Can Trump Transform America with a Stroke of His Sharpie?

It’s Wednesday, January 22. 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: Punishment for John Bolton. When Auschwitz becomes a theme park. A snowstorm in America’s gatorlands. And more.

But first: Trump, Trump, and more Trump, beginning with:

What happened to law and order?

When it came to pardoning Trump supporters who participated in the Capitol riot of January 6, 2021, now–Vice President J.D. Vance said last week that peaceful protesters would qualify, but “if you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned.”

Other Republicans, like Senator Katie Britt of Alabama and attorney general–designate Pam Bondi, made similar comments.

But yesterday, President Trump pardoned roughly 1,500 protesters, including 172 who pleaded guilty when charged with attacking police with everything from bats, knives, tasers, and stolen riot shields, leaving cops with broken ribs, burns, and concussions, among other injuries. He even called them “hostages.”

Today at The Free Press, our editors concede that the Department of Justice was overzealous in prosecuting some of the January 6 rioters—but by indiscriminately pardoning everyone, isn’t Trump guilty of another kind of overreach?

Read our new editorial: “The January 6 Pardons and the Rule of Law.”

The Silk Road Should End in One Place—Prison

Last May, President Trump made a promise at the Libertarian National Convention. It wasn’t to legalize smack, end driver’s licenses, or create a federally funded Ayn Rand School for Tots. It was to free Ross Ulbricht, founder of the dark web marketplace Silk Road, an eBay-like website where more than 115,000 buyers purchased $183 million in illegal drugs, including heroin and cocaine, from 2011 to 2013. In 2015, Ulbricht was convicted of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and distributing narcotics, among other charges, and he was sentenced to life without parole. (Federal prosecutors also alleged he tried to hire hitmen to keep his site a secret during its two years of operation—something Ulbricht and his supporters deny.)

Yesterday, Trump made good on his vow and pardoned Ross Ulbricht.

One of Ulbricht’s libertarian defenders, Reason senior editor Jacob Sullum, thinks he never should have been jailed, writing earlier this week: “no one should go to prison for facilitating peaceful transactions among consenting adults.”

But Charles Fain Lehman, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor to City Journal, vehemently disagrees. Today in The Free Press, he writes: “The era of excusing or dismissing ‘victimless crimes’ is over.”

Read Charles’ new piece: “The Folly of Freeing Ross Ulbricht.”

Raising Tariffs Will Fertilize the Swamp, Not Drain It

On Monday night, shortly after his inauguration, Trump signaled his plan to slap a 25 percent tariff on goods from Mexico and Canada starting February 1. Coming from the man who’s fond of calling tariff “the most beautiful word in the dictionary,” the news wasn’t exactly shocking. Trump has long viewed tariffs both as a way to reenergize American manufacturing and a diplomatic stick that can be used to pressure foreign countries into changing their policies. A proposed 60 percent tariff on Chinese goods might lure U.S. manufacturers back to the Rust Belt, and a tariff on Canadian goods might pressure Ottawa to stymie the flow of illegal immigrants and fentanyl through our northern border. Sounds great, right?

Not so fast, says Judge Glock. In a new essay for The Free Press, Glock argues that in addition to causing further inflation—which Trump has promised to cut—the president’s tariffs could hamper his ability to fulfill another campaign promise: dismantling the deep state.

“Tariffs,” Glock writes, “are managed by opaque bureaucracies and manipulated by high-priced lobbyists to extract funds from American consumers. If one’s goal is to pare back the powers of the modern administrative state, abolishing the tariff system would be a good place to start.”

Read Judge’s new piece: “Why the Deep State Loves Tariffs.”

Can Trump Really Change Everything with a Stroke of His Pen?

Trump might be the first president to show up to his inauguration parade with a Sharpie, but boy, did he need it. Shortly after being sworn in on Monday afternoon, he spent the rest of the day signing executive orders. He postponed TikTok’s congressionally mandated doom date, cut government regulations on energy production, declared a national emergency at the southern border, and halted all spending on the deceptively named Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s hallmark legislative achievement. And he even signed an order refusing to recognize the citizenship of the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants.

And that was just day one.

But what does all of this mean, actually? Can a president end birthright citizenship with the stroke of a pen? Can he actually override Congress and the Supreme Court to keep TikTok alive?

Today in The Free Press, our intrepid editor Olly Wiseman speaks with Yale Law School professor and constitutional expert Jed Rubenfeld to answer all of these questions and more.

Read Olly’s Q&A with Jed, who separates hype from reality on Trump’s executive orders.

“A Haunted Jewish Disneyland”

Late last year, Academy Award winner Jesse Eisenberg released A Real Pain, a movie that follows Benji (played by Kieran Culkin) and David (played by Eisenberg), two Jewish American cousins who visit Poland and take a Holocaust tour. The two find themselves feeling bewildered and angry by the tour guide’s bored tone and cold recitation of facts.

Tanya Gold has been to Auschwitz twice, and she knows the feeling. “When I went in 2021, and again in 2023, I found there was an ambivalence toward Jews and, as Benji also notices in the film, an awful emotional deadness.”

In her latest for The Free Press, Tanya explores Auschwitz’s tourist industry—a macabre theme park where Jewish pain clashes with Polish indifference. Read Tanya’s piece: “When Auschwitz Becomes a Theme Park.”

Demonstrators burn American flags outside the residence of the U.S. ambassador to Panama at a rally against the inauguration of President Donald Trump. (Arnulfo Franco via Getty Images)

• Donald Trump has removed Secret Service protection from his ex-national security adviser John Bolton. The former White House official turned Trump critic was given protection in 2021 because of threats against him from Iran. In 2022, an Iranian national was charged in a plot to murder Bolton. In a statement Tuesday, Bolton said he was “disappointed but not surprised” by Trump’s decision. At the White House, Trump added insult to injury by calling his former aide a “very dumb person” and a “stupid guy.”

• OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle have pledged as much as $500 billion in private investment over the next four years as part of a new AI infrastructure venture unveiled by Trump on Tuesday. Dubbed “Stargate,” the project will “build the physical and virtual infrastructure to power the next generation of AI,” Trump said. Think data centers. Big, beautiful, data centers.
  

• In a stark juxtaposition to the populist pomp in Washington D.C., the annual get-together of the global elite gets underway in Davos this week. Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelensky spoke at the conference Tuesday and it was Europe’s leaders, not the new U.S. president, who he blasted with criticism most. He warned that Europe needs to “learn how to take care of itself” and “step up,” adding: “You can’t keep buying gas from Moscow while also expecting security guarantees, help, and backup from the Americans. That’s just wrong.”
  

• The president of Panama has rejected Trump’s plan to take back the American-built Panama canal, and refuted Trump’s accusation that China controls the waterway. In response, President José Raúl Mulino said there is “no presence of any nation in the world that interferes with our administration. . . . The canal was not a concession from anyone.” Okay, but it literally was a concession that the U.S. built and handed over to Panama thanks to liberal pushover Jimmy Carter (peace be upon him).

• Abdelaziz Kaddi, a Moroccan man with an American green card, was shot dead by Israeli police yesterday after going on a stabbing spree in Tel Aviv that wounded four people. He was reportedly flagged by security when he arrived in the country a few days ago but was nevertheless allowed entry, a decision that the Israeli intelligence agency Shin Bet said it was investigating. Kaddi appears to have won his green card through the controversial diversity visa lottery program that hands out permanent residency to 55,000 random foreigners each year from countries with low levels of immigration to the United States.

• A fire at a ski resort in Turkey’s Bolu mountains killed 76 people and injured 51 more yesterday. The 12-story building was engulfed in flames after a fire started in a restaurant. Two women on the top floor reportedly tried to save themselves by jumping from windows, but fell to their deaths. Turkish authorities are currently investigating what happened, and have detained four people.

• A historic winter storm has hit the Gulf Coast, with some locales recording up to ten inches of snow. From Houston to my home in the Florida Panhandle, life has screeched to a halt. Thousands of flights have been canceled, while schools, businesses, and government offices have also shuttered, largely because Southerners (including yours truly) are incapable of driving in the snow. I’m out of Diet Coke and I can’t even leave my house!