It’s Thursday, October 24. 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: Qatar’s most powerful woman mourns Sinwar; the “totalitarian” suppression of Bernard-Henri Lévy; but first, the election.
Today, dear reader, I want to start by suggesting something controversial: The character of the president of the United States matters.
In ordinary times, this would be so obvious it wouldn’t be worth mentioning. Unfortunately, we don’t live in ordinary times. Instead, we live in a time where basically everyone has accepted that the current president lacks the mental capacity to do the job properly—and yet, he’s still in the Oval Office.
Today we bring you two op-eds about the two people vying to replace Joe Biden. And both candidates are seriously lacking in different ways.
In the first piece, columnist Martin Gurri looks at Kamala Harris’s suitability for the role of leader of the free world.
“It is only a slight exaggeration to say that the policies and character of the president are the keys to war and peace in the world today,” he argues. And the disconcerting thing about Harris, he says, is that despite being on the brink of power, she remains “a virtual blank slate on foreign affairs.”
“In her four years as senator and four as vice president, Harris has managed to say nothing meaningful on the subject—a curious reticence, given that American politicians love to strut and lecture on the global stage,” writes Martin.
Can we even paint a coherent picture of how Harris, if elected, will deal with the world? Martin, who predicted the rise of Trump in 2016, says the answer is “yes”—just about.
Read Martin Gurri’s mix of analysis, projection, and speculation in “The World According to Kamala Harris.”
From the incoherence and shape-shifting of Kamala Harris to the worst impulses of Donald Trump. . .
We’re at the stage of the campaign when negative stories about the two candidates are coming thick and fast.
The biggest anti-Trump hit so far this week came from Jeffrey Goldberg. The Atlantic editor reports that during a private conversation in the White House, Trump once said “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had. People who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders.”
Goldberg says that two people heard him say this. A Trump spokesperson flatly denies it. “This is absolutely false,” wrote Alex Pfeiffer in an email to The Atlantic. “President Trump never said this.” General John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, says he heard the same thing—and now warns that Trump would, if elected, “rule like a dictator.” But Nick Ayers, Mike Pence’s former chief of staff, said Wednesday: “I’ve avoided commenting on intra-staff leaks or rumors or even lies as it relates to my time at the White House but General Kelly’s comments regarding President Trump are too egregious to ignore. I was with each of them more than most, and his commentary is patently false.”
Voters can be forgiven for being a little weary of overblown warnings that a Trump victory would mean the arrival of fascism in America, or the end of American democracy. It’s hard to buy those warnings given that, well, we had a Trump presidency. We survived. So did the country.
I get it.
And yet, on the campaign trail, Trump hasn’t done much to counter the charges of authoritarianism. He’s talked about the “enemy within.” Or threatened his political enemies with prison. Things that don’t exactly scream democracy.
The thing about the story of the boy who cried wolf is that a wolf does eventually show up. That’s the subject of our second piece today. Read my column here: “Donald Trump’s Revenge Fantasies.”
Ad for Israel Book Canceled Because “Customers Might Complain”
Apparently the word Israel is enough to upset customers and give booksellers “trouble they haven’t asked for and don’t wish to have.” That’s according to Matt Baldacci, the publisher for Shelf Awareness, a prominent trade magazine read by over 645,000 readers.
Recently, Melanie Notkin, an author and communications consultant, was arranging for Bernard-Henri Lévy’s new book, Israel Alone, to be advertised in Shelf Awareness. On October 9, the publication confirmed the ad would run on November 1 for the price of $2,300. But two days later, Baldacci emailed Notkin to say they were “canceling” it, then followed up with a phone call.
In audio of that call exclusively obtained by The Free Press, Baldacci told Notkin “for certain stores, an ad for Israel Alone will cause the employees to go to the management and say, ‘We don’t support this. Why are you doing this?’ ” He said customers would also complain, “and our partners trust us to protect them from those kinds of situations.”
Notkin told Francesca Block that “If the word Israel is too hot a potato to have on the pages of your newsletter as a paid ad, when does it become the word Jew?”
Read Francesca Block on the “totalitarian” suppression of Bernard-Henri Lévy’s work.
Legendary Democratic strategist James Carville is “certain” Kamala Harris is going to win the election. Explaining why in a New York Times op-ed, the Ragin’ Cajun offers three reasons: the fact that Donald Trump is a repeat electoral loser, the massive amount of money Harris has raised, and finally, “just a feeling.” In a time of endless polling and complicated forecasting, I kind of admire Carville’s approach. Go with your gut, sir, but don’t think we’ll forget this if you’re proven wrong in a few weeks’ time.
Federal prosecutors have announced criminal charges against a Revolutionary Guard official and three other people in relation to a plot to murder Iranian dissident Masih Alinejad. Reacting to the charges on X, Alinejad said: “First, I was kicked out of my beloved homeland, Iran, then exiled from my second home in Brooklyn. Despite moving 21 times between safe houses, I have a message for @khamenei_ir: Know this—the day of reckoning is coming, and no matter how far you run, justice will find you.” Listen to Alinejad on Honestly in 2022. And read Jay Solomon’s recent report: “Why Are Iran’s Thugs Free to Walk the Streets of New York?”
Johanna Olson-Kennedy, a prominent doctor who advocates for youth gender treatments, has not published an almost decade-long study on the effects of puberty blockers because, as she puts it in an interview with The New York Times, “I do not want our work to be weaponized.” Translation: Olson-Kennedy didn’t get the results she was hoping for. Talk about following the science. Read whistleblower Riittakerttu Kaltiala in The Free Press on the flimsy science behind youth gender transitions: “Gender-Affirming Care Is Dangerous. I Know Because I Helped Pioneer It.”
The Trump campaign has accused the UK’s ruling party of “blatant foreign interference.” Last week, the Labour Party’s head of operations claimed on LinkedIn that there would be “nearly 100 Labour Party staff (current and former) going to the U.S. in the next few weeks”—to campaign for Vice President Harris. The post has since been deleted, but it caught the attention of Team Trump. Late on Tuesday, the campaign demanded an investigation into what it alleges were “illegal foreign national contributions.” UK prime minister Keir Starmer says there was nothing illegal about it (and that he and Trump had a very nice dinner recently). We say: The British are coming!
A crypto-backed Republican House candidate has smeared her opponent as a communist for owning cryptocurrency. But she’s only made her claims in Vietnamese. Korea-born Rep. Michelle Steel of California’s Forty-fifth Congressional District has received nearly $3 million from Fairshake, a leading crypto industry PAC. Despite this, her campaign sent out Vietnamese-language flyers accusing her Democratic opponent Derek Tran—the son of Vietnamese refugees—of owning “tens of thousands of dollars of cryptocurrency related to the Communist Party of China.” Cryptocurrency has been banned in China since 2021, and the crypto wallet company Tran uses hasn’t operated in China for years.
Kamala Harris was asked by NBC News’ Hallie Jackson what “specific concessions” she would make with Republicans in order to pass abortion legislation if she’s elected president. Jackson suggested religious exemptions, such as not forcing Catholic hospitals to provide abortions, as an example. Harris replied: “I don’t think we should be making concessions when we’re talking about a fundamental freedom to make decisions about your own body.” Granting nationwide abortion access is central to Harris’s campaign—but she doesn’t seem to have much of a plan to achieve that goal.
It is the height of election season and one Manhattan Democrat is laser-focused on the political issue foremost in everyone’s mind: paid sick leave. For pet owners. Yesterday, Councilman Shaun Abreu introduced a bill to amend the Earned Safe and Sick Time Act so it can be used to take your aging, incontinent English cocker spaniel to the vet. ICYMI, meet the locals who put animals in charge of their municipality: “In This Michigan Town, the Mayor Was a Dog. Now, They’ve Elected a Horse.”
Qatari Royal Praises Sinwar
Here at The Free Press, we’ve reported on the various ways in which Qatar has used its money to influence U.S. culture and foreign policy. And if you want an idea of why we think this is an important story, consider the following tidbit, from my colleague Jay Solomon. He reports on how Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, the mother of the energy-rich emirate’s ruler and the most powerful woman in Qatar, reacted to the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar last week. Spoiler alert: She wasn’t happy.
Here’s Jay:
Sheikha Moza bint Nasser’s public support for the Middle East’s most wanted—and now late—terrorist has raised alarm bells within the tight community of diplomats and academics who closely track America’s strategic alliance with Qatar.
Last Friday, Sheikha Moza took to her personal X account and, in an initially little-seen post, praised the life of Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind behind Hamas’s October 7, 2023, terrorist strike on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people.
“The name Yahya means the one who lives. They thought him dead but he lives,” the 65-year-old Qatari royal wrote. “Like his namesake, Yahya bin Zakariya, he will live on and they will be gone.”
Yahya bin Zakariya is the Arabic name for John the Baptist, who is considered a prophet in Islam. And the “they” Sheikha Moza refers to in her post is assumed to be the state of Israel.
Sheikha Moza is chair of the Qatar Foundation, a multibillion-dollar endowment that promotes educational projects and collaborations around the world. Included among these are partnerships with five American academic institutions—Georgetown, Virginia Commonwealth University, Northwestern, Cornell, and Carnegie Mellon—that have satellite campuses in Doha.
Qatar has sought to position itself as a neutral arbiter between Israel and Hamas since 10/7 and is currently seeking to negotiate the release of more than 100 hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza. Now, Sheikha Moza’s homage to Sinwar is casting new doubts about her country’s role as a regional peacemaker and critical U.S. ally.
With friends like Qatar, who needs enemies?
Oliver Wiseman is a writer and editor for The Free Press. Follow him on X @ollywiseman.
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