It’s Thursday, July 30. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Eli Lake on Anthony Fauci’s trip to Capitol Hill. Will Rahn on why the kids can’t stop “Nixonmaxxing.” Jed Rubenfeld asks: Could Bibi sue Mamdani? And should he? All that and much more.
But first: Is a home for the canceled incentivizing hate?
Gabe Einhorn, a tech entrepreneur, took to X last month to share his dismay after an Ivy League student refused to interview with him, citing a single reason: The student was “not interested in working for a Jew.”
At the time, Einhorn blurred out the applicant’s name; but internet sleuths quickly discovered that he was a 19-year-old Cornell University student named Austin Franco, and circulated his bio across the platform.
In the old days, that might’ve spurred a cancellation campaign; instead, it’s made Franco a minor celebrity. This week he was interviewed on Piers Morgan’s talk show, where he doubled down on his bigotry in front of countless live viewers. Now, online fans have raised over $25,000 to fight his “unlawful doxxing”—and they did it through a platform called GiveSendGo, which has emerged as a more permissive crowdfunding alternative to GoFundMe.
GiveSendGo has helped the likes of Kyle Rittenhouse and Daniel Penny raise funds to clear their names after they were banned from other platforms. But it has also become a place for the likes of Franco to raise money off of their offensive views. In our lead feature today, Novi Zhukovsky talks to the founders of GiveSendGo and investigates whether this home for the cancelled is also incentivizing hate.
Last year, River Page reported on another GiveSendGo case: that of Shiloh Hendrix, the white woman who, after screaming racial slurs at an autistic 8-year-old on a playground, received over half a million dollars in donations. At the time, he marked it as a dark sign of a rising “woke right.” Last week, Hendrix was found guilty of disorderly conduct for the incident. But all that conviction has done, River writes in his latest piece, is turn Hendrix into a First Amendment martyr.
—The Editors
Anthony Fauci sat before a Senate committee Wednesday to face tough questions about his alleged mismanagement of the Covid pandemic. But while critics believe the reckoning was overdue, some on the left settled into a different narrative: This was a partisan witch hunt, in which Fauci could do no wrong. “It’s a nice story,” writes Eli Lake, “but the camera doesn’t lie.” Read Eli’s report on the real story of this testimony—and why so many of Fauci’s defenders still can’t shake their Covid-era illusions.
New York mayor Zohran Mamdani’s speech last week accusing Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu of being a war criminal lit the culture war ablaze. Today, Jed Rubenfeld argues that Mamdani’s comments could leave him vulnerable to a lawsuit, should Netanyahu choose to pursue it. The mayor’s accusations—genocide, maiming children—may have crossed a line from criticism into libel.
Today’s young conservatives have a new hero, and it’s not who you might think. Improbable though it may sound, disgraced 37th president Richard Nixon is the subject of memes and hype videos. If you’ve seen a video of Nixon with a Drake soundtrack online (yes, really) and you’ve wondered what is going on, Will Rahn is here to help. He argues that all this “Nixonmaxxing” is a proxy battle for the future of the right. Read his dive into the world of the 21st-century Nixon fanboys to find out why.
MORE FROM THE FREE PRESS
THE NEWS
The U.S. said it intercepted an Iranian missile barrage on Wednesday, as it collaborated with Saudi armed forces to strike local militias in Iraq. The renewed attacks came the same day as Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the White House for the first time since the war began in February.
Hadi Matar, the man who stabbed author Salman Rushdie more than a dozen times, was convicted of aiding a foreign terrorist group and carrying out the orders of the Iranian government on Wednesday. The ruling leaves Matar facing life in prison.
More than 1,000 employees at OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and Meta signed a statement asking the U.S. government to support international efforts to “deliberately pace” AI development. The call, including from some of the companies’ senior leadership, comes after an unreleased OpenAI model went rogue during testing last week.
President Donald Trump and the Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to toss an $83 million defamation verdict won by writer E. Jean Carroll, arguing Trump can’t be sued for comments he made while president. The move comes shortly after the Justices refused to hear the appeal of a separate $5 million verdict against the president last month.
Russia charged Telegram founder Pavel Durov with aiding terrorism, accusing him of failing to remove channels allegedly used to coordinate Ukrainian attacks in Russia. The popular messaging app responded on X with a photo of Durov flipping off the camera, adding a dose of drama to the controversy.
James Comey’s defense counsel alleged that federal officials misled judges, submitted false statements, and withheld key facts during their investigation into his “86 47” seashell post. The motions filed late Tuesday seek the dismissal of the case, which charges the former FBI director with threatening President Trump on social media.
President Trump unveiled a $22 billion renovation of the Washington Dulles airport Wednesday afternoon, alongside United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. The plan includes four new concourses at the capital’s international gateway, which handled a record 29 million passengers in 2025. (For more on the president’s renovations of D.C., read Suzy Weiss’s report.)
On Mamdani’s obsession with a foreign war that doesn’t involve NYC, nor the USA, (Israel vs. Palestinians); I consider a public official’s use of office to opine on matters beyond the jurisdiction boundaries to be unethical. I wonder if it is even legal? But, since Mayor Mamdani is so interested in discussing Israel; would he care to disclose the anti-Israel hate indoctrination activities of the city-gov DEI program? When I worked at SF-Gov in 2021; DEI directors taught us captive audience employees that Zionists are bad.
River's article on the Hendrix case:
"Before she was charged, there was no convincing moral justification for giving Hendrix money just because she was caught screaming the N-word in a public park."
He forgot that Hendrix had apparently been doxxed and her and her child had received death threats.