Far-Left Avengers … assemble! The Legacy Media is celebrating the return of Strike Force Five. The group, comprised of progressive late-night hosts, originally gathered in 2023 during the protracted Hollywood writers’ strike. Jimmy Kimmel. Jimmy Fallon. Stephen Colbert. Seth Meyers. John Oliver. (Jon Stewart hadn’t returned to “The Daily Show” at that time.) Except one late-night liberal either lost his invite or never got one in the first place: Bill Maher. It’s not as if the “Real Time with Bill Maher” host votes differently than that gaggle. Or that Maher doesn’t skewer President Donald Trump on a regular basis. Boy, does he ever. He still hints that Trump won’t leave office once his second term wraps. Maher isn’t a cozy fit for the Five comedians despite those similarities. He speaks freely and regularly roasts his own side. And, perhaps most of all, he invites right-leaning guests on his shows for frank talks about everything from culture to politics. Yes, politics. All of the above makes him a unicorn on the late-night landscape, and a welcome one at that. Maher would be a square peg in a round Strike Force hole. The progressive Five have become achingly predictable in recent years. The monologues all attack the same subjects – President Trump, Elon Musk, the right-leaning Supreme Court – while ignoring the foibles of modern Democrats. What Rep. Eric Swalwell scandal? They collectively downplayed or ignored President Joe Biden’s tragic cognitive decline for nearly four years. When Biden short-circuited during that cringeworthy 2024 presidential debate, they finally had to speak a bit of truth to power. Colbert finally teed off on the 80-something leader a few days after the debate: “Biden debated as well as Abe Lincoln … if you dug him up right now.” That came weeks after Colbert headlined a Biden fundraiser and didn’t alert his viewers that the president wasn’t intellectually up to the gig after seeing him up close. Nor did Kimmel, who was on hand the night President Biden froze at the end of a fundraiser. Former President Barack Obama had to gently guide him offstage. In a way, Maher is a more pragmatic Democrat than his peers. He’s spent the last few years warning his party about its extreme points of view, from a reliance on Identity Politics to woke overreach. He’s argued on more than one occasion that a party that insists trans women can fairly compete against women may be doomed at the ballot box. He made the argument again during a recent sit-down with progressive comic David Cross about Imane Khelif, the male boxer who won a gold medal against female competitors: I mean, we saw in the Olympics … a man, now fighting as a woman boxer just beat the dog s*** out of a woman, the other boxer … I’m just saying there’s stuff inside the bubble that could be bad. The “loony Left,” Maher argued, continues to “die on the hills that are unnecessary to die on,” Maher said. That isn’t just a punchline. It’s a message directed straight at party leaders. Keep it up, and get ready for President JD Vance (or Marco Rubio). Maher’s mission couldn’t be more obvious. He’s trying to save his party from itself, and he’s dropping smart bomb jokes to nudge that message along. Strike Force Five members do just the opposite. They ignore their party’s failings and pretend there’s nothing beyond the pale about them to mock. That will ultimately hurt Democrats, who can’t sharpen their rhetorical skills while being coddled by their late-night defenders. There’s another, more personal reason why Maher would never crack the Five. He’s no fan of their approach to their craft. Last year, he said his late-night peers parrot what’s uttered on MSNBC: “…everybody makes their decisions based on the politics of the art and not the art itself.” Maher may not be Strike-worthy, but that “Avengers” media label is laughable on three fronts. One, there’s nothing special about this collection of thinly disguised activists. After all, the current late-night TV landscape appears to be in a death spiral, according to both Kimmel and former late-night superstar David Letterman. The latter comic gives the format another year, at best. Revenue is way down. So are the ratings, by and large. ABC did re-sign Kimmel late last year … for a measly one-year extension. And if Colbert got the ax from CBS for reportedly losing the company $40 million a year, how much is Kimmel costing ABC, given the similar format and ratings that consistently follow Colbert’s lead? Two, they all share essentially the same “superpowers,” the ability to hit one side and ignore the other. The MCU gang brings wildly different skill sets together for the greater good, be it super strength, the power of flight, or the ability to shrink to the size of an ant. And three, by ignoring bad actors on the Left and pushing false narratives elsewhere, this group is the furthest thing from “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.” They’re hurting the country. Maher, at 70, is the oldest of the late-night bunch, but his late-night future still may be the most secure. He continues to attract both right-leaning guests and fans for his HBO showcase and “Club Random” podcast. Kimmel may have famously wished “not good riddance, but riddance” to conservatives, but Maher says, “bring ‘em on.” That means Maher isn’t automatically alienating half the country. That’s smart. It’s also his best survival tactic in an increasingly competitive market. That’s his undeniable superpower. *** Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic and editor of HollywoodInToto.com. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. He’s also the host of The Hollywood in Toto Podcast. Follow him at @HollywoodInToto. 

“Weekend Plans” is Upstream’s exclusive lifestyle feature where we highlight the real off-duty routines of the most exciting people in culture.  This weekend, “FOX & Friends Weekend” host Rachel Campos-Duffy tells The Daily Wire about life with nine kids, her mom’s secret to getting dinner on the table, how to carve out family time everyone enjoys, and why her new book “All American Patriotism: Celebrating 250 Years of America’s Greatness” spotlights stars-and-stripes spirit at the perfect moment. Let’s be honest, Rachel Campos-Duffy never really goes “off duty.” She sat down for our virtual chat at her home looking like relaxed luxury in a denim button-down and delicate jewelry. Admitting she threw on a little makeup (she looks stunning, of course) after dropping her daughter off at the bus, she says she’s usually fresh-faced and wearing leggings and a ponytail when she’s hanging out at her New Jersey home.  I ask about the piano in the background. She laughs as she tells me it came with the house. “I had this fantasy that all the kids would take piano lessons, and of course that didn’t happen,” she says. “No one plays it other than Valentina who bangs on it.”  As Campos-Duffy’s youngest daughter, six-year-old Valentina steals the show with her unfiltered joy. “You get to the last one, who ends up having Down syndrome, and she turns out to be the cherry on top, the family favorite. She brings us all together. It’s just awesome.” Campos-Duffy hopes her kids grow up to love their country, something that’s not a given for kids today. Just in time for America’s big two-five-oh, Campos-Duffy hopes her latest release, “All American Patriotism: Celebrating 250 Years of America’s Greatness,” will inspire families to revel in Americana.    Stacked with personal essays from Campos-Duffy and other FOX News hosts, it has photos and candid stories from all across our nation. It’s this tradition of storytelling that Campos-Duffy hopes will right the ship. “I think it’ll inspire moms and dads and grandparents and aunts and uncles to start telling their own American dream stories to their kids,” she says. “Sadly, our kids have been getting a message that they should be embarrassed of who we are as a country, that our founding was a bad thing. Our founding documents had trigger warnings on them at the archives at one point a few years ago.” There’s a reason why American citizenship retains unprecedented demand. “It’s the lottery ticket that everyone in the world wants,” she says. “America has been so good and generous to so many of us,” Campos-Duffy shares. “I dedicated the book to President Trump because I feel like he saved us from the woke nightmare we were in where statues of Washington and Lincoln were coming down and flags were being burned.” She attributes the president’s reelection to teaching us “to serve, love, and fight, fight, fight for America.”   Rachel Campos-Duffy and her family visit President Trump. Photo courtesy Rachel Campos-Duffy On-camera versus off-duty Campos-Duffy’s upbeat personality shines from the FOX weekend curvy couch. But she’s just as genuinely kind without set lights and cameras in the room. When I ask about what contrast stands out to her most when it comes to her work-life balance, she doesn’t hesitate. “At work, people get me coffee. At home, I’m getting everybody everything,” she jokes. Adding a little color to the picture, she says of domestic life, “I’m ordering people around to help me with all the pickup, the cleanup, and everything. I am the CEO here, but I’m also the person who’s serving everyone.” She sees the humor in the dueling mom roles. “I’m the intern and the CEO.” Cooking for a crowd Campos-Duffy says her husband, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, cooks family meals on days when she works: barbecue ribs or smashburgers. But this devoted mom happily takes the reins for the rest of the family’s meals. “I love to cook, and my family loves when I make Mexican food. I make lamb, salmon, chicken, everything. My kids literally call me on the way home from school to ask me what I’m making for dinner that day.” She welcomes her kids home from school with a neat house and a warm, satisfying meal instead of snacks. It’s a strategy she picked up from her mother, who once commented about the afternoon snack-before-dinner situation, “‘This is the dumbest thing ever. What are you doing? You’re making so much work for yourself.’” Loving the efficiency of an afternoon dinner schedule, Campos-Duffy says, “You feed them as soon as they come home, you clean up or they clean up, and then you’re done, and they can move on. It changed my life.” Getting the whole family together The Duffy gang loves cooking together, but they share another kitchen-centered tradition that they could probably do in their pajamas.  “When we’re all together on a Saturday, we love to just get up and have coffee together,” Campos-Duffy describes. “Everyone loves to just sit around, and the older kids come during vacation. At night they’ll go, ‘OK, meet you downstairs for coffee in the morning,’ and we all just like to sit around and hang out together. I mean, genuinely do nothing but sit around and talk.” If this sounds too perfect to be true, she claims they’ve tried other, less successful attempts at family bonding: movie nights. (Totally relatable.) “What happens with a big family is we spend about an hour arguing about what movie to watch, and then someone’s always pissed off that their movie wasn’t chosen, and then they’re like, ‘I’m not watching.’” That’ll be a no on board games, too. She adds, “Monopoly and movies end in fights or isolation.” Carving out time to relax With her filming schedule locked into Saturdays and Sundays, Campos-Duffy’s “weekend” happens during the week. But she’s got a quick fix if she needs a little time to herself. “I love a good bath. There’s nothing like a hot bath by yourself, you know, playing music or a podcast, no one bothering you,” she shares. “We have a sauna in our house, and that’s also a great way to relax. The only problem is the sauna shortens the life of the Botox.”  Advice from a seasoned pro  It’s no secret that Campos-Duffy’s life revolves around her kids. And while she acknowledges that she started her family “the Catholic way,” looking back, she has no regrets.    Photo courtesy Rachel Campos-Duffy “Somebody told me a long time ago: Don’t think about how many kids you want right now because you’re so busy or you don’t have enough money — Think about how many kids you want around the table 20 years from now.” As their 27-year-old daughter, Evita, prepares to welcome her own baby girl, the Duffys’ holiday table will probably need a few more chairs. But even though the dynamics are ever-changing, this mother’s love only gets stronger with time. “I love every single one of them,” Campos-Duffy says. “I love watching them bond with each other, and I love all the different ways that they contribute to the family with their personalities and their energy. It’s literally the one thing in life I don’t regret. I can’t imagine my life without them.”

Editor’s note: This is the first in a four-part weekend series on the hunt for the Bismarck, coming up on its 85th anniversary this month. On Valentine’s Day 1939, Adolf Hitler visited Hamburg’s Blohm & Voss shipyard. He was there to preside over the christening of Germany’s newest battleship. Dorothee von Löwenfeld, granddaughter of Otto von Bismarck, the father of the modern German superstate, broke a champagne bottle over the bow while movie cameras rolled and flashbulbs popped. To the cheers of 60,000 spectators, the hull of the mighty vessel, named in honor of her illustrious grandfather, slid into the launch basin while bands played martial hymns. After a speech exhorting Bismarck’s crew to prove themselves worthy to serve on the namesake of the “Iron Chancellor,” Hitler departed, confident that Germany’s resurgence as a sea power had moved another step closer to addressing the imbalance between the Kriegsmarine and its future adversary, Great Britain’s Royal Navy. Bismarck was a leviathan. 823 feet long and 118 feet wide at the beam, she had truly gorgeous lines. The newsreels announced that Germany’s newest battleship displaced 35,000 tons, which was the treaty limit. But with war clouds rumbling, Hitler had no interest in honoring mere parchment. When fully loaded, Bismarck would actually displace just shy of 51,000 tons. And she bristled with awesome firepower. Four turrets, two fore and two aft, housed eight 15-inch main guns in twin batteries that could hurl a 1,800-pound shell over 20 miles. These monster weapons were complemented by 12 5.9-inch secondary guns and an array of small-caliber anti-aircraft batteries. It was still a time when battleships were considered the apex predators of any fleet. And Bismarck was the very embodiment of naval power. Yet as impressive as she was, Bismarck was among only a handful of warships Germany had produced since ignominiously surrendering the High Seas Fleet in 1918 as a condition of the Armistice that ended the First World War. Before then, Germany and Great Britain had been at rough naval parity — their largest sea battle, Jutland in 1916, was a tactical draw. But now, for every ship Hitler could send out to sea, the British could counter with 10. The Führer had assured his navy that he would not go to war before 1945, giving them ample time to close the tonnage gap. The Kriegsmarine head, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, believed that to fight sooner would spell disaster for the fleet, stating, “The best they could hope to demonstrate was their ability to die gallantly.” And yet, when in May 1941 a commissioned, manned, and loaded Bismarck set out on her first sortie, war had already been raging for almost two years. Raeder understood the Kriegsmarine could not fight the much larger Royal Navy head-to-head. Rather, they would engage in commerce warfare — attack the cargo convoys steaming from North America to Britain, upon which the latter depended for its very survival. Bismarck’s mission, called Operation Rheinübung (“Exercise Rhine”), was to break out into the Atlantic where she could disappear into the vastness of the open ocean. Once on the prowl, such a dangerous weapon could wreak havoc on merchant shipping and sever Britain’s supply lifeline, starving the island nation into submission. Indeed, four smaller surface raiders — Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Hipper, and Scheer — had already sent 50 merchant ships to the bottom. The British Admiralty, and especially Winston Churchill, who always feared strangulation before invasion, understood the danger. Bismarck had to be stopped. On May 18, 1941, Bismarck, along with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, set sail from then-Gotenhafen and made her way to a Norwegian fjord near Bergen. Bismarck was under the command of Captain Ernst Lindemann, a capable seaman respected by his 2,283-man crew. But he shared the bridge with the overall operation commander, Admiral Günther Lütjens, and was compelled to defer to his authority. Unlike Lindemann, Lütjens was unpopular with the men, who found him dour, fatalistic, even something of a Jonah. Nevertheless, the admiral would do his best to slip into the North Sea and head for the hunting grounds of the Atlantic. Aware that if word got to the British that he was aiming for the open ocean they would try to intercept him, Lütjens had hoped to make the passage through the narrow Scandinavian waters in secret. But Norwegian resistance, as well as a Swedish vessel, alerted British intelligence that the mightiest battleship in service was on the move. On May 21, an overflying Spitfire reconnaissance fighter photographed the two warships while briefly at anchor in the fjord. During the pause, Prinz Eugen took the opportunity to top off her fuel, but Lütjens failed to do the same with Bismarck. Unaware they’d been spotted, the warships weighed anchor on May 22 and made for the Atlantic. It was only after the ships were underway that the German naval high command informed the Führer of the operation. Raeder feared he might get cold feet at the prospect of risking such an expensive and prestigious weapon. Hitler was already wary of the Kriegsmarine. Not only did the former infantryman have little interest in naval warfare, but it was also the least Nazified of the armed services — they eschewed the Nazi salute and even kept on Jewish officers. After a contentious discussion, Hitler grudgingly approved the mission post facto, adding, “I have a bad feeling about this.” At the same time, Bismarck entered the Norwegian Sea, Admiral John Tovey aboard the battleship HMS King George V at Scapa Flow — the Royal Navy’s Home Fleet base in northern Scotland — was working to coordinate an intercept once reconnaissance revealed Bismarck’s movements. But what passage into the ocean would she choose? Lütjens had several paths available to him to break into the open sea. The route he chose was the Denmark Strait, between Iceland and Greenland. Though narrow, it offered a direct route to the shipping lanes and was often covered in heavy fog. For nearly two days, Bismarck and Prinz Eugen steamed towards the strait, cloaked in a thick haze. But by late Friday afternoon, May 23, the skies cleared, revealing the stunning iron-green expanse of the Arctic waters. The cruiser HMS Suffolk was patrolling the Denmark Strait searching for the Germans. Due to ice flows and mines, the navigable section she crisscrossed was just 40 miles wide. At 7:22 p.m. on May 23, the two German vessels appeared on Suffolk’s radar and then suddenly emerged out of the mist on a horizon still under sunlight at these latitudes. Suffolk’s lookouts reported: ONE BATTLESHIP ONE CRUISER IN SIGHT. The British warship slipped into a fog bank before Bismarck could fire. Fifteen miles away, another cruiser, Norfolk, raced in to help track her. But Norfolk charged out of the mist just six miles from Bismarck, dangerously close. As the cruiser turned hard over to get away, the German battleship rotated her turrets, the barrels fingered skyward, and for the first time she fired her main guns in anger. The shells screamed overhead until huge geysers erupted around the fleeing British warship. Norfolk took splinters from a near-miss, but she survived. Both cruisers then maneuvered out of gun range to get behind and track the two German ships, doggedly staying with them through heavy seas and frigid spray despite their targets’ attempts to shake them. The cruisers’ job was not to engage the larger enemy vessels but to stay with the Germans like terriers and track them by radar until the larger capital ships arrived. Two powerful British warships with escorting destroyers were, in fact, racing towards the Denmark Strait to plug the gap while Tovey gathered his scattered assets. One was the newest battleship in the fleet, Prince of Wales. The other was the pride of the Royal Navy, the battlecruiser Hood. After steaming through the night, the British warships were approaching Bismarck from the southeast. It was 5:25 a.m. on May 24 when they spotted the ominous silhouettes of the German vessels as dots making smoke on the horizon. On board the trailing destroyer Electra, confidence abounded. Contemplating Hood’s enormous yet graceful lines off the quarter, one sailor predicted: “Jerry’s going to have a bit of a shock when he sees her ahead of him!” He wasn’t wrong. At the same time, on Bismarck, Lieutenant Commander Conrad von Müllenheim-Rechberg recalled the nervous anxiety throughout the crew when at 5:30 a.m. an enemy ship appeared: “At first, we didn’t know who’d come out. Was it a cruiser? Then it got bigger and bigger coming over the horizon. And the second gunnery officer with his powerful binoculars said, ‘Oh no! It’s the Hood! The Hood!’ The terror of our wargames.” Down in Bismarck’s boiler room teenaged Fireman 3rd Class Johannes Zimmerman was told to prepare to engage the Hood, and he thought, “What, are they crazy? They’re going to hold a wargame now?” But this was no game. As the two flotillas closed the range, one of the most dramatic and tragic naval engagements in history was about to begin.  *** Brad Schaeffer is a commodities fund manager, author, and columnist whose articles have appeared on the pages of The Wall Street Journal, NY Post, NY Daily News, The Daily Wire, National Review, The Hill, The Federalist, Zerohedge, and other outlets. He is the author of three books. You can also follow him on Substack and X. His latest book, “A War For Half The World: Why the Real Battle for the Future was Fought in the Pacific,” will be released in February 2027.

This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you. *** God only created two types of people: men and women. We have since segregated into different skin colors, cultures, and countries, but the only difference inherent to creation is biological sex. Any person can see this. Everyone has known it for all of history — until now. Men and women are not the same. Each sex has different strengths and weaknesses. These inherent traits are complementary to such a strong degree that you might assume God made it that way for a reason.  Since the dawn of time, men and women have worked together to allow the continuation and flourishing of human civilization. If they hadn’t done this, we wouldn’t be here today. This should go without saying, but apparently it must be said. These truths are antithetical to our leftist-run educational systems, mainstream media, and progressivism. Instead of celebrating femininity and masculinity, liberals promote views and lifestyles that denigrate women, demonize men, and support transgenderism. Don’t believe your lying eyes, they say. There are no differences between men and women, and any differences you perceive are a problem with deep-seated bigotry. How well is that working out for us? Dr. Jordan B. Peterson put it bluntly, “Men and women aren’t the same. And they won’t be the same.” Pretending it isn’t true reliably produces worse outcomes for everyone. It is fruitless to try to square liberals’ push for diversity being our strength with their lack of belief in inherent biological differences, but they do try to hold those two beliefs simultaneously. The problem is that they don’t acknowledge the correct core differences that complement each other. They choose to divide people based on man-made, oppression-based hierarchies. But there are some truths so pervasive that they can’t help but resonate with people in reality. Video games are largely created and deliberated on by far-left writers and programmers, but many games, in their core structure, whether intentionally or not, support the idea that intrinsic differences and natural skillsets are equally vital, and those differences make everything better. Anyone who has cleared a raid in World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XIV or queued into Overwatch or Marvel Rivals has internalized a truth that modern egalitarian discourse often resists: profound difference and profound equality are not opposites but partners. In video games, they are even classified by the term “roles.” The gaming roles making up the “holy trinity” of tank, healer, and damage dealer have been the structural backbone of nearly every cooperative gaming experience for the past quarter-century. They offer what may be the most widely beloved demonstration of complementarian logic in popular culture. A team composed of identical members fails, while a team composed of different but equally essential members thrives. This reflects how men and women are designed for distinct yet harmoniously interlocking roles. Every role is required and invaluable. The characters’ worth is preserved because of their different functions, not in spite of them. Whenever designers have tried to flatten the distinctions by giving players abilities that lessen the value of differing roles, players complain that the game feels duller and less alive. When Overwatch 2 gave every tank a “self-heal” ability, players who preferred playing the healing-focused classes felt their importance was being diminished. Final Fantasy XIV received similar criticisms, as changes in that game made support classes feel oversimplified by reducing the need for their classes’ specific abilities. Difference, it turns out, is what makes the game fun. This is the complementarian vision of marriage in miniature: a husband and wife whose distinct strengths converge on a shared mission, each making the other capable of what neither could do alone.  Critics will object that people aren’t assigned a class at creation, and that game roles are freely chosen, while sex-based roles historically were not. It’s not a perfect analogy, but the intent of the designer is real. The differences are real, and those distinctions complement each other. God wrote them into the fabric of the universe. Each role is irreplaceable, honored, and unique, and that is beautiful.

President Trump’s visit to China this week came at a critical time for the United States, for Xi Jinping, and for the Communist Chinese regime, whose sights are firmly set on Taiwan. For this weekend’s Punch interview, The Daily Wire spoke with China expert Michael Sobolik of The Hudson Institute, author of “Countering China’s Great Game.” The interview has been lightly edited.  *** Ben Domenech: First off, the immediate headlines coming out of this meeting, which went 40 minutes longer than expected, were about Xi Jinping bringing up Taiwan and sending a pretty clear message to the president, including a quote that Chinese officials put out after the meeting that was supposed to be a direct quote from Xi about the issue. Did it surprise you that that was as prominent as it was, just given the fact that there’s a half a dozen other issues that they needed to talk about? Michael Sobolik: No, it didn’t surprise me at all that Xi Jinping made Taiwan that prominent in his remarks and in his demands, for a few reasons. Number one, Taiwan has been at the top of the CCP’s list of its diplomatic engagements with America since 1972, when Nixon went to China. The top of this list was getting out of Vietnam quickly and seamlessly, and asking China for help with that. And at the top of Mao’s list was Taiwan. Not much has changed in that regard. It also didn’t surprise me, because we’re getting closer and closer to 2027, the year Xi Jinping has told the People’s Liberation Army he expects them to be ready should he give the order for a military mission on Taiwan. Again, that doesn’t mean 2027 is year zero where things are about to go down, but it is the year Xi told the PLA he expects them to be ready. Things are starting to converge on readiness timelines. And I also think, given recent events that are happening right now in Taiwan, the KMT [Kuomintang] Party chair just visited Xi Jinping in Beijing a few weeks ago. It’s pretty clear that he is continuing his effort to try to divide Taiwan and its internal politics and create more of a constituency for reunification with the PRC. And he wants the space to be able to do that, and he doesn’t want to be constrained. So for all those reasons, that was not surprising. BD: To give our readers some perspective, walk us through the dynamics of the KMT leader, the opposition party leader [Cheng Li-wun] visiting Xi Jinping, and what message that was meant to send. MS: I was in Taiwan a little less than a month ago for a week-long delegation, and this meeting from the KMT Party chair came up numerous times throughout that week. Basically, Xi Jinping has a diplomatic and psychological goal with Taiwan. He wants to isolate Taiwan economically, diplomatically, psychologically, politically, and in every single way you can imagine. And he has a related goal that is similar, but it’s a distinction with a difference. He wants Taiwan to believe it is isolated, and he wants the United States to believe it as well — perception versus reality. And if he can get people to believe that, that’s almost as good as it actually being isolated. It’s a complicated situation. Xi invited [Cheng] because she was already predisposed to favor alignment with China. And his goal is to send the message that there’s a growing constituency inside of Taiwan for peaceful reunification with China. This is a really powerful talking point for the CCP because whenever Xi Jinping sits across the table — or when he did sit across the table from Donald Trump — he can now say, listen, Trump, it’s not just me asking you to oppose Taiwanese independence. The KMT Party chair herself is supportive of you doing this, and she has said so publicly, which is true. She did come out in support of that. So it gives him very powerful diplomatic leverage, and it allows him to more credibly make the case that Taiwanese independence is a rogue separatist phenomenon and that more and more Taiwanese are interested in unification. BD: The other complicating factor was the whole attitude in the context of, “I am visiting our ancestors, I’m visiting our homeland, I’m visiting a place to which we have a connection.” It sends a powerful psychological message to have her come at that particular point in time. And then, having it followed up with this decision on the defense spending bill that came out, which, I mean, I see the Wall Street Journal editorial board tried to spin as a step forward. I do not view it as a step forward. I view it as not ideal. What are your thoughts on that? MS: Start with defense. They funded future purchases of military equipment from the United States, which is great. But in a crisis, Taiwan has a very different geography from Ukraine. We, and the Europeans, have the luxury of being able to resupply Ukraine with ammunition, weapons, and components over land. We can literally go through Western Europe through Poland, through adjacent states, and we can get stuff into Ukraine.  Where is that corridor in Taiwan? If there’s a sea blockade and China has air superiority operations going in the skies, how are you going to resupply that island? They need indigenous defense production. They need to have the capability to make their own stuff, their own drones in particular, and asymmetric capabilities, weapons, and ammo. And that was the big part of the defense bill that was not funded, which is a big problem.  Candidly, I want to emphasize another element too, which is that, per capita, Taiwan’s investment, promised investment in the United States, with their own negotiations with the White House, outclasses what our other partners of the Indo-Pacific have promised to invest. Taiwan remains a good friend of the United States. There was a really good piece by Mark Montgomery recently about how Taiwan is a model ally among our partners. And I think he’s right about that. So yes, they’re having some issues right now, but I don’t think that should overshadow all of the ways that we do benefit from that relationship. And I also want to emphasize that President Lai [Ching-te] is having some headwinds, but is trying to do the right thing right now. So there are some things we’re working through, but I’m not anywhere close to being pessimistic about where this could end up. I still think we can get this on the right track. The interesting psychological aspect you mentioned about Chinese civilization is the appeal of, “We’re on different sides of the state, but we have shared this common heritage.” You’re seeing this move on social media a lot among Gen Z, with “China-maxing” and this growing trend of having an interest in an association with the civilizational and cultural side of China, which, as far as it goes, is great because I’ve been to China for cultural experiences that were not political, and it was one of the coolest things in my entire life. At some level, everyone who loves Chinese culture should experience it in some way. But on TikTok, those kinds of trends are manipulated over time to take on a political overtone, where it’s not just an appreciation for Chinese civilization. It’s a formed understanding of the Chinese Communist Party. And I don’t think it’s an accident that some of the young KMT lawmakers we interacted with in our delegation were much more open to engaging with the PRC.  BD: One of the legislators that I interacted with was Puma Shen, and I asked him about this youth dynamic because a lot of numbers were getting quoted to me about the views of the Taiwanese on reunification and independence and related topics. Most of which seemed to me like spin. They were basically saying, “We don’t really have a problem. The majorities are all good, et cetera, et cetera.” But what he rightly noted, and he’s a younger legislator, was the youngest portion of Taiwan, the ones that are the most influenced by social media are also the ones who are clearly showing signs of being vulnerable to this messaging and don’t view their culture as being particularly distinct or valuable in terms of defending what they’ve benefited from when it comes to the existing status quo and basically devaluing it as he views it influenced by these messages. Is that what you’ve been seeing as well? MS: Yes. I think that dovetails with another concern Taiwan has, which is the lack of a really robust military reserve. If you look at Poland and you look at some of the Nordic countries, serving in the reserves when you’re young — between high school and college or in that season of your life — it’s viewed as an honorable thing. It’s viewed as your path into maturity, your path into your 20s, and eventually into independence. But you serve your country and your military because you believe in your national heritage. And this is one of the issues with Taiwan. What you’re identifying, I think, is upstream of their more material media problem, which is they need a better reserve force, but one of the foundations of that is having a really robust, sticky appreciation for a unique culture that you viscerally believe in and that you would fight for. BD: I would add that there are a lot of people in Taiwan who would fight for freedom, but what you’re identifying is a phenomenon in the younger generation in particular. And I think those two problems are linked. In addition to that, I think that there is an argument that goes out from people in America, whether you are making it from the kind of protectionist side or whether you’re making it from the isolationist side, that essentially it doesn’t really matter what happens to Taiwan because Taiwan doesn’t seem to care about what matters to Taiwan. And I think that the problem with this defense bill is, why is Taiwan a hundred miles away from China with water that is as shallow as you get, basically, for the straight, less than a hundred meters in most places — why are they spending 3% of their budget on defense? Shouldn’t they be maxing out their defense budget to a great degree? Why, especially with the benefit of the financial success that they’ve had with chips and semiconductors and becoming the dominant force that they have in that space, why the reluctance to even get to 5% that the president is demanding of our NATO allies? MS: I feel like this is one of the most difficult aspects of this whole thing to answer. Interestingly, if you look back to 2018 and 2019, around the time when Beijing was cracking down in Hong Kong, there was a visceral reaction in Taiwan. It was one of the factors that led to the second term of Tsai Ing-wen. And she was really struggling in her reelection, but then Xi Jinping went hard in Hong Kong, and everyone said, “Oh, okay, so now we know what One country, two systems means to you guys.” So that was a long time ago, and the DPP [Democratic Progressive Party] has held the presidency in Taiwan for a long time, and it’s always normal. We see this in our own system, where one party holds power for a long period of time. There’s always a correction — the pendulum always swings back. So part of it is the political cycle. Part of it is the psychology of living next door to an 800-pound dragon or panda, pick your animal. So, it’s partly the psychology of living next door to an existential threat. Over time, your mind is not able to live under constant dread and fear, and you either compartmentalize or, over time, if the threat never materializes, you begin to live with the assumption that it didn’t happen for the past 100 days, so it’s not going to happen tomorrow, and it’s probably not going to happen in the next 100 days either. And we have seen this in ourselves with COVID; the human spirit is really resilient in the face of trauma. We have all collectively convinced ourselves that COVID never really happened, and we’ve memory-holed the pandemic in a lot of ways. And one of the ways we memory-holed it is by not holding China accountable for starting it. Biden didn’t do it. Trump hasn’t done it at all. It’s part of human nature. It’s part internal politics. It’s partly their reaction to an existential threat, given how close they are. Americans are right to ask: Can we defend a partner who maybe isn’t taking the steps we think they should? I will hasten to add that, being a global power with global interests, this is the price you pay for being a hyperpower. You have to defend your interests regardless of how other people are, or are not, defending theirs. That’s the expensive part of what it means to be an American superpower, but that’s the situation we’re in. BD: What are the takeaways thus far from this summit beyond Taiwan? What do you think is the general feeling about how this has gone, what Xi is attempting to do, especially given the context that, within the media landscape here in America, everyone had the attitude that Xi holds all the cards and the president does not have anything really to hold over them — basically the sentiment of the New York Times. MS: I’m seeing a lot of people say that Donald Trump went to China with the most leverage that any president has ever had in recent memory. And I’m trying to figure out what leverage they’re seeing that I don’t see because if you look at Iran, we are the ones who need help reopening the Strait [of Hormuz] and it was the president who brought up Iran as far as I can tell and if he’s the one asking Xi Jinping to help him, that’s Xi who has the leverage in that situation, not us. I get the argument that Iran is an energy importer, and they need this whole thing resolved. It’s in their interest to help us wrap this up. Still, I think some folks are discounting the scope and scale of China’s oil reserves — that they can go a number of additional months before they’re in a really, really difficult situation. And their electricity and automobile distribution within China is such that their electricity grid is mainly powered by coal. I think the proportion of electric vehicles in China to those that run on gas has displaced an increasing number of cars that would require gasoline. So it’s not that they’re not hurting because they are, but I don’t know. I’m trying to find where all of this supposed leverage is that we walked in with, and there was this huge delegation of CEOs that the president brought with him. Again, that’s the president saying, “Xi Jinping, please open your markets for us.” It’s Xi Jinping who has the leverage in that negotiation as well. So I don’t know, maybe you can tell me, is there something that I’m missing? BD: What I would say is I do think that the president is someone who doesn’t accept deals that he thinks are bad and that he’s very mindful of his legacy right now and that he doesn’t want to be viewed as a president who sold out in any way to Chinese priorities. But at the same time, the things that I feel like Xi stands to get a lot more out of from us in return for things that might feel satisfactory to some audiences back home, but could be very limited in terms of their actual impact. I don’t know that this is going to be a summit that we look back on as being as significant as we thought it might have been, even a few months ago. MS: I think that’s right. So obviously, there’s still so much we don’t know, and I think a lot is still being negotiated right now. There are a lot of different paths ahead, but I think there’s a very real scenario where the summit turns out to be another episode of a managed trade truce and figuring out how much longer that can last with some marginal agreements along the way. The big material thing that’s been announced so far was the 200 Boeing jet purchases. China committed to purchase 200, and that was well below what Boeing investors were hoping for, and Boeing stock dipped today in reaction to that news. So there’s not much material that’s come out yet. The things to look for right now are the Board of Trade, which [Treasury Secretary Scott] Bessent and [Ambassador Jamieson] Greer have been putting some energy into negotiating in advance of the summit. Two other things: part of the U.S. statement, the readout, mentioned increased Chinese investment in the U.S. economy. I have a billion questions about what that is going to look like, specifically, which sectors and what, if any, are the national security implications of those sectors? Because if we’re trying to decouple our exposure in critical supply chains, in principle, I don’t understand the argument for opening our economy to more PRC money, but we need more specifics before we can really judge that. The final thing. On Air Force One, Trump said that Xi is considering releasing Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri. That’s excellent news, and let’s all hope and pray that happens quickly. It sounds like Xi isn’t open to releasing Jimmy Lai. We’re still waiting for details on whether Trump raised additional cases, and I think that’ll become apparent shortly. BD: To me, I could see a scenario where the president actually has significant success when it comes to prisoners while also giving a king’s ransom in exchange. Because that gets you praise in America because of something that’s significant that the media would like, but it actually, in the long term, is a negative for America. MS: Yes. I guess the truth at the core of this scenario is you can’t get something for nothing. We’ll see. BD: The overall attitude that China has had toward America when it comes to our cultural production and media post-COVID, particularly movies, has been notoriously limited, with the exceptions of things like Zootopia II. Hollywood is still griping about the fact that China is essentially closed off to them. Do you see any of that changing after this summit? Is that something you think will matter at all, or are there just too many other things to talk about? MS: I would be shocked if Donald Trump made time in the summit schedule to advocate for Hollywood. I don’t see that happening. BD: I don’t know. My friend David Ellison says he wants to get more of his movies over here. MS: Actually, if there’s anyone who could move Trump on that, it would be him. Sure. All right.  BD: Is the problem really that the Taiwanese have been asking the wrong things from America’s military arsenal, and that they need to ask for something different and build it themselves? MS: Yes. I remember when I was working for Senator [Ted] Cruz a while ago, and even back then, 2016, 2017, 2018, there was frustration about Taipei wanting the wrong kinds of platforms for the missions they would need to be executing. They need asymmetric stuff. They need survivable stuff. They need things that make their critical infrastructure resilient. And so I do think that’s a big part of it. And to their credit, I think they’re getting that. And I think if they can up their investment in homegrown capabilities, particularly drones, that is the kind of stuff they need to be moving in. And I do think Lai gets that. So now they just have to do it.