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A newsletter about the history behind today's politics.
Letters from an American
• Heather Cox Richardson
David Corn, a veteran investigative journalist and political commentator, has written or cowritten five New York Times bestsellers, including American Psychosis, Hubris, Showdown, and the #1 best seller Russian Roulette.
Letters from an American
• Heather Cox Richardson
On September 18, while White House chief of staff Susie Wiles was out of town, Trump suddenly announced he was banning CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House.
Letters from an American
• Heather Cox Richardson
Letters from an American
• Heather Cox Richardson
Thousands of people gathered outside the John F.
Letters from an American
• Heather Cox Richardson
Letters from an American
• Heather Cox Richardson
On September 19, 1676, three hundred and fifty years ago today, Nathaniel Bacon and his followers burned Jamestown, the capital of the Virginia Colony.
Letters from an American
• Heather Cox Richardson
Letters from an American
• Heather Cox Richardson
According to the American Automobile Association, diesel hit its highest recorded average price today at just above $6.44 per gallon.
Letters from an American
• Heather Cox Richardson
Letters from an American
• Heather Cox Richardson
In 1761, 55-year-old Benjamin Franklin attended the coronation of King George III and later wrote that he expected the young monarch’s reign would “be happy and truly glorious.” Fifteen years later, in 1776, he helped to draft and then signed the Declaration of Independence.
Letters from an American
• Heather Cox Richardson
House Speaker Mike Johnson sent members home until after the midterms, reportedly to avoid a vote on Representative Thomas Massie’s eight articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Letters from an American
• Heather Cox Richardson
Letters from an American
• Heather Cox Richardson
Yesterday U.S.
Letters from an American
• Heather Cox Richardson
Letters from an American
• Heather Cox Richardson
As the nation gears up for the 2026 midterm elections, we are drawing a line beneath the first phase of the 250 to 250 project.
Letters from an American
• Heather Cox Richardson
Seven years ago, on September 15, 2019, after about a six-week hiatus during the summer, I wrote a Facebook post that started:
Letters from an American
• Heather Cox Richardson
Retired judge J.
Letters from an American
• Heather Cox Richardson
Letters from an American
• Heather Cox Richardson
This morning, Justin Elliott, Brett Murphy, Joshua Kaplan, and Alex Mierjeski of ProPublica broke the news that Umar Kremlev, a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the wedding of Donald Trump Jr.
Letters from an American
• Heather Cox Richardson
Letters from an American
• Heather Cox Richardson
On Saturday, September 12, Dario Amodei, the chief executive officer of the artificial intelligence company Anthropic, published a 3,800-word essay calling for AI companies to slow down their improvement of AI models.
Letters from an American
• Heather Cox Richardson
Letters from an American
• Heather Cox Richardson
On Thursday, in The New Republic, conservative judge J.
Letters from an American
• Heather Cox Richardson
Letters from an American
• Heather Cox Richardson
Last night was the second night of the Republican midterm convention Trump staged to fire up his base.
Letters from an American
• Heather Cox Richardson
Letters from an American
• Heather Cox Richardson
Letters from an American
• Heather Cox Richardson
We woke up today to news that Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militants have taken control of the city and seaport of Mocha and much of the shoreline of the Red Sea near the Bab el-Mandeb strait, another chokepoint for world trade including trade in oil.
Letters from an American
• Heather Cox Richardson
Letters from an American
• Heather Cox Richardson
Yesterday, at a White House event honoring those who sacrificed their lives on 9/11, President Donald Trump went off script and claimed he had taken a crew downtown “right after this happened.
