Here's a look at the week ahead.

Monday, the Supreme Court opens its brand-new October term, returning to the bench to hear oral arguments that will set the stage for major regulatory and constitutional rulings this fall, and voter registration deadlines arrive across several battleground states as early balloting picks up steam.

[static] Tuesday, the Commerce Department is expected to issue fresh numbers on US international trade in goods and services for August.

[static] Wednesday, investors turn their focus to the Federal Reserve as the central bank releases the minutes from their September policy meeting, searching for clues on where interest rates will head through year's end.

[static] Thursday, the Labor Department delivers its weekly update on initial jobless claims, giving Wall Street a fresh snapshot of the health and resilience of the American workforce.

[static] Friday, Oslo is the focus as the Norwegian Nobel Committee announces the recipient of the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize, capping off a full week of global honors.

And that's a look at your week ahead.

What's on your mind?

And she says it's intentional, right?

Oh, of course it's intentional.

Yeah, absolutely.

When she's in her overalls and she's hanging out with Mamdani, she is trying to get the message to kids that this is somebody you should support.

This is somebody that's good.

Again, I think that you need to be really careful about who you let into your child's life.

I had a best-selling book a few years ago with Bethany Mandel called Stolen Youth, and we had so many parents come up to us and say, I've lost my child.

Is there a converse to this on the market? Are there conservative Christians indoctrinating on YouTube children in the same political way that she is using her platform?

And she says it's intentional, right?

Oh, of course it's intentional.

Yeah, absolutely.

When she's in her overalls and she's hanging out with Mamdani, she is trying to get the message to kids that this is somebody you should support.

This is somebody that's good.

Again, I think that you need to be really careful about who you let into your child's life.

I had a best-selling book a few years ago with Bethany Mandel called Stolen Youth, and we had so many parents come up to us and say, I've lost my child.

Is there a converse to this on the market? You know, are there are there conservative Christians indoctrinating on YouTube children in the same political way that she is using her platform?

Yeah

... bastions of free speech, right? They get conservative speakers shut down all the time.

What Jews have learned in the last three years is that the left is playing this game.

And look, I, I'll be first to admit, Jews are foolishly majority liberal, which is insane to me.

You know, I've been a lifelong conservative.

I do think things are shifting.

I saw a movement of Jews, you know, towards the right, towards Donald Trump, towards Republicans in the last three years, but nowhere near enough.

What's gonna happen with Jewish voters in Michigan? Will it move anybody?

Yeah

... bastions of free speech, right? They get conservative speakers shut down all the time.

What Jews have learned in the last three years is that the left is playing this game.

And look, I, I'll be first to admit Jews are foolishly majority liberal, which is insane to me.

You know, I've been a lifelong conservative.

I do think things are shifting.

I saw a movement of Jews, you know, towards the right, towards Donald Trump, towards Republicans in the last three years, but nowhere near enough.

What's gonna happen with Jewish voters in Michigan? Will it move anybody?

You are sold, in my mind, the greatest human motivator, fear.

Right.

There's also the question of AI in schools.

The people who stuck all of the kids on screens, I mean, the Randy Weingartens of the world who made deals with all these computer companies to introduce screens into the classroom to get rid of books are now saying, let's not have the kids use the technology that we imagine is going to be the main thing in the next decade or so? How does that make any sense? I don't want my kids writing their papers with it.

And APUSH, that's the American US history, the AP class, it really is a great example of if they write the papers using AI, they won't do well on the test.

That kind of thing is exactly where we should have AI usage, where You know you can't use it in the class because it's not going to help you long run, but you should learn how to use AI and maybe you should use it to study, for example, for tests.

And so this whole thing of like ban AI in the classroom, no, ban all screens in the classroom in that case.

What are we

But do you agree that somewhere down the road he must do that if, in fact, Marco Rubio runs?

Well, I think that Rubio is signaling he's not going to run.

So we'll just set that aside for now.

But the thing is, it's not that he must do that.

It's that he obviously will do that.

To me, it is an obvious thing.

Oh, yeah.

to succeed.

Uh, Carol, take it away.

So I was working as a paralegal at the top of the Chrysler Building, and I was also volunteering on my first ever political race.

I was thinking, "Oh, maybe I wanna get into politics." And I was working for Herman Badillo.

He was running for the Republican nomination against Mike Bloomberg, and that was election day.

So I was gonna be late for work.

I went to go try to vote in my new neighborhood, couldn't figure out where to go vote, and then I tried to get a cab, and no cab.

Every cab was like, "Oh, too much traffic to take you to Midtown." And the last, you know, third cab that I pulled over, I just got in and I was...

Oh, yes

So what do you think is happening? Is it as bad as the headlines or is that overemphasizing things?

No, I think it's under-emphasized.

We should be talking about the fact that we're falling below replacement rates in this country every single day.

It is a huge, huge issue.

Mark Stein wrote this amazing book, America Alone, in the early 2000s, I mean really ahead of his time, where he talked about the fact that Europe was not having children, yet they continued to have this welfare state.

They're going to have to import people.

They're importing people who don't share their values.

How are you feeling about where we are?

Mm-hmm.

But in general, conservative, very conservative community.

So we all dun- didn't understand why Jews who had been in America for generations were liberal, and the thing is that they are just in a safety and security that they've never had challenged until now.

And I have to say, I have seen movement in the Jewish vote.

I, I looked, I did a deep, deep dive into the numbers that Trump got in 2024, um, among the Jewish vote, and I think he got around 45% ultimately, even though a lot of the exit polls had some insane, you know, Kamala got 70% nonsense.

I, it's still nowhere near enough, but it's a giant jump, and you see it in Florida too.

Jews in Florida are voting for Republicans at much higher rates than ever before.

Are you optimistic or do you think we're gonna see a blue tsunami, a blue tide, whatever you would, uh, use as your metaphorical device?

Mm-hmm.

But in general, conservative, very conservative community.

So we all don- didn't understand why Jews who had been in America for generations were liberal, and the thing is that they are just in a safety and security that they've never had challenged until now.

And I have to say, I have seen movement in the Jewish vote.

I, I looked, I did a deep, deep dive into the numbers that Trump got in 2024, um, among the Jewish vote, and I think he got around 45% ultimately, even though a lot of the exit polls had some insane, you know, Kamala got 70% nonsense.

I, it's still nowhere near enough, but it's a giant jump, and you see it in Florida too.

Jews in Florida are voting for Republicans at much higher rates than ever before.

Are you optimistic, or do you think we're gonna see a blue tsunami, a blue tide, whatever you would, uh, use as your metaphorical device?

Mm-hmm.

But in general, conservative, very conservative community.

So we all don- didn't understand why Jews who had been in America for generations were liberal, and the thing is that they are just in a safety and security that they've never had challenged until now.

And I have to say, I have seen movement in the Jewish vote.

I, I looked, I did a dee- deep dive into the numbers that Trump got in 2024, um, among the Jewish vote, and I think he got around 45% ultimately, even though a lot of the exit polls had some insane, you know, Kamala got 70% nonsense.

I- it's still nowhere near enough, but it's a giant jump, and you see it in Florida, too.

Jews in Florida are voting for Republicans at much higher rates than ever before.

Are you optimistic, or do you think we're gonna see a blue tsunami, a blue tide, whatever you would, uh, use as your metaphorical device?

Yeah, tell us about this, please, Carol.

So she's saying this as if she has moved on from these positions and she explained to us that actually she does want to fund the police department and that she does think it's okay to have prisons and she doesn't believe that you can change your gender just because you say so.

But she hasn't clarified any of that.

Where is her... kind of explanation of what she believes and what changed for her and how come we're supposed to believe her after all that she's done.

I mean, how about the cancel culture that she ushered in in the early 2020s? You know, if you had the wrong opinion, if you didn't align with AOC exactly on everything, you got canceled.

And now she's saying, oh, that was just woke one.

It was such a crazy time.

He said it,

just

it's ill thought out and it's just ineffective.

I mean, just the PETA tear tax, for example.

I think the PETA tear tax is a terrible idea.

It's going to push out the people who can leave the easiest.

I mean, all of that.

But then the way that they did it, where they ran everybody's information publicly and they Completely got it wrong where a judge had to step in and say, you have to stop this.

Yes.

Yeah

... you know, Palestinian flag.

It's sometimes the Ukrainian flag.

It's definitely the gay pride flag.

If I ha- if I did see American flags, they were sometimes upside down in Park Slope.

But yeah, that's where bad ideas are bred by people who don't have to live with the consequences of those bad ideas, and they spread all over the country.

Like, what we're seeing right now with these communists winning different, uh, elections, it's a, it's a real problem, and those bad ideas, I mean, they began in, like, places like the Soviet Union, but they are spread by people, like people who live in Park Slope, who don't feel the consequences of those actions.

"And as long as those are the rules, that's how we're gonna do this." And then people say, "Well, we're just not gonna enforce those rules," and they turn into a big mess, and then they ask, "What's your problem?"

[laughs]

... you know, Palestinian flag.

It's sometimes the Ukrainian flag.

It's definitely the gay pride flag.

If I ha- if I did see American flags, they were sometimes upside down in Park Slope.

But yeah, that's where bad ideas are bred, by people who don't have to live with the consequences of those bad ideas, and they spread all over the country.

Like, what we're seeing right now with these communists winning different, uh, elections, it's a, it's a real problem, and those bad ideas, I mean, they began in, like, places like the Soviet Union, but they are spread by people, like people who live in Park Slope, who don't feel the consequences of those actions.

"And as long as those are the rules, that's how we're gonna do this." And then people say, "Well, we're just not gonna enforce those rules," and they turn into a big mess, and then they ask, "What's your problem?"

It's a beautiful district, hardworking people that, um, that are, that are unfortunately tired of seeing what's happening in Washington, DC.

And I'm Carol Markowitz.

I've got the final word on the Fox News Rundown.

[news music]

What's on your mind?

Chicago, Chicago, that toddling town, or it was some time ago when Frank Sinatra sang about it.

Now it's in the throes of something called the trans femicide state of emergency, according to Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, with no time for a little toddling around the dance floor Posting to his X account, Johnson announced in all apparent seriousness, "Since declaring a trans femicide state of emergency, our administration has strengthened the city's capacity to support LGBTQ+ Chicagoans.

The city," he continued, "is centering the voices and lived experiences of trans Chicagoans to chart a path towards a safer, more connected city." Trans femicide is the targeted killing of a transgender woman motivated by transphobic and misogynistic hatred.

And now and now how is there a way to change this? Do we have to show up in greater numbers? What's happening like in Chicago to elect a guy like this?

Yeah, look, I mean, the thing is that these are one-party towns.

I mentioned it in the piece, but there's been no Republican leadership in years and years.

The last Republican was in the 1970s.

The last Chicago Republican mayor was in the 1930s.

I mean, these are one-party towns.

So when they have these problems, they can't blame anybody but themselves.

Right.

I'm just saying if, in self-awareness, if you're getting it from everywhere, I just wonder at some point how you explain that.

Yeah.

Well, Israeli PR, if I could write three books about how bad that's been over the course of my life, uh, you know, that's very easy to do.

But I would say that it is an op more often than it's not.

It might not be directly the people you're hearing from are paid by Qatar or that kind of thing, but they are... those entities are paying influencers who get into the ears of young people.

If a young person's listening to this and you think Israel's your biggest problem, like, that's an issue.

And the thing is that from the right, we have to be wary that it's the left infiltrating our side.

This issue, I think from both sides, it's not handled in a way that really engenders any type of sobriety.

Yeah, I don't believe it.

I literally can't believe it.

It really does feel like we're snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

We had such a good run in Iran, and it makes no sense that we're pulling out the way that we are.

The only thing that I would say that has made any sense to me on this issue is that Donald Trump said today that we were four weeks away from oil reserves running out for the whole world.

Okay, that makes a little bit of sense why he is rushing this and why it has to be now and why all of that has to happen.

But how do you not plan ahead for that eventuality when getting into this war? So for the supporters like me of this effort, I can't say that I thought about what our oil reserves looked like, but I was hoping that was somebody's job to pay attention to that and to get us to a place where we didn't have to worry about that as our men and women are in the field and with their lives at stake, that we wouldn't be concerned about things like that.

Exactly.

... through this great piece, please.

So there's so many issues with this guy, even before we get to the latest story.

I mean, you either like his Nazi tattoo or you're willing to ignore it for the sake of political power.

That's where Democrats are right now.

He's also, he's commented on Nazi helmets and rifles while posting on Reddit and saying how cool they were and how interested he was in them.

It's, it's not a coincidence.

This guy has some weird tendencies, but beyond that, he's not this working class everyman that they're pretending he is.

this Platner guy," right?

Walk us through the story you wrote in the Post, and why you think this is an important part of the, part of the narrative to address.

Hi, Grace.

Thanks so much for having me on.

Well, I think, like you said, the fact that this just isn't being covered correctly by so many mainstream outlets is, is a big problem, and the fact that this keeps happening.

Trans people have been committing mass murders at an-- a large uptick in numbers of that, and that's concerning because the argument that the right has been making, and I think correctly, is that declaring yourself transgender, saying that, "I was born in the wrong body," is actually a mental health crisis.

And the medical field has joined together to embrace that argument and say, "Oh, if you think you're born in the wrong body, we will cut off li-- you know, body parts from you and try to change your biological sex." That's not possible.

So, yeah, I don't think it's kind that the medical e- establishment has allowed this to go on, and I think we're seeing the result of really sick people not getting the treatment they need, having real problems that are not addressed because the, the, the idea is, if we solve this gender dysphoria by trying to make them the op- opposite gender, everything will be fine.

No parent wants to hear that.

Um, to me, there has been, and this is why I talk about the trans stuff in the chapter on menticide in the book, there has been a transgender agenda that is menticidal with respect to how they insist that people say the most insane things, or they will go crazy and sometimes even become very violent, as we know.

Right.

You have to say it, the words, and you have to say them in the right way, and you need to parrot the, the line that the left's feeding you.

We also had this in our book because it's a, it's a sign of totalitarianism.

It's, it's what totalitarian societies do.

They push one note, one voice, that you must speak with, and when somebody doesn't, when the J.K. Rowlings of the world step out of line, they're shunned in such a, a, a really nasty, horrible way that they're really taken out of their own society.

It's, it's a really terrible situation, and the fact is that we're getting to the point where we could see who was right and who was wrong, and, uh, that's really what we wanna be hoping for here, that this kind of thing comes to an end, that children aren't mutilated anymore, that this kind of thing isn't pushed in our schools.

They've used so much power to force this on us, and yet no person who can be held accountable will actually stand forth and subject themselves to debate an argument on this subject.

Um, to me, there has been, and this is why I talk about the trans stuff in the chapter on menticide in the book, there has been a transgender agenda that is menticidal with respect to how they insist that people say the most insane things, or they will go crazy and sometimes even become very violent, as we know.

Right.

You have to say it, the words, and you have to say them in the right way, and you need to parrot the, the line that the left's feeding you.

We also had this in our book because it's a, it's a sign of totalitarianism.

It's, it's what totalitarian societies do.

They push one note, one voice, that you must speak with, and when somebody doesn't, when the J.K. Rowlings of the world step out of line, they're shunned in such a, a, a really nasty, horrible way that they're really taken out of their own society.

It's, it's a really terrible situation, and the fact is that we're getting to the point where we could see who was right and who was wrong, and, and th- that's really what we wanna be hoping for here, that this kind of thing comes to an end, that children aren't mutilated anymore, that this kind of thing isn't pushed in our schools.

They've used so much power to force this on us, and yet no person who can be held accountable will actually stand forth and subject themselves to debate an argument on this subject.

President, we're all Republicans." So if we could only go back to a time where that's how people felt about our leader, uh, and about fellow Americans, I think we'd be in much better shape.

Well, your upcoming book is Therapy Nation, due out in May.

Jonathan Alpert, psychotherapist in New York City and in DC, thank you very much for your time.

What's on your mind?

Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger was sworn in just a few weeks ago, but the tornado of bad policy is already swirling around her state.

Spanberger's very first order of business was reversing Governor Glenn Youngkin's Executive Order forty-seven, which had allowed for coordination between the Virginia State Police and the Department of Corrections and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

That coordination was important because it allowed the federal and state governments to cooperate to remove people in the country illegally who had committed additional crimes.

That it was necessary for Spanberger to make it harder to deport criminals is a tell that her moderate campaign commercials will instead translate into a much further left administration.