Illustration by Cold War Steve By Christopher HooksAn underdressed reporter journeys across icy, barren Greenland—and into Trump’s bored, nineteenth-century brain. Win McNamee/Getty Images By Matt FordThe Supreme Court’s second-newest justice is proving herself to be a non-hack—to the increasing consternation of MAGA. Illustration by Matt Mahurin By Greg SargentHe is descended from Russian Jews—you know, […]
Read MoreTag: year in review 2025
Stephen Miller Is The New Republic’s 2025 Scoundrel of the Year
Is Stephen Miller failing?True, Miller has amassed unprecedented power for a deputy White House chief of staff. He exerts extraordinary influence over an unusually large swath of the government, from immigration to criminal justice to even the military’s operations on American soil. Much of what defines public life in the Trump era—masked kidnappings on U.S. […]
Read MorePete Hegseth Is Just Getting Started
Peter Brian Hegseth is an Iraq War veteran and former alcoholic with a rape allegation, a crusader’s mentality (and crusader’s tattoos), and a genuine disdain for women and fat people. He has written multiple books arguing that the Pentagon, of all places, is too “woke,” and is apathetic towards war crimes and human rights violations—potentially […]
Read MoreWhy Russell Vought Is Worse Than Watergate
“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work…. We want to put them in trauma.” —Russell Vought, May 2023. “[The Center for Renewing America is] an organization that I helped turn into the Death Star…. I want to be […]
Read MoreThe Worst Thing About Elon Musk Is That He Got Away With All of It
“This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy! Chainsaw!” Musk, clad in black sunglasses, a black “Make American Great Again” hat, and a black coat, shouted from the stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, pretending he was a rock star as he waved around a chainsaw he received as a gift from Argentinian President […]
Read MoreThe Department of Justice May Not Survive Pam Bondi
At her confirmation hearing in January, Attorney General Pam Bondi tried to reassure senators about the job she would do as the nation’s top federal law-enforcement officer. Her “overriding objective,” Bondi said, would be to “return the Department of Justice to its core mission of keeping Americans safe and vigorously enforcing the law.” Her stated […]
Read MoreMarco Rubio Is Not the Adult in the Room. He’s the Warmonger.
Early this year, having lost their majority in the November election, Senate Democrats put up a fight over a number of President Trump’s Cabinet picks. But Marco Rubio wasn’t one of them. The Senate unanimously confirmed him as secretary of state in January—for two reasons. First, Rubio spent over a decade in the Senate, which […]
Read MoreKaroline Leavitt Is Fascism’s Lead Mouthpiece
In her debut briefing as White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt already had her hands full. President Trump had signed an executive order pausing all federal funding, which was set to take effect that afternoon and was already causing panic. Every Medicaid reimbursement portal in the country had stopped working. Organizations like Meals on Wheels, […]
Read MoreUnder Kash Patel, “FBI” Means Foolish, Belligerent, and Incompetent
From J. Edgar Hoover authorizing extensive surveillance of Martin Luther King, Jr. to James Comey relaunching a misguided investigation of Hillary Clinton days before the 2016 election, many of the eight previous non-interim FBI directors have shown terrible judgment. But Kash Patel may have established himself, in less than a year, as the worst FBI […]
Read MoreWho Is JD Vance? (No, Seriously. Who Is He?)
At the Turning Point USA conference at the University of Mississippi in October, an audience member asked Vice President JD Vance about the tension between his interracial, interfaith marriage with Usha, the daughter of Indian immigrants, and his beliefs that the U.S. should reduce the number of immigrants. He began with his thoughts on immigration […]
Read MoreMike Johnson: The Man Who Knew Too Little
When all non-essential government services were suspended at the beginning of October, that also seemed to include the House Speaker Mike Johnson’s brain-processing power. But unlike the rest of the government, the Louisiana Republican has no intention of turning it back on. Take for instance, Johnson’s recent non-response to the mounting calls that the Pentagon […]
Read MoreKristi Noem Is the Villain DHS Was Made For
Before the 2024 election, the idea that Kristi Noem would someday head the Department of Homeland Security seemed beyond unlikely. But her cruelty once handed this power was foreseeable. If Noem’s name rang any bells for most people before the Senate confirmed her to head DHS this January (to their enduring shame), it was because […]
Read MoreCognitive Decline? These Were Trump’s 11 Most Senile Moments This Year
“But don’t, don’t bop down the stairs. So one thing with Obama, I had zero respect for him as a president. But he would bop down those stairs, I’ve never seen, da-da, da-da, da-da, bop, bop, bop,” he continued, singing and doing a little jig. “He’d go down the stairs, wouldn’t hold on, I said […]
Read MoreTV’s Antidote to the Year of Men in Crisis
Beyond Mon Mothma and Molly and Nikki, there was Naomi Schwartz (voiced with titanic verve by Lisa Edelstein), the matriarch of the Schwooper family on Netflix’s Long Story Short, whose forgottenness is essentially the structuring spine of the time-jumping series. Then there was Yusra (Farah Bsieso), Mo’s mother on the titular Mo, who explains to […]
Read MoreThe Year the Movies Went Big on Isolation
Retreating to sparsely populated and remote settings, these films did not attempt to build dense webs of social relations or to show their characters moving through the world. The plot points and dramatic contexts of these movies are varied and distinctive, as are their respective historical backdrops. But their shared focus on and fascination with […]
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The New Republic’s Books of the Year 2025
Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age by Amanda HessDoubleday, 272 pp., $29.00“As a longtime reporter on internet culture for The New York Times and elsewhere, Amanda Hess excels at connecting our private online encounters to wider cultural shifts. In her debut memoir of ‘having a child in the digital age,’ she skewers […]
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The New Republic’s Books of the Year
Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age by Amanda HessDoubleday, 272 pp., $29.00“As a longtime reporter on internet culture for The New York Times and elsewhere, Amanda Hess excels at connecting our private online encounters to wider cultural shifts. In her debut memoir of ‘having a child in the digital age,’ she skewers […]
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