There’s just too much going on today, but here goes….
President Trump’s eagerly anticipated face to face meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping is over. Was it a success?
Well, we know one fellow who appeared delighted by the outcome:
“On the scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being the best, I would say the meeting was a 12,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One after leaving the South Korean air base that hosted the nearly two-hour summit.
The Wall Street Journal’s news report emphasizes an immediate cut in tariffs, while the high-stakes rivalry continues. China pledged to crack down on fentanyl. President Trump says that the rare earth dispute is settled. The resolutely anti-Trump New York Times, meanwhile, suggests that President Trump was hoodwinked. Here’s what happened almost immediately after the Xi meeting:
President Donald Trump announced on Oct. 29 that the United States will “immediately” resume nuclear weapons tests, a move he said is needed to ensure the country keeps up with its rival nuclear powers.
In a Truth Social post, Trump touted progress made on nuclear weapons modernization during his first term. But he warned that China’s nuclear weapons buildup will place Beijing’s arsenal on equal footing with the United States and Russia “within 5 years.”
This doesn’t sound like a man who’s been hoodwinked. The anti-nuclear movement has been relatively quiescent in recent years. Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats barely roused it. But, hey, this is President Hitler J. Trump. Prediction: The anti-nuke movement awakens, providing welcome employment for Greta Thunberg.
An editorial in the Washington Post says that the partial government shutdown has dragged on because most Americans have not felt its effects:
That’s starting to change. This weekend, federal food stamps are scheduled to stop going out. Around 42 million people, or 1 in 8 Americans, receive benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program….
The right answer is to reopen the government with a clean funding bill, ideally for a full year, to get food stamps flowing and federal workers back in the office, and then have a debate about ACA subsidies. Democrats openly acknowledge that they refuse to do this because it would mean giving up their leverage. If they persist, it could mean families start to go hungry.
The editorial also claims that open enrollment for health insurance, when people see how costs have risen, will allow Dems to claim that they made their point. This should enable the GOP to make the point that the Affordable Health Care Act was unaffordable and it’s time for real reform. Let’s hope Senators read “6 Reasons Congress Should Let the Enhanced Obamacare Subsidies Expire” in The Federalist before doing anything rash.
Here is a breakdown on who is in danger of losing food stamps by an American Enterprise Institute scholar. Air traffic delays are piling up, and National Review’s John Fund fears a crisis.
If the shutdown ends soon, however, it might be for the simple reason that it’s harming the Democrats more than the Republicans. CNN’s Harry Enten looked at new polls:
You might think, given that the Republicans are in charge of both the House and the Senate, that a government shutdown might actually hurt the Republican brand — but in fact, it hasn’t.
If anything, it’s been helped a little bit. Take a look here — the shift in net popularity versus pre-shutdown. When we’re looking at the Republican Party overall, that brand is actually up two points. That’s within the margin of error, but clearly it hasn’t dropped.
“Biden Autopen Investigator: Playtime Is Over; It’s Time To Prosecute” is the headline on The Federalist’s lead story this morning. Here’s how M.D. Kittle leads off the story:
And now for the stupidest headline of the week (Of course it’s from Politico). “House GOP concludes investigation into Biden’s alleged mental decline.”
Alleged?
“Did America Have a Functioning President in 2024?” is the headline of an Eli Lake story at The Free Press. “A blistering new report from the House Oversight Committee casts doubt on whether President Joe Biden was fit to serve in his last year in office.”
But it gets worse. “Forget the Autopen Fiasco…This Is Joe Biden’s Watergate” is the headline on Townhall’s Matt Vespa’s piece on revelations of a Biden-era FBI effort called Arctic Frost:
Arctic Frost was revealed to be a widespread Biden DOJ spy operation that sought to surveil the activities of a host of conservative organizations. No, scratch that—it was a mass surveillance operation into the conservative movement writ large. And who signed off on these legal actions? Judge James E. Boasberg, who should face impeachment inquiries (via NY Post). …
The Federal Reserve cut interest rates Wednesday. It was anything but a unified Fed. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal says that the Fed is “driving in a fog:”
No sooner had Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell handed Wall Street a quarter-point interest-rate cut Wednesday, than Mr. Powell spoiled the party by warning that another cut may not arrive in December. Confused by these mixed signals? So is the Fed….
The Fed’s confusion means it’s time for Mr. Trump to put the Fed out of its misery by announcing an early decision on Mr. Powell’s successor when his term as chairman ends in May. And to choose someone with the credibility, both in the financial markets and at the Fed, to whip the place into shape.
This would send a clearer signal to markets on the way forward, and give voters some more clarity and accountability—in time for next year’s midterms.
Let’s have some fun. Former White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre never faced a hostile press back when she was needed to protest that she could hardly keep up with spry Joe Biden. But no longer. Her New Yorker interview was “a train wreck,” and lefty Politico finds her book tour “non-stop cringe.” MSNBC’s Zeeshan Aleem:
Her tour is going poorly. In interview after interview, Jean-Pierre perpetually comes across as caught off-guard, unclear of what her core beliefs are and unpersuasive — and she’s taking a bruising on social media for it. This isn’t because she’s bad at speaking; Jean-Pierre has years of experience sparring with reporters as a press operative and campaign adviser.
No, she’s terrible at public speaking. Presicely because she’s had no practice. Reporters treated her with kid gloves. She seems genuinely surprised that her book tour isn’t being treated the same way.
Meanwhile, the strain is beginning to show on New York’s likely next Mayor, Zohran Mamdani, according to Karl Rove’s column headlined “I Want Your Vote, You Bigot.” A new Quinnipiac poll indicates that Curtis Sliwa may be cruising to become an extremely unpopular man.
“Evidence Backs the Transgender Social-Contagion Hypothesis,” by Colin Wright, in the Wall Street Journal, addresses the decline in the number of minors identifying as “transgender:”
I was an academic scientist at Penn State in February 2020, when I became the target of an online mob for tweeting about transgender identity. I shared a link to an article from the Guardian with the accompanying quote: “Sweden’s Board of Health and Welfare confirmed a 1,500% rise between 2008 and 2018 in gender dysphoria diagnoses among 13- to 17-year-olds born as girls.” My commentary was brief: “Two words: social contagion.”
The Turning Point USA rally, with Erika Kirk and Vice President J.D. Vance, at Ole Miss in Oxford, Mississippi last night, was huge. There was a massive crowd.
The Veep and Erika Kirk were great, but, as a native Mississippian, I was thrilled at how nice, intelligent, and aware Ole Miss students (who had a chance to ask the Veep questions a la Charlie) were. So different from the frights on so many American campuses.
Perhaps this is the spot to work in Jason Riley’s excellent column, which I mean to use yesterday, but it slipped through the sieve I use for a mind. Riley explores “The Enduring Success of Piney Woods School,” a historically black boarding academy in Mississippi.
