It’s Wednesday, May 20. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Jed Rubenfeld on the president’s IRS self-dealing, and why a court might not be able to stop him. Joe Nocera has a new podcast about the crime that gripped America like no other. Olivia Reingold on the Luigi Mangione fangirls who have NYC press credentials. Plus: a literary controversy for our time. And much more.
But first: One party, under Trump, indivisible.
The biggest primaries on Tuesday took place in Georgia and Kentucky, and on the Republican side, President Donald Trump triumphed in every single one.
Some victories were subtle. In the Kentucky Senate primary, Rep. Andy Barr defeated Daniel Cameron—a one-time protégé of Senator Mitch McConnell, who has become one of Trump’s staunchest critics within the GOP.
In Georgia, the top two finishers who qualified for the runoff in the governor’s race are a pair of MAGA Republicans, Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones and businessman Rick Jackson. Far behind in the vote tally was Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who challenged Trump’s voter-fraud claims after the 2020 election.
Trump’s biggest victory came in the headliner race of the night, between Rep. Thomas Massie and Trump’s handpicked challenger, Ed Gallrein. Massie broke with the president in an explosive way over the past year, tying him to the Epstein files, voting to halt the war in Iran, and accusing him of being an Israeli stooge.
Massie lost by about 10 points Tuesday night, but as Seth Mandel notes, his movement may live on. There is a rising faction on the right that abhors foreign wars and believes Israeli conspiracies control U.S. policy. For now, GOP voters prefer Trump to that faction by a long shot. But who will fill the vacuum once the president is gone?
—Mene Ukueberuwa
The Evil of the San Diego Mosque Shooting |
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On Monday morning, two teenagers opened fire at the Islamic Center of San Diego, killing three people. After the attack, they shot themselves. The attackers left behind a hate-filled manifesto and one of their guns had the words “race war now” scrawled on the side. According to the FBI, the shooters had “a broad hatred toward a lot of folks.” To make sense of this latest act of politically motivated violence, we turned to Rabbi David Ingber. | | |
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Trump’s Victims Fund Is a Scandal. But It May Be Legal. |
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The Trump administration just settled a lawsuit with his own Internal Revenue Service in which the president was essentially both the plaintiff and the defendant. Part of that settlement includes a $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” for people the administration deems victims of political persecution. The whole arrangement reeks of corrupt self-dealing, argues Jed Rubenfeld, with the IRS agreeing to drop all current and potential claims against Trump. But can the courts block it? | | |
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Did AI Write This Prize-Winning Story? |
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A short story about a weary Trinidadian farmer just won one of the most competitive literary awards in the English-speaking world. The only problem? Days after the prize was announced, readers raised the alarm that it bears all the hallmarks of being AI-generated. Did a machine just fool a panel of literary judges? Novi Zhukovsky reports on the burgeoning scandal. | | |
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Meet the Mangione Press Corps |
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Outside a Manhattan courthouse this week, three women with city-issued press credentials cheered on Luigi Mangione and made comments like “fuck Brian Thompson,” the healthcare CEO Mangione allegedly murdered. They call themselves the Mangionistas—one is a Fulbright scholar turned sex video game creator, and the other is a “Hot Girls for Zohran” influencer. Who are they? And why on earth did New York City give them press credentials? Read Olivia Reingold’s latest report for all the details. | | |
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On the night of March 1, 1932, someone climbed a ladder to a window of a remote New Jersey estate and stole the infant son of Charles Lindbergh, the famed American aviator. The baby was later found dead, and a man was arrested, tried, and executed—case closed. Or was it? Ninety-four years later, many of the details still don’t add up. Free Press journalists Joe Nocera and Poppy Damon became obsessed with getting to the bottom of it—and we think you will too. Listen to The Lindbergh Conspiracies, a new podcast from The Free Press hosted by Joe Nocera.
Listen to episode one below, and follow wherever you get
