Neal Pollack

When Whoopi Goldberg announced on The View that Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania would appear on the show to discuss why he voted to end the government shutdown, one audience member shouted “Boo!” It was just one audience member, on The View, on a Monday morning. But the liberal mind loves performative booing. Fetterman appeared on the show today via split screen from Washington, DC, wearing his signature black hoodie. The man won’t dress up for any occasion, and we must admire him for that. View host Alyssa Farah Griffin, the token Republican on the panel, said: You were critical of this shutdown from the outset, saying it never should have happened, never should have come to this, even at times criticizing your own party.

Last week, in anticipation of her appearance on The View this morning (or afternoon, depending on your local listings), Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted out an image of her perfect “100 A Liberty Score,” given out by Conservative Review and Blaze Media. “Nothing has changed about me, I’m 1,000,000% America ONLY,” she wrote. “Sorry I’m not sorry. I don’t obey Republican men’s demands that I, as a woman, don’t remain seen but not heard.” Well, there’s no chance of us not hearing Rep. Greene.

“I’m a Christian man,” the college student at the University of Mississippi said to J.D. Vance, our future 48th (or 49th) President, during a TPUSA event attended by thousands. Uh-oh, here we go. “And I’m just confused why there’s this notion that we might owe Israel something… or that they’re our greatest ally or that we have to support this multi-hundred-billion-dollar foreign aid package to Israel… to quote Charlie Kirk, ‘ethnic cleansing in Gaza.’” That was nothing you wouldn’t hear outside of, say, Glenn Greenwald’s Twitter feed, but then it got dark. The student continued, “I’m just confused why this idea has come around considering the fact that not only does their religion not agree with ours but also openly supports the persecution of ours.

President Trump is meeting with Chinese Prime Minister Xi Jinping tonight, or tomorrow, or whenever it is in Asia. Regardless of the time, the meeting will have enormous implications for the future of the US economy and for geopolitical stability. Don’t worry, Trump told his dinner companions in South Korea last night. The three-to-four-hour meeting “will lead to something that’s going to be very, very satisfactory to China and to us. I think it’s going to be a very good meeting. I look forward to it tomorrow morning when we meet.” The China summit will cap what’s been an absolutely delightful Asian invasion for Trump and his retinue. Trump told reporters last week that he felt incredibly lucky.

New York’s Kathy Hochul isn’t a good governor. But, like a particularly empathetic house pet, she’s finely attuned to any change in the weather. A huge crowd in a Queens stadium rallied last night for Zohran Mamdani and chanted “Tax the rich! Tax the rich!” over and over again. So when Hochul said, “I hear you, I hear you,” you can be sure that she actually heard them, though today she said she thought they were saying “let’s go Bills.” Sure. Either way, she got to where she is by knowing how to back a winner.  The rich, meanwhile, are in the process of moving their family photos to the Palm Beach town home or shopping for McMansions in suburban Dallas.

The FBI has arrested Chauncey Billups, NBA champion, Hall of Famer, and coach of the Portland Trail Blazers for his association in a rigged poker game operated by some of New York City’s most notorious crime family. “Why would Chauncey do it?” the world of sports is asking. He’s already worth tens of millions of dollars. That’s a question for Billups, his attorneys, his God, and, presumably, Blazers ownership to answer. But as someone who regularly plays a lot of low and micro-stakes poker, I have a pretty good idea. The games I play in are monitored by security cameras, with armed guards at the exits in case people get out of line. When I play in World Series of Poker or World Poker Tour events, there are a strict set of rules by which the vast majority of players abide.

New Yorkers received visits from two ghosts of Christmas past and one ghost of Christmas present at its last 2025 mayoral debate on Wednesday night. Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa and champion of himself Andrew Cuomo lobbed Grumpy Old Man insults across the stage at each other while Zohran Mamdani stood center stage, fresh and gleaming, deflecting blows and acting with all the confidence of a football team that has a three-touchdown lead at the two-minute warning. The historical turn, potentially tragic, that will lead to the Democratic Socialists taking over America’s largest city, is reaching its conclusion, and there won’t be a final twist.

One of the most striking things about Trump 2: The Trumpening is how few characters are still on board from the Donald’s first term. Other than the President himself, it’s almost a completely different cast. Even the First Lady only rarely appears, as though she’s contractually obliged as a guest star for the occasional episode. But there’s one very important exception: White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. And while Trump Derangement Syndrome afflicts millions of Americans, Miller Derangement Syndrome is, as they used to say during Covid, a comorbidity. MDS may have reached its peak earlier this month when Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez referred to Miller as a “clown.

The nationwide No Kings protest attracted, according to varying estimates, between 600,000 and 600 million Americans. Republicans either denigrated the protests as a kind of retirement-home activity for permanently terrified MSNBC boomers or as cover for bloodthirsty Antifa terrorists who want to destroy America and, in the words of House Speaker Mike Johnson, bring about “a rise of Marxism in the Democratic Party.” Or, you know, why not both?  Coverage of the protests reflected this schizo vibe. There were a lot of sad Boomer ladies in tie-dye T-shirts carrying Orange Man Bad posters, and some footage of grotesque, twisted far leftists mocking the murder of Charlie Kirk.

“John Bolton Surrenders To Federal Authorities” is a headline I could have only dreamed of seeing 20 years ago, but this morning it came true. Following yesterday’s grand-jury indictment of Bolton, the former Trump National Security Advisor and W. Bush Iraq War architect/manipulator gave himself up and pled not guilty in federal court on charges of mishandling classified information. But if Bolton isn’t guilty, I’m a high-stakes poker professional. The charges claimed that Bolton was “unlawfully hoarding” documents, that he sent classified information over grandpa communication medium AOL instant Messenger in 2018 and that he shared more than 1,000 pages of notes, while working on a memoir, with his wife and daughter, neither of whom had security clearances.

Ahead of tomorrow night’s debate with Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa, Democratic socialist and future mayor of New York City Zohran Mamdani appeared on Fox News this afternoon for the first time.   Anyone expecting a clash of cultures, or 15 minutes of pure ideological arguing, would have been disappointed. Fox anchor Martha MacCallum asked tough, pointed questions, but it was a respectful exchange between two New Yorkers who clearly don’t summer in the same ZIP code.   That doesn’t mean the interview lacked news value. The most shocking part came before the commercial break, when Mamdani said it was “too early” to give President Trump credit for the Middle East peace deal.

On a season eight episode of The Simpsons, newscaster Kent Brockman interviews a man who’s woken up from a 23-year-long coma, and lets him know that Sonny Bono is now a Congressman and Cher has won an Oscar. The man dies soon after. If someone were to wake up from a coma today to find out that Donald Trump, who 23 years ago was hosting The Apprentice, is now the leading candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize, it would have a similar result.  But who else deserves the award? If you can give Peace Prizes to Al Gore and Barack Obama for basically being Cool Liberal Guys Who Aren’t Dick Cheney, you can give one to Donald Trump. Look at who’s nominated him: Benjamin Netanyahu, the government of Pakistan, The Israeli Hostages Family Forum.

“Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments,” William Shakespeare wrote in Sonnet 116, and he appears to have been prophetically talking about the very special relationship between President Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.  The first meeting between the two leaders a few months ago was friendly. But today’s press conference, before a tariff negotiation lunch, was essentially a cuddlefest. Carney called Trump a “transformative president.” Trump joked about the upcoming “US/Canada merger,” and said the two countries had “natural conflict and natural love,” like in any marriage.  The problem, Trump said, “is that they want a car company, and we want a car company. It’s a natural business conflict… nothing wrong with it.