The Slatest

An Alleged Affair in the Trump Administration Says It All About What’s Happening in Washington

For the past six months, Corey Lewandowski has occupied a, shall we say, nontraditional role at the Department of Homeland Security.

The longtime Donald Trump ally and early-2016 campaign manager is not officially on the DHS roster, nor does he draw a DHS salary. But Trump administration officials and DHS staff have told reporters that he is performing the functions of Secretary Kristi Noem’s chief of staff, while the actual chief of staff position has not been filled. He has accompanied Noem on trips to confer with foreign leaders in Israel, Chile, Argentina, Costa Rica, Colombia, El Salvador, and Mexico. Often, he is the only one by her side at meetings. According to CNN, he approved billions of dollars in Federal Emergency Management Agency grants to be funneled to Republican-led states, demanded that personnel take polygraph tests after a leak to the press, ordered the firing of government workers, and asked that others be placed on leave for infractions such as using gender pronouns in an email.

And he’s potentially been having an affair with Noem. Slate senior writer Christina Cauterucci explains how their alleged affair tells us a lot about Trump’s D.C.

The Best Way to Fix the Senate? Abolish It.

It’s a profoundly antidemocratic institution. Why do we put up with it?