Trump Trashes NATO

Thursday, February 20, 2025 In today’s newsletter, the Trump Administration’s wholesale rejection of eighty years of U.S. foreign policy. But, first, a piece from Kathryn Schulz about facing her fear of the creatures that eat half a billion pounds of meat per year. Plus: • Palantir’s philosopher-C.E.O. • Richard Brody on the L.A. Rebellion • The staying power of the “S.N.L.” machine An Arachnophobe Pays Homage to the Spider With something like fifteen quadrillion spiders around, we can’t escape them. Can we learn to love them? Illustration by Jérôme Berthier Kathryn Schulz is, like many of us, petrified of those eight-legged, often venomous cannibals that live in our homes. “My feelings about spiders were the opposite of those old Wild West posters: I didn’t want them dead or alive,” she writes, in a piece for the 100th Anniversary Issue. This past fall, she decided to confront her fears, picking up “The Lives of Spiders,” a book by Ximena Nelson, a professor of animal behavior. “Part textbook, part encyclopedia, part coffee-table book for those whose taste in décor runs toward shabby eek,” Schulz writes, the book is rich in scientific detail and in “endearing if not entirely contagious enthusiasm” about the arachnid world. Schulz learns many fun facts about spiders: that, collectively, they eat at least half a billion pounds of meat per year (more than the amount consumed by humans); that they have a penchant for postcoital cannibalism; that one species lives underwater, attaching an air bubble to its web; that some have been known to travel hundreds of miles on a parachute of their own silk, occasionally landing on ships in the middle of the ocean. She’s coming around on spiders—at least theoretically. “It’s humbling to see a creature I’ve always reviled rendered so beautifully,” Schulz realizes. “Humbling, too, to be reminded of what none of us should ever forget, that reflexively hating anything alien to us is the beginning of evil.” Read or listen to the story You’re on the free list. New Yorker subscribers exclusively enjoy full access to our 100th Anniversary Issue. Upgrade today » The Lede Reporting and commentary on what you need to know today. The Trump Administration Trashes Europe and NATO Photograph from Ukrinform / Cover Images / AP J. D. Vance and Pete Hegseth have each rebuked NATO, and Europe more generally, in recent speeches that were “not just verbal lashings of America’s allies but a wholesale rejection of eighty years of U.S. foreign policy,” Dexter Filkins writes. Filkins explores how NATO came to be, and what happens when those relationships are broken. Read the story » The Briefing Room Hegseth orders the Pentagon to cut eight per cent of the defense budget: Leaders have until next Monday to turn in proposals targeting “excessive bureaucracy.” Read Dexter Filkins on why the military is having trouble recruiting new troops » The move to end congestion pricing in New York City: Citing the costs to working-class drivers, the Trump Administration ordered an end to the toll program—a decision the M.T.A. is now challenging. Read William Finnegan on the fits and starts of congestion pricing in the past decade » Defunding disaster recovery: Today, the Trump Administration announced plans to cut the budget of the Office of Community Planning and Development, which helps to rebuild after the country’s most extreme disasters, by eighty-four per cent. Read Elizabeth Kolbert on how these disasters are becoming more frequent and forceful » Mitch McConnell will not seek reëlection next year: The longest-serving Senate leader announced his planned retirement today, on his eighty-third birthday. Read Jane Mayer on what made McConnell finally dump Trump » If you know someone who would enjoy this newsletter, please share it. Was it forwarded to you? Sign up. Editor’s Pick Under Review The Palantir Guide to Saving America’s Soul Alexander Karp, Palantir’s philosopher-C.E.O., thinks that a restored military-industrial complex can make our country great again. By Gideon Lewis-Kraus