Donald Trump vows to root out the uncooperative public servants who constrained his first term and replace them with loyalists. “Either the deep state destroys America, or we destroy the deep state,” he told rallygoers in March last year. Bringing the sprawling federal bureaucracy to heel is necessary if he’s to realize his agenda: shutting down the southern border, building “vast holding facilities” for migrants facing deportation, and prosecuting his political enemies. Under current law, the vast majority of the 2.1 million-member federal workforce are “career” civil servants. The pres ..read more

Don’t Expect the Jury to Save Us From Trump In my Washington Monthly column today, I argued that Joe Biden and his campaign team can’t hinge their reelection strategy on the assumption Donald Trump will be found guilty in the Stormy Daniels hush money trial. A guilty verdict can never be preordained. Moreover, three of the first seven jurors seated made comments in the selection process that were somewhat favorable to Trump. At least, that was the case when my column published this morning. Since then, one of those three jurors was excused after questio ..read more

On Tuesday, Donald Trump was stuck in a Manhattan courtroom, and Joe Biden was campaigning in Scranton, Pennsylvania. But Biden made no comments about the first criminal trial of a former president and active presidential nominee, instead contrasting their records on the economy, taxes, retirement security, and the pandemic. His campaign’s social media team limited itself to some glancing references to the 45th president’s trial—reacting to the news that Trump nodded off during the proceedings was hard to resist—but made no commentary about the specific charges. Journalists covering the Biden ..read more

Under the radar of war in the Middle East, the presidential election, and Donald Trump’s hush money trial in a Manhattan courtroom (not to mention his unhinged social media postings), the House of Representatives is paralyzed over a $95 billion supplemental bill to assist Ukraine. The beleaguered Ukrainians are desperate and running out of needed resources, especially ammunition, to stave off Vladimir Putin’s forces. The Senate passed the aid measure with ease, but the ascendant pro-Putin wing of the Republican Party is holding it hostage in the House, where it would pass were it brought to a ..read more

One Big Thing Mike Johnson Seems to Get If you are a regular reader of this newsletter, you know I’ve been a Mike Johnson skeptic. I thought House Democrats acted hastily and myopically in aiding the ouster of Kevin McCarthy from the speakership, right after he averted a government shutdown. When Johnson won the gavel in October I argued he was not an upgrade. He validated my view when he relied on dishonest claims to justify tanking a bipartisan border policy deal that would have also secured Ukraine aid two months ago. But I’ve also retained a sl ..read more

The Supreme Court said that it wanted to stop making decisions on abortion in its Dobbs decision, reversing Roe v. Wade. But guess what? Abortion is back, and it is likely to come back again, even after recent oral arguments on the abortion pill, pitting a drug maker and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) against anti-abortion groups, and the next case on April 24, which deals with emergency care and abortion. Why? In last month’s oral argument, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito raised a little-known statute called the Comstock “Chastity” Law, passed during Uly ..read more

The Monthly’s Presidential Accomplishment Index on CNN The Washington Monthly’s April/May/June print issue, featuring our Presidential Accomplishment Index comparing the policy records of Joe Biden and Donald Trump, is injecting some desperately needed perspective into the media’s coverage of the 2024 campaign. Yesterday, Editor-in-Chief Paul Glastris talked to Jake Tapper on his show “The Lead with Jake Tapper” about our comprehensive analysis. You can check out the interview on CNN.com or Tapper’s Instagram feed. As ..read more

As the House considers a bill to reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act [FISA], a bipartisan group has an amendment to “prohibit warrantless searches of U.S. person communications” of the data collected by the FISA program. Before concluding the policy sounds reasonable, consider that the Republican co-sponsors of the amendment are some of the most unreasonable members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus: Jim Jordan, Andy Biggs, and Warren Davidson. These aren’t folks with a long-held interest in personal privacy rights. They are wedded to Donald Trump’s self-serving conspira ..read more

Click here for the Monthly‘s Presidential Accomplishment Index and more essays comparing Trump and Biden’s achievements in office. When it comes to federal regulations, Democratic and Republican presidents are judged by different standards. The former are expected to use federal regulations vigorously to advance liberal goals such as protecting the environment and the rights of workers. The latter are supposed to take an ax to federal regulations, especially those that burden large corporations. Neither task is especially easy. Moving a federal regulation through the complicated rulemaki ..read more

This November’s race is shaping up to be a contest between two presidents who served consecutively and faced similar partisan advantages in Congress. These historically rare circumstances allow for a one-to-one comparison of their achievements in office. Our editors spent months digging into the records of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden to create our Presidential Accomplishment Index (below). How do the two administrations stack up? Read the list, which tracks 149 major accomplishments across 21 categories, and decide for yourself. We think you’ll find some surprises. We also asked 10 journa ..read more