Hello, and welcome back! We have new TGIF T-shirts in the shop.

Classic, soft, screen-printed. I sleep in mine. In my community, we consider this lingerie. But enough about me and what’s being called “the T-shirt of the summer.” Let’s talk about the news.

→ Andrew Tate finally arrested: The war in Iran is back on. Plus, we’re helping Saudi Arabia develop nuclear power now, I guess. Don’t think too hard about it. But for our purposes, the top news in the world is that the wildly popular influencer Andrew Tate has finally been arrested in the U.S., with plans to extradite him to his former home, the United Kingdom. Tate, the man your sons and grandsons are probably obsessed with, is charged with rape, sex trafficking, it goes on for a total of 42 counts of that kind of unpleasant stuff. In bonny England he will, I assume, face a tribunal run by bitter, exhausted professional women (my girls!). This is only so interesting because Andrew Tate had been investigated before, suspected of trafficking and rape in Romania, and was barred from leaving that country. But then, in February of last year, seemingly after pressure from someone in the Trump administration, Tate was allowed to leave and took a private jet from Romania to, where else? Florida. (It seems as though Barron Trump was a fan.) When asked if Trump would intervene this time, Karoline Leavitt gave an emphatic “No.” Anyway, it’s also interesting because it gave us a photo of Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan being arrested. And I don’t know how to explain to you that these men are considered to be the pinnacle of masculinity by right-wing American Zoomers. This is the hardened male that they aspire to become. He has over 10 million followers on X alone.

The purple silk “shirt”—legally, I feel a shirt must cover the nipples—matches the purple transition lenses. There are the capris, the slip-on shoes. It looks like they’re dragging him out of Fire Island. Put a wig on this person and she’s late for her mimosas at Club Med. Put a wig on and it’s my quirky drunk aunt Annie Tate whose bra is always showing. His brother Tristan, in a three-piece suit and a hat that is both too big and too small, is almost as bad. Andrew Tate and his brother are actually a return to the male animal as a flamboyant, colorful thing, the brilliant male mallard next to the dull brown female. In that way we’re actually made for each other, as I, in Tevas and with limp hair, am a return to the female duck. Andrew, call me.

→ Wow, we eventually won Iraq, didn’t we: U.S. companies signed roughly $60 billion in agreements and partnerships with Iraq late last week, including deals to build alternative oil shipping routes bypassing the Strait of Hormuz amid the ongoing U.S.-Iran war. Goddammit, Dick Cheney, you lunatic, you did it. Credit where it’s due. Mission accomplished.

→ Just a strange, random clerical error: A totally silly little software glitch happened at the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission over the course of a year. There, when folks explicitly marked a box saying they were not U.S. citizens, it registered them to vote anyway. We’re told it’s only about 6,600 individuals, and only 400 of them actually voted after that. Here’s New Jersey governor Mikie Sherrill announcing the simple “software error”:

Last week I learned that a serious software error in New Jersey’s Motor Vehicle System led to the registration of roughly 6,600 people who indicated that they were not U.S. citizens between June 2023 and June 2024, almost three years prior to my taking office. These individuals answered “no” when asked on a keypad whether they were a U.S. citizen when applying for drivers’ licenses and identification cards, but through no fault of their own, the system registered them anyway.

It’s just like a computer to do that, right? When you click no on a form, beep boop mistake, it registers you to vote. It also accidentally votes up and down the ballot for Dems. Beep beep error alert, sorry, I don’t know why it keeps doing that. Ah, it withdrew $93 and donated it to the Democratic Socialists of America. Brrrk-k-k-k-k, this machine is always broken. Can someone turn it off and on again?

DMVs: Crank on.

→ Sounds fun!:

Wow, that sounds like some silly fun! Fireworks on the Plaza! America 250 ain’t over till it’s over! Thank you, NBC News! What really happened, since we seem to have clear video of it: Someone set off incendiary devices and poured a bucket of gasoline onto the stairs of a federal building and lit that puddle on fire. Apparently it was an anti-ICE thing. Like we said, just some kids doing fireworks! I remember those days. . . 

Read more

→ Trump election integrity speech: I think he’s losing his showman touch because, for me at least, the president’s big election integrity address Thursday night was a little boring. He said that China obtained 220 million voter files with personal information, which I’m sure did happen, but they probably just googled it (or whatever CCP-friendly search engine they have over there). Like, I bet I could obtain 220 million voter files tonight pretty easily. Then he went after the noncitizen voter situation. The White House take: “According to a DHS review of state voter rolls and public records, they identified approximately 278,000 noncitizens who are registered to vote in federal elections.” I always assumed it was more than that, so this is only good news to me. And Trump went back to Michigan 2020, like I go back to Burning Man 2010—formative times for each of us. From the clean transcript they posted: “The documents state that some canvassers admitted to FBI agents that they signed voter registration forms in other people’s names, submitted fraudulent registrations for people who did not exist, and received gift cards tied to the number of applications they produced.” At this point I was assuming a big speech would have some new plans. Are we going to war with China? What about war with Georgia? If not, why are we staying up so late, honey? Even Trump knew it wasn’t his most exciting spin at the podium. His usual four-hour speech format was a brisk and crisp hour.

→ Anyone know how this new Trump scam works?: I’m curious about a new scheme from our White House. I’m not mad; I’m just legitimately curious (this is usually my opening line in a fight, but this time I really mean it). It’s called Freedom Fuel. It’s a new network of gas stations that sells gas below market rate. It came out of nowhere and was registered as an LLC in Delaware on June 23, and you just know whoever buys gas there is getting extorted in some way. It’s being promoted by Trump, who wrote on July 1:

As we approach America’s 250th Birthday, I am pleased to announce that a VERY smart Retailer, located throughout the Northeast, is stepping up, and wishing the People of Philadelphia a “Happy Birthday!” On July 3rd, the Freedom Fuel Network will be lowering gas prices at 25 “FREEDOM FUEL” Stations across the Greater Philadelphia Area. This Retailer is taking the lead, and others should follow. They are doing this because they love the U.S.A.

Hmm. Readers, my question: What’s the scam here? How does it work? Literally no one knows. If you get gas from a Freedom Fuel station, does it steal your routing number? Is the station a money-laundering front to help wash the $MELANIA coins?

Every explanation brings only more questions:

Just tell me—I promise no one’s going to jail (clearly).

In mini-scam news, a White House teleprompter operator made $100,000 betting on the contents of Trump’s speeches because well, he had those speeches early. So he’d go onto Kalshi with it. You know what I say: Good for him! These aren’t public stock markets. Why not let people barter their information tidbits (I’m sure there are a million reasons, like pilots betting on plane crashes or something, but my heart says let freedom ring). A little subtle inside info is what bigwigs move on all the time. Leave the teleprompter guy alone.

→ Joe Biden’s memoir: Joe Biden this week announced his new memoir coming out in November, called Promise Me, America. I keep repeating the title out loud to sort of understand the tone. I guess it’s supposed to be like, promise me you’ll do good. Like a “keep your head up, kid, I’ll be watching from the sky.” But it reads more like, “America was promised to me on my Christmas list.” Anyway, he released a video announcing the book, and it’s very sad to watch. Biden has declined further, as happens in life. The camera cuts every two seconds. His voice is slurred and hushed. Some of his longer words are barely intelligible. After 80, why even be on camera? Who is the one saying “we need him to be doing more on-camera stuff”? And why do I feel like Dr. Jill is gearing up to get him onto Dancing with the Stars?

I don’t say this to be mean. The brutal hands of time come for all of us, if we’re lucky. I say this because the mainstream American media tried to convince us that Biden was completely capable of serving a second term, and that it was conspiratorial and ageist to question it. Does anyone else remember Robert Hur’s report and how brutally he was dragged for it?

Please, Bidens, let this man retire from public life. He’s earned his cantaloupe, and to eat it in peace.

→ J.D. Vance and Joe Rogan, just two guys guessing: Vice President J.D. Vance went on Joe Rogan’s podcast this week to bat around ideas. Just two bros, hanging out, theorizing, gaming out which governments are controlling ours, maybe sharing a bison steak afterward.

Here’s our vice president on Jeffrey Epstein: “He clearly had connections to the upper—the highest levels of American intelligence. He clearly had connections to the highest levels of Israeli intelligence. . . . I’ve asked, ‘Were there documents connecting Jeffrey Epstein directly to our intelligence agencies or anybody else’s?’ And the answer is no. But if that shit existed, it wouldn’t exist in 2026.” Okay, so the implication is that Epstein was an Israeli-American spy and we destroyed the evidence. Next up!

On the war with Iran, here’s the maybe future president, the guy who would replace the current, 80-year-old one: “There are some people within their system, we know beyond a shadow of a doubt, who are manipulating and trying to change American public opinion to keep the war going on indefinitely. Again, not toward any objective, but just indefinitely.” And there is a “very discreet, extremely well-funded. . . literal foreign-influence campaign being funded to tank” a deal with Iran. Right. I get the gist.

I don’t think J.D.’s all bad—I loved his memoir, and I love Usha, and I love chickens. Sorry! But I have no doubt that he knows what he’s doing here. As president, J.D. would be our Conspiracist in Chief. It would be bad for the Jews, probably, and bad for liberals and cat ladies certainly, but it would also be bad for things like Wi-Fi. It would be bad for moon landing museums and for planes that leave water vapor behind in the sky. Every day under Trumpo brings a new scamo. Every day with J.D. would bring an interesting new conspiracy. There’s a chance that once he was elected we would lose him in various secret presidential archives, never to be seen again in public, driven mad over JFK photo analytics. I’m very susceptible to conspiracies once I hear about them, so I’d be there, probably boiling my toothpaste by the end of his presidency. Speaking of guys who like vibing about stuff. . .

→ Nick Fuentes and Hunter Biden collab: Hunter Biden, son of Joe, sat in a motel room for a high-level policy discussion with far-right commentator Nick Fuentes and moderated by journalist Andrew Callaghan, TMZ reports. Here they are, two antiheroes of the realm:

This is Hunter Biden, who until very recently was sitting in on White House meetings with his father. And he’s in a motel room with Nick Fuentes, an open white supremacist, a tiny elf in stature, a figure previously considered wildly radical and out of bounds. But it’s all quiet on the New York Times and BBC front. Nothing to see here. Crickets. All of their rage is saved for slightly more moderate libs or normie conservatives. Nick Fuentes is just for fun! And who doesn’t love a good time? ¡Fuentestico!

→ Gender-affirming care for all: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has announced that the government is now going to provide testosterone replacement therapy to troops. He’s calling it “The High-T Department of War.”

“I’m authorizing a new screening program for testosterone deficiency for our service members.” And: “This initiative, it’s not about artificial enhancement. It’s about restoring and optimizing your natural capabilities.” Injecting yourself with testosterone cypionate or enanthate is not artificial enhancement. It’s just rediscovering your natural self, says our chief war man. Also: Breast implants are not artificial, they are a repair; they are the large, perky tits you were supposed to have at age 50 but modern life and evil feminists took from you. We’re simply going back to the natural order of things—and restoring your natural capabilities. Botox is required now too, since you can’t be expected to wage drone warfare with crow’s feet.

Honestly, I support this. I’m pro-optimizing! Give ’em the drugs. Boost up, baby. I’m too lazy and beautiful for plastic surgery, personally, but when I see someone nipped and tucked I salute them. I think to myself: That’s another valiant soldier fighting certain death. We have one life to live—why not risk it all for an extra whistle or two at a construction site? I’m serious. God be with you, I think, when I see a 60-something woman with pillowy, billowy lips. Mine are two pieces of linguini, soon spaghetti, eventually angel hair. In our new, optimized future, people like me will look like Día de los Muertos costumes here for a haunting.

Speaking of aging. . .

Read more

In announcements: Our July Supper Club is next Wednesday, July 15, in 38 cities across four countries, because apparently “meeting strangers from the internet for dinner” is now one of our most successful ventures. Last month, thousands of you did it and the overwhelming feedback was, “Can we do this again immediately?” Make your reservations today! And this, from some of the supper club organizers, looks cool: a two-day frontier tech conference in New Hampshire, known to me as the thinking man’s Vermont.

→ The oyster of my eye: Graham Platner—the king of the Dirtbag Left, the boarding-school kid who talked all gruff so everyone could pretend he was working class—has suspended his hugely viral and popular campaign for Senate in Maine after being accused of rape. I have to spend a little time on this since it really tells you a lot about where our politics are at. First, the accusation, reported by Politico in an explosive new piece: Platner’s ex-girlfriend says he broke into her house and raped her. Or, as the media is phrasing it, “he entered her rural Maine home uninvited” and “forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop.” Hmm. There’s a word for that!

Now, here’s the odd thing. That very same accuser, Jenny Racicot, had earlier spoken to The New York Times. Weeks ago they published their own Platner sex scandal story. But it was soft. It didn’t include the rape. What NYT supporters say is that she didn’t want to go on the record with it. The other way to see it—my way, the bad way—is that it looks like that the story was a sort of catch-and-kill, in which they got the facts and downplayed them to protect Platner. Because they did know everything. They had been told about that sexual assault.

Read more

In Free Press announcements, to celebrate 250 years of America, we’re offering a discount on new subscriptions. Please consider sharing The Free Press with a friend, a cousin, or a co-worker (maybe be careful with that one). Gift one here! And look out for a fabulous package of patriotic stories later this morning before you log off for the Fourth.

→ Happy pride!: The outgoing prime minister of the United Kingdom, Keir Starmer, was celebrating the end of Pride Month and, looking out at the crowd, said what I’m awarding Quote of the Week: “I’m really proud that we’ve got the gayest parliament, I don’t think just of all time—anywhere in the world. I don’t think there’s any parliament that is gayer than this one.”

Considering this is a country where everyone in the government wears wigs and dresses to do their jobs, I suppose being the gayest parliament is somewhat of an accomplishment.

I’ll add that there is likely no media company gayer than this one, not even close. Except maybe Out magazine. But a lot of good that does me! In a just world I would have been the grand marshal of the parade, but it seems that all Pride Month marches have been entirely rebranded as political, and they are not wavin’ my banner. There are barely even vestigial references to the original concept. Here’s the new Dyke March motto: “We’re here! We’re queer! Free Palestine is our demand!” It doesn’t even rhyme, folx.

→ Europe is refusing air-conditioning: The Europeans, once again, are suffering through an extraordinarily hot summer. I’m sure climate change is part of the reason that temperatures there have soared over a hundred degrees. But instead of trying to fight the change or adapt to it, Europeans have decided, once again, that they must do nothing but suffer. Thousands of elderly and vulnerable people are dying of heat. And the Euros are blaming it all on America! Here’s the deputy mayor of Paris defending the French way:

Dear American journalists and social media “influencers”: for days, some of you have been criticizing and making fun of Paris, because the city doesn’t have AC in every room. . . . OMG, this is so rich! As the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, you bear a significant responsibility for global warming and the consequences we, in France, are experiencing. Your cities, “90% air-conditioned,” are not unrelated to this. In Paris, we take responsibility.

Right. The fact that all your baguettes are drooping in the heat is because we make our malls feel like the inside of a glacier. It’s called customer service.

Read more

Here’s a quick reminder to head to our merch shop to pick up one of our fast-selling America 250 T-shirts and Free Press golf balls. Now let’s do the news of the week!

→ The mini Mamdanis: Just a year after his stunning victory in the New York Democratic mayoral primary, Zohran Mamdani completed his first round of purges this week.

Mamdani’s three handpicked candidates for the U.S. House all won their primaries Tuesday night, effectively doubling the number of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) members in Congress over the course of an evening.

So how did that happen? Were defeated congressmen Dan Goldman and Adriano Espaillat insufficiently anti-Trump? Were they standing in the way of the mayor’s “affordability” agenda? Were they moderates in any real, practical sense? Did a salacious tryst with Sydney Leathers come to light?

Pfft. Of course not. They lost because they aren’t anti-Israel enough, silly. “Free Palestine” is now the binding issue on the left, the only thing that actually matters. They’ve given up on global warming. Do Black Lives still Matter? Unclear. Abortion, tax hikes, gun control, nationalized healthcare: All now take a backseat to Israel and AIPAC, an American group that funds pro-Israel candidates, and the big, bad bogeyman on the left. A generation after Pat Buchanan was drummed out of the GOP for saying things like “Capitol Hill is Israeli-occupied territory,” the vanguard of the left has decided that Ronald Reagan’s onetime communications director was right, actually.

You don’t need to be Bibi Netanyahu’s number-one fan to conclude that this has all become totally deranged. Criticize the Israeli government all you want. Stand against the settlements. Plenty of Israelis certainly do so. But why was the Sunrise Movement—a supposedly environmentalist organization—gleefully posting photos this week of some poor woman who apparently elected to get a “FUCK AIPAC” tattoo on her forehead?

Call me old-fashioned, but I associate face tattoos with meth, mental illness, and Mike Tyson. Not. . . anti-Israel political posturing?

And what’s this lady going to do when the left inevitably moves onto its next cause du jour? I’m not a big fan of Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, the two Weather Underground leaders who had plum seats at the opening of Barack Obama’s ugly-as-hell presidential center last week. Yes, they were communists who carried out a bombing campaign against the government. Yes, Dohrn was a big fan of the Manson Family’s murder spree. But at least they had the good sense not to get “VICTORY FOR THE VIETCONG” tattooed on their foreheads. Such a thing might well have cost them their post-terrorism posts in snobby academia.

Seriously, where are you going in life with a FUCK AIPAC tattoo, other than, perhaps, you know, Congress?

Read more

→ Iran? Oh well, nevertheless: President Donald J. Trump traveled to France where, at Versailles, he signed an agreement giving Iran everything it ever wanted and more. He said that you gotta let them enrich a little bit of uranium. Trump: “It is a little hard, though, when you say that somebody wants it, other people have it, other adjoining states have it, and you’re not letting them have it for purposes of electricity and things like that. It’s always a little tough. You have to use a little common sense.” As for ballistic missiles, it’s what anyone would want: “I’m saying that if other countries have them, it’s a little bit unfair for them not to have some.” And, actually, Hamas might be alright. When it comes to Hamas, Trump says: “They’ve actually behaved pretty well.” It looks worse than Obama’s Iran deal, which is a shock to all the neocons who thought Obama was Voldemort, but a vindication to the neolibs who thought he was fine. Not a great man of history like Hillary Clinton (I’m a 2008 election denier; it was stolen), but he was fine.

J.D. Vance—Mr. Eyelashes, Mr. Chicken Coop, a fellow who definitely spends too much time on right-wing Twitter/X—has been selling the deal all week. And he came out swinging yesterday against Israel, which has balked at the seeming surrender. “If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left.” And: “The problem for Israel is not Donald J. Trump, and anybody in Israel who thinks their biggest problem is the president of the United States needs to wake up and smell the reality of the situation that country is in.” I’m appalled and offended and want him to be wrong. But he’s not that much wrong. Increasingly, Israel stands alone. I guess there’s always India. But here, the heir apparent of the Republican Party is close friends with Tucker Carlson, whose every podcast episode is him shrieking why can’t we talk about how evil Israel is, no one can say it. So I’m just saying this is what time it is. It’s name-change o’clock in America. I mean, I’m changing mine to Nili Bowlsky but I do understand that this is not popular at the moment.

→ Give me back my AI: Top artificial intelligence company Anthropic released its new ultra-powerful model, Fable 5. It was—in my brief moments with it, asking about rashes and the best swim shoes for kids—so incredible. And then the Trump administration forced them to suspend access to Fable 5, along with another model, Mythos 5. They stole from us the greatest artificial intelligence on Earth. Anthropic says that the government basically gave them no information other than vague hand-waving that it’s not safe enough. Inside sources said that Anthropic just began to displease the administration. From Axios:

Following Anthropic’s models going dark, the optics added fuel to the fire. Anthropic came out with a blog post dismissing the Amazon report. Then the company enlisted a cybersecurity expert viewed by the administration as a “radical Democrat,” who was then celebrated by Chris Krebs, who Trump just fired.

Oh, no! Anthropic, you have forgotten how to please the king. Amazon, whose executives have the permanent taste of metal in their mouths from all their truly impressive ring-kissing, apparently tattled to the admin to get this started. Per Axios: “On Thursday, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy called Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent expressing concerns that Anthropic’s most powerful models, Mythos and Fable, could be jailbroken.” I love that. Amazon kneecaps a competitor and then makes sure everyone knows it was them. Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei should expect a bloody horse head in his bed, delivered via Amazon package, any day now.

Read more

In other notes, please scoop up your America at 250 hats for July. And remember that the best comments section now is at The Free Press Forum, especially our red-hot dating section!

→ The Vances got a chicken coop: Sure, it’s not the most important news. Sure, we’re bombing Iran again (why not, it’s summer, but then again maybe we’re not bombing anymore), but we begin with the coop. J.D. Vance has installed a chicken coop at the Naval Observatory, the home of America’s vice presidents. Inflation is so bad, the VP can’t even afford to buy eggs at the store. This is a sign of total Berkeley, California dominance. What was a weird, crunchy, left-wing hobby is now embraced by “guys who are definitely into QAnon and I just really don’t want to go to their house for dinner.” Yes, by our own J.D. Vance, homestead guy. And now the Vances are tradlife influencers posing for photos like this:

Move over, Ballerina Farm, it’s Usha’s turn. And I know there may be more pressing questions to ask the Second Lady, but there’s only one thing I want to know: midwife or doula, Mrs. Vance?

→ Insane amounts of money are about to be made: With the SpaceX IPO, it’s estimated that more than 4,000 people are about to become millionaires, with 400 projected to have fortunes over $100 million. And then there’s the upcoming Anthropic and OpenAI IPOs. Between space and LLMs, we’re looking at a new generation of wealth. And if I can climb back on my California soapbox for a moment, it’s always amazing to me that the East Coast produces none of this. The East Coast is the Europe of America. You go to New York when you decide it’s time to hire a dozen ADHD-identified individuals in Brooklyn who will sue you, not like, build stuff. For that, it’s all still the Bay Area or, thanks to SpaceX, Texas! And in the boom times, one group that’s thriving is (of course) prostitutes. Forbes has an amazing story about the nerdy escort boom. These ladies are charging upward of $2,000 an hour, even as much as $6,000 an hour—and you know they’re spending most of that hour talking about Moravec’s Paradox. One reports charging $23,000 a day. The absolute weirdest people in America have created artificial consciousness (probably Satanic) and despite all their efforts, they still exist in these pesky bodies that demand stupid things like [redacted], which the computer can’t quite do yet. Good for the prosties.

In other signs of new financial realities, women are hiring witches to help protect their weddings, or so Bloomberg tells us this week. Is it just me, or is heterosexuality getting weirder than being gay? Prostitutes and witches? Maybe you guys should take Pride this year, I think you need it.

Read more

→ Trump walking back his slush fund: We finally found a scam that’s too scammy even for the Trump administration, and it’s his $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” slush fund, in which Trump planned to hand out cash to people who felt they’d been unfairly targeted by the Biden administration and IRS. Scam cell phones, scam crypto, scam crypto platform—that we could handle, that we could ignore, fine. But an actual bag of cash? It’s a little on the nose, even in 2026. “We are not moving forward with the fund. Period,” said acting attorney general Todd Blanche, trying to assuage House lawmakers. It was part of his IRS truth and reconciliation program.

Now, to back up a bit about Trump vs. IRS: It’s not great that the IRS leaks personal tax information about people its employees don’t like, which is what happened when an IRS contractor leaked Trump’s and thousands of other wealthy people’s returns, much to the joy of ProPublica and The New York Times. It’s been memory-holed, but as a reminder: IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn, an alum of the St. Louis prep school Crossroads and UNC Chapel Hill, got his little paws on those documents and shared them with reporters. He was sentenced to five years in prison, and then I’m sure he’ll get an amazing sinecure somewhere.

Read more

I’m Nick Gillespie, editor at large at Reason and occasional contributor to The Free Press, subbing in for Nellie Bowles, who may or may not be taking the day off to interview for a better-paying job aboard the Long Island Rail Road, which would allow her to work remotely with unlimited personal days while earning six figures in overtime alone. As some of you may know, I’m libertarian and, as I cautioned at The Free Press debate on immigration in 2024 with Ann Coulter, Sohrab Ahmari, and Cenk Uygur (more on him in a moment!), that usually means people think I’m mostly going to talk about drugs and economics. Which I am!—I just want to give fair warning. If that’s not your thing, don’t worry, Nellie will be back next week. And if you can’t wait that long, head over to the Free Press Forum at 2:30 p.m. ET today, where Nellie will answer all your questions in a subscriber AMA.

→ Remember, kids: Real winners don’t use drugs!: It’s officially summer, and all kinds of sports events—the Indy 500! Baseball! The NHL playoffs!—are breaking out all over the place like prickly heat rashes. The upcoming NBA Finals will pit either the San Antonio Spurs or the Oklahoma City Thunder against the New York Knicks, who haven’t won a championship since 1973, when the team included future senator Bill Bradley (D-NJ), nicknamed “Dollar Bill” partly because he was a “famously frugal” cheapskate despite having signed one of the fattest NBA contracts of the era. Regardless of who the Knicks face, they are a lock, since Chicago-born Pope Leo blessed their victory.

The week’s greatest (read: saddest) sports story comes from the Enhanced Games, a new Vegas-based competition showcasing athletes openly using steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), and vowing to crush records in marquee events like the 100-meter dash and the 100-meter freestyle swim. Interestingly, a competitor who vowed he’d “juice to the gills” performed worse than he did when he couldn’t use drugs. Even more embarrassing: The 50-meter backstroke winner was a non-enhanced athlete, thus, writes James Dator for SB Nation, “tearing apart the entire premise for the games.” All told, one world record was beaten while three unenhanced athletes won their events. It’s a victory for man over pharma.

Here’s the upshot: PEDs are not magic potions that will automatically create a race of super-athletes. They are one technology among many—including space-age fabrics for uniforms, weight-training and other practice regimens, diet and nutrition, surgeries on tendons and ligaments, and over-the-counter anti-inflammatory drugs—that can help world-class athletes improve their performances (often by speeding up recovery times). We should have more honest and open conversations about them in sports and regular life, but all the PEDs in the world aren’t going to make just anyone the Lance Armstrong of accounting, let alone cycling.

The biggest loser at the Enhanced Games wasn’t an athlete, though. It was Donald Trump Jr., who was among the high-profile funders of the games, and whose parent company’s stock tanked after the middling results. That may not even be the worst recent loss for Don Jr., whose father played the ultimate trump card to get out of going to an undesired destination wedding. I, too, might be tempted to start a war to avoid going to a rehearsal dinner where Don Jr.’s college buddies toast him. While the president swore he really, really wanted to go to the Bahamas to celebrate his son’s merger with “socialite” Bettina Anderson—with a name like that, I should hope you’re a socialite—he just had too much work to catch up on. “I feel it is important for me to remain in Washington, D.C., at the White House during this important period of time,” he wrote on Truth Social.

Read more

→ Massie lost but don’t worry, the party continues: The great all-our-problems-are-Israel coalition unifier, Kentucky Republican congressman Thomas Massie, lost his primary race this week. The far left and far right are very upset. Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California cried out that “He lost because he had the guts to take on the Epstein class.” It’s always fun to hear new dog whistles for Jews. Last week it was globalists, this week Epstein class, maybe next week we’ll get “Spielberg’s ilk.” A girl can dream. Or here’s Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut: “So there you have it. If you lead a campaign against powerful pedophiles, you get drummed out of the Republican Party.” Anyway, Massie lost the race to be a congressman, which is a little like losing a race to become, I don’t know, a septic tank cleaner. What I’m saying is it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. A lot more paperwork than you thought, and still, it’s mostly shit. And now I’m sure he’ll get rich on the new hard-right populist podcast circuit. It’s booming. Did you know that the new coalition of “Questions Regarding the Holocaust” is having a conference? Sorry, that’s not fair, they are just Men Who Perceive All Problems Jewishly. Yes, they’re gathering at a convention center in Dallas. The speakers have lots of beliefs that really appall people, like that women shouldn’t be allowed to vote in elections anymore. But let’s not focus on that, they say, not today. That’s not important. What’s important is the Epstein Class controlling everything. And lo, Americans are into it. It’s relaxing to think that there’s just this one skeleton key that makes everything magic and good. Any niche political ideologies that you want to get through fast, just attach it to being anti-Epstein. Women voting is vaguely Zionist, did you know that? Suffrage kind of sounds like Pentateuch, if you squint a little.

The only little tiny glimmer here that I see is the apparent drop-off in Massie support in the 17–25 crowd, from a poll taken a week before the election. Maybe their brains have been less rotted by China’s TikTok warfare against American morale? Or maybe Massie is too soft for them.

→ This is a Dem who is, so far winning, her primary: Lest you think there are only Massies on the right, here’s Maureen Galindo, who finished first in her Texas district’s congressional primary, moving ahead to a runoff next week. Galindo wrote that she will “turn Karnes ICE Detention Center into a prison for American Zionists and former ICE officers for human trafficking. (It will also be a castration processing center for pedophiles which will probably be most of the Zionists).” Don’t you just love when a politician has a light touch? It’s been missing from our discourse, I think, this level of civility and thoughtfulness. She later explained: “Putting Zionist billionaires in prison does not mean putting all Jews in internment camps.” Thank you for that clarification. Hands up if you’re relieved!

→ The IRS can never audit a Trump: It’s been a doozy of a week in President Trump Corruption Watch. It was too many corruptions, a scheme behind every gold picture frame. This week, after Trump sued the IRS for the leak of his tax returns (not cool guys), the government agreed to never audit Trump, his family, or his businesses again, which means Trump is never paying taxes again, my friends, if he ever even did. But there’s something worse. The government also moved to provide a new $1.8 billion slush fund—the “Anti-Weaponization Fund”—for Trump to give away to any of his allies who believe they were victimized by the Biden administration. A truth-and-reconciliation cash grab. I can only assume being victimized by the Biden administration means not getting an email back from the White House. Victimization is doing Meatless Mondays in the EEOB, right. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche says the fund will be “a lawful process for victims of lawfare and weaponization to be heard and seek redress.” To be clear, that is $1.8 billion (actually, $1.776 billion; yes, it’s a 1776 reference, obviously) that is being taken from taxpayers and given to whoever exactly is a victim of Biden. Anyway, aren’t we all sort of Biden victims in that we had to watch while everyone pretended a lovely but senile old man was president? That caused me distress. Can I apply for some cash?

Read more

→ American rage about the economy is hitting Trump: Inflation has hit 3.8 percent, and Americans are mad as hell about the economy. Per CNN’s new poll, Dems lead a generic ballot 45–42. And 65 percent of Americans say the tariffs have made their economic situation worse. Maybe President Trump’s visit to China will be part of getting those smoothed out to keep our cheap goods nice and cheap and microplastic-y. He’s there with Elon Musk and Tim Cook and 15 other major American business leaders this week, firmly establishing China as the official Other Great World Power and probably giving away Taiwan (at this point, fine, just make sure the knockoff furniture I ordered from Shenzhen comes in the right colors, and in two days). China is officially Mar-a-Lago of the East. Their history culminates in this moment—the Trump-Xi Summit featuring Elon and his son in a cute little vest. Trump was treated to a state dinner where a military band played the Trump and bathhouse anthem “Y.M.C.A.,” and the president took a little sip of champagne. One day this will mark the beginning of some significant geopolitical shift with centuries-long consequences, but for now it was just sort of cute and odd.

Read more

And if your tastes skew less “ha ha” and more “drop and give me 50”: Aaron MacLean and historian Niall Ferguson are bringing the School of War podcast to the iconic New York Historical on May 19 for a special live recording. If you want to steal some talking points to elucidate on “the war,” this is your chance. Tickets here.

Let’s get to the news.

→ Iran was two weeks away from killing you: As schoolchildren gathered around to witness President Donald J. Trump reinstating the Presidential Physical Fitness Award to celebrate kids and athleticism, Trump gave some remarks.

Here is what the president said, as those kids stood around ready to accept a Sharpie, or be given two minutes to climb a very high rope:

“We just broke every record and now we’re gonna take a hit, because we have to make a journey down to Iran to take the nuclear weapon. They would’ve had a nuclear weapon within two weeks. Remember, we sent that beautiful B-2 bomber in? We blew up their nuclear potential. It was obliterated, for those that are not aware. To a point where it would take ’em weeks to dig down, and we wouldn’t let ’em dig down. We have our eyes on there all the time. But it was a very important thing. So, we would’ve had an Iran with a nuclear weapon, and maybe we wouldn’t all be here right now. I can tell you the Middle East would’ve been gone, Israel would’ve been gone. And they would’ve trained their sights on Europe first and then us, because they’re sick people. These are sick people. And we’re not gonna let lunatics have a nuclear weapon. The power of a nuclear weapon is something I don’t even want to talk about. It’s not gonna happen.”

Okay, kids, back to class now! You met the president. It went very well, didn’t it? I think so.

Read more

Next, on May 17, we’re back at the Comedy Cellar for a Sunday afternoon of stand-up, emceed by Judy Gold. The only thing bigger than the laughs she gets are her glasses. And on May 19, School of War host Aaron MacLean sits down with historian Niall Ferguson for a live conversation at the New York Historical, covering the Middle East, China, military deterrence, the future of American power, and the compatibility of their astrological signs.

To the news.

→ White House Correspondents’ Dinner: Is it even big news anymore when people try to assassinate Donald Trump? It’s a blip. Happens so often. I’ll scrape the back pages of America’s newspapers to find tidbits. Okay, so: It appears that the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was derailed after a crazed left-wing gunman allegedly stormed the hotel lobby to try to kill Trump. Shots were fired. Then he was stripped and rolled up in a tinfoil wrap like a little burrito (our copy editor tells me it’s a Mylar blanket). The only times a person gets wrapped in tinfoil are if they try to shoot the president or if they finish a marathon. Quite a delta between those endeavors, but the same outcome. And the dinner was canceled. Nothing to worry about.

When journalists walked out of the ballroom, they were met by normal, run-of-the-mill protesters who carried signs reading: DEATH TO ALL OF THEM (a Wendy Williams reference). And DEATH TO TYRANT (the singular makes it more aggressive, I think). Everything is good. There is no relation between the protester holding a sign that says DEATH TO ALL OF THEM and the gunman inside trying to bring. . . death to all of them. He’s just mentally ill, I’m sure. There is no popular movement encouraging people to slaughter their political enemies en masse.

Photos via Katie Pavlich of what she saw as she left the assassination-attempt dinner. No big deal, purely symbolic, no need for the mainstream media to cover any of this:

When I logged into Bluesky and Threads to check the temperature, some normal-seeming media figures were arguing the shooter himself was an inside job to garner sympathy for old Trumpo. But the dominant energy was bloodlust. Clara Jeffery, the editor in chief of the progressive magazine Mother Jones (I like her a lot), tried to calm down her followers on Bluesky: “People here are being really shitty, including at fellow journalists who’ve been traumatized, and you will regret those posts. Or should. Also this does not help your political cause, whatever that might be.” But blood was what they wanted. Blood had been denied. She had to turn off replies.

Some interesting context from last month is that nearly half of Dems think the Butler, Pennsylvania, assassination attempt on Trump was faked. A Manhattan Institute poll found that 47 percent of Democrats believe “the July 2024 assassination attempt on Trump was orchestrated by his supporters to increase sympathy for him.” Half! Half of Democrats think Trump supporters organized for someone to shoot at the president’s ear and kill a random father in the stands.

Read more

Some quick housekeeping before the news: Suzy’s podcast has launched, since I guess there can’t be more than two consecutive months where a member of the Weiss family isn’t commandeering a microphone to tell everyone their thoughts on Ozempic. Suzy’s podcast, I’m told, is about pop culture. It’s called Second Thought and you can watch it here, or follow it here, or if you’re really old-fashioned, read the transcripts here. Now, to the news.

→ Scammers getting scammed: The Trump men have a cryptocurrency venture called World Liberty Financial. For legal reasons I cannot describe it as a scam, so I’ll describe it as a spram. A yam-sc. And now one of its largest backers is suing the group, alleging that they took his money and won’t give it back. From CBS News, a great website:

Cryptocurrency billionaire Justin Sun is suing World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture co-founded by President Donald Trump and his sons, alleging the company illegally blocked him from selling digital tokens worth up to $1 billion.

Justin Sun is also the largest holder of $TRUMP coins, another Trump-backed crypto token. He’s in deep, kids. But for whatever reason, Justin Sun decided to try to see if this fake crypto bank could be a real money bank. And when he reached into the influence-payment pot to pull out cash, did he find any? Well. He says he did not. How much liberty does World Liberty Financial really offer? It’s not a bank, Justin, it’s a DeFi platform, which means money goes in but no money comes out. Like a piggy bank that’s run by the president’s sons and that you’re never going to see again. I don’t know what you were buying with all these investments—I try not to have impure thoughts—but I hope it was worth it. When you put a billion dollars into something called World Liberty Financial or wire money to a thing called $TRUMP, you can probably get off death row. You can probably do one free spouse murder if she is over 50 and going for a Pamela Anderson Makeup-Free look, but she’s not Pamela Anderson. Certainly you can do three full tax returns of financial crimes. But you cannot, under any circumstances, get your money back.

Read more

→ Trump as Jesus himself: President Donald J. Trump posted a picture to Truth Social of himself as Jesus. It depicted him draped in white and a red shawl, hands glowing with divine light, healing a sick patient as a soldier, a nurse, and others looked on in awe. The Christian community did not particularly enjoy the image, and Trumpo got a rare rebuke from his base. The next day, outside the White House, after receiving a McDonald’s delivery, Trump explained that he “thought it was me as a doctor.” Do doctors wear red shawls usually? Anyway, he deleted it. Fine! Then, why not, he posted another Jesus meme, this time showing Jesus hugging Trump. Because they’re all good now, him and JC. Here’s the Yahoo! News summary of all this:

→ Quote of the week: “I was standing in front of my parked car on I-684 cutting the penis out of a road killed raccoon, thinking about how weird some of my family members have turned out to be. . . . My kids waited patiently in the car.” Who else could it be? It’s Robert F. Kennedy Jr. For those of you who might be freaked out by the admission, don’t worry. Bobby was cutting off the genitals of a dead raccoon apparently to “study them later.” It was research, heard of it? He’s a budding zoologist. It’s called primary sources. Onward.

Read more

→ At this point, is he trolling us: Standing by the Easter Bunny, atop the South Portico balcony, our president gave an update on Iran. “I don’t think it gets much more hostile than Iran. They’re capable fighters,” he said, as Melania, with a bouncy blonde hairdo, and Bunny stood on either side of him. It’s up to the voters to decide who served a more chilling stare. My new theory: Trump knows this is funny. He’s trolling us. It’s a bit. He waits for Bunny to get there before he starts in on Iran. My other theory: Mike Johnson is the bunny.

Now in this next quote, I’m less sure of exactly what’s happening. This is Trump describing some good old-fashioned American warfighting, and I will make no further comment: “They came in so fast and so hard, and these guys knew exactly what—let’s go, come on, get in, let’s go, pwah. They came one right after another. Not at the same time. They don’t want to come at the same time. They had to come right after each other. They didn’t have any room.”

Read more

→ We don’t care what the voters say: The big debate between California gubernatorial candidates has been canceled since it didn’t meet Hollywood’s DEI requirements. But really. It’s too white! And so the debate between all these pale nightwalkers was called off. The University of Southern California apparently used discriminatory criteria to decide who got to be on stage, and that criteria was to select the six candidates who were polling the highest and had raised the most, according to CalMatters. Sounds racist to me. The voters are wrong, and their opinions do not count unless they produce a Benetton ad. The donors are also wrong. USC, a school famous for having the hottest, richest student body, will alone decide who is allowed to run for office, and it’s the cast of Euphoria.

The candidates are: Republicans Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco and Democrats Tom Steyer, Katie Porter, Eric Swalwell, and Matt Mahan. Okay, reading these names, I kinda see their point. Steve, Tom, and Katie? Is this a Little House on the Prairie remake?

Now, all of those candidates need to sit alone and ask themselves why they are not women of color. Once they decide to drop out and find a woman of color to march in their stead, then we can resume the gubernatorial debate. Or if one of them wants to go trans, that would be acceptable. Steve (Stephanie?) Hilton, do what everyone who applies to USC does: Fake an ethnic ancestry.

Read more

My only announcement this week is to keep submitting questions for Abigail Shrier’s brilliant advice column.

→ Joe Kent joins the new right circuit: The director of the National Counterterrorism Center, who was confirmed last July, resigned this week over the war in Iran, writing that the only reason it started is because of Israel “and its powerful American lobby.” He quickly scheduled an appearance alongside Candace Owens and showed up on Tucker Carlson’s pod. The new circuit. Now, of course, “four people with direct knowledge of the investigation” have leaked that Joe Kent has been under FBI investigation for allegedly sharing classified information. A theme of Kent’s letter and chat with Tuck-Tuck is the idea that Israel is behind everything, that no other group has agency. Kent writes that he is a “Gold Star husband who lost my beloved wife Shannon in a war manufactured by Israel.” But his wife was killed in a 2019 suicide bombing in Syria, for which ISIS claimed responsibility? He writes that the Israelis drew us into “the disastrous Iraq war.” But Israel was against that war and expressed concern to America about its possible consequences. Even Grok, the one AI that you know could get Nazi-licious if it wanted to, agrees with me. (I’ll be real here, the name Grok sounds like a guy who maybe used to be a skinhead. Oh, him? That’s just Grok, don’t ask about the tattoos, okay, he’s over all that.)

You see the same obsession echoed here: “Pakistan dropping bombs on Afghanistan is completely unacceptable. And we can only conclude that the Pakistan military has been compromised by the U.S., and therefore Israel,” writes the editor of a Muslim news website. Actually loads of popular writers are echoing that, claiming Pakistan is attacking Afghanistan because it’s been inspired by Israel or something. Anything that happens anywhere between any two groups of people can be described by its proximity to Israel. Which one is Israel-coded? Why is it Pakistan?

Read more

We have new items going up in The Free Press store: a Think for Yourself crewneck; a Free Press beanie (first ever); and, an America at 250 hat. Check out the shop if you’re open to getting into verbal altercations at your next community board meeting.

We also have an urgent, truly desperate job posting: Senior Director of Finance to track subscription metrics and run the books—until now, it’s been three monkeys in a closet with a calculator. The Free Press needs YOU. And our last announcement is just a note of appreciation for a great man named David Giaramita. He has answered all our questions, philosophical and otherwise, as we switched over our IT systems, which sounds easy but is not. This will shock you but journalists aren’t great at calendar migration. Thank you, David! In honor of your labor, you get one America at 250 hat.

→ Two terrorists and a lie: Two young men—Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi—are accused of trying to use homemade bombs on New York’s Upper East Side this past weekend. Outside of Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s official residence, someone yelled “allahu akbar” and Balat allegedly threw one of the bombs. Once in custody, Balat pledged allegiance to ISIS, according to authorities, and later gave the ISIS salute to a camera crew.

Their target: a small anti-Islam rally led by a racist right-wing troll named Jake Lang. The scene: about 20 people with Lang and more than 100 counterprotesters. While one of the counterprotesters was speaking the familiar language of progressive acceptance into a bullhorn—about how everyone is welcome in New York—Balat reached over his shoulder to throw a lit bomb. The carrot of acceptance—and if not, then the stick of an IED! All in one moment. It’s all caught on video.

Call me crazy, but I just don’t really think we should kill people willy-nilly on the sidewalk like that, even if they disagree with my politics. This was a clear-cut Bad Moment. On this front, I am apparently an outcast among journalists. Because my comrades did something clever. They blamed the right-wing trolls. The establishment news media worked this week to make a great lie: that the right-wing group threw the bomb. And if a bomb was indeed thrown by the side of the good, then it wasn’t a big deal at all.

Don’t believe me? Let’s take a tour.

Read more

Also, we are looking for a photo editor! Are you in Brooklyn but also sick of having friends? Join us. More info here.

Now, to the news.

→ Trump at war: We’re officially bombing Iran. And Iran is bombing, well, everyone they can. They’ve reportedly lobbed missiles, drones, and deck chairs at the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Azerbaijan, and Turkey as well as Israel, its number-one bombing love. But it’s been a pretty dismal showing. We’re very much and clearly winning. Like, really, really easily. Here’s Trump on the war timeline: “We also projected four weeks to terminate the military leadership, and as you know, that was done in about an hour so we’re ahead of schedule there.” And here’s Trump on who should become Iran’s new leader: “Well, most of the people we had in mind are dead. . . we had some in mind from that group that is dead. And now we have another group. They may be dead also, based on reports.” And they should stop picking one among themselves: “They are wasting their time. Khamenei’s son is a lightweight. I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy [Rodríguez] in Venezuela.” It will be done in ancestral Trump fashion, via swimsuit competition in an indoor/outdoor pavilion at a resort. In other war news, a U.S. submarine sank an enemy ship by torpedo for the first time since World War II. Welcome back to water warfare, baby! There’s unbelievable footage of a fighter pilot shot down over Kuwait, in a bright and cheery mood as locals approach her there in that dust bowl. They thank her for what she’s doing, and offer her help (thank goodness she didn’t land in Minneapolis).

For anyone shocked that Trump “the Dove” would bomb Iran, it’s helpful to remember that federal investigators discovered two alleged Iranian-backed Trumpo assassination attempts, so of the Ayatollah, Trump said: “I got him before he got me. They tried twice. Well, I got him first.” He also, if you’ll recall, kept talking about how he’d bomb Iran when he was campaigning. That might explain why J.D. Vance and Tulsi Gabbard have been sidelined to their own special war room, where I assume The Hurt Locker is playing on a loop so they feel like they’re in on the action. They’re the future of the GOP, but the Boomers have to retire first, and we all know Boomers don’t retire. Boomers only die. Clutching their scepters. So, for now, for one last war, it’s a little picnic table for those cuties to sit around. Well, it’s the Situation Room. But honey, this is Mar-a-Lago’s war.

Read more