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Josh Kraushaar

Josh Kraushaar Josh Kraushaar is the political editor for National Journal, and pens the weekly "Against the Grain" column.
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Trump Goes Back To the Future on Foreign Policy

April 10, 2017 Since World War Two, there has been a broad bi­par­tis­an con­sensus that Amer­ica must play an act­ive role in main­tain­ing a lib­er­al world or­der. Even if con­ser­vat­ive hawks have been more eager to pro­ject force and lib­er­al in­ter­na­tion­al­ists pre­ferred dip­lomacy, there was wide­spread agree­ment that Amer­ica had an es­sen­tial role...

How To Measure Trump’s Performance

January 18, 2017 For Sen­ate Re­pub­lic­ans, these are heady times. Against ex­pect­a­tions, they main­tained con­trol of their ma­jor­ity and are vir­tu­ally guar­an­teed of keep­ing con­trol of the up­per cham­ber after the 2018 midterms, thanks to a fa­vor­able map. With at least 11 Demo­crat­ic sen­at­ors in their sights—and only one or two Re­pub­lic­ans to...

Senate GOP Could Check Trump

November 30, 2016 In work­ing to get his agenda passed through Con­gress, Pres­id­ent-elect Trump faces an in­con­veni­ent real­ity: Re­pub­lic­ans will hold just 52 seats in the Sen­ate (as­sum­ing they win a Decem­ber run­off in Louisi­ana), their nar­row­est ma­jor­ity in the up­per cham­ber since George W. Bush’s first term. This means in­di­vidu­al GOP sen­at­ors...

How Hillary Clinton Could End Washington's Gridlock

October 12, 2016 For those only pay­ing at­ten­tion to the nasty pres­id­en­tial race, it’s easy to con­clude the cam­paign won’t fore­shad­ow an era of good feel­ings in Wash­ing­ton. But the con­ven­tion­al wis­dom that pre­sumes grid­lock is the new nor­mal is wrong. If Hil­lary Clin­ton wins the pres­id­ency and faces a closely di­vided Sen­ate...

Clinton Wins Debate, But Did She Win Over Voters?

September 27, 2016 Hil­lary Clin­ton demon­strated a com­mand of policy on Monday night, and a cool con­fid­ence that she was more pre­pared than Don­ald Trump to be com­mand­er in chief. By the end of the first pres­id­en­tial de­bate, Trump looked peeved and dis­trac­ted. He didn’t get in a clev­er one-liner to de­fang Clin­ton’s...

Bill Clinton Tries to Humanize His Wife With a Political Love Story

July 27, 2016 PHIL­ADELPHIA—His­tory was made here Tues­day, with Hil­lary Clin­ton break­ing the pro­ver­bi­al glass ceil­ing to be­come the first wo­man pres­id­en­tial nom­in­ee in Amer­ic­an his­tory. But it was Bill Clin­ton’s clos­ing con­ven­tion speech that stole the show. He made the kind of case for Hil­lary Clin­ton that only he could, of­fer­ing a...

On Convention’s First Night, Bernie Sanders and His Supporters Upstage Clinton

July 26, 2016 PHIL­ADELPHIA—Hil­lary Clin­ton was greeted as an in­ter­loper at her own con­ven­tion, at least judged by the chilly re­cep­tion she re­ceived on the first day of the Demo­crat­ic Na­tion­al Con­ven­tion. Amid a hack­ing scan­dal that ex­posed the Demo­crat­ic Na­tion­al Com­mit­tee’s bi­as to­wards Clin­ton dur­ing the primar­ies, Bernie Sanders del­eg­ates were in...

For Trump, It’s Not Morning In America Anymore

July 22, 2016 CLEV­E­LAND—Don­ald Trump’s clos­ing speech at the Re­pub­lic­an con­ven­tion was one of the most pess­im­ist­ic pieces of polit­ic­al rhet­or­ic in re­cent his­tory. Most can­did­ates, even in times of tur­moil, try to make the case that hope is on the way. Trump’s speech, by con­trast, offered a lit­any of bad news so...

Cruz Roils GOP Convention With Last Stand Against Trump

July 21, 2016 CLEV­E­LAND—It was sab­ot­age night at the Re­pub­lic­an Na­tion­al Con­ven­tion on Wed­nes­day. Trump’s rival, Sen. Ted Cruz, used his prime-time speak­ing op­por­tun­ity to de­liv­er a con­ser­vat­ive stem­winder dis­tin­guished by his re­fus­al to en­dorse the GOP pres­id­en­tial nom­in­ee on stage. “Stand, and speak, and vote your con­science, vote for can­did­ates up and...

Republicans Slam Clinton, But Don’t Make the Case for Trump

July 19, 2016 CLEV­E­LAND—When Pat Smith offered emo­tion­al testi­mony about how the gov­ern­ment failed to pro­tect her son dur­ing the Benghazi at­tacks, Don­ald Trump was call­ing in­to Bill O’Re­illy’s Fox News show to pre­view his speech at the con­ven­tion. As Smith power­fully re­coun­ted Hil­lary Clin­ton’s un­re­spons­ive­ness to her fam­ily’s plight, Trump at­tacked John...