David D. Kirkpatrick
David D. Kirkpatrick is a staff writer at the New Yorker whose reporting tracks how political power is monetized, with a particular focus on Donald Trump’s financial profiteering and its global ramifications. He covers the intersection of politics, money, and foreign policy through deeply sourced investigations, often built around hard numbers that expose the scale of presidential self‑enrichment and its consequences for governance. His work also follows the long tail of U.S. decisions in the Middle East, including Israel’s treatment of Gaza and Iran’s nuclear program, linking individual actors to structural shifts in regional politics.
Presidential Profiteering and Trump’s Finances
Kirkpatrick’s signature political reporting dissects Trump’s use of the presidency to generate personal and family wealth, treating the subject as a quantifiable problem rather than a set of anecdotes.
In a series of long-form articles, he tallies Trump’s presidential profits, documenting how billions of dollars have flowed to Trump‑branded ventures, crypto‑token schemes, and associated investors while the President was in office. How Much Is Trump Profiting Off the Presidency?, also known as “The Number,” establishes a baseline figure for Trump’s personal gains from the office and frames those profits as a central measure of his administration.
Trump’s Profiteering Hits $4 Billion updates that tally, showing how the total ballooned after his return to office and detailing the mechanics of the deals and entities that funneled money to his family. The Unprecedented Profiteering Revealed by Donald Trump’s Financial Disclosure uses a single year’s financial disclosure to reveal billions in revenue tied to the sale of crypto tokens, highlighting the disparity between Trump’s windfall and the losses suffered by outside investors.
In Talk of the Town commentary such as Is There a Remedy for Presidential Profiteering?, he explores the weaknesses in ethics and disclosure regimes and asks what checks could realistically constrain a President who treats public office as an income stream. Across these pieces, he positions Trump’s profiteering as a defining feature of contemporary American politics rather than a side story, making the money trail itself the subject of the reporting.
Foreign Policy, Israel, and the Middle East
Beyond Trump’s finances, Kirkpatrick writes on U.S. policy toward Israel, Gaza, and Iran, pairing access to former officials with attention to the on‑the‑ground consequences of their decisions. In The Biden Administration’s Regrets on Israel, Gaza, and Iran, he draws out candid reflections from former top officials about what they believe the Administration “got wrong,” showing how internal doubts accumulate after policy choices harden into reality.
How Biden Enabled Israel’s Aggression Toward Gaza - and Iran traces how specific decisions by U.S. leaders gave Israel room to escalate military operations and regional confrontations, emphasizing the link between diplomatic signals and outcomes for civilians and regional stability.
New Maps Show How Israel Has Thwarted Hopes for a Palestinian State uses the expansion of settlements in the West Bank to demonstrate how facts on the ground have rendered standard two‑state rhetoric increasingly detached from reality. These articles reflect a long-standing engagement with Middle Eastern politics and uprisings, informed by years of reporting from major cities in the region and his work on the Arab Spring.
He brings that background to bear on contemporary debates about Gaza, Iran, and the future of a Palestinian state, grounding current policy coverage in the history of earlier revolutions and power shifts.
National Security and Covert Operations
Kirkpatrick extends his political beat into national security, focusing on the hidden structures behind major foreign‑policy outcomes. He Helped Stop Iran from Getting the Bomb reconstructs the story of a former C.I.A. officer who recruited scientists as part of the United States’ effort to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program, using interviews and documentary detail to show how intelligence work shapes diplomatic possibilities. The piece, published in print under the headline “The Spy Who Told All,” uses one insider’s account to open broader questions about oversight, secrecy, and the long‑term costs of covert campaigns. In this mode, he writes narrative investigations that stay close to protagonists while keeping the political and ethical stakes explicit, making complex security issues legible through individual decisions and their ripple effects. His coverage of foreign election interference and the distortion of intelligence assessments by the White House similarly ties national security concerns back to the incentives and behaviors of political leaders.
Long-Form Reporting and Career Background
Kirkpatrick works primarily in long-form reported pieces for the magazine, complemented by shorter commentary in sections such as Talk of the Town and contributions to the daily newsletter. He began his career at the New Yorker as a fact checker and later spent twenty-two years as a reporter for the New York Times in New York, Washington, Cairo, and London, sharing three Pulitzer Prizes for public service, international reporting, and national reporting. That experience across media, national politics, and international bureaus underpins his current emphasis on how domestic power struggles reverberate through foreign policy and global financial systems. He is the author of Into the Hands of the Soldiers: Freedom and Chaos in Egypt and the Middle East, a book on the Arab Spring that has been recognized by outlets such as the Economist and the Financial Times, reinforcing his reputation as a specialist in the modern Middle East. Across his work at the New Yorker, Kirkpatrick combines investigative rigor, quantitative analysis, and narrative storytelling to map the ways political leaders convert public authority into private gain and geopolitical leverage.
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A.D. Quig
A.D. Quig follows money and power through Chicago and Cook County government, showing how political decisions, taxes and public spending affect residents and businesses. At the Chicago Tribune, she covers city and county politics, municipal finance, tax policy, budgets and the structures shaping mayoral and council authority. She joined the Tribune in 2022 after covering politics for Crain’s Chicago Business and The Daily Line. Her work examines council power, ethics rules, police leadership, tax incentives, public agencies and pandemic aid. She has reported on data center tax breaks, property tax errors, federal relief spending and the fiscal effects of major development proposals. Quig combines insider government reporting with public accountability journalism. She uses public records, data and budget documents, follows committees and staff negotiations, and explains complex decisions in plain language with precise numbers and a direct link to everyday consequences.
Adam Daly
Adam Daly covers politics for amNewYork with a focus on the inner workings of city and state government and the low-profile forums where power is exercised and negotiated. He reports on commissions and panels that shape how New York is governed, treating charter reform and government efficiency as central political terrain. His coverage of moves to replace an Adams-era charter commission with a new government efficiency panel foregrounds mandate, authority, and what “efficiency” means in practice for agencies and services. He tracks who gains and loses influence when one commission supplants another and which constituencies are being answered to. Daly explains dense procedural questions in clear, reader-facing terms, using specific institutional details and occasional wordplay to connect jargon-heavy reforms to public spending, service delivery, and mayoral power.
Adam Pack
Adam Pack covers Capitol Hill through power struggles, investigations and ideological fights, focusing on how Congress intersects with Donald Trump’s agenda. He is a politics writer on Fox News Digital’s Capitol Hill team, covering Congress, federal elections, legislative battles, election rules, war powers, primaries and intraparty fights. He previously wrote for the Daily Caller News Foundation. His reporting examines deadlines, vote counts, bill language, campaign spending, court rulings, oversight reports, culture clashes and emerging issues such as AI-backed political groups. He has covered FISA reauthorization, defense spending, the SAVE America Act, housing policy, redistricting, candidate absences, primary spending and disputes over sex, gender, religion and race-based caucuses. He reports primarily through news features and investigative-style pieces built around documents, committee reports, court records, unearthed video and specific legislative details. He often co-writes complex Capitol Hill stories and publishes “FIRST ON FOX” exclusives.
Adam Sullivan
Adam Sullivan is a veteran politics reporter for WCAX who connects elections and party disputes to everyday life. He covers statewide races, party primaries, federal representation, political rhetoric, extremism, and accountability across the Upper Valley and neighboring states. His reporting includes Becca Balint’s victory over Molly Gray in the Democratic U.S. House primary to replace Congressman Peter Welch. He also reports when political controversies affect public safety, political culture, towns, and institutions, including a New Hampshire Libertarian Party post endorsing violence against elected Democrats. Sullivan follows cultural stories with civic consequences, such as Noah Kahan’s appeal to fans to stop stealing a Strafford road sign linked to his music. He writes straight news centered on concrete events, official reactions, political context, community impact, and what comes next.