Forced his hand?

Reader question:

Please explain “forced his hand” in this headline: Man Admits Guilt in Phone Theft, Claims Gang Debt Forced His Hand.

My comments:

In court, a man admits to stealing a phone. He claims that he was compelled to do it in order to pay off a debt he owes to the gang he’s in.

He’s trying use the debt he owes to other members of the gang as an excuse for stealing.

That may be a good excuse, but perhaps not good enough to get him off the hook.

Off the hook of the law, that is.

I mean, a sympathetic judge may forgive him for this, especially if he’s a first-time offender. But that has to be a very sympathetic judge because the law is the law, and nobody is allowed to steal because they have a debt to pay.

Well, anyways, let’s talk about “forced his hand”.

Forcing someone’s hand is an expression that finds its origin in bridge, the card game. Here, “hand” refers to the cards a player holds in his HAND.

Specifically, “hand” in “forced his hand” refers to trump cards or the big cards that trump other cards.

Usually, one saves some of the trump cards for the last moments, when winning or losing is decided. If you use all of your trump cards too early, you’ll be bereft of weapons in the end, and that may lead to helpless losses.

“Trump”, after all, comes from “triumph”, and that means, at the end of the day, trumps cards are supposed to bring triumphs, i.e. wins and victories.

Your opponent, on the other hand (no pun intended), will try every trick to make you use your trump cards early, and, when that happens, you may say after the game: “I should’ve saved my trump cards for the end game, but they forced my hand.”

By that, you mean to say you’re compelled to use them early even though you are really reluctant to do so.

In other words, it’s not something you normally do.

In our example, he who steals the phone says exactly that. He’s got a debt to pay off. Otherwise, he would not have resorted to stealing.

All right, here are media examples of forcing someone’s hand, compelling them to do something they don’t really want to do, especially not so soon:

1. Hurdling superstar Sally Pearson has no regrets after calling time on one of the greatest Australian sporting careers, acknowledging that her battered body can take no more punishment.

The 32-year-old won gold in the 100m hurdles at the 2012 London Olympics and is a two-time world champion.

She had dreamed of ending her career in spectacular style next year at the Tokyo Olympics, only for constant injury setbacks to force her hand.

“It’s probably been a hard slog in particular from the London Olympics to now with my injury issues which are just ongoing and ongoing,” Pearson told reporters on Tuesday.

“Every time I want to go fast the body doesn’t want to.

“I don’t think I could take any more injuries and I have huge doubts for the next year for me to be able to continue at the level that I expect of myself and also what the country expect of me when I go to the Olympics.

“It’s been a wonderful ride... there’s nothing I can be disappointed about.

“It’s disappointing that I can’t go to another Olympics but if I could I’d go to an Olympics every single year.”

Pearson missed the 2015 world championships and 2016 Rio Olympics due to injury before making a remarkable comeback in 2017 when she coached herself to gold at the world titles in London.

But the curse struck again the following year, with a serious achilles problem forcing her to pull out of her hometown Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast.

Pearson said she had suffered half a dozen injuries in 2019 alone; to her quad, calf, hamstring, knee and achilles as she tried desperately to make it to the start line for the world titles beginning in Doha in late September.

- Injuries force Pearson into retirement, SBS.com.au, August 6, 2019.

2. As more and more reports come out that President Biden’s colleagues are telling him that he cannot win reelection, “The View” host Sunny Hostin is starting to think those reports are intentional. According to the ABC host, it could be an attempt to “force his hand.”

To kick off Thursday morning’s episode of the show, host Joy Behar admitted that, at this point, she actually is starting to believe that Biden will drop out.

She’s largely believed that he wouldn’t and shouldn’t up to this point – and has gotten upset over the “Biden bashing” that’s been happening by the media – but now that Nancy Pelosi has reportedly voiced her concerns to Biden, Behar thinks the end of his campaign might truly be near.

Hostin wasn’t sure one way or the other in terms of what Biden will decide, but she did voice her discontent at how that decision is being handled.

“I will say this, it’s his decision to make. It seems to me that these behind-the-scenes meetings, that should be private, are being leaked intentionally to sort of force his hand,” she said. “I think that’s disrespectful to the president, I think it’s disrespectful to the office.”

- ‘The View’: Sunny Hostin Thinks Private Convos With Biden Are Being Leaked to ‘Force His Hand’ Into Stepping Down, TheWrap.com, July 18, 2024.

3. In a stunning on-air moment that shook the foundations of broadcast journalism, veteran “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley closed Sunday’s broadcast with a powerful tribute – and a pointed rebuke. The resignation of longtime producer Bill Owens, after nearly four decades with CBS News, was not just a professional goodbye; it was a rallying cry for the embattled independence of one of America’s most iconic news programs.

Owens’ departure comes at a time of immense corporate turmoil. As Paramount, the parent company of CBS, pushes to complete a major merger that requires approval from the Trump administration, editorial independence at “60 Minutes” has come under unexpected scrutiny.

In a memo obtained by Fox News Digital, Owens made it clear: it wasn’t resigning from the job he loved that forced his hand, but the creeping influence over editorial choices that violated the core principles he had spent a career defending.

“Over the past months, it has also become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it,” Owens wrote. His message resonated not only as a personal lament but as a cautionary tale about the fragile state of journalistic freedom in an era when corporate mergers collide with political power plays.

Scott Pelley, a consummate journalist himself, did not mince words. He praised Owens as a man driven “to open minds, not close them,” someone whose leadership inspired fierce loyalty. But he also openly acknowledged the dark cloud hanging over the newsroom: the new forms of content supervision that, while not outright censorship, undermined the independence that “60 Minutes” had long held sacred.

Paramount’s entanglement with a $20 billion lawsuit filed by former President Donald Trump only raises the stakes higher. Trump accuses CBS of election interference, alleging deceptive editing of an interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris during the crucial weeks leading up to the 2024 election.

While Paramount has agreed to mediation – a signal that a financial settlement may be imminent – the mere perception of “bending the knee” has set off alarm bells about corporate America’s willingness to compromise journalistic integrity under political pressure.

In a powerful closing line, Pelley left no room for doubt about the newsroom’s sentiment: “No one here is happy about it, but in resigning, Bill proved one thing. He was the right person to lead ’60 Minutes’ all along.”

- '60 Minutes’ Gives Statement After Producer Resigns, RedRightDaily.com, April 28, 2025.

本文仅代表作者本人观点，与本网立场无关。欢迎大家讨论学术问题，尊重他人，禁止人身攻击和发布一切违反国家现行法律法规的内容。

About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.

（作者：张欣）