Matthew Continetti

Matthew Continetti is editor in chief of the Washington Free Beacon. Prior to joining the Beacon, he was opinion editor of the Weekly Standard, where he remains a contributing editor. The author of The K Street Gang: The Rise and Fall of the Republican Machine (Doubleday, 2006) and The Persecution of Sarah Palin: How the Elite Media Tried to Bring Down a Rising Star (Sentinel, 2009), Continetti’s articles and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post. A 2003 graduate of Columbia University, where he majored in history, Continetti lives in McLean, Virginia. He can be reached at comments@freebeacon.com.
Email Matthew | RSS

Nancy Pelosi Knew About Enhanced Interrogation Before Gina Haspel

The airtight case for Haspel as CIA Director
Gina Haspel

BY:

I was anxious about Gina Haspel’s confirmation hearing. Here was a woman who has spent her life purposefully in the shadows, brought before a committee whose members bask in the spotlight. Here was a career intelligence officer, a keeper of secrets and agent of dissimulation, whose professional future depends, at least in part, on her ability to speak directly and persuasively in a public forum. And close to the entirety of her life remains classified, making her job all the more difficult.

The Media Is Killing the Democratic Party

Column: The Democratic message has been reduced to Russia and Stormy Daniels
Stormy Daniels media

BY:

Ever since April 30, when the New York Times published a list of topics that special counsel Robert Mueller would like to ask President Trump about, cable news and the political press have focused exclusively on the two major legal matters in which the president is entangled.

First, of course, is Mueller’s open-ended probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Second is the Southern District of New York’s investigation into Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s business dealings, including with Stephanie Clifford, aka Stormy Daniels.

Confirm Pompeo

Column: The president deserves his excellent choice for secretary of state
Mike Pompeo

BY:

What on earth are the Democrats doing? President Trump has nominated CIA Director Mike Pompeo, eminently qualified by any reasonable standard, to be America’s seventieth secretary of State. And yet the Senate Democrats, led by Chuck Schumer, have perverted the advice and consent clause of the Constitution into a license to obstruct this solid nominee for one of the most important cabinet offices. The Democratic rationales for opposition are neither consistent nor compelling. But the party is heedlessly and recklessly trying to capsize the nomination anyway, without giving second thought to the potential consequences of its actions. If this doesn’t count as a symptom of Trump derangement syndrome, I don’t know what does.

American Politics In a Convex Mirror

Column: Losing perspective—and understanding—in the era of Trump
Donald Trump

BY:

Every so often I hear political reporters gripe that the news has become exhausting, that it is impossible to keep track of all the developments in the nation’s capital. And while my reflex is to scoff at the media line du jour, and to observe that journalists have never been so lucky, never had such an incredible and unusual and exciting story unfold before them as the rise and rule of Donald Trump, I confess that the past week has left me unable to catch my breath, too. The commentator in Donald Trump’s Washington resembles a tourist in a foreign city, unsure of which way to travel, confusedly searching for directions, standing at the corner, gazing at the scene, mouth agape.

The Battle of Woke Island

Column: The New York Times, Kevin Williamson, and the politics of the campus
NYT

BY:

Toward the end of Vanity Fair’s story on the “woke civil war” at the New York Times came this revealing detail: To assuage employees concerned that the paper is not as progressive and socially conscious as it could or should be, publisher A.G. Sulzberger, opinion editor James Bennet, and others have been “holding office hours” where internal critics speak freely.

The Roseanne Test

Column: Which matters more: economics or identity politics?
Roseanne

BY:

In February, Chuck Schumer delivered a lecture at the McConnell Center of the University of Louisville. The center’s namesake, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, listened as Schumer described the Democratic strategy for the midterm elections. “You cannot just run against Donald Trump,” Schumer said. “It is the job of we Democrats to put together a strong cohesive economic group of proposals aimed at the middle class.”

The Washington Free Beacon Podcast: ‘Right and Righter’ Episode 10

BY:

On the March 23, 2018, episode of “Right and Righter,” host Elizabeth Harrington welcomes Washington Free Beacon editor in chief Matthew Continetti, Trump attorney Aaron Harison, and staff writer Natalie Johnson. Topics include John Bolton’s appointment as national security adviser, President Trump’s last-minute threat to veto the $1.3 trillion government-funding bill, who would win a fight between President Trump and Joe Biden, Anderson Cooper’s interview with Playmate Karen McDougal, and the political divide between good-looking people and ugly ones.

Republicans Still Don’t Get Trump

Column: Trade, immigration, and the new politics of sovereignty
President Trump And Sen. Mitch McConnell Address Media After Working Lunch

BY:

“The heart and soul of the Republican Party belongs to Donald Trump,” writes Lloyd Green. If so, the GOP has an odd way of showing affection. Green cites a lack of Republican criticism of Trump, the president’s continued popularity within the party, and Trump’s rescue of incumbent Nevada senator Dean Heller from a primary challenge. All true. But when it comes to the president’s priorities and the nationalist populist style of politics he represents, Trump and the Republican Congress could not be farther apart.

The Washington Free Beacon Podcast: Right and Righter Episode 9

BY:

On the March 20, 2018, episode of “Right and Righter,” host Elizabeth Harrington welcomes Washington Free Beacon editor-in-chief Matthew Continetti, Cambridge Analytica data specialist Aaron Harison, staff writer Natalie Johnson, and Free Beacon chairman Michael Goldfarb. Topics include Trump-connected firm Cambridge Analytica’s use of Facebook data in the 2016 election, the firing of FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, President Trump’s new policy to address the opioid epidemic, and the fact that gun control activist David Hogg can’t seem to get into college.