Trump administration

The highest office in the land has become deeply bureaucratized.

Michael Warren reviews Bob Woodward’s book about life in Trump World

Can a high-profile former governor and presidential hopeful find happiness as a hardworking energy secretary?

Trump's anger about the Mueller investigation will make any meeting counterproductive.

The Donald Trump presidency somehow reaches a new low.

China is targeting agriculture because of farm country's support for the president.

State Department official warns that countries that refuse risk sanctions.

Plus, why can't the Trump administration hire normal people?

The administration has been tough on the Putin regime but the president himself has been inconsistent.

The commercials avoid the pitfalls of the 'Just Say No' era.

Lawmakers lay out a list of demands to President Trump ahead of planned summit.

Sanctions target Iran's infamous Evin Prison and the director of a key state-run media corporation.

Republicans praise the president, Democrats call him a poor negotiator.

The secretary of state tells a House committee that much work must be done.

President Donald Trump announced Wednesday on Twitter that he intends to replace Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin, bringing a long-expected end to the embattled secretary's administration post.

Hours after throwing Washington into a frenzy with his surprise decision to fire Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, President Trump skipped town Tuesday, traveling to San Diego to examine prototypes for his signature border wall that have been constructed at the U.S.-Mexico border.

President Trump signed a controversial order implementing heavy tariffs on imported steel and aluminum Thursday, calling the action “a matter of necessity for our security” and saying it would help to revitalize fading American industry.

On Tuesday, White House communications director Hope Hicks told House investigators her job sometimes requires her to lie and refused to answer questions about her time in the Trump administration. One day later, the longtime Trump aide has announced she is leaving the White House, reportedly in…

What evangelicals gain and lose by doing business with the president.

"Drain the swamp." The phrase went from catchy rallying cry to grating cliché in the space of a year. But phrases often become clichés because they signify some important truth. The swamp does, in fact, need draining: Our federal bureaucracy has become so expansive, power-hungry, and unaccountable…

Say what you will about Donald Trump’s intellectual acumen, but he does have a certain flair for drawing attention in directions he desires—or better yet, prompting his detractors to say things he wants them to say. This may not be “genius” in the usual sense of a much-abused term, but it’s a…

Electing a billionaire agitator to the presidency may have its advantages. Such a man can break conventions that should long ago have been broken and advance policies that more established politicians might believe in but fear to execute.

President Trump on Wednesday threw his weight behind Sen. Chuck Grassley’s immigration plan, urging the Senate to pass the “responsible and commonsense” proposal based on the White House’s immigration priorities and threatening to veto proposals that contain further Democratic concessions.

Two of the top Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are calling on former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice to explain an “unusual email” she sent on the day of President Trump’s inauguration.

You are going to pay more for your next washing machine. To understand why, let’s look at what happened at Whirlpool’s headquarters in Benton Harbor, Mich., in 2011. The company was feeling pressure from foreign competition. Its stock price had fallen by half. It had announced plans to slash 5,000…

President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address was a success. The theater was unbeatable. The president’s special guests were particularly moving at this year’s address: a double amputee who somehow escaped from North Korea by sheer strength of will; a police officer who adopted a drug…

Capping his trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, President Trump on Friday declared America “open for business and competitive once again” in a speech that trumpeted the country’s economic strength under his administration.

Special counsel Robert Mueller spent much of 2017 making quiet progress in his investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, but that has changed in the new year. Mueller’s team has interviewed Attorney General Jeff Sessions, will soon meet with former White House strategist Steve…

The Obama administration will be remembered for a number of disgraces in foreign affairs, prominent among them its terrible deal with Iran and its dithering over the war in Syria. Deserving of a place on that list is America’s acquiescence in Russia’s attack on Ukraine, to which the Trump…

This post had been updated.

Donald Trump’s Friday morning appearances were an amusing reminder of a central presidential incongruity: He loves and supports law enforcement, except the ones trying to enforce the law on him.

Washington was surprised to learn that Dina Powell, the deputy national security adviser for strategy, will be leaving her post early in the new year. Powell, one of the few veterans of the George W. Bush administration to take a senior role under Trump, had been something of a rock of normalcy in…

Every Sunday evening, the press office at the Environmental Protection Agency receives emails from the New York Times and Politico asking for EPA administrator Scott Pruitt’s public schedule for the coming week. The press office ignores the emails.

In May, when deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein appointed former FBI director Robert Mueller to investigate “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump,” we welcomed the news. So did the president. “As I…

President Donald Trump on Monday announced his administration would reduce two vast national monuments in Utah, arguing that the monuments amounted to a federal land grab by past Democratic presidents.

President Donald Trump on Monday told reporters he feels “very badly” for his former national security advisor Michael Flynn, days after Flynn pled guilty to obstruction of justice for lying to special counsel Robert Mueller’s team about his interactions with Russian officials before President…

President Trump has a growing Palestinian problem. Without steadfast U.S. insistence on Palestinian accountability and the supremacy of American law, it is about to get a whole lot worse for Israel and America.

The GOP tax plan cleared its first major hurdle in the Senate Wednesday afternoon, after a motion to proceed to amendments passed on a 52-48 party line vote.

President Trump was planning to meet with Democratic leaders Tuesday to discuss a deal to prevent a government shutdown next month. But Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer canceled the meeting Tuesday morning after Trump attacked them on Twitter and said he didn’t expect to strike a deal.

President Donald Trump announced Monday that the United States would once again designate North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism, reversing a change made under the George W. Bush administration.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday gave a speech that was long on self-congratulation, but thin on concrete diplomatic victories from his 12-day Asia trip—and silent on everyone’s most pressing question, whether Trump still supports Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore.

Two top lawmakers remain frustrated over the Trump administration’s failure to start implementing a set of congressionally mandated Russia sanctions on time, and are considering other avenues to pressure officials to act.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday aimed at expanding Americans’ access to health insurance choices, the first official step of his pledge to tackle health-care reform solo after repeated congressional failures to pass legislation repealing Obamacare.

By October 15, Donald Trump must decide what to do with his predecessor’s nuclear agreement with Iran. He has felt obliged, against his instincts, to recertify the deal every 90 days, per the requirements of the 2015 Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, Congress’s attempt to supervise Barack Obama’s…

President Donald Trump and outgoing senator Bob Corker of Tennessee got into an unexpected and personal Twitter fight Sunday morning, the nastiest public conflict yet between the White House and Senate Republicans.

By October 15, Donald Trump must decide what to do with his predecessor’s nuclear agreement with Iran. He has felt obliged, against his instincts, to recertify the deal every 90 days, per the requirements of the 2015 Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, Congress’s attempt to supervise Barack Obama’s…

If the president’s tax plan is enacted, it will go down in history as the Trump Tax Cut of 2017. And it should, for both the tax reductions and the strategy for enacting them reflect his personal intervention and desires.

The last time Republicans advanced a serious plan to overhaul the tax code, Madonna had a No. 1 hit and Back to the Future had just been released on VHS. The new Republican tax plan harkens back to Ronald Reagan’s 1986 reform package, promising a future of stronger growth with less economic…

The effort to repeal and replace Obamacare isn’t quite dead. It will officially expire on September 30 without any further congressional intervention. According to guidance handed down by the Senate parliamentarian just before Labor Day, the end of the federal fiscal year is when this year’s budget…

On November 12, 2015, officials in New York and New Jersey thought they had struck it rich. They had arranged a 50-50 deal with the federal government in which the feds would pay for half the cost of a new tunnel under the Hudson River, the renovation of Penn Station, and a lot more.

A presidential decision on a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan, long delayed and the subject of bitter dispute inside the White House, may finally be at hand. Key members of the Trump administration’s war council met with the president on August 10 at the summer White House in Bedminster,…

The Trump administration is conducting a comprehensive review of U.S. policy toward Iran. There is no doubt top national security officials view the Islamic Republic as a major threat, both in terms of regional instability and proliferation. This recognition represents the principal difference from…

On November 12, 2015, officials in New York and New Jersey thought they had struck it rich. They had arranged a 50-50 deal with the federal government in which the feds would pay for half the cost of a new tunnel under the Hudson River, the renovation of Penn Station, and a lot more.

A presidential decision on a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan, long delayed and the subject of bitter dispute inside the White House, may finally be at hand. Key members of the Trump administration’s war council met with the president on August 10 at the summer White House in Bedminster,…

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:

The Trump administration is taking significant steps to target a full range of Iranian military aggression and human rights abuses, functionally reversing the Obama administration's near-total prioritization of the 2015 nuclear deal, according to discussions conducted by THE WEEKLY STANDARD with…

Dismantling Obama-era over-regulation is supposed to be a top priority of the Trump administration. And few regulations have caused as much consternation as Obama's reinterpretation of Title IX. Alas, no amount of subsequent policy can easily disentangle this overreach from campus life.

In the contemporary campus climate, that lovely stretch from the latter half of April to the first blush of May is also controversial commencement speaker season. The most contested, in a year in which her raked-over confirmation proceedings garnered outsize news coverage, will probably be Betsy…

The Trump administration is facing pressure to definitively rule out a longstanding request by Iran to import 950 tons of natural uranium, according to government sources and proliferation experts who spoke to THE WEEKLY STANDARD. Tehran has signaled it will petition again for the yellowcake next…

President Trump has provided his opponents abundant material with which to criticize him. His Twitter feed as commander in chief is similar to what it was when he was a candidate: an early-morning soapbox about cable news and what bothers him. It often gets him into trouble. So do his policy planks…

In two weeks Donald Trump will serve his one-hundredth day as President of the United States of America. He approaches that milestone with an approval rating of 40 percent, the lowest of any modern-day president at this stage of his tenure. The man who made his reputation, and part of any fortune…

On Wednesday afternoon, the National Security Council convened in the White House, with President Donald Trump in the chair, to discuss how the United States would respond to Bashar al-Assad. Just a couple of hours earlier, in a press conference in the Rose Garden, Trump had denounced in strong…

The Trump administration hit a Syrian airbase with over 50 cruise missiles Thursday, according to multiple reports. The strike came days after the Bashar al-Assad regime waged a horrific chemical attack against its own people Tuesday that left at least 80 dead.

Republican Russia hawks, including Florida senator Marco Rubio, suffered from the Kremlin's early attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election, an expert told lawmakers Thursday.

The State Department censured Russian authorities for detaining peaceful protesters Sunday as anti-corruption demonstrations swept the country, according to a statement provided to THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee accused the panel's Republican chairman Devin Nunes of "cancelling" an open hearing on Russian election interference on Friday. The rebuke came after Nunes said he was postponing the hearing until after the committee hears closed testimony from…

The Senate confirmed President Trump's pick for ambassador to Israel Thursday in a near party line vote.

On a Capitol Hill morning otherwise dominated by Gorsuch hearings, the deafening drip of surveillance revelations, and a possible health care upset, one much quieter event might have presaged what normalcy may, one hopes, come. Alexander Acosta, Labor secretary-designate number two, answered…

Most of the Trump transition members whose communications were allegedly collected via pre-inaugural incidental surveillance had their identities redacted in intelligence reports, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said Wednesday. The chairman of the committee informed him of that…

Trump transition officials were caught in incidental surveillance before the inauguration, the chairman of the House Intelligence committee told reporters Wednesday. These individuals had their communications circulated within the intelligence community and their identities revealed internally,…

The House Intelligence Committee will subpoena information from law enforcement and intelligence agencies if necessary to investigate potential surveillance violations tied to former Trump national security adviser General Mike Flynn, the committee's chairman said Wednesday.

President Donald Trump's pick for Israel envoy passed the Senate committee stage with full Republican support Thursday, despite lingering doubts from some Democrats on the panel.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD's editor at large Bill Kristol joined C-SPAN's Washington Journal Monday morning to discuss President Donald Trump's claim that his Oval Office predecessor ordered a wiretap of him as a candidate, as well as a special editorial the magazine published in response.

President Donald Trump's pick for ambassador to Israel is likely to gain the support of a Democratic senator on the Foreign Relations Committee, THE WEEKLY STANDARD has confirmed.

A top Democratic senator who previously met with the Russian ambassador is on the defensive after asserting Thursday that she had never done so.

Montana representative Ryan Zinke is now set to become President Donald Trump's Interior secretary, after the Senate approved him in a bipartisan, though not overwhelming vote on Wednesday.

Congressional leaders are moving to cut off all taxpayer dollars to the Palestinian Authority if it continues monetarily rewarding terrorists for attacks on Israelis and Americans, top Republican lawmakers said Tuesday.

Billionaire investor Wilbur Ross is set to be confirmed as President Trump's secretary of Commerce on Monday night, as the Senate begins the week advancing two of the several remaining cabinet selections yet to take their posts.

A House investigation that includes the Trump campaign's alleged contacts with Russian intelligence officials is ongoing, but preliminary inquiries on the matter have not returned incriminating evidence, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said on Monday.

As the Trump administration rolled back President Obama's guidelines to public schools regarding transgender students' access to the bathroom of their choice, a new rule from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has taken effect to ensure that transgender individuals have full…

The bathroom wars wage on. Repealing the Obama-era edict that hardened the conflict, as President Trump did Wednesday, changes little in practice.

The leaks that led to the resignation of former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn were politically motivated, a top Republican senator said Thursday, joining a House Republican who has suggested the same.

What's the best way to get your message to President Trump? Two groups on opposite sides of the abortion debate seem to agree: Target the TV shows he likes to watch and tweet about like Morning Joe and Fox & Friends.

Democrats are warming to Arizona senator John McCain, according to a Pew poll released Wednesday, joining Republicans in sharing a favorable view of President Donald Trump's leading GOP critic.

The Trump administration is set to undo federal guidance issued by their predecessors last year that threatened public schools with the loss of federal funding if they didn't allow transgender students to use the school facilities matching their gender identity, according to a report.

Days before the election, President Donald Trump's newly appointed national security adviser, lieutenant general H. R. McMaster, laid out his vision of the threats facing America and the country's deficiencies in facing them, as well as the value of education to remedy those deficiencies.

A bipartisan congressional delegation is expected to visit emerging democracies near Russia's borders this week in an effort to assure allies that the United States won't stand for Russian aggression, according to a release first obtained by THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

President Donald Trump's Israel envoy will get at least some Democratic backing in the committee set to vote on his nomination, according to a top lawmaker who spoke to THE WEEKLY STANDARD, though several Democrats say they are still troubled by many of his past remarks and positions.

President Donald Trump's nominee for ambassador to Israel took a sober tone Thursday, as David Friedman, labeled a firebrand in the run-up to his confirmation hearing, moderated his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and repeatedly expressed regret over inflammatory comments he made in the…

South Carolina representative Mick Mulvaney was confirmed to lead the Office of Management and Budget on Thursday morning by a razor-thin 51-49 vote, overcoming the opposition of fellow Republican John McCain.

Stephen K. Bannon, chief strategist and senior counselor to President Donald Trump, is accusing Breitbart News Network of printing a false story about an alleged rift between him and chief of staff Reince Priebus.

Lawmakers are cautious but open to the release of the transcripts of phone calls between former national security advisor Mike Flynn and the Russian ambassador, as long as they do not contain sensitive information.

The Obama administration set up the play pretty perfectly for Team Trump. Student loan policies that disproportionately diminished historically black colleges and universities’ funding and enrollment, and an arrogant posture toward these institutions evident in Obama's public remarks, disappointed…

Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit upheld a nationwide temporary injunction on President Trump's executive order relating to refugees and visas from seven Muslim-majority countries. The White House says it will not take the case to the Supreme Court, but is rather drafting a…

In this episode of THE WEEKLY STANDARD Confab, Fred Barnes joins host Eric Felten to tell why Republicans should take up tax reform first, before getting bogged down in Obamacare; Michael Warren reports on how the White House agenda got slowed down this week; and Ethan Epstein peers behind the mask…

The United States might waver on Ukraine-related sanctions against Russia but Europe will not, the European Union's foreign policy chief said Friday, so long as a standing agreement to stop the fighting in Ukraine is not fully implemented.

Is the United States "bogged down" in military conflict? That's the phrase President Donald Trump used in a series of tweets Thursday morning responding to a Republican senator who was critical of a recent U.S. military raid in Yemen.

Democratic antagonism toward attorney general nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions continued Wednesday ahead of a confirmation vote, with former presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders following Elizabeth Warren's lead from the night before.

Arizona senator John McCain strongly condemned any attempt to draw a moral equivalence between the United States and Vladimir Putin's Russia Tuesday, after President Donald Trump appeared to suggest such an equivalence over the weekend.

President Trump's nominee for Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, won Senate confirmation Tuesday afternoon, but just barely. She lost two of the Republican majority's 52 votes, with Senate education committee members Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska having announced they would…

Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly took partial blame Tuesday for the confusion that ensued after President Donald Trump issued an executive order temporarily barring travel from seven countries as well as the inflow of refugees.

Sanctions the Trump administration imposed on Iran after the country conducted another ballistic missile launch are more symbolic than punitive, a former Obama administration Treasury Department official said Monday.

Most presidential honeymoons are characterized by congressional and presidential vows of everlasting cooperation, but the policy cohabitations are soon torn asunder by the healthy re-emergence of political differences. President Trump's honeymoon period was different. He chose to abuse his…

Top Republican lawmakers are praising the Trump administration for levying a crop of sanctions on Iran after the country conducted a ballistic missile test Sunday, hailing the move as the beginning of a tougher posture toward the Islamic Republic.

South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, an early skeptic of President Donald Trump's pick for secretary of state, told THE WEEKLY STANDARD that his concerns over whether the nominee would be cozy with the Kremlin and weak on sanctions against Russia have been allayed.

During a White House briefing Wednesday afternoon, spokesman Sean Spicer brought National Security Adviser Mike Flynn to the podium to deliver a prepared statement offering more detail on Iran's recent "destabilizing behavior" in the region.

Reuters commissioned a poll about President Trump's executive order that caused so much controversy over the weekend. Here are the results:

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday night he has "very serious doubts" whether Judge Neil Gorsuch will meet his standard for winning confirmation to the Supreme Court. "The burden is on … Gorsuch to prove himself to be within the legal mainstream and, in this new era, willing to…

West Virginia senator Joe Manchin said he won't block President Donald Trump's choice to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, who is scheduled to be announced Tuesday evening.

Top Democratic lawmakers are calling for strong action in response to Iranian ballistic missile activity after Tehran conducted another test-fire over the weekend, its first since the inauguration of President Donald Trump, according to statements provided to THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

Multiple legal experts have criticized former acting Attorney General Sally Yates for allowing her personal views of President Trump's executive order on refugees and travel to the United States to interfere with the Justice Department's role of defending what is lawful.

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer announced Monday he will vote no on the confirmation of five additional nominees to President Trump's cabinet, adding to his list of Betsy DeVos, Rex Tillerson, and Jeff Sessions as individuals he would oppose.

The White House will neither confirm nor deny reports that Homeland Security secretary John Kelly was not briefed beforehand on last Friday's executive order banning travel from citizens of seven Muslim countries.

Spencer Ackerman at the Guardian has the story of several Iraqis who served alongside American troops in the Iraq war who now find themselves caught in limbo (or worse) as a result of President Trump's executive order restricting travel from seven Muslim-majority nations, including Iraq:

Top Republican lawmakers are distancing themselves from President Donald Trump's executive order to temporarily bar entry into the United States for citizens from seven countries and refugees, amid confusion over the order's scope and implementation.

Not a one Democratic Senator will vote to confirm Education Secretary-designate Betsy DeVos. Or so Minnesota senator Al Franken told Rachel Maddow Thursday night.

Republican senators are threatening to codify sanctions against the Kremlin amid speculation that President Donald Trump will ease the sanctions and refusal from the Trump team to commit to maintaining or increasing them.

As the first full week of the Trump administration comes to a close, the White House appears to be getting into something of a groove. On Monday, there was a bit of chaos within the West Wing, with staffers looking a little lost or unsure of where to go and what to do. One veteran White House…

The State Department's senior management team has all resigned, reports the Washington Post's Josh Rogin:

The Trump administration is reviewing the release of millions of dollars for Palestinian projects made by the Obama administration in a last-minute transfer that flouted congressional objections, according to statements provided to THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

President Donald Trump derived power from a 2006 law to order work on a "secure, contiguous, and impassable" barrier along the United States's southern border Wednesday, advancing a campaign promise many critics have said is too ambitious to fulfill.

The first Twitter transition, it seems, while seamless at the top-level @POTUS account, isn't so among the many hundreds, if not thousands, of Twitter-verified executive branch accounts.

In the early days of the Trump presidency, the president and his administration seem to be traveling down two separate, parallel paths. On the one hand, President Trump has been pursuing concrete policy ends, primarily through executive orders: withdrawing from TPP, reinstating the Mexico City…

You can learn a lot from one largely overlooked confirmation hearing. And WWE mogul Linda McMahon's confirmation hearing Tuesday morning—she's been selected to run the Small Business Administration—was nothing if not largely overlooked. The SBA, founded in the 1950s, is a federal agency tasked with…

Congressional leaders are moving to respond to a last-minute transfer of millions of dollars to the Palestinian Authority by the Obama administration with a range of measures, including a possible total freeze of funds to the PA, according to senators and other sources who spoke to THE WEEKLY…

White House press secretary Sean Spicer turned heads on Saturday evening when he called reporters to the briefing room and read from a written statement: "This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration—period—both in person and around the globe." Spicer drew intense criticism because…

Florida senator Marco Rubio announced his support for President Donald Trump's pick for secretary of state ahead of a committee vote for the nominee Monday, setting aside reservations over the former oil executive's ties to the Kremlin and evasive answers on human rights violations.

Two key members of President Donald Trump's national security apparatus sailed through Senate confirmation votes Friday afternoon, as retired Marine Gens. James Mattis and John Kelly earned overwhelming support in the upper chamber to become the first cabinet picks of the new administration to win…

Donald Trump has said repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act should be done "very quickly"—but the issue was nowhere to be found in the president's inaugural address at the U.S. Capitol Friday. Trump's speech, which struck populist themes on trade, immigration, foreign policy, and…

Today is Inauguration Day, so it seems fitting to kick things off with the inaugural edition of this new feature here at THE WEEKLY STANDARD. For the first 100 (or so) days of the Donald J. Trump administration, look to this space for inside coverage of our 45th president, his White House, and his…

The Obama administration's United Nations ambassador used the final major speech of her tenure Tuesday to castigate the Kremlin for eight years' worth of destabilizing activities, warning against another reset with the country amid vows from President-elect Donald Trump to mend relations with…

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush was quick to praise the president-elect's choice of Betsy DeVos for Education secretary when the transition team announced her nomination in November. And on Tuesday, the day of her confirmation hearing, he expounded his support for DeVos in USA Today, praising her…

President-elect Donald Trump says his proposal to replace Obamacare will guarantee "insurance for everybody" and "great health care" that is "much less expensive and much better." Here's more from the Washington Post's interview with Trump:

From the moment Donald Trump picked Senator Jeff Sessions to be the next attorney general, it was clear what Democrats would need to defeat the Sessions nomination: a surprise witness. It was such a witness whose testimony led to the Senate's rejection of Sessions for a federal judgeship in 1986.

The incoming Trump administration should perform a comprehensive review of last summer's Iran nuclear deal and more effectively block Iran's ability to obtain a nuclear weapon, Donald Trump's nominee for secretary of state Rex Tillerson said Wednesday.

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior writer Mark Hemingway on the media's handling of the 'Trump dossier.'

South Carolina senator Tim Scott says he will support his fellow Republican senator, Jeff Sessions, for attorney general. In a statement released late on the eve of Sessions's confirmation hearing, Scott allowed that while he and the Alabama senator "may not agree on everything", he would…

Senator Jeff Sessions begins confirmation hearings on Tuesday to become the next attorney general. Since President-elect Donald Trump nominated the Alabama Republican to the post in November, critics have resurrected old allegations that Sessions is racist. The allegations were first made in the…

Jared Kushner, the husband of Ivanka Trump, will serve his father-in-law Donald Trump as senior advisor to the president. NBC News has the story:

Reuters reports with an exclusive:

When Donald Trump campaigned last spring in the Republican primaries, he touted his tax cuts in a special way. To give them credibility, he would declare proudly that economist Larry Kudlow loved them.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought out President-elect Donald Trump to help derail a United Nations resolution critical of Israeli settlements after it had been learned that the Obama administration would not veto it, an Israeli official told the Associated Press.

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."

A veteran intelligence official slammed the Obama administration for ignoring a range of Iran's destructive activities in order to preserve the nuclear deal, and advised the incoming Trump administration to harshly retaliate against Tehran's illicit pursuits.

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich repeatedly ripped the media for what he said was ongoing unfair coverage of President-elect Donald Trump, calling certain news outlets "propaganda" and some members of the media "idiots."

The Washington Post reports that last week, President-elect Donald Trump was agonizing over his shortlist of candidates for secretary of state—which included Mitt Romney, Bob Corker, Rudy Giuliani, and David Petraeus. Trump was reportedly unsatisfied with his choices when a new name, that of…

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, a leading evangelical who served as a Donald Trump surrogate during the general election, is not happy with Trump's choice of ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson to serve as secretary of state. When Tillerson was CEO of Exxon, the energy company donated money…

Former Texas governor Rick Perry is Trump's pick for Energy Secretary, the AP reported Tuesday morning. Perry has been a clear favorite for the post among conservatives who value his anti-regulatory stance.

After saying late last month he would leave the business operations of his corporation upon taking office, President-elect Donald Trump reportedly will delay a planned public announcement with details of what he'll do with his business operations. Trump's press conference, planned for later this…

There's an old saying that "personnel is policy" in filling the top positions in an administration. More precisely, if you want a policy to be pursued and protected, hire those most committed to it.

In this episode of THE WEEKLY STANDARD Confab, Fred Barnes talks with host Eric Felten about what a President Donald Trump can learn from the missteps and miscues of Barack Obama's approach to the presidency. Andrew Ferguson stops in to diagnose what's ailing the corporate media in the age of…

We shall not shock anyone, we shall merely expose ourselves to good-natured or at any rate harmless ridicule, if we acknowledge that we were startled, in our callow youth, by a suggestion from a professor. The comment came from Adam Ulam, the distinguished scholar of Soviet foreign policy. In…

Just a week after saying he would leave the operations of his business upon taking office, President-elect Donald Trump is reportedly considering maintaining a financial interest in the company. The New York Times reports:

Top Democratic lawmakers are challenging the Obama administration's decision to keep a range of unclassified documents related to the Iran nuclear deal away from the public eye, amid mounting calls from Trump insiders and Republican lawmakers urging the incoming Trump administration to release the…

Retired Marine general John Kelly is Donald Trump's leading pick to become the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, reports Eliana Johnson at Politico:

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday ripped last summer's landmark nuclear deal with Iran and said he would work with president-elect Donald Trump to remedy its shortcomings.

Republican governors are reaffirming their faith in the electoral process despite claims from President-elect Donald Trump that millions of unlawfully cast ballots cost him the popular vote, according to statements provided to THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

Matthew Continetti, writing in the Washington Free Beacon, argues that Donald Trump's cabinet picks so far aren't a betrayal of his promise to "drain the swamp" in Washington—they're a confirmation of it. Read an excerpt below:

On the night in November 2010 that a wave of protest enabled Republicans to capture an additional 63 seats in the House of Representatives and decisively retake the majority, incoming House speaker John Boehner warned Barack Obama that the public had sent a message to “change course." Boehner…

We shall not shock anyone, we shall merely expose ourselves to good-natured or at any rate harmless ridicule, if we acknowledge that we were startled, in our callow youth, by a suggestion from a professor. The comment came from Adam Ulam, the distinguished scholar of Soviet foreign policy. In…

A crime report in the Philadelphia Inquirer last week caught The Scrapbook’s eye:

Donald Trump has officially tapped his picks to run the Departments of the Treasury and of Commerce, according to the presidential transition. Trump will nominate Steven Mnuchin, the former Chief Information Officer at Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs, for Treasury secretary, while Wilbur Ross, a…

Tom Price, a Republican congressman from Georgia and orthopedic surgeon, is Donald Trump's choice for secretary of Health and Human Services. The New York Times reports:

One's of Donald Trump's top aides joined a number of Trump loyalists Sunday in urging the president-elect not to appoint Mitt Romney as secretary of state, questioning Romney's loyalty and experience.

The day following his stunning electoral victory, Present-elect Donald Trump announced his plan for his first 100 days in office. Trump outlined a few ambitious objectives in his School Choice and Education Opportunity Act that could reshape America's educational landscape. Trump's education plan:

President-elect Donald Trump has offered Nikki Haley the role of United State ambassador to the United Nations. The two-term Republican governor of South Carolina has reportedly accepted:

The international agency responsible for monitoring last summer's nuclear deal with Iran is deliberately not reporting on Iranian activities that may indicate Iran is violating the deal, setting up a potential confrontation with the incoming Trump administration, according to nuclear and…

Donald Trump's incoming administration will not further investigate former secretary of state Hillary Clinton's private email server scheme nor her family's charitable foundation, MSNBC's Morning Joe reported Tuesday.

The following is an excerpt from the Nov. 21 Kristol Clear newsletter—which you can have delivered to your inbox each week by signing up here.

Incoming White House chief of staff Reince Priebus said the government will not have a registry of people "based on a religion" but did say he would not rule out anything with respect to preventing radicalized people from entering the United States. Speaking with Chuck Todd on NBC's Meet the Press…

Philip K. Howard writes in the American Interest of the signal and opportunity of the Trump Revolution:

Three-term U.S. House member Mike Pompeo of Kansas has been selected by Donald Trump to head the Central Intelligence Agency. A cursory glance at his biography shows he's eminently qualified. Pompeo was first in his class at West Point, served as an Army officer during the cold war in Europe, and…

Top Republican senators tell THE WEEKLY STANDARD they don't know what a Donald Trump administration will mean for Ukraine, but they plan on urging his team to support the country in its fight against Russian aggression regardless.

Donald Trump's incoming chief strategist and senior counselor, Steve Bannon, has described House speaker Paul Ryan as the "enemy" and has called for his removal from the speakership. But Ryan said at the Capitol Tuesday he is moving past that criticism and called on his fellow Republicans to "look…

Donald Trump's newly tapped senior advisor Steve Bannon has previously expressed open disdain for Republican House speaker Paul Ryan, dubbing him an "enemy" and calling for his removal from the position. But House Republicans brushed off the possibility that Bannon's attacks on Ryan would drive a…

How could they? It's the question being asked by all the world's press and much of our own. How could the American people, after all they have learned about Donald Trump's private vulgarity, his boasting and confabulation, his wild and tacky business career—how could they vote to place him in the…

Amid aftershocks of the Trump victory, education policy experts are picking through his campaign promises and proposals looking for ideas they can work with, and wondering what they can expect. Streamlining the Department of Education? Likely. Hacking off the tentacles of its undue influence?…

How could they? It’s the question being asked by all the world's press and much of our own. How could the American people, after all they have learned about Donald Trump's private vulgarity, his boasting and confabulation, his wild and tacky business career—how could they vote to place him in the…

On Thursday, Bill Kristol told Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC that he "would encourage my Never Trump friends to be open-minded about a Trump administration and willing to help."