Secretary of State Marco Rubio testifies before the House Committee on Appropriations on May 21, 2025 in Washington, D.C. Photo: John McDonnell/Getty Images In recent weeks, the Trump administration has intensified its targeting of international students in the United States, making efforts to limit Harvard University’s ability to enroll foreign students and ordering a pause…
Jerome Powell during a House Financial Services Committee hearing on February 12, 2025. Photo: Daniel Heuer/Bloomberg/Getty Images At the start of his second term, Donald Trump has been leaning into two of his favorite negotiation tactics: hurling threats and bestowing dumb nicknames on his adversaries. The effectiveness of these strategies is debatable. While plenty of…
Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images After President Trump announced sweeping tariffs this week the financial markets saw their steepest one-day declines since 2020, Americans started panic buying everything from TVs to soy sauce, and financial analysts warned that we’re facing “economic Armageddon.” Like many people, I was feeling pretty jittery about the collapse of the post-World…
Officers with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Photo: Patrick Fallon/Reuters American tourists planning trips overseas are probably familiar with U.S. State Department “travel advisories,” which warn about the risks of visits to war-torn or totalitarian countries as well as those experiencing high crime or suffering from poor infrastructure. These up-to-date looks at local conditions abroad…
Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photo: Getty Images Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon has been a highly visible opponent of the Trump agenda. He was a central antagonist to Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr. at their confirmation hearings. He has repeatedly highlighted the chaotic fallout from the president’s attempted federal spending freeze. A longtime advocate for privacy…
Graphic: Intelligencer; Photo: Getty Who: Matt Gaetz was a U.S. representative from Florida who served from 2017 until he resigned from Congress on November 13, 2024, hours after Trump announced his nomination for AG. Qualifications, According to Trump: In a pair of Truth Social posts, Trump called Gaetz a “deeply gifted and tenacious attorney.” He…
Elon Musk in Lancaster, Pennsylvania last Saturday. Photo: Samuel Corum/Getty Images This past weekend, some 1,500 people packed into a Marriott ballroom in downtown Lancaster, Pennsylvania, seeking advice. Many of them wore red MAGA hats, but this wasn’t purely a campaign event. Though the world’s richest man had come as a surrogate for Donald Trump,…
Photo: Christopher Pike/Bloomberg/Getty Images When Joe Biden’s top political aides started setting up his campaign early last year, Jim Messina was one of their first calls. Messina, who managed Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, had plenty of thoughts on building a machine to get a second term for an unpopular president with a bad economy. For…