{ "trimmed": "The 1600 May 5, 2026 The Big ©️ Good morning, I've got a little housekeeping to get through today. Thing 1: We're due for a mailbag episode, methinks. If you've got a question about anything in the news, or anything we've been yapping about here, send it in (my email is below) and Mickey will dive into the horror show that is my inbox to collect them for a coming pod. Doesn't even have to be about politics. I'll answer anything, as long as it's a thoughtful question. Ex: Do the Knicks have the best offense in the NBA right now? (Answer: Unequivocally yes). Thing 2: I have cancer. Sorry to hit you all with that out of nowhere, but I figured I'm an open book about everything else so I might as well be about this, too. It's in my kidneys and was discovered incidentally on an MRI a few weeks ago. The good news is the doc believes he can get the tumors out in a single surgery. I have it scheduled at the end of the month, and I may be out of commission for a bit as I recover. But I'm feeling OK about the whole thing, so we don't need to make a big deal about it. No need to send your sympathies, but if you do, please at least add a question for the mailbag. I think that's the first time I've written that. It feels weird. Cancer. Does this make me a cancer patient? Assuming I'm fine, does that make me a cancer survivor? I always thought the idea of \"beating\" cancer was trite, but easy to say that when you don't have it, I guess. It has been a bit hard to focus on the inanities of the news cycle with these things growing in my body, though, so if you notice me making less sense than usual, blame it on the Big C. My theory that your body starts to betray you the minute you turn 40 keeps holding up. Anyway. There's an under-covered story I wanted to highlight briefly today, in the absence of a big \"take\" or thesis on the war or whatnot. (Here's my piping hot Iran take: It's a self-inflicted disaster and Trump should declare victory and go home). I'm talking about Volodymyr Zelensky. If we can declare anyone to be a \"winner\" of this clusterf-ck, one could argue Ukraine would be it. Zelensky has been very deft in his handling of the war, flying to the Gulf to offer support and expertise to the GCCs on how to combat Iran's drone program, since he's got four years of battlefield knowledge
