Honestly with Bari Weiss The Free Press

For the past few decades, it’s been conventional wisdom in D.C. that “demographics are destiny.” That the increased share of immigrants, young people, and racial minorities across the country would build a bulletproof coalition for the Democratic Party, swelling their ranks and keeping them in power forever.

Those who deviated from this expectation could expect to be called sellouts, race traitors, and Uncle Toms. Recall Joe Biden’s infamous interview with radio host Charlamagne tha God, when he said: “If you have a problem figuring out if you’re for me or for Trump, then you ain’t black.”

But in the past year, Donald Trump has been winning over more minority voters than any Republican in decades. Recent polls have consistently shown that Trump has reached a shocking 20 percent support among black voters. That’s compared to the 8 percent he got in 2016. And Biden’s polling with black voters has dropped dramatically.

This is a monumental, and to many, unexpected turn. And it was noticeable at the RNC. When Michael Moynihan went to the 2016 Republican Convention in Cleveland, the audience was more monochromatic. While certainly not as racially diverse as the Democratic coalition, the convention in Milwaukee felt younger and less white.

Monday night, Amber Rose opened the proceedings. Tuesday night, Madeline Brame, the mother of a murdered veteran, gave a thunderous speech explaining why she’s supporting Trump. She said: “Our eyes have been opened, just like so many other poor minorities across America. Donald Trump shares our values, love of God and family and country. He’s been a victim of the same corrupt system that I have been and my family has been.”

What’s behind this shift? Why do Biden and the Democratic Party seem to be losing their edge with black voters? And could this end up making a real difference for the 2024 election?

Last night, Michael Moynihan went to an event at the RNC put on by the Black Conservative Federation to ask them why they think that MAGA conservatism is appealing to black voters.
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A lot happened in American politics last night: the Biden interview, the Vance unveiling, Trump’s RNC entrance—his first public appearance since Saturday’s shooting. And there, to help you all make sense of it, was The Free Press team in our first-ever live video on X. To be honest, we weren’t sure how it was going to go. We were blown away by the response.

There were some 350,000 of you watching this experiment, in which we had the kind of panel we wish were assembled on cable news, or as host Michael Moynihan put it: “the Traveling Wilburys of political panels.”

Monday night’s supergroup included Newsweek editor and Free Press contributor Batya Ungar-Sargon, Puck correspondent Tara Palmeri, Red Scare co-host Anna Khachiyan (chain-smoking, of course), legendary pollster Frank Luntz, Manhattan Institute president Reihan Salam, author and Free Press contributor Rob Henderson, and journalist James Pogue. This is a group of people you just cannot find anywhere else.

Today, we’ll play that live conversation for you. And stay tuned for more live! Follow The FP on X.
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As you now well know, at 6:11 p.m. on Saturday evening, shots rang out at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. One person, a 50-year-old man named Cory Comperatore, was killed. Two others, David Dutch and James Copenhaver, were gravely injured. Trump’s ear was grazed by a bullet.

Before the 45th president was whisked away by Secret Service, he emerged defiant with his fist pumping in the air, blood on his ear and face. “Fight! Fight! Fight!” he yelled at the crowd, to which they chanted back: “USA! USA! USA!”

As we would later learn, one of the bullets pierced the top of Trump’s right ear, flying just a hair’s breadth away from his head. One inch. One inch and we would be having a very different conversation. As Niall Ferguson wrote in The Free Press:

“An inch or two further to the left and the bullet that grazed Donald Trump’s ear would have penetrated his skull and very likely killed him. A slight gust of wind, a tremor of the assassin’s hand, an unexpected move by the former president—for whatever tiny reason, Trump lived to fight another day.”

Saturday’s attempted assassination has already shifted the course of this election. How will it shape our politics and our country? And was this violence the inevitable outcome of our painfully divided country, and who is responsible for those divisions?

Those are the subjects of today’s episode. This is an episode in two parts.

The first part is about the unspeakable events that took place on Saturday. Then in the second half, you’ll hear our initial conversation that took place last week about political brokenness, the crisis of trust between the American people and our elected officials—and how to fix it with some help from the Constitution. In light of what happened over the weekend, it feels even more poignant.

The guest in both halves of this episode is Yuval Levin, one of the greatest political analysts and explainers of our time.

Yuval has even been called the “the most important voice in the political culture.” He worked on domestic policy in the George W. Bush administration. He’s now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he studies Congress, the presidency, the courts, the Constitution, and American political life.

He’s the author of several books including The Fractured Republic and A Time to Build. And he just published American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation—and Could Again. It gives us a road map to how the Constitution can bring the country together to solve our political troubles.

What I particularly love about Yuval is that when everyone around us seems to be taking the black pill, Yuval is clear-eyed. He’s neither optimistic nor pessimistic. Yuval is just realistic, informed by a deep sense of American history that gives him a perspective on what’s happening now while motivated by a true love for this country.

Header 6: The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article.
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Yesterday, Donald Trump was shot at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. A few minutes into the rally, a gunman opened fire, and a bullet pierced the former president’s ear. He ducked to the ground, the Secret Service piled on top of him, supporters screamed, and chaos erupted through the crowd.

Trump suffered a superficial wound, but one rally attendee was killed and two others were critically injured. Moments after the shooting, images of Trump flooded the internet—fist clenched, blood running down his face, mouthing “fight” to a dazed crowd. It was the first time in over 40 years that an elected president was wounded in an assassination attempt. The gunman was immediately killed. He was later identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania.

The internet was, of course, soon overrun with speculation, conspiracies, over-the-top rhetoric, and the assignation of blame—most of which demanded that the shooter share responsibility for his evil actions with certain aspects of the media or certain politicians. It’s all a stark reminder of the deep polarization of our politics, and that political violence is something of a constant in American life.

On the ground at the rally, watching the mayhem unfold, was Salena Zito. Salena is a reporter for the Washington Examiner and a contributor to The Free Press. She was standing four feet from the president when the first shots rang out.

Today, we discuss what she witnessed at the rally. We discuss her interactions with President Trump immediately before the shooting, the shooter’s possible motive, what it means for the 2024 election, and more importantly, what it means for the country.
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A few weeks ago, fresh from being knighted by King Charles, historian Sir Niall Ferguson officially joined The Free Press as a columnist. His first piece was rather provocatively called “We’re All Soviets Now.” He argued why he thinks today’s United States resembles the decaying Soviet Union of the ’70s and ’80s. We’re physically unwell, heavily in debt, run by an out-of-touch gerontocracy, and subjected to a bogus ideology pushed by elites.

This was published before the disastrous presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Since then, Niall has only doubled down. He argued in his most recent column that the reason our system only offers up an embarrassing blowhard and a senile old man lies in contemporary America’s similarities to the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

Unsurprisingly, these provocative arguments drove some people crazy. We’d scarcely updated the homepage with that first column before the rebuttals came pouring in. But none were quite as passionate and thorough as the one written by Dispatch editor-in-chief Jonah Goldberg, who devoted an entire column to pushing back on Ferguson. In “No, We Are Not Living in ‘Late Soviet America,’ ” Goldberg conceded some of the basic facts presented by Ferguson, but aggressively objected to the idea that the United States was in any way similar to late-stage Soviet communism. “Do we have problems that have some superficial similarities with the Soviets? Sure. But. . . come on.” Goldberg continued: “The Soviet Union built a wall to keep its subjects trapped inside their evil empire. Many Americans understandably believe we need a wall to keep millions of people desperate to live here out.” Because at the end of the day, Goldberg argued, “America is simply not like the Soviet Union.” 

Ferguson fought back on Twitter in an 18-part thread, in which he accused Goldberg of “pure cope.” And back and forth they went for days.

We’re happy to announce that they agreed to hash it all out on this very podcast. . . today. 

The debate we ended up having was much bigger than merely whether the U.S. can accurately be compared to the USSR. It got to the heart of a core disagreement on the right in recent years about the health of American democracy—and whether the nation is still exceptional, albeit flawed, or if the country is in a state of inexorable decline. 

It’s a fitting conversation to have right after the Fourth of July and as pundits and politicians fill airtime and columns with questions about our leader’s fitness for the job, presidential transparency, and whether it’s undemocratic to replace Biden on the election ticket. Because today’s conversation gets to the heart of how the American project is faring, and what we should do to save the country we all love before it’s too late.
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As some of you know, Nellie and Bari are having another baby—any moment now—maybe even by the time this podcast is published!

Going from one kid to two is no small challenge, so we’re doing something a little different on the podcast today. In an attempt to quell the nerves, we decided to call up some of our favorite parents to give Nellie and Bari advice before they become a family of four. We ask Bethany Mandel about the importance of birth order; Elon Gold about how to protect your marriage as your family expands; Amy and Lou Weiss (yes, those Weisses) about the best part of having kids; and Mary Katharine Ham about how they should prepare for raising a boy in a household of girls.

Bari and Nellie learned a lot of parenting wisdom making this episode, and we think you will too.
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