It’s Monday, September 28. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Inside the 50,000-person ceremony for the man who could become America’s next saint. Arthur Brooks on whether adult children have a duty to care for their aging parents. River Page meets Rachel Dolezal. And much more.
But first: Audrey Fahlberg talks to the man trying to salvage the midterms for the GOP.
Gas and diesel prices are at electorally dangerous levels. The U.S. is locked in a prolonged and unpopular war with Iran. And if you believe the polls, Donald Trump’s approval ratings are at record lows. No wonder some vulnerable Republican candidates are distancing themselves from the president in the final stretch of the 2026 midterm campaign.
And yet, the man leading Republicans’ 2026 midterm strategy, former deputy White House chief of staff James Blair, told me that the GOP’s electoral prospects aren’t anywhere near as dire as the polls or the party skeptics suggest.
“I don’t think there will be a blue wave at all,” he said, in an exclusive sit-down interview in his office. This isn’t a presidential contest, he emphasized, but rather “trench warfare” over a scattering of really close races. The idea of a “massive swing” for the Democrats just doesn’t track with what he’s seeing, he told me.
Wishful thinking, or the hard-nosed assessment of one of the most respected strategists in the GOP? Read my interview with a man who, in his words, usually avoids journalistic profiles “like the plague,” and judge for yourself. —Audrey Fahlberg
The Man Who Could Become America’s Next Saint
Last week, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen was beatified—the penultimate step in the Catholic Church on the path to sainthood. If Sheen takes the final step, he’ll find himself among just 11 Americans ever recognized as a saint. Sheen was one of the most famous priests in America, having pioneered a new form of mass evangelization in the 1950s that drew an audience of 30 million people a week. He became eligible for beatification because a miracle was attributed to him: In 2010, a stillborn baby’s heart began beating after the parents prayed for Sheen’s intercession.
I spent last week in St. Louis, Missouri, where 50,000 Catholics turned out to celebrate a man who died years before most of them were born. In a Church deeply divided by liturgy and politics, why was Sheen able to bring them together? Read my dispatch to find out. —Madeleine Long
MORE FROM THE FREE PRESS
THE NEWS
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A nor’easter battered the East Coast over the weekend, flooding coastal New York and New Jersey, killing one person in Brooklyn, and knocking out power for tens of thousands across the Northeast. Both states declared emergencies, with more rain and flooding expected through Monday before the storm weakens later this week.
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British counterterrorism police arrested five men early Sunday on suspicion of planning a terrorist act, after three vehicles were reported heading toward an English air base that U.S. bombers have used for strikes on Iran. More than 80 nearby households were evacuated while bomb disposal teams examined the vans.
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A day after rejecting Iran’s latest peace proposal, President Trump said on Sunday that he expects more talks with Tehran this week, with mediators saying indirect negotiations could resume as early as Monday. Also on Sunday, Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said that Iran is ready for either renewed fighting or diplomacy, and that the choice rests with Trump.
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The White House dropped CNN from the press pool covering Trump’s Saturday trip to a college football game in Knoxville, Tennessee, even though the network had been scheduled to fly aboard Air Force One. The move follows a judge’s order last week temporarily restoring White House access to CNN, MS NOW, and Politico after the president banned the outlets. (For more on the White House press ban, read our editorial and Jed Rubenfeld’s legal analysis.)
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On Sunday, the Trump administration aired the third in a series of taxpayer-funded ads that prominently feature imagery and rhetoric from the 2024 campaign. Democratic members of Congress and ethics officials have raised concerns that the ads—which the White House has characterized as public service announcements—are political advertisements and may therefore violate federal law.
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At least 27 people were killed in two separate mass shootings in South Africa over the weekend, including in an attack Saturday night in which eight gunmen opened fire at a bar west of Johannesburg, killing 17. Hours later, gunmen killed 10 more at an entertainment venue outside Cape Town; no arrests have been made in either attack.
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Two giant pandas, Ping Ping and Fu Shuang, arrived at Zoo Atlanta on Sunday on a 10-year loan, days after Chinese president Xi Jinping promised to send “envoys of friendship” while visiting the White House. Xi’s trip, his first to the White House in over a decade, came amid strained relations over trade and Chinese military activity around Taiwan and the Pacific.
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Roughly 800,000 people crowded the Champs-Élysées in Paris on Saturday for an open-air Mass led by Pope Leo XIV, the first pope to visit France in almost 20 years. The turnout, far exceeding the 600,000 who registered, was a striking show of faith in a nation where church attendance has long been falling.
