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Ben Jacobs

Ben Jacobs

The Daily Beast

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Why Mike Johnson Finally Ditched MTG and the Far Right

Mike Johnson, the accidental Speaker of the House, has spent his seven months in power trying to be everything to everyone. Hard-right conservatives...

20.04.2024 9

Daily Intelligencer

Ben Jacobs

Why Mike Johnson Finally Ditched Marjorie Taylor Greene and the Far Right

Mike Johnson, the accidental Speaker of the House, has spent his seven months in power trying to be everything to everyone. Hard-right conservatives...

20.04.2024 7

Daily Intelligencer

Ben Jacobs

So Much for That Big Homeland Security Impeachment

Tweet Share Share Comment An impeachment trial is supposed to be a big deal. The trial of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro...

19.04.2024 5

Slate

Ben Jacobs

Can New Jersey’s Dying Political Machine Save One Menendez?

Hudson County, New Jersey, is one of the country’s last remaining redoubts of old-fashioned machine politics where, just across the river from the...

04.04.2024 7

Daily Intelligencer

Ben Jacobs

Can New Jersey’s Dying Political Machine Save One Menendez?

Hudson County, New Jersey, is one of the country’s last remaining redoubts of old-fashioned machine politics where, just across the river from the...

04.04.2024 10

Daily Intelligencer

Ben Jacobs

Nikki Haley Just Got Something She Desperately Needed

Tweet Share Share Comment There was not much glory in Nikki Haley’s first victory of the 2024 presidential primary. About...

04.03.2024 3

Slate

Ben Jacobs

Trump Says He’s a Political Dissident Seeking Regime Change

If Trump rallies are for his fans, the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is for his zealots. In his keynote address to the conference on...

25.02.2024 4

Daily Intelligencer

Ben Jacobs

Calling Himself a ‘Political Dissident,’ Trump Pitched Regime Change at CPAC

If Trump rallies are for his fans, the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is for his zealots. In his keynote address to the conference on...

25.02.2024 3

Daily Intelligencer

Ben Jacobs

Elise Stefanik Auditions to Be Trump’s VP at CPAC

CPAC is one of the biggest Trumpist gatherings of the year, and on Friday the rockstar was Elise Stefanik, the New York congresswoman and former...

24.02.2024 10

Daily Intelligencer

Ben Jacobs

Elise Stefanik Is Now a MAGA Star

It was one of the biggest Trumpist gatherings of the year and Elise Stefanik was a rock star. Cheered for her speech and celebrated afterwards, the...

24.02.2024 10

Daily Intelligencer

Ben Jacobs

Meet The Only Member of Congress Who’s Backing Nikki Haley

Ralph Norman is the rare Republican to buck Trump and live to tell the tale.

23.02.2024 6

Politico

Ben Jacobs

‘Why Are You Here?’: Liz Truss Gets a Mixed Reaction at CPAC

The former British prime minister spoke in a hotel conference room that was less than half full.

23.02.2024 20

Politico

Ben Jacobs

The race to replace George Santos, explained

Even the race to replace George Santos in Congress is packed with drama. The historic expulsion of Santos in December has prompted a rare special...

13.02.2024 4

Vox

Ben Jacobs

Why Did Anyone Think They Could Beat Donald Trump?

Eight years ago, Donald Trump’s opponents for the Republican presidential nomination were convinced that if the field had just cleared and turned it...

24.01.2024 8

Daily Intelligencer

Ben Jacobs

Ron DeSantis Finally Puts Campaign Out of Its Misery

After months of setbacks that culminated in a second-place finish in the Iowa Republican caucuses last week, Ron DeSantis suspended his campaign...

22.01.2024 3

Daily Intelligencer

Ben Jacobs

There’s a quixotic primary challenge to Joe Biden. It kicks off in New Hampshire.

Manchester, New Hampshire — “It makes me sick” to criticize President Joe Biden, Rep. Dean Phillips says in a windowless room of his campaign...

17.01.2024 4

Vox

Ben Jacobs

How Donald Trump Destroyed Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley

Clive Fields flew into Iowa from Texas to vouch for Ron DeSantis’s campaign at a caucus site inside a former lumber store in Urbandale. Beginning at...

16.01.2024 2

Daily Intelligencer

Ben Jacobs

How the Iowa Caucuses Fell Apart

The scene on a cool Sunday morning in Osceola, Iowa, could have been out of a movie about the Iowa caucuses. Roughly 40 people had gathered in a...

15.01.2024 10

Slate

Ben Jacobs

Ron DeSantis Is Being Left Out in the Cold

On the Saturday before the Iowa caucus, Ron DeSantis stopped in the small city of Atlantic for a meet and greet with roughly two dozen voters and two...

14.01.2024 4

Daily Intelligencer

Ben Jacobs

Nikki Haley Is the Front-Runner for Second Place

If only the Des Moines suburbs voted, Nikki Haley would win the Iowa caucuses in a landslide. On Thursday, at her first public event after her debate...

13.01.2024 7

Daily Intelligencer

Ben Jacobs

The Plan to Get New Hampshire Liberals to Vote for Nikki Haley

It’s hard to think of a scenario where Republicans reject Donald Trump as their presidential candidate. Despite his 91 criminal charges and one...

05.01.2024 7

Daily Intelligencer

Ben Jacobs

George Santos’ Neighboring Lawmaker Is Looking Forward to a Year Without Him

Rep. Anthony D’Esposito was too close to the scandal for his own liking. Now, he’s ready to get on with a more “normal” neighbor.

03.01.2024 10

Politico

Ben Jacobs

George Santos Is Going Out in the Most George Santos Way Possible

In over two centuries, the House of Representatives has expelled members for only two reasons: being a Confederate and being a convict. On Thursday,...

01.12.2023 10

Daily Intelligencer

Ben Jacobs

Trump Rallies Aren’t Even Really About Politics at This Point

Tweet Share Share Comment For all of Donald Trump’s rhetorical innovations, personality quirks, and alleged criminal...

27.11.2023 6

Slate

Ben Jacobs

The Blood Feud Between New York Republicans and George Santos

George Santos officially has more friends in Washington than in New York. A majority of the House voted against a resolution to expel him on Wednesday...

02.11.2023 2

Daily Intelligencer

Ben Jacobs

“Lord of the Flies”: The House’s chaotic next era, explained

On Wednesday, Congress finally reopened. After more than three weeks without a speaker, the elevation of the previously obscure Mike Johnson of...

29.10.2023 10

Vox

Ben Jacobs

Mike Johnson, the Nice Guy Who Finished First

At 12:17 p.m. on Tuesday, Tom Emmer became the Republican nominee for House Speaker. At 4:27 p.m. that same day, the No. 3 Republican in the House...

25.10.2023 2

Daily Intelligencer

Ben Jacobs

Republicans Started a Civil War They Don’t Know How to End

House Republicans haven’t been terribly successful at many things this year. They struggled to keep the government open and to keep the United...

21.10.2023 30

Daily Intelligencer

Ben Jacobs

Jim Jordan Didn’t Just Lose. The Hard Right Did Too.

17.10.2023 3

Daily Intelligencer

Ben Jacobs

The House Republicans Are in a Hell of Their Own Making

The House of Representatives has traditionally had elected its speaker by a simple system. Each party would hold an internal vote to pick its nominee...

13.10.2023 7

Daily Intelligencer

Ben Jacobs

Where the House Republicans Have Landed (Nowhere)

Tweet Share Share Comment The second-biggest question in the Capitol right now is who will be the speaker of the House. The...

13.10.2023 30

Slate

Ben Jacobs

How Congress stumbled on the worst combination of representative government

The vote to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy last week was another clear indicator that the House of Representatives is becoming something un-American....

11.10.2023 2

Vox

Ben Jacobs

House Republicans Won’t Be Able to Keep Their Speaker Mess Behind Closed Doors

Tweet Share Share Comment In January, the process of electing Kevin McCarthy to be Speaker of the House was a circus. It lasted...

11.10.2023 3

Slate

Ben Jacobs

Who Is Supporting RFK Jr.? Here’s Who Showed Up at His Relaunch.

Tweet Share Share Comment America is a weird country, and that was very clearly on display on Monday in Philadelphia. Speaking to a crowd of...

10.10.2023 2

Slate

Ben Jacobs

The Race for Speaker Is About to Get Real

This week’s battle for the Speaker’s gavel among House Republicans won’t be like a normal election. There will be no exit polls or campaign ads....

09.10.2023 7

Daily Intelligencer

Ben Jacobs

What Doomed Kevin McCarthy

Tweet Share Share Comment The marvel of Wile E. Coyote isn’t that he eventually falls off the cliff but that he makes it so...

04.10.2023 4

Slate

Ben Jacobs

Kevin McCarthy Suffers a Historic Humiliation

Kevin McCarthy is poised to become the first Speaker of the House in American history to be formally voted out of his position on Tuesday thanks to a...

03.10.2023 2

Daily Intelligencer

Ben Jacobs

Matt Versus Goliath

Minutes after setting in motion the first vote to oust a sitting Speaker of the House in over a century, Matt Gaetz declared that going after Kevin...

03.10.2023 2

Daily Intelligencer

Ben Jacobs

Kevin McCarthy Traded One Crisis For Another

On Saturday, Congress narrowly averted a government shutdown with only hours to spare. Now the real crisis begins. Appearing on television on Sunday,...

01.10.2023 2

Daily Intelligencer

Ben Jacobs

Congress avoided a shutdown. What happens now?

With only hours to spare, Congress on Saturday narrowly avoided a government shutdown. The Senate approved a bill to keep the government open for the...

01.10.2023 40

Vox

Ben Jacobs

Jamaal Bowman Pulled a Fire Alarm on Capitol Hill

Representative Jamaal Bowman of New York was accused of deliberately pulling a fire alarm in a House office building this morning in the hours before...

30.09.2023 2

Daily Intelligencer

Ben Jacobs

Republicans Held an Impeachment Hearing and It Turned Into a Clown Show

The impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden was already a disappointment before it started on Thursday. In prepared testimony, two of the three witnesses...

29.09.2023 10

Daily Intelligencer

Ben Jacobs

Are “Never Trump” Republicans Actually Just Democrats Now?

A decade ago, Kristen Daddow-Rodriguez was a loyal Republican. Raised in Michigan, she voted automatically for the GOP in each election, even though...

21.09.2023 2

New Republic

Ben Jacobs

Vivek Ramaswamy Wants to Sell You on a Massive Purge of the Federal Government

It was a day like many others. An interested crowd settled into a well-lit conference room for a presentation in Washington D.C. on Wednesday....

14.09.2023 30

New Republic

Ben Jacobs

RFK Jr.’s Republican-friendly Democratic presidential campaign, explained

Mounting a primary challenge to an incumbent president is perhaps the most difficult task in American politics. It’s so difficult that no one has...

07.09.2023 3

Vox

Ben Jacobs

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