POLITICS: How Trump reclaims the narrative, a Medicaid fix worth $$$ and other commentary

From the right: How Don Reclaims the Narrative

“The past month has seen the Trump team on the back foot,” but if Trump can “use the 100-day mark” of his presidency “to double-down on Trump 1.0,” he can turn the narrative around, urges The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley A. Strassel. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Signal scandal “gave a circling press corps the opening it had been salivating for,” and Trump decided to turn tariffs “into a real, live bomb and the center of his economic policy.” “Trump’s first-term success came largely down to his Reaganesque agenda,” but in recent years, he’s drawn closer “to his party’s new breed of uber-populists and neoisolationists.” “To get back to a winning message,” Trump should revive “the free-market agenda of his own first term.”

Eye on NY: A Medicaid Fix Worth $$$

“A glitch in state insurance law” has allowed doctors to collect Medicaid fees hundreds of times higher than normal, fumes the Empire Center’s Bill Hammond. Gov. Hochul has wanted “to close this loophole,” but the Legislature has resisted her fix. Under a 2015 law, “out-of-network emergency providers can no longer bill the patient for amounts left unpaid by insurance. Instead, providers can seek higher reimbursement from the health plan.” The result? “A powerful incentive” for “emergency room doctors and orthopedic surgeons” to “refuse to join Medicaid managed care provider networks.” If lawmakers want to shield Medicaid recipients from federal cuts, closing this “needlessly expensive” loophole is a “relatively painless step to take.”

Conservative: Bring on AOC!

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is “going to run for president, and she will be a top-tier candidate on the Democrat side, which says a great deal more about the expected 2028 field than it does about AOC,” snarks The American Spectator’s Scott McKay. She’s “the only potential Democrat candidate for 2028 who can sell out a decent-sized basketball/concert arena.” She’s also Bernie Sanders’ candidate: “He’s bringing her around the country on something called the ‘Fight Oligarchy Tour,’ which is hilarious given that the chosen method of travel is . . . private jets.” In other words, “She’s exactly the candidate — a distaff George McGovern in a baggy boyfriend shirt — the Democrats need to run in order to fully blow up their party along the lines of the James Carville–David Hogg war.”

Speech desk: The Global Censorship Complex

“In Munich this year, Vice President JD Vance confronted the Europeans over their attacks on free speech,” notes Jonathan Turley at Fox News. Yet “as the European Union ramps up its long-standing campaign against free speech, it is increasingly calling upon Americans to make the case against both free speech and the United States.” Witness disgraced Biden propagandist Nina Jankowicz, appearing before the European Parliament where she “called upon the 27 EU countries to fight against the United States, which she called a world threat.” But “these ‘defenders of democracy’ are advocating for precisely what they are condemning in seeking greater state controls over speech and individual rights.” “The new diaspora of disgruntled American liberals and censors will find eager European audiences to hear their tales of woe.”

Hate watch: Gotham Must Better Protect Jews

“It’s clear that New York needs to do a better job protecting its Jewish residents,” thunders Franziska Sittig at City Journal. “In February, four Jews were attacked within three days in New York City.” How? “One group, the Community [Security] Initiative, has shown the way. The private task force has monitored anti-Semitic threats and foiled would-be attackers, providing a model for the city and other communities to follow.” Headed by former NYPD intel director Mitch Silber, it “tracks and disrupts anti-Semitic activity,” as such threats “have grown in number and intensity — not just in New York, but across the country.” “The need for programs like CSI that proactively defend Jews has become more urgent.” This group, “with its law-enforcement-focused approach, offers a blueprint for communities to follow.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Page