Patronage, Peter Thiel, and Political Plumbing

The Washington Roundtable discusses Vice-President J. D. Vance’s week on the world stage: stumping for the Kremlin-aligned Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán and being tasked with leading American negotiations in Pakistan to resolve the war with Iran, a conflict he reportedly opposed. The panel explores the events and people that shaped Vance, and how his political evolution toward MAGA may not be enough to make him the Republican Presidential nominee in 2028. “Anyone who comes after Trump is going to have a really hard time inheriting a cult of personality and turning that back into a party,” the staff writer Susan B. Glasser says. Vance is “not this kind of charismatic movement leader.”

This week’s reading:

• “The Costs of Trump’s Iran-War Folly,” by Susan B. Glasser
• “Trump’s Strategic and Moral Failure in Iran,” by David Remnick
• “The Global Stakes of Hungary’s Pivotal Election,” by Kapil Komireddi
• “A U.S.-Iran Ceasefire Is Here, but Trump’s Stone Age Mentality Endures,” by Ishaan Tharoor
• “How the Internet Fringe Infiltrated Republican Politics,” by Antonia Hitchens
• “Israel’s War in Lebanon Has Not Stopped,” by Isaac Chotiner
• “An Economist’s Quest to Solve America’s Wage Problem,” by John Cassidy

The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. 

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