Author: Heather Cox Richardson

The Trump administration released the 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) of the United States of America quietly on December 5. As foreign affairs journalist at “Politico” Nahal Toosi noted, the release of the NSS is usually accompanied by fanfare, as it shows an administration’s foreign policy priorities and the way it envisions the position of the U.S. in the world. The Trump administration’s NSS announces a dramatic reworking of the foreign policy the U.S. has embraced since World War II. After a brief introduction touting what it claims are the administration’s great successes, the document begins by announcing the...

On the sunny Sunday morning of December 7, 1941, Messman Doris Miller had served breakfast aboard the USS West Virginia, stationed in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and was collecting laundry when the first of nine Japanese torpedoes hit the ship. In the deadly confusion, Miller reported to an officer, who told him to help move the ship’s mortally wounded captain off the bridge. Unable to move him far, Miller pulled the captain to shelter. Then another officer ordered Miller to pass ammunition to him as he started up one of the two abandoned anti-aircraft guns in front of the conning...

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has canceled House business again, meaning that over the last 17 weeks, the House of Representatives will have worked on Capitol Hill for just 20 days. It also means that the House will not be back at work before November 1, when at least twenty-five states have said they will not be able to provide the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits more than 42 million Americans rely on to put food on the table. Jennifer Ludden of NPR notes that about one of every eight Americans gets an average of $187 a month in...