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Posts by Aidan McLaughlin

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Sign up for my @vanityfair.com newsletter Party Animals, out every Thursday, for more:

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Breaking: Donald Trump Plans to Add His Signature to US Currency As Vanity Fair can exclusively report, Trump’s Treasury Department plans to add his signature to all denominations of US dollar bills.

SCOOP: Trump has spent his second term in office working to leave his mark on Washington and the country.

Now, his Treasury Department plans to add his signature to all denominations of U.S. dollar bills. It will be the first time in history a sitting president's signature appears on dollar bills

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NEW @vanityfair.com: A pint with Piers Morgan, a scoop on how Bari Weiss blew up a CBS interview with Zohran Mamdani, an intense call with Spencer Pratt & a survey of the secret Trump voters of Hollywood

New Party Animals out now: link.vanityfair.com/view/5df1007...

1 month ago 7 3 1 1
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"He feels like the king of everything at Mar-a-Lago"

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Why does Trump keep launching military operations from Mar-a-Lago, his gilded Florida resort? According to club members, close friends, Palm Beach socialites, and officials I spoke with, Mar-a-Lago offers Trump something he doesn't get in Washington: adulation www.vanityfair.com/news/story/t...

1 month ago 1 1 0 1
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Party Animals by Aidan McLaughlin A letter from the back rooms, barstools, and bacchanals of Washington, DC—with exclusive reporting, interviews, and analysis.

Some news: I'm writing a weekly column at @vanityfair.com
on politics, power, and society in Washington. It drops Thursday afternoons starting this week.

Subscribe now:

1 month ago 3 1 0 0
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If Trump Didn't Post that Racist Video of the Obamas, Who Did? More than 12 hours after President Donald Trump shared a grotesque video of Barack and Michelle Obama on Truth Social, the video was deleted. Then the blame game began.

“Beyond disaster,” one close Trump ally texted as the backlash mounted Friday morning. “It’s the worst post I’ve seen in a very long time.”

2 months ago 1 0 0 1
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Marty Baron Warns That Jeff Bezos Is Shredding ‘The Washington Post’ to “Ingratiate Himself With Donald Trump” The former editor of the paper tells Vanity Fair that the “tremendous” newsroom brings in readers, but Trump has driven the owner and his publisher, Will Lewis, to decisions that have sent those reade...

I spoke with former Washington Post editor Marty Baron about the devastating cuts to the paper and Jeff Bezos's "sickening efforts to curry favor with President Trump"

2 months ago 19 6 2 0
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The bizarro split screen at the Kennedy Center Thursday night, where Trump hosted a decadent celebration of MELANIA, the new documentary the first lady made about herself: www.vanityfair.com/news/story/m...

2 months ago 19 3 1 0
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From my new profile of Alexis Wilkins, the girlfriend of FBI director Kash Patel: A former senior FBI agent called the protective detail afforded to Alexis Wilkins "outrageous"

"There’s no justification whatsoever to provide federal resources to protect her.” www.vanityfair.com/news/story/a...

3 months ago 1 0 0 0
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Meet Alexis Wilkins, The Zoomer First Lady of the FBI The aspiring country star has her own security detail, and boyfriend Kash Patel can zip to her any time on a government jet. But MAGA life isn’t always so easy, she tells Vanity Fair.

Alexis Wilkins, the 27-year-old girlfriend of FBI director Kash Patel, has a security detail and a boyfriend who zips to her concerts on a government jet. But life as the first lady of the FBI isn’t always so easy, she tells Vanity Fair’s @aidanmcl.bsky.social

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A somewhat incensed former NSC official on Trump linking his escalating threats against Greenland to the Nobel peace prize: www.vanityfair.com/news/story/d...

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Just 28% of Americans think the ICE agent’s shooting of Renee Good was justified

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Swamp? Drained www.wsj.com/politics/policy/washingt...

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Helluva response to Elon Musk from this French government account

3 months ago 4 1 0 0
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Five Years On, Democrats May Be Losing the Fight Over January 6 House Democrats are fighting efforts from the Trump White House to rewrite the history of the riot at the US Capitol. “It’s almost like trying to recreate 9/11 or Pearl Harbor with a positive spin,” o...

“We are doomed to have another January 6 if we’re not honest with ourselves," says @ericswalwell.bsky.social, "about why it happened, who was responsible, and what we can do to make sure it never happens again.”

House Democrats are fighting Trump to preserve the truth of what happened in Jan. 6.

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Good lord: Trump in his Mar-a-Lago presser said Maduro was the head of a "the vicious cartel known as Cartel de los Soles, which flooded our nation with lethal poison."

Now, his DOJ is admitting no such cartel exists — it's a slang term for officials corrupted by drug money:

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Inside Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Break With Trump and MAGA How the Georgia congresswoman went from the president’s loudest cheerleader to his loudest Republican critic.

MTG tells the Times that when she threatened to expose the men who abused Epstein’s victims, Trump called to scream at her.

“My friends will get hurt,” he said.

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Bari Weiss’s 60 Minutes Stumble Follows Private Rejection From Megyn Kelly Before she stoked outrage by spiking a ‘60 Minutes’ segment about a notorious El Salvador prison, Weiss spent weeks lobbying Megyn Kelly to participate in a debate on feminism with ‘Call Her Daddy’ host Alex Cooper, to no avail.

Before she got dragged into the fight between Ben Shapiro, Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, Bari Weiss spent weeks lobbying Kelly to participate in a town hall on feminism with Call Her Daddy host Alex Cooper

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Bari Weiss’s 60 Minutes Stumble Follows Private Rejection From Megyn Kelly Before she stoked outrage by spiking a ‘60 Minutes’ segment about a notorious El Salvador prison, Weiss spent weeks lobbying Megyn Kelly to participate in a debate on feminism with ‘Call Her Daddy’ host Alex Cooper, to no avail.

“Dismal,” “confused,” “demoralized,” “super fucked.” That, as one reporter tells Vanity Fair, is the mood inside CBS after editor Bari Weiss pulled a 60 Minutes segment that was critical of the Trump administration.

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Megyn Kelly Talks Ben Shapiro’s “Betrayal” and the MAGA Reckoning at AmericaFest As AmericaFest convened the likes of Erika Kirk, Tucker Carlson, Kelly, Shapiro, and other conservative stars, MAGA was anything but united.

I spoke with Megyn Kelly at AmericaFest, where fissures in the MAGA movement erupted into a bitter feud.

“They are making antisemites,” she said of Ben Shapiro and Bari Weiss. “Tucker is not making antisemites. They are.”

3 months ago 3 1 0 0
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Susie Wiles Talks About The First Year of Trump’s Second Term (Part 1 of 2) In the first half of ‘Vanity Fair’’s interview with Susie Wiles, the chief of staff discusses Elon Musk’s DOGE disaster, the FBI’s “incredible job” investigating January 6, and how Trump once berated her.

Trump “has an alcoholic’s personality.” Vance’s conversion to MAGA was “political.” Elon is “an avowed ketamine [user].”

Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles tells all in a series of extraordinary interviews with @vanityfair.com

4 months ago 4 0 0 0
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Christ. Trump says Rob Reiner and his wife were murdered “due to the anger he caused others” through his “TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME”

4 months ago 2 1 0 0
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Exclusive | Trump Isn’t Certain His Economic Policies Will Translate to Midterm Wins In an interview, he said his efforts to secure investments in the U.S. haven’t fully taken effect and “I cannot tell you how that’s going to equate to the voter.”

Trump: “We should take stakes in companies when people need something. I think we should take stakes in companies. Now, some people would say that doesn’t sound very American. Actually, I think it is very American.”

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“Trump 2.0 appears at the nadir of its power,” @adamwren.bsky.social writes in Playbook

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There's this strange tendency among Trump's backers where they hold his deputies to standards they would never hold him to. Of course Trump's FBI director posts own-the-libs memes on Twitter! This is what you voted for!

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At MAGA-fied Kennedy Center Honors, Trump Returns to Television Roots At Trump’s first Kennedy Center Honors, the president played host—and hinted at renaming the venue—while business titans, right-wing media stars, and members of his embattled Cabinet guzzled Taittinge...

Trump in his second term has sought more aggressively to undermine and destabilize America’s institutions, but he also craves their recognition. On Sunday night, he hosted the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors—and mused about renaming the place after himself.

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Fox News will applaud this but can you imagine their coverage if President Biden hatched a secret plan to take over Fox News and revamp its programming to be nicer to him

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A sampling

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Trump, Between Apparent Snoozes, Says the GOP’s 2028 Candidate Could Be in His Cabinet President Donald Trump has replaced his trademark campaign rallies with marathon Cabinet meetings, during which he fields praise from members of his Cabinet. Are they auditioning for 2028?

Trump basked in two hours of adulation from his Cabinet secretaries in a televised meeting this week. Are they auditioning for 2028?

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