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

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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

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WEDNESDAY 1/21/26

At the White House last week, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado gave President Trump her Nobel Peace Prize medal. This week, Trump is expected to speak at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. 

TUESDAY 1/20/26

Trump World Order – Let’s begin on this first anniversary of President Trump's second inauguration with a report by The Globe and Mail, the Great White North’s New York Times, that Canadian Armed Forces have modeled a hypothetical US military invasion of Canada and the country’s potential response. 

This includes “tactics similar to those employed against Russian and later US-led forces in Afghanistan,” two senior government officials told the newspaper. It is believed to be “the first time in a century that the Canadian Armed Forces have created a model of an American assault on Canada,” TGaM continues, stressing that this is a “conceptual and theoretical framework,” not a military plan.

Know Board, know peace? … Canada will join President Trump’s Board of Peace Prime Minister Mark Carney says but will not fork over the $1 billion required to renew membership after three years, according to Politico. End of the free introductory offer coincides with the end of Trump’s current term. The charter for the Board of Peace lists “Donald J. Trump” and not “President Trump” as its chairman.

No word on whether nations like Canada taking advantage of the offer of free membership for the first three years will have to plunk down a credit card for an automatic $1-billion renewal.

Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron has rejected outright France’s participation.

“This is very, very far from the Charter of the United Nations,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said in a speech to French academics in Paris. 

The Board of Peace (which doesn’t have Trump’s name on it yet) is to be a key feature of the peace brokered between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, but the US president is now promoting the board as an alterna-UN Security Council (which doesn’t have Trump’s name on it, either). Macron and Barrot are concerned that such an organization as chartered by Trump would have extensive powers beyond leading the transition in Gaza, according to Politico.

“The US out of the UN” is an old right-wing idea preceding the Reagan administration. Staunch American conservatives see the UN as usurping US power and interests, much in the same way the hard right in Great Britain considered the European Union before Brexit. 

Who’s game? … Before Canada’s Carney accepted the three-year trial, Argentina’s pro-Trump president, Javier Milei, and Hungary’s pro-Putin, pro-Trump prime minister, Viktor Orbán said they would join, The New York Times reports.

Ukraine also has been invited, Ukrayinska Pravda reports.

Trump also has invited Great Britain, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Belarus. The presence of Turkey and Qatar on the board’s subcommittee has prompted “immediate outcry” from Israel, according to the NYT. –TL

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MLK Jr. Day 1/19/26

No Peace Prize, No Peace – Norway did not deny President Trump the Nobel Peace Prize he so much covets. Rather, it was the Nobel Committee based in Copenhagen, that instead awarded its Peace Prize to Venezuela opposition leader Marina Corina Machado – who handed her medal over to the US president at the White House last week (pictured above) in exchange for a DJT gift bag. Perhaps most important to Trump, 17 years ago the Nobel Committee handed its Peace Prize to President Obama.

Nevertheless, Trump did warn Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre that he is ready to give up on peace as it relates to Norway, Europe and NATO, over Greenland. PBS first reported this letter from Trump to Støre Monday (per Mediaite):

Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.

Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a ‘right of ownership’ anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also.

I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT.

Støre told a Norwegian news outlet that Trump’s letter was a reply to a message he earlier sent to the White House.

The EU+UK Eight … Trump’s letter comes a couple of days after the president promised to hit eight European nations with 10% tariffs on February 1 unless they agree to negotiate Greenland’s sale to the United States (per The New York Times). The eight countries are Denmark, of course, and Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Finland. 

If these countries don’t give in, the tariff rate would increase to 25% on June 1 “until such time as a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland.”

Head start … Meanwhile, as The Guardian reported last week, Friend of Trump and Estée Lauder heir Ronald Lauder already has “acquired commercial holdings” in Greenland.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer told a Downing Street press conference Trump’s trade war threat is “completely wrong” but indicated the UK will not retaliate, the Daily Mail reports.

•••

War on Minnesota – Jonathan Ross, the Immigration and Customs Service agent shown in numerous smartphone videos firing his gun at Renee Good as she tried to drive away from an ICE blockade on a one-way street in Minneapolis earlier this month, is not being investigated. But Good, who died from gunshot wounds in the shooting, is.

And now on Friday, the Justice Department issued subpoenas for Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, both Democrats, in an investigation accusing them of standing in the way of federal law enforcement officers’ abilities to carry out their jobs, The Washington Post reports. 

Meanwhile … The Pentagon has placed about 1,500 active duty soldiers from the US Army’s 11^th Airborne Division, based in Alaska, on alert for potential deployment over the widespread protests in Minnesota over ICE presence and Good’s fatal shooting, four defense officials have told The Wall Street Journal. –TL

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FRIDAY 1/16/26

Chinese EVs Into Canada – China will import electric vehicles to Canada in exchange for Canadian canola oil at low tariff rates, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Friday. The trade deal eliminates tariffs on a number of other products while sidestepping President Trump’s tough-on-China agenda in which he expects allies to match, for example, the US tariff of 100% on Chinese TVs.

Carney revealed the trade deal after hours of meetings in Beijing Friday with Chinese leader Xi JinPing, The Globe and Mail reports. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has criticized the agreement, however, saying it will harm Canadian workers.

•••

ACLU Sues ICE, CBP – The American Civil Liberties Union is suing the Trump administration alleging constitutional rights violations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on behalf of three community members. One of the plaintiffs, Mubashir Khalif Hussen, 20, says multiple masked ICE agents stopped him in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis last December 10. Hussen repeatedly told them, “I’m a citizen. I’m a citizen,” as the agents refused to acknowledge his identification, according to the ACLU.

‘Travesty’... In the wake of last week’s fatal shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis and the Trump administration’s defense of alleged shooter, ICE agent Jonathan Ross, President Trump has threatened to send the military into Minneapolis where federal agents Thursday shot and wounded a Venezuelan man accused of resisting arrest (per Politico). 

Trump Truth Socialed Thursday; “If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State.”

Gov. Tim Walz (D) responded on social media; “Stop this campaign of retribution. This is not who we are.”

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) commented on X-Twitter that “Minnesota needs ICE to leave, not an escalation that brings additional federal troops beyond the 3,000 already here” (per The New York Times). 

•••

DHS’ ‘White Nationalist’ Rhetoric – The Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security is dropping in White Nationalist wording into advertisements recruiting new agents for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to CNN.

ICYMI, as we did, Mediaite reports that CNN’s Dana Bash called out on Inside Politics Thursday “coded language” echoing “neo-Nazi” and “White Nationalist’ rhetoric.”

DHS advertising language has used far-right Replacement Theory language and promotes a form of ethnic cleansing, according to CNN, such as: 

•“America has been invaded by criminals and predators. We need to get them out.”

•“Will have our home again” … “Join ICE.” • “The stakes have never been higher and the goal has never been more clear, re-immigration now.”  –Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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FRIDAY 1/16/26

Inflation Sticks at 2.7% – Month-over-month inflation was 0.3% in December for a 2.7% Consumer Price Index comparing consumer prices versus December 2024. This was steady from November’s CPI. Shelter was the largest factor, the Labor Department says, at +0.4% month-over-month, with food +0.7% and energy +0.3%.  [Chart: Bureau of Labor Statistics]

THURSDAY 1/15/26

Cosmetic Diplomacy – Troops from France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Norway and Sweden Thursday have been deployed to Greenland in a “show of support” to defend the world’s largest island against the Trump administration’s desire to take it over, according to the AP. This comes after Foreign Ministers Vivian Motzfeldt of Greenland and Lars Lokke Rasmussen of Denmark met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance at the White House Wednesday over the president’s threat to take Greenland by force, if necessary.

Motives behind the president’s desire to claim Greenland become a bit clearer as The Guardian reports that Estée Lauder heir and longtime Friend of Trump Ronald Lauder has “acquired commercial holdings” there. “Lauder is also part of the consortium whose desire to access Ukrainian minerals appears to have spurred Trump to demand a share of the war-torn country’s resources.”

Meanwhile, Art of the Deal Elsewhere … The main account holding $500 million in revenue from the sale of seized Venezuelan oil is in Qatar and remains controlled by the US, Trump administration officials told Semafor. According to the news outlet’s scoop, Trump’s advisors remain confident oil companies will make more deals for purchase. Chevron is the only US oil company that remains operational in Venezuela. 

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told the Economic Club of Minnesota last week that the Treasury Department “will oversee the accounts” and “then at the president’s direction [and] Secretary Rubio’s direction” will be in charge of revenue disbursements that are returned to Venezuela. –TL

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WEDNESDAY 1/14/26

Greenland, Denmark in the (White) House – Foreign Ministers Vivian Motzfeldt of Greenland and Lars Lokke Rasmussen of Denmark meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance at the White House Wednesday to discuss Greenland’s future.

President Trump has been clear about his intentions: “The United States needs Greenland,” he Truth Socialed. “If we don’t take Greenland, Russia and China will,” Trump told reporters, according to The New York Times.

Last week, the president said the US was “going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not.”

Also last week, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Trump’s threats “should be taken seriously” and warned a US attack would end the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Though Trump said he would not rule out military force, Secretary of State Rubio, clinging to his Voice of Reason role in the White House, said Trump plans to buy Greenland – not invade it.

Trump won’t miss NATO … Russian dictator/President Vladimir Putin won’t, either. 

Whatever the means for taking over Greenland, it would achieve Trump’s world vision of the US ruling its part of the hemisphere, from the arctic island south by southwest to Venezuela and probably points south of that. There would be a post-NATO European alliance of some sort struggling to hold back Putin’s Russia (as takes Ukraine and looks further west) while China rules the East (and probably significant parts of Africa, where China’s Silk Road project has already made significant inroads). 

[It’s one of those Trump White House inconsistencies that the president doesn’t like European Union governments, but he does like European immigrants.]

Saving NATO … Can Congress assert a bill to stop a Trump administration military invasion of Greenland? There’s fair warning to give time to prepare, at least, unlike the attack on Venezuela and capture of its president, Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, the weekend after New Year’s. 

Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) have introduced the NATO Unity Protection Act, which would prohibit use of Defense Department or State Department funding to “blockade, occupy, annex, or otherwise assert control” over any sovereign territory of a NATO member state, The Hill reports, while Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) has joined House Democrats to introduce the No Funds for NATO Invasion Act.

Florida plan … These bills follow Trump loyalist Rep. Randy Fine’s (R-FL) two-page Greenland Annexation and Statehood Act, according to Axios. Drawback for the GOP is that if Greenland were to become the 51^st US state (and not Canada) it would certainly send two Democratic senators and one Democratic representative to Capitol Hill. –TL

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TUESDAY 1/13/26

Minnesota Federal Prosecutors Resign Over Investigation – Joe Thompson, assistant US attorney for the District of Minnesota, has resigned after top Justice Department officials pushed the office to investigate the widow of Renee Good, Minnesota Public Radio’s MPR News reports. Five other US attorneys, including Melinda Williams, Harry Jacobs and Thomas Calhoun-Lopez also resigned. 

Thompson also had objected to the Justice Department’s decision to keep the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension from taking part in the investigation of the shooting and the department’s reluctance to investigate Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent pictured in multiple smartphone videos of the alleged shooting of Good, according to persons familiar with Thompson’s decision to step down.

•••

Iran Irony – After 16 days of protests in Iran, 646 people have been killed, consisting of 505 protestors, 133 military and law enforcement personnel, one prosecutor and seven non-protesting citizens, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency. These are likely bare-minimum numbers due to a digital blackout that has used military jammers reportedly supplied by Russia to cut off Elon Musk’s Starlink Internet, Forbes reports. 

President Trump has cancelled talks with Iranian leaders, warning that those responsible for such violence would “pay a big price,” according to Newsweek. Last week Mark Dubowitz and Behnam Ben Talebu in The Atlantic wrote that Trump could topple Iran’s repressive regime if he acted fast.

On Monday, Trump announced that countries that do business with Iran will be subjected to a 25% tariff “immediately” if they trade with the US, an added tariff that would hit China and India hard, according to The New York Times.

Iran along with North Korea is probably the most oppressive regime in the world. This latest uprising against Iran’s theocracy [looking at you, too, Christian Nationalism advocates] marks the latest, and possibly greatest hope that its citizens can finally topple the 47-year-old regime. 

However, Trump’s support for his government’s position – pre-investigation – that Renee Nicole Good was “weaponizing” her Honda Pilot against ICE when ICE agent Jonathan Ross fatally shot her in Minneapolis last week must be mentioned in this context. The overall context that ICE’s imposing presence in Minneapolis and other major cities is even more noticeable for fears by most pundits outside the MAGAsphere that this is “practice” for a crackdown on voters for suppression in blue urban areas ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. 

Shortly after the tragedy, Vice President JD Vance called Good’s fatal shooting the result of her own actions as “part of a broader left-wing network to attack, to dox, to assault and make it possible for our ICE officers to do their job.”

After Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) told ICE to “get the fuck out of Minneapolis” Homeland Security Sec. Kristi Noem announced last Sunday that the Trump administration will send “hundreds more” federal agents to the city “today and tomorrow” to support the work of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

NPR’s Morning Edition reported on Tuesday that Minnesota and Illinois are suing the federal government over tactics used by immigration agents, after the fatal shooting of Good. 

According to “gun-violence journalism” news outlet The Trace, the Gun Violence Archive in Washington, D.C. has identified 16 incidents in which immigration agents opened fire and another 15 incidents in which agents held someone at gunpoint as the current administration begins its sixth cumulative year in power. Four have been killed, including Good, and seven injured, according to the report. –Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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TUESDAY 1/13/26