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On today’s Front Page: former attorney general Bill Barr and Free Press reporter Francesca Block look ahead to coming campus disorder; Eli Lake says America deserves a better national anthem; Madeleine Kearns on the cloud over the women’s boxing golds; and more.
But first, our lead story.
Iran is working hard to influence the U.S. presidential election. On Friday, researchers at Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center raised the alarm, warning that Tehran was behind a hack of a senior official on a presidential campaign. On Saturday, the Trump campaign said it had been successfully targeted, pointing the finger at Iran, while Politico reported that someone calling themselves “Robert” had been sending them what appeared to be internal communications from a Trump campaign official using an AOL email account.
Microsoft’s analysts also report that the Iranian regime is behind several fake news sites targeting American voters and note that one Iranian group “may be setting itself up for activities that are even more extreme, including intimidation or inciting violence against political figures or groups, with the ultimate goals of inciting chaos, undermining authorities, and sowing doubt about election integrity.” Then there are the reports of intelligence that Tehran was behind a plot to assassinate Trump earlier this summer (though there is no evidence to suggest Iran had anything to do with the almost-successful assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally in July).
Iran’s attempts at election interference are only the latest chapter in an extensive influence operation, one that has implicated Biden administration officials—and makes the subject of today’s lead story even more urgent.
Today, my new colleague Jay Solomon profiles Philip Gordon—who has served as Kamala Harris’s foreign policy adviser since she ran for the White House in 2020, and who co-authored several op-eds with a woman who was revealed to be part of an active Iranian influence operation that has sought to promote Tehran’s preferred policies in the West.
What does Harris believe about the Middle East? Does she side with the old-school Democrats in her party, who are traditionally pro-Israel? Does she believe that the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was transformational—and should be salvaged? What does she think about a U.S. defense pact with Saudi Arabia? Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad? And Sudan’s widening civil war?
As a broader war threatens in the Middle East, these questions are more urgent than ever. Gordon is the key to understanding the answers.
Click here to read Jay’s piece, “Meet Philip Gordon: Kamala’s Foreign Policy Guru.”
As we emerge from the dog days of summer, college campuses are once again poised to become an ideological battleground, particularly on the subject of Israel. A recent case will serve as a much-needed warning to campus administrators who failed to protect the civil rights of Jewish students in the wake of October 7, writes former U.S. attorney general Bill Barr. Here’s Bill:
Last week, a federal judge in Massachusetts sent an unmistakable message to campus administrators in the United States: when it comes to combating antisemitism, talk is cheap. Judge Richard Stearns greenlighted a student organization’s case against Harvard that alleges the university failed to protect the civil rights of Jewish students even as they were harassed, intimidated, and violently attacked by their peers. “The facts as pled show that Harvard failed its Jewish students,” Stearns wrote in his 25-page decision.
Harvard urged the judge to dismiss the case, arguing that campus administrators had done enough to combat antisemitism by issuing condemnations of it, holding listening sessions about it, pulling together a task force on it, and pledging to take action against it. But Judge Stearns refused. He rightly observed that federal civil rights law demands more than denunciations—it requires meaningful action. Dismissal of the case, he reasoned, “would reward Harvard for virtuous public declarations that for the most part, according to the [Plaintiffs], proved hollow.” For more from the former attorney general on campus leaders who chose not to stop antisemitism, click to keep reading.
Meanwhile, after the “tentifada” encampments of last spring, pro-Palestinian protesters are gearing up to “disrupt campus life” by skipping class this fall. Francesca Block reports that the Young Democratic Socialists of America is planning a nationwide student strike, encouraging the organization’s more than 100 university chapters to “organize democratically-run campaigns demanding their school’s divestment from Israel, a ceasefire in Gaza, and free speech on campus.” YDSA organizer Erin Lawson argues that “most encampments did not win,” while a strike “shakes the very foundation of the university to its core.” Read Francesca’s full report on the college students skipping class for Palestine here.
As well as leading Donald Trump by three points in three battleground states in the latest New York Times/Siena poll, Kamala Harris is now more trusted than the former president on the economy. According to a survey for the Financial Times, 42 percent of voters trust Harris more than Trump to handle the economy, a seven-point increase on Joe Biden’s number last month. (Financial Times)
Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that Ukrainian troops were fighting in Russia on Sunday, saying the offensive would help “restore justice” and put “pressure on the aggressor.” The incursion has not been met with disapproval from German and U.S. administrations, who previously opposed any foray into Russia. Moscow’s mistake, argues military strategist Phillips Payson O’Brien, was to assume Ukraine’s backers in the West would never allow this move. (The Atlantic)
“One person’s socialism is just another person’s neighborliness,” said VP pick Tim Walz recently. No, it’s not, says Jonah Goldberg. (The Dispatch)
One place where socialism isn’t neighborly: Venezuela, where despot Nicolás Maduro has been clinging onto power despite overwhelming evidence he lost last month’s election. The United States is reportedly working on a long-shot bid to end the crisis using carrots rather than sticks, offering Maduro and his allies amnesty if they give up power. (Wall Street Journal)
Ross Douthat asks a good question that isn’t getting enough airtime: Should Joe Biden still be president? Everything we learned about his fitness for office before he dropped out of the race has “not ceased to be pertinent because that president is no longer running for re-election.” (New York Times)
“Think before you post,” say authorities in the United Kingdom, where prosecutors now say “amplifying” a “false” message on social media could lead to a knock on the door. The warning comes after recent rioting has led to a fresh focus on online speech. But, as Tom Slater reports, Britain’s censorship regime has, unfortunately, been the norm there for a long time. (Spiked)
And when it comes to free speech here in America, constitutional lawyer Jonathan Turley argues that Harris-Walz is the most anti–free speech ticket of any major party in two centuries. Both Harris and her running mate have a track record of trying to silence speech by labeling it “misinformation.” (The Hill)
Anduril founder Palmer Luckey, who talked about keeping the U.S. safe in an Honestly episode this year, just got a major boost for his plans to disrupt the defense industry. His company announced it has raised $1.5 billion, which it will use to invest in Arsenal, a manufacturing platform capable of producing tens of thousands of autonomous military systems a year. Anduril, now valued at $14 billion, says the funding will help “rebuild the arsenal of democracy.” (Quartz)
Why was former Hawaii congresswoman and presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard added to a domestic terrorism watch list last month? Matt Taibbi reports on the lawmaker and Biden critic who says the treatment she faced resembles conditions under a “tyrannical dictator.” (Racket News)
“It’s easier to have friends than it is to have to make them.” That’s one of twenty observations—some informed by science, others by experience—on friendship from British writer Ian Leslie. (The Ruffian)
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→ Madeleine Kearns: The cloud over Olympic boxing. Two boxers deemed ineligible to compete in the 2023 women’s world championships are leaving the Paris Olympics with gold medals.
Algeria’s Imane Khelif beat the reigning 66 kg world champion Yang Liu of China on Friday. Taiwan’s Lin Yu-Ting bested Poland’s Julia Szeremeta in the 57 kg final the following day.
Khelif and Lin both have XY chromosomes, according to the International Boxing Association, which disqualified them last year.
Their participation sparked outrage. An Italian competitor withdrew from her fight against Khelif after only 46 seconds, exclaiming, “It’s not fair!” Two of Lin’s competitors made a double X sign with their fingers—a nod to their chromosomes—after being defeated. As the controversy has intensified, the IOC has done nothing to reassure those concerned about fairness and safety. Instead of offering new information or test results, the body has stuck to an unconvincing script:
“We have two boxers who are born as women, who have been raised as women, who have a passport as a woman, and who have competed for many years as women, and this is the clear definition of a woman,” Thomas Bach, IOC president, said at an August 3 press conference. In other words, nothing to see here.
But it seems there is more to the story. Many experts consider it likely that the pair have disorders of sex development (DSDs)—conditions that disrupt the normal development of reproductive organs and genitals.
To understand the science at the heart of the controversy, I spoke to Carole Hooven, PhD, human evolutionary biologist and author of T: The Story of Testosterone, the Hormone That Dominates and Divides Us.
Chromosomes “determine but do not define sex in mammals,” she said. “What gives males—who typically have XY chromosomes—an advantage over females in elite sports are the beneficial effects of high levels of testosterone across development.” That “is why we have separate sporting categories for females.”
There are some rare disorders (or differences) of sex development in which “people with XY chromosomes lack testes and therefore, also lack the high levels of testosterone that would provide that advantage,” says Hooven. “In those cases, there’s probably no reason to exclude those people from the female category.” There are also conditions in which “a person with XY chromosomes has testosterone-producing testes, but the body is not able to fully respond to that testosterone.” The IOC didn’t make public any data on the two gold medalists’ testosterone levels, and suggested they hadn’t tested them.
One DSD condition that appears to be over-represented in people competing in the female category is “five-alpha reductase deficiency,” or 5-αRD, in which an XY male cannot make DHT, the hormone that “masculinizes the male genitalia in early development.” Without DHT, “the person’s external genitalia can appear female,” and so they may be registered as female at birth. People with 5-αRD have “testosterone-producing testes, which may be internal prior to puberty.” Then at puberty, the testosterone levels rise, and those individuals develop “male-typical characteristics, like enhanced musculature and bigger heart, lungs, and all the benefits of testosterone on size, strength, speed, and power.”
One famous 5αRD athlete is Caster Semenya, the South African track champion. World Athletics rendered Semenya ineligible to compete in the female category in 2019, which the Swiss Supreme Court later upheld ahead of the Tokyo Olympics.
“The sensible way for sporting bodies to ensure fairness would be to test for the presence of the Y chromosome in athletes competing in the female category,” says Hooven. “In cases in which the XY chromosomes are discovered, further examination would be required, including determining the presence of testes, and an evaluation of the extent to which the body is able to produce and respond to testosterone.” —Madeleine Kearns
→ Eli Lake: America deserves a star-spangled banger. Over the last three weeks at the Paris Olympics, “The Star Spangled Banner” was played 40 times, once for every gold we’ve won. Our athletes have scored more medals than any other country, but when it comes to the music that celebrates those champions, we’re a long way from the podium.
When it comes to national anthems, I can’t help being jealous of the French, with their defiant hymn, “La Marseillaise.” Best captured in the scene from Casablanca where a group of casino patrons rise to sing it, drowning out the Nazi officers in their midst, the song is a rousing retort to tyranny. “O Canada,” the anthem of our northern neighbor, is majestic and polite, much like the land of maple syrup itself. And even Russia’s national number manages to convey dignity, tragedy, and greatness.
But America? We honor the world’s oldest republic with a song about a tattered flag that’s “still there” after Baltimore was nearly destroyed in the War of 1812. The tune itself is awkward, slow, and ponderous. The verses are halting, borrowing English vernacular that feels ornate in the twenty-first century. “Oh say can you see,” for example, should just be “Look!” And the melody, penned by British composer John Stafford Smith, was once the preferred jingle for an eighteenth-century London gentleman’s club known as the Anacreontic Society, which met once a month to get sloshed and sing.
In short, America rocks—so why doesn’t “The Star Spangled Banner”? I propose a Kamala-Biden style switcheroo for our national anthem. —Eli Lake
Click here to find out which songs Eli thinks should replace “The Star Spangled Banner.”
→ Evan Gardner: Team USA ends on a high, Paris ends with cringe. The final weekend of the Olympics started off rough for the U.S. on Thursday afternoon. Our star sprinter Noah Lyles finished third in the men's 200 m, collapsing into a wheelchair after a case of Covid slowed him down. On Friday, the American men were disqualified after fumbling the baton in the 4 x 100 m relay. This has happened only eleven times in the past nineteen years. Then, on Saturday, we learned that American gymnast Jordan Chiles had her bronze medal revoked after Romania challenged her score.
But despite those initial heartbreaks, Team USA ended the games with a gold rush. The women’s soccer team took gold Saturday, defeating Brazil 1–0. The men’s basketball team, propelled by a magnificent performance from sharpshooter Steph Curry, defeated France 98–87 to win their fifth straight gold. Finally, on Sunday morning, the women’s basketball team sent the host nation packing all over again, winning their eighth straight gold by a single point. The final push was enough to earn the U.S. the top spot in the medal table (tied with China for golds, but winning the most hardware overall) for the Paris Games.
Then, on Sunday, the games came to a close the same way they started: a whole lot of lights, a whole lot of fire, and a whole lot of cringe. After a wholesome karaoke session by athletes from 206 nations, things went sideways as we entered the theater portion of the closing ceremonies. The theme was “rediscovery.” The performance was set in a dystopian future, where the Golden Voyager—a bedazzled, bug-like Spartacus that dropped in from the ceiling—had to rediscover and rebuild the Olympics, one painstaking (for him, and for us) ring at a time. The stage was filled with backflips, flash mobs, and wiry skinsuits. It was, to use the word of the week, weird.
But just when we’d lost all hope, in came our handsome savior: Tom Cruise rappelled from the rooftop, seized the Olympic flag, and brought it back to Los Angeles on the back of his shiny motorcycle. Back on the beach of L.A., we got concerts from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Billie Eilish crooning her hit “Birds of a Feather,” and Snoop Dogg (one of NBC’s stars of this Olympics) rapping “Drop It Like It’s Hot.”
With that, it was official: Paris ’24 was out, L.A. ’28 was in. Cringe was replaced by cool. Or, at least, by what’s cool now. Who knows what 2028 will bring? Hopefully by then we’ll get our baton-passing down pat. —Evan Gardner (Read our full coverage of the Olympics here.)
Oliver Wiseman is a writer and editor for The Free Press. Follow him on X @ollywiseman.
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