It’s Tuesday, April 14. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Peter Savodnik interviews Matt Mahan, “the normie candidate” for California governor. Arthur Brooks on what Harvard gets wrong about grade inflation. Should the government tame AI’s most powerful models? And much more.
But first: new fronts in the transgender wars.
Is a war over transgender identity still raging in America? If you ask President Donald Trump, he’ll say the dispute was settled when he was elected in 2024. By Election Day, polls showed that a majority of Americans believed “changing one’s gender is morally wrong,” while more than 60 percent opposed transition surgeries and hormone treatments for minors. Trump and Republicans pledged to roll back transgender norms and practices, and their victory seemed to reflect a broad mandate.
Yet the war has simply shifted to other fronts. Proponents of transgender identity gained influence within America’s medical and legal institutions long before the issue became a matter of public debate. Today, lawyers, judges, doctors, and lawmakers are struggling behind the scenes, either to roll back that progress, or to entrench trans identity in how the country operates despite widespread public skepticism.
For a close-up view of this quiet war, take a look at the American Medical Association. In February, it took the bold step of discouraging gender reassignment surgery for minors. But then came the revolt, with many of its members and several other groups suggesting that the change was a gross kowtow to Trump. Benjamin Ryan has the details on the fight among doctors over the basic rules for how we treat our children.
The Supreme Court entered the fray last month with a major ruling. The justices held that the practice of discouraging patients from embracing trans identity is protected by the First Amendment. James Kirchick believes this type of counseling helps undo a new kind of “conversion therapy,” in which therapists steer children with same-sex attraction toward adopting an entirely new gender. Read the piece for an explanation of how trans identity and same-sex attraction often end up at odds, despite their shared support from progressive activists.
—Mene Ukueberuwa
Congressman Eric Swalwell is out of the race for California governor, which means that dark horse Matt Mahan now has a chance. Mahan is the mayor of San Jose, now the safest large city in the U.S., and “the normie candidate,” according to one Democratic strategist. Peter Savodnik sat down with Mahan to hear why he thinks the other Democratic contenders are the “same old, same old,” why Silicon Valley billionaires seem to like him so much, why the California Dream is on life support, and what his plan is for bringing it back to life.
Two-thirds of Harvard students got As last year, and now the university is considering whether to cap high grades. Arthur Brooks argues that grade inflation is easy academic money and, like all inflation, punishes the people who actually do the work. One student told “The Harvard Crimson” that she spent the day “sobbing in bed” when she heard reform was coming. It will be painful, Brooks writes, but fighting inflation always is, and it’s always been worth it.
If you thought the AI genie was ever going back in the bottle, let Anthropic’s new AI model, Mythos, convince you otherwise. Its hacking capabilities are so alarming that the company has delayed its public release indefinitely—and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called an emergency meeting with bank executives to evaluate its risks to critical financial infrastructure. Mythos’s rollout has made urgent the question of whether AI research and development should be nationalized. Today, Josh Code sorts rational AI fear from fiction, probing the arguments of the technologists calling for us to let the free market reign supreme, as well as the advocates saying we need the government to lock AI in a box.
Today, on Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Gabrielle Markel shares a remarkable story: Many decades before she and her husband met, their grandfathers both survived a mass killing carried out by the Nazis in what is now Belarus. Years later, Gabrielle and her husband were set up on a blind date, and eventually found out that their fates had been intertwined before they even knew each other. Today, Gabrielle reflects on remembrance, tradition, and the strange twists of fate that make us who we are.
As Trump’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz threatens to tear NATO apart, the world is wondering: How strong is the American alliance with Europe? On the latest School of War, Aaron MacLean sits down with General Michael Claesson, supreme commander of the Swedish Armed Forces, to explore the future of the transatlantic partnership, the shifting military priorities of Europe, and whether Russia is weaker than it appears.
Vote Today: Two Free Press Podcasts Are up for Webby Awards
Conversations with Coleman and Spiral have been nominated for Webby awards—and the people will decide the winners. Coleman is neck-and-neck with Oprah’s podcast in the Talk Show category, while Spiral has a narrow lead in the Crime and Justice category. Voting closes this week—and you can vote for either or both of our shows below.
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THE NEWS
Pope Leo XIV told reporters yesterday he is “not afraid of the Trump administration” and will continue calling for peace, after Trump posted a lengthy message criticizing the pontiff over the weekend. For more on the escalating tensions between the Vatican and the White House, read Mattia Ferraresi’s piece “Why the Vatican and the White House Are on the Outs.”
A federal judge on Monday dismissed Trump’s defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal over its reporting of a sexually suggestive birthday letter bearing Trump’s name that was included in an album compiled for Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday. The judge ruled that Trump failed to plausibly allege the paper acted with “actual malice.” Trump can try to revive the suit.
A CBS News poll released Monday found that 51 percent of Americans say high gas prices have been a financial hardship. The average price per gallon reached $4.13 on Sunday and is likely to climb now that the Strait of Hormuz blockade is in effect.
Key NATO allies refused to join the Trump blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Among them was British prime minister Keir Starmer, who told the BBC on Monday that the UK would not support the blockade, “whatever the pressure.”
Draft registration is going automatic. The Selective Service System will automatically enroll all American men aged 18 to 25 in the draft pool by the end of 2026, per a new law signed by President Trump in December. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt declined to rule out a reinstatement of the draft, saying Trump “wisely keeps his options on the table.”
The FBI yesterday raided the home of 20-year-old Daniel Moreno-Gama, who is accused of traveling from the Houston area to San Francisco last Friday to throw a Molotov cocktail at OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s home. Moreno-Gama allegedly also planned to burn down the AI company’s headquarters and kill those inside.
Vibecoded a little survey tool at https://votto.app to measure sentiment on questions like this across different dimensions, traits, media community affiliations, etc. to see where things split in interesting ways. Dedicated page for The Free Press fam at https://votto.app/freepress
Not very interesting yet without meaningful data but if y'all enjoy seeing survey results sliced up by cross-tabs, would love to get some responses to test out the flow and see cool curves!
re; the draft - do illegal aliens and other immigrants taking advantage of the USA's largesse going to have to register as well?