This newsletter is not about Elon Musk.

Yesterday, Marco Rubio and JD Vance were at the American Compass gala. We confess we can't help but have affection for American Compass: not because of their views, because we want to be neutral within a big conservative tent, but just because of how much has been accomplished, and how much influence created, by this small startup think tank.

Anyway, it was interesting to see two of their most prominent political supporters give a speech at a black tie event at this particular moment. If you want to watch all of it, here's Rubio's speech and here's Vance's keynote conversation with Oren Cass.

But here are what we most took away from them.

Rubio's speech, owing to his new job, but also very fittingly given the issues and his past job, centered on the intersection of economics and geopolitcs, of which there are quite a few. The common thread, as he put it, is the illusion of globalism in the wake of the Cold War; on the economic front, it caused too much offshoring, and on the geopolitical front, it caused the United States government to lose sight of its duty to defend the national interest, rather than some sort of set of global values.

Vance repeated a number of themes that he has spoken about in the past in connection to the kinds of issues that American Compass cares about, centered on the idea that the concept of American dynamism is what bridges the concerns of populists and of free marketers. He pointed out that there is a link between manufacturing and innovation, and that if you offshore manufacturing, soon, innovation will be offshored to. He pointed out specifically the biotech sector and large biologics as a sector where China is innovating faster because of its edge in manufacturing.

He told an anecdote about coming in as Vice President, one day after being sworn in, and asking: what are the 100 most crucial products that America needs, what are their supply chains, and what would it take to reshore these supply chains?, and finding out that nobody in the government could answer that question.

On the issue of universities, which of course are currently in a big battle with the Administration, he once again mentioned the issue (near and dear to this writer) of the reproductibility crisis, and cited two reforms that the Administration expects from universities: civil rights compliance (unsurprising), and a greater open-mindedness. He stressed that it wasn't about DEI for conservatives, but he pointed out that if a university is a political monoculture, there's a good chance that it's a monoculture, and intolerant of new ideas, in other fields, and therefore that if America's once-great universities became more tolerant politically and ideologically, they would also end up producing better science and innovation. It rings true, and is a very important concept.

Lastly, given the audience of this newsletter, we would be remiss not to talk about the final part of his interview, where Cass asked him for advice for young policy professionals starting today. His advice was great, and we wholly endorse it. Don't worry about formal credentials, don't hesitate to push at the limits of the Overton Window, and, finally, most interestingly and (we think, and he probably thinks too) most importantly, get outside the DC bubble and learn to know the actual ordinary people of America that policymakers' job is to serve. Very good advice indeed.

Policy News You Need To Know

#RedInk — New CBO estimate: "CBO estimates that debt-service costs under H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, would total $551 billion over the 2025–2034 period—increasing the bill's cumulative effect on the deficit to $3.0 trillion."

#Trade — Just a bit of editorializing, within the context of the continuing debate on the impact of tariffs on consumer prices. It seems to us that both sides are guilty of a little bit of hypocrisy and misdirection. Here's how the debate usually goes. Free traders allege that a tariff is just a straight-up consumption tax which will hit consumers' wallets. Protectionists counter that no tax incidence is 100% and that not all costs may be passed on to the consumer (this is fair enough). Free traders don't like to admit this because it muddies the waters and calling a tariff a consumption tax makes it less popular. But at the same time, to the protectionist, the purpose of a tariff is to make foreign goods more expensive relative to domestic products, to encourage more purchasing, and eventually reshoring, of domestic products. Protectionists like to say that businesses can choose to eat the cost of tariffs, and in some cases it may well be true, and it's important to keep in mind when assessing the immediate impact of tariffs on consumers' wallets; at the same time, if all businesses chose to eat the cost of tariffs and not pass them on to the consumer, protectionists wouldn't get what they're trying to achieve! But of course, it's unpopular to say "We're making some things more expensive for the national interest," even if they're right.

#AI #Jorbs — You may remember, as we pointed it out, during an interview in Rome, JD Vance speculated that AI and self-technology would not destroy trucking jobs but instead make them more productive: they would have more flexible hours, and they would work more on "the last mile" of delivery. At City Journal, Jordan McGillis expands on that argument.

#AIMoratorium — We will keep covering this AI moratorium issue. In the Senate Commerce Committee's newly-released reconciliation text (PDF), the language conditions states receiving Federal broadband money on not regulating AI. We tend to think this is too precious: there is Commerce Clause authority for a straightforward ban, as we explained in our earlier piece.

#TradeAuthority — Thomas J. Duesterberg and Paul Sracic have an op-ed in the Journal arguing that Congress should take tariff authority back from the President.

#Life — The fight over the regulation of mifepristone continues. The evidence that mifepristone is harmful to women seems pretty rock solid scientifically, but of course there is much more at stake. Now states are petitioning the FDA to lift all restrictions on the drug.

#Natalism — Important new study: paternity leave reduces fertility.

#Immigration — Noteworthy report in the Post today (the real "Post", that is to say, the New York Post): ICE detention facilities are overfilled. This is also a topic JD Vance touched on in his Rome interview. Apparently there is a real need to build more infrastructure to run the deportation system to get rid of the Biden backlog. And this is, of course, one of the main touted benefits of the Big Beautiful Bill.

#Immigration — On this topic, intresting estimate by Daniel Di Martino of the Manhattan Institute on the likely impact of President Trump's new travel ban (which we covered yesterday).

#WhiteHouse — Ok, ok, we don't like to share gossip here, but we couldn't resist all the catting that's going out from Biden alums about Karine Jean-Pierre, who is out promoting her book. From Alex Thompson of Axios: “one of the most ineffectual and unprepared people I've ever worked with”; “The amount of time that was spent coddling her…was astronomical compared to our attention on actual matters of substance”; "Many quietly had fumed for years, believing she was incompetent at her job at the podium and more interested in promoting herself than Joe Biden." Great great stuff. More.

Friday Essays

The DC metro used to be a byword for dysfunction. No longer? DC Metro has achieved an 82-85% reduction in subway fare evasion through a combination of taller fare gates and enhanced enforcement. Crime on the system has also fallen to its lowest level in seven years. The great Santi Ruiz of the Statecraft newsletter talks to Randy Clark, head of WMATA.

The long-awaited biography of William F. Buckley, Jr. by authorized biographer and liberal writer Sam Tenenhaus has arrived. Helen Andrews has written, as per usual, a masterful review for Compact which is well worth your time. But the long and the short of it is: it's bad.

Speaking of: Albert Jay Nock is getting renewed attention thanks to the Tenenhaus's book. Nock was a philosophical anarchist who inspired Buckley, Russell Kirk, and ISI founder Frank Chodorov. If you need to brush up on his thought, Edmund A. Opitz at Modern Age Journal has you covered.

Even though it doesn't have much substance, we would of course be remiss if we did not link to the big New Yorker profile of neoreactionary political philosopher Curtis Yarvin.