The latest general election polling and presidential approval ratings numbers haven’t held a lot of good news for Donald Trump. Some surveys have him back down in the thirties and the head-to-head matchups against the Democratic frontrunners don’t have him being able to beat anyone but Elizabeth Warren. (That doesn’t mean he couldn’t still win

Isn’t he already? For all intents and purposes, you betcha. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has steadily moved closer to Donald Trump over the last two-plus years on the direction of national security and foreign policy as others, such as James Mattis and John Kelly, have hit the exits. Bolton’s bolting leaves Pompeo as Trump’s

John wrote last night about yesterday’s Supreme Court decision on the White House’s new asylum rules. By a seven to two margin, the justices agreed that the rule, which essentially acts as a safe third country agreement (without Mexico’s participation) could remain in effect while the case continued through the appeals process. The two dissenting

Blink, part II? Not only has China decided to send a team of negotiators to Washington to break a vicious cycle on retaliatory tariffs, they have also made the first gesture to reverse the cycle. Through its official ministry, China announced tariff exemptions on sixteen US imports, with more to come soon, the New York

Why not? Having George W. Bush’s nat-sec adviser in Donald Trump’s White House couldn’t be any stranger than hiring John Bolton in the position, and might at least add a little more nuance. Trump himself raised a few eyebrows last night by praising Condoleezza Rice’s “very interesting and secure perspective” in a Fox News interview

“Dramatic announcement,” or restatement of longstanding Israeli policy? Either way, Benjamin Netanyahu’s timing seems calculated for turning out right-leaning voters in the upcoming Israeli elections. The PM pledged to impose “sovereignty” over the entire Jordan Valley in his next term, assuming he gets one: [embedded content] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israel in a dramatic

Make that the “total joke” challengers so far. White House reporters asked Donald Trump why he’s shutting down GOP presidential primaries and caucuses in several states, to which Trump responded that he has nothing to do with it. It’s almost certainly true, but it won’t stop the issue from being a Rorschach test of sorts for

The story appeared to confirm the worst fears about Donald Trump and his sometimes reckless public discourse. CNN’s Jim Sciutto reported yesterday that the CIA was forced to exfiltrate a mole deep within the Kremlin after Trump revealed too much intelligence in a one-on-one meeting with Vladimir Putin in 2017. The loss of this asset

For the eighth time in less than three months, North Korea has fired another short-range missile into the sea. Curiously, it happened only hours after Kim Jong-un offered once again to restart negotiations with President Trump. But that offer came with strings attached: no more meetings until Washington shows that it’s ready to give Kim

By this time, Americans have gotten used to the idea of negotiating with the Taliban in an effort to wind down the war in Afghanistan. The outrage over their role as protector of al-Qaeda before and after the 9/11 attacks has given way to a sense of inevitability that the Taliban will not be crushed

The good news: Democrats seem determined to lose the 2020 election by running on an extreme platform of massive government control. The bad news: The same thing … if you’re the New York Times. Op-ed columnist David Leonhardt took a closer look at the internals of last month’s Pew survey and discovered that Democrats have utterly

Not that I ever had much hope for success coming from peace talks with the Taliban, but now it looks as if the process may have completely collapsed. Or at least that’s what the President was saying on Twitter last night. Unbeknownst to almost everyone, the major Taliban leaders and, separately, the President of Afghanistan,

We can put the conspiracy theories to rest. After Donald Trump tweeted out “Really Good Jobs Numbers” yesterday, critics accused him of unfairly accessing the official jobs report from the BLS. The actual jobs report for August shows a third straight month of declining job growth, although it does have better news on wages: Total

Before getting to the small amount of meat in this story, let’s ask the obvious question. It’s been almost a week now since the argument began over the President’s warning about Hurricane Dorian possibly hitting Alabama. Is this really still dragging on? Apparently so. After the situation seemed to be settled (at least in the