It’s Thursday, January 2. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Coming up: Is RFK right about how to cure addiction? What will Trump do on Iran? Plus: four must-see minutes from comedian Whitney Cummings. But first . . . .
Early on New Year's Day, celebration turned to horror in New Orleans as a truck mowed down revelers on Bourbon Street, killing at least 15 people and injuring dozens more. Soon after, the attacker, 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a recent Muslim convert and U.S. citizen from Houston, Texas, was killed in a shoot-out with police, who found guns, an ISIS flag, and an unexploded IED in his car. President Biden said Jabbar was “inspired by” ISIS and had expressed “a desire to kill.”
Later the same day, a Tesla Cybertruck burst into flames outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, killing one person and injuring several others. Authorities are investigating both incidents as terrorist attacks.
The attacks seem to mirror terrorism incidents in Europe, where for years, jihadists have driven cars into crowds, often during public holidays. Could America now be facing the same threat?
Today in The Free Press, Maddy Kearns speaks to Michael Weiss, co-author of ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror, on how jihadist tactics are changing, and what frightens him most about the murders on Bourbon Street.
Read Maddy’s piece, “Has Europe’s Islamist Threat Come to America?”
RFK. Jr. Says Addicts Need Tough Love. Is He Right?
When I visited my family in rural East Texas this Christmas, I found myself asking the same question about various cousins, uncles, and other relatives: “He’s doing good?”
“Doing good,” is a euphemism for “sober”—ideally, sober and religious. Practically everyone in my family is either an addict or a Protestant fundamentalist. Occasionally, someone is both at the same time, which means he is “doing his best.”
A shrug or an “I wouldn’t know” in response to my question means they’re on a bender and nobody’s heard from them in a while. My biological father is “doing good,” I was told, as is my cousin who once went to prison for wrecking his truck while on PCP, and who was living in my grandfather’s lumber shed for some time.
All of this is to say that I’ve seen the addiction crisis up close. So has RFK Jr., a former heroin addict who has lost two family members to overdoses. But unlike me, the incoming HHS secretary has ideas on how to fix it. Kennedy thinks “tough love” and community—in the form of commune-style farms—are the solutions. Is he right?
Sally Satel, a psychiatrist who specializes in treating addiction, says he is both right and wrong. Writing for The Free Press, she applauds RFK Jr. for insisting that addicts have to get clean, rather than have the people around them indulge their addiction. But she worries that he will cut the availability of pharmaceuticals such as methadone that have proven useful in addicts’ recovery. “People who have recovered from addiction often have a fierce commitment to helping fellow addicts. But they can be too attached to the methods by which they themselves achieved sobriety,” she writes.
Read Sally’s piece, “RFK Jr. Says Drug Addicts Need Tough Love. Is He Right?”
What Will Trump Do About Iran?
Last week we covered the civil war in MAGA Land over H-1B visas, but immigration is far from the only issue dividing Trump’s GOP. Today in The Free Press, Jay Solomon reports on the incoming administration’s growing schism on foreign policy. Specifically, on Iran.
As 2025 begins, Iran and its Axis of Resistance is profoundly vulnerable. The incoming president has an unprecedented opportunity to further cripple both. But will he? As Jay writes: “There’s a mounting debate inside the Trump administration and Republican Party about how aggressively to pursue Tehran and deliver a killer blow.”
History rhymes: In Trump’s first administration, isolationists like Steve Bannon battled hawks like John Bolton. Now, a similar dynamic is playing out, as Trump surrounds himself with Iran hawks like his national security adviser pick Mike Waltz and Secretary of State-nominee Marco Rubio on one side, and more isolationist figures, like Vice President J.D. Vance and incoming intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard, on the other.
Who will win? And what will the Trump White House do? Jay speaks to experts including Senator James Risch, the incoming chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, former Trump national security advisor General H.R. McMaster, and others.
Read Jay Solomon’s piece, “What Will Trump Do About Iran?”
On Tuesday, the US military announced it had “conducted multiple precision strikes” against Houthi targets in Sanaa, Yemen. The strikes destroyed a coastal radar site, seven cruise missiles, and unmanned aerial drones belonging to the Iranian proxy group. The targets included a command and control center, advanced conventional weapons production, and storage facilities containing missiles and uncrewed aerial vehicles, which had been used by the Houthis to attack merchant vessels ostensibly linked to Israel, as well as U.S. warships, in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Meanwhile, Russia launched more than 100 drones into Kyiv, Ukraine, during an overnight strike that lasted into New Year’s Day. One person was killed and at least six others were injured. “In war, there are no holidays, and for Russia, nothing is sacred or inviolable,” said Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. At the same time, Russia was forced to end all gas exports to Europe after Ukraine refused to renew a 2019 EU deal allowing Russian gas to pass through Ukrainian pipelines.
In his annual end of year report on the American judiciary, Chief Justice Roberts highlighted the danger judges face from violence, intimidation, disinformation, and threats to defy lawfully entered judgments. Threats against judges have tripled in the last decade, with 1,000 serious ones in the past five years alone, according to the U.S. Marshals Service. In 2024, a California woman was indicted on charges of threatening to assault and murder a federal judge in Texas after the court suspended approval of the abortion drug mifepristone. Similar indictments, where individuals have been charged for threatening judges over contentious political issues, have occurred in such states as New York and Colorado. And an Alaska man was arrested after allegedly threatening to torture and assassinate six Supreme Court justices and their families. “Violence, intimidation, and defiance directed at judges because of their work undermine our Republic, and are wholly unacceptable,” wrote Roberts. “Judges cannot hide, nor should they.”
Throughout 2024, China beefed up its military presence near Taiwan, sending warships and planes near the country’s waters and airspace almost daily. Now, Beijing is signaling its plans to step up the pressure in 2025. In his New Year’s speech yesterday, Chinese president Xi Jinping said “no one can stop the historical trend of reunification” in regard to Taiwan. Meanwhile, in his own New Year’s address, Taiwanese president Lai Ching-te pledged to bolster the island’s military defenses. “Taiwan must be prepared for danger in times of peace,” he said.
On Monday night, a military appeals court ruled that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin could not rescind the sweetheart plea deals for the accused 9/11 masterminds. In July, prosecutors reached pretrial agreements with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his two codefendants, which would have removed the possibility of the death penalty in exchange for guilty pleas. But after backlash, Austin nullified the pleas, which a three-judge panel now says he did not have the authority to do. “We are 100 percent against the plea deal,” Sally Regenhard, whose son was killed on 9/11, told the New York Post. “The whole process has been a disaster.”
On Tuesday, around 1.30 p.m., a 45-year-old man was violently shoved in front of an oncoming train as he stood on a Manhattan subway platform. (Remarkably, he survived, and is in a critical but stable condition.) Hours after the crime, Kamel Hawkins, 23, was arrested and charged with attempted murder. Hawkins has an extensive rap sheet featuring charges of assault, harassment, and weapons possession. The incident comes just one week after a sleeping woman was burned to death in an arson attack on the New York subway. The arson suspect, Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, is a 33-year-old illegal immigrant now in custody. New Yorkers, meanwhile, are left wondering why these criminals are free to roam the streets—and the subway system—in the first place.
Good news! Not all New Jersey drones are nefarious. On Christmas Eve, a 20-month-old sheepadoodle, named Brooklyn, escaped from her dog sitter and got stuck on thin ice on the Garden State’s Lake Parsippany. That’s when a friendly neighbor came to the rescue . . . with his drone. Initially, the neighbor managed to lead Brooklyn to the shore’s edge by dangling chicken from the device, but the pooch got spooked by the sight of rescuers and ran back out. In the end, the neighbor was able to use his drone to lead a police officer to Brooklyn’s location. The cop was able to gauge the ice’s thickness using weights, and Brooklyn was successfully returned home in time for Christmas.
And finally, 2025 is off to a good start for YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson, aka “MrBeast,” after a rough 2024. Earlier this year, our own Suzy Weiss documented his many controversies and travails—from resurfaced bad jokes to allegations that he violated the Geneva convention. But yesterday, he announced his engagement to fellow content creator Thea Booysen, or as I’m sure we’ll soon know her, Mrs. Beast.
ICYMI!
On CNN last night, comedian Whitney Cummings slaughtered more sacred cows in 30 seconds than CNN has in years. First joke: “The Democrats couldn’t hold a primary because they were too busy holding a body upright.” Watch Whitney’s gloriously irreverent bit below (video via Colin Rugg/X):
The illegal immigrant who shoved the guy into an oncoming subway train in NYC should be either jailed for life or shipped back to the country from whence he came. My kids ride the trains and subways and I fear for their lives.
Soooo.....anyone got any update on the Cybertruck dude? :)
Seems like someone was pissed about those HB-1 visas?