former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn: Flynn did not lie to protect himself. He lied to protect Donald Trump.At the end of December 2016, Flynn had a series of conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. A month later, on January 24, 2017, Flynn was asked about those conversations by the FBI agent Peter Strzok.
You’re losing. You’re losing bad. You’re out of money. Your ads are coming off the air in must-win states. Here it is, the last chance to speak to a big national audience—and for free, really the last opportunity to win back voters who have drifted away from you.
The polls are grim for President Donald Trump. His campaign faces a big and worsening money disadvantage. His closing arguments appeal only to the most hyper-partisan Republicans.Many have worried about the transition after a Trump electoral defeat. Will Trump leave office quietly and peacefully? But there are other, less dramatic dangers to ponder, too—dangers that we would do well to anticipate and guard against.
“It’s a visual medium.” So often said the late Roger Ailes about television. He said it to justify hiring women who looked a certain way and requiring them to dress a certain way. Ailes’s abuse of the saying does not make it any less true. The most striking thing about the Pence-Harris debate was nothing that was said. It was what we saw.We saw a vice president with a pale face, his mouth cankered by a cold sore, his eyes pink.
On March 30, 1981, President Ronald Reagan was shot as he entered his limousine after a speech at a Washington hotel. Reagan’s condition soon stabilized. He was released from the hospital April 11 and spoke to a joint session of Congress on April 28.But in the first few hours, it was not clear whether the president would live or die. Paperwork was prepared to appoint Vice President George H. W. Bush as acting president. You can see it here, courtesy of the Reagan Library.
President Donald Trump arrived at the first debate with a theory and a plan. The theory was that American voters crave dominance, no matter how belligerent or offensive. The plan was to hector, interrupt, and insult in hopes of establishing that dominance.His theory was wrong, and his plan was counterproductive.
Again and again, President Donald Trump has violated, evaded, or ignored the law. The Constitution says a president cannot accept payments from foreign governments, but Trump did. The Constitution says that the principal officers of executive departments—members of the Cabinet—must be confirmed by the Senate. Trump junked that rule too, relying instead on his power to appoint temporary acting officials.
To use power, you must have it.On the night of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that a Trump nominee to replace Ginsburg would receive a vote on the floor of the Senate.That announcement promised a use of power without hesitation or compunction, an abrupt reversal of the supposed rule that blocked an Obama nomination nine months before the 2016 election. This supposed rule would seem much better justified in 2020 than 2016.
A Bob Woodward book is a record of a sequence of transactions. In exchange for access and information, Woodward offers Washington power holders the opportunity to disparage their rivals and aggrandize themselves. But be warned that a Woodward proposition is never guaranteed. It comes hedged with dense, finely printed terms and conditions. And Woodward’s scoops have a way of turning out to be less new than they are first advertised.
Donald Trump generates a lot of noise. He talks. He tweets. He is echoed and amplified by a vast claque, on TV and online, made up of Americans and foreigners, humans and bots.Never has he shouted louder than in the days since my colleague Jeffrey Goldberg reported the president’s disparaging comments about those who have fallen, been maimed, or taken prisoner in war.Trump’s protestations have been seconded by his wife.
Cole Burston / Bloomberg / GettyOn the Fourth of July, I drove across the border from the United States into Canada. Two months later, I drove the other way. Both times, I crossed at the same point: just east of Lake Ontario, amid the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence River. Both times, I was driving a rented U-Haul, carrying household effects I was swapping between city and vacation house. And there the similarities stopped.
President Trump read a boring speech badly last night. The long recitation was punctuated by odd comprehension errors. At one point, “walled-off cities and communities” came out sounding like “Waldorf cities and communities.”Through most of the long recitation, the members of the partisan crowd seemed quiet, even listless. But there were rare sparks of enthusiasm, moments when Trump excited them.
This story was updated on July 31, at 4:12pm.On the same morning that the United States government reported the steepest economic collapse in U.S. history, President Donald Trump mused on Twitter about postponing the 2020 election. Trump is getting desperate, more desperate by the day.
I reached the Canadian border on the Fourth of July.Usually, the Thousand Islands crossing station between New York and Ontario is busy on summer weekends. Not this time. Eight of the nine lanes were closed, and only one car waited ahead of me in the single open queue.Despite the light traffic, I waited a while for my inspection—and when it was my turn, the car behind me waited a while too.
Roger Stone’s best trick was always his upper-class-twit wardrobe. He seemed such a farcical character, such a Klaxon-alarm-from-a-mile-away goofball—who could take him seriously?Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen: They had tradecraft. They didn’t troll people on Instagram or blab to reporters. They behaved in the way you would expect of people betraying their country: conscious of the magnitude of their acts, determined to avoid the limelight.
The Supreme Court rebuked Donald Trump, the arrogant president. The Supreme Court has prepared a world of trouble for Donald Trump, the dirty businessman. But the Supreme Court has done a tremendous favor to Donald Trump, the candidate for reelection.Trump’s legal arguments to protect his business records from subpoena were always miserably flimsy, when not actively crazy.
Fifty years ago, the Watergate scandal offered the country a mystery that followed the pattern of a traditional detective story. A crime had been committed. Who did it, and why? First the media, and then Congress and prosecutors, followed the clues for two years—until, at last, evidence was discovered proving that the culprit was indeed President Richard Nixon.The Trump-Russia scandal, by contrast, offers an update on the old formula, much as the innovative Columbo series did in the 1970s.
The polls for Donald Trump are grim. But if voter preference decided U.S. elections, Hillary Clinton would have won the presidency by almost 3 million ballots. Presidential elections can be gamed—and late yesterday night, events came together to reveal how the Trump administration hopes to game 2020.Attorney General William Barr announced the “resignation” of the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Today, President Trump tweeted a bewildered question about the latest Supreme Court decision against him: “Do you get the impression the Supreme Court doesn’t like me?”Thousands of people on Twitter promptly tweeted back, “It’s not about you!” Yet the president’s self-involved question touched on a truth.