Jim Antle, the magazine’s executive editor, brings to life the pages of the Washington Examiner magazine in the show Inside Scoop. Each episode features exclusive insight from the article authors and expert analysis.
Antle reacts to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) holding up a March Washington Examiner magazine to show why Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is holding the Democratic shutdown votes hostage.
“The far left base in the Democrat Party turned on Chuck Schumer because he did the responsible thing and kept the lights on,” Johnson said while holding up the magazine cover. “Schumer doesn’t want to be in this situation again. So he said, ‘Oh my gosh.’ He got his staff together, and he got to the far left wing of the party, said, ‘What do you want?’”
“We’re calling it the Schumer shutdown,” Antle said. “This time around, Schumer is on the side of the Democrats who want a government shutdown and have been voting against a bill that would keep the government open by funding it.”
Antle believes power is shifting to younger and more extreme party members like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). He compared it to the Tea Party dynamic in the Republican Party over a decade ago, when Barack Obama was president, saying this could push leaders more to the left.
“Democrats have traditionally been the party of big government,” Antle said. “It remains to be seen how long they’re going to want to hold up funding the government programs in which they so fervently believe. But there’s a fight going on for the soul and for the control of the Democratic Party.”
Next, in the show, Antle sits down with Michael Lucchese, the founder of Pipe Creek Consulting, an associate editor of Law & Liberty, and a contributing editor to Providence, to discuss what ‘peace through strength’ really means and whether President Donald Trump is actually following the Reagan Era slogan.
“When Reagan used that slogan, it was really a statement about the dangers of Soviet communism,” said Lucchese. “I think now when Republicans use the phrase, including Donald Trump, I think it harkens back to that in some ways, perhaps in a somewhat confused way. But I think that’s really what they’re groping towards.”
Lucchese believes there is a split in the Conservative movement on how to execute ‘peace through strength.’
“They understand that ‘peace through strength’ does mean a strong military, but it also means a strong alliance system,” said Lucchese. “Working with like-minded countries all over the world to actually build up that strength that we need to deter our enemies.”
Our in-depth report examines how Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth seek to stop identity politics from undercutting military effectiveness. Top military brass gathered at Quantico as Hegseth outlined plans to effect a top-to-bottom transformation of the culture of the military. Hegseth argued the department has been corrupted by turning “woke.” He gave a polished performance laying out his vision of a muscular, macho, masculine-dominated fighting force, where weaklings and fatties will be mustered out.
“I don’t want my son serving alongside troops who are out of shape or in a combat unit with females who can’t meet the same combat arms physical standards as men,” Hegseth said. “It’s tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops. Likewise, it’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon and leading commands around the country and the world. It’s a bad look.”
INSIDE SCOOP: OCT 7 TWO YEARS LATER, 2026 TOSS UP SENATE RACES, ANTIFA DEFINED AS TERRORIST
Critics of Trump imagined this meeting would amount to the “red wedding,” a mass purge of senior officers, but that did not materialize. Though many were asked to walk out the door if they disagreed, the Trump administration has clarified that the time for noncompliance or malicious compliance is over. The purpose of the meeting was to drive home a simple but powerful message: get on board or leave.
Tune in each week at washingtonexaminer.com and across all our social media platforms to go behind the headlines in the Washington Examiner’s new show, Inside Scoop.