Opinion | Only One President Could Come Up With This Spectacle - The New York Times

Jamelle Bouie

June 13, 2026, 11:01 a.m. ET

Only One President Could Come Up With This Spectacle

Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

"You’re reading the Jamelle Bouie newsletter.  Historical context for present-day events.

Tomorrow, on Flag Day, President Trump and the White House will host U.F.C. — the Ultimate Fighting Championship — for a set of fights in honor of the nation’s 250th anniversary, as well as to mark the president’s 80th birthday. To hold this event, the president has transformed the White House grounds into a pay-per-view spectacle — a carnival designed and built for the biggest display you can imagine.

It suffices to say that this is out of the ordinary for a celebration of the nation’s founding and independence.

At the Jubilee in 1826, for example, President John Quincy Adams watched a parade from the steps of the White House and later listened to a reading of the Declaration of Independence.

The Centennial was a more extravagant affair — centered on a monthslong exhibition in Philadelphia. President Ulysses S. Grant opened that exhibition on May 10, 1876 in a joint appearance with Emperor Dom Pedro II of Brazil. In his official proclamation, Grant called on Americans to mark the centennial with “some public religious and devout thanksgiving to Almighty God for the blessings which have been bestowed upon us as a nation during the century of our existence, and humbly to invoke a continuance of His favor and of His protection.”

At the Sesquicentennial in 1926, President Calvin Coolidge delivered a speech in Philadelphia on the meaning of the Declaration of Independence. “At the end of 150 years,” said Coolidge, “the four corners of the earth unite in coming to Philadelphia as to a holy shrine in grateful acknowledgment of a service so great, which a few inspired men here rendered to humanity, that it is still the pre-eminent support of free government throughout the world.”

And on July 4, 1976, for the Bicentennial, President Gerald Ford traveled to key sites of the American Revolution — Valley Forge, Philadelphia and New York City — before returning to the White House for a final public celebration. While at Independence Hall, he also delivered a nationally televised address in which he called on the country to continue the work of the founders: “Liberty is for all men and women as a matter of equal and unalienable right. The establishment of justice and peace abroad will in large measure depend upon the peace and justice we create here in our own country, where we still show the way.”

In each celebration, we see how presidents treat the moment as a chance to exercise national leadership — to lead the American people in a collective appreciation of the nation’s highest values. None of them — not Adams, not Grant, not Coolidge, not Ford — turned the spotlight on themselves.

This is obviously a sharp contrast with the aesthetics of the current celebration, which are first and foremost about the president’s ego and vanity. But there’s something else as well.

To put the country and its people at the forefront of the occasion is to honor the democratic spirit of the founding of the United States. To put oneself at the forefront, as Trump has, is to discount and strip away that democratic content.

Sunday’s U.F.C. fight is not just a garish spectacle; it is an expression of the president’s contempt for the ritual and symbolism of American democracy — which is just another way to say, his contempt for democracy itself.

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What I Wrote

I wrote about the ways Americans have shaped constitutional meaning and, in particular, the work of Black Americans through the 19th century to make the Constitution work for them.

But some of the most influential conventions in American history are well off the public radar. These are the Colored Conventions — gatherings of Black Americans held throughout the 19th century, beginning in the 1830s and ending in the 1890s. It was in these conventions that Black Americans, either born free or formerly enslaved, articulated a constitutional vision of their own. That vision would go on to play a critical role in the constitution-making of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

I also joined the Slate Culture Gabfest to talk about the new “Masters of the Universe” film. And on the most recent episode of my podcast with John Ganz, we talked about the 1998 dark comedy “Bulworth,” written, directed by and starring Warren Beatty.

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Now Reading

Eric Segall on the “originalism” of the Roberts court for the blog “Dorf on Law.”

Moira Donegan on Nancy Mace for The New Yorker.

David Waldstreicher on Gordon Wood for The New Republic.

Charlotte Rosen on the Bernie Goetz shooting for The Baffler.

Lovia Gyarkye on the Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck for Hammer & Hope.

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Photo of the Week

I took this picture at the peak of Mount Rubidoux in Riverside, Calif.

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Now Eating: Pasta Salad

This recipe from Melissa Clark is easy and delicious and perfect for a summer cookout or a potluck. It’s also easy to make it vegetarian by omitting the cured meats.

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar, plus more to taste

• 1 garlic clove, finely grated or minced

• 1 teaspoon dried oregano

• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

• ⅓ cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling

• 1 pound short-cut pasta, such as farfalle

• 1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes, halved

• 8 ounces mozzarella, cubed (or use small mozzarella balls)

• 4 ounces sliced salami, cut into ¼-inch ribbons

• ¾ cup sliced Kalamata olives

• ½ cup thinly sliced cucumber

• 3 tablespoons diced red onion

• 1 cup coarsely chopped fresh parsley and basil leaves

Directions

Make the dressing: Combine vinegar, garlic, oregano and a big pinch each salt and pepper in a large bowl. Whisk in oil; taste and add more salt, pepper or vinegar as needed. Set aside.

Prepare the pasta: Bring a large pot of heavily salted water to a boil. Cook the pasta according to the package directions until the pasta is al dente. Drain well, transfer to the large bowl, and toss with the dressing while still warm.

Add tomatoes, mozzarella, salami, olives, cucumber and onion to the bowl and toss well; fold in herbs. Taste and season with more salt, pepper and vinegar, if you like.

Drizzle with olive oil and top with cracked black pepper just before serving.

Jamelle Bouie became a New York Times Opinion columnist in 2019. Before that he was the chief political correspondent for Slate magazine. He is based in Charlottesville, Va."

Opinion | Only One President Could Come Up With This Spectacle - The New York Times

Wages Are Falling. Wealth Is Surging. No Wonder Americans Are Unhappy. - The New York Times

Wages Are Falling. Wealth Is Surging. No Wonder Americans Are Unhappy.

"As Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire, workers are facing higher prices and fears of A.I.-driven job losses.

June 13, 2026 Updated 8:28 a.m. ET

Times Square on Friday, when Elon Musk’s SpaceX went public on the Nasdaq exchange. Karsten Moran for The New York Times

By Ben Casselman

Ben Casselman is The Times’s chief economics correspondent.

Two events from the past week help crystallize this strange, contradictory moment for the U.S. economy.

On Wednesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the surge in energy prices had wiped out a year and a half of wage gains for the average American worker. On Friday, the public-markets debut of SpaceX made Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire.

That stark juxtaposition helps explain why many Americans, in survey after survey, say they no longer believe the U.S. economy is working for them. A few people are getting fabulously, unimaginably wealthy at the same time that entire generations of families worry they will never be able to afford to buy a house, raise children or enjoy a comfortable retirement.

“I don’t think the stock market is necessarily causing” Americans’ pessimism about the economy, said Stefanie Stantcheva, a Harvard professor who studies public sentiment. “But I don’t think people are looking at it and are thinking, ‘Great, this means I’m going to do very well, too.’ It’s potentially reinforcing this feeling of ‘I’m falling behind.’”

Inequality is hardly a new feature in America. But the explosion of wealth at the very top is without precedent in U.S. history. At the height of the Gilded Age at the end of the 19th century, the richest handful of Americans had a net worth equivalent to about 3 percent of the country’s annual economic output, according to data compiled by the French economists Gabriel Zucman and Emmanuel Saez. Today, the fortunes of the same 0.00001 percent — about 20 individuals — make up roughly four times as large a share, equivalent to 12 percent of annual output.

Other economists, using different methodologies, come up with somewhat different numbers. But hardly anyone disputes the basic fact that the wealthiest few have made extraordinary gains in recent years.

The picture for the other 99 percent of Americans is more nuanced. More than half of U.S. households own stocks, either directly or through retirement accounts, meaning they have benefited at least somewhat from the record-setting run-up in share prices. Wealth has risen more slowly for middle-class families than for the rich over the past decade, Federal Reserve data shows, but it has still risen.

For most Americans, however, “wealth” is a somewhat abstract concept, tied up in the house where they live and the retirement accounts they hope to leave untouched for as long as possible. What matters more, day to day, is their income. And the share of national income going to workers has been trending down for decades. It hit a record low in the first quarter of the year, according to data from the Commerce Department.

Now, rising costs are again taking a bite out of workers’ paychecks. The recent jump in energy prices — a result of the war with Iran — pushed the annual inflation rate to a three-year high in May. Hourly wages, adjusted for inflation, have fallen for three months in a row, erasing all the gains made during President Trump’s first year in office. Measures of consumer sentiment have plummeted as gas prices have risen.

Oil prices have eased somewhat in recent weeks on hopes of a lasting cease-fire, and are likely to fall further if the United States and Iran reach a deal and tankers begin to move out of the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz in greater numbers.

But relief at the pump is not likely to end Americans’ anxiety after years of one economic shock after another. First, the Covid-19 pandemic shut down large parts of the economy and put tens of millions of people out of work, at least temporarily. Then inflation soared to the highest level in four decades. Since then, Americans have endured high interest rates, tariffs and repeated recession scares.

“If you think about what it felt like to go through Covid, and then inflation, and also political unrest and instability, you come out of those things thinking, ‘How am I supposed to plan for the future?’” said Elizabeth Wilkins, president of the Roosevelt Institute, a left-leaning think tank.

Ms. Stantcheva, the Harvard economist, has found that bouts of high inflation take a long-term toll on consumers’ economic attitudes. That is not only because of the strain on their budgets but also because it seems unfair — the wealthy are able to absorb higher prices relatively easily, while lower-income households struggle.

“It goes hand in hand with a big sense of inequity and injustice,” she said.

Now Americans face a new threat in the form of artificial intelligence, which tech industry leaders warn could eliminate whole categories of white-collar work. Many economists are skeptical of those predictions, but polls show that many workers are worried about what the technology will mean for their careers. Voters across the country have also rebelled against plans to build A.I. data centers in their communities, citing their impact on electricity bills, water supplies and air quality.

Given those concerns, it is hardly surprising that the public is uncomfortable with the surge in wealth that has accompanied the A.I. boom. Companies connected to the technology have driven the recent gains in the stock market. SpaceX’s debut on Friday was the first in what is expected to be a series of giant initial public offerings for A.I. companies. (SpaceX, though best known for its rockets and satellites, also owns an A.I. lab and has made huge investments in A.I. infrastructure.)

In addition to making Mr. Musk a trillionaire, the SpaceX I.P.O. alone was expected to mint thousands of new millionaires and several billionaires.

“Many of the tech moguls who are the current superrich have not helped themselves in the conversation by saying, ‘My innovation is going to obliterate your life,’” said Glenn Hubbard, an economist at Columbia Business School who served as a top adviser to President George W. Bush. “It’s not too crazy to imagine a backlash.”

Mr. Hubbard said he did not necessarily see a problem with the existence of billionaires or even trillionaires, as long as people were getting rich through entrepreneurship and innovation rather than through corruption or cronyism. But he said policymakers should take the public attitudes seriously. Congress should consider ways to tax billionaires more effectively, he said, and to ensure that the wealthy don’t exert undue influence on the political system.

Many progressive economists, however, argue that enormous fortunes like Mr. Musk’s inherently distort both the economic and the political systems, giving the superrich too many ways to avoid regulation, taxation and oversight.

“It’s the power to influence markets, it’s the power to buy competitors, it’s the power to influence policymaking,” said Mr. Zucman, one of the French scholars of wealth inequality. “If you want a well-functioning market economy, it’s not good to have too much concentrated power with extreme wealth at the very top. It distorts markets. It distorts democracy.”

The A.I. boom is still in its nascent stages, and some analysts are skeptical that SpaceX and other companies will earn profits to justify their sky-high valuations. If the doubters are right, share prices could fall and Mr. Musk’s trillionaire status could prove short-lived.

But such a decline could have consequences for ordinary Americans as well. A.I.-related investments have helped carry the economy through a tumultuous period; the stock market boom has helped prop up consumer spending as wage growth has cooled. A bursting of the A.I. bubble would put millions of jobs in jeopardy, from the electricians wiring data centers to the waiters serving wealthy investors in high-end restaurants. And it would vaporize trillions of dollars in paper wealth held in 401(k) accounts and college saving plans.

That can make A.I. feel like something of a Catch-22 for workers: If the technology succeeds in reshaping the economy, they could lose their jobs. If it fails to live up to the hype, their retirement savings could evaporate. No wonder so many Americans feel that the economy is rigged against them, said Heather Boushey, who served as an adviser in the Biden administration and has written a book about the economic impact of inequality.

“Clearly our economy is designed to create a handful of billionaires and a trillionaire,” Ms Boushey said. “It is no longer about creating opportunity and stability for the majority.”

Ben Casselman is the chief economics correspondent for The Times. He has reported on the economy for nearly 20 years."

Wages Are Falling. Wealth Is Surging. No Wonder Americans Are Unhappy. - The New York Times

Why Some Politicians Don't Want You to Show Up to Vote | Senator Raphael Warnock on The Interview

 

Ghanaians Hit The Streets: 'South African Companies, Pack Up and Leave'

 

 

‘My mayor Muslim, my bagel’s Jewish’: who’s behind the Knicks chant uniting New York?

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“A viral chant celebrating the New York Knicks’ success in the NBA finals has become an unofficial anthem for the city. The chant, originating from a TikTok video by Knicks fan Ahnaf Hossain, highlights the city’s diversity and unity. While the video’s marketing by Kalshi has been acknowledged, its success is attributed to its catchy, positive message and its connection to hip-hop culture.

​

Matthew Cantor

Ahnaf Hossain. Photograph: Kalshi

The New York Knicks are 3-1 up in the NBA finals, one game away from winning the championship for the first time since the 1970s. The mood in New York is electric, the city is strewn with blue and orange, crowds roar outside Madison Square Garden, and – at least last week – a viral chant has become a new unofficial New York City anthem:

My mayor Muslim

My bagel’s Jewish

My Christian Dior

Knicks in four

After the team’s loss on Sunday, the last line is no longer viable – no team can now win the series in four games – but the chant has taken on a life of its own thanks to MD Ahnaf Hossain, a 23-year-old Knicks fan who shouted the bars in a Kalshi-branded TikTok video after a Knicks win last week. The New York Times called the lines “pure New York City poetry”, but the viral clip has spread far beyond the city limits, with 7.4m views on TikTok and the words appearing on T-shirts and hats.

Last night Hossain was again filmed on the streets of New York with an updated version, which reflected the reality of the series and one Knicks fan celebrating in the Vatican:

My mayor still Muslim

My bagel’s still Jewish

The pope’s on our side

Knicks in five

What is it about these lyrics that has propelled their rise? There’s Kalshi’s marketing power, of course – the video appeared on a channel where a Kalshi-branded robot interviews fans, trying to copy the viral formula of the more organic New York man-on-the-street channel Sidetalk.

There’s the positivity of the lines amid so much toxicity on social media. And there’s the easy sense of unity in a world that direly needs it, especially after a mayoral contest in which Zohran Mamdani’s opponents attempted to pit religious identities against each other. “I grew up with Jews, Muslims, Haitians, Pakistanis, Bengalis,” Hossain told the Washington Post. “I just had to bring everyone together.”

The lyrics also build on hip-hop tradition, says AD Carson, a rapper and associate professor of hip-hop at the University of Virginia. “Hip-hop is ultimately as mimetic as any popular cultural product can be.”

The first line is reminiscent of the Young Jeezy song My President, released in 2008 amid the rise of Barack Obama, which features the line “My president is Black, my Lambo’s blue”; the next year, after Obama’s inauguration, a Jay-Z remix of the song featured similar lyrics: “My president is Black, my Maybach too.”

The Dior line, as Hossain has acknowledged, references the rapper Pop Smoke’s hit Dior. (Both Pop Smoke, who died in 2020, and Jay-Z are New Yorkers.) And the final line – a prediction of victory for a favored team in a set number of games – is also a familiar trope. “What the four lines are borrowing from – it’s a pretty rich, pretty fertile cultural text,” Carson says. What feels like an “offhand viral video moment” reveals “the capacity of rap – even a cappella rap lyrics – to hold information”.

New York Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns shoots as San Antonio Spurs guard Stephon Castle defends during an NBA finals game. Photograph: Al Bello/Pool Getty Images/AP

The lines also appear to have a direct predecessor: commentators have pointed out that tweets from May and early June use virtually the same language. Hossain told the Post he hadn’t seen the tweets. But how much would it matter if he had? “It’s hard to ever have a conversation like this about culture without discussing the politics of intellectual property,” Carson says. “I absolutely believe this is related to mimetic culture, which is to say he may not have seen the tweets and still could be influenced by them in the same way that ‘My mayor is Muslim’ seems to reference My President.”

But that’s not the only source of controversy over the video. Others have pointed out that it is essentially an ad for Kalshi. The prediction market company is the source of the original clip, which was reposted by an X account with a bio that promotes the site. Kalshi later posted a follow-up interview with Hossain, who said he was drawn to the “iconic green mic”. Kalshi gifted him an actual Dior scarf, during the second interview.

Kalshi has since acknowledged “smart marketing” was behind the video, but remained vague about exactly how the clip was set up, telling Front Office Sports “it was also organic … we didn’t go find him and say, ‘Hey, come talk into this mic.’ He found us and then we connected to make the second video.”

Jeff Hancock, founding director of the Stanford Social Media Lab, says marketing is part of the clip’s success, but it doesn’t explain all of it. He sees three ingredients at work: first, it’s all about New York, which remains the country’s biggest media market, second “it fits a moment, it’s funny, it’s engaging, it’s short and simple”. And finally, there’s the marketing behind the scenes, typically “some hidden engagement machine in which both the algorithms and some coordinated behavior” – related accounts that may be paid for highlighting and reposting a clip – serve to boost it. Of course, this doesn’t always succeed, which speaks to the potency of the chant. “They probably tried to do this kind of thing dozens of times, and it’s rare for it to go viral,” Hancock says.

Hossain himself seems to be taking his newfound celebrity in his stride – he’s mostly focused on the games and the impact they’re having on New York. He told the New York Times on Monday: “I think the sportsmanship is bringing a type of love we haven’t seen in the city for a long, long time.”

Iran War Live Updates: Trump Threatens Iran Amid Prolonged Peace Talks; U.S. and Iran Trade Strikes - The New York Times

Iran War Live Updates: After U.S. and Iran Exchange Strikes, Trump Issues New Threat

"President Trump said Iran would “pay the price” for taking “too long to negotiate” an agreement to end the war.

A rally in Tehran on Monday after Iran and Israel exchanged strikes.Credit...Arash Khamooshi/Polaris for The New York Times

Latest

Pinned

Updated 

June 10, 2026, 11:09 a.m. ET50 minutes ago

Lara JakesLeo SandsAdam Rasgon and Max Bearak

Here’s the latest.

President Trump threatened Iran again on Wednesday, warning that Tehran would “pay the price” for taking “too long to negotiate a deal” to end the war, a day after he said a peace deal was imminent, and hours after the United States and Iran exchanged strikes.

As Mr. Trump alternates between threatening to reignite the monthslong conflict and promising peace, neither is happening, leaving it unclear how or when the war will end and prolonging the turmoil in the Middle East.

Mr. Trump made his comments on social media hours after the U.S. military said its jets had hit Iranian targets in response to the downing of an American Apache helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz on Monday. Iran has not admitted or denied downing the helicopter, but its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said the American strikes had been conducted “under false premises.”

IRIB, the Iranian state broadcaster, reported that the U.S. attacks hit drinking water facilities in the Bamani district of Sirik County, in the southern Hormozgan Province, cutting off water for thousands of people. Video footage of the damage, published by IRIB, was verified by The New York Times, though The Times could not verify that it was a water system that was struck. U.S. Central Command did not respond to a request for comment on the report.

In retaliation, Iran said it had launched attack drones against U.S. naval targets in Bahrain and fired missiles at American military facilities in Jordan. The extent of any damage was not immediately clear, though officials in the countries said that the strikes had been intercepted.

The resumption of bombardments came hours after Mr. Trump said that a deal to end the war with Iran could be signed within days. The president has made such claims repeatedly, though there has been no clear sign of progress in negotiations.

A delegation of Qatari officials arrived in Iran on Wednesday to discuss efforts to negotiate a deal, according to a regional official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. Qatar, alongside Pakistan, has served as a key mediator between Iran and the United States in diplomatic efforts to end the war.

Here’s what else we’re covering:

• Persian Gulf: The Jordanian military said it had intercepted five missiles launched from Iran toward a region that includes the Muwaffaq Salti base, which has been used for U.S. air operations. Bahrain’s military said it had taken out several Iranian drones and missiles. And the Kuwait Army said its air defenses had intercepted hostile targets. The Revolutionary Guards claimed to have caused damage at U.S. bases, but that claim could not immediately be verified.

• Lebanon: Israel deepened its assault across southern Lebanon on Tuesday in attacks it said were aimed at Iran-backed Hezbollah militants after an exchange of strikes between Iran and Israel ended the previous day. In the southern city of Tyre, at least eight people were reported to have been killed after the Israeli attacks.

• Economic impact: U.S. consumer prices rose 4.2 percent in May compared to a year earlier, the highest pace of inflation since April 2023, amid the stalemate over Iran. Oil prices also jumped on Wednesday. Read more ›

• Nuclear talks: The Trump administration’s negotiations with Tehran have focused on four major elements of a nuclear agreement that U.S. officials say would grind Iran’s program to a halt for about 15 years."

Iran War Live Updates: Trump Threatens Iran Amid Prolonged Peace Talks; U.S. and Iran Trade Strikes - The New York Times