The Free Press

Hello, and welcome to TGIF. We sent Nellie Bowles to the reflecting pool this week, and she sadly ingested too much green algae, which landed her in the intensive care unit at Walter Reed. We keep her in our prayers. I’m Will Rahn, filling in and ready for you to roast me in the comments.

Here’s a quick reminder to head to our merch shop to pick up one of our fast-selling America 250 T-shirts and Free Press golf balls. Now let’s do the news of the week!

→ The mini Mamdanis: Just a year after his stunning victory in the New York Democratic mayoral primary, Zohran Mamdani completed his first round of purges this week.

Mamdani’s three handpicked candidates for the U.S. House all won their primaries Tuesday night, effectively doubling the number of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) members in Congress over the course of an evening.

So how did that happen? Were defeated congressmen Dan Goldman and Adriano Espaillat insufficiently anti-Trump? Were they standing in the way of the mayor’s “affordability” agenda? Were they moderates in any real, practical sense? Did a salacious tryst with Sydney Leathers come to light?

Pfft. Of course not. They lost because they aren’t anti-Israel enough, silly. “Free Palestine” is now the binding issue on the left, the only thing that actually matters. They’ve given up on global warming. Do Black Lives still Matter? Unclear. Abortion, tax hikes, gun control, nationalized healthcare: All now take a backseat to Israel and AIPAC, an American group that funds pro-Israel candidates, and the big, bad bogeyman on the left. A generation after Pat Buchanan was drummed out of the GOP for saying things like “Capitol Hill is Israeli-occupied territory,” the vanguard of the left has decided that Ronald Reagan’s onetime communications director was right, actually.

You don’t need to be Bibi Netanyahu’s number-one fan to conclude that this has all become totally deranged. Criticize the Israeli government all you want. Stand against the settlements. Plenty of Israelis certainly do so. But why was the Sunrise Movement—a supposedly environmentalist organization—gleefully posting photos this week of some poor woman who apparently elected to get a “FUCK AIPAC” tattoo on her forehead?

Call me old-fashioned, but I associate face tattoos with meth, mental illness, and Mike Tyson. Not. . . anti-Israel political posturing?

And what’s this lady going to do when the left inevitably moves onto its next cause du jour? I’m not a big fan of Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, the two Weather Underground leaders who had plum seats at the opening of Barack Obama’s ugly-as-hell presidential center last week. Yes, they were communists who carried out a bombing campaign against the government. Yes, Dohrn was a big fan of the Manson Family’s murder spree. But at least they had the good sense not to get “VICTORY FOR THE VIETCONG” tattooed on their foreheads. Such a thing might well have cost them their post-terrorism posts in snobby academia.

Seriously, where are you going in life with a FUCK AIPAC tattoo, other than, perhaps, you know, Congress?

On the night of March 1, 1932, a ransom note was left on a nursery windowsill. Nobody saw who wrote it, licked the seal, and placed it there. The envelope has never been tested for DNA. Scientists say they could now easily extract forensic evidence that might provide answers. Kurt Perhach is trying to make that happen—and the state of New Jersey is figh…

Few public figures have a résumé as eclectic as Mayim Bialik’s: child star, sitcom icon, neuroscientist, Jeopardy! host, “crotchety” feminist, and unapologetic Zionist.

On this episode of Second Thought, she joins Suzy Weiss for a conversation about growing up as a child actress, finding fame on Blossom, spending a decade on The Big Bang Theory, and why…

On February 25, 1964, in Hall C of the Miami Beach Convention Center, a 22-year-old, 8-1 underdog from Louisville, Kentucky, won the heavyweight title. Forty-three of 46 sportswriters had predicted Cassius Clay would lose, but he used a speed and agility never before seen in the heavyweight ring to vanquish a menacing, mob-connected bear of a fighter named Sonny Liston. Thoroughly outclassed, Liston refused to come out for the seventh round. The sportswriters had been wrong. The new champion, soon to be known as Muhammad Ali, was cocky, preening, and magnificently gifted. Boxing was changed forever; it had become high entertainment as well as sport.

Ten years later, on October 30, 1974, came the most celebrated bout of the modern era: “The Rumble in the Jungle.” More than 600 accredited journalists—including Norman Mailer, George Plimpton, and Hunter S. Thompson—traveled to Kinshasa, Zaire, to see Ali fight another world champion: George Foreman. Just 25, the Bunyanesque Foreman had already fought and won 40 professional fights, including one where his uppercut had lifted the reigning heavyweight champion, Joe Frazier, completely off the canvas. He knocked Frazier down an unheard-of six times in just two rounds and claimed the heavyweight title.

Josh Smith, 51, spent this past Christmas in prison. Just like he did for five years after being caught at the age of 21 in possession of a kilogram of cocaine and 150 pounds of marijuana. The difference? Smith wasn’t behind bars anymore. A year ago this month, he was sworn in as deputy director of the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), one of the world’s largest prison systems.

During the holidays, he made three unannounced prison visits with his wife to thank corrections officers for reporting to work and sacrificing their family time. Just showing up also meant that prison wardens didn’t have a chance “to start painting any walls” or do other tidying up before Smith arrived, he told me.

The next big stop of the holidays was another sign of how much Smith’s life has turned around: He rang in the new year at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. It was the president who pardoned Smith in 2021 during the last week of Trump’s first term, almost two decades after Smith completed his prison sentence.

The White House said Smith had “dedicated his life to his faith and to his community” and to “making prison ‘a place of transformation’ ” through his Fourth Purpose Foundation, which advocates for criminal justice reform. The pardon was supported by Tennessee’s governor, other top state officials, and “numerous other community and faith leaders.”

“What stood out from the beginning was not just that he rebuilt his own life, but how seriously he has taken the responsibility to help others do the same,” said Alice Marie Johnson, another former federal inmate who received a pardon from Trump in 2020 and is now the White House “pardon czar.”

Dear Abigail,

About eight months ago, when my girlfriend and I started dating, I was up-front about my deal-breakers: staying in the New York area, building a home centered on our shared religion, and having at least three children. She agreed in principle.

I raised the three-child point at least twice more during the relationship. Each time, I felt reassured that we were aligned. Six months in, after we had fallen in love, we began discussing timelines for engagement, marriage, and children. Because we are both 33 and fertility is a real consideration, I proposed a timeline that would make three children possible. That was when she said she had never committed to three; she was only open to it, and currently wanted two.

That hit me hard. I have no reason to think my girlfriend was being intentionally deceitful; I think we misunderstood each other, or failed to recognize the difference between being open to something and being committed to it. But I come from a big family—I’m one of five—and I want to create the same dynamic: siblings, cousins, chaos, laughter, fighting, and making up.

I clarified that serious complications—miscarriage, fetal abnormality, danger to her health—would obviously reopen the conversation. I also raised options like surrogacy, and suggested making a third child conditional on me proving myself to be the attentive husband and father I expect to be. But for her, the issue was deeper. She only recently became certain she wanted children at all, has a demanding career that she prioritizes, and wants a very individualized relationship with each child, like she has with her mother. She felt uncomfortable committing to a number she does not presently want.

After six difficult weeks, I concluded that we wanted different lives, and we ended the relationship. I am still wrestling with whether I made the right decision. Some friends and family think it is reasonable to have core deal-breakers, especially ones raised early, and that wanting at least three children is not extreme. Others think it is unfair for a man to ask a woman to commit to a specific number of children, and that the difference between two and three is not meaningful enough to end a serious relationship over.

Part of me wants to call her and accept her need for flexibility. But I worry that if we ended up having only two children because she wanted to stop, I would resent her. Had her position been clear to me at the beginning, I do not think we would have continued dating. Was I right to end the relationship, or do I have unrealistic expectations?

— Adam, 33

Adam,

You located a partner who shared your goals. Laid out deal-breakers and nonnegotiables. Checked for red flags. Agreed on deal points. And when you discovered your goals no longer aligned, you dissolved the partnership.

If what you’re after is a business arrangement, you’re proceeding swimmingly. You are a dealmaker, and you expect to get what you bargained for. Thrice-married Lee Iacocca would be proud.

But marriage is not actually a negotiation—you’ve confused it with divorce.

It’s Thursday, June 25. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Why is Pete Hegseth going after a great military leader? The UK is still running gender experiments on children. Douglas Murray on Conversations with Coleman. And much more.

But first: The New York City earthquake.

The media is frequently accused of being too focused on what happens in New York City, and not interested enough in the rest of the country. Usually, that’s true. But after Tuesday’s congressional primaries, in which three Zohran Mamdani–backed candidates toppled Democrats supported by the party establishment, you could argue the opposite.

These races earned plenty of column inches, of course. Yet what happened was enormous, perhaps the clearest sign yet that we are living in a revolutionary moment. Why? Because the nature of the victories—with radical, just-recently-fringe candidates sweeping aside incumbents—was emphatic. It is a revolution not just in New York politics but in the Democratic Party nationwide. Our first piece today on this important story comes from seasoned political journalist Mark Halperin, and it’s on the defining feature of this insurgency: virulent opposition to Israel.

Mark has spent decades investigating some of the toughest and biggest issues in America. But, as he writes for us today, lately he has “come up short on one question”: “How did opposition to Israel become the toxic litmus test in Democratic Party politics—so rapidly, so emotionally, and so completely?”

Read his best attempt at an answer to that all-important question:

There’s also a paradox at the epicenter of the political earthquake that hit New York City on Tuesday night: The progressive candidates who claim to represent a working-class revolution won their primaries thanks to the votes of the well-educated, credentialed, and affluent, while low-income New Yorkers tended to back more moderate candidates.

Our second story today unpacks that dynamic with a deep dive into the victory of DSA-backed Darializa Avila Chevalier over five-term Democratic incumbent Adriano Espaillat in New York’s 13th Congressional District. The race, featuring two Dominican American candidates, exposed a growing divide between the district’s long-established immigrant community and its more activist, college-educated heirs.

Today, Rafael A. Mangual examines these dynamics and identifies an underappreciated divide in American politics today. “The immigrant who built a career on becoming American has given way to the American-born activist who rejects American patriotism,” he writes.

Having won their primaries, the three Mamadani-backed candidates are all but certain to make it to Congress in the general election this fall. But who are they? And just what do they believe? For a primer on New York’s new socialist squad, including the candidate who has said she wants to “abolish borders” and refuses to condemn Hamas, read Olivia Reingold’s latest:

If Tuesday’s election was a demonstration of Mamdani’s political strength, tonight we will find out if his top campaign promise—a rent freeze for the 2.4 million New Yorkers who live in rent-stabilized apartments—will become a reality. Matt Miller, a New York landlord, previews the meeting of the Rent Guidelines Board where a decision will be made on the policy, and warns that the whole process resembles a show trial. Read his piece on how what is supposed to be a deliberative, analytical process has been hijacked by Mamdani’s allies:

For more on what we saw at the revolution in New York this week, catch up on our latest livestream, with Rafaela Siewert in the host’s chair, and featuring Mark Halperin, Douglas Murray, and Reihan Salam.

Here at The Free Press, we’ve been dissecting the forces upending our politics long before they made it onto the front page of The New York Times. I don’t think you can properly understand them unless you understand two ideas, both of which have been fleshed out by important young thinkers in our pages. The first is anti-Zionism, which Adam Louis Klein so brilliantly explained as just another form of Jew-hate. Read Adam’s first piece on that for us, from last October, here:

The second is Third Worldism, a term coined by Zineb Riboua to describe the worldview of Mamdani and the generation of young progressives for which he has become the standard-bearer. Read Zineb if you want to understand why Mamdani and his allies have beliefs derived not from Marx or Mecca—but a 20th-century crusade that turned anti-imperial struggle into a moral identity.

—Oliver Wiseman

In many ways, Eliza Lucas Pinckney was America’s first girlboss. As a young woman, she was both an artist and an overseer of three plantations in South Carolina. But she didn’t do it alone. While her independence was way ahead of her time, as Kathleen DuVal writes for our latest installment of Great Americans, Pinckney also was helped by those around her, providing an enduring example of how to have a fruitful career while living a fulfilling life.

• President Trump abruptly canceled a bipartisan housing bill signing ceremony on Wednesday in frustration over Congress not passing the Save America Act, which would establish a swath of voter identification laws and bans on pediatric transgender surgery. A few hours later, Trump and Senate Republicans had a heated closed-door meeting.

• Camp Mystic filed for bankruptcy protection on Wednesday, almost a year after floods along Texas’s Guadalupe River killed 25 campers and two teenage counselors at the Christian all-girls camp. The filing came just days after a congressional report detailed mistakes that contributed to the tragedy. Camp Mystic had already said it wouldn’t reopen this summer.

• Europe continues to endure a blistering heat wave, setting new record high temperatures. France suffered its hottest day in recorded history, while the UK reached an all-time high for June with a temperature of 96.4 degrees Fahrenheit.

• Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Persian Gulf allies on Wednesday to shore up support for and smooth over concerns about U.S.-Iran peace talks. Rubio met with officials from the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, which host U.S. military bases and were barraged by Iranian attacks during the war.

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ended its hantavirus response on Wednesday, two months after a cruise ship outbreak triggered an international containment effort. Over 100 CDC employees were part of the response.

• Frank Carone, former chief of staff to New York City mayor Eric Adams, was indicted on federal charges for allegedly accepting $120,000 in bribes for steering a contract for emergency shelter for migrants. Carone’s lawyer said the indictment is “not worth the paper upon which it’s printed.”

• The undefeated U.S. men’s World Cup soccer team continued preparations for Thursday night’s game against Turkey. The U.S. has already clinched a spot in the next round. After defeating Australia, U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino urged fans and players to “keep believing.”

Douglas Murray is back at The Free Press, where he started the column Things Worth Remembering. He is one of the most clear-eyed writers working today on the threats facing Western civilization, and I was glad to have him back on the show.

We started by looking at Britain, where Keir Starmer has just resigned after two years of achieving very little. Dou…

On Tuesday, the Democratic establishment suffered a crushing defeat when nine out of 10 candidates endorsed by the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) coasted to victory in their primaries. In some instances, long-serving progressives were caught in the crosshairs, including Representative Adriano Espaillat, a five-term House member who lost the Democratic nomination to a 32-year-old socialist. A House staffer for a New York Democrat told me that in progressive cities like New York, the DSA is “the new establishment.”

Hasan Piker, the far-left Twitch streamer, squealed with excitement at an East Williamsburg watch party when he saw yet another Democratic Socialist clinch the Democratic nomination.

“Brother,” he said, “the Democratic Party machine in the blue stronghold of New York City was thoroughly defeated tonight.”

The night was a major test for Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who pulled off his own upset almost a year ago against Democratic Party giant Andrew Cuomo. The mayor, a long-standing DSA member, worked overtime to appear at countless campaign events for a trio of candidates he dubbed “the Team”: Claire Valdez, Brad Lander, and Darializa Avila Chevalier. Meet the Mamdani-backed candidates who soared to victory last night.

We are about to find out if New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani’s campaign promise to freeze the rent on the 2.4 million New Yorkers who live in rent-stabilized apartments will come to pass. This huge decision will be made on Thursday night by the Rent Guidelines Board, which, despite its boring name, actually provides some of the most raucous theater in town. Members of the public have been warned to leave their drums and noisemakers at home.

Other major cities in America with rent controls tend to use simple formulas to determine how much rents can go up each year. Los Angeles allows rent hikes equal to 90 percent of the increase in the local Consumer Price Index (CPI), with a minimum of 1 percent and a maximum of 4 percent. San Francisco’s math is even cleaner: 60 percent of the local CPI increase.

The greatest city on Earth does things differently. Each year, the Rent Guidelines Board is tasked by law to analyze the economic state of the city and its housing stock to arrive at a “rent adjustment” for one- and two-year leases. It does so over the course of 11 open meetings, including four where members of the public can provide testimony.

I am a landlord whose properties are majority rent-stabilized, but I have never really wanted to participate in these hearings. Owners who complain about expenses that outstrip what they are allowed to charge in rent are invariably drowned out by tenants and activists who shout, stomp their feet, wave placards, and blow whistles to disrupt the proceedings, despite the rules. It is a circus, and it has been for a long time.