I recently spent three days in Poland with a group of congressional staffers, meeting diplomats, journalists, think-tank researchers, and political leaders from across the country’s political spectrum. We spoke with representatives of the coalition elected in October and the populist Law and Justice Party that controlled the government for most of the previous decade. The trip was sponsored by the Progressive Policy Institute, where I direct the New Ukraine Project, and the Hudson Institute, and we agreed in advance not to quote anyone we met. But our hosts weren’t shy, and no matter where th ..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

Day Two of the Trump Trial was not only more significant than the eventful Day One, but it may also be the most important single day of the whole case. Why? More than half the jury was selected on Tuesday—faster than anyone expected. Donald Trump has a hard row to hoe. All convictions and acquittals must be unanimous among the 12 jurors in New York. After interviewing a couple of Trump’s former attorneys on background and seeing how many potential jurors checked NPR on the questionnaire as a major source of news, I found that a unanimous acquittal seems well-nigh impossible. (I was always hop ..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

I feel as if I won the lottery. Through a combination of advance planning (rare for me, as my family will tell you), luck, and a friendly court official who said he likes to read me, I snagged a seat in the historic Trump hush money trial in Manhattan, credentialed to represent the Washington Monthly.   With no audio or video feeds available, I’m one of a few dozen reporters who are essentially sending messages in a bottle to the rest of the world. The only difference between covering this and the last time a former president or vice-president was criminally tried—Aaron Burr’s 1806 ..read more

It is no secret that Joe Biden’s administration is racing to finalize a host of regulations before a period of Congressional Review Act (CRA) vulnerability kicks in. Should Republicans recapture control of Congress and the White House, the CRA would give them a fast-track legislative process to repeal the rules issued late in Biden’s term. The 1996 statute, an uneasy compromise between Bill Clinton’s White House and the Newt Gingrich-era Congress, was designed to give Congress, combined with a presidential signature, a filibuster-proof way to repeal unwanted regulations under specific conditi ..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