Remote work is changing congressional internships, and that's not all bad news.
Remote internships are expanding opportunity and bridging the traditional gulf between Capitol Hill and members' offices in their districts, although they can be tough for offices — and interns — to navigate. Several organizations are stepping up to provide resources and support to ensure that offices are able to continue their internship programs in these exceptional times.
A recent webinar on managing successful remote internships in the era of Covid-19 — hosted by College to Congres s, the Congressional Management Foundation and the Modernization Staff Association — featured new research on the prevalence of remote internships, and a few surprising benefits. Remote work has "leveled the playing field" for staffers in D.C. and their colleagues in the field, a study by CMF revealed, and helped make interns and full time staff in the district feel more connected to the policy work occurring in Washington.
Today's interns are tomorrow's staffers. So it is essential these positions remain available, even remotely, both for the help they provide to offices and the important opportunity for young people to learn about Congress. Last year, the House took a significant step to expand the internship pipeline by authorizing $25,000 a year for every office to help pay interns. These stipends make it easier for students from a variety of backgrounds and economic situations to spend time on the Hill. And now the House has refined the rules to allow $10,000 annually in compensation for district office interns.
During the pandemic, though, most interns are limited to remote work, a development that may actually expand opportunities for students around the country to (virtually) experience Capitol Hill. In an example that may be applicable to Congress, NPR received 20,000+ applications for its internships this year — a tenfold increase over the year before that it attributed to the potential for remote interns to work from anywhere. As one producer tweeted, it's "almost like our industry's reliance on NYC- and DC-based jobs is reducing our potential talent pool."
The executive director of Pay Our Interns, Carlos Mark Vera, explains: "The vast majority of internship opportunities are concentrated in five cities across the country — Washington, New York City, San Francisco, Chicago and Los Angeles. That puts working class youth who cannot afford to relocate at a severe disadvantage and limits their opportunities. Capitol Hill internships are no different. Remote congressional internships can level the playing field by taking relocation and housing costs out of the equation, but it is still important for offices to pay interns. While those working remotely do not have the same expenses as an in-person internship, many still have to pay bills."
Hiring and managing remote interns can be challenging, however, and some offices chose to reduce or suspend their programs this summer. "The lack of interns has increased the workload of staff, particularly the constituent services team," CMF's Bradley Sinkhaus said. "One office mentioned that interns 'are invaluable in rural districts' and offices miss having interns to mentor and train."
A significant complication is the limitation on access to technology for unpaid House interns. Paid interns can be provided with official devices and remote access to the office network. But unpaid interns are not allowed to access personal constituent information, like correspondence or casework, if working from home.
Offices have been getting inventive in creating substantive remote programs that benefit both the interns and the office — having interns compile press clips, write responses to form letters (that are then sent through the office system by a staffer), draft speeches, suggest social media posts, and take notes at meetings, hearings and briefings.
Several organizations collaborated on a "virtual intern project" to provide intern-specific resources. College to Congress, which provides training, mentoring and financial support for Hill interns, recently announced its online curriculum C2C-U will be available for free to all congressional interns for the rest of the year. Its training modules span the gamut from the legislative process to writing constituent letters, and can help lighten the load for intern coordinators within congressional offices. "All of our online resources apply to both in-person and remote working positions," CEO Audrey Henson said of her curriculum. "One of my biggest hopes is for more offices to take advantage of this opportunity to hire from a wider range of backgrounds since remote working has eliminated some of the large, prohibitive expenses."
Also, the Modernization Staff Association has updated its Capitol Hill Work From Home Guide with tips for junior staffers and intern coordinators. CMF maintains guidance for a successful internship program. And Popvox is sharing a weekly newsletter to keep Hill interns connected and informed — even when operating remotely.
Not surprisingly, many of the people spearheading these efforts are former interns. We know Hill internships open doors and change lives, and that Capitol Hill is better for the energy and perspective these young (and sometimes not-so-young) people bring. As Congressional offices begin to make their plans for the fall, we strongly encourage them to offer internships and to tap into available resources to make these internships a success.
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.