State of the Union
Co-Editor-in-Chief Sean Woods celebrates the launch of the new, subscriber-only newsletter breaking down the biggest moments in politics
“It never got weird enough for me,” Rolling Stone’s original National Affairs correspondent, Hunter Thompson, once complained. Well, Hunter — the journalist who helped define the Watergate era with Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail — never got to experience the madness of Donald Trump. We are living in a time that historians and journalists will be studying for many years to come, in part because the firehose of political stories that the president generates has been so dizzying to follow, and shows zero signs of slowing down.
All of us, myself included, need help sorting which political stories are important and which are just distractions. To that end, I’m thrilled to announce Rolling Stone’s National Affairs Newsletter, delivered every Friday exclusively to subscribers’ inboxes. We aim to help readers keep up with the chaos, highlighting the news you may have missed, diving deeper into the stories defining the moment, and breaking down this last chapter of the frenetic Trump era — and the start of whatever comes next.
Our National Affairs team — senior politics editor Ryan Bort, senior writers Tessa Stuart and Jack Crosbie, and reporter Nikki McCann Ramirez — will be delivering reporting and analysis from the 2028 campaign trail, as well as covering Congress, global conflicts, and the movers and shakers of the political scene. Columnist Matt Bai will provide critical insights and in-depth interviews. Veteran reporter Katherine Eban will continue her rigorous investigations into the shocking changes Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been enacting — sweeping away decades of policies on vaccines, food safety, and healthcare — which affect every person in the country.
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The 2026 midterms are shaping up to be consequential — possibly as big as any since the Newt Gingrich Republican revolution of the 1990s. Are the polls correct, and will we see a Democratic blue wave? If that happens, will the president even accept the results? Or are we heading for yet another political crisis in the Trump era? These are open questions, and Rolling Stone’s political team will be working tirelessly to bring answers to our subscribers. If you don’t already subscribe to Rolling Stone, there is no better time than now — Sign up here to get National Affairs in your inbox every Friday. The next presidential election kicks into gear as soon as the midterms are settled in early November.
Like it or not, the race for 2028 is about to begin. Join us on the historic journey. As Hunter Thompson wrote: “Buy the ticket, take the ride.”