It’s Thursday, December 11. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Has Trump made everyone worse? Is the left to blame for the rise of Nick Fuentes? Plus: Are “special” government employees engaged in self-dealing? The novel that explains life in a crumbling regime. Free Press meetups in a town near you. And much more.
But first: Where do the Republicans go next?
The GOP was one party under Trump when the 47th president assumed office in January. But now, at the end of 2025, a growing share of the party’s populists believe Trump has betrayed the movement he created. That faction includes online influencers like the white nationalist Nick Fuentes and the irascible libertarian congressman Thomas Massie. And now, its most visible face may be Marjorie Taylor Greene—one of Trump’s staunchest allies in Congress until a short time ago.
“America First should mean America first and only Americans first, with no other foreign country ever being attached to America First in our halls of government,” Greene said recently in a video announcing her pending resignation to her fans. Her message was veiled, but impossible to miss. Her allusion to foreign influence is meant to implicate Israel, which many of her supporters believe has forced Trump to bury the Jeffrey Epstein story, among other supposed betrayals.
But what do Republican voters make of this split? Free Press reporter Olivia Reingold visited Greene’s district in Georgia’s rural northwest to look for an answer to that question.
What she found there should worry the president. Read her dispatch on the rift tearing through the Republican base to find out why.
Things aren’t much better for the GOP back in Washington.
Republicans in Congress emerged from last month’s government shutdown believing the public had their back, but Democrats’ attacks over expiring health insurance subsidies have the GOP scrambling to pass a plan and show a sliver of competence on the issue. In an illuminating essay for us today, Yuval Levin, who has been at the heart of debates on this issue for decades, describes why Republicans keep coming up empty whenever they try to put forward a plan to control healthcare costs and put voters at ease.
—Mene Ukueberuwa
Who’s to blame for the rise of Nick Fuentes and his white-nationalist Groyper movement? Rod Dreher says that while it might be up to the right to defeat Fuentes and co., the movement’s roots are in many ways a product of progressive thinking. Read his deep dive on the Frankenstein’s monster that is the Fuentes worldview.
There’s been no shortage of outrages from the Trump administration. The problem for liberals is that these outrages don’t seem to overly bother the American public. Tina Brown says this is a sign that Trump has “liberate[d] people to be their worst selves.” In her latest essay, the former Vanity Fair editor explains why that’s so dangerous.
Charlotte Grinberg always planned on being a primary care physician. Then she saw the realities firsthand, finding it “rushed, fragmented, impersonal, and often inaccessible.” But Grinberg says a revolution is changing all that by letting doctors, not insurers, decide on care.
Special government employees have been around for decades. Then Elon Musk became one. Now, House Democrats are moving to seal what they call a “self-dealing” loophole and proposing new limits on how much federal money special government employees’ companies can receive, Gabe Kaminsky reports.
On Old School: Living Through the Fall of a Regime
“If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.” This famous line from The Leopard has become a shorthand for moments when a ruling order senses its own looming downfall. And it feels eerily relevant now, in an age when the liberal order we cherish seems increasingly unsteady. Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s classic novel is about what it feels like to live inside history—inside the collapse of a social order and the disorientation that accompanies the fall of a ruling class.
In the latest episode of Old School, historian Dominic Green joins Shilo Brooks to explore why today’s American and British establishments resemble Sicily’s fading aristocracy: oligarchic, overregulated, and increasingly contemptuous of the people they rule.
Free Press Meetups: Coming to a City Near You
For paid subscribers only, Free Press Meetups are coming to five cities—no panels, no scripts, just sharp conversation with curious, independent-minded readers. Best case, you leave with a new friend (or romantic prospect); worst case, it’s an above-average night out with a fresh group of people.
Tune In: Bari Weiss and Erika Kirk on Life, Loss, and Politics
Three months after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, Bari Weiss, founder of The Free Press and editor-in-chief of CBS News, sits down with his widow Erika Kirk for a conversation on life, loss, and the state of political discourse. The town hall will be broadcast on Saturday, December 13, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on the CBS television network, and will stream on Paramount+ and CBS News 24/7.
Meta is driving economic growth and supporting local jobs nationwide with a $600 billion investment in American infrastructure.
Eileen Higgins won the Miami mayor’s race Tuesday night. She will become the first Democrat to hold the office in nearly 30 years, and many see her victory as a sign of how Trump’s immigration crackdown is alienating Hispanic voters. Democrats also narrowly flipped a solidly Republican state house seat in Georgia.
The Trump administration must withdraw its deployment of roughly 100 National Guard troops in Los Angeles by Monday, a federal judge ruled yesterday. The ruling states that the federal government illegally kept the troops long after immigration protests during the summer had ended.
Increasing pressure on Ukraine to accept a peace plan with Russia, President Trump said Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky “is going to have to get on the ball and start accepting things.” While Zelensky has agreed to take steps toward having elections, he has not agreed to cede any territory and wants to take out “anti-Ukrainian points” in the agreement.
Foreigners who can travel to the U.S. visa-free may have to undergo a review of their social media profiles if a proposal from U.S. Customs and Border Protection goes into effect. Listing social media profiles on applications for entry has been an optional part of entry applications since 2016.
While Trump rates the economy an “A+++++,”a Politico poll found that nearly half of Americans find it hard to pay for food and a majority blame the Trump administration for high prices. More than a quarter said they had skipped a medical checkup in the last two years because of costs.
Sperm from a European donor who unknowingly carried a cancer-causing gene has been used to conceive at least 197 children, a joint investigation undertaken by numerous European news services revealed. People with the gene have a 90 percent chance of developing cancer, and some of the children have already died from cancer.
Elon Musk implied he somewhat regretted running the Department of Government Efficiency earlier this year. “Instead of doing DOGE, I would have. . . worked at my companies, essentially, and they wouldn’t have been burning the cars,” Musk told interviewer Katie Miller, in reference to acts of vandalism against Tesla vehicles.
As part of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s push to rid the department of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, the State Department will switch from the Calibri font back to the more traditional Times New Roman font. Calibri, according to the department, had been adopted to assist people with disabilities, but had failed. “Switching to Calibri achieved nothing except the degradation of the department’s correspondence,” Rubio wrote.
The comment sections appears to be unable to hear opinions they do mot agree with. The goal for me is to consider what and why others think differently than me. Let’s keep an open mind. We as Americans are in desperate need of need of hope faith and love for our country
I counted Trump’s name 12 times on the Front Page today without opening any story. It’s time you guys go ahead and admit your bias. This is getting ridiculous and certainly not presenting both sides of the issues.