On Jan. 8, Andre Golsorkhi, founder and CEO of design firm Haldon House, presented plans for a revitalized town center, complete with historic architecture, green spaces, and businesses that “fit the character” of the area. Golsorkhi told a packed school auditorium that Haldon House plans to bring in boutique shops, open an upscale-yet-approachable restaurant, and create spaces for communal gathering.
At the meeting, Golsorkhi also revealed that the project was backed by Jeff Yass, Pennsylvania’s richest man, and his wife, Janine. Golsorkhi said the Yasses want to revitalize Gladwyne as part of a local “community impact project.” Haldon House and the Yasses, who live near Gladwyne, have spent over $15 million acquiring multiple properties at the intersection of Youngs Ford and Righters Mill Roads.
Renderings of a proposed revitalization project in Gladwyne, Pa. Design firm Haldon House is working with billionaire Jeff Yass to redevelop the Main Line village while preserving its historic architecture, developers told Gladwyne residents at a Jan. 8 meeting.
What is, and isn’t, allowable?
For some residents, one question has lingered: Is one family allowed to redevelop an entire village?
A petition calling on Lower Merion Township to hold a public hearing and pass protections preventing private owners from consolidating control of town centers had gathered nearly four dozen signatures as of Friday.
Around 4,100 people live in the 19035 zip code, which encompasses much of Gladwyne, according to data from the 2020 U.S. Census.
“Residents deserve a say before their town is transformed.No one family, no matter how wealthy, should unilaterally control the civic and commercial core of a historic Pennsylvania community,” the petition reads.
Yet much of Haldon House’s plan is allowable under township zoning code, said Chris Leswing, Lower Merion’s director for building and planning.
Plans to refurbish buildings, clean up landscaping, and bring in new businesses are generally permitted by right, meaning the developers will not need approval from the township to move forward. Gladwyne’s downtown is zoned as “neighborhood center,” a zoning designation put on the books in 2023 that allows for small-scale commercial buildings and local retail and services. The zoning code, which is currently in use in Gladwyne and Penn Wynne, ensures commercial buildings can be no taller than two stories.
The developers’ plans to open a new restaurant in the former Gladwyne Market and renovate buildings with a late-1800s aesthetic, including wraparound porches and greenery, are generally within the bounds of what is allowed, once they obtain a building permit.
The Village Shoppes, including the Gladwyne Pharmacy, at the intersection of Youngs Ford and Righters Mill Roads in Gladwyne on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.
More ambitious plans, however, like converting a residential home into a parking lot or burying the power lines that hang over the village, would require extra levels of approval, Leswing said.
The developers hope to convert a residential property on the 900 block of Youngs Ford Road into a parking lot. Lower Merion generally encourages parking lots to be tucked behind buildings and does not allow street-facing parking, a measure designed to avoid a strip mall feel, Leswing said. In order to turn the lot into parking, the developers would need an amendment to the zoning code, which would have to be approved by the board of commissioners.
Various approvals would also be needed to put Gladwyne’s power lines underground, an ambitious goal set by the Haldon House and Yass team.
Leswing clarified that no official plans have been submitted, making it hard to say how long the process will take. It will be a matter of months, at least, before the ball really gets rolling.
Leswing added the developers have been “so good about being locked into the community” and open to constructive feedback.
Golsorkhi said it will be some time before his team can provide a meaningful update on the development, but expressed gratitude to the hundreds of residents who have reached out with questions, support, and concerns.
Map of properties in Gladwyne bought or leased by the Yass family.
From ‘110% in favor’ to ‘a tough pill to swallow’
Fred Abrams, 65, a real estate developer who has lived in Gladwyne for seven years, said he and his wife are “110% in favor” of the redevelopment, calling it an “absolute no-brainer.”
Many Gladwyne residents live in single-family homes that keep them in their own, sometimes isolating, worlds, his wife, Kassie Monaghan Abrams, 57, said.
“Here’s an opportunity for being outside and meeting your neighbors and, to me, getting back to spending time with people,” she said of the proposal to create communal gathering areas.
“I think it’s a very thoughtful, beautiful design,” Monaghan Abrams added.
Some social media commenters called the proposal “charming” and “a fantastic revitalization.”
Others were more skeptical.
Ryan Werner, 40, moved to Gladwyne in 2012 with his wife, who grew up in the town.
“One of the things I’ve kind of fallen in love with about Gladwyne is the sense of community,” said Werner, who has a background in e-commerce sales and is transitioning to work in the mental health space.
“I’m less opposed to just the commercial side of it and more grossed out by the involvement of certain people in it,” Werner said.
Gladwyne is a Democratic-leaning community that voted overwhelmingly for former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.
On social media, some griped about the changes.
“The Village will be just like Ardmore and Bryn Mawr. Can’t undo it once they build it,” one commenter wrote in a Gladwyne Facebook group.
Golsorkhi said in an email that the “enthusiasm, excitement and support” from the community have been “overwhelming.”
This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.
Haldon House is working with Yass and his wife, Janine, on redeveloping a half-dozen properties in Gladwyne with historic architecture, green spaces, and new businesses. Golsorkhi called the proposal a “community impact project” for the Yass family, which has spent over $15 million acquiring the properties.
Gladwyne village has long been home to small businesses, namely OMG Hair Salon, the Gladwyne Pharmacy, the Guard House, and Gladwyne Market. OMG Salon and the Gladwyne Market shuttered last year after the developers acquired their storefronts, sending ripples, and rumors, through the Main Line community. House values for the 4,096-person village are among the highest in the state, with a recent median sales price of $2.3 million, according to Realtor.com data.
For the first time, Golsorkhi last week brought his development plans and his partnership with the Yass family to the public. He was met with both applause and skepticism from attendees. Some expressed optimism about the proposal, while others questioned why the developers would pour millions into a project with no apparent financial gain.
The Village Shoppes, including the Gladwyne Pharmacy, at the intersection of Youngs Ford and Righters Mill Roads in Gladwyne on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.
Gladwyne ‘needs a revitalization’
Haldon House’s proposal, as outlined by Golsorkhi, involves retaining much of Gladwyne’s historic architecture while bringing in new retailers, opening up green space, and increasing connectivity in the village’s downtown core.
The developer plans to expand local café Homeroom and keep the Gladwyne Pharmacy while courting new businesses that “fit the character and are contextually relevant to the town.” There are no plans for residential development, national chain stores, or high-rise buildings.
“This is a place that we grew up, that we love, that we care for tremendously, that has been protected for all the right reasons, but it has also not evolved,” Golsorkhi said. “It needs a revitalization.”
Golsorkhi and his wife, Autumn Oser, the co-owner of Haldon House, are from the Gladwyne area.
Yass is a billionaire, conservative megadonor, and founder of the Bala Cynwyd-based Susquehanna International Group. The Yass family has lived in Haverford for more than 40 years.
Properties in Gladwyne acquired by the Yass family as part of their proposed revitalization project.
Haldon House and the Yass family have purchased multiple properties at the intersection of Youngs Ford and Righters Mill Roads, including the former Gladwyne Market building, the Village Shoppes, a residential property on the 900 block of Youngs Ford Road, and the Gladwyne Post Office, according to Golsorkhi. They’ve also leased the former OMG Salon at 351 Righters Mill Rd.
Citing the rumors that percolated in community after the shuttering of Gladwyne Market, Golsorkhi said there’s been “a lot of justified, warranted concern.”
Gladwyne Market shuttered in October after its building was purchased by developers Haldon House and the Yass family.
Renderings of the proposal show the village’s core buildings retaining their late-1800s architecture, with new wraparound porches, ivy-covered stone walls, Adirondack chairs, hydrangeas, and “Gladwyne Square” branded signs.
Golsorkhi said in an email that the developers were prepared to assume the costs and it was too early to specify how long the project would take.
In addition to keeping Homeroom and the Gladwyne Pharmacy in place, the developers plan to put a “casual, but elevated and approachable” restaurant in the former Gladwyne Market site. They‘ll recruit independent retailers like bakeries, boutique fitness studios, and ice cream parlors. They also intend to expand the village’s open green space with picnic tables, open lawns, and venues for community events.
Renderings of a proposed revitalization project in Gladwyne. Design firm Haldon House is working with longtime resident Jeff Yass to redevelop the Main Line village while preserving its historic architecture, developers told residents on Jan. 8.
Golsorkhi said they would take a “forward and involved approach” with new and existing tenants, from designing storefronts to offering input on products to stock.
They have worked closely with Gladwyne Pharmacy to help “reimagine” the “design and experience,” with “no expectation of return,” Golsorkhi said, adding that the pharmacy has “built up merchandise and square footage over time that isn’t necessarily best serving the business or the community.”
“We’re doing that because we believe that the consistent experience and character of Gladwyne is really important,” he said.
Golsorkhi told attendees at the meeting on Thursday that while they have “no particular intentions” for the recently purchased Gladwyne Post Office, it was “retiring its services” and there was potential to create a new, centralized storefront where residents could access USPS, UPS, and FedEx services.
Paul Smith, manager of public affairs and communications for the Postal Service in the Philadelphia region, said the Gladwyne post office was not retiring its services. In early 2024, Gladwyne and other local post offices moved their letter carriers to a large delivery center in Wayne, where they pick up mail and distribute it to their routes. Gladwyne’s post office is still used for retail transactions, mailing items, and for P.O. box holders.
Golsorkhi clarified in an email that he understood the post office’s changes. In case services are further reduced in the future, he said, “we want to be sure we’re ahead of it by considering what shipping hubs and/or shipping services we can bring to the village to ensure continuity of mailing services, while also augmenting USPS with other carriers.”
The Gladwyne post office at 326 Conshohocken State Road in Gladwyne on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.
Excitement for some, skepticism for others
Haldon House and the Yass family’s recent acquisitions left some business owners feeling slighted.
OMG Salon owner Maurice Tenenbaum said the building’s owners more than doubled his rent last fall, forcing him to give up the salon space.
Pete Liccio, owner of the now-closed Gladwyne Market, said in an October interview that he had also felt pushed out.
At Thursday’s meeting, some residents said Gladwyne was ready for a revitalization, from new restaurants to more pedestrian-friendly infrastructure.
“What I’m seeing here is a center of gravity and an identity for Gladwyne that’s well-deserved and long been needed,” one attendee said.
Others expressed concern.
“I just wonder what the end game is. There’s always a price for this, having someone come in and say, ‘I’m going to make your community really, really cool and don’t worry about the money,’” another Gladwyne resident said during a question-and-answer segment.
“[This is an] investment and a philanthropic effort …,” Golsorkhi said. “I understand and I recognize that that is a challenging thing to sort of believe.”
The Village Shoppes, including the Gladwyne Pharmacy (left) and the now shuttered Gladwyne Market (right) at the intersection of Youngs Ford and Righters Mill Roads in Gladwyne on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.
This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.
But in a rare interview with the Washington Post, published Thursday, Yass shared details on the key motivation behind his political spending: school vouchers, which supporters say will allow parents and students to choose their school. Yass’ unwavering support for vouchers and other school choice measures has led him to throw his dollars to Pennsylvania, other states, and to Trump, whose candidacy he once opposed.
And in 2026, he said he’ll continue to financially back pro-voucher candidates across the nation.
“I have come across what I think is a great way to relieve the suffering of tens of millions of kids,” Yass told The Washington Post. “To most people it’s like if you’re a libertarian billionaire, you must be Lex Luthor trying to do something nefarious. If I gave to a hospital, you wouldn’t be saying that.”
School vouchers, which are opposed by teacher unions and public school advocates, have been a high-profile issue in Pennsylvania’s state budget talks in years past, but they’ve failed to pass it. Yass poured money into that effort, but Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, who has embraced — though softened — his support for a voucher program, vetoed the measure from the state budget after it couldn’t pass a Democratic-controlled state House in 2023.
Yass told the Post that “It was a dramatic failure. We thought we had it.“
The billionaire saw better success in Texas where he contributed to help defeat anti-voucher Republicans in the primary, creating a more favorable atmosphere for passing the state’s $1 billion voucher program.
But these instances were hardly the beginning — or the end — of Yass’ involvement with politics. He gave $3.2 million in political contributions in Pennsylvania in 2018, and by last year, that had risen to $35 million, the Post reported.
Though now known as a major backer of GOP candidates, he has supported Democrats who he believes can help champion the school choice message. The first major beneficiary of Yass’ contributions was State. Sen. Anthony Williams (D., Philadelphia) who unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2010 and Philadelphia mayor in 2015.
And in 2007, Yass conversed with then-Sen. Barack Obama, who received a $2,300 donation from Yass for his 2008presidential campaign, the Post reported. Yass believed that Obama would support school choice if elected, but his administration ended up opposing voucher programs for children in the D.C. school system.
According to the Post, this may have been an indication to Yass that Democrats would not be an ally for the school choice cause.
His allegiance to school choice also appears to have made him switch his perspective of Trump from an opponent — who spent millions of dollars to back GOP primaryopponentsin 2024 — to a supporter.
The billionaire owed his change of thought on Trump to the president being “a true champion” of school choice, Yass told the post, crediting him for the passage of the Texas voucher bill and a new federal tax credit for donations to scholarship organizations.
His support for the president also coincides with Yass having business in front of the Trump administration. Yass’ trading firm is a top stakeholder in ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company. Trump is mulling the fate of the popular social media app in the United States and Yass could benefit from a deal supported by Trump to keep TikTok operational here.
It’s been 10 years since OpenAI was set up as a nonprofit by Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and other software developers and investors, friends, and rivals who didn’t quite trust each other to run a traditional for-profit business with explosive potential.
Delaware officials who monitor the state’s nonprofits took a particular interest as OpenAI became so valuable, and so contentious, that the San Francisco-based startup ballooned into an enterprise requiring multibillion-dollar investments and sought to restructure as a for-profit company.
“We realized building [artificial general intelligence] will require far more resources than we’d initially imagined,” the company wrote in an open letter last year, explaining its plans. In fact, OpenAI had set up for-profit affiliates at least as far back as 2019.
But the company said it needed more corporate flexibility if it was to bring in the billions needed to fund high-speed data centers full of Nvidia chips and other systems that could withstand intense AI searches and commands.
So it wasn’t surprising last year when OpenAI, which Altman runs, announced plans to raise billions of new dollars by ending its previous limits on investor profits — or that Musk, now owner of a competitor, X.AI, and others, promptly sued, challenging terms of their plan.
That’s when Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings, and California Attorney General Rob Bonta, stepped up.
Jennings and Bonta filed court papers challenging the proposed business structure — not to stop it, as Musk wanted, but to ensure that the public interest was somehow protected, so OpenAI wouldn’t stray from what the company has called its “save the world” mission.
A public-benefit corporation is a for-profit company but does not have the usual legal obligations to enrich investors before anything else, freeing directors to act in favor of public goals even if it hurts sales or profits.
A public-benefit corporation provides “a clear and durable vehicle” for companies whose goals go beyond shareholder gains, says Lawrence Cunningham, who runs the Weinberg Corporate Governance Center at the University of Delaware. “I like seeing it used in that way here.”
State intervention at the corporate-charter level “does not happen often” and usually involves questions about nonprofit hospitals’ business activities, said Mat Marshall, spokespersonfor Delaware AG Jennings.
Jennings hired lawyers from Manhattan-based Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman and financial analysts from Moelis & Co. to buttress the state’s fraud and consumer protection director, Owen Lefkon, in talks with OpenAI.
Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings at a December 2024 press conference.
What changes for OpenAI
At first, OpenAI planned to pay off its nonprofit obligations by leaving those to a large charitable foundation and then move forward as a typical for-profit company, still professing public goals but responsible to private investors.
Lawyers for the two states argued that the company’s public mission had to survive the restructuring.
OpenAI “is the world leader in the artificial intelligence industry,” but it needs guidelines as it funnels massive information about science, medicine, and communities to private, commercial, and government users, and power to “hold OpenAI accountable” for the safety of those whose information is raw material for AI, Jennings said in a statement.
The foundation also needed some way to keep control over the company, alongside its powerful new for-profit investors. The nonprofit has kept the power to name and remove board members for the business.
OpenAI’s Safety and Security Committee will remain in place, with “authority to oversee and review the safety and security processes and practices of OpenAI” and the companies it controls, even halting new AI systems if it finds them dangerous, or taking time to resolve ambiguities.
Zico Kolter, professor of machine learning at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, will continue to head the safety committee, attend the corporation’s board meetings, and receive “all director information regarding safety and security.”
And the states will be given “advance notice of significant changes” in governance.
In a statement praising the new structure, OpenAI chair Bret Taylor, creator of Google Maps and a former Facebook and Twitter officer, acknowledged changing the plan in discussion with Delaware and California.
He said the parent, now called the OpenAI Foundation, will own around one-quarter of the business group. Outside investors include Microsoft, Japanese investor Softbank, company employees, and other investors, with room for more.
Besides keeping the business subordinate to the foundation’s mission, Taylor wrote that the foundation will set aside $25 billion: for “open-sourced and responsibly-built” health data sets to speed up diagnostics, treatments and cures; and to fund AI security to protect power grids, banks, governments, companies and individuals” from AI abuse.
Microsoft Chief Technology Officer of Microsoft Kevin Scott, right, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman at the Microsoft Build event in Seattle in 2024.
Microsoft has invested $11.6 billion in OpenAI over several years (and promised at least $1.4 billion more).
Thanks to exploding OpenAI sales and additional private investments, Microsoft says its investment is now worth $135 billion. That’s more than 10 times what the company paid. Microsoft is the largest OpenAI shareholder, with around 27%. .
Under a recent agreement following the restructuring, Microsoft said, OpenAI promises to buy another $250 billion in Microsoft Azure cloud networking and other services but also gains the right to form more partnerships with other companies.
The companies also enjoy a revenue-sharing agreement — the first time that’s been disclosed, according to McKenna and Usvyatsky — though details will have to wait for future disclosure.
The sense of loss that has permeated 2025 struck again this weekend when we learned of the sudden death of a Philly journalism legend, Michael Days, who guided the Philadelphia Daily News during most of its last dozen freewheeling and Pulitzer-winning years before we merged with The Inquirer in 2017. He was just 72, far too young. The top-line of Mike’s obituary was how, as the first African American to lead a newsroom in America’s founding city, he paid it forward by mentoring the next generation of rising Black journalists. But people like me who worked for him remember him more simply as the wisest and mostempathetic human being we ever had as a boss. He leaves right when the nation’s newsrooms need decent souls like Mike Days more than they ever did.
What a $10M bribe rumor says about Trump, Middle East peace, and America’s fall
President Donald Trump talks with Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi during a summit to support ending the more than two-year Israel-Hamas war in Gaza after a breakthrough ceasefire deal, Oct. 13 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.
The thing about being a 79-year-old president is that sometimes you just blurt stuff out, with no filter as to whether your words might be embarrassing, undiplomatic — or potentially incriminating.
Consider the case of Donald John Trump, the 47th U.S. president and the oldest one on the day of his election. Last week, in what may prove to be a fleeting moment of triumph as Trump celebrated a Gaza peace deal that included the release of 20 Israeli hostages, POTUS arrived at an Egyptian resort town for a Middle East summit. He kicked off the day with a one-on-one sit-down with Egypt’s strongman ruler, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.
“There was a reason we chose Egypt [for the summit] because you were very helpful,” Trump said as a gaggle of reporters and photojournalists entered their meeting room.
Really? Helpful in what way?
“I want to thank you,” the American president told Sissi, who seized power in a 2013 coup. “He’s been my friend right from the beginning during the campaign against Crooked Hillary Clinton. Have you heard of her?”
Here Trump was pushing, ever so absurdly, for the Nobel Peace Prize, and then he had to spoil it all by saying somethin’ stupid like, you bribed me. Well, he almost spoiled it, if more journalists — aside from MSNBC’s brilliant Rachel Maddow, who seized on the remark hours later — had grasped the potential import of this presidential prattle.
It’s certainly legal, if gross, for Trump to be close pals with Sissi, even if Human Rights Watch reports that the Egyptian dictator is “continuing wholesale repression, systematically detaining and punishing peaceful critics and activists and effectively criminalizing peaceful dissent.” What would not be legal is the Middle Eastern nation interfering in the 2016 election, in which Trump narrowly defeated Clinton in the handful of swing states that tipped the Electoral College.
What made Trump’s comments last week so jaw-dropping is that U.S. federal investigators worked for several years trying to prove exactly that scenario. In August 2024, days after Trump was nominated by the GOP for his second reelection bid, the Washington Post reported that the Justice Department investigated a tip that Sissi’s Egypt provided Trump with $10 million the candidate desperately needed in the 2016 homestretch to defeat Clinton. That happened right before Trump, as 45th president, reopened the spigot of foreign aid that had been halted because of Sissi’s human rights abuses.
It’s known that Trump did put $10 million into the campaign, which he listed as a loan. The Post in 2024 offered a tantalizing, if circumstantial, piece of evidence — that the Cairo bank had received a note from an agency believed to be Egyptian intelligence to “kindly withdraw” nearly $10 million in two, 100-pound bags full of U.S. $100 bills, five days before Trump took the oath of office.
But the investigative trail ran cold. In 2019, then-special counsel Robert Mueller turned the matter over to Trump’s appointees in the Justice Department, who of course didn’t pursue the president’s bank records. Neither — inexplicably — did Joe Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, as the statute of limitations expired in January 2022. That’s where things stood last week before Trump started blathering in Sharm El Sheikh.
One reason I’m writing about this is the sheer frustration that Trump — yes, allegedly, possibly — might have gotten away with bribery to the point where he’s almost bragging about it in public. But I also think the mysterious case of the Egyptian bags of cash speaks to the present, dire American moment in a couple of ways.
For one thing, it casts a light on what’s really behind what Trump hopes will be viewed as the signature achievement of his second presidency. That would be the fragile peace deal that aims to end the last two years of bloodshed in Gaza that started with the Hamas terror attack of Oct. 7, 2023 and has resulted in at least 67,000 dead Palestinians and the utter destruction of their seaside homeland.
How did Trump get a deal that had eluded his predecessor Biden, in a region that has vexed every American president from both parties? It certainly helped that most of the power brokers with the clout and the cash to help end the fighting in Gaza are repressive strongmen — or, as Trump might call them, role models. And they all seem to speak the same language of corrupt back-scratching.
If those bags with $10 million in greenbacks did make their way to Trump in 2017, it looks like small change in today’s cross-Atlantic wheeling-and-dealing. After all, a key go-between in the negotiations — Qatar, which has good relations with Hamas and has hosted its exiled leaders — gifted America a $400 million jet that Trump plans to use not just as Air Force One but in his post presidency, while his regime has promised to protect the Qatari dictators if they are ever attacked.
Another key supporter of the plan is the United Arab Emirates, which also backs the UAE firm that recently purchased a whopping $2 billion in cryptocurrency from a firm owned by Trump’s family as well as the family of Steve Witkoff, the regime’s lead Middle East negotiator. At the same time, Trump’s U.S. government allowed UAE to import highly sensitive microchips used in artificial intelligence.
Witkoff’s negotiation end–game brought in Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who forged close ties during his father-in-law’s first term with Saudi Arabia’s murderous de facto ruler Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who pulled the levers for a $2 billion investment in a hedge fund created by Kushner despite no prior expertise.
Those Saudi ties could prove critical to future stability in the region, and in a joint interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes Sunday night, Kushner and Witkoff made no apologies for mixing billion-dollar deals with the pursuit of world peace. “What people call conflicts of interest,” Kushner said, “Steve and I call experience and trusted relationships.”
OK, but those “trusted relationships” are built on a flimsy mountain of cash that could collapse at any minute. Look, I’m thrilled like everyone else that 20 Israeli hostages are finally reunited with their loved ones, and to the extent Trump and his regime deserve any credit, I credit them. But the art of the deal that the president is bragging about is all about the Benjamins — more worthy of applause on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange than a Nobel Peace Prize.
Real peace is based on hard work and trust, not Bitcoin — so is it any wonder that the ceasefire is already collapsing with two dead Israeli soldiers and fresh, lethal airstrikes in Gaza? The only thing with any currency among a rogues’ gallery of world dictators is currency, and that transactional stench has fouled everything from Cairo to K Street.
Is it any surprise that a regime whose origin story allegedly includes bags of Egyptian cash would do absolutely nothing when it was told that its future border czar, Tom Homan, was captured on an audiotape accepting $50,000 in a fast-food bag from undercover FBI agents who said they wanted government contracts?
In hindsight, the failure to pursue that report of the $10 million Egyptian bribe opened up a floodgate of putrid corruption, wider than the Nile. It signaled a sick society where everything is for sale — even world peace — but nothing is guaranteed.
Yo, do this!
The 1970s and ‘80s are having a cultural moment right now, and this boomer is here for it! On Apple TV (they’ve dropped the “+,” probably after paying some consultant $1 million for that pearl of wisdom) comes the long-awaited five part docuseries about the life and times of filmmaker Martin Scorsese, the savior who rose from NYC’s mean streets to give us Goodfellas, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, and so much more. Watching Mr. Scorsese is going to make the eventual death of the baseball season so much easier to take.
The earthy, urban musical equivalent of Scorsese would have to be Bruce Springsteen, who has been marking the 50th anniversary of his breakthrough Born to Run LP with all kinds of cool stuff, capped with Friday’s long-awaited release of the first-ever biopic about “The Boss,” Deliver Me from Nowhere. Staring The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White as Springsteen, the film’s unlikely narrative — focusing on the making of 1982’s highly personal and acoustic Nebraska as the rock star seeks release from a bout of depression — sounds like exactly the uplift that America needs right now.
Ask me anything
Question: As someone living in Ireland and looking across the ocean. Trump won’t be in power forever, but how is anyone going to deal with the MAGA crowd that helped elect him? That level of stupidity, hatred and racism cannot be fixed. How is [t]he USA ever going to heal? — Stephen (@bannside@bsky.social) via Bluesky
Answer: That’s a great question, Stephen, and like most great questions there’s no easy answer. Although I’m optimistic that the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election will happen and that the anti-Trump coalition that we witnessed at “No Kings” will prevail, I agree with you that it’s only a partial and temporary fix. I’d fear an Iraq-level resistance could rise up in the regions we call “Trump country.” My long-term solution would be along the lines of what I proposed in my 2022 bookAfter the Ivory Tower Falls: Fix higher education — broadly defined as from the Ivy League to good trade schools — to made it a public good that reduces inequality instead of driving it. And promote a universal gap year of national service for 18-year-olds, to get young people out of their isolated silos. There are ways to prevent the next generation from becoming as stupid or hateful or racist as the Americans who came before them, but it will take time and patience that we seem to lack right now.
What you’re saying about…
Remember the Philadelphia Phillies? When I last saw you here two weeks ago, their annual postseason collapse and the fate of manager Rob Thomson was a hot topic. As expected, there was minimal response from you political junkies, and opinions were split — even before the team defied the conventional wisdom and announced he’ll be returning in 2026. Thomson’s supporters were more likely to blame the Phillies’ inconsistent sluggers, with John Braun asking “who could you hire who could guarantee clutch hits?” Personally, I’m with Kim Root: “I follow the Philly Union, who just won the Supporters Shield — that is all.”
📮 This week’s question: Back to the issue at hand: I’m curious if newsletter readers attended the “No Kings” protest last Saturday, and what you see as the future of the anti-Trump movement. Are more aggressive measures like a nationwide general strike needed, or is the continued visibility of nonviolent resisters enough? Please email me your answer and put the exact phrase “No Kings future” in the subject line.
Backstory on who the “No Kings” protesters really were
Demonstrators gather for a ’No Kings’ rally in Philadelphia on Saturday.
They clogged city plazas and small-town main streets from San Diego to Bangor on Saturday, yet the more than 7 million Americans who took part in the massive “No Kings” protest — the second-largest one day demonstration in U.S. history, behind only the first Earth Day in 1970 — seemed to mystify much of the befuddled mainstream media. Just who were these people protesting the Donald Trump presidency, and why are they here?
Instead of a journalist, it took a sociologist to get some answers. Dana Fisher — the Philadelphia-area native who teaches at American University and is the leading expert on contemporary protest movements — was out in the field Saturday at the large “No Kings” march in Washington, D.C., collecting data with a team of researchers. She’s shared her early top-line results with me, aiming to both give a demographic and ideological snapshot and also compare Saturday’s crowd with her findings at other recent rallies.
If you were among the 7 million on Saturday, some of this data won’t surprise you. The protesters were, on the whole, older than the average American, with a median age of 44 (compared to 38 for the nation as a whole.) Once again, the “No Kings” participants were overwhelmingly white (87%) with women (57%) in the majority. But it’s also worth noting that men (39%) were more likely to take part than earlier protests tracked by Fisher, and the 8% who identified as Latino is double the rate of Hispanic participation in the 2017 Women’s March.
That last finding may reflect the passions of the “No Kings” protesters, who listed immigration as a key motivation at a rate of 74%, second only to their general opposition to Trump (80%, kind of a no brainer). That certainly jibed with the demonstrators at the rally I attended in suburban Havertown, who again and again mentioned the sight of masked federal agents grabbing migrants off the street as what compelled them to come out.
Fisher’s most telling findings may have been these: The people out in the streets are mad about what they see happening to America, with 80% listing “anger” as an emotion they are feeling, trailed closely by “anxiety” at 76%. Yet few of those who spoke with her team believed that will translate into violence. The number of demonstrators who agreed with the statement that “because things have gotten so off track, Americans may have to resort to violence in order to save our country” was only 23% — lower than other protests her team has surveyed. It seems like the larger the public show of resistance to Trump’s authoritarianism, the more optimism that the path back to democracy can be nonviolent.
What I wrote on this date in 2021
I hate to say I told you so but… On this date four years ago, Joe Biden was still clinging to dreams of a presidential honeymoon after ousting Donald Trump in the 2020 election, but there were dark clouds on the horizon. On Oct. 21, 2021 I warned that sluggish action on key issues was starting to hurt his standing with under-30 voters. I wrote that “while the clock hasn’t fully run out on federal action around issues like student debt or a bolder approach on climate — the disillusionment of increasingly jaded young voters could change the course of American history for the next generation, or even beyond.” How’d that turn out? Read the rest: “From college to climate, Democrats are sealing their doom by selling out young voters.”
Recommended Inquirer reading
I returned from a much-needed staycation this weekend by leaving the sofa and spending a glorious fall morning at the boisterous “No Kings” protest closest to home in Delaware County, which lined a busy street in Havertown. I wrote about how the protests are winning back America by getting under the skin of Donald Trump and the GOP, who can no longer pretend to ignore the widespread unpopularity of their authoritarian project.
Every election matters, even the ones that are dismissed as “off-year” contests. In today’s heated and divisive climate, even what used to be a fairly routine affair — the retention of sitting judges on the state and local level — has taken on greater importance. Here in Pennsylvania, the state’s richest billionaire, Jeff Yass, is spending a sliver of his vast wealth to convince voters to end the tenure of three Democrats on the state Supreme Court. The Inquirer’s Editorial Board is here to explain why that’s a very bad idea. On the other hand, some judges up for retention in the city of Philadelphia — where jurists haven’t always lived up to the promise of America’s cradle of democracy — deserve closer scrutiny. The newsroom’s Samantha Melamed revealed a leaked, secret survey detailing what Philadelphia attorneys think of some of the judges on the November ballot, and it is not pretty. The bottom line is that you need to vote this year, and subscribing to The Inquirer is the best way to stay informed. Sign up today!
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