Outside the Beltway

As expected, President Trump has withdrawn the United States from the nuclear deal with Iran. There was no rational basis for doing so.

John McCain continues to bravely battle an aggressive form of brain cancer, but he’s already made clear that he doesn’t want the 45th President of the United States at his funeral.

Another one of Trump’s lawyers bites the dust, and hired someone with some very specific experience.

It’s been 441 days since Donald Trump held a full-fledged Presidential press conference. Does anyone care?

The new Secretary of State is an improvement over the worst Secretary of State in history.

Israeli Prime Minister gave a speech yesterday designed to undermine the nuclear deal with Iran. The evidence was unconvincing, but the speech was really only aimed at an audience of one.

The United States is apparently looking to Libya as a guide for upcoming talks with North Korea. The DPRK most likely sees the fate of that nation and its leader as a warning.

President Trump’s on-again, off-again visit to Great Britain appears to be on again.

President Trump may be looking to push Chief of Staff John Kelly aside by giving him a next to impossible job.

With the accusations mounting, the nomination of Ronny Jackson to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs is becoming more and more imperiled.

The Trump Administration has suffered another setback in its efforts to repeal DACA.

Hillary Clinton isn’t running for anything in 2018, but that isn’t stopping Republicans from running against her.

An essay from earlier in the year by Jacob T. Levy underscores some of the points I recently tried to make about democratic norms in the current era.

The campaign-agnostic political science models predicted a toss-up in 2016 and again in 2020.

The first real poll of the Senate race in Texas shows Ted Cruz with a much thinner lead than might be expected in a state like Texas. That doesn’t mean we should expect a Democratic upset there, though.

Barbara Bush, only the second woman in history to be the wife and mother of a U.S. President, has died at the age of 92.

President Trump’s job approval numbers remain historically low.

In the wake of the latest attack on Syria, some of the President’s strongest supporters seem shocked to discover that the unprincipled egomaniac they supported is, in fact, an unprincipled egomaniac.

The United States can’t do any good in Syria, but we can do a lot of bad.

Out of the blue, President Trump plans to pardon Dick Cheney’s former Chief of Staff, but the move seems to have more to do with James Comey than it does Scooter Libby.

President Trump isn’t reacting well to the raid on his attorney’s office.

Dan Drezner notes some challenges on this topic, and I add some of my own thoughts.

After eight months in office, the pressures on Chief of Staff John Kelly continue to mount under a President who cannot be controlled and whose behavior will not change.

President Trump is talking about pulling American troops out of Syria, but his own White House is contradicting him.

President Trump wants to send the military to the Mexican border. This is both unnecessary and a bad idea.

Descriptions of Robby Jackson as “Trump’s personal physician” mischaracterize his qualifications for the job.

Normally attorneys would be jumping at the chance to represent the President of the United States. With Donald Trump, the lawyers are distancing themselves from him as fast as they can.

Like many Presidents before him, Donald Trump wants a line-item veto. Getting there won’t be easy, nor should it be.

Not surprisingly, John Bolton has some links to particularly shady people on the right.

Donald Trump may be getting ready to act as his own Chief of Staff. That would be a huge mistake.

H.R. McMaster appears to be on the way out as National Security Adviser. The important question is, who replaces him?

Polls released since the Parkland, Florida shooting show that support for gun control measures is at its highest level since 1993, but will it last?

The statute of limitations has expired. But he should never have been asked the question to begin with.

POLITICO buries the lede in making the case for “Donald Trump’s bubble presidency.”

John Bolton is leading a cry for preemptive war against North Korea.

A group of twenty states have revived an old argument to mount a new legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act.

Staffers are fleeing the administration like rats from a sinking ship.

Presidents are much more constrained in issuing and rolling back regulations than they or the public think.

National Security Adviser H.L. McMaster is the latest person rumored to be considering moving on from the Trump Administration.

Al Hoffman Jr., a Florida-based real estate developer who was a leading fund-raiser for George W. Bush’s campaigns, said he would seek to marshal support among other Republican political donors for a renewed assault weapons ban.

The prospect for a fix to help DACA beneficiaries is looking gloomier than ever.

The Tea Party is dead, but it was never really alive to begin with.

Republicans spent the eight years of Obama Administration railing against fiscal irresponsibility. Now that they have power, they’re the ones being fiscally irresponsible.

More than a year into the Trump Presidency, dozens of White House personnel lack proper security clearances.

Congress seems likely to pass a budget deal today that will massively increase spending, putting to rest once and for all the rank hypocrisy of Republicans when it comes to claims that they are “fiscally conservative.”

Recent polls have caused Republicans to become more optimistic about their chances in this year’s midterms. That optimism is both premature and misplaced.

Donald Trump spent much of the past year touting the rising stock market, now he’s getting a lesson in reality.

With Republicans fully in control in Washington, their concerns about the budget deficit seem to have disappeared.

The military options thus far presented for dealing with the DPRK have not been satisfying.

Donald Trump lies about even the most trivial matters, How are we supposed to believe anything else he says?