Beyond Politics

Which of Trump's threats to the midterms are real, which are the most dangerous, and what happens if the worst comes true? Two democracy experts on the front lines answer, and both say the biggest danger may come after...

Republicans stayed in Washington an extra week to give vulnerable senators something to run on, then left with almost nothing. The stock trading ban failed, the data center bill failed, and the Senate did nothing about...

What happens if Republicans get crushed in November? Political scientist Seth Masket joins me to game out where the GOP goes after a midterm wipeout, and where it could take the rest of us.The polls suggest a blue wave...

Republicans are abandoning Trump over the Iran war and gas prices — six weeks before the 2026 midterms, is it too late? Democrat Matt Robison and Republican strategist Matt Wylie break down GOP candidates scrubbing...

Bill Scher of the Washington Monthly joins Matt Robison to argue about the three stories driving the 2026 midterms: what campaign spending actually reveals about the battlefield, whether the Supreme Court is breaking...

Eight weeks out from the midterms, Republican strategist Matt Wylie says his own party is in serious trouble. The Fed defied Trump, the courts blocked him twice, and House Republicans went home for six weeks rather than...

Can anyone actually stop AI right now? This week: a viral resignation warning AI "could kill us all by the end of the decade," a rogue AI agent cyberattack, Dario Amodei calling on the industry to slow down, and the...

A Republican strategist just called his own party's midterm convention "the worst plan I have ever seen in the history of politics." Then Trump promised every American $5,000 — but only if Republicans keep the House and...

Trump is trying to break vote-by-mail before the 2026 midterms — and it isn't about stopping Democrats from voting.Study after study shows mail ballots don't favor either party, and the professionals around Trump know...

A Republican strategist just put a clock on the Secretary of Defense.This week Army Secretary Dan Driscoll — JD Vance's closest ally in the administration, the man Trump sent to Kyiv to negotiate an end to the Ukraine...

Trump promised the Reflecting Pool would be fixed in two weeks for $2 million. It took months, cost $14.7 million on a no-bid contract to a company that lines highway culverts, turned Kermit-green, and ended with a...

When President Donald Trump signed an executive order yesterday to “immediately” change the name of Lake Ontario to “Lake America,” it seemed like a parody, like he was telling Andy Borowitz “hold my beer…and charred...

Trump’s election power grab just got a boost from the Supreme Court. But can Democrats hold together long enough to stop him?The Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration to move forward, for now, with its...

A joke about Trump's closest aide broke MAGA world this week — Senator Jon Ossoff mentioned executive assistant Natalie Harp by name, and Google searches for her spiked 5,000% overnight. Matt Robison and Republican...

The DSA platform wants to abolish the military, the Supreme Court, and the presidency — and almost no one has actually read it. Washington Monthly politics editor Bill Scher joins Matt Robison to break down the document...