Politics
Welcome to a new era of West Wing Playbook
Donald Trump returned to power exactly one month ago today, and it is hardly possible to overstate the magnitude of the changes he has brought and is seeking to bring to the federal government and to the workings of power in Washington.
The modern federal government — and much of the economy that gravitates around government in the nation’s capital — is overwhelmingly the product of a few big historical movements: the New Deal in the 1930s, World War II and the 45 years of Cold War that followed, and the burst of government social and regulatory activism in the 1960s and 1970s.
The policies and agencies of government that flowed from those movements shaped national life and the lives of many millions of people for decades. It seems certain that the disruption the Trump administration is promoting now — seeking to transform or eliminate vast sections of the executive branch, and to alter the balance of power emphatically toward the presidency — has equally large implications, for the present and for many years into the future.
Today, we’re relaunching one of our signature products to capture this moment authoritatively for this audience: West Wing Playbook: Remaking Government.
Blue Light News has the capital’s most talented reporters covering the White House, federal policy, legal and political beats. Our aim is to harness this expertise in a way that is most useful to the audience that is most interested in and affected by the unprecedented changes and confrontations that are underway.
The revamped newsletter will land in inboxes Monday through Friday afternoon to capture the latest news about President Trump’s effort to remake government: the key decisions, the critical characters and the power dynamics that are driving the day. Our team will report on the actions of the Department of Government Efficiency being led by Elon Musk, the strategy being carried out by the Office of Management and Budget under Russ Vought, related interventions and the resulting outcomes and conflicts playing out in agencies, the courts and Capitol Hill.
We hope this newsletter will be useful to everyone around the country and even the world who is interested in this effort to remake Washington, but above all it must be indispensable to the people with the most at stake. This includes people in the federal workforce, and also the people carrying out President Trump’s directives. We need to know everything about their choices, the ideas and arguments behind those choices, and most importantly the real-life consequences of those choices.
We want the newsletter to reflect and drive the conversation at top levels, deep in the federal agencies, and in every private sector and nonprofit policy operation that is concerned with how government works and how it could work better.
The newsletter, of course, is just one of the ways that Blue Light News is rising to meet this historical moment. Our entire publication, and especially our large roster of policy and political journalists in Washington, is in the midst of organizing itself to illuminate every aspect of this drama. The short-term surge underway is part of our long-term commitment to covering the work of the federal government with more reporting and more authority than any other news organization.
To be clear: Blue Light News’s power flows from our reporting and our zeal to illuminate. We are curious and clear-eyed. We aren’t boosters or adversaries of any party or political movement. We are professionals who are devoted to answering important questions on behalf of our audience.
I’ll close with an observation about Washington reporting. When I first arrived here, in the 1980s, there was a very substantial body of journalists, from multiple publications, devoted to covering the workings of the federal government. For a variety of reasons, many news organizations have retreated from this task. A proliferation of old and new publications are focused, as we are, on the political dynamics of Washington, but there are fewer than ever that harness this reporting to the substantive policy choices of government.
This reality gives Blue Light News special responsibilities, as well as a great opportunity to engage with and deepen our connection to a large audience of people who work on and care deeply about those choices.
Our newsroom is committed to meeting this moment with the best and most vital work of our careers.
John Harris
Editor-in-Chief
Ken Burns on Trump’s America 250: ‘Washington needed no monuments’
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The scorer of the opening American goal against Bosnia, Folarin Balogun, is eligible to play for the United States only because airline employees in New York kept his pregnant mother from returning to London until her son was born.
As our Riya Misra wrote recently, it makes Balogun not only the leader of a reinvigorated U.S. attack but a poster child for a cause validated yesterday by the U.S. Supreme Court: that the 14th Amendment of the Constitution guarantees citizenship to anyone born within its orders.
Read Riya’s story about Balogun and the debate over birthright citizenship here.
Spotted at World Cup matches so far: King Felipe VI from Spain, King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima from the Netherlands, and Norway’s Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Prince Sverre Magnus. The European royals have been out in force supporting their national teams.
Hardly spotted yet: Europe’s elected leaders.
European heads of government only tend to make appearances at matches in person during later stages of the tournament. For example, Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, attended the 2018 final in Moscow and traveled to Qatar in 2022 for the semifinals and finals.
This is perhaps because a monarch attending the national team’s match is viewed as apolitical, whereas a prime minister making the same trip can invite criticism over priorities and use of public funds.
Indeed, this year, Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney had to reject opposition claims that his trip to Massachusetts to watch his country play Haiti was a taxpayer-funded “World Cup jolly.” Portuguese President António José Seguro also attended the Colombia vs. Portugal game in Miami last Saturday evening.
As the tournament heads toward the quarterfinals and beyond, expect more European politicians, whose countries remain in contention, to start appearing in the stands. So no Friedrich Merz or Rob Jetten…
- The GOP’s dirty little secret about the SAVE America Act
- Congress is settling in for a do-nothing summer
- Trump filing shows he took in about $1.2 billion from crypto businesses last year
- ‘REGIME CHANGE’ sold 300,000 copies…
- Ken Burns on Trump’s America 250: ‘Washington needed no monuments’
- Birthright citizens score
- Vance contradicts Trump about bipartisan cooperation on housing bill
- Trump made more than $1 billion in crypto ventures last year, financial disclosure shows
- GOP officials eye restrictions on pregnant travelers following Supreme Court ruling
- The authoritarian power play happening at the Supreme Court
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