The Free Press

To mark his first year back in the White House, President Donald Trump called for a one-year cap of 10 percent on credit-card interest rates that was supposed to start on January 20, a year to the day after his inauguration. On Truth Social, he appeared to be saying that this was his way of dealing with the “AFFORDABILITY” crisis (his capital letters, needless to say), along with ordering Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to purchase $200 billion worth of mortgage-backed securities and a few other measures.

But never mind that. Here we are, with January 20 having come and gone, and as you may have noticed, not a single bank has complied. And they’re not going to, unless Congress enacts a law to enforce a usury cap. Jamie Dimon, the chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase and the most prominent banker in the country, called the idea “an economic disaster.” Richard Fairbank, the founder, chairman, and CEO of Capital One, which is heavily reliant on high-interest credit cards, told investors on a conference call that an interest-rate cap “would likely bring on a recession.” And the American Bankers Association denounced the plan as well, saying that it would bring “harm to small businesses and the broader U.S. economy,” among other things.

Other bankers are equally critical but won’t say anything on the record for fear of blowback from the president. Not that you can blame them. Perhaps it was just a coincidence that shortly after Dimon criticized Trump’s credit-card proposal, the president sued JPMorgan Chase and Dimon himself for at least $5 billion, for allegedly dropping him as a client after the January 6 riot at the Capitol. Or perhaps it wasn’t.

“Trump won Davos, hands down,” wrote Niall Ferguson in these pages on Friday. The argument flew in the face of conventional European wisdom and the prevailing view at the World Economic Forum. Today, Niall follows up on his piece, explaining why critics who rushed to condemn the president might benefit from “a little more humility.” —The Editors

I never cease to be amazed by the high conviction of so many journalists and academic commentators in their judgments on President Donald Trump. This has been especially striking during and after the Davos World Economic Forum.

The impressive thing is that the same people rush to condemn Trump (and his defenders) in just the same way as they have been doing for 10 years. They remain unshakably convinced of their own superior intelligence.

This piece was originally published in Pirate Wires.

Quorum at the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party. We’re a little over a month into an industry-wide conversation about the future of tech in California, which is largely taking place off social media. At this point, most people know the conversation was triggered by a ballot proposition floated by the state’s largest healthcare union, which seeks to legalize a first-of-its-kind asset seizure targeting (for now) billionaires. But while there’s been a bit of tabloid reporting on the existence of private group chats, where the question of whether it’s safe for founders to remain in the state is once again being litigated by industry leaders, it seems mainstream reporters have thus far failed to speak with any actual billionaires impacted by the chaos. So, in my capacity as the most well-sourced journalist in the history of technology writing (I think actually?), I decided to fill that gap.

Over the last week, I spoke with 21 billionaires about the looming prospect of a wealth tax. We discussed whether they left or are planning to leave California (most of them are), what a wealth tax means for the technology industry, and finally how, if at all, they plan to fight back. The men I spoke with include founders of companies working on a diverse range of technologies including artificial intelligence, defense, cryptography, security, biotechnology, finance, and general software development, as well as prominent venture capitalists at several of the most famous firms in the world. In total, these men are responsible for something like 50,000 employees, running companies in California roughly worth a combined $1.3 trillion.

Welcome to Things Worth Remembering, our weekly column in which writers share a poem or paragraph that all of us should commit to heart. This week, Douglas Century marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27 with a reflection on “Eli, Eli,” a poem sung by millions to honor the murdered—and on the story of the brave young woman who wrote it.

It was a scorching afternoon in late July 2023, and I was wandering through the deserted ruins of Caesarea, the ancient Roman capital of Judaea—today, a stunning national park in Israel. As I walked, I recited a poem: that of a young woman who had been executed by a firing squad nearly 80 years earlier, during the Holocaust.

Her name was Hannah Senesh, and she spent her early adult years in the very area I was walking. As a young woman, she wrote poems inspired by the beauty of her new home. Her most famous poem, written in 1942 when she was 21, is called “Halicha L’Keisarya” in Hebrew—or, in English, “A Walk to Caesarea.” Here it is in English:

Welcome back to The Weekend Press! Today, MAGA lobbyist Ches McDowell reminisces about hunting with the president’s son. Suzy Weiss reviews a provocative new novel from the author of “I’m Glad My Mom Died.” And more! But first, Weekend Press editor Freya Sanders introduces our Beckham bonanza:

When we argue about the latest crazy thing a celebrity has done, we’re actually arguing about how normal people should behave. Or at least, that’s what I tell my boss when he asks why I want to do pieces about things like Brooklyn Beckham’s latest Instagram post.

On Tuesday, America woke up to find that the eldest son of British soccer legend David Beckham and his Spice Girl wife, Victoria, had uploaded a lengthy screed about how his parents suck and he never wants to talk to them again.

Their alleged crimes range from failing to support Brooklyn’s wife when she was trying to raise money for displaced dogs after the LA fires to trying to get him to sign away the rights to his own name to protect “Brand Beckham”—which, Brooklyn said, “comes first.”

Obviously, the internet pounced—not only because it was a juicy story but also because it struck a nerve. One of the most hotly debated and painful disagreements in the culture right now is whether—and if so, when—it’s okay to cut a family member out of your life. (I know this because I’m the editor of Tough Love and have seen how many readers write to Abigail Shrier because they’re devastated that their son or brother or mother won’t talk to them.)

So, when l’affaire Beckham struck, I asked a handful of my writers: Do you think Brooklyn is right to publicly break up with his family? Their opinions varied wildly—so in true Free Press style, we’re publishing two very different perspectives.

Kat Rosenfield thinks Brooklyn is a typical Gen Z, foolishly indulging in the TikTok trend of “going no contact” with parents who have committed minor infractions. The way we talk about our families online, she writes, has left young people unable to tell when a situation is just uncomfortable and when it’s genuinely abusive—or between a “toxic” relative and one who’s just imperfect.

Kara Kennedy, however, surprised herself by feeling bad for Brooklyn. True, she writes, he’s a “tragically untalented nepo baby”—but growing up in the public eye has probably messed with him. “Brooklyn Beckham does not know how to have a private confrontation, because he was not raised in a private home,” she writes. His existence was sold to the newspapers while he was still in his mother’s womb: Who can blame him for rebelling?

For the last few months, Kat Rosenfield has been investigating the rumors that destroyed the life of Jay Asher, a formerly acclaimed young-adult fiction writer who got caught up in a very strange #MeToo storm. No one ever publicly accused him of assault, but he was still branded a “rapist.” To find out why, read Kat’s remarkable investigation, published earlier this week:

Also, you won’t want to miss River Page’s fascinating interview with an 18-year-old who says she became a multimillionaire overnight thanks to OnlyFans, as well as the latest masterful columns from Abigail Shrier and Arthur Brooks. Enjoy!

How should you spend your weekend? We asked our staff editor Jillian Lederman for her picks. . .

🥫Eat. . . There’s a snowstorm brewing, and if you haven’t already ransacked your local grocery store for ingredients, you’re probably out of luck for anything gourmet. So it’s a good time for me to admit that I firmly believe soup from a can is a perfectly respectable dinner. Lately, I’ve developed a fixation on Trader Joe’s chicken noodle soup. It may not be glamorous, but it’s classic, low-maintenance, and—to my knowledge so far—impossible to mess up.

📖Read. . . I run books coverage here at The Free Press, which means somehow I get paid to read at the office. It also means I spend most of my time reading books that haven’t yet been released. So I’ll recommend one of my very favorites from late last year: Paul Kingsnorth’s Against the Machine is one of the greatest odes to humanity you’ll ever read. (We got to publish an excerpt!) And while you’re at it, check out his Substack, where he’s back writing after a couple months off. He didn’t ask me to promote him, but I’m doing it anyway.

🎵Listen. . . Several months ago, I stumbled across a song called “Be Happy” from the official cast recording of the musical Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York). It was captivating. The lyrics, in all their simplicity, capture every elusive quality of youth: naivety, loneliness, hope, and excruciating, breathless uncertainty. The musical recently opened on Broadway—but if you’re not in New York, the soundtrack will make you feel as though you are.

❄️Watch. . . This is not a weekend to watch things. It’s snowing! Bundle up. Get outside. Make snow angels. Go sledding. Build a snowman. As my colleague Will Rahn advised this week: Let the kids skip Zoom-school and throw snowballs. Flurries are coming, and it’s the most exciting thing in the world. (And yes, maybe after all that, go home and watch Harry Potter.)

Last but not least, feast your eyes on this cheeky 20th-century rendering of the Boston Tea Party, by Ralph Cahoon, which Suzy mentions in her column this week—it just sold for $69,850 at Christie’s.

That’s all, folks! Have a great weekend.

Hello and welcome back to Second Thought. Many thanks to Sascha Seinfeld for filling in for me last week, and for her sharp yet sweet eulogy for Vine. Do not miss it!

As has been noted in these pages, I spent last week in the woods of California without a phone or access to the internet, and let me tell you, it was glorious. Endless stretches of time where there was no app to reload, check, log in to, or scroll on. Just my own thoughts—the poor man’s algorithm—and the sweet sounds of my retreat facilitator assuring me that it is all my parents’ fault. I’m not saying I’m better for it, only that you’re worse, and please note: I go by only my Sanskrit name now, which roughly translates to “Bari’s little sister.”

The bright light in me honors the less bright light in you. And now, finally, back to the culture at hand.

Jennette McCurdy is used to making everybody uncomfortable. Her first book, a memoir, was literally called I’m Glad My Mom Died—and was about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her stage mom, who she claims was “obsessed” with turning her into a successful child actress. In the book, she wrote about how her mom inflicted an eating disorder on her, and performed sexually invasive “exams” to exert her control. She wouldn’t let McCurdy shower alone.

McCurdy did become a star—as a teenager she acted in Nickelodeon’s iCarly, and later in Sam & Cat alongside Ariana Grande—but she also became severely bulimic, very unhappy, and later an alcoholic.

During these dark years, she dated a man she met on the set of iCarly. She was Half His Age. That’s the title of her debut novel, which came out Tuesday. Having read it, I can tell you: It’s going to make people even more uncomfortable than her memoir did.

McCurdy has been frank about the fact that it’s based on her own experiences. Her stand-in is the character of Waldo, a tragic yet wry teenager who lives in Anchorage, Alaska—and whose life is utterly upended when she first lays eyes on her new creative writing teacher, Mr. Korgy. He is nearly 40, 20 years older than she is, but Waldo finds herself fantasizing so forcefully about her teacher—a married, failed novelist sure only of his own artistic genius and taste—that she finds herself in a living nightmare beside him.

The novel is narrated exclusively by the 17-year-old, and McCurdy does a terrifyingly good job of putting to the page what it’s like to be inside a teenage girl’s head. Waldo aches for the rush of purchasing fast fashion and cheap makeup that she hopes will transform her into a self-assured, beautiful woman, and she is a fiend for hyper-palatable junk food, social media, and, of course, Mr. Korgy. McCurdy captures what it’s like to have an obsession that verges on psychological violence, torture followed by release in ever-tightening cycles, with a fidelity that only someone who’s experienced it can create.

Ches McDowell has a lot of wild hunting tales, not all of which, alas, he allowed me to print. But here’s one he did tell me on the record. It was five years ago, and he was in a field in North Carolina with Donald Trump Jr., when McDowell spotted a deer and fired his gun. He did kill the deer but—in the process—scared the hell out of the president’s son, sitting right above it in a tree stand.

“Then I hear, ‘What the hell!’” McDowell said over lunch last week. “I realized it was Don.”

When he’s not traveling the world chasing deer or bears or ducks or turkeys—“Doin’ a brown bear in Alaska with a bow in the spring”—McDowell is working at his day job as a prominent Republican lobbyist. When he first started his firm, Checkmate Government Relations, more than two years ago, it was headquartered in his home state of North Carolina. After President Donald Trump won reelection in 2024, though, he opened an office in Washington, D.C. The money followed. It helps to be Don Jr.’s hunting buddy.

Just since July, Checkmate has reeled in more than $21 million helping corporations like Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, Juul Labs, and Hanes navigate the shifting tides in Trump’s D.C. federal disclosures show. That’s in addition to the firm’s lucrative work for governments and companies overseas, including Canada, Panama, and even a media group in Turkey aligned with the Libyan government, according to other disclosures on file with the Department of Justice. Those foreign contracts can reach hundreds of thousands of dollars each month.

McDowell is the guy who helped persuade Trump to pardon Changpeng Zhao—the infamous CZ—the co-founder of crypto exchange Binance, which had helped the Trump family score a $2 billion crypto deal last year. CZ had been convicted of money laundering. And McDowell successfully lobbied the Trump administration to federally recognize his client, the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina—something the tribe had sought for 137 years and which will give it rights to self-governance and federal benefits. The Lumbee Fairness Act was cleverly tucked into the $900 billion military spending bill that passed in December. “That will be the biggest success of my career,” McDowell said.

DAVOS, Switzerland — This year’s World Economic Forum in Davos had an innocuous theme: “A Spirit of Dialogue.” As one European bank chief executive put it, President Donald Trump’s presence contributed something more like a spirit of monologue.

That was one of the better jokes made at the president’s expense this week. And it aligns with a rapidly forming narrative in the European and liberal media that the Europeans “won Davos”: primarily by getting Trump to “de-escalate” his demand that the United States acquire Greenland from Denmark.

Welcome back to Ancient Wisdom, our series in which writers over 70 tell us how they are aging gracefully. Last week, David Margolick described the pleasures of being 74 with a mother who’s almost 102. This week, Susie Kaufman, who writes the Substack seventysomething, offers this bit of ancient wisdom: Start dancing!

If you want to receive Ancient Wisdom directly in your inbox, sign up here.

One Tuesday morning about six months ago, I went to a dance fitness class for older people at a community center in Minnetonka, a Minneapolis suburb near where I live. I thought I was signing up for Zumba and gave myself a figurative pat on the back. “This is hot stuff,” I thought. “Everyone will be impressed that at my age I’m doing Zumba.”

Half a year later, I still have no clue what Zumba is, but it’s certainly not what I do on Tuesday mornings. What I do on Tuesday mornings is Cuban cha-cha and Dominican bachata, with an occasional Brazilian samba thrown in for good measure. I’ve never been to any of these exotic places, but I grew up in New York so I know how the music sounds. I know it’s brassy, thumping, percussive, and irresistible. It was a loud and persistent presence on the Upper West Side of New York in the 1950s. Back then, in a soundscape mixed with sirens and car horns, Puerto Ricans of all ages partied out in the street late into the night.

Middle-class people were fortressed in apartment buildings like mausoleums with vast faux marble lobbies and uniformed doormen. But Latinos were always out in force, sitting on their stoops eating cuchifritos, playing dominoes and doing the merengue up and down those side streets between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue and between Amsterdam and Columbus Avenue before all those blocks became the gentrified streets littered with chain coffee shops that they are today.

Latin culture was a huge feature of my life growing up. The women were magnificent in tight-fitting clothes, their eyelashes curled, their lips painted bright red. The men looked at me in a way I didn’t know about. I was small and pale, walking on 83rd Street when I had to go to the post office for stamps, or south on Amsterdam to the local branch of the public library. I was a little scared, but being a little scared was part of the energy of uptown. The year I turned 12, in 1957, my parents sprung for tickets to the Broadway production of West Side Story and there she was, Chita Rivera, flouncing her skirt and singing those songs.

There’s a dad out there who I think about sometimes. Not my dad, to be clear; just a dad—a man I’ve never met, whose existence I’m only aware of because of a Reddit post written last year by his adult daughter. The post was a litany of complaints: This man was selfish, the daughter said, and flaky, and a bad husband to her mother. But the last straw, the thing that really got her goat, was the socks. Every year for Christmas he would get her socks as a gift; he thought it was funny, a sort of self-deprecating joke about his lack of gift-giving skills specifically and his shortcomings as a father in general.

The Reddit poster had a different view: “Eventually I realized it was him finding pleasure in openly disrespecting us.” As a result, she was barely on speaking terms with her father, she wrote, and strongly considering a complete estrangement.

I’ve always felt sorry for Sock Dad, who I imagine would be somewhat mystified by the notion that his annual Christmas gag was actually an act of brazen contempt that ought to cost him his relationship with his daughter. And I was reminded of him this week, after Brooklyn Beckham took to Instagram with a similarly lengthy j’accuse aimed at his own family—and specifically his parents, soccer star David Beckham and his formerly-of-the-Spice-Girls wife, Victoria Beckham. According to 26-year-old Brooklyn, his mom and dad have been guilty over the years of a legion of offenses, most of them alleged attempts to sabotage Brooklyn’s relationship with the woman he married in 2022.

“[My] parents have been trying endlessly to ruin my relationship since before my wedding, and it hasn’t stopped,” he wrote.

Victoria in particular was savaged over her alleged mistreatment of the couple in the lead-up to the Palm Beach, Florida, wedding, reneging on a promised dress design at the last minute and then hijacking the couple’s first dance with a salacious performance of her own. Brooklyn wrote that his mother “danced very inappropriately on me in front of everyone,” and that “I’ve never felt more uncomfortable or humiliated in my entire life.”