Below is a transcript of an interview of House Speaker Paul Ryan by Stephen F. Hayes, editor in chief of THE WEEKLY STANDARD at the TWS Midwest Conservative Summit earlier Monday in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and concision.
“We suffered with Obamacare,” Trump said. “Make no mistake. This is a repeal and replace of Obamacare. Make no mistake about it,” he declared before pausing for a personal boast. “I predicted it a long time ago. I said it’s failing and now it’s obvious that it’s failing. It’s dead—it’s essentially…
It’s fitting that Speaker of the House Paul Ryan announced his retirement during what was a very disturbing week in the White House, even by the chaotic standards that have prevailed under President Trump. Some suggested Ryan’s leaving means the Republican party has now become a Trumpist party. But…
The conventional wisdom on the firing of Rex Tillerson congealed quickly: He was an ineffective secretary of state who played a crucial role in constraining the president’s reckless foreign policy instincts.
It is possible that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is suddenly “committed to denuclearization,” as South Korean National Security Adviser Chung Eui-yong claimed in comments to the press at the White House Thursday evening.
Bob Corker would like you to know that he’ll stick around Washington a little bit longer, if you want him to. The Tennessee Republican announced his retirement on September 26, 2017, in a short humblebrag celebrating both the power he’d accumulated and the sacrifices he’d made.
I was flying cross-country Tuesday night and didn’t see Donald Trump’s State of the Union Address. The instant reviews were predictably mixed. Trump supporters, even reluctant ones, seemed to like it. His critics hated it.
Many Republicans and Trump-supporting commentators have embarrassed themselves in recent weeks with their wild-eyed and absurd conspiracy theories about the “deep state.” While the insurrectionist language from some of them might please the InfoWars corner of the conservative movement, it’s deeply…
One fact of the first year of Donald Trump’s presidency is that the policy results have been pretty conservative. For some conservatives, this is enough to sustain a great enthusiasm for Trump and his presidency. For others, like me, the concerns about Trump’s erratic behavior, his casual…
A tweet from President Donald Trump Thursday morning sowed confusion about the White House’s position on a key intelligence program and imperiled the already shaky efforts to renew the federal government’s ability to monitor the communications of terrorists and other threats.
There was a moment at the end of 2017 when, if you squinted hard enough, it seemed as though the Trump presidency might be approaching normal.
There was a moment at the end of 2017 when, if you squinted hard enough, it seemed as though the Trump presidency might be approaching normal.
For two hours on December 19, Paul Ryan loved his job.
Ned Price is not happy.
On the penultimate day of the Obama administration, less than 24 hours before the president would vacate the White House, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper issued a press release meant to put to rest what had been a pesky issue for his office. “Closing the Book on Bin Laden:…
We don't use the word “lie” with abandon in these pages. It’s used far too often in public life, to the point at which nearly every statement someone disagrees with is characterized as a “lie.” The L-word is tightly regulated in parliamentary bodies—in Congress, for example—and rightly so. Once you…
Earlier today, The Weekly Standard published a piece that fell short of our editorial standards. I take full responsibility for our editorial process. We’ve pulled the piece.
Donald Trump was frustrated. Five days earlier, on July 12, 2017, the president had decided for the second time in his young administration that he would certify to Congress Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal he’d promised as a candidate to dismantle. He wasn’t happy with the decision he’d…
Donald Trump was frustrated. Five days earlier, on July 12, 2017, the president had decided for the second time in his young administration that he would certify to Congress Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal he’d promised as a candidate to dismantle. He wasn’t happy with the decision he’d…
Donald Trump provided some much-needed clarity about his plan for Afghanistan in a speech to the nation on Monday. The United States won’t be withdrawing anytime soon. We won’t announce in advance our departure dates. We’re not doing nation-building. Afghan security forces will be the offensive…
Around dinnertime on August 14, President Donald Trump tweeted about the “truly bad people” who played a role in the Charlottesville race riots. Less than 24 hours later he highlighted some “very fine people” who were there, too.
Big news: We are pleased to announce the relaunch of Tuesday Morning Quarterback, the celebrated weekly NFL column by Gregg Easterbrook. Easterbrook will debut on THE WEEKLY STANDARD website next Tuesday, Aug 22.
Donald Trump is an unflinching critic of anything and everything he finds un-American. On Saturday, he flinched.
Two days after the 2016 election, we had this to say about Donald Trump’s stunning victory:
Two days after the 2016 election, we had this to say about Donald Trump’s stunning victory:
Derek Harvey, a top Middle East adviser to President Donald Trump, has been fired from his position at the National Security Council, effective today. Harvey, a longtime intelligence professional with vast experience in the Middle East, was a key player in the Trump administration’s Iran policy…
Anthony Scaramucci has had some difficulty over the course of his first few days as White House communications director, but as he wrapped up his first week on the job he managed to provide an unambiguous answer to one question on the minds of millions of Americans watching the Trump presidency…
President Donald Trump plans to recertify Iranian compliance with the Iran nuclear deal before the congressionally mandated deadline to do so on Monday, according to four sources with knowledge of his thinking on the issue. The decision, which continues to provide Iran sanctions relief for their…
If Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s readout of Donald Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin is a preview of the Trump administration’s approach to Russia, it’s going to be a rough three and a half years. In a diplomatic depantsing that will have repercussions far beyond Russia, Tillerson’s comments…
Washington is still trying to make sense of James Comey's congressional testimony yesterday. My immediate reaction is here. A very smart lawyer—a friend of THE WEEKLY STANDARD and no fan of Donald Trump—emails this sharp analysis, which questions the reasons for and legitimacy of the special…
It's not hard to understand why Donald Trump was frustrated with FBI director James Comey. In the weeks before the inauguration and the weeks that followed, Comey repeatedly told Trump that he was not under investigation as part of the FBI's probe into Russian attempts to influence the 2016…
It's not hard to understand why Donald Trump was frustrated with FBI director James Comey. In the weeks before the inauguration and the weeks that followed, Comey repeatedly told Trump that he was not under investigation as part of the FBI's probe into Russian attempts to influence the 2016…
A Donald Trump tweet is the reason we have a special counsel investigation into Russia's attempts to influence the 2016 election and possible collusion between Trump associates and Russians, according to testimony from former FBI Director James Comey.
On April 30, 2012, Barack Obama's top counter-terrorism adviser made a bold prediction: It was possible to envision a world in which al Qaeda's central leadership would "no longer [be] relevant" to the United States and the organization itself would be eliminated. "If the decade before 9/11 was the…
Washington is afire once again with a controversy pitting President Donald Trump against the U.S. intelligence community and the media. The allegations are deadly serious: In an Oval Office meeting, the president disclosed highly classified information from a friendly intelligence service to an…
President Donald Trump fired James Comey just as the FBI director moved to expand and intensify the bureau's counterintelligence investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and the possible collusion of Trump advisers in those efforts.
Editor's note: Former Democratic representative Corrine Brown was convicted by a federal jury on 18 counts in her corruption trial Thursday. The 12-term Floridian's prosecution was related to theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars from a fake charity. Most of the counts were related to mail,…
Syria is a bloody mess. Its cities lie in ruins. Its antiquities have been destroyed. And the Syrian leader continues to kill his own people. The death toll may be as high as a half million people. Some 10 million Syrians have been displaced. Reporters working there have described it as "hell on…
One day in late spring in the early days of the George W. Bush administration, FDA inspectors visited the headquarters of Sargento cheese in Plymouth, Wisconsin—a routine visit as part of the federal government's efforts to ensure the safety of the food we eat. The inspectors took samples of cheese…
I spent most of the last two days reporting out the extraordinary allegations President Donald Trump made against his predecessor, Barack Obama – that Obama had Trump's "wires tapped in Trump Tower." And I've spent many hours over the past several weeks looking into claims about ties between…
The math isn't complicated. If the federal government doesn't reform entitlements soon, the country will face a debt crisis. There is no disputing this. It's inevitable. The only unknown is timing. And the stubborn determination of some leaders in both political parties to ignore runaway…
The math isn’t complicated. If the federal government doesn't reform entitlements soon, the country will face a debt crisis. There is no disputing this. It's inevitable. The only unknown is timing. And the stubborn determination of some leaders in both political parties to ignore runaway…
Michael Flynn's resignation as President Donald Trump's first national security adviser won't end the controversy surrounding the new administration's purported ties to Russia. Depending on which sources you consult, Flynn was either one of Vladimir Putin's stooges or a martyr to the "swamp"—the…
Michael Flynn’s resignation as President Donald Trump's first national security adviser won't end the controversy surrounding the new administration's purported ties to Russia. Depending on which sources you consult, Flynn was either one of Vladimir Putin's stooges or a martyr to the "swamp"—the…
For most of last week, the report on enhanced interrogations produced by Democrats on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence dominated headlines. To the extent that there was a debate at all, it was one-sided. News coverage routinely described the findings as the “Senate torture report,” often…
Less than 24 hours before the official end of the Obama presidency, while White House staffers were pulling pictures off the walls and cleaning out their desks, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) posted without fanfare another installment of the documents captured in Osama…
When President Donald Trump visited the CIA Saturday, he had hoped that CIA Director Mike Pompeo would accompany him. But when Trump arrived at the Langley, Virginia, headquarters of the Agency, he was instead accompanied by Congressman Mike Pompeo.
President Donald J. Trump gave an aggressive, combative inaugural speech today, heavy on the populism and economic nationalism that energized his campaign, and virtually devoid of the themes and principles that have defined the Republican party and the conservative movement at its heart.
There was a time, early in Barack Obama’s presidency, when it was considered outrageous to worry out loud that the new president might treat enemies better than allies, run down friends and elevate foes, show solidarity with anti-American leaders, maybe even release dangerous terrorists or…
It will go down as a classic do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do presidential statement. At a press conference in Berlin on November 17, Barack Obama urged his successor to “stand up" to Vladimir Putin when Russia deviates "from our values and international norms."
On March 28, 2011, Barack Obama stood behind a presidential podium at the National Defense University and addressed the nation. His ostensible topic was Libya, and his ostensible purpose was to explain his decision to intervene there. And over the course of his 27-minute address, he did this.
On March 28, 2011, Barack Obama stood behind a presidential podium at the National Defense University and addressed the nation. His ostensible topic was Libya, and his ostensible purpose was to explain his decision to intervene there. And over the course of his 27-minute address, he did this.
Did Donald Trump just set the stage for World War III?
Vice President-elect Mike Pence will serve as head of Donald Trump's transition to power, replacing New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, according to three sources with knowledge of the plans.
They meant it. There have been five national elections in the past decade. In four of them—2006, 2008, 2010, and 2014—voters gave notice to the politicians who are supposed to lead them. They were different elections and different times, and the results invested power in different political…
I spend a lot of time these days wondering if anyone has ever given more thought to a relatively meaningless vote than I have this year.
In the days since FBI Director James Comey wrote to congressional leaders revealing new information in the Hillary Clinton email investigation, Clinton defenders have been spinning furiously in an attempt to mitigate the potential political damage. They have attacked Comey, blamed a rogue band of…
Virtually everyone around Donald Trump has offered assurances in recent days that the Republican nominee will accept the results of the election on November 8. Then on Wednesday, Trump refused to do so. And with his answer, he lost the debate and ensured, if it wasn't already a certainty, that he…
The continuing revelations about the Patrick Kennedy's efforts to hide or downplay the classified emails on Hillary Clinton's server will be overshadowed for the next two days by the third presidential debate Wednesday in Las Vegas. But this clear and compelling Wall Street Journal editorial offers…
Less than 24 hours after the FBI released documents confirming discussions of a bargain between the FBI and State Department over reclassification of at least one classified Hillary Clinton email, the spokesman for the State Department categorically denied that any such discussions ever happened.
A senior State Department official repeatedly pressed the FBI to change the classification of emails stored on Hillary Clinton's private server, according to FBI interview summaries set to be released in the coming days. Patrick Kennedy, the undersecretary of state for management, discussed…
It had been a long day, and I was famished. I'd flown to New York the previous night, and the plane was delayed three times. I walked into my hotel room at 1:00 a.m. After five hours of sleep, I woke to prepare for my midday speech. Between the event itself and chatting with attendees afterwards, I…
Sensing an opportunity to make big gains in Congress on November 8, top Democrats have stepped up their efforts to link congressional Republicans to the nominee of their party, Donald Trump.
It's going to get worse.
The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on Sunday night's presidential debate in St. Louis.
Hempstead, N.Y.
As Barack Obama prepared to enter the final year of his presidency, he sat down for an interview with Olivier Knox to discuss a bold new policy change. He had announced a year earlier that the United States would be ending its decades-long isolation of Cuba and seeking rapprochement with the…
Senior writer Stephen F. Hayes joined Fox News on Tuesday to talk about updates in the presidential race and new Benghazi revelations.
On March 10, 2015, Hillary Clinton told reporters at a rare press conference that she had “absolute confidence that everything that could be in any way connected to work is now in the possession of the State Department."
Donald Trump went to Mexico Wednesday on a risky, last-minute trip in advance of his big policy speech on immigration. He had two goals: to provide a dramatic, newsy preview of his immigration policy speech on Wednesday night, and to look presidential.
As Bill Clinton entered the final year of his presidency, his aides put together a legacy-building trip to South Asia—the first visit to the region by a U.S. president since Jimmy Carter's in 1978. Early drafts of the itinerary featured a notable exclusion: The president would visit India, an…
Eleven weeks before the general election, with polls showing Donald Trump staring at a potential electoral rout, the New York businessman decisively ended speculation that he would "pivot" to end the race a more "presidential" candidate by naming Stephen Bannon, chairman of Breitbart News, as the…
Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus has been increasingly alarmed by the erratic behavior of the party's presidential nominee, Donald Trump, and has communicated his concerns to Trump campaign leadership in a series of tense conversations over the past two weeks, according to…
As the 2016 Republican National Convention began, GOP chairman Reince Priebus spoke with confidence about the coming transformation of presumptive nominee Donald Trump. "He knows the pivot is important," Priebus said. "He has been better and I think he's going to be great moving forward." Priebus…
Philadelphia
Philadelphia
Cleveland
Last week, President Barack Obama’s administration dismissed reports of Iranian support for al Qaeda as the product of fevered minds. Claims of collaboration between the Islamic regime and the terrorist organization are little more than "baseless conspiracy theories," an Obama administration…
The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on Trump's convention speech.
Cleveland
Cleveland
Cleveland
Al Qaeda operatives based in Iran worked on chemical and biological weapons, according to a letter written to Osama bin Laden that is described in a new book by a top former U.S. intelligence official.
In Cleveland Monday morning, Boyd Matheson, the former chief of staff to Utah senator Mike Lee, made an interesting pitch to Republicans on the party's platform committee: a shorter, more meaningful GOP platform. Rather than a party platform that takes up tens of thousands of words and attempts to…
Donald Trump praised Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein for his handling of terrorists at a Tuesday campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina.
It's two weeks from the start of the GOP convention in Cleveland, a time in which a traditional party nominee would be consolidating his base of support and seeking to broaden his appeal. So, what's Donald Trump doing? Attacking the GOP-friendly Chamber of Commerce; boasting about the…
Among the many revelations that will emerge from the voluminous majority report of the Benghazi Select Committee when it is released Tuesday is this one: Barack Obama skipped his daily intelligence briefing one day after the Benghazi attacks on September 11, 2012. The president's briefer handed a…
The final majority report of the Benghazi Select Committee is set to be released later Tuesday morning. Representatives Jim Jordan and Mike Pompeo have signed onto the official majority document and authored a supplemental, 51-page "additional views" report of their own.
A veteran al Qaeda fighter, and an expert in document forgery who has decades of experience helping jihadists travel internationally without detection, has gone missing after being released from the detention facility at Guantanamo.
At 2:35 a.m. on June 12, Omar Mateen called 911 from the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. For 30 minutes he'd been on a killing rampage and he wanted the world to know why. He spoke for less than a minute.
In an editorial embarrassing even by the low standards by which the New York Times editorial page ought to be judged, the editorialists at the paper argue this morning that the real blame for Omar Mateen's massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando lies with…America and Republican politicians.
DEPUTY SECRETARY OF DEFENSE Paul Wolfowitz spent much of the last decade as a foreign-policy intellectual and dean of Johns Hopkins graduate school of international affairs doing two things: studying war and agitating for the ouster of Saddam Hussein. Now Wolfowitz has a prominent seat at The…
In the aftermath of Donald Trump's bigoted attacks on a federal district judge, one Republican leader after another last week condemned the candidate's remarks and then publicly declared their hope that Trump will change.
Donald J. Trump is making "indefensible" and "inexcusable" and "racist" arguments that are "offensive" and "un-American." He must be elected president of the United States.
Yes, it’s a con. In the three weeks since Donald Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee the remains of modern American conservatism have decayed at an alarming rate.
At the end of his opening statement at the traditional postelection presidential press conference, Barack Obama offered this assurance: “I continue to believe we are simply more than just a collection of red and blue states,” he said. “We are the United States.”
On Thursday, presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump sat down with Fox News anchor Bret Baier for a wide-ranging interview. Baier asked many questions, Trump gave some answers. The entire interview is revealing, in much the way Trump's session with the Washington Post editorial board was…
It was almost as if Donald Trump wanted to give Republican voters one last look at what they would be getting if they chose to nominate him as the head of their party—as if he wanted to show officeholders who would endorse him exactly what they'd have to explain and rationalize over the next six…
After several particularly tumultuous weeks in Donald Trump’s always turbulent presidential campaign—a stretch that included a humiliating loss in a key state and credible reports that his campaign is in "disarray"—Trump's paid advisers and his many media boosters seem to agree on the best bet to…
When we last checked in on Donald Trump’s campaign it was still a rolling embarrassment—a near-daily parade of pettiness, ignorance, and farce that was nonetheless en route to an ever-increasing delegate lead.
In 2014, a former senior interrogator with the CIA's High Value Detainee interrogation program drafted an article on "the ticking time bomb scenario" and interrogating terrorists. The article was approved by the CIA's Publication Review Board but given the time that lapsed in getting approval, it…
Here’s the new line from Donald Trump's cheerleaders in the conservative media: A refusal to support Trump is a de facto endorsement of Hillary Clinton. It's an argument they're making out of necessity, not conviction, trying to use peer pressure to achieve the unanimity their previous exhortations…
TWENTY-FOUR HOURS after launching what his aides touted as an assault on President Bush and his foreign and defense policies, Senator Joseph Biden found himself accepting the president’s thanks. As members of Congress scattered following last Tuesday’s attack—some to their homes, some to Capitol…
Donald Trump walked onto the gilded stage at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Super Tuesday with the air and confidence of a magician.
In the craziest weekend of a crazy campaign year, the 2016 Republican presidential race focused on a question that one might have expected in the 1920s or the 1950s. Does the Republican frontrunner want the support of David Duke, the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacists?
Chris Christie, who ran for president on the sober promise to "tell it like it is" and whose campaign was built around the urgency of entitlement reform and restoring U.S. national security, on Friday endorsed Donald Trump, a national security ignoramus who is running for president adamantly…
Nashua, N.H.
Concord, N.H.
Des Moines, Iowa
Des Moines
West Des Moines, IA
When National Review unveiled its “Against Trump" issue on January 21, Jeb Bush celebrated the arrival of reinforcements. "Welcome to the fight, all. Trump is not a conservative," he tweeted.
Do Republicans deserve to lose? Consider the state of play as we write this in late January, just days from the first GOP nominating contests.
North Charleston, S.C.
Sioux Center, Iowa -- Ted Cruz was running a few minutes late for his appearance at Dordt College, having to reply to the latest provocation from Donald Trump without angering the erratic businessman.
"This is a true story." Those words appear onscreen to open 13 Hours, the major motion picture about Benghazi, in theaters on January 15. And with them, director Michael Bay announced that he is taking sides in the long-running debate over the attacks there on September 11, 2012.
Let's begin with the conclusion: Barack Obama is releasing dangerous terrorists against the recommendations of military and intelligence professionals, he's doing so at a time when the threat level from radical Islamists is elevated, and he is lying about it. He is lying about how many jihadists he…
Some passing observations on the Republican debate in Las Vegas:
Ted Cruz is not Rand Paul.
President Barack Obama says his administration will continue releasing terrorists from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, so long as those released are less dangerous than the jihadists currently fighting against the U.S. and its interests.
Senator Ted Cruz will visit the Heritage Foundation Thursday to deliver a blistering attack on the Obama administration's handling of jihadist terror and the region that produces it.
Law enforcement officials in San Bernardino and Los Angeles may have investigated Syed Farook one week before the shooting on the community development center on December 2, 2015, that left 14 dead and 17 injured, according to a review of police communications immediately following the attacks.
Barack Obama says he wants the truth. On November 21, the New York Times reported allegations that military intelligence officials provided the president with skewed assessments that minimized the threat from ISIS and overstated the success of U.S. efforts against the group. The Times story was an…
In many ways, the reaction to the horrific attacks in Paris has been familiar. There were the expressions of solidarity: flowers at French embassies; social media avatars changed from silly selfies to photos of the French flag snapping defiantly in the wind; buildings across the Western world lit…
Last week in New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton resurrected one of her favorite tales—the story of her unsuccessful effort to join the Marine Corps in the mid-1970s. The account has drawn skepticism over the years, and for good reason. She has offered little to back it up. But it’s the perfect anecdote…
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie slammed Secretary of State John Kerry for remarks the top diplomat made Tuesday about the attacks in Paris and the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January. Kerry contrasted the Paris attacks, which he called “indiscriminate,” with the attacks on the French satire…
If Donald Trump supporters haven’t abandoned him yet, there’s little reason to believe they’ll do so now. But it’s worth laying out a slice of what it is they’re defending, what it is they’re excusing, and what it is they’re encouraging. Let’s review the past 72 hours of crazy with Donald Trump.
At some point, the most obvious explanation is rope-a-dope.
Overcoming deep personal ambivalence and a battery of attacks from conservative complainers outside Congress, Paul Ryan became the 54th speaker of the House on October 29, 2015. To call this improbable understates the case. Not primarily because Ryan is young (he’s 45) or because Ryan is first a…
One of the most memorable moments from the first Democratic presidential debate was an unexpected one. Bernie Sanders, the Democratic-socialist senator from Vermont who is leading the polls in New Hampshire, took a question about the email scandal that has badly complicated Hillary Clinton’s…
Twenty-five minutes before the start of Thursday’s hearing of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, Charles Woods stood alone behind the witness table, marveling at the chaos around him. A gaggle of still photographers was rehearsing their movements for the arrival of former Secretary of State…
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton blamed an internet video for the Benghazi attacks in her conversations with family members of those killed despite having told a foreign leader two days earlier that the video played no role and having emailed daughter Chelsea that a terrorist group had carried…
The Benghazi Select Committee holds an open hearing with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Thursday. Clinton has said she is willing to stay as long as there are questions.
There was never any doubt that Democrats in Washington would launch an aggressive campaign to discredit the House Select Committee on Benghazi. The only question was when they’d do it.
It was the middle of the night in Washington, D.C.—the early morning of September 30, 2015, in Iraq—when a three-star Russian general walked into the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, announced that Russian jets would soon begin airstrikes in Syria, and demanded that the United States stop flying combat…
The House Select Committee on Benghazi will be making public next week new documents that demonstrate Sidney Blumenthal was seeking business in Libya as he was advising then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on U.S. policy in the country. According to a letter from Chairman Trey Gowdy to Elijah…
Earlier this summer, we learned the Pentagon’s inspector general is investigating allegations that the intelligence on ISIS was manipulated. Analysts at U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida, formally complained to the IG that analysis contradicting the Obama administration’s narrative on ISIS was…
Deep in the transcript of the interview ABC’s David Muir conducted with Hillary Clinton yesterday comes an indirect but very tough shot at the man she worked for and hopes to replace. In the course of answering a question about her mother, Clinton described her mother’s difficult upbringing and…
When Donald Trump botched a question Thursday about General Qassem Suleimani, head of Iran’s Quds Force, it wasn’t the first time. He did the same thing last month during the Fox News debate, but his answer was largely overlooked in the post-debate hysteria over Trump’s answers to questions on a…
In the days before the Fox News debate last week, Donald Trump said he wasn’t looking to attack any of his Republican rivals unless he was attacked. That’s changed, apparently.
Donald Trump says he wants to talk about issues.
To paraphrase Lincoln, if we could first know where Iran is and whither Iran is tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it. To evaluate the Iran deal, we need, to the degree possible, to understand the Iranian regime, its nature and its history, its past and present behavior.
Keene, N.H.
It’s not over. And it’s likely to end badly.
Cleveland
Des Moines
Ames, Iowa
Ames, Iowa
Waukesha
Milwaukee
When Scott Walker formalizes his presidential run Monday with a long-anticipated announcement, he will have at his side a seasoned veteran of Republican politics and an architect of the modern conservative movement. THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned that Walker is expected to name Michael Grebe as…
One week before the June 30 deadline for a nuclear deal with Iran, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made a series of demands about the final terms. Among them: He called for an immediate end to all United Nations Security Council and U.S. economic sanctions on Iran; he said Iranian military…
Fresh off its widely-mocked exclusive on the traffic citations given Marco and Jeannette Rubio – fewer than one per year, combined – the New York Times has an in-depth look at Scott Walker and the wealthy conservatives who backed him throughout his rise to national prominence. It’s a classic of the…
A little more than three hours after the State Department released 848 pages of Hillary Clinton’s emails, the Daily Beast had seen enough to render its judgment: “Sorry GOP. There’s No Smoking Gun In Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi Emails.” The subhead: “Conspiracy-minded conservatives, be warned: The…
After four years of fierce internecine battles and inexplicable delays, the intelligence community last week started the process of releasing more documents captured in the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) posted on its website…
Is Marco Rubio trolling Hillary Clinton?
Among the emails released by the State Department today was one sent by Hillary Clinton to Jake Sullivan on April 8, 2011. Clinton was forwarding a private intelligence report that Sidney Blumenthal had sent her with the subject line: "UK game playing; new rebel strategists; Egypt moves in."
The U.S. government released Wednesday morning an additional 86 documents from the vast collection of documents captured during the 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The new disclosures bring the total number of documents released to 120 – a tiny fraction of the more…
Hillary Clinton had a very bad day.
Nashua, N.H.
Miami
Nashua, N.H.
Miami
Iran is an opportunity, not a threat; it’s a potential partner, not an enemy.
Finally, a debate about Iran. Last week, 47 Republican senators released a public letter addressed to the leaders of the Iranian regime. The letter made what might have seemed a self-evident point: If the Obama administration reaches a deal with Iran, Congress will not be bound by parts of the deal…
The Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne doesn’t like the Iran open letter released by 47 Republican senators last week. And his column today makes clear that he really doesn’t like my support of that open letter.
We received this email from a 40-year veteran of the federal workforce, who raises serious questions about Hillary Clinton and her emails:
Finally, a debate about Iran. Last week, 47 Republican senators released a public letter addressed to the leaders of the Iranian regime. The letter made what might have seemed a self-evident point: If the Obama administration reaches a deal with Iran, Congress will not be bound by parts of the deal…
In a tweet this morning, NBC News senior political editor Mark Murray writes: “With GOP Senators’ Iran Move, Politics Goes Beyond the Water’s Edge.” 47 Republican Senators sent to the Supreme Leader of Iran reminding him that Congress is not bound by deals that Congress does not approve. The…
Barack Obama wants us all to simmer down about Iran. He wants Senator Bob Menendez, a fellow Democrat, and the donors he represents to butt out of the sanctions debate. He wants Republicans to quit crying wolf about Iran’s nuclear weapons program. He wants the media to stop hyping terror threats.…
It’s still two years before the next president takes the oath of office, but the contest that will determine who raises his right hand that day started in earnest last month for Republicans, with a grassroots gathering in Iowa and a meeting of high-dollar donors in California.
Rand Paul chided Rudy Giuliani for comments the former New York City mayor made about Barack Obama's love for his country. In a television interview with local Louisville station WAVE, Paul said, “it's one thing to disagree on policy” but “it’s a mistake to question people’s motives.”
Meet the real Mitt Romney. The Mitt Romney you thought you knew from 2012, from 2008, from his tenure as governor of Massachusetts, from his run for the Senate against Teddy Kennedy—those versions of Mitt Romney were the constructs of political consultants, artifices designed to win elections but…
Scott Walker has proposed higher education budget reforms and many people in higher education are unhappy.
When House speaker John Boehner invited Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress in the coming weeks, the reaction from the White House was swift. In background interviews with reporters, top Obama administration officials made clear that they considered the invitation itself…
Lt. General Michael Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, blasted the Obama administration’s approach to the War on Terror in a hard-hitting speech to a meeting of intelligence professionals. “The dangers to the U.S. do not arise from the arrogance of American power, but from…
Rancho Mirage, California
Two weeks after taking over Congress in the new year, congressional Republicans adjourned to Hershey, Pennsylvania, for a bicameral retreat to plan the next two years. The meeting came as the GOP enjoys its highest marks in years from an electorate generally skeptical of politics and cynical about…
Senator Rand Paul has an op-ed in Time magazine making the case for normalizing diplomatic relations with Cuba as Barack Obama has proposed. It’s a reasonable objective for U.S. policy and there’s a good case to be made that the embargo on Cuba is anachronistic.
After a long day on November 13, 2013, Speaker of the House John Boehner walked down the marble hallways of the Longworth House Office Building to the personal office of Representative Devin Nunes for a drink, a cigarette, and maybe a brief reprieve.
What follows is the document written by Jason Beale -- a pseudonym for a longtime U.S. military and intelligence interrogator with extensive knowledge of the enhanced interrogation techniques used by the CIA on some high-value detainees. Those techniques are scrutinized a forthcoming report,…
The Central Intelligence Agency repeatedly tortured suspected terrorists, regularly lied about it to Congress and the White House, and, for all the pain and trouble this caused the agency and the United States, didn’t end up extracting a single piece of valuable information not readily available by…
The Central Intelligence Agency repeatedly tortured suspected terrorists, regularly lied about it to Congress and the White House, and, for all the pain and trouble this caused the agency and the United States, didn’t end up extracting a single piece of valuable information not readily available by…
What follows is the document written by Jason Beale -- a pseudonym for a longtime U.S. military and intelligence interrogator with extensive knowledge of the enhanced interrogation techniques used by the CIA on some high-value detainees. Those techniques are scrutinized in a forthcoming report…
Yesterday, we asked: Does Chris Christie have Scott Walker’s back?
At long last, the conventional wisdom about the 2014 midterms is here: It’s an election about nothing.
Is New Jersey governor and Republican Governors Association chairman Chris Christie undercutting Wisconsin governor Scott Walker's reelection effort? That's a question a number of influential Wisconsin Republicans have been asking behind the scenes over the past week after an October 16 Associated…
A year before his first inauguration, Barack Obama laid out the objective of his presidency: to renew faith and trust in -activist government and transform the country. In an hourlong interview with the editorial board of the Reno Gazette-Journal on January 16, 2008, Obama said that his campaign…
Every election year, it seems, there’s a race that catches the political set in Washington by surprise. It’s possible that we’ve already seen the 2014 version of this with the defeat of House majority leader Eric Cantor, a result few anticipated and fewer still predicted.
The Republican flirtation with dovish noninterventionism is over. It wasn’t much of a fling.
On September 10, President Barack Obama announced in a prime-time television address that the United States would be going to war—sort of. He explained that terrorists in Iraq and Syria threatened the United States—sort of. He proclaimed that the United States would do everything in its power to…
In the early morning hours of May 2, 2011, an elite team of 25 American military and intelligence professionals landed inside the walls of a compound just outside the Pakistani city of Abbottabad. CIA analysts had painstakingly tracked a courier to the compound and spent months monitoring the…
As the world watches the strengthening of global jihadist movements – from ISIS to al Qaeda to dozens of affiliated and like-minded groups – one of those inside the U.S. government who was most vocal about the growing threats is leaving his position. General Michael Flynn served as head of the…
Moments of clarity often come when you least expect them. In a speech to contributors last week in Seattle, Barack Obama made the case that his presidency has made America better. In most respects, it was precisely the kind of political pablum you’d expect from a president who seems more concerned…
The facts are simple. The IRS systematically targeted conservative and Tea Party groups after their activism proved decisive in the 2010 midterm elections—Obama’s famous “shellacking.” The effects of this targeting were widespread. Some Tea Party groups were neutered in the months before the 2012…
IRS lawyers ought to enjoy themselves this holiday weekend because, as the Washington Examiner's Mark Tapscott reports, "they'll be busier than normal next week." IRS counsel will make two separate appearances next week in court to explain and defend the agency's handling of Lois Lerner's…
As the Obama administration’s case for the Bowe Bergdahl-Taliban prisoner exchange further unraveled last week, the geo-political implications of the deal became clearer. They’re not pretty.
Late in the afternoon of Saturday, May 31, Barack Obama strode confidently to a lectern in the White House Rose Garden flanked by the parents of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, a soldier who had gone missing from his platoon in the mountains of Afghanistan in June 2009.
Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq, fell today to jihadists from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a group with long ties to al Qaeda. Parts of Kirkuk, ninety miles to the southeast, are under ISIS control and the fighting there continues. The implications for Iraq, for the region,…
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