As Donald Trump prepares to address the Conservative Political Action Conference, known as CPAC, here’s how other former presidents have occupied their time after leaving the White House.
It’s a top government job, but what does being vice president mean?
AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
The vice president may be second in line for the most powerful job in the nation, but there isn’t necessarily a lot to do besides wait – unless the president wants another adviser.
Biden’s is entrusting Secretary of State nominee Antony Blinken to set U.S. foreign policy on a different course.
Mark Makela/Getty Images
Four years of ‘America First’ has seen the US retreat from the world. But as a scholar of international relations explains, Biden could return Washington to the role of a more moral global leader.
President Donald Trump speaks during a Hanukkah reception at the White House in 2019.
AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta
For much of American history, the only December holiday to be recognized in the White House was Christmas, but menorah lightings are now an annual tradition.
For nearly six decades, journalist Alistair Cooke provided the BBC’s English-speaking audiences around the world with insights into US culture and politics.
PA/PA Archive/PA Images
For the winner, it’s the achievement of a lifetime. For the loser, not so much.
Will Donald Trump win again? History suggests it’s possible. The president pumps his fist after speaking at a campaign rally at Phoenix Goodyear Airport on Oct. 28, 2020, in Goodyear, Ariz.
(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
Americans at the ballot box have historically adopted the adage: Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t. Does that mean Trump will win a second term?
Supporters on election night 2016 at a Hillary Clinton party, when it became clear poll-based forecasts had been off target.
Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Polling is an imperfect attempt at providing insight and explanation. But the public’s desire for insight and explanation about elections never ends, so polls endure despite their flaws and failures.
Presidential pollsters in the US have had some embarrassing failures. Here’s a catalog of those miscalls, from the scholar who literally wrote the book on them.
Lots could happen before the next one.
Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA
Speculation is mounting about an impending October surprise in the 2020 race. What does that mean?
Legendary New York City columnist Jimmy Breslin, right, ready to do shoe-leather journalistic research in a bar, said preelection polls were “monstrous frauds.”
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There was a time when well-known journalists resented preelection polls and didn’t mind saying so. One even said he felt “secret glee and relief when the polls go wrong.” Why did they feel this way?
President Donald Trump works on a smartphone, a common tool in his political communication efforts.
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
As Congress considers further financial help for victims of the coronavirus pandemic, the magnitude of the fiscal crisis that governors and their states will have to face is just starting to emerge.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt broadcasting his first fireside chat, March 12, 1933.
National Archives
On March 12, 1933, President Roosevelt addressed the nation from the Oval Office during a time of great crisis. That ‘fireside chat’ proved broadcasting’s power as nothing before or since.
President Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Ahmedabad, India.
AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi
A shared commitment to democracy was always key to the India-US relationship – until Trump. A foreign policy expert explains what’s on the agenda for Trump’s trip to India and what’s missing.
On Jan. 3, 2012, voters sign in on caucus night at Point of Grace Church in Waukee, Iowa.
AP/Evan Vucci
How did a small, rural state become so influential in the presidential nominating process? A political scientist traces the development of the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucus.
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley holds a town hall in South Carolina on Aug. 28, 2023.
Peter Zay/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
While other countries set strict limits on the length of campaigns, American presidential races have become drawn-out, yearslong affairs. It wasn’t always this way.
President Jimmy Carter, right, surrounded by journalists after announcing he was lifting the travel ban on Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea and Cambodia, March 9, 1977.
AP Photo/file
Though his education initiative staggered while he was in office, the late former President George H.W. Bush had an influence that continues to shape education policy, an education historian says.