The Pope, the Secretary, and a Message That Would Not Bend

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(Photo by Andrew Medichini / POOL / AFP via Getty Images)

Marco Rubio is a Catholic man who flew to Rome and sat across from the new pope. That matters. Not as theater, but as texture — a reminder that the great questions of our time are not only strategic or geopolitical. They are, in some sense, moral. The meeting was described as “friendly and constructive.” Both sides spoke of shared commitments to peace and human dignity. The State Department said the right things. The Vatican said nothing that contradicted them. But underneath the diplomatic courtesy, something real was being worked through. Pope Leo had spoken in April with unmistakable feeling

Rubio’s Vision of America: Imperfect History, Unmatched Promise [Watch]

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(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

The Secretary of State offered a quiet, earnest defense of American exceptionalism at Tuesday’s White House briefing. Marco Rubio was asked a simple question at Tuesday’s White House Press Briefing — what is your hope for America? He gave a simple answer. “My hope for America? It’s the same as it’s always been,” the Secretary of State said. “We want it to continue to be the place where anyone from anywhere can achieve anything — where you’re not limited by the circumstances of your birth, the color of your skin, or your ethnicity.” Rubio didn’t reach for poetry. He reached

‘Groundless and Utterly Irresponsible’: Alito Fires Back at Jackson in SCOTUS Spat

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(Photo by Jacquelyn Martin-Pool/Getty Images)

What set Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito off was a dissent. Not just any dissent — one from his newest colleague, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who accused the Supreme Court of trading principle for power and dragging itself into the middle of an election year. He answered her. Sharply. In writing. With Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch standing beside him. The case was Louisiana. The map. The fight everyone in Washington had been watching. A week earlier, the Court had struck down the state’s congressional districts as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander — a ruling that touches Section 2 of

A Warning, and a Window: President Trump’s Two-Track Message to Iran

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(Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

President Trump issued a blunt warning to Iran on Monday. Attack American ships, he said, and the response will be devastating. Speaking with Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst, the president said Iran would be “blown off the face of the Earth” if it moves against U.S. vessels operating under Project Freedom, the new American-led mission to secure shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. The warning lands at a tense moment. U.S. forces have stepped up their presence in the Strait, where commercial traffic has been squeezed by the wider conflict, and where neutral shipping has become collateral in a fight

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