The Free Press
It’s Thursday, May 15. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large.
Today: Jed Rubenfeld on whether it’s legal for Trump to accept that jumbo jet from Qatar; Tyler Cowen on why it’s cruel to cap drug prices; and how a group of ordinary Americans dubbed “Team Reality” is looking to reshape public health. All that and more coming up.
But first: The resistance leader who left America.
Ever since Donald Trump first won the presidency in 2016, the esteemed Yale historian Timothy Snyder has been one of the most influential voices of the resistance. An expert on the rise of fascism, Snyder has been relentless in pointing out what he sees as parallels between Donald Trump and fascists throughout history.
“The case I’ve been trying to make is: This is more drastic than you think,” he told our Peter Savodnik. “It fits any serious, scholarly definition of fascism.”
Peter has been following Snyder’s work for a long time. He read The Reconstruction of Nations, about the emergence of national identity in Eastern Europe, and like pretty much everyone else, Peter read—and was bowled over by—Bloodlands, which was published in 2010, about the genocides that took place in Eastern Europe between 1933 and 1945.
So when Snyder and his family recently moved to Canada, where he joined the faculty of the University of Toronto—and with rumors ablaze that they were fleeing Trump’s America—we asked Peter to fly to Toronto and profile him. (Perhaps you caught this New York Times video of Snyder just yesterday.)
Is the Yale historian a prophet, as his supporters say? Or is he stripping the word fascism of its meaning? Read on. . .
—Bari Weiss
Meet “Team Reality”—a group of data nerds, dissident doctors, and everyday Americans who challenged the Covid consensus and were vilified and ostracized as a result. Years later, they’re still pushing for institutional reforms based on what they learned during the pandemic. But now they have allies at the highest levels of government. Carrie McKean takes an in-depth look at this unlikely group and how they could reshape public health.
At its current pace, the Trump administration is on track to deport a little over 518,000 illegal immigrants by the end of the year, far fewer than the president’s lofty goal of one million deportations—a shortfall that the legacy media has been quick to point out. Madeleine Rowley explains why a president who ran on a platform of mass deportations is hitting roadblocks.
Everyone wants cheaper drugs. But what if the real cost is the next cancer cure? Economist Tyler Cowen makes the case that capping drug prices may sound compassionate but could actually cost millions of lives. He delivers a blistering warning: Trump’s plan to slash pharma prices could kill innovation—and millions of future patients along with it.
Donald Trump signed a $1.2 trillion deal with Qatar in Doha on Wednesday. The agreement includes a record-breaking $96 billion order for Boeing and GE Aerospace to supply up to 210 aircraft to Qatar Airways.
U.S. officials are looking into whether some Chinese-made products that are essential to America’s renewable energy infrastructure could be used by Beijing to damage the power grid. Reuters reported Wednesday that an unknown number of batteries and power inverters had “undocumented communication devices, including cellular radios” embedded within them.
Erik and Lyle Menendez—convicted in 1989 of murdering their parents—will have a new shot at freedom after 35 years behind bars, a judge ruled Tuesday. The ruling from Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic reduced the brothers’ sentences from life in prison without parole to 50 years to life, making them immediately eligible for parole. Read Esther Haynes in The Free Press: “Should the Menendez Brothers Be Released?”
Trump sat down with Syrian president Ahmad al-Sharaa, the erstwhile leader of an Islamist militant group that took control of the country last year, in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday. According to the White House, Trump urged al-Sharaa to sign the Abraham Accords and normalize relations with Israel, expel terrorists, and help prevent an ISIS resurgence. Earlier this week, Trump announced he would lift sanctions on Syria and its new government “to give them a chance at greatness.”
Milwaukee County Judge Hannah C. Dugan was indicted Tuesday on charges of concealing an undocumented immigrant from arrest and obstructing federal proceedings. She has been temporarily removed from the bench and plans to fight the charges. The case has drawn sharp political reactions, with the Trump administration calling the prosecution a defense of the law and critics calling it an attack on judicial independence.
At a packed town hall this week, former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg acknowledged that President Biden’s decision to run for a second term “maybe” hurt Democrats, adding, “with the benefit of hindsight, I think most people would agree that that is the case.”
NASA scientists testing a new radar system over northern Greenland have rediscovered Camp Century, a secret U.S. military base buried beneath the ice during the Cold War. The outpost, which is now under 100 feet of ice, was designed to house up to 600 nuclear missiles and was partially built in 1959, but abandoned in 1967 after the U.S. decided the plan was unfeasible.
While filming Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning, 62-year-old Tom Cruise spent 22 harrowing minutes on the wing of a flying biplane. Director Christopher McQuarrie said Cruise was so exhausted by the wind and lack of oxygen that he could barely move, and with only six minutes of fuel left, it wasn’t clear to the filming team if he was conscious. He pulled himself back into the cockpit just in time. “No one on Earth can do that but Tom Cruise,” McQuarrie said to rapturous applause at the Cannes Film Festival.
WHO is Timothy Snyder, more importantly, WHO outside his ivory tower self anointed elites cares?
The vast majority are not "impressed" or interested in his ideological lecturing.
Snyder should have a sit-down with Jordan Peterson to discuss how wonderful Canada is. Peterson was blacklisted and boycotted for speaking his mind on some pretty tame issues. Hopefully, Snyder will be able to avoid the thought police here in Canada. The same Liberal ilk has won our most recent election.