Category: Politics

Trump Finally Drops the Anti-Semitism Pretext

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The intensely hostile letter that Education Secretary Linda McMahon sent to the leadership of Harvard yesterday has a lot going on. But the most notable thing about it is what it leaves out. To hear McMahon tell it, Harvard is a university on the verge of ruin. (I say McMahon because her signature is at the bottom of the letter, but portions of the document are written in such a distinctive idiolect—“Why is there so much HATE?” the letter asks; it signs off with “Thank you for your attention to…

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Is Anthony Weiner Ready to Go Another Round?

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This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here. The last time we saw him, we saw all of him. Our subject is Anthony Weiner, whose surname was a burden long before it became a curse—so fused with his disgrace that you can’t say it without triggering an avalanche of cringe. Weiner, who was caught texting pictures of his penis, first denied it, then admitted it, then resigned from Congress, then ran for mayor of New York City, at which point he…

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Read The Atlantic’s Interview With Donald Trump

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Editor’s Note: Read The Atlantic’s related cover story, “‘I Run the Country and the World.’” On Thursday, April 24, I joined my colleagues Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer in the White House to interview President Donald Trump. The story behind this meeting is a strange one, told in their new Atlantic cover story, which you can read here. Ashley and Michael had been seeking an Oval Office meeting for some time. It had been scheduled, then angrily unscheduled, then followed by an impromptu interview from the president’s cellphone, and then…

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Inside the Fiasco at the National Security Council

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The national security adviser seemed at a loss. It fell to Michael Waltz to explain to handpicked members of his staff this month why the president had ordered their dismissal after a meeting with Laura Loomer, the far-right activist who rose to prominence by making incendiary anti-Muslim claims and who last year shared a video that labeled 9/11 an “inside job.” “He was upset and couldn’t explain it,” a person familiar with Waltz’s reaction told me. But the abrupt dismissals shouldn’t have come as a surprise at the National Security…

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Migrants Are Heading South

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In the north of Costa Rica, an irregular dirt path runs parallel to the highway that connects the country with Nicaragua at the Las Tablillas border post. When torrential downpours flood the Río Frío and drench the surrounding lowland forest, the trail turns into a viscous paste that sucks at the shoes of migrants crossing the border by foot; they often leave their ruined sneakers behind once they make it across. On a visit to the area last month, I saw hundreds of discarded shoes, sun-bleached and caked in dust.…

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We’re About to Find Out What Mass Deportation Really Looks Like

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This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here. The Trump administration is working hard to convince the public that its mass-deportation campaign is fully under way. Over the past several weeks, federal agents have seized foreign students off the streets, raided worksites, and shipped detainees to a supermax prison in El Salvador using wartime powers adopted under the John Adams administration. The tactics have spread fear and created a showreel of social-media-ready highlights for the White House. But they have not…

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