Stoner King Trump

Plus: Universal childcare, Canada's abortion industry, the new media personality cults, and more...

Schedule III: President Donald Trump is soon expected to push for the federal reclassification of marijuana.

"Trump discussed the plan with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) in a Wednesday phone call from the Oval Office, said four of the people, who, like the others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly," reports The Washington Post. "The president is expected to seek to ease access to the drug through an upcoming executive order that directs federal agencies to pursue reclassification, the people said."

Cannabis advocates have long hoped for this. Reclassifying marijuana, bringing it down to Schedule III from Schedule I (drugs with "high potential for abuse" and "no currently accepted medical use"—so, not cannabis) would allow for fewer barriers to research and to more legal businesses springing up, as well as less harassment by the authorities.

"We're looking at [reclassification]. Some people like it, some people hate it," Trump said over the summer. "Some people hate the whole concept of marijuana because it does bad for the children, it does bad for the people that are older than children." Now it seems that, for whatever reason (maybe looking for an easy public-sentiment win?), the idea is back on the table (timing unclear). This is the blessing and the curse of Trump: You never really know which idea is going to pop in his mind and stick there and become quickly enacted, or when he'll embrace his sleeper libertarian tendencies.

Trump, of course, can't unilaterally decide this, but he "can direct the Justice Department to forgo a pending administrative court hearing and issue the final rule," reports the Post. 

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Scenes from New York: "Universal child care need not be a pipe dream in America—something we envy the Danes and the Swedes for, but never imagine having for ourselves," writes Rachel Cohen Booth for The New York Times. "It can and should be as fundamental to a city's infrastructure as transit or housing, as essential for attracting workers and residents as any investment a mayor can make."

I disagree on a principles level—it's not clear to me why other taxpayers need to subsidize my family's choices or why relatively high-earners should be subsidized by the state, given practical funding realities—and Cohen Booth is far more optimistic than I could ever be about whether Zohran Mamdani's program will be possible to implement and well-designed. Bill de Blasio was rather explicit when rolling out universal pre-school for 4-year-olds (later expanded to 3-year-olds too) that "anything that has a broad constituency will also have more sustainability." This appears to be part of Mamdani's thinking, and perhaps more broadly behind the rise in universal everything from vast swaths of the left. But the $6 billion price tag is going to be hard to handle—especially for Albany—and Mamdani's expectation that child care workers be brought up to pay parity with public schoolteachers seems unrealistic.

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QUICK HITS

• "Through video, we get to know our pundits the same way we engage with influencers, and the more we are convinced by their multimedia performances the more readily we join their podcasting personality cults," writes The New Yorker's Kyle Chayka. "Increasingly, this world of digital broadcasting is embroiled in slow-burning rivalries and rhetorical fights, a Marvel universe of independent opinion-givers."
• "China is considering a package of incentives worth as much as $70 billion to bankroll and support its chipmaking industry, pouring more state money into a sector it deems pivotal to its technological conflict with the US," reports Bloomberg. "Officials are deliberating proposals to earmark a package of subsidies and other financing support in the range of 200 billion yuan ($28 billion) to 500 billion yuan, people familiar with the matter said, asking to remain anonymous to discuss private talks. The final details of those incentives, exact amounts and target companies are still getting worked out, the people added."
• Oral exams are back.
• "The far right is powered by left-wing illiberalism and hypocrisy," writes Reason's Stephanie Slade in a must-read piece.
• "The United States on Thursday issued new sanctions on Venezuela's oil sector and on members of President Nicolás Maduro's family, while taking steps to keep tens of millions of dollars' worth of oil from a large tanker that U.S. forces seized off the country's coast," reports The New York Times.
• Long, worthwhile piece in First Things on a pregnant woman who went undercover in Canada to investigate their abortion industry.
• This is big:

INDIANA STATE SENATE has rejected redistricting.

19-31.

TRUMP's push for a 9-0 map failed. Big defeat for the Trump administration.

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) December 11, 2025