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Latest articles

• 

  Haley Stevens’s Election Eve Surprise. Plus. . .

  In today’s Front Page, James Kirchick and Mark Halperin on a surprise endorsement in Michigan. Tyler Cowen on the bipartisan flight from economics. The Florida tax fight dividing Republicans. RFK Jr.’s new hire. And more. It’s Monday, November 2. 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 economics loses no matter who wins in the midterms. Josh Code meets the woman who spent 14 years on psychiatric drugs and is now joining HHS to fix the system. Mark Manson on why happiness is overrated. And much more. But first: the Michigan midterm bombshell. Just when we thought Election Day would arrive without the usual late “October surprise,” Michigan’s Senate race took an unforgettable November turn. Yesterday, Rep. Haley Stevens, who narrowly lost the Democratic primary to Abdul El-Sayed in August, endorsed El-Sayed’s Republican opponent, Mike Rogers. The last-minute change of heart caught everyone off guard, but it reflects a truth that’s easy to forget in today’s politics: Some fissures run deeper than the line between parties. Stevens made her move after El-Sayed refused to condemn an ad from a supporter’s PAC that blamed Israel for the rising cost of Americans’ groceries. With control of the Senate potentially hinging on Michigan, Democratic leaders were quick to denounce her. But is she a traitor, or a Democrat putting her country over her party? James Kirchick argues it’s the latter. Two years ago, he notes Democrats welcomed Liz Cheney’s endorsement of Elissa Slotkin for Michigan’s other Senate seat as an act of political courage. Now that a Democrat has made the same choice, her party is branding her as a turncoat. And what does Stevens’s endorsement mean for El-Sayed’s chances on Tuesday? The polls show El-Sayed ahead, but could this change things? Mark Halperin says her defection has exposed divisions Democrats had worked to keep hidden in the final weeks of the campaign. Before Sunday, insiders in both parties told him El-Sayed could win Michigan without a blue wave. Now, Halperin writes, he probably needs one. Michigan is just one of many key races this cycle. For predictions of their outcomes, we turn to two of our favorite Washington insiders, Jesse Arm, a conservative, and Yemisi Egbewole, a liberal. They go state by state through the biggest contests, and find themselves agreeing more often than you might expect. And tomorrow, don’t miss our live election night special with 2WAY, from 8 p.m. till midnight ET. Will Rahn, Mark Halperin, and a lineup of Free Press writers will follow the results as they come in. Mark your calendars! —The Editors MORE FROM THE FREE PRESS THE NEWS A federal judge on Sunday threw out the Justice Department’s bid to delay certifying Alaska’s Senate results should Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan lose in tomorrow’s midterm elections. The DOJ had argued that another man with the same name was put on the ballot to confuse voters and help Democrat Mary Peltola, whose campaign denies any role. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut suffered a stroke on Saturday after feeling his arm go numb at his son’s hockey game. The 53-year old Democrat, a possible 2028 presidential contender, is being treated at Johns Hopkins and is expected to make a full recovery. A private jet flying from Texas to The Bahamas nosedived and crashed in Palm Beach County, Florida, on Sunday, killing all nine people aboard. Drivers on a nearby road captured video of the plane plummeting from the sky, and the cause is still under investigation. New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani said Saturday that President Trump agreed in a phone call to quickly grant a visa to the mother of Javits Frimpong, a 15-year-old Ghanaian immigrant who was shot on his way to school in the Bronx last week. The police have not made any arrests in his killing. Russian authorities detained a teenager Sunday after the U.S. warned of a possible terror attack in Moscow. Russia’s FSB…

  The Free Press · Nov 2, 2026, 6:02 AM EST

• 

  How Haley Stevens Trimmed El-Sayed’s Sails

  By endorsing the Republican, she broke her formal rival’s odds. To win, El-Sayed may now need a blue tsunami, writes Mark Halperin. Don’t miss our live election special Tuesday night with 2WAY, from 8 p.m. until midnight ET, featuring Mark Halperin, Will Rahn, and a lineup of Free Press writers following the results. Mark your calendars here. —The Editors It may be the ultimate shocking but not surprising twist of the Democratic Party’s 2026 midterm cycle, in an election season that has witnessed Graham Platner dropping out of the Maine Senate race amid accusations of sexual misconduct, James Talarico vanishing from the Texas campaign trail for nearly a fortnight, and Mary Peltola’s team apparently coaxing a second Dan Sullivan onto the Alaska ballot to distract voters from her Republican opponent, incumbent senator Dan S. Sullivan. On Sunday, Michigan congresswoman Haley Stevens, who lost the Senate primary in August after a rancorous battle with Abdul El-Sayed, endorsed his Republican opponent, former congressman Mike Rogers, appearing with Rogers at a morning service at Detroit’s Perfecting Church, and then releasing a video offering her full support. “Hey, Michigan” she began, “As you may have seen, our Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, Abdul, said I was no longer welcome in his campaign and that I should stay away. And he’s right—that’s why I am endorsing Mike Rogers for the U.S. Senate today.” Stevens called the Michigan race “the conscience of the Senate, and our Michigan moment,” and said “I’m just letting you know where I am. I’m still a very proud Democrat; I still very much believe in everything I voted for and said. I’ve worked really hard and will continue to do so. . . Godspeed and love you all so much.” Mark your calendars. The Free Press and 2WAY are teaming up for a real-time interactive election night special, November 3 from 8 p.m. ET until late. See you there. It is not unprecedented for politicians to endorse across party lines. Former senator Joe Manchin has endorsed Susan Collins twice, both this past September, and in 2019 when he was still officially a Democrat. Democratic senator Joe Lieberman endorsed his dear friend John McCain in the 2008 presidential election. This year, former Republican governors Bill Graves and Mike Hayden are supporting Democratic Senate candidate Adam Hamilton in Kansas, and House Democrat Jared Golden is supporting his across-the-aisle colleague Mike Lawler in New York.

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  Mark Halperin · Nov 1, 2026, 10:33 PM EST

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  She Spent 14 Years on Psychiatric Drugs. Now She’s Joining HHS to Fix the System.

  Laura Delano is one of America’s most prominent critics of antidepressant overprescription. She tells Josh Code why she’s taking her fight to Washington. “I once believed deeply that the only reason I was alive was because I was on psych meds,” Laura Delano told me. From age 13 until 27, doctors prescribed her a total of 19 psychiatric medications, including antidepressants and antipsychotics. Now, she’s taking on a role in the federal government to curb the overprescription of those same drugs. Monday is Delano’s first day as a senior policy adviser in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Department of Health and Human Services, where she will help him set guidance for tapering off antidepressants. Her appointment comes six months after Kennedy announced a “MAHA Action Plan” to reduce the “overuse” of antidepressants, “especially among children.” Delano was, in many ways, the obvious choice to help him. For years, she has been highlighting the risks posed by psychiatric drug dependence, before rising to national prominence in 2024 thanks to her best-selling memoir, Unshrunk. The book details her tumultuous life story, from her upbringing in a privileged Greenwich, Connecticut family (yes, that Delano), to a 2008 suicide attempt and multiple hospitalizations, to a shocking realization: Her pills were making her worse, not better. Mark your calendars. The Free Press and 2WAY are teaming up for a real-time interactive election night special, November 3 from 8 p.m. ET until late. See you there. In 2010, Delano began to taper off her meds—going through an agonizing five-medication withdrawal process—and when she came out on the other side, she realized that the anger, frustration, and self-harm that had been cited by her clinicians as diagnostic criteria were actually something very different.

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  Josh Code · Nov 1, 2026, 9:34 PM EST

• 

  The Tax Fight Splitting the Right in Florida

  A new Republican-backed property tax amendment in Florida has Democrats saying they don’t support ‘defunding the police.’ One county sheriff said the fight is ‘turning politics on its head,' writes Frannie Block. Grady Judd of Polk County, Florida, isn’t your typical sheriff. The 72-year-old career law enforcement officer has amassed nearly four million followers on social media, where he shares stories of unfolding cases with a deadpan Southern drawl and the blunt delivery of a seasoned stand-up comic. In one clip, he calls a prostitute dressed in drag “Coyote Ugly“”; in another, he shows up to a news conference announcing a drug bust wearing a gold chain, stating “I got their drip, I got their money, we got their guns, we got their dope.” His most popular video—where he details the arrest of an 18-year-old for threatening to shoot up a McDonald’s after the store messed up his order (he refers to the man as a “McNut”)—has been viewed over 21 million times. “It’s just another day in the office,” Judd told me. He’s squeezing in the time to give me a call between meetings, just a week ahead of Florida’s November 3 election, where he’s leveraged his large following to emerge as one of the state’s loudest voices against a proposed constitutional amendment to lower property taxes across the state. If it passes by a 60 percent vote on Tuesday, the amendment will increase the state’s current homestead exemption from $50,000 to $150,000 in 2027, and $250,000 in 2028. Those in favor argue the proposal will bring much-needed tax relief to Floridians who are struggling with the rising cost of living, while those opposed say the cuts to local services will be so drastic that some counties will struggle to perform even their most basic duties, including providing road repair or park services. Mark your calendars. The Free Press and 2WAY are teaming up for a real-time interactive election night special, November 3 from 8 p.m. ET until late. See you there. “It’s a train wreck,” Judd told me of the proposal, “It’s the most insane constitutional amendment I think I’ve ever seen.” Judd has become the face of the “vote no” movement. Earlier this week, at a press conference where he stood behind a podium wrapped in the phrase “Too good to be true,” Judd declared: “It does not give the government a haircut with the appropriate tools and scissors; it gives us a haircut with a weed eater. As a result, you’re going to be left with the bloody results.”

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  Frannie Block · Nov 1, 2026, 8:42 PM EST

• 

  When ‘Country over Party’ Goes Only One Way

  Haley Stevens is being called a traitor, but by reversing her endorsement of Abdul El-Sayed, she is showing exactly the kind of courage moderate Democrats once cheered, writes James Kirchick. Running for Senate two years ago, Michigan Democratic congresswoman Elissa Slotkin proudly accepted an endorsement from her former Republican colleague Liz Cheney. “It is a privilege to be here in Grand Rapids, the hometown of former President Gerald Ford,” Slotkin said to a room full of people holding “Republicans for Slotkin” and “Country over Party” placards. The 38th president, who also happened to be a Republican, “was a leader who understood courage in public service and putting your country over your party.” Cheney, who co-chaired the House committee investigating the events of January 6th, 2021, was the most popular Republican among Democrats at the time, and deservedly so. Though a rock-ribbed conservative her entire life and the daughter of a man whom liberals reviled during his tenure as vice president, Cheney simply couldn’t countenance Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn a democratic election. For choosing country over party, she lost her seat in Congress. Fast-forward to the weekend before the 2026 midterms, when another of Slotkin’s congressional colleagues, this one a fellow Democrat from Michigan, decided that she too could no longer stomach the burgeoning extremism in her party. Mark your calendars. The Free Press and 2WAY are teaming up for a real-time interactive election night special, November 3 from 8 p.m. ET until late. See you there. “Anyone who makes an election this important about themselves, and not Michiganders and our democracy, should think hard about whether they are serving the greater good,” Slotkin posted on X with respect to her fellow Michigander Haley Stevens, who had earlier that morning revoked her endorsement of Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed and thrown her backing to Republican nominee Mike Rogers.

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  James Kirchick · Nov 1, 2026, 7:37 PM EST

• 

  Tyler Cowen: No Matter Who Wins the Midterms, Economics Will Lose

  Both parties used to craft their policies with the help of the best economic minds. Now they are driven almost entirely by politics and vibes, writes Tyler Cowen. As a lifelong economist, I am distraught at what is happening to my profession. What I observe is economists losing status. Economists used to be highly respected figures, and nowadays, even when they are not pilloried, they are often simply ignored. There is an ongoing bipartisan flight from economic reasoning. And as voters go to the polls this week, neither Republicans nor Democrats are offering anything like a rigorous plan for economic growth. If we look at the 1960s, the John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson administrations brought James Tobin, Robert Solow, Kenneth Arrow (all three later Nobel laureates), Arthur Okun, Walter Heller, Gardner Ackley, Otto Eckstein, and Walt Rostow into government. Those were all names with significant academic heft who could count among the world’s leading macroeconomists. Nobel laureate Paul Samuelson served as a consultant to the government. Heller and some of the others helped to shape the Kennedy-Johnson tax cut of 1964. That cluster of talent and its influence should come as no surprise. This was an age of elites, of love for science, of the moon landing project, and of network news shows with an establishment bent. Americans were used to deferring to elites, who had won World War II for them, and who were not out there making fools of themselves on the internet. With the Cold War raging, Americans felt their government had to get it right. Mark your calendars. The Free Press and 2WAY are teaming up for a real-time interactive election night special, November 3 from 8 p.m. ET until late. See you there. Most of this respect was still in place by the 1980s. President Ronald Reagan appointed Martin Feldstein to chair his Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), Feldstein being a Harvard professor and one of the leading market-oriented economists of his time. Two of the junior economists working for Feldstein were Paul Krugman and Lawrence Summers—before they became famous, but the intellectual firepower was already there. Michael Mussa and William Niskanen were other notables in the administration, and Milton Friedman and Friedrich A. Hayek were standing sources of inspiration.

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  Tyler Cowen · Nov 1, 2026, 5:25 PM EST

• 

  What My Exorcist Friends Tell Me About Halloween. Plus. . .

  In today’s Weekend Press: Rod Dreher doesn’t celebrate Halloween. Lenore Skenazy says carve the pumpkins. Suzy Weiss on whether Nicki Minaj is the next press secretary. The Mossad chief makes a rare on-camera appearance. The greatness of early ‘Glee.’ And more! Welcome back to The Weekend Press! Today, Spencer Klavan celebrates the return of “Glee.” Liel Leibovitz on the new documentary that goes inside the Mossad. Suzy Weiss on the rumors that the rapper whose ass Trump complimented is going to be the next press secretary. And more! But first: Is it safe to celebrate Halloween? The spookiest night of the year is here. But should you let your kids hit the streets to trick or treat? “I never wanted to be one of those uncool, Ned Flanders-like people who doesn’t celebrate Halloween,” writes Rod Dreher in his essay today. “But I became just that. Here’s my advice: Never become friends with working exorcists if you wish to preserve your ability to enjoy the holiday.” A Catholic priest once told him that for Satanists, Halloween is “their big holiday, their Easter, so to speak.” An exorcist deep in the swamps of Louisiana explained that, on this night each year, the devil-worshippers of the bayou conduct rituals that sometimes involve human sacrifice. When he fact-checked this with an occult crimes investigator at the Baton Rouge Police Department, the sergeant told him to believe what he heard. “It’s easy to sit in the well-ordered environment of a big city, all straight lines and grids, where the lights never go out, and think these are just tales,” acknowledges Rod. We live in an age where most of us are trained to believe from birth that everything can be measured and explained; there’s no such thing as spirits. And yet, he writes, “human beings need a paradigm to understand dark and light, good and evil, and the paranormal things that many see.” In post-Christian America, some are turning to the oldest churches, the Orthodox and the Catholic, to make sense of it; others are turning to something darker. “In our neighborhood, the feast of darkness has taken on more macabre tones, skeletons, horror, tombs, and fear,” an Orthodox exorcist in Virginia told Rod. “Increasingly, over the decades of my life, it’s no longer about giving children candy; it’s more about desensitizing and normalizing evil.” Rod will be staying home tonight—because he’s just met too many people who’ve had brushes with demons to believe that they’re not real. Read Rod’s spooky story here: Rod’s worried about your kids’ souls. But online, there’s plenty of people who are worried about their mortal flesh. There are abundant risks to celebrating Halloween, according to the momosphere. For example, did you know that a baby once got salmonella from raw pumpkin? In our second spooky season offering, Lenore Skenazy, a big advocate of free-range parenting, rolls her eyes at this obsession with the worst-case scenario. “Parents magazine warns that if you’re going to talk to your kids about candy consumption on Halloween, make sure to do it the right way or they will develop an eating disorder,” she observes—adding that this publication recommends telling your kid: “There are foods that nourish our bodies that we need daily. However, there are other foods that we eat less often for pleasure or celebrations such as Halloween candy or birthday cake.” To quote Lenore: “That sounds like a totally natural and conversational thing to say to your child.” Halloween was once the pinnacle of freedom for kids—the night of the year when they could walk off down the street unsupervised, dressed as their favorite film character. When we stop them from doing this, in the name of safety, they lose something important: “their ability to be part of the big, wide, witch-and-Reese’s-filled world.” Read her full piece here: Second Thought Last weekend, the president told the crowd at a rally in Michigan that the rapper Nicki Minaj has “one hell of a beautiful ass”—then asked her to stand…

  The Free Press · Oct 31, 2026, 6:01 AM EDT

• 

  The Exorcists Warned Me About Halloween

  You want to know why I stay home on the spookiest night of the year? I’ve got stories, writes Rod Dreher. I never wanted to be one of those uncool, Ned Flanders-like people who doesn’t celebrate Halloween. But I became just that. Here’s my advice: Never become friends with working exorcists if you wish to preserve your ability to enjoy the holiday. I’ve got stories. The first exorcist I ever met was also the first one to tell me to stay in on Halloween. In 1989, working the police beat at the Baton Rouge Advocate, my first job out of journalism school, I saw one of my colleagues come into the newsroom as stiff and white as a starched dress shirt. “What happened?” I asked. He waved me away and sat at his desk. I followed him and pressed.

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  Rod Dreher · Oct 30, 2026, 5:39 PM EDT

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  ‘Glee’ Was Better When It Was Mean

  Most television shows seem terrified of offending the very people they’re trying to represent. But early ‘Glee’ understood that loving the misfits means being willing to make fun of them, writes Spencer Klavan. It’s hard to remember now, but there was something wonderfully unhinged about the pilot episode of Glee, Ryan Murphy’s hit Fox sitcom about the show choir at a run-down Ohio high school. By the end of its first season, Glee was already morphing into a treacle-drenched pop-musical dramedy. But when it started out, it was far less feel-good and far spikier. Much like high school itself, the show was filled with weirdly inappropriate jokes and unhinged characters. With the news last week that there’s a Glee reboot in the works—green-lit by Disney+ and Hulu, written by the original showrunners, and featuring some of the original stars—the creators have a chance to recover Glee’s original offbeat charm. I remember exactly the moment from the first episode, back in 2009, when I realized what a bizarre piece of work Glee was intended to be. The show’s protagonist is the talented but overbearing Rachel Berry, played by Lea Michele. It would be cruel to say that Michele is typecast, but she certainly brought her own obnoxious, try-hard energy to the role. Already well known to Broadway nerds (myself included) as a star of the runaway hit musical Spring Awakening, Michele was launched to bona fide national celebrity status by her blindingly earnest solos in Glee. But it wasn’t her singing that pulled me up short in the pilot. It was the scene in which Rachel reports the school’s former choir director, Sandy Ryerson, for groping boys in class. We’ve already seen Sandy, played by Stephen Tobolowsky in a pink-on-pink button-up and cardigan combo, running his hand sensuously down the chest of an intensely uncomfortable soloist. But that’s not really why Rachel shows up at the principal’s office with mascara running down her cheeks to tattle. In truth, she feels she’s been cheated out of a lead performance that belonged to her.

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  Spencer Klavan · Oct 30, 2026, 4:30 PM EDT

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  Casey Neistat: Why I Run the New York City Marathon Every Year

  The marathon is an incredible thing to see one person do. But when you multiply it by nearly 60,000, then add over two million screaming spectators, it is simply extraordinary, writes Casey Neistat. I started running regularly two decades ago after a bad motorcycle accident. My right femur had been shattered, and after hammering a new titanium one in place, the orthopedic surgeon explained with little nuance, “you’ll never be able to run again.” That was a lot of motivation. This Sunday, I will be running the New York City Marathon for the 10th time, my 30th marathon overall since that doctor gave me a reason to lace up. I wear running shoes every day, because no matter where I find myself, I can always open the door and run. I don’t need a membership. I don’t need anyone’s permission or any special equipment. Going for a run has no rules. It’s just me doing the thing. And the New York City Marathon is the ultimate manifestation of that thing. On Sunday, nearly 60,000 runners will take to the streets. Only about 100 of them are professionals, competing against each other for the fastest time. The other 59,900 are all competing with themselves. When I see the fast guys finish the marathon, it doesn’t mean anything to me. It’s like watching Michael Jordan play basketball—the talent is beyond my comprehension. But long after those professionals collect their medals, you’ll start to see normies crossing the finish line—folks who woke up that morning unsure whether or not they’d make it. That’s the part I love. The collective pursuit of an impossible personal achievement.

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  Casey Neistat · Oct 30, 2026, 3:04 PM EDT

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  Let the Kids Carve a Pumpkin!

  Parents are fixated on Halloween horror stories, but pumpkins won’t give your toddler salmonella and eating too much candy won’t cause an eating disorder, writes Lenore Skenazy. Wait! Don’t carve that pumpkin! Haven’t you heard? The newest Halloween horror isn’t gummies, goblins, or razor blades in apples. (Who still even gives out apples?) It’s salmonella from pumpkins. If that seems made-up, it’s not. In East Texas, a 4-month-old girl participated in her day care’s “seasonal activity” of putting pumpkin guts in a plastic bag. The next day, she started vomiting, and by noon, she was admitted to the hospital. She had a very rough time of it, but thankfully recovered and is fine. Her mom took to social media to tell others. She wasn’t fearmongering, just shocked. But pretty soon, salmonella fears were spreading like a fecal-orally transmitted infectious disease. Then came the calls to ban pumpkin-carving for kids. Even though this awful thing happened . . . one time. In one place. In a country of 343 million people—and about 1.5 billion pounds of annual pumpkin production, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “I called my sister’s father-in-law, who is an infectious-disease doctor,” said Jessica Hochman, a Los Angeles pediatrician I checked in with. “He’s worked at Cedars-Sinai for over 40 years, and he’s never seen salmonella from a pumpkin.” (Neither, for the record, has she.) So why the panic?

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  Lenore Skenazy · Oct 30, 2026, 1:43 PM EDT

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  The First State to Undo Legalized Weed? Plus. . .

  In today’s Front Page, Josh Code reports on the Massachusetts vote that could make it the first state to undo legal weed. Is Ohio turning blue? Aaron MacLean on Trump’s options in Iran. A doctor’s guide to microplastics. And more. It’s Friday, October 30. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Audrey Fahlberg reports from Ohio’s bruising governor’s race. What are President Donald Trump’s options in Iran after the midterms? And much more. But first: Is Massachusetts going to just say no to legalized weed? You’ve heard all about the stakes of next week’s midterms: Will the Republican Party lose control of Congress? Will the far left pull off a hostile takeover of the Democratic Party? If you’re like me, you’re probably sick of the stump speeches, slimy attack ads, and “SOS” texts from campaigns that somehow got your phone number. But Tuesday isn’t just about the candidates. Below the R’s and D’s are ballot measures, one of which I’ve been watching closely. It has to do with the consequences of legal marijuana, a topic that is personal to me and that I’ve thought a lot about. In Massachusetts, Question 8 would repeal the legalization of recreational marijuana, which was passed by voters a decade ago. This is the first anti-pot measure of its kind, and a similar one will likely be on the ballot in Maine next year. Weed is legal in 24 states, but a cultural shift against it is underway, driven by concerns about the rising potency of marijuana, more instances of psychosis, and cannabis-related DUIs. Question 8 will test how big this vibe shift actually is. Some of the Massachusetts voters I talked to who voted to legalize marijuana a decade ago now regret it. Others see a ban as too extreme, especially now that pot is so easy to buy in many places. Whatever the outcome next week, the fight over legal weed isn’t going anywhere. —Josh Code Live Today: Ask Tyler Cowen Anything Is AI coming for your job? Should the government rein it in? Today at 2 p.m. ET, Tyler Cowen will be live on the Free Press Forum, to take your questions on all of it. Post yours now and follow along live here, and catch up on his latest columns before he logs on. EDITORS’ PICKS Next Tuesday, Americans head to the polls to vote in midterms that could reshape the political landscape for the rest of Trump’s term. Ahead of Election Day, we brought you two pieces on the choices facing voters on both sides of the aisle. If Democrats retake the Senate, it won’t be thanks to the progressive firebrands making headlines. Ross Douthat argued it will be because the Democratic Party ran candidates who can pass as moderates in red and purple states. The bigger question, he writes, is whether a party that spent years punishing its independent-minded members will let them survive once they’re in office. On the right, radio host Erick Erickson wrestled with a different question: whether to vote for his own party’s nominee at all. The rock-ribbed conservative urges fellow Republicans to stop backing bad candidates just because they have an R next to their names, and explains why he plans to leave Georgia’s Senate line on his ballot blank rather than vote for Mike Collins. Wherever you’re casting your vote, Erick’s warning against closing your eyes and pulling the lever is one worth hearing. Israelis went to the polls on Tuesday, and neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc nor challenger Gadi Eisenkot won a majority. This week, we brought you two pieces on what comes next. Netanyahu’s right-wing party plunged from 68 seats to 53, its worst showing in two decades. Yet Haviv Rettig Gur argued that the prime minister may have done just well enough to deny Eisenkot an easy path to power, buying Netanyahu time for his top priority: bringing down the Iranian regime. Many of Netanyahu’s critics abroad insist that their problem isn’t with Israel, only with him. Douglas Murray said that’s wishful thinki…

  The Free Press · Oct 30, 2026, 11:01 AM EDT

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  How Trump Can Fight Iran After the Midterms

  Win or lose, once the midterm elections are over, the president will have more options than he does right now, though none of them is a sure path to victory, writes Aaron MacLean. What are President Donald Trump’s options on Iran after the midterm elections? By my count, he will have five, which is more than he has now, given the risk that a significant military escalation today would spook the financial markets and harm Republican candidates next Tuesday. Recent news reports suggest that the president is leaning in the direction of some form of renewed military action. Let’s review his choices, in order of the least escalatory to the most. Make a deal. It’s still a possibility. The key issues are the status of the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s nuclear program, but the public positions of both sides seem irreconcilable at the moment. Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War dryly refer to this as a “sequencing” problem, explaining that “Iran has repeatedly maintained that the United States must lift the naval blockade, provide sanctions relief, and recognize Iranian control over the strait before Iran makes any concessions.” (I, too, prefer my enemy’s surrender as a precondition for further discussion.) Any diplomatic resolution in the short term looks as though it would require one side or the other to blink. Trump tested a conciliatory approach with the memorandum of understanding in June, recognizing Iranian sovereignty in the strait as a precondition for nuclear talks. Even so, some Iranian leaders considered their own concessions to have been too great, and the deal collapsed in less than two weeks. The formula by which both sides could plausibly claim victory in a new deal is not obvious. In other words, for Trump to close a deal quickly, he would effectively have to surrender the strait to Iran. Stay the course on economic warfare. The blockade of Iranian ports is doing meaningful economic damage to the Islamic Republic, while escort operations in the Strait of Hormuz (essentially a counterblockade to Iran’s efforts to close those waters) appear to have restored oil transits to near pre-war levels. The fortunes of other commodities are less clear. Trump could preserve this status quo, and wait to see if economic pressure forces Iran’s regime to surrender or else risk collapse.

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  Aaron MacLean · Oct 30, 2026, 10:22 AM EDT

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  TGIF: Fake & Gay

  Today in TGIF: We’re number one in compute; plus, big, beautiful empty public schools, mutant monkeys for medical research, ancient blood feuds, Dan Sullivans, and more. Welcome back to my blog. I’d like to be clear that my writing is completely unaffiliated with one Bari Weiss and CBS News, which is, according to the U.S. government, so “fake and gay” that I feel it is time at last to publicly distance myself to preserve my reputation. Mr. President, don’t worry, I would never associate with the likes of her. Thank you for understanding—and I’ll see you at the next meeting. Also: We’re hosting special election night supper clubs in 14 cities on November 3. Sign up here. Politics is on the menu. And now, to the news. → There is no country but America: The new measure of industrialization is who uses the most artificial intelligence. Who has the largest AI capacity. The biggest, sexiest data centers. Since that’s going to determine power in this coming era. And the answer is clear, it’s robust, and it’s the US of A: Look at those numbers. Sure, our sons used to storm beaches and build interstates and now it’s just men clicking mouses around a terminal and maxing out tokens, but we’re number one at it. Which, most importantly, makes everyone else our pathetic vassal state subject to our whims. Everyone else is about to lose all autonomy. They already have. As Marc Andreessen said on a podcast: “Europe seems, I just take them at their word, they seem determined, they seem enthusiastic about being left behind. They seem to really badly want that.” And what of China? Weren’t they supposed to win? Now all they can do is try to send sexy spies to sleep with our American executives and get little tidbits of information (it’s okay, Nvidia CEO who “had a close relationship” with an alleged spy, no one’s mad at you, it happens to the best of us). But the important news of the week is that Anthropic, which runs Claude, is going public. They released their numbers. Remember all those people who said AI was a bubble? Wishful thinking from the bloggeratti. Anthropic’s revenue per employee over the past year was more than $6.6 million. A year ago it was $1.4 million per employee. Its revenue growth is a line going straight up. It rakes in gobs of cash, money, dollars, green, profit, baby. And now that it’s going public, now that they are all getting ridiculously rich, we are going to live in the AI-worker vision of the world whether we like it or not. What art do AI developers like? Put it this way: Enjoy those shrimp cocktails while you can. Once these IPOs happen, if you don’t think these guys aren’t going to set up lobbying firms to make it illegal to eat meat, you have another thing coming. We’re about to take our children to their deranged museums and they will only have beanbags and anime. All I really know about their culture is they like polyamory, but does anyone know what else they are into? Do they have culinary trends? Do they write books? Drop your best guesses about AI worker culture and what they plan to do with their IPO monies into the comments and we will highlight them next week. If you know anyone at these companies, that’s cheating. → Dems absolutely recruited the fake Dan Sullivan to do election fraud: In Alaska, there’s a random guy named Dan Sullivan running for Senate against the incumbent Republican named Dan Sullivan. We’ve all safely assumed this was part of a trick by Democrat Mary Peltola to confuse voters and peel off the incumbent’s support, but she has totally denied it. Well, a great New York Times investigation reveals that’s completely what is going on. From the story: In the summer of 2025, a staffer for Mary Peltola, the Alaska Democrat who was eyeing a run for Senate, received unusual instructions from top campaign aides: Find as many people named Dan Sullivan in Alaska as you can. The staffer complied, combing through voter records to produce a list of Dan Sullivans from across the state. This was no ra…

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  Nellie Bowles · Oct 30, 2026, 6:03 AM EDT

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  Is Nicki Minaj Trump’s Next Press Secretary?

  Is Nicki Minaj Trump's next press secretary? Plus: Olivia Colman gives up men for a pile of hay. A dietician’s guide to roadkill. Trading your handbag for a haircut. And more. President Trump is in the market for a new press secretary, and rumor has it he may have a favorite: rapper Nicki Minaj. Last weekend, the president gave Nicki his ringing endorsement at a rally in Michigan by telling the crowd she has “one hell of a beautiful ass,” and asking her to stand so they could admire it. Is the Queen of Rap the next mouthpiece …

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  Suzy Weiss · Oct 30, 2026, 5:02 AM EDT

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  It’s Getting Ugly in Ohio

  Voters are sifting through brutal attacks from both sides as Democrats close in on flipping a Trump stronghold, writes Audrey Fahlberg. THORNVILLE, Ohio — As Ohio Republicans tell it, this year’s Democratic gubernatorial nominee, Amy Acton, is a lying mental case who quit her pandemic-era position as the state’s public health director from the pressure, and who will quit on you again as governor when the going gets tough. A person, her GOP opponent explained to Republican voters inside a Champs Pizza in Thornville on Monday afternoon, “who is crazy, who is unstable, and who is a liar.” As Ohio Democrats tell it, the GOP gubernatorial nominee, Vivek Ramaswamy, is an out-of-touch snake-oil salesman who campaigns around the state on a private jet and who will use the governor’s mansion to enrich himself and his friends. A person, his Democratic opponent explained to voters later that day in Dayton, who is “only out for himself” and who, if elected, will “keep putting the wants of billionaires over the needs of the rest of us.” This is the state of the ugly governor’s race in the Buckeye State, where the mudslinging is off the charts and out-of-power Democrats are feeling hopeful that their gubernatorial nominee’s anti-corruption, anti-corporate messaging is giving them a boost in a race that should be a cakewalk for the GOP. Aggressive negative campaigning is defining this year’s midterms, even by historic standards. You can witness it in Texas, where Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico held an event with Jeffrey Epstein’s victims to insinuate that his GOP opponent, Ken Paxton, is complicit in a cover-up, while Paxton has repeatedly questioned Talarico’s sexuality. And things look nearly as bad in Maine, where GOP senator Susan Collins has pointed out that her Democratic opponent, Troy Jackson, fathered children by his second cousin, and Jackson later told Collins to “shut up” on a debate stage after she joked that a heckler was one of his supporters. Mark your calendars. The Free Press and 2WAY are teaming up for a real-time interactive election night special, November 3 from 8 p.m. ET until late. See you there. If the Ohio polls have it right (and they may very well be wrong), Acton has a narrow lead, and Republicans could be in for a shellacking downballot too. Surveys show tight races across the board, and a particularly competitive and expensive race for U.S. Senate between incumbent Republican Jon Husted, the former lieutenant governor tapped by Governor Mike DeWine to fill Vice President J.D. Vance’s seat, and Sherrod Brown, the former long-serving Democratic senator who lost to Republican Bernie Moreno by 3.6 points in 2024. Ohio isn’t an outlier: Tight surveys in a host of Senate battlegrounds have Republicans worried about the possibility of a blue wave nationwide.

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  Audrey Fahlberg · Oct 29, 2026, 10:13 PM EDT

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  Some Cultures Cling to Life and Others Sanctify Death

  Hollywood these days is hardly known for its moral clarity. But in ‘Paging Hezbollah,’ Justin Folk bucks the trend, giving us an unvarnished look at the merciless marauders at war with the West, writes Liel Leibovitz. Once upon a time in Hollywood, the movies gave us a very clear sense of the world and of America’s place in it. Most of us learned our history at the movie theater, from blockbusters like Glory or Saving Private Ryan or The Green Berets. And we walked away with our hands greasy with popcorn butter and our hearts full of pride that we were the good guys fighting the good fight and keeping the world safe and free. How times have changed. These days, Hollywood either avoids reality altogether—good luck finding more than a handful of mute films about 9/11, say—or delivers grim portraits of Americans behaving badly (see: anything by Oliver Stone). Which makes the new documentary Paging Hezbollah all the more rare, refreshing, and outright wonderful. Paging Hezbollah tells the story of how the Israeli military managed to trick the Lebanese terrorist organization into using beepers installed with plastic explosives, pressing the button one day in the fall of 2024 and watching the devices—and with them scores of hands, noses, eyes, and testicles—explode. It’s a riveting tale, and the director, Justin Folk, enjoyed unprecedented access to Israeli officials, from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to David Barnea, the head of Mossad, Israel’s legendary intelligence agency. Indeed, this was the first time that the Mossad chief sat down for an on-camera interview to explain in detail precisely how he and his team pulled off one of the greatest operations in modern military history. Mark your calendars. The Free Press and 2WAY are teaming up for a real-time interactive election night special, November 3 from 8 p.m. ET until late. See you there. Incredible as these details are, they might’ve, in the hands of a lesser filmmaker, made for a mosaic of mere machismo, all boom and bluster and no soul. Thankfully, the man the Israelis trusted with telling their story also possesses a virtue no less important than the ability to spin a great yarn—a sturdy moral compass.

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  Liel Leibovitz · Oct 29, 2026, 10:12 PM EDT

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  Undo Legal Weed? Massachusetts Is Thinking About It.

  Steve Kronberg voted to legalize weed in Massachusetts 10 years ago. Next week, he will vote to make it illegal again. He’s not alone, writes Josh Code. Steve Kronberg voted 10 years ago to legalize recreational marijuana in his home state of Massachusetts, hoping that it would lead to a boost in tax revenue and a “cleaner product” compared with black-market weed. “I thought it seemed like common sense,” he told me. But next Tuesday, Kronberg, 63, will vote to make recreational cannabis illegal again. He plans to vote yes on Massachusetts Question 8, which would “prohibit the legalization, regulation, and taxation of the retail sale of adult recreational use marijuana” while keeping possession of small amounts legal. Massachusetts was the sixth U.S. state to permit the sale of recreational marijuana. Today, weed is legal in 24 states—and the Bay State could soon be the first one to reverse course. Since the vote to legalize cannabis took effect in 2018, Massachusetts’ marijuana industry has generated about $10 billion in revenue and $2 billion in state and local tax revenue, according to the state’s Cannabis Control Commission. The 943 licensed marijuana businesses in Massachusetts range from small family farms and cannabis-infused gummy manufacturers to delivery couriers and posh retail shops. Mark your calendars. The Free Press and 2WAY are teaming up for a real-time interactive election night special, November 3 from 8 p.m. ET until late. See you there. But there have been problems, too. A Massachusetts General Hospital study found that psychiatrist emergency hospital visits among young people between 12 and 17 rose sharply after the sale of recreational marijuana became legal in Massachusetts. (Marijuana sales are legal only for people who are 21 and older.) A separate study found that hospital admissions for cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, a condition caused by heavy marijuana use that entails vomiting, nausea, and intense cramps and can last for days on end, jumped 1,350 percent after legalization.

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  Josh Code · Oct 29, 2026, 7:13 PM EDT

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  The Sane Person’s Guide to Microplastics

  A new study suggesting everyday plastic could be bad for our health has the internet split between alarm and dismissal. Dr. Charlotte Grinberg explains what the evidence shows and the simple swaps worth making. A couple of years ago, I went through a plastic-exposure epiphany. It dawned on me that nearly everything my family touched involved plastic. We prepared food on it, heated food in it, and stored leftovers in it. My kids drank from plastic bottles, sucked on plastic pacifiers, and chewed on plastic toys and toothbrushes. And that was just the plastic I could see. So I decided, abruptly, that we needed to eliminate plastic from our lives entirely. I started reconsidering every item in our kitchen and playroom, and became suspicious of anything that came wrapped in plastic. “What are these?” my husband asked, holding up the plant-based storage bags I had bought to replace our Ziplocs. He looked up the price I had paid in our shared Amazon account and was shocked. Fifty cents a bag, compared to five cents for a Ziploc. My quest to rid our home of plastic lasted approximately one week. Plastic bags at the grocery store, plastic in all my kids’ toys they were unwilling to part ways with, plastic packaging around practically everything I bought. Trying to eliminate it entirely was exhausting, expensive, and, for most families, unrealistic. Mark your calendars. The Free Press and 2WAY are teaming up for a real-time interactive election night special, November 3 from 8 p.m. ET until late. See you there. If plastic is impossible to avoid, the question of whether it harms us matters all the more. Researchers have found tiny particles known as microplastics in our blood, brains, and placentas. Whether they hurt us, and how, is still unsettled. But a study published this month in Nature offers one possible explanation. Researchers found that the six common plastics, including the kinds used in food containers and bottles, can generate highly reactive molecules called free radicals when they come into contact with water. The more water-repellent the plastic, the more radicals it produces. And free radicals can damage cells, harm that’s been linked to heart disease and dementia.

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  Charlotte Grinberg, MD · Oct 29, 2026, 5:47 PM EDT

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  Douglas Murray: Bibi Derangement Syndrome Is Spreading

  No matter how the next Israeli government shapes up after this week’s election, anti-Zionists, antisemites, and peaceniks around the world will feel no less hostile, writes Douglas Murray. Years before Trump Derangement Syndrome, there was a longer-lasting and even more virulent strain of the phenomenon: Bibi Derangement Syndrome. Americans, Europeans, and everyone else in the world—even Israelis—can suffer from it. And as Tuesday’s election in Israel demonstrates, BDS is a vision-impairing condition. Go to Israel and have any normal experience in Tel Aviv, and you will return home wondering how on earth Benjamin Netanyahu was ever elected even once. After all, nobody you will meet has voted for him. Or at least admits to it. Look at almost any opinion poll, including those before the latest election, and you will consistently—almost systematically—see Netanyahu’s popularity vastly underestimated. He surprises every time. With him having been prime minister for 19 of the last 30 years and the longest-serving prime minister in Israeli history, the term “political survivor” doesn’t begin to do justice to Netanyahu’s political longevity. When he began his first term as prime minister, Bill Clinton was president of the United States, John Major was the British prime minister, and Jacques Chirac was president of France. Hafez al-Assad ruled Syria, King Hussein ruled Jordan, and Hosni Mubarak was Israel’s negotiating partner as Egyptian president. Nancy Pelosi had already spent 10 years in Congress.

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  Douglas Murray · Oct 29, 2026, 4:01 PM EDT