Maybe Donald Trump is lucky that Ted Cruz knifed him on Wednesday night at the Republican National Convention. Otherwise, the big story would be Trump’s new interview with The New York Times. Trump’s most astonishing policy statement is his declaration that America would only defend the Baltic states from Russian attack if he concluded that they “have fulfilled their obligations to us.” Given that Trump ...

Former President George W. Bush’s absence from this year’s Republican National Convention is a problem. It’s a problem not merely because it signifies GOP opposition to Donald Trump. More importantly, it’s a problem because it underscores the Trump campaign’s inability to define the word “again.” …

On Wednesday on CNN, Marco Rubio said the Islamic State, which Turkish officials believe carried out this week’s attack at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport, had two motivations. First, “they ultimately want them to be a part of the caliphate.” Sure, but “ultimately,” ISIS wants every place on earth to be part of its caliphate. That doesn’t explain why the organization struck Turkey now. Rubio’s second explanation ...

American commentators have spent the weekend pondering the similarities between Britain’s vote to leave the European Union and America’s impending vote on whether to take leave it of its senses by electing Donald Trump. The similarities have been well-rehearsed: The supporters of Brexit—like the supporters of Trump–are older, non-college educated, non-urban, distrustful of elites, xenophobic, and nostalgic. Moreover, many British commentators discounted polls showing that ...

There are three obvious downsides to Marco Rubio’s decision to run for reelection to the United States Senate. First, he’s flip-flopped: As recently as May, he promised not to enter the race. Second, even if he wins, he’ll spend the coming years taking votes that could cause him problems in a presidential campaign. Or, if he skips those votes, he’ll be slammed for his absenteeism, ...

Donald Trump’s ignorance makes him challenging to cover. It’s sometimes hard to know whether his falsehoods are the product of willful deceit or mere lack of information. Take his statement on Tuesday to evangelical leaders that “we don’t know anything about Hillary in terms of religion. Now, she’s been in the public eye for years and years, and yet there’s no—there’s nothing out there. There’s ...

When it comes to Latinos, Donald Trump has a muse: Ann Coulter. Last June, when Trump called Mexican immigrants “rapists” in his presidential-campaign announcement, the comment took many journalists by surprise. But that’s because many journalists hadn’t read Coulter’s work. Her book Adios, America: The Left’s Plan to Turn Our Country Into a Third World Hellhole, which hit bookstores two weeks before Trump entered the ...

Hillary Clinton has now secured the Democratic nomination for president. Because she was the front-runner, because she represents the establishment, because she has been around forever, we forget how remarkable a story that is. I’m not talking about her gender. In purely political terms, Clinton’s victory—after losing the Democratic nomination in 2008—constitutes the greatest comeback by a presidential candidate since Richard Nixon won the Republican ...

I opened my Twitter feed on Tuesday night to find liberals ridiculing Bill Kristol. Nothing unusual there. But this time, they had fresh ammunition: The news that Kristol’s much-hyped third-party presidential candidate will be little-known National Review contributor David French. By Thursday morning, the mockery had migrated to television. On Morning Joe, the mere mention of Kristol’s name evoked laughter. “Bill needs to take a ...

Commentators often call Donald Trump a threat to American democracy. That’s not quite right. Trump is a threat to the institutions that keep American democracy liberal. It’s unlikely that Trump would strip Americans of the right to elect their leaders. It’s more likely that he’d undermine those institutions that restrain the power of the leaders Americans elect. He’d undermine the institutions that limit presidential power ...