As the number of Russian dead and injured in Ukraine reaches a grim milestone, what do these losses signify about Vladimir Putin’s strategy? Though misinformation is growing, the armies of fact-checkers are shrinking, forcing them to assess which lies may do the most harm (7:42). And why cheese rolling could become a protected item of British heritage (14:38).
President Trump has called the sweeping domestic policy bill that recently passed in the House the most important piece of legislation in his second term — a single bill that would unlock his entire domestic agenda.
But as that bill heads to the Senate, it’s raising questions among Republicans about whom Trumpism is really for. Today, the New York Times congressional correspondent Catie Edmondson joins “The Daily” to talk about the big messy battle over what Republicans have named the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Guest: Catie Edmondson, a congressional correspondent for The New York Times.
Background reading:
President Trump is pressuring Republicans to back his policy bill, but the measure’s opponents have a powerful new ally: Elon Musk.
Mr. Trump’s policy bill would add $2.4 trillion to the national debt, the Congressional Budget Office said on Wednesday. That estimate was all but certain to inflame concerns over the fiscal consequences of the legislation.
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.
Photo: Kenny Holston/The New York Times
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A Biden-appointed federal judge issues a temporary block on the planned deportation of an illegal immigrant terrorist’s family.
President Trump officially orders Attorney General Pam Bondi to launch a full scale investigation into the Biden autopen and health collapse coverup scandals.
Former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre announces her own expose book.
Columbia University is hit with a double disaster on accreditation and Hamas terror links.
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Located in the Pearl River Delta, off the coast of the mainland of the People’s Republic of China, is Macau.
Macau is often overlooked due to its larger neighbor, Hong Kong, but Macau, despite being similar, has had its own unique history.
What began as a fishing village evolved into a major trading port, and in the 21st century, it has become one of the most popular entertainment centers in Asia.
It remains unlike any other place in Asia, and indeed, the entire world.
Learn more about Macau and its history on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Often I will find in a chronology or a biography, you know, official materials, evidence that because I have other evidence, it’s meaningful in a way that maybe the people who edited those collections might not have expected.
That’s the idea of mosaic theory – you bring together many pieces of evidence, even small ones, to bring the full meaning out.
— Joseph Torigian, NBN interview May 2025
In his new book, The Party’s Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping (Stanford University Press, 2025), Joseph Torigian leads readers deep into the complex work of historical reconstruction – a process he metaphorically describes as mosaic theory. Studying elite politics in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Torigian explains, isn’t about uncovering one decisive document; it’s about piecing together partial, often contradictory fragments like the Li Rui diaries, edited speeches, and scattered archival traces into a fuller, richer picture.
Torigian’s approach builds on foundational insights from political scientists like Paul Pierson and China historians Frederick Teiwes and Warren Sun, whose empirical rigor has long shaped the field of CCP elite politics. Following this tradition, Torigian resists simple or deterministic narratives, showing that even dramatic moments like the Tiananmen protests must be understood as products of internal fractures, improvisation, and deep uncertainty – not as inevitable climaxes.
In this interview, Torigian discusses how his course “The Revisionists” invites students to wrestle with the ethical tension between judging and understanding. His own scholarship, he explains, aims to provide the tools, context, and historical reconstruction that allow readers to form their own moral judgments – without handing them a prefabricated verdict.
Ultimately, Torigian’s book and his public reflections invite us to step back from binaries of hero and villain, reformer and hardliner, or loyalist and dissenter, and to see history as a web of improvisation, contradiction, and meaning. He suggests that the historian’s role is not to dictate the final moral judgment, but to parse the evidence by piecing together and coloring a mosaic that illuminates the pressures and choices that shaped the past – leaving the moral reckoning, and the hard questions, to the rest of us.
Some Republican lawmakers are backtracking their support for President Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” after realizing it’s …not all that beautiful. Democratic Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona joins us to talk about what’s actually in the legislation and what his constituents are saying about it.
And in headlines: Trump’s fifty percent tariffs on nearly all steel and aluminum imports went into effect and some of Musk’s DOGE volunteers are officially government employees.
We have a nonpartisan analysis of President Trump's "big beautiful bill" that could impact its future in the Senate.
Also, we'll tell you who's included in Trump's new travel ban and how Republicans are investigating the inner workings of the Biden administration.
Plus, we're talking about a new warning over ground beef, a 40-year search for a famous movie prop, and why you might notice fewer rainbow flags this pride month.
Those stories and even more news to know in about 10 minutes!
Join us every Mon-Fri for more daily news roundups!
Health savings accounts cover at least 60 million Americans. Under the tax-and-spending bill’s proposed changes, another 20 million Americans could access these accounts’ tax savings. Host Julia Carpenter talks with tax reporter Laura Saunders about the most important changes in the bill.
