Category: Politics

The Air Marshals Keeping Watch On Eric Swalwell

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This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here. On August 8, former Representative Eric Swalwell boarded a United Airlines flight from Frankfurt, Germany, to Washington, D.C. He didn’t know it, but federal agents were watching him throughout the nine-hour trip. The FBI had asked the Federal Air Marshal Service to covertly monitor Swalwell on board and to watch him use his electronic devices, to see whether its officers could visually ascertain his passcodes, according to records I obtained that have not…

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Not American Enough

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For Carlos Alemán, the pinnacle of the dozen years since he became a U.S. citizen was the night in 2020 when he was elected to serve on the city council of Homewood, Alabama. One of the lowest moments came earlier this year, when he learned that some of the most powerful people in his state are attempting to ban immigrants like him from pursuing higher office. “It seems to be part of a project to reject anyone who’s not born in this country as not worthy or deserving of the…

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ICE Has Quietly Changed Its Deadly-Force Rule

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ICE quietly enacted new rules this month that will keep officers involved in deadly-force incidents—such as firing a gun and using a choke hold—off the streets until the completion of an investigation. Previously, these officers were able to return to their regular job in as few as three days. Now they must remain on desk duty until they are cleared by investigators, according to two senior ICE officials with knowledge of the change, who spoke with me on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss agency…

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Ossoff’s ‘Natalie’ Moment

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How many words does it take to trigger MAGA world? Three, it turns out. When Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia said at a rally on Sunday that President Trump wants to “travel with Natalie”—implying an untoward relationship between the 80-year-old grandfather and his 35-year-old special assistant, Natalie Harp—the outrage from Trump allies was as loud as it was predictable: Megyn Kelly, Newt Gingrich, and Laura Ingraham, among others, accused Ossoff of misogyny, despite having previously defended Trump’s own sexist comments. (The word hypocrisy feels inadequate here.) But as this debate…

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A Democrat in Name Only

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Photographs by KC McGinnis Somewhere along the county road between Independence and Manchester, I lost Rob Sand. This had been a distinct possibility when I agreed to join the 44-year-old Democratic candidate for governor on a segment of a weeklong bike ride across Iowa. Unlike Sand, I am not a biker—merely a leisurely walker and, like any good Millennial woman, an occasional Pilates-doer. Which is why, on a long, low-grade hill dotted with Queen Anne’s lace, my quads began to burn, my pace slowed, and the subject of my story…

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Hunger Games, MAGA Style

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The semiquincentennial events that President Trump has personally directed have been a celebration of his very particular version of America. The bloody UFC fight on the White House lawn was followed by the sparsely attended Great American State Fair and a world-record-breaking July 4 fireworks show held alongside a dangerous lightning storm. Next weekend will bring a high-speed car race through the museum-lined streets of Washington. But of all of these festivities, the Patriot Games in Ohio this week might have been the oddest. Organizers convened 120 teenagers from across…

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