The Free Press
It’s Monday, May 12. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large.
Today: “Great progress” in U.S.-China talks; the big Trump move that slipped under the radar; the pope’s first Sunday mass; is the India-Pakistan ceasefire built to last?; and the red flags the government ignored as it handed billions to environmental NGOs. All that and more coming up.
But first: A $400 million Qatari gift—and the Trump family business.
As journalists, we’re used to the idea that a scandal is something you uncover with months of painstaking work. Its exposure is supposed to be the satisfying payoff for a reporters’ late nights trawling documents, haranguing sources, and connecting the dots.
But hardly any digging was required to unearth the latest scandal in Washington.
We are referring to reports over the weekend that Donald Trump is set to accept a decked-out jumbo jet worth an estimated $400 million as a gift from Qatar. According to the agreement, it will serve as Air Force One and then be transferred to the Trump Presidential Library Foundation at the end of Trump’s term. If these reports are true, the acceptance of the gift will be the latest and most egregious example of a worrying trend in the second Trump administration. That’s the subject of our latest editorial; read it below.
—The Editors
Three weeks ago, Donald Trump signed an executive order that took aim at the civil-rights concept of “disparate impact.” The move received very little attention, and yet it could prove to be among the most consequential acts of his presidency. Christopher Caldwell explains why.
The exchange of fire between India and Pakistan in recent weeks had the world holding its breath. And for very good reason: The countries have been rivals since they both became independent in 1947. And both possess nuclear weapons. With a fragile ceasefire in effect as of Saturday, how long will the truce last? And what will happen next? Rupa Subramanya and Matthew Rosenberg explain everything you need to know about the conflict.
In the dying days of the Biden administration, the Environmental Protection Agency rushed $20 billion to eight progressive nonprofits. And as Madeleine Rowley reports in The Free Press today, it did so despite internal warnings about conflicts of interest, inflated salaries, and lack of oversight.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that the U.S. made “substantial progress” in trade talks with China over the weekend, promising more details on Monday. China’s state-run Xinhua New Agency said the two countries had agreed to an “economic and trade consultation mechanism” and that they would release a joint statement today.
Leo XIV presided over his inaugural Mass as pope on Friday, vowing to stand with “ordinary people.” In a speech to cardinals on Saturday, he described developments in artificial intelligence as “challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice, and labor.” And in a mass in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, he called for peace in Ukraine and Gaza. Read Matthew Walther in The Free Press on “The American Pope.”
Edan Alexander, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen born in Tel Aviv and raised in New Jersey, is reportedly being released by Hamas after more than a year and seven months in captivity. Alexander was serving in the Israel Defense Forces when he was taken hostage on October 7, 2023. His release is part of “the steps being taken to achieve a ceasefire, open the crossings, and allow aid,” Khalil al-Hayya, head of Hamas’s negotiating team, said in a statement Sunday.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has expressed willingness to meet Russian president Vladimir Putin in Istanbul on Thursday to discuss ending the war, following Trump’s call for Ukraine to accept Putin’s offer of direct talks.
The U.S. and Iran wrapped up over three hours of talks in Oman on Sunday—the fourth round of negotiations since April 12. Tehran described the discussions as “difficult but useful” and agreed to keep talking. The U.S. said it was “encouraged” by the latest meeting.
Rümeysa Öztürk, a 30-year-old Tufts student held by ICE, was released after six weeks in a Louisiana immigration detention center. A federal judge in Vermont granted her bail, criticizing the government for offering nothing more than an anti-Israel op-ed penned by Öztürk as evidence in the case. Read The Free Press’s March editorial on the case: “No Deportations Without Due Process.”
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said Friday the Trump administration is “actively looking at” suspending habeas corpus to address illegal immigration—a move that would mark a dramatic escalation of immigration policy. Miller argued the Constitution allows the move during times of “invasion.”
On Sunday, nearly 80 flights were canceled and more than 60 were delayed in Newark’s most recent telecommunication failure. The culprit: a glitch at a Philadelphia-based control facility responsible for Newark’s airspace—the third disruption in just over two weeks. On Friday, Newark suffered a radar blackout. Before that, a major outage on April 28 grounded flights and left air traffic controllers so shaken that several took medical leave.
With the Democrat's (and The Free Press') rage over a gift from another country, it makes you wonder what they would have said about the Statue of Liberty.
Dear Free Press,
I devour your publication. Excellent writers and generally objective perspectives. However, you jumped the gun on this matter.
The Qatar gift to the U.S. doesn’t appear to be sinister. I’m sure the gesture is a way for the Qataris to ingratiate themselves with the current Administration. The gift to the USAF provides a much needed gap to replace an aging Air Force One fleet with a younger airframe while Boeing delivers the replacements, which are years and billions of dollars over budget. The next administration, Republican or Democrat, will also benefit from this transaction.
Knowing then reporting once the facts are corroborated may put you at a disadvantage with your competition who doesn’t seem to worry about journalistic veracity (or integrity). Lead, don’t follow!