The Free Press
It’s Monday, March 10. 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: Katherine Dee on the erectile dysfunction–industrial complex, Canada’s Liberal Party finds a new leader, and much more.
But first: “We undid four years of insanity,” White House counterterrorism chief Sebastian Gorka tells The Free Press.
What does an American First foreign policy look like? With Donald Trump refashioning America’s role in the world, it’s hard to think of a more important question right now. Which is why we’ve been working so hard to answer it at The Free Press ever since Trump returned to power.
Matthew Continetti has explained Trump’s “foreign policy revolution.” Douglas Murray argued that MAGA has it wrong on Ukraine. Batya Ungar-Sargon wrote that most Americans side with the president on the war. Historian and Free Press columnist Niall Ferguson got into a fight with the vice president on Twitter—and our pages. Eli Lake dived into the behind-the-scenes fight to define Trump’s foreign policy. Christopher Caldwell dissected the Trump-Zelensky argument. And that’s just a taste of our foreign policy coverage since inauguration day. (Find more of it in our archives.)
Today, Eli Lake looks at a particular aspect of Trump’s foreign policy—his anti-terrorism strategy—and talks to the man in charge of it, White House counterterrorism chief Sebastian Gorka. In this area, Gorka argues, America First doesn’t necessarily mean restraint. When it comes to strikes against terrorists, it means going after America’s enemies with a ruthlessness that, he claims, was lacking in the last administration.
Eli reports exclusively on the changes to how this administration is hunting terrorists. For a sample of the new approach, consider this detail: One of Gorka’s first moves when he got the job was to order lanyards for his team that read WWFY & WWKY. It was a reference to a quote from Gorka’s boss, President Trump: “We will find you, and we will kill you.”
Read Eli’s exclusive report on “How Trump Loosened the Rules for Hunting Terrorists.”
A Very Expensive “Grassroots” Project
In the months since Donald Trump was elected, new campaign groups emerged to fight his agenda. Groups such as Families Over Billionaires, which positions itself as a movement of ordinary Americans fighting “tax breaks for the rich.”
The problem? It’s not so much families over billionaires as one group of billionaires over other billionaires. As Free Press reporter Gabe Kaminsky reveals today, the group is backed by a Democratic dark money network funded by the likes of Bill Gates, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, and Democratic megadonor George Soros.
What’s more, the other “grassroots” organizations Families Over Billionaires says it is working with are, in many cases, just more fronts for the same network. In other words, this “grassroots” resistance is about as astroturfed as it gets.
Read Gabe Kaminsky’s investigation: “Inside the Trump Resistance, Funded by the Ultra-Wealthy.”
She Called for Fairness in Girls’ Sports. The Maine Legislature Censured Her for It.
Whether biological males should be allowed to compete against girls is not a controversial issue. Or at least, not according to the polls. Some 80 percent of Americans, and two-thirds of Democrats, oppose men in women’s sports.
And yet lawmakers who speak out on the side of most Americans can nonetheless pay a high price. Consider the case of Maine lawmaker Laurel Libby. The Republican state representative expressed her outrage at news that a biological male had won first place in a girls’ pole vaulting competition in her state last month. And for doing so, she has been censured by her Democratic colleagues in the state legislature.
She tells her story today in The Free Press.
Read Representative Libby’s new essay: “I Was Elected to Fight For Women and Girls. Maine Democrats Censured Me for Doing Just That.”
More and More Young Men Are Taking Viagra. Do They Need It?
If you are a young man like me, and the algorithm knows it, you’ve likely seen or heard an ad for Hims, BlueChew, or Ro. This isn’t your dad’s Viagra, these ads say, it just has the same active ingredients—and it could be yours, discreetly sent through the mail with 25 percent off using your favorite podcaster’s affiliate link, no awkward doctor’s visit required.
The pitch works. Between 2017 and 2019, visits to direct-to-consumer telehealth platforms offering ED treatment increased by a staggering 1,688 percent. Have millions of American men finally been able to get the treatment they need but were too embarrassed to ask a doctor for—or is something else going on?
Today in The Free Press, Katherine Dee delves into America’s booming boner-pill market and asks: Are this many men really struggling to get it up?
Read “Inside the Erectile Dysfunction–Industrial Complex.”
Mark Carney, who steered the Bank of Canada through the 2008 financial crisis, has won his bid to replace Justin Trudeau as the leader of Canada’s Liberal Party, beating out former finance minister Chrystia Freeland. The 59-year-old bureaucrat is expected to be sworn in as prime minister soon, and to call federal elections soon after. In his victory speech he declared, “America is not Canada. And Canada never, ever, will be part of America in any way, shape, or form.” Wow. Trump’s really gotten in your head, eh bud?
Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem says her department has identified two “criminal leakers” within the department and referred them to the Department of Justice for prosecution. Last month, Trump’s deportation czar Tom Homan said an ICE raid in Colorado was hindered after information was “leaked,” allowing illegal immigrants to evade capture. DHS is reportedly using polygraphs to locate more leakers. What’s next? A Myers-Briggs test?
On Thursday, President Trump abruptly reversed his 25 percent tariffs on many Canadian and Mexican exports after pushback from numerous industries in the United States. But he isn’t done yet. The administration is planning a global 25 percent tariff on aluminum and steel, and plans to implement what the president calls “reciprocal tariffs” reflecting other countries’ trade policies on April 2. In an interview that aired Sunday, Trump declined to rule out the possibility that his economic policies—particularly tariffs—would cause a recession. “I hate to predict things like that,” Mr. Trump responded. “There is a period of transition, because what we’re doing is very big,” he said. Not very reassuring!
Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (f.k.a. Abu Mohammed al-Julani) has called for peace after his security forces allegedly killed hundreds of civilians from the Alawite religious community. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR)—which monitors fighting in Syria—said about 745 civilians were killed in massacres targeting Alawites on Friday and Saturday. Hundreds of families along the Mediterranean coast have fled their homes amid clashes between Assad loyalists and forces belonging to the new Islamist government.
The measles outbreak in West Texas has grown to nearly 200 cases, with 23 hospitalizations. The epidemic has spread to nearby Lea County, New Mexico, where a patient died last week. Officials say it is the worst measles outbreak the Lone Star State has seen in over 30 years. You know things are bad whenever RFK Jr. is encouraging you to get a shot.
The Secret Service shot an armed Indiana man a block from the White House Sunday morning. The man, who was reportedly suicidal, was shot after he pulled a gun on Secret Service agents. He was transferred to the hospital and his condition has not been disclosed. Trump was in Mar-a-Lago at the time of the shooting.
ICE has arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist who helped lead anti-Israel protests at Columbia University, his lawyer has said. His arrest comes after the State Department revoked his visa, making good on a promise by Trump to deport foreign students he called “agitators” against Israel. Justified? A threat to free speech? Opinions vary, which is why we hosted a debate on this issue last month between Ilya Shapiro and Robert Shibley. Read it here.
Putin’s United Russia Party has come under fire for giving the bereaved mothers of dead Russian soldiers gift packages that include meat grinders—symbolically representing the deaths of their sons at the Ukrainian front. Bad taste? A silent protest? A comedy of errors? It might be the latter. In a video posted after a backlash erupted on Russian social media, party officials said they started giving out the meat grinders because one of the mothers asked for one. The mother in question also appeared in the video, where she awkwardly confirmed that she requested the meat grinder and thanked United Russia for it. They’re running that country like an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Dear TFP, leave the snark for Fridays. Please only allow people with the first name of Madeleine to write the Front Page.
There are barely any centrists, let alone liberals, writing for the Free Press these days. Trump's approval rating's are souring, the market is in a sustained downfall, America's allies are turning against it - you would never learn about these things by reading this outlet. You're betraying your founding mission to satisfy your billionaire sponsors (David Sacks), and you'll end up becoming as trustworthy as the New York Times was during the Biden years.