The Free Press
It’s Wednesday, February 12. 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: DOGE starves the National Endowment for Democracy; J.D. Vance lets the Europeans have it on AI; River Page on the excesses of the anti-DEI backlash. And much more.
But first: Salman Rushdie takes the stand.
Salman Rushdie was face-to-face with Hadi Matar, the man on trial for trying to kill him, for the first time in two and a half years yesterday. The novelist took the stand and recounted the horrifying moments when he was stabbed 15 times onstage during a book talk at an arts festival in upstate New York in 2022.
“It occurred to me, quite clearly, that I was dying,” said Rushdie. At one point, Rushdie removed his glasses, which have one darkened lens, to show the jury “what’s left” of his blind right eye.
“It was a stab wound in my eye, intensely painful, after that I was screaming,” said Rushdie. “A lake of blood, that was clearly my own blood. . . was spreading outwards.”
The Free Press’s Jay Solomon was there to witness this dramatic testimony and see the great writer face his alleged attacker.
Matar’s assault on Rushdie came more than thirty years after Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for Rushdie’s death. Jay has been reporting on Iran—and Rushdie’s story—off and on for years. As he explains in his report today, “The question hanging over this case, from the moment Rushdie was rushed off the stage, is whether Matar was acting on orders from Iran or its Middle Eastern proxies, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia.”
Jay was in the courtroom to look for anything that might help solve that mystery, and to try to make some sense of a horrifying attack that might have been the work of a crazed lone wolf, or a hit orchestrated by a foreign government on U.S. soil.
Read Jay Solomon’s full dispatch: “Salman Rushdie Faces His Alleged Attacker.”
And for more on the Rushdie story, read Peter Savodnik’s 2024 essay about Knife, the author’s memoir: “Who Saved Salman Rushdie?”
EXCLUSIVE: Trump Is Starving an Agency That Really Matters
“It’s been a bloodbath.” That’s how one staffer describes the fallout at the National Endowment for Democracy after a DOGE order blocked its funding. In a Free Press exclusive, Eli Lake reports on the order for the first time, and reveals that it has left the organization—a major instrument of U.S. soft power that helped win the Cold War—unable to meet payroll and pay basic overhead expenses.
Read Eli’s report on the latest organization in DOGE’s sights—and why its dismantling isn’t just another cost-cutting measure, but could cause real damage: “Trump Is Starving the National Endowment for Democracy.”
ICYMI: For more on DOGE as well as Trump’s cabinet picks advancing on the hill; Bibi’s trip to Washington; Kanye; and more from another busy news week, check out the latest episode of Honestly, featuring Batya Ungar-Sargon and Brianna Wu—with Bari, as always, in the host’s chair. Click the play button below, or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
What DEI Isn’t
In case you hadn’t noticed, the new administration has been waging war on DEI. In many ways, that’s a welcome correction, writes River Page today. But the problem, he says, is that the Trump administration, and many of its highest-profile supporters, “are fueling the idea that any minority with a job might not actually deserve it. These people see DEI everywhere.”
The left says the anti-DEI crusade is just an excuse for bigotry. Don’t prove them right, argues River. Read his column: “What DEI Isn’t.”
BREAKING: Politician Gives Good Speech
I’m always surprised when a politician gives a good speech. Whether that says more about me or the quality of our elected officials, I’m not sure. But either way, yesterday brought a pleasant surprise: a good speech by a politician! In fact, a very good speech by a pretty senior politician.
I am referring to Vice President J.D. Vance’s address at the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris. In his first overseas trip as VP, Vance issued a blistering warning of the risks of overregulating AI.
Vance said AI “will make people more productive, more prosperous, and more free,” adding: “The United States of America is the leader in AI, and our administration plans to keep it that way.”
The contrast with Europe, which has positioned itself as a leader in AI regulation but lacks an actual AI industry, is stark.
When it comes to a politician talking about tech, I expect someone who doesn’t really know what they are talking about, reading something written by someone else. While I’m sure Vance had help from a speechwriter, he left little doubt that he knew what he was talking about—and what he thinks about it. As Free Press contributor Katherine Boyle put it, “Incredible to see a political leader translate how a new technology can promote human flourishing with such clarity.”
His speech was also perhaps the best example yet of the new MAGA fusionism—a mix of nationalism and techno-optimism—that is a defining characteristic of Trump’s second term.
If you can spare 15 minutes, it’s worth a watch:
Related: Read two sides of the AI debate in our pages. Marc Andreessen explains why “AI Will Save the World.” Paul Kingsnorth says: “Rage Against the Machine.”
While Vance was giving his serious AI speech in France, one of the other important people not named “Trump” in this administration changed his handle on X from “Elon Musk” to “Harry Bōlz” (get it?) and offered. . . circumcisions at a 50 percent discount in his bio on the site. There, in microcosm, is the duality of the second Trump term.
The Trump administration has secured the release of Marc Fogel, an American teacher who has been wrongfully detained in Russia for more than three years. Fogel’s family’s lawyer, talking to our own Madeleine Kearns last December, described Fogel’s deteriorating medical condition and called his detention a “death sentence.” Read Maddy’s full report on Americans detained abroad here.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that Hamas must free hostages by Saturday or face a return to war. Netanyahu is echoing the ultimatum issued by Trump a day earlier, who said “all hell is going to break out” if the remaining hostages were not returned by Saturday.
The Trump White House will not release visitor logs during Trump’s second term, in keeping with his first administration’s policy, reports the Washington Examiner’s Gabe Kaminsky. Visitor logs are not required by law, but the Biden administration released them on a monthly basis.
The Associated Press says it was informed Tuesday that it would be barred from accessing an event in the White House if it did not “align its editorial standards” with Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Thoughts here. One: This is bad. Two: I didn’t have Trump down as the kind of guy to worry about wire agency style guides. Mr. President, the public deserves to know, Chicago or APA?
BuzzFeed, Inc. head Jonah Peretti says his company will launch a new social media platform. In a memo released yesterday announcing the new venture, Peretti denounced TikTok and Meta, saying his soon-to-be competitors cared more about AI than the content on their sites, which Peretti alleged relies too heavily on posts with exaggerated claims meant to provoke fear and anger. Fair enough, but do we really trust the millennial slop company that popularized “listicles” to deliver quality content? Here are ten reasons why this is a bad idea that only ’90s kids will understand.
In other news: Steve Bannon pleads guilty in border wall fraud case—but will face no jail time. The Trump administration has resumed deportation flights to Venezuela. Sam Altman says OpenAI is not for sale. Disney is overhauling its DEI efforts. And finally, Colorado GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert was spotted getting into a cab with Kid Rock at 2:30 a.m. after Trump’s inauguration.
JD Vance certainly is passionate about AI but I don't believe his malarkey about the Trump administration being anti-censorship. If the White House is instructing the AP on speaking of the 'Gulf of America' rather than its proper name, in order to get access to the White House, how is that any different from the woke progressive insistence on pronouns? Trump is already on board with censorship and he launched a lawfare suit against a journalist who didn't print anything libelous about him, she *merely predicted incorrectly on election night that he would lose*. So no, little boy, you boss daddy is lying to you and you're now lying to the American people. Let's not forget all the censorship of government information that has since disappeared. The Trumpies are no different from the regressive wokenazis they just replaced; brand new authoritarians, same as the last.
So Trump did a prisoner swap.
Cool.