Throughout the election, we heard one warning, repeated ad infinitum: A Donald Trump victory would precipitate a fascist dictatorship, and the United States would soon resemble Nazi Germany.  But Democrats didn’t take up arms to defend the ramparts of democracy. They didn’t repel Trump’s storm troopers who descended on Washington. Instead, something more. . . traditional happened. President Joe Biden welcomed Donald Trump to the White House, congratulated him, and promised a “smooth transition.” (A courtesy, we should note, that Trump did not extend to Biden in 2020.) But now that Democrats have lost power—both in the White House and Congress—what changes should they make to regain it?  Here to answer that question today are Freddie deBoer and Ruy Teixeira. Freddie is a writer, self-described Marxist, and longtime critic of “social justice” identity politics. Ruy is a political demographer, Democratic strategist, and co-author of the book, Where Have all the Democrats Gone?   We talk about how Democrats became the party of elites, whether Kamala Harris’s loss is the death knell of identity politics, why abortion wasn’t enough to save the Democrats, and whether the party will learn any significant lessons from this historic defeat.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Trump’s gains among working-class voters of all races—according to exit polls, he won the majority of Latino men at 55 percent—represent the ongoing realignment of the Republican Party. What was once Reagan’s party of free trade, low taxes, and limited government seems to be shifting toward a multiracial working-class party that celebrates economic protectionism and credibly courts unions.  But what will this shift mean for the future of the party. . . and American politics? Trump’s cabinet appointments so far don’t paint a clear picture. His nominee for secretary of state, Florida senator Marco Rubio, has some clear neoconservative instincts. But Trump also tapped as director of national intelligence former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who has thundered against the “neocon” influence on her new party.  So what is this new Republican Party? Is it still the party of Reagan? Is it still even a party of conservatism?  Here to discuss it all today are Sarah Isgur, Matthew Continetti, and Josh Hammer.  Sarah Isgur is a columnist for The Dispatch. She clerked for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and served as Justice Department spokeswoman during the first Trump administration. Matthew Continetti is a columnist at Commentary, founding editor of The Free Beacon, and author of a new book: The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism. And Josh Hammer is senior editor at large at Newsweek and host of The Josh Hammer Show.  Today, they join Michael Moynihan to discuss Trump’s appointments, the significance of J.D. Vance, the roots of MAGA and where the movement fits into the history of the Republican Party, and the uncertain future of the American right.  And if you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Header 6: The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Tuesday night, president-elect Donald Trump announced that the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, along with entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy will head a new initiative in the Trump administration: the Department of Government Efficiency, or “DOGE.” Aside from the very strange fact that internet meme culture has now landed in the White House—Dogecoin is a memecoin—more importantly, what the announcement solidifies is the triumph of the counter-elite. A bunch of oddball outsiders ran against an insular band of out-of-touch elites supported by every celebrity in Hollywood—and they won. And they are about to reshape not just the government but also the culture in ways we can’t imagine. And there was one person I wanted to discuss it with. He is the vanguard of those antiestablishment counter-elites: Peter Thiel. People describe the billionaire venture capitalist in very colorful terms. He’s been called the most successful tech investor in the world. A political kingmaker. The bogeyman of the left. The center of gravity in Silicon Valley. There’s the “Thielverse,” “Thielbucks,” and “Thielists.” To say he has an obsessive cult following would be an understatement. If you listened to my last conversation with Thiel a year and a half ago on Honestly, you’ll remember that Peter was the first guy in Silicon Valley to publicly embrace Trump in 2016. That year, he gave a memorable speech at the RNC, and many in his orbit thought it was simply a step too far. He lost business at Y Combinator, the start-up incubator where he was a partner. Many prominent tech leaders criticized him publicly, like VC and Twitter investor Chris Sacca, who called Thiel’s endorsement of Trump “one of the most dangerous things” he had ever seen.  Well, a lot has changed since then. For one, Thiel has taken a step back from politics—at least publicly. He didn’t donate to Trump’s 2024 campaign. There was no big RNC speech this year. But the bigger change is a cultural one. He’s no longer the pariah of Silicon Valley for supporting Trump. On the surface, Thiel is someone who seems full of contradictions. He is a libertarian who has found common cause with nationalists and populists. He likes investing in companies that have the ability to become monopolies, and yet Trump’s White House wants to break up Big Tech. He is a gay American immigrant, but he hates identity politics and the culture wars. He pays people to drop out of college, but, in this conversation at least, still seems to venerate the way that the Ivy Leagues are an indicator of intelligence. But perhaps that’s the secret to his success: He’s beholden to no tribe but himself, no ideology but his own. And why wouldn’t you be when you make so many winning bets? From co-founding the e-payment behemoth PayPal and the data analytics firm Palantir (which was used to find Osama bin Laden) to being the first outside investor in Facebook, Thiel’s investments—in companies like LinkedIn, Palantir, and SpaceX, to name a few—have paid off big time. His most recent bet—helping his mentee J.D. Vance get elected as senator and then on the Trump ticket as vice president—seems also to have paid off. The next four years will determine just how high Thiel’s profit margin will be. Today: Thiel explains why so many of his peers have finally come around to Trump; why he thinks Kamala—and liberalism more broadly—lost the election; and why the Trump 2.0 team will be better than last time, with antiestablishment figures who are willing to rethink the system. We talk about the border, trade deals, student debt, Israel and foreign policy, the rise of historical revisionism, the blurry line between skepticism and conspiracy, and his contrarian ideas about what we might face in a dreaded World War III. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Even your most optimistic Mar-a-Lago member didn’t see Donald Trump winning the popular vote and taking all seven swing states. He even came within five points of taking the Democratic stronghold of New Jersey! So, what on earth does the Democratic Party do next?  They can stay the course and resist. It’s what they did the last time Trump won. In the aftermath of Trump’s 2016 victory, America was stunned. Every time he opened his mouth, Trump exploded political norms, and the Democratic Party responded in kind. Being a mere opposition party—at least at that moment for the Democrats—was not strong enough for this situation they believed. Instead they needed to become a resistance. And while Democrats won in 2020, the resistance ultimately did not work. Democrats spent a decade telling Americans that Trump was an existential threat, yet Americans didn’t care. The Democrats’ goal was to scrub Trump from future history. Instead, he now controls it.  Democrats need to look inward if they want to have a shot at winning in 2028. They need to act like an opposition, not a resistance.  Today, Ei Lake explains why this will require a different approach, but one for which there is already a template. He tells the story of how a few centrist renegades saved the Democrats from oblivion 40 years ago. In 1984, after Ronald Reagan’s 525–13 Electoral College landslide over Walter Mondale, the Democrats were not just in disarray—they were on life support. And yet, eight years later, they found their savior: a young governor from Arkansas named Bill Clinton. And they remade their party. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Go to groundnews.com/Honestly to get 50% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and unlock world-wide perspectives on today’s biggest news stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Donald Trump has been elected president of the United States. . . again. It was a historic political comeback for a candidate rejected by the people just four years ago. But this time, Trump took almost every coveted state: Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. And he leads in Nevada and Arizona. The entire blue wall. . . turned red. And unlike 2016, this was not just an Electoral College victory. Surprising pollsters and betting markets alike, Trump also won the popular vote. To top it off, Republicans took control of the Senate, gaining four seats, and maybe more by the time this episode airs. Simply put, it was a red landslide.  It is extremely rare in our history for a president to come back after losing a reelection bid so badly. In fact, Trump's rebound is bigger than Nixon's—bigger than Napoleon's in 1815.  And yet it happened on Tuesday night with the most flawed candidate American politics has ever seen. How did he do it? If you were only watching cable news over the last few years, you would be shocked by the outcome. But if you had been reading The FP, you probably were not surprised. Yes, Kamala had the support of Beyoncé, Oprah, Taylor Swift, and almost every A-lister with a pulse. She outraised Trump by around $600 million. She was endorsed by industry leaders in science and economics. But it’s been clear for some time now that the Democrats do not have the buy-in or trust of the American people. FP senior editor Peter Savodnik said it best: “They didn’t lose because they didn’t spend enough money. They didn’t lose because they failed to trot out enough celebrity influencers. They lost because they were consumed by their own self-flattery, their own sense of self-importance.” Still, in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, CNN and MSNBC tried to explain away Trump's appeal, and the profound failure of the left, with accusations that the American people are the ones to blame. But those explanations are not right.  As exit polls came in, Trump showed strength with black and Latino voters. CNN exit polls showed he won about 13 percent of black voters (up from 8 percent in 2020) and 45 percent of Latino voters (up from 32 percent last election). It shows a massive pickup. He won among voters who make less than $100,000. And compared to 2020, Trump improved in cities, in rural areas, in suburbs. . . . as CNN's John Berman put it: “It’s kind of an everywhere improvement.”   Here today to make sense of it all is FP contributor and Newsweek opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon, pundit and political powerhouse Brianna Wu, and FP Senior Editor Peter Savodnik.  We reflect on why Democrats lost so dramatically and decisively; how Trump’s comeback happened, despite an impeachment, being found guilty of sexual assault, and 116 indictments; how Trump found success with black and Latino voters; what the next four years might look like with Trump returning to the White House; and if this will be a wake-up call for Democrats.  If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our newsroom reflects our readers: We aren’t voting in unison. Today, Bari Weiss explains how The Free Press is handling Election Day inside the office.  Read Bari’s full essay. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bullshit is an American tradition. Think the theatrics of P.T. Barnum, miracle products sold ad nauseam on television in the 1980s and, of course, politicians. Who can forget President Bill Clinton saying “It depends upon what the meaning of the word is is” during his grand jury testimony in the Monica Lewinsky scandal? And then there’s Donald Trump. He presents as a man with no fact-checking filter, someone happily buying his own convenient bullshit. That’s not quite the same thing as lying.  That isn’t to say Trump doesn’t lie. He’s a politician, after all. But he exists outside the binary of truth and lies. It’s the netherworld of flimflam, hyperbole, sales pitches, and ad copy delivered with all the quiet dignity of a wet T-shirt contest. Donald Trump is a very modern artist, weaving a barrage of anecdotes, fake and real statistics, gossip, and memes into a nebulous and suggestive species of patter.  Democrats have tried to paint Trump as an American Hitler, a Russian agent, a man consumed with evil and hatred. But what they fail to understand is that Trump’s casual relationship to the truth is an echo of past politicians. He is hardly the first bullshitter to ascend to the White House; he’s just the best ever to do it. He paints a picture of a reality he would like us to see, not as it really is.  In this respect, Trump is the crack cocaine variant of many of his predecessors. Ronald Reagan was a folksy, sentimental bullshitter, a president as a Hallmark greeting card. Bill Clinton was a slick bullshitter, perfect for spinning stories at the dawn of the cable news era. Today, Eli Lake explores the soft spot that Americans have for bullshitters like Trump, and their disdain for liars like Richard Nixon. He argues that if you want to understand why Trump may be on the verge of winning the White House again, you have to reckon with our country’s relationship to the pungent brown stuff. It pervades everything from our economy to our culture. Bullshit is dangerous when it comes to science. But in politics, bullshit is sadly essential.  If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Need a break from political programming? Well, today we have a special treat: It’s The Free Press’s scary movie Halloween special! It’s that time of year: changing leaves, pumpkin spice lattes, animal costumes with sex appeal and, of course, gory, bloody, nightmare-inducing horror movies. We all remember the first horror movie that we were allowed to watch—or maybe that we weren’t allowed to watch, but saw anyway: Silence of the Lambs, Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, The Blair Witch Project, Jaws, Carrie, Halloween, or The Shining. For today’s host Suzy Weiss, it was 20 minutes of the movie It—the TV miniseries from 1990, not the 2017 remake. Suzy remembers seeing Pennywise the Clown on the screen and thinking, This will take me years to get over. She still sometimes checks the drain! Year after year, horror movies are consistently profitable—more so than dramas—but they are snubbed when it comes to award shows and critical acclaim. But here at The Free Press, we value and love horror, so much that we’ve gathered our scariest FP writers—Suzy Weiss, River Page, and Kat Rosenfield—to analyze four new horror movies. River, Kat, and Suzy will review MaXXXine, set in grimy and glamorous 1980s Hollywood, about a night killer who targets a porn star who herself is targeting big-screen stardom. Apartment 7A, a prequel to Rosemary’s Baby, about a woman taken in by an unassuming family. Longlegs, a serial killer story about an FBI agent trying to crack the case. And The Substance, about a woman who takes the latest anti-aging elixir, but at a harrowing cost. They talk about what they loved, what they hated, and how they think each movie relates to our current social ills. We’ll also note this episode has spoilers, so let this be a warning! Happy Halloween, folks! If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are no perfect candidates. But what do you do when both candidates are not just imperfect but deeply flawed, and seen by many as unqualified for the job? We are just one week away from a presidential election that will decide if the next four years are helmed by Vice President Kamala Harris or former president Donald Trump. I know many people who are still undecided. Some of them work at The Free Press. These undecided voters have just one presidential debate to reference, and as my friends at Open to Debate said in a Wall Street Journal op-ed: “I can confidently state that we haven’t yet seen a real presidential debate this year. Debates have devolved into political theater, with combative candidates, biased media, agenda-driven moderators, and a fixation on social-media sound bites. This structure fails to deliver the substance voters need.” So today, we are here without the pageantry, makeup, or muted mics, to host not Trump vs. Kamala—though the invitation is still open—but instead two very smart people who represent each side of the choice that we are going to make a week from today.  Sam Harris is a neuroscientist, philosopher, best-selling author, and host of the podcast Making Sense. Today, he will explain why he is voting for Kamala Harris. Sam has spoken passionately and consistently on this issue since Trump came onto the scene; Sam calls him “the most dangerous cult leader on Earth” and highlights Trump’s character flaws. Trump was found liable for sexual abuse; he mocked a disabled reporter; he said John McCain wasn’t a hero; he called veterans “suckers and losers”; if we kept going with examples, we’d be here all day. Sam’s biggest issue is January 6 and Trump’s refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power. Sam writes, “The spectacle of a sitting president refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, culminating in an attack on the Capitol, remains the most shocking violation of political norms to occur in my lifetime.”  On the other side, Ben Shapiro—lawyer, co-founder of The Daily Wire, best-selling author, and host of The Ben Shapiro Show—will explain why he is voting for Donald Trump. Ben argues that we were a better country under Trump and that his policies make us safer and more prosperous. There were no hot wars, no inflation crisis, and less traffic at the southern border with Trump as president. He makes the case that Trump will not be abandoned by the experts who advised him during his first administration, and he will delegate responsibilities to capable and trustworthy policymakers. He also argues that Kamala is an “incompetent and unqualified vice president” and that “radicalism defines her.”  I suspect if you’re listening to this show, you know these two names and have listened to their shows before. It is not an exaggeration to say that Ben and Sam are two of the smartest, most influential, and most insightful voices on the American political scene. That’s one of the reasons we’re so thrilled to host this conversation today. The other is because it’s exactly the kind of conversation we need more of in this country, especially at this moment. I challenge you to think of one debate you heard during this election that was passionate and provocative, but also civil and respectful, between a Trump supporter and a Harris supporter. I can’t think of one. That’s why we put this together. And we really think you’re going to appreciate what you hear. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that we’re standing at the precipice of what could be a third world war. At the very least, the thing that we refer to as the “Free World” is burning at its outer edges. Just a few weeks ago, Iran launched its largest-ever ballistic missile attack against Israel, while its proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, continue to wage war against Israel, making use of the steady flow of weaponry and funding from Iran—which is ever closer to having nuclear weapons. The war in Ukraine continues to rage, with both sides engaged in intense fighting across multiple fronts. After over a year and a half of relentless Russian bombardment, Ukraine is barely holding the line as the grinding war of attrition drags on. According to The Wall Street Journal, more than one million people on both sides of the border have been killed or injured. And then there’s China, which has lately been attacking Philippine and Vietnamese vessels in the South China Sea, terrorizing international waters with impunity as the world watches anxiously. Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran have solidified a new axis of autocracy, united in its goal to unravel the Pax Americana and undermine American dominance. The question on our minds tonight is: What should America do about it? Many Americans are saying they don’t want the United States to continue leading the world order. A 2023 Chicago Council on Global Affairs survey revealed that 42 percent of Americans think that the U.S. should stay out of world affairs, which is the highest number recorded since 1974. It is easy to talk about foreign policy as an abstract idea because war, for us, is thousands of miles away. But foreign policy is a matter of life and death. Not just for people around the world, but for the more than two million Americans that serve in our armed forces. It’s conventional wisdom that American voters don’t prioritize foreign policy. But this year, given the state of the world, that might be different. Which is why we hosted a debate, live in NYC, on this very topic.  Arguing that, yes, the U.S. should still police the world is Bret Stephens. Stephens is an opinion columnist for The New York Times and editor in chief of Sapir. As a foreign affairs columnist of The Wall Street Journal, he was awarded the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for commentary. And he is the author of America in Retreat: The New Isolationism and the Coming Global Disorder. Bret was joined by James Kirchick, contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, writer at large for Air Mail, and contributing writer for Tablet. He is the author of The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues, and the Coming Dark Age. He is also a senior fellow at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Arguing that no, the U.S. should not still police the world is none other than Matt Taibbi. Taibbi is a journalist, the founder of Racket News, and the author of 10 books, including four New York Times bestsellers. Matt was joined by Lee Fang. Lee is an independent investigative journalist, primarily writing on Substack at LeeFang.com. From 2015 to 2023, he was a reporter for The Intercept. Be it resolved: The U.S. should still police the world. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Gad Saad was born in Beirut in 1964 into one of the last Jewish families to remain in Lebanon. But the country that was once called “the Paris of the Middle East” began to turn. Saad remembers one day at school when a fellow student told his class that he wanted to be a “Jew-killer” when he grew up. The rest of the kids laughed. By 1975, Lebanon descended into a brutal civil war and Saad said death awaited him at every millisecond of the day. Even through the danger and turmoil, his family thought, This will pass over. We will be fine. Until someone showed up to their home in Lebanon to kill them, at which point his family fled the country and rebuilt their life in Canada. In 2024, many of us in Western democracies find ourselves saying the exact same things: This will pass over. We will be fine. Even as Hamas flags and “I love Hezbollah” posters wave in cosmopolitan capitals across the West. How worried should we be? And, is there a way to roll back admiration for anti-civilizational groups? Those are just some of the questions we were eager to put to Saad in today’s conversation. Saad said that witnessing the Lebanese Civil War gave him a crash course in the extremes of identity politics, tribalism, and illiberalism. He argues that immigrants like himself, who have lived without the virtues of the West—freedom of speech and thought, reason, and true liberalism—uniquely understand what’s at stake right now in Western cultural and political life. It’s no coincidence, Saad said, that the most prominent defenders of Western ideals are immigrants, people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Salman Rushdie, and Masih Alinejad. Saad is a professor of marketing and evolutionary behavioral sciences, and if you’re on X, we suspect you know his name. Unlike most professors, he has a million followers, and a knack for satire—so much so that Elon Musk seems to be one of his biggest fans.  Outside of his X personality, he’s been teaching at Concordia University in Montreal for the past 30 years. But he’s now having second thoughts. Concordia is today widely regarded as the most antisemitic university in North America. Saad is now a visiting professor and global ambassador at Northwood University in Michigan. He said he can’t bear the possibility of returning to Concordia given the antisemitism on campus. All of this, he argued, constitutes another war: a campaign against logic, science, common sense, and reality here in the West, which he explains in his book: The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense.  Today, Bari Weiss asks one of the most insightful and provocative thinkers about the risks of mob rule and extremism on the left, where these “parasitic ideas” came from and why they’re encouraged in the West, if progressive illiberalism is waxing or waning, and if these trends are reversible. And if you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the last year, we’ve witnessed a disturbing trend among some on the fringe left, who cheer those they think are resisting Western imperialism. Even when those anti-imperialists are. . . designated terrorist groups. This misguided support was on full display on the anniversary of October 7, when protesters marched through London chanting, “I love Hezbollah”, and in New York, where they flew flags for the Iran-backed militia group flags and carried “New York for Hezbollah” signs.  It was a remarkable sight, but unsurprising when you consider the distorted lens through which these extremists look at the war in the Middle East. To them, Hezbollah, the group responsible for killing 241 Americans in a 1983 terror attack and for murdering 85 innocents in Argentina in 1994, is simply a resistance group defending Lebanon from Israeli aggression.  But is that how the Lebanese see Hezbollah? An armed Shia group as the defender of Lebanon, a country of many different religious and cultural communities? Defender of Beirut, a city that one Lebanese journalist recently called “a tolerant and diverse cosmopolitan center”?  On today’s show, Michael Moynihan sits down with three people with intimate knowledge of what Hezbollah really is: a totalitarian force in Lebanon, an occupying force in Syria, the perpetrators of narco-terrorism and sex slavery, and the foot soldiers of Iran’s imperial project in the Middle East.  Joseph Braude is an expert on Arab culture and politics, and the founder of The Center for Peace Communications, which partnered with The Free Press to produce the animated series Hezbollah’s Hostages. Hezbollah’s Hostages, which you can watch on The Free Press’s YouTube channel, interviews the victims of the terrorist group in Lebanon and Syria, who have spoken out at great personal risk. Episodes have covered the story of a Lebanese fighter’s indoctrination from childhood, the account of a Syrian woman abducted and forced into sex slavery, and the enlightening narrative of a Syrian who became a drug smuggler for the organization. Please check the series out, if you haven’t already.  Makram Rabah is a history lecturer at the American University of Beirut and, through his frequent appearances on pan-Arab television, a fierce and courageous critic of Hezbollah. Makram lives in Lebanon, where his life is routinely threatened. Finally, Hanin Ghaddar is a Lebanese journalist and author of the book Hezbollahland: Mapping Dahiya and Lebanon's Shia Community. She is a leading expert on the group’s history and its role within Lebanese society. We discuss the history of Hezbollah, its function as an Iranian proxy, its unpopularity in Lebanon and in the broader region, the group’s criminal activities, like drug and sex trafficking, and the path forward for Lebanon now that Israel has significantly weakened Hezbollah’s military capabilities.  And if you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It would have been unthinkable for Brianna Wu to have appeared on Honestly a decade ago (if the show had existed back then). But Brianna isn’t most people. I actually can’t think of anyone else quite like her. She’s a trans woman who advocates passionately for trans healthcare, but thinks many trans activists have alienated women and feminists. She’s a progressive who once called Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “one of the best politicians in America,” but is today a staunch supporter of Israel. She was cyber-attacked by an alt-right mob during Gamergate, but now thinks the political left acts just like that mob. Brianna says her politics haven’t actually changed. Instead, it’s the Democratic Party that has morphed. And she says they’ve become unelectable. But Brianna is not sitting idly by while it runs itself into the ground. She wants Democrats to get back to common sense, kitchen table issues, which is why she’s launched a political action committee and is fundraising big time in the 2024 election cycle.  At The Free Press we cover a lot of people whose politics have shifted over the past few years. But very few have experienced that evolution in public in the way that Brianna has. On today’s episode, Brianna tells us how Gamergate changed her life, the story of her political evolution, why she is a staunch supporter of Israel, and a critic of niche left causes, and what Democrats risk if they continue to alienate voters.  *** We are calling on all Free Press readers, listeners, commenters, and lurkers: We want to learn more about you and what you’re craving from The Free Press. Click here to complete a quick survey to help us make our work better. Plus: Everyone who completes the survey will be entered in a raffle to win Free Press swag. And if you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A few weeks ago, we had Sarah Longwell and David French, two prominent conservatives, on Honestly to explain why they’re supporting Vice President Kamala Harris this presidential election.  There are a lot of people like them—conservatives who are so staunchly never Trump that they are supporting the Democratic candidate. What’s less common—or, at least, less talked about—are the Democrats who are voting for Donald Trump. Maybe there are fewer Democrats crossing the aisle to vote for Trump in 2024, but I’d guess that there are more who are just not willing to speak up because of the stigma.  Today, we are talking with three people, all of whom have spent their lives identifying as liberal or progressive and are voting for Trump this year—and are loud and proud about it. Shaun Maguire is a partner at the VC fund Sequoia Capital and has previously started five companies himself. In 2016, he said he was terrified of Trump winning and actively supported Hillary Clinton. But this year, Shaun gave Trump $300,000, saying he believes that “the Biden administration has had some of the worst foreign policy in decades.”  Maud Maron is a lifelong progressive. She’s dedicated her career to those causes. She was a Planned Parenthood escort and worked for Kathleen Cleaver, the former Black Panther and professor, who called Maud her “excellent research assistant.” She worked for many years as a public defender at The Legal Aid Society until she was canceled by the organization for “wrong think.” Maud ran for NYC’s City Council in 2021 and then for Congress in 2022 as a moderate Democrat. She says she’s no longer a Democrat and will vote Republican for the first time in a presidential election because of, among other things, the Democratic Party’s fixation on race over merit. Shabbos Kestenbaum is a recent graduate of Harvard, who’s currently suing his alma mater for its failure to combat antisemitism. He says he disagrees with former president Trump on most issues, but on the most important ones, he’s in lockstep with him. Shabbos supported Bernie Sanders and Jamaal Bowman in the past, but has moved right because he has seen firsthand how the excesses on the left have impacted college campuses—and particularly Jewish students—for the worst.  There are a lot of people who are deeply dissatisfied with the options in this year’s presidential race, and are planning to write in someone on that line of their ballot. Shaun, Maud, and Shabbos are not doing that. They’ve gone the full 180 and are supporting the candidate they once hated. Why? On today’s episode, how these three former Democrats got so disaffected with their party, how they grapple with the antisemitism on the right, how they contend with Trump’s questionable character, how they square Trump and J.D. Vance’s comments on Ukraine with their hawkish foreign policy views, and much, much more. Quick note: We are calling on all Free Press readers, listeners, commenters, and lurkers: we want to learn more about you and what you’re craving from The Free Press. Click here to complete a quick survey to help us make our work (even) better. Plus: everyone who completes the survey will be entered in a raffle to win Free Press swag. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We all know the horrid tale of what happened in Israel on October 7, 2023. Waves of gunmen attacked families in their homes and young people attending a music festival. The marauders filmed their murders on GoPro cameras. They burned families alive in their safe rooms; raped, and mutilated their victims; and took hostages back to Gaza on golf carts. Why did they do it? For many critics of Israel, the horrific violence of October 7 was the predictable response to the “occupation”—never mind that Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005. To them, October 7 was a jailbreak from what progressives often call “an open-air prison.”  But for the belligerents, in their own words, this war is for the defense of a mosque on top of a mountain. They called their massacre “Al-Aqsa Flood,” named for one of the two mosques that sit atop what is known to the Jews as the Temple Mount. This is where King Solomon’s temple once stood, and at its base is the Western Wall, where Jews have prayed since its construction in the second century BCE. It’s also known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, a noble sanctuary. It’s where Muslims believe the prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven in a dream. An October 10 Hamas communiqué justified their attack as resistance to thwart “schemes and dreams of Judaizing Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa.” This reveals something very important about the Israel-Palestine conflict: That it is not a territorial dispute. It’s a holy war, with roots in an ancient city with significance far beyond its 2.5 miles of limestone walls. The world knows it as Jerusalem. The Palestinians call it Al-Quds. Hamas claims there is a plot by Israel to destroy Al-Aqsa—the mosque atop the Temple Mount that sits in the center of Jerusalem—and build a third Jewish temple where it now stands. It’s a lie. A lie that goes back a century. The man who first began to spread the libel was from one of Jerusalem’s great families that traced its lineage back to the prophet Muhammad himself. He was a seminary-school dropout, a fanatic antisemite, and a Nazi collaborator. His name was Hajj Amin al-Husseini. Today, Eli Lake tells the story of al-Husseini, the origins of the 100-year holy war, and why it persists to this day.  If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’ve released a few episodes on Honestly for the anniversary of October 7. Today, we’re bringing you one more conversation with someone who has been breaking news on the ground every single day of this war: journalist Trey Yingst. On the morning of October 7, Trey was in Israel’s south, reporting on the massacre as it unfolded. He saw bodies dragged into vehicles, mothers trying to save their children, and the bloodshed—unlike anything he had ever seen—in the communities and kibbutzim. He reported these stories live on Fox—in many instances while rockets rained down on him and his crew, who often didn’t have time to take shelter. He remembers those early hours and days as “a true horror movie.”  That was just the beginning of his reporting on the unfolding war, which has taken him into Gaza and more recently on an embed with Israeli troops into southern Lebanon. He tells these stories in his new book Black Saturday, which chronicles his reporting over the last year and the very real human stories of this war, both from the perspective of Israelis and Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Trey is the chief foreign correspondent for Fox News. He has reported from the front lines in Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and since 2018, he’s been based in Israel. He says he tries to talk to everyone involved in the conflict, and he’s gone a long way toward doing so. He’s interviewed the leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and he’s sat down on the Israeli side with everyone from Benjamin Netanyahu to Yoav Gallant. If you’re someone listening who holds stereotypes about what a Fox correspondent might sound like, Trey will surprise you. Trey has unconventional and strongly held views about the future of the region, about whether Hamas can ever be defeated, and about what should happen next in the war. Most of all, he has an unwavering commitment to a kind of old-school journalism that tells stories of human beings in times of war, whatever side of the border they fall on.  If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We expected Hamas to kill Jews. We didn’t expect Americans to celebrate it.  Today on Honestly, Bari Weiss’s reflections on the anniversary of October 7. Plus, one of our most memorable episodes of the last year. A quick note: Since the earliest hours of October 7, 2023, we have published more than 150 reports, features, essays, podcasts, and videos, many from on the ground in Israel, the Palestinian territories, and more recently, Lebanon and Syria. In The Free Press, you’ll find all of those presented in one place as a resource, a historical record, and a reminder of the kind of journalism you are supporting when you support The Free Press. If you like what you hear on Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Emily Oster was a kid in the 1980s in New Haven, Connecticut, she grew up on a block with a lot of other children. Every day after dinner, around 6:30, everyone emptied out of their houses and went down to the church parking lot where they engaged in all kinds of unsupervised activities—throwing balls at each other in front of the church wall, climbing up trees and sometimes falling out of them, riding Hot Wheels until people skinned their knees. There was street hockey and there were scrapes. There were a few broken arms.  That experience of playing outside unsupervised in the dark—or walking a mile home from school in kindergarten—is very different from her own children’s experiences, even though they’re growing up in a very similar environment, with very similar parents. They aren’t leaving the house every day after dinner. If Emily had suggested that they walk home from school in kindergarten, even though it’s only a couple of blocks, there’s no chance that would have been met with the school’s acceptance. Since 1955, there has been a continuous decline in children’s opportunities to engage in free play, away from adult intervention and control. In 1969, 47 percent of kids walked or biked to school, whereas in 2009 that number had plummeted to 12 percent. How did we get here? What are the consequences of hypervigilant parenting? On kids’ happiness? On their well-being? Their mental health? And on their ability to grow into independent, self-sufficient, and successful adults? And, maybe most importantly, how can we alter this trajectory before it’s too late? Today, we’re thrilled to introduce our new podcast series: Raising Parents with Emily Oster If you like what you hear on Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When we planned the conversation you’re going to hear today—a live conversation with Douglas Murray—we thought it would be a searching conversation that we’d release on the anniversary of October 7th, looking back at a year of war from a slightly quieter moment. You’ll hear some of that today. But the moment is anything but quiet. As we prepared yesterday afternoon for this conversation, the war that Iran has outsourced to its proxies for the last year finally became a war being waged by Iran itself, as it launched over 100 ballistic missiles towards Israel. Israel’s 9 million citizens huddled into bomb shelters, while missiles rained down on their homes, with a handful making direct impact. As of this recording, two people were injured, and one person was killed—that person was a Palestinian man in Jericho. Just before that onslaught, at least two terrorists opened fire at a train station in Jaffa, Israel, killing at least six people and injuring at least seven others. For many people, this war has been all we can think about since October 7th. But I fear that for many Americans, it still feels like a faraway war. But it isn’t. This is also a battle for the free world. As my friend Sam Harris put it in the weeks after October 7th: “There are not many bright lines that divide good and evil in our world, but this is one of them.” It is a war between Israel and Iran, but it is also a war between civilization and barbarism. This was true a year ago, and it’s even more true today. Yet this testing moment has been met with alarming moral confusion. To choose just a few examples from the last week: at the UN, 12 countries—including the U.S.—presented a plan for a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon without mentioning the word Hezbollah. Rashida Tlaib tweeted “our country is funding this bloodbath” minutes after Israel assassinated the leader of the most fearsome terrorist army on the planet, Hassan Nasrallah, who The New York Times described as “beloved,” a “towering figure,” and a “powerful orator.” It read like a letter of recommendation. At Barnard, students chanted for an intifada moments after the Jewish community memorialized six civilian hostages murdered by Hamas. At Yale, students chanted, “From Gaza to Beirut, all our martyrs we salute.” In Ottawa, protestors shouted, “Oh Zionists, where are you?” and targeted a Jewish residential street filled with schools and senior living homes, simply because the street is filled with Jewish homes and institutions. During the UN General Assembly, U.S. taxpayer dollars provided personal security for Iranian leaders, so that they could walk the streets of New York and speak before the UN—the same Iranian leaders who are plotting to kill senior American leaders. No one understands the moral urgency of this moment better than my friend and guest today, Douglas Murray. Douglas Murray isn’t Jewish. He has no Israeli family members. And yet it is Douglas Murray who understands the stakes of this war and the moral clarity that it requires. Douglas’s work as a reporter has taken him to Iraq, North Korea, northern Nigeria, Ukraine, and most recently, to Israel. Douglas remained in Israel for months as he reported back with clarity, truth, and conviction. Douglas is the best-selling author of seven books, and is a regular contributor at the New York Post, the National Review, and here at The Free Press, where he writes our beloved Sunday column: “Things Worth Remembering.” There is no one better to talk to in this moment, as we watch in real time as the Middle East—and the world as we know it—transforms before our eyes. If you like what you hear on Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Go to SapirJournal.org/Honestly to learn more and begin your free subscription today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Megyn Kelly cut her teeth in the mainstream media and became one of the most influential voices in the political debate. From her meteoric rise at Fox News to her stint at NBC, Megyn Kelly has been a central figure in American journalism for over a decade.  You might recall her contentious exchange with then-candidate Donald Trump during a Republican presidential debate in 2015. Kelly asked him about the names he’d called women—such as “fat pigs” and “dogs.” Trump’s response, in part: “I’ve been very nice to you, although I could probably maybe not be, based on the way you have treated me. But I wouldn’t do that.” He later went on CNN and accused Kelly of having “blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her—wherever.” Kelly has since abjured the mainstream—she now hosts a podcast on SiriusXM and YouTube that has fast become one of the most popular political shows in the country. Her success captures the broader media shift away from brands like Fox and NBC to more personal, one-on-one relationships between commentator and consumer. (For example, she’s let her audience know she plans to vote for Trump, despite their past quarreling.) People are hungry for unbiased, unfiltered information. And in the last few years, there has been an explosion of independent media: outlets like ours here at The Free Press, podcasts like this one, Substack newsletters, Twitter feeds, YouTube shows—all promising an alternative to the mainstream.  But is independent media always trustworthy? Does it need some of the guardrails and editorial processes that were once common at legacy outlets? Because if one peers into this independent—and often right-wing—media landscape, one cannot help but notice the frequent descents into conjecture and conspiracy theory, from commentators like Tucker Carlson, Tim Pool, and Bret Weinstein.  While Megyn is normally the one doing the grilling, today it’s her turn in the hot seat. Michael Moynihan and Kelly discuss the role of conspiracy theory in our current discourse, where she stands politically these days, how the legacy press is handling the presidential election, how she says she avoided “Trump Derangement Syndrome” even as some of Trump’s most die-hard supporters showered her with threats, and her guiding principles as a journalist. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last week, a man armed with an assault rifle was apprehended on a southern Florida golf course. He was planning to murder Donald Trump on the links. It was the second near miss in two months. It seems likely that the shooter, Ryan Routh, was acting alone. But he is not alone in the hatred he has for Trump. He shares that with millions of Americans. In many people’s eyes, the 45th president of the United States is an existential threat to our republic. And ever since Trump won the Republican nomination for president in 2016, his opponents have treated him as such.  They were shocked because Trump broke many of the rules of modern politics. From the minor to the unprecedentedly major. This dynamic between Trump and his haters has changed the chemistry of American politics. In 2016, Trump shocked the country when he led rallies where his adoring fans chanted, “Lock her up.” Eight years later, crowds chant “Lock him up” at Kamala Harris’s rallies. In this respect, Routh is part of a larger problem that is tearing our country apart. When the other side vying for power is considered so beyond the pale, the norms of political decorum and fairness are worth breaking to stop an opponent that threatens our very system. You hear it from both parties. Trump is an “extinction-level event.” If Kamala wins, our country will become “Venezuela on steroids.”  One escalation begets the next, until the old customs and rules of our politics have changed forever. We take it for granted today that we settle our elections with voting and not shooting. But republics don’t last forever. And when they fall, violence almost always follows.  What leads a republic to choose the gun over the ballot? Because it doesn’t happen all at once, at least if history is any guide. In ancient Rome, the rule-breaking of one man—and the response of his enemies—created a crisis from which the Roman republic never really recovered. His name was Tiberius Gracchus. And while they were different in many ways, he was the Donald Trump of his day.  Tiberius, like Trump, was an elite who turned on the elites, a class traitor who channeled the resentments and anger of the common man against a system rigged against him. Both men disregarded the unwritten political rules of their era. And, in turn, those norm violations prompted their enemies to disregard the rules themselves. In Rome, this cycle led to bloodshed and eventually the death of the republic itself.  In America, we remain a republic, for now, but the cycle of escalations between Trump and his opponents strains our foundations like no political crisis since the civil war. Today, Eli Lake explains what the beginning of the end of the Roman republic tells us about the fate of our own republic. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you’re a listener of this show, then you’ve probably heard of the horseshoe theory. It’s basically this idea that when you go far enough to the left and far enough to the right, the voices start to sound pretty similar. This is certainly the case when you listen to sound bites of both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump talk about trade and tariffs.  But during this time—what my colleague Peter Savodnik has called our great political scramble—some voices don’t seem to fit in anywhere, voices like that of Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. Senator Paul is a bit of an anomaly on the American right. He’s traditionally libertarian, pro free trade, pro market, and anti subsidy. He’s a deficit hawk and criticizes both Trump and Biden on spending, and he is one of just seven senators who still refuses to endorse Trump. He says it’s over the $1.9 trillion deficit. Senator Paul says to lower the deficit we’d need to cut military spending, cut Medicaid, cut Medicare, and cut Social Security. But neither Republicans nor Democrats will go near those sacred cows these days.  All of these attributes make him an endangered species in a party that is less fiscally conservative, more protectionist, and increasingly anti immigration—all positions that are antithetical to Rand Paul’s libertarian worldview. At the same time, Senator Paul is having somewhat of a renaissance when it comes to his foreign policy outlook. The new right and the MAGA movement are the opposite of the Reagan-era neocons skeptical of our ambitions abroad, and firmly against the “forever wars.” All stances Senator Paul agrees with.  Today, we talk to Senator Paul to find out how he fits into the new right, when Republicans stopped caring about balancing the budget, why he wants to cut military spending, and cut aid to Israel. We ask if the U.S. can remain the world’s hegemon, while spending less, and if that’s even still a worthy goal, and finally, how Donald Trump and J.D. Vance totally lost the plot. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Tuesday, hundreds of encrypted pagers in Lebanon and Syria began exploding at the same time. Lebanon’s health minister said Tuesday that at least nine people were killed and 2,800 were injured. The tiny country’s hospitals were overwhelmed with patients suffering from burn wounds, blown-up hands, and groin injuries. The pagers belonged to members of the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah.  Then, just 24 hours later, a second wave of thousands more explosions again went off simultaneously in Lebanon: This time not only pagers, but also walkie-talkies all belonging to Hezbollah terrorists.  It was the stuff of spy movies—an incredibly sophisticated and precise operation unlike anything we’ve seen before. And while Israel has not officially taken responsibility, this kind of imaginative sabotage has Mossad written all over it. Hezbollah has vowed retaliation against Israel.  This comes after almost a year of Hezbollah firing rockets into northern Israel. Since October 7, the constant barrage of attacks has forced some 100,000 Israelis to flee their homes on Israel’s northern border. Nearly a year later, they still cannot return.  All of this, of course, is part of a much larger, more dangerous game being played across the region—Israel’s shadow war with Iran, its most formidable adversary. For years, Israel and Iran have avoided direct conflict, preferring to fight through Iran’s regional surrogates—Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen. All of them fueled by Iranian money, weapons, and ideology. Will Israel’s alleged tactical brilliance this week—jokingly dubbed as Operation Below the Belt on social media—deter Hezbollah from continuing to launch the missiles and rockets into Israel that make it impossible for Israeli citizens to return home? Or is military intervention—a ground invasion—inevitable? As Eli Lake wrote in The Free Press today, “Israel cannot defeat its enemies by waging war only in the shadows.”  Today, I sat down with journalist and Pulitzer Prize finalist Dexter Filkins to talk about all of it. Dexter has been covering wars in the Middle East for decades for The New York Times and The New Yorker, and has been called “the premier combat journalist of his generation.”  In our conversation, we discussed the state of the war, political divisions within Lebanon, Iran’s nuclear program, the viability of a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians, and the difficulties for the United States of disengaging from Middle East conflicts.  If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The American dream is the most important of our national myths. It’s the idea that, with hard work and determination, anyone in this country can achieve middle-class security, own a home, start a family, and provide the children they raise with a better life than they had. Is that still true? On the one hand, our economy is the envy of the world. We are the richest country, leading the pack when it comes to innovation. And more people choose to move here for economic opportunity than to any other nation. And yet, everywhere you look in this country, there is a growing sense of pessimism. A sense that you can work hard, play by the rules, even go to college, and still end up saddled with debt and unable to afford the basics, like a home. Americans were told that higher education would be their ticket to the good life. Now, there’s more than $1.7 trillion dollars in student loan debt hanging over a generation. Americans were told that free trade would make everyone prosper. But try telling that to the 4.5 million people who lost their manufacturing jobs in the last 30 years. Perhaps all of this is why a July Wall Street Journal poll found that only 9 percent of Americans say they believe that financial security is a realistic goal. And only 8 percent believe that a comfortable retirement is possible for them. Now, do those numbers reflect reality? Or just negative vibes? Last week, we convened four expert debaters in Washington, D.C., to hash out the question: Is the American dream alive and well? Arguing that yes, the American dream is alive and well, is economist Tyler Cowen. Tyler is a professor of economics at George Mason University and faculty director of the Mercatus Center. He also writes the essential blog Marginal Revolution. Joining Tyler is Katherine Mangu-Ward, editor in chief of the libertarian Reason magazine and co-host of The Reason Roundtable podcast. Arguing that no, the American dream is not flourishing, is David Leonhardt, senior writer at The New York Times and the author of Ours Was the Shining Future: The Story of the American Dream. David has won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. Joining David is Bhaskar Sunkara, the president of The Nation magazine and the founding editor of Jacobin. He is the author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality. Before the debate, 71 percent of our audience said that yes, the American Dream is alive and well, and 29 percent voted no. At the end of the night, we polled them again—and you’ll see for yourself which side won. This debate was made possible by the generosity of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. If you care about free speech, FIRE is an organization that should be on your radar. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last night was the much-anticipated presidential debate between incumbent vice president Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump. There was no live audience, but the bashing and accusations, one against the other, were all the same.  Trump called Kamala a Marxist. Kamala called Trump a liar. Kamala said Trump is for America’s wealthiest. Trump said Kamala is for killing babies at term. Trump said Kamala “wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens in prison.” And Kamala said Trump is simply a disgrace. Of course, they went head-to-head on the normal issues: the economy, tariffs, abortion, China, fracking, policing in America, January 6, foreign policy, and—eating cats!? Not so normal.  If you didn’t watch the debate, if you’re not on social media, or if you didn’t receive memes from your family group chat, let me explain. First, Kamala baited Trump on a question about his campaign rallies. It got under his skin. He fell for it. Which then led him into a long rant about immigrants, which brings us back to the cat thing. Because in his words, immigrants are crossing the border, settling in Ohio, and stealing—and eating—our pets. The moderator fact-checked him: “We have talked to the city manager of Springfield, and there are no credible reports of pets being taken and eaten.” To which Trump responded: “But I saw it on television!” All Kamala needed to do was stand there and smile. As the debate went on, Trump reaffirmed that he thinks he won the 2020 election; He doubled down on the idea that doctors are executing babies after they’re born; and he referred to the January 6 rioters as “we.” He also quoted Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán. And again, all Kamala needed to do was stand there and keep smiling.  So what does it all mean? What impact will it have? Will independent voters, or swing-state voters, change their mind based on Kamala and Trump’s performance? Did Kamala clarify her policy positions and provide the substance that voters want to hear from her other than “joy” and “vibes”? Did the muted mics limit Trump’s abrasive demeanor? And most importantly, who won the debate? The answer seems pretty clear. To discuss all this and more is Free Press contributor and opinion editor at Newsweek, Batya Ungar-Sargon; contributing writer at The Week, Newsweek, and Slate, David Faris; and Free Press writer and editor Peter Savodnik. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tucker Carlson is perhaps the country’s most influential conservative commentator; his eponymous podcast is routinely among the most downloaded shows on the internet. Despite his endless fulminations against the mainstream media, Carlson has an impeccable mainstream media pedigree. He’s hit for the cycle on cable news, having hosted shows on Fox, MSNBC, and CNN. After he was fired from Fox News in 2023, under circumstances that are still hotly disputed, Carlson quickly reconstituted his career on his own—free of corporate shackles, with no institutional guardrails, and with a professed willingness to explore topics that his former mainstream media colleagues wouldn’t touch. Last week on his show, he did just that, airing an interview with a man most people in the mainstream won’t touch: a podcaster named Darryl Cooper, who Carlson called “the most important historian in the United States.” In reality, Cooper is an amateur historian with no publishing record—no books, no academic articles. He produces a popular history podcast called Martyr Made, in which he does deep dives into subjects like the Israel-Palestine conflict, the cult of Reverend Jim Jones, and the trials of Jeffrey Epstein. He has previously described his personal politics as those of a “non-racist fascist.” On Carlson’s show, Cooper demonstrated some of those fascist tendencies when he identified Winston Churchill—not Adolf Hitler—as the “chief villain” of World War II. He wasn’t a hero at all, Cooper argued, but a “psychopath” who forced Nazi Germany into a war that it didn’t want. And what of the Holocaust? Cooper doesn’t speak of Jewish victims, but vaguely of “prisoners of war" who the Nazis “just threw. . . into camps, and millions of people ended up dead.”  In September 1941, a mere week after Nazi troops occupied the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, that city’s Jews were ordered to congregate for “resettlement.” Under threat of severe punishment, they obliged. . . and were loaded into trucks to be transported a short distance to Babi Yar, a ravine just north of the city. In a two-day orgy of violence, 33,000 Jews ended up dead. Innocents, not prisoners of war; children forced to lie on top of those pushed into the pit before them, then executed with a bullet in the back of the head. This is how they ended up dead. Tucker Carlson, who has the ear of millions of conservatives, including Donald Trump, and who secured a prime time speaking spot at the Republican National Convention, said nothing in response to Cooper’s revisionism. No pushback. Not an arched eyebrow. Just unalloyed praise for an extremist autodidact, America’s “best” historian. Cooper defended himself on Twitter by assuring his critics that Hitler was indeed desperate to make peace and was also willing to “work with the other powers to reach an acceptable solution to the Jewish problem.” Jewish problem was not in quotes. When another user pointed this out, Cooper responded: “Was there not a problem involving the Jews in Europe at the time?” Hitler apologia and antisemitism packaged as brave historical inquiry is not new. We’ve heard versions of these arguments from extremists on the left and right for decades. But why is there a sudden resurgence of these odious ideas on the American right?  Today, we talk to Victor Davis Hanson to help us answer this question. Hanson is a classicist and historian, the author of two dozen books, including the critically acclaimed The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won. And for years, Hanson was a weekly guest on Tucker Carlson’s television show. We discuss his relationship with Carlson, the accuracy and derivation of Darryl Cooper’s claims about the Second World War, and why so-called “anti-elitism” often drifts into antisemitism. If you want to learn more, read Bari Weiss on the rise of anti-history here. If you liked what you heard, the best way to support us is to go to thefp.com and become a subscriber. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last year, at colleges across America, students etched themselves into history, or infamy, with the most dramatic campus protests in a generation. In preparation for the fall semester, some major universities—from NYU to UCLA—have implemented new rules and decided to enforce old ones to protect Jewish students from activists who had declared sections of campus no-go zones for Zionists. Universities that turn a blind eye to the Tentifada phenomenon now risk violating federal statute.  Nonetheless, the chaos appears to be returning. At Temple University, protesters marched in solidarity with Palestinian “resistance against their colonizers.” Last week, a man attacked a group of Jewish students with a glass bottle on the University of Pittsburgh campus outside the school’s “Cathedral of Learning.” Meanwhile at the University of Michigan, four agitators were arrested during a “die-in.” So clearly the danger is not yet over entirely for campuses, even though some of the steam may be leaving the movement. The Democratic National Convention, for example, was supposed to be the exclamation mark of rage, but the protests barely registered as a tussle.  But history teaches us that it takes only a few student true believers to make quite a mess once they decide that boycotts and sit-ins aren’t making a difference.  To understand this moment and the risk these student protesters pose, Free Press columnist Eli Lake looks at America’s history with Ivy League domestic terrorists. More than 50 years ago, campus unrest also spilled into the streets and moved off the grid as a small and lethal group of radicals called the Weather Underground took the plunge from protest to resistance. But the Weather Underground railed against the establishment. Today’s campus protesters are supported by it. Call them. . . the Weather Overground. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to thefp.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A few weeks ago, at the much-anticipated Democratic National Convention, we witnessed the coronation of Kamala Harris. It was a star-studded event. We got the Obamas, the Clintons, Mindy Kaling, Kerry Washington, Kenan Thompson—and Oprah! Basically every Democratic A-lister you could think of came out in high fashion. (Kamala came out in a Chloé pantsuit.) And then there were the Republicans: Mesa, Arizona mayor John Giles, former Trump White House staffer Olivia Troye, former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, former Georgia lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan, and former U.S. representative from Illinois Adam Kinzinger. The purpose of their speeches was not only to warn Americans about the dangers of Trump—a message we’ve heard over and over again since 2016—but to give other conservatives permission to do the same. To not just oppose Trump, but to vote for the Democrat. Two of those conservatives are here with us today: David French and Sarah Longwell. David is an evangelical, pro-life conservative. He’s a former attorney who has worked on high-profile religious liberty cases. He was a staff writer at National Review, a senior editor at The Dispatch, and now he’s an opinion columnist for The New York Times. Sarah is a political strategist and founder of Republicans Against Trump (now called the Republican Accountability Project). She’s also the founder and publisher of the Never Trump opinion website, The Bulwark. The policy positions Sarah and David hold are not in lockstep with Kamala’s, not even close. So I ask them: Why is Kamala worthy of their vote? What do they think about the chasm between their political positions and Kamala’s? And do they support Kamala because she’s not Trump, or do they actually see something in her? If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to thefp.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the past few weeks, there’s been an increasing number of threats to freedom of speech around the world. In France, authorities arrested Telegram CEO Pavel Durov for failing to adequately moderate content and prevent criminal activity on his platform.  In the UK, since the outbreak of anti-immigration riots, police have arrested individuals merely for posting comments online. The Labour-led government has suggested expanding measures to remove “legal but harmful” content.  In Brazil, President Lula’s administration has proposed new regulations requiring social media companies to monitor and remove “harmful content,” and a Brazilian Supreme Court justice just banned X altogether in the country. The ruling came after the platform missed a deadline to name a new legal representative there. From Hungary to Pakistan, the right to speak your mind, particularly on the internet, is more precarious than ever.  Even in the United States, with our free speech rights enshrined in the Constitution, polls suggest an entire generation has grown up thinking it should be illegal to say something inaccurate or hateful. Democratic VP nominee Tim Walz said as much: “There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy.” So how did we get here? And, where is this all going?  Today, Michael sits down with the intrepid journalist Matt Taibbi, who knows this issue inside out. When The Free Press launched, he reported the Twitter Files with Bari Weiss, and together they exposed how government agencies had pressured Twitter to censor undesirable information, including skepticism of Covid lockdowns and opposition to Covid-related public school closures.  In this conversation, Matt and Michael talk about what’s happening in Europe, Brazil, and here in the U.S. They discuss the factors that precipitated the so-called “misinformation wars,” from 9/11 to Brexit and Trump’s election, that convinced elites of the need to enforce restrictions on speech. And they talk about why these efforts are doomed to backfire.  If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to thefp.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

John Mackey, co-founder of Whole Foods Market, is one of the most consequential American entrepreneurs of our time. Whole Foods began in 1980 as a small hippie health food store in Austin, Texas. Under Mackey’s leadership, it grew into the largest organic foods supermarket chain in the United States, selling to Amazon in 2017 for nearly $14 billion. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the company revolutionized the food industry, mainstreaming health-consciousness for a mass market.  Despite the company’s crunchy progressive brand, Mackey is a staunch capitalist and a steadfast defender of free markets. He popularized the term “conscious capitalism,” which marries capitalism and social responsibility, and and emphasizesinges the role of businesses in creating a sustainable and ethical impact on society at large.  Today, a conversation about what it takes to build a company like Whole Foods, what it is like to have enormous wealth, the role of unions in the American economy, and why he kicked his own father off the board of the company. And to read Mackey’s full story, check out his new book, The Whole Story.  If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to thefp.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s that time of year again–reliably bumming out students and parents alike… it ’s back to school! But back to school is also a time to reflect on the state of education in this country… and it’s not all that great.  America is one of the richest countries in the world. But you wouldn’t know it if you looked at our education statistics. We’re 16th in science globally. In Math, we scored below the average and well below the scores of the top five countries, all of which were in Asia. And in 2018, we ranked an astonishing 125th in literacy among all countries according to the World Atlas.  As we tumble down the international tables, public schools around the country are getting rid of gifted and talented programs. They’re getting rid of standardized testing. All while trying to regain ground from COVID-related learning loss… So how did we get here? Why have public schools deprioritized literacy and numeracy? What role have teachers’ unions played in advocating for public education in this country and also in holding kids back by protecting bad teachers? How is socioeconomic segregation hurting academic performance? And what kinds of books should really be taught in public schools?  Today, we're diving deep into these questions and more with three experts who bring diverse perspectives to this debate: Richard Kahlenberg is Director of the American Identity Project and Director of Housing at the Progressive Policy Institute. His many books and essays have focused on addressing economic disparities in education. Maud Maron is co-founder of PLACE NYC, which advocates for improving the academic rigor and standards of K-12 public school curricula. She’s also the mother of four kids in New York City public schools. Erika Sanzi is a former educator and school dean in Rhode Island. She is Director of Outreach at Parents Defending Education, which aims to fight ideological indoctrination in the classroom.  We discuss the misallocation of resources in education, the promise and perils of school choice, and how we can fix our broken education system.  And if you like this conversation, good news! All week this week at The Free Press—as summer ends and kids return to class—we’re pausing our usual news coverage to talk about education. We’ve invited six writers to answer the question: What didn’t school teach you?  With elite colleges peddling courses on “Queering Video Games,” “Decolonial Black Feminist Magic,” and “What Is a Settler Text?,” there’s never been a better time to go back to the proverbial school of life. To get those essays in your inbox every morning from today until Saturday, go to thefp.com and become a subscriber today.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the 1972 presidential election, Democratic candidate George McGovern was soundly defeated by Richard Nixon. It was a bloodbath. He lost 49 states, a result widely attributed to his positions being “too liberal” for the American mainstream. Four decades later, in a more liberal America, McGovern released a book called What It Means to Be a Democrat, outlining core values that define the Democratic Party. Because, he argued, in his day, during the “1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. . . it was obvious that a spirit of wide embrace was missing both inside and outside the convention hall.” The party had “splintered” into warring factions. This, McGovern argued, could never be allowed to happen again. Here we are again, 50-plus years later, back in Chicago, back at the Democratic National Convention. There’s the version that’s inside. And there’s the one that’s outside, with left-wing demonstrators in the streets demanding the party forcefully oppose Israel’s war in Gaza, beseeching Democrats to somehow precipitate an end to capitalism and support various other identity-related progressive causes. They marched and shouted, faces swaddled in N95 masks or tightly wrapped with keffiyehs, beneath a sea of Palestinian flags, punctuated by the occasional hammer and sickle. There was only one American flag to be found—a prop to be doused in lighter fluid and set alight.  Inside the convention hall, we passed countless people in red, white, and blue dresses and jackets and hats, while volunteers handed out signs that simply read “USA.” And while all those stuffed into Chicago’s United Center seemed energized by the Kamala coronation, we found divergent views on what it means to be a Democrat. At the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last month, there were no divergent views. No Never-Trumpers. No holdout Nikki Haley supporters. No contingent of free-traders, tax-cutters, or libertarians. The MAGA faction had fully purged the dissenters. A recent CBS News/YouGov poll found that while 86 percent of registered voters said they knew what Donald Trump stood for, that number fell to 64 percent when the same question was asked about Kamala Harris. Some of this can be attributed to her many policy flip-flops, some to her decision to avoid almost all interaction with media. . . and some to the Democrats’ emphasis on vibes over policy.  So we came to Chicago to ask the question: What does it mean, in 2024, to be a Democrat?  If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to thefp.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Header 6: The Free Press earns a commission from all qualifying purchases made through book links in this article, including as an Amazon Associate.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Most humans are cautious by nature. We naturally like to do what’s comfortable and safe. But comfortable and safe don’t usually lead to. . . well, success. In fact, the most successful people in the world share something in common: They love risk.  That’s true of the best poker players, hedge fund managers, venture capitalists, and crypto traders. All of these people consider statistics; they embrace uncertainty; and they make bold predictions that ultimately pay off for themselves—and sometimes for humanity.  How do they do it? Our guest today, Nate Silver, has a theory on what drives successful people, how they think, and how they achieve enormous success—or, at times, catastrophic failure. He just wrote an entire book about it. On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything analyzes these types of people and the principles that guide their risky decision-making—which, he argues, is key to understanding what drives technology and the global economy. Nate, one of the most sophisticated thinkers on risk and uncertainty, is a statistician, sports analyst, professional poker player, and the founder of FiveThirtyEight, a website that revolutionized political reporting with its data-driven election predictions.  Today, Nate discusses why it’s important to take more risks, and how he sees the current election playing out.  If you hear statistics and data and probability and analytics and roll your eyes, we get it. But this is a conversation that goes beyond all that. Nate explains what frustrates him about his critics, why he is happy to no longer be affiliated with FiveThirtyEight, and how his biggest passion—poker—helped him become one of the world’s most famous prognosticators. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to thefp.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Header 6: The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A few months ago, we learned about a young man whose name we’re withholding, which is something we very rarely do, because he insists it’s for his safety.  This young Palestinian man is from a small village in the West Bank, and he grew up there with limited access to water and without a regular supply of electricity. Most of the kids he grew up with dropped out of school and went into manual labor. But this young man chose a different path. He won a scholarship to study abroad for college. He earned three degrees in three different countries. And then he landed a tech job with an Israeli company, of all places. (For context, among the 360,000 workers in the Israeli tech sector, there are only a few dozen Palestinians from the West Bank.) His story is one of setbacks, hardships, and discrimination, but also of hard work, perseverance, unlikely friendships, and in the end—against all odds—success.  But then his life was ruined. . . by a social media post. On October 7, he woke up in his home in the West Bank to the news of the massacre happening inside Israel. While some people in his community celebrated, he was horrified. He posted how he felt online: “What sad and horrible news to wake up to and out of words and unable to digest what’s going on right now. I’m Palestinian and firmly stand against this terror. I pray for the safety of my friends, colleagues, their loved ones, and everyone else affected.” He continued to post about how he felt—six posts in total. Suddenly, he says, 500 people unfollowed or unfriended him on social media sites. People blocked him on WhatsApp and, in real life, people just stopped speaking to him altogether.  And then, people started calling him a “traitor.” And as he said in this interview, the word traitor means something in the West Bank. “It means they are going to kill you.” Since that day, he hasn’t been able to commute to Israel to work. The crossings are closed and the work permits for Palestinians have been suspended. He stays home with his family, and he doesn’t go out because he says it’s just too dangerous. He feels isolated, unsafe, and scared for himself and for the safety of his family.  I often talk about courage, and about the courage to speak your mind even when it’s unpopular or dangerous. I often reference my personal heroes, people like Natan Sharansky or Masih Alinejad. But so few people are willing to walk in their footsteps in real time, in real life, when the stakes are the highest imaginable. My guest today is one of those people. Today, he explains where he gets the strength to speak up, even if it means risking his life, and why remaining silent in the face of the atrocities of October 7 would have made him no different from those who committed the crimes. One final note: if you’re a listener of this show, then you will understand how much this person needs our help. So, if you have a job opportunity that can provide sponsorship, please email [email protected]. And if you want to contribute to his relocation effort, you can support his GoFundMe. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to thefp.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Never before have people felt more comfortable weighing in on other people’s lives. What diet to do, what to wear, how to make yourself attractive to the opposite sex, whether or not you should put money into that new crypto coin, if you should let your kids self-soothe, and on and on—but most of it, this endless supply of advice, is actually pretty bad. Weekly popular advice columns, like Dear Abby and Ask E. Jean, have vanished. And in their place is finger-wagging, political posturing, and straight-up bad tips. A New York Times reader sought advice on how to deal with her daughter, who is in a polyamorous relationship with a married man. She wrote, “My daughter tells me she would like to bring this man on our family trip to Greece this year. It may be petty, but I don’t want to foot the bill for another woman’s husband. And I don’t see any way this relationship can lead to my daughter’s happiness. Should I lay out my boundaries and risk my daughter not joining me on vacation?” Instead of saying what any sane person would, which is: “Get this man as far away from your daughter as possible,” The New York Times advised the mother to shut up and do better. “This is about respecting your adult daughter’s choices. As a show of respect, read up on polyamory before you broach the subject with her.” The thing is, we’re in an advice desert, but we’ve never been in greater need of good advice. Some people consult friends, therapists, or tarot readers when they need direction in life. Other people pray or go to confession. Many people seek the advice of a mentor. But at The Free Press, we like to visit this woman who lives on a hill in Pasadena and makes a mean onion dip. Her name is Caitlin Flanagan. You may have read her writing in The Atlantic, or you may have read her book Girl Land or On Thinking for Yourself. Caitlin is someone who has her finger on the pulse. Whether you’re reading her essays, her books, or her Twitter feed, she is just always right. So today, Free Press reporter Suzy Weiss and Atlantic writer Caitlin Flanagan are here to answer your questions about. . . everything, from relationships to politics to children to animals (yes, animals)! If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to thefp.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Header 6: The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A few weeks ago, very few people outside of the Beltway and niche media circles had ever heard the name Tim Walz. Almost overnight, the relatively obscure governor from Minnesota started to gain traction thanks to a viral clip where he called J.D. Vance “weird.” It resonated with a lot of people. He came across as direct, plainspoken, and affable. And on Tuesday, August 6, Vice President Kamala Harris officially announced him as her running mate.  The conventional wisdom was that Harris would pick a moderate Democrat. But is Walz a true moderate? Because if you go online, there is a split screen reality about who Tim Walz actually is. On one side: Midwestern nice guy Democrat who grew up in a small town in Nebraska, is a National Guard vet, was a high school teacher, a football coach, a congressman, governor, and to top it all off, a gun owner and a hunter. Policy-wise, he’s worked with Republicans to pass infrastructure investments. He cut taxes for working families. He passed a law to provide paid family and medical leave to Minnesota families. But on the other side: he’s as radical as radical progressives come. Here are some policies cited to support that argument: during the pandemic, Walz set up a phone line so Minnesotans could report their neighbors for violating Covid rules. He allowed Minnesota’s health department to ration lifesaving Covid drugs based on race. Walz made Minnesota a “trans refuge state,” signing a law that allows the state to take custody of a child whose parents refuse “gender-affirming care.” He also established a council to implement DEI training in statewide agencies. And after George Floyd’s murder, he said: “My administration will use every tool at our disposal to deconstruct generations of systemic racism in Minnesota.” This, as the city was burning. Then, there is the secondary story of Tim Walz, which is not about Tim Walz at all. Until Tuesday, Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro appeared to be the frontrunner as a charismatic, handsome, and moderate governor from a key battleground state the Democrats need to win. Why didn’t Kamala choose Shapiro? Did anti-semitism play a role? To explain all of this are three of my favorite writers and thinkers: Free Press contributor Batya Ungar-Sargon, Free Press senior editor Peter Savodnik, and Free Press columnist Joe Nocera (or, as he likes to be called, our in-house-liberal). Suffice it to say, they all have very different opinions on Walz. Today: Who is Tim Walz? Why did Kamala Harris land on him? What does this choice say about the state of the Democratic Party? And in the race toward the White House, does it even matter? If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to thefp.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last month, we ran an episode here by one of our amazing reporters, Eli Lake, that took us back to the tumultuous year of 1968 when President Lyndon Johnson dropped out of his own reelection race, and the resulting turmoil at the Democratic convention that followed that summer in Chicago. At the time of that episode, of course, Biden was still in the race, and Eli was guiding us through that history lesson in order to help us make sense of the present moment, and to indicate what might happen next.  Today, Eli is back on Honestly to do what he does best: look back in time and help us make sense of our baffling present. VP Kamala Harris is now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. She has the wind at her back, though she hasn’t given a single interview, and every day someone else announces they’ve been coconut-pilled. But in her anointment to the top of the ticket, there’s been a strange and silent rewriting of history by the press and party loyalists with the support of a lot of tech companies, who together are changing our collective understanding of the present and of the very recent past. Eli argues this has happened before. And not in America. . . but in the Soviet Union, and also in the works of brilliant writers like Milan Kundera and George Orwell, who imagined something, he argues, like what we’re seeing right now. While that might sound like hyperbole, listen and decide for yourself. Because whether you agree or disagree with Eli’s conclusions, I’m confident you will learn so much from listening to this episode. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to thefp.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Monday, the markets had one of its worst trading days since the 2008 financial crisis. Stocks tumbled around the world, with a global sell-off, amid fears of a recession. The VIX (an index often called “Wall Street’s Fear Gauge”) was at times today as high as we saw it when the economy was shutting down for Covid.  This comes on the tail of a pretty insane news cycle: a presidential assassination attempt, Joe Biden dropping out of the race, the coronation of a new Democratic nominee, a stolen election (actually) in Venezuela, a Middle East on the brink of war. . . should I go on? But the most pressing issue to most Americans is and always has been the economy.  And with everything else going on, many of us have been paying far too little attention to the economic story here at home, and the policies that may have brought us to this moment we find ourselves in today.  To explain how we got here is Larry Summers. Summers was Secretary of the Treasury under President Clinton, and he was the director of the National Economic Council under President Obama. He was president of Harvard for five years. And he is one of the world’s most prominent economists.  Today: What is going on in the market? What caused it? Was it avoidable? What happens next? And what are the long-term repercussions?  If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to thefp.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we have a special story from two friends and former Free Pressers, Andy Mills and Matt Boll. They have a new podcast, Reflector, that I think you’re going to love, and we’re sharing an episode where they look at some of the hidden truths and misconceptions about alcoholism and how to treat it. Alcohol consumption increased more during the Covid years than it had at any time in the past 50 years. In fact, Americans were drinking so much that from 2020 through 2021, there were approximately 178,000 alcohol-related deaths, which is more deaths than from all drug overdoses combined, including opioids. And yet most Americans with a drinking problem never speak to their doctors about their drinking, and fewer than 6 percent of them receive any form of treatment whatsoever. Today, a woman named Katie tells the story of her self-experimentation with a little-known but highly effective drug to combat her alcohol addiction. It’s not only an incredibly moving story of one woman’s journey but it also gets to the bigger question of why these types of medications aren’t widely used in America, and it challenges everything we know about alcoholism and how to treat it. Check out Reflector wherever you get your podcasts, or by going to reflector.show and becoming a subscriber.  If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com/subscribe and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Saturday afternoon, a Hezbollah rocket fired from southern Lebanon struck a soccer field in the village of Majdal Shams in Israel’s north, slaughtering 12 children. For the last 10 months, many have warned that Israel is on the brink of a major war with Hezbollah. But the truth is that Hezbollah has been fighting—and winning—in Israel’s north since October 8. For the past 10 months, Hezbollah, the Iranian proxy terror group that controls southern Lebanon, has essentially redrawn the northern border of Israel by pummeling the border towns daily with rockets, leaving 225 square miles unlivable for Israelis and displacing around 80,000 Israeli citizens. Israel—pounded by Iranian proxies from all directions—now faces one of the most perilous moments in recent history. The prospect of an all-out war with Hezbollah, which could very well spread to a larger, more dangerous regional war—perhaps directly with Iran—seems closer than ever.  What is Israel going to do? Will Israel choose to confront Hezbollah, or will they respond in a more limited way to avoid the regional escalation that the Americans so fear? How does U.S. policy, and the upcoming presidential election, influence Israel’s strategic calculation? Is Kamala Harris equipped to bring calm to the region? Or are Israelis just waiting for Trump to return to office? Is America’s current policy—which is the containment of Iran—backfiring and inadvertently creating a regional crisis? Most importantly, should we be thinking about the war with Gaza and the war with Hezbollah as discrete fights, or are they all part of a broader war that’s already underway between Israel and Iran? Answering those questions today is Haviv Rettig Gur. Haviv is a journalist and writer for The Times of Israel, and he is one of the most important and insightful thinkers of our time on Israel and the Middle East. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com/subscribe and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Most of the media-verse right now is focused on a handful of serious and important questions: Kamala’s VP pick, if Democrats have been anti-Democratic, if Kamala can receive Biden’s campaign money without a legal battle. And whether or not China will see the opportunity of our lame-duck president to make moves against Taiwan. But today we aren’t here to talk about any of that. Today we’re here to talk about memes and whether or not Kamala Harris is “brat.” On Sunday, July 21, we found out that President Joe Biden was stepping down from the race because he posted a letter on X. Then, 23 minutes later he endorsed Kamala Harris as the nominee and that was it.  Days went by, and we didn’t see him or hear from him. And we’re all supposed to accept that as normal. And in his absence something really strange happened. Kamala Harris became a Gen Z icon. Kamala became “brat.” And if you’re anything like me, you’re not exactly following. So, let us explain: the singer Charli XCX posted Sunday on X that “Kamala IS brat,” a reference to her new album called Brat. Which, for those who don’t know, according to Gen Z, is this summer’s official vibe and aesthetic. Don’t worry, if you still aren’t following, neither are the talking heads on CNN or Fox. But whether they understand it or not, Kamala’s campaign does. Her staff changed her campaign’s X page to the brat chartreuse color (the album’s theme color), with the words “Kamala HQ” to match the Brat album cover.  The internet went crazy. Just take the video of a group of men in Fire Island in chartreuse crop tops that say “kamala” in the brat font. The caption on the tweet: “BRAT Kamala shirts already on Fire Island. The gays move SO FAST.” And it wasn’t just brat that went viral, we’ve also seen a repacking of viral clips overnight: the coconut quote, Kamala loving Venn diagrams, and a whole lot of Kamala laughing. As the internet was off to the races, mainstream politicians were forced to make a choice: embrace the Twitter-sphere or ignore it. And most chose the former. Hawaiian senator Brian Schatz endorsed Kamala on X simply by posting a photo of himself climbing a coconut tree, the caption reading: “Madam Vice President, we are ready to help.” Colorado governor Jared Polis simply posted a tweet with a coconut emoji, a palm tree emoji, and an American flag emoji. Senator Mazie K. Hirono posted a photo with Kamala with the brat chartreuse filter on it. Clearly a unique consensus has emerged. As Katherine Boyle wrote for The Free Press this week, “The online and offline are finally merging.”   It’s fun, it’s trippy, it’s campy, it’s weird, but the question remains, will any of this translate to actual votes?  To help us better understand are two Free Press writers—River Page and Kat Rosenfield. This week for The Free Press, River explained how the phrase “Twitter isn’t real life” has never seemed less true and that “Twitter is now the center of the country’s political universe. For better or worse.” And Kat made the case that Kamala is brat, but not in the way we think, and she’s not so sure it’s a good thing.  The internet moves fast, but River and Kat move faster, and they’re here today to help us dissect it all: the meme-ification of politics, brat, and how internet culture is rewiring election norms.  If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com/subscribe and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The United States locks up nearly two million people, the highest number of prisoners for any country in the world. That represents about 20 percent of the world’s prison population, even though the U.S. makes up only around 5 percent of the global population.   It's not surprising that over the past two decades, more and more people have embraced the idea of criminal justice reform. In 2020, there were calls around the country to defund the police and divert money to programs meant to address the root causes of crime. Voters embraced reforms in Philadelphia, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, St. Louis, and beyond. Progressive prosecutors in many blue cities pledged to reduce sentences, stop prosecuting lower level offenses, and address police misconduct. But crime has become, once again, a major issue for American voters. Sixty-three percent of Americans said that crime was “extremely or very serious” in the country, according to the annual Gallup survey on crime released in November. And many believe that criminal justice reform initiatives have exacerbated the problem.  That’s why The Free Press brought together four expert debaters last month in San Francisco—a city where everything from shampoo to gum is under lock and key at Walgreens—to ask: has criminal justice reform made our cities unsafe? Arguing in the affirmative are Seneca Scott and Michael Shellenberger. Seneca is a labor leader, a community organizer, and founder of Neighbors Together Oakland. He ran for mayor of Oakland in 2022, focusing on solutions to homelessness, drug tourism, and violent crime. Michael is the founder of Public News and the best-selling author of San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities. Arguing that, no, criminal justice reform has not made our cities unsafe are Kmele Foster and Lara Bazelon. Kmele is a commentator and co-host of the popular podcast The Fifth Column. He is a founding partner at Freethink, the award-winning digital media company. Lara is a professor at the University of San Francisco, where she holds the Barnett Chair in Trial Advocacy and directs the criminal and racial justice clinical programs. Lara is a former federal public defender and a former director of the Project for the Innocent, at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.  Before the debate, 87 percent of our audience said that, yes, criminal justice reform has made our cities unsafe. At the end of the night, we polled them again—and you’ll see for yourself which side won. To watch the debate in full, go to thefp.com/watch. Finally: lucky for you, we have more live debates in store. Our next debate will be on the state of the American dream, and it will take place in Washington, D.C., on September 10. Get your tickets at thefp.com/events  The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tonight, President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race and endorsed Kamala Harris to be the Democratic nominee. After weeks of speculation, criticism of his candidacy, concern about his health, and withdrawal of donors, President Biden finally said: “It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.” What comes next? With the Democratic National Convention less than a month away, Michael Moynihan went live on X with Free Press contributors Walter Kirn, Batya Ungar-Sargon, Eli Lake, and Olivia Reingold, as well Minnesota congressman Dean Phillips (who challenged Joe Biden during the primaries), to discuss this historic turn and how it will impact the election. Follow The FP on X to stay tuned for more livestreams. Note: this episode was originally a livestream on X, and there were a few audio glitches, but we loved this conversation and think you will too. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the past few decades, it’s been conventional wisdom in D.C. that “demographics are destiny.” That the increased share of immigrants, young people, and racial minorities across the country would build a bulletproof coalition for the Democratic Party, swelling their ranks and keeping them in power forever. Those who deviated from this expectation could expect to be called sellouts, race traitors, and Uncle Toms. Recall Joe Biden’s infamous interview with radio host Charlamagne tha God, when he said: “If you have a problem figuring out if you’re for me or for Trump, then you ain’t black.” But in the past year, Donald Trump has been winning over more minority voters than any Republican in decades. Recent polls have consistently shown that Trump has reached a shocking 20 percent support among black voters. That’s compared to the 8 percent he got in 2016. And Biden’s polling with black voters has dropped dramatically. This is a monumental, and to many, unexpected turn. And it was noticeable at the RNC. When Michael Moynihan went to the 2016 Republican Convention in Cleveland, the audience was more monochromatic. While certainly not as racially diverse as the Democratic coalition, the convention in Milwaukee felt younger and less white. Monday night, Amber Rose opened the proceedings. Tuesday night, Madeline Brame, the mother of a murdered veteran, gave a thunderous speech explaining why she’s supporting Trump. She said: “Our eyes have been opened, just like so many other poor minorities across America. Donald Trump shares our values, love of God and family and country. He’s been a victim of the same corrupt system that I have been and my family has been.” What’s behind this shift? Why do Biden and the Democratic Party seem to be losing their edge with black voters? And could this end up making a real difference for the 2024 election? Last night, Michael Moynihan went to an event at the RNC put on by the Black Conservative Federation to ask them why they think that MAGA conservatism is appealing to black voters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A lot happened in American politics last night: the Biden interview, the Vance unveiling, Trump’s RNC entrance—his first public appearance since Saturday’s shooting. And there, to help you all make sense of it, was The Free Press team in our first-ever live video on X. To be honest, we weren’t sure how it was going to go. We were blown away by the response. There were some 350,000 of you watching this experiment, in which we had the kind of panel we wish were assembled on cable news, or as host Michael Moynihan put it: “the Traveling Wilburys of political panels.” Monday night’s supergroup included Newsweek editor and Free Press contributor Batya Ungar-Sargon, Puck correspondent Tara Palmeri, Red Scare co-host Anna Khachiyan (chain-smoking, of course), legendary pollster Frank Luntz, Manhattan Institute president Reihan Salam, author and Free Press contributor Rob Henderson, and journalist James Pogue. This is a group of people you just cannot find anywhere else. Today, we’ll play that live conversation for you. And stay tuned for more live! Follow The FP on X. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As you now well know, at 6:11 p.m. on Saturday evening, shots rang out at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. One person, a 50-year-old man named Cory Comperatore, was killed. Two others, David Dutch and James Copenhaver, were gravely injured. Trump’s ear was grazed by a bullet. Before the 45th president was whisked away by Secret Service, he emerged defiant with his fist pumping in the air, blood on his ear and face. “Fight! Fight! Fight!” he yelled at the crowd, to which they chanted back: “USA! USA! USA!” As we would later learn, one of the bullets pierced the top of Trump’s right ear, flying just a hair’s breadth away from his head. One inch. One inch and we would be having a very different conversation. As Niall Ferguson wrote in The Free Press: “An inch or two further to the left and the bullet that grazed Donald Trump’s ear would have penetrated his skull and very likely killed him. A slight gust of wind, a tremor of the assassin’s hand, an unexpected move by the former president—for whatever tiny reason, Trump lived to fight another day.” Saturday’s attempted assassination has already shifted the course of this election. How will it shape our politics and our country? And was this violence the inevitable outcome of our painfully divided country, and who is responsible for those divisions? Those are the subjects of today’s episode. This is an episode in two parts. The first part is about the unspeakable events that took place on Saturday. Then in the second half, you’ll hear our initial conversation that took place last week about political brokenness, the crisis of trust between the American people and our elected officials—and how to fix it with some help from the Constitution. In light of what happened over the weekend, it feels even more poignant. The guest in both halves of this episode is Yuval Levin, one of the greatest political analysts and explainers of our time. Yuval has even been called the “the most important voice in the political culture.” He worked on domestic policy in the George W. Bush administration. He’s now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he studies Congress, the presidency, the courts, the Constitution, and American political life. He’s the author of several books including The Fractured Republic and A Time to Build. And he just published American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation—and Could Again. It gives us a road map to how the Constitution can bring the country together to solve our political troubles. What I particularly love about Yuval is that when everyone around us seems to be taking the black pill, Yuval is clear-eyed. He’s neither optimistic nor pessimistic. Yuval is just realistic, informed by a deep sense of American history that gives him a perspective on what’s happening now while motivated by a true love for this country. Header 6: The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Yesterday, Donald Trump was shot at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. A few minutes into the rally, a gunman opened fire, and a bullet pierced the former president’s ear. He ducked to the ground, the Secret Service piled on top of him, supporters screamed, and chaos erupted through the crowd. Trump suffered a superficial wound, but one rally attendee was killed and two others were critically injured. Moments after the shooting, images of Trump flooded the internet—fist clenched, blood running down his face, mouthing “fight” to a dazed crowd. It was the first time in over 40 years that an elected president was wounded in an assassination attempt. The gunman was immediately killed. He was later identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. The internet was, of course, soon overrun with speculation, conspiracies, over-the-top rhetoric, and the assignation of blame—most of which demanded that the shooter share responsibility for his evil actions with certain aspects of the media or certain politicians. It’s all a stark reminder of the deep polarization of our politics, and that political violence is something of a constant in American life. On the ground at the rally, watching the mayhem unfold, was Salena Zito. Salena is a reporter for the Washington Examiner and a contributor to The Free Press. She was standing four feet from the president when the first shots rang out. Today, we discuss what she witnessed at the rally. We discuss her interactions with President Trump immediately before the shooting, the shooter’s possible motive, what it means for the 2024 election, and more importantly, what it means for the country. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A few weeks ago, fresh from being knighted by King Charles, historian Sir Niall Ferguson officially joined The Free Press as a columnist. His first piece was rather provocatively called “We’re All Soviets Now.” He argued why he thinks today’s United States resembles the decaying Soviet Union of the ’70s and ’80s. We’re physically unwell, heavily in debt, run by an out-of-touch gerontocracy, and subjected to a bogus ideology pushed by elites. This was published before the disastrous presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Since then, Niall has only doubled down. He argued in his most recent column that the reason our system only offers up an embarrassing blowhard and a senile old man lies in contemporary America’s similarities to the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Unsurprisingly, these provocative arguments drove some people crazy. We’d scarcely updated the homepage with that first column before the rebuttals came pouring in. But none were quite as passionate and thorough as the one written by Dispatch editor-in-chief Jonah Goldberg, who devoted an entire column to pushing back on Ferguson. In “No, We Are Not Living in ‘Late Soviet America,’ ” Goldberg conceded some of the basic facts presented by Ferguson, but aggressively objected to the idea that the United States was in any way similar to late-stage Soviet communism. “Do we have problems that have some superficial similarities with the Soviets? Sure. But. . . come on.” Goldberg continued: “The Soviet Union built a wall to keep its subjects trapped inside their evil empire. Many Americans understandably believe we need a wall to keep millions of people desperate to live here out.” Because at the end of the day, Goldberg argued, “America is simply not like the Soviet Union.”  Ferguson fought back on Twitter in an 18-part thread, in which he accused Goldberg of “pure cope.” And back and forth they went for days. We’re happy to announce that they agreed to hash it all out on this very podcast. . . today.  The debate we ended up having was much bigger than merely whether the U.S. can accurately be compared to the USSR. It got to the heart of a core disagreement on the right in recent years about the health of American democracy—and whether the nation is still exceptional, albeit flawed, or if the country is in a state of inexorable decline.  It’s a fitting conversation to have right after the Fourth of July and as pundits and politicians fill airtime and columns with questions about our leader’s fitness for the job, presidential transparency, and whether it’s undemocratic to replace Biden on the election ticket. Because today’s conversation gets to the heart of how the American project is faring, and what we should do to save the country we all love before it’s too late. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices