Today, the war in Ukraine ended, at least in a sense.
Bloody fighting between depleted militaries will continue to barely move the frozen front lines. Russian missile and drone raids will still pummel Ukrainian cities and terrorize their citizens. Gutsy, covert Ukrainian strikes will hit deep behind the Russian border.
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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.
Chris Clem could help Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who will have a role in immigration policy as health secretary, manage deportations.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order last night that seeks to give more power to Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to cleave through the supposed “waste, bloat, and insularity” in the federal government. The team is being given broad permission by Trump to disrupt work at key agencies and cut jobs.
From drugmakers to doctors, few health care groups are asking senators to block Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from becoming HHS secretary.
“Having the best spies, the best collection systems, and the best analysts will not help an intelligence service if it leaks like a sieve,” the former CIA speechwriter Charles E. Lathrop remarked in The Literary Spy, a book of quotations about espionage that he compiled. Lathrop, who wrote under a pseudonym, was making a point about counterintelligence—the flushing out of enemy spies and leakers who might compromise a spy agency’s precious secrets.
Let us pause the various constitutional crises, geopolitical showdowns, and DOGE dramas to make a simple observation: Donald Trump seems kind of busy, no?
In recent days, he kicked off what the media have dubbed “Tariff Week” by declaring Sunday, February 9, to be Gulf of America Day. This occurred as he flew to New Orleans to become the first-ever sitting U.S.
Policymakers are scrambling to find ways to reduce costs — or even dropping coverage.
Acclaimed scholar and activist Tariq Ali joins us for a wide-ranging conversation. In Part 1, he responds to Trump’s support of the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, the U.S.’s capitulation to Israeli aggression in the Middle East and the rise in right-wing authoritarianism around the world. Ali says Donald Trump is “the most right-wing president in recent years” and exposes “in public what his predecessors used to say in private.
Is Trump embracing the authoritarian playbook of far-right Hungarian dictator Viktor Orbán? Princeton professor Kim Lane Scheppele walks us through Orbán’s sudden rise to power and how the Trump administration’s recent actions appear to follow his anti-democratic “blueprint,” with Trump “echoing a lot of Orbán’s rhetoric,” consolidating power in the executive branch and bypassing federal checks and balances.
President Trump has given yet more power to Elon Musk, who is now leading the effort to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Created in response to the 2008 financial crisis, the CFPB helps enforce consumer financial laws for mortgages, credit cards and other financial products. We speak to a former CFPB staffer, Julie Margetta Morgan, who says the consumer watchdog has helped recover $21 billion lost to financial fraud and abuse in its decade-plus of existence.
His car company is in a precarious spot.
You can’t promise lower prices while backing away from regulations.
Even Patrick Mahomes couldn’t outflop these ads.
Companies are so invested in making their Super Bowl ads a success that we’ve lost something in the process.
The wildly high tariffs on Canada and Mexico have been called off.
The groups said the freeze violates Congress’ wishes and is endangering lives in developing countries.
The cuts would slice $4 billion from the budgets of universities and research organizations.
The Maine Republican, the Senate’s top appropriator, said she has HHS nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s commitment to “re-examine” the cuts.
The Waves also discusses the Riverside Church controversy and the case of Sarah Milov.
What we say matters, especially depending on whom we say it to.
The Waves also discusses the case against Jeffrey Epstein and Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s Fleishman Is in Trouble.
Supporters of climate, infrastructure, mortgage, tech, health, veterans’ and other projects expressed alarm as tens of thousands of programs appeared possibly at risk.
Joe Biden’s top economic adviser opens up on harrowing moments from her time in the White House, and what makes her nervous about the Trump agenda.
Miran has called for a sweeping overhaul of the Fed to ensure greater political control over the central bank, including giving the president the power to fire board members at will.
What a glorious time to be an ethically challenged politician. President Donald Trump began yesterday by pardoning Illinois’s eminently corrupt former Governor Rod R. Blagojevich, who’d tried to auction off a U.S. Senate seat. Last night, Trump extended his mercies to the indicted New York Mayor Eric Adams. The message is twofold and rather elemental: Prosecutors are not to be trusted. And bowing to Trump will yield rewards even for newly minted loyalists.
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 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.
