Still the Kingmaker: Power Behind the Crown

Darline Graham clinches the GOP Senate primary in South Carolina: In South Carolina, Darline Graham—the sister of the recently deceased Lindsey Graham—outpaced rivals to secure the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate, despite a relative lack of political seasoning. Observers attributed part of her win to the forceful push from President Donald Trump and his vigorous endorsement.

“Despite being a political unknown, Graham bested some of South Carolina’s top political names in the special election spun up after Lindsey Graham’s sudden death last month,” reports the Associated Press. “She was appointed by Gov. Henry McMaster to serve out the remaining months of her late brother’s current term and swiftly won an endorsement from Trump, who encouraged her to enter the race for a full term and campaigned for her in the state last week.”

Graham has positioned herself rather beautifully as a sycophant. She has “repeatedly stressed to voters her intent to support Trump’s policy positions and often referenced in particular her co-sponsorship of a voting bill that’s become a key priority for the president,” notes the A.P. It turns out Trump can still be a kingmaker, and pledging fealty to him is seen as the price of admission in several key races. It’s impressive that someone with so little political experience was able to beat sitting U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman, but I suppose that’s just the power of MAGA.

Surrogacy case divides: Baby Gabriel, or baby Rumi—depending on who you ask—was brought into the world earlier this month with a serious congenital heart defect diagnosed during a 20-week scan. He has since undergone the first of multiple surgeries expected in childhood and is currently recovering in a Texas hospital. However, the question of who his legal parents are remains unsettled. Gabriel/Rumi was born through a surrogate, McKenna West, who flew from Alaska to Texas for the birth. The child’s biological parents, Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed of Los Angeles, had requested that West terminate the pregnancy when the heart condition was detected, as stipulated by their surrogacy arrangement. West declined.

“Upon learning this devastating news [the hypoplastic left heart syndrome diagnosis], A.B. [Omar Ahmed, the intended father] and C.D. [Nausheen Gilkar, the intended mother] consulted with health care providers and researched the quality of life associated with this dire diagnosis to understand the future their child faced. After thoughtfully doing so, they made the agonizing and difficult decision to terminate the pregnancy,” wrote the intended parents’ attorney in a court filing. “It is undisputed that West initially agreed and that she herself made the initial appointment.”

Then, the story took a turn: “West alleged Ahmed and Gilkar pressured her to have an abortion against her wishes and refused to commit to providing life-saving care for the baby, should it be born, according to court documents,” CNN reports. “Ahmed and Gilkar say West cut off communication with them shortly after agreeing to terminate the pregnancy. Then, rather than pressuring West to have an abortion, they said they pivoted to arranging medical care for the baby in California, the documents state.”

West, a nurse with two children of her own, had relocated to Texas temporarily so she could give birth in a facility equipped to care for Gabriel/Rumi. Her case has drawn intense attention from right-leaning media and prompted support from Live Action and the Alliance Defending Freedom to secure legal representation. “They were treating her baby like a product,” Live Action’s Lila Rose told The New York Times. “The product had a defect, and so they were trying to send it back.” Ahmed and Gilkar appear to be seeking custody now and have reportedly agreed to cover medical costs, while also suing West for damages.

Scenes from New York: The administration of Mayor Zohran Mamdani has faced harsh criticism after bungling the rollout of the pied-à-terre tax. “Last month, the Finance Department sent notices to about 17,000 property owners suggesting they could be subject to the levy—aimed at high-end pieds-à-terre—unless they could prove the unit was their primary residence,” the Times reports. The measure would apply to second-home condos and co-ops valued at $1 million or more, as well as single-family homes worth at least $5 million. The complication: a new lawsuit contends the city created confusion by sending those 17,000 notices before verifying whether the properties were genuinely nonresidential, and by releasing a list of nearly one million ‘properties that may be subject to the charge’ that included the owners’ names.

QUICK HITS

• “To almost everyone in this world, outside the AI bubble of Silicon Valley, the idea of scooping up property rights outside of Earth might sound improbable. But in [Leopold] Aschenbrenner’s world, that sort of fervent belief was among the reasons the 24-year-old investor was hailed as a visionary,” write Berber Jin, Ben Cohen, and Anissa Gardizy for The Wall Street Journal. “Since graduating from Columbia University in 2021 as the class valedictorian at age 19, he has worked his way into the upper echelons of technology. He spent time working out of now-convicted crypto founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s compound in the Bahamas and then at OpenAI in San Francisco. Even as he drew attention as a troublemaker among some of his bosses, according to people who worked with him, he grew close to the industry’s top players. Two years ago, he made bold predictions about the impending arrival of superintelligence, writing in a 165-page manifesto called ‘Situational Awareness’ that AI would lead to one of the ‘most intense and volatile moments of human history.’ He quickly turned that interest into money for a hedge fund that eventually managed $45 billion in assets, backed by investors who believed in his prophecy—or his ability to profit from it.”
• Speaking of The Wall Street Journal: That Stanley Druckenmiller piece I quoted from yesterday? Apparently it was AI-written. The interesting thing is that neither Druckenmiller nor his editor appear to care all that much:

In a statement, WSJ opinion editor Paul Gigot defends Druckenmiller’s use of AI to write Monday’s op ed, saying “AI is a fact of modern life,” and “nobody can doubt that his op-ed is his genuine opinion.” https://t.co/p6Sueft0EW pic.twitter.com/a7WcJIOkeX

— Max Tani (@maxwelltani) August 25, 2026

• Semi-related: Are whole books disappearing from middle- and high-school curricula, replaced by excerpts? The Washington Post has more. I’ve got to say: I hate this. Building some intellectual stamina and discipline, not to mention being able to grasp deeper themes, seems really important. I’m sure most kids don’t read all the books they’re assigned, but keeping standards reasonably high strikes me as important.
• “Two people have died in Pennsylvania from measles, the state health department said Tuesday. Both individuals from Lancaster County were unvaccinated,” reports ABC News. “These [are] the first deaths related to measles within the state in 35 years, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Health, and the first deaths reported this year in the U.S.”
• Interesting point:

Everyone knows there hasn’t been some kind of big jobs wipeout yet. But there’s less appreciation of the fact that the job market (by most metrics) has improved noticeably in 2026, with the unemployment rate falling from 4.5% late last year to 4.1% as of the most recent report.

— Joe Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) August 25, 2026

• RIP Dolly:

After less than a month as President, Ronald Reagan watches Dolly Parton at Camp David in “9 to 5” on Valentine’s Day 1981, and writes one complaint into his diary: pic.twitter.com/VuaZ55y9Eq

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) August 25, 2026