The Departure of Army Secretary Dan Driscoll from the Pentagon this week has touched off another wave of speculation over the rivalries in the Trump administration and whether the "Rubio faction” is behind it. It’s complicated, as my colleague Connor Echols and I talk...
Good morning! Trip the Beltway Fantastic is going on a hiatus of sorts to make way for some more original reporting on my part. I will be posting new stories, and interviews here as breaking news and opportunities for interesting conversations arise. In this vein, I...
On Tuesday, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky came to Washington promising to show the U.S. president “evidence” that Russia was helping Iran target U.S. military bases and other assets in the Middle East. This is part of what experts like Trita Parsi and George...
The death of 71-year-old Senator Lindsey Graham has brought the debate over U.S. foreign policy over the last 25 years or more to the fore: Graham was an unapologetic Cold War warrior who promoted every American military intervention in that time. His support for the...
In June, a slew of progressive Democrats won primaries in some cases upending incumbents with long careers in Washington. Following in the footsteps Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral victory in New York City in 2025, Brad Lander, Claire Valdez, and Darializa Avila Chevalier...
When did we deviate from the Founder’s vision — that we would be a nation that would abhor imperialism and monarchy, that would not go in search of monsters to destroy (John Quincy Adams) or engage in entangling alliances that force us into overseas wars and conflicts...
There are plenty of dramatic examples of mighty nations — even empires — accepting defeat and actually finding longterm strategic success in loss. Japan in 1945. Nixon going to China amid U.S. failure in the Vietnam War. President Trump is approaching that very moment...
Things aren’t going so well these days for Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu. While his partner President Trump is working actively to end the war with Iran by inking a memorandum of understanding to halt the fighting, American public opinion of Israel continues to...
I’m lucky that veteran investigative journalist Gareth Porter decided to take a break from his latest project on the Cold War to talk about how his 2014 book, Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iranian Nuclear Scare has come full circle, unfortunately, in...
Ray McGovern, the 27-year CIA officer and chair of the National Intelligence Estimates-turned antiwar agitator, joins Trip the Beltway Fantastic this week to talk about how the United States has deferred to Israel’s regional agenda for decades, and under Donald Trump...
