Shortly after Utah Governor Spencer Cox's news conference yesterday, he got a call from the president. "You know, the type of person who would do something like that to Charlie Kirk would love to do it to us," Cox says Trump told him. www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

Today is a good day to read @mckaycoppins.bsky.social on the mind games, sibling rivalry, and war for power that culminated in Lachlan Murdoch winning his family’s succession fight: www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

Life is complicated, human experience is varied, some people shouldn't be parents, etc.—I understand the aversion to having kids. But it's kind of amazing that "parenthood is good and makes people happy" is considered such a counterintuitive take in 2025.

From a new survey of 3,000 American women ages 25 to 55, controlled for age, family income, and education: "Married mothers are actually happier than unmarried women and married women without children." www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Number of times I’ve heard a KPop Demon Hunters song in Mexico City this week: 3 (and counting)

Photos: Starvation and Chaos in Gaza www.theatlantic.com/photography/...

Something I think about often is when I asked Jason Chaffetz, then Oversight chairman, in March 2017 if he was worried about Trump profiting from his presidency. “He’s already rich,” Chaffetz shrugged. “I don’t think that he ran for this office to line his pockets even more."

“They call Alden a vulture hedge fund, and I think that’s honestly a misnomer,” a former Chicago Tribune reporter told me in 2021. “A vulture doesn’t hold a wounded animal’s head underwater. This is predatory.” www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

Some Pioneer Day reading

"The network that once made Cronkite the most trusted man in America no longer gets the benefit of the doubt. CBS’s owners have made a series of decisions capitulating to President Donald Trump..." www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Mike Lee’s “based” online persona and Trump-era theatrics are a source of growing alarm among LDS church leaders, @sambbenson reports. “Mike Lee is far-right,” said one emeritus general authority. “The church is not far-right.” www.politico.com/news/magazin...

"Officers and agents described a workforce on edge, vilified by broad swaths of the public and bullied by Trump officials demanding more and more." www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

More and more people are saying this

Incredible. "Paramount said its payment includes Mr. Trump’s legal fees and costs and that the money, minus the legal fees, will be paid to Mr. Trump’s future presidential library."

Idaho Attorney General: ‘Everyone is Welcome Here’ sign cannot be displayed in Idaho schools because they are “part of an ideological/social movement.” www.idahoednews.org/top-news/att...

Wrote this in April 2017

Deseret News on Mike Lee: “The tweets were unacceptable for anyone, let alone from a member of the Senate. It revealed a lack of compassion for both victims and their loved ones and cast a poor light on Utah.” Editorial calls on Lee to apologize: www.deseret.com/opinion/2025...

When I profiled Stephen Miller in 2018 for The Atlantic, I spent lots of time talking to people he grew up with—Santa Monica High School classmates, students at Duke. Some found him amusing, others repulsive. Almost all of them described him as a troll. www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

Padilla’s office betting that a lot of people are going to find this treatment of a U.S. senator pretty shocking (and perhaps clarifying).

“It used to be that before we committed to a position on any significant matter, we would wait to see where the United States stood. Now? We really don’t care anymore," an ambassador from a U.S. ally told Jeff Flake www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

What does America owe this family? www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

If Musk is moving fast and breaking things, as the Silicon Valley dictum goes, Russell Vought is taking the shattered pieces of the federal government and reassembling them into a radically new constitutional order. On Trump’s wonk and his ideological project: www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

The winners of the 2025 Zenger Prize have been announced, including Atlantic staff writers @caitlindickerson.bsky.social and @mckaycoppins.bsky.social: Caitlin for “Seventy Miles in Hell” and McKay for “The Most Revealing Moment of a Trump Rally.” More info here: www.zengerhouse.com/2025-winners

Mitt Romney on Ukraine: “We must not let personal squabbles weaken our resolve to stand with the freedom fighters and to oppose the authoritarian aggressors.”

We're diving into the real-life 'Succession' drama. Atlantic staff writer McKay Coppins describes the rivalry among the children of 93 year-old media titan Rupert Murdoch over who will control his business empire when he dies. tinyurl.com/2s335jj4

“The one thing that anyone who ever dips a toe into the practice of profile-writing learns is that what you intend as a bear hug can be taken as a betrayal, and what you fear is a betrayal can be taken as a bear hug." www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

"President Donald Trump’s firing of the country’s most senior military officer on Friday night rattled the foundations of the armed forces." Read @shaneharris.bsky.social and @jonathanlemire1.bsky.social on Trump's military purge: www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

Genuinely excellent piece by @mckaycoppins.bsky.social about (odious) Murdoch clan. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc... I reported a limited version on similar theme 20+ years ago. So am all the more impressed by this. Still not sure whether R Murdoch or Mitch M has done more damage overall.

“The contractor said that she had placed her government laptop in her closet at home, underneath a pile of clothes, in case DOGE was using it to listen to her private conversations.” www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

Seven BYU law professors co-write op-ed calling out Trump’s disregard for Constitutional separation of powers and Napoleonic assertion that he is above the law: www.deseret.com/opinion/2025...

Was Succession based on the story of Rupert Murdoch and his heirs? Or is the Murdoch family based on Succession? Clear an hour of your day for this magnificent piece of long form reporting by @mckaycoppins.bsky.social for the @theatlantic.com. Oh boy. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

“The US…cannot easily deport people to countries like Afghanistan, Iran and China, but by applying intense pressure it has managed to convince Panama to take some of them. After being sent to Panama, the deported migrants are no longer subject to US law.” www.nytimes.com/2025/02/19/w...

Kat’s work on this story was invaluable. So grateful for her tireless research, sharp eye, and discretion. She’s got big things in her future!

I've spent the past year talking to James Murdoch about his father's "twisted" behavior, the mind games at the family-counseling retreat, how Fox News really works, and the war over his family's media empire. My cover story for The Atlantic's April edition: theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

In the Sunday edition of @status.news: @mckaycoppins.bsky.social unpacks the Murdoch family’s internal power struggles, James Murdoch’s break from the empire, and what happens next in the battle for control. www.status.news/p/inside-the...

I've spent the past year talking to James Murdoch about his father's "twisted" behavior, the mind games at the family-counseling retreat, how Fox News really works, and the war over his family's media empire. My cover story for The Atlantic's April edition: theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

I read this book a month ago, and haven't stopped thinking about it since. If you're in Washington this Friday, join us for what promises to be a fascinating conversation!

Today is finally publication day for The Sirens’ Call! Excited for it to actually be out in readers’ hands. You can order wherever you get your books (including requesting it at your local library.) sirenscallbook.com

I’ve been reading @chrislhayes.bsky.social’s book and it’s really quite good. Deeply insightful on one of the most important issues of the 21st century.

I'm thinking today about this Republican senator who wanted to convict Trump after January 6 but was too afraid for his personal safety and his family's. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

“The big joke on democracy,” Joseph Goebbels observed, “is that it gives its mortal enemies the means to its own destruction.” www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

George Romney was a liberal Republican who marched for civil rights as governor of Michigan, took a defiant (and unpopular) stand against the ascendant radical right in his own party, and gave a speech at the 1964 RNC refusing to support Barry Goldwater. Mitt has idolized him since he was a kid.

Really enjoying all the “you lost, get over it” posts from people whose preferred candidate tried to overthrow the government last time he lost an election.

“Trump’s popular-vote margin has shrunk to about 1.5 percent—one of the tightest in the past half century—and because some votes went to third-party and independent candidates, he’ll fall just short of winning a majority of the vote nationwide." www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

Can’t wait to order up a baby that only needs 4 hours of sleep.

Insane to me that we as a society looked around and basically said, “You know what younger men need? Another massively self-destructive vice that they can easily access from the phone in their pocket.” www.nytimes.com/athletic/577...

As Mitt Romney delivers his farewell Senate speech today, I’m thinking about the final quote in my biography.

Prediction: "Obedience in advance" will be to 2025 what "normalization" or "false equivalence" were to 2017—a once useful concept rendered meaningless by partisans who apply it to every argument they don't like.

Smart piece on how, if Trump actually wanted to reduce consumption of seed oils, processed foods, and frozen school-lunch pizzas, he'd have put RFK Jr. in the Dept. of Agriculture, not HHS. www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

"Speculation is not the function of journalism. It is what an anxious brain does, worrying about all the ways things could go wrong, sending the worrier into a panicked and angry state." Make time for this essay, especially if you work in news media www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...