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Michael A. Cohen

MSNBC Columnist

Michael A. Cohen is a columnist for MSNBC and a senior fellow and co-director of the Afghanistan Assumptions Project at the Center for Strategic Studies at the Fletcher School, Tufts University. He writes the political newsletter Truth and Consequences. He has been a columnist at The Boston Globe, The Guardian and Foreign Policy, and he is the author of three books, the most recent being “Clear and Present Safety: The World Has Never Been Better and Why That Matters to Americans.”

Michael A. Cohen is a columnist for MSNBC and a senior fellow and co-director of the Afghanistan Assumptions Project at the Center for Strategic Studies at the Fletcher School, Tufts University. He writes the political newsletter Truth and Consequences. He has been a columnist at The Boston Globe, The Guardian and Foreign Policy, and he is the author of three books, the most recent being “Clear and Present Safety: The World Has Never Been Better and Why That Matters to Americans.”

Latest from Michael A. Cohen

12d ago

Elon Musk calls USAID ‘a criminal organization.’ Here’s the truth.

Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has put the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in its budget-slashing crosshairs.
17d ago

Trump claims budget-slashing is popular. These polls disagree.

Polls show Americans actually want more spending on education, health care, Social Security, infrastructure and anti-poverty efforts.
27d ago

Trump’s first executive orders preview his second administration’s chaos and cruelty

President Trump signed dozens of executive orders on his first day in office, some of which will face legal challenges.
33d ago

Biden’s best foreign policy decision started with telling the truth

Of all his foreign policy decisions, few brought Biden more grief than the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan — and few were more courageous or essential.
35d ago

Stop looking for someone to blame for the Los Angeles wildfires

Southern California's wildfires are terrible, but pointing figures and looking for someone to blame won't help.
47d ago

Biden is leaving the White House with two wildly different legacies

Joe Biden will depart the Oval Office for the last time with a legacy featuring more highs and lows than perhaps any president in modern American history.
58d ago

Elon Musk doesn’t seem to understand what a government shutdown means

The federal government is on the brink of a shutdown — and the blame falls squarely on Republicans, in particular Elon Musk and Donald Trump.
69d ago

How Syria’s Bashar al-Assad fell so quickly — and what the U.S. should do next

The liberation of Syria from the clutches of President Bashar al-Assad, after his family ruled the country for 50 years, is an unqualified good.
73d ago

Man sought in UnitedHealthcare shooting may have traveled to NYC from Atlanta last month

Shell casings found at the scene where the UnitedHealthcare CEO was killed had the words “deny,” “defend” and “depose” written on them.
73d ago

Rule changes helped save baseball — but the ‘Golden At-Bat’ idea is an abomination

Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred floated an idea that would allow a team to send its best hitter to the plate one extra time each game.
76d ago

Republicans won big this year, but the data suggest its win streak may not last

A deep dive inside the numbers suggests that while the 2024 election results were bad for Democrats, they aren’t quite as awful as they seem.