The United States Senate Judiciary Committee this week revealed that Joe Biden’s FBI spied on eight Republican Senators and a Republican House of Representative Member in 2023. The underlying FBI record reveals the agency sought telephone tolling data as part of the Arctic Frost investigation that Special Counsel Jack Smith used to concoct an election fraud case against President Donald J. Trump. Although the indictment was ultimately dismissed when the President was re-elected in 2024, Smith expended the resources of the federal government for two years investigating the President in search of a federal crime.
The data revealed the telephone numbers the elected officials called, the dates of the calls and the duration of the calls made by Senator Marsha Blackburn (Tennessee), Senator Lindsey Graham (South Carolina), Senator Bill Hagerty (Tennessee), Senator Josh Hawley (Missouri), Senator Ron Johnson (Wisconsin), Senator Cynthia Lummis (Wyoming), Senator Dan Sullivan (Alaska), Senator Tommy Tuberville (Alabama) and Representative Mike Kelly (Pennsylvania) in the wake of the 2020 election.
Senator Chuck Grassley commented, “Based on the evidence to-date, Arctic Frost and related weaponization by federal law enforcement under Biden was arguably worse than Watergate.”
More than egregiously unjust, the latest revelation shows just how deep the rot penetrated during the Biden years. During its long and occasionally ignoble history, the FBI has spied on everyone from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to Elvis Presley, but tracking the communications of sitting United States Senators might be a new low.
Smith’s indictment charged the President with obstructing the election certification process on January 6, 2021, a process in which the aforenoted Senators were actively involved under a process governed by the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution. All Republicans, all MAGA and all Trump supporters, none of the Senators was previously known to have been targeted by law enforcement. One can only surmise Smith was contemplating an indictment in which those Senators, and perhaps others, would have been charged as conspiratorial co-defendants along with President Trump.
It is difficult to envision a world in which Joe Biden, his Attorney General and his FBI Director were unaware of these escapades by Bureau agents. It is more baffling still to fathom how any of those longtime public officials could possibly think the eventual eruption of the FBI’s insidious investigations would cause anything less than a counter-revolution, which is precisely what we are seeing unfold at this moment. Thus, the predicate evidence for procuring something as serious as a citizen’s telephone records should have been substantial. At this moment, no purported justification has been disclosed, let alone substantiated.
The FBI has some difficult questions to answer, and forthwith. Just what was the agency fishing for in 2021, and why? Who authorized the requests for the tolling data? How far up the chain of command at the FBI, DOJ and White House did the knowledge, authorization and directives go? What was the basis for targeting these individual Senators and Representatives? What particular crime in the federal criminal code did the FBI think the people’s duly elected representatives had committed to justify such a gross invasion of their privacy? Significantly, did the agency learn anything from its failed scorched earth campaign against President Trump and his allies? If so, what is the FBI doing to ensure abuses of this nature are not repeated?
FBI Director Kash Patel, whose plate is already full, needs to empower a massive clean up crew to repair the institutional damage done by his predecessors. The Senate should, and the President will, fully support him as he gets to the bottom of how it all went so wrong.
Category: Politics
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Why did the FBI spy on Republican Senators?
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Macron’s story has become a Shakespearean tragedy
This week has been a tale of two presidents. On the one hand there is Donald Trump, who has masterminded a peace deal between Israel and Hamas which, the world hopes, will end the conflict in Gaza.
Even Trump’s long-standing detractors acknowledge his role in bringing the warring parties to the negotiating table. “Trump’s unique style and crucial relationships with Israel and the Arab world appear to have contributed to this breakthrough,” explained the BBC.
It hasn’t been such a good week for Emmanuel Macron. On the contrary it’s been the most humiliating few days of his eight and a half years in office. On Monday his Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, tendered his resignation after 27 days in office. It was the shortest premiership in the 67 years of the Fifth Republic. Lecornu resigned 12 hours after unveiling a new coalition government that was so unpopular he felt compelled to throw in the towel.
Then late on Friday evening Lecornu was reappointed prime minister. He explained that he had accepted “the mission entrusted to me by the President of the Republic to do everything possible to give France a budget by the end of the year.” It smacks of desperation. Macron has run out of options and run out of candidates.
As Macron’s presidency falls apart so his friends and allies are turning on him. On Tuesday one of his former prime ministers, Édouard Philippe, urged Macron to leave office “in an orderly manner.” Another, Gabriel Attal, said that he “no longer understands” Macron’s thought process.
Rumors about Macron’s state of mind first surfaced in 2022 when he was re-elected president but a few weeks later lost his absolute majority in parliamentary elections. On a trip to the US in December that year he confided that he had for a while been in a “very serious depression.”
His behavior in recent days has left the French bemused; not just the public but also members of his dwindling inner circle. Speaking anonymously to Le Figaro, one Élysée insider said: “No one has any news. He is more than ever in a parallel universe.”
Macron appears to be in a state of denial about the gravity of the crisis facing France. The country is mired in debt, violent crime is soaring and on Thursday official figures showed that immigration reached record levels in 2024. There are now 7.7 million immigrants in France, more than 11 percent of the population.
It is chaos, but you wouldn’t know it to see the President. “Macron’s problem is that, with him, everything is always going very well,” said one of advisors.
The rise and fall of Emmanuel Macron is one of the more remarkable political stories this century. The liberal global elite breathed a sigh of relief when he was elected in 2017. An adult was back in the room, they cheered, ready to clear up the mess made the previous year by Britain’s vote to leave the EU and America’s vote for Donald Trump.
Macron was pictured walking on water on the cover of the Economist, and TIME magazine simpered its way through a lengthy interview with the President. It compared Macron and Trump: one “the scholarly French globalist” and the other “the brash, anti-globalist septuagenarian.”
TIME stated that the “battle of ideas between the two has only just begun.” In essence this was Macron’s progressivism against Trump’s anti-progressivism, which is tiresomely characterized by his enemies as populism.
There was little doubt which side TIME was on. “If Macron is proved right,” it gushed, “France could emerge as a far more important global power than it has been in decades.”
Sorry, TIME, your man lost. Macron has ruined France. Not just its economy and its social cohesion, but also its reputation. It has no global power and Macron has no authority. His approval rating has fallen to 14 percent (Trump’s is 40 percent) and 70 percent of the French want their president to resign.
Macron cuts an increasingly tragic figure, alone in his palace, like Macbeth in his castle, tormented not by Banquo but by Trump.
“Whether purposely or not,” said Trump earlier this year, “Emmanuel always gets it wrong.”
Out, out, brief candle!
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Let ‘Iryna’s Law’ be her legacy
We’ve seen it again and again – Laken Riley, Rachel Morin, Christina Yuna Lee, Michelle Go, Jocelyn Nungaray, Kristal Bayron-Nieves and now Iryna Zurutska – all young women brutally murdered by repeat offenders who never should have been on the street in the first place.
Mental health failures. Bail reform. Parole abuse. Open borders. Progressive DAs. Every layer of this system protects offenders and creates more victims. To most Americans, that seems unthinkable.
To those of us who live it, it’s another day in a system that treats criminals better than victims.That’s why the passage of Iryna’s Law in North Carolina matters. Named after a young Ukrainian refugee – Iryna Zarutska – brutally murdered by a repeat violent offender who never should have been free, it is both a step forward and a tragic reminder of how far we’ve fallen.
Even the first few paragraphs of this bill – written and named after a victim – are centered on the rights of the defendant. Not because the drafters didn’t care, but because our entire justice system is built backwards. It’s a framework designed to protect the innocent, but in practice it shields the guilty – while victims and their families are left to pick up the pieces.
Still, this law is progress.
And it’s proof that when victims and survivors refuse to be silenced, change can happen.Parts of Iryna’s Law mirror the very reforms we’ve championed for years through the Victims Rights Reform Council’s Victims Rights Reform Agenda – born out of tear-filled conversations with survivors across America who all asked the same question: Why was their loved one’s killer free to begin with?
Here’s what Iryna’s Law does:
Pretrial Release and Bail Reform: Certain violent offenders can now only be released by a judge, not a magistrate. Judges must review criminal histories and risk assessments, and in many cases, there’s now a presumption against release for repeat violent offenders or drug traffickers. If someone reoffends while on bail, they can be held up to 48 hours for judicial review.
Mental Health and Involuntary Commitment: Dangerous individuals deemed mentally unstable must remain in custody until both a physician and a judge authorize release – with safety plans, medication and housing secured first.
Death Penalty Procedures: Streamlines postconviction death penalty reviews so hearings happen within two years, and ensures execution methods remain constitutional and enforceable.
Prohibits Political “Task Forces” that undermine public safety under the guise of “equity.”
Expands Victims’ Rights: Extends supervision for violent juvenile offenders and guarantees victims are notified before probation or post-release is terminated.
Invests in Accountability: Adds prosecutors and staff in overburdened judicial districts so violent offenders aren’t slipped through the cracks.
Seems like common sense to me. Because predators are everywhere. On Long Island, Shawn Reid, a man under indictment for allegedly raping three little girls, is living freely in an unsecured residential group home in the suburbs – not behind bars. This isn’t just egregious; it’s dangerous. We are not only putting evil people back into our communities, where our children play unsuspecting of the danger.
We need real accountability. That means ending the immunity that protects parole boards, judges and politicians who make the reckless decisions that destroy lives. It means enforcing the laws we already have – and passing the ones that should have been in place long ago.
Unfortunately evil will always exist. We will not always be able to stop bad people from hurting good people. But when our laws are weak, our leaders cowardly, and our system paralyzed by ideology, evil wins. And innocent people dying in preventable tragedies is unacceptable.
Iryna’s Law should not just be a North Carolina victory – it should be a national model. Every state must adopt and enforce similar protections. Every courtroom should prioritize victims’ safety over criminals’ comfort. And every policymaker who dares to look the other way must be held accountable.
At least now, with this law, we have a chance to do what’s right, to restore justice, and to prevent the next tragedy that everyone will pretend was “unforeseeable.” Enough is enough. It’s time to make America safe again – for the innocent, for the victims and for every family who lives every day with an empty chair at the table. -
Machado deserves the Nobel
I was fourteen when I clambered onto a boulder along Caracas’s Francisco Fajardo highway – what people called Piedra de la Libertad, the Liberty Rock – and spoke out about a government that had just ignored a referendum. “Tyranny” was more than a buzzword. To my astonishment, a woman I didn’t yet know – María Corina – helped me climb it. With her megaphone, I spoke of unifying, as a sea of flags from rival parties fluttered before me.
Many dismissed her then. A woman who once called Chávez a “thief” to his face – too brash, too ideological, too direct for the choreography of Venezuelan politics. The old hands said she could never reach the people; she lacked the soothing tones, the feigned humility, the convenient ambiguity that defined our politicians. As a young member in the National Assembly, she was sidelined. She was too elegant, too upper-class – a sifrina, as Caracas gossips liked to say, the Venezuelan equivalent of a Valley girl. How could a man from the hills of Petare ever vote for her? She doesn’t have “the balls,” they said.
They were wrong.
Today, history has delivered yet another act of vindication. The Nobel Committee has awarded María Corina Machado the Nobel Peace Prize, citing her “tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.” Amid threats, bans, and intimidation, she stayed – refusing exile, unlike so many of the men once praised for having “the balls.” Though barred from appearing on the ballot, she led her movement to victory through Edmundo González, winning more than seventy percent of the vote. Now in hiding, she continues to labor, with unbroken discipline, toward a peaceful transfer of power.
Some skeptics call her win puzzling, particularly in a moment when the world is watching Trump mediate a ceasefire in the Middle East. They argue: surely, stabilizing a brutal conflict warrants a Nobel more than the struggle of a single nation. These are understandable complaints – and one sure hopes that when peace materializes, Trump will get his Nobel. Yet to dismiss Machado’s recognition is wrong-headed. Plus, attempts to make Machado appear as a figure that opposes Trump is plainly ridiculous – she even dedicated her prize “to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause.” She knows Trump deserves his Nobel too.
Attack the prize itself if you wish. After all, Senator Mike Lee isn’t wrong when he remarks that “apparently the Nobel Peace Prize isn’t about delivering peace anymore.” Alfred Nobel’s 1895 will defined the award as recognition for those who have accomplished “the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”
By that reading, few modern laureates qualify. Yet the committee long ago widened its understanding of peace to include those who wage domestic campaigns rather than diplomatic ones. Poland’s Lech Wałęsa, America’s Martin Luther King Jr., Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi – their prizes honored movements, not treaties; conviction, not realpolitik.
Criticizing the prize itself has its logic – a logic I share. What makes little sense is dismissing María Corina Machado’s fight. Hers, too, is a movement – civil, disciplined and rooted in the idea that peace is not merely the end of conflict, but the beginning of freedom.
What Machado has done is durable: she has carved out a moral pole in a country where everything else has crumbled. She is the first Venezuelan opposition leader to cement a position – not in charisma, but in principle. Though barred from contesting in 2024, it was her movement that outpaced Chavismo in hearts and minds. She is the first to deliver a genuine, stark ideological, moral and political alternative that has beaten Chavismo in recognition – even if the seizure of power remains pending.
As she hides in an undisclosed location within Venezuela, separated from her family, Machado’s resolve stands in sharp contrast to the opposition figures who sought safety abroad. Juan Guaidó and others, once luminous names, now flicker dimly from foreign capitals. Machado stayed.
Her struggle has always been peaceful. She called for marches and assemblies, even when many Venezuelans, understandably, chafed at the limits of nonviolence. And she did so without fear – unlike former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles, who bent under the regime’s threats and now serves as little more than a decoration in the architecture of controlled opposition. If that is not Nobel-deserving, with the modern recipients in mind, then one wonders: what is?
When she handed me the megaphone more than a decade ago, she offered belief. I knew then that the movement she would lead would become a vessel for her country’s conscience. She aimed for a moral revolution at a time when climbing the political ladder rewarded conformity and orthodoxy. Many of those who now praise her – much like Trump – once ridiculed her.Her prize is not a consolation; it is a spotlight – and it is deserved. Her moral clarity, her endurance, her refusal to yield to bitterness are rare forms of courage in an age addicted to cynicism. Let us be careful not to undermine Machado’s merit. Her victory need not diminish Trump’s successes. They both deserve their Nobels.
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Why weed is the most dangerous drug in America
Weed is the most dangerous drug in America. The main reason for this is the fact that most people don’t think it is. In fact, they typically think just the opposite. They believe not only that pot is safe, but also that it has true medicinal qualities. Little do they know that those benefits are barely worth the paper you wrap your joint in.
Marijuana is most commonly touted as a balm for anxiety. But it may actually increase anxiety to the point of psychosis – especially for those with underlying psychiatric conditions. Combine it with a diet of daily intake of violent video games and social media – as did Joshua Jahn, the man who shot three victims at a Dallas ICE facility – and you’ve got all the makings of an unstable American. Jahn is only the latest example of this dangerous makeup.
Weed is also supposed to help you sleep at night, but cannabis gummies, vapes and smoked leaf may actually disrupt sleep patterns. It’s also been praised for pain relief, but in my experience as a physician, it is certainly not effective as a first-line agent.
Even scarier is the fact that cannabis gummies laced with high amounts of the psychoactive compound tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) are attractively packaged in such a way that young children keep taking them and ending up in the emergency room. This past year alone, more than 22,000 patients were admitted to the ER with THC poisoning, and more than 75 percent of those patients were children and teenagers. Many of them were infants. No doubt many of these came from households where weed is treated as a mostly harmless substance.
Speaking of infants – pregnant women are taking more cannabis products than ever, often to ease morning sickness in the first trimester. This greatly increases the risk of preterm birth, low-birth-weight infants, developmental problems, and impaired lung function. I have to wonder how many mothers smoking weed during pregnancy are even aware of these risks.
Besides being more available, today’s cannabis also tends to be far more potent. This isn’t your parents’ Woodstock weed. The typical concentration of THC in widely available products has skyrocketed from 1.5 percent to more than 30 percent. This is resulting in casual users getting hooked at dangerous levels of THC concentration, which increases their appetite for the drug and the amount they need to consume to get high.
People are broadly aware of the danger of laced fentanyl and opioid overdoses, but marijuana is becoming routinely mixed with other psychoactive substances – the result is a massive increase in the number of deadly ER visits due to the drug. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reported 7.59 million drug-related emergency-department visits, a 5.8 percent increase in 2022. The most common cause of this visit was alcohol – cannabis was number two, and opioids three.
Then there are the long-term risks. Smoking is obviously bad for the lungs. Cannabis use of any kind has been proven to damage the heart and increases the risk of cardiac arrest. And excessive cannabis use leads to cognition problems, poor memory function, and difficulty performing tasks and decision-making.
There’s a lot we can do to keep the problem from getting worse. There ought to be no rush to make marijuana products easier to come, and there is no reason to change its status as a Schedule I drug, despite pressure to do so. Three criteria must be met for a Schedule I classification: there must be a high potential for abuse, no accepted medical use, and a lack of safety associated with the substance. The first of these is clearly met, the second hasn’t been proven, and the third is obvious. There are currently no established safety protocols or guidelines for the drug’s use.
Many activists want to change the drug to Schedule III, which would remove key regulatory barriers, make the drug easier to access, and formalize its medical uses. What these activists don’t acknowledge is that the expansion of legal use would undoubtedly carry with it an expanded shadow industry. This growing trade would be totally unregulated and would peddle in an increasingly potent form of the product.
Instead, we need a consistent regulatory standard for the amount of THC that cannabis can legally contain. Across the 40 states that have approved the drug for medical use and the 24 for recreational, there are a massive range of accepted THC levels. This must be standardized at a low level.
And people must be made aware of just how dangerous the drug is. Ignorance about its dangers combined with its increasing availability, its diverse forms and the strength of the cannabis industry have all combined to create a giant green monster. Until we recognize this beast for what it is, it will continue to stomp across the nation unchecked.
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Shutdown siestas
Nothing beats a Jet2 holiday
Washington is ten days into the government shutdown, and the Republicans and Democrats remain at loggerheads. Members are accosting each other in the corridors of power – in front of a gawking media, naturally – and challenging their adversaries to debate on TV shows. The impression our leaders are trying to give us is that they are working hard to reach a solution to the impasse. The same can’t be said for admin officials: Cockburn understands a large swathe have taken the opportunity to head off on vacation – and are doing their best to ensure they don’t post any pictures. (As ever, if you’ve spotted a secretary soaking in the sunshine, let Cockburn know at cockburn@thespectator.com.)
As no one knows when an agreement will be reached, starting a week ago some officials booked some absurdly long-distance weekend trips, including one to the Persian Gulf, according to Cockburn’s sources.
But mothballed federal workers, set to miss a paycheck, are frustrated with the shutdown. They’re not the only ones: a little birdie spotted Senator John Fetterman in the hallway on the Hill after a vote this week. The Pennsylvania Democrat put his hand under the hand-sanitizer machine. Nothing came out… so he walked into the elevator, muttering, “government never works.” Too right.
On our radar
WHAT’S UP, DOC? President Trump is spending the morning at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he will undergo an annual physical.
AGENT MELANIA While her husband was occupied, First Lady Melania Trump gave a rare press conference, detailing how she’d been in back-channel contact with President Vladimir Putin of Russia in order to secure the return of Ukrainian children who’d been abducted during his invasion.
TISH UPON A STAR The Department of Justice indicted New York Attorney General Leticia James on bank fraud and false-statement charges Thursday. The evidence was presented by Lindsey Halligan, the former Miss Colorado runner-up and newly appointed US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Nobel intentions
So, not this year then. María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader, is the recipient of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize. Given President Trump’s position on her rival President Nicolás Maduro – which most notably has taken the form of turning Venezuelan “drug boats” in the Caribbean into red mist – the choice by the Norwegian committee seems a sage one. Surely the President wouldn’t throw his toys out of the stroller after being passed over for a woman whose cause he supports?
“We are on the threshold of victory and today, more than ever, we count on President Trump, the people of the United States, the peoples of Latin America, and the democratic nations of the world as our principal allies to achieve Freedom and democracy,” a savvy Machado posted on X this morning. “I dedicate this prize to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause!”
With his trademark subtlety, Trump has been campaigning for the Nobel Peace Prize over the first nine months of his presidency, securing letters of support from various world leaders and claiming to have ended seven wars. (If the Israel-Hamas ceasefire holds, that would make eight.)
The world is watching his Truth Social timeline with bated breath as he undergoes a physical at Walter Reed this morning, to see how he reacts to being passed over. So far, he’s reposted Machado’s tribute to him. In the meantime, they will have to satisfy themselves with the musings of White House communications director Steven Cheung: “President Trump will continue making peace deals, ending wars, and saving lives. He has the heart of a humanitarian, and there will never be anyone like him who can move mountains with the sheer force of his will. The Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace.”
If Trump is seeking inspiration for how to respond with grace after being overlooked for an honor, he should probably avoid the example set by David Beckham. The soccer star was hoping to be knighted by the Queen following the 2012 London Olympics. Leaked emails revealed that he was not best pleased with the Honors Committee: “Who decides on the honors? It’s a disgrace to be honest and if I was American I would of [sic] got something like this 10 years ago…” That’s the only part Cockburn can safely quote…
Who will play Turning Point USA’s alternative halftime show?
Turning Point USA has announced its plans to host an “All-American Halftime Show” during the Super Bowl. It’s offering this as an alternative to the actual halftime show, which will feature Puerto Rican entertainer Bad Bunny, who mostly performs in Spanish. TPUSA doesn’t like Bad Bunny’s stance on ICE, which included him posting a video of ICE raids in his home territory of Puerto Rico, where he called ICE “sons of bitches.”
But who, exactly, is TPUSA going to be able to recruit to even vaguely approach the popularity of Bad Bunny, the second-most streamed artist in the country on Spotify so far this year? The appropriately named Creed, who have never done the Super Bowl but did once perform an iconic 9/11 tribute show in Dallas during a Thanksgiving game, might be available and willing. There are some obvious MAGA country choices, such as the ossified Lee Greenwood, Ted Nugent, Kid Rock, Jason Aldean, maybe Toby Keith. TPUSA probably won’t be able to land Luke Bryan and definitely doesn’t want Zack Bryan – no relation – whom DHS Secretary and “Deportation Barbie” Kristi Noem said this week had written a “completely disrespectful” song with lyrics that claim ICE “is going to come bust down your door.”
All this halftime politics nonsense makes Cockburn miss the apolitical days of wardrobe malfunctions, Prince shredding and Britney Spears and Aerosmith duetting on “Walk This Way.” His prediction: TPUSA’s All-American Halftime Show will have a wan YouTube audience while Santa Clara rocks to Bad Bunny bringing out Daddy Yankee for a duet on “Gasolina.” It will be completely disrespectful – and thoroughly entertaining.
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By order of the non-doctor
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. did not say, in yesterday’s cabinet meeting, that circumcision causes autism. But the fact that we’d even consider that a real statement shows just how far down the rabbit hole into the MAHA Wonderland of his mind RFK has dragged us. In fact, RFK said that after doctors circumcise boys, they give them too much Tylenol, and that causes autism. President “Don’t Take Tylenol” responded, “there’s a tremendous amount of proof or evidence. I would say as a non-doctor, but I’ve studied this a long time.”
A non-doctor is right, and I say this as someone who’s not a fan of male circumcision, a practice based on dated religious superstition. If we abhor female circumcision as a barbaric practice (and we should), then why is male circumcision any different? This is a personal issue for me. My wife didn’t want to circumcise our son more than 20 years ago, but my Jewish parents, now deceased, threatened to disown him, and me, if we didn’t do it. There was no bris. We didn’t enjoy wine and bagels afterwards. A urologist strapped our baby to a board and caused him untold pain, for no reason. I’ll never be able to unhear those screams.
Thank you for allowing me to process that trauma. But the point here is that the doctor probably gave our son Tylenol, and our son doesn’t have autism. I’m also circumcised, as are most men I know, or at least I assume they are. We don’t talk about such things. No one ever interviewed me for the studies that RFK cited at the cabinet meeting. “Circumcision leads to autism” is just embarrassing crankery that plays on people’s emotions.
Then, on the same day we saw “RFK claims circumcision causes autism” headlines, the Wall Street Journal decided to run a light feature story on RFK’s strange habit of working out wearing jeans. They show photos of him bench-pressing in denim and climbing Phoenix’s Camelback Mountain in denim. I grew up in Phoenix and did that Camelback hike many times. It’s no fun in workout shorts; hiking in jeans is suicide.
We live in interesting health times, where the Health Secretary issues a joint “fitness challenge” with the Secretary of War, does a gym circuit wearing Levis, and claims that vaccines and Tylenol cause autism. At least there’s no more Red Dye #12 in our beef tallow Steak and Shake fries. And I have to wonder if this is actually making us healthier, or if we’re just fetishizing the lifestyle eccentricities of a wealthy bulked-up falconer from America’s most famous political family.
This movement is starting to feel like a mirror image of the “more doctors smoke Camels” ads that the tobacco industry used to produce. In 1930, Lucky Strike said that “20,679 Physicians say ‘LUCKIES are less irritating” because of a “toasting” process. Millions of people died because of those campaigns.
It’s a long way down the path from that to MAHA claiming that sugar is poison (true) and that brief morning exposure to sunlight helps regulate our circadian rhythms (also true). So let’s bring it all together and list my true prescription for a healthy life: eat moderately, exercise often but not excessively, don’t smoke, don’t get circumcised, DON’T TAKE TYLENOL, and, for god’s sake, don’t climb a mountain in jeans.
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The Nobel ‘snub’ suits Trump just fine
Of course, Donald Trump has not won the Nobel Peace Prize. The Scandinavian grandees on the committee wouldn’t dream of honoring him. It was silly to think that they would.
The award has gone instead to María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition figure, so well done to her.
Still, it speaks to the fundamental vanity of our age that the Nobel is today’s big story, as if the complexity of world affairs can be boiled down to a yearly episode of Peace Has Got Talent.
The headlines chirp that Trump has “failed in his bid” to secure the prize. And no doubt America’s Commander-in-Chief would have been thrilled at the honor, just as he was by the royal welcome he received from King Charles in Britain last month.
But Trump and his team are not fools. The Nobel “snub” fits perfectly with the story MAGA wants to tell: Trump is busy stopping conflicts, from Nagorno-Karabakh to Kashmir, Ethiopia and Cambodia. His administration may also be on the brink of pulling off the seemingly impossible and resolving the conflict in Gaza. As if by magic – or careful PR orchestration – Israel declared the Trump-brokered ceasefire. It came into effect moments after the Nobel Committee announced the prize winner.
And yet the old liberal world order still refuses to acknowledge Trump’s good work. The stuffy global elite is simply too self-congratulatory and prejudiced to recognize that their time is over and a new world order is being born, based not on “international norms” but on national interests.
This Trumpian narrative has the advantage of containing more than a kernel of truth. Trump’s visit to the Middle East this week will also show the contrast between his effective action and all the liberal warbling about protecting democracy. The fact that the Nobel committee chose Machado, a Venezuelan, also looks a lot like a pointed dig at Trump’s military assertiveness (i.e., not peace) in the Western Hemisphere. Trump’s Defense Department, now referred to as the Department of War, has been conducting military strikes on the drug cartels in and around Venezuela.
But the Nobel is a joke and has been for some time. The late Tom Lehrer was right to say: “Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize” in 1973, after Kissinger had, among other things, bombed Cambodia to smithereens. The Nobel honored Barack Obama just for winning a presidential election – a particular annoyance for Trump, as is widely noted.
We are indeed now in a time beyond satire, a world of AI-reality, in which realpolitik plays second fiddle to the comedy of news. Trump will be quite happy to ham up the role of sore loser in the coming days. Because he knows he’s winning.
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Why did Trump even want the Nobel Peace Prize?
Did anyone seriously think that Donald Trump was going to emerge this morning as winner of the Nobel Peace Prize? First, there were the mechanics. Nominations for the prize closed on 31 January, at which point Trump was only 11 days into his second term and there was hardly a glint of hope in Gaza. The prize committee will have met for the last time around a week ago, when there was still doubt as to whether Hamas would accept this deal. The committee will have had to make its decision a few days before the announcement, because certain formalities have to be undertaken ahead of time, such as checking whether the recipient actually wants the prize.
For those reasons, next year was always going to be a more appropriate time for Trump to win the prize. But even then, don’t hold your hopes. While the prize committee prides itself on its independence, it is not really free of outside pressure. As we have seen many times, part of the liberal mindset is a tendency to put yourself in a straightjacket of thought, sewn together by the opinions of other liberals. Had they awarded the prize to Trump, members of the committee would have faced cancellation. Dinner invitations would have dried up, high-powered jobs at universities and NGOs would have been denied to them. Norway has a pretty small establishment. There would have been nowhere to hide from angry liberal opinion. Even had the committee members been prepared to face up to that, it is only natural that a committee – even one not made up by liberals – would be a bit irritated by the brazen way in which Trump and his people have been lobbying for the prize, and be inclined to award it elsewhere as a result.
That said, what Trump has achieved over the past couple of weeks is surely deserving of the prize. While other world leaders such as Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron dealt with the world they would like to exist, Trump dealt with the one which really does exist. It is hard to imagine anyone but him being able to moderate Benjamin Netanyahu and simultaneously being able to apply pressure on Egypt and other Arab countries to influence what is the effective surrender of Hamas. It is laughable to think that it could have happened under Joe Biden, and not much more far-fetched to think that Barack Obama – who really is a Nobel Peace laureate – could have achieved it.
The big mystery, though, is why Trump actually wants the Nobel Peace Prize. He has spent his time in office scorning international bodies. He has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Agreement, from the World Health Organization. He has treated the United Nations pretty sniffily. His whole philosophy in international affairs revolves around the idea that international bodies have grown too big for their boots: they are run by unelected busybodies who deserve to be cut down to size. He likes to see the world as being run by strong men, not worthy NGO types. So why does he even want the Nobel Peace Prize? He should want to scorn the idea of a bunch of aloof worthies appointed by the Norwegian government trying to sit in judgment on who is good and who is bad in the world.
A little note ought also to be added for Maria Corina Machado, the actual recipient of the prize. It was always likely, given the lobbying by the Trump, that the Nobel committee would go for someone few have heard of. But there is the possibility, of course, that Machado is actually a deserving choice. Had it not been for Trump and Gaza we would this morning be heralding the Venezuelan opposition leader who was robbed on victory in her country’s elections by Nicolas Maduro. Trump doesn’t need a Nobel Peace Prize and shouldn’t really want it. For Machado and the people of Venezuela, on the other hand, the prize might actually do some good, by rewarding someone who has stood up against dictatorship.
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Give the Nobel to Jared
On a season eight episode of The Simpsons, newscaster Kent Brockman interviews a man who’s woken up from a 23-year-long coma, and lets him know that Sonny Bono is now a Congressman and Cher has won an Oscar. The man dies soon after. If someone were to wake up from a coma today to find out that Donald Trump, who 23 years ago was hosting The Apprentice, is now the leading candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize, it would have a similar result.
But who else deserves the award? If you can give Peace Prizes to Al Gore and Barack Obama for basically being Cool Liberal Guys Who Aren’t Dick Cheney, you can give one to Donald Trump. Look at who’s nominated him: Benjamin Netanyahu, the government of Pakistan, The Israeli Hostages Family Forum. It’s not exactly Rudy Giuliani, Kayleigh McEnany and an anonymous account from Barron’s burner phone. The “President of peace” does seem a little too eager to get his hands on the medal. “I should have gotten it four or five times,” he said in June.
But, again, who else should get it at this moment in history? Jimmy Carter deserved one in 1978 for brokering the Camp David Accords. What Trump’s done is equally significant. The list of other deserving candidates is pretty small: They could always give it to Pope Leo, who seems like a nice Pope, or to Chef José Andres, who’s fed millions of refugees in need. If the Nobel Committee hands it to Greta Thunberg, it might actually cause World War III.
The only logical answer is Trump’s son-in-law, and the man who’s quietly done all the actual work on negotiating the Israel-Hamas peace accords: Jared Kushner. We’ve heard Kushner’s name in the Peace Prize conversation before. In 2022, Congressman Lee Zeldin nominated him for his role in brokering the Abraham Accords between Israel and the UAE, and the year before, Alan Dershowitz nominated him for the same reason. Then-CNN political writer Chris Cilizza, who’s never been nominated for anything other than “Weenus of the Year,” said that these nominations were “less of a big deal than you think.” But they were actually a pretty big deal.
In 2022, Jared Kushner was not anywhere near the seat of power. The Washingtonian wrote an article about him called “Javanka In Exile,” as he and Ivanka Trump tried to navigate their way in what a prematurely triumphant media considered to be a post-Trump Washington. And what was Jared Kushner doing in “exile”? Getting Nobel Peace Prize nominations while quietly going about his billionaire business trying to achieve an impossible 3,000-year-old dream of bringing peace to the Middle East.
Hamas’s horrifying October 7, 2023 terrorist attack on Israel and Israel’s response in Gaza were the opposite of peace in the Middle East. If anything, it created a situation where regional war could explode into world conflict, with calls to “globalize the intifada.” The war between Islamic militants and defenders of Israel spilled off computer screens and into the streets of the world, sometimes violently. Once the Trump Restoration occurred, Trump sent Kushner back into the fray. In his calm, patient, non-spotlight-seeking way, Kushner has once again sought to bring peace where, as long as any of us have lived, there’s been war.
Of course Trump is taking credit. That’s what he does. “All I can do is put out wars,” he said at the United Nations recently. “I don’t seek attention. I just want to save lives.” Trump always seeks attention, and it might be hard to sell him to the Nobel Peace committee on a week where he threatens to arrest the Mayor of Chicago, orders the National Guard to Portland and brags about blowing Venezuelan drug boats out of the water. Even if he goes to Egypt this weekend and parts the Red Sea, it still might not be enough. But peace in our time, despite all that, is still within reach.
The late Tom Lehrer once said “political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize.” And it’s true, they gave the prize for ending the Vietnam War to the architect of the firebombing of Cambodia. Political satire is now either obsolete, or maybe we all just live in it daily. Donald Trump didn’t start the fire in the Middle East, but he’s certainly doing all he can to end the conflict, or at least Jared Kushner is. Give Jared the Nobel Prize. Javanka is no longer in exile.