The Free Press

SARASOTA, Florida — Jones Hogsed knew all about the political firestorm at New College of Florida when he was trying to decide whether to enroll here two years ago.

The public liberal-arts school long had a reputation for being far left, with an intellectual culture centered around identity politics. New College also had just been upended by Republican governor Ron DeSantis, whose supporters wanted to shape it into the “Hillsdale of the South,” a nod to the proudly conservative college in Michigan.

Hogsed was worried about both extremes, including what he described as the false premise that “serious academia is primarily a ‘conservative’ effort.” He came to New College anyway—and just finished his sophomore year. What he found turned out to be very different.

“It’s really not a battlefield of political views,” said Hogsed, who is from Orlando and studies literature and philosophy. He sees “divides in a few different ways,” but “none of them are political.”

This college of fewer than 1,000 students has been the subject of countless op-eds and think pieces since DeSantis packed the board overseeing New College with conservative allies in 2023. Depending on your point of view, it is either a blueprint for how to save American higher education from progressive ideological capture or a foretaste of where the Trump administration’s crackdown on academia will lead.

It’s a terrible time to be a classical music fan in New York City.

The New York Philharmonic’s official season ended last weekend, and after its ceremonial final concerts in the city’s parks—occurring as we speak—the storied orchestra will go dark until September.

But we won’t be missing much. New York’s music scene, I’m sorry to say, has suffered decades of systemic abuse.

Take, for example, the newly renovated David Geffen Hall, the physical home of the New York Philharmonic. A decade and $550 million later, it has all the worldly charm of an airport lounge in Dubuque. Actually, strike that: The good folks in Iowa decorated their regional transportation hub with fetching wood ceilings and stone walls, a much more attractive proposition than the cigarette ash–gray carpets and doctor’s office–chic chairs that currently adorn New York’s premier temple of classical music. And the acoustics in any given Iowa airport are better than Geffen Hall’s, too.

And if, for whatever reason, you entered Geffen Hall at any point in the last seven years, the music you experienced was likely just as flat as the building. Approaching the Philharmonic like a certified public accountant approaches a corporate balance sheet, its director, Jaap van Zweden, fashioned an orchestra that was technically proficient, accurate, and mind-bendingly soulless. Under van Zweden’s baton, quipped the critic Daniel Gelernter, “the orchestra is no longer sloppy. Now it’s merely unmusical.”

Welcome back to Great Americans, a countdown to our country’s 250th birthday. We’re bringing you a writer we love on an American they love, every weekday between now and July 4. Previously, Colleen Shogan wrote about the 36 passengers who drove a hijacked plane into a Pennsylvania field. Today, Charles Fain Lehman pays tribute to Irving Berlin—the immigrant who wrote the song Congress sang on the Capitol steps later that day.
—The Editors

On the evening of September 11, hours after the Twin Towers fell, members of Congress assembled on the steps of the Capitol to address the nation. The leaders of both parties spoke, and everyone observed a moment of silence for the dead. Then, as the press conference was breaking up, someone started to sing. In the video, you can’t hear the first line. But people join in by the second and soon, everyone is singing. Dozens of members of Congress—Republican and Democrat, black and white, left and right—stood together, arm in arm, in an impromptu patriotic hymn.

The song they spontaneously chose was not “The Star-Spangled Banner” or “America the Beautiful,” 19th-century songs by heritage Americans. It was “God Bless America,” written by a Jewish immigrant at the end of World War I to express his love for his adoptive nation. On that terrible day, only Irving Berlin’s words could begin to mend what had been broken.

Berlin was born Israel Baline, one of eight children of cantor Moses Baline and his wife, Lena. In 1893, when Israel was just 5 years old, the Balines left their Russian shtetl to come to America. Like many such families, they were Jews fleeing pogroms. Berlin’s sole memory of his Russian life, biographer Lawrence Bergreen wrote, was of “lying on a blanket on the side of a road, watching his house burn to the ground.” Days later, the family packed and left.

Young “Izzy’s” professional career began at 13, after the death of his father left the family in dire straits. He sang for sailors and prostitutes in the saloons of New York’s infamous Bowery, then became a singing waiter in Chinatown. In 1907, his employer gave him a chance to write a song of his own. “Marie from Sunny Italy” made him just 37 cents, but marked the debut of his professional name: Irving Berlin. Within four years he would have his first big hit, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.”

On June 12, nearly a quarter century after its founding, SpaceX will register for what is expected to be the largest IPO in history. The company is set to be valued at $1.75 trillion. The sheer scale of money at stake is hard to fathom: It could mint the world’s first trillionaire in Elon Musk and bestow thousands of SpaceX employees with generational wealth.

But what has generated this wild valuation?

For one thing, SpaceX has created an entirely new realm of commercial activity for humankind. Through its innovations, Musk’s company has lowered launch costs and increased launch frequency to the point where private businesses are planning to build data centers, manufacturing hubs, and labs in orbit. SpaceX has turned the economics of space on its head, opening a world of possibility for founders whose ambitions stretch beyond Earth’s atmosphere.

Delian Asparouhov is one such founder.

The Silicon Valley investor and entrepreneur—known for his work at Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund and his creation of the annual Hill & Valley Forum—has long dreamed of space. Specifically, he’s dreamed of industrializing it.

From an early age—middle school, he says—Asparouhov was consumed by a vision of a space-based economy: in-orbit manufacturing, asteroid mining, extracting lunar ice and helium-3 from the moon. For much of his life, this vision of humanity’s future was stuck on Earth, and his dreams confined to the realm of sci-fi.

Welcome back to Great Americans, a countdown to our country’s 250th birthday. We’re bringing you a writer we love on an American they love, every weekday between now and July 4. Today’s essay is something a little different—a remembrance of not one, but 36 great Americans.

In the final minutes of Flight 93, after learning that other hijacked planes had already been used as weapons, its passengers did something extraordinary. They took a vote. Facing almost certain death, they did not defer to the loudest voice or the strongest person in the cabin. They did not panic or submit. Instead, they gathered information, debated their options, and made a collective decision about how to act. It may be the most consequential act of democratic self-government in American history—and one of the least understood. —The Editors

Everyone who lived through the September 11 terrorist attacks knows the story of Flight 93. But I came to see this moment differently after visiting the Flight 93 National Memorial in Stoystown, Pennsylvania, about 70 miles east of Pittsburgh, not far from the Maryland and West Virginia borders. My visit was transformative, perhaps the most profound history-based civics lessons I have ever experienced.

The visitor center, a concrete structure featuring large glass windows, overlooks the crash site and contains the memorial’s educational components. It’s a solemn place, with very little noise or chatter. The main exhibit features a precise timeline of Flight 93, with humanizing details that deepen the experience for those who steel themselves to read them. A careful perusal of the displays brings to light details easily forgotten after 25 years. These facts deserve our careful attention as we evaluate our collective civic engagement while celebrating the 250th birthday of our nation.

At 8:42 a.m., United Airlines Flight 93 departed Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, bound for San Francisco. At 9:28 a.m., the plane was hijacked by four men, a Lebanese citizen and three Saudi nationals, wielding knives, including at least one box cutter. After a struggle, the terrorists took control of the cockpit, incapacitating the pilot and co-pilot. A flight attendant and a first-class passenger were most likely murdered soon thereafter. The hijackers then forced the surviving 32 passengers and four crew members to the back of the plane.

This is where the terrorists made a tactical error. No doubt they believed that by keeping the passengers at the rear of the aircraft, they would have the freedom and the secrecy they needed to steer the plane toward its intended target in Washington, D.C. But they fundamentally misunderstood the United States and its citizens.

As part of our celebration of America at 250, we’ve started a weekly newsletter by historian Jonathan Horn. Learn what happened this week in American history, why it matters, and what else you should see and read in The Free Press and beyond. This week, Jonathan writes about the drafting of the Declaration of Independence. To get this newsletter in your inbox every week, sign up here. —The Editors

When young speechwriters (I was once one) start at the White House, they receive some version of the same talking-to: Remember the speech is the president’s, not yours. He doesn’t have all day to spend hunched over a computer. Write what he would if he had the time.

Two hundred and fifty years ago this week, it was members of the Continental Congress who were in need of words and short of time to write them. Had it occurred to anyone that the Declaration of Independence would one day become America’s most revered document, the assignment would surely not have fallen to one of Virginia’s junior delegates, Thomas Jefferson.

On June 11, 1776, as discussed in last week’s newsletter, Congress appointed a committee to draft a declaration in the expectation that Richard Henry Lee’s motion for independence would pass in a few weeks’ time. Who on the committee would wield the pen was left to the discretion of its five members: John Adams of Massachusetts; Roger Sherman of Connecticut; Robert Livingston of New York; Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania; and the lanky 33-year-old Jefferson, who made a habit of keeping his lips closed and his arms crossed.

There was never any serious thought of Sherman or Livingston writing the declaration. Ditto for the famous Franklin. A bout of gout had confined him to bed. As it happened, the old newspaper editor wouldn’t have agreed to take on the job anyway. “I have made it a rule. . . whenever in my power, to avoid becoming the draughtsman of papers to be reviewed by a public body,” he later told Jefferson.

It’s Wednesday, June 10. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Niall Ferguson and Haviv Rettig Gur on the latest in Iran. Tyler Cowen down in Mexico. A former jihadist on why he changed his mind. And much more.

But first: What happened after Lyndsey Fifield told The New York Times about her ex-boyfriend, Graham Platner.

Yesterday, Graham Platner secured the Democratic nomination for a U.S. Senate seat in Maine, and will face off against five-term Republican senator Susan Collins in the general election.

It’s a remarkable result given the scandals that have plagued his campaign. There was the Nazi tattoo that he had for 18 years before covering it up this past fall. The allegations of cheating and sexting other women while married to his current wife. The Reddit posts where he called himself a “communist,” insisted that white rural Americans “actually are” racist and stupid, and downplayed sexual assault, writing in one post that people should “just take some responsibility for themselves and not get so fucked up they wind up having sex with someone they don’t mean to.”

And then there are the allegations that came out last week in The New York Times. The Times story detailed Platner’s behavior toward three of his ex-girlfriends. One of them, Lyndsey Fifield, spoke about an instance where Platner yanked her out of a cab after an argument, and another where he twisted her arm behind her back, pushed her into a room, and held the door shut so she couldn’t escape. She also said he cavalierly discussed violence, including threatening to “rape” home intruders. Platner’s campaign did not dispute the rape remarks, but strongly denied any allegations of physical abuse.

What happened after the story was published was, according to Fifield, “disgusting.”

Fifield has faced a vicious backlash for going public about Platner, including accusations that she could be “a scheming liar with a political agenda.” The day after the Times story dropped, Platner’s campaign raised $200,000, its best fundraising day since his main primary opponent, Democratic governor Janet Mills, stopped actively campaigning in April.

Overnight, Fifield’s accusations have become more than just a major development in perhaps the most closely watched race of the 2026 midterm cycle. The story set off a debate about journalistic bias, double standards, and what we expect of candidates for office today.

For our story today, we spoke with Fifield and Jenny Racicot, another woman who detailed Platner’s disturbing past behavior—as well as Genevieve McDonald, who used to work on Platner’s campaign—to understand the real Graham Platner, and what the reception to his ex-girlfriends’ accusations say about the political moment we find ourselves in.

—Frannie Block and Audrey Fahlberg

On Tuesday, the war with Iran reignited—yet again. America pounded Iranian military installations yesterday after Tehran downed an Apache helicopter on Monday. This came just days after Iran fired a ballistic missile barrage at Israel, a move that followed Israel’s targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon. President Trump urged Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to strike back. But Netanyahu did anyway—prompting observers everywhere to ask: Did Bibi just defy the president?

Today, Niall Ferguson joins Rafaela Siewert to unpack the latest in the Middle East, whether the defiance was a genuine fracture or a strategic decoy—and whether the costs of this war will come to outweigh the gains of America, Israel, and the Middle East at large.

With the midterms approaching, leaks from the White House suggest that J.D. Vance and other senior Trump officials are looking for ways to create distance from the war in Iran. But to understand where the conflict stands and what’s next, Haviv Rettig Gur argues, we need to stop seeing the war “as an American political event, and see it for what it actually is: a chapter in a much longer regional story.” Read his latest piece on what comes next, why a U.S.-Iran agreement will never hold, and why the conflict may well last another 20 years.

You already know Washington and Lincoln. This month, we’re bringing you tributes to some of our other favorite Americans. Catch up on a few of our latest and greatest ones: Major Garrett on novelist John Steinbeck; Joseph Epstein on Sandy Koufax; Will Rahn on Jack and Bobby Kennedy. And later today, keep an eye out for our latest entry, which is something a little different from Colleen Shogan, former U.S. archivist: a tribute not to a single compatriot, but to a heroic group of great Americans—the passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 93 on September 11, 2001.

• The U.S. struck Iran on Tuesday after President Trump said the Islamic Republic shot down an American Apache helicopter that was patrolling the Strait of Hormuz the day before. “There were two pilots involved, both are safe and uninjured,” Trump said on social media. “Nevertheless, the United States must, of necessity, respond to this attack.”

• NASA announced the names of the four astronauts who will take part in the Artemis III mission to space next year. The crew will be made up of Commander Randy “Komrade” Bresnik; pilot Luca Parmitano; mission specialist Frank Rubio; and mission specialist Andre Douglas. The U.S. hopes to return humans to the moon in 2028.

• A report by the Social Security’s Board of Trustees says the program is on track to be insolvent by the end of 2032. On Tuesday, the Social Security Administration said it would slash benefits by 22 percent in the event of insolvency.

• Nick Reiner, the 32-year-old accused of killing his parents, director Rob Reiner and his wife Michele, is attempting to get part of his inheritance to pay for legal fees. “Like anyone accused of a crime, Nick is presumed innocent, and he is entitled to mount his defense with the resources that are lawfully his own,” his lawyers said in a petition filed on Monday in Los Angeles.

• North Korean leader Kim Jong Un welcomed Chinese leader Xi Jinping with two days of elaborate celebrations this week, indicating that Pyongyang still sees Beijing—not Moscow—as its primary ally.

• In primaries on Tuesday, Maine Democratic voters are expected to nominate embattled candidate Graham Platner to take on longtime GOP senator Susan Collins in the fall. Meanwhile in South Carolina, Trump-backed gubernatorial hopeful Pamela Everette is facing a crowded Republican primary that also features Rep. Nancy Mace, among others.

• Lesley Groff, one of Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime assistants, told a House committee Tuesday morning that she had no knowledge of her late boss’s crimes. (For more on Groff, read Tanya Lukyanova’s deep dive into how Groff escaped unscathed from the Epstein scandal.)

Last Thursday, The New York Times ran an exposé about Graham Platner, the Democratic Senate candidate in Maine. The reporters describe a pattern of “unsettling behavior” Platner displayed toward three of his ex-girlfriends—one woman, Lyndsey Fifield, 40, spoke about an instance where he yanked her out of a cab after an argument, and another where she said he twisted her arm behind her back, pushed her into a room, and held the door shut so she couldn’t escape. She also said he cavalierly discussed violence, including threatening to “rape” home intruders. Platner’s campaign did not dispute the rape remarks, but strongly denied any allegations of physical abuse.

What happened next was, in Fifield’s words, “disgusting.”

This week we once again watched missile fire between Israel and Iran. President Donald Trump pushed both sides to stand down, but then Iran downed a U.S. Army Apache over the Strait of Hormuz and Trump ordered strikes of his own. Negotiations between Washington and Tehran are under severe strain, and everyone wants to know: What does Trump actually want?

The honest answer is that it’s hard to tell—and that’s probably by design. Trump has repeatedly feinted toward peace before launching air strikes, and been loudest about escalation precisely when he was about to pull back. For a leader facing an adversary across a negotiating table, unpredictability is a genuine strategic asset. You don’t want your enemy to know where your lines are, when you’ll fold, or how far you’ll go. In that sense, the ambiguity is the point.

But there are signals worth reading. Vice President J.D. Vance and others around Trump are uncomfortable with the conflict—looking for ways to create distance from it, and in some cases, to assign blame for it to Israel. A New York Times story about alleged Israeli espionage on America, sourced to unnamed Pentagon officials, fits that pattern. A meaningful faction in Washington regards the war as a political liability and wants to find an exit.

With the World Cup starting Thursday, we will have a truly North American event. Thirteen of the games, an eighth of the total, will be played in Mexico—five in Mexico City, four in Guadalajara, and four in Monterrey.

Yet Americans and soccer fans around the world might be wondering whether those games will be safe to attend. After all, it was only in February of this year that street shoot-outs and battles with drug gangs commanded the headlines.

Murder and mayhem ruled after the Mexican government took out drug lord Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes (“El Mencho”), leader of the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel. The cartel’s response was swift and violent, most noticeably in tourist hot spot Puerto Vallarta, where parts of the coastal town were set on fire, roads were barricaded, and tourists had to shelter in place. The goal was to send a message to both the Mexican government and the United States, as it is rumored that the killing of Cervantes was aided by U.S. intelligence.

In spite of all that, the good news and the bad news is that Mexico probably will stay about as safe as it has been. So if you want to see the World Cup with especially enthusiastic crowds, this is a great chance to do so. (I can also vouch for the food in all three host cities.)