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Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrives for a secure briefing with lawmakers and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on November 5, 2025 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Tom Brenner/Getty Images North America hide caption toggle caption Tom Brenner/Getty Images North America Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth briefed a group of top congressional members behind closed doors on Wednesday following President Trump’s orders for a wave of unprecedented U.S. military strikes against alleged drug boats that are raising the specter of a new war. Legal analysts have broadly described the strikes as illegal under both U.S.…

Ad Policy Donald Trump greets John Roberts in the House Chamber of the US Capitol, on Tuesday, March 4, 2025. (Al Drago / Bloomberg via Getty Images It can be tempting to look away from the Supreme Court. The cases are complicated, the traditions archaic, and these days the decisions are almost always devastating and the reasoning often perverse. But alas, the court is too important to ignore, particularly as John Roberts and his five ultra-conservative colleagues have turned it into a rubber stamp for Donald Trump. Luckily, we at The Nation are blessed to have perhaps the only person in America…

Good morning. You’re reading the Up First newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox, and listen to the Up First podcast for all the news you need to start your day. Today’s top stories NPR’s senior political editor/correspondent Domenico Montanaro joins the newsletter today to break down the 2025 off-year elections. Up and down the ballot, Democrats did well, from the marquee gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey to a key redistricting ballot initiative in California and even state Supreme Court races in Pennsylvania. Here are five takeaways from the 2025 off-year elections: Voters cast their ballots at a polling station…

Politics / November 5, 2025 Though he would eventually condemn Trump, the former vice president rejected transparency, the rule of law, and constitutional principles. Ad Policy Vice President Dick Cheney speaks at the 35th annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, DC, on Thursday, February 7, 2008. (Chuck Kennedy / MCT / Tribune News Service via Getty Images) Dick Cheney spent the last years of his long public life in open conflict with the Republican Party whose modern form he spent decades shaping. In a dramatic 2022 television ad that he recorded in support of his daughter Liz’s doomed congressional…

The sun sets the day before the Supreme Court on Oct 6 in Washington, D.C. Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images The Supreme Court hears arguments Wednesday in a consequential case with potentially profound economic consequences for the country and the presidency: The issue is tariffs. Standing in the Rose Garden last April, President Trump proclaimed what he called “liberation day,” a day that “will be remembered as the day American industry was reborn.”   Oral arguments in the case are set for 10 a.m. ET. Listen here:…

Editorial / November 4, 2025 If Zohran Mamdani governs as he campaigned, he will prove that the people have the power to shape their own future. Ad Policy Zohran Mamdani campaigns in Brooklyn on Election Day.(Adam Gray / Bloomberg) This article appears in the December 2025 issue, with the headline “Mamdani’s Mandate.” Zohran Mamdani has no higher responsibility than to be a great mayor of New York City. It is, after all, his job, now that New Yorkers have elected him to the highest office of America’s largest and most dynamic municipality. Yet, as he succeeds, Mamdani has the potential…

Zohran Mamdani speaks to supporters during a gathering in June. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images Zohran Mamdani will be the next mayor of New York City, becoming the first Muslim and person of South Asian descent — as well as the youngest in over a century — to hold the position. The 34-year-old, Ugandan-born democratic socialist defeated former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an Independent, and Republican Curtis Sliwa in Tuesday’s election, according to a race call by the Associated Press. It’s a remarkable ascent for Mamdani, who was a…

Politics / November 4, 2025 As much as the Trumpists claim to disavow the War on Terror, they walk a path paved by the most powerful vice president in US history. Ad Policy Former vice president Dick Cheney(David Hume Kennerly / Getty Images) The week before Dick Cheney died, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, one of the bureaucratic venues through which the most powerful vice president in US history disfigured the country, informed Congress that it would have no say over Donald Trump’s rapidly coalescing military aggression against an oil-rich country. While self-styled War Secretary Pete Hegseth boasted…

After a week aboard, President Trump will confront a swirl of domestic challenges this week: pivotal elections in several states, Supreme Court tariff arguments and the ongoing government shutdown. MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: In this hour, we will be remembering the life of Dick Cheney. The former vice president was politically prominent from the 1970s until his death. We’re also following elections on this Tuesday, on this last day of voting across the country today, from New Jersey and Virginia to California. It’s just one of several tests President Trump is facing this week. NPR’s senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith…

Politics / November 4, 2025 How the right’s crisis over US support for Israel has provided the white nationalist with the opening he needs to be welcomed into the MAGA fold. Ad Policy White nationalist Nick Fuentes speaks during a rally at the Capitol in Lansing, Michigan, November 2020.(Nicole Hester / Mlive.com / Ann Arbor News via AP) Last week, a major ideological schism that has been brewing beneath the surface of the MAGA movement burst into full public view. On one side: a rowdy and ascendant coalition of ultra-nationalists, populists, and Gen-Zers who are clamoring for an end to…