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Paul Waldman

Paul Waldman is a weekly columnist and senior writer for The American Prospect. He also writes for the Plum Line blog at The Washington Post and The Week and is the author of Being Right is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn From Conservative Success.

Recent Articles

The Trump Scandals Were Inevitable

Paul WaldmanDec 09, 2018
AP Photo/Julie Jacobson Michael Cohen walks out of federal court in New York. I n a sentencing memo explaining why they believe Donald Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen should get substantial jail time, federal prosecutors contended on Friday that the president of the United States directed a scheme to violate election laws by making large unreported payments to buy the silence of two women who say they had affairs with him. Meanwhile, special counsel Robert Mueller argued for leniency, hinting at more revelations to come regarding Russia: "Cohen provided the [special counsel's office] with useful information concerning certain discrete Russia-related matters core to its investigation that he obtained by virtue of his regular contact with [Trump Organization] executives during the campaign," Mueller wrote. As extraordinary as it is to hear prosecutors make this accusation in an official document, you might not have greeted them with the shock they deserve, since we've know about...

Republicans Against Democracy

Paul WaldmanDec 02, 2018
Steve Apps/Wisconsin State Journal via AP Wisconsin State Senator Scott Fitzgerald, right, smiles after being elected to the post of Senate Majority Leader during a meeting of the Senate Republican caucus in the State Capitol. " Can we really get away with this?" It's a question I've often wondered if Republicans ask themselves, but all evidence suggests that if it comes up, the answer they give is, "Sure—why the hell not?" And with good reason. Since Donald Trump became president we've heard a lot about norms, the informal expectations and patterns of behavior that govern much of the political world. We've discussed them because Trump so often breaks them, in ways small and large. There's no law saying the president has to release his tax returns, or can't publicly demand that the Justice Department investigate his political opponents—it's just how everyone accepted that things would work. But Trump, who has spent a lifetime being taught that he can do whatever he wants, determined...

Don't Mess with Nancy Pelosi

Paul WaldmanNov 25, 2018
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi talks to reporters during her weekly news conference on Capitol Hill. P olitics, Albert Einstein supposedly said, is more difficult than physics. It's full of uncontrolled variables, experiments impossible to repeat, and human beings in all their unpredictable cravenness, ambition, and ignorance. In our media-saturated age, when we call someone a good politician we're usually thinking of their charisma, their rhetorical skill, and their ability to win the affections of their constituents. The quieter work that goes on in back rooms is harder to see and therefore to judge. Except at certain moments like this one. Nancy Pelosi, target of endless criticism and thousands upon thousands of attack ads, is showing what it means to be a good politician. While she hasn't yet guaranteed her place as the next speaker of the House, she is busily dismantling the rebellion she has faced in the last year or so, what appeared to be the...

Donald Trump Will Never Change His Strategy

Paul WaldmanNov 18, 2018
AP Photo/Evan Vucci President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House. F ailure is a great teacher, but only if you actually understand you've failed and are willing to admit it. And when it comes to the midterm elections, President Trump admits nothing. Which suggests both that he has learned nothing, and that his 2020 re-election campaign—and everything that comes between now and then—will reflect that vacuum of understanding. On Sunday, Fox News aired an interview Chris Wallace conducted with the president, and the topic of the Democrats' extraordinary midterm victory naturally came up. Trump tried to insist that it had actually been a spectacular victory, not just for Republicans but for him personally. He repeated "I won the Senate" three times, claiming absurdly that the GOP's gain of two Senate seats was "a far greater victory" than taking the House was for Democrats. But confronted with all the ways Democrats won, not just in terms of seats but with key...

The Midterms Showed that the Real America Is Democratic

Paul WaldmanNov 11, 2018
AP Photo/John Bazemore Former President Barack Obama stands with Georgia Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor Sarah Riggs Amico, left, gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and congressional candidate Lucy McBath, right, during a campaign rally at Morehouse College in Atlanta. Y ou've heard lots of figures from the 2018 election, but here's what may be the most remarkable one: Once the last couple of House races finish counting, Republicans will have only between 12 and 14 women in their caucus, out of around 200 members. You'll be able to fit all the Republican congresswomen in one van. Before the election there were 23 of them, which was nothing to be proud of, but between retirements, defeats, and some running for higher office, the number was slashed almost in half—even as a wave of successful Democratic women candidates brings the total number of women in the House over 100 for the first time. Democrats are an even more diverse party, and Republicans are almost entirely...

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