The Biggest Myth About Trump’s Base (And Why Many Believe It)

This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here. To judge by recent accounts, Donald Trump’s intervention in Venezuela has imperiled his standing among his own supporters. Traditional-media outlets have warned of a MAGA schism, as have some high-profile right-wing influencers. “President Trump seized control of the Republican Party on an anti-interventionist ‘America First’ platform,” The New York Times reported on January 4, but his removal of Venezuela’s leader “threatened to open a new rift within the political movement he has built.”…

Read More...

Trump’s Retro Imperialism

President Donald Trump’s fans like to cheer on his most audacious moves by declaring, “I voted for this.” It is safe to assume, though, that very few people who pulled the lever for Trump in 2024 expected that he would soon announce that he had seized control over Venezuela. One of Trump’s most popular qualities has always been his supposed opposition to foreign wars, his anti-imperialist isolationism. Yet J. D. Vance, who once wrote an op-ed headlined “Trump’s Best Foreign Policy? Not Starting Any Wars,” now declares the new war…

Read More...

Trump’s ‘Warrior Dividend’ for troops is housing money approved by Congress

President Donald Trump’s “Warrior Dividend” bonus for service members, which he suggested would be funded by tariff revenue, is actually a one-time basic allowance for housing stipend already approved by Congress, according to a senior administration official. The $ 1,776 bonus payment Trump announced while addressing the nation Wednesday night will be paid using funds Congress appropriated to the Defense Department in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which was passed into law in July, to supplement the basic allowance for housing. Congress appropriated $ 2.9 billion to supplement the…

Read More...

Trump’s Eye-Popping Postelection Windfall

This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here. On the morning after he won a second term as president, Donald Trump placed an unexpected call to his top fundraiser, Meredith O’Rourke. The night before, he’d told a ballroom of supporters in West Palm Beach, Florida, that he had held his last political rally—“Can you believe it?”—and was ready to focus on governing. But his message to O’Rourke after the break of dawn was different. “I want you to keep going,” he…

Read More...

Republican leaders reject Trump’s demands to scrap the Senate filibuster to end the shutdown

WASHINGTON (AP) — Back from a week abroad, President Donald Trump threw himself into the shutdown debate, calling on the Senate to scrap the filibuster and reopen the government, an idea swiftly rejected Friday by Republican leaders who have long opposed such a move. Trump pushed his Republican Party to get rid of the Senate rule that requires 60 votes to overcome objections and gives the minority Democrats a check on GOP power. In the chamber that’s currently split, 53-47, Democrats have had enough votes to keep the government closed…

Read More...