Rich Lowry
Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review. He is a syndicated columnist and a commentator for the Fox News Channel. He writes for Politico, and often appears on such public affairs programs as Meet the Press and This Week with George Stephanopoulos. He is a regular panelist on the KCRW program Left, Right, and Center. He is the author of Lincoln Unbound and Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years — a New York Times bestseller.
Lowry began his career as a research assistant for Charles Krauthammer. In 1997 he was selected by William F. Buckley to lead National Review.
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Obviously, and as has already been noted in this space, the way Trump is treating Jeff Sessions is just wrong. No one deserves this, let alone an early Trump-endorser who is pushing some of the central elements of the Trump ... -
Randi Weingarten’s Smear
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, is paid not to tell the truth about school choice, and she deserves a raise. In a speech last week, she purported to uncover the racist roots of the school-choice movement ... -
The Looming Republican Disgrace
The ascension of Donald Trump was supposed to change everything in the GOP. As it happens, perhaps one very important thing hasn’t: The Republicans may well still be The Stupid Party. That Obamacare repeal has one or maybe two ... -
Who Knew May 18, 2010 Was the Day It Became That Much Harder to Reform Two Entitlement Programs?
That was the day Rand Paul won the Republican primary for senate in Kentucky, defeating Trey Grayson, who wasn’t conservative enough for Paul. Whatever may be Grayson’s other faults, he would probably be a “yes” on the health-care ... -
Collapse, Cont.
Not surprisingly, the repeal-only gambit looks dead with three defections from senate moderates. Here, by the way, is my column today, on GOP bad faith on Obamacare. I wrote it yesterday afternoon so it’s been overtaken-by-events at the same ... -
The Party of Bad Faith?
If the Republican attempt to repeal and replace Obamacare ultimately fails, it will be a lesson in the wages of political bad faith. The bill has plenty of obstacles, including the sheer inertia of the Obamacare status quo and the ... -
Reince for President
It’s been a rough week for the White House, so reportedly — yet again — Reince Priebus might get fired. Surely, no high-level government official in American history has been on the verge of ouster so early and so often. Being ... -
Don Jr.’s Crisis Communications Strategy Was the Worst in the History of the Planet — and It Came Directly from the White House
What has been most damaging about the Don Jr. mess, besides the meeting itself, has been the ever-shifting, misleading explanations. I assumed, as I think most people did, that this was the work of an overwhelmed Don Jr. making bad ... -
No, China Isn’t Going to Lead
The world has had its delusions about China over the years, but none quite as fantastical as the notion of Beijing assuming the mantle of global leadership. Ever since Donald Trump’s election, it has been a journalistic trope to ... -
The Latest Russia Non-Bombshell
Meanwhile, the New York Times has another “bomb-shell” report about Russia, this time a meeting between a shady Russian operative and Donald Trump, Jr. and some others from the campaign. Two quick points. One, this jumped out at me given ... -
‘In all of this, her proud and resourceful people left an indelible mark on Western civilization’
Behold LBJ’s dark, alt-right, white-nationalist speech about Poland and its role in Western civilization, delivered in 1966 on the occasion of the millennium of Christianity in that country: Life has never been easy for the people of Poland. Time and ... -
Trump Is Winning the Immigration Debate
With his penchant for tweeted insults and GIFs, Donald Trump will never be mistaken for a master of the sweet art of persuasion. Yet he is clearly winning the public argument on the issue of immigration. He isn’t doing ... -
‘Together, let us all fight like the Poles’
Wow. Trump’s Warsaw speech was moving. And included robust language embracing Article 5. Well done. -
Love Is a Battlefield
Jonah’s response to the July 4 The Editors podcast is a rip-roaring fun read, and also a little baffling. I’m still not completely sure how he gets from all of us saying that there are things we love about ... -
What Is It about 17 Percent?
There was a poll a while ago that had the House health-care bill at 17 percent. Now there’s a poll that has the Senate bill at 17 percent. Considering the source of this poll — NPR/PBS — you might want to take ... -
Barbarism Isn’t What It Used to Be
The Brezhnev Doctrine said that the Soviet empire could only expand and never give back its gains. A domestic version of the doctrine has long applied to the welfare state — and never so brazenly as in the debate over the ... -
‘It is not sufficient for us simply to add more people to Medicare or Medicaid to increase the rolls, to increase coverage in the absence of cost controls and reform.’
Guess who said that? Answer here. -
The Trump Non-Catastrophe
The coverage of Trump has had a catastrophic tone since the election, shared by some of his critics on the Right. In the NBC poll at the end of last week, according to First Read at NBC News, I was ... -
A Democratic Blind Spot on Culture
How much do Democrats really want to defeat Donald Trump? It’s worth asking in the wake of the latest Democratic failure to notch an electoral victory for the resistance, this time in the Georgia special election. There’s no ... -
Yes, Hate Speech Is Free Speech
With the Left feverishly attempting to squash unwelcome speech on college campuses, with the president of the United States musing about tightening libel laws, with prominent liberals asserting that so-called hate speech is not protected by the First Amendment, free ... -
He's a Republican Now
Donald Trump, the erstwhile Democrat, independent, and member of the Reform Party, finally has a fixed partisan identity. The president may be besieged, unpopular, and prone to lashing out self-destructively, but all of this cements his bond to his party ... -
Here We Go
Stephen Kotkin of Princeton had an excellent piece about Russia and Trump in the New York Times the other day. He pours scorn on the idea of collusion: As our lawmakers put financial pressure on Moscow, the Senate Intelligence Committee, ... -
Horror on a Baseball Field
It’s hard to fathom congressmen getting attacked by a gunman at a practice for a bipartisan charity baseball game, but here we are. This from Ben Domenech represents the right spirit: The Congressional baseball game should go on. It ... -
The Impeachment War
American politics is now, in large part, a fight about whether or not Donald Trump will be impeached. No one is saying it explicitly, but these are the stakes in the Russia controversy and its spinoffs and in the 2018 midterms. ... -
What Trump Really Told Lester Holt
One of the counts against Trump that we hear over and over is that he admitted in his Lester Holt interview that he fired Comey because of Russia. It is almost always implied, and often explicitly stated, that Trump meant ... -
Comey Hits and Misses
Never before has, or presumably again will, a former FBI director say such harsh things about a sitting president of the United States. In his much-anticipated congressional testimony, James Comey called President Donald Trump a liar who fired him over ... -
Comey's Testimony
He’s a good witness, in part because he’s so practiced at this. A few points: I’ve wondered why he didn’t push back more against Trump if he thought things the president asked him to do or ... -
‘I didn’t move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed.’
This might be my favorite detail from the Comey statement from his account of his dinner alone with Trump: The President began by asking me whether I wanted to stay on as FBI Director, which I found strange because he ... -
What Did Jeff Sessions Do Wrong?
The New York Times has an eye-popping story today about Trump’s growing disaffection with Jeff Sessions, of all people (and Sean Spicer wouldn’t say that Trump has confidence in the attorney general today). Sessions, of course, was an ... -
‘Can't Wonder Woman Just Be Wonder Woman?’
Count me as a fan of the new Wonder Woman movie, which I wrote about today: The fevered commentary about the new hit film raises the question, “Can’t an Amazonian superhero wield her Lasso of Truth and bullet-deflecting bracelets ... -
This Is the Jihad
Three knife-wielding men setting upon one unarmed woman, per a horrifying eyewitness account from London: Gerard Vowls was across the street from a Barclays bank branch when he heard someone moan, “I’ve been stabbed.” He thought it was a ... -
The Most Special-Counsel Thing Ever
Robert Mueller may investigate the man who appointed him. That’s right, deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein himself may find himself in the cross-hairs along with Jeff Sessions. This probe is already widening and we’re just getting started. It’... -
Nothing If Not Bold
I’ve been trying to think what Trump has done in purely the substantive realm — putting aside the tweets, the personnel issues, the general atmosphere of zaniness, etc. — that we wouldn’t have gotten from any other Republican president. And ... -
Out of Paris
This was a gutsy and correct call by President Trump. It would have been better in my view to submit the treaty for rejection but the Senate, but this is the second-best option. It reminds me a little of George ... -
The Problem with German Trade
Greg Ip of the Wall Street Journal has become my favorite economics writer in the mainstream press. He has an illuminating piece today on Trump’s complaint about our trade deficit with Germany. He starts with a point about China’... -
The Non-Existent Case for the Paris Accord
For a bull in the china shop, President Donald Trump has so far gingerly stepped around the Paris climate accord. That dance could end as soon as this week, with Trump deciding whether to stay in or opt out. “Out” ... -
Jared's Turn in the Barrel
The Washington Post had a story last night on Jared wanting to establish a back channel with the Russians during the transition that adds detail–he talked to Kislyak about it and allegedly wanted to use Russia diplomatic facilities for ... -
Trump Got Trolled
If President Donald Trump has acted as his own worst enemy in the Russia controversy, as everyone says, he’s been baited into it. Rush Limbaugh a couple of weeks ago said he was laughing over Trump’s “epic troll” ... -
Trump Got Trolled
I’m open to believing the worst on Russia, but at the moment I think the likeliest theory of what’s happened is that Trump, in effect, got trolled into lashing out over the investigation and the press coverage. I ... -
Populism’s False Start
The early Trump administration has been many things, but “populist” hasn’t truly been one of them. When you discount the tweets, the all-consuming media controversies, the drama over personnel, and the Russia investigation — granted, that’s a lot of ... -
A Scandal about the Handling of the Scandal
As Byron York points out, the Russia controversy has now crossed the Washington event horizon into a scandal about the handling of the scandal. It seemed pretty clear that this is where we could be heading upon the firing of ... -
Back from Japan
I was away all last week in Japan, where I hadn’t been before. It’s an amazing place with a truly extraordinary culture (and out-of-this-world food). But it was an odd time to be out of the U.S. — ... -
Embrace the Robots
We have seen the enemy, and it is the robot. A wave of fear over automation is driving dire predictions about robots rendering swaths of Americans unemployable and has created a vogue for outlandishly stupid policy proposals. A popular idea ... -
A Scandal about Smoke
The cliché about the Russia investigation is that there’s a lot of smoke, and with the firing of FBI director James Comey, President Donald Trump rolled a military-grade smoke grenade into the room. There were many legitimate reasons to ... -
How to Make the Russia Coverage Worse
As I noted yesterday, there is nothing about the Comey firing that it going to serve Trump’s ends if he is trying to bury the Russia investigation. News reports suggest he was upset about the media coverage of Comey ... -
The Timing
There are obviously legitimate questions about the timing of the Comey ouster. Byron York has a good dispatch on why the timing might not be as nefarious as so many people assume, which centers around the deputy attorney general Rod ... -
NR Called for Firing Comey ‘After a Decent Interval’
In terms of timing, it turns out it would have been better to fire James Comey either right after the election on grounds that he broke the Justice Department’s guidelines by speaking repeatedly about the Hillary case, which might ... -
The Pre-Existing Lie
If you’ve only followed coverage of the Republican health-care bill loosely in the media, you might believe that House Republicans, after much effort, passed legislation to deny people with pre-existing conditions health insurance. The issue of pre-existing conditions has ... -
Another Insurer Warns of Obamacare Death Spiral
Any time Republicans say Obamacare is in a death spiral, Democrats accuse them of lying, but we heard the AETNA CEO use this language a couple of months ago and here’s another insurer saying basically the same thing: The ... -
The Health-Care Bill
The rush to put it on the floor as soon as they got the votes is violating everything Republicans said about the importance of a careful, deliberative process during the Obamacare debate, but all signs are that the leadership is ...
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Back From the Dead
Amazingly enough, it seems fairly likely — although there are no guarantees — that the Senate leadership will get the motion to proceed today to begin the debate on the health-care bill. And there’s a pretty good chance the GOP will ... -
Firing Mueller
Some more thoughts on this possibility from a purely analytical perspective: The safer play for Trump would seem to be limiting Mueller’s ambit to keep his investigation from running out of control as Andy has suggested, political warfare against ... -
Yeah, Trump Is Probably Going to Fire Robert Mueller
The Trump New York Times interview was, as Jim pointed out, a wholly gratuitous slap at Jeff Sessions (that aside, the interview is classic, madcap, highly entertaining Trump, e.g. “Napoleon finished a little bit bad”). The 3-D-chess theory of ... -
‘The Looming Republican Disgrace’
I wrote a dyspeptic column today on Republicans and Obamacare repeal: At least Collins, an ideological outlier in the Republican Conference, has been consistent. She voted against the repeal-only bill in 2015, and the GOP leadership never thought she was gettable. ... -
Collapse
With Mike Lee and Jerry Moran declaring their opposition, the latest Senate health-care bill is dead. McConnell now wants to revert to what was his original idea of repeal-only. The problem is that the CBO score will be much worse — ... -
Ted Cruz’s Big Legislative Moment
Ted Cruz is a provisional supporter of the Senate health-care bill, which represents a big step toward its passage. There are a lot of moving parts here and it’s still possible the Medicaid moderates won’t get on board, ... -
Paul Manafort Must Have Been Rolling His Eyes
Perhaps we will learn that everyone involved in the Don Jr. meeting is lying about what really happened in it, but there is one detail that rings true to me from the current version of the story: Paul Manafort, the ... -
The Don Jr. Meeting 3.0 and 4.0
Last night, the Times published a story saying Don, Jr. had gotten an email saying the meeting was part of a Russian government effort to aid his father’s candidacy, and today, with the Times about to publish a story ... -
The Don, Jr. Meeting 2.0
It turns out that the Russian lawyer came to the Trump campaign with the promise of dirt on Hillary. For the son of the candidate to take this meeting, and drag in the campaign manager and the son-in-law, was amateurish, ... -
The U.S.-Russia Cyber Security Unit
Vladimir Putin has to be having a good, dark chuckle over that one. There are conflicting accounts of what Trump said in their meeting about the Russian interference in our election and how tough he was about it, but judging ... -
Trump’s Warsaw Triumph
Imagine that President Donald Trump gave a speech praising a strong Europe. Imagine that he called forthrightly on Russia to stop its aggression in Ukraine and join the community of responsible nations. Imagine that he embraced the mutual defense commitment, ... -
Trump on Russia
If the speech in Warsaw was beautiful, the press conference was rockier. Here is an exchange on Russian interference in the election that’s gotten a lot of attention: NBC’s Jackson: You again said you *think* it was Russia. ... -
‘Trump is Winning the Immigration Debate’
I wrote for Politico today about how Trump has shifted the ground of the immigration debate: It had been assumed, even by many Republicans like Sen. John McCain, that opposition to amnesty and higher levels of legal immigration would doom ... -
The Neglected Reagan
Does anyone really know Ronald Reagan? In his new book The Working Class Republican, a bracingly revisionist account of the 40th president, Henry Olsen answers “no.” One of the most astute political analysts at work today and a fellow at ... -
On Senate Bill, All Is Not Lost
Just as the House health bill had to be pulled, the Senate bill has now been delayed. Taking another couple of weeks to pass the thing certainly makes more sense than trying to jam it this week and probably losing, ... -
There’s No Such Thing as Just Short on the GOP Health-Care Bill
This feels like one of those dynamics where if there are three hard Republican “no’s” on the bill (which is quite plausible), another dozen or so senators will oppose it, too. So, it’s either 50 votes for it, or 35. -
It's a Fake, Fake, Fake, Fake World
Matt Continetti had a good column last week on the groupthink, speculation, and innuendo that inform so much of our political world at the moment. Add to the count the story CNN had to retract fingering Anthony Scaramucci as under ... -
Did Obamacare Boldly Redistribute Wealth?
Further to David’s point below, it is a theme in the coverage and the criticism of the Republican health-care bill that it will redistribute wealth upward. Here is a typical example from a Washington Post story today: That dramatic ... -
How Badly Do Democrats Really Want to Defeat Trump?
I wrote about this question today in the context of the Georgia special election: There’s no doubt that Democrats want to watch TV programs that excoriate the president. They want to give money to candidates opposing him. They want ... -
Here We Go, Part II
Jared had perhaps the most to lose from a widening special-counsel probe, and now there’s a Washington Post report that his business dealings are indeed in the cross-hairs. -
Trump Was in a Fever to Defend the Legitimacy of His Election
Further to Andy’s piece on the homepage, a couple of passages in Thursday’s reporting on the Mueller investigation jumped out at me. One is from that Washington Post piece: Officials said one of the exchanges of potential interest ... -
Bernie’s Statement...
…is strong: NEW: @SenSanders set to deliver stmt on floor. Was informed shooter apparently volunteered on campaign, is “sickened by this despicable act” pic.twitter.com/mHEhHwRhby — Hallie Jackson (@HallieJackson) June 14, 2017 -
Sessions
Notwithstanding Andy’s point on the merits below, Democrats created enough fodder on executive privilege to drive some negative news coverage over the next 12–18 hours, but otherwise the hearing has been a nothingburger. Sessions pretty effectively summoned righteous indignation at ... -
The Impeachment War
As Byron York noted the other day, the stakes in the “Russia” controversy and the mid-term elections now are whether or not Trump gets impeached. Every point the Democrats score against Trump in the scandal is another step toward impeachment. ... -
Goodbye, Alex
Jack wrote a wonderful tribute to Alex below. A few more, overlapping thoughts: We had a little ritual whenever I walked by him and he was sitting at the reception desk (where he filled in) watching old wrestling videos. I’... -
Sessions
What Comey said about the then-impending recusal of Jeff Sessions — that there were reasons for him to bow out that he couldn’t discuss in an open session — is obviously going to drive a lot of media interest. -
‘Comey’s Fizzle’
James Comey’s testimony right now may change how all of this plays, but I think his statement of fact yesterday suggests that the Democrats aren’t going to get what they want from him. I wrote about this today ... -
Comey for the Record
Comey’s statement for the record is out. A couple of things jump out: Comey did tell Trump he wasn’t being investigated: During the dinner, the President returned to the salacious material I had briefed him about on January 6, ... -
Does Anyone Know What the Travel Ban Is?
Trump insists that the so-called travel ban is a travel ban. It isn’t really — it’s a 90-day pause on most travel from a few select countries for the purpose of allowing the time for new vetting procedures. The ... -
Can’t Wonder Woman Just Be Wonder Woman?
In the new Wonder Woman movie, the heroine is mystified by the ways of humankind — and she doesn’t even read the Internet. The fevered commentary about the new hit film raises the question, “Can’t an Amazonian superhero wield ... -
Our Joint Venture
To make a better NRO, we need your help. We are in the midst of a re-redesign that everyone here realizes we desperately need and is excited about. One reason we have undertaken this project is that we have heard ... -
Another Horror in Britain
This time in London. -
The Age of Unilateral Rule
The Trump administration has been exhaustingly eventful, but almost none of the events have involved Congress. The beginning of Donald Trump’s presidency has been an extension of the last six years of the Obama administration, when Capitol Hill was ... -
Bryce Harper
I hate to disagree with my fellow Yankee fan, Alexandra, but by any reasonable baseball standard, Harper was completely justified in charging the mound. I second David’s opinion that baseball brawls are highly entertaining. They are the best of ... -
‘The Age of Unilateral Rule’
My Politico column today: The Trump administration has been exhaustingly eventful, but almost none of the events have involved Congress. The beginning of Donald Trump’s presidency has been an extension of the past six years of the Obama administration, ... -
The Easy Part of Being President
The generally favorable reviews of Trump’s foreign trip demonstrate the great advantages of just showing up and reading a script, which Trump did almost the entire time he was abroad (except for an impromptu comment in Israel and some ... -
‘I wasn’t paying attention. I thought it was a man. I would never kick a woman.’
Congrats and thank you to the New York Times and Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller for not letting the Turkish attack last week go. They have both produced close analysis of the attackers, which should be followed-up on by ... -
The Republicans Sabotaged Obamacare by Launching Unsuccessful Lawsuits Against It
Abbe Gluck of Yale makes a singularly unpersuasive case that Republicans are responsible for the struggles of Obamacare in the New York Times, supposedly in large part by launching unsuccessful lawsuits against it. This sentence particularly stands out: “The Obama ... -
Gianforte’s Goonery Is All His Own
There’s been some commentary about how Gianforte’s body slam of a reporter — which his campaign lied about – is the kind of thing that is bound to happen in Trump’s America. I thought Trump’s calling out of ... -
‘It is unclear, however, whether Russian officials actually tried to directly influence Mr. Manafort and Mr. Flynn.’
The New York Times has a new blockbuster™ story this afternoon on Russian officials talking about trying to influence Trump aides, but there’s always a caveat in these kind of reports that makes them more smoke as opposed to ... -
‘Not On Our Soil’
There is pretty good evidence that President Erdogan himself ordered the attack of his security guards on protesters in Washington last week. Philip Bump of the Washington Post has a close analysis. I argue in my column today that we ... -
Not On Our Soil
The Turkish government is obviously familiar with the concept of “chutzpah,” if not necessarily the word. Ankara summoned the American ambassador to protest allegedly “aggressive and unprofessional actions” by the Washington, D.C., police. Their offense? Intervening after Turkish security ... -
The Worst Word in American Politics
For the past couple of years, the most important word in American politics has been the worst — “rigged.” Emanating from slang back in the 17th century, developing into a description of financial fraud, and then branching out to apply to ... -
The End of the Rosenstein Defense
Trump said in an interview with Lester Holt that he was going to fire Comey regardless of the Rosenstein recommendation, which has the advantage of almost certainly being true, but the disadvantage of contradicting what his defenders, including the Vice ... -
Rosenstein Threatened to Resign?!
There are some jaw-dropping tick-tocks out this morning on the Comey firing. This one from the Washington Post includes this detail, which, if true, is stunning — Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein threatened to resign yesterday over the portrayal of him as ... -
The Worst Cover-Up of All Time
If it’s true that Trump fired Comey because he was angry about the Russia investigation and all the attention paid to the FBI director, as reporting today suggests, it’s 1) obviously the wrong reason to fire him; 2) a colossal ... -
‘The Pre-Existing Lie’
I wrote today about the main line of attack against the Republican health-care bill: Since these provisions only involve the individual insurance market, a small slice of the overall insurance picture (about 18 million are on the individual market), and merely ... -
Macron
Well, that one went as expected. -
Lincoln, Not Jackson
Donald Trump is trying to do for Andrew Jackson what Lin-Manuel Miranda did for Alexander Hamilton. Trump, like Miranda, is out to restore the reputation of a great American figure once threatened with removal from U.S. currency. Trump doesn’... -
Upton Back in the Fold
This is encouraging for the bill’s prospects: Two prominent Republican opponents of the House GOP’s Obamacare repeal bill reversed course and backed the measure Wednesday morning, after negotiating a last-minute amendment with President Donald Trump at the White ...