Welcome back to The Weekend Press! Today, Chris Christie explains why men love “The Godfather.” Suzy Weiss argues that Lindsay Clancy is “O.J. for white women.” Kat Rosenfield on the strange case of “dog racism.” And more!

But first: Harry and Meghan get mugged by reality . . .

And so farewell, America’s prince.

This week, Meghan Markle and Harry Mountbatten-Windsor announced that, after six years making jam and reality shows in a Montecito mansion, they’re moving back to the United Kingdom, a country they once characterized as a racist hellhole.

“This, at a moment when progressives are laughing off the deranged things they said in 2020,” writes Kara Kennedy in today’s lead essay, “is the ultimate example of getting mugged by reality.”

When they left England in 2020, Prince Harry claimed it was because of the media’s “ruthless campaign” against his mixed-race wife. “The UK press is bigoted,” he told Oprah Winfrey. Meghan, meanwhile, said she wanted to live in a country where reporters wouldn’t take pictures of her kids. “That doesn’t make me obsessed with privacy,” she said. “That makes me a strong and good parent protecting my child.”

In America, Meghan tried to become a podcaster, and failed. Infamously, she started selling jam. Meanwhile, Harry spent a lot of his time flying back to the UK to appear in various courtrooms, where he waged a very expensive legal battle against several newspaper groups he claimed had invaded his privacy.

The last of these battles ended last month, when a judge threw out the prince’s allegations about the Daily Mail. This week, he was one of the claimants ordered to pay the paper $13 million in compensation. Happily, at almost exactly the same moment—perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not—it was reported that “sources say” Meghan has a “top secret” acting job lined up in England.

Still, why are these crusaders, these good, strong parents, coming home at this moment? In her essay, Kara argues that it’s nothing to do with their values and everything to do with cash. “They’ve exhausted their Hollywood handouts,” she writes. “In the end, it didn’t matter what the Sussexes’ mission statement was: standing up to racism or straightening out the press or turning the whole creaking shell of the monarchy on its head. When the money stops coming in, they can’t afford to be principled.”

Read the full piece here:

Kara Kennedy • Culture and Ideas Prince Harry Said Returning to Britain Was ‘Impossible’

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Chris Christie • Things Worth Remembering

Chris Christie: Why ‘The Godfather’ Endures

“What is it with men and ‘The Godfather’?” So asked Meg Ryan’s character in the ’90s classic “You’ve Got Mail.” And who better to answer that question than former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who first watched the film with his father 50 years ago, and now watches it regularly with his son. “The universal truth of ‘The Godfather’ is that it is a movie about men. Men who seek to get rich together, to murder together, to seek justice together,” he writes in today’s Things Worth Remembering. “A man who doesn’t spend time with his family can never be a real man.” Read story ›

Kat Rosenfield • Culture and Ideas

‘It’s Just Dog Racism’

“The myth of the pit bull is a lot of bullshit,” said actor Jon Bernthal recently. “Pit bulls don’t attack. It’s just racism. It’s just dog racism.” He’s part of a strangely vocal activist class who believe that these objectively dangerous creatures—recently responsible for the deaths of, among others, an 86-year-old woman in Oklahoma, a 2-year-old in North Carolina, and a 7-year-old in Colorado—are unfairly maligned. And our columnist Kat Rosenfield sees a disturbing parallel with, as she writes in today’s piece, “the suicidally empathetic progressive who rebels against the best interests of her community in order to signal solidarity with members of a marginalized group.” Except, this marginalized group can rip your face off. Read story ›

Second Thought

Why has TikTok decided that Lindsay Clancy, the woman who has admitted to strangling her three children to death, must be protected at all costs? Because, says Suzy Weiss, this exhausted mother has become “O.J. for white women.”

With her co-host, Dan Ahdoot, Suzy also has her say on rumors that the president is having an affair with his executive assistant, Natalie Harp (otherwise known as “the human printer” because she prints out nice online comments about Donald Trump to show him), plus Matthew McConaughey’s meeting with the pope, and the Kentucky family who turned down $26 million from a company that wants to build a data center on their land, because Jesus preaches we should occupy the land we’re on.

You won’t want to miss this episode. Watch it below—or listen wherever you get your podcasts!