The Consumer Price Index for the 12 months ending January was up 2.4%, after a CPI of 2.7% in December, the Labor Department reports. Month-over-month inflation was +0.2%, with shelter the largest factor, also up 0.2%. Food prices rose 0.2% and food away from home rose 0.1%, while energy prices were down 1.5% for the month. [CHART: Bureau of Labor Statistics]

Homeland Shutdown – The US is left with a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security this weekend as Capitol Hill lawmakers skipped town Thursday after failing to secure an agreement on appropriations before its two-week extension runs out. Both Senate and House are scheduled to be on recess next week, with bipartisan negotiations on an immigration plan to continue in the meantime, CQ Roll Call reports. If leaders of both chambers reach a deal, Congress members will have 48 hours notice to return for a vote.

With $70 billion in separate funding included in President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency will not soon be affected. 

The Senate on Thursday fell short of the 60 votes needed to pass the House appropriations bill for Homeland Security, 52-47, with Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) the only Democrat to vote with Republicans, and Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) flipping to a “no” to allow him to consider the spending bill at a later time, according to Roll Call.

•••

Airing Grievances – President Trump has quashed yet another Obama-era policy, the Endangerment Finding that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses threaten public health and welfare. The Environmental Protection Agency Thursday is dropping adherence to the Endangerment Finding, allowing it to drop legal authority to regulate greenhouse gasses, NPR’s All Things Considered reports.

“Under President Trump’s leadership today, the Trump EPA has finalized the single largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States of America,” EPA administrator Lee Zeldin said at the White House, with Trump looking on.

The president says automakers now will be allowed to build bigger, better cars and trucks. The regulations pushed up new and used vehicle prices while hurting their drive quality, Trump suggests. 

While auto executives have long decried emissions and fuel economy standards, they are not about to abandon the years and $billions they have spent on cleaner, more fuel-efficient engines as well as electric and hybrid powertrains. What the new rules will do is allow them to sell a larger share of V-8- and six-cylinder-powered cars and trucks, which will spew higher levels of greenhouse gasses.

And the automakers will want to sell more of them, because V-8s and sixes generally are used in bigger, more expensive – and more profitable -- vehicles.

The new Trump-Zeldin EPA rule allows for 30-days public comment after publication in the Federal Register. Expect myriad lawsuits from environmental groups.

•••

Unemployment Rate Notches Down to 4.3% -- The US added 130,000 jobs in January, the Labor Department reported early this week. Employment in health care, social assistance and construction rose while the numbers for the federal government and financial activities fell. The 4.3% unemployment rate fell slightly from 4.4% in December. But the Labor Department later in the week downgraded its job growth numbers for all of 2025, from the 584,000 new jobs initially reported to just 181,000. That revised number for the whole year does make January’s number look even better. –TL

________________________________________________

THURSDAY 2/12/26

Kelly’s Rank Retained – US District Judge Richard Leon Thursday blocked efforts by the War/Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth-run Pentagon to censure Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and lower his retirement rank, The Hill reports, over a video in which he advises active service members they have a duty to reject unlawful orders. Kelly had sued the Pentagon after Hegseth initiated retirement grade determination proceedings against Kelly, a retired US Navy captain. 

Judge Leon, a George W. Bush appointee, acknowledged that active-duty military face free speech restrictions to preserve discipline, but retired veterans do not. The Pentagon’s actions “clearly pass the bar” for retaliation, Leon said in his ruling, and would chill the speech of other veterans. 

Early this week, a grand jury declined to indict Kelly and five other Democrats, Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, Reps. Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire and Jason Chow of Colorado, for their November video reminding active duty military they do not have to obey illegal orders (per TIME). 

The six Democratic lawmakers already are cashing in on this latest rebuke of the Justice Department’s attempted indictments against President Trump’s political enemies by building their campaign war chests, according to Politico.

•••

Johnson Sort of Reprimands DOJ – Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said Thursday the Justice Department should not track House members’ searches of the Epstein Files, The Hill reports.

“My understanding is that there are computers set up where the DOJ was allowing access to the files. And I think members obviously have the right to peruse those at their own speed and with their own discretion,” he told reporters. “I don’t think it’s appropriate for anybody to be tracking that. So, I will echo that to anybody involved with the DOJ. And I’m sure it was an oversight. That’s my guess, OK?”

•••

ICE Puddle – Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis is drawing down, Trump administration immigration czar Tom Homan told a presser Thursday morning, Minnesota Public Radio’s MPR News reports. 

“I have proposed, and President Trump has concurred, that this surge operation conclude,” Homan said. “A significant drawdown has been underway this week and will continue through next week.”

Homan addressed reporters at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in the Twin Cities, which has been the basis for immigration crackdown operations and houses a Department of Homeland Security facility used to detain people.

A small contingent of DHS personnel, including Homan, will remain to “close out and transition full command and control” to the Twin Cities fieldhouse of about 150 officers, he said. 

•••

Unfunding Security – The Senate is ready to skip town Thursday with no progress toward funding the Department of Homeland Security in time to avoid its partial shutdown Friday, CQ Roll Call reports. Requiring judicial warrants and the badging and de-masking of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers remain sticking points between Senate Democrats and Republicans. 

“As soon as we can strike a deal, we’ll vote on it,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said. “Until then, I don’t know if there is any point in keeping people around here, sitting around and doing nothing. I think it’s important that the people at the negotiating table double down, sharpen their pencils and strike a deal.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), said; “If they don’t propose something that’s strong, that reins in ICE, that ends the killing, don’t expect our votes.” 

•••

Roy Cohn Would be Proud – Attorney Gen. Pam Bondi appeared to be channeling Roy Cohn via Trump with her über-combative testimony before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday, where she arrived with an “opposition research” binder-full of attacks and insults. Bondi cited specific crimes in the districts of Democrats on the committee and reminded them of stock market performance under the second Trump administration, The Hill reports, while reminding them she considers Trump the best and most effective president in the history of the republic.

House members who viewed the latest tranche of Epstein Files with redactions removed at the Justice Department recently, were recorded by the department to keep track of which specific documents they studied, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) told NPR’s Morning Edition Thursday. They were not allowed to make copies, take pictures of or take notes on the files, she said.

At one point in the Judiciary Committee hearing, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) told Bondi he would “like to see you flip to the Jared Moscowitz section of the binder. I’m interested to see what staff provided on the opposition to me,” according to The Hill’s coverage.

Bondi refused to acknowledge at least 11 victims of Jeffrey Epstein assembled in the audience by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA). When pressed to apologize to them for redacting the names and information of men in the files while failing to redact their names and pictures, Bondi said she was sorry about the way Epstein treated them. 

Jayapal showed an email exchange between Epstein and another associate which concealed the identification of Epstein’s associate, then another file that publicly listed victims’ names.

Bondi said she would work to fix any improper redaction in files. But she asked why Biden administration Attorney Gen. Merrick Garland didn’t get this sort of scrutiny from lawmakers.

“This is bigger than Watergate,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) replied, adding that the Epstein scandal goes back at least four administrations, to Presidents Obama and George W. Bush. “This cover-up spans decades, you are responsible for this portion of it.”

As if Bondi needed to be any more solid with her boss, she accused Massie – a rare Republican congressmember who has been pushing back against the Trump administration – of “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

In an especially loud and angry exchange, Bondi called former constitutional law professor Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD); “You washed-up loser lawyer. You’re not even a lawyer.”

To Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY); “You’re about as good of a lawyer today as you were when you tried to impeach President Trump in 2016.” [Trump, who began his first term in 2017, was first impeached in 2019. And again in 2021.]

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) referred to Bondi as, “Our witness who somehow is a lawyer but does not understand how [testifying] works.” –TL

_____________________________________________

WEDNESDAY 2/11/26

UPDATE: Despite his name coming up in the Epstein Files, Casey Wasserman will remain chairman of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics Organizing Committee, the organization announced Wednesday (per USA Today).

The Truth is Out There – Peter Mandelson resigned from the Labour Party and the House of Lords, and in his role as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s ambassador to the US last week after the latest – last? – tranche of Epstein Files revealed that Mandelson leaked sensitive government documents to, and accepted money from, the late convicted child sex trafficker. 

And let’s not forget the Andrew formerly known as Prince, and Duke of York. The British certainly won’t.

Sources told The Wall Street Journal in an exclusive scoop that the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics organizing committee has called a meeting Wednesday to “address the status” of LA28 Chairman Casey Wasserman, whose name also has surfaced in the Epstein Files. Singer Chappell Roan and retired US women’s soccer star Abby Wambach both have announced they are no longer clients of Wasserman’s eponymous talent agency.

Meanwhile … Howard Lutnick remains in his role as the Trump administration’s commerce secretary, after the Epstein Files caught him out in a lie when he said a 2005 tour of Epstein’s home, next door to his in New York City, left Lutnick and his wife “disturbed.” It was their only formal meeting with the child sex trafficker, Lutnick maintained … before the latest tranche of files were released.

Those files show Lutnick and his wife, children and their nanny had lunch with Epstein on his private island in 2012, a year after Lutnick had a one-hour long engagement with Epstein at his home, according to The Associated Press.

Lutnick “remains a very important member of President Trump’s team,” White House Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in response to reporters’ questions, “and the president fully supports the secretary.”

The commerce secretary appeared before the Senate Appropriations Committee Tuesday, where Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) told Lutnick; “There’s not an indication that you yourself engaged in any wrongdoing with Jeffrey Epstein. It’s the fact that you believe that you misled the country and the Congress based on your earlier statements.”

Van Hollen requested Lutnick provide documentation of any ties to Epstein, AP reports.

Several Republicans also questioned Lutnick’s relationship with Epstein, including Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), who said his visit to the island “would raise questions,” and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who said “It’s something I’m concerned with.” –TL

_____________________________________________

TUESDAY 2/10/26

Redacted E-Files – Two congressmen, Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) walk into the Justice Department to read portions of the Epstein Files with the redactions unredacted. They find at least six erstwhile redacted names of individuals “likely incriminated” by their inclusion in the Epstein Files, The Hill reports. 

“There are six men,” Massie told reporters outside the Department of Justice building in Washington. “We went in there for two hours. There’s millions of files, right? And in a couple of hours, we found six men where names have been redacted, who are implicated in the way that the files are presented.”

•••

Fifth of Maxwell – If anyone knows all the redacted Epstein Files names, it must be Ghislaine Maxwell, the late convicted sex offender’s longtime companion serving 20 years herself. And so, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee invited her to tell them what she knows. Maxwell was piped in via video from her prison camp home in Texas where she promptly pleaded the Fifth Amendment, on her attorney, David Oscar Markus’ advice.

According to Markus’ opening statement, obtained by Politico, Maxwell’s attorney reiterated that clemency would facilitate her testimony.

“Only she can provide the complete account,” Markus said. “Some may not like what they hear, but the truth matters.”

If she is provided clemency in her conviction, Maxwell will testify that both President Trump and former President Clinton are innocent of any wrongdoing in the Epstein case.

Trump has not ruled out a pardon for Maxwell.

•••

US-Russia Deal = Sellout of Ukraine? – Ukraine’s intelligence services uncovered plans for $12 trillion in business deals between the US and Russia being decided without Ukraine, its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said last weekend. This was being worked out as Russia continues its missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities and energy infrastructure during a particularly brutal winter. 

The alleged discussions, which fly in the face of calls for crackdowns on Russia’s economy in order to get the Kremlin to discuss a viable peace deal with the US and Ukraine that does not involve handing dictator/President Vladimir Putin more Donbas Oblast land than what his soldiers have not already conquered, are not as surprising as how little press coverage Zelenskyy’s revelations have received. 

One exception is NPR’s Morning Edition, on which Russian economic specialist Pavlo Shkurenko told co-host Leila Fadel; “It’s the Russian team trying to engage the US team not by talking about politics, but by creating some economic incentives for a small circle of business representatives within the US administration to get the transactional side of the American team on board.”

Which seems like it ought to go over well with famously transactional President Trump.

The catch is that Russia’s entire gross domestic product (GDP) was just $2.3 trillion in 2025, according to Shkurenko, who is a specialist with the think tank KSE.

“As of now, the economic situation in Russia is such that there is no money to be made there,” Shkurenko told Fadel. –Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

_____
TUESDAY 2/10/26

[NBC News]

Scroll down this column for …

•Democrat Concerned for Midterms

•Roy Cohn Lives

•America's Birthday for Sale

Go to The Gray Area for "Jesus Wept", Stephen Macaulay's commentary on President Trump's National Prayer Breakfast speech

MONDAY 2/9/26

Democrat Concerned for Midterms – Democrats seem to be waking up to the notion that maybe, just maybe, President Trump means it when he says Republicans should take control and hand over voting November 3 to the federal government in “15 places.” 

“I think [Trump] intends to subvert the election,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) told ABC News This Week co-anchor Jonathan Karl Sunday. 

Since suggesting the federal government take over voting a week ago on The Dan Bongino Show Trump has adjusted his remarks to say he supports House Republicans’ SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship and photo identification to vote – each time you vote.

We the people … ICYMI, Article IV of the Constitution gives states full authority to set rules for voting. 

But wait, there’s more: “And if he loses the vote,” Schiff continued on This Week, referring to the possibility that Republicans might lose majorities in the House and Senate, “he’s proposed to take some kind of action to overturn the result, and we really shouldn’t question that.”

•••  

Roy Cohn Lives – If you were one of the few who saw The Apprentice – the 2024 Ali Abbari film about Donald J. Trump’s relationship with Roy Cohn, not the NBC TV show that helped make the future president a household name – you know the first lesson the attorney who gained infamy as chief counsel in the ‘50s to Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) gave Trump: Never apologize or admit wrongdoing, ever.

Trump relied on Lesson 1 when he told reporters on Air Force One last Friday that The Lion King video posted on Truth Social in which the president was depicted as the title character and President and First Lady Obama were depicted as apes (a racist trope so serious it’s hard to type): “I didn’t make a mistake,” NPR’s All Things Considered reports. 

Prior to the Trump White House’s explanation that the video was posted by an aide, who apparently has not been fired, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), only the second Black Republican senator since Sen. Edward Brooke (R-MA) became in 1967 the first Black senator since Reconstruction, said he was “praying it was a mistake.”

When the president claimed it was not his mistake, Scott called the video “the most racist thing” he’s seen out of the Trump administration. 

A few other Republicans, including Sens. Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Pete Ricketts of Nebraska, joined Democrats in criticizing the Trump White House’s use of the video.

But Trump said he is perhaps the least-racist US president to hold the office in a long time.

“We did criminal justice reform,” Trump said. “I did historically Black colleges and universities. I got them funded. Nobody has been – and that’s why I got a tremendous, the highest vote with male Black voters that they’ve seen in many, many decades.”

•••

America’s Birthday for Sale – President Trump is offering one-on-one access and other perquisites to people and businesses who make tax-deductible donations to Freedom 250, the organization Trump set up last December, to throw “the most spectacular birthday party you’ve ever seen,” The New York Times reports Sunday. According to the report, chief fundraiser Meredith O’Rourke is “amassing private donations” by offering “bespoke packages” for donors. 

Instead of say, celebrations of the Boston Tea Party and the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Trump’s plans for the semiquicentennial celebration include an IndyCar race through the capital, a national prayer event and an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) match on the White House lawn for the president’s 80^th birthday, June 14, according to the NYT … and, of course, an Arc de Trump over Washington. -- TL

_______________________________________________

FRIDAY 2/6/26

UPDATE: Blaming the post on a staffer, the White House has removed the racist altered Lion King post from President Trump’s Truth Social as of Friday afternoon, NPR’s Here & Now reports. Trump’s – or a staffer’s – version of an X-Twitter post from last November had included only the president’s head on the body of the Disney animation’s Lion King character, with the heads of Barack and Michelle Obama attached to the bodies of animated apes, with images removed from the original post that included other prominent Democrats attached to other jungle animals.

Racism in Plain Sight – There have been many examples of President Trump’s “dog whistles” to racists over the years. Overnight Thursday, Trump Truth Socialed a racist 62-second video first posted on X-Twitter last November that depicts his longtime political nemesis, the former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as apes in a piece riffing on Disney’s The Lion King.

The video depicts Trump as the Lion King, natch, with Democrats including Hilary Clinton, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and former Vice President Kamala Harris as “zebras, giraffes and other animals,” according to The New York Times, as well as the Obamas depicted as apes, repeating a white supremacist trope that goes back to America’s slavery era. 

At the end of the video, the Democratic jungle animals bow to Lion King Trump, according to the report.

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt called reaction to the video “fake outrage,” the NYT continues, adding “This is from an internet video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from The Lion King.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) called the video “disgusting behavior by the president” and said “Every single Republican must denounce this. Now.”

Former Obama administration official Ben Rhodes called Trump “a stain on our history.”

•••

US With Iran in Oman – Iranian negotiators led by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi are in Muscat, Oman with Trump administration special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner to prevent another conflict between the two countries, The New York Times reports. President Trump has backed off his January threat to attack Iran if the country continues to kill peaceful protesters, and NPR’s Morning Edition reports that the negotiations have commenced with the US and Iranian contingents in separate rooms, with diplomats from the host country shuttling in negotiation points between the two. 

Reports indicate deaths in the tens of thousands from the Iran government’s crackdown on protesters.

Meanwhile an NYT analysis of satellite images indicates Iran has made rapid repairs to its ballistic missile facilities since the US air attack in 2025, but just limited fixes to its major nuclear sites. 

•••

Trump’s Dispensary – Americans now have access to most-favored-nation (MFN) pricing on medications from AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, EMD Serono, Novo Nordisk and Pfizer, by logging on to TrumpRx.gov, the White House has announced. MFN discounts include Ozempic, normally $1,028, available for an average of $350 and as low as $199, and Wegovy list priced at $1,349 for as low as $149. For both drugs the final price is based on dosage prescribed. 

Critics say the discount prices are no better than typical co-pays for such medications as covered by health insurance.

•••

Week on Ice – Homeland Security funding has a week remaining before the extension of its 2025 appropriations expires, or Congress passes a permanent bill or another stopgap. Democrats have released a 10-point plan to reform Immigration and Customs Enforcement including body cameras (which Republicans support), clear identification on standard uniforms and equipment, masks off, and required judicial – not administrative – warrants. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) want to get it done, what with Homeland Security appropriations affecting the Coast Guard, TSA and FEMA as well as the already well-funded ICE.

“We want to make sure that ICE agents are conducting themselves like every other law enforcement agency in the country,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) told Morning Edition.

•••

Russian General Shot – Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alekseyev, whose superior in the Russian army has been actively involved in futile peace talks with Ukraine in recent weeks, was shot “multiple times” in the back while in Moscow, The Wall Street Journal reports. The attacker fled the scene. 

Alekseyev has served Russia’s GRU intelligence agency since 2011 and has been accused by Western officials of conducting assassination attempts and sabotage attacks abroad. State-run RT television reports that Alekseyev was in critical condition. –TL

_______________________________________________

THURSDAY 2/5/26

‘Softer Touch’ – President Trump is looking to expand his immigration crackdown into five more cities, though he wants Homeland Security forces to be ‘invited’, he told NBC News in a preview of the traditional Super Bowl Sunday interview this weekend. 

“We have five cities that we’re looking at strongly, but we want to be invited,” Trump told NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Llamas (above) in the preview broadcast Wednesday. 

Trump did not name the five cities, though Atlanta, Philadelphia and Detroit have been mentioned as three potential solid-blue targets in recent weeks. 

“I learned that maybe we can use a little bit of a softer touch, but you still have to be tough,” Trump told Llamas. “We’re dealing with really hard criminals.”

“Operation Metro Surge” in the Twin Cities, along with other immigration crackdowns in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Chicago and elsewhere have led to a series of lawsuits against the administration for violating both legal and undocumented immigrants. 

Meanwhile, Trump said the fatal shootings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis were “very sad to me,” but …

“He was not an angel and she was not an angel,” Trump continued. … “I think they were both sad. And you know who feels worse about it than anybody? The people of ICE.”

•••

Poll: Trump, ICE Disapproval – Latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll released on Morning Edition Thursday finds 65% of Americans say Immigration and Customs Enforcement has “gone too far,” and President Trump has his highest intensity of disapproval since just after the January 6^th, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

That 65% who say ICE has gone too far in enforcing immigration laws represents an 11-point increase since last summer, NPR’s Domenico Montanaro reports. Both independent and Democratic voters’ disapproval was up by double-digits.

Meanwhile… Trump’s overall favorable rating is 39%, with a disapproval rating of 56%, while 51% say they strongly disapprove of the job he is doing. That represents the highest “strong” number since Marist began tracking “strongly” approve or disapprove in 2017, Montanaro said. --TL

________________________________________________

WEDNESDAY 2/4/26

Only 2,300 Remain – In his second press conference Wednesday since taking over Operation Metro Surge in the Twin Cities nearly a week earlier, Trump administration border czar Tom Homan announced about 700 federal law enforcement personnel of about 3,000 – about four times the size of Minneapolis’ police force -- will leave immediately, The Hill reports. The crackdown on immigrants and those suspected of being immigrants will not ramp down, however.

“If you are in the country illegally, you are not off the table. Let me be clear: President Trump fully intends to achieve mass deportation during his administration, and immigration enforcement actions will continue every day throughout this country.”

•••

Spending Package Passes – The House approved a $1 trillion-plus spending package to reopen a portion of the federal government that shut down last Saturday. The vote was 217-214, according to NPR’s All Things Considered and includes a stopgap package for Homeland Security that’s good to February 13.

Five other appropriations bills included in the vote fund – Defense-HHS-Education, Financial Services, National Security-State and Transportation-HUD are good to the end of the fiscal year, September 30. 

Now what? … On the face of it, Senate Democrats would seem to have the advantage in negotiations over reforms for Immigration and Customs Enforcement as they could hold up Homeland Security spending via filibuster if they don’t get ICE and border patrol body cameras, ID badges and the removal of masks plus judicial warrants only – no administrative warrants.

However … Republicans are in agreement with Democrats about body cameras and they could let the Homeland Security shut down again, as ICE was well-funded by President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, but TSA, for example, was not. 

What’s more, there’s talk of Republicans killing the filibuster – though Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) is opposed – that could include forcing a “standing filibuster” by Democrats and invoking Rule 19.

•••

Sucking Sound in St. Paul – Justice Department attorney Julie Le expressed frustration about the downstream effects of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities by telling a federal judge the “system sucks” and “this job sucks,” The Wall Street Journal reports. 

Le’s response came when Judge Jerry Blackwell in St. Paul pressed her about why the Trump administration was not complying with court orders to release detained migrants in Minnesota, according to two people who attended the hearing. Le also tried to get the judge to hold her in contempt so she could get 24 hours sleep. The hearing was brought to court by immigrants challenging the lawfulness of their detentions in five separate cases. 

The WSJ credited Fox 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul with first reporting on the court hearing.

•••

Trilateral Peace Talks in Abu Dhabi – The US, Russia and Ukraine have begun their second round of trilateral peace talks in Abu Dhabi, led by Trump administration son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy Steve Witkoff, The Kyiv Independentreports. 

But are they trilateral, really? 

The two-day talks begin a day after Russia staged its most massive strike this winter on Ukraine, launching 71 missiles and 450 drones overnight Tuesday, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. 

This re-escalation of Russia’s assault on Ukraine’s power grid has led many to question the Kremlin’s seriousness about reaching a peace deal, according to the Independent. – Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

_____
WEDNESDAY 2/4/26

Central Casting – President Trump has Truth Socialed he will nominate Kevin Warsh to be the next Federal Reserve chairman when Jerome Powell’s term ends mid-May.  [Photo: The Hoover Institution] Scroll down this column to read

•Tuesday House Vote on Spending

•Trump Wants 'Nationalized' Voting for 15 'Places'

•Hochul Bill Would De-ICE Local, County Law Enforcement

•Clintons to Testify on Epstein

TUESDAY 2/3/26

Spending Package Vote – Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) expected a $1.2 trillion spending package vote Tuesday that would end a partial government shutdown that began at midnight last Saturday. If passed, spending for Defense, Labor-Health and Human Services-Education, Financial Services, National Security-State and Transportation-Housing and Urban Development would be extended to the end of the fiscal year, September 30.

Homeland Security would get a two-week stopgap bill to allow negotiations on whether Department of Homeland Security agents should be required to use only judicial warrants for searches, remove masks and wear body cameras and identification as well as other requirements and limitations.

Key to securing Republican support in the House was a meeting between Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) and President Trump at the White House Monday in which she was assured her SAVE America Act would pass in the Senate, CQ Roll Call reports. The SAVE Act (for short) would require proof of citizenship and photo identification to vote.

How would the SAVE Act get past a Democratic filibuster in the Senate? The idea according to Roll Call is that Senate Republicans would force Democrats into a “standing filibuster,” which means the party’s senators would have to speak continuously to prevent a vote, and once they stop talking, Rule 19 would require a simple majority vote on Luna’s bill. 

Late jobs report … As a result of the partial government shutdown, the Labor Department will be late in releasing its January jobs report, initially scheduled for Friday.

•••

‘Nationalized’ Voting – President Trump called on the Republican Party to take control of voting procedures in 15 unnamed states, in an extensive interview with his former deputy FBI director on his eponymous The Dan Bongino Show, released Monday.

“The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over. We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many – 15 places,” Trump told Bongino. “The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”

•••

ICE Out of NY Police – New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) has introduced a bill to ban county and local police departments from working formally with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“They’re doing ICE’s job instead of focusing on their own jobs,” Hochul said, according to New York Focus. 

•••

Clintons Give In – With a Wednesday House Oversight Committee vote looming on whether to cite Bill and Hilary Clinton with contempt of Congress, the former president and former secretary of state have agreed to testify before the panel on its investigation of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Their concession amounts to a victory for committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) as he shifts Epstein Files attention from President Trump.

Attorneys for the former First Couple said the two would “appear for depositions on “mutually agreeable” dates, The New York Times reports. Their concession to Comer comes after several Democrats on House Oversight indicated they would join Republicans in voting in favor of the contempt charge. –TL

________________________________________________

MONDAY 2/2/26

•Democrats want ICE masks off, ID badges on

•Boy in the bunny hat returns to Minnesota

•Democrat upsets Republican in Texas special election

•Trump to renovate Kennedy Center

•Melania makes $7 million

To Fund Homeland Security – The Senate on Friday approved appropriations for five big spending bills with a sixth bill, for Homeland Security, would get a two-week extension to reform Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

Two weeks may not be enough time to reach bipartisan consensus on Homeland Security. Democrats want to require body cameras and visible identification on ICE officers. And no masks.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) says the spending bill already includes $20 million to purchase body cameras for ICE and Border Patrol agents, but ... 

“Wearing identification and taking off masks will endanger ICE officers,” Johnson told Fox News Sunday. Quoting Tom Homan, the border czar who now oversees about 3,000 ICE agents cracking down on Minneapolis. Homan, he said, told Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), “I have to protect my officers.”

“Body cameras should be mandatory,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) told ABC’s This Week. “Masks should come off.”

There's also the question of use by Department of Homeland Security agents signing their own administrative warrants to search a suspect's domicile, which the speaker wants to codify, while Democrats argue only judicial warrants are legal. It seems the issue should have been covered by the Fourth Amendment.

Johnson had hoped to “fast-track” the House vote on the Senate’s passage of a two-week extension for the appropriations bills, but Jeffries had blocked that and so the House will vote Monday evening. This means the portion of the government affected by those six bills remains closed until Tuesday morning at the earliest.

But not ICE. It is flush with cash from Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill Act. Its budget has skyrocketed from about $6 billion per year to $85 billion, according to NPR.

•••

Boy in the Bunny Hat – Liam Conejo Ramos, 5, is back in Minnesota, according to his school district, after Judge Fred Biery of the Federal District Court for the Western District of Texas ordered the boy in the blue bunny hat and toting a Spiderman backpack released from an immigration detention center in Dilley, Texas, The New York Times reports. The boy’s father, Adrian Conejo Arias, was released from the detention center as well.

Witnesses of their detention by ICE on Friday, January 20 say agents grabbed the boy in an idling car in his father’s driveway as “bait” to apprehend Arias when he emerged from the house. 

Biery in his order to release father and son condemned ICE for “the perfidious lust for unbridled power” and “the imposition of cruelty.”

•••

Texas Flip – More GOP midterm panic as Democrat Taylor Rehmet beat Republican Leigh Wambsganss by 14 points in a special election Saturday for the Texas state senate’s otherwise reliably Republican 9^th District, Newsweek reports. President Trump, who won the district by 17 points in November 2024, had endorsed Wambsganss. The Democratic Party claims to have clinched or overperformed Republican candidates in 240 out of 269 elections since Trump’s presidential election win.

•••

Expect Tons of Gold – President Trump will close the (Trump-)Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington for two years beginning this July 4, for renovations into a “new and spectacular Entertainment Complex,” The Wall Street Journal reports. That means it will be closed on the 250^th anniversary of the republic.

Trump Truth Socialed (natch) that financing for the renovation is “completed, fully in place.” He gave no other details on financing – Melania’s $28 million fee for Melania as seed money? Cost-cutting for the East Wing ballroom? Selling the Qatari Boeing 747?

Will President John F. Kennedy’s name be removed from the side of the building? 

The project is subject to approval by the Kennedy Center board, NPR reports. It truly is the Trump-Kennedy Center board, filled with Trump appointees and with Trump its chairman.  

Would any board member argue with this? “I have determined that The Trump Kennedy Center, if temporarily closed for Construction, Revitalization, and Complete Rebuilding, can be, without question, the finest Performing Arts Facility of its kind, anywhere in the World,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Sunday evening. 

•••

MAGA Goes to the Movies – Amazon MGM Studios’ $40-million documentary Melania took in $7 million of boffo box office from 1,778 theaters over the weekend, though it fell short of Saturday’s projected total of $8 million, according to The Hollywood Reporter. But the Brett Ratner-directed flick, which paid its subject, First Lady Melania Trump $28 million to “document” the 20 days leading up to her husband’s second inauguration had been on-track to earn just $5 million going into the weekend. The doc premiered at The Trump-Kennedy Center in Washington last Thursday.

According to the trade publication, a “grassroots campaign engineered by various conservative groups paid off” for the doc, which earned a Rotten Tomatoes score of just 6%. 

Melania cost Bezos’ Amazon – which laid off 16,000 white collar workers last week -- at least $75 million when you throw in US and overseas marketing costs. Its $7-million first weekend is well-short of left-wing provocateur Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, which boffo’d $23.9 million from 868 theater box offices after its first week in 2004.

Meanwhile … Boffo-est box office for all movies for the weekend goes to 20^th Century’s Sam Rami-directed female revenge flick, Send Help, which earned $20 million in the US plus $8.1 million overseas, The Hollywood Reporter reports. --TL

FRIDAY 1/30/26

About Warsh – President Trump’s pick to be the next Federal Reserve chairman, Kevin 

Warsh, served on the central bank’s Board of Governors from 2006-11. Warsh has aligned himself with Trump’s criticism of the Fed and Powell, according to The Wall Street Journal. Trump said of Warsh; “I have known Kevin for a long period of time, and have no doubt that he will go down as one of the GREAT Fed Chairmen, maybe the best. On top of everything else, he is ‘central casting,’ and he will never let you down.”

•••

Whither First Amendment? – Federal officials arrested independent journalist Don Lemon Thursday evening in Los Angeles and Georgia Fort in Minneapolis Friday morning after they followed demonstrators into Cities Church in St. Paul Sunday, January 18, who protested one of the church’s pastors, who they say also works as a local ICE official, The Washington Post reports. US Attorney Gen. Pam Bondi says two others were arrested over the protest.

Lemon is the eponymous former host of CNN’s Don Lemon Tonight who was sacked by the news channel in April 2023 over his comments about then-former President Trump. He was in L.A. to cover Sunday evening’s Grammy awards.

“Don has been a journalist for 30 years, and his constitutionally protected work in Minneapolis was no different than what he has always done,” said Lemon’s attorney, Abbe D. Lowell.

•••

Deal? – Senate Democrats reached a deal with President Trump and Republican leadership Thursday to hold up the Homeland Security spending bill to allow time to make reforms and move five other spending forward in time to avert a government shutdown. But Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) triggered the Senate’s “hotline” process to prevent an agreement on votes and a limited list of amendments, Roll Call reports. 

Graham called the agreement a “bad deal” and said, “we’re not voting tonight.”

The hotline process requires all 100 senators to agree not to raise objections. So the Senate adjourned late Thursday night without taking action, with hopes to pass the five of six spending bills Friday. 

Graham was “visibly upset” about Homeland Security funding being held up by the Senate over treatment of immigration enforcement officers he said were being “demonized” by the actions of a few. 

The bipartisan deal reached Thursday included a House-authored provision to repeal a new law that created a new avenue for Graham and other Republican senators to sue the federal government for “large payouts” over collection of their phone records in 2022 in the “Arctic Front” investigation into their alleged participation in a false-elector scheme after the 2020 presidential election. Graham would be eligible to sue for “at least $500,000” according to The New York Times.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) told Punchbowl News after the Senate session ended Thursday “snags on both sides” remained. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) declined to say if there were any Democratic objections.

“Republicans need to get their act together,” Schumer said. –Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

_____
FRIDAY 1/30/26

FOMC Holds Steady on Interest Rates – The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee voted 10-2 to maintain its target interest rate at 3.5%-3.75%. “The upside risks to inflation and the downside risks to employment have diminished,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell (above) told a press conference Wednesday. [Scroll this column to Wednesday's report for details.]

THURSDAY 1/29/26

UPDATE: Seven Republican senators joined all 45 Democrats plus the two independents who caucus with them to block a six-bill spending package, 45-55, over the bill funding Homeland Security appropriations, The Hill reports. The Senate has until 11:59 pm Eastern time Saturday to pass the legislation or face another partial government shutdown. 

Republicans joining Senate Democrats are Rand Paul (KY), Ted Budd (NC), Ron Johnson (WI), Mike Lee (UT), Ashley Moody (FL), Rick Scott (FL) and Tommy Tuberville (AL). Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania’s vote against the spending package also is considered something of a surprise, The Hill notes, as he has realigned himself somewhat with President Trump. 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) reportedly continues to work on reaching a deal with Republicans before the government shuts down again. 

Another Government Shutdown? – The Senate votes Thursday on a six-bill spending package to fund the federal government past Saturday. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) says his caucus will block the bill and trigger another shutdown unless the bill containing Homeland Security appropriations is split off from the five other appropriations measures, The Hill reports. Schumer wants the Senate to use the Homeland Security appropriations bill to “overhaul” Immigration and Customs Enforcement to “ensure the public’s safety.”

The proposed overhaul would:

•End roving ICE patrols

•Tighten rules for requiring search warrants before agents can enter migrants’ homes

•Enforce universal code of conduct for federal officials’ use of force

•Prohibit ICE agents from wearing masks

•Require agents to wear body cameras and proper identification

Homan town – The federal government will ease off Operation Metro Surge (yes, that’s what it’s named) in Minneapolis if Minneapolis obeys. That’s the takeaway from border czar Tom Homan’s first press conference Thursday morning after arriving in the area to relieve Greg Bovino as ICE and Border Patrol commander, The New York Times reports. 

“The withdraw of law enforcement resources here is dependent upon cooperation,” Homan said. “As we see that cooperation happen, then the redeployment will happen.”

Specifically, Homan said the crackdown could wind down if Minnesota granted the Immigration and Custom Services and Border Patrol broader access to the state’s jails. 

The boy in the bunny hat … Ravages of Operation Metro Surge go beyond the fatal shootings by federal agents of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. There are numerous reports of legal and documented residents of the Twin Cities being detained by ICE and Border Patrol agents, with potential detainees staying home from work and keeping their children from going to school and avoiding leaving their homes to buy groceries. 

Even those who stay home behind locked doors are subject to administrative warrants. An administrative warrant issued by a designated federal agency – such as an ICE agent – can be signed by an “immigration judge” or “immigration officer” to make an arrest or seizure. Unlike a judicial warrant, administrative warrants do not authorize a property search, according to the National Immigration Law Center.

The poster child and father for immigrant seizure is that of Liam Conejo Ramos, 5, the boy in the blue bunny hat who was arrested by masked federal agents and later joined his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, on an airplane to a family detention facility in Texas, CNN reports, some 1,300 miles from their home in the Minneapolis suburb of Columbia Heights. 

Arias’ attorney, Marc Prokosch, says the family presented themselves to border officers in Texas in December 2024 to apply for asylum. The family is from Ecuador.

Pretti’s protest … Eleven days before federal agents fatally shot Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Pretti was forcefully taken to the ground by immigration agents after he kicked out the taillamp of their vehicle, MPR News reports. Two videos caught Pretti shouting an expletive at federal officers. 

This might be what Vice President JD Vance calls “domestic terrorism.”

•••

Klobuchar Enters Gubernatorial Race – Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) has declared her candidacy for governor of Minnesota, per MPR News. Klobuchar’s candidacy was much expected after Gov. Tim Walz (D) announced he would not seek reelection this November. Klobuchar was elected to her fourth Senate term in 2024, which means her current term would end in January 2031. 

“I like my job very much,” Klobuchar said. “And Minnesota has given me the honor of serving them in the Senate. But I love my state more.”

–TL

_______________________________________________

WEDNESDAY 1/28/26

CPI is Still Too High – The Consumer Price Index remained stuck at 2.7% for December, still well above the Fed’s target.

“The committee is strongly committed to supporting maximum employment and returning inflation to its 2% objective,” according to the Fed’s statement on Wednesday’s hold on interest rates, which follows three straight cuts previously. 

Ten FOMC members including Powell and Lisa D. Cook – also under siege by the Trump administration’s Justice Department – voted to maintain the 3.5% to 3.75% rate, while two Trump Fed appointees, Stephen I. Miller and Christopher J. Waller voted against, preferring another quarter-point cut.

One of four … Waller, appointed to the Fed by Trump in 2020 during his first term is one of four finalists to be the president’s choice to replace Powell as chair this coming May, according to The Wall Street Journal. The others are Treasury Sec. Kevin Hassett, Black Rock senior executive Rick Rieder and former Fed governor Kevin Walsh.

•••

Trump Warns Iran – Time is running out for Iran to reach a deal with the US on disarmament of its nuclear weapons, President Trump warned Wednesday on social media.

“Time is running out” for a “fair and equitable deal” to ensure Iran possesses “NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS” Trump wrote, according to The Independent (UK). He warned that a “massive armada” is approaching the Islamic Republic and that military strikes will be “far worse” than previous US attacks.

•••

Omar Attacked – Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) was sprayed with a “strong smelling liquid” at a town hall in Minneapolis during which she criticized Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in the city, The New York Times reports. Omar was calling for removal of Kristi Noem as Homeland Security secretary when a man approached her and sprayed her with the unknown liquid. 

Security detail quickly apprehended the man and Omar continued her speech. 

Noem survives …The Homeland Security secretary, who wasted no time blaming Alex Pretti for his own fatal shooting by Border Protection agents in Minneapolis last Saturday and branded him a “domestic terrorist” was briefly on the White House hot seat. On Tuesday, Trump sent border czar Tom Homan to relieve Greg Bovino of his command of Minneapolis operations, a move that cut Noem from the chain of command.

Two agents fired shots … Two federal agents – not one as initially indicated – fired shots at Alex Pretti in Minneapolis last Saturday, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing a US Customs and Border Protection report to Congress Tuesday. The report comes after CPB’s Office of Professional Responsibility reviewed body camera footage and documentation. –TL

________________________________________________

Trump TACO Tuesday? -- TUESDAY 1/27/26

Minnesota ICE – President Trump is proving to be no Tom Petty lyric character as he backs down from his usual hard line for the second time within a week. 

First there was the No Deal Deal in which Trump left the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, without a deed to Greenland. From there, Trump seems to have perfected advice given to the Nixon administration that it should get out of its war by declaring victory in Vietnam “and go home.”

Now comes the expected shakeup of the Trump administration’s aggressive Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in the Twin Cities three days after the tragic fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis. 

The administration is expected to remove Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, who over the weekend mimicked Homeland Security Sec. Kristi Noem’s description of Pretti’s killing as “self-defense” by the border agents, as Pretti was carrying a licensed handgun before he was shot. Noem’s and Bovino’s narrative defending Border Patrol agents was quickly disproved by multiple smartphone videos from myriad angles. 

Border czar Tom Homan (above) was on his way to the Twin Cities to take over for Bovino Tuesday.

Court appearance… Federal Judge Patrick Schlitz has ordered acting ICE Director Todd Lyons to appear in his court Friday after failing to comply with “dozens” of court orders, according to MPR News.

While acknowledging that this is “an extraordinary step,” Schlitz wrote in his order that “The court’s patience is at an end.”

Second amendment … Potential capitulation in the Twin Cities by the Trump administration has more to do with FBI Director Kash Patel’s argument, also made by Noem and Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent that Pretti should have not brought a firearm to protests against ICE. 

The administration’s change in attitude is not coming from Trump critics pointing to the hypocrisy of the argument about Pretti’s handgun after Trump and MAGA conservatives celebrated Kyle Rittenhouse bringing an AR-15 to “defend” Kenosha, Wisconsin businesses during a 2020 protest (he shot three men, two fatally, and was later acquitted on multiple accounts). The likely capitulation wasn’t over Trump’s pardon of about 1,500 MAGA protesters on Capitol Hill January 6^th, many of whom were armed. 

Instead, what’s eating at the Trump administration is blowback from gun rights advocates over Patel’s argument that firearms do not belong at a public protest.

“The FBI director needs to brush off that thing called the Constitution, because he clearly hasn’t read it,” National Association for Gun Rights President Dudley Brown told Politico. “I know of no more crucial place to carry a firearm for self-defense than a protest.” –TL

________________________________________________

We Have Not Kept It -- MONDAY 1/26/26

Bondi’s (Trump’s) Agenda – After the fatal shooting of Veterans Affairs intensive care nurse Alex Pretti, 37, by federal Border Patrol officers in Minneapolis Saturday, US Attorney Gen. Pam Bondi sent a letter to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) in which she offered to pull the more than 3,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers from the state if the state did this (per Newsweek):

• Hand over its voter registration records to the Justice Department

• Repeal “sanctuary policies”

• Share its records on Medicaid and Food and Nutritional Service programs

“Donald Trump has made it pretty clear that he wants to rig the next election, and ICE seems to be a potential pretext to that,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) told NPR’s Michel Martin on Morning Edition Monday, pointing to Bondi’s demand regarding Minnesota voter registration records.

Murphy said most of the Senate Democratic caucus plans to vote “no” on a Department of Homeland Security funding package, which tees up the fiscal 2026 federal budget for another government shutdown when its short-term continuing resolution from last November expires at the end of January.

[Read Contributing Pundit K.E. Bell’s “Can the Democrats Find Their Spine?” in the left column.]

Democrats may be able to count on more than their own caucus members for the Senate to fall short of the 60 votes it needs to pass the Homeland Security package. At least three Republican senators, Bill Cassidy (LA), Lisa Murkowski (AK) and Thom Tillis (NC) are ready to vote with the Democrats, The Hill reports.

Cassidy called the shooting and events in Minneapolis “incredibly disturbing” and demanded a “full joint federal and state investigation” of the incident.

The shooting … Border Patrol agents killed Pretti 17 days after Renee Good was fatally shot trying to leave an ICE street blockade in Minneapolis. In a press conference last Saturday, Homeland Security Sec. Kristi Noem said Pretti was “brandishing” a pistol and said, “He came to massacre agents,” though multiple smartphone videos depict Pretti attempting to defend a woman who had been pepper-sprayed by the agents. 

On Fox News, Vice President JD Vance called the unrest in the Twin Cities “engineered chaos” and accused “Far-left agitators working with the local authorities” of creating the conditions that led to Border Patrol agents shooting Pretti.

The videos indicate the agents wrestled Pretti to the ground and removed his gun before taking at least 10 shots at him. 

State and local officials obtained an order from federal Judge Eric Tostrud Saturday night banning the federal government from “destroying or altering evidence related to the fatal shooting involving federal officers…” according to Minnesota Public Radio’s MPR News. 

Local and state officials fear evidence from the Pretti shooting will be kept from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehensions (BCA) and destroyed, in order to protect ICE agents.

In a press conference Sunday afternoon, Walz said he had spoken with Pretti’s parents, who denounced federal officials’ smear campaign on the victim of the shooting. 

A friend from high school, Rory Shefchek, of Madison, Wisconsin, told The New York Times; “He was a helpful, kind guy. He was a confident, diligent and respectful person throughout his life. I hope that Alex’s story can catalyze change, as someone who believed in doing the right thing.”

Shefchek added, “We have all seen the video and our eyes don’t lie.”

On Monday, US District Judge Kathleen Menendez was scheduled to hear a lawsuit by Minnesota Attorney Gen. Keith Ellison to reduce the number of officers and agents in Minnesota to the levels there before the December 1 surge. Justice Department attorneys called the lawsuit “legally frivolous.”

Trump has sent border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota to manage ICE operations on the ground, MPR News reports, and to “coordinate with those leading investigations into the massive, widespread fraud that has resulted in billions of taxpayer dollars being stolen from law-abiding citizens in Minnesota.”

In a five-minute interview with The Wall Street Journal Sunday night, Trump indicated the sort of sympathy for shooting victims like Pretti that he has for, say victims of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

“I don’t like any shooting,” Trump said. “I don’t like it. But I don’t like it when somebody goes into a protest and he’s got a very powerful, fully loaded gun with two magazines loaded up with the bullets also. That doesn’t play good either.”

•••

Trump Threatens 100% Tariff on Canada – President Trump threatened Canada Saturday with a 100% tariff, ostensibly as a “rebuke” of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s trade deal with China, The Wall Street Journal reports. But really, it was about Carney’s remarks a day ahead of Trump’s 70-minute speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in which the Canadian PM said that “middle-powers” like his country needed to move on from its economic reliance on the US.

Carney criticized Trump for using tariffs to achieve geopolitical goals, as the US president had threatened eight European nations with a 10% tariff if they continued to oppose his plan to take over Greenland, before “negotiations” stalled at Davos last week.

At an event to unveil Canadian tax-relief efforts, Carney said that Trump’s tariff threats will “reposition” Canada, the US and Mexico ahead of their renegotiations of Trump 45’s US-M-CA trade pact. 

[Read Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay’s “Diplomacy and Dollars” in the right column.]

Meanwhile, Supreme Court-watchers eagerly await the court’s decision on whether Trump has the authority to issue all these tariffs in the first place. – Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

_____
MONDAY 1/26/26

Did President Trump chicken out in Davos? We’re still waiting for details on his “framework” for a deal that so far looks much like the deal the US has had with Greenland and Denmark since 1951. [Scroll down for •Ukraine-US-Russia talks •Jack Smith’s House Judiciary testimony]

FRIDAY 1/23/26

Finally, Trilateral Peace Talks …? — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is meeting with US and Russian officials in the United Arab Emirates Friday for two-day, first-ever trilateral negotiations over the war in Ukraine as it nears its fourth year, per multiple reports. But even this meeting is in dispute, as Newsweek reports that Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has refused to confirm Kremlin participation.

The meeting between Zelenskyy, US envoy Steve Witkoff and (maybe?) Kremlin representatives in the UAE centers on one issue regarding the Russian-Ukraine war: Control of Ukraine’s Donbas Region.

Trilateral talks were scheduled after Zelenskyy’s speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in which he cited the movie Groundhog Day in criticizing the European Union for failing to take decisive defensive action and imposing economic sanctions on Russia. 

“Just last year, here in Davos, I ended my speech by saying Europe needs to know how to defend itself,” Zelenskyy said, per The Kyiv Independent. “A year has passed, and nothing has changed. I am forced to say the same words again.”

Zelenskyy met with President Trump on the sidelines after his speech, to set up the trilateral meeting.

Meanwhile… European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU and US are close to an agreement for a five-part, $800-billion postwar “prosperity plan,” Ukrainska Pravda reports. 

The five parts of the plan are:

1. Productivity
2. Ukraine’s integration into the EU market
3. Investment
4. Strengthening European Integration
5. Reforms

•••

Jack Smith Goes to House Judiciary – Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) began the House Judiciary Committee hearing with former special counsel Jack Smith by repeating a familiar complaint (per USA Today).

“It was always about politics,” Jordan said of Smith’s investigation of the January 6^th attack on the US Capitol. “And to get President Trump they were willing to do just about anything.”

Smith, who concurrently had also investigated Trump’s possession of confidential government files at Mar-a-Lago after his first term, said; “When people told him things that conflicted with his staying in power, he rejected them, or he chose not even to contact people like that.” –TL

________________________________________________

Trump's World Order -- THURSDAY 1/22/26

Gitmo North? – “Owning” rather than “leasing” some portion of the world’s largest island for the purpose of permanent US Military operations including the north end of a Golden Dome for defense is not quit the same as holding 45 square miles on the southeast end of Cuba. But the deal President Trump indicated hours after his 70-minute+ speech Wednesday to the World Economic Forum in Davos does have that ring to it.

That framework for the deal, or compromise, comes after North Atlantic Treaty Organization officials separately discussed the possibility of the US acquiring sovereign land for its military bases, three senior officials told The New York Times.

“It’s a really long-term deal,” Trump told reporters Thursday (per BBC) … “Infinite.”

The Market … The stock market arguably is more important to Trump than US gross domestic product or inflation or employment numbers. Analysts and pundits are pointing to the market’s reaction Tuesday to anticipation Trump would claim Greenland at Davos and end NATO as we know it for his apparently softened deal. The European Union had threatened its “trade bazooka” to retaliate for Trump’s latest tariff threat on Euro nations that refused to give in to his desire to take over Greenland.

On Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Averages plunged by 871 points. On Wednesday, with a US Military attack on Greenland and the EU "bazooka" off the board, the Dow roller-coastered to finish the day up 589 points.

•••

Fed Governors Safe? – The Supreme Court “seemed likely” to block President Trump’s attempt to immediately fire Federal Reserve Board Gov. Lisa Cook over unproven allegations of mortgage fraud, according to NPR’s Nina Totenberg. All nine justices expressed doubts in their questioning of Trump’s claims of absolute power, Totenberg reported on All Things Considered Wednesday. 

The president Truth Socialed on his social media outlet last August he could fire Cook over the allegation of mortgage fraud floated by the administration’s director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Bill Pulte and is widely seen as part of Trump’s attempt to take control of the Fed’s interest rates authority.

•••

Board of Peace Signs 21 – President Trump held a signing ceremony for his United Nations-challenging Board of Peace in which 21 countries signed on for a deal in which the first three years will be free.

“Everybody wants to be part of it,” Trump said Thursday, according to the BBC. 

Not quite true. Leaders of five countries say they will not sign on.

Countries that have joined (so far), according to The Associated Press:

•Argentina

•Albania

•Armenia

•Azerbaijan

•Bahrain

•Belarus

•Bulgaria

•Egypt

•Hungary

•Indonesia

•Jordan

•Kazakhstan

•Kosovo

•Morocco

•Pakistan

•Qatar

•Saudi Arabia

•Turkey

•United Arab Emirates

•Uzbekistan

•Vietnam

The Upshot … If all these countries choose to re-up after three free years, after the end of Trump’s current presidential term at $1 billion, that’s $21 billion to the board. Unclear right now where that $21 billion would go.

Countries that have said “no” to the Board of Peace (so far), according to the AP:

•France

•Norway

•Slovenia

•Sweden

•The United Kingdom

--TL

________________________________________________

Owning Greenland -- WEDNESDAY 1/21/26

Taking Back Greenland – The US should never have given Greenland back to Denmark after saving both from the Germans in World War II, President Trump said in 70+ minutes of rambling MAGA-rally style remarks made to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Wednesday. It will be a key part of the president’s plan for a “golden dome” over North America that will be much like the strategic military defense dome the US put together over Israel, he said.

But …

“I won’t use force,” Trump said.

The US pays for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and until Trump became president and pushed European nations to kick in 5% of their gross domestic product, has never gotten anything in return, he said. [The Poynter Institute’s PolitiFact notes that the only time NATO’s Article 5 was invoked came after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the US – NATO troops, including troops from Denmark, fought with the US in Afghanistan.]

“All we’re asking for is Greenland,” Trump said, adding that the US needs pride of ownership and not just a lease. 

“Who wants to defend a lease agreement?” said the president who loves to build things. “All we want from Denmark is this land on which we’re going to build the greatest Golden Dome ever built.”

At that Trump took a swipe at Prime Minister Mark Carney, saying the Golden Dome would be a “freebie” for Canada’s defense. 

“Canada lives because of the United States,” Trump said.

“Remember that Mark, next time for your statements.”

In his address to the Economic Forum Tuesday delivered in both French and English, Prime Minister Mark Carney said “middle countries” like Canada must move on from “economic integration” with global leaders such as the US. 

With references to a 1978 speech by then-Czech dissident Václav Havel, who went on to lead the Velvet Revolution and become Czech president after breakup of the USSR, Carney said: “You cannot “live within the lie” of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination. … As a result, many countries are drawing the same conclusions. They must develop greater strategic autonomy: in energy, food, critical minerals, in finance, and supply chains.” (Per Canada’s National Post.)

Citing an inflation rate of 1.6% (the Consumer Price Index was +2.7% in December), gross domestic product growth of 5.4% (it was +4.3% in the last quarter) and a 77% slash in the federal deficit, much of Trump’s speech centered on his oft-repeated claim that “Just over one year ago under radical left Democrats, we were a dead country. Now we’re the hottest country.”

•••

Hot Year for Trump Family – Donald J. Trump and his family made $1,408,500 off his presidency in 2025, The New York Timeseditorial board estimated Tuesday. That’s equal to 16,822 times median US household income.

It consists of “at least” $23 million from licensing the Trump name overseas, more than $28 million from Amazon for a documentary on Melania Trump, $90.5 million from X-Twitter, ABC News, Meta, YouTube and Paramount for lawsuit settlements and at least $867 million off various cryptocurrency companies. It also includes the $400 million Boeing 747 Qatar has gifted Trump, which he personally will use after he leaves office in 2029. 

How much Trump and his family might make for $1 billion payments by countries wishing to extend their membership in the Board of Peace after three free years is TBD. – Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

_____
WEDNESDAY 1/21/26