Plus: The SecDef goes AWOL and the U.S. and Britain strike back at the Houthi rebels.
• “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone” wasn’t supposed to be a legal argument.
• Nikki Haley and Florida governor Ron DeSantis faced off in Iowa for the final Republican presidential debate before the voting. Donald Trump once again skipped the debate, opting for a town hall on Fox News. But with the field otherwise narrowed (sorry, Vivek Ramaswamy), the top two Trump rivals had the stage to themselves and took one last opportunity to pummel each other in person and on CNN. DeSantis, in danger of slipping into third place in a state in which he invested heavily, unloaded the oppo book on Haley—eviscerating her as a “mealymouthed” politician who does the bidding of woke corporations and donors. He contrasted her past with his record of delivering conservative victories. Haley, who sees an opening to win New Hampshire, branded him a serial liar (and repeatedly directed viewers to a campaign website attacking him). She also said that his poor management of his campaign, with massive spending and poor poll numbers, portended poorly for a DeSantis presidency. It was a bitter fight that likely left Trump feeling vindicated about having refused to join any of the debates.
• For weeks, Chris Christie expended most of his energies on the campaign trail explaining why he had no intention of leaving the race. He told voters that it was his “mission” to continue making the case against Trump. He devoted campaign advertisements to rejecting the premise that his presence in the field only helped the candidate he spent all his time railing against. In an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt on January 4, Christie averred that he had no intention of dropping out before the New Hampshire primary. Six days later, he called it quits. In his speech announcing his departure from the race, Christie devoted inordinate time and care to explaining why all of Trump’s viable competitors for the Republican presidential nomination were not up to the task. Christie’s graceless and bitter exit from the 2024 stage is not likely to advance his stated objective of diminishing Trump’s political prospects.
• Haley was born in South Carolina in 1972. She is a “natural born Citizen” of the United States within the plain and original meaning of Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution. As James Madison argued in 1789, citizenship at birth “derives its force sometimes from place and sometimes from parentage, but in general place is the most certain criterion; it is what applies in the United States.” Birthright citizenship was made explicit in the 14th Amendment, and in 1898 the Supreme Court confirmed that it applies to the children of noncitizens. What makes any of this news is that Trump, who challenged the citizenship of both Barack Obama and Ted Cruz, has taken up the case that Haley is disqualified even as the Supreme Court is deciding his own eligibility for the presidency. Maybe instead of “terminating” the Constitution, Trump should read up about it.
• Trump says that Joe Biden “ought to release the J6 hostages. . . . Some people call them prisoners. I call them hostages.” Representative Elise Stefanik followed suit: “I have concerns about the treatment of January 6 hostages.” The truth is that hundreds of Americans have been charged with crimes for their incursions on the Capitol on January 6. It is fair to be concerned, as we should be in any criminal case, that they be given due process and be held in proper prison conditions. It is also fair to complain that the Department of Justice has overcharged some of them. But many of them have pleaded guilty to crimes, including assaulting law-enforcement officers and stealing or destroying property. The rest are having their voluntary trespass and obstruction of a session of Congress adjudicated under law. Calling them “hostages” is a shocking abuse of the language, especially when Hamas is still holding innocent Americans and Israelis.
• After complications arising from surgery for undisclosed prostate cancer, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was admitted to the intensive-care unit of Walter Reed Medical Center on January 1; he remains in the hospital but is out of intensive care. Sympathy for Austin does not excuse the fact that, by all reported accounts, he failed for four days to notify either the president, his deputy secretary of defense (who was vacationing in Puerto Rico), and the National Security Council of his whereabouts or health issues. Austin should be shown the door and wished a speedy recovery. Instead, the Biden administration has gone to great lengths to emphasize that Austin is welcome back in the fold, because it would prefer that you not notice that President Biden failed to notice that his own secretary of defense had been missing for the better part of a week.
• In the early hours of Friday morning, American and British military forces struck targets in Yemen associated with the Houthi rebels. For months, the Iranian-aligned Houthis had caused mayhem in the Red Sea by attacking shipping and by firing missiles in the direction of U.S. warships and Israel. For months, the U.S. had done little to punish the Houthis or their Iranian backers. President Biden has now roused himself to respond. He says he will authorize further measures if needed. Let’s hope he does not have to make good on that statement, and that he means it.
• After 33 years as CEO of the National Rifle Association, Wayne LaPierre is retiring. During his tenure, the organization became one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the United States, helping to usher in a renaissance in the right to keep and bear arms. When LaPierre took over in 1991, the Second Amendment had become an afterthought. Today, it is more robustly protected than it has been at any other time in a century. With that victory, however, came overconfidence and self-indulgence, and in recent years the NRA has been mired in distracting controversy. Some of that controversy has been contrived by the outfit’s political opponents, but some of it—such as the use of members’ dues to fund the lavish lifestyles of LaPierre and his colleagues—has been real. Since 2018, the NRA has lost a million members, and its influence on Capitol Hill has waned. Taken as a whole, LaPierre’s tenure is impossible to regard as anything other than a success—and it is also impossible to avoid the conclusion that, like so many in politics, he stayed far too long.
• The National Park Service announced the planned removal of a statue of William Penn, founder of the Pennsylvania colony, from Philadelphia’s Welcome Park, in the hope of providing “a more welcoming, accurate, and inclusive experience.” Sometimes the historical figures at the center of these controversies can have a taint about them (even if that taint does not justify their consignment to oblivion). Not so with Penn, a moral man by the standards of his or any time, to say nothing of his historical significance to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Recognizing his contribution, that commonwealth, including Democratic governor Josh Shapiro, roused itself in opposition to the NPS plan, which has now been abandoned. A victory for historical memory, and against petty Jacobinry.
• Late last year, Ohio governor Mike DeWine vetoed a bill to ban “gender affirming” care for minors and to require student athletes to compete with their chromosomal equivalents. His veto statement was perplexing, seeming to accept the premises of transgender activists in dubbing these treatments a matter of life or death, yet also professing to agree with the legislature that body-altering surgery should not be performed on minors. In a follow-up executive order, DeWine did indeed ban such surgeries for minors. But the Republicans who passed the bill in the first place were unimpressed: The order did not touch on puberty blockers and hormone injections. The Ohio house of representatives has now overridden DeWine’s veto. Should the senate follow, the bill will become law, as it should. And DeWine will be embarrassed, as he should.
• On January 5, a Boeing 737 MAX 9 jet (Alaska Airlines Flight 1282) took off from Portland International Airport only to quickly return when a section of its hull known as a “door plug” simply had blown off while the plane was ascending to 15,000 feet, leaving passengers terrified as the cabin lost pressure. Nobody was injured, but the resulting investigation has led to the temporary grounding of all Boeing 737 MAX jets in Alaska Airlines’ fleet and to the cancellation of hundreds of United flights. Both airlines have confirmed that they have since found loose bolts and installation problems on the plug doors of their other 737 MAX airliners. It is a black eye for Boeing, whose 737 MAX airliners were grounded worldwide in 2019 over safety concerns after two fatal disasters involving those planes occurred in quick succession. Boeing execs had better strap in for a bumpy ride.
• Day after day, Russia bombs Ukrainian cities, including the capital, Kyiv. Day after day, Russia kills Ukrainian civilians. Russia is using North Korean missiles and Iranian drones. The Polish foreign minister, Radek Sikorski (who was once NR’s roving correspondent), said that the West ought to respond “in a language that Putin understands.” This includes the tightening of sanctions on Moscow and the supply of long-range missiles to Kyiv. The Ukrainians are losing territory and running out of ammunition. Congress has not yet agreed on legislation to aid Ukraine, although majorities of both chambers favor it. The Biden administration and our European allies are pursuing the option of seizing frozen Russian assets and transferring them to this embattled nation trying to hold on to its independence. We reiterate a point that is crucial to understand: The cost of helping Ukraine now is as nothing compared with the potential cost of dealing with Russia after a conquest of Ukraine.
• In an address to ambassadors accredited to the Holy See, Pope Francis called for a global ban on the “despicable” practice of surrogacy. He described “so-called surrogate motherhood” as “a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child, based on the exploitation of situations of the mother’s material needs.” Children are gifts, the pontiff said, “never the basis of a commercial contract.” Couples who struggle with infertility deserve our sympathy, but the commodification of human life must be resisted. The pope is to be commended for restating that principle.
• Proving that it is possible to retire from a prestigious role without the help of a certificate from the coroner, Nick Saban, the extraordinarily successful coach of Alabama’s NCAA football team, has decided to call it quits. At 72, Saban has done it all. In an unparalleled career, he won seven national titles and twelve conference titles, produced 45 All-American players, gave Alabama its first four Heisman winners, and spawned some of the best in all of football. In total, Saban coached 369 college football games, and he won 297 of them. At Alabama, that record was a remarkable 206–29—a winning percentage of .877. There are few sports in which statistics and analytics are as important as they are in football, but, in addition to the numbers, Saban’s Alabama teams had that ineffable quality that no opponent ever wants to face: However dire the situation seemed, Alabama never quite seemed to be out of it. Even in his final year, Alabama battled every game to the last—knocking Georgia out of the playoff and breaking Auburn’s hearts with seconds left on the clock in one of the most shocking finales in Iron Bowl history. Happy retirement, coach.
• The Michigan Wolverines topped the Washington Huskies, 34–13, in the college-football national-championship game to close out the season with a record of 15–0. The Maize and Blue were undefeated this season—but not unblemished. For alleged recruiting violations, head coach Jim Harbaugh served a three-game suspension to begin the season. And he served a three-game suspension to finish the regular season, a punishment for a swirling off-campus sign-stealing operation that resulted in the midseason firings of two staff members. Controversies aside, Michigan proved that it was the nation’s best team between the lines.
• In the wee hours of the morning of her 21st birthday—June 3, 1944—a postal clerk in Blacksod, County Mayo, checked the weather gauges. Barometric pressure was falling, indicating an imminent storm. The post office served as a weather station, and the clerk, Maureen Flavin, recorded and reported local meteorological data to an office in Britain. Phone calls to her soon poured in: “Please check!” “Please repeat!” Meeting with a British military meteorologist, General Eisenhower reviewed Flavin’s findings and ordered postponement of D-Day, which had been slated for June 5. The forecast for the following day was acceptable though not great. By noon on June 6, the massive U.S. invasion of German-occupied France was under way, American soldiers storming the beaches of Normandy as the storm up in the sky passed. Flavin was not yet aware that her mundane clerical report was also an epic contribution to the Allied war effort. A butterfly flapping its wings in Ireland . . . Years later Eisenhower told President-elect Kennedy that D-Day had succeeded “because we had better meteorologists than the Germans.” The U.S. House of Representatives awarded Flavin, now Mrs. Sweeney, a medal in 2021. Dead at 100. R.I.P.