The Free Press
It’s Tuesday, May 27. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Philosopher Agnes Callard talks love, life, and divorce on Honestly; Leighton Woodhouse on the baseball team giving Oakland hope; Dean Phillips on his party’s complicity in the Biden cover-up. And much more.
But first: Trump vs. Harvard.
Last Thursday, the Trump administration upped the ante in its fight with Harvard by barring the school from enrolling overseas students. That’s no small thing: international students account for 27 percent of Harvard’s total enrollment.
A day later, a judge blocked the move, giving thousands of foreign Harvard students temporary relief.
Whether or not the courts offer more permanent protection to Harvard and its overseas students, the administration’s move marks a major escalation in an ongoing battle that is taking on outsize symbolic significance. Trump vs. Harvard is fast becoming a defining showdown not just between Trump and higher education, but the president and the elite institutions to which he has defined himself in opposition.
At stake are important questions: How did institutions come to stray so far from the values they were founded on? How much, in a liberal democracy, should the federal government interfere to try to fix those institutions? And is the current president actually interested in repairing what is broken—or just attacking his perceived enemies?
In other words, we think this is a pretty important story—one that has ramifications far beyond Cambridge. Which is why today we’re bringing you three stories from three very different perspectives on Trump’s latest salvo against the oldest university in the nation.
—Oliver Wiseman
First up: Jed Rubenfeld, our go-to guy for all matters legal and constitutional, asks whether Trump can legally cut off Harvard’s ability to enroll international students.
Next: Free Press columnist Tyler Cowen says he agrees with Harvard’s critics, but doesn’t believe the Trump administration’s strategy will actually make things better. He proposes a better way to take on elite schools, like Harvard, that have lost their way.
And third, Solveig Lucia Gold writes that, whichever side you take, the fight between Trump and Harvard gets at an important and too-often neglected question: What—and who—are our top schools actually for?
She fell in love with her student, told her husband, and got a divorce in under three weeks. Then they all moved in together.
Oh, and they’re all philosophy professors at the University of Chicago.
Suffice it to say, Agnes Callard’s home setup isn’t exactly conventional. And she isn’t afraid to talk or write about it. Callard’s personal life is part of the thinking behind her new book, Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life, a bold argument for why we should dig deeper in our questions of how to live—and how to love.
Today on Honestly, Bari asks Agnes how and why she turned her life upside down for love; how she knew it was love at all; how she examines her own marriage; how we can all live like her hero Socrates, and how an examined life can benefit us all.
Russia carried out its largest-ever drone and missile strike on Ukraine yesterday, with more than 350 explosive drones and at least nine cruise missiles raining over Kyiv. The attack, which killed at least 12 people, followed a failed ceasefire deal brokered by the White House and approved by Ukraine—one that Putin rejected during a two-hour phone call with Trump last week.
The attacks—and Moscow’s intransigent approach to peace talks—have triggered exasperation from Trump. “I don’t know what the hell happened to Putin,” the president told reporters Sunday. Later in the day he said of the Russian leader on Truth Social: “He has gone absolutely CRAZY.”
A crypto investor was charged in a Manhattan courthouse on Saturday with kidnapping and torturing a man in a bid to access his Bitcoin wallet. Over the course of several weeks, the victim was held in a luxury eight-bedroom townhouse in Nolita, where he was beaten, electrocuted, and forced to take drugs.
Trump delayed his unexpected threat to impose 50 percent tariffs on the European Union, pushing the decision back by a month after announcing it Friday. In a statement on X, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU is “ready to advance talks swiftly and decisively,” but added that “to reach a good deal, we would need the time until July 9.”
America’s used car market is heating up, with supply levels at their lowest point since Covid. A mix of rising new-car costs, fewer lease returns, reduced imports, and Trump-era tariffs are fueling the supply squeeze—leaving dealers scrambling to meet auction demands and buyers facing fierce competition for quality secondhand vehicles.
White House special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff accused Hamas of attempting a bait-and-switch by altering key terms of a proposed ceasefire deal yesterday—including the number of living and dead hostages who would be released—before agreeing to it. In an interview with Axios, Witkoff called Hamas’s actions “completely unacceptable.”
A man drove a car into a crowd of soccer fans celebrating Liverpool Football Club’s victory yesterday, seriously injuring an adult and a child. Police detained a 53-year-old man at the scene and are investigating the attack, which British prime minister Keir Starmer called “appalling,” and the police said was not being treated as an act of terrorism.”
Israel plans to seize 75 percent of Gaza within two months while pushing civilians into the remaining quarter in a new strategy to defeat Hamas. At the same time, it is also launching a controversial U.S.-backed aid program that some humanitarian groups say is unsafe because it requires Palestinians to travel through a war zone to receive food and supplies.
Democratic researchers are considering new strategies to court male voters, including one that involves placing ads in video games and studying the language that resonates with young men online. A new $20 million initiative code-named “Speaking with American Men: A Strategic Plan”—or SAM, for short—aims to reverse Democratic losses among young men by moving away from moralizing messages and engaging them more effectively on social media.
A viral video appeared to show Brigitte Macron shoving French president Emmanuel Macron’s face as they arrived in Vietnam and greeted supporters. Macron later dismissed the incident as a playful moment between spouses, rejecting online speculation of marital tension and labeling the reaction part of a broader disinformation campaign. Watch it and see for yourself.
"Globalize the intifada" (Kill the Jews all over the world), "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free of Jews" Kill all the Jews in Israel and "We remember our Martyrs" (Killers) are brought here from the Middle East. Americans don't call for killing people in their protests. They say things like, "Make Love, Not war" or "Stop the War." Columbia and NYU are more than 50% foreign and some come from the most hateful parts of the world. And I think some were sent here by Hamas. And last year a mob ended up yelling to "Globalize the Intifada" and they meant it and I am terrified to walk my neighborhood. Please stop Columbia, the New School and NYU form enrolling foreign students for a few years until we get a hold of how to stop people who hate, jews, democracy, gay people and women from coming into our country and grooming our children to do and think horrible things.
Oh, please. Give me break....
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