It’s Thursday, May 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: Olivia Reingold profiles Zohran Mamdani’s wife, Rama Duwaji. Demographers Nicholas Eberstadt and Patrick Norrick on the global population crash. Haviv Rettig Gur examines how propaganda makes its way into New York Times columns. Jed Rubenfeld takes on overheated claims about “Jim Crow 2.0.” And much more.
But first: Trump and Xi meet in Beijing.
At 10 a.m. local time Thursday, Xi Jinping welcomed Donald Trump to the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. The meeting, which ran for more than two hours, kicked off what is set to be a hugely consequential summit between the two most powerful men in the world. On the agenda: Taiwan, trade, and more.
“We should be partners, not rivals, achieve success for one another, prosper together and forge a correct way for major countries of the new era to get along with each other,” said the Chinese president. But, the warm words were short lived as Xi also warned Trump that the U.S. would enter an “extremely dangerous place” if Chinese concerns over Taiwan were “handled poorly”.
We’ve been laying out the stakes of the talks in our pages all week.
For our columnist, historian Niall Ferguson, the most important topic up for discussion will be Taiwan—even if Trump may not have realized it going into the talks. Read his piece on why there is so much riding on the summit in Beijing today.
For more on Taiwan, Tanner Nau reached out to leading China experts for their predictions of what the meeting might mean for the island. Read their takes here:
We’ve also put the spotlight on two victims of Beijing’s religious and political persecution—whose families are holding out hope that Trump could help free them. Frannie Block told the extraordinary story of Pastor Ezra Jin, who was arrested last October for daring to preach his Christian faith without government supervision.
Another man behind bars for living by his principles is Jimmy Lai, the Hong Kong businessman and publisher of a pro-democracy newspaper sentenced to decades in prison for standing up to Beijing. His children, Sebastien and Claire, delivered a simple message in The Free Press: Mr. President, bring our father home.
On School of War, Aaron MacLean sits down with Sam Brownback—former Kansas senator and governor, and author of China’s War on Faith—to discuss a dimension of the U.S.-China rivalry that rarely gets the attention it deserves: Beijing’s systematic persecution of religious minorities, and whether freedom of religion should be treated as a central front in the competition between the two powers.
—The Editors
The First Lady of New York City
In early March, I—along with a handful of other journalists—discovered that Rama Duwaji, wife of New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani, had an extensive history of liking or reposting anti-Israel content online. There were posts that celebrated convicted Palestinian terrorists, engaged in Holocaust inversion and, as we covered in The Free Press, referred to sexual violence committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023, as a “mass rape hoax.”
The few times the mayor and his wife have addressed the mounting scandals, they’ve repeated variations of the same line: that she’s a “private person,” not a public figure like her husband. Is that a legitimate excuse? I called up dozens within Duwaji’s circle to find out—all while continuing to comb through her social media activity. Read my profile to find out what I pieced together about the unlikely politician’s wife who has become the undeniable “it girl” of New York City.
—Olivia Reingold
The standard forecast for the world population was always that the boom of the last century would taper off into a plateau. That forecast, Nicholas Eberstadt and Patrick Norrick argue, now looks dangerously optimistic. Birth rates are collapsing not just in Europe and East Asia but across Latin America, Southeast Asia, and beyond. Humanity may have already crossed into sub-replacement fertility. Read their full report on why “peak human” may be closer than almost anyone predicted.
And for more on America’s and China’s coming population crash—and what it means for the international world order—listen to Nicholas Eberstadt’s conversation with School of War host Aaron MacLean last week:
Nicholas Kristof’s latest New York Times op-ed catalogs horrific allegations of abuse in Israeli prisons—including claims so lurid, Haviv Rettig Gur argues, they practically invite dismissal. Rettig Gur traces how manufactured atrocity claims travel from Hamas propaganda operatives to activist social media accounts to the Times, and warns that Israelis cannot let the absurdity of the lies become an excuse to ignore the real abuses that do exist.
Democrats are calling Republican redistricting victories “Jim Crow 2.0” and directing particular fury at Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, with one Alabama lawmaker questioning “what kind of black he is.” But almost no one is looking at the actual law. No one, that is, except our legal columnist, Jed Rubenfeld. Read his column on the real reason why Virginia Democrats just had their redistricting plans overturned and why the “Jim Crow” card may be good politics but bad law.
MORE FROM THE FREE PRESS
THE NEWS
The Trump administration is launching a nationwide audit of state Medicaid fraud watchdogs, Vice President J.D. Vance announced yesterday. Vance delivered an ultimatum to all states to comply with anti-fraud laws or risk losing federal Medicaid dollars.
Federal judges have ruled against the Trump administration more than 10,000 times in immigration detention decisions, about 90 percent of all cases, Politico reported. The flood of cases comes from a July decision from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to treat all illegal immigrants, including those who have lived for years in the U.S. and have no criminal record, as eligible for detention.
The Republican-led South Carolina state Senate rejected a plan to initiate a redistricting process that likely would have eliminated the state’s lone Democratic district. Five Republicans voted with Democrats against the plan, including the Senate majority leader, who called it short-sighted.
Iran has retained about 70 percent of its prewar missile stockpile and restored access to 30 of 33 missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz, according to classified U.S. intelligence. U.S. missile stockpiles have been severely depleted since the start of the war.
Princeton University’s faculty voted on Monday to require proctoring of all in-person exams starting this summer. Since 1893, the school relied only on a revered honor code, but AI has made cheating easier and harder to spot, the dean of the college said.
Sloppy reporting
no source
unnamed “ classified documents “
dangerous and sloppy
Iran has retained about 70 percent of its prewar missile stockpile and restored access to 30 of 33 missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz, according to classified U.S. intelligence. U.S. missile stockpiles have been severely depleted since the start of the war.”
The Mamdanis took Manhatten. Will they ever give it back? Does the spouse have any opinions about women being required to cover their faces and bodies, given her lack of restraint in opining on other issues? Does she identify more with feminists in Tehran or violent coeds at Columbia? She will be on the cover of Vogue many mant times the next few years . Because of her politics more than anything else ( Melania who ? say the editors of Vogue). The First "lady" of Gotham would also be perfect for a cover of VANITY fair ( if the shoe fits).