The Free Press

“I intentionally decided not to do a gotcha,” Reshma Saujani tells me.

She’s talking about Donald Trump and the viral clip of her asking him how he plans to make childcare affordable. This was during his campaign for reelection in 2024, when he’d already made clear that, in his second term, “we wanna produce babies.” He’d spoken about making it easier for women to get IVF and flirted with the idea of a $5,000 “baby bonus”—which in most states wouldn’t even cover six months of infant care—but Saujani wanted to know: What specific piece of legislation would Trump push Congress to pass, to help hopeful American parents cover the costs?

His team, she tells me, “knew the subject matter of the questions that were going to be asked beforehand.” Still, Trump’s answer was a two-minute-long ramble in which no real ideas were put forward and which left everyone perplexed.

“I’m more baffled by his most recent thing, where he said that he can’t pay for childcare because he’s got to pay for wars,” says Saujani.

It was Margaret Atwood who first coined an internet-famous truism about the sexes, paraphrased as: Men are afraid women will laugh at them. Women are afraid men will kill them.

If you’ve spent any time consuming feminist discourse online, you’ve no doubt seen this quote, which is supposed to convey how much higher the stakes are for women in negotiating heterosexual partnerships, how much more dangerous and terrifying their lives are. If you are a man, your fear of women is ridiculous; if you are a woman, your fear of men is existential. We are not the same, and ladies, woe betide you if you make the wrong choice.

I’ve seen it said that the new horror movie Obsession is one such cautionary tale, an illustration of just how dangerous men and their desires are even to the women they supposedly love. In fact, I think it’s something deeper: a lesson for everyone about how love makes fools and prisoners of us all, and how a life sentence with the wrong person can eclipse death as a thing to be feared.

The movie’s thesis, put another way: If women are afraid men will kill them, men are afraid that women will make them wish they were dead.

Welcome to Things Worth Remembering, our weekly column in which writers share a literary treasure that all of us should commit to heart. This week, in an excerpt from his brand-new book, What Conservatives Believe, former vice president Mike Pence reflects on Barry Goldwater’s 1960 book, The Conscience of a Conservative, and its enduring wisdom for a political faction increasingly out of touch with its foundational principles.

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I had my first and only encounter with Barry Goldwater when I was 5. He was traveling through southern Indiana on a train tour as he campaigned for president in 1964. On a morning about a month before he lost the election, he stopped in my hometown of Columbus, Indiana. My mother gave me and my brothers train conductor hats and loaded us onto a hay wagon so that we could take in the big event. I don’t remember much else.

Years passed before I could even begin to comprehend Goldwater’s significance as a founding father of American conservatism. I started my journey in politics in the late 1970s as a college Democrat. Beginning after the 1980 election, however, after hearing the voice, vision, and optimism of Ronald Reagan, I knew my future lay in the conservative principles of the Republican Party.

Goldwater roared back into my life in an unexpected way. In 1988, I ran for Congress as a Republican and lost to an incumbent. Two years later, I ran again and suffered another defeat. During that second effort, a would-be constituent gave me a gift: a vintage copy of The Conscience of a Conservative, Goldwater’s slender volume of political thinking. I had known about this book, but only by reputation. Following its initial publication by a small press in Kentucky in 1960, it became a surprise bestseller. It inspired millions, giving shape and form to a set of ideas that fueled a rising political movement. It also elevated its author, making a senator from Arizona a national figure.

It’s Friday, June 5. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: John Steinbeck, great American. The Justice Department closes in on the human traffickers who exploited the border crisis. Ezra Jin’s family worries China is retaliating against the pastor Donald Trump said he would try to free.

But first: The SAT is back, but do we want it?

Over the last decade, our college entrance exams have been steadily dumbed down.

The longest reading passage on the SAT is only 150 words—and the shortest is 25, just a single sentence—because the College Board claims that the ability to read anything longer is “not an essential prerequisite for college.”

But in 2020, a lot of colleges ditched the test because of Covid, deepening a trend that began not because the SAT was too easy—but because it was supposedly too hard for certain students: the ones who didn’t benefit from tip-top exam prep.

The University of California was one of those places. As of this week, more than 1,400 faculty members have signed an open letter demanding the return of the SAT for STEM majors—after finding that 30 percent of incoming freshmen don’t have middle school–level math skills. In the last 18 months, plenty of other top universities have brought back the SAT, too.

But what’s the point of reinstating a test that’s not tough? And could there be an alternative?

These are the questions at the heart of Maya Sulkin’s latest piece, which focuses on a man who is trying to make college entrance exams rigorous again.

Jeremy Tate, who spent a decade teaching in public schools, is the inventor of the Classic Learning Test (CLT), which expects students to analyze long chunks of the Western canon and doesn’t let them use calculators. It’s been criticized for being too conservative and for being championed by the Trump administration—but Tate says this isn’t about politics.

It’s about making sure students are ready for serious academic work.

—Rick Brooks

In the latest installment of our Great Americans series, Major Garrett writes about John Steinbeck. From Of Mice and Men to East of Eden and beyond, his novels echo in our memory “like a favorite family hymn, a true American hymn,” writes Major.

From presidential assassination attempts to lethal assaults on places of worship to an arson attack on a governor’s mansion, it’s clear we are living through an age of political violence. But how does a seemingly normal teenager get so radicalized that he plots a terrorist attack? That’s the question Maya Sulkin spent months investigating for her new piece. It’s about a 14-year-old boy who was isolated, perpetually online, and autistic. He was targeted by jihadist extremists on a chat-room app. Her piece tells the story of a profound danger facing some of the most vulnerable Americans and the dilemmas parents face after they discover their child has been radicalized.

Last year, Frannie Block and Jay Solomon investigated the scale of Qatari efforts to influence American public life. They found nearly $100 billion of Qatari investments across key sectors, from education to defense—and exposed how Qatar sought to curry favor with the American public and politicians in both parties. Now, a fresh report suggests the spending is even bigger than anyone thought. Read Frannie’s story on the more than $400 billion in Qatari spending in the U.S. since 2010 and how it has changed the country.

Is artificial intelligence a blessing or a curse? It may be the defining question of the 21st century. The technology promises extraordinary benefits, from medical breakthroughs to unprecedented economic growth. But it also poses profound risks to how we live—and perhaps even to the future of humanity. As Niall Ferguson wrote this week, AI is turning out to be perhaps the most dangerous arms race in human history. And we have arrived at what may be its most dangerous point. To make matters worse, “the leadership of the competitors in this race is, to say the least, of mixed quality.” Read Niall to make sense of this important, precarious moment:

And for more on the AI arms race, don’t miss the latest episode of School of War. Aaron MacLean sits down with former intelligence officer Anthony Vinci, who explains how AI has upended our assumptions about espionage and intelligence and unpacks the future of spy craft in the 21st century.

How will the next generation prepare for this brave new AI-infused world? The answer, for some parents, is by spending their Saturdays vibe coding with their kids. Evan Gardner spoke to the people who think it’s a parenting prerogative to raise well-trained AI natives. Read his feature on the parents who have seen the future and want their kids to master it.

Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner’s week keeps getting worse. The latest allegations against the scandal-ridden Democrat come courtesy of The New York Times, who spoke to several of his ex-girlfriends, some of whom found his behavior “intimidating and disturbing.” The story has triggered a familiar-sounding conversation about who to believe and how to judge contested claims about a public figure’s personal life. But Platner himself is not exactly shy about making accusations of his own—including against people no longer here to defend themselves. In a recently unearthed podcast interview, Platner accused Chris Kyle, the Navy SEAL sniper made famous by the movie American Sniper, of targeting civilians in Iraq. It’s a serious claim, and one for which there is not a shred of evidence, says Leif Babin, Chris Kyle’s former platoon commander. Read his defense of his late friend:

Finally, if you’re looking for something to watch this weekend, Spencer Klavan wrote about the low-budget psychological thriller outdoing a Star Wars spin-off at the box office. Backrooms and its 20-year-old director are changing the scope of what the aging movie industry allows. Read his piece about why Hollywood may yet have hope, thanks to a generation of YouTubers.

In Jeremy Tate’s office in Annapolis, Maryland, there’s a plaque bolted to the wall, with words engraved in tarnished brass. It’s the kind you’d find on a historical landmark, only this message is from the future; it reads: In 2040, the CLT surpassed the SAT and ACT as the number one college entrance exam globally.

“Every day we say our job is to come here and to make this become true,” Tate told me of the sign, which he had made two years ago.

On the surface, the Classic Learning Test (CLT) doesn’t seem all that revolutionary. It’s a two-hour test of reading, grammar, and math, taken by high school seniors as an alternative to the SAT or ACT. There are a few important differences though. Unlike the better-known tests, the texts are Western canon, not news article clips or the Common Core. There is no calculator. The reading passages are more than a few hundred words. The test does not get easier every year if students perform poorly.

The point of the CLT is to make college entrance academically rigorous again, so kids rise to the challenge—and so, ultimately, every high school classroom in America starts teaching the classics again. Tate says he’s “in a battle to save Western civilization.” And he’s not afraid of the competition.

I grew up in the limelight, with my appearance scrutinized weekly from the time I starred in my own NBC show at 14. I was blissfully unaware of my weight back then. I was naturally lanky and athletic, and I ate whatever I wanted with no concern for weight gain. All that changed when, as a teenager, I was put on medication to manage my moods, and weight gain followed me from there. By my 40s, still actively working as an actress, I acquired a deep sense of shame around my body. At a size 6, I felt obese. By the time social media arrived—with its fixation on being thinner, more toned, more surgically perfected—that pressure tipped into a disordered relationship with food that I have spent years trying to untangle.

Early menopause did not help. In the last several years, I’ve put on about 20 pounds that I really don’t need. I also don’t seem to have the discipline, motivation, or time to lose them.

Still, that’s not why I went on a GLP-1. I went on a weight-loss drug because a doctor told me it might help ease symptoms I’ve struggled with for basically my entire adult life.

I was diagnosed with my first autoimmune condition—Graves’ disease—at the height of my health, when I was 23. My immune system forgot that my thyroid was a part of my body and attacked it, sending it into an overactive storm that made me very, very sick. My doctor prescribed strong medication and sent me on my merry way. In 1998, there was no discussion of diet or lifestyle or any of what we now know can influence autoimmune conditions. I probably did a lot of things that very slowly made my condition worse.

For many Jews, it can feel like the walls are closing in on both sides. On the left, the rising tide of anti-Zionism comes with a belief that America is uniquely evil; that capitalism should be uprooted; and that the decline of the West would benefit the world. Meanwhile, among growing sects of the right, virulent nationalism and white supremacy manifest as isolationism, conspiratorial thinking about Israel, and resentment of the Jewish people. It’s a classic example of the horseshoe theory of politics: Extreme views often reach the same destination.

This week, it was the right’s turn for the microphone. Political commentator and former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly is a member of a rising cohort of conservative voices—including Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, among others—whose opinions are increasingly interchangeable with those of the most radical anti-Zionist leftists. This week, Kelly sat down with Shawn Ryan—a podcaster who, like her, is a Trump fan turned critic—for an episode of his show.

Welcome back to the news summary where we look at the week that has passed. No, I will not be commenting on 60 Minutes other than to say that there are 11,492,640 minutes until I am 60. Do with that what you will, Puck. I’m Nellie Bowles, and this is TGIF.

→ Trump walking back his slush fund: We finally found a scam that’s too scammy even for the Trump administration, and it’s his $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” slush fund, in which Trump planned to hand out cash to people who felt they’d been unfairly targeted by the Biden administration and IRS. Scam cell phones, scam crypto, scam crypto platform—that we could handle, that we could ignore, fine. But an actual bag of cash? It’s a little on the nose, even in 2026. “We are not moving forward with the fund. Period,” said acting attorney general Todd Blanche, trying to assuage House lawmakers. It was part of his IRS truth and reconciliation program.

Now, to back up a bit about Trump vs. IRS: It’s not great that the IRS leaks personal tax information about people its employees don’t like, which is what happened when an IRS contractor leaked Trump’s and thousands of other wealthy people’s returns, much to the joy of ProPublica and The New York Times. It’s been memory-holed, but as a reminder: IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn, an alum of the St. Louis prep school Crossroads and UNC Chapel Hill, got his little paws on those documents and shared them with reporters. He was sentenced to five years in prison, and then I’m sure he’ll get an amazing sinecure somewhere.

For a year, tech writer Joanna Stern turned herself into an AI guinea pig. She let artificial intelligence into every corner of her life: testing robot assistants, commuting in autonomous vehicles, reading AI bedtime stories to her children, and even going on a road trip with her AI boyfriend, Evan.

That experiment became her new book, I Am Not a Robot. …

Anthony Vinci—co-founder and CEO of Vico, an AI company that empowers judgment and analysis in finance and national security, and author of The Fourth Intelligence Revolution—joins School of War to discuss the technological evolution of spy craft. How does an intelligence officer operate in a world of rapidly advancing technology? What happens when mach…