◼ Our advice on the plane: Mr. President, get your mind out of the Qatar.
◼ President Donald Trump took a productive trip to the Middle East this week. Ahead of it, the New York Times predicted that Trump would go abroad not to retail a foreign policy vision but to secure “business deals.” And he secured plenty of those—and routinely inflated their value (a $600 billion deal with the Saudi government turned out to be a $238 billion deal, and Qatar will supposedly generate $1.2 trillion in “economic exchange,” which is six times the country’s total GDP). But Trump did more. He declared his intention to withdraw all U.S. sanctions against Syria in recognition of its new, post–Bashar al-Assad reality. He pledged to “protect” the Qataris, notwithstanding their history of supporting Islamist terrorism, and he renewed his commitments to Saudi security. This approach is not the wholesale retrenchment from the region advocated by the so-called “restrainers” in the Trump administration. Perhaps that’s why Trump, in his Riyadh speech, denounced the “neocons” and “nation builders” who haunt the MAGA mind.
◼ China and the U.S. called off their embargoes on each other. Tit-for-tat tariff escalation had resulted in 145 percent levies on Chinese goods entering the U.S. and 125 percent levies on U.S. goods entering China. Those will fall to 30 percent and 10 percent, respectively, for the next 90 days. It was encouraging to hear Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent say that “decoupling” is not in the interest of either the U.S. or China, and that both countries wish to continue trading for mutual benefit—a stance compatible with discrete policies to promote U.S. security interests. One step in that direction would be enforcing the law already passed by Congress to eliminate Chinese government control of TikTok. Another is assessing particular critical products we need built at home. Increasing our economic ties to third countries remains a neglected strategic imperative—one that Trump’s trade policies so far have set back.
◼ $TRUMP is the president’s meme coin, a cryptocurrency token that seems to have little purpose besides enriching Trump and his family. It was launched right before Trump’s inauguration, and Trump-owned companies still hold 80 percent of the coins. So when the value goes up, so does Trump’s net worth, by billions of dollars. The sale of the coins plus fees has so far made about $350 million in income. Trump is now offering top owners of the coin the chance to have dinner at the White House, which spurred another surge in valuation. This is bad for the crypto industry, which already struggles with a public image tainted by scams, and for civic health, which simply struggles.
◼ Under no circumstances should the president of the United States use a plane donated to him by a foreign government, even if that government were not, as our Andrew C. McCarthy has laid out, “second only to Iran when it comes to state sponsorship of jihadist terrorism.” That the emir of Qatar has offered Trump a Boeing 747-8 “palace in the sky” as a replacement for the delayed Air Force One replacement is extraordinary, and the convoluted explanations and rationalizations from the president have not been reassuring. Trump insists the luxury jumbo jet isn’t a gift to him but to the U.S. Department of Defense. He has also said that when he leaves office, the plane will be decommissioned from military use and turned over to his eventual presidential library. In an Oval Office press gaggle, Trump scoffed, “I could be a stupid person [and] say, ‘No, we don’t want a free, very expensive airplane.’” Or he could be even denser and willingly use the former plane of a two-faced foreign power and assume that U.S. inspection efforts would find every listening device, homing beacon, and electronic monitoring gadget. The deal has the preliminary approval of U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi — but she just recently worked as a lobbyist for the Qatari government. The president has to go pretty far out to shake the confidence of the likes of conspiracy theorist and Trump superfan Laura Loomer, but somehow, he has done it. Trump ought to heed the assessment of an American leader who was resolutely determined to crush Islamist terrorism, who in 2017 declared that “there can no longer be funding of radical ideology,” and who concluded that the finger of blame pointed to the leaders of Qatar. That leader, of course, was President Donald Trump.
◼ Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., at a White House event to announce Trump’s new executive order on prices for prescription drugs, said he had a “couple of kids who are Democrats, big Bernie Sanders fans,” who had “tears in their eyes” when they heard about the plan. Under the order, HHS would force drug manufacturers to charge the U.S. the lowest price it charges any country. Whether the president has the legal power to make this command is questionable. The reason drug makers charge Americans more is that other countries have price controls and the U.S. does not. Breaking down barriers to fair pricing overseas might be something worth pursuing as part of ongoing trade discussions. The Trump plan is instead to import the price controls of other countries with socialized health-care systems and thus remove the incentives to develop new drugs. It’s those who might benefit from medical innovation who should have tears in their eyes.
◼ Four days before Pennsylvania’s May 2022 Senate primaries, Democratic front-runner John Fetterman suffered a stroke. He went on to win the primary and the election, even though his speech and comprehension were impaired. Since then, Fetterman has made visible progress. He was hospitalized for depression but emerged well enough to carry on. Yet suddenly, after three years, his health has become a hot topic in his own party. Most consultants and officeholders who express their worries do so in the language of concern for Fetterman’s welfare. Sentiment among some Democratic activists can be more blunt. “I don’t like him and I hate that I voted for him,” one attendee at a Bucks County town hall told the Daily Caller. He might as well “hang a Nazi flag” outside his office, said another. So what happened between Fetterman’s election and now? Hamas’s invasion of Israel and Israel’s counterstrike in Gaza. Fetterman has met approvingly with Benjamin Netanyahu and waved an Israeli flag at pro-Hamas protesters at the Capitol. It is not the first time the hard left has treated deviation from its line as a sign of mental illness.
◼ The State of Washington has gone to war against the Catholic sacrament of confession. Governor Bob Ferguson, in the role of Nebuchadnezzar, signed a law not only requiring clergy of all kinds to report sexual abuse that comes to their attention — already required by post-2002 Catholic Church policies — but also stripping the clergy, and only the clergy, of every legal privilege of confidentiality. No exception is made for the seal of the confessional, which Catholic priests hold sacrosanct, and which American law has protected for more than two centuries. A 2023 version of the bill had protected the confessional, but it was stripped out and passed on a nearly party-line vote of Democrats in the legislature. Washington’s law still protects confidentiality for union reps, marriage counselors, social workers, secular peer-group leaders, addiction counselors, lawyers, and even podiatric surgeons. Bishop Thomas Daly of Spokane declared that “your shepherds, bishop and priests, are committed to keeping the seal of confession — even to the point of going to jail.” Ferguson wrapped himself in the cloak of his uncle, a Jesuit priest. The Justice Department, which has opened a federal civil rights investigation into Washington’s egregious religious discrimination, better understands the stakes.
◼ Since the Supreme Court in 1966 affirmed the First Amendment rights of state legislators, none have had voting rights revoked over speech. Crossing a new barrier, the Democratic majority in the Maine House of Representatives, on a party-line vote, stripped Republican Laurel Libby both of her vote and her right to speak on the floor, leaving her constituents effectively unrepresented. It did this solely to punish Libby for protesting transgender athletes in women’s and girls’ sports. The backdrop is Governor Janet Mills’s fight with Trump over transgender athletes. The pretext is that Libby named a specific youth athlete, but the press — and even the Maine House speaker — identifies minors by name regularly; what they object to is the content of her speech. Democrats claimed federal civil rights violations when Republican majorities in Tennessee and Montana sanctioned legislators who incited mobs to halt business in the chamber; this is about a Facebook post. The Supreme Court has been asked to step in, but so far Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has slow-walked the case. Meanwhile, the Maine House considers measures such as the state budget and a proposed amendment to the state constitution without Libby.
◼ Harvard’s anti-Israel bias runs deep, an internal investigation found. Its activist community regards Israel less as a sovereign state than a standing crime. It’s an idea that has caused Israeli and American Jewish students to face harassment. Harvard administrators did little to help them. The investigation found that activists tried to “inject discussion of the Palestinian cause wherever possible,” including in classrooms, extracurriculars, clubs, and public spaces on campus, and that “inclusivity” was prioritized over the safety and emotional well-being of Jewish students. The first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book would have done better. ◼ In what has become a familiar scene, masked activists invaded Columbia University’s main library, ejecting students, vandalizing the property, and physically attacking dissenters. The university’s acting president, Claire Shipman, broke recent precedent by calling the cops. “I saw it defaced and damaged in disturbing ways and with disturbing slogans,” she said after touring the scene. At least 78 protesters were arrested. Since this disruption, at least 65 students have earned an interim suspension, and another 33 individuals have been barred from campus entirely. Let’s see if this resolve lasts.
◼ Edan Alexander is free. Born in Israel, he was raised in Tenafly, N.J., and after high school volunteered for the Israel Defense Forces. On October 7, 2023, while serving at a base on the Gaza border, he was taken captive by Hamas terrorists. He was held in Gaza for 583 days, in the tunnels: in darkness, in a cage, chained. On the face of it, at least, Alexander’s release was not part of a deal — not like earlier deals in which Hamas released hostages, many of them starved and wounded, in exchange for Israel’s release of Palestinian terrorists and criminals from its jails. It appears his release came about as a result of American influence and Israeli military pressure on Hamas. He was not subjected to a grotesque handover “ceremony,” but transferred to the Red Cross and then to the IDF, then to the arms of his family on Israeli soil. In Tel Aviv and in Tenafly, there was crying, dancing, and celebration. But there yet remain about 20 Israeli hostages surviving in hell (the exact number is not confirmed), and the remains of three dozen more, four of them American-Israelis who were murdered. We rejoice in Alexander’s safe return. All the hostages must be freed.
◼ Discussing the sudden flare-up of armed conflict between India and Pakistan on Fox News, Vice President Vance said, “We’re not going to get involved in the middle of a war that’s fundamentally none of our business and has nothing to do with America’s ability to control it.” Thankfully, he didn’t mean it. Within 24 hours, Vance was on the phone with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and cajoling him toward a cease-fire. According to reports, Vance and other administration officials grew increasingly concerned as the Pakistani and Indian air forces engaged in serious dogfights, Pakistan sent hundreds of drones into Indian territory to probe its air defenses, and an Indian air strike hit near the headquarters of Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division, which oversees and protects the country’s nuclear arsenal. It is easy to understand why a new U.S. administration with an ambitious agenda and no shortage of other ongoing foreign-policy crises would prefer to not dedicate much time or energy to mitigating the tensions between India and Pakistan. But it is equally easy to understand why the U.S. and the rest of the world have an interest in ensuring that those tensions never lead to a nuclear exchange. As of this writing, the situation appears to have calmed considerably, a welcome relief, and a reminder that an American foreign policy that “minds our own business” and plays no role in foreign conflicts is much easier in theory than in practice.
◼ Yet another mainstream media outlet has received a Pulitzer for spreading disinformation — this time, about abortion. The Pulitzer Prize Board recently bestowed the 2025 award for “Public Service” to ProPublica for its series highlighting the tragic stories of Amber Thurman and Candi Miller. These mothers died after suffering horrible complications from the abortion pill and receiving inadequate care. ProPublica blamed state-level pro-life legislation for these women’s deaths, insinuating that their doctors’ hands were tied because of state law. That’s not what happened. These women died because abortion pills are both dangerous and easy to access, thanks to the successful advocacy of pro-abortion groups — and perhaps because these groups and their media allies have spread the lie that laws against abortion bar life-saving medical treatment. The media has not uncovered a scandal here; it has participated in one.