Michael McKenna

Michael McKenna, a columnist for The Washington Times, is the president of MWR Strategies. He was most recently a deputy assistant to the president and deputy director of the Office of Legislative Affairs at the White House. He can be reached at mike@mwrstrat.com.

Columns by Michael McKenna

Feds should investigate Venture Global, which is supposed to be sending LNG to Poland — but isn’t

The energy world is characterized by large, capital-intensive facilities that sometimes take decades to finance, permit and build. Published September 13, 2023

Biden fails crisis management in Hawaii; DeSantis shines in Florida

One legitimate measurement of the readiness and capability of a candidate to be president is how he or she responds to a crisis. Published September 9, 2023

Summoning violence: Why using the 14th Amendment against Trump is a really bad idea

Of all of the legal challenges former President Donald Trump faces, perhaps the most formidable is the risk of being struck from the ballot in a number of states because his presence would contravene Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Published September 6, 2023

Gavin Newsom’s shift on energy is a sign he’s running for president

Gavin Newsom, the current governor of California, is running for president -- maybe in 2024, certainly in 2028. Published September 3, 2023

Political parties’ presidential nominating process is greatest risk to our democracy

Democrats have been working on a theme for the last couple of years that former President Donald Trump and his supporters constitute a threat to democracy because, well, because they have the temerity to support Mr. Trump. Published August 30, 2023

Voters need to know who will serve the next president

Here's an idea: instead of wasting time on questions about UFOs and climate change, maybe the moderators of last Wednesday's debate should have asked about important and relevant questions. Published August 26, 2023

GOP presidential contest has come down to Trump vs. DeSantis

The Iowa State Fair has mercifully come and gone, and the first debate among the GOP presidential candidates is upon us. Published August 23, 2023

On the GOP debate stage or not, Trump will dominate the headlines

The current candidates for the Republican presidential nomination seem to think that former President Donald Trump won in 2016 because he won the debates. Published August 18, 2023

Congress led by octogenarians stuck in Cold War mentality

The great Jonathan Martin recently wrote a story that lays bare all the pathologies of the Republican Party and the chasm that exists between its "leaders" and the voters. Published August 16, 2023

Biden outflanks Republicans on China

This past Wednesday, President Biden signed an executive order banning new American investments in advanced semiconductors and quantum computers in China starting in 2024. Published August 13, 2023

College football: Where profits are more important than education

Last week, the Pac-12 conference, which was founded in 1915 and has won more NCAA championships in team sports than any other college sports conference, dissolved in a matter of hours. Published August 9, 2023

National commission on COVID-19 could protect more Americans in the future

We need some sort of national reckoning with respect to COVID-19. If we don't get a firm grip on what went right and what went wrong and why, we are likely to repeat the lethal mistakes that were made. Published August 6, 2023

Decline of Hollywood followed the summer of 1977

In the summer of 1977, nearly everyone in the country was seeing "Star Wars" or "Smokey and the Bandit" in movie theaters. Published August 2, 2023

The limits of politics: What happens in your own home is what matters

As we wander into yet another election that will no doubt eventually become the "most important election of our lifetime," it might be worth thinking about the limits of politics, especially with respect to the presidency. Published July 28, 2023

Why skipping the GOP debate makes sense for Trump

Former President Donald Trump does not seem very excited about the opportunity to participate in the first Republican presidential primary debate. Published July 26, 2023

New York Yankees and Pentagon are both guilty of overpaying for mediocrity

The New York Yankees, one of the premier sports franchises on Earth, are in last place in the American League East division. Published July 21, 2023

GOP must stop yelling about ‘weaponization’ of Biden’s DOJ

As the next indictment against former President Donald Trump creeps closer, it seems like a good time to review a few simple yet often forgotten and perhaps outdated concepts about American justice and governance. Published July 19, 2023

Cramer’s energy tax: It’s tough to get a straight answer in this town

Washington suffers from a lot of pathologies, but the most annoying has to be the chronic inability of federal government officials to give a straight answer to a simple question. Published July 14, 2023

How Trump can both win and lose: A third-party spoiler

David Axelrod tweeted: "One thing that separates Trump from DeSantis and much of the rest of the field is that Trump's core supporters don't see him as a politician. They see him as the blunt-talking leader of an anti-establishment insurgency." Published July 12, 2023