Kevin Kosar is vice president of policy at R Street Institute and also cofounder of the nonpartisan Legislative Branch Capacity Working Group, which aims to strengthen Congress. He was previously a senior official at the Congressional Research Service, where he served as an analyst and research manager. His answers have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
What's the tweet-length description of your organization?
R Street is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, public policy research organization. Our mission is to engage in policy research and outreach to promote free markets and limited, effective government.
Describe your very first civic engagement.
Voting in the 1988 presidential primaries. I was 18, registered as a Democrat, as my mother would not have it any other way. I pulled the lever for Al Gore, who was a conservative Democrat back in those days. I am an independent these days, although I am effectively disenfranchised: I live in Washington, which has no congressional representation, and which locally is dominated by liberal and ultra-liberal Democrats.
What was your biggest professional triumph?
That is hard to say. I'm delighted to have a new book coming out next year with New America's Lee Drutman and James Madison University's Tim LaPira: "Congress Overwhelmed: The Decline in Congressional Capacity and the Prospects for Reform," published by the University of Chicago Press. I also am really proud of the nonpartisan legislative branch reform movement I have helped build. If we are lucky, we might just upgrade Congress to meet the demands of the 21st century.
And your most disappointing setback?
To date, I have not been able to get Congress to improve its budgeting. Our country is racking up shocking deficits and is doing nothing to deal with looming entitlement and pension crises. We could end up like Greece, yet Capitol Hill will not come together to act. The math is what it is, and I am really worried we are headed toward a financial cataclysm.
How does your identity influence the way you go about your work?
I don't think I am the smartest person in the room — nor have I ever. So when it comes to trying to improve policy, I listen to a range of ideas and ask a lot of questions. I guess that also speaks to my congenital curiosity. I enjoy learning, I really do, and like working with others who enjoy learning.
What's the best advice you've ever been given?
Don't assume good reasons are persuasive. Humans are complicated creatures, and it often takes more than facts and figures to get them to see things differently. For folks looking to reform government or politics, that means one needs to be patient and spend a great deal of time building authentic relationships.
Create a new flavor for Ben & Jerry's.
Bourbon vanilla crunch — because it would be delicious.
West Wing or Veep?
With four kids and two puppies, I've not much time for television. And when I do have time, I tune into football games. The Pittsburgh Steelers and Ohio State Buckeyes are my teams. Also films and oddball series like "The Good Place" and "Parks and Recreation."
What's the last thing you do on your phone at night?
Often I shake my head in dismay at the toxicity on Twitter. Inevitably, I double-check my schedule for the coming day to learn: Where will I be? What should I wear? When will I next get to go fishing?
What is your deepest, darkest secret?
Many years ago, I helped throw a vodka festival in Grand Central Station in New York City. A couple hundred folks attended, and it was a crazy night. Penthouse Pets showed up, as did firemen and Wall Street sorts. The event raised about $15,000 for 9/11 first responders. But that is just the tip of my drinky iceberg. I have written books on whiskey and moonshine and have blogged about alcohol since 1998. None of which one would expect from a person trained as a political scientist who spends his days trying to make Congress great again.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.