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.

In Blaine, Washington, there is a very special Starbucks. Like every Starbucks, this one has tables and chairs and coffee and pastries and a pacifying sort of vibe. Also like (most) Starbucks, it has a bathroom, open to anyone who walks in.

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Donald Trump has issued a flurry of executive orders, rolling back Biden-era policies and pardoning January 6 rioters. On Washington Week With The Atlantic, panelists joined to discuss the president’s first week back in office.

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“The thing about dinner,” Rachel Sugar wrote recently, “is that you have to deal with it every single night.” Despite the world’s many technological advancements, figuring out how to provide a household with a tasty, healthy meal day after day can feel impossible.

The Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh announced that he was retiring from filmmaking in 2013. By 2017, he had returned to work, releasing the delightful heist caper Logan Lucky, and in the years since, new Soderbergh films have become as seemingly inevitable as death or taxes.

Dear Mr. Secretary,
Tradition dictates that I begin by congratulating you on your confirmation. You seem like a man who appreciates frankness, and so I will spare you empty decorum: It would be disingenuous of me to deny that I have been opposed to your nomination to lead the Department of Defense from the moment it was announced. But the Senate has voted, and you are now the leader of the most powerful military on the planet.

“I’d summarize it as: fuck.” That’s what one senior university administrator told me when I asked about the chaos that erupted at the National Institutes of Health this week. Academics are in panic mode in the face of sudden new restrictions from the Trump administration. The Department of Health and Human Services has told employees of several health agencies, including the NIH, to stop communicating with the public.

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Earlier this week, Donald Trump unveiled perhaps the most ambitious infrastructure project in history—one that may rival the costs of the first moon missions—and all but dedicated it to Sam Altman.