Section: The Atlantic (USA)
The Foreign-Policy Contradictions of the Trump Administration: A Crib Sheet
During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump regularly contradicted himself on foreign policy. Now he has an entire administration to mix up the messages. Often these misalignments seem to be attempts by Trump’s team to soften the more controversial statements made by the president. But any effort to walk back the tweeter-in-chief’s...
Marine Le Pen: Madame Présidente?
Marine Le Pen is hoping the wave of populism sweeping the Western world carries her to the Élysée Palace.“The wind of history has turned,” Le Pen, who heads the far-right National Front (FN), told a crowd of supporters at the kickoff of her presidential bid earlier this month in Lyon, the industrial city in southeastern France. “It will carry us...
‘There’s Enough Time to Change Everything’
Last month, David Galernter, the pioneering Yale University computer scientist, met with Donald Trump to discuss the possibility of joining the White House staff. An article about the meeting in the Washington Post was headlined, “David Gelernter, fiercely anti-intellectual computer scientist, is being eyed for Trump’s science adviser.”It...
The Mystery of the Ukraine Peace Plan
On Sunday, The New York Times reported that two associates of President Donald Trump, including Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, presented a sealed envelope to then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn containing a secret peace plan to resolve the three-year conflict in Ukraine. The plan, according to the report, would have...
‘Before, Putin Was Unpredictable; Now It’s Trump’
Well, that didn’t last long. As President Donald Trump wrapped up his fourth week in office, the romance between him and Russian president Vladimir Putin seemed to have cooled suddenly. The week began with the resignation of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn amid revelations that he lied about his phone calls to the Russian...
The Atlantic Daily: The Memo and the Media
What We’re FollowingThe Fourth Estate: One of today’s biggest stories was the AP report—based on a leaked draft memo—that the Trump administration was considering deploying the National Guard to round up unauthorized immigrants.The memo was real, but the White House denied it, and the saga that unfolded illustrated how the...
One Press Conference, Two Audiences
On Thursday, Donald Trump gave a press conference that was rife with untruths and evasions. Let’s begin with specific examples of demonstrable falsehoods, so that readers who are favorable to the president won’t have to trust my characterization:Bragging about all the electoral votes he won, Trump said, “We got 306 because people came...
One Press Conference, Two Audiences
On Thursday, Donald Trump gave a press conference that was rife with untruths and evasions. Let’s begin with specific examples of demonstrable falsehoods, so that readers who are favorable to the president won’t have to trust my characterization:Bragging about all the electoral votes he won, Trump said, “We got 306 because people came...
Can Europe Go On Like This?
For leaders of European nations, it’s impossible to know which of President Donald Trump’s remarks about Europe and the Atlantic alliance—the bellicose or the conciliatory—to take to heart. Is he agitating for the EU’s demise when he extols Brexit? Is NATO “obsolete,” or a cornerstone of transatlantic security? Is Moscow now...
Should Jeff Sessions Recuse Himself From the Russia Inquiries?
Senate Democrats are calling for Attorney General Sessions to recuse himself from reported inquiries into contacts between former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia, but legal experts also say that Sessions’ closeness to President Trump raises questions about his ability to be...
