Jackie Calmes is an opinion columnist for the Los Angeles Times in Washington, D.C. Before joining The Times in 2017 as White House editor, she worked at the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, covering the White House, Congress and national politics. She served as the chief political correspondent and chief economic correspondent at each paper. In 2004, she received the Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prize for Reporting on the Presidency. Calmes began her career in Texas covering state politics and moved to Washington in 1984 to work for Congressional Quarterly. She was a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy and at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. She is the author of “Dissent: The Radicalization of the Republican Party and Its Capture of the Court.”
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Latest From This Author
Special counsel Jack Smith’s filing is a disaster foretold: Trump in 2024 is chillingly replicating the lies that led to the 2021 insurrection.
Oct. 6, 2024
It’s not spin, it’s not misspeaking, it’s not forgivable exaggeration — Donald Trump lies, and his lies are dangerous.
Oct. 3, 2024
Even a week where news and the election take a back seat to real life can’t dim this reality: 2024 is the most consequential election in memory.
Sept. 29, 2024
If you think the United States was better off under Trump 1.0, stop relying on your gauzy memory and check the record.
Sept. 26, 2024
It’s a U.S. senator’s job to watch out for his constituents. Ask the residents of Springfield, Ohio, how JD Vance is doing on that score.
Sept. 19, 2024
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson’s ‘poison pill’ budget bill defines insanity. Here’s why.
Sept. 15, 2024
National security advisors, Cabinet members and other Trump White House VIPs need to join others saying directly that their former boss is unfit for a second term.
Sept. 12, 2024
Kamala Harris must be cogent on kitchen-table issues, but her best debate weapon against America’s crazy uncle, the misogynist in chief, the nation’s barstool bigot, may be that laugh.
Sept. 8, 2024
Trump’s hapless and contradictory flailing on abortion is a prime signal: This man shouldn’t get another term.
Sept. 5, 2024
Voters won’t have a verdict on Trump’s Jan. 6 behavior, but Jack Smith’s retooled indictment is a potent reminder: If the former president doesn’t win in November, he will be held accountable.
Sept. 1, 2024