It’s Tuesday, March 17. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Batya Ungar-Sargon on the podcasters who claim to speak for MAGA, but don’t. Gabe Kaminsky on the enigmatic billionaire who persuaded Trump to buck decades of Republican thinking on marijuana. Arthur Brooks on why you’re in an abusive relationship with politics—and how to break free. And much more.
But first: America’s weapons crisis—and the people trying to fix it.
This week, Israel told the U.S. that it is running critically low on ballistic missile interceptors—and America’s own reserves aren’t far behind. With stockpiles across the U.S. and among its Gulf allies dwindling faster than they can be replenished, the Trump administration has discussed invoking the Defense Production Act to force defense companies to increase manufacturing.
As war in the Middle East rages, a familiar debate has returned: Can the American weapons industry keep up with demand?
Sean Fischer spoke with the founders of one of the new defense technology companies trying to make sure the answer to that question is yes. Castelion is focused on hypersonic missile technology—and it’s trying to help the U.S. catch up with Russia and China in this important field.
Read Sean’s story on the entrepreneurs who think America’s preparedness suffers from two problems: a lack of modern warfighting tools, and an inability to manufacture them at volume.
Though America currently lags behind China and Russia in missile technology, it has many advantages. One of them: Our software is second to none.
Today, in an exclusive excerpt of the new book Mobilize: How to Reboot the American Industrial Base and Stop World War III, Palantir chief technology officer Shyam Sankar and his colleague Madeline Hart argue that for the U.S. to remain the most powerful nation in the world, we need an industrial revolution—with the help of the Silicon Valley.
—The Editors
Israel is working overtime to find and destroy key military sites in Iran, and everyday Iranians are telling Israel where to look. On a new website that works even during regime-imposed internet blackouts, citizens can geotag Iranian military facilities on a map—and sometimes watch them get blown up soon after. Today, Maya Sulkin and Tanya Lukyanova report on the crowdsourced site’s role in the war.
If you consider following politics a hobby, “you are probably trapped in an abusive parasocial relationship with politicians and political media,” writes Arthur Brooks. Today, Arthur explains how your addiction to politics takes you further away from the actual democratic process, why it’s harming your mental health, and how you can free yourself.
Credit card pioneer Howard Kessler persuaded the president to buck decades of Republican dogma on marijuana. But how did a billionaire with no marijuana-related business interests successfully flip the script on pot? And why did he do it? Today, Gabe Kaminsky sits down with the businessman and longtime Trump friend who claims that, until now, he has never been interviewed by a journalist.
“The question many Jewish Canadians are now asking is, how long before we experience our own Tree of Life or Bondi Beach attack?” writes Casey Babb. That’s not an overreaction. As homegrown threats spring up on Canadian soil and politicians equivocate instead of condemning Jew-hate, Canadian Jews are lighting menorahs in the back of the house, leaving kippahs at home, and skipping services at synagogues for fear of violence. “Virtually everywhere I turn,” Casey writes, “Jews in Canada are not only wondering whether this country can remain our home, but if it’s ever truly been ours to begin with.”
The buzzy new wellness innovation isn’t Chinese peptides or a new kind of Botox—it’s male genital enhancement. In the latest episode of The Free Press Interviews, Rafaela Siewert sat down with filmmaker Daniel Lombroso, who spent two years documenting the weird world of penis enlargement. They discuss his upcoming documentary, Manhood, as well as how the new technology works, what’s causing the explosion in demand, and what this all means for everyday men dealing with one of mankind’s oldest insecurities.
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THE NEWS
Several U.S. allies declined Trump’s request yesterday to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, prompting the president to complain about ingratitude. “We’ve protected them from horrible outside sources, and they weren’t that enthusiastic,” Trump said at a news conference. “And the level of enthusiasm matters to me.”
Cuba’s electric grid collapsed yesterday, leaving around 10 million without power. The island nation’s grid operator said on social media it is investigating the latest blackout, part of a series of outages, the latest of which triggered a rare violent protest in Havana over the weekend.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments next month in a pair of cases challenging Trump’s attempt to end temporary protected status (TPS) for refugees from Haiti and Syria. The eventual ruling will also affect the 11 other countries whose nationals stand to lose TPS, a program that grants temporary work authorization and shields recipients from deportation.
One in five college students in the United Kingdom would not want to live with a Jewish person, a new study has found. The same report also found that half of the students surveyed reported having seen Hamas or Hezbollah glorified on campus.
A federal judge in Massachusetts blocked Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s changes to the childhood vaccine schedule and his appointments to a federal vaccine advisory committee yesterday. “HHS looks forward to this judge’s decision being overturned just like his other attempts to keep the Trump administration from governing,” spokesman Andrew Nixon said.
The Kennedy Center’s board of directors voted Monday to suspend operations for two years after this summer’s July 4 celebration. The widely anticipated move follows a string of resignations and cancellations during Donald Trump’s second term, though the president has cited urgent renovations as the reason for the shutdown.
We are at war with Iran now. It’s eerily reminiscent of Iraq and WMDs – be very, very afraid. Was Iran an imminent threat? IDK.
But I do know that the timeline began in 1953, not 1979, yet most timelines, including Trump’s WH press release, begin in 1979 with the hostage takeover.
Why doesn’t anyone ask why Iranians hated us so much to chant, Death to America? “They are jealous of our freedom.” Yeah, right.
At least get the timeline correct: https://lizlasorte.substack.com/p/make-persia-great-again
If the Euros don't feel obliged to help in Iran is it unfair to ask them to use less oil or to pay more for oil in the future? How does this matter relate to or even strengthen putin ?