The Free Press
It’s Tuesday, March 25. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Coming up: A new lawsuit against Mahmoud Khalil. Mike Pesca on how the media distorted a subway shooting story. Suzy Weiss calls time out on male vanity. Honestly debates the detained Columbia protester. Greenland gives Usha Vance the cold shoulder. And more.
But first: The group chat that shocked Washington.
Imagine it’s a Thursday afternoon and you’re added to a group chat in which the vice president, the secretaries of defense and the treasury, the director of national intelligence, and other high-ranking officials—or at least designates speaking in their names—are planning an air strike on an Iran-backed terror group in Yemen. Yesterday, we learned this is precisely what happened to Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg earlier this month.
At first, Goldberg thought it was a joke, or a foreign disinformation scheme. In fact, he had on his hands what Matt Continetti describes in The Free Press today as “the scoop of the second Trump administration,” at least so far. Just two hours after Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth inadvertently shared detailed bombing plans against the Houthis with a magazine editor, the bombs started falling.
In addition to this being a stranger than fiction, emoji-laden, possibly illegal security lapse, the messages also reveal a major rift over how to handle one of America’s greatest foreign policy headaches: Iran.
At one point in the group chat, Vice President J.D. Vance pushed back against the plan to bomb the Tehran-backed rebels: “3 percent of U.S. trade runs through the Suez,” he wrote. “40 percent of European trade does. There is a real risk that the public doesn’t understand this or why it’s necessary.”
Hegseth pushed back and Vance later commented to @Pete Hegseth: “if you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing out Europe again.”
This behind-the-scenes look at the back and forth over how to handle the Houthis is just one part of a much bigger clash over what to do about the group’s paymasters in Tehran.
That debate—among the most important debates in Washington right now—is the subject of Matthew Continetti’s column today.
Some in the administration, like Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff, think America should make a deal with a nuclear Iran that looks a lot like the one Obama struck in 2015—and was later scuttled by Trump during his first administration. Other officials, like National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, believe the U.S. must force Tehran to “fully dismantle” its nuclear program.
With his advisers divided, only one question really matters: What does Trump think?
For clues to the answer, read Matt’s column: “Trump’s Advisers Are Divided on Iran. Which Way Is the President Leaning?”
A New Scoop—and Debate—on Detained Columbia Protester Mahmoud Khalil
Up next, The Free Press’s Maya Sulkin has the scoop on the latest development in the fight over antisemitism at Columbia. She reports that Columbia students and parents of October 7 hostages have filed a new lawsuit in the Southern District of New York alleging that several American nonprofits and prominent anti-Israel activists—including Mahmoud Khalil, the former Columbia student who was arrested by ICE earlier this month—unlawfully coordinated with Hamas, a designated foreign terrorist organization.
The lawsuit goes to the heart of the debate over Khalil’s detention and the government’s attempt—currently being fought in the courts—to deport him. It’s a debate over free speech and immigration, and it’s one we’ve been having in our newsroom and in our pages.
Read Maya’s story here: “Lawsuit Targets Anti-Israel Campus Leaders for ‘Aiding and Abetting’ Hamas.”
Today on Honestly, Bari hosts three of the smartest legal minds we know. The first is the man who filed the complaint against Khalil and others, Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center. Bari is also joined by Eugene Volokh, a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and an expert on the Bill of Rights, and Jed Rubenfeld, a Free Press contributor and a professor of constitutional law at Yale Law School.
Is Khalil’s deportation an affront to free speech? Or is it simply an immigration issue? Can the government legally deport him? And legal or not, should the government deport him?
Listen to the podcast below, and follow Honestly on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Journalism Jumps the Turnstile
Last September, over 100 anti-police demonstrators surrounded a NYPD police station to protest the shooting of Derrell Mickles, a 37-year-old black man. Earlier that day he’d charged police officers on the subway while holding a knife—in a year that saw 561 felonious assaults and 10 murders on the New York subway system, the most in over a quarter century. You might think Mickles’ attack on two officers was a key detail in the story of his shooting.
But, as veteran radio host and podcaster Mike Pesca writes in The Free Press today, that’s not how the mainstream media saw things.
Read Mike on “The New York Times and the Case of the Missing Knife.”
You’re So Vain, You Probably Think This Column’s About You
President Trump is fighting to have what he calls a “purposefully distorted” painting of himself removed from the Colorado State Capitol. “The artist also did President Obama, and he looks wonderful,” the president wrote, “but the one on me is truly the worst. She must have lost her talent as she got older.” The portrait looks fine, by the way, but we’ve all been there. I better not catch the photographer who did my Free Press headshot on the streets.
Suzy Weiss says that men like the president and I are part of a serious and growing problem: male vanity. And there’s an entire cottage industry growing around our insecurities—and narcissism. Suzy says she’s had enough!
Read Suzy on “When Did Men Get So Vain?”
Letters to the Editor: Shaken Babies, Josh Shapiro, and the Glory Days of Magazines
Jennifer Block’s recent Free Press report on shaken baby syndrome and how what she calls “junk science” has led to the wrongful prosecution of many parents prompted strong reactions. On our Letters page today, we hear from a pediatrician who says shaken baby syndrome is real, and a New Hampshire juror who acquitted a father accused of shaking his 10-week-old child. Plus, a Pennsylvanian who says Governor Josh Shapiro isn’t a moderate. And novelist and former GQ literary editor Thomas Mallon responds to Joe Nocera’s delightful essay about the glory days of magazines, and more.
Read “Letters to the Editor: Two Personal Perspectives on Shaken Baby Syndrome.”
Greenland has condemned an upcoming visit by Second Lady Usha Vance and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz. Greenland’s prime minister Múte B. Egede, said Sunday, “We are now at a level where this cannot in any way be characterized as a harmless visit from a politician’s wife. What is the national security adviser doing in Greenland? The only purpose is to demonstrate power over us, and the message is clear.” The leader also stressed that there will be no meetings between government officials and the American delegation, who plan to land in the country on Thursday to visit historical sites and watch the country’s national dog sled race.
Yesterday, President Trump said any country that purchases oil from Venezuela will have to pay a 25 percent tariff on any trade with the United States. “This announcement by the Trump administration appears to be one more action targeting China,” Matt Smith, an oil analyst at Kpler, told CNBC. China is the largest importer of Venezuelan oil, purchasing 270,000 barrels per day last year.
23andMe, the DNA testing company, has filed for bankruptcy protection. Despite its popularity with investors and customers—who pushed the company’s value as high as $6 billion—it has never turned a profit. The problem appears to be that once users received their DNA results and learned they were 5 percent Lithuanian or their dad had a love child, there was no reason to pay for further services. In its bankruptcy statement, the company said that any buyer of its assets would be subject to applicable privacy laws surrounding customers’ data.
U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has resigned. Appointed in the first Trump administration, DeJoy has overseen large-scale cuts at the postal service and recently vowed to work with DOGE to enact more. DeJoy’s resignation came as thousands of postal workers and their supporters took to the streets to protest a secretive agreement he made with DOGE to cut as many as 10,000 jobs and address unspecified “big problems” facing the USPS. Last month, Trump proposed merging the USPS with the Commerce Department. Both Trump and Elon Musk have expressed an interest in privatizing the agency.
Over 650 Jewish faculty from across the country have signed an open letter condemning the Trump administration’s decision to withhold more than $400 million in federal grant funding from Columbia University, ostensibly to combat antisemitism. “Not on our behalf,” they write. “Harming U.S. Universities does not protect Jewish people. Cutting funding for research does not protect Jewish people. Punishing researchers and scholars does not protect Jewish people.”
Former high-profile adulterer and golf legend Tiger Woods is dating Donald Trump Jr.’s ex-wife Vanessa Trump, with whom the First Son shares five children. The two went “Instagram official” in a post on Sunday. Congrats to them, but a word of advice for Vanessa: Keep him away from the Waffle House, he ain’t there for the hash browns!
“Harming U.S. Universities does not protect Jewish people. Cutting funding for research does not protect Jewish people. Punishing researchers and scholars does not protect Jewish people.” Oh, yes it does. How dare these faculty speak for the rest of us. Columbia did not protect their Jewish students and these "scholars" were/are a huge part of the problem. I'm guessing 99% of them couldn't say The Shema if there was a gun to their head. "Jewish" faculty indeed.
I have never been added to a text group with the VP and others on it in error, but I have been added to a text group in error. I immediately replied all "I believe I was added in error" and removed myself.